Brit

I assume you mean "EoS", rather than "AoE"?

Yeah, I can see your point here. I would add that I think the naval-value also has to do with the distances between landmasses and number of landmasses. I generally found the naval combat in Civ3 to be really boring. I think it was mostly because there usually only a few landmasses (so once you made it across the single water gap, it was back to lots of land combat). You could generally run your transports across the water pretty quickly, too, since there was only a small gap. The ability to quickly shuttle ground-units across the water meant that enemy naval units were pretty useless at stopping invasions unless they were sitting right in front of your cities at the time you do the invasion. I generally thought that naval units were a waste of money - the kind of thing you built when you weren't sure what to build. I thought the old Empire game had some interesting naval combat, and I think that's because there were so many islands and there was a gap between them - so players couldn't do quick transport-sprints from one island to the next. (Personally, I thought the old Empire game had the opposite problem: naval combat was interesting, but ground combat was boring.) You're right, though - convoys would increase the importance of navies - though, only if nations owned several islands. Well, I'll tell you the initial idea I had for freighters. My thought was that I wanted to make freighters and convoys relevant in the game. I thought about a system where players would build freighters, and then when they moved between two cities on different landmasses, that the cities would get a short production bonus whenever the freighter arrived. You could put these freighters on "patrol" (which means they repeat their orders indefinitely - i.e. repeatedly move between two or more cities), and those cities would get some bonuses. Under that system, the resources (gold, oil, iron, food) weren't involved at all with the freighters, and players who didn't use freighters didn't get penalized (though they didn't get the bonuses). The main problems with that idea was that: (1) I had to make the production bonuses large enough to make players want to build freighters (even though they might want to build military units), (2) if another player started using submarines to knock-out freighters, then the first player could simply stop building freighters - they didn't suffer any penalty for not using them, they just wouldn't get the bonuses, (3) I wanted a way to make production bonuses correlate with the distances between cities - otherwise, players would just have freighters move between cities right next to each other, back in the unreachable areas of their nation. I decided that I didn't really like that system. Although, there are obviously other possible ways that freighters could be used. Correct. Thanks for the input. With all this talk about convoys and micro-management the past few days, I was beginning to think the way to handle this would be to automatically create freighters (maybe players would or wouldn't need to build them explicitly). The freighters would just "do their own thing" - moving between islands, resupplying them with some sort of materials (maybe the exact nature of the freight would be opaque to the players). Enemies could destroy these freighters, and there would be various penalties - for example, if you have an island with several cities, and enemy submarines keep sinking freighters moving to that island, then those cities would begin to suffer some penalties, as if they were experiencing shortages. I don't know. At least that system wouldn't require any input from the user. They wouldn't even need to give orders to the freighters. But, players would still need to keep their shipping lanes clear of enemy units (ships, submarines, aircraft). I suppose a similar system could be used with roads. Any thoughts?

I think most games will be played with the random-map generator -- which means you pick the flags players are using and the map is randomly generated (with randomly generated islands, starting points for each player, cities, and geography).

Yeah, I had some thoughts about putting freighters into the game - specifically to give submarines a larger role. (In fact, there are probably some old screenshots of freighters.) I could add them back in as a game variant - though, I'd have to rethink their role in the game.

Interesting to know. I knew that there was a mod-community for Civ units, but didn't know how big it was. No, I have each image in a separate PNG file. Each unit has a text file that describes exactly which image files to load for that unit. Yeah, probably something like that. Right now, the system I use for maps, scenarios, and rules is that whenever a user uploads one of these files to my server, it gets a name based (partially) on their account username. Since usernames are unique, players aren't stepping on each other's files.

I'm actually using PNG files. They're 32-bit (24-bit RGB + 8-bit Alpha). So, yes, it allows for semi-transparent areas in the image. (Sorry, maybe "sprite" has a different meaning than I think it has. I guess I'm not up on my lingo. I'm using 32-bit images.) Yes. That's easy enough to do, but I also have to make sure user1 doesn't overwrite the files created by user2. (nod)

You're talking about all the user-built unit images? They look really nice. (You're making me want to get an image/animation download system running now.) Well, if the original artist has released them into the public, that sounds like a good idea. (I assume you're talking about images/animations originally created by modders for Civ3. Images created by Firaxis for Civ3 - well, there might be some legal problems with using that stuff.)

Yeah, it would be nice. Yes, you can setup foreign relations in the scenario editor. (On a related note, the game also allows for "team wins" - so, if a world-war 2 scenario involved five different players, then the Axis or Allies "team" can win the game together - which is different than the normal "last player on the map" type of a game.) Unfortunately, the scenario editor isn't that sophisticated. That sounds like a good idea, and it's not something that would be infeasible to add to the editor.

The latter. The game doesn't require roads or freighters or anything like that. When you own it, the resource goes into your resource pool. I had thought about handling that differently, but was worried about making players manage too many things. Historically, this is a strategy that worked. I didn't implement this, however, because I was afraid of requiring too much micro-management. Unfortunately, no. Units cannot be cut-off geographically from their resource pool. Yeah, I played Civ3 quite a bit. I got the demo for Civ4, but never played it more than the 100 turns (or whatever the limit is on the Civ4 Demo), and was never interested enough in it to buy. I've heard other people say that Civ4 wasn't a good followup to Civ3. It uses a sprite system (24-bit RGB + 8-bit Alpha). The sprites are rendered from 3d models*. Units have 16 rotations, some have movement animations (like infantry walking), and combat animations. I thought about opening up the graphics system so other people can add new unit images/animations. That could be done through the same system that I use for downloading/uploading maps/scenarios/rules. I had done some initial work on this, but there are no plans to have this available at release. (I could potentially open it up post-release.) There are some image/sound management issues involved that I have to get resolved. (Presumably users would want to add sounds as well as images, since units make sounds.) Some of the complications: if someone added an image/animation to the game, it would be used in a new ruleset. The ruleset would have to remember what images/animations it uses. Then, whenever users downloaded a ruleset, it would have to download the associated images/animations/sounds as well. The system would have to avoid overwriting existing images, and would need to remember its dependencies. The whole thing can get rather complicated in terms of remembering dependencies. So, what I'm saying is that opening up the image/sound system in the game isn't quite as easy as simply "opening it up" - which is why that functionality won't be included in the initial release. * I found that I could pack a lot more detail into sprites than using full 3d. With sprites, I could do 8-bit Alpha and sub-pixel details (admittedly, this is approximated by using 3D anti-aliasing). I could also put subtle outlines around units that made them more visible, and add some "increase sharpness" post-processing to the rendered images that made the images better defined.

Combat works similarly to games like Civilization except that units have separate combat abilities against the seven unit categories (below). For example, Battleships don't have one combat value. Rather, they have combat values against each unit category. This means battleships are good against ships, but weaker against submarines. Destroyers, on the other hand, are a better choice for attacking submarines. Terrain also affects combat results. Units fall into seven categories: Soft Ground units (infantry, artillery), Armor, Aircraft, Missiles, Ships, Submarines, and Space (e.g. Satellites) There aren't really any special combat abilities. Some units can build airfields, Infantry can entrench (giving them a defensive bonus), and submarines are difficult to see. But there isn't anything like Starcraft's special abilities (like "Plague" or "Archon"). No, combat units don't gain experience. I'm not familiar with Laser squad nemesis, but you can give "field orders" to your units. The field orders determine what they do when they suddenly encounter an enemy units. They can be set to attack all enemy units, attack enemy units if they are weaker than your unit, and some other variations.

Yup, it remembers. Huh. That's an good way to use a second monitor.

Hmmm. I'll have to double-check the Civ 3 map size in order to do a comparison, but the map size in EOS is upto 3200x3200 pixels. There is no absolute limit, but players have to supply their military with oil and food. Yup, as Moon mentioned, there's a map/scenario editor and a rules editor. (The difference between maps and scenarios is this: maps contain geography, cities, resources, airfields, and start points. But, scenarios allow you to define which nations are on the map, what they control at the beginning of the game (i.e. cities, resources, units), and which technologies each player begins the game with.) There's also a built-in system for sharing your maps/scenarios/rules with other people (they get uploaded to our server).

Haven't done any work getting multi-monitor setups to work. Since the game runs in one completely contained window, I think the only multi-monitor setup that would make sense is if the monitors were setup next to each other and treated like one continuous screen. But, no work has been done to make sure that this setup would work. So, I guess the answer would be that the multi-monitor setup isn't "supported", but I can't say that it won't work.

Ah, uh, I'm not sure what to tell you. The game is in beta. Probably a few months out from release.

EoS focuses more on combat than Civilization does. It starts out players at a technology level approximately around the year 1900 and moves into the early 21st century. It has multiplayer (LAN or internet), single player, voice-chat, resources (oil, iron, food, gold), and various options for cooperative play (like being able to show your map to other players, team win, etc). In addition to the random map generator, it a map and scenario editor (so you can create your own maps), and a rules editor (so you can create your own rules). And, the game has a built-in file uploader/downloader. If you create a cool world map / scenario / or ruleset, you can upload it for everyone. And you can download the stuff that other people create. It has both multiplayer and single-player modes. I'm working on making the AI as good as possible.

Hey Rich. I just posted some large screenshots. You can check them out here: http://www.empiresofsteel.com/Screenshot46.png http://www.empiresofsteel.com/Screenshot47.png You might need to click on the images to see them full-sized (since browsers tend to shrink them to fit inside the browser window). They are 1280x800 and 1280x1024 images.

The game rules are stored in a single file. This allows players to have several different rule-sets on their computer, let's players pick which set of rules to use, and, yes, the game does come with a rules-editor. The rules of the game define the technologies, units, buildings, initial units, etc that are in the game. So, the short answer to your question, "Will EOS actually allow players to create their own unique rules-sets??" is yes.

I've been posting screenshots at lower resolutions in order to avoid large file sizes. But, yeah, I'll go ahead and post some larger screenshots if you'd like to see them. The game either runs in a resizable window, or you can maximize the window and it will go full-screen (including covering the Windows task bar). This also means it can run at any resolution above 800x600. Brit

Sorry about the lack of updates. I've been busy working on the Artificial Intelligence lately. I think it's interesting to make the AI find solutions to all kinds of situations, but I don't know if it would be that interesting to hear about, or if it would just seem overly technical. I've also added a blog to the company website (http://www.atomicboysoftware.com/blog/). I find web-work to be down-right relaxing next to the hard-thinking required by Artificial Intelligence coding. I thought I'd start moving away from writing general gaming-stuff on the empires-of-steel blog. In the past, I've posted thoughts on copyrights, game-related violence claims, or my thoughts on some random game demo. Those kinds of posts always seemed a little out of place there.

Well, that kind of thing would require building some new images, animations, and sounds (which isn't hard) along with a new set of rules (other than game-balance issues, this is easy because the game is setup to easily switch gamerules). Other than that, it's not really a problem to expand the game to other time-periods.

The world market has an infinite amount of resources, so it's not possible to flood the market or buy-up the market. Of course, with the poor exchange rate on the world-market, most people will probably prefer to buy it from you (if they can), and you could charge quite a bit of money. You'd have to charge less than the world market price, but it would still be quite profitable. No, sorry, all of them are always 'on'. Yeah, I've been thinking about a related problem: getting things right the first time. I think that if I make some changes in later versions of the game that there will always be some people who liked it better the previous way (whatever it was). They might be a minority, but it would be nice to keep everyone together.

In a more realistic game, players would have to transport resources from place to place and even have supply lines to individual units, but I decided not to go to that level of detail. When you buy/sell resources with other players, prices are always negotiated. But, in the 'open market' things can be bought and sold at a fixed price. I thought about making 'open market' prices fluctuate (based on random fluctuations and player buying/selling to the open market), or having no 'open market' at all. Regarding the existence of an open market: If you're playing a two-player game, then the other player is always going to be an enemy and you won't have anyone to trade with - so that's one reason why the existence of an 'open market' is a good thing. Also, if you're playing on a map of europe, then it's kind of assumed that nations exist outside the map area, and those nations would be potential trading partners. The 'open market' sort of simulates that. Regarding open-market price fluctuations: Well, I've considered that in the past, and it's not a bad idea. It does add a little more complexity to the game (and I'm not sure I want to add too much complexity).

The way resources work is that you own resources (Iron Mines, Oil Fields, etc), and each turn those resources go into your reserves. At the same time, you're spending those resources out of your reserves. Even if you lose control of all resources on the map, you might still have some in reserve. If you don't control any oil fields/mines/grain, and don't have any reserves, you might still be buying your oil/iron/food from another player. If a player is caught in a situation where they have used all their reserves and are consuming a resource faster than they are producing it, then buying it from another player is their best option because it's better than the alternative: You can buy and sell resources at a fixed price, and the exchange rate is bad. If you need to, you can set your cities to produce wealth, and use that money to buy resources. It's not really a good option, since "producing wealth" means that you aren't building units or city improvements, and the exchange rate isn't very good.

Right now, things are hardcoded because I didn't plan-ahead for localization. I intend on going back and making it localization-friendly.

The random map will probably be the most typical type of game. Wrapping is optional. You can specify "no wrap", "left-right wrap", "top-bottom wrap", or "left-right + top-bottom wrap".