(Just my ideas) Make the browser minigame with RFC Europe spirit

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

(No Internet Explorer support and never will be ...) And now with my first self created map - civ.heroku.com
The github project itself - https://github.com/ZeusTheTrueGod/civ4-chronics. Feel free to fork and make a pull request

Hi, all. First of all, I am a big fan of RFC europe and I like the historical background of it most of all. I even tried to help the project with money, but that attempt failed , anyway what I want to try-

Short description: you open a web page, select a scenario, and play 30-60 minutes to finish the scenario, then you just see the scores and how much you have achieved.

- Web page with a fragment of RFC europe map, for example 20x20 cells with Byzantium in center. Just a background image
- No map scroll, so you have this 20x20 cells and thats all the map
- Historical background, about 20-50 turns of a game play. Goals may be keep empire alive, or make it more wealth or conquerer the certain region or even receive some tech. I am very exicited with a game but it steals all my time when I play RFC Europe, so I just want to have a 30 minutes break. Also sometimes start/middle of a game are very interesting but then it becomes boring. So you are not an immortal god here, just an emperor who should take the empire and make it a bit better than it was before.
- I dislike AI, sometimes it is pretty stupid. I sincerely beleive that well scripted behaviour is much better then some AI rules which we need to test a lot of times and find a balance. If there was an invasion - let it will be spawning Keshik every turn within 10 turns who just blindly moves to a capital. If the river should be crossed or we need a transport for assaulting harbor - let just script it
- I have zero chances to make anything 3D. But printscreen of a certain region of civ map + sprite units may do the gameplay exciting if everything else (text, background, so on) is interesting
- I would like to keep battles exactly as they are in Civ4, but for city growth, city building and everything else it seems to be too difficult.

What I have:
-enough money for hosting
-good enough experience in web programming: html,javascript,css,http. Setting up a server side.
-perfect sence of simplicity, creating DSL (domain specific language) and organizing the process the way so everyone can participate with graphics, scenario texts, scripts and game testing
-ability to set up the github project and use it for collaboration
-perfect programming skills

The main reason I wrote this post is to get realistic scores of all my ideas. While these ideas are only here it is relativly simple to change them. When I start to program it is much harder to change them cause time already was spent. Obviously the first goal is a working prototype:
- people can participate in filling in the content
- the game runs and attaches the content generated by our community
- it is possible to do some actions in turn, for example move units
- it is possible to switch to the next turn

In the end of a first part the working prototype is a project hosted on a github, obviously open sourced and ready for next stages. The game will be run completly in the browser, without anything done on a server, so just from a github you will be able to see it.

Will be glad to hear any ideas / proposals / sceptical reviews!

 

[Morholt]

First of all: "Printscreen" of map and units would be illegal, those graphics are owned by Firaxis. Graphics would have to be done from scratch (or taken from freeciv or somesuch).

Secondly: I'm not sure the Civ4 gameplay is suited to a 30-60 min, 20x20 tile game. I could see some kind of light wargame like Empire or some of the Civ2 scenarios working in this format, but all of Civ4, with tech, trades, diplomacy, buildings and so on? It seems like a lot of complexity that will not meaningfully impact the game during that short time.

I would go for something like this:
-Permanent war or peace with every other civ. No diplomacy, no trades.
-Either no tech at all or greatly abstracted ("Tech level 1", "Tech level 2",...)
-No buildings or wonders, cities produce either units or population increases (or tech).
-Workers can stay in, Settlers more questionable.
-Shortish historical scenarios, like "Saladin vs Crusaders" or "Silesian Wars". Afterwards you get a score and an outcome: "Major Victory", "Minor Defeat", "Stalemate" and so on.

If you code up a prototype I will test it. If it's in Java I might be able to contribute a bit.

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Morholt, thanks for simplification ideas. I am very against AI in any games, thus get ridding of diplomacy and trades will help a lot. Obviously the most interesting part from Civ4 for me is RFC / RFC Europe, and for RFC Europe realystic historical coverage is what I value most of all, so I am still looking for the minimum which keeps game interesting and still make it easy to follow historical events.

About the programming language - that is the best way to split the comunity. I am more interested in choosing the collaboration format, for example, github with its wiki, fork requests and bug tracking system which makes participation as easy as just opening a text file, fixing couple of typos in a unit description and sending a patch request just from the browser.

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

I've started prototyping - http://jsfiddle.net/FvW5u/5/
Also I've set up a github project - https://github.com/ZeusTheTrueGod/civ4-chronics

So I've made a first step!

I will make a 'scenarios' folder soon where anyone can write a plain text about the plot for a certain scenario.
Also everyone can make a fork, edit some file and make a 'pull request' to me, so I could take changes and put them in my repo. Btw, I see no one beleives in me (and that is fine), so who want to make plots/scenarios/graphics/testing for symbolic payment? 50/100$ ?

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Btw, what about this map design - http://perludus.com/examples/hexmap/ ? Battle of wesnoth is an open source game, so I would take their neat graphic and image resources. And hexagon tiles are better for a map purpose

 

[Morholt]

Cool that you are making some progress. Using graphics from other open source projects is a good idea, it lets you focus on the important stuff, also I don't think there are that many browser games with hexes so that might help profile your game. I have two more pieces of advice:
- I would change the name. Having "Civ4" or even "Civ" or "Civilization" on its own in the name might get you a cease and desist later when your project starts getting some attention.
- I think you posted this a bit too early. It is easier to get people to help out if you have a somewhat working build. When you get there and it's time to start creating content in earnest, perhaps you should cross-post this to some other forums? It doesn't seem that this has to be specifically related to RFC:Europe.

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Hi, Morholt. I see that you are the only one involved here, and that is already enough to me.
FreeCiv project exists, thus I see no reasons why 'civ' can not be used at all.

The core reason of posting things here before I've got a working prototype is to get as much advices from comunity as possible. Even your only advices are good.

I am going to switch to the SVG as a way to render the map and units on it and Battle of Wesnoth will be used as a valuable source of png images. SVG is not supported in IE, but anyway I am not going to make the game run under IE.

 

[ezzlar]

Well, I really like the idea. But like most people here I can only contribute with game testing and feedback. I have no IT skills whatsoever.

And the few IT literate are probably occupied by the mod which in the forum you are posting

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Well, I really like the idea. But like most people here I can only contribute with game testing and feedback. I have no IT skills whatsoever.

And the few IT literate are probably occupied by the mod which in the forum you are posting

Hi, Ezzlar, I will need a lot of contribution for this parts:
-testing and feedback. Currently I do on my own.
-graphics: units, themes, terrain types. At this moment I do on my own by taking free resources from battle of wesnoth.
-scenario plot writing - just a clear plot with a human readable text about the scenario. start from " Romans invade britan - at first they settled and after 10 turns - boom, a lot of druids attacked them from all directions" and then add details.
-scenario historical text - dialogs, notes. I don't work on that at all
-unit balance and game rules. Currently I have hexagon map and max one unit per cell.

You may be as far from IT as you like, but you will need a githib account in order to participate on your own pace: make a fork (i.e. receive your own copy of a project repository) in github. Then add your changes, for example write a scenario1.plot.txt file, and then make a "pull request" with short note what you've changed. Then I will apply your changes to the main repo which will have a scenario plot.

As I know you can work directly from the github web page without installing any software at all. I plan to make a quick tutorial in a project participation. The core idea of git and github is that you have full control on your own project copy , but you can ask original project owner to apply your changes back into the main repo.

 

[Sian]

pay mind that eventhough Wesnoth is freeware itself, the graphics aren't, and are owned by the respective creators which explicitly allowed Wesnoth to use them

 

[AbsintheRed]

Hi, Morholt. I see that you are the only one involved here, and that is already enough to me.

And the few IT literate are probably occupied by the mod which in the forum you are posting

I'm also following the thread, and your work
But as Ezzlar said, don't have too much time to contribute anything
At least not now...

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Here is a first working prototype - http://zeusthetruegod.github.com/civ4-chronics/
You are blue, enemy is black, no end turns, endless movement and battles are always won ...

!!! Only for non internet explorer user !!!

 

[3Miro]

Here is a first working prototype - http://zeusthetruegod.github.com/civ4-chronics/
You are blue, enemy is black, no end turns, endless movement and battles are always won ...

!!! Only for non internet explorer user !!!

Balance seems a bit off, I managed to kill all the barbarians with a single archer. This might be a bit OP. Also, I am not sure I agree with your map, I think you need to work a bit more to capture the contours of Iberia and Sicily.

Seriously though, this has potential, but I just hope you realize how much work it would be. You will have to add graphics for all the units for various players and so on.

Actually the hardest of all would be to code the AI for such a game from scratch.

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Hi, 3MIRO!

Thanks for you perfect suggestiongs about archers being OP, work is in progress.

How much work it would be - I rely on comunity and github, so anyone can assist in graphic resources and scenarios. I am using SVG graphic internally, that is vector based one, so one day it could be improved, but at this moment 5 unit types and 10 tile types is all I need for first scenario

The real AI is very hard for such game, at least pathfinding may be not obvious. My advantage is that I am not on the edge so there are a lot of sources in the web where I can find some ideas about AI, and here is how I see the AI behaviour at this moment for enemy units:
a) Scripted prefferred path
b) Just spawning units in key points with moving to player city / player units
c) Scripted events like sea drops
d) Basic rules: ignore hard battles, prefer low victories.
e) A bit random to evade fully deterministic behavior

Mostly I rely on scenarios and scripts, because I don't care if AI is fair or not, it behaviour should seems normal and interest

I am still deciding about minimal implemenation of this game parts:
-religion
-building
-city growing
-teches
-tile improvements

My key direction at this moment is a map editor, interface improvement and per-turn game style. In a game style I plan to focus a lot on Battles - unit type, nearest friendly/enemy units, terrain type and a choice of one from 2-3 different tactics during the battle.

Also anyone can open a 'ticket' on a project page and post his proposals here
https://github.com/ZeusTheTrueGod/civ4-chronics/issues

 

[Morholt]

I would replace a) there with an actual pathfinding algorithm, it's much more flexible and you don't have to redo the scripting for every scenario. Read up on A*, it's actually quite simple and there are lots of publically avaliable implementations you can just copy-paste.

b) may or may not be a good idea, depending on how it's done. Generally a game becomes less fun for the player if the player gets the impression that the opponent is playing by different rules.

 

[3Miro]

The main thing about RFCE that makes it stand out is the Religion aspect that is quite a bit different from RFC or BtS. However, this also makes thing quite a bit controversial.

I think you should also have city buildings.

You can ignore terrain improvements and city growth. A city can work surrounding tiles automatically removing the need for workers or citizens assignments. You can make buildings in the city that would require certain tiles, for example you can have regular buildings like City Walls and Market Place and special buildings like Farms and Mines. Farms and Mines would require certain terrain types to be available around the city.

For tech, you can make a fixed tech sequence or civilization specific tech sequence. Thus you will remove the need for the tech tree and the player will not have to bother picking up techs. Alternatively, you can have something like Alpha Centauri tech categories, research government or research military or research religion.

Those are just ideas of course.

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

I started to program battle simulator, so now each unit has its own strength and you have a chance to loose a battle.

I am still chosing the simplies way to clearly display who won the battle and why.

- Show popup screen in the center. For both attacker and defender display base strength and list of all modifiers. Then what are chances to win and then a battle result. Clicking anywhere on the screen closes the popup and continues the game.

-Try to make an animation, exactly like in civ1. No information about chances

-Dedicate part of the screen for battle logs.

I think it is pretty interesting to play when all these numbers are hidden, but battle modifiers are displayed like

"Attacker"
"Archer: "
"Some serious bonus(+++)"
"Insignificant bonus(+)"
"A disadvantage"

"Defender: "
"Pikeman: "
"Cheater(+++)"

After that just chances like "you have 70% to win"

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

Breaking news: I 've made a map editor. Currently I use it internally to adjust the map and then immidiatly play on it, but I have a plan to make it possible for everyone to create, save, update and share the map.

In fact anyone can fork a project and start map editing

 

[ZeusTheTrueGod]

And one more update - the game doesn look ugly anymore. With a new background and center alignment it visually looks more attractive.

 

[Tigranes]

Wow, the game indeed looks very cute already! Do the Barbs move? When I hit End Turn nothing really can be seen of their actions.