   Whats the latest and best development tool
  Ok, I'm looking to develop a realtime Totalwar like ancients wargame but because of my lack of skill, would require a powerful development tool. Does such a tool exist? I'm willing to pay $5,000+ for such.maybe i'm asking far too much.Padlock   
  Do you mean a tool as IDE where you code everything yourself, with help from internal GUI and UML tools or a complete suite with IDE, game engine and level editor?   ;  It would have to do the lot! LOL!ie Nice front end, menu driven where you could simply design a mesh terrain (3D) and place figures on it etc and the system takes care of the nitty gritty, leaving the developer free to concentrate on game design etcI know I'm asking alot but surely games development has come along way in the past 5-8 years?Some games come with a terrain / character editor, I'm thinking more along the line of dump the game, concentrate on the edtior.Padlock.   ;  IOW you're looking for a game engine for which you want to create content.   ;  What about the Torque Game Engine with the RTS Addon kit?;  You're most likely want a complete kit like Torque Game Engine.A very powerful Editor environment + you can focus on your game via scripting.Another one which comes in mind is the NeoAxis Engine.Both provide a demo or toolkit to play around with, just check it out.And...they're by far not as expensive as you might expect ;-)good luck,- Christoph -edit: argh, evolutional beat me   ;  yes, and no. most game engines, and I'm think of TOTALWAR here, allows modding but you're still restricted to their hardcoding in some parts, ie the engine isn't totally generic.What I really need is a totally generic engine with a nice and easy front-end (menu driven).Thanks will check those out! Padlock.   ;  You're asking for a Holy Grail. You'll need to get your hands dirty if you want something more specific than what one of the more complete game engines (Torque + addons, NeoAxis + plugins, etc) has to offer.Your best bet is to choose an engine that is built upon a (scripting?) language with a lower learning curve than others, and that has a complete set of tools. Python, Lua, and C# are all decent candidates, dig here.Good luck![Edited by - DarkHorizon on June 21, 2009 11:39:51 AM];  Alternatively, you could purchase a license to a game engine(such as T3D), and hire a programmer to code some specific features for you.  You could probably find an indie programmer willing to do things for cheap.  If you have any money left over, buy some content packs for 3d models or some such.   ;Quote:Original post by padlockyes, and no. most game engines, and I'm think of TOTALWAR here, allows modding but you're still restricted to their hardcoding in some parts, ie the engine isn't totally generic.That's because you don't actually have full access to their game engine. If you had their source code you could make it do anything.Big games aren't made with a great all-in-one tool. A team of programmers use Visual Studio, a team of mesh artists use 3DS Max, a team of illustrators use Photoshop, etc... Your $5000 will hire all of these people for one day ;P   