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**Pedrunn** · February 16, 2003, 06:55

I get the error message "Font surface could not be created" and when i press ok the game crashs

I just extracted the zip inside a folder and run the .exe
I use win98

How can i play the game?

**mapfi** · February 16, 2003, 08:15

For me the game starts up fine, I also get into the map editor, but when I click PLAY in the game setup screen the game crashes without any messages. (I use Win XP)

**Mark_Everson** · February 16, 2003, 08:48

Hi Dale, just a quickie report. I'm on WinXP also. I only can dedicate a few minutes to check it out, and. . .

The game seems to fire up fine. I ended up in the middle of a big patch of water, but the manual said that's an expected bug. However to read the manual I minimized everything. When I went back to Empire I had the usual sword cursor and a completely black screen. I had to kill it using windows.

I restarted and found the default player's homeland. Then I started pushing buttons (buttons could use tooltips), got back to the main screen and it wouldn't go back so I quit. Next time I'll RTFM

.

The graphical look is good! A way to kill the animations (flags flapping in the wind) would be nice since at least for me they are just distracting and annoying.

Good work guys!

**Dale** · February 16, 2003, 17:36

Mark:

Thanks for trying.

I saw what you're talking about. I'll make sure that's fixed for the next demo. Eventually there will be options to stop animations and stuff. Just a while to get there yet.

Mapfi:

When you were at the game setup, did you use the Empire map or the user map? Also, coming out of the map editor did you save the map? I know there's still a problem or two (quite simply there's not too much logic checking when coming out of the map editor yet) when using map editor maps and scripts. Try using the default Empire map.

Pedrunn:

Not having access to win98 (Empire was built on winXP and I have a win2K PC also to test on) I'm a bit in the dark what it could be. But firstly, have a look in the SYSTEM folder of Empire, and make sure there is a file "Font.bmp". Secondly, make sure you're using DirectX7. I know XP and 2000 have that by default.

**mapfi** · February 16, 2003, 21:24

I tried the default map without even using the map editor first - later I just checked the editor out but didn't play around with it that much, didn't save the map
I know, I gave up rather quickly...

**hexagonian** · February 16, 2003, 21:41

Just to remind everyone, this is an alpha build, but this will also give an idea what direction we are heading.

Dale will be gone for the next few days on a well- deserved vacation, but continue posting here. I will not be able to help too much on the coding aspects, as he did the entire coding for the game. (I was in charge of graphics)

**Pedrunn** · February 16, 2003, 23:01

Originally posted by hexagonian
I was in charge of graphics

How did you make the tileimps and the terrains?

BTW, The font.bmp is in the sistem folder.

**hexagonian** · February 17, 2003, 00:31

Photoshop...

**Pedrunn** · February 17, 2003, 06:43

Actually, the font.bmp is in the pics folder.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Photoshop...

You did all that from scratch

**Nebula** · February 17, 2003, 10:06

I downloaded and liked what I saw.

It runs fine on my system btw.

Some suggestions :
- Scrolling is funny. Scrolling would be better imo if it goes N/E/S/W
- Tooltips would be usefull.
- Zones around the mouse when in building mode would be usefull.
- How about a way of telling when a unit is active?
- Panic button to quit program - Escape to end or main menu for instance
Editor :
- Right mouse button to erase.

Bug :
- When scrolling down/right it stops at a certain point this when Scrolling down/left is possible.
- Manual does not load graphics in wordpad. It only shows the text after having to press buttons on a requester a number of times.
Edit ****
- In the editor mode when pressing on the left icon the map is edited.
- When pressing on the map a unit apears to be selected when no unit is visible. (Happened several times)

Looking forward to new versions. Mini map would be real usefull.

**XarXo** · February 17, 2003, 10:46

(deleted) The gfx are AMAIZING man!!

**MATT:-) C** · February 20, 2003, 07:03

I gave it a go and here's my couple of pennies.

With regards to the font surface error, I had that problem on one PC (with an ancient voodoo card), but not on the other (Geforce 4). I think the problem might be the texture dimensions as they are not powers of 2. I guess that just enlarging the bitmaps to an appropriate size would be okay; it looks to me like the program reads from the bmps in pixel offsets.

I'll echo Nebula's comments, the scrolling is not quite intuitive. Am I right in thinking the map is diamond shape not square? (Hence Nebula's first 'bug' is a misunderstanding).

I had the same problem as Mark (minimize, then maximize to a blank screen + cursor).

Also I couldn't select a city until a barracks was built, is this intended (or am I stupid, more likely!)?

It seemed that a large numer of my mouse clicks were not being registered. I don't know if this is my mouse/win98 or the program's input routines or whatever (my stupidity again!).

Having said all of that however, it's looking very nice indeed. I will most definitely be playing this one.

Good luck!
MATT:-)

**Dale** · February 20, 2003, 17:48

Back from holidays!

Well I'm back from holidays, and pretty tanned.

Ahhh....... the Aussie sun.

Thanks to everyone who tried Empire. It's great to get some feedback.

Now to those answers.......

Pedrunn:

It looks like it might be related to graphic hardware on the PC (see below). What graphics card have you got?

Nebula:

- I chose scrolling on the diagonals, because of the simple reason that my maps x and y axis run on the diagonals. The x-axis is on the top-right/bottom-left directions, and the y-axis is on the top-left/bottom-right directions. It's logical once you get used to it.

- Tooltips will be coming. They're additions for a later build. I feel it's more necessary to get the basic game running first.

- Building zones will also be coming soon. When you build a building, a red (can't build) or green (can build) shadow of the building will appear.

- A selection border around the active unit will also be coming soon too.
- Actually, I used to have CNTRL-SHIFT as my "boss key".

Maybe I should put it back in.
- To erase in map editor, you could use ocean.

Nah, an erasor will be coming.

Bugs:
- When scrolling down-right and the map stops, you've hit the bottom of the world. Because the y-axis is on that diagonal, there are limitations to the top-left/bottom-right scroll distances.
- Manual graphics. I whipped up the manual in about 30 minutes, and I know I forgot to embed the graphics in the word document. I'll have something better done for the next version.

- In the editor mode when pressing on the left icon the map is edited.
- When pressing on the map a unit apears to be selected when no unit is visible. (Happened several times)

I don't get what you mean by these two. A bit more info please.

Matt:
- Thanks for the help on the font surface error. I must admit I was a bit stumped. I'm running a Geforce4 so I couldn't replicate it in any way at all. However I'll change the dimensions for the surfaces and see if it has an effect (I know someone IRL who has the problem so I'll get them to test it first).
- See my comments for Nebula. It's quite logical when you get used to it.

- Minimise/maximise is a bug I need to fix.
- Selecting cities. Yes, it is intentional that a city only selects when it has a barracks. At this time. It will change in the future when more of the city features are in the game.

- Mouse clicks. No not your stupidity, the game input routines.

Because the game runs at 10 frames a second I had to put in a "SlowMeDown" function. What was happening was if you clicked once, it registered about 5 or 6 times.

Not good, so I put in the SlowMeDown. I will shrink the impact of this though.

General comments:
Thanks everyone for taking some time to test this. It's extremely useful and appreciated.

I know I've said "this is coming" to a lot of things, but remember what an alpha build is: an initial build. As part of the development process, alpha builds are perfect for getting parts of an application tested. Of course this means a lot of stuff is either not functioning correctly, not complete or not even in yet. For instance, the combat model in that alpha build is definitely NOT what's going in the release version.

I have a fantastic idea for combat, based around a tactical 5x5 chess board, with ranged combat, bombarding from catapults and even flanking manouveres. However, it'll be a few alpha versions later by the time it gets in.

As always, keep your ears to the ground as I take this game seriously, and will upload regular public alphas.

**J Bytheway** · February 20, 2003, 18:18

I found the time to look at this today, and have a few comments of my own:

1. It would really be nice to have an option for 1024x768 (even if only drawn smaller in the middle of the screen), since at present the graphics look horrible on my laptop due to the way it stretches things, and I want to see the way it looks nice like everyone else keeps saying

.
2. The cursor flickers constantly (dissapearing and reappearing).
3. When moving the cursor over things on the build menu, the box into which the cursor must be moved to make the costs appear doesn't line up with the picture very well.
4. There should be some way to close the build menu without selecting a building (preferably one way using the mouse (like clicking the sword pommel again) and another with the keyboard (Like Esc)).
5. I'm also having trouble with the mouse - it fails to register when I click too briefly, so I it does indeed sound like SlowMeDown is the problem.
6. An option to remap the keyboard would be good (possibly in a config file, rather than in-game), so that I can bind keys to the scrolling commands which are pointing in the right directions, rather than the arrow keys.

Keep up the good work

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