Graceheart the Leopard
Resident Amur leopard
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2007
- Messages
- 3,476
The best things in life are free, Steph. However, this game is an exception.
Possible new civilization game: make our own!
- Thread starter Steph
- Start date
Interesting philosophical debate. If you can get something for free and without effort, how much is it worth?
nick0515
C7 Fanatic
Nice. That will be a very useful feature Steph.
EDIT: It is an interesting philosophical debate. I too think that the best things in life are free, in that a society were everything is exchanged freely is greatly preferable to a Capitalist economy. Having said that, we still live in a Capitalist world and everyone needs money. If you do some work money is the only reward you can hope for under Capitalism (other than satisfaction in a job well done). But if enough things were to become free that you no longer need money to get the things you need then isn't that better than using money?
I think that something you got for free and without effort can still have great worth. I use The GIMP and I value it greatly despite me getting it free and without effort. If I had the skills to work on freeware projects I would, and therefore would be giving back to the wider community that is supplying me with great products. Sadly I don't.
Sorry if I took your comment a little too seriously Steph, and this is way off topic. Perhaps you were being sarcastic? I'm a Socialist, I can't help having a go at Capitalism whenever the chance arrives.
Nick
PS: Still very happy to pay for your product when it's done!
EDIT: It is an interesting philosophical debate. I too think that the best things in life are free, in that a society were everything is exchanged freely is greatly preferable to a Capitalist economy. Having said that, we still live in a Capitalist world and everyone needs money. If you do some work money is the only reward you can hope for under Capitalism (other than satisfaction in a job well done). But if enough things were to become free that you no longer need money to get the things you need then isn't that better than using money?
I think that something you got for free and without effort can still have great worth. I use The GIMP and I value it greatly despite me getting it free and without effort. If I had the skills to work on freeware projects I would, and therefore would be giving back to the wider community that is supplying me with great products. Sadly I don't.
Sorry if I took your comment a little too seriously Steph, and this is way off topic. Perhaps you were being sarcastic? I'm a Socialist, I can't help having a go at Capitalism whenever the chance arrives.
Nick
PS: Still very happy to pay for your product when it's done!
tom2050
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2005
- Messages
- 5,516
This looks great Steph. Has much more tactical and strategical depth than anything Civ3 can muster. One of the things I love about these types of games, is the ability to have a bit of control over battles, in which it is not a set win or loss, but depends ever so slightly on other factors which allows perhaps a weaker set of units to come out and win a victorious battle (or the other way around). It really brings out a sense of you being more of a leader than when spearman beats tank kind of thing.
This really does look amazing and shows great promise.
Tom
This really does look amazing and shows great promise.
Tom
My philosophical question was very broad, and not only linked to "have to pay money or not".
Like what is more fullfilling? To beat a strong opponent after a good strugle, or to easily defeat a very weak opponent?
I suppose it all depends on your own personnal views, so there is probably no correct answer.
That's the key word here.
An example. I am happy if someone uses SBB to create new units. I took time to make SBB, I release it to the community, the artists makes many new units, I can use them for my own enjoyment that's a good exchange.
Now, imagine someone download my editor, makes a scenario for his own enjoyment, and never release it. There is no exchange. That's where I think money can have a role.
I have the impression that most people who want something free do not mean a free exchange of everything, but that they should get everything at no cost and never give anything in return.
Like what is more fullfilling? To beat a strong opponent after a good strugle, or to easily defeat a very weak opponent?
I suppose it all depends on your own personnal views, so there is probably no correct answer.
That's the key word here.
An example. I am happy if someone uses SBB to create new units. I took time to make SBB, I release it to the community, the artists makes many new units, I can use them for my own enjoyment that's a good exchange.
Now, imagine someone download my editor, makes a scenario for his own enjoyment, and never release it. There is no exchange. That's where I think money can have a role.
I have the impression that most people who want something free do not mean a free exchange of everything, but that they should get everything at no cost and never give anything in return.
I think, the problem in this case is the vast amounts of time that it takes to develop a complicated game like the one you've undertaken. It's all well and fine for people to say it should be free and support that with various reasons but it all boils down to you dedicating a lot of your free time to develop this, time which could be otherwise spent bringing in some income for yourself.
It's perfectly natural to expect to be rewarded monitarily for your hard work. The harsh reality is that you NEED money, rent has to be paid, food isn't free, sometimes you can't even leave the house without spending money.
I'm sure if all of life's essentials were free, Steph would have no problem releasing his game for free too.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
On a lighter note, I think this is shaping up very well Steph.
I just had a thought about terrain. How will you handle elevated terrain? Will you have a mountain tile and a hill tile, etc, or will you do varying levels of elevation? What I mean by this is having a property on your tile object called "height", and when you're rendering the tiles you would have some kind of transition tile that indicates the grade is changing (going up or down hill).
Here's an illustration of what I mean:
A system like this would allow for innumerable tactical possibilities and subtleties, like placing your cannon batteries on top of a hill would give them greater range, placing your musketmen on top of a hill would mean that the enemy would take longer to reach them and the enemy's accuracy would be diminished due to firing uphill, etc.
Any of the major battles in history involved use of the high ground in tactical decisions, and I'd love to see this included in your game...
It's perfectly natural to expect to be rewarded monitarily for your hard work. The harsh reality is that you NEED money, rent has to be paid, food isn't free, sometimes you can't even leave the house without spending money.
I'm sure if all of life's essentials were free, Steph would have no problem releasing his game for free too.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
On a lighter note, I think this is shaping up very well Steph.
I just had a thought about terrain. How will you handle elevated terrain? Will you have a mountain tile and a hill tile, etc, or will you do varying levels of elevation? What I mean by this is having a property on your tile object called "height", and when you're rendering the tiles you would have some kind of transition tile that indicates the grade is changing (going up or down hill).
Here's an illustration of what I mean:
A system like this would allow for innumerable tactical possibilities and subtleties, like placing your cannon batteries on top of a hill would give them greater range, placing your musketmen on top of a hill would mean that the enemy would take longer to reach them and the enemy's accuracy would be diminished due to firing uphill, etc.
Any of the major battles in history involved use of the high ground in tactical decisions, and I'd love to see this included in your game...
Actually, I don't need the money for everyday life, as I already have a good job. However, this good job means I can't quite it to work full time on the game unless I get a lot of money from it, which is highly unlikely.
My more immediate goal would be to have enough to upgrade my PC and be more comfortable with my programming tools.
About the relief, I have ideas a bit like what you shown. I have a game design document ready for that, but I don't have a skilled artist willing to lend a hand. I really not a close collaboration with an artist to do trial and error: ie he makes a test set of tiles, I program it, check if it works as plan, correct, and iterate.
My more immediate goal would be to have enough to upgrade my PC and be more comfortable with my programming tools.
About the relief, I have ideas a bit like what you shown. I have a game design document ready for that, but I don't have a skilled artist willing to lend a hand. I really not a close collaboration with an artist to do trial and error: ie he makes a test set of tiles, I program it, check if it works as plan, correct, and iterate.
Screenshots of the day
Before, I shown the report with all the actions, that you get just at the end of a phase.
If you double click one of this line, you get the details.
Well, this is only the first log, where you can see what each unit did to the other.
After that, you have a summary of casualties. Destroyed units are shown in red.
If you double click on the line, you can also get details, although there's not much to say here.
Of course, you make think that seeing these two reports at the end of each phase will be boring, you want to click and destroy!
In that case, you have an option to disable one or both of these reports.
Before, I shown the report with all the actions, that you get just at the end of a phase.
If you double click one of this line, you get the details.
Well, this is only the first log, where you can see what each unit did to the other.
After that, you have a summary of casualties. Destroyed units are shown in red.
If you double click on the line, you can also get details, although there's not much to say here.
Of course, you make think that seeing these two reports at the end of each phase will be boring, you want to click and destroy!
In that case, you have an option to disable one or both of these reports.
nick0515
C7 Fanatic
Very well thought out Steph. I like that you have the option to disable it if you want.
DJ Bonebraker
a.k.a Laura
The AAR's would make writing stories for the S&T section much easier
I could make a big version saved in a text file, with turn number, instead of just reseting it each turn.
That would be very cool. When you do get to the point where you're making a strategy map, it would be cool if you could add a little icon to a tile that is a couple crossed swords or something like that. When you hover over it a tooltip would pop-up showing the belligerents in that battle, the date it took place, the numbers of troops and the result.
Screenshot of the day!
The change of gameplay introduced by the concept of "order" during the initial range attack phase and resolution at the end of the phase has some impact on the animations.
As soon as you give a range attack order to a unit, it starts playing the range attack animation, and it continues doing it in loop until the end of the phase.
This way, you can see what units are currently firing (here two French and one British unit).
For the moment, the animation goes back to default after the report log is displayed, at the end of the phase.
I may keep the attack animation running during the movemnt phase, as units which attacked during the first phase are not allowed to move.
Question: do you like this system? Although it may mean the units and fire and fire again during 10 minutes if you are long to give your orders?
The change of gameplay introduced by the concept of "order" during the initial range attack phase and resolution at the end of the phase has some impact on the animations.
As soon as you give a range attack order to a unit, it starts playing the range attack animation, and it continues doing it in loop until the end of the phase.
This way, you can see what units are currently firing (here two French and one British unit).
For the moment, the animation goes back to default after the report log is displayed, at the end of the phase.
I may keep the attack animation running during the movemnt phase, as units which attacked during the first phase are not allowed to move.
Question: do you like this system? Although it may mean the units and fire and fire again during 10 minutes if you are long to give your orders?
Looks awesome Steph! I like how you made the animations run until the attack phase is complete. I don't think it would get annoying if you keep it running over and over, however if you have the sound effect playing over and over again it would. I would say that if you let the animation loop, but only play the sound effect when you are actually calculating the casualties it would be just fine.
Well, for the moment there is no sound effect 
. So it shouldn't be a problem
But when I add it, I'll make it play just once when clicking giving the order I think (ie when it plays the first time)
. So it shouldn't be a problem But when I add it, I'll make it play just once when clicking giving the order I think (ie when it plays the first time)
Other screenies:
During the attack phase, 3 French units and 2 British are firing.
When going to next phase, just after the detailed log, casualties are applied. Sprites are dying (note they can fall in some random direction).
At the end of the resolution, dead sprites remain on the ground, until the start of the next phase where they disappear.
During the attack phase, 3 French units and 2 British are firing.
When going to next phase, just after the detailed log, casualties are applied. Sprites are dying (note they can fall in some random direction).
At the end of the resolution, dead sprites remain on the ground, until the start of the next phase where they disappear.
nick0515
C7 Fanatic
That is seriously cool Steph! Me too on the play testing!
Some news. I have a new computer, so I should work faster...
However, I know have Windows 7, and I had to install Visual Studio 2008 (instead of 2005) and XNA 3.1 (instead of 2.0).
And a quick test with morning shows that although the poritng to the newest version resized most of my windows, my expanded editor is still working.
However, ùy game is no longer working, it cannot display anything. I suspect the problems come mainly from XNA 3.1.
It may be some time before I identify the problem and make ti work again.
However, I know have Windows 7, and I had to install Visual Studio 2008 (instead of 2005) and XNA 3.1 (instead of 2.0).
And a quick test with morning shows that although the poritng to the newest version resized most of my windows, my expanded editor is still working.
However, ùy game is no longer working, it cannot display anything. I suspect the problems come mainly from XNA 3.1.
It may be some time before I identify the problem and make ti work again.
Similar threads
