ant dev thread/beta release

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:21

The much ANTicipated rough draft release, my first scenario ever, and sincere thanks to Valmont, Cyrion, Krashka (sp cheers mate!) Harry Tuttle, Broken Erika, Harrison, etc. for technical advice, graphics, suggestions and such on the previously existing thread...

Harry's ant-shields/rank bars will be added to units, and the space ship dll'S need to be replaced. But I'd like to show-off what I've got so far and get some feedback if possible, so here's where we're at!

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:33

This should be a playable scenario...

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=57835_ant.rar

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:36

Current Units:

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:39

and the sounds. kinda fun!

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:44

All advice, criticism, and compliments welcome. Thanks guys for the help so far. I enjoyed working on this as much as I do playing Civ, if you know what I mean. Also, I am still committed to the project, and it's not done yet.

Please keep a special eye out for bugs in the game, of course.

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:46

The name debate is possibly still open if anyone is interested. Left-off that I objected to 'For Queen and Colony' and recommended 'Queen and Colony' instead (big, risky leap!) with no further comment on the topic so far...

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 11:53

shield emphasis and rank indicators will be added to units, thank Harry Tuttle!

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 12:45

Previous link to scenario has been moved, sorry!

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=57835_ANT.rar

small but irritating problem fixed with spiders reset to no-no. Also changed most units to ignore zone control: 1) spice up combat a little, 2) who's gonna tell an ant where it can't go, and 3) solves problem with stalling around invisible ant-lions.

Harry Tuttle · April 23, 2005, 13:54

Biru, the spiders seem to still be set on "nil, nil" allowing me to build them. I'm guessing from your last post this should be "no, no" ?

Harry Tuttle · April 23, 2005, 14:30

Ok, I'm on turn 87, things are going so-so on queen level. There are plenty of interlopers and my exploring has paid off big time. I have 5 colonies, after losing four to interlopers. The blue ants just stole my firey genome, bastards...

I would change the roads to be called "scent trail", just to add that bit to the game. I know you have changed the word "roads" to scent trail in part of the files, but I think you need to find where it is in the "game.txt" and changed it there to make it the same across the scenario.

All in all it's looking good.

Any idea on sounds?

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 14:32

alright, this one should do it; spiders should be set to no-no!
http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...835_ANTsce.rar

!

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 14:34

Sounds aren't working on your end? Should have about five different ones, from small ant to horde of angry ants. It's working on my end...

biru biru · April 23, 2005, 14:36

Will dive back into game.txt asap; noted and appreciated.

Harry Tuttle · April 23, 2005, 15:03

Ok, I got the sounds. Very neat, I feel like I'm in the insect section at the zoo.

Harry Tuttle · April 23, 2005, 15:14

Oh and "barbarian uprising" can be changed too. I think all of this will be contained in the game.txt and the labels.txt.

biru biru · April 26, 2005, 22:57

Alright, I'm most of the way through my first thorough play test. I've added 3 wonders that were accidentally set to no-no and given them via carpenter-genome, weaver-genome, and leaf-genome to those three species respectively, to counter-balance the advantage the other species have when their special ants appear with the discovery of exotic ants.

couple probs though! Harvesters went out early, and were replaced by the Persians. I like that they came back, but not that they are named the Persians. I have had strange things happen in the past when I tried to change the names of the back-up civs in the games.text. Question; if I can't fix the other civs names, can I set the scenario to not re-start eliminated civs after the scenario is under construction? civ tweak, etc?

Also, tried to add some spacing in the civ pedia text between paragraphs with the ^ mark, but nothing happened. strange I think.

Other small things, some missed sounds, names and labels in games.txt, labels.txt, etc being fixed as I find them.

Smilies cities in the non-units thread are making my head spin with improbable possibles. Will definitley take another look at terrain and cities (maybe a 2-square fantasy nest?) before final version.

Anyway, I back to work...

Harry Tuttle · April 27, 2005, 12:03

I think Hex-editing is the only way to turn off the "restart players" option. Ask Agricola for help on that.

I think the spacing requires two ^ marks "^^". I'll check when I get home.

As for "Smiley Structures", since you already use the roads for, well, roads, I suggest the following, which has been commonly used by Kobayashi and a few others, including myself...

...you could switch out the forest terrain tiles on your map with the jungle terrain tiles. Since you seem to have them spaced one tile at a time this should not get in the way of any graphical concerns.

Since the forest terrain tile uses the extra tiles from terrain2.gif when the tiles are placed next to eachother, you could use the terrain2 forest tiles for special tiles, like a candybar or a dead grasshopper.

These tiles could be high food yielding tiles or could be a place where "candy bar pieces" are generated by events. Kill a candybar piece and your ant kingdom gets cash.

biru biru · April 27, 2005, 14:04

no negative effects to ^^, but the paragraphs are still running together. 3:59am here and slightly hammered. Still working though. . .

Thanks for the help!

Other people have hinted at human interaction, including Valmont suggensting trashcans. So far, I have limited human interaction to ending the scenario at 4000 B.C. with the advent of human agriculture. no reason except that humans seemed like a big bit to chew at the time. of course, human related events are very apealing. ...

our_man · April 30, 2005, 14:11

Just played a few turns of this. Fantastic work on creating a realistic miscroscopic world! It reminds me of that evolution scenario that came with FW to a certain extent, only better.

I'd say this is ready for a full release; my only suggestion is that instead of having all those individual flags to prevent tribes from talking you can select ANYBODY and that will do for all of them.

Harry Tuttle · April 30, 2005, 14:55

Originally posted by biru biru
no negative effects to ^^, but the paragraphs are still running together. 3:59am here and slightly hammered. Still working though. . .

Thanks for the help!

Actually, now that I think of it. I don't think you can create paragraphs for the civ pedia. In fact, I think that ^^ only centers the text in the initial intro pop up box.

biru biru · May 1, 2005, 23:46

Originally posted by our_man
It reminds me of that evolution scenario that came with FW

instead of having all those individual flags to prevent tribes from talking you can select ANYBODY and that will do for all of them.

Damn, thanks!

I would like to slim down the events language, but kept getting errors. Got a lot of probably uneccessary induvidual flags probably in the 'kill a unit' events

inspired back to work.

biru biru · May 2, 2005, 23:39

Harry, re: smilie structures. Do you mean that forest tiles from terrain2, which appear 3-D in the game (when two forest squares are next to each other), can be used to make other 3-d objects; for examply candybars or big bugs?

I would like to have somed 3-d cities. The nests in the game right now were made with graphics from the original hills. These taller (wider) cities could add some depth to the "microscopic feel". Probably nothing extreme (ly difficult) like the screen shopts from the mafia scenario under construction)

Harry Tuttle · May 2, 2005, 23:49

Originally posted by biru biru
Harry, re: smilie structures. Do you mean that forest tiles from terrain2, which appear 3-D in the game (when two forest squares are next to each other), can be used to make other 3-d objects; for examply candybars or big bugs?

Yep, exactly that.

I would like to have somed 3-d cities. The nests in the game right now were made with graphics from the original hills. These taller (wider) cities could add some depth to the "microscopic feel". Probably nothing extreme (ly difficult) like the screen shopts from the mafia scenario under construction)

I think that's possible. The larger parts of the mound would be fashioned like the mountains Favoured Flight made for his Lord of the Rings scenarios and the same ones I used in Gold Gulch. City on top, mountain base below the city.

biru biru · May 9, 2005, 00:12

Hey, guys; if you happened to have dowloaded this scenario, please don't delete it! I'm not even kidding, my computer won't boot and I think that I lost everything. again. Anway, it's safe here, but help me back it up? cheers!

Harry Tuttle · May 9, 2005, 10:51

I've got a copy. I'll post it tonight.

biru biru · May 11, 2005, 00:23

thanks, I'm at public computer labs. I will download, tune it up, and save this version to cd tonight. Anyway, the link here at apolyton seems ok, so i should be alright. Will have lost a couple weeks of tinkiering, but nothing major.

biru biru · May 11, 2005, 14:13

OK, I'm about to burn the beta to cd. Many small things fixed, a couple of new probs discovered (my GAME.txt may have some probs...)

Previously working title page doesn't seem to work now. Anyone spot the problem? shares name with the scenario.

@SCENARIO
@width=550
@title=Antbeta5

^^Queen and Colony
^
Compete as one of seven ant species for domination of a native
river-basin ecosystem. Win by law of the jungle, Fight or Flight.
Eliminate rival species or be the first to complete a
mass-migration project to another region.
^
This scenario is tough to beat! Beware of spiders and other nasty
barbarian insects.
^
Special rules: Protect your First Queen at all costs! Losing her will
lead to the rapid extinction of your species. Likewise, destroying
an enemy First Queen will eliminate the species from the game.
^
As a gentle ladies rule queens, rather than workers, should be used to
found new nests. Of course their paradrop ability makes them better
colonizers anyway!
^
Lastly, flourish or perish. There are no negotiations.

@end -- this line must be here!

Harry Tuttle · May 12, 2005, 12:03

Sorry, forgot to post this:

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...835_ANTsce.rar

Harry Tuttle · May 12, 2005, 12:05

I don't see any problems with the title. It's the same as before. I think that your problem might be with the game.txt. Try moving the various text files out of your scenario directory one at a time to find out what the problem is.

biru biru · May 13, 2005, 03:44

It must have had something to do with the computer I was using. When I got hope and loaded the game to my girlfriends computer, it worked again.

Also, Harry, thanks for the post. current version is saved to cd, now comfortably backed-up. Dark cloud to the siver lining, my computer might have a major hardware problem, so it may be a while before I can get back to work on it!