Announce: History of Empires!

[Dale]

Announcing the progress of a new Civ-style game!

History of Empires!

The current build:
- Map engine complete.
- User interface structure complete.
- Turn-based setup complete, including Year progression.
- Terrain stats complete.

Next build:
- Player structure complete.
- Units structure complete.
- Cities structure complete.

At present I don't have a web page for the game, so can't provide any further info. However, take a look at the screenshot below and tell me what you think of the UI.

Thanks
Dale

[Mark_Everson]

Hey Dale:

Looks good so far! What is the icon at the bottom of the tile specs?

I do have a big overall question for you. Why start from scratch when there are Many projects out there where an extra coder could boost progress dramatically. Ten 10%-finished games gives the community zero additional entries in the genre. If those ten coders work on the same game then some of the ideas the commercial houses don't seem to be interested in can come to life!

I'm not trying to be critical, just helpful in an overall sense. If you can find a project that is similar to what you want out of your game, and is coded in the language you're using (C++?) you'd IMO get a lot more bang for your buck going with them.

-Mark

[Dale]

Mark:
Thanks for the comments.

This project actually started out cuz I wanted to make a isometric map engine. When I finished the map engine (three months ago btw) I needed something to use that map engine with. So I thought about it and came up with a design doco for a civ-style game. In the meantime while I was designing the game I refined and rehashed the map engine to a point where this is supported:

- The map engine will load the ASCII file "map.his" and use this as the map layout. This makes it easy to create/import text defined maps.
- The map engine will load the ASCII file "terrain.his" and use the info in this file as the definition of the terrain types.
- The map engine will load the file "terrain.bmp" and use the pictures/masks in this file as the basis of the terrain graphics.

By using all three of these config files, it's possible for anyone to create some terrain tile pictures in any colours they want, define the size of those tiles/masks in the terrain.his file and the stats of each terrain tile, and run the map engine and they have a brand new terrain map. That's the modularity I wanted, so I can use the engine for other isometric games.

Also, I've always wanted to incorporate religion into a civ game and be able to PLAY that religion and influence countries around the world. That's going to be possible in my game.

So to answer your question, I'm doing this game by myself to A) make use of the map engine, B) prove to myself that I CAN do it, and C) use it as the major program in my C++ folio so I can get into the games programming industry.

Explanation of the icons in the tile specs window: (Yes I know the graphics need working on )

- Loc: location.
- Coin: Gold produced by tile.
- Hammer: Production produced by tile.
- Wheat: Food produced by tile.
- Two feet: Movement rate of tile.

Hope this clears up the mystery.

[dexter4dxm]

i'm making my Alt-Civ for the same reasons, well, maybe not #1, but definitally #2 and #3.

like all the other Alt-Civ's, your project has good design ideas that can set it apart from the crowd. the hardest thing, especially when working alone, is to stick with the project till the end. this is going to take months and months and months, and if it doesn't, you're not from this planet!

good luck with your project. post screens when you progress more, and just post the actual image in JPG format instead of zipping it, that way we can see it without downloading

-dex

[Dale]

Dexter:
What unique model are you designing for your game? As for the time it'll take, luckily I've been doing C++ on and off for 2 years now so Win32 programming is no problem. I've got the design doco at 80%+ complete, and I've got the game running in my head. So the programming of it is no problem. It's the bug fixing and the "silly user" stuff that takes the time. I'm also not looking forward to programming the AI. I've got a model that works well on paper, and most of it is text file based (so you can mod it), but the reality may be a lot harder to program.

But I'll keep everyone up to date. I'll have a download to play with when I get to the next stage.

[dexter4dxm]

i have some basic design concepts on paper, but most of the designing has been done while i've been coding it. i started out with a real-time/turn-based hybrid basic civ game where all you could do was move warriors and fight enemy warriors. now i nearly have my own version of civ 2, turn-based system and all. ever since that big change i've been progressing pretty quickly.

i like how you are going to tackle religion in your Alt-Civ game. i considered it for my game, but decided against it, at least for a long while. my game's uniqueness will be things like mutually assured destruction, future technologies, and a stockpiled resource system. i guess the whole nuke thing will be the thing that stands out the most in my game. imagine huge prosperous cities accross the globe, with populations in the millions. one turn later they could all be in ruins, and the earth's population will be small once again. it's entirely possible for all citizens of the whole world to be destroyed in one turn, because nuke launches and events can trigger counter-launches if the defending player has their cities set up that way (with nuke silos of course).

[Dale]

Status Update!

Here's an update on the status of History of Empires!

- Player structure complete.
- Units structure complete (4 units so far).
- Cities structure not complete.
- New terrain graphics implemented (look gorgeous!).

At the time of writing this update, I am in the process of severly changing the way the code is written. Basically, it had become a mess and needed massive restructure within VC++. I kept losing where functions were.

So hold onto those horses, and soon we'll see the next build of History of Empires!

Dale

[JamesJKirk]

So Dale, when're you gonna post some screenshots of this baby?

[dexter4dxm]

i was going to ask the very same thing

[Dale]

Screenshots....... Hmmmm......

Four simple words.........

I have Civ3 now.

It might be a week or two before I get back into it.

[Dale]

Tech Tree!

Okay folks, here's the first draft of the Tech Tree I'll be using in my game. I've got buildings, governments and units in the tree. I'm trying to create a situation where every unit is useful, and has a long timeline. Also, the same for the buildings. This is by no means the final. I know of a few buildings I want to fit in somewhere, like a modern granary. Let me know what you think.

[Miznia]

I'll jot some comments down as I'm looking at it.

First impression: it's about the same scope, scale as Civ.

Polytheism as prereq for Monarchy? That must be a Civ3 thing.
Why is Literature prereq for Metallurgy? I'd expect it to descend from one of the "iron" techs.
I like how Printing Press leads to Democracy and Fascism.
Seems a bit strange to me to have Nationalism be the prereq for Communism. Unless, maybe, you see Communism as a kind of backlash against it.

Disclaimer: I haven't played Civ3 and was never a tech tree expert on 1 or 2.

[JamesJKirk]

Yeah, the middle ages are kinda sparsely populated as well....

Nationalism leading to Communism works in my mind, although maybe not directly. Nationalism initially wasn't how we perceive it today, really it was the first time (in modern times) that people realized they had certain things in common and to band together, this in turn led to the liberal and socialist thinkers of the 17th - 19th centuries. But since Nationalism was so much earlier than Communism, I would have it as a prereq for Democracy and Fascism.

[Dale]

The tech tree is by no means complete. Specifically, the medieval and modern times will get more techs to allow buildings etc. All the units I want in the game are in.

Metallurgy
As for currency/literature leading to metallurgy, that's a mistake. It should be iron alloys/literature leading to metallurgy. As to the reasoning behind literature being required:

Metallurgy is the tech that represents the research to find out the properties, elements and influences of metals (the HOW, WHAT, WHY?). Effectively, it's the first formal scientific method tech in the game. Consequently, all the research would need formal documentation and storage. Since literature is the tech allowing libraries and structured formal technical writing, I see it as a requirement for metallurgy.

This sound plausible?

Nationalism
Nationalism leading to Communism. Nationalism is the element of "identification" between the populace and a nation. As the populace grew more loyal to their nation/government/leader, nationalism grew. Communism is the embodiment of this "communal" way of thought. Basically, communism says that the whole community works together to benefit the whole community (change to nation if you will).

[Caesar2760]

I think you need something between electronics and computers. As it is, computers could be researched ridiculously early. Theoretically, stealth airplanes could come before normal airplanes. At the very least, you should make advanced flight a prerequisite to stealth. I would just generally suggest more mixed and crossed paths, so as to assure a reasonable order.