Tool request for scenario players and designers

[Cyrion]

I think I remember this being discussed some time ago (if I'm not mistaken, by Yaroslav, before he was sent to Siberia )...

I would really find helpful (when playing a scenario or when designing one) an utility that would be able to read the rules.txt file, extract the tech tree and put it in graphical form!

As I haven't done any programming in 5 years (and don't intend to start again ), this is something I won't do myself...

BUT, if someone is willing to try, I would gladly help with the algorithm and logic of the programm (just NOT the programming itself...).

Would such a tool be welcomed by others?

Anybody interested in doing it?

[Boco]

The biggest hurdle is the graphical depiction. To see what I mean, take 10 scenarios and draw their trees, using a common format. What works for a linear tree would likely yield spaghetti with a complex tree.

[fairline]

What a great idea Cyrion

In fact didn't Mercator promise to make such a utility after pulling a nasty April Fool's trick?

[Panda]

I remember posting that as an idea for Civ3.

I wonder....

considering that the rules.txt tech section can be so easily transfered to Excel as "comma separated value" data, would it be easy to produce a flow-chart using some clever macro?

Too bad I don't have my old job when I had more time and less supervision: I could have found out!

[Boco]

Excel, I have. Likewise, lots of experience with Excel VBA. What I lack is the slightest idea of a 'universal' format for a graphical tech tree. Come up with that, and I'll start coding.

You don't need to be a chip-head to do this part. Start posting ideas of gfx trees, and let's come up with something.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Boco
The biggest hurdle is the graphical depiction. To see what I mean, take 10 scenarios and draw their trees, using a common format. What works for a linear tree would likely yield spaghetti with a complex tree.

Yes, the graphical depiction is the main problem!

But a "sub-optimal" tree would already be better than no tree at all!

Anyway, i have some ideas about how to avoid it to be too spaghetti-like!

I'll try to define them on paper and post them here in a few days!

And if by chance they prove worthy, get ready to code...

@Gareth: argh, that awful April's fool prank!

[Mercator]

Originally posted by fairline
In fact didn't Mercator promise to make such a utility after pulling a nasty April Fool's trick?

No.



How do you people like the way Test of Time displays the tech tree? It takes a few steps to simplify the tree to prevent the spaghetti.

Another way would be, say, to only display the direct prerequisites and "descendants" of a tech. Every time you click on a tech, the display changes the center tech to that one. That would simplify the display. It won't give you a big overview of the entire tree, but it will allow you to browse through it.

Unless you calculate the tree every time before you display it, it probably won't just be a matter of displaying either. It would probably be easier to load the tree into some sort of data structure.

And I don't know too much about Excel/spreadsheets, but I don't think a static spreadsheet is the optimal format for displaying a tech tree. Not if you're expecting all sorts of different ones anyway.

[duke o' york]

No, but if a tool is made that allows the designer to put the tech tree into a spreadsheet and then include that file in the zip, then all players will be able to view it when they play.
That way, rather than the player have to run the tool each time they play a different scenario, the designer need only run it once with a new scenario, and everyone will be able to view it.

[curtsibling]

It would be great to have a new tech tree program like the one in FW, but minus the bugs!

[Mercator]

But the whole point of the tool wouldn't be to help the player, but to help the designer!

And the biggest problem isn't so much making a spreadsheet out of a tech tree. I'm sure some designers do that by hand. The hardest problem is making a program that can turn any tech tree it gets into a legible spreadsheet.

Not to mention that not everyone has Excel (e.g. me), so not everyone will be able to view it. It would be much handier to have a "tech tree viewer utility" that can simply load a rules.txt file and display a tech tree (and has tech tree editing/verifying options).

[Boco]

Originally posted by Mercator
The hardest problem is making a program that can turn any tech tree it gets into a legible spreadsheet.

Just to show the point, attached is but one example of medium complexity.

In a 'universal' spreadsheet depiction, the techs would occupy some sort of standardized grid. The spaghetti comes as soon as you connect the nodes on the grid. Actually, Visio (used here) does a nice labor-intensive job, but it is priced solely for the Fortune 500.

Originally posted by Mercator Another way would be, say, to only display the direct prerequisites and "descendants" of a tech. Every time you click on a tech, the display changes the center tech to that one. That would simplify the display. It won't give you a big overview of the entire tree, but it will allow you to browse through it.

This seems the most practical suggestion to date, but I'm holding hope for Cyrion.

I even stalled on writing a tech tree validator. A 2D table isn't the optimal good way to hold the preq1, preq2 data. Maybe a suboptimal brute force spreadsheet that does a comprehensive series of descendents lists for each tech, along the lines Merc suggested, would work. It wouldn't be pretty, but it should find dead ends and loops.

Attached is a 5 minute job, using Advanced Flight in vanilla Civ2. It doesn't yet have all the preqs listed, but it gives me some ideas. If you don't care about looks, it could be done.

[techumseh]

This is a great idea. It would certainly be a boon to the tech-tree challenged, such as myself. It would be easy enough to make changes on the Rules txt. file itself if the program could display the resulting changes.

[Elok]

The utility Merc promised to think about was a full-fledged scenario designer, after he made a fake one as an april fool's joke. Presumptively that would include a tech tree maker.

I like Boco's prototype. Given the way most tech trees increase drastically in complexity as they advance, would a radial design be a good idea? Granted, that's harder to draw than a "ladder," but it makes more efficient use of space if the tree begins with a small circle of base techs and expands outwards. Meh, probably not, a tech with prereqs from different "generations" would look just plain ugly. But I'll keep the idea here, maybe somebody can use it.

Actually, for a programmed format, how about the format from the original Civ2 chart? I don't know how hard that would be to program, but it prevents a complete spaghetti mess by listing prereqs that aren't close by in parentheses under the tech. Those really out-there linkups are relatively rare anyway.

[Mercator]

I actually had a go at a tech tree checking program. Just command-line, I'm afraid, so no trees. It seems to work nicely, though I haven't tested it too much yet.

I wrote it in Perl though, which means you'd need Perl installed to be able to use it, since I haven't figured out yet how I can properly compile it into an executable.

The program can find, bad syntax in the @CIVILIZE section, bad abbreviations, tech loops as well as notice if a path to the future tech is missing.

[techumseh]

Merc.