Unknown Horizons

[Gambit]

I recently found a really neat OSS RTS. It's still a work in progress. I don't play a lot of RTS's because I find them hard to keep up with, but this one reminds me a lot of Pharaoh. It takes place back in the time period when Europeans were rapidly settling the new world.

You start with a ship with limited supplies on it somewhere in the middle of an archipelago (or if the random-map-generator smiles on you: one large island). You have to land and build outward from the beach. Then your settlers advance more and more through different layers of technology. What really impressed me with this game so far is how central economic management is. You can easily see what you're making in taxes and trade revenues versus what you're spending on upkeep for different buildings. Turns out it is pretty hard to balance taxes and spending.

Check it out at http://www.unknown-horizons.org/

And because a picture is worth 1000 words:

[monochromatic]

Looks interesting. I'll have a look..

[Anonymissimus]

It is inspired by the famous German RTS contruction & management game ANNO 1602 and its successors. Too bad they didn't change it to turn based. Real time leads to me playing in permanent slow motion. Make AIs intelligent, not super-fast-and-lotsa-multi-tasking-capable.

[bigkahuna]

I found the game very nice The only things that got on my nerves were that some of the interfaces (taxes, for one) were rather hard to find, and there are only a few maps and there is no campaign. Hopefully this will be solved soon, as the game is in constant development.

[Pentarctagon]

just downloaded it. read the description on their website and it actually sounds like Stronghold in a lot of ways. Also noticed 2 spelling errors while reading it

[bigkahuna]

^ Yeah, that got on my nerves too

[atomicbomb]

This is an extremely awesome game!
Take a look at this, guys!

[Gambit]

There aren't many maps right now because they don't have a working editor. They're stuck creating them by hand entering SQL queries.
There is a random map feature in the bleeding-edge versions, and the upcoming 2011.01 release will have that.

[Jetrel]

There aren't many maps right now because they don't have a working editor. They're stuck creating them by hand entering SQL queries.

good heavens.

[Pentarctagon]

this is probably going to sound really stupid, but I can't seem to actually build anything anywhere.

[Gambit]

Did you try the tutorial? You have to move your ship close to an island and build a branch office on it.

[Crendgrim]

I think I have to practice much. I'm not able to organize my economy properly - I don't get enough money in
Any tips?


Crend

[Anonymissimus]

I think I have to practice much. I'm not able to organize my economy properly - I don't get enough money in
Any tips?


Crend

(All of the tips are based on the Anno series but I guess they apply here too I guess.)
Build only a single one of each of the "settlement-centric" buildings, such as marketplace, church etc. Build all of them together in the centre of the settlement. Arrange houses around them so that the covered area is filled up in such a way that every house can at least ascend a single time. Don't build any of the farms, factories etc in that area. Build farms at the coast of the isle instead. Built factories who need the goods produced by them next to them so that the farms are covered by that factory's reach. Set factories and farms which are currently not needed "to sleep". Set the tax rate (this exists only in some versions of the anno series...) so that, unless your people shall ascend, are *almost* unhappy (so that they almost descend).
Guess that's most of the important stuff about income in the anno series.

They are looking for developers btw afaik. The whole things is written in python. So if someone wants to contribute to some OSS game and finds wesnoth too hard it's an alternative.

[Gwynnedrion]

Open thread => download game => get addicted

[atomicbomb]

I think I have to practice much. I'm not able to organize my economy properly - I don't get enough money in
Any tips?


Crend

Tips

• Build houses first, then build food producer buildings, that'll help you to control the money flow.
• Do everything to advance to second increment, everything's easier if you have an access to farm.
• Trick your workers and farmers by removing roads, so they won't store on random storage. This will boost your production.
• Reduce taxes to the lowest to boost settler numbers, it will raise your income

Example savegame file if you're using the current bleeding edge version : http://db.tt/n69S4Mz