OpenCiv3 Discussion thread

[S. Kroeze]

Though very often I agree with the Joker, on the issue of the 'king unit' I dare to have another opinion. I like this idea very much! Monarchs were always very important and their presence could make a real difference. To support my view I will copy a rather long citation, in the hope someone might read it and reach some conclusions as a result.

'Another feature of ancient empires deserves emphasis, to wit, the fact that there was an optimal size for such polities. The smooth functioning of a tax-collecting administration required the king to reside for at least part of the year in a capital city. Information needed for meting out reward and punishment to key servants of the crown could best be concentrated in a single locality. Such matters had to be attended to promptly, or else the administrative machine would quickly run down and cease to be capable of concentrating resources at anything like maximum capacity. It was equally vital to maintain a bodyguard around the person of the ruler, sufficient to overawe or defeat any likely rival who might meditate revolt. This, too, was best achieved by residing much of the time in some central location where natural routes of transport, especially waterways, made it feasible to gather necessary stores of food year in and year out from the surrounding countryside.

But if a capital city was essential, and if residence by the ruler for part or all of the year in the capital was likewise essential, then a limit was automatically imposed on the extension of imperial frontiers. To exert sovereign power effectively, a ruler had to be able to bring superior force to bear if forcibly challenged either by revolt from within or by attack from without. But if the ruler and his bodyguard had to reside at least part of the year in a capital city, then a march of more than about ninety days from the capital became risky.

When he invaded Greece, Xerxes trespassed far beyond the ninety-day radius of action from his capital in Iran. As a result, his campaigning season was cut too short to win a decisive victory. By invading Greece the Persians had in fact exceeded the practical limit of imperial expansion. Other empires in other parts of the earth conformed to similar limits, except when no formidable enemy existed beyond the imperial frontiers. In such cases comparatively modest garrisons and peripherally mounted expeditionary forces (like the one Xerxes took with him to Greece) might suffice to enforce and extend sovereignty. This seems to have been the case, for example, in southern China during most phases of Chinese expansion beyond the Yangtse. When, however, the Chinese encountered effective local resistance, their armies met the same fate as Xerxes' did in Greece. Vietnam owes its historical independence to this fact.

Transport and provisioning were, therefore, the principal limits ancient rulers and armies confronted. The supply of metal and weaponry, though important, was seldom a critical variable; and the industrial aspect of warfare remained corresponingly trivial.'
(source: W.H.McNeill: 'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

Another point: I really don't understand why time during different periods of history should pass at a different speed. Its against all logic! I can imagine a game having three, 100 or 2000 turns; with some adjustments it could all work. But why on earth will ships double their velocity, will industry double its output, people copulate twice as much etc, because a 'magic date' has been passed?!?

Pardon my jumping in, but I've been enthusiastically reading this thread and think the time has come to add something to it. I know nothing about programming but I think I can help with art work and, of course, posting my ideas and comments on this forum.

About command units, I think they shouldn't be "eternal", I mean, you can't build a command unit in the Bronze Age and have it on the battlefields until 1939. They should become obsolete, probably when you discover next major militar advance (something like Bronze working -Iron working -Feudalism -Gunpowder, etc).
The only thing I don't like is that of "ambitious generals". A general shouldn't be able to snatch you away from power. Why? Because under Republic and Democratic governments, you never lose the election for president. That's part of the game.

Protectorates idea is great if you can give them orders but cannot move their units. This would depict perfectly well feudalism situations (the protectorate being your vassal actually).

I think you're doing a great and innovative work here! Keep it up!

P.S. LOL, S. Kroeze. Maybe you're right with the time velocity thing.

[This message has been edited by jgv_fiera (edited March 24, 2000).]

[korn469]

Jacob, The Joker, and everbody else

ok i see your point...and i agree there should be no arbitrary limits, but i think we should base the default game on a much larger map than civ2 had but not big and include the option of letting people make maps whatever size their computer can handle...same with the AI, have the default game have a comfortable number of AIs for the map size but there would be no set limit, just use map size to control it...a question though, civ, civ2, and SMAC all had 8 AIs does that mean we have to go like we can have either 8 or 16 or 32 or 64 or 128 or 256 or 512 ect AIs? or can we just pick a number?

there is one thing that alwasy bothered me about civ games though...movement rates, when a unit has a movement of 1 then terrain doesn't matter, so if we had a larger map we could have faster units (would almost have to have faster units)

i think that we should use something like the following movement system

siege weapons: 2 movement
infantry: 3 movement
mounted units: 5 movement
mechanized infantry: 6 movement
armored vehicles: 7 movement
piston fighters: 15 movement
jet fighters: 20 movement (refuel)
advanced jet fighters: 25 movement (refuel)
piston bombers: 25 movement
jet bombers: 35 movement (refuel)
advanced jet bombers: 45 movement (refuel)

barbarians:
yeah most of the time they should become an independent civ, but sometimes mostly when peasants or rogue military units overthrow the government in a city they should become a barbarian civ but overtime they would either become a normal civ or would join with another civ...

colonies:
as for colonies and occupied territories, they should have to go through an assimilation period and after that period then if you wanted, you could have those cities become a normal part of your empire but you wouldn't have to

protectorates:
Joker, i think we are thinking about the same thing with protectorates...you could be as nice to a protectorate or as oppressive as you wanted, and you could order them around but they would still control their units...also you couldn't order them around on a city by city basis, you'd have to order them around as an entire civ

command units:
here is another though about command units, your technology would determine the maximum number of units you could stack together without a command unit with no penalty...as your technology got better you could stack more units together...however command units woulds always be useful because of the combat bonus they provided

korn469

[JacobH]

quote: does that mean we have to go like we can have either 8 or 16 or 32 or 64 or 128 or 256 or 512 ect AIs?

We can just pick a number. 4,8,16, etc. are nice round binary numbers. It is sometimes more efficient to use these, but not in this case.

quote: as for colonies and occupied territories, they should have to go through an assimilation period

How about cities which have previously been under your control? Let us say I built a city, and it was captured by a civ. If i recaptured it a few turns later, I think I ought to be able to quickly assimilate the city.

Jacob

[The Joker]

Movement rates:
I would like a larger map than that in Civ2, with room for more cities etc. I would therefor also like higher movement rates. I think your list is pretty good, but in modern times I think a ship should be able to move across the globe in just 3 or 4 turns, and an airplane likewise. It is stupid to use 20 years moving your troops to the battlezone in 1983!!

Barbarians:
I can agree on this one.

Colonies:
I think you should be able to make a colony and an occupied city an integrated part of your civ whenever you wanted too. But if it wasn't assimilated (it's people had converted to your nationality or, in the case of occupation mostly just gotten used to being a part of your civ, but still keeping their own nationality) it would create great problems (the lowered police rate would propable make them declare independance without your units being able to supress them). I also think that conquored territory previously under control should assimilate very fast. Something like 1 or 2 turns, and it could become integrated back into your civ.

Command units:
Cool!

Nationalism:
Although the normal people did not felt connected to a certain nationalistic entity, the elite of the nation often did so. Civs have shown to be completely conquored by others, and stayed this way for 100s of years, and them breaking apart. Vietnam was conquored by China for something like 500 years, and though it broke apart! The best way to portray such events in Civ3 is with nationalism, even before the Discovery of the nationalistic advance. I agree though, that nationalism should have greater effect after the discovery of nationalism, as shown in history.

King units:
I wasn't aware of the importance of kings moving around. Then maybe we should include it anyway... The greates flaw I see with king units is, if loosing that unit would mean loosing the game. That would make the king unit something you would never use, no matter how good it was. Like those missions in Starcraft where you had some unit that, if it got killed, you would have failed the mission. Even though the unit was usually far better than the other ones (it had all sorts of bonuses) you always just secured it deep inside your base, and never moved it out of there. If the king unit is to work it must be so that loosing your king would be a bit like loosing your capital. It would give some penalties, but you could always build a new one. If that is what the king unit is to be then let's go for it!

Different speed at different ages:
I think all this should be customizable. It should be up to the player how many turns the game should last, and how many turns each age should have.

Jgv:
WELCOME ON BOARD!

I agree with you that command units, like all other units, should become obsolete.

Protectorates:
The would work like your examble, but also with other counties. During the Cold War both the US and USSR had numerous protectorates around the world. Cuba was a US protectorate (the military dictatorship was supported and more or less controlled by the US), but when Castro came along it suddently shifted to a Soviet protectorate. Southern Vietnam was a US protectorate, the north was a Chinese one etc.

I think protectorates should be the modern way of spreading your power around the world. As the nationalism and Rise and Fall of great powers in this game would make it more or less impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to actually conquor the whole world and have it as an integrated part of your civ, it could be a victory condition to have all the civs of the world as your protectorates.
[This message has been edited by The Joker (edited March 25, 2000).]

[Matthevv]

Movement rates

I think higher movement rates, especially in the earlier parts of the game are essential to allow empires to be created quickly, as happened in history (Alexander for example). There are practical reasons for the small movement rates because of the alternate turn system. But in earlier times, when the game turns are long, this results in effective movement for infantry units of 50 miles/year! Even doubling, or tripling the movement rates would not significantly alter this anomaly. An idea might be to have a shorter campaigning turn time (e.g. one week or month) that the game switched to while an army is inside the borders of another Civ. That could be difficult to do in multiplayer, though, because players not involved would have to sit around while those at war did a number of these short turns. Another possibility would be to have much longer movement distances, but allow the defender an extra turn when one of their units is attacked, during which they could move any of their units to support the one attacked (assuming stacking). The distance that they can move would be the same as the distance moved by the attacking army (adjusted for the different movement rates of infantry/horsemen etc.)

Game turn length

I support the idea of having an adjustable number of years per game turn, with the rate of production adjusted accordingly (i.e. city production rates should be in shields /trade /food per year, not per turn) The default should be equal number of turns for each age.

Nationalism/culture

I agree that differences of culture should be a factor throughout the game, even though nationalism should be an advance (?) that develops later. I would suggest that cultural similarity should be a factor affecting the likelihood of a city or region revolting.

Protectorates/vassal states

This is an important idea, weak Civs should always tend to gain the protection of a more powerful one, in exchange for taxes. There could be varying levels of autonomy, with at one end the Civ keeping its own troops, and just paying tax, and at the other the Civ being run by your own installed leader. The less freedom allowed, the greater the unhappiness with the arrangment (and hence the more likelihood of switching alleigance to another Civ)

Ambitious generals

I think this is an excellent idea. While I agree with jgv_fiera's idea that you always win the elections, that doesn't stop the generals taking over. This occurred just recently in Pakistan. And, of course, Pinochet did it in Chile. In the Roman empire it happened more than once, which is why the elite troops (Praetorian Guard) were kept in Rome to protect the emperor and to prevent the generals seizing power.

King units

This would be an interesting addition. Monarchies would be particularly affected by the king, I think. Could we also have the possibility of marrying our kings? This was an important way of cementing political relationships throughout most of history. Kings could be held as hostages, ransomed etc.

If you want any help with programming or whatever I am willing to help. I used to be a programmer, I hope the old skill is still there ;-)

[JacobH]

quote: I would suggest that cultural similarity should be a factor affecting the likelihood of a city or region revolting.

This brings up a question; how do we determine what kind of culture a given city has?

quote: Could we also have the possibility of marrying our kings?

I am sure we could, but how would the two kingdoms benefit from it?

quote: If you want any help with programming or whatever I am willing to help.

Yes, indeed we could use your help, which would make us four programmers.
If you do not mind, I will send you an email with information on what has been done. You could also join the mailinglist if you want.

Jacob Hammeken

[Matthevv]

Culture

I would suggest that each starting Civ has its own culture. Then new cities take the culture of the settler that founded them. Cultures would become less atagonistic as trade between cities of different cultures occurred, and more antagonistic when a war occurs.

Marrying Kings

This could have the effect of creating a strong alliance between the two Civs involved.

You can e-mail me on mcooke01@globalnet.co.uk

Matthevv,

Yes, Marrying Kings should mean a strong alliance between the two Civs involved, but only for a time period (between 25-40 years, I think).
After that, both kingdoms may unite finally under a unique heir, or they could come apart again, in case there isn't a common heir to both crowns.

This is sensible, and makes diplomacy a very strong weapon, specially for Monarchies (of course, only Monarchies should be able to join themselves by marrying their kings). The Spanish supremacy in Europe during the 16th Century was created mostly in this way, following the alliances policy of the Catholic Kings.

Re: Ambitious Generals
Ok, I agree with it, but maybe should depend on the human player's will, and only happen when Government type is Republic/Democracy. Maybe Communism also?

[amjayee]

Howdy howdy ho! Sorry, this is somewhat off topic, but I think this is important.

I was very pleased to find this thread. I have been planning similar project of open-source civ for a long time, but haven't had courage to start that kind of project alone, partly because of my guite unsufficient (for now) programming skills, and partly because I know it would take much time alone. I have been making quite detailed plans, unfortunately mostly in my head, of a very flexible, yet fairly simple civilization system. I'd like to introduce to you the key ideas that I have created. Some of the ideas I have got from others, mostly on these civ3 forums. Some ideas I have developed further, some I have got myself. I'm sad I cannot give credit to all those innovative minds that have influenced this system of mine, but I'd like to thank all you participating in the discussions on these forums. All these ideas should be considered as a "sketch", and they can, and should, be developed further!

I think the first thing we should be doing right now, is to get started with a map system. It is quite obviously the key element of the game, and most of the game time is spent on it. Let's concentrate on it, for now. Following is my suggestion for a map system. It may look complicated, but actually it isn't. When the hard work is done, it is VERY flexible and diverse. If some things need to be cleared (I bet those things come in heaps), I'll be glad to answer any questions. Please make your own suggestions for enhancements.

The Map:

We should use rectangular map composed of hexagonic tiles, and an approximated spherical map for navigation, general overview of the known world, and possibly for orbital units. The sphere map should be done by drawing the rectangular map on a sphere, by shrinking the width of the map near polar regions, and finally adding polar caps on each top of the sphere; on the rectangular map, only the edges of the polar regions should be visible, like in civ/civ2. The poles should generally be inpassable by all but airborne and orbital units. In the modern world (1960?---) the players could build small bases on the polar regions, they could be visible in the globe map. The globe map should be "planet-like", with realistic colors for terrain types, possibly taken from satellite maps. The player could choose to view some information drawn on the globe, i.e. city names.

The main map view should be the cylindrical rectagle map. It's built from hexagons each having a texture representing its terrain type. The tiles should be composed of smaller tiles; these sub-tiles would be for visualization purposes only. Let me explain this:
-The size of hexes should be slighthly bigger than in former civs.
-Each hex tile is divided to smaller hexes.
-Each sub-hex will be colored with a single rgb color, depending on the properties of the hex.
-For example, the more fertile the ground in the hex is, the greener the sub-hexes are, the dry and scarce hexes would be yellow. Higher elevations would have darker colors, rocky ground would be painted with shades of brown.
-The colors of subsequent sub-tiles of each hex would have a slightly different color, determined by some sort of a formula. This way, each tile would get a unique coloring, with minimal effort.
-According to the forest-type and the amount of forest, small trees would be drawn on some sub-hexes, on rocky areas small rocks would be placed. Some tiles would be "mountain top" tiles, and would have small mountains on them.
-The tile enhancements would be placed in subtiles, according to the player's wishes. This way, the TI's don't, more realistically, take the whole tile, and this makes it clearer to place multiple TI's in one square. Player builds TI's in the same way as city improvements or units; by starting building projects. He chooses the TI to build, and when cursor moves over the map, subtile the cursor is on turns black. Then player just places the TI on the desired spot, and the project is started.
-The roads always start somewhere, and end elsewhere. They should be treated as objects; the object would store the coordinates of the road and draw it on the map according to those coordinates. The roads would also be dealt with building projects. The player draws the road in whole on the map by clicking the subtiles, in the same manner as when drawing a continuous line in painting programs. The corners will, of course, be "rounded".
-Each subtile may have only one sprite and road on them. So, placing a farm on a subtile will hide the forest on it. Building airport in a city will hide the building on the same tile. Roads do not overlap the former sprites on the subtile. Destroying the TI will reveal the sprite beneath it.
-In the beginning, the cities would cover one sub-tile having a sprite of small buildings on it; when the cities grow, more building-sprites will be placed in subsequent tiles. Eventually the cities will grow to cover multiple tiles. City tiles will also have roads drawn on them.

With this system, we get far better looking map than with the civ2 system with minimal work; it allows a huge amount of tile sprites, but the sprites would be created automatically from the given tile properties. Each tile should have at least these properties:
-fertility: decides the amount of food produced, if farmed
-elevation: higher elevations decreases living conditions and makes movement more difficult. Rivers flow downhill, on level ground they start to form curved shapes. Dams built in rivers would be more efficient when built in steep ground.
-rockiness: makes movement slower, provides good defensive spots, increase mineral production, if mined
-density of forest: the vegetation of the tile depends on the other properties of the tile and on the geographic position of the tile. Generally, the amount of forest tells, how many subtiles have trees on them. On the equator, the trees are jungle trees; in desert, they are palmtrees; northern regions have mostly pine trees, and tundra regions only small trees.
This system makes also possible for the tiles to change their properties gradually.

Later it could be possible to create separate 3d map; like someone wrote, each hex could have a center node and six corner nodes, which would be shared each by two other hexes. Each of those nodes would have a different elevation, stored in a binary 3d data file. The 3d map in SMAC was bad, it can be enhanced a lot by making the differences in elevations much smaller; for example, 1000 meters would mean only a few pixels on the map screen. To create mountains, the mountain-top sprites would be placed on the top of the mountain range.

How this should be done:
-Let's create a class "map". It has properties, like width, heigth, etc., and it has member classes "tile information" and "sprite map".
-The tile information is an array of classes "tile"
-The tiles belong to class "tile"; The tiles have their own properties. Each sub-tile of every tile has a certain number-code, which is used to place the tile improvements on the sub-tiles.
-The roads, rivers, tile improvements and cities are separate objects and are stored in a separate array.
-The sprite map-class is an array of bitmap sprites.
-The sprites of the tile are composed by creating the subtiles by certain calculations, that are based on the properties of the tile, as specified above. The sub-tile sprites, i.e. the trees, rocks, etc., should have a hidden/visible property in the tile info class. This is needed elsewhere, as specified below.
-The sprites should be made ready in the beginning of the game and stored in the map; The tile information and the sprite map should be separate.
-The tile improvements, cities and roads are placed on the correct sub-tiles with a separate routine. If there is a sub-tile sprite, like tree or rock on the sub-tile, it is hidden, not deleted.
-The tile properties may change, by natural disasters etc., or by players' actions. The program should monitor those events, and when the tiles have changed, the map is re-calculated.

I know this could be clearer, but this is the best I can come up with right now. I hope it guides the others to make right questions, so it can be made better. I'm quite low-level programmer myself right now, but I have pretty good understanding of object-oriented programming and c++. I have got Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, and I'd be happy to use it for this project. Perhaps I will even learn to use it properly. I suggest, that we name a lead programmer, who has the most experience of programming, and his job would be to design the core of the game and guide the other programmers in the making of it. I think I could be one of the programmers, though I might need some guidance in the beginning. The main role I think might suit me best, would be the overall organizer of the game creation process. If you like this system I propose here, it would be quite easy for me to combine my own ideas with the ideas of others to create the best possible system. I have also some graphical capabilities, so I can at least direct the other artists.

Korn has impressed me with his idea-developing skills. He could direct the discussion in the forums and possibly elsewhere to combine all the ideas in one package. I think the forum should be divided to smaller topics, like "graphics", "game concepts", "user interface" etc. Who would do that?

The Interface:

The second thing, that should be done, is the user interface. When the map and UI are ready, it's easy to start building the game gradually on them. Let's move in small steps.

I have been thinking, that the interface should be constructed of "rooms"; in each room the player could do different things. The possible rooms could be:
-Construction projects: for managing the building of city improvements, tile improvements, wonders etc.
-War room: for commanding your military forces during peace or war.
-Local government: The empire should be divided to "homeland", "provinces", and "colonies", later even "space colonies". Each region should have a varying level of independency, to reduce micromanagement, and to add realism. In this room you can give orders for your governors.
-Social engineering: here you can build your society.
-Research Center: here you can monitor the scientific and technological advancement of your civ.
-Space Center: to manage your space program
-Market: for management of your trade pacts etc.
-Budget room: here you control your cash flow, direct it to the targets you want and handle your general finances
The lower fourth of the screen should have a toolbar. From there you can switch between different rooms and there is shown also different kinds of information, depending on the situation.

How this should be done: The game should be created for windows environment using Visual C++. This way it's possible to take advantage of windows menu system etc. The toolbar should be one class, the buttons and info screens its children. The menu classes should read certain files, where the images and texts for each button, menu item, infoscreen etc. are specified; this would allow easy modification of the user interface, and smooth internationalization. Also the code for menu and game events, ai etc. could be stored in VBscript-style files, like this: if event_name then action_name etc. This might be little complicated, but it would pay back the effort in easier modification of the behavior of the game. It is also possible, that these files could be "compiled" in some way or other to increase performance.

This is what I could come up with today. There's more to come. Discuss these things! Here are the things that should be done asap:
1. Name the lead programmer, who
2. Leads the programming of the map system.
3. Continue the discussion, in order to establish
4. Basic game concepts, which most of us can agree with; some things can be done changeable by user
5. Then, start a more detailed discussion to create a complete game system; possible areas would be: diplomacy, science, tile improvements, city improvements, social engineering, etc. I will soon publish here my own suggestions for these areas. Let's try to argue as little as possible, concentrating the argument on the most important things, and solving the not so important clashes by compromises and making these things changeable by the user. See you soon, and keep up the good work here! Let's show that it's possible to make a good game with a volunteer work and open source system. Remember Linux!


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[MidKnight Lament]

Wow. You have been doing a lot of thinking.

I know this is going to be a *****, but would it be possible to draw up a very sketchy pic to illustrate your tile idea? (Don't go to too much trouble). I think I've got some idea of what you're talking about, but some better visualisation would be good.
Feel free to ignore this request if it's too much work to bother with. Although... I guess you'd have to do one sooner or later anyway.

- MKL

[JacobH]

quote: Howdy howdy ho! Sorry, this is somewhat off topic, but I think this is important.

Oh hoy, there! Actually, it does not seem off-topic at all.

quote: I think the first thing we should be doing right now, is to get started with a map system.

I agree with that. General consensus seems to be that we should use hexagon-shaped tiles. However, VetLegion has previously suggested a different map-layout but did not have time to describe it in detail, which is why there has not been a final decision to use hexes.

quote: I have got Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, and I'd be happy to use it for this project.

Welcome to the team then, which makes us five programmers, and about nine people all in all. It cannot go all wrong then, eh? :-)

quote: The game should be created for windows environment using Visual C++.

That has already been decided. However, I think we should attempt to make it compile with other compilers as well, so we can easily switch compiler later if that turns out to produce a smaller executable or a faster game. I can test the game with BC++ 5.5, DJGPP, and G++, as well.

quote: This way it's possible to take advantage of windows menu system etc.

This is not, though.
I like the standard menus, buttons, toolbars, etc., just not in games. GDI is terribly slow, and has no support to avoid tearing whatsoever.
The current sourcecode is based on DirectX. DirectX was designed with games and multimedia applications in mind, in sharp contrast to the standard window-system and GDI.

quote: and smooth internationalization.

We could have that as well, even if we do not use the window-system and GDI.

quote: Also the code for menu and game events, ai etc. could be stored in VBscript-style files,

Why not go for the real thing then? If we used OLE for the interface between the AI and the game, people could use their favourite language, with minimal effort required by people using various scripting-languages. I think what makes it a good choice is that people could still use 'real' languages to extend the AI without changing the game sourcecode.

quote: It is also possible, that these files could be "compiled" in some way or other to increase performance.

I have previously suggested a multithreaded model, on the mailinglist. I think this can pontentially improve the AI quite a lot. There are a number of things the AI could do while the user is taking his turn, without invalidating the game-logic.

quote: I will soon publish here my own suggestions for these areas.

I will look forward to that.

Jacob Hammeken

[korn469]

Everybody,

My grandfather had a series of mini strokes over the weekend and has been hospitalized, and I will be gone for the next few days, but i will catch up as soon as things slow down here and my schedule gets back to normal

korn469

[MidKnight Lament]

korn469 - I hope everything works out ok, and I'm sure everyone else feels the same.

- MKL

[Adm.Naismith]

Korn, sorry to read about your grand father problems, I wish him a speedy recovery.

About your OpenCiv initiative, why don't you take the opportunity to introduce the concept of Simultaneous Turns of Play as an improvement of old TBS?
Its role into the game engine build is enough relevant to need to be adopted early in a game development, so I think is "now or never".

Some of you already red (and voted) of it on my (originally, then backed up by ChrisShaffer) suggestion in Essential Civ 3 poll, but I can copy and paste it, or link, if you would tell me how to anchor the link to the right post.

I suppose you can see the benefit to build your game with enough differences to act as "special weapons" against major "gorillas" as CIV III and CTP2 with their full time and full payed development teams.

I'm afraid that my programming skill is so rusty to be useless with modern languages, and you have lot of designers available, but I will be happy to see your success and therefore I'll put my suggestions here and there hoping they can help you.

------------------
Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

[amjayee]

quote: Originally posted by MidKnight Lament on 03-27-2000 07:34 PM I know this is going to be a *****, but would it be possible to draw up a very sketchy pic to illustrate your tile idea? (Don't go to too much trouble).

I have been working on a pic and finished it tonite. It's quite large, though (1000 pixels wide). I have space ready for my future website, but there's currently nothing on it-that's another task which needs to be finished soon-so I made quickly a simple page, where's the picture and some descriptive text. All, who are interested to know more about this map system I propose, please check out the webpage at www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee. Comments and further suggestions are welcome.

JacobH, Thanks for your comments and info. You are propably right with the user interface. The reason, why I proposed the windows-style GUI, was that I liked the civ2 system and was wondering, would it be possible to combine the windows menu, like in civ2, and the control bar system in SMAC. Perhaps it would be better, as you said, to use DirectX and make a GUI similar to tha SMAC, but of course it needs to be enhanced. Especially the colors were horrible.

I will make more suggestions for the interface later, when I've had time to reconsider it, but here's what I propose: there's a control bar in the bottom of the screen, its width could be 1/4 of the screen height. In the top of the bar would be buttons to access the "rooms" suggested in my earlier post, and a button to pop up a menu for options like saving, loading, etc. The bar should have an info screen presenting some info, depending on the situation. Only _one_ info screen, not same kind of a horrible mess like in SMAC. Simplicity is important, yet the bar should be effective and informative. I try to make a picture of what I have in mind and load it up later.

[The Joker]

I like that tile idea. It makes it possible to have far better looking tiles than previously. Just one question: Is a unit supposed to cover one whole tile? If so, then the unit will be pretty huge, and if not, then what is the point of having the large tiles (how about just giving the game more smaller tiles, and where units, cities etc can fill one or more tiles)?

[JacobH]

quote: (how about just giving the game more smaller tiles, and where units, cities etc can fill one or more tiles)?

I think it has to do with the following (from the website):
"Each tile has certain properties, that I discussed earlier. These properties decide the color of the tile; the sub-tiles are painted each with an rgb color, varying randomly around the color of the father tile"

The way I understand it, each large tile has associated with it a colour, and a random seed. Random values are then generated from the seed and are treated as brightness-values. Each subtile will then have the colour of the large tile, adjusted to its own random brightness-value, thus eliminating the need for a per-tile colour-value. Is that correct?

Jacob Hammeken

[amjayee]

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 04:26 PM The way I understand it, each large tile has associated with it a colour, and a random seed. Random values are then generated from the seed and are treated as brightness-values. Each subtile will then have the colour of the large tile, adjusted to its own random brightness-value, thus eliminating the need for a per-tile colour-value. Is that correct?

Quite correct. What I had in mind, is that since each tile will have its own, unique ID number, and each subtile will have an index number to find its location inside the father tile, these numbers can be used for all the randomizing tasks. The idea behind this system is, that we get much larger variety of tile coloring with minimal effort.

Other possible way to use this idea is to create a "gliding color" effect; The colors of the subtiles are adjusted to approach the colors of each one of the neighboring tiles. This will create a continuous, gliding coloring throughout the map. It will be looking really cool, if the globe map is implemented. I think if we succeed, the space view will look like satelite pictures-without clouds, of course.

Joker, thanks for your point. It made me notice, that we can quite well use the sub-tile system only for coloring and creating the rivers, that make curves inside the tile randomly, for randomly alternating coastline, and for forests of varying density. Cities, units, mountains, rocks, etc. could be made in a similar way as in CIV2 and SMAC.

This makes the whole system clearer to me. Keep discussing, guys! I hope we can agree with a graphics system soon and start actually creating it.

JacobH, you have mae good points for the programming issues. Would you mind to be nominated as the lead programmer, at least for the time being? Your responsibility would be to guide the programming process, to standardixe the code and to program the core of the game, which you have already started with quite professional touch. Are you a pro?

Matthevv has also made quite good points about the game structure. I hope he is able to finish the document of this structure he has proposed. This way we will soon have the wireframe of the program running.

I need to consider these new ideas I have got about the map system. Meanwhile, check out the complete, but still not final and quite rough description of my map system that I finished tonite. Couple of things will be changing, as I told earlier in this message, but I hope it will give you some new ideas, so you can guide me to the right direction. It is also available as a .txt file, so you can read it offline. The website is the same as earlier: www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee

Keep up the spirit!

[JacobH]

quote: Would you mind to be nominated as the lead programmer, at least for the time being?

No, I do not mind. In that case, I will devote more time to the project.

quote: Are you a pro?

No. I used to study computer-science and mathematics, but not being able to get up in the morning is kind of a problem. I have been programming for the past twelve years, though.

quote: I need to consider these new ideas I have got about the map system.

Once again, you have done a lot of thinking. I have skimmed the text, and I think there are a lot of good ideas. Perhaps you would read Korn469's documents (they are in the vault), and compare the differences? I will examine it in closer detail later.

quote: It is also available as a .txt file, so you can read it offline.

Could you upload it to the vault? I like having all of the data stored in a central place. Once we move all of the files to SourceForge, it will be much easier for people to download and we will get various tools to manage the data.

Jacob Hammeken

[The Joker]

Now I like the map system much more! It should only be graphic, and not actually play a part in gameplay. I think the hexagons (not the subhexes) should have the same size as always, and not be bigger. This way the game will be as always. A tile improvement should also just be placed hex per hex, not having to do it subsquare per subsquare.

Jacob:
Welcome as lead programmer!

[amjayee]

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM No, I do not mind. In that case, I will devote more time to the project.

Great! You seem to be the most experienced of us in the kind of programming we will need, so it's good to know you'll be in charge. You could write some documents about your ideas about the program. You mentioned earlier, that you have been thinking about some kind of multi-threaded AI system. Perhaps you could start with that? I don't have much knowledge about AI programming.

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM I used to study computer-science and mathematics, but not being able to get up in the morning is kind of a problem.

Isn't that true! I used to study electric and telecommunications engineering in Helsinki University of Technology, and had similar kinds of problems.

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM Perhaps you would read Korn469's documents (they are in the vault), and compare the differences?

I'll do that.

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM Could you upload it to the vault?

Sure, I just need to make some additions and changes to it first.

Joker:

quote: Originally posted by The Joker on 03-30-2000 10:26 AM I think the hexagons (not the subhexes) should have the same size as always, and not be bigger. ... A tile improvement should also just be placed hex per hex, not having to do it subsquare per subsquare.

You are right. This should be our guideline. The tiles should be created like this:
1. The tiles are colored, using the system desribed earlier.
2. Rivers and coastlines are drawn using the randomizing idea presented earlier. There could be an option of doing this "civ-way", but I think the random features would add more realism and make the map more varied.
3. The possible terrain features, like rocks, mountains and forests, are placed on the hex as a single bitmap, which may be created randomly based upon the tile properties, like rockiness or amount of vegetation. The trees and rocks used for this should be small, even smaller than in SMAC to prevent them from covering any neighboring tiles.
4. Cities and tile improvements are placed on the hex. There should be a possibility of having the TI's, cities and units to cover multiple tiles.

Right now I'm working on some new sample images to visualize my ideas. I'll mention when they are available.

Cheers,
amjayee

[JacobH]

quote: You mentioned earlier, that you have been thinking about some kind of multi-threaded AI system. Perhaps you could start with that?

Yes, I will. I will delay my work on the graphics-system, study Matthews design-specification, see how it will fit together, and mail my thoughts about it when I am done.

Jacob Hammeken

[korn469]

things are beginning to settle down here, but right now i'm heading off to work for 6 hours and then to class for another three, but in about 9 or 10 hours from now i'll catch up and start posting once again

korn469

[pris]

So how's the code coming along? Is there anything we can download & play with? Even a design outline would be cool.

[JacobH]

quote: Is there anything we can download & play with? Even a design outline would be cool.

Yes, there is. Much of it is currently located in the eGroups vault, but we will soon move everything to another location (see: www.sourceforge.org) which will make it easier for people to download the latest files, and make cooperation easier for us. I think we can start to move the files within the next 24 hours (edited: we may have to wait until monday). You can download some of the files from the three websites, but some of them are out of date (in particular the sourcecode). You can see the graphics at Heardie's site, and design-ideas at Korn469's and Amjayee's site.
Everything is currently under the zlib/libpng license, but this could still change.

Jacob Hammeken
[This message has been edited by JacobH (edited April 01, 2000).]

[heardie]

see my interface ideas at http://members.xoom.com/acchiron/ope.../interface.htm and tell me what you thikn

------------------
-Chiron Creators-
"http://members.xoom.com/acchiron"

[amjayee]

Hi all!

I just uploaded to the vault my document about the design concepts of
the game. Currently it consists mainly of my map system description,
some interface ideas and several other ideas about the basic concepts
of the game. I have currently some spare time after my job, so I
would be interested in making this document a complete design
description for our game, if that's ok for you all.

This requires, though, that you read my texts and make comments about
what to add, what to remove and what to clarify. Currently the
structure of the map description is not the best possible, so you
need to concentrate. I will work on it, when I manage to get the
ideas in correct order in my head.

DHeardie, I took a look at your interface suggestions. I had
something similar in my mind, and wrote a description. Check my
ideas, and if you have something to add, let me know.

The document's name is DesignConcepts_ver1.zip and it's located in
the files section of the egroups page
(www.egroups.com/group/openciv3). The document is quite large,
because it includes images. I zipped it, and that saved some space.
It's a word 6.0 document. If somebody needs the text to be in plain
text format, let
me know.

I hope I will be able to make the document into a webpage. How are
things going in the sourceforge direction? Perhaps I could make the
webpage there into a design document based on this text. Make
comments and help me to make a design document, which everyone of us
can agree on!

There are two copies of this message, one in the apolyton group and
other in the openciv3 mailing list.

Cheers,
amjayee aka Matti Eskelinen
amjayee@kolumbus.fi

[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited April 03, 2000).]

[korn469]

Sorry about the lack of posting from me lately...not only did my grandfather have a bunch of little strokes my job also increased my hours from 16 to 38 which sucks majorly! add in 18 hours of class and a girlfriend and i have been fairly busy lately but hopefully i can get my job to decrease my hours soon...well i gotta go but i will check back in soon

korn469

[The Joker]

Tiles:
I don't know about this. When playing SMAC I sometimes long back to the good old squares of Civ2, where you always knew what did what, and where you could easily see what every square gave (ressources). In SMAC you were never sure about this. I know that having a hex made out of minihexes makes the game wheather etc more realistic, but is it worth it? I am aware of my previous support of the idea, but I have started doubting. In SMAC you were never quite sure how much an improvement gave, as it did different things in different types of terrain. And these types were never easy to see from each other. I am not saying anything definitely, just thinking, that maybe simplicity is better in this aspect of the game, making it possible for the player to focus on more interresting aspects, like energy management and keeping the civ together.

Pardon for my complete ignorance (I have a LOT of reading to do!! - I haven't even looked at the vault for weeks, as the first thing I tryed to download from it did absolutely nothing) but do we actually have anything to play with yet??

Heardie:
Your system sounds pretty nice. It is difficult to imagine though.

Guess i'll start some serious reading now. I am not sure when I will have time to do it, but it should be within a few days.