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Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

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Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#111

Post by nerdix »

hermitdev wrote: post #99
hnlmorg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C&C is another hugely popular one. Though I was in the minority of not enjoying Westwoods RTS so much. I much preferred Warcraft and StarCraft. But my favourite was The Settlers. This was also an era when business simulation games (you could argue as another “style” of RTS but not combat based) were popular too. Like Transport Tycoon, Theme Park, etc. From past conversations on here, it sounds like City Builders are…

I picked up a copy of C&C red alert a year ago. Sadly, it's unplayable on modern PCs. At least it was for me. Too many issues, crashes and the game speed not being changeable before game launch and by the time you can change it in game, it's too late and you're basically already way too behind to catch up. It's a shame because it was one of my favorites from the era.

Both the first C&C game and Red Alert were remastered in 2020 as a part of the "Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection".

That version should run on modern machines.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer_Remaster...

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#112

Post by hot_gril »

bombcar wrote: post #105
hot_gril wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've heard of very few of the top ones, and they look like the super complex kind of games I don't play. I did play Pandemic Legacy and didn't like it. Then I cmd+F'd for Diplomacy, Catan, and chess on the top list, didn't see them, and said nah.

The people who review board games are ... a special bunch. Those games are very popular and well ranked, but they're not considered "best of the best" by people who "seriously play games". One of the best usages of BGG is to find a game you like, and use it to find games that are like that one, and see what you want.

I know how it is. Some board games are almost like strategy video games with the amount of detail and immersion. Usually those same board game groups play D&D or something as well, like my housemates back in college. I just never liked those. If I'm gonna play a serious game, it's something simple with depth in play style, like Diplomacy.

Recommender algos are cool and useful.

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#113

Post by Imnimo »

I remember back in the early 90s there was an expansion for SimCity 2000 called the Urban Renewal Kit, which let you draw your own building sprites to replace the ones in the base game. It also came with a pre-made pack of futuristic buildings.

I was too artistically challenged to ever really make my own pixel art buildings - the best I could achieve was drawing little six-pixel cars driving up the spiral roof and into the reactor of the alternate-art nuclear power plant. It would've been great to be able to give style prompts and have the software churn out appropriate sprites for each building type.

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#114

Post by heavyset_go »

causi wrote: post #74
heavyset_go wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this was a feature for a while because image hosting sites like Imgur convert animated GIFs into videos because the compression is better, and you can adjust the playback. Some of them will even keep '.gif' in the URL despite serving you a video instead.

This is particularly infuriating when you're trying to use google image search to find a gif to embed in an html frame that doesn't accept videos and all you get are gifs that turn out to be videos.

Yup, and the titular GIPHY doesn't even embed GIFs.

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#115

Post by TulliusCicero »

bombcar wrote: post #89
TulliusCicero wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've cleared the local space, like some sort of planetoid, and newcomers have little chance. The newcomers to the RTS scene are largely badly made. Company of Heroes 3 has already dropped below Company of Heroes 2 playercount despite having come out just a few months ago. AoE4 also had plenty of problems (no ranked ladder at launch? it took 6 months), though it being Relic, that's not very surprising. I'm on the…

It's hard to make a good RTS that both satisfies the competitive players and the people who want to just do various forms of comp-stomp.

I don't think it is, really.

Brood War was famous for 7v1 comp stomps being very popular in custom games, and it was obviously huge competitively, it's the super hardcore competitive RTS, even if it wasn't really planned that way.

The PvE comp stomp crowd seems to really like the co-op mode in Starcraft 2 that was introduced. To the extent that they have complaints, it's mostly that they wish there was even more stuff in it.

I think for the most part, the things that competitive players and casual players want aren't really at odds. They're usually orthogonal desires.

But what does exist, are a lot of people who say "I want to play RTS, but" and will never be satisfied. Like, there's always tons of people saying that they just want an easier to play RTS than Starcraft, and there's been tons of those, and hardly anyone plays them.

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#116

Post by throwaway675309 »

Simon321 wrote: post #64

I actually did this before the 7th of may: https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/13axnoa/tr... Maybe OP was inspired? Seems like a big coincidence otherwise. Just wish he would've credited me. Happy to see other people experimenting with this also though. It will be great for indie game development.

It is possible they came up with the concept completely independently, though I would agree it does seem rather unlikely. It would've been the classy move to give you a shout out if they were inspired by your project.

There was a post on hacker news earlier about how people seem to have zero ethical quandaries around plagiarizing and using chat GPT to write their essays for exams...

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#117

Post by TulliusCicero »

hermitdev wrote: post #97
bombcar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to make a good RTS that both satisfies the competitive players and the people who want to just do various forms of comp-stomp.

AOE4 has been an interesting journey for someone that prefers the good ol fashioned comp-stomp. It wasn't long before I was easily taking on 4 of the hardest AI and easily stomping them on certain maps, like mountain pass. But, they've progressively made the AI into a much tougher opponent. It's actually challenging now, and I'm only back up to 2 hardest, 2 hard with AI teammates on the same map. Can't speak to pvp;…

Having a semi-structured form of this would also be really good imo. Starcraft 2 sorta has this -- there's a UI section similar to ladder that pits you against increasingly harder AI's, but it's just a single track and doesn't go far enough imo.

I can easily imagine a set of 'tiers' of challenges, where the bottom tier is super easy stuff for beginners and then each tier up increases the challenge until you're fighting a bunch of hard-level AI's simultaneously or whatever. Or maybe a Mario Bros-style world map that has various different challenges in different directions.

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#118

Post by eru »

bombcar wrote: post #87
fbdab103 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem I have with the rankings here is they seem really prone to grade inflation and band-wagoning. Even more-so when the game is expensive.

The BGG rankings are a particular viewpoint into a general take on board games; the way I look at it - anything high ranked is going to be "good" even if I don't particular like the play style, theme, or execution. Many are "good but not for me". The problem with the rankings is that some very playable games are ranked low. It's a meme on BGG but CandyLand is famously shit on: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5048…

Candyland might be an ok game for young children, but there are certainly better games for that niche, too.

Just like Risk can be an entertaining game, but it's far from the most entertaining game you could play during that time.

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#119

Post by eru »

hot_gril wrote: post #98
bombcar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BGG rankings are a particular viewpoint into a general take on board games; the way I look at it - anything high ranked is going to be "good" even if I don't particular like the play style, theme, or execution. Many are "good but not for me". The problem with the rankings is that some very playable games are ranked low. It's a meme on BGG but CandyLand is famously shit on: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5048…

Yeah, I've heard of very few of the top ones, and they look like the super complex kind of games I don't play. I did play Pandemic Legacy and didn't like it. Then I cmd+F'd for Diplomacy, Catan, and chess on the top list, didn't see them, and said nah.

Catan isn't actually all that great (and I say that as someone who bought his set back in 1995). We have much better games these days.

Stripped of its cultural significance, chess isn't that great either for a general audience. It suffers from analysis paralysis. I would only recommend it to a niche audience.

I love Diplomacy; I played many games over email, in person and even participated in the German Diplomacy championship (face-to-face) back in the 2000s. Yet, it's also a very niche game, and I can see why some people would rate it low. I actually prefer the game over email, because it gives you more time to think, sending emails resembles the telegraphs of the early 20th century and I am less likely to burn out from a months long game with one move every few days than one very intense day of face-to-face play.

Btw, if you like Diplomacy, I recommend playing on the 1900 map variant. It's basically an improved version of the standard map.

See http://uk.diplom.org/pouch/Online/variants/1900-GG.pdf

Or for further reading https://diplomacygames.com/baron-von-powell-creator-of-1900/ or http://uk.diplom.org/pouch/Zine/F2007M/Roburn/1900.htm

Re: Modding Age of Empires II with a Sprite-Diffuser

#120

Post by hot_gril »

eru wrote: post #119
hot_gril wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've heard of very few of the top ones, and they look like the super complex kind of games I don't play. I did play Pandemic Legacy and didn't like it. Then I cmd+F'd for Diplomacy, Catan, and chess on the top list, didn't see them, and said nah.

Catan isn't actually all that great (and I say that as someone who bought his set back in 1995). We have much better games these days. Stripped of its cultural significance, chess isn't that great either for a general audience. It suffers from analysis paralysis. I would only recommend it to a niche audience. I love Diplomacy; I played many games over email, in person and even participated in the German Diplomacy cha…

Catan is merely ok from a serious gaming perspective, but for most people sitting around having fun, it's a go-to. There's value in it looking nice and being easy to understand, and I can see it staying popular 20 years from now. The top listed modern games have only ever come up in niche board game group settings for me, while even chess and Diplomacy have been much more popular. This is only my experience, but I'm probably not alone in thinking the top games are all very uncommon.

I've actually only ever played Diplomacy over Backstabbr.com with friends, so analogous to email/postal play (if you still count that as a board game). Completed several games now, and I've been wanting to do it in-person. That 1900 variant has more detailed notes than any other variant I've seen, and I'd like to give it a try!

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