| Total Entries: 9 |
idiot
Entry: 9
08/12/2003
07:37 PM
| 08/12/2003
Whoa
Decided to pick this one up again for reasons unbeknownst to stuff. Anyway, I tweaked the combat system a bit giving units maximum attack strengths, this seemed to balance things out. So now a fighter will probably get killed against a tank still, but he'll do some damage first.
Also, I put in the beginnings of an artificial stupidity computer opponent. I found myself mildly entertained fighting him.
About all he seems to do is randomly throw out tanks, and build a tank if there isn't one in the city. He's probably building other stuff too, but I haven't told him what to do with any other units yet.
I added different terrain types a while back, but I don't think I updated the log.
The latest build is not up at planetidiot.com/games yet, I'll put it there when I feel the urge. |
idiot
Entry: 8
12/11/2002
12:16 AM
| 12/12/12. No. 12/12/2002
It's the little things that make me hop about
I got jets patrolling! Dadadaaah! :D You don't care! |
idiot
Entry: 7
12/11/2002
03:53 PM
| 12/11/2002
Stuff! And stuff.
My friend Bart has volunteered to help me out with the AI so I've been working to get the game to the point where an AI could actually play it.
You can now pathfind around the world, and I've limited the vertical scrolling with glaciers, like Civ. I now understand *why* they did it. Either they are as lazy as I am or it's a tougher problem than I can imagine. Or maybe they decided spheres don't wrap in 4 directions.
So that's all working. What else, I added player maps, so you have to explore around you. I fixed some bugs and got jets running out of fuel.
There is still a good chunk to be done before this is really releasable, but you can grab the latest build from planetidiot.com/games if you feel the urge.
I'm working on getting the jet fighters to patrol properly. Then I need to be able to load carriers and transports (otherwise boats are pretty useless) and at that point I think the AI can go in. |
idiot
Entry: 6
11/15/2002
10:23 AM
| 11/15/2002
More stuff
I have a very basic city production screen where you can change what a city builds. I was happy to see that right off the bat, boats pathfind through the water. I also got settlers working, they can build new cities. It's almost a game now!
On the down side I've been seeing a lot of weird bugs which will be fun to track downn't. I guess that's what happens when you get a lot done quickly. But it really is kind of exciting to see it start to come together so soon.
One bug is a throw back to an old Civ 2 bug where sometimes if you tried to pathfind around the world, it would have you go in the complete opposite direction. It pissed me off then, and it pisses me off now. I am determined to squash that, but seeing as how that bug was in Civ 2, a complex commercial game, I'm kind of scared. Like a little baby. |
idiot
Entry: 5
11/14/2002
04:36 PM
| 11/14/2002
Neato
I have cities producing units and units attacking each other. This is shaping up to be a cool little Empire type game :)
Also, I fixed the non-wrapping problem, so now units can pathfind all around the world.
After I get all the units working and a city production screen of some sort, I can move on to implementing player visibility maps, and then maybe think about AI... though I'd rather not think about that :) |
idiot
Entry: 4
11/13/2002
04:39 PM
| 11/13/2002
Whoa! Forgot about this one!
The pathfinding tutorial by Patrick Lester (turtle1776) turned out to be absolutely golden. Implementing pathfinding was super easy. It's definatley not something newbies should jump right into, but I had zero problems getting it to work.
I didn't get into the binary heap stuff, frankly I don't care how slow it is because this is a turn based game anyway. It goes slow on huge path finds though, and it totally barfs where the map wraps around. Hopefully these issues can be addressed!
At least it works, which means the project can move forward! Yippee! |
idiot
Entry: 3
08/01/2002
10:35 AM
| 08/01/2002
Yuck
Pathfinding is on hiatus for a while (ever?). In the mean time I have the map centering on units, which is useful, and crappy non-pathfinding. |
idiot
Entry: 2
07/18/2002
06:52 PM
| 07/18/2002
Blech
Tried to add the A* pathfinding stuff from the showcase, and though the examples work perfectly, merging it with my code failed miserably. Units would only be able to move to every other square, and other weird things went on. I'm talking with a programming guru friend of mine who tells me that A* really isn't optimal and hopefully he can work out one that works and is actually designed for a wrapping array map in a turn-based game. |
idiot
Entry: 1
07/17/2002
05:52 PM
| 07/17/2002
A new project begins!
Yeah, I'm taking a minor break from Super Moron Idiot, so sue me.
The game is a semi-clone of the old Amiga/Atari ST game "Empire" that predated Civ I and was probably ripped off by Civ I. It was extremely simple, but really addictive. There was no tech tree and you couldn't build cities (the map already had cities). I can't remember if the goal was to kill all your opponents or to take over all the cities on the map. Either way, making an Empire-ish game is probably something I should do before attempting a Civ style game. There are a lot of basics to figure out first!
I've already got a crude keyword based random map generator (see Eco for an idea of how it works), and starting cities. I am going to have you build cities in this game (unlike Empire). You start with one city and a tank.
Cities on the coast can build sea units, otherwise they can only build land and air units. The units will probably be:
Tank
Fighter (jet)
Transport (sea unit -- holds land units)
Destroyer
Cruiser
Submarine (can't see it unless you collide with it)
Carrier (holds air units)
Battleship
Settler
I have the turn-based system working (so far) and you can cycle through the different players and move their tank. The "move-to" command needs some serious pathfinding work, and having never tackled that before, it will be my first big challenge.
No sound, and graphics are crappy for now, and maybe forever as this is just a proof of concept thingy. |
