Basic OO design - map, population, infrastructure, tech

[F_Smith]

Rodrigo:

[*]Yes.
[*]Yes.
[*]Absolutely.
[*]Yes.
[*]No I did not have sex with that goat. I don't care what the goat says.[/list]

That's a home run!!!

Perfect. Exactly right.

I did add one more thing, and we can discuss whether or not I should change it. But I decided 'mapsquare' "has a" 'terrain', and then 'terrain' "has a" 'infra'/'resource'/'sites'/etc.

The main reason for doing this was so it could scale to having more than one terrain object in a mapsquare. So the Mine is in the Mountains, the wood is in the forest, that kind of thing.

Later, of course. No need for multi-terrain mapsquares now. Altho I like it, since the squares are 3,600 sq mi.

[F_Smith]

Beor:

I hope this is and will remain a conversation, not me talking all the time. When I start to ramble too much, people see the lights dim and the world closes in around them!

Besides, in no time, everyone will be on the same page. Everyone will probably figure this out quick enough.

[Beör]

YEESSS

I figured it out too, last night and this morning while walking the children to school (3 girls, you'd lov'em).

My idea of a habitat (silly wasn't it) in a way was caused by the need for organisation of people, their possessing infrastructure, their capability to exploit the land, move, settle down, engineer the land etc. But we already have that object: The EG. I thought at the time that EG=people, but that is of course simplistic. The EG is much more, in fact almost everything I wanted the habitat to be.

I see only one real limitation compared to habitats. The habitat allowed several EGs to be part of FE military units, while with F_Smiths approach there will be only one EG associated with the mobile infrastructure. The loss is by no means great, and surely the benefits are much greater.

There might be some other problems though: In a way the 'has a'-relation is turned around: With habitats a military unit has troops (perfectly valid IMO). With the present objectstructure an intelligence interface has some military equipment. One thing that I find slightly counterintuitive is the need for an 'intelligence interface' to have mobile infrastructure. You could have independent immobile infrastructure acting like weapons I guess (minefields), but you cannot have a mobile military unit unless owned by an object presenting this interface. So if we want a Cruise missile, we must give it to an object with 'dummy'-intelligence and have the whole thing fly off. But if military unit is an 'intelligence interface' that has mobile infrastructure, it cannot be otherwise.

Another question: When a military unit is created, will a proportion of the population be set aside to be part of (possess) this military unit? Will they act as a whole or is the military hardware just owned by one of the EGs in the square (which one?).
In other words will it be 100.000 romans owning enough military hardware to equip a legion, or will 6000 of them (primarily men) be put aside as troops, creating their own EG (which has the hardware), with the same ethnicity, but a troops flag or something (otherwise they would be assimilated into the general population)?
What happens in a civil war between two EGs in the same square - who controls the infrastructure? Who owns the military units?

[F_Smith]

Got 2 kids myself. Best things in my life.

It wasn't silly. It was largely correct. I would just store it in a different place -- as a 'subclass' of 'infrastructure' (in other words, as one type of 'infrastructure' object).

Actually, a 'task force' object still has to be defined fully, but I am assuming it will be able to hold any number of people and subdivisions, probably user defined. Limited by/dependent on infrastructure, tech, leader's skill/experience, etc. We'll have to define that object some day.

So in the present structure, a 'Task Force' "has" troops. Troops are going to be objects that 'implement' intelligence. So a 'Task Force' "has" intelligent objects. All 'tools' will require an object that implements intelligence -- that is to say, tools can only be used by objects with intelligence.

So if you want a 'cruise missle', you will have to have some sort of 'intelligence'. I would think this is a 'guidance system' -- and the more advanced an 'AI' guidance system you can make, the better the accuracy, etc, of the missle. Which explains quickly how the code will allow the tech and military to interact. Even a basic 'V2' rocket needs a 'gyroscope' guidance system which can alter the course of the weapon based on changing circumstances.

You could have short range rockets without guidance systems, as 'artillery' weapons. Perhaps some of these can even have a pretty decent range, a few mapsquares (at best, I think). But that has to be determined.

This also has not been discussed as far as I know, but I assume that the 'Task Force' will be seperate from the 'EGs' in the square. The 'task force' may be supplied by an EG (replacements, etc.). But not directly tied.

So your city of 100,000 Romans would 'recruit' soldiers from within itself (or possibly from adjacent squares?). They would then have the choice of either assigning those troops to an existing 'Task Force', or creating a new one.

A civil war between two EGs . . . hmmm, neat question. I'll have to think about it. The team should discuss this.

Anyone want to take a stab at that?

[Beör]

I know I'm getting a little bit ahead of things now, but...

I agree that defining a TF object will provide great flexibility. It will be sort of a frame keeping the various parts of the military unit together.

But in that case wouldn't it be better to have the TF object rather than the EGs have the infra objects. Just fill up the TF with people/intelligence and you have a functioning military unit.

NOTE: I found a resemblance to SMAC in the proposed way of splitting terrain into geography and vegetation. Here's another one:

In SMAC military units are created by combining chassis (3 land, 2 sea, 2 air, 1 missile), armour ( many types), weapon (even more types, some of which are more like abilities), reactor (4 types, primarily for hit points, and decreasing price with better reactor) and 2 slots of special abilities (from increased police strength to deep radar). The player actually has access to a unit design system, allowing you to make your own unit prototypes, from almost any combination of the above. The number of possible different units exceeds 60.000 as I recall.

I find the military unit system hinted at here is very similar (and I rush to say that I'm not familiar with the military model or the military threads at all, so bear with me if I'm totally off marks here ). You would have an almost endless number of combinations, which could be great, but bewildering. And I almost dare not hint at the graphical difficulties, which in my opinion were only partially solved in SMAC despite a truly nice effort. Of course we need not give the player the ability to design his own units, but can instead give him (her? - Naaah ) a choice from a limited number of predesigned units. The same thing I said about geography/vegetation in the other thread applies even more here: The combined effects of combinations of capabilities requires great discipline to avoid weird results.

[roquijad]

thanks F_Smith

[F_Smith]

Beor:

This time, the only similarity between us and SMAC is the OO approach.

SMAC's military is run on an 'arcade' level. Each 'piece' is one thing, of one type only. Our 'task forces' (the military gamepiece the player will move around/give orders to) will not usually be single-type units, they will almost always include a number of different 'elements', 'combined-arms'-style. A 'task force' is more like an 'army'. The player will absolutely be able to set the number/size of each element, and the type and quality of each element's equipment. And can re-assign elements from task force to task force.

So the graphics will need to be more like those of a traditional board game -- denote a unit's civ, and *maybe* it's general type. We'll see.

[Beör]

I get your point.

While SMAC had tremendous options when creating units, they were very much static once created.

The TFs have much greater flexibility. Could actually pick up abandoned equipment, transfer equipment from TF to Tf or from TF to somewhere else.

But my point really is that we have to be very careful when we design the interactions between different types of capabilities/equipment. Especially when modelling combined arms effects

But I'm really getting in over my head here. I don't know much about the current status of the military model. When I have time, I will take a look at the military stuff to see how the guys overthere intend to handle this.

Actually this thread has sort of drifted somewhat away from the topic. I think most of the intended discussions have moved to the Maspsquare OO thread. Most of my qualms have been taken care of or postponed for a little while, so:

Mark: I suggest that you close this thread unless somebody objects
[This message has been edited by Beör (edited September 29, 2000).]