CivChess Project

[Jeckel]

Its Chess, but in Civ4.

Origional Thread

Working on Version: 0.600 Beta
Latest Stable Released Version: 0.300 Beta - Download CivChess_v0.300bts3.13 Beta

If you wish to see the move highlighting or check out the simple AI stuff you can check out the latest finished version. Be warned, this may have a few glitches, I the Players' scores aren't displayed correctly, and it MAY have a few MP OOS errors.
Example Released Version: 0.500 Beta - Download CivChess_v0.500bts3.13 Beta

Whats Done:
I have basic table top chess coded. Two people could play a multiplayer game of chess just as they could on a board in their kitchen. Piece movement restrictions are all there. You can only attack other pieces that are on valid tiles and if you attack a unit you win the battle with no damage. You are also limited to moving one piece per turn.

I have also, to the most extent, remove all the non chess related Civ stuff from the interface and pedia. There a few hold overs, but not many.

Pieces valid/invalid moves/attacks are highlighted with colored overlays on the main interface screen.

v0.500+
I have taught the AI that it can only move one unit per turn.
The AI also knows how to move Knight Pieces correctly.

There are several different Chess Sets that you can choose as your Civilization. Two default Sets and a Set for each Era are included.

Whats Not Done:
The AI is not very smart at moving its Pieces. It doesn't yet take the defense of its other Pieces or the checking of the other Player's King into account when deciding its move.

Currently units' movement is not restricted in anyway by a king being in check. Though kings are not allowed to move into check and a king in check will receive and In Check promotion. Likewise a king in checkmate will receive a Checkmate promotion. In one of the next version, appropriate restrictions will be applyed to units' movement when the king is checked or checkmated.

 

[Jeckel]

Here are some screen shots of a few Pieces' move/attack highlighting.

 

[Jeckel]

Reserved for later use. Will prob need this one.

 

[Jeckel]

Alright, my first update in the new thread.

The last released version was 0.300. All the basics worked and it was MP playable. I just spent 4 good hours and completly rewrote all the python code taking me to v0.400. There arn't any real changes from player perspective, but if anyone takes a look at the code they will see it is completly different.

For python people..
Basicly instead of running all the rules and systems in the eventmager and gameutils files I seperated everything out into its own classes. I made classes for chess constants, the board, players, pieces, pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings. I then took all my masses of code and sliced them down in compacter methods in the appropriate classes.

If your not a coder..
Basicly I made the code more stable, effecient, easyer to read, and simpler to change or update in the future.


I am now starting on v0.500.

Planned features:
First the simple one. I'm going to highlight plots that can be move or attacked into. I'm planning to just do it for the selected unit, but I don't see why it couldn't be down for all your units and the enemy's units. So this may come with a new CivChess tab in the options screen.

Also a biggy. This version will have the first implementation of a ChessAI. At the least the AI will learn to use knights correctly. Most likely I will teach it which unit to move each turn.

Anyway, I've taken a long enough break from coding. Its way cold outside and I am going to have all day to get some good moding done.

 

[Shiggs713]

sounds very nice Jeckel. Great work.

 

[Gurra09]

Good! But it was easy to win because it seems that the AI is still thinking Civ IV.

But another thing is wrong too... My pawn killed the king and that's not possible in real chess.


Gurra09

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Very interesting. Chess in Civ 4 would be an excellent mod indeed!

However, I feel I must say this first, Jeckel... why do Chess before finishing your conversion of Colonization first?

 

[Jeckel]

O, sorry Gaius, all the stuff I had from working on CivColonization was lost when my previous computers were sold while I was in county. And beyound that, chess is a thousand times easyer to mod the colonization. Some day I may get back to that, but who knows for sure.

 

[moopoo]

A pawn can Checkmate a King can't it? I'll post this in the new thread as well

(Responding to Gurra09, directed at anyone)

 

[moopoo]

Oh dude I just had a brainwave. Instead of Civilizations, you could have chess sets from all over the world!

Only thing is you'd need a better graphics man than I

I may as well include an update on art. I finished the first draft of the mesh for the body of the pawn (as outlined in the picture you linked to in the old thread). From the looks of the picture, I can use it for the body's of All but the knight and the rook. A cyber Assembly line. I'm gunna have to read up some blender tutorials to get the unit looking smooth though

 

[Jeckel]

Awesome moopoo, glad to hear you are making progress. You got time to getting the pieces looking good. I don't plan to release the mod to the public for a few more weeks.

I like your idea of civs being different chess sets from different cultures. I was already planning to do somthing similar with different civs having units from different eras and your idea goes along well with that. I will look into laying out some beginning outlines for that.

 

[Jeckel]

And an update on v0.500..

I got the plot highlighting basicly done. Just one little glitch of the in-check plot layer not clearing to hunt down and stomp. I got some screen shots I will upload when I get up tomorrow.

I started work on the AI and got as far as teaching it what plots each unit can move to. Tomorrow I am going to teach it to acually walk to those plots.

Anyway, I am beat, had a busy day before modding and now am going to bed happy.

 

[Chuggi]

Looks cool and a nice bit of coding.

But may I ask.. why...?

 

[NikNaks]

Why not?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Why not?

Because we need Colonization first!

Oh what the heck... I guess I'll end up doing it myself.

 

[Jeckel]

Looks cool and a nice bit of coding.

But may I ask.. why...?

Because I wont to and it is easy to mod.

 

[Chuggi]

Well you can easily download a free chess game from the internet... that loads 10 minutes quicker and probably with better graphics.. it just seems odd to make a chess mod for civ. Very odd.

 

[Jeckel]

Because we need Colonization first!

Oh what the heck... I guess I'll end up doing it myself.

Hehe, settle down Gaius, it will be alright, I promise.

I tell you what, when you finish your Quantitative Resources mod I will take another stab at the Colonization mod. The QRs are the big part of the mod, the rest wouldn't be much harder then this chess mod.

Does that sound like a plan?

 

[Jeckel]

Move/attack highlighting screen shots added to second post.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Hehe, settle down Gaius, it will be alright, I promise.

I tell you what, when you finish your Quantitative Resources mod I will take another stab at the Colonization mod. The QRs are the big part of the mod, the rest wouldn't be much harder then this chess mod.

Does that sound like a plan?

It would be tricky to adapt that for Colonization purposes, since Colonization had city storages and was dependent on citizens working the tiles... I suppose we could invent a streamlined version, but it'd still be tricky.

At any rate it will probably be a long time before I release a general, moddable version of QR. I am currently developing it for a specific mod I have in mind and so I'll have to go from there. Not too hard to generalize, but still a lot of work. I wouldn't bet on it being out any time before mid or late summer.

[End thread derail]