Brit
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Posts posted by Brit
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Thanks.
By the way' date=' what language are you writing this in? C++ or C#? Also are you using XNA or another engine or is this your own creation?[/quote']It's C++. I'm using MFC for the user interface (MFC is an old Microsoft user interface library) but I don't like how MFC looks, so I re-wrote a lot of stuff to change it's appearance. The game map is done straight in OpenGL. I'm not using any special libraries or game engines for that.
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I know there's no time to add that now, but for future reference, what format would user-created unit icons have to be in?
The unit and building images and animations are all in png format (24-bit RGB + 8-bit alpha channel). Pretty standard.
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Any thought of starting the rule date to 1800?
sailing ships and cannon and calvery and infantry?
Start at 1800 and work your way to 2000?
Yeah, I'd like to mess around with some of these rulesets, making stuff for other time-periods sounds like it might be interesting. (I'm going to keep the Official 1900-2030 ruleset as it is, though.)
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[Edit: I just noticed you posted as I was writing this.]
Looking forward to test this!
PS. Will you release some more information regarding the possibilities and limitations of the rule set editor, or must we wait until the release?
The rules editor lets people edit the units, buildings, and technologies in the game. You can create your own technologies, create a technology tree, setup "subunitsets" that allow certain players to have access to certain technologies and units.
Units can be customized - you can define their production cost, iron cost, oil consumption, HPs, their combat abilities, how being entrenched and how terrain (forest, desert, city) adjusts their movement rates and defense values. You can define which units can be inside other units (e.g. the air-transport can carry paratroopers, missile-launchers can carry missiles).
You can create your own buildings, and what kinds of effects they have. For example, a building can boost the production value of a city (by a predefined value, or as a multiple of the population). Or, you can say that a certain building has to be created before you can build certain units in that city. There are some limitations on the buildings (for example, the "Oil Refinery" increases your nation's oil based on your oilfields, but there is no way for a building to simply add oil or money to your nation). The building customization is done in support of the official ruleset, but I'm working on making it more flexible.
There are some limitations in the images and animations. There is no convenient way to add new building images or new unit images to the game. (Right now, when you create a unit or building, you have to use one of the predefined images.) This means, for example, that you can't create your own "chariot" or "cavalry" unit images.
There's also a limitation in that you can't add brand-new resources to the game. For example, you can't add "aluminum" or "diamonds" as resources.
I'd like to eventually expand the ruleset system to allow players to add their own unit-images, building-images, and even their own resources to the game, but that's not something that will happen before the game's release.
Oh, and the other thread may answer some more questions. (I'm looking around for it, but I haven't found it, yet. I'll post a link when I find it.) [ Edit: I found it: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=89047 ]
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With the latest update, the BB targeting seems to work better with you set them to target all units
Still no way for arty to target across the water though
I'll look into it.
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Looking forward to test this!
PS. Will you release some more information regarding the possibilities and limitations of the rule set editor, or must we wait until the release?
What would you like to know?
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I placed my order today
Thanks! It's much appreciated.
Brit
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Just a small update today. The main reason for the update is to give everyone a copy of the Demo that doesn't expire on October 31st. The new version will expire December 1st.
If you are trying to get this update, and it's after October 31st (which means you can't run the application), just double-click the "Updater4.exe" application. It will download the update, and you'll be good until December 1st.
Probably the biggest change is the Unit Combat Simulator. You can have setup units to fight against each other and get combat results.
Notable Changes:
- Unit Combat Simulator (on the reports panel)
- Added "Show Patrols" to the reports panel. It can be toggled using the "j" hotkey.
- "Report a bug" is now available inside the game (next to the save button)
- Players can now toggle the Intro music on/off using the Preferences Window (inside the Game)
- Fixed bug: The "resign" button is wrong if you load a game after resigning
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I think I know what you mean.
The "Dropoff GroundUnits Anywhere" [tick] means that one would also be able to drop tanks and the all other stuff behind enemy lines just like paratroopers, right?
Well, I am personally interested in how one could solve this (you remember my "1001 annoying Ruleset editor questions thread", right?), so please tell me how that might be fixed.
Right, well I think you understand the problem. There is one "Dropoff GroundUnits Anywhere" flag. So, there isn't a way to dropoff tanks only in cities + dropoff paratroopers anywhere.
Could you for example give paratroopers (or any unit a person might want to be dropable from a plane) a new tag, say "Airborne" and then create a new "Dropoff Airborne Anywhere" ? Could that be done with the ruleset editor?Yes, in order to fix this, I'm thinking that maybe the pickup/dropoff system should be able to individually define the pickup/dropoff attributes for each unit category (rather than the current system that treats all GroundUnits the same).
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I agree. However, I had one strange bug. I started a new game with one opponent, using the 1900- rule set. My first production was a transport. I received a "new-production" warning the turn before it was finished, but the transport never materialized in the city. I tried to recreate the error, but it didn't happen again.
If there's less than one turn of production left on something (say 0.8 turns), you should get a "city needs orders" message (left panel) and a city-popup. If you removed the transport from the build queue, then it wouldn't get finished. If that happens, then the transport should appear in the build options with a "0.8/14.0 turn" build time.
Since the cities are growing in population, many of the units won't get completed in exactly X turns - they'll get completed slightly faster, which means instead of getting a transport in 14.0 turns, you'll get it in 13.8 turns. Can you confirm if this is what happened?
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Will air transports be able to transport from city to city A tank or A infantry or A artilary unit?
Without some additional work on the rules-system, I don't think I can get the transport-aircraft to do this.
Anything on allowing planes to fly the full range and crash after that?I had originally intended on allowing that, but I might need to add something to the interface so players aren't inadvertently crashing aircraft. (There is the white-circle to warn them right now, but some players really like to push their aircraft to the absolute edge of that white circle, so I need to make sure that calculation is 100% accurate.)
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1. Map labels would definitely add flavour and atmosphere so I am keen on that.
Quite a few people have been suggesting that, so it's only a matter of time until I add them.
2. Rivers? Why can we not have a river tool in the same way we have a road tool. I realise that at some scales rivers would not be appropriate but on a Europe scale map or tactical map they would be vital. The Ardennes without the Meuse? Germany without the Rhine? The UK without the Thames? Russia without the Volga? Etc. I have played with the map editor (which crashes) by using the finest 'pen' to draw sea areas as rivers but they are too wide. Can we have an even finer pen to draw rivers or a river tool? Also, do roads allow a land unit to travel across a sea area (Copehagen to Malmo?) or a river? Rivers would be good.(nod)
3. I ageee about some of the strange combat results. A transport sinking a battleship? Hmm! Doesnt feel right to me. Airpower is also still underpowered in my opinion. You spend ages building up an airwing of tactical bombers and they all get shot down even though there is not flak gun in sight.Yeah, some airpower balancing seems to be in order.
4. The diplomacy model has huge potential but the AI simply doesnt use it. I know we are supposed to play on line with other humans but the fact is that a conquer the world map is so time consuming that you are realistically only going to play it against the AI. The AI should be tweeked so it does make alliances, trades, etc and that if you are nice and trustworthy and generous their mood lightens towards you. That brings me to another thing. It is too easy to make war and the make peace when it suits you. You can batter an enemy and then make peace and the start another war when it suits you. There needs to be a concept of 'reputation'. Nobody trusted Germany after 1939 because its actions. I feel that if you are completely aggressive and break peace after peace the AI will adopt a fight to the death approach. I am not sure what is going on under the bonnet (fender? is that what you Yanks call it?) when it comes to AI. Do your actions influence how it acts towards you? Reputation should recover over time if you are nice/generous long enough or join your allies if they are attacked.Yes, those things should be added. I'm also trying to prevent the human player from getting too much of an advantage by manipulating the AI. For example, I don't want the player to play a game with two AIs and be able to consistently manipulate one AI to fight against the second one.
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Random Map Generator - still not enough land ;(.
Ah, right - larger continents. Yeah, I didn't mess around with the land-mass sizes. I can take a look at that.
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I was hoping to spend more time working on AI and game-balancing issues this week, but I got a whole bunch of bugs fixed instead. Enjoy!
- Fixed a crash and some AI processing-speed problems
- Fixed Crash that happens when you try to move GroundUnits off a transport near the coast
- In the resources window, removed unused unit categories off the Oil-consumption and Food-consumption lists
- Fixed bug: Can't type dates into the "New Game Setup" window
- Fixed bug: The game crashes if you start a game with a scenario where one player has no cities
- Fixed bug: When using the "Map is Known" option, the inital enemy city can be immediately found using National Summary / Animated History.
- Fixed bug: Cannot pickup/dropoff units from a transport if it is inside a group
- Fixed bug: If a carrier is inside a group, you don't need to select the ship to land an aircraft there
- Fixed crash that happens when you right-click in the map editor
- Fixed bug: In TradeAgreements, AI will no longer accept a technology hint if it already knows that hint
- Fixed bug: Group-names were being reset to "Group" after loading the game
- Trade Agreement window gives error information if you don't have enough money/iron/food/oil for the trade
- Trade Agreement window allows for counteroffers
- Fixed bug: Ships suddenly died when they attempted to capture a resource
- Fixed bug: When aircraft have orders to move to the edge of their range, sometimes they fly-home before reaching waypoint
- AI adjusts technology buy/sell prices based on foreign relations
- Added x0.5 and x10 turn replay speeds
- Added zoom-in/zoom-out hotkeys
- Random Map Generator: Increased the amount of gold in a gold resource, so they are more valuable
- Bumped up the Movement rate of Carrier (Class 1) from 60 to 75
- Added a second (inner) range circle for aircraft when they are in a mobile unit (carrier)
- The second circle is the safe range no matter which direction the carrier moves
- Added "Sentry for one turn"
- Added "Sentry until repaired"
- Enlarged the "free technology" scenario window to allow for 10 players, and sorted technologies alphabetically
- Added a few new options to the 'Random Map Generator' options (in the MapEditor): Amount of Land, Rainfall, Mountains, Cities and Resources
- Added an immediate Download button to the "Check for updates" window
- Fixed typo Art Gorbett - Anytime you thing your smater...
- Fixed typo Neutal->Neutral
- Fixed tutorial: resource value of 10 is called "decent", but resources vary between 3 and 8
- Fixed tutorial: text says that city production can be set to "money", but it actually sets to "Produce wealth".
- Fertilizer Factory too long in the resource window
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Seen that happen too. I have save game files if you want to look at it?
Sure! Send it to the email address I put in your private messages.
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Will the game keep you victories and losses? Will you start as a LT and work your way up to Field Marshall?
Yes, when you play games while signed into your account, the game will keep track of your wins and losses, total hours played, total turns played, and so on. It does assign a rank based on this information.
Will you be able to set the number of cities and resources when you randomly generate maps?The random map generator only has a few options right now. I do plan to expand what it can do so that players can get mixes of land and water that they like.
I noticed the AI goes build crazy and sits in the city but does not attack then. I would hope it build transports and tries to capture cities.Hm. It should be building transports and things. I've watched the AI play lots of games, and it shouldn't be settling down. I suppose it might do that if you have overwhelming forces.
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Do you even need to click on the circle? I thought once you've set an unload point, you can select a unit on the transport, click anywhere on the island you're unloading to, and the unit will automatically route via the unload point.
When this "how to" was originally written, you did have to click on the dropoff point, but one of the recent builds changed that to make it more convenient.
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The dudes won't unmount in the screen shot and the program crashes to desktop. See the move line drawn from the top of the screen. I haven't seen this before. Also note that the ship is not docked, still shouldn't crash. New bug.
See screenshot. I tried to upload save file but forum says it is too big, even zipped.
I'll give you an email address in your private messages, if you want to send me any files. I'd post it here on the forums, but I want to avoid spambots.
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How about when setting up repeat orders, there's some way to see what has been done before. I like to have a few planes flying patrols to check for oncoming transports, and when I'm setting up the patrol orders it would be nice to see where other patrols are already going.
Ah, I hadn't thought of that.
Linked rally points: If you set an air rally point from town A to town B, then from B to C, a plane produced in A should fly to C via B without further orders. It's good to produce planes in the rear areas and fly them to the front because they get their quickly, but this can be multiple hops. In theory you could do the same with ship and land rally points, although there would seem to be much less need.True, true. Right now, the rally points only move the aircraft from their original city to a second city, but that second city might still be a long distance from where you want the aircraft.
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Suggestion: add the possibility to put labels on map, in the editor. For example 'Maginot Line' nearby a fortress in France, El Alamein in Egypt (the location does not warrant a city), etc. Would add flavor to scenarios.
This idea does seem to be popular, because I've heard other people suggest the same thing. If the map is entirely visible, it would be easy to implement because I would just show all the labels all the time. But, if the map is unknown, it gets a little more complicated. I don't think we'd want labels appearing on the map over unknown areas. Do players reveal letters as they explore a territory (e.g. if they are in Egypt, can a player discover the "E" but not the rest of the word?) or should the entire word appear suddenly when an area is discovered? The later would probably be the best option, but I'll have to think about how and when a label appears on the map.
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I'd like the ability to remove city improvements from cities you own. This could lead to a scorched earth policy when you're being forced to retreat and could also be useful for guerrilla style hit and run attacks on undefended towns.
Yes, I suppose there's some historical precedent for that, too. Example: The Soviets in WW2 used a scorched earth policy in the face of Nazi invasion, and armies wreaked havoc on cities in the American Civil War.
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A small bug..
At the end of the "progress bar run" the game occassionally freezes - this happens if the window which gives the "city build options" is needed to open automatically at the start of the new turn. This window does not appear and the game freezes...but pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the Task Manager Window causes the city build options window to appear and the game continues normally (The TM Window is closed without other action).
David
Is this bug in the latest version? I ask because I thought this bug was fixed in one of the updates, and I wasn't sure if you were running an old version.
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Changes and Fixes:
- Made the pickup/dropoff system easier. Players no longer have to select a (yellow) dropoff-point for GroundUnits in transports.
- Changed the Trade Interface
- Put a "Trade" button on the interface for easier access to the trade system.
- Moved the 'current turn' information so players could read it when they are in the reports tab.
- Fixed bug: Ships were running aground.
- Fixed bug: GroundUnits sometimes get dropped off on little coastal islands instead of the intended large island
- Fixed bug: Sea-unit groups give the wrong "Estimated Time Of Arrival" tooltip
- City population grows, usually 1-3 additional population per 100 turns, zero growth for 25 population cities
Oh, and if you had trouble loading old games with the last version (0.97.8806), you can load them again with this new version.
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Thanks Brit; I appreciate the reply. I understand what your saying, but do hope you are able to incorporate the extra level of decision making.
Yes, I'd like to fix that.
Last night I had a battleship sail into an undefended food resourse and disappear from the map. The area is the five point food resource immediately SE of Chittagong. It is a bit of a Bermuda Triangle as both the AI and myself have lost ships there after successful combats as I explained above. This time however there was no combat animation. The battleship just sailed in and vanished with no change in possession of the resource.I considered the possibility of a submarine, but I assume there would be an explosion or something to indicate that. Also, I don't believe the enemy in this case has built any subs. I took the resource without further incident a few turns later with an empty transport.
The ship showed up as sunk in the turn recap, but I think there is an infrequent bug at work during captures. Of course it could be my copy of the demo has corrupted or something. I am somewhat dismayed nobody else is experiencing the issue.
Thanks for all your hard work. I like some of the UI changes in particular. The game keeps getting better and has that one more turn quality to it.
I'll try to repeat the problem. Also, if you have any saved-games (maybe an autosave) that you can send me, it will contain the turn-replay information. I'll also be able to see if there was an enemy unit in the area, although a Battleship would take several hits before being sunk, so that doesn't seem likely. I sent you a private message containing the email address where you should send the file, if you still have it.
Suggestions
in Empires of Steel
Posted
Yeah, I had setup the technology system so that people couldn't get too far in one branch while ignoring others. I don't know if I have the balance right. One thing that I didn't want to happen is this: some player would decide that aircraft was the only thing they wanted to research, then they ignored the rest of the tech tree and flew around advanced aircraft destroying relatively primitive enemy ground units and ships because those units didn't have the technology to effectively combat the advanced aircraft.
You're right in saying that branch-specific technologies could be a way to make advancement through the tech-tree less homogeneous. Another possibility is that I could increase the cost of the applied technologies and decrease the cost of basic technologies. In that case, players could advance along exclusively one branch more easily. Although, that would allow players to advance their technology very exclusively in one area - allowing them, for example, to get advanced jet fighters while ignoring tactical bombers and strategic bombers. The branch technologies would at least keep sub-branches of the tech tree relatively equalized.