OpenCiv3 Discussion thread

[amjayee]

quote: Originally posted by MidKnight Lament on 03-27-2000 07:34 PM I know this is going to be a *****, but would it be possible to draw up a very sketchy pic to illustrate your tile idea? (Don't go to too much trouble).

I have been working on a pic and finished it tonite. It's quite large, though (1000 pixels wide). I have space ready for my future website, but there's currently nothing on it-that's another task which needs to be finished soon-so I made quickly a simple page, where's the picture and some descriptive text. All, who are interested to know more about this map system I propose, please check out the webpage at www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee. Comments and further suggestions are welcome.

JacobH, Thanks for your comments and info. You are propably right with the user interface. The reason, why I proposed the windows-style GUI, was that I liked the civ2 system and was wondering, would it be possible to combine the windows menu, like in civ2, and the control bar system in SMAC. Perhaps it would be better, as you said, to use DirectX and make a GUI similar to tha SMAC, but of course it needs to be enhanced. Especially the colors were horrible.

I will make more suggestions for the interface later, when I've had time to reconsider it, but here's what I propose: there's a control bar in the bottom of the screen, its width could be 1/4 of the screen height. In the top of the bar would be buttons to access the "rooms" suggested in my earlier post, and a button to pop up a menu for options like saving, loading, etc. The bar should have an info screen presenting some info, depending on the situation. Only _one_ info screen, not same kind of a horrible mess like in SMAC. Simplicity is important, yet the bar should be effective and informative. I try to make a picture of what I have in mind and load it up later.

[The Joker]

I like that tile idea. It makes it possible to have far better looking tiles than previously. Just one question: Is a unit supposed to cover one whole tile? If so, then the unit will be pretty huge, and if not, then what is the point of having the large tiles (how about just giving the game more smaller tiles, and where units, cities etc can fill one or more tiles)?

[JacobH]

quote: (how about just giving the game more smaller tiles, and where units, cities etc can fill one or more tiles)?

I think it has to do with the following (from the website):
"Each tile has certain properties, that I discussed earlier. These properties decide the color of the tile; the sub-tiles are painted each with an rgb color, varying randomly around the color of the father tile"

The way I understand it, each large tile has associated with it a colour, and a random seed. Random values are then generated from the seed and are treated as brightness-values. Each subtile will then have the colour of the large tile, adjusted to its own random brightness-value, thus eliminating the need for a per-tile colour-value. Is that correct?

Jacob Hammeken

[amjayee]

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 04:26 PM The way I understand it, each large tile has associated with it a colour, and a random seed. Random values are then generated from the seed and are treated as brightness-values. Each subtile will then have the colour of the large tile, adjusted to its own random brightness-value, thus eliminating the need for a per-tile colour-value. Is that correct?

Quite correct. What I had in mind, is that since each tile will have its own, unique ID number, and each subtile will have an index number to find its location inside the father tile, these numbers can be used for all the randomizing tasks. The idea behind this system is, that we get much larger variety of tile coloring with minimal effort.

Other possible way to use this idea is to create a "gliding color" effect; The colors of the subtiles are adjusted to approach the colors of each one of the neighboring tiles. This will create a continuous, gliding coloring throughout the map. It will be looking really cool, if the globe map is implemented. I think if we succeed, the space view will look like satelite pictures-without clouds, of course.

Joker, thanks for your point. It made me notice, that we can quite well use the sub-tile system only for coloring and creating the rivers, that make curves inside the tile randomly, for randomly alternating coastline, and for forests of varying density. Cities, units, mountains, rocks, etc. could be made in a similar way as in CIV2 and SMAC.

This makes the whole system clearer to me. Keep discussing, guys! I hope we can agree with a graphics system soon and start actually creating it.

JacobH, you have mae good points for the programming issues. Would you mind to be nominated as the lead programmer, at least for the time being? Your responsibility would be to guide the programming process, to standardixe the code and to program the core of the game, which you have already started with quite professional touch. Are you a pro?

Matthevv has also made quite good points about the game structure. I hope he is able to finish the document of this structure he has proposed. This way we will soon have the wireframe of the program running.

I need to consider these new ideas I have got about the map system. Meanwhile, check out the complete, but still not final and quite rough description of my map system that I finished tonite. Couple of things will be changing, as I told earlier in this message, but I hope it will give you some new ideas, so you can guide me to the right direction. It is also available as a .txt file, so you can read it offline. The website is the same as earlier: www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee

Keep up the spirit!

[JacobH]

quote: Would you mind to be nominated as the lead programmer, at least for the time being?

No, I do not mind. In that case, I will devote more time to the project.

quote: Are you a pro?

No. I used to study computer-science and mathematics, but not being able to get up in the morning is kind of a problem. I have been programming for the past twelve years, though.

quote: I need to consider these new ideas I have got about the map system.

Once again, you have done a lot of thinking. I have skimmed the text, and I think there are a lot of good ideas. Perhaps you would read Korn469's documents (they are in the vault), and compare the differences? I will examine it in closer detail later.

quote: It is also available as a .txt file, so you can read it offline.

Could you upload it to the vault? I like having all of the data stored in a central place. Once we move all of the files to SourceForge, it will be much easier for people to download and we will get various tools to manage the data.

Jacob Hammeken

[The Joker]

Now I like the map system much more! It should only be graphic, and not actually play a part in gameplay. I think the hexagons (not the subhexes) should have the same size as always, and not be bigger. This way the game will be as always. A tile improvement should also just be placed hex per hex, not having to do it subsquare per subsquare.

Jacob:
Welcome as lead programmer!

[amjayee]

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM No, I do not mind. In that case, I will devote more time to the project.

Great! You seem to be the most experienced of us in the kind of programming we will need, so it's good to know you'll be in charge. You could write some documents about your ideas about the program. You mentioned earlier, that you have been thinking about some kind of multi-threaded AI system. Perhaps you could start with that? I don't have much knowledge about AI programming.

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM I used to study computer-science and mathematics, but not being able to get up in the morning is kind of a problem.

Isn't that true! I used to study electric and telecommunications engineering in Helsinki University of Technology, and had similar kinds of problems.

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM Perhaps you would read Korn469's documents (they are in the vault), and compare the differences?

I'll do that.

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 10:01 PM Could you upload it to the vault?

Sure, I just need to make some additions and changes to it first.

Joker:

quote: Originally posted by The Joker on 03-30-2000 10:26 AM I think the hexagons (not the subhexes) should have the same size as always, and not be bigger. ... A tile improvement should also just be placed hex per hex, not having to do it subsquare per subsquare.

You are right. This should be our guideline. The tiles should be created like this:
1. The tiles are colored, using the system desribed earlier.
2. Rivers and coastlines are drawn using the randomizing idea presented earlier. There could be an option of doing this "civ-way", but I think the random features would add more realism and make the map more varied.
3. The possible terrain features, like rocks, mountains and forests, are placed on the hex as a single bitmap, which may be created randomly based upon the tile properties, like rockiness or amount of vegetation. The trees and rocks used for this should be small, even smaller than in SMAC to prevent them from covering any neighboring tiles.
4. Cities and tile improvements are placed on the hex. There should be a possibility of having the TI's, cities and units to cover multiple tiles.

Right now I'm working on some new sample images to visualize my ideas. I'll mention when they are available.

Cheers,
amjayee

[JacobH]

quote: You mentioned earlier, that you have been thinking about some kind of multi-threaded AI system. Perhaps you could start with that?

Yes, I will. I will delay my work on the graphics-system, study Matthews design-specification, see how it will fit together, and mail my thoughts about it when I am done.

Jacob Hammeken

[korn469]

things are beginning to settle down here, but right now i'm heading off to work for 6 hours and then to class for another three, but in about 9 or 10 hours from now i'll catch up and start posting once again

korn469

[pris]

So how's the code coming along? Is there anything we can download & play with? Even a design outline would be cool.

[JacobH]

quote: Is there anything we can download & play with? Even a design outline would be cool.

Yes, there is. Much of it is currently located in the eGroups vault, but we will soon move everything to another location (see: www.sourceforge.org) which will make it easier for people to download the latest files, and make cooperation easier for us. I think we can start to move the files within the next 24 hours (edited: we may have to wait until monday). You can download some of the files from the three websites, but some of them are out of date (in particular the sourcecode). You can see the graphics at Heardie's site, and design-ideas at Korn469's and Amjayee's site.
Everything is currently under the zlib/libpng license, but this could still change.

Jacob Hammeken
[This message has been edited by JacobH (edited April 01, 2000).]

[heardie]

see my interface ideas at http://members.xoom.com/acchiron/ope.../interface.htm and tell me what you thikn

------------------
-Chiron Creators-
"http://members.xoom.com/acchiron"

[amjayee]

Hi all!

I just uploaded to the vault my document about the design concepts of
the game. Currently it consists mainly of my map system description,
some interface ideas and several other ideas about the basic concepts
of the game. I have currently some spare time after my job, so I
would be interested in making this document a complete design
description for our game, if that's ok for you all.

This requires, though, that you read my texts and make comments about
what to add, what to remove and what to clarify. Currently the
structure of the map description is not the best possible, so you
need to concentrate. I will work on it, when I manage to get the
ideas in correct order in my head.

DHeardie, I took a look at your interface suggestions. I had
something similar in my mind, and wrote a description. Check my
ideas, and if you have something to add, let me know.

The document's name is DesignConcepts_ver1.zip and it's located in
the files section of the egroups page
(www.egroups.com/group/openciv3). The document is quite large,
because it includes images. I zipped it, and that saved some space.
It's a word 6.0 document. If somebody needs the text to be in plain
text format, let
me know.

I hope I will be able to make the document into a webpage. How are
things going in the sourceforge direction? Perhaps I could make the
webpage there into a design document based on this text. Make
comments and help me to make a design document, which everyone of us
can agree on!

There are two copies of this message, one in the apolyton group and
other in the openciv3 mailing list.

Cheers,
amjayee aka Matti Eskelinen
amjayee@kolumbus.fi

[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited April 03, 2000).]

[korn469]

Sorry about the lack of posting from me lately...not only did my grandfather have a bunch of little strokes my job also increased my hours from 16 to 38 which sucks majorly! add in 18 hours of class and a girlfriend and i have been fairly busy lately but hopefully i can get my job to decrease my hours soon...well i gotta go but i will check back in soon

korn469

[The Joker]

Tiles:
I don't know about this. When playing SMAC I sometimes long back to the good old squares of Civ2, where you always knew what did what, and where you could easily see what every square gave (ressources). In SMAC you were never sure about this. I know that having a hex made out of minihexes makes the game wheather etc more realistic, but is it worth it? I am aware of my previous support of the idea, but I have started doubting. In SMAC you were never quite sure how much an improvement gave, as it did different things in different types of terrain. And these types were never easy to see from each other. I am not saying anything definitely, just thinking, that maybe simplicity is better in this aspect of the game, making it possible for the player to focus on more interresting aspects, like energy management and keeping the civ together.

Pardon for my complete ignorance (I have a LOT of reading to do!! - I haven't even looked at the vault for weeks, as the first thing I tryed to download from it did absolutely nothing) but do we actually have anything to play with yet??

Heardie:
Your system sounds pretty nice. It is difficult to imagine though.

Guess i'll start some serious reading now. I am not sure when I will have time to do it, but it should be within a few days.