So where's Demo5?

[alms66]

I was just wondering what's the latest word on demo5 was. Is there a new projected release date?

This is the first chance I really get, to get online and download it, but it's not there. When I go to the webpage all I get is an "older" version of the page, before the disasters model was posted and when the wonders model was just posted.

[Mark_Everson]

I'm just getting back to serious work on Clash after my 'sabbatical' of goofing off. AFAIK not much progress has been made by any of the coders. However, some are fairly new to the project and it takes time to get up to speed, especially with our pretty poor documentation...

I dunno why the web page went 'retro'. You can email Kull or Dom on it if you like. I'm not even touching my email today 'cause of the LoveBug virus....

[alms66]

O.k., I was just curious.

Btw, did you ever find that bug I spoke of in some other post, where a TF relocates to another part of the world? I've noticed that it seems to happen when I attack a fairly equal force, just in case I didn't mention that already.

[Richard Bruns]

For the technology medel alone, three weeks or so will be needed...after Garth finishes the tech builder utility. I can't do much with tech now, which is why I've been working on the preliminary design for the ecology model. By the way, could you look over that and critique it? I'm sure that it can be improved.

[axi]

There is the government model too... Any news from Rodrigo? I have let my Easter vacations pass without a single hour's work for anything, including Clash...

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"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Mark_Everson]

Last I heard from Rodrigo, which was about two weeks ago, he was planning to post the new government models sometime around now. Hopefully we will see it shortly!

[Chris Wilkinson]

I'm glad to see it's nearly ready - I look forward to taking a look at it!

[Mark_Everson]

I think in a week or two it'll be out. (Tho' I've thought that for a few weeks now )

Speaking of which...

Joe and Laurent:

I'm starting implementation of having the economy build real military units and stick them on the board later tonight. This is not very much work because of all the foundation work already done in the military model. It seems to me between all the work we've been doing that we should have enough to get the demo out, at least in preview version, by the end of the weekend. Does that seem reasonable to both of you?

Here's my crude outline of what I think we should shoot for for the nominal demo 5 ("full" version). My thought is that around the "good guys" of the player, we could just put opponents with TFs that just sit there. The player then would be able to see the map, run the economy through issuing economic orders, build military units, and through some very simple commands ideally be able to move (Teleport) TFs. Perhaps every once in a while we could have "barbarian" units actually attack a square of the civ. of course, I'd like to see all the old government stuff from the beast hooked up also, but I'd like to at least get the preview version out before that is done. Joe, what kind of time you think it would take to hook up the old government stuff?

I know we're not likely to get all the stuff by the end of the weekend, but I think there will at least be enough of the economy to put out to let people kick around a bit, and some of the other interesting things you guys have been working on will be there. Joe, do you think you can wrap all this together enough to be able to stick a demo out on the Web like the Beast?

Laurent, have I missed anything big on the military end?

See you later,

Mark
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited February 28, 2001).]

[LDiCesare]

I think we can have TFs built, and have barbarian hordes. For the military movements, I can either allow teleport or one-turn-legal movement (that is, I allow you to move to a place where you have the move points to go in one turn, but I cannot do more than one turn because I son't have path-searching algo in yet). Which do you prefer? Teleport makes it easier to play, even though it is not realistic.

[Mark_Everson]

Ideally I would prefer to allow both teleportation and legal movement, with teleportation simply being selected by a switch. I understand you don't have any pathfinding yet, and people will just have to cope with that for demo 5. If you are thinking of using keyboard shortcuts for moving units, a huge amount of this is already done in the demo 4 code. The old code might be helpful to you, although obviously most of it will need to be revised. I don't know what F. Smith has in mind for grabbing keypresses, hopefully he can comment on that whenever he shows back up. For the time being you could probably grab keypress handlers from the demo 4 code and plug them straight in...

Brian W. is already working on getting the pathfinding code implemented for map AI and such reasons. Unfortunately, he is using a normal Cartesian coordinate system rather than the isometric one F. Smith is using. But they are only a rotation away from each other, so a simple translation routine should make Brian's evolution of Jim C.'s pathfinding code immediately useful to you.