CivDip 2.2 and 3.0: Preview

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:13

Hi all!

This thread is about the news related to Civ2Diplomacy PBEM. A new version (2.2) is being translated and probably will be published very soon. That version 2.2 is like the 2.1 but includes

- Password from Civ2: Forget about Civ2Diplomacy PBEM specific password! Now Civ2Dip uses the same exact password you're using in that PBEM game.

- Polish Translation: Civ2Dip adds a new language to its international support: Polish!

But the news about civ2dip 3.0 are even better!

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:18

Civ2Dip 3.0 is the last installament of the utilty. It is now in internal beta pashe and a private beta test will start Monday or Tuesday (contact me if you want to participate). It includes this features:

- Bugs corrected: Both SlowThinker and Germanos have told me about some bugs that have been corrected. Thanks, guys!

- Units exchange: At last, with Civ2Dip you can give units to your allies!

- Automap Generation: An automatic feature of Civ2, you can now, from a .NET file, generate a nice map to post in the PBEM threads without any effort - CivDip makes all the work for you! . See examples below

- Repair: This features does the same that LazyCiv (that is, repairs your cities productions whenever they're broken by the AI) and makes some other fixes (if you goverment has been change by the AI it's fixed - and I'm testing a "put all the citiziens in their correct place" feature that I'm sure that Germanos would love).

See photos and examples in the next posts

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:21

Example of Units exchange

There are three units the US wants to give to their British ally

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:23

So USA uses the new feature of CivDip, and select to move all the units in the square <21,65> All the avaliable squares with units to transfer is listed to easy the way for players. Also, a list of units in each square and a message with the nearest city is also displayed.

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:24

The British accepts the offer...

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:26

And now the units are british!

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:31

Automap Generation

With this feature, you can generate a nice map to post in your PBEMs thread. You'll be able to control the scale of the map and a few parameters.

The land of each nation is displayed in the true civ2 color, because the cities.gif or cities.bmp is read for each game.

Here you have an example for a Colonies4 MP betatest game I'm playing

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:33

Another example. This time, the Historibus PBEM I'm playing in Apolyton/Civ2-PBEM forum

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:37

Third example. This time, the initial position for Imperialism 1870 version 2 of Exile

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:40

Four example. A demogame of Pablostuka's "Spanish Civil War" I'm playing. The red Spain against the yellow Spain

[I've more examples but I think that it is more than enough!]

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 19:45

Please, post your opinions/ideas

Pablostuka · November 21, 2003, 19:48

Just amazing, my friend!!! I can't wait to see the finished version!!

Cyrion · November 21, 2003, 20:05

Excellent news Javier!!

If I can help in any way, just ask!

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 20:10

I was writing you an email rigth now with a link to this thread, Cyrion.

If you don't mind I'll send you the new strings (they are three or four - not too many) to translate them to French.

BTW, how do you say "Polish" in French???

Palaiologos · November 21, 2003, 20:13

Looks cool.

But British units supported from San Fransciso?

yaroslav · November 21, 2003, 20:26

That's a thing that I'm experimenting with. Who should support the units after they are gived to the ally?

I think that it could be cool to be still mantained by the original civ. The ally (the British) should take it to a city in order to change the support. Sounds realistic.

However, I'm open to suggestions. I hope that these kind of problems will be solved/dealed with in the betatesting phase

Dr. Nick · November 21, 2003, 21:10

This would be most useful for the WW2 type game, where the US player can hand over tons of units for the British and maintain the support that would otherwise crush the British economy, for instance.

St Leo · November 21, 2003, 21:22

Could you double the horizontal width of maps?

POTUS · November 21, 2003, 22:31

Will this work for Macs, like the older versions?

germanos · November 22, 2003, 06:08

Quote:

Originally posted by yaroslav
That's a thing that I'm experimenting with. Who should support the units after they are gived to the ally?

I think that it could be cool to be still mantained by the original civ. The ally (the British) should take it to a city in order to change the support. Sounds realistic.

I like that

about the maps: I guess CivDip will check for 'ownership' of the squares, just as the demography (F11) does to determine civ-size?

If so, your feature will be exelent for spying

Take Imperialism 1870 for example: the middle of the USA (west of Chigago) could be penetrated by Brits for a sneak attack on St.Louis or so. Wouldn't the progress of the British army show up on the maps CivDip produces, thus giving away the British covert operation?

Palaiologos · November 22, 2003, 06:18

You are right, the support thing is cool the way it is.

Really look forward to use the new give unit option.

Henrik · November 22, 2003, 06:34

Any news on he MacOS support? As I recall the incompatibility problem wasn't ever solved in the old one

POTUS · November 22, 2003, 06:57

@Henrik
It works only on OS X, at least the old version.

Kramsib · November 22, 2003, 07:38

Wonderful news Yaros, I'm affraid this time I won't be able to betatest for you.

Do you remember the loooong conversation we had about unit transfering?, I would like to know how you have got rid of the "teletransporting" exploit.

SlowThinker · November 22, 2003, 09:43

unit giving

Quote:

Originally posted by Kramsib
Do you remember the loooong conversation we had about unit transfering?, I would like to know how you have got rid of the "teletransporting" exploit.

It is easy: I suppose it is managed by the same way as Civ2 Multiplayer: units stay where they are.

'teletransport' of the home city of a caravan:
given caravans should be set as NONE (or players should agree they won't deliver commodity caravans that were obtained from another civ, only use them for wonders) - otherwise caravans would be 'rehomed' (possibly to a very distant city).

Quote:

That's a thing that I'm experimenting with. Who should support the units after they are gived to the ally?

I think that it could be cool to be still mantained by the original civ. The ally (the British) should take it to a city in order to change the support. Sounds realistic.

From one point of view it should be managed by the same way as in Civ2 MP (because up to present day Civ2 MP was only reasonable way to give units): units are rehomed to the nearest city.
But the idea about an ally supporting your units looks very nice - but I don't know if it is possible: will the supporter be able to disband that unit?

doubled, tripled movement of units
Other problem - A given unit shouldn't move (nor accomplish any other order, i.e. it shouldn't spend any movepoint) in the turn when it is given.
Reason: Imagine you have a patrol line where you carefully check any intrusion of enemy unit. You know you will be able to stop any opponent unit by your ZOCs. But a unit could move twice (or more times if passed between three or more civs) between your two turns! You might not to detect a strong army getting across your boundary.
Again - this can be checked by the Civ2 Dip program or players can care about that when playing.

map giving

I agree with germanos you shouldn't expose ownership of squares!

I would like another way of map giving: a player can control not only what is exposed (terrain, cities, units) to another player, but also a part of map that is exposed:
the player can reveal full map (like in standard Civ2 map exchange) or only a rectangle(s) (it is defined by two squares).

Henrik · November 22, 2003, 10:19

Quote:

Originally posted by SlowThinker
But the idea about an ally supporting your units looks very nice - but I don't know if it is possible: will the supporter be able to disband that unit?

It's definatly possible, it's been done allready (though only in start situations in scenarios) as I recall the unit still shows in the city's support box and thus the owner of the city can still disband it.

yaroslav · November 22, 2003, 10:21

@St Leo:

You can control both the horizontal and the vertical yes, so you can double the width if you want

@Henrik:

I've not a MAC so I can't test it

I think it should work in MAC OS X, but I'm not sure

* Well, thinking about it, the problem is that in MAC OS IX, VIII and so on there is not support for Java 1.4. However, I can compile a special older-MAC versions and test it... Interesting.

@Unit giving (ST):

I'm trying to stop the 'various movement in a turn' problem and those "disbading" features. I'll post a report tomorrow.

@Map giving (ST and germanos)

It's not based on unit ownership but in the closets city KNEW by the player how is doing the map - so if you don't know where a city is, that city doesn't affect the map. I'm not using ownerships and units doesn't affect the map.

I'd probably add the rectangle support, BTW

Thanks for your ideas - keep them coming! What do you think about the Repair feature?

Henrik · November 22, 2003, 10:23

Well the current version isn't even working on OS X (I'm on OSX.3 or Panther now), it starts and shows up among the running programs but no dialoge presents itself to allow me to interact with the program.

germanos · November 22, 2003, 11:21

Quote:

Originally posted by yaroslav
@Map giving (ST and germanos)

It's not based on unit ownership but in the closets city KNEW by the player how is doing the map - so if you don't know where a city is, that city doesn't affect the map. I'm not using ownerships and units doesn't affect the map.

I'd probably add the rectangle support, BTW

You're a wizard, Yaroslav

On the repair feature:
Such a thing would be great, but as we have allready LazyCiv, and now the news has been spread on the F11-bug, I would say release a 3.0 version even if it does not support the repair-features, as many PBEM's are eagerly awaiting 'offline'-unit gifting the way you make it possible.

Nevertheless: it would be great if you could devise a program that does away with the F11-bug

N35t0r · November 22, 2003, 11:54

It's 'Near to Portland' and 'Near to San Francisco' yaros.

Oh, and from the dialog box where the british are told that they are getting units, it looks like the americans are demanding the troops off the british. they should appear on the top (they are offering: )