FOR AN OVERVIEW OF THE CLASH PROJECT - READ THIS

Mark_Everson · February 6, 2001, 20:10

Axi:

We have on my part only auto-caching that IE does. And I save most of my posts also. Many of us do things that way, and among the group we have always been able to recover a lost thread. Markos also backs up the forums every month or so IIRC.

Do we have any volunteers to maintain a good backup of the forum? Once the initial work is done, it would take about 20-30 min a week max IMO. Any takers?

Mark_Everson · March 15, 2001, 08:17

Demo 5 Is coming, but we've been slowed down a little by real life... With any luck a preview version will be out this weekend, and the final demo 5 version maybe another week after that. Sorry this is taking so long, but them's the breaks...

4VAlien · April 12, 2001, 15:19

why is your computers date at least 3 days further than mine?? just noticing

Mark_Everson · April 12, 2001, 15:53

??? Sorry just don't know what you mean. If its my ... 15 vs your 12 date, then mine is March 15. Obviously we missed that milestone big time

.

LDiCesare · May 23, 2001, 02:54

bump

DJ · May 24, 2001, 22:20

Well I'm new here and I'm really confused on the beginning part. When I started what was I suppose to do. How do I get more units and why does the little color box in the middle turn pink when I click it. I read the manual, did I miss something?

BTW, too bad you didn't do it in C++ with OpenGL, I would've love to help create a civ game.

DJ · May 24, 2001, 22:29

btw, how do you move the map around to see the rest of the world?

Mark_Everson · May 25, 2001, 09:09

Hi DJ, welcome to Clash!

Demo 5 will be out fairly soon, and will make d4 obsolete, but here are some brief answers...

(for more you can go to the thread discussing d4 that is linked to on the d4 download page: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000199.html)

New TFs are automatically built by your economy. Settings are randomly generated because d4 has the old econ model which wasn't the focus in d4.

pink square = selected square -- these can be used for a variety of things if you read the Shortcut Keys part of the manual. I may not have explicitly mentioned pink = selected in the manual...

Moving the map... select a square on either map. Then hit 'x' and it will make the selected square the center of view for that map.

Too bad you don't code in Java, c'est la vie...

DJ · May 25, 2001, 13:53

Thanks! Cool Game btw, can't wait till d5!

Mark_Everson · May 29, 2001, 21:51

Thanks DJ. Please give us any feedback on the design areas that you're motivated to provide, good or bad!

Don't wait for D5 too anxiously though... Basically its just a crude demo for some GUI elements, and the military and economic systems. It will be less of a game than D4 was because of the complete re-building of the code from the ground up. However it should enable us to make faster progress in the future, and D6 should be much more like a real game!

However D5 will allow us to get critical feedback on whether the two models are good, and hopefully that we're moving in the right direction.

Gary Thomas · May 29, 2001, 22:02

Aw, and I thought D5 was going to be wondeful!

Cheers

DJ · May 29, 2001, 22:54

Sound's great! One thing I really liked tho was the combat system. I thought that was pretty cool, I guess because it's different from the rest.

Mark_Everson · June 11, 2001, 21:59

Thanks for the feedback DJ

Eventually I'm going to have to figure out how to make this thread stick to the top again!

Mark_Everson · July 5, 2001, 00:02

Bump

Gary Thomas · July 5, 2001, 14:58

Um, bump seems to do it...

Mark_Everson · November 3, 2001, 18:45

I've updated the intro at the beginning of the thread, because it was about a year out of date

.

Back to coding

Mark_Everson · January 21, 2002, 13:46

For now its quite difficult for us to update the Apolyton web site, since files have to be passed by hand to Markos, and any little inconsistency could screw up the whole site. For that reason, please use the Mirror Web page: http://cullivan.com/coc/frame/index.shtml until further notice. It now has a bunch of updates that haven't made it to the Apolyton one yet.

Thanks,

The MGT

Mark_Everson · March 9, 2002, 13:26

Thanks to Dan we now have a redirect put in to send people automatically to the mirror site.

I thought I should put in this thread a notice about our new demo approach. You can read about it at Reworking our Demo Approach . I'd like to hear comments on it from anyone who is interested! Please put them in the thread itself.

If there are issues where you think we as a project may be going astray, you can make brief posts here, or start a thread on your topic if it isn't already covered somewhere. Part of the reason for our design to be open is so we can get early feedback on what we're doing right, and especially what it appears we might be doing wrong!

Mark_Everson · March 24, 2002, 14:44

Hi All:

I just updated the page to plug the guestbook and feedback (poll) threads. I've also modified the Tiles line in the description section to read:

Tiles: Square (perhaps polygons in the future)

If anyone has further suggestions for what the intro post should say, or not say, please put 'em up here. If you want to write any proposed new part yourself, that would help me out.

Lurkers: We could still use more talent in just about every area! If you're interested please let me know.

Gary Thomas · March 24, 2002, 16:44

I just updated the page

Which page was that? Obviously I have an interest because of the mention of polygons.

I note that the home page of the Clash site announces (October 2001) the release of Demo 5, and the Synopsis advocates downloading demo 5 Today! as does the downloads list. Maybe I have somehow got hooked into the wrong version of the site.

Cheers

Mark_Everson · March 24, 2002, 18:15

Hey Gary:

I should have chosen my words more precisely. What I have updated is the first post in this thread.

On the web page thing, you may have discovered an important oops. Currently there is a redirect to the active site from the frames version of the clash page at Apolyton: http://clash.apolyton.net/frame/index.shtml it is supposed to send you to the equivalent on the mirror. (The mirror is at http://cullivan.com/coc/frame/index.shtml)

However the redirect only covers two routes. the one I mentioned above, and http://clash.apolyton.net. FE if you don't use the frames version then the redirect wouldn't work.

What address are you using to get to the page, so we can fix it.

Gary Thomas · March 24, 2002, 18:30

The link I have been using is http://clash.apolyton.net/frame/index-1.shtml. I derived this from the base address, sorting through to the forum. I will try your one.

I tried it, and got a different Clash menu. My problem is not the Clash site, but the side frame in my version of the forum. This is clearly aimed at an older version of the main Clash site. What I want, is a forum address with the correct right hand side panel.

Cheers

Mark_Everson · March 24, 2002, 19:51

It works the way you want if you use: http://cullivan.com/coc/frame/index-1.shtml , although it doesn't look exactly like my forum window. It's the best I can do based on a guess...

Gary Thomas · March 25, 2002, 17:15

That seems to have worked.

Cheers

Mark_Everson · May 4, 2002, 17:43

I've been playing some EU2 in my less lucid moments, and think there are some lessons, both good and bad, that can be applied to our Clash efforts. I'll write them up in more detail later. I think the comparisons and lessons learned with EU2 are very applicable to Clash because they're both rather complicated 4x games with the potential for exasperatingly bad learning curves and levels of micromanagement.

I am in fact likely to give up on EU2 after something like 50 hours of playing it because of all that micromanagement. In fact it looks to me like the full campaign (maybe 400 yrs in game terms) would require something like 20 hours of continuous play, RTS style, just implementing actions without stopping to think etc. At my preferred pace (slow and somewhat contemplative on strategic issues) it could easily go 100 hours without getting into really detailed management of the minor things. That's just too much time for the fun I'm getting out of it!

But we're working hard to avoid similar problems!

Anyone else in the group play EU2? I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions also. I guess if anyone wants to make detailed comments they should start a thread. That's what I'll do with my more-in-depth comments when the time comes.

colorrr · May 5, 2002, 09:42

I did'nt play any of the Europea Universalis yet.
Was considering it though, do you think it is worth the effort?

Mark_Everson · May 5, 2002, 13:12

Hi colorrr:

EU2 might be good if you have a high tolerance for micromanagement (MM). But there is a Lot of MM and some other oddities that have put me off the game. I have a very low tolerance for MM since it seems more like work to me than a game. I couldn't stand the end period of civ2 for the same reason. Ten-minute turns are a Real turnoff unless you get more than 10min worth of fun out of them.

I had some fun moments with EU2, but don't think I've recovered in fun the cost of the game yet. And there was a very substantial learning curve that would be ok if I were going to play the game for months, but was a complete waste if I drop it here. Probably will never continue with it unless they have a patch that helps with the MM issues and some others. You can see more of my comments here .

colorrr · May 5, 2002, 14:20

Thanks Mark.

I think I'll just play Clash instead. :-)

axi · May 7, 2002, 15:46

I have EU1. Very nice game, but it gets boring once you get too big, with the continuous uprisings and the wars that occur every 5 years. The worst stuff one ha sto micromanage because the game makes him or the AI is inadequate are the merchants and attrition. Random events makes you want to reload all the time. Plus the AI is really stupid (although powerful). And of course the game HAS TO cheat to keep up with you.

Straybow · June 19, 2002, 02:55

A note regarding EU2 and how to avoid some of its failings. I've fiddled with it some and noticed something really irritating. One reason why Portugal and Spain became such powers in the 16th c. is because they bottled up the Mediterranean maritime powers at Gibraltar.

Genoa or Venice could have fought them, but having to fight through the straights every time they wished to pass was impossible. Too expensive in manpower and equipment. In one game Venice and Savoy (at war with Austria) sent a joint expedition around Iberia up to attack the Low Countries (makes sense), and Scotland (of all places).

Having an effective naval picket model is important.