Unit/Tile Size Preference Question

[Patine]

Back in the late 1990's, my friend and I used to design custom character sheets for tabletop, pencil-and-paper RPG's, and we used some of the features of MSWorks (whose spreadsheet program I'm pretty sure shared many designers and programmers with the team that made Excel, at least originally) to format them to our liking. Of course, the software back then was much more simplistic, but I think I get the general idea (save, of course, for Techumseh's pertinent question).

 

[Harry Tuttle]

I don't think you guys quite get what I'm saying. I'm not adding to the Microprose executable or even editing it. I'm building a near clone using the same media. This game that I'm creating would be played in MS Excel. It would look and (hopefully) feel like Civ2.

 

[CurtSibling]

I'm even more intriqued now! Can scenarios be recreated?

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Absolutely.

 

[Fairline]

The world of VB and macros is a mystery to me Harry; will the (presumably) xls file which you make the civ clone in be openable in an Excel clone like the OpenOffice spreadsheet program or would we need to have MS Excel?

 

[Patine]

Isn't a full copy of MS Excel a bit pricey?

 

[Harry Tuttle]

I can only assume that another spreadsheet program like OpenOffice would be able to run the macros.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Isn't a full copy of MS Excel a bit pricey?

It can be. However it's been given out for cheap to students and through work discounts.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Screenshot time.

ValueMap > Legend > Graphic Output

I can import from a bitmap into a legend in my workbook using a macro that reads each pixel and translates it into a cell's color fill. Another macro reads my map dataset, looks for the value in the legend, and pastes the formats into the map. No color loss from import.

Did I mention there's no limit to the tiles, graphically or information wise? If I want 55 unique desert tile graphics I can do it. If I want 316 unique units, I can do it. Sky's the limit.

 

[CurtSibling]

This is very nice, Harry...Good work. But I assume getting a working model of anything like CIV2 is going to be an epic amount of effort?

What about sounds and menus, etc? Are these even possible?

 

[Harry Tuttle]

It won't be incredibly bad. Menus and such aren't really hard to make either.

 

[axx]

nice work I newer knew this could be done in Excel

 

[Harry Tuttle]

nice work I newer knew this could be done in Excel

Thanks!