Bay 12 Games Forum

Just stumbled across this game while browsing /r/Gamedev screenshot saturday thread and it surprised me it didn't get too much attention there.



http://hearthlands.com/index.php?page=about

The Game

From the game website:

"Hearthlands is a real-time strategy game best described as a mixture of City Building Series games and Majesty. It is set in medieval fantasy world. In the game you will need/be able to:
— Build a medieval city
— Keep your people happy by providing them with necessary resources and services
— Gather resources and build industries
— See reports and tune up your economy
— Maintain relationships with AI rulers
— Trade with your allies
— Build an army and conquer your opponents
— Expand your kingdom by establishing colonies
— Explore the map, fight monsters, find artifacts and complete quest
— Hire powerful heroes and level them up
— Worship gods and get their blessings (or feel their wrath)
— Build mega-constructions
— Magic!

The game is very flexible: you can create a powerful empire and rule your vassals with an iron grip, or establish a humble fishermen's village. Or build an impressive temple complex. Or found a  small, bur well-defended outpost. Or be a host of a wizard's manor.

You can't control your subjects directly: all of them, from a hauler to a hero have their own minds and behavior patterns. If you like this kind of games you know how pleasant and interesting it is to watch them scurry about.

The world (maps, names, emplems, events etc.) is procedurally generated.

The game uses isometric 2D with most of the images made in prerendered 3D. This gives a perfect balance between clarity and appeal."

The studio behind it started development just 2 months ago but its already starting to look quite nice. (although there's a mix of art styles and quality) i believe the general vibe looks quite nice and from their about page which goes into further details, it looks to be a rather promising game.

Oh, and there's a video right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8auf_A-W1I

Autopsy reports on that murdered teen show that he was burned alive. That's just.... sadistic....

Theres some major hate rage going on over there.

That's quite typical for Honour based blood feud, actually, and sadly, not as rare as you would expect. i just don't understand why the world doesn't condemn this with such ferocity when this terrible thing happens in the muslim world on a daily basis.

http://i-epistemology.net/politics-a-government/946-burned-alive-a-victim-of-the-laws-of-men.html
http://www.worldandi.com/newhome/public/2003/may/clpub.asp
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/818/578.html

I am not saying israelis couldn't have done that, but yeah, this looks too "religion of peace" methods to me.

The plan itself was extensive and bold. They were going to extract Syrian fighters to bases in Turkey and Jordan, spend a year training them while forming a government-in-exile, then send the newly trained Syrian troops back in under cover of (presumably NATO) aircraft.

I wonder how many troops you can actually train this way and how meaningful this could be as help to the syrian people.

What are you agreeing with? Israel justice system works? israel would not tolerate human shielding even if it protects its own soldiers?

Oh, i also agree then

Nope, not from betselem. Those were the 2005-2008 numbers from the UN office for coordination of humanitarian affairs.  The 90% male ratio is present in those numbers though, so you might be right about that. Even then casualties are squarely in favor of Israel, and that is using only direct casualties, ie excluding those killed by the blockade, or by mines and shells left by israeli forces (Mostly historical though. I don't think mines are still used.)

Care to link that study? because the only study i found from the same UN office solely cite betzelem data.

On a side note, the fact that you have shelters that mean the enemy can't hurt you doesn't justify shooting their civilians .

No, but it also shouldn't prevent retaliating and trying to prevent attempts at shooting at our civilians. beside, as i said and is also clearly shown through the percentages of palestine civilian casualties, we don't aim at civilians.

Besides, I think that after more than a decade of fighting, you should have noticed that the current strategy isn't really working.

Which strategy and with which faction? and with which faction inside that faction?

One thing I am worried about, BP, is the principle.

'Oh hey, you were suspected to be a child abuser? Lets take away your children and begin driving a wedge between you and your children for their protection!'

Also, you lose your house, there can easily be a lot of semantic stuff in there that's now unrecoverable. And it's affecting people who may not even have had the slightest involvement in it beyond being family.

The army can't just level houses any time he wish to (unless that house pose an immediate threat, such as, serving as a rocket launching base). the suspects were trialed in absentia by the highest israeli courtroom and were found guilty, i persume because of compelling evidence presented by palestinians authorities through israel intelligence. (the rumors is that there were few cameras in adjusting stores that caught the kidnappers on film, as well admissions from other people who helped with the organization. this level of action tend to be bigger than just the two kidnappers themselves)

Obviously monetary compensation can't always actually make up for the loss, but i must admit that if its the only thing that might stop future killings, i tend to agree to it. a house can be rebuilt, people die forever.

10ebbor10 - Israel shelters are more common to the point where every apartment tend to have one in it, especially in the commonly targeted areas. also, hamas have this annoying tendency to hide among civilians.

Another also, israel instantly detects launches aimed at civilian population and if it cannot intercept the rockets, it at least can give a few precious seconds heads up warning for civilians to run for shelter, while it pretty much ignores rockets that have a trajectory to an open space.

Edit - are you referring to the 2002-2007 study by the UN? while its true that the death toll is significantly higher on the palestine side, note that the percentage of israeli civilian casualties is higher and that a striking figure of 96% male casualties in the palestines cast a very deep shadow on those figures of supposedly civilians deaths and even the study note that its extremely hard to determine who was combatant and who was a civilian.

You would expect females to have the same ratio as men if they were simply civilian casualties, since the male-female ratio in gaza is 100:97.
So how come almost all of the civilian casualties are men?

fake edit: HA! the data is actually driven from betzelem. those are greatly skewed: what they do, for just one little example, is treat combatants that were killed en route by drone attack as civilian casualties. in some occasions where betzelem claimed ~60% civilian casualty rate, closer inspection revealed little than 15% were actually civilians and the rest were combatants that simply didn't die in direct combat. its like israel start calling IDF soldiers civilians only because they got killed by mortars/rockets.

Also, since the data is taken from betzelem, i am pretty sure it also includes palestines death by palestines in the total death toll data, which btw, has a direct reverse relation to palestine casualties by israelis. in other words, the number shows that when israel and palestines doesn't kill each other, palestines start killing other palestines ("War" casualties, not criminal death casualties), so that number might have significant percentage in the later years of the study.

That is the one thing you're going to pull from my post? Really? I'm at work right now, and don't have access to every article I've read that quotes Israeli leadership on anything, so all I can give you at the moment is the result of a quick google search.

Quote

“The government of Israel must declare a war to the death on Hamas,” Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely told the newspaper Haaretz. And Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon called for an all-out military assault on Hamas, aiming for the group’s “total” destruction.

(War to the Death and all-out military assaults both definitely imply it)

Quote from: Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983

Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.

- this certainly seems to indicate an inclination in that direction, even if its a bit old now.

Note that I said "seems to" as well, so I doubt even if I have more time to go quote mining from past articles I suspect you are expecting more from that line than I intended.

But finally, there do in fact seem to be IDF soldier who most definitely seems to begin every morning thinking about killing innocents: Osher Maman is an example, from what I understand.

I suspect you'll be dissatisfied with that post. If you want, I'll remove the comment. It's probably the least important bit of what I said.

Sorry, but that quote was dealing with the question of intention, which you know, play a MAJOR role in any affair and the only one that holds your argument from falling apart.

Death to hamas? that's all you got? death to an acknowledged terrorist organization? where is the quote about revenge and intentionally killing innocent people? that's the one i want.

And please, a not exactly related quote from 1982? i say israel should attack germany. i can bring quotes from 1943 about killing jews and stuff to justify it

One israeli soldier? heh, tell you what, you can dig and find 10. no, sorry, even a 100 soldiers. there are rotten apples in every society, the difference is that IDF doesn't encourage and intend the killing of innocents, while Hamas does and IDF throws those soldiers out while hamas praise them and give them a fat salary.

And of course i am biased! but The fact i am biased, doesn't make me wrong.

Who can tell what the kidnappers plan was? obviously they panicked, but the fact they have, doesn't negate the other fact that their immediate response was to kill the kidnapped, defenseless, innocent, boys. for all we know, they might even decided to kidnap the boys, kill them at a remote place and negotiate for their bodies. that wouldn't be the first time it happens.

greatorder - Not attacked, peacefully leveled after making sure everyone evacuated. what else can you do against people who aren't afraid to die so they could go up to heaven and have sex with 72 virgins? you try to deter them by letting them understand their actions will effect not only themselves. sadly, extreme cases require extreme actions. this is not something i wholeheartedly like, but i prefer it to beheading women for showing their toes in public.

I'd think Hamas would be all over taking credit for kidnapping and killing some random Israelis.

Maybe some of its operatives did it on their own initiative, without the go ahead and/or communication with its uppers... (Which could likely be the case if Hamas is not taking credit and if the kidnapping was done how Hamas operatives would have done it.)

If the kidnapping had succeeded it might have. since it didn't, its extremely plausible for them to deny the allegations. as said, when your prime minister declares that it wants kidnapping happening, the excuse of independent operatives kinda lose its meaning.

GG - The bottom line is: Did IDF soldiers woke up in the morning and said, hey, lets kill innocent people? no, and that's the world of difference between an unfortunate accident and an intentional murder.

(The mentally disabled, as far as i know and i admit to not knowing much, was running toward the israeli force and the soldiers didn't have time to asses the threat. the 15 years old kid was throwing rocks at israeli soldiers and while its not an excuse, its still an offensive act that CAN kill. he shouldn't have been shot with live ammunition, but he shouldn't have been throwing rocks at tensed soldiers as well. i am not blaming him or totally justifying the soldiers, but comparing that to kidnapping and killing three teenagers is totally different)

Also, i didn't see conclusive evidence all of them were actually killed by IDF. it wouldn't be the first time palestines kill their own, accidently or not, and blame israel.

Obviously those police officers who helped facilitate their deaths by not informing anyone as is protocol were a part of Hamas.

Quote

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Several senior police officers were demoted for “severe failure of conduct” in their handling of the phone call from one of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers.

A committee investigating the call found that the police officers at the Judea and Samaria Police emergency call center considered the call a prank and did not follow up by notifying the army, according to protocol.

The center received the call at 10:25 p.m. June 12 from someone who whispered “We’ve been kidnapped,” according to the panel’s findings released Monday. The call was cut off after two minutes.

A senior officer who called the number back eight times received busy signals and then the voice mail. The officer did not tell her supervisors about the call.

The soldier who received the call initially was found to have acted properly by transferring the call to a supervisor.

The bodies of the three teens — Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach — were found in the West Bank on Monday afternoon in a field north of Hebron.

“Not providing a proper response to a man’s cry of distress is an unforgivable event by every measure that can ultimately undermine the public confidence in the police, which is a cornerstone of police activity,” Israel Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino said after the release of the report.

I'll tell you what really upset me. the fact that in the phone call you can hear 4 gun shots. the IDF knew for almost a certainty that the kidnappers killed the boys, yet they pertained they are still alive so they could have wide israeli consensus for issuing the swipe of hamas infrastructure in the west bank.

And the boys families. damn, talk about religious nutcases. the strength and devotion they shown is insane. not a shred of weakness or anger at israel for using their sons as leverage (the families heard the phone cal recording from the beginning and were probably informed as to the demise of their sons). like robots with a programmed agenda.