OpenCiv3 Discussion thread - Page 4

amjayee · April 5, 2000, 18:55

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-05-2000 02:38 PM
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).

This is quite understandable, but is it really necessary to know the exact amount of resources? Personally, the thing I hated about civ2 was that in every game you built dozens of cities, everyone of them almost identical to each other.

When I was designing my map system, my thought was, that the value of a certain city comes from many things. It's quite certain, that it is usually more preferable to build a city in a fertile spot than in a scarce one, but if that spot is geographically good or has some other advantages, like a good source of minerals nearby, It would be a good enough reason to build a city there. You can always transport food from other cities. Also, it should not a certainty that by building a city on a certain spot would automatically result in a large and important city after several hundreds of years. You have to build the glory of your city yourself.

In our civ game, the size of the city must not be the only meter of city quality, and there should definitely be serious disadvantages from cities being very large. Also the amount of resources produced shouldn't be as dependable from the city size as in civ2. Big cities have more workmen to provide, yes, but the upkeep of them should be larger, too.

I think the goal in making our own civ-game should be, that the player has more important and interesting things to do to than finding the best placement for the workmen in the city-screen and optimizing the resource-output of his empire, just to spend those resources to build a similar army he has built already for dozens of times, or building all those same spaceship parts over and over again.

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-05-2000 02:38 PM
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.

There was many errors in SMAC. We will work hard to make sure those errors are not done again.

Of course those are my own ideas. Our goal is to make the game, that could be easily adjusted to each players' needs. Almost certainly there will be available several "packages", ready-made versions of the game with varying levels of detail for those who haven't got the skills or time to adjust the game themselves, ranging from civ2-like to a simcity- or age of empires-like (but in global scale).

At this state of development, we have hardly started. Right now we are discussing the details of the game system. We cannot start the actual work, until we know what we are going to do. Read the messages to keep informed about the development.

Cheers,
amjayee aka Matti Eskelinen

The Joker · April 10, 2000, 06:57

Has everybody just given up or what? Or has the discussion just moved to some place I am not aware of? Please tell me, I am not ready to give up just yet!!

amjayee · April 10, 2000, 16:17

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-10-2000 06:57 AM
Has everybody just given up or what? Or has the discussion just moved to some place I am not aware of? Please tell me, I am not ready to give up just yet!!

Nobody's giving up. Right now, the discussion has concentrated majorly on the egroups mailinglist. It can be found at www.egroups.com/group/openciv3. You can read the messages sent there without registering, but if you want to take part to the conversation, you need to register or at least to subscribe to the mailinglist. That can be done by sending a blank email to openciv3-subscribe@egroups.com.

We are moving or project to another location at sourceforge, but for now you will stay tuned by using the addresses above.

Lately, our project has started to organize nicely. We have been planning an online meeting in the irc to decide on the main design issues. If you are interested in the openciv project, you should think about joining us. This is not only for Joker, but all you interested in making an opensource civilization game.

You don't need to be hard-core programmers, artists or stuff like that. In fact, most of us are amateurs. You can do a lot just by taking part to the conversation, though we could use more skilled programmers.

We should have our design outline ready in a few weeks. Then you can be told more about what the game will be like. Patience is needed, though-it's likely to take a long time before any kind of demo of the game will be available. In the meantime, why wouldn't you all help us making it?

Cheers,
amjayee IRL AKA Matti Eskelinen
amjayee@kolumbus.fi
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited April 10, 2000).]

VetLegion · April 10, 2000, 19:56

Uh, I have been reading these forums for a while now, and I think The Jokers ideas are among the most valuable ones, being usually well argumented.
It is only fair to update you people on current status, as amyaee did. I will also add, that the demo is not all that far away, but it will only be a framework. When we are agreed on it everyone will be back to actually designing the game, which we are trying _not_ to do now. We are talking mostly technical matters, as amyaee said, more programmers wellcome

Quit? No waaay, just getting warm

Patience? If we turn based people dont know about patience who does?

Victor Galis · April 11, 2000, 18:45

Simo. turns spawn all evil (I mean actually moving at once, not the multi threading with the AIs).

That being said, I like the Map design... the way it looks, I have to look closer to see about the functionality. Also, How would different elevations look?

amjayee · April 12, 2000, 17:00

quote:

Originally posted by Victor Galis on 04-11-2000 06:45 PM
That being said, I like the Map design... the way it looks, I have to look closer to see about the functionality. Also, How would different elevations look?

In the sprite map, the tiles with higher elevation will be darker (if all goes well). In the 3d map (which will be made in much farther future) the elevations will be visible, but not so clearly as in SMAC (that system looked actually quite bad). We haven't decided anything final about the map system, but that ought to change soon, I hope. The map is, after all, the key element in this kind of a game.

Cheers,
amjayee

The Joker · April 13, 2000, 10:14

Why I think the OpenCiv3 discussion should be based at a forum. If not this then some other:

First of all, the amount of mails at egroups is getting enormeous. It takes very, very long to check them all, only to find that most of them are about some programming issue that I personally have no interest in nor knowledge of.

The beauty of a forum is, that you very easily can scroll through the posts to the stuff you find interesting.

Another advantage of this forum is, that other people can check out what we've done and become interested in it. This will propably make more people join us in stead of just closing off to the outer world.

Because of this I will continue to post my replys and suggestions here in stead of mailing it to egroups. I hope someone will still post stuff here as well as mailing it to egroups as this is the place I will check most frequently.

Here goes my reply to amjayee's design idea:

I completely agree on the idea of us making a prototype that is easily extendable. This is by far our greatest advantage compared to giants like Firaxis - our game can develop as long as people want to develop it. And if someone doesn't like a part of the game, they can change it.

I do not like the idea of having 2 completely different types of games (the civ and the survival mode). I want to be able to conquor the world, but I also want severe internal unrest. In stead of having 2 different types of games I think we should have just 1. But this one should be adjustable - there should be a slider bar with 5 or 10 settings. This will determine how hard it will be for a civ to survive in the long run. It should go from the lowest setting - the wellknown civ type with almost no unternal unrest (which players who like to conquor the world without too much trouble can choose) some middle settings where it is possible to conquor the world, but where you can not do so without a lot of planning (players like myself can choose this one) and a highest setting where it is litterally impossible to conquor the world - your only victory mode would be survival. This will not only make it possible for all players to find their own favorite, it will also make it possible for us to include it all into one game plus it will give those hardcore players who think deity is a walkover some real competition - trying to conquor the world on one of the higher settings.

I REALLY like the scenario option. The AI would have to be specifically made for everything to happend more or less at the right time (if the player really want to he should be able to change history significantly). In some far future an ultimate goal could be for us to make a scenario editor that everyone can use. This will give the game upwards of unlimited playability.

I like the interface ideas. I am not sure how they will work gamewise though. We will have to try a game with different interface options to find the best. The map likewise.

I don't think we should have ressources in the game (like AoE has). With the different ages it would be far too complex as loads of ressources is required. In stead I think we should use raingoons energy idea. It offers many of the advantages of ressources with much less micromanagement.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

The Joker · April 16, 2000, 07:20

To the OC3 team:

Nice to see that you will actually respon to my post...

JacobH · April 16, 2000, 16:36

quote:

Nice to see that you will actually respon to my post...

We did discuss your suggestion on using a webforum, instead of the mailinglist, at the meeting yesterday, and I wrote about it via the mailinglist.
As for your other suggestions, I do not personally have any strong feelings about them. I am working on another part of the game at the moment.

quote:

First of all, the amount of mails at egroups is getting enormeous.

That would be the same if we only used a webforum.
At the meeting yesterday we decided to open more mailinglists with different topics. Hopefully, this way people who are not interested in the programming issues will not have to read those mails. The email-adresses should be posted here later by someone when they become active (there is a 6-24 hour delay).

quote:

The beauty of a forum is, that you very easily can scroll through the posts to the stuff you find interesting.

IMHO, it is just as easy to scroll through emails if you recieve in digest-mode.

quote:

that other people can check out what we've done and become interested in it.

No difference from a mailinglist here. People can read the posts both via their browser and their email-client. There is also an archive. Anyone can join without signing up (in contrast to Apolyton).

Mailinglists are faster for people with slow modems, and much less expensive. There are not any banners at SourceForge because they do not have to profit on their users. Also, people who do not have cookies turned on do not have to enter their username and password before they post. Emails can be arranged in threads, sorted, filtered, and put in seperate folders.

I think the advantage of using this forum, in addition to the mailinglists, is that this thread probably has higher exposure than the other sites have combined at the moment.

At the meeting Amjayee expressed interest in making the new web site which will be located at: http://civ3.sourceforge.net/

Jacob

amjayee · April 16, 2000, 17:13

Ignore this message. For some reason it was shown here twice.

[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited May 01, 2000).]

amjayee · April 16, 2000, 17:13

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-13-2000 10:14 AM
I completely agree on the idea of us making a prototype that is easily extendable. This is by far our greatest advantage compared to giants like Firaxis - our game can develop as long as people want to develop it. And if someone doesn't like a part of the game, they can change it.

We agreed on making the extendability and easy modification of the game one of its main features. I hope we will be able to make the system so, that it is easy to build upon. This would give more people opportunity to make the civ game of their dreams.

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-13-2000 10:14 AM
I do not like the idea of having 2 completely different types of games (the civ and the survival mode). I want to be able to conquor the world, but I also want severe internal unrest. In stead of having 2 different types of games I think we should have just 1. But this one should be adjustable - there should be a slider bar with 5 or 10 settings. This will determine how hard it will be for a civ to survive in the long run. It should go from the lowest setting - the wellknown civ type with almost no unternal unrest (which players who like to conquor the world without too much trouble can choose) some middle settings where it is possible to conquor the world, but where you can not do so without a lot of planning (players like myself can choose this one) and a highest setting where it is litterally impossible to conquor the world - your only victory mode would be survival.

These are good ideas. Of course there will not be two different games, those were just ideas... I think there will be much wider possibilities for the players to adjust the difficulty level of the game than in earlier civ games. And let's not talk about difficulty, but realism...
[/quote]

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-13-2000 10:14 AM
I REALLY like the scenario option. The AI would have to be specifically made for everything to happend more or less at the right time (if the player really want to he should be able to change history significantly). In some far future an ultimate goal could be for us to make a scenario editor that everyone can use. This will give the game upwards of unlimited playability.

I think the scenario and ai features are the key elements for this kind of game to succeed. Let's see how we are aple to accomplish that... My dream would be to make 6000-year scenario, where ai is adjusted to follow the historical events of our world as accurately as possible, with empires rising and falling. The player could then test, how he is able to deal with the real-world rulers and conquerors.

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-13-2000 10:14 AM
I don't think we should have ressources in the game (like AoE has). With the different ages it would be far too complex as loads of ressources is required. In stead I think we should use raingoons energy idea. It offers many of the advantages of ressources with much less micromanagement.

Actually, the resources are very much the same on each era, only changing the importance of each resource... and of course adding some new for modern times. And, there need not to be so much micro-management in dealing with resources. You should only provide your empire an access to certain resources, to be able to produce certain things, either by conquer or trade. Wouldn't it be much better to trade for something that you know you are really going to need, than for some stupid random trading goods?

All the micromanagement in gathering the resources and producing stuff could be hidden from the player by using local government (advisors). If the player wants to micromanage, he could of course deal with everything himself.

As have been said earlier, we shouldn't dump some idea just because someone doesn't like it. All good ideas should be implemented, and the player should be given a possibility to choose the game features as he pleases.

amjayee

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-13-2000 10:14 AM
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

We will!

The Joker · April 18, 2000, 10:03

Jacob:

I feel like I am completely lost in this project. This is propably also due to lack of interest from my side in stuff posted outside this forum. I would still like to be a part of this project.

I still think there are advantages in posting if not everything then at least some kind of resume of what has been done here at Apolyton. The reason for this is, that many people visit this place, far more civ interested people than at Forge or egroups. And if we want to continue to get more people involved in this project (which we have to to get it above betalevel) we can't isolate ourselves at some remote webpage. This IS the civ community, and to get it's help we have to stay connected to it.

I tryed to subscribe to Forge, but for some reason the link to the subscribtion page didn't work. I will keep trying.

It seems to me that most of the stuff done at the moment is initial programming issues. I have no great interest in this, and I do not think I can be to much help in that area. My ideas for this game are all ones that can only be used when a playable prototype has been created. I will therefor not be very active in this untill then. Please correct me if I am wrong, or tell me if there's anything I can do without any programming skills.

amjayee:

Customization is the key!

Great that you agree that there should not be two completely different games. There should be several ways to adjust dificulty and realism in the game, so the player would be able to customize the game to excatly what he wants.

Scenarios:
That would be very great to have a scenario resembling the actual history of mankind. However, it would propably be very dificult and timeconsuming to make. I would suggest that we concentrated on making a scenariobuilder that would let everyone create a great scenario.

Ressources:
As long as it's simple and does not require lots of micromanagement it's cool for me!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!

JacobH · April 18, 2000, 20:37

quote:

The reason for this is, that many people visit this place, far more civ interested people than at Forge or egroups.

Yes, indeed. I agree. Apolyton has much higher exposure than the other sites combined, and it offers related content like SourceForge. Indeed I think this forum is a great way to reach more people and get input, and I did not mean that we should not use Apolyton as well.

It is just that I work on this project daily and check my email about fifty times a day. If I was to do that with Apolyton, I would have to download a lot more, so I would not personally mind if at least the programming issues were mostly kept on one or more mailinglists. That way, I am able to respond with short notice when I am awake if it is required, and I recieve emails fairly quickly after they have been sent.

Jacob

amjayee · April 19, 2000, 00:30

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-18-2000 10:03 AM
I feel like I am completely lost in this project...

I still think there are advantages in posting if not everything then at least some kind of resume of what has been done here at Apolyton.

Right now, it seems that most of us are a little bit lost, since the decisions about the important technical issues are pending... We are going to have another meeting next weekend, and I'm hoping that all will be much more clear by then.

To inform people about the current progress of the project, I might be interested in making a report about those things at least weekly here in this forum. This way, the people interested in it could get info here, while discussing the ideas for this game. I will be in touch with the other members of the project, but I'm sure it will become true.

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-18-2000 10:03 AM
I tryed to subscribe to Forge, but for some reason the link to the subscribtion page didn't work. I will keep trying.

The secure server seems to cause some problems at least with IE. I have always got in, but it might require multiple tries. When you are in, change the url from https://blah... to http://blah..., that is, remove the "s". This will use the insecured server, and will remove all errors.

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-18-2000 10:03 AM
It seems to me that most of the stuff done at the moment is initial programming issues. I have no great interest in this, and I do not think I can be to much help in that area. My ideas for this game are all ones that can only be used when a playable prototype has been created...
...tell me if there's anything I can do without any programming skills.

This is perfectly understandable. I'm quite optimistic to get some kind of prototype ready in some months, but until then, you could discuss your ideas here, and possibly try to get others to join that conversation. At least I will be here, as the member of the team, to comment those ideas and to keep you updated about the current progress. Would you be interested in that?

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 04-18-2000 10:03 AM
Great that you agree that there should not be two completely different games. There should be several ways to adjust dificulty and realism in the game, so the player would be able to customize the game to excatly what he wants.

Scenarios:
That would be very great to have a scenario resembling the actual history of mankind. However, it would propably be very dificult and timeconsuming to make. I would suggest that we concentrated on making a scenariobuilder that would let everyone create a great scenario.

Customization and scenarios are all going to be there, and the scenario builder, too. At least eventually. About the history of mankind scenario, that is my dream, and when the game is ready, I will definitely start working on it. Until then, there are more important things to do. Like getting the game ready.

Thanks for the support of you all already in advance. Great ideas are as important as programming, for even if the game engine is as good as it gets, but there are no ideas to make a game upon, the engine is of no use. Continue your great work here!

amjayee

The Joker · April 19, 2000, 06:05

Amjayee:

It would be great if you could make such a weekly resume of what has been done.

quote:

Originally posted by amjayee on 04-18-2000 12:30 PM
This is perfectly understandable. I'm quite optimistic to get some kind of prototype ready in some months, but until then, you could discuss your ideas here, and possibly try to get others to join that conversation. At least I will be here, as the member of the team, to comment those ideas and to keep you updated about the current progress. Would you be interested in that?

This was what I had in mind too.

I guess I will try to subscribe to Sourceforge once more.

Jacob:

I can see why mails can be easier accessible than forums, expeccially if you use it that much.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

amjayee · April 25, 2000, 00:52

This is the first one of my reports about the openciv3 project. I will continue making these at least weekly, or more often if need arises.

During the last weekend, we had two very useful meetings, and I am happy to report that we managed to kick the project well underway. In a month or so, we will have much more to tell you. Here are some things we have decided about, that might interest you:

-the project's name, for now, will be openciv3. It's not final, and we will make a better one when the game is more finished, but this one will be used until that.

-The game will not be a clone of any existing game, and neither a vision of civ3, but an ultimate open source empire-building game. What this means, we'll see.

-One of the main features of the game will be an easy modification and extending. We hope to create a good documentation, so anyone can be developing this game to be the best TBS game.

-The game will be turn-based. There are no plans about real-time game, but even if it will be used, the turn-based system will be an option. There has been some talk about the possibility of using simultaneous turns, but nothing has been decided about this, and we don't yet have any idea how this would work.

-The AI will be one of our main concerns. We are hoping, that our game would eventually feature the best computer-opponent AI ever seen on TBS. Most game elements, like cities, units etc. will have some ai. This means, that the player will be able to set most things under computer control. The AI will be made as easily modificable as possible.

-Map will be tile-based, and hexagon tiles are used. The map's main purpose is to be informational, but everything is done to make it good-looking.

-Right now, I am personally working with the map system. I created a simple demo showing the possible map system that will be used. You can download it from my page at www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee. The demo map is small and I will make a better one, but perhaps it will give you an idea of what the map might look like. There's also the source of the demo in the zip, but it's not official and doesn't belong to the game yet.

The map looks 3d, but it is actually only simulating a 3d-looking map on a planar surface. This will increase the performance of the game, and make it easier to place the cities etc. on the map. I think this is how it will be done in the final system, too. It will also be possible to turn off the height-mapping and allow the player to view the map in 2d. The tile borderlines are not visible right now, but there will be an option to turn them on.

Later I plan to make a real 3d-map, that could be an option for the player, but right now I will concentrate on the system featured in the demo.

Give me some feedback about the demo map, and also any suggestions about other game areas. This forum will be used for discussing
the design issues, and at least I will be monitoring it daily. All ideas presented here will be heard by the openciv3 team. Also the list of ideas for Firaxis will form the basis for the final game system.

Looking forward for good cooperation,
amjayee
a member of openciv3 team

heardie · April 25, 2000, 03:11

Also remember to check out the website at
civ3.sourceforge.net, which is currently being uploaded and tell me waht you think

amjayee · May 1, 2000, 18:36

Sorry, I accidentally submitted this message twice. Ignore this.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited May 01, 2000).]

amjayee · May 1, 2000, 18:37

Hmm.

It seems that there's not much discussion taking place here lately. Oh well.

But as I have promised, I will continue the reports. This idea got some positive comments among the team members. This hopefully shows you that the support of apolyton community is appreaciated, and we are willing to keep you well informed.

Last weekend we had once again a very useful meeting. Many problematic programming issues were solved, and we managed to make some short-term plans. We hope they will lead to producing the first simple demo of the game-hopefully before June. It will propably contain only some UI graphics and a scrolling map, but it's a beginning...

Now we hope to receive some feedback from you, and we'd like to see some discussion here. Korn and Joker, where are you?

I know it's hard to comment when there's quite little to comment about, but I'll try and make a short description of what we have decided about the overall game design to this forum. Then you might get a better idea what's going on... Hopefully that will be available here in a few days.

Cheers,
amjayee

The Joker · May 2, 2000, 09:03

I am still involved in this project. I am very pleased to hear that you are on to making a workable prototype.

I know that I have not been very involved in this project lately, but as most of what is being done at this moment (or at least it was so when I last checked a few weeks ago) is initial programming issues. I am, as I have said, not a programmer, and I can therefor not be very helpful in this stage of the production phase. I can not help you in deciding whether to use C++ or Java (or whatever program languages you use), and most of the discussion taking place at this moment is about such things.

I hope that the game will soon evolve into the phase where I can be of help - when you have made a workable prototype. I have a lot of ideas for the game, but they all require some foundation. We can not make sure the rise and fall of great powers are incorporated untill we actually have cities and production in the game.

If you think that I can be helpful at this moment please tell me (by posting it here).

I guess I will once again try to subscribe to SourceForge, and check out what you have been doing.

korn469 · May 3, 2000, 00:54

i'm still here my schedule has really been hectic lately and things are still chaotic but they are finally beginning to settle down, however i can't attend the meetings on saturday because i usually work to around 7pm EST on saturdays (0100 GMT i think) so i have just assumed that the meeting have been over (and sometimes i work later...i usally work between 16 to 22 hours on saturday and sunday) but i will like to participate in a meeting soon...i just signed up for the source forge mailing list today but i have gotten some request mailing from them...not to join the mailing list but something to the effect that Jacob sent me a message or something...when i click on the URL it ask for some administration password that i don't have...i have like 270 egroups mailing list email in my saved email folder and i have only read about 100 of them, so if the password was sent out i missed it but things should be easing up in two weeks when school ends for the semester but yeah i have been in a lurker mode on the project, and hopefully i can get back to an active mode soon

korn469

amjayee · May 3, 2000, 11:02

Korn:

Good to see you are still involved. Don't work too hard, take your time.

The next meeting is on Sunday, 7.5.2000 at 21.30 GMT. It's held on undernet, #openciv3. It usually lasts until 0.00 GMT. Hope you can come there, though for now we are discussing mainly programming issues. There has been some talk about having a meeting only for design issues. Before that, we have to finish the game system and core component design. That will be done hopefully in a week or two. I will send here some more info then.

About the sourceforge mailing list message, that's because there is some kind of limitation for the message length. The project administrator needs to change this setting. Heardie is unavailable though, for some days. We will get more administrators soon, but until that, ignore the message.

I hope there will be more info available about the game system soon, so you can take part to the project.

Cheers,
amjayee

amjayee · May 8, 2000, 11:24

Hi!

This message is mainly for bumping this thread. Things have been quite silent lately, since we have all been more or less busy. The main new thing we have talked about is that the game will use same kind of client/server approach as in freeciv and other games. This means the multiplayer is a natural way of playing the game. Of course ai and single-player game are also our main concerns. We will propably be using the multiplayer code in freeciv, which should make our work a little easier.

I have been working on a document of basic game system functionality. This would give you some idea of how the game system works, and you could be able to start working on the final game design. The main concern is to make the system as flexible as possible, so it would be possible to create a simpler, civ 1 like game, or a more complicated system, with the same engine. I can hopefully tell you more about this later. I have risen some design matters for debate on sourceforge. I'm waiting to see how the others are responding.

amjayee

amjayee · May 15, 2000, 10:39

We have created a new forum in Alternate Civs section. So, if you'd like, we could continue the discussion there. It is quite odd to have this thread in civ3 suggestions forum anyway.

What has been done lately: things have been quiet, but very soon we are starting to code the first prototype of the game. Most propably it will not be a public demo, but that isn't very far away either.

We have been making decisions about an events system, that could be used for scenarios and ai. It is able to track any game/interface event and react to them by triggering any action in the game. This is done by using some kind of macro language. We will provide more info about this later.

We have also almost agreed to use dll's for ai programming. This will allow a far easier modification of ai. Also every civilization can have its own ai dll file, to allow it to react to events uniquely.

I hope we can make the game system description available soon, so you may better participate.

The Joker · May 16, 2000, 08:25

Haleluja! I always thought we should have our own forum!

Why not make it a public demo?

I will be off to the forum and check it out.

amjayee · May 16, 2000, 11:25

quote:

Originally posted by The Joker on 05-16-2000 08:25 AM
Why not make it a public demo?

The first prototypes will include only the partial game system. It is only meant for us to test the communication between the game components, and to make sure the components itself work. We wish that the public demos will have the full basic game framework working, even if they haven't got all the functions. But we'll see about that later. If it is good and works properly - why not to give it to some other people to check out, too? Perhaps we could be sending it via email to carefully selected audience. But as I said, we will discuss it when the prototype is actually working.

Ok, I will still be monitoring this thread now and then, but I think we should continue the discussion in the Alternative Civs forum.

markusf · May 17, 2000, 22:54

Never know what you discouver when you read these forums *lol*

I looked at the map generator, its pretty impressive. I even looked at some of the code, makes me remember why i hated C

How come the renderer doesn't use triple buffering, won't you get transistion delays? As for the AI, if someone felt like doing the all the processing in lisp(god forbid), he could compile it to a binary create a shell C+ DLL and then link it in?

amjayee · May 18, 2000, 09:37

quote:

Originally posted by markusf on 05-17-2000 10:54 PM
I looked at the map generator, its pretty impressive. I even looked at some of the code, makes me remember why i hated C

How come the renderer doesn't use triple buffering, won't you get transistion delays?

The engine demo was only ment to be, well, a demo of a possible map drawing system. It is far from final, the code was only a tutorial project I found on the net and modified. The final map drawing system will be based on it, but enhanced a lot. It will also use many kinds of advanced technologies, but only if those make the map better, not just because they are there.

About c++, it just happens to be the best multi-purpose language, and also the most widely used nowadays.

quote:

Originally posted by markusf on 05-17-2000 10:54 PM
As for the AI, if someone felt like doing the all the processing in lisp(god forbid), he could compile it to a binary create a shell C+ DLL and then link it in?

Yes, we are going to make a ai system, where all ai data is in dll's, and the game itself has no ai in it, just dll reading stuff. So, the player can create his own ai files with his favorite language (if he can make dll's with it, that is) and use them in the game. We haven't yet figured out how this system works (we have hardly started the project), but we will keep you all informed about everything.

If you are interested in our project, check out the Openciv3 thread in the Alternate Civs forum, or our webpage at civ3.sourceforge.net. If you don't know c++, you can take part to the designing process, but if you can program c++ and want to help, that's great! We could use more programmers. But if you just want to keep informed about the project, check those places I mentioned above.

markusf · May 18, 2000, 23:05

I am a lead designer, and oversee development and design of $$$ projects for fortune 500 companies. I could help in the design process, as for programming c++ i have forgotten most of it, and the syntax is so alien, but its fast.(the only advantage of C in my opinion)

The Joker · May 19, 2000, 08:49

That is great!

Check out the webpage, and please join the discussion at the Alternative Civs Forums!

Welcome on board!