Demo 5 Comments and Bug Reports

[Mark_Everson]

Clash Demo 5 has been released. The download is available, with the URL lower in this thread. Following is an overview of what we have in Demo 5. The code is completely new from that used in Demo 4, so many features of the previous version have been changed, or not yet included in this one.

What's New in Demo 5:

Completely new code (will accelerate our progress from here on out)
New Military Model
Pathfinding and Improved Movement AI
New Economics Model
New Task Force Orders

[COLOR=dark-blue]The Demo has many intuitive aspects, but we also have not yet made it as user-friendly as the final product will be. Please read the short manual for D5 Before you make comments here so that:
1) you know how you are supposed to work things
2) you know what we are looking for feedback on especially
3) you know which bugs already exist, and that you don't need to report.
[/COLOR]

I would like to thank Laurent (Military Coder) and Gary (almost everything else coder ) for their work on the Demo. And I also want to thank Fiera for the graphics.

Let us know what you think!

[edit] Some notes to help people out based on initial problems/questions:

A. Economy: How is ROI of military units calculated?

Sorry it should be in the manual that the Only thing ROI currently works for are the kapital investments. ROI for Military builds will be coming fairly soon.

Specifically in the orders window, I am able to give different orders for the same economic domain, so the question rises which one is taken into consideration?

For now All orders apply. Orders at the civ level happen in every square you control. Provincial and square orders happen in their respective domains. A 30% civ-level order and a 20% square-level order result in a total 50% in that square, 30% elsewhere. For now each 'city' square is both a province and a square, so there is no difference between a provincial order and a square one. Although if you do them both you'll get double the effect .

5. I am unable to make any change in my orders persist after I close and reopen the window. They persist only if the windows are minimised. Aren't my orders taken in account in that case? I am totally unable to make the tax rate budge from 10% on any info window.

That is operator error it works, trust me
I think what you must have done is issued civ orders, and then looked at the square-level orders or something. Each set of orders is for now completley distinct. The only reflection of civ-level orders you see in the square econ orders box is that there is a cost in the 'Type Cost' column showing an order from a different level is working here. And just to be explicit, each set of square orders are distinct.

Check out the economy.txt file to see in detail what is being done economically in the selected square after you run each turn. There are two turns before the player gets control to fill all the fields for growth rates etc.


Download Clash Demo 5 Here

And before you make bug and feature requests, check out the detailed list several posts down.

More to come, check this space each time you read the thread!

[heardie]

I guess congratulations would be in order. Well done. As a member of GGS I know how hard it can be.

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Heardie!

[Mark_Everson]

Ok, I have the download set up! I screwed up the layout a bit, but AFAIK the links work and the instructions will get you a working version of D5. If you try it at this stage, please let me know whether it works or not.

I do not want to announce this more broadly until we're sure it works, so please Don't spread the word just yet.

Download Clash Demo 5 Here


[edit] Add D5 bug list (you needn't report these)

Bugs. (Numbering started with D5 bug list, all bugs resolved as of D5 eliminated)

-31 Moderately large bits of the information frame get blitted to the screen in odd places when the GUI updates after a new turn (but only for a fraction of a second). I suggest we don’t put this at high priority, but it should be looked into sometime.

-37 I can't figure out quickly how to get EconInfoFrame to stick to within the screen, it spills over to the right. (Everything of substance fits in the screen, but the 'x' window icon at upper rt. goes beyond. If you can figure out how to fix it I'd be appreciative! Now to get rid of that window at 1028 res you need to drag it over a bit before the _ and x become visible.

-39 On turn 17 a Carthaginian unit (in 177 BCE) walks on water. Getting a bit ahead of history?

-40 Fairly frequently TFs have moves that show on the map, but don’t exectute them. Just sit there. Canceling the move and re-issuing the order can fix this.

-41 Deadlock of TFs during moves. If two opposing TFS have order to move into each other’s square they can just sit there. No cities are involved, just long-range movement orders. Opposing force was under AI control. This can be used to Cripple an AI attack, by blocking their biggest TFs moves with a single unit! ;-) This May have been connected with fixed zombie TF bug..

-42 Playing 62 turns with some fairly massive armies running around I got an OutOfMemoryError! Something isn’t getting cleaned up.

-43 Got a MilitaryException. I disbanded a monster TF into units (to divide it into two smaller TFs) then when adding one unit to a single-unit TF to try building up my first TF, I got the exception, which said that I was trying to add a unit in a different square to a TF.

-45 The power circles do not seem to match the power lines in the TF box. As long as we are aware of that it is not a show stopper.

-46 Somehow the Chariot graphic got left out. So now when you build a chariot it throws in the default icon (the old spearman).

-47 When purchases exceed by some margin 100% of local tax income get a bug. Will add stack trace later, but trace wasn’t complete anyway. (Mark will fix)

[edit oct 25 01] more bugs/feature requests (48 is of no consequence)

-49 All econ info and orders windows can be opened as many times as one hits the respective buttons. If the specific window is already opened (square x,y info or Sicily info or Carthaginian info) then it should be brought in front.

-50 options to close or minimise all economic views is necessary, to avoid cluttering.

-51 There is no distinction among own and foreign squares when an econ window is called. I, playing Carthaginian, can see thus the orders and perhaps issue orders valid for the Roman civ? I can't tell: I found myself issuing orders over the Roman civ because the Romans took the city from where I had called the civ econ window from and info for the Romans. Some "You have no spies in that area" message should be shown, or at least give only the info window. Perhaps this feature should be overridable with a command line switch.

-52 Tax rate and other fields on econ info window don’t update when tax rate is changed in orders. (Mark will fix)

-53 I had a TF in a city and gave the order "Move TF to nearest enemy". Cycling through my TFs, the specific TF is no longer shown, in the TF and detail frames, to be in the city but alone in the enemy's square, while at another point of the cycle the enemy is shown (along with any of my TFs that are actually there) in the same place. The highlighted square on the map is this target square, while the origin city square cannot be selected. If I cancel orders for this TF, all is well. Definitely a bug.

-54 The orders "Move TF to nearest friend" and "Move TF to nearest enemy city" display a visible path on the map only after a full cycle of the TFs. The orders "Move TF to nearest enemy" and "Move TF to city" do not display a path at all.

-55. When there are two many enemy TFs on a square, right-click does not produce a pop-up window with the details. I noticed this when I let the AI grow huge armies (by turn 80). By that time also the power circle of those mega-concentrations vanishes, cause it's too large and it gets buried under tiles further away which are probably refreshed after that.

-56. I noticed that your AI is targetting the cities, but unfortunately not ALL cities, only those of it's enemy, even if it posseses them all (the army concentrations in my former cities are enormous, while theirs are only garissoned). I wonder if I would be safer if I tried to conquer the Roman cities and let them take mine, if they want them so much?

-57 I can't see how to use the "Move to selected unit" order. Is it supposed the previously selected or next selected unit? Is the button non-functional?

-58 Why is it that when two different units of the same type are in the same square, one has a thicker power line than the other - thicker in fact than it's health bar? Is there a way we could make a better graphic to distinguish which line is which? (I feel this persists form demo4, am I wrong?)

-59 The game window should refresh itself quicker when uncovered from another window, like it does when restored from minimised state. Now everything refreshed under the influence of the cursor. But this doesn't happen all the time.

-60 After having "worked" the game a while, in two consecutive efforts, the game turn computations were "stuck". Does the existance of oversized log files have anything to do with this? I deleted the files and started another game and the turn ended in a split second. Pathfinding seems to cause no overwork to the program, but perhaps opening and closing the large txt files might do that. (Of course this is a wild and uneducated guess, so I'm probably wrong)

Command line switches:
-fe = error logging to a file
-no = no AI movement
-seed = random numbers use constant seed for reproducible behavior

[heardie]

Is there any scenario/civilization I should choose. The first two screens load up then I get the following error in the DOS window:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM>java -jar CLASHD5.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: javax.swing.JDesktopPane:
field OUTLINE_DRAG_MODE not found
at game.view.ClashWindow.(ClashWindow.java:74)
at game.view.ClashWindow.getInstance(ClashWindow.java :29)
at game.controller.Coordinator.getClashWindow(Coordin ator.java:69)
at game.view.Start.(Start.java:30)
at game.controller.Game.(Game.java:50)
at game.controller.GameMain.main(GameMain.java:10)

[Mark_Everson]

Hi heardie, thanks for trying it out.

Hmmm... We saw that error back when we were trying to use InstallAnywhere using a full install package. I thought just using the .jar from the desktop fixed it. What this error shows, I think, is that the java version you have isn't compatible with the code.

1. did you try running from the desktop, and doing everything else as it said in the instructions first? I assume you did, but I have to ask!

What can be done: I am not sure. I use what should be the same version at home and it runs fine. Maybe Gary will have some suggestions.

If you have a Fast web connection, you can download the Exact "SDK" I use, and try that. But that's 35MB! If you do have a fast connection, here's the link for that one: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download-windows.html , just hit continue near the middle of the page.

My apologies again, I thought we had this licked!

[Locutus]

Guys,
I downloaded the demo. I only had two minutes to try it because of RL issues but it seemed to work fine on my system. I'm using Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition v1.3.1, I think that's exact same version as Mark is using (the zipped version is about 32 MB large). That's odd though, it should never be necessary to download the entire developers kit, the JRE version should be enough, if you're using the exact same version...

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Locutus

I just checked the download per the instructions on the web page, using JRE 1.3.1, on my wife's comp, and it worked fine too.

heardie, all I can say is make sure you do everything you're told (Not a really good recipie for life though) Also you should read the manual, it tells you which scenario to run, etc.

Good Luck,

Mark

[F_Smith]

Downloaded the Demo, installed and ran fine. Looks Great! Great job.

I won't have a chance to give it a workout until later this week, but very nice.

Good Job everyone!

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks 'F'! Good to hear from another satisfied customer

[manurein]

Hi all, Hi Mark

Just wanted you to know that I have downloaded and tried the D5 : it works.
However, I did not have tim yet to try it really.

Thanks

[heardie]

I think it could be my version of JRE. I am still using the one that worked with D3, I believe.

[axi]

I was expecting this as a gift for the Millenium...

... alas I got it 21 months later.

I downloaded the zip, unzipped and moved the .jar on my desctop manually (since unzipping it on the desctop rightaway made it appear inside a series of 3 consecutive folders: it appears that the file hierarchy on my PC is different than Mark's).

I run the thing and it run smoothly (and much faster than demo4 or F_Smith's ClashEditor). Of course it can't reach the response time of say civ2, that is a C program, but I'm relieved, since a lagging game was my greatest fear. I run a PII 333, 128K RAM, Win98, JRE 1.3 and the system's quite loaded with stuff, so Ãt's rather slow by contemporary standards.

I opened all three scenarios and I played around, without having read nothing of the manual, which I am downloading right now.

I didn't have the chance to play around more, since I had to send my PC for a small repair today. Btw, Mark I never received any mail from you, but it doesn't matter now.

My first impression was that it's a pity that we can't have a "full" map, like in demo 4, to play on. I thought that this is rather important, since the military aspect will probably get a more "civvish" colour, while with a full map it is more "Risk-like". There is also no way to see who posesses the squares, apart from the cities, who controls the territories and where are the provinces. A full map and visible boundaries are a must for demo 6.

When I found out about the path planning, I said wow! this is cool. Simultaneous movement games have a huge strategic thrill. But then I ordered a TF to move just one square, but after a couple of clicks at the end turn button, it wouldn't budge! It seems it was one of those bug cases I saw mentioned. When I moved my TFs against the hated Huns, another dissapointment. Nothing on the map would tell me how far my units would go each turn. A partial cancellation order is also lacking, so that only the last step of a detailed path will can be cancelled. But the worse thing is that the units are shown jumping from initial to final state, without me seeing their pacing. This is crucial for gameplay, so sliding of units (like in civ2 or civ-evo) has to be introduced. I know that the military model divides the turn into a number of "clicks" (12 IIRC) which would be enough for the sequencing of the turn events.

I also noticed the lack of savegames, which should be introduced as the game grows. I saw the 3 data files generated on my desktop afterwards and I see that everything is already saved there. How hard is it to make them load into the game?

And if demo 6 has a large map, I want an option to automatically resize the game window to 1280x1024, which is the resolution I use. I am simply bored of pulling all windows around till they get to the proper size. (otherwise, the view management system is quite efficient)

Am I spoiled or not?

I will come back with a more in-depth analysis and perhaps some real bugs.

[axi]

I'm back!

Comrade axi's bug report:

A. Economy: There are major design flaws here and manageability is null. I feel that ROI on many things is initially 0 and that screw up the numbers. How is ROI of military units calculated?

1. All econ info and orders windows can be opened as many times as one hits the respective buttons. If the specific window is already opened (square x,y info or Sicily info or Carthaginian info) then it should be brought in front.

2. Specifically in the orders window, I am able to give different orders for the same economic domain, so the question rises which one is taken into consideration?

3. Also options to close or minimise all economic views is necessary, to avoid cluttering.

4. There is no distinction among own and foreign squares when an econ window is called. I, playing Carthaginian, can see thus the orders and perhaps issue orders valid for the Roman civ? I can't tell: I found myself issuing orders over the Roman civ because the Romans took the city from where I had called the civ econ window from and info for the Romans. Some "You have no spies in that area" message should be shown, or at least give only the info window.

5. I am unable to make any change in my orders persist after I close and reopen the window. They persist only if the windows are minimised. Aren't my orders taken in account in that case? I am totally unable to make the tax rate budge from 10% on any info window.

B. Military: The better part of the game, still not perfect. Chasing the AI around the empty map pissed me off. I witnessed the TF deadlock.

1. I had a TF in a city and gave the order "Move TF to nearest enemy". Cycling through my TFs, the specific TF is no longer shown, in the TF and detail frames, to be in the city but alone in the enemy's square, while at another point of the cycle the enemy is shown (along with any of my TFs that are actually there) in the same place. The highlighted square on the map is this target square, while the origin city square cannot be selected. If I cancel orders for this TF, all is well. Definitely a bug.

2. The orders "Move TF to nearest friend" and "Move TF to nearest enemy city" display a visible path on the map only after a full cycle of the TFs. The orders "Move TF to nearest enemy" and "Move TF to city" do not display a path at all.

3. I can't see how to use the "Move to selected unit" order. Is it supposed the previously selected or next selected unit? Is the button non-functional?

4. Why is it that when two different units of the same type are in the same square, one has a thicker power line than the other - thicker in fact than it's health bar? Is there a way we could make a better graphic to distinguish which line is which? (I feel this persists form demo4, am I wrong?)

5. When there are two many enemy TFs on a square, right-click does not produce a pop-up window with the details. I noticed this when I let the AI grow huge armies (by turn 80). By that time also the power circle of those mega-concentrations vanishes, cause it's too large and it gets buried under tiles further away which are probably refreshed after that.

6. I noticed that your AI is targetting the cities, but unfortunately not ALL cities, only those of it's enemy, even if it posseses them all (the army concentrations in my former cities are enormous, while theirs are only garissoned). I wonder if I would be safer if I tried to conquer the Roman cities and let them take mine, if they want them so much?

C. Runtime: I made a crash course, pushing the end-turn button continuously. The AI totally eliminated me by turn 42 (Carthage scenario) and it kept growing until I got bored by turn 110.

1. The game window should refresh itself quicker when uncovered from another window, like it does when restored from minimised state. Now everything refreshed under the influence of the cursor. But this doesn't happen all the time.

2. After having "worked" the game a while, in two consecutive efforts, the game turn computations were "stuck". Does the existance of oversized log files have anything to do with this? I deleted the files and started another game and the turn ended in a split second. Pathfinding seems to cause no overwork to the program, but perhaps opening and closing the large txt files might do that. (Of course this is a wild and uneducated guess, so I'm probably wrong)

This is all I can see, at a first glance.

[Mark_Everson]

Re: I'm back!

Hey Axi: (I will also update the bugs post above and the manual when I have time). I agree with your interface points, and we'll try to include them soon.

Originally posted by axi
A. Economy: There are major design flaws here and manageability is null. I feel that ROI on many things is initially 0 and that screw up the numbers. How is ROI of military units calculated?

Sorry it should be in the manual that the Only think ROI currently works for are the kapital investments.

2. Specifically in the orders window, I am able to give different orders for the same economic domain, so the question rises which one is taken into consideration?

For now All orders apply. Orders at the civ happen in every square you control. Provincial and square orders happen in their respective domains.
A 30% civ-level order and a 20% square-level order result in a total 50% in that square, 30% elsewhere. For now each 'city' square is both a province and a square, so there is no difference between a provincial order and a square one.

5. I am unable to make any change in my orders persist after I close and reopen the window. They persist only if the windows are minimised. Aren't my orders taken in account in that case? I am totally unable to make the tax rate budge from 10% on any info window.

That is operator error it works, trust me
I think what you must have done is issued civ orders, and then looked at the square-level orders or something. Each set of orders is for now completley distinct. The only reflection of civ-level orders you see in the square econ orders box is that there is a cost in the 'Type Cost' column showing an order from a different level is working here.

Check out the economy.txt file to see in detail what is being done economically in the selected square after you run each turn. There are two turns before the player gets control to fill all the fields for growth rates etc.

The rest I'll leave for Gary or Laurent to comment on.

Thanks for the detailed report! I know we now have some easy ways to reduce irritation for D5.1, coming soon! Really!