Stepping up to the plate....

[Velociryx]

Okay....now you've gone and done it! Ever since I saw my name listed among the "People you'd like to see on the design team for Civ-4, I've been thinking about that.

I've been thinking about that a lot, actually.

And I've decided to step up to the plate.

True, this is somewhat off topic here, and I apologize for that, but....this was the forum where the idea was born, so I figured I'd start a thread here to generate more discussion about the possibilities and what I have in mind.

Every big adventure, every grand journey needs a good, solid beginning, and in this case, what could be more important than a name? LOL

So the name of this "Company" this band of stalwart adventurers that does not quite exist yet is....I dunno...."Velocigames" ?? Heh....or something like that.

And I'll tell you right now, I wanna start simple.

I've got some ideas, but I don't want to have to spend a gazillion years getting something playable out the door.

A simple design, entirely moddable by players (including the AI), that has a high replay value.

The other key requirement is scalability.

I wanna be able to take this simple design and keep adding components to its framework.

Layer upon layer of added complexity, ramping the AI up to meet the ever-increasing complexities as we go, but taking things in small bites. Small steps.

To that end, I think I'm gonna start with the "Candle' Bre" idea in my Ai (Artificial Instinct....NOT Intelligence) thread....I'll post the highlights here to foster more discussion.

Problem: I know BEANS about programming, and I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination.

Which means I'll need help.

As I see it, the basic design of the game as outlined thus far can be categorized into four major areas:

AI
Combat
Economy
Interface/Art

The way I see it, I'll need four "volunteers" to get started....one for each functional area.

I'll also need about five other people who's areas of expertise I've not quite settled in on, but that's coming.

A total of ten people, counting me. No more than that.

I'll also need a "Gallery." People who are willing to discuss stuff and bat ideas around, cos this thing sure as hell can't (and won't) get developed in a vaccuum with a bag over my head and
blinders over my eyes.

Setup:
I'm not gonna rant and rave about the need to make the project pay. Everybody knows that in the end, it should. All I'll say on that subject is that I've got a plan to make it pay, if we put a quality product out (and if I get any "volunteers" for this wayward project, I'll mail you the particulars of that portion of my idea).

For the moment, however, let me say this. At first, we don't worry about makin' money with it. Let's focus our energies (and admittedly, since our top priority is not gonna be to make a mint,
this stuff will be in the "spare time" or "hobbyist" category for the people who decide to help me with this project (assuming any are forthcoming) on getting a good-looking, playable, FUN basic game out to anybody and everybody who's interested in testing it and helping work the kinks out.

A full featured, fully moddable version of the game (including moddable AI)

Then, once we see if the Artificial instinct ideas fly....once we know we've got the makings of a cult classic on our hands, we start adding those layers of complexity.

Once we can prove that the Ai notion is a viable one. Once we prove to the fan base OF the game that we've got a good thing going, then we'll move toward making it a commercially viable product.

Now....maybe it'll be the case that nobody with the skills it'll take to really make this thing sing will want to come forward and volunteer their time and skills.

I'd totally understand that.

It is, after all, (even for a relatively SIMPLE design) going to take time and work.

There will be disagreements over design, form, and function, and, since we'll be doing all this in what amounts to a glass house (totally public development) there will, no doubt, be TONS of colorful debates.

So....maybe it'll die right here, with this post.

But if not....if not, then we could be standing on the brink of a brand new adventure.

One that will take us....who knows where?

I'd certainly love to try it though, and I'm hoping that I'm not alone....

*****

[Velociryx]

The Basic Game Design (none of this is set in stone! This is simply stuff straight off the top of my head! Remember, the goal for version 1.0 of this project is simplicity and replayability! Please bear that in mind when discussing elements of it....we can always add layers of complexity later, but for the moment, our focus should be on putting a basic, playable AND replayable deisgn together)


The Courts of Candle'Bre


Background: Candle’Bre is a tiny kingdom, surrounded on all sides by vast stretches of mountains. Extremely isolated, and little contact with the outside world (note – for game purposes, there is NO outside contact. Candle’Bre is an entirely closed system).

Recently, the kingdom was ripped asunder by murder most foul, when the ENTIRE royal family was slain in a single night of madness and bloodshed.

Now, the Lords of Candle’Bre stand on the brink of war, each making a bid for the throne of the tiny Kingdom.

OoO

Notes: There are five Royal Houses of Candle’Bre, each having different traits and abilities that affect gameplay. Specific notes on them are as follows:

The Furies (default human player) – Led by Lord Michael Fury, this family has a long, proud history of serving as the King’s right hand. The Furies are good, noble folk, and boast the finest, best Cavalry in the realm (cavalry attacks at +2 and defends at +1) (Two special Leaders: Sir Kenna Fury – Cav. Commander, and Lord Stephen Fury – The Grand Marshal of the King’s Guard)

The Mourngrym Family – Led by Lord Flavin Mourngrym, this family is far and away the wealthiest in the Kingdom (perhaps even wealthier than the King himself, tho this has never been proved). It is whispered in dark corners that Mourngrym sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his fabulous wealth. Whispered, because people who speak too loudly of such things often vanish without a trace. (special powers – Mercenaries can be hired at half the normal rate, chances for espionage success are 50% more likely to succeed – money to grease the wheels).

The Castillar Family – Led by Gloriana Castillar, this family’s power base is centered around religion. For sixteen generations, the men and women of the family have found their calling in the service of the Church, and as such, they hold tremendous sway over the commoners of the realm. (special powers – provincial defection: 30% more likely to succeed for this family than any other, 50% more likely if Gloriana is in an adjacent province – resistance to enemy espionage attempts at causing provinces to rebel/defect). Special Leader: Gloriana Castillar (General/Clergywoman).

The Council of Seven: The Kingdom’s “Lower House” was long ago given stewardship over a large tract of Candle’ Bre to serve as the basis of their power. Special Power = The wise men of the council are well respected by all in the Kingdom, and attempts to make war on them would generally be frowned upon by all – warring on the Council of Seven would result in a loss of Honor, AND an increase in the likelihood of rebellion in the attackers’ territories for the duration of the war. Additionally, the Councilmen have a special unit: Praetorians (Elite, bada$$ defensive unit).

The Council of Five: The Kingdom’s governing “Upper House” is made up of five mysterious, reclusive wizards, who were also given stewardship over a large tract of land during the King’s reign. Little is known of their powers, but they are greatly feared nonetheless (special powers: Choose one at game start: Pestilence, Probability, or Divination)
Pestilence: Requires X spell points to cast. Any military units moving through the target province are subject to triple normal attrition rates. Leaders suffer a 2% per turn (cumulative) chance of dying. Every turn the pestilence remains, the territory has a 3% (cumulative) chance of rebelling against its controller.

Probability: Requires X spell points to cast. The wizards may use their magic to impact the outcome of a battle (this amounts to “redoing” the battle (new random number seed) for a better or more desirable result). (x is paid on a per battle basis, no battle can be refought more than twice).

Divination: Requires X spell points to cast. The wizards may “spy on” any other house, and gain perfect information on their enemies. (is is paid on a per territory basis)


Game Concepts to introduce to the AI:
Honor: X # of Honor Points will win you the game by default.

Combat (standard A/D/M valuations for middle ages units, and giving the AI recognition of them)

Rebellion % (and other espionage abilities)

Special Leaders (attributes, and the AI should be given a desire to actively destroy them – adjustable).

Diametric tensions: Two ways to win the game: Accumulation of Honor and Controlling 2/3 rds of the provinces that make up the Kingdom.

How can we make Honor a different, and viable form of victory?

Honor is gained by:
Combat
1) Mercy (captured leaders are ransomed, not killed)
2) Captured troops are released or disarmed, not slaughtered
3) Allies are aided with gifts of money
4) Alliances are not broken (+x for every N Turns that an alliance is kept in good standing –note that these gains are doubled then subtracted if an alliance is broken….meaning the longer the alliance is in good standing before the betrayal, the deeper the impact on Honor).

Honor is lost by:
1) Getting caught using Espionage techniques (penalty depends on the severity)
2) Slaughtering captured troops/leaders
3) Attacking the Council of Seven

Thus, it should be theoretically possible to ally yourself with the Council of Seven (or anyone, really) and win by gifting them units and cash (the family that can hire cheap mercs could hire an army and gift it to their allies,for example, letting the allies do the heavy lifting, while they accumulate honor by being good and worthy allies).

*****

Economic Model:
To add a layer of complexity to the game, I’ll attempt to broadly outline the economic model here. The goal is to create a system strong enough to facilitate a good many divergent strategies, but not so overwhelmingly complex that the AI is bogged down and unable to fight its way out of the proverbial wet paper bag.

Candle’Bre is composed of Provinces. For the moment, we’ll say that there are a total of 60 provinces in the game. A player going for a military win would need 2/3rds under his control, or 40.

Each Province has an Income Valuation, expressed in a number visible on the main map (similar to Axis and Allies). This is the BASELINE per turn gold value that the Province rakes in. The sum-total of these values represents each players’ income.

Income is used for a variety of things:
1) Paying upkeep costs of your standing forces
2) Building Improvements in your Provinces
3) Hiring Mercenaries
4) Hiring Special Units
5) Training New Troops
6) Research

Each of these will be covered in turn.
1) Paying Upkeep for your standing forces: Each company of soldiers in your service requires 1g in upkeep each turn. If this fee is not paid, the unit is not lost, but simply deactivated. It may not move. It will not initiate an attack, but it WILL defend (half strength).
2) Improvements: A Province may contain no more than three (3) improvements, forcing the player to make strategic choices about what to build where. Building Barracks near the front line of a looming battle will have the effect of allowing you to churn out troops close to the action, but you run the risk of losing the territory AND your ability to defend those behind it. Available builds depend on your level of research.
3) Hiring Mercenaries. Normal combat units (ones you train yourself) have static combat values, mercenaries do not. Their combat values are floating, depending on the level of salary you provide them (the higher you set your per turn upkeep, the better they fight). Note though, that even the best paid mercenary force is no match for an elite “standing” fighting force. 1:1, the Mercenaries will lose every time. Their main strengths are a) They do not require a Barracks to train, and b) They can be hired en mass to achieve a specific objective (adjusting their salaries to whatever level of effectiveness is required). Note too, that attrition rates are higher for Mercenary units (double)
4) There are, at present, only four types of special units available (but more may be considered later: a) Sages (increase your research rate – Each Sage has a speciality – see below) b) Justicars (decrease the chance of rebellion in the province they are assigned to) c) Spy (used to conduct espionage missions) d) Taxman (used to increase the baseline revenue value of the province they are assigned to)
5) Training New Troops – This is, when the dust settles, a war game, so training troops will be where the bulk of your money ultimately goes. All the Provincial Improvements are simply a means to an end…allowing you to field a large enough army to claim the Kingdom of Candle’ Bre as your own.
6) Research – Is broken into four categories: Military Research, Infrastructural Research, Espionage Research, and Lifestyle Research. Military Research gives you better weapons (expressed as attack bonuses, and sometimes new combat abilities…also the occasional new unit). Infrastructural Research gives you additional buildings for provincial improvement. Espionage Research opens up more “sneaky stuff” to do to your opponents. Lifestyle Research increases the quality of life for those living in Provinces you control. This leads to happier people who are more able to resist attempts made by others to sow the seeds of rebellion. It also (over time) increases the per turn gold values of your Provinces.

“Techs” For the moment, we’ll leave the techs unnamed, simply referring to them as M1, M2, M3, etc(military techs), I1, I2, I3 (Infrastructure techs) and so forth. Eventually, we can get around to giving them names, but for now, this gives us a good “thumbnail reference.”

Builds: It is unknown at this time just how many total builds will be available, or what techs will make them available. For the moment tho, the ones in my head are:
Bank: Each bank pays a 1% interest on any money carried over from turn to turn. (taxmen may only be assigned to provinces with a bank)
University: Each University contributes 2% per turn to research in the fields you are currently researching in (Sages may only be hired and assigned to provinces with a university)
Barracks: Allows for the training of troops
Fortress: Provides defense bonuses in the event of an attack
Castle: Provides greater defense bonuses than a fortress in the event of an attack
Courthouse: Provides a +5% resistance to rebellion factors (justicars may only be hired in provinces with a courthouse, but may be assigned to any province that is adjacent to the province containing the courthouse, or the courthouse province itself).
Temples: Each temple constructed provides you 1 influence point per turn (influence is covered later, and has one, and only one very specific use)
Thieves Guild: spies may only be recruited from provinces with thieves guilds in them. The thieves guild itself provides counter-espionage abilities for that province, making it more difficult to conduct espionage therein.
Guilders’ Hall: Reduces the cost of non mercenary units by 10% (may only be built in provinces that contain a barracks)

· Note that no province may contain more than two special units, and the special units in question may not be of the same type!

Influence: Influence is a means of assisting your allies. Temples provide you a per turn influence total which is stored until used (ie – you don’t lose it at the end of each turn). For the price of 20 Influence points, you may interrupt any in-game attack (the clergy in your provinces send representative to the field of battle and demand a halt of hostilities….given the power of the Church, such decrees are always heeded!). Caveats to this are as follows:
1) If you use your influence to spare an ally an attack, you gain honor
2) If you cowardly use such tactics (hiding behind the coattails of the Church) to prevent an attack on one of YOUR territories, or on YOUR troops, you lose honor

****

Units:
The following units are available at game start:

Skirmisher/Scout – Lightly armored infantry based unit – The only foot unit that can keep pace with cav (2 moves)
Archer – Ranged attacker, lousy at hand to hand (1 move)
Cavalry – Speed unit, devastating for their ability to execute flank attacks (2 moves)
Pikemen – Provide defense against cavalry, extra vulnerable to archers (1 move)
Infantry – The grunts of the army that do most of the real fighting (1 move)
Siege Engine – Abstracted to represent a variety of engines, the presence of these units do not affect combat per se, but weaken the defensive modifiers gained by enemy fortresses and castles. (1 move)

*Technological Advance through the Militaristic branch of the tree may allow for other types of units as the game progresses.

Combat:
Each unit represents a company of 100 Men. Units can be stacked and combined into groups with the following considerations:
1) The group moves at the rate of the slowest member of the group.
2) The group fights as a cohesive unit (ie – all a/d values are added together).
3) Losses taken by the group are spread out as evenly as possible
4) In the absence of a leader, no more than 4 units (400 men) can be stacked together.
5) With a leader, this number jumps to eight (8) units as a maximum.

Combat occurs in rounds, and in the following order:
1) Ranged units fire (attacker/defender)
2) Losses are taken
3) Cavalry Flanking maneuvers/charges are performed (morale check for those receiving the charge)
4) Losses are taken
5) Ground troops attack
6) Losses are taken
7) Morale Check and Repeat.

Note that a charging/flanking cavalry unit may only attack “every other round.” (spending the off rounds re-grouping and gaining position).

Combat continues each round until:
1) One side is eliminated
2) One side’s morale breaks

If morale breaks, some portion of the breaking army is captured, and the rest retreat to the nearest friendly province. Captured units may either be ransomed or killed at the player’s option.

Weak Units:
Can be restored to full strength by spending a turn not moving, attacking, or defending, and for a gold value equal to x, where x is the % cost of the unit (ie – let’s say you have a company of Infantry that’s down to 50% strength. It’d cost you 50% of that unit’s full price to bring it back to full strength).

Unit Experience:
The REASON for wanting to restore weakened units is to keep their experience. Every three victories the unit participates in, they gain a “level” of experience, expressed in terms of higher unit morale (+10%). As the unit is weakened through attrition and later replenished, the raw recruits DO negatively impact morale, but only 1% per 20 Recruits added to the unit.

Leaders: Have a combat and morale enhancing attribute (both expressed as percentages). Units or groups with leaders at the head do more damage pound for pound, defend better, and are less likely to break in battle.

Elite units (150%+ morale) that win battles have a 20% chance of spawning a War Leader (the elite unit is lost, the War Leader is gained).

Mercenary units can NEVER generate War Leaders.

****

Baseline Provincial Values are determined thusly:
10g per turn, per province that lies adjacent to the province in question. (Thus, territories with LOTS of
borders are quite valuable, but vulnerable to attack from a variety of directions).

This baseline number is then subject to improvement via builds, special units, and other factors that we
may develop later....

-=Vel=-

[yin26]

Wow...what can I say? I personally believe that the best things often come from people with passion and very little money. You, sir, seem to fit the description perfectly! My only advice at this point is: Don't sue independent strategy guide makers.

Good Luck!!

[Velociryx]

Brother Yin....I'm very glad to see your name popping up here! Oh....I dunno if anybody will wanna help me see it through or no, but I can promise you that if we get a team put together....if we can make it fly....no worries! No suing will be going on here! LOL

I intend to do the documentation for the game myself, so with any luck, there won't be a need for any sort of third party strat guide anyways, but my vision for this thing is to make nearly every component moddable. Baseline province valuations, building costs, tech costs and effects, and units in the basic design, and later, as layers of complexity are added, things that'll be moddable are different government types, public works activities, and perhaps even diplomatic options.....starting from nothing is a grand thing cos the sky is, quite literally the limit.

I'm open to any and every idea people can throw at me. Even if it's more complexity that can be worked into the game's first iteration, we can always table it for later.

I think.....

I think it'll ROCK!



-=Vel=-

[SlightlyMadman]

You might want to consider trimming the design down a bit more to simplify things. As it stands now, you have something that's functionally equivalent to a game like civilization.

If you cut out research, and make the play field a bit more static, it might be something that could be done by a small group in their spare time.

I'm envisioning a playing board starting out equally divided among all players. It might look a bit like a Risk board, cut up into large chunks (provinces), not on a grid, like civ.

You'd move your forces into a province to take control of it. Combat would be approached from a strategic level, not a tactical one.

Something like this could be written without much trouble, it's a simple system. Graphics needn't be too complex. Without having to worry about tactics, the AI gets a lot simpler. Little micromanagement makes for a simpler system.

I'd put most of the effort into diplomacy. AI's could be written to access a generic interface. Different AI classes could be created, and loaded into the game. You could even assign a different one for each opponent.

This could be a great game, if it's kept simple enough that it remains possible with limited resources.

I'll help out. I'd write the code in java. It's best for a clean, high-level, flexible program. There's even a scripting language, bean shell, which people could use as a modding tool.

How did you want to license this? I take it you have no intention of trying to sell the game commercially? An open source license would be the way to go. Maybe the GPL, or the LGPL, which would allow you to keep a lot of the code if you decided to turn it into a commercial app down the road.

[Comrade Tribune]

Hi, Vel! Good Luck!

The 'Disenchantment' discussion with Analyst, you and others brought me to a similar decision. (Great minds think alike. )

My concept is quite different, however: I would keep the original topic (Bronce Age to 2.000AD), but totally redesign the entire system from a new angle. So Firaxis might have two new challengers now. I am going to develop my approach to Civ over the next few days on the 'Disenchanted' thread; be sure to come over and compare notes!

[Velociryx]

Hey guy! The questions/comments you posed have got me thinking a bit deeper about the game's basic design, and here's more on what I'm thinking:

* The "Risk" analogy is an excellent one. Consider it risk with a greater variety of units. Definitely a strategic level game at present though, rather than a tactical one.

* Techs - IMO, the thing that makes this a vastly simplified version of the Civ-style tech tree, is that it is a tree with no branches, more akin to what happens with research in EU. The paths are all linear, and the only real consideration is what percentages of your available funds do you want to apply to which areas of research. In essence then, I view the "tech-component" of the game to be little more (at least in the game's basic deisgn) as a "counter" to specifiy when you can build certain infrastructural builds and/or unit types. Unlike the Civ-style tree, there is no need to concern ourselves with worrying over giving the AI a sense of what techs to beeline....that should be covered in the basic (moddable) AI list of priorities (ie- a highly militant AI design will want the bulk of his research efforts centered around military techs, with just enough emphasis in other areas (infrastructure) to help pay for the ever-growing army).

*One thing to consider (let the debate begin on this topic!) is the notion of Simultaneous moves, proposed for civ by yin, in his comparison of risk2/civ3. IF it would not overly add to complexity from a programming standpoint, this would be a very cool feature to add!

* Diplomacy - Quite right. Very definitely saved for another, later iteration of the game. In the initial release, about the only diplomatic options will be: War, Peace, and Ransom (for captured troops/leaders).

* The game map: 60 provinces, with each player starting out with X number of territories (the map need not be fully divided, and in fact, this can be used to alter difficulty settings for the game). Say that by default, each player may select five territories (contiguous or not.....probably so, but we can make it optional), with the remainder of the territories being "neutral" and not having cast their lot with any of the principal factions. To capture a neutral territory should be an easy affair....simply attack the token garrisons holding it (call them light infantry/skirmishers, 1 per 10 gold value of the territory).

* The presence of forts and/or troops should have a (probably rather large) impact on insulating the province from rebellion. A bit tough to succeed with a rebellion if a province is crawling with loyal troops!

* Licensing. The general plan is this: The initial release should be completely, 100% free and functional. We gotta prove that we can do it, after all. If we succeed in that, then as we ramp up the complexity, we can market it as a saleable product, in order to compensate those involved for their time and effort. At least, that's the gist of what I'm thinking.

[Velociryx]

Will do Comrade! And good luck! With such a vast sea of creativity here, I think we'll have no shortage of good ideas! I'm counting on that!

-=Vel=-

[SlightlyMadman]

I just had an interesting thought. The majority of the game is played on the board I explained above, an easy to manage environment, with interconnected provinces, that you merely move armies into, without concern for tactiral arrangments.

Here's a twist, though: When you attack an enemy province, the game switches to a "tactical view." Your army is lined up along one side of the "tactical map," which is just that region. The defending army is arranged in a defensive position that has been assigned to the province.

You then micromanage your units for the actual battle. When moving them around, you see them merely as numbers, but you interact with them individually in combat.

Did you ever play the old SSI AD&D games? It's just like that. You moved as one unit until combat, at which point you switch to a tactical map where you move all of your party against all of your enemies.

Even better, the game could be initially designed, and completely playable, without this tactical interface. Battles would be handles abstractly. Then, when the game is otherwise finished, the tactical combat could be flawlessly plugged in. It could even be a configurable option, so that people who didn't want to be bothered could play without it.

The AI routines handling combat tactics would be completely seperate from the strategic AI routines.

[yin26]

Vel: My other advice is you really should invest in learning to program most of this stuff yourself. You don't want to have to depend on other people for the meat and potatoes stuff. Artwork, sure. That can be farmed out.

I say this because ultimately even if the day comes when you are making good money off of these games (and I hope you reach that level one day because I think you'd be awesome for the industry), you'll want these hotshot programmers straight out of school to know that you are more than capable of ripping up their code and teaching them some lessons next time they say: "That will take 8 months and overtime to make happen."

I also say this because at this point you are like a young artist who want a paiting to be made ... but he's hoping others will mix the paint and apply the brushstrokes. Hey, you are an incredibly sharp guy with a great passion for game design: Pull up your sleeves and code the AI yourself! Teach people how it's done!

You know how 'God gives no challenge that He thinks can't be met.' Well, I ain't God, but I'm issuing the challenge.

[cassembler]

Yummy... I can't program for squat, and my graphics are... not. I can however, devise a system for easy audio architecture so that when some dude makes a mod, all he's gotta do is load up a .wav/.mp3/ or whatever file (or groups of files and the comp randomly selects) and associate it with an event.

Anyways, I've always liked AD&D just for the statistics for things... Like in your troop combat experience model, perhaps better units offer more experience when killed?

I'm thinking about the actual code architecture and visions of the Civ3 editor (when it's primed properly). It would be nice for every entity in the game to basically have a universal architecture.

For example, an entity might be a city improvement. It is handled by the code the same as say a unit or a tech advance.

Something like this:
Entity name: Barracks
Entity type: city improvement
value 1 type: cost in gold
value 1: 80
value 2 type: upkeep in gold /turn
value 2: 2
value 3 type: effect of no upkeep pay
value 3: no effect generated by entity for x turns
subvalue 3a type: integer for x
subvalue 3a: 2
value 4 type: improvement effect
value 4: train units
subvalue 4a type: cost of effect in gold
subvalue 4a: 20
subvalue 4b type: target unit's max level for effect
subvalue 4b: elite
value 5 type: improvement effect
value 5: % increase to soldier production of territory
subvalue 5a type: % increase
subvalue 5a: 20
value 6 type: effect of conquering
value 6: no effect generated by entity for x turns
subvalue 6a type: integer for x
subvalue 6a: 3


An example of a tech advance
Entity name: Gunpowder
Entity type: military tech advance
v1 type: cost in beakers
v1: 30
v2 type: tech advance requirement
v2: beer drinking

en example of a unit
Entity name: Musketeer
Entity type: military unit
v1 type: cost in gold
v1: 30
v2 type: upkeep in gold/ turn
v2: 2
v3 type: unit ability
v3: movement
subv 3a type: terrain restriction
subv 3a: ocean squares
subv 3b type: movement in squares/ turn
subv 3b: 2
subv 3c type: effect of forrest terrain
subv 3c: attack reduced by x%
subv 3ca type: integer for x
subv 3ca: 30
v4 type: unit ability
v4: combat

and so on....

I like this idea because obviously it promotes an open-ended architecture that's completely moddable...

This could be greatly streamlined as well...
Any option (such as upkeep cost) would default to 0 if a value was not submitted.

$.02

[Velociryx]

Yes indeed! I like the "zoom in" feature as an option! I think you're right tho, that at least in terms of getting something playable up and running, it should wait. Still, the idea of plugging it in later and giving the players the option is top notch! (I'm thinking "Imperialism II" here!)

-=Vel=-
PS: And, if we find some willing and able artists, there's absolutely no reason why this game can't look every bit as good as games currently out on the market!

[Velociryx]

Cass: I like the "universal architechure" approach, and you're right....it seems that would be needed if we're gonna make a game where almost everything is player-moddable. I follow the logic of it, even if I don't know squat about coding either!

Yin: OUCH! You had to go and lay down a challenge like that, did you? LOL...Ohhhh, that was cold! You have no idea how bad a case of the willies even *contemplating* doing something like coding gives me! I like to consider myself to be a good idea guy, but when it comes to sitting down to write code....UGH....

Hmm....but you're prolly right. The good thing is that, if this thing begins to take shape and flight, the simple exposure to the process will, almost by default, expand my knowledge of the ins and outs of it a great many times over what it is currently.

And, I suppose it wouldn't KILL me to pick up a few programming books and start to learn the basics, however, in the interest of speed (cos god only knows how long it'd take me to gain any sort of mastery over it), I'm desperately seeking people who already know....I can peek over their shoulders and get up to speed a bit faster that way, and as the development continues, perhaps even try my hand at it (as long as somebody who knows more about it is on hand to debug all the goofy mistakes I'm liable to make! LOL).

-=Vel=-

[reds4ever]

vel, are you aware of CivEvolution? the most interesting thing (to me)about the project is that each AI is a seperate client of the main program, so any number of player wriiten AI's can be plugged in (and any remote MP is handled the same), it seems to me to be more flexible to be able to write an AI from the ground up than just having a 'modable' AI.

here's he link: http://c-evo.org/

good luck anyway

[SlightlyMadman]

Sounds good. Count me in. I work for a living, so me free time isn't too excessive, but I'm sure I can find the time to contribute to something like this.

Cass: that's a great way of looking at it. I'd take it even further and have an entity be merely a collection of behavior scripts (the editor tool would have script generation utilities so non-programmers could do it). This way, you're not locked into tweaking behaviors that have already been coded. Instead of saying that it has an upkeep cost of 2, you add this line to the maintenance script:

treasury.addGold(-2);

in thu "create unit" script, you add:

unit.setVeteran(true);

Some more thought would obviously have to be put into the methods available, but that's the general idea. Anything that can be programmed in the game can be modded, to an extent.
Entities would still have base attributes (like cost and attack value) hard coded into the system, but their behavior and effect is totally dynamic.

[Velociryx]

Was reading on that site just today, in fact, and it's sorta along the same lines of what I was thinking.

What I mean by moddable AI routines tho, is this (which I suppose amounts to pretty much the same thing as the CivEv site's definition)

We start with what amounts to a basic game engine where the parameters of the game world are all defined.

The AI must acknowledge and "fit into" the parameters of the basic game engine.

So, when I refer to moddable AI, I simply mean that we have some kinna "front end" build onto the game (rather like civ3's editor) with all the various world parameters laid out there, and players can use this interface to create ai's of their own with a variety of "emphasis factors" that can be set to any portion of the game system (so, you could make an AI whose greatest interest lay in increasing his research, setting that really high as a priority, at the expense of nearly everything else, or any odd combination of settings you choose) - Essentially, it'd work sort of on a points based system. Each AI has X number of priority points that players can move around near infinitely. You could also step outside the box and create "super AI's" that violate the standard point-based limit for an even greater challenge. (giving AI's more than the standard number of "points" to play with would, by default, give them production advantages to be able to make full use of the greater than normal number of priorities)

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Duly counted, Sir Madman...Heh...'sides, I kinna like the notion of working with a madman...slightly or no!

-=Vel=-

[yin26]

Sorry Vel! You just strike me as a highly intelligent guy who enjoys to play around with language and be creative. To me, that's a kind of programming. I have read books on and dabbled with C++ programming just for the fun of it. I never got beyond "Hello World!" but I did compile some basic programs ... things like calculating how long I've been alive in seconds, etc. Hell, that's nothing, but it did help me understand things a whole lot better and it was fun.

I did find it a challenge, though, to find good books for the teach yourself kind of guy, like me. Most books just run on and on at length without giving you a proper chance to practice, and most books assume you have all kinds of previous experience ... and the books that don't are written more as theoritical intros than anything of practical use. Those 'Teach Yourself C++ in 26 Days!' books are worthless. Honestly.

I guess the trick there is to hop in a class or two at the local community college if you can. With a good instructor helping you out, I bet you'd be able to run all kinds of programming challenges by him, and you might made a powerful programming ally in the process.

This is not to say you shouldn't recruit help, of course. I just think a Vel who can program would be a Mighty Vel indeed!

[SlightlyMadman]

Here's some specifics of what I'm thinking. It's a design I've been playing with for a while now. Maybe I can combine it with the system you've designed to make something really fun.

Main map:
devided into multiple provinces. I'm thinking hexagonal. Square will make things easier to code, or irregular shapes could make things harder, but maybe be the most interesting.

Economy:
Every turn, you get (population * tax rate) gold added to your treasury.

Provinces:
Each province has a population. Population can grow or shrink, as citizens are born, die, or migrate to other provinces.

Population may be converted into military units, at a cost from the treasury.

Improvements may be added to a province, at a cost from the treasury.

Expansion:
Moving your army into a province claims it.

Combat:
Moving your army into somebody else's province starts combat. If the attacker wins, he moves into the province.

***

It's a simple system. Basically like risk, but with the ability to improve your territories, and different unit types.

I have to go home now (I was working late tonight), but I'll be thinking about it. Maybe I can put together a proof of concept demo soon.

I'll look around tomorrow and see if there are any other projects out there, doing something similar that we can share code and ideas with.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Vel, and the rest of the potential team. You've got some great ideas, and I hope it works out! But before you get too far I'd like you to read my plea, and think about it...

There are already a raft of "Program your own Civ" projects. Please check out the Alternative Civs Forum right here on Apolyton.

[pulls out soapbox, strides atop]
Please, please consider what is available in existing projects before you start a new project. There are few enough people really willing to work to make alterative civ games happen, so IMO its important they band together to work on relatively few projects to attain critical mass. That way some can actually become mature. The alternative is lots of projects that use up time and effort, and never even get to the stage of putting out a demo.

Many years of history have shown that the odds against projects like this getting significantly off the ground are very high. If the typical course is followed, you will soon get a few programmers who say they are interested and willing to work. Maybe a few of them actually will, for a bit. The success rate on recruits is like 5-10% for getting Anything coded. The design can actually evolve quite far without any code. But without a functioning game, there the design will sit.

I know you want to put your own stamp on a civ-type game by building it from the ground up, and I'd like to Play it. But facts are that I'm much more likely to be able to play a partly Vel-designed game if you throw in with an existing project IMO.

I am sorry to have to say this Cassandra-like, but every new project dilutes the potential talent just a bit more. I've blurted out this basic speach many a time on these forums. So far every nascent project to which I've given it has yet to even produce a fairly simple demo. Some of those projects started more than a year ago. The more successful projects are those where the lead can also program. In those sort of projects the combination of vision and skills can get something done. That is why I'm pushing for the interested people here to join an existing project rather than starting another. That extra effort that you and the already-forming team could give an existing project might be the critical difference between it taking off, and only slowly plodding along. And, purely from a personal perspective, I want to Play some non-commercial civ-type games!
[gets off soapbox, looking somewhat sheepish]

There are projects going in each of several directions from the original Civilization in Alt Civs, including FreeCiv. Please check it out! I bet you can figure out which one I'm partial to...

I don't want to hijack your thread, so I'll only speak back if spoken to. But if you are Serious, and want to do this, I think you should follow Yin's advice and learn how to program so that you can be the programmer of last resort! That way only your interest is required to keep the project going.

If you do go ahead, I wish you the Best of Luck, and truly hope to be able to play your game!

-Mark

[Mikael]

Amen Mark. Civ-like projects UNITE!!!!

[yin26]

I'll handle marketing in Korea.

[Velociryx]

Yin & Mark: Quite so, and since the first person to step up with programming knowledge mentioned Java, I suppose that is where my journey will take me first! To Barnes and Noble with me, to suck down some strong coffee, and steel myself in preparation to learn the ropes of it.

Mark - you make some excellent and valid points. In fact, I have long given consideration to throwing in with your group to help out. It was only recently, when I began to see my name cast about here as someone people mentioned they'd like to see in some kind of "from the ground up" project that I began to think in terms of starting up a totally new effort.

Mostly because I'm painfully aware of the truth behind your words, I intend to start VERY simply. Simple concept. Simple design. Lots of replayability. That's my initial goal. In fact, the initial result probably won't have much of a Civ-stamp to it at all. It'll be a simple war game, played out on a pretty static board/map, BUT....

With the experience gleaned from such a simple project, and if that project is designed from the outset to "scale up" to something more complex, then as modules are added to the basic design, it begins to approach the complexity of the Civ-series....er...at least that is the hope!

In my mind, what will sustain the project in the long term is to remain "plugged in" to the forum community, in much the same fashion as your group is, by holding ongoing discussions about ways to increase the complexity of the design until a point is reached where we can stand back and say: Yep....that's got it nailed!

Between your words here, and Yin's challenge, I feel all the more compelled to see if I can make this thing happen. I don't wanna be one of the ones that dies on the vine.....

::sigh:: It's a long road, even for a relatively simple project. A lot of work and learning new stuff that seems very daunting to me right now. This, work, trying to get my writing career off the ground. It's a lot all at once.

::shrug:: But what the hell!

Madman: Sounds like your basic idea and mine can be melded together pretty easily. For the sake of even greater simplicity, we may wanna do away with the formulatic tax rates and pop levels in the beginning and just leave it all static, with baseline values for territories, but you have the edge on me in programming know-how, and if you'd rather add those items on for the initial release, then we certainly can. I was just thinking in terms of what would be easiest to get a playable demo off the ground. Still, I"m game if you are....

PM me when you're back on again, and we can hammer out stuff like how much free time we each have, and what kinna timeframe the demo itself might involve.


******

Additional Game Design Notes/fleshing out the design:

A slightly more complete listing of Provincial Builds
(x---->y = build that upgrades to another build)
Market
Bank
Trading Compant (Market ---->Trading Company) Requires a Bank in the Province for the upgrade

Temple---->Cathedral (more influence points per turn)

Watch tower---->Fortress---->Keep---->Castle (each defensive layer adding 25% (tentatively) to defensive bonuses for the province)

Scribe's Tower---->Library---->Academy---->University (each successive upgrade increases the % increase in research) - Sages cannot be placed here unless there is at least an Academy.
(none of the research-oriented builds may be placed anywhere there's a temple/cathedral - tensions between the Church and centers of higher learning - in many cases, Sages = Heritics)

Sages - Each Sage hired has a research speciality (consider him to be a "promininant researcher" who adds a fixed number of reasearch points per turn onto his category of specialiazation (exact number to be determined later). For every five sages present, you actually LOSE influence points per turn (association with Heritics).

While positive influence ratings can be used to stay the hand of a rival's military, negative influence can increase the chances of rebellion in all your provinces, creating a balancing act for the player.

Essentially then, the basic game will revolve around five dynamics, pulling the player in different directions:

Gold - needed to keep things going and hire troops.

Influence - Needed to "strategically block" attacks and keep rebellion in line (perhaps another use for influence - can be used to help prevent rebellion and counter espionage)

Honor - Alternate win condition, effects the liklihood of your rivals going to war with you(?) - Peacenik approach to victory

Espionage - probably not much here in the initial release: Assassinate (sages, leaders, justicars, taxmen), steal tech, steal gold, sow seeds of rebellion, and that's about it....other ideas tho?)

Combat - 40 provinces, and you win, controlling the majority of the kingdom.

With the "Three Improvements per province" rule in effect, and Banks needed to gain Trading Companies (more money than Markets or Banks alone), with Barracks a requirement for maintaining a standing Army, AND with fortifications counting as one of the three, I *think* it sets up a pretty intriguing strategic balancing act for the player (esp. in light of my recent thoughts re: balancing souping up research with the Influence factor of the Church).

Thoughts and comments are appreciated, as always!

-=Vel=-

[yin26]

Vel: Bravo to you sir! You are a great man. I know I have overused my suggestions for the day, but here's one more: Look at your project in discreet terms first and program discreetly. What I mean is, think about how you want to resolve combat, for instance. Will you have HPs and firepower or do it the Civ3 way? Will terrain and morale be a factor? Then just work out the simple number crunching program first. No graphics. Just numbers. And run them over and over tweaking like a madman until the results you designed the game for begin to appear. Do the same for dimplomacy. Discreetly work on how the prog accepts and declines offers and what text it responds with.

These tiny programs within the program can be made 'relatively' easily, almost like small projects for a programming class. You'll see results quickly. Then, once all these parts are in place, you can figure out how to put them all together.

Well, that's how'd I'd start out. Then again, if I had found teaching myself programming to be easy, I would be releasing Civ4 this X-mas.

[yin26]

You could start with graphics like this. This is from 1987:

[moomin]

Vel,

let me be so preposterous as to offer you some advice, although it's grim: step back off the plate. If you want to be a central figure in a programming development process you needn't necessarily do the programming yourself, but you need a firm understanding of how to program and where the difficulties are. Your recent musings over at your disenchanted thread - which, btw, is developing into one of the most interesting on this board since the release of Civ3, although yours truly has done his wicked best to derail it with off-topic chitchat - shows that you have no concept of just how much work some of your patch suggestions would entail. This is not a criticism of you, understand, since we all know you're a bright guy, but it is a showstopper if you want to manage a development process.

Even if you take the plunge and learn programming; which like most things needs to be practiced way more than simply learned, you should know that the odds are still long against you; sourceforge is full of dead open-sourced game projects that some enthusiast pushed for a while before real life constraints like work, school, family and friends took their toll. I think that games more than most other projects need the puts-the-food-on-the-table aspects of commercial development since the actual coding of games is about as unrewarding programming as you can imagine (contrast this to database development, which, while boring in theory, is often both challenging and rewarding from a programming point of view). Game development isn't - it's rather like accounting, except for a few spectacular highlights every now and then. All this means that you can't relay on people doing it voluntarily, just for the challenge. There isn't one. They will jump in, but as the boredom sets in, they will go somewhere else for kicks. This is where development for cash actually works.

If you are really serious about this, first learn to program. Then find a venture capitalist. Then find a well-disciplined, committed team to work with, and I would actually recommend mostly doing it by evaluating CVs, not by soliciting for help here at Poly. If you try to do it as you propose, I think you'll fail. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Or join with some of the current efforts. This wont be your baby to the same extent, but you could do a lot of good offering your enthusiasm and skill and the interest your participation will undoubtedly bring along while learning important things to take to your very own project someday.

But if you disregard all of the above and go ahead anyway, the best of luck! Because when all is said and done, the best game ever IMHO, nethack, started as an enthusiast effort and has remained so to this very day.

[Harovan]

Vel, I appreciate your ideas. They are not just great, they are gigantic, but... I must agree with moominparatrooper. Programming a game is all but fun, it's hard work, and without a vast team of enthusiastic programmers, who is willing to spend all of their spare time for months, you unfortunately won't get very far. See the FreeCiv efford (ummm... maybe you could contribute your ideas there?!), which is good but moves slooowly.

I work as a software developer and could contribute a part of my spare time (hey, let me a bit time left to play ), and I have a very good friend actually studying AI in Munich, who could no doubt also contribute ideas, but that's far far from being enough.

Are there other programmers out there, who could participate in such an efford? And graphics, video and sound freaks?

[WarpStorm]

Vel,

I am a programmer with many years experience. (Some of the forum members didn't exist when they stated paying me to program). Don't worry about the programming yourself. It'll take you years to get up to speed with the hot-shot programmers out there, if you've even got the knack. Really.

It looks like you've got a knack for design. Run with that. What would I do now? Try playing as much of this game as a board game to see if it works as a game. You don't need a working program to see if the gameplay systems work. You wan't to make sure it's fun.

Oh yeah, if you are serious, stick with it. Writing non-trivial programs takes time, lots of time. More time than you can imagine. If you aren't serious about the long haul, it won't happen.

[tjwojo]

Perhaps this will make you respect the complexity and effort that goes into a game like Civilization. It is a lot easier to stand on the side-lines and criticize than it is to actually go out there and kick the ball around.

Game development is no small task. If you truly want to be part of something great, Vel, you should try to get a job on a design team for an existing game company. Once you try to pull an entire system together, you will realize that there is a lot more to game programming than just ideas. Programming constraints and performance issues can take the glamour from the concept all too easily.

If you are truly serious about this project, you should write it up and try to sell it to a publisher.

If you are truly serious about game programming, Java is not the language for you. Java is a great language for a lot of applications, but the performance issues involved with it are unacceptable with respect to games. No decent game company would use Java at this point.

It is great to have passion and focus, but 9 times out of 10, that focus is really tunnel vision.

Sorry to be such a spoil sport. That is just reality.

[Cunctator]

Sorry to put disenchantment here about programming but, i'm a software developer too, i must confirm what others have already said.
The distance between a "Hello World" program and a game like civ is about the same than "cut someone's nails" and be a surgeon.
Think twice about coding your game yourself. Anyway, good luck.