Hello i have recently joined a group of approx 20 students in Grades 11 - 12. We are planning on making a God view Turn Based Strategy game (similar to Civ 5). However we wish to be able to choose to allow the game to auto fight battles (and decide on a winner based on unit damage, unit defense/Weaknesses, Unit type and Unit health) or to be able to go down into a First person view and take part in the battles(meaning you could win a battle you would otherwise lose). However we have not as of yet been able to find any Game development engine that would support this, I was wandering if anyone would be able to point me in the right direction or if this would require for a whole new engine to be created (yes i know that would be a very slow and difficult item and would require many, many months to complete). If anyone can help at all it would be greatly appreciated.

This game would hopefully be L.A.N. multiplayer, however could be single machine multiplayer if L.A.N. is not plauseable.

Thx in advance for any help.

Hi Sindeky,

check out the wikipedia page about game engines, try a few and choose the one that suits you best.

It is very unlikely that you will find one that already has your game logic implemented so there will be coding involved.

Sincerely

Henry

You should consider that a game engine is a compound of sub-systems like graphics, sound, input, network, storage, and perhaps other foundation systems, simulation support like animation and physics, a scene management like a scene graph or component based entity system (CES), AI if NPCs or environmental life plays a role, perhaps a quest system or some story driving backend, and … I may have forgotten something. Even if you don't find a game engine that fits your needs in all these topics, you can find engines (or "libraries") that implement the one or other sub-system. So you will not need to create things from ground up, but to implement game logic and glue between existing sub-systems.

Turn Based Strategy and First Person Shooters are pretty different. It may be difficult to find an engine that does both well since its essentially two different games. You might consider changing the requirements to TBS overland with a TBS battle system. I think it would reduce the complexity of your game and increase your odds of finishing it. You've only got 2-6 months before the 12th graders go off to college or find real jobs. :)

I'd also concentrate on one feature set first. Either the overland strategy game or the individual battle game. Having a complete game is far more impressive than two half-complete games stapled together.

- Eck

If you can figure out how to create a TBS with Unity3d then all you need to do from there is create a save state and a method to pass to a new scene the number of enemies and allies and whatever other settings you'd have... basic FPSs are easy to build so that could be the last month while a basic TBS has a lot more complicated things in it with unity3d and so you can concentrate on that for the majority of the time. If you find that you have more time you can add in extra stuff

I'd actually plot out something like

2 months TBS.

1 month FPS.

.5 month Networking.

1.5 month extras, advanced AI, and polishing.

1 month have each student customize their game to make it uniquely theirs.

Of course that assumes you have the models and texture pre-prepared...if not then you might want to spend time working with blender.

That'd be my suggestion.