Project - Apolyton game

[alva]

Welcome Vovan

-

I'm taking three CS classes

Whay's a CS class?

[yaroslav]

Computer Science class (lessons, course, whatever), I suppose.

[alva]

Should have figured that one out myself.
Thought it was some specific language or something.

[Adagio]

Seems like this is about to get somewhere

Vovan >>

I think it'll be best (?) to have the players join the server, picks game number (if playing several games), sends orders... 24 hours later he/she checks what have happened during last turn, and play the order again (Like in forum style)... that way we don't have to play only against people from same timezone


I'll post some more specific rules later, so we have something to work from...

[yaroslav]

@ADG

I agree with the delayed-basis game. I hate to play only with people in my timezone

[alva]

ADG, any idea what kind of style/look you want the (html) pages to be ?

[Adagio]

Here's some of the rules (Mostly taken from the game). Please comment them.


(The numbers are to be discussed)





Weapons:

There exist two different kinds of weapons: Nukes and bombers
Bomber:
A bomber needs to be prepared before they can attack. The startup time is one turn. If the bomber isn’t used the following turn, you need to re-prepare it to use it. A bomber can attack two turns in a row (Unless being countered with a shield)
The bomber exists in 2 versions: (Please come up with a better name)
The weak bomber: When successful it kills a random number of people between 1 & 20
The strong bomber: When successful it kills a random number of people between 15 & 40
Nuke:
A nuke can be fire, without any preparation time, but can only be used once.
There are 4 different nukes: (Don’t know anything about these values, but I believe it was those values used in the game)
10 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 1 & 15
20 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 10 & 25
50 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 20 & 40
100 mgt: When successful it kills a random number of people between 30 & 60

After an attack (For bombers that is after 2nd attack), the weapon is used. All players have a weak bomber, and 2 of 10 mgt nukes, and 1 20 mgt nuke. To get more weapons, you need to build more




Defense:

There’s only one kind of defense, but there exists two different versions:
Simple shield: When used, it manages to destroy 75% of all nukes, and 50% of all bombers
Advanced shield: When used, it manages to destroy 85% of all nukes, and 75% of all bombers

This works like the weapon system: When using one, you lose one, though more can be built in the factory.

The % of chance of success is based on some random number between 1 and 100. If the # is lower than the %, the defense worked as it should





Factory:

A factory takes one turn to ‘do its job’. During this turn, it builds a random number of weapons/defense (How exactly this works, should we talk about… not sure about it)
A factory output could look like this:
1 x 10 mgt nuke
3 x Simple defense
2 x Strong bombers

The computer games factory is very random: Sometimes you get one 10 mgt nuke, while some times you get enough weapons to win the whole game… The randomness should defently (sp?) get tuned down




Spy:

The spy system should more or less work than in the forum game. Maybe with the exception, it’s not possible to spy on a player who haven’t issued an order yet (But no changes to the sabotage order)






Propaganda:

When doing propaganda on a specific city, you get a number of its citizens to one of your cities (A random city of yours). You can get all citizens in specific city (Making this city ‘wasted’)
This number is based on:
-Randomness
-How many times you’ve attacked this player (The more times, the fewer citizens)
-How many times you’ve used propaganda on this player (The more times, the fewer citizens)

If a player before you destroyed target city before your turn, you get nothing
There’s a small chance a propaganda has a side-effect: You lose a random number of citizens from a random city of yours, to target city.
This number is based on the same as above, though with a ‘the more times, the higher risk’ instead






Bonus:

Not sure if we should include this or not. Just going to mention this, since it was in the game

Each turn there’s a minor chance (Based solely on randomness), a random player gets a small bonus… or anti-bonus:
This bonus could be like getting more people in a random city (By a baby-boom), or maybe one of your cities loses some citizens to some alien abduction… and stuff like that…
They were pretty funny, but might screw up the game too much… What do you think?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by alva
ADG, any idea what kind of style/look you want the (html) pages to be ?

I'm not good with style/look kinda stuff (Just take a look at my website, then you know what I mean ), but I guess it has to be something along the line of a nuclear wasteland ?

[vovan]

alva,
yaroslav here is correct. I am attending a university and have three programming courses scheduled for the next semester. Two of them are project courses, so that's going to be a lot of work. Besides that, the intellectual masochist that I am, I am taking economics, physics, and statistics. I hope I survive that spring.

ADG,
Okay, so I have another question. It looks from what people are saying about the looks of web-pages and all, that maybe the general idea about the game is that it will not be your conventional stand-alone windows application, but rather a web-based strategy game thingie, kind of like BNT? In that case, UR is correct, and making the front-end in Java would be a bit of an overkill. It would be much easier to stamp out your classic PHP+MySQL app (or an ASP.NET+C#+MSSQL app, depending on whether your server is linux or windows-based) and be done with it. In fact, such approach would go well with your idea of having players issue orders at different turns.

Then you can have a database-driven web interface, which will allow the player to log-in, then view all of his active games, choose the game he wants to send in orders for, view and assess the situation, issue orders, log out, close browser. Done.

If you would like it to work that way, however, then Java is pretty useless. You need some kind of server-side scripting language, like I said above: PHP or ASP, depending on whether you like linux or windows. (True, you can run PHP on windows or ASP on linux, but hey, let's not be perverse here. ) I, personally, am a big .NET fan, so I'd recommend that, but I am equally fluent with both of these, so I can assist you with either one.

[vovan]

Originally posted by ADG
I'm not good with style/look kinda stuff (Just take a look at my website, then you know what I mean )

That's a lot better than what I could ever make.

[Jamski]

ADG, you'd prefer to work with the old amiga game?

I have a DOS version of the same, shall I zip it and attach it to this thread so everyone in the project can have a look at the rules in action?

-Jam

[alva]

Hmm, that be very usefull indeed.

[vovan]

So it would be, if the game is abandonware and not like some of the games from some canine site we prefer not to talk about here.

[Jamski]

Its a DOS shareware version of an old Amiga game.

I'm SURE it would be ok. I'll just check if it has a readme saying "feel free to share me"

-Jam

[Jamski]

From the readme

License Agreement

NUCLEAR WAR, all versions, are copyright protected and are the property of RedCreek
Software. Until further notice, this software is totally beerware. Therefore by charging
anyone money or services for this software you are a really nasty bastard. Individual
commercial use is forbidden if not a payment of $666 is sent to R.C Software.

NUCLEAR WAR may be copied, distributed and used in any other manner without the prior
written consent of R.C Software.

Because NUCLEAR WAR is beerware, you are required to send a beer to the vice president
of R.C Software before one month after the day NUCLEAR WAR was installed. If not the
program will destroy your computer. It will turn up the heat in your freezer so all
your icecream melts, erase all your channels on your TV. With ultraviolet radiation it
will destroy all your CDs. It will give out your phone number to your last
girlfriend/boyfriend. It will drink up all your beer and leave your dirty clothes all
over the apartment when your mother is coming. It will hide your car keys when you
are late. It makes you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about
circus dwarves. It will go out with your girlfriend/boyfriend behind your back and
charge everything on your credit card. It will randomly move around your car in the
parking lot so that you can't find it. It will kill your dog. It will give you HIV.
So don't underestimate the wrath of Backmask!

To get all the updates on Nuclear War delivered to you send an email to
redcreek@hotmail.com. After a confirmation-email is received, you will be notified if
any updates or other improvements have been made to the game.

Thanks for playing the great game of Nuclear War.

By using this software, you are agreeing to the above terms.

NUCLEAR WAR is Copyright (C) 1997-1999 RedCreek Software.

So then it MUST be ok

But I can't attach it, it's 1.3 megs, which is too big for 'poly's 500,000 bytes limit. Ideas anyone?

-Jam