Hubert Cater

Scripting will be available It is still under development as we've got most of the general game play items implemented but the full AI scripting is still in planning. Expect more details down the road but here is a snapshot of an activation script to get a better idea of what to expect:

Unfortunately, this is not currently planned. Hubert

Yes the time scale will be flexible, with the currently planned option of also including concurrent or synchronous turns. For example if you chose weekly turns then it can also be set that a week will pass for each players turn or a week will pass after both players play their turn etc. [ June 01, 2004, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

AI implementation (for me and for SC) is tricky, and while the option in SC1 was available to me to have it do many of the items you've requested, the problem is that there is no guarantee that it would do them necessarily well. Problems like you've mentioned, (under FoW) like baiting or luring the AI into ambushes by leaving cities undefended and many others left me with the idea of playing it safe and sticking with what I knew the AI could handle. IMO it was better for the AI to stick with what it could do (decently) well and not with a list of items that it could do but in the end do poorly. Just some background but at the same time it's not to say that there is no room for improvement.

I guess what I was referring to is if someone tries to make a map that isn't part of the SC2 template...someone mentioned trying to make a Pacific Theater Game...I'm just confused how you can make a map of Japan or China, simply using the pre made SC2 European river, border, and coast tiles...to replicate the Korean Peninsula or the Chinese coast I thought would have needed a freehand ability which is why I mentioned it...eh!..whatever...in time all shall be revealed Generally what we've tried to do is create a completely modular set of graphics for tiles, terrain, rivers etc., so in fact these were not specifically created for the European Theater alone (the look of some resources like cities yes, but these can all be edited). Although map making can take some time and patience, any style of map, coastlines etc. should be more than possible... it just comes down to selecting the appropriate tile shape, terrain, river and so on to fill in the map. This is also all done with the mouse so it is pretty straightforward. For borders, this is dynamically handled by the editor... you just set the owner/occupier status of the tiles and the engine automatically draws the borders for you

Will their be a tile hex type that will be unpassable to Armor/Mechanized units but will allow non-machanized armies to pass. Nope, but there will be an impassable tile type, namely the depression terrain.

Time will tell

Oops

It's a little early to say exactly what all the scripts will be able to do but as we get closer to completion expect a more detailed description

Perhaps but it depends on which style of transports you use, as there are now both regular troop transports as well as amphibious transports.

While the complete editor functionality has yet to be finalized... good news is that minus a few things here and there you guys are pretty much on the right track

Thanks!

Interesting idea although not likely as the turn based nature requires most if not all actions to happen sequentially otherwise some problems/complications could ensue. Either way, the timer option should help with most wait times

There might be a few small changes... actually expect more info on changes/additions as we get closer to a demo later this year

And this will work for editor generated cities/industrial centers as well? This is done through the editor Could this path(supply) also be traced across sea tiles if a port is available/created? Not currently planned, basically same path rules as in SC1.

Ok great

Ok, before I shut up, I wanted to also suggest that all PBEM and TCI/IP turns send and check a CRC checksum of the actual application executable. If two players (with version numbers matching) had different CRCs a warning could be popped up. Interesting idea but this might not work as there are various language retail versions of SC1 (same version numbers) that would report checksum mismatches I mention this because for fun I made a hack to my SC such that I would always get my tech rolls. I could have just as easily written one where I was twice as likely, etc. I obviously cannot condone this and/or other hacks you've reported (I do realize you are sharing this to support your recomendations) but either way I suspect limited interest in PBEM and/or TCP/IP games for you in the future

fischkopf On the other hand you're the only programmer on the team (quite impressive), and your to-do list is no doubt pages and pages long. Yes and this does make my time limited I'll be the first to admit your argument is quite impressive, but again I think it comes down to a few issues for me. 1) If and when someone does crack it we are back at square one where everyone is suspicious of everyone else and 2) I'm not really all that interested in playing the game of patching security updates on the game as each security measure is broken/cracked. It again comes down to deciding where time and effort is best suited for the game development. Anyway, if you need any help feel free to contact me at andrew@alloymail.com. We're in crunch mode ourselves but I could certainly spare a few hours here and there to code this up for you. Thanks for the offer but I think your posts have given me some ideas... and I'll think about it some more and take from there. Hopefully you've moved off Eiffel by now Wouldn't be doing it any other way [ May 11, 2004, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

How this will work is you will be able to flag various cities (for each country) as either secondary capitals and/or secondary industrial centers. Secondary capitals will be a list of alternate capitals should your primary capital be captured. For example in SC1 if Moscow was captured then the capital would move to either Sverdlovsk or Stalingrad depending upon which is still available/friendly controlled. Secondary industrial centers will act like capitals in that new unit builds can only be built in and around cities if they can trace a supply line to either the existing capital or the secondary industrial center. In SC1 Stalingrad for example was a secondary supply center but new units could not be built there if it was cutoff from the capital. This will no longer be the case in SC2 if Stalingrad is specified to be a secondary industrial center. Hope this helps, Hubert

Each campaign will have *an* appropriate setup of territory, units, resources, fortification lines etc. for the time period being represented. Hope this helps, Hubert

Sounds like it is not loading the menu bar for some reason, if this is correct then you not seeing the menu bar at the top of the editor window that says 'File' and so on, right? If not perhaps try using the ALT-F command (hold the ALT key down and then press the F key) to see if that will pop up the menu bar. Hope this helps, Hubert

tom No problems at all If I am mistaken about the facts in that last part: " if re-loading the turn is not actually "cheating" Truth is I'm not actually saying it is cheating or not, not really my place to say as this is really a definition that has to be decided by you and your opponent at game time. As it is now the game does allow reloading but it will be flagged as reloaded and by the number of times it has been reloaded. While this can always be circumvented with the redownload method,if you are really concerned about security I would suggest TCP/IP as it is inherently more secure from "cheating". I realize TCP/IP is not always an option for everyone but again as stated above it (SC2) will at least be more secure from the typical cheats used in SC1. Hubert

Both of these options just might be a possibility