Where is everyone?

[arrow014]

I used to play Civ2, CTP and CTP2 years ago. I lost interest in the turn-based strategy game genre for a long while but am starting to come back to it. I love the unfinished but still amazing C-evo as well as Freeciv. I am quite fed up with the contemporary tendency towards flashy 3D games and would really like to see a GOOD recently-developed strategy game, even if it had only "old-fashioned" 2d sprites or animation. Thus my fascination with C-evo and, to a slightly lesser extent, Freeciv. Anyway, I also found this CTP source code project, as well as the Ages of Man mod.

The trouble is: everything appears to be dead, and the files are nowhere to be found (all the links give me errors). Is anyone still here? Where do I go to find any activity? I do see some recent posts on this forum (all the way up to today), so I assume that SOME work is still being done. What's the status as of now?

I am especially interested in the Linux port project, since I recently installed Mandriva 2006 on my laptop and am trying to switch to using it as my primary OS. The main obstacle to this is the gaming aspect. I can do nearly everything else (except program .NET apps, and even with that there's Mono) on Linux.

Anyway, here's hoping that someone will answer and that development is still underway on the classic TBS games...

Cheers!
-- Michael

[Pave]

Welcome!

It's not dead here at all, far from it. As far as I can tell, there are still some sharp edges, but the latest playtest version is playable and highly recommeded for a far better CTP expirience.

The files (They worked for me, last today):
File 1/3
File 2/3
File 3/3

The most chatting is done in the the playtest thread, which should be on the first page. Also other threads on top are rather active too.

[Martin Gühmann]

If you need some information on the Linux port then read this thread.

If you want to participate in the project with more than code reading read the first post of this thread.

-Martin

[arrow]

Wow the Linux screenshot looks great! I hadn't expected to find it actually functioning, but it looks like they actually have it playable at this point. Now to figure out how in the world to get started with downloading and compiling it myself...any pointers on doing that would be *greatly* appreciated.

And wow, you actually got permission to set up an SVN repository with the source code? Very nice of Activision, that.

And I thought this place looked dead...

Anything else I should know about?

Cheers!

[Martin Gühmann]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by arrow
Wow the Linux screenshot looks great! I hadn't expected to find it actually functioning, but it looks like they actually have it playable at this point.

Not quite there is still a lot of stuff that needs to be done.

Originally posted by arrow
Now to figure out how in the world to get started with downloading and compiling it myself...any pointers on doing that would be *greatly* appreciated.

Well you have to get access to the SVN server, I didn't upload the Linux branch, so you have to get that from the SVN server, contact kaan for that and ask J Bytheway or ctplinuxfan how to use the Linux SVN tool. And of course how to compile in the first place if you don't know.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by arrow
Wow the Linux screenshot looks great! I hadn't expected to find it actually functioning, but it looks like they actually have it playable at this point.

I was quite surprised when it worked for the first time too .

Now to figure out how in the world to get started with downloading and compiling it myself...any pointers on doing that would be *greatly* appreciated.

Unfortunately it's quite a complicated process at present, because the linux branch is still somewhat underdeveloped, but I'll be happy to guide you through it. As Martin said, at present the only way to do that is to contact kaan and gain access to the repository to download the linux branch code (see this thread for details on getting SVN access). Once you've done that you can run the provided autogen.sh script to do automake, etc., then run configure and make. You'll probably need to install a couple of libraries (SDL, etc.) to get everything working. After that you'll need to get the game looking at a proper data tree, as well as a couple of other miscellaneous files. These things are mentioned obliquely in the linux port thread, but if you get this far then I'll be happy to give you some more explicit instructions. Indeed, I'd be very glad to hear that someone besides me was able to compile a working version of the game under Linux.

Good luck, and please post any further queries on the linux port thread .

Anything else I should know about?

You might note that keyboard input doesn't work at the moment in the Linux version, which is somewhat frustrating. It's probably the most serious problem at the moment in terms of spoiling actual gameplay.

[arrow014]

Thanks a lot for the instructions...I've emailed kaan about access and am waiting for his reply. Once I get that I'll try to follow your procedure to get the whole thing compiled...I'll let you know how it goes. Cross your fingers--I've had lots of experience in programming, but most of it was under Windows.

That's a bummer about the keyboard...do you know why it's happening?

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by arrow014
Thanks a lot for the instructions...I've emailed kaan about access and am waiting for his reply. Once I get that I'll try to follow your procedure to get the whole thing compiled...I'll let you know how it goes. Cross your fingers--I've had lots of experience in programming, but most of it was under Windows.

Ah... Well, in that case you've probably never used the autotools and my instructions may have been a little too cursory. I've started writing an explanation with a little more detail here.

That's a bummer about the keyboard...do you know why it's happening?

I suspect that the "TODO"s in ui/aui_sdl/aui_sdlkeyboard.cpp are to blame.

[arrow014]

Ah... Well, in that case you've probably never used the autotools and my instructions may have been a little too cursory. I've started writing an explanation with a little more detail here.

Thanks for the post...and you are exactly right. I've used gcc (& g++) and make and such, but only on relatively simple projects in programming classes. I've used the standard "configure/make/make install" to install software before, but have never really developed anything that didn't need a simple makefile. But I'm definitely willing and eager to learn.

Still no reply from kaan...he must not check his email on weekends...

[Protra3211]

Finishing up a Medmod2 game. Im in 2nd place with alot of work to do .
Then its on to the new playtest posted . Looks like some of E,s code work for resources made it in this test . Should be a treat as E has done great work in the past on game tiles.

[Ekmek]

I'm slowliy making some unit.txt using the resource code. I'll post it in the playtest as a patch and peole can test it out for balancing. so far I'm thinking of these additions

NeedsCityGood Elephant for Elephant Warrior
NeedsCityGoodAnyCity for Horse units (I may replace buffalo with horses)
PreRequisiteBldg Airport for aircraft
NeedsCityGood Oil for Oil Refinery



And I think I'll add a scout unit for the beginningof the game. I notice that a lot of the beginning turns people are waiting for the city to build something and maybe I'll find a way to make people choose start units in the profileDB