Planning for D6

[LDiCesare]

I think for one of the demos soon it would be great to have a utility that would show the player all the values for elements, and units. Its not high priority, but it would help the players get the feel for what they are using. Perhaps this is premature though, and all we need is a couple of tables we can put in the manual. What do you think?

As a first step, I suggest we show the players the xml resource file (I would attach it here, but since my ISP went *@!# this week-end I am at work and don't have the file at hand). There are three reasons to do it:
1) It is editable by the players so they can say if they understand it (would-be modders).
2) It displays fine in IE.
3) I don't have to show you how bad I am at GUI-design.
I'll add some comments to the file, though.

[Gary Thomas]

I would do that except that xml is not one of the valid file extensions for attaching a file, and the xml file doesn't display in the forum format without huge & gt and & lt modifications.

Cheers

[Richard Bruns]

Technology

I have constructed a super-simple tech tree for testing with demo 5.1. The only applications are the military units, and I added a new unit: legion. These techs all depend on Military Tactics, and some of them require Metallurgy or Warhorses.

The techs that affect the economy are simple: Production and Farming. Farming and Warhorses are both under Biology. Metallurgy is under Production. Production level 5 is also a prerequisite for trireme production.

I think we should aim for the following basic functionality:

Tech requirements and helper effects work as they should.

The player can allocate research to all techs, and the mechanics work properly.

The Production and Farming techs allow more investment in the various production categories, as well as increasing efficiency a little. The amount of money spent on these production categories determines the research put into the tech. Farming should also increase the Biology tech a little.

Military Tactics increases the power of all units. Fighting battles and moving troops increases this tech.

Warhorses affects the speed or movement range of cavalry units.

Metallurgy has a small affect on unit power, and affects the cost of the unit.

Once we test the functionality of this basic system and stamp out bugs, we can increase the complexity.

[LDiCesare]

Military Tactics increases the power of all units. Fighting battles and moving troops increases this tech.

Warhorses affects the speed or movement range of cavalry units.

Metallurgy has a small affect on unit power, and affects the cost of the unit.

The first one could easily be put in the code since I had already made provisions for power-enhancing techs.

Rather than movement, I'd change mobility (tactical movement). I have little clue as how to implement it fast, though.

To get more than just power increase, I need to detail the tech effects in a file, and thus add some new stuff for the parser. Currently, I thought I'd have just a required tech, and required level in each element and/or unit, and use these to tweak the attack values. I can add a list of affected properties, but that means I'd put lots of tech stuff in the military file. Note you do NOT have to rewrite things like cavalry lots of time, since I have defaults, but that could be a bit complicated. Rich, can you post these effects in a specific thread? I think it requires some design before coding (although I can get Military Tactics alone in pretty fast).

[Mark_Everson]

Richard, that's a Great idea. I'm embarassed we didn't think of a small self-contained test before. (At least I didn't think of paring the 'tech tree' way down.) Laurent, I wouldn't worry if you can't do everything Richard proposes, just so long as there is some fairly strong linkage between tech and miliatary. I doubt we will get even this simple a framework into D5.1, which has fairly modest goals, and will hopefully come out in 2 weeks or so. But D5.2 should work if Gary can put together a crude tech interface and put the rest of the tech hookups in. What do you think Gary?

[Richard Bruns]

I had a feeling the proper architecture wasn't there for different tech effects like movement versus power. Bad planning on my part. I'll post in the technology thread.

[Gary Thomas]

But D5.2 should work if Gary can put together a crude tech interface and put the rest of the tech hookups in. What do you think Gary?

I am offended. The complete tech interface has been available for about seven months (that is, the "couple of weeks" it took to get D5 going).

When I have the upgraded post-D5 code working (and this means tidy up the TF box and repair the movement orders, and the minor and trivial matter of getting the econ frames visible again) I will hook the tech interface in. I assume it will work from the start. For details of the interface see the old tech thread and possibly some subsequent modifications.

The tech system uses a different implementation of the SAX interface for XML from the military model. The military model approach is better because Laurent designed it for the purpose, the tech one was taken from another context and contorted for the tech editor. I hope to rationalize this fairly soon - I have done some of the work, but D5 then the command refactoring have intervened.

I don't think that any subsequent changes will affect the tech code or interface, which are pretty general.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
I am offended. The complete tech interface has been available for about seven months (that is, the "couple of weeks" it took to get D5 going).

I wasn't talking about a Code interface, which you have done, but a Graphical User Interface component. One that tells the player about tech levels, rates of progress, where the RPs come from, and lets the player put money into tech to affect rates of change. This is not even speced out completely, so you Can't have done it already .

I would do it myself, but you wouldn't like it and insist on redoing it, so by default its your job. The hazards of having high standards .

[Gary Thomas]

Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh!

[Mark_Everson]

Gary: Aside from being able to provoke you into fits there would be another advantage to your doing a GUI for Tech. I could copy it! As you have noticed the econ GUI elements are thrown together by me using Visual Cafe's page designer. If I had something good to use as a template, maybe I could do better .

[Gary Thomas]

You are carrying buttering-up to a new level.

I would need some kind of specification of the choices available to a player. Do they select the things to research? Or the distribution of "research points" among research objectives? I really do not have the time to scan through the forum to get answers to this kind of question.

If someone can give me a list of the decisions to be made by the player, I will do the GUI.

However, bear in mind that the same decisions will need to be made by the AI. This should be implemented in parallel.

Right now I am plowing my way through an movement orders system in the case where there is no guarantee that all the units will be in the same square. What idiot insisted on having that?

Grrrr.

[Richard Bruns]

Technology Interface

All we need for now is something like the econ interface where the player adjusts the RP allocation.

Here's a possibility. I hope the forums will read html form tags:

Technology	Level	Change	RP Allocation	Actions
Farming	23.4	-0.3
Production	17.4	+0.4
Military Tactics	9.3	+0.2

The Details page, implemented later, could have things like a list of applications and technologies that depend on the tech, a list of applications and technologies that will come from higher tech levels, a graph of the tech level history, a comparison to other civs' tech levels, and an "advisor" recommending what action to take.

Edit: why that huge space? maybe the thread is already a table and the additional table tag does odd things? what happens if I get rid of them?

Edit #2: wow, I managed to mess up the whole thread page by doing that. Let's put teh table tags back in...

Edit #3: I looked at the forum source and saw that it sticks {br} in each time there I hit enter in the compose message window. I'll see what happens if I make it one single huge line of code...

Edit#4: That seemed to help. Let's see if I can get rid of more breaks.

Edit#5: Added "Lock" button

[Mark_Everson]

Yes, tables cause spooky things to happen. Yours isn't the biggest white space I've seen.

What does the RP Allocation part mean? The RPs are tagged so they automatically go wherever they're supposed to, no? So how can the player control it, other than by 'buying' RPs with investment from the treasury? At least that is the picture I've always had.

Below is what I already put in the Tech D6 thread, but since the discussion has moved back here, I'll put it here:

What do you think is best for a simple tech GUI? I suggest:

Tells the player about tech level for each tech,
possibly rate of progress,
where the RPs come from,
and lets the player put money into tech to affect rates of change, and
Estd turns to the next few application breakthroughs (Legion etc.)

The last one is to inject a little fun factor in it.

Got any other high-level ideas or suggestions for implementations of these and/or layout?

I suspect the AI could just run on autopilot (no tech spending) for now. We may not want ancient rulers to have much luck putting money into tech, but I suggest for now we should do it (perhaps overdo it) so the player has something active they can do with the tech model.

[Richard Bruns]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Yes, tables cause spooky things to happen. Yours isn't the biggest white space I've seen.

I seem to have fixed it. The problem came from the program automatically sticking a {br} tag in whenever you hit enter. If all the html code is on one line, it won't insert all those {br} tags.

What does the RP Allocation part mean? ... So how can the player control it, other than by 'buying' RPs with investment from the treasury?

We may not want ancient rulers to have much luck putting money into tech, but I suggest for now we should do it (perhaps overdo it) so the player has something active they can do with the tech model.

That is the allocation for the discretionary RP's. We always had planned for some RP's, like ones from a forum or library, to be used by the player for any tech.

[Mark_Everson]

Good work on the table, you're the first one to figure it out!

That is the allocation for the discretionary RP's. We always had planned for some RP's, like ones from a forum or library, to be used by the player for any tech.

Ah, that's even better than $ -> tech. I could put in an Education infrastructure class now rather than later, and give RPs for the amount of Education.