Demo 6 Comments and Bug Reports

[Mark_Everson]

Demo 6 is now ready for your download and coments.

Demo 6 (which used to be called Demo 5.1) includes:

1. Roads Implemented. To build them player draws an outline on the map. Once enough economic resources are allocated, they are built.

2. Merchants (at least an alpha version)
The specials I have in so far (to give merchants something to trade):
Gold -> Services ; Tin -> Resources ; Cloth -> Manufactured Goods ; Salt -> Food

3. Army Support: Army build removes population and supplies come from your civ or the army will suffer the concequences. The Hun scenario uses exhaustion of stockpiled supplies as a ticking clock that the Attila player needs to beat or suffer destruction!

4. New info screen we call Events that shows the big things that happened in the turn with links to more detailed info if the player desires.

5. 800x600 res support

6. Fog of war and hidden terrain. (AI will still know whole map for now, since it would be too time-consuming at this stage IMO to have AI able to deal with uncertainty.)

[edit dec 28]
Demo 6.1 adds persistent screen positions of windows saved in a "settings.xml" files, and better combat reports.
It is now the standard D6 download. If you already downloaded 6.0, you will need to download the zip again to get D6.1

[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 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.

If you were Good and read the manual last time, then you only need skim it, reading the stuff in bold for changes from the last version.
[/COLOR]

I would like to thank Gary (If it ain't Military or Economics he codes it!) and Laurent (Military Coder) for their work on the Demo. And I also want to thank Fiera for the graphics.

Let us know what you think!

Download Clash Demo 6 Here

Note: When you unzip the ClashD6.jar file to the desktop, make sure you have "Use folder names" unchecked since otherwise you will end up with the jar file in ...\desktop\Clash Demo\ which will do you no good! [added Dec 20]

Several Playtesters have had trouble getting the demo to run. In at least one case it was due to not following the download directions. We are looking into what is causing the so-far undiagnosed problems, and will keep you posted. If you run the demo and it works fine, please report that also. - Mark [modified Dec 23]

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

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

Some tentative features for Demo 7:

1. Implement tech test incl. military and econ hookups for the limited tech testbed we have so far.
2. Get real provinces going and reorg govt structure
3. Improve AI by at least bunching units into armies for attacks, and improve sophistication of target selection.

On smaller things maybe include pillaging. I'm sure there are other things, but that is all that comes to mind for now.

For those who want a blast from the past here is a link to the Demo 5 Thread.

[Mark_Everson]

Demo 6 Bugs and Small Features Request Lists

Last updated Jan 15, 2002 (watch this space for updates)

Bugs and small feature requests file has been split into two separate files.

Amazingly, they are called Bugs and Small Feature Requests. Numbering from previous versions is retained for continuity, but the numbering will be independent between the two in the future. Frequently it is a judgment call what’s a bug and what’s a small feature, please just accept what I call it…

This is the Bug List

Most outstanding bugs are minor and will be addressed within the next few releases.

I have assigned priorities to all bug and small feature requsts they are noted in square brackets at the end of each item. Feel free to question my priorities. If there is enough clamor that something I rate low is of high importance, I'll change it...

-55. When there are too 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. [acknowledged long-term issue, low priority, D8]

-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)
[It doesn’t open and close text files. Don’t know what causes this.]

-109 I got a unit killed out in the middle of nowhere. But its elimination of the fog goes on even after its dead! One of those “ghost” units I presume. [known non-critical issue will fix later]

-116 When econ orders frame comes up first the many little text areas appear with no frame around them then the rest appears. Not critical, but any ideas how to fix this? It didn’t happen in D5. [low priority]

-121 Sometimes Victory or defeat messages don’t come up as they should. Best guess is that ‘ghost’ units are preventing conditions from being fulfilled. [medium priority, D7]

-124 Units are announced to be built, but sometimes don’t show up on map or in Units box until the next turn. [not critical, D7]

-125 “Next TF” button doesn’t work if no TF is selected. Should go to some TF to start if none selected. Perhaps TF closest to current selected square? [medium priority, D7]

-126 There seems to be a bug in Dawn that prevents you from actually using the economies of the cities you conquer. Makes it pretty tough to win! Conquered cities didn’t follow my civ-wide orders, and I couldn’t properly even set the local orders. [Leave for after the govt administration refactoring to see if that fixes it.]

-129 Got message that roads were planned but none set aside even though I did have an order for road building, and was part way through building one. I had other orders that preempted it. [D7]

X131 As a feature request, I'd like a scrollbar in the econ orders window available. You cannot get it all in the screen in 800x600, so you can't give orders below production capital or such... [I went ahead and kludged a fix. I put in a "Reorder" button that flips the categories in the econ orders frame. This makes the previously unavailable capital build orders be on top. Its not a great fix, but It'll do for now.]

---------- Post Demo 6 bugs Dec 20 on --------------------

-138 Pop-up box that says roads were planned but none set aside is really annoying, and for unknown reasons I sometimes get it nearly every turn even when funds are allocated and not all roads are built. Please change this message to an Econ Event [medium priority, D7]

-140 (Axi) One minor glitch: when you resize the units window, the sidebar refuses to adjust, so the active area either gets cut-off, or covers only part of the window. If you meant the units window to have a standard 2 unit rows width, why did you put a sidebar in the first place?

-141. (Axi) Pathfinding doesn't seem to take advantage of roads. [high, D7]

-142. (Axi) Sometimes, when a TF is on the target square of it's previous path, the red dot is still there and the details window says that the unit "has orders", so they have to be cancelled before a new path is ordered. Perhaps the unit did not have enough movement points and it still "owes" some to complete it's path. If this is the problem, fix by crediting the "owed" points to the next move. [don’t know about this one]

-143 Bug with army supplies in Hun scenario. Army Supplies percent in first city taken goes to NaN. [Mark will fix]

-144 (Richard) The "Move to nearest enemy" should be recalculated every turn. Now they just go to where the unit was when tne order was given.[low, D7]

-145 (Richard) Graphical glitches and slowness abound. Whenever I scroll on the main map it looks hideous and I have to move the window to make it look right. Can you code a refresh when the user scrolls? I have a Gateway pile of crap with a Rage 128 pro graphics card. Idea: Is there a way to code a screen refresh when the mouse leaves the scroll bar? [medium, D7]


Command line switches (Must be in command line mode (FE batch file) to use):
-fe = error logging to a file
-no = no AI movement
-seed = random numbers use constant seed for reproducible behavior
-800x600 = start in 800 x 600 res mode
-allecon = allows access to economic orders/info for non-player civs
-riotsoff = turn off riots model (demo 7 feature, default is riots are on)


---------------------------------------------------------


This is the Small Feature List current as of January 6, 2002

I have assigned priorities to all bug and small feature requsts they are noted in square brackets at the end of each item. Feel free to question my priorities. If there is enough clamor that something I rate low is of high importance, I'll change it...

f62 A partial cancellation order is also lacking, so that only the last step of a detailed path will can be cancelled. [eventually need, but low priority]

f63 The units are shown jumping from initial to final state, without me seeing their pacing. [actually there is an update by tick, but its fast on some machines] This is crucial for gameplay, so sliding of units (like in civ2 or civ-evo) has to be introduced. [IMO sliding speed of units should be selectable by player, with the choice included of no sliding (or very little), low priority]

f69 One thing that is needed is some way to know what units are projected to be created in each square and when. Put this in the details frame or the econ info window. Or rather make a city screen, like in the ole civ2! Integration is the key. [Seems like D7+ to me, nice to have, but not essential]

f72 Economic consequences of battle -- The two armies share the square, fighting every turn. But there seem to be no economic consequences to this raging battle. [D7 feature]

f74 One thing we could use when there are multiple TFs in a square is whether they have movement orders or not. Perhaps you could just put the same red circles you put on the path. So a circled 2 in a TFs box would indicate that it has moves for two more turns registered. This is not urgent, just thought I'd mention it.
[Click on the details in the popup menu to get this.]
[If I have to click on every TF to see which has orders it is just about a useless capability. I should be able to See from the TF box which ones have orders. This is not urgent for D6, but needs to be handled in some way to avoid player (read ‘Mark’) frustration. [eventually need, medium priority, D7?]

f101 Chariot moves are Waaay too restrictive. At a minimum they should have allowable but reduced movement in hills, and possibly broken terrain. Right now Chariots are only of any good if you move over completely flat land w/o forest. [eventually need, medium priority, D7?]

f108 Unit details issue. With two TFs in a square right-clicking always gives details for the one selected to move (white outline on box), not the one you rt.-click on. [Very counter-intuitive, but it is the spec for now. Selected TF is one right-click gives info for.] I (Mark would like to make it a feature that the one you right-click on is the one you get move orders for. If the click is not identifiable as pertaining to a given TF or unit, only then would I have it apply to the selected (white box) one. [eventually want, medium priority, D7?]

f118 “hide events” should also hide the detailed description boxes associated with events. Actually closing them would be best so that we don’t end up with hundreds of little event boxes accumulated and hidden from view by the end of the game. [medium priority, D7]

f119 Eventually need to put in one or both of the new ‘city’ images? With the current ones you can’t see the roads very well. [medium priority, D7]

f127 Minimum power circle size is a bit too large. I can’t tell from PC if there are one or two full-strength legions in a square. Suggest minimum be shrunk to about 2/3 of current minimum. [high priority, Mark is happy to do if you tell me where it is..]

f135 Events suggestion from Laurent -- Events should appear in reverse order. Currently most recent is on top. I had an army fight 4 times in one turn (poor they). The display should have shown events: Health
9->1.5, 1.5->0.8,0.8->0.6,0.6->0.4, but it was the other way round.

f136 Combat Reports -- At some point there should probably be a breakdown of number of units of each type on each side, but its not urgent. Also unit power, health, etc should probably just be reported as integers. Health 23.4857392 is a bit disconcerting. [mostly fixed, but sometimes a long string of numbers seen]

f137. (Axi) The road graphics do not coincide at the edges of tiles (on the diagonal direction), which results into roads that are not continuous. The roads should also be of brighter color and/or thicker, in order to be more visible. [wait for artist]

f138. (Axi) The movement path of the units is drawn on a layer below the units and the power circles, resulting into it being hard to see sometimes. It should be always drawn on top. [medium, D7]

f139. (Axi) A unit that is on the top row of squares of the map gets cut-off by the edge of the window. Perhaps you should leave some black margin above the map area. [medium, D7]

f140. (Axi) For users that do not use the same colors as the windows default appearance, the area where you can toggle between traditional and market economy bears the color of the window, while the surrounding area bears the color of the windows default appearance. (I am using a blue-gray tone which makes the thing rather ugly). [low, D7]

f141. (Axi) The TF box around a single bowmen unit is too narrow. [generally there should be a minimum width for the box around a unit regardless of its power. As it is sometimes box shrinks to unappealing size. Low, D7+]

f142. (Axi) The TF box does not need to have a gray background. In demo 4 it had the flat ground for background. Please bring that back and make it so that the background copies the tile which is currently selected. [Low, D7+]

f143. (Axi) Isn't there a way to rearrange the TFs that are in the unit box? Units can be arranged at will inside TFs by assigning them one at a time, but when the TF is disbanded, they get scrambled again. [This doesn’t seem important to me, any feedback either way? ]

f144. (Axi) Since we can save window settings now, how about adding the general settings (fog of war, hidden map, TF selection and whatever is added next) into that file? [Low, D7+]

f145. (Axi) Shouldn't there be "back" buttons in all the launch screens, along with the "exit" ones? [Low, D7+]

f146. (Axi) The [econ orders] reorder button seems to be reordering infraclasses by groups. Perhaps the expandable list idea mentioned somewhere above should be implemented, providing us with a much nicer representation of expenses. [Good idea, but only when econ interface completely redone IMO]

f147. (Axi) I feel that it would be ergonomically better if we could have a merged window for both civ, province and square orders, where we could give orders side by side. Also an option to clear all orders on each level would be swell. [Hmm, not sure what I think about this, but it’s a long way off anyway]

f148 (Richard) I think that issuing a new move order should cancel the previous one and not get stacked on the end. [Agree, needing to cancel orders is a pain. medium priority]

[LDiCesare]

81:

1 I had a phalanx built and the icon used was the bowmen one. I checked, and there seemed to be no bowmen orders. Can?t reproduce but I have now seen bowmen icons spontaneously appearing, especially in larger TFs several times

Actually, the archer image is used for bowmen and skirmishers. It is possible that a TF with lots of losses has skirmishers as their most numerous survivors, so they would show with the archer image. I guess it is the cause of the bug.

As a feature request, I'd like a scrollbar in the econ orders window available. You cannot get it all in the screen in 800x600, so you can't give orders below production capital or such...

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Laurent, thats a Great explanation for the bowmen 'bug'. It fits with everything I have seen!

On the Econ Orders for 800x600 all I have to say is... Doh! I should have figured that out since the civ one runs all the way to the bottom even at the higher res. I'll add it to the bug list and either fix it, or let Gary convince me to change both orders and info into a combined screen using tables.

[Mark_Everson]

Laurent, I went ahead and kludged a fix for the bug where at 800x600 res you can't issue all the orders. I put in a "Reorder" button that flips the categories in the econ orders frame. This makes the previously unavailable capital build orders be on top. Its not a great fix, but It'll do for now. I'm thinking we can put out a bug fix and minor feature release in a week or so once we get comments on what the big issues are. Gary also has a new thing that saves the screen location of the frames, so if playtesters prefer a different arrangement or window size they can get it every time after saving it once.

[roquijad]

I followed the instructions and it didn't run. I went for the alternative option (ClashDemo directory and batch file) and didn't run either, but I got an error message:

Error ocurred during initialization of VM
java/lang/NoClassDefFoundError: java/lang/Object

[LDiCesare]

Rodrigo, if the VM doesn't find java.lang.Object, then it is your java installation which has a problem. You should check if you have a CLASSPATH environment variable, and put in it the directory where your .class are. I don't know where your JVM is, but it shouldn't be far. Look for a jar or class directory.

[Mark_Everson]

Sorry Rodrigo!

Just to be sure, did you download the java package in step 1? The one that worked for Demo 4 Will Not work with this release. Only if you ran D5 can you skip step 1.

Laurent: Are you sure you need a classpath for the JVM files? IIRC the java installation uses path to say where java.exe is, and it finds the java .jar files from there.

If what Laurent says doesn't work for you, we'll get back to you.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Rodrigo, more info...

I've done some followup testing on my wife's computer. The only java-related stuff on her machine is JRE v 1.3.1_01. When I place ClashD6.jar on the desktop it runs fine. So I'm hoping you just didn't do step 1. If you did, what OS do you use? If its an old one the JRE v 1.3.1_01 might not be supported completely. I think it might not work right on Win95 for example. Just let me know what the situation is...

[LDiCesare]

Comments - or enhancement requests

I suggest that the econ order window is too big, and an alternative solution to a sccrollbar. It could be cut in categories, in particular, one could put a military budget in the econ window so you allocate a global budget, and have another window with military detail. We could do it in a windows-explorer-like way, one tree/view to browse categories (military, mines, others) in left part and details on the category in the right part. I'd also like to add one category to military, which is training, in addition to the various units. The code supports training but it is pretty unused. Currently, training drives the price of elements, maybe it would have to be the other way round if it is all seen as econ?

[Mark_Everson]

Comments From a thread in the ALT CIVS forum on demo bombs. I am copying them here so we can figure out what's going on in this one central thread:

Chris Wilkinson Said:
I tried it but it didn't work - I can't remember exactly why, I'll post when I get home tonight...

dexter4dxm Said:
same for me, no luck here. i'm pretty sure i set everything up right... and the dos window closes before i can see what it says

Chris Wilkinson Said:
The batch file doesn't work for me - when I run the Java program I go through the menu, select my Civ and then it exits...


My response from the other thread:

Many very bad words! Sorry for the problems. The Exact same procedure worked for D5, so I am mystified... But we'll figure it out.



dexter4dxm:
There must be a default setting on your machine to auto-close dos windows once the program is complete (in this case after it bombs ). I think you can change that setting by calling up a dos window, hitting the propreties button, then on the program tab uncheck "close on exit". It should save that setting. If that doesnt at least let you see the error message try this:

1. open a dos window by hand
2. type c:
3. type cd \ClashDemo
(dir should now be c:\ClashDemo
3. type: java -jar CLASHD6.jar

At least then the dos window will give you the error message and we can see what's going on.

Chris:
"The batch file doesn't work for me"
What does the output say when it doesnt work? If the dos window doesn't stick around, do what I asked Dexter.

"when I run the Java program I go through the menu, select my Civ and then it exits..."
Now that is Really odd. If we left a file out of the Jar file it would explain that, but as I said in the quote above, I put it on my wife's comp, which has Nothing clash or java-related except the D5 download, in a separate jar file, and it worked fine.

Anybody have an idea on this???

Thanks guys, I hope you can stick with this for a few more short rounds of Q&A!

-Mark

[Mark_Everson]

dexter4dxm has responded to my post:

well, i'm using windows xp. does dos mode even exist in xp? if it does i cant find it. and when i check the properties of the batch file it doesn't let me change any window settings.

Anyone know any issues on winXP and java jre? I couldn't find an explicit mention of that product as supported on the jre download page.

But while I was there I discovered something else. Sun has switched the standard download from JRE v 1.3.1_01 to JRE v 1.3.1_02. I have tested JRE v 1.3.1_02 just in case it made a difference. It worked fine on my wifes comp, so I don't think that's the problem.

Will keep everyone posted, and resolve this issue asap.

-Mark

[heardie]

Well some good news, I can get it too work

Played about 100 turns. Quite playable, the AI swapped cities over and over.

LOL, took me a few turns to reliase it was simeltanious movement

I could only get one city to produce units, the others, even with 70% on phalanax' (and with a tresaury of -1000, nice cheat ) couldn't produce anything. I didn't get too involved because I can't understand the economy part of your game : cute: , but hey, well done anyhow.

[Chris Wilkinson]

Hi guys,

Here's what the batch file says:


C:\ClashDemo>
C:\ClashDemo>c:

C:\ClashDemo>cd \ClashDemo

C:\ClashDemo>
C:\ClashDemo>java -jar CLASHD6.jar
Bad command or file name

C:\ClashDemo>
C:\ClashDemo>


I haven't updated the java file you have to download since Demo 4 - has it changed at all?

[Mark_Everson]

Hi heardie:

Thanks for checking it out, and giving confirmation it worked for you! On the economy, for now, once the treasury goes negative you can't build anything, so the lack of unit building doesnt bother me. Gotta put the -treasury limit in the manual though! I think if you can skim the manual it will be clearer what is going on.

Hi Chris:

You do need to download another version of the JRE to get it to run. It is download #1 on the download page.