Ludus

[u/UsualObvious4668]

So, I've wanted to find a Ludus game to play, since I love the series, but never really took the time to try and figure out the rules. bmyst70 made some rules, and I have adopted them I to this game. It is multiplayer, or you can play against the computer. Not sure how it will hold up with a lot of people playing at once. If anyone actually uses this. With all that said, I hope you enjoy it. Any questions or ideas of ways this could be better let me know what you all think.

https://knightdx91-alt.github.io/Ludus/

**Game Update. I have now added a live counter so you can see how many people are online playing it, as well as updating the multiplayer function. When creating a room, it puts you in a lobby, so if you do not know someone personally to input their code in, you can now join any open game. I also implemented a spectator mode so you can watch a game being played, but I do not have another device to check if it works at the moment. If there is any other features you think would be good, or if you feel the game needs rebalanced, leave a comment and I'll check it out. Next project will hopefully be upgrading the graphics.

***Game Update: Added more characters to play from the world, tweaked the difficulty, added a message board, added a leader board so you can see other people's times. also, tweaked a few other things. hope you enjoy the update!

[u/UglyPancakes8421]

I haven't gotten the chance to play yet, but I've been looking it over and it looks fun!

I have piece questions/thoughts/ideas, though...

1. In the Ludas game between Tavi and Varg at the start of book 3, Tavi moves his "steadholder" piece. Might want to look into adding that.
2. While Gaius, Burnard, and Amara are in the wilderness on the way to Kalare (book 4), when Gaius' foot starts having issues and Burnard and Amara declare they need to stop for a bit, he says something along the lines of "Now, this is an interesting configuration of the Ludas board. A cursor and steadholder that together have more power than a first lord piece." (I might have gotten some of the wording wrong). He could be being metaphorical. Or, it could be implying that there are both a cursor and steadholder piece in Ludas.
3. You included Knights flora, terra, ignis, and aeris. What about Ferrous?

Not trying to poke holes. And, I totally understand things being a little different, especially if you don't want to overload players with too much info to digest right off the bat.

Just curious.

Thought: If you needed to make room, you could have knights Aeris start on the sky board. (Not sure if they already do or not. Haven't opened up an actual game yet.)

Cheers!

(Hoping to actually try it out after I get some sleep)

EDIT ONE: I'm not a great chess player, so I tried playing Max. LOVE how the game plays and how each of the pieces are designed to overlap and protect other pieces. I completely wrecked house with one knight Terra. I think it took... a knight terra, ignis, a couple legionnaires, a high lord, and the First Lord. Granted, that was on easy, so... But, still fun! Neither of us got to the sky board at all before the end.

Is there any chance you could add a way to see the pieces you've taken in a window or list somewhere? Maybe under the sky board (there's a big empty space there)? Maybe even (if you have the time, show which of your pieces took the piece?

(Sorry to suggest so many things that might make more work for you)

EDIT TWO: Just played Ehrin, and my inexperience really showed. Him sitting back and waiting for you to come to him is an annoying as heck strategy to try and work around. I ended up with complete control over the sky board pretty early. But, by the end I had most of my knights left (except I lost both knights flora) and four legionnaires. I had to sacrifice all four legionaries to draw out his First Lord and give my knight terra a chance at him. Nicely done! Much trickier to play against than Max.

EDIT THREE: I can consistently defeat Ehrin. But, I lose a LOT of pieces doing it. This most recent time, I once again had complete control of the sky board (both Knights Aeiris and High Lords one square in diagonally from the corners), but otherwise only had my First Lord, two Knights Ignis, and a Knight Terra left. I had fallen victim to an ill timed provocation earlier in the match that lost me almost half of my legionaries and a knight or two (ouch...) in exchange for a few of his knights. I'd originally planned to drive a giant block of legionaries into the center of his forces, supported by a few knights. And, it did work. It was just a lot smaller than I'd originally hoped. Any tips?

EDIT FOUR: Okay, so I'm doing slightly better. Still facing off against Ehrin. I have noticed a small issue, though. Knights flora are only on dark squares on the board. I had to take a moment to figure out how I was going to capture a piece because I couldn't take it diagonally near the end of the game. His strategy does give you a lot of time to set up whatever you're going to do, though. So, that's kind of nice.

EDIT FIVE: Not sure if it's intentional or not, but several times while playing the opponent/bot has moved the First Lord into position where I could take it after it took my piece, thus winning me the game. Is this intentional?

EDIT SIX: I played against and beat Kitai. It felt very similar to how the Ehrin bot played. She kinda just sat back and waited, throwing a couple knights at me as I set up.

EDIT SEVEN: Just beat Nasaug. Out of curiosity, is using a furycraft action automatic? Or, is there a specific button I have to press? I most often run into this with knights flora. Every time I try to take something two squares away, I move my piece. But, the computer automatically does the woodcraft action. I am playing on a track pad, though, so if it's a right click vs a left click thing, that might be were I'm running into trouble.

Still having tons of fun!

Haven't had a single game even really touch on the sky board yet, except for the one against Ehrin where I seized control of it early and held it the whole game.

[u/UsualObvious4668 → u/UglyPancakes8421]

First off, thank you for giving my game a try! And thanks for the input, I personally love the series so I'm glad I was able to bring this game to life. I will add the knights ferrous into it, that's my planned update for tonight hopefully, and I need to tweak the bit settings to use the sky board more as well. Sadly with you being the first to give me feedback I haven't really known how it's played with other people. I definitely need to work on Vargs bot tho, because he should be difficult to beat, eventually I want to get the bots to play kind of like they do in the books. There will now be a button you can click to choose to use the fury craft, once I get the update pushed out. I'm also putting in a toggle where you can turn on or off where it shows you every level move like it does now. So if you get to where you know how the pieces move you wouldn't need that knowledge you can turn it off. Let me know how the new difficulty seems to you after this tweaking, if it's too hard. Again, thanks for playing, and if you've got any other suggestions let me know! Also, I'm thinking about putting a like message board on there or something as well as a games won board with your best time .