Clash of Civs Demo 3 is Now Available... Comment on it here

[Mark_Everson]

To download and, get instructions on how to play, go to the New Clash Web Site and follow the link Downloads - Demo 3 at left.

What's New:
There are two big things that are new in demo 3.

1) Real movement of military units
2) Addition of naval units.

Check it out and comment below...

I would especially like to hear from people on whether the overall system, despite its current obvious flaws, has a good "feel" or not. Are you worried about it being fun?

Does it seem like the military system is heading in the right direction?

Do you like the "light touch" capabilities that are still there in the system? Have I screwed them up from what you saw last time, or is this clearly heading in the right direction?

Special thanks to Anton for getting the .jar file to work.

For Background Info... (added 11/28/99)
There are three places you should look, with different levels of information.... (I know the information is not all that one might hope for. But we are very short-handed, especially on the programming end, so I cut corners where I can )

The most detailed source on the demos is the old version 2 documentation. It is on the new web site, under downloads, listed as "game instructions". It says at the top that its instructions for demo 3. That's wrong. It is the instructions for demo 2, but a lot of it is still current. Things like a detailed list of keyboard commands are found in the demo 2 doc. Many of the commands listed in the text part of demo 2, that introduce is how you play, no longer work. They are for the old system where both the player's and the AI's units teleported. So I suggested just skimming that document.

The "what's new" section, part way down the page of the downloads demo 3 page itself, is vital information that you Must read to have any hope of figuring out what's going on. I give information on the new key combinations, how naval and Army task forces work, and which old commands no longer work.

Finally, the demo 3 thread, right here, has a lot of useful information. If you look over all three of those documents, and you still have questions, I'll try answer them.


Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited November 28, 1999).]

[Paul Crocker]

So far so good IMHO. It's pretty tough to tell if the final game will be fun or not, since that would really depend on the full package (inclusion of most/all models and graphics). Sort of like trying to buy a car without a test-drive if you know what I mean Right now, it's fun - but then I'm also anticipating the inclusion of the other models and better graphics while "playing" the beta. If I had to comment on any one existing feature that I like, that would be the light touch needed for the economy (I HATED micromanaging construction in civ, and the automation feature in civ sucked). I AM a bit confused about the technology model and how you build armies/improvements, but that can wait until things are REALLY up and running.

I think we're headed in the right direction, Mark. I like your idea of tackling the graphics next, as that's my big hang-up right now (course that IS my major contribution as well, so I'm biased!)

Paul

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Paul:

Thanks for the thoughts. I think we're on the right track too, but its easy to be myopic when you're this close to something!
On econ and tech, I took you as saying you don't understand what's in there Now. If that's the case don't worry, my old models will be replaced fairly soon...

I'm looking into the graphics stuff now, it doesn't look too bad, although isometric requires a lot more groundwork than squares...

[DanQ]

Hi guys. Congratulations on the release of Demo 3 of Clash!

A news item marking the occasion will be made in our Alt. Civ sections sometime in the next few days.

----------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Dan

You guys are too fast! I have on my list to let you and Markos know... Cool, I can cross something off without having to Do anything.

With any luck the next demo will even have some Real Graphics!

[Lord God Jinnai]

Hey i finnaly got a chance to play and well i decided to let the ai run it and it crashed somewhere around 400-500 turn. I was doing 100 turns each time. Also the AI could use some work on attacking since rome attacks all the time reguardless of the chances of winning, the same squares over and over. Bad Guy 1 also builds up his economy/military and overuns u all at once and is somewhat more selective of his targets.

[Mark_Everson]

You're supposed to Play, not Watch it! AI is Not what I'm looking for feedback on...

I said the AI is twitchy, but its just something I cobbled together quickly. Also there are several parameters that guide current AI behavior that I just set randomly now. I haven't made any effort to find which sets of parameters produce the best strategies. If you think its so bad, try to Beat it.

[alms66]

Hi guys,
I'm having a problem running demo3. It downloaded fine, I unzipped it and it's on the desktop. Everything works as long as the AI is running things, but I can't move units. I tried the commands( "m", and select and enter and all that), but nothing seems to let me move them.

Does someone know what's wrong.

[Mark_Everson]

You are guilty of not reading the doc... And are consigned to watch "I love Lucy" reruns for all eternity. Truly a fate Worse than reading the manual

Read the section on what's new. You're not going to be able to provide any useful ideas or criticism unless you do...

In the doc you'll find:

E) I use a move queue for the TFs like in civ, and use the same key commands: like spacebar for hold, s for Sentry, w for wait, etc. the active task force is highlighted with a red outline. If you want to change the active moving task force you should right-click on the one you want to move. The move queue is not implemented flawlessly yet. If you have units left to move and none show as selected try hitting the W key. That usually works.

But What I forgot to mention specifically is you Move using the Arrow Keys

(I can read the docs but can't write 'em worth... )


The old 'm' command only works in cheat mode which you toggle on and off with the '3' key on the main keyboard.

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited November 17, 1999).]

[Glak]

Pretty nice. I couldn't figure out how to break up my TFs though, being amphibious is really limited. Oh and you should have mentioned that a unit being selected has nothing to do with the move command. I kept trying to move the selected units but the wrong unit kept moving until I figured out that they had to go in order. At first I figured that my units were rebelling or were just moving randomly. I kind of like how it is like RISK.

[Mark_Everson]

Hey Glak:

the '0' key disbands a TF back into single-unit TFs. Yeah the interface is still very rough. I need to distinguish better between units that are selected to act upon them as a group, and the specific TF that's moving. With the 'box' TFs it would be easy, but we're moving to real graphics soon, so we need to think about it.

[Glak]

please oh please take the water units away from the computer, or at least make them play fairly. There is this little navy teleporting around my land taking my stuff away. My army is tied up just chasing him down. Also sometimes when I attack they just bring in their naval units and change the odds dramatically. Oh and sometimes the computer has my navy go help defend. Now all of my water units are landlocked.

A nice feature would be a button to form an amphibious TF and leave the surplus units out. Oh and a button for land and water ones too. Yeah there could just be a button for each type and it would make the biggest one of that type possible.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Glak:
Thanks for the criticism. I'll try and answer your points...
>
please oh please take the water units away from the computer, or at least make them play fairly. There is this little navy teleporting around my land taking my stuff away. My army is tied up just chasing him down.
>
I know it's not much consolation, but the AIs generally have plenty of land units available to teleport, and they would be taking over your country every bit as efficiently if I did it the correct way. The reason that there are naval units doing the attack rather than army is simply due to the quick and dirty way I did the unit allocations for attack and defense. I use up army units first in applying defenders, even in coastal squares, just so there are sure to be naval units available for amphibious attacks. That said, I know this is an annoying aspect of what's there, and will try to change it by the next demo.

>
Also sometimes when I attack they just bring in their naval units and change the odds dramatically. Oh and sometimes the computer has my navy go help defend. Now all of my water units are landlocked.
>
?? When you attack they're supposed to try and bring in any adjacent units to change the odds. You mean change the odds on an inland battle? I'll go ahead and fix it so that naval units won't support inland. It needs to be that way in the long run anyway

Its a bug when Your naval units support inland. I'll try a little harder to find that one. However, if your water units end up high and dry, just use the movement cheat mode to fix it.

>
A nice feature would be a button to form an amphibious TF and leave the surplus units out. Oh and a button for land and water ones too. Yeah there could just be a button for each type and it would make the biggest one of that type possible.
>
Good ideas! I'll implement them for the next go around.

However, I don't want to polish anything that involves teleporting units too much, since it will all go in the trash can very soon. So please take my promises above to all have the exclusion "if it's not too much work". I don't think any of them will be difficult to do, and since you're one of the few who have responded your gripes get fixed first if practical!

[Paul Crocker]

Glak: I like the idea with the buttons - it should really simplify things

Mark: I wouldn't worry about not much feedback yet...if the others are anything like me, they are probably waiting for more of the models to be implemented before making many comments. It's tough to envision the feel of the final product when we're still at the "crawl" stage. For the moment, I'm limiting my criticisms to glaring problems since a lot of the little bugs that are coming up are going to disappear soon into the trash can anyway. Glad you're not going to spend much time chasing those! I'm sure everyone can overlook the little bugs (FE inland naval units) till then since the objective of the demo is to fine tune the models and AI - and not to win the game!

[Glak]

there is a movement cheat code? I only know a few commands: move, U and 0, oh and space. Also if I hit the number buttons I can make my guys more agressive. Is there anything else? I read the manual and it doesn't mention a movement cheat.

Also I think the computer should be a lot more agressive, I mean like 10 times or more. The only one that ever seems to attack me is the guy at the bottom of Italy so I just run in and kill him first. Oh and the map is too big I think. This is only my second game that lasted more than 10 minutes so I suppose my killing rate isn't maximized but it is taking quite a long time. I'm on turn 198 and I have 69 squares which I think seems reasonable. Is there some way I could speed that up? The world is very big.