cEvo..lution is, right now... way ahead!

[zyxpsilon]

Listen up...
Looking for an extraordinary achievement?
Civ3 has got your Ram spinning out of wack?
Bored by the same Space race again and again?

Then get this jewel into making!:D
Hurry, cause you might be missing on something so revolutionary...
it is mind boggling.

I've played a lot of true "STRATEGY" games, believe me, >cEvo< will bring every single one of them to their knees begging for mercy.

AT >> c-evo.org <<

:eek:
Wake-up... everyone!
TBS is changing by the minute.
:cool: :) :) :)

[Mark_Everson]

Hi zyxpsilon:

I check in on c-evo every once in a while. I will happily play it when the AI clearly exceeds the (abyssmal) level of the civ2 ai. My impression was that the milestone hasn't been achieved yet. Is it there yet?

I wish the project the best of luck!

[rid102]

Civ-evo is good and shows a lot of promise but is still a little too rough around the edges for me.

I would love to code some parts of it but I've looked at the code and it's Pascal (yuk) and horribly messy too :q:

I tried looking at the C AI interface but couldn't make much sense of it at a glance. I may go back and persevere with it a bit more later on.

c-evo looks reasonably well polished but is kind of lacking in some concepts (e.g. Wonders/Diplomacy/Trade/Winning etc.). Seems to me as though Steffen kind of started working on it not sure of where he was going and has just ended up building an engine, and is looking for concepts to bolt onto it. Also, Steffen has his own ideas of where he wants the game to go (e.g. no PW, unit workshop) etc. which I personally do not like, but it is his baby, so he is entitled to do what he wants with it, of course.

Nonetheless, it is a very good acheivement and is certainly worth anyone's attention :b:

I've followed it for some time now (12 months+), and the biggest downer is that I can't see that much real progress has been made on it in that time, which is a shame. Sure, there are more people posting on the site etc. but in terms of how the game itself has come alive, it's still quite a way off being a "finished" game IMHO. It's got guts... just not all of them, yet. :)

I'd certainly rate it over FreeCiv though and IMHO it probably qualifies as "the best" non-commerical Civ clone to date.

Keep up the good work Steffen & co! :b:

And also Mark and anyone else working on civ-a-likes! :b:

[zyxpsilon]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
AI... Is it there yet?


That's the point altogether, AI's of this particular Civ2&3 clone are far too important in quality and in design to be left unnoticed. The approach has a definite advantage over "others" out there; coders get to create the challenge, thus improving by zillions of factors what we are using!! :D
It is in the early stages of implementation, ("diplomacy" is absolutely amazing) and will further get way better... IF true strategy weirdoes come in and support the thing.
And lately, there's been too much action around it to stay unaware of the tremendous opportunities.
Highly participative, reinventing the genre, new rules, complying with "The LIST" and Open-Source status makes the edge. Units so diverse in both strengths & capacities that it boggles the mind just to think about how >expandable< the concept could progress.
Oh... it IS there yet allright; so much in fact that CIV3 is >>behind<< in the race.
:)

Rid102...

Steffen's has made a few key changes in it, lately that caught a lot of my attention. C++ or Delphi or Pascal (Looks all the same to me, what's important is the content, the juice and the "structure" itself).

Space race is scheduled for v0.8.0 (Preview is up for D/L), Diplomacy beats the hell out of symetry. Trade is under a complete overall with newly definded concepts, as we speak, by a few coders. All "they" need is support from a wider user-base.
Nonetheless, & all factors considered... it is slowly (This game does NOT have a static inhouse/team like the big guns "Firaxis, Activision &alumnis") progressing like the famous lil'turtle against the rabbit of Jean deLafontaine.

Watch the train, or Jump in before it zooms by you.

Besides... IT will ( should i say, almost IS) crush -strategy- patterns in its path. Humans do AI's, the only solution worth a nickel to the penny ala'Civ2 uncompetitive burned-into-the-code sequential loop of instructions.

I've got nothing against other alternatives (Clash, etc.), everyone has its own weakenesses and power elements. What sets "cEvo" apart is mentionned on their site and in the above paragraph to Mark. Get it. Play it. Take it. Improve it. Grow it to its full potential and you'll have a diamond/of/a/game on your hard-drive.

:cute: :mad: ;) :zzz:

[tishco]

civ evo rulez!;)
its dplomacy kicks a$$
i needs civ3 like resorses and its beat civ3!
hope it progresses well.

[zyxpsilon]

Originally posted by tishco
needs civ3 like resorses

:D
Here's someone^^^ who really understood what real "TBS" strategy means.
:b:
And the version hasn't reach 1.0; without all the 3D animations, the advisors, the great leaders, the 500 MBs, the Commerce & the resources of CIV-III without Sci-Fi.
They won't plagiarize it, no... dare like everyone else defying copyright legal pursuits. Go ahead Firaxis, sue me, them & Microprose, Activision, Microsoft and whoever else that stands in the way to the freedom of consumers.
Bring your fans to the highest courts of any country.
I paid Brian Reynold's design upfront, stashing plenty of cash to own a CD and a printed manual. Then what's in is mine to do as i please.

"cEvo" has enough of a T-R-U-E managable units-workshop, an amazing concept about Nationals, >external< AI's and Research... :cool: :mad: :D :D :D that breaks apart madness paths from simulated history.
They lead the pack.
You'd be the judge.
You don't play cEvo, cEvo plays you.
Prove me wrong... even with their rare, special & extra resources.
:)

[muxec]

cEvo is good, but AI is very weak and protocol for AI development commented so, that it's hardly understandable.

[Straybow]

I looked at it long ago, but Rock-Scissors-Paper style combat is boring to me.

[neonext]

hmm i have yet to try c-evo, can you explain what you mean Straybow?

also, i noticed c-evo is still being updated after all this time; however, about once a month there is an small update which usually only contains a few bug fixes.

this thread is ages old and so is the game. it doesn't show any sign on significantly moving forward, so why are you guys being so active about it?

[muxec]

It's very nice game, the quality is in the same level with Civ3 except AIs.

[CapTVK]

Although I'm more a Freeciv fan I drop by from time at the Cevo site. Played it myself a few times. Currently the game is set more for being an AI testing ground than for normal human interaction. It does introduce some fresh gaming concepts and has a decent interface, which i like.

However, it isn't up to scratch if you compare it with Freeciv.

[Straybow]

Neonext: can you explain what you mean Straybow?

C-Evo does not resolve combat probabilistically, but deterministically: Stronger unit wins. There may be some nuances to that (maybe winner takes damage and thus becomes weaker), but not much. Here's a quote from the site:
Comment: The game should not be deterministic. It's boring if I always know the result of an action before. Also, there should be random events like famine, plague etc.

Answer: Only determinism allows to think ahead, and this is the basic idea of a strategy game. Yes, the game is boring. But the reason for that is the missing challenge due to the poor artifical intelligence. If AI plays good enough, you will lose your game. If a game you lose is boring for you, you are probably not a strategist. To compensate missing challenge with amusing, unexpected happenings is the idea of a simulation (or of a film).
I think Mr. Gerlach is a bit screwy in the head. It isn't that "a game you lose" might be boring (having lost many games of civ over the years). "No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy" is one aspect of realism that I find necessary, otherwise I'd play chess.

[St Leo]

Steffen has stated that he wants to make a game and not a simulation; therefore, he is abstaining from including the unforeseeable. That's fine by me; in it's current state, the game is great and it allows me to play as the pacifistic isolationist that I want to play as.:)

[LDiCesare]

It is a nice game indeed, though I find it too much civ2-like and the AI is pitiful. It is sad, as with a good AI this would be a very good game.
The lack of randomness in fights is not a catatrophe to me, but the lack of randomness in special patterns is. The game has very good UI in general but would need tweaking: allowing help messages when a new item is to be built, no queueing orders, disallowing settlement where your city will die immediately, stacked combat...
It has a one-more--turn syndrome though, so that is quite good.
I don't think the AI model used will work, because to develop a full DLL with all AI aspects in it is something very few people will do, and that will probably not give a worthy AI in the long run.

[St Leo]

Actually, it has queueing of orders.

Macro Management > City Types

It also has queueing of techs.

Options > [ ] Integrated Research Goal

Have you tried 3rd party AI modules like SBAI?:)

[LDiCesare]

I saw the city types and found the interface ugly enough to forget it. In CtP2, I don't use custom lists, which is the same as city types. I just stack a pile of maybe 20 turns worth of orders and wait for the stack to empty. Having fixed lists is not good for me, as, when a type X city has finished its production, I want to review whether I want it to become of another type. Thus types of cities is too static for me to be useful.

I saw tech queueing, but even civ2 has something like that (setting objectives) so I kind of expected it.

I didn't try 3rd party AIs. Where do you get some such(preferably good ones)? Are there many? I somehow don't think the model of replaceable dll's will work well. You can't take the diplomacy part of a dll and put it with the fighting intelligence of another one (compare that to what a scripted model can do, like CtP2). Maybe I am wrong.

I find a bit sad that this project is not more ambitious. They don't want stacked combat, nor random resources on maps (but map is random- you can't say you want a non random game if you have random maps...). "Avoiding risk" (sic) allows them to make a good civ clone, with unit workshop added, but the combat model stinks in comparison with f.e. CtP2...

[St Leo]

<i>when a type X city has finished its production, I want to review whether I want it to become of another type. Thus types of cities is too static for me to be useful.</i>

What's preventing you from doing that in cEvo? You are notified whenever production is finished and city type selection is handled by presenting them as a special kind of city improvement.

<i>Where do you get some such(preferably good ones)?</i>

http://www.c-evo.org/

<i> You can't take the diplomacy part of a dll and put it with the fighting intelligence of another one</i>

You can, however, have several different AIs playing in the same game.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi St Leo:

AI has been the most important thing in preventing me from looking seriously into civ-evo. I did play it a little bit about 6 months ago...

Last I heard (several months back) the AIs still were thought not be competitive even at the level of the atrocious Civ2 AI. Has that changed? When civ-evo gets to the stage where the AI is significantly better, I'll be checking it out again.

Cya,

Mark

[LDiCesare]

St Leo, thanks for the link, I'll try to check it.
If I make a queue and am presented with "finished building" before the end of the queue, I don't have a queue. I will try it.
Having different AIs doesn't change much from a single code using different attitudes/tactics.
I think I'll download some stuff to check it.

[LDiCesare]

St Leo, that AI is much better. It still needs double production to be a challenge, but at least it is aggressive. Too much so, in fact, as it forgets to defend itself. It makes it alll the more dangerous if it gets you first, but it just reminds me of ICSers. It is sad the system doesn't allow for stacked combat. That means no combined arms strategy, just build fast powerful land units with no defense (since offense is typically between 5 and 10 times defense, it is pretty useless to build static defense). The AI can be good because the game system is oversimplified IMO.
Still, it is fun to play, but will get very repetitive.
I understand they don't want randomness (except in map!?) but randomly chosen AIs among those available would probably be more challenging than what the game allows now.
btw happy birthday, St Leo.

[St Leo]

<i>Last I heard (several months back) the AIs still were thought not be competitive even at the level of the atrocious Civ2 AI.</i>

1. I suspect that the non-default cEvo AIs are much better than Civ2's at waging long-range war. Their tech research capabilities aren't horrible either. I've tried AIs in the pre-0.10 and they were far better than me at abusing the system.:)
2. Personally, I was looking for a game that would let me build-up a small civilization nestled among neighbours that would never be attacked. The default AI gives me that. Civ2's AI goes nuts once 1750 rolls around and prevents me from enjoying the game.

<i>If I make a queue and am presented with "finished building" before the end of the queue, I don't have a queue.</i>

It's not unpleasant or micromanagey if you switch from notification dialogues to a notification list.

<i>randomly chosen AIs among those available would probably be more challenging than what the game allows now.</i>

Interesting idea.

<i>btw happy birthday, St Leo.</i>

Thanks.:D

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by St Leo
<i>Last I heard (several months back) the AIs still were thought not be competitive even at the level of the atrocious Civ2 AI.</i>

1. I suspect that the non-default cEvo AIs are much better than Civ2's at waging long-range war. Their tech research capabilities aren't horrible either. I've tried AIs in the pre-0.10 and they were far better than me at abusing the system.:)
2. Personally, I was looking for a game that would let me build-up a small civilization nestled among neighbours that would never be attacked.

Thanks for the info St Leo. Yours is the first basically positive comparison I've heard comparing Civ2 and civ-evo AIs. Next time I feel like something new to play, I'll try the forum again and see if the balance of opinion has changed.

You like a very different sort of game from me, but I'm glad you can get it in civ-evo. :)

-Mark

[LDiCesare]

The AI may be good, but the game promotes ICS even more so than civ2. Make mobile units, like attack 30/def 6, when the defender can only make 18/18 or 21/21 units. You move faster, so you can always kill their units in the open. Only units inside city walls would pose a problem but the AI doesn't use that, and the resources model (civ2 shields) makes it easy to besiege a city, destroy its defenders or population by sitting on good tiles, then attack by sacrificing 2 units.
The game is fun once but the AI really is not a challenge once you understood the mechanisms of the game. Unless you give it production advantages, which is in fact what civ does, but I never found that interesting.

Stacked combat and/or higher defense available to units, attack value not tied to movement, would make this game better. A whole new combat model. But maybe I aml seriously biased here :)