Civ3 Turnless = Civiliza Demo 1?

[dexter4dxm]

While reading the preview for the new Civ 3 expansion pack I was shocked to see that there will be a new "turnless" mode where each unit has its own timer - exactly the method I came up with for my Civ2 clone Civiliza. For those of you who remember my very first demo, it was semi-real-time with each unit having its own countdown-timer, and control would automatically pass to any unit in which the countdown timer reached zero.

Now, I'm not saying Firaxis stole my idea, they may have been heavily influenced by it, but even if they were, we'll never know unless they admit it, which the odds of that are like winning the lottery.

What really bothers me is that now that I have enough know-how to make Civiliza the way I wanted to, there's really no reason because Civ3 with the same method will blow it away.

[dexter4dxm]

ok, i've thought about it and i've decided to go with it anyways, but if I manage to pull of making a multiplayer game for the first time in my life, i'm going to laugh at anyone who says that i stole my multiplayer ideas from civ3

anyways, i'm back people. i'm redoing civiliza the way it was meant to be. full semi-real-time multiplayer from the ground up.

it has been awhile since i've been here at apolyton, and now that i'm producing an alternative civilization again i have been checking out the latest from the usuals. amazing how some of u can stick with the same project forever, improving it continiously. this time i promise to give feedback

if you want to see what i've done since civiliza you can check out my dune 2 remake here http://www.angelfire.com/empire/dune2redux/index.html

[Mark_Everson]

Hi dex, welcome back

I don't think its likely they stole your idea anyway... There's lots of good ideas running around, and like in RL desperation to make something work better is a huge stimulus to generating novel ideas. And IMO MP is one of the things that really didn't work well in TBS games. I think you know what the rest of my list might be

Cya,

Mark

[Straybow]

It took me a while to see that pink was a separate color, especially since Dune2 only had 3 sides to choose from! It was one of my favorites, long ago; gotta try this.

[Straybow]

OK, dex, I'll try to be gentle…

First, my platform (nothing impressive):
Athlon 850 1½ yrs old, 128M (100MHz bus)
OEM 8M video card c. 1998, 1024x768 (usually 24-bit color)
crappy OEM 17" monitor c. 1998 (color guns out of spec)
replacement needed (donations accepted)

Biggest non-gameplay problem: cursor control
Cursor tended to hop around instead of smoothly moving; it seems the system is bogged down. This can happen even when nothing much is going on anywhere on the map. Mouse clicks are "missed" by the poll. Cursor would not instantly change to the appropriate type when over friendly unit/bldg [box], open ground (green), target (red).

Some things were independent of load but just as quirky. When a unit is selected sometimes cursor would change to arrow while over open ground for no reason; clicking would not get any response from unit. Neither range nor obstacles were a factor. The tiles which were "unavailable" would not change for a given unit while it remained stationary, but an adjacent stationary unit would have an entirely different pattern of unavailable tiles.

I spent an hour twiddling with this. Sometimes all adjacent tiles were unavailable. Sometimes a large clump of tiles a short distance away. Sometimes small clumps here and there. Sometimes after the unit moved the pattern would change, other times it seemed not. Quite maddening.

Second non-gameplay related problem: bottom of screen
The bottom inch of screen (downward from roughly at the middle of the scroll arrows at the bottom of the sidebar) is not redrawn properly. When the map is scrolled up from the edge of the screen it leaves chunks behind; moving units leaving frational images often jiggle as though between frames. When the bottom is above the edge of the screen the cursor leaves flickering ghosts as it moves. Shots travel well below the bottom edge of the map all the time and a little ways off the other edges sometimes (and the program is probably wasting time checking for hits, too).

Third non-gameplay problem: floating fires and harvester dock
Sometimes when a structure is on fire the fire appears when the structure is off the edge of the screen. If the screen is scrolled it drifts in place until the structure catches up to it, as it were. The harvester ramp/dock on the spice refinery does the same thing; until the bldg catches up to the floater the bldg dock (and harvester, if idle) is Imperial Pink (the floater is always the correct faction color). Mostly it happens at the left edge of the screen, but it sometimes happens on every edge.

Minor non-gameplay problem: map scrolling waaaaayyy toooooo sssssllllllooooooowwww

Gameplay related problems
I'll assume that unit/bldg status data for the sidebar is in the works, as well as other features from the original such as building repair. That, and everything was free and there was no need to collect spice. I fiddled only with skirmish, maybe that's why. I don't know if your campaign works at all, or has the full roster of buildings and units, etc.

Pathfinding (always a weakness in RTS) I don't recall that Dune2 pathfinding was this bad. Yeah, the unit movement was squirrely in large groups, but this is more like pathlosing than pathfinding.

Units should be harder to pin In Dune2 only units with more firepower could pin a vehicle; infantry required equal firepower (soldier pins soldier, squad pins squad or soldier). It took frontal attack to pin (for the most part). Heavy tanks, harvesters, and Sardaukar were never pinned and would always move to the objective.

Only rockets or hv tanks could pin tanks, (I believe it took a "solid" hit to pin a tank). Light vehicles were fairly easy to pin. Pinned units could withdraw (but the vehicle control AI didn't make effective effective use of reverse gear).

Balky unit response Many times units would not respond to commands. They'd say "Moving out" or whatever but do nothing. Especially when it came to advancing close to the enemy base (cowards). For a group order the balkiness resulted in usually only three units responding to the order (except for move orders well away from enemy units).

At first I thought this was your way of programming in the Ordos' special powers. I had little trouble attacking Harkonnen, and he little trouble moving into my base area. Then I switched my focus to Imperial base and it happened there, too. I did notice a little bit of this when attacking Harkonnen, and attributed it to the cursor problems. Perhaps I was incorrect.

Friendly fire In Dune2 it was possible and even likely for friendly fire to hit units and buildings. I couldn't tell if this was happening in D2redux or not. More on this in the section below.

Gameplay-related suggestions

Menu kludge There is such a things as copying too closely from the original. For example, most Westwood RTS games have the menu scrolling at the bottom of the sidebar, where the slightest overshoot with the mouse results in undesired scrolling of the map. Put them at the top of the menu, or better yet, do away with them entirely. I believe Dune2 had a window separate from the menu that showed what was being produced. Then use smaller icons for the choices available (in two columns if necessary).

C&C stuff The improvements were kinda obvious ones and shouldn't be that hard to do (famous last words): "health" bar, grouping hot-keys. What else I can't remember.

Hot-key orders have common unit orders use hot keys: return to base, return to repair bay, sentry, guard (return fire but do not close on enemy), etc.

Hot-key to (or tab between) construction menus Obvious. Hate to hunt down the construction yard or whatever. Hitting hot-key after the "construction complete" announcement should take you to the appropriate yard and "load" the cursor for structure placement. Otherwise hot-key takes you to first idle or nearest to completion or something.

Tab for other structures functions Also, after clicking on Repair or Salvage, tabbing should take you to the building with the highest damage (unless you visited it recently and tabbed away without repairing).

Harder stuff that RTS games don't seem think about

Few accidental hits If a unit fires on a target and a unit gets in the way there should not be much chance that the intervening unit will be hit. Terrain is never perfectly level, projectiles arc in flight, and only a harvester would be so big as to easily shield a target unit. Same for over/undershooting: projectile will likely strike the ground a short distance past the target, or in front of the target, on a miss.

Targeting structures This isn't WWII tech, so how can you miss? Almost never except at long range. Variable damage effected by range, sure. Again, only a harvester would be big enough to substantially obscure a target building (only if it moves immediately adjacent to the building exactly on the line of sight, after the unit has fired; good luck). In this case, overshooting a unit in front of the building will likely hit the building.

Edit: minor corrections

[Straybow]

Oh, and I forgot something. Units are too easily distracted. When advancing towards a target (esp. structure) the gun points towards the nearest enemy unit, and returns fire if fired upon. As a result, structures rarely get attacked with any efficiency. Dune2 units were somewhat more single-minded.

[neonext]

i wish i got these kind of responses when the game was still in development...

[Straybow]

You didn't give us anything while the game was in development.

So, on your platform you never got any of the cursor problems and balking?

[neonext]

i got most of all the bugs you listed, and i fixed about half of them before i moved onto my 3rd project

[Straybow]

Update?

You isolated and fixed half those problems and have updated Beta 1 since I d/l'ed Aug 26? That was fast!

[neonext]

yeah, i was on the fast track and by that time i had quit the start-up internet job i had, so i could work full time on it (which still wasnt really full time, i was hanging out a lot then). still i had almost no distractions, and the work came easy.

the days are long gone when it would take me weeks to accomplish little things (like the development of my first game civiliza). i returned to apolyton about a month ago, and if you see the new thread for civiliza you can see all the progress i've made so far with it. yes being able to use code from the old civiliza speeds things up a lot, but i've never done multiplayer or windowed mode before. there is always new stuff to keep me challenged (next game i'm shooting for 3d )

[Straybow]

Oh, nevermind. It's still the July 31 build.

[neonext]

i never released the update and i don't plan on it. i may re-do the entire game someday with multiplayer support similar to how i'm redoing civiliza

[Straybow]

"never released the update and don't plan on it" Uh, how hard can it be?? (Ask a foolish question…)
"re-do… similar to… civiliza" Yes, it would be cool to do away with the side column and handle the build menus via right-click on the appropriate structure. Unit clocks and optional prompts when a task is completed would greatly reducing the clickfest aspect.

[neonext]

Originally posted by Straybow
"never released the update and don't plan on it" Uh, how hard can it be?? (Ask a foolish question…)

honestly, i don't care enough about it to release it. the same thing happened with the first civiliza, the last version had multiple resolution and 31 AI players and a new setup interface and i don't think i ever released it.

the main reason i never cared enough about those releases is because of lack of support.

"re-do… similar to… civiliza" Yes, it would be cool to do away with the side column and handle the build menus via right-click on the appropriate structure. Unit clocks and optional prompts when a task is completed would greatly reducing the clickfest aspect.

do you mean to add these features to dune 2 redux? i kinda liked the sidebar, but yes it would be cool to have that right-click interface in the game it would make it much easier. what confuses me is your comment about unit clocks, because D2R is full real-time so there is no need...