Demo 7 Download and Comments

[LDiCesare]

has to have a degree of uncertainty or there's no tension, and no tension means no fun.

I wonder whether I should multiply all the figures at the start of the fight by a random number between say 0.5 and 1.5 for each side to make things more random? Currently, random rolls are lost by the statistical effect of there being so many of them. (I'll cross post in military model - please answer there).

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Heffalump:

I will respond to the military and econ-specific issues in the relevant threads. On the TF rearrangement bug. . .

- In the Rome/Carthage scenario I retreated to Rome, made a stand and defeated Hannibal, then counterattacked north. I recaptured my northern city and pushed on. Then Carthage had it's greatest victory. I divided my 8 or 9 unit army up into multiple units, then tried to re-form it into 2 separate armys .... and it just disappeared. Gone. Oh well, that put a serious crimp in my invasion plans! (The bug seems related to one of those assign unit to TF commands).

I haven't seen anything like that in ages. Can you give the steps you used? Obviously there is some flaw in the Units box code. The way I would do what you say is to form the units in the square into one big TF, then pick one unit that you want in the other TF and start a new TF with it. Then transfer other units that you want in the 2nd TF to it one by one. If you can specify what you Want to be able to do, we can probably put someone on it, provided we agree that its something most people will want to do.

- I couldn't figure out how to use the triermes. They didn't seem to have an attack ability. They did load a unit though. Fair enough, I thought. I headed across the sea and tried to attack Carthage from behind but couldn't figure out how to unload the unit once I got there. Do you have to be in a city to unload?

Triremes fight in ocean squares. They contribute insignificantly to land combat.

It looks like a bug has creapt into the unloading menu code. Below is the way it usually works.

To unload:
1. put the ship on a coastal square
2. left-click on either a ship in the carrying TF or the carried TF and select the unload option.
That's it.

It looks like the bug is making those unload options not appear at first. This results in a very short set of options. A work-around is to select the transporting TF with a mouse click. This makes at least the unload option for the ship appear. Selecting the carried TF seems to make the unload option appear for those. I'll put this in the next bug list.

Thanks again for the detailed comments.

[Heffalump]

I haven't seen anything like that in ages. Can you give the steps you used? Obviously there is some flaw in the Units box code. The way I would do what you say is to form the units in the square into one big TF, then pick one unit that you want in the other TF and start a new TF with it. Then transfer other units that you want in the 2nd TF to it one by one. If you can specify what you Want to be able to do, we can probably put someone on it, provided we agree that its something most people will want to do.

I've played around with it a few times and as best I can tell, here's what I think happened:

In the Carthage/Rome scenario
1. Pick Carthage
2. Goto the big stack at 2,4
3. Split the big TF into seperate TFs using the respective command
4. Right click on Hannibal (which is probably the default selected unit) and click Assign Unit to New TF
We're now in a situation where none of the Units are "selected" but the commands to do things like Add Unit to Selected TF are still visible. Use that command on a unit (without "selecting" any units) and you'll see it disappear into space.
Similarly, right click on a unit and do "Merge units into selected TF" and they will all disappear.

It's the type thing you wouldn't notice once you've learned the proper way to break up and organize TFs, like I have now, but it's still a very obnoxious little bug.

[Gary Thomas]

I had a truly horrendous machine crash which fried my 20Gb drive. I lost access to the internet for over a month, and I lost all my Clash files except some very old ones on my laptop (around Feb 2002). I also lost ALL my emails, so I don't even have your email address, Mark.

If you send me the most recent code I will do some debugging.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

sounds nasty, do you have any ideas about how it happened?

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Gary!

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
I had a truly horrendous machine crash which fried my 20Gb drive. I lost access to the internet for over a month, and I lost all my Clash files except some very old ones on my laptop (around Feb 2002).

OUCH

:I also lost ALL my emails, so I don't even have your email address, Mark.

If you send me the most recent code I will do some debugging.

Cheers

I will put together a merged version and send it soon. I just got a working IDE (Jbuilder BTW) after a several month hiatus (it is a Long story why). If you want it asap, I can send you the main code and the several patches to be put on top, and you'd be up to date. Otherwise I should be able to send you the merged most recent code about 24 hours from now.

Great having you back in the project!

-Mark

[Gary Thomas]

One of the problems is that in moving I managed to lose my Microsoft disks, so couldn't reload until I had got replacement disks, which took quite a while.

Anyway, I am glad to be back.

I think...

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

I have Finally updated the bug and feature lists. They are the 2nd and 3rd posts in this thread.

[jo3h]

loooks cool

[yellowdaddy]

g

when's the next update due?

and why is there no obvious link to the COC website from the forum?

(or is it just me?)

[Mark_Everson]

Re: g

Hi yellowdaddy:

Originally posted by yellowdaddy
when's the next update due?

I don't know, it depends on how much time the coders have. And also on people to design/refine scenarios. Interested in the latter job?

IIRC Laurent's best guess was in a month or two. But I could be mistaken.

and why is there no obvious link to the COC website from the forum?

(or is it just me?)

It's just you.

The link is in the topped thread FOR AN OVERVIEW OF THE CLASH PROJECT - READ THIS.

[yellowdaddy]

NEW CITY CONCEPT

Hi Mark,

I'd love to help, but frankly RL has got on top of me last year in major ways - one of which was the birth of my little boy! (there's no smilie for wiping baby botties?!)

But I am freer now, and could do a bit now and then.

I can do graphics as I mentioned earlier - and like many people i've got plenty of ideas to air.

one I'd like to put to you is about cities...

25-01-2004 15:23 | profile | mail | pm | search | buddy edit | quote link | report | ip

I like the bumpy grid in AlphaCentauri - I don't like "hill squares" and "mountain squares".

I wonder, Is it ONLY a choice between Squares, Hexes/Triangles and random polygons?
Are there any other kinds of polygons that will fit together to everyone's satisfaction?!

Can I put forward a suggestion on Cities?

I HATE CITY SQUARES!

I'm not too keen on settlers either! i wonder what could be done to replace them - have a scout stick a flag down and instruct citizens to migrate.... lots of little dots for buildings so that Cities can be varying sizes and shapes, and merge into each other or be partially destroyed by natural disasters

NO MORE CITY SQUARES!

it's on the thread about Gary's polygons

I'd like to hear your (and others) thoughts on this (above)
and on this (below) (my reply to his reply to the one above)

hi Gary,

does that mean that Cities could be varying shapes and sizes, and even become sprawling conurbations of several squares?

i'd like to see a graphical example of what you mean...

there are some issues i have with it though - like what about climate change, desertification, floods and swampification?

will you have a different "field" for putting national borders on... I'd like to be able to set my border by dragging or clicking a mouse over an area I want to lay claim to, and set a border using waypoints, and perhaps agree a border with a neighbour by treaty this way - I don't like the way your borders are determined by city influence - it may be true in ancient "religious capital" states, but once you get into the middle ages you might want to have squiggly borders and lay claims to vast unpopulated areas like the Russians did in Siberia, and Chinese in Turkestan... catch my drift?

and then of course there's internal provincial borders!

JAck

[Mark_Everson]

Re: NEW CITY CONCEPT

Hi Jack:

Congrats on your son, and also recovering to the point of having a bit of time. Just let us know when you have extra of it, and we'll gladly use it!

I didn't reply to your comments, because I basically agreed with Gary's response. I don't have much time for the forums these days, and try to comment only when I think my contribution is important.

[yellowdaddy]

I'm quite sold on Gary's map too, from what i've squeezed out of him - i'm looking forward to seeing a screenshot of something (or at least something).

I've just posted a few ideas before they evaporate out of my frazzled head to see if they fit into what's going on

i haven't a clear picture of the state of the whole thing myself - meaning I dunno what kind of stuff people intend to put in the thing in the foreseeable future.

as for helping out - i suppose if you have any specific tasks that need doing, i could look and see if I can be of any assistance.

you mentioned scenario designing - is there a list of scenarios that currently exist? are there any instructions for what you want in a scenario design?

I could also have a crack at some gfx, but there's little point if you don't have any explicit descriptions of what is wanted, either in terms of style or content... (i don't want to slave away and only to have things declined)

[Gary Thomas]

This thread is now well over the 150 post limit (so is the social model one). And we have two sticky threads on web design. Why? If that deserves a sticky thread so does polygons...

Cheers