Planning for Demos 7 & 8

[Gary Thomas]

I have decided that the refactoring needed to keep units together is too risky to attempt before the imminent release of D7. I intend to attack the ship movement issue instead.

Cheers

[Gary Thomas]

It is amazing how little problems crop up.

Now a ship in port can only go back to sea to the square it entered port from. Sounds good, eh?

So what happens to a newly launched ship that hasn't been to sea before?

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
I have decided that the refactoring needed to keep units together is too risky to attempt before the imminent release of D7.

How about we then have two distinct armies for the old Hannibal? One purely infantry and the other purely horse? That would make it Look like everything works fine .

Yeah those uforseen circumstances do come up far more often than they Should!

[Mark_Everson]

Just a status note. We are closing in on D7. As soon as a few last-minute things get done, I'll get a version of the testbed out.

If we're lucky we might be able to get the official D7 out in about a week. Just a matter of how many unforseen glitches we run into! I also leave on vacation on July 6, so my vacation may also complicate things...

[Mark_Everson]

D7 todo list v11 - June 30

Good progress, since the last update, a Lot of the items are gone, thanks expecially to Gary. The tutorial is starting to be a bit of fun with the barb incursions, and their being hard to predict!

The list is not in priority order. A preponderance of the items are discussed in posts in the D7&8 thread if the short version doesn't make it clear what needs to be done. X = done. I have eliminated most of the old ones that have been taken care of, and only leave Xs if some small part remains to be done. FE the code may be there to do it, but the scenario file doesn't have it implemented.

Numbering scheme changes after 15 to that in bugs and features lists, any further D7 todos will go in either the bugs (- prefix on number) or feature list (f prefix) and be handled with those numbering schemes.

If anyone wants to sign up for particular bugs, just list the number(s) you want to go after. Some of you new coders could help with this when you finish or want a break from your starting projects.

Comments, criticisms, and suggestions for additions and deletions welcome!

Note because of my vacation schedule (a week, starting July 6), its possible we will move on to the D7.1 stuff before having an official D7 release.

X 2. Ship boarding GUI (Gary) [tentatively leave for D7.1]

3. Small AI improvements per my suggestions in the D7&8 thread (parts waiting for 7.1)
X AI takes over just plain squares once cities taken
More AI stuff detailed below.

7. Dawn tutorial (Mark, a bit more than half done as I write this)

X 11. Victory Conditions Dawn1 - add achieving building of a chariot unit (Gary)
Done in code and xml but not tested

13. Difficulty levels as separate scenarios for now. FE Dawn1 and "Dawn1 Hard". There may need to be two versions of the Hard one in Delenda, since there could be a "hard playing Romans", and similarly for the other side. (Mark, don't know yet if we even need this)

X 14. Even though Hannibal is a large task force/command with phalanx and light horse components, the light horse always outruns the phalanx, giving Hannibal much less odds than would be the case if the TF moved together. I think that's a bug it's important to change to give the AI some punch. Another confusing feature of this behavior is that when you click on a square with any component of the Hannibal force, you see the whole thing. (Gary, deferred to D7.1)

15. Another AI problem was that sometimes AI forces just sat there even when there were plenty of city targets available. (Mark will fix if can be done in a few hours)

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Numbering scheme changes here to that in bugs and features lists, any further D7 todos will go in either the bugs (- prefix on number) or feature list (f prefix). Name in parentheses at beginning is person who identified/requested the bug or feature. Name in brackets at end is person who has taken on fixing it. Volunteers needed!

-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. [low D7] ***[Mark]

-141. (Axi) Pathfinding doesn't seem to take advantage of roads. [high, D7 or 7.1] ***

-152 either eliminate Ruler button or mark gui as "Don't Touch, for Display Only" or some such [Mark] ***

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. [medium D7 feature, mark will try to implement] ***[Mark]

f149 (Richard) There should be some kind of home field advantage. Cities fall over way too easily. Maybe in city battles we should generate free horde units to represent militia. When the city is attacked, the units join the defending TF. Then they return to civilian life when the battle is over. [d7.1 or D8, we have talked recently about an auto-mustered militia].

X F151 Road building delay needed, so roads can't be flash-built. Also way to figure out how much resources to use... Too long to duplicate here, see feature list. [delayed per Gary suggestion till D7.1]

f159 (stickdude) I don't know how far along the economic model is, but it would be nice to see some highlights in the "Information frame" at the end of each turn, like income, spending, and current cash balance, units to be produced next turn, etc. [med d7] ***[Mark]

F160 (Mark) Put in a method where I could check if a tech has changed "Significantly"? Say we define significantly as the first time the tech reaches every step of 0.1. During that turn it would say its changed significantly, and then reset so it doesn't come up again till the next step level is achieved. Then I could show the player the info only when those changes occur. What are your thoughts on such a thing? I think it would be useful longer-term also, though with an adjustable step size. [Gary]

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Small coding projects, for coders new to the project

map editor

xml editor

[Mark_Everson]

Status update:

RL has thrown us a few curveballs, so here's my best take at a new schedule. Before week's end, get a testbed out with as much of the tutorial as is available. Then I leave on vacation July 6-14. After I get back we'll either release very shortly thereafter, or if we still have issues say with the tutorial, put out one more version of the testbed for comments.

[LDiCesare]

I checked the game today and want to add one feature and make a few comments:

Feature - it is just considering a fight is won if the enemy considers its odds are too low to keep ground. Currently, it is checked in-battle but not after-battle. I must playtest it when it works, but it combines retreat and Mark's odds so I think it should please everyone.

Comments
- I am a bit uneasy about the fixed-turn event messages in Dawn. The first play I made I mistook east for west. Okay that is silly, but I got everything 2 turns late and that was a bit hard to play afterwards. Even following the messages, the horses events are quite puzzling. I am not sure where the horses are, although sometimes I see an icon. I don't understand what happens with them. Only once did I manage to get the domestication tech bonus, and I was quite surprised when I saw it. Probably just checking the horse/late messages would be enough to make the dawn demo real good.

[Gary Thomas]

- I am a bit uneasy about the fixed-turn event messages in Dawn. The first play I made I mistook east for west. Okay that is silly, but I got everything 2 turns late and that was a bit hard to play afterwards. Even following the messages, the horses events are quite puzzling. I am not sure where the horses are, although sometimes I see an icon. I don't understand what happens with them. Only once did I manage to get the domestication tech bonus, and I was quite surprised when I saw it. Probably just checking the horse/late messages would be enough to make the dawn demo real good

I was quite strongly against fixed turn messages, and convinced Mark that they should be changed. I have now altered all but the last few, in my view unnecessary, invasion events to be event driven. The first few, related to finding wheat, are tested and work well in the latest version.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
I have now altered all but the last few, in my view unnecessary, invasion events to be event driven.

Hi Gary, why do you think they're unnecessary? In our private correspondence I said I thought we should maybe get rid of on of the last two. But my motivation for the last is to actually let the player use the chariot they spend all that time arranging to build. I still think that's a valid piece of feedback, the lack of which would leave the player a bit frustrated.

Laurent, have you gotten far enough in the tutorial to have an opinion? I'll think more about this while I play the tutorial again after a week's hiatus.

[LDiCesare]

In think all events should be event-driven, and we should try to avoid as much as possible the appearance of two bulletins on a single turn, as it is disturbing when you have two or more of them. Iconifying them would be a solution to that problem.
I usually avoid fight as much as I can. It is really funnt to get a message that barbarians are fighting themselves in the south. This means that most barbarian events are useless right now as they don't move. However, as the plaer doesn't know that detail, they work quite well. I agree that the penultimate barbarian army is quite useless. The last one is not, however, as it scares you a lot when you discover the huge power circle. Problem is it shrinks after a while probably due to lack of supplies.
To sum it up, three invasions should be enough. The first one to force the player to react to the possibility, the second one to test him lightly, the last one to conclude the game on a grand battle. More is unneeded.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Laurent:

Originally posted by LDiCesare
It is really funnt to get a message that barbarians are fighting themselves in the south. This means that most barbarian events are useless right now as they don't move. However, as the plaer doesn't know that detail, they work quite well.

Hmmm, this used to work more or less ok, with some occasional glitches. I'll see what's going on when I playtest the latest in a few minutes!

I agree that the penultimate barbarian army is quite useless. The last one is not, however, as it scares you a lot when you discover the huge power circle. Problem is it shrinks after a while probably due to lack of supplies.
To sum it up, three invasions should be enough. The first one to force the player to react to the possibility, the second one to test him lightly, the last one to conclude the game on a grand battle. More is unneeded.

I'm comfortable doing it the way you suggest... Have to find out where the supplies are set and increase them to avoid the bug!

[Mark_Everson]

Update on where D7 stands...

Gary got a lot done on code improvements while I was gone. Unfortunately the upgrades resulted in some bugs too, though probably nothing major. When we get squared away with those, I'll Finally put out that testbed version I've been promising. Shortly after that, depending on any further serious bugs that may be found in playtesting, we'll put out the demo proper.

[Gary Thomas]

Unfortunately the upgrades resulted in some bugs too, though probably nothing major.

No they didn't, the bugs were there already.

Cheers

[Gary Thomas]

No they didn't, the bugs were there already.

Well, most of them, anyway.

Cheers