28-12-1999 20:15									#1
	Clash Demo 4, with Isometric Graphics, Is Now Available! Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Clash Demo 4 is Out! No more looking at little colored rectangular boxes for military units!

You can get it at the Clash Web Page, just follow the link to Demo 4 at left.
And Please at least Look at the manual and reference!
If you ask a question that makes it clear that you didn't read either, I'm not going to answer it!


What's New:

Well, the big story here is Graphics! The graphics you see are in No Way final... But they are Much Closer to our final target. The TF/Unit Box is just a first primitive stab at functionality and eye candy for working with what's in an individual square. Things aren't really smooth yet with respect to the interface. However, this is an area that needs alot of thought and discussion, and I didn't want to invest too much time on my individual approach to the interface. Johnmcd is still working on a better TF representation for the main map, but for now we're just using the single unit graphic.

The AI has been improved only in that it is harder to lock AI forces into positions with feints. I changed that because LGJ and Glak were beating the crap out of my poor AI because the support routine was dumb. I also reduced the player starting forces and population to the same level as the AI had. Before player started with 80 pop, and AIs with 65 IIRC.

We would most like to hear from you about how all the new things are working. Are we going in the right direction?

Do you like the way the graphics work in general?

Do you think the TF box is okay? (The TFs will eventually look like real formed military units, as opposed to strung out as they are now) Are the supported map scales going to be enough?

Do people like what they are beginning to see of our ideas to Reduce Micromanagement, and Streamline Play? For instance, you can easily set up pickets with sentries so that the sentries will automatically defend a territorial boundary, and then return to position when the fight is over. This allows the player, when they get to a boring stretch, to just press the "10-turn" button, and let things go by quickly! This is just a first hint of what is to come in terms of streamlined play. What you think of it?

How do you like the power rings? And if you don't like them what better implementation can you suggest?

How do you think we should arrange the main interface? (There is a whole thread devoted to this topic, join in!)
What other things does the manual need?

Anyone else, feel free to ask your own Big questions.

Post your comments and questions here, unless there's a more appropriate thread that already exists!

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited December 28, 1999).]

	29-12-1999 07:38									#2
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Actually there is something I want to know...what is the ratio of sea/land units when you make TFs so they'll become amphibius?

	29-12-1999 17:27									#3
	Remove this text

Well, Chris that's our first big miss on the manual!

One boat carries up to 2 land units now. So a max amphib. TF has N boats and 2N land units.

	30-12-1999 05:02									#4
	Put an end to popups!

What are the system requirements for this thing?

	30-12-1999 07:11									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Should run on any Win 95 or 98 box. It will come up very slowly on like a P90 (~2 min), but will still run ok. The graphics are laid out for a 1024x768 screen, so you may need to resize if you have some other screen size.

For another OS... we will figure out how to do it eventually, but unless you are a java coder, the easiest thing is to try loading it in your browser once Clash_D4.jar is a local file. It works with IE 5.0 and later, but hasn't so far with Netscape. We will figure out what's causing the problem with Netscape by the next release.

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited December 29, 1999).]

	30-12-1999 11:46									#6
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Ok cuz the prob with my amphibius TFs was that they weren't amphibus most of the time. They were just seafaring. I could usually get 1 to be amphibus but after that none others would, unless i had atleast 2 boats per land unit.

	30-12-1999 14:53									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Basically if a boat doesn't show as the graphic for the TF on the main map, then it isn't amphibious. There are occasional glitches in the form-TF routines. If it doesn't do it right the first time, just push the ~A~ button again.

	31-12-1999 00:58									#8
	Inflate your Upload Space

About sending TF's to sea, it is actually in the manual under the Naval Unit section!

I'll add it to the bit about Task Forces as well to make it clearer.

Chris

	05-01-2000 05:14									#9
	Suffering from ads?

I like the graphics and the over-all approach. Some things will take a little getting used to, such as the new combat model and the production menus. The power rings are a good idea, although I would like to have the option to toggle them off/on to get a more realistic view.



One thing I would like to see is an easier way of moving around on the map. In Civ2 clicking on the small map caused the main map to recenter. Also, clicking on the main map caused it to recenter on the tile selected. This seems like a good system for Clash.



I like the "extra map" although it appears to be just for show in the demo. If it was fully functional (i.e. you could play on it) it would be a great convenience.



On my system, the demo seems to run a bit slow. I am wondering if that is inherent to Java or merely a temporary condition due to the fact that the code is not yet fully optimized. Or do I need to buy a faster machine?



It is looking good, guys. Keep it up!

	05-01-2000 08:06									#10
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Astrogator:

Thanks for checking it out! There would be no problem implementing most of the things you suggest, we're just not quite there yet. Others have suggested pre-centering the map. Personally I don't like that, so that's why I didn't put it in first But it can easily be an option.

The "extra map" Is functional. Did you even try? The only thing is that the graphics don't show, because the scale is too small for them. We are thinking about much smaller icons that we Might be able to use, but we aren't there yet. But you can right-click on any square to select it for moving, and the correct task forces will be shown in the TF box.

In response to your question as to whether its Java that runs a bit slowly, that the code isn't optimized, or that your system probably needs upgrading, the answer is Yes.

Thanks for the feedback, and if you end up with some spare time, please consider investing it working on clash! With more people, things will go a Lot faster...

	05-01-2000 10:32									#11
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I've only played the demo for 20 or so turns so I don't have much to say. I did notice something strange though when I hit the 10 turn button. I didn't have auto AI turned on but next thing I knew my army was almost ten squares deep into enemy territory.

As for combat I think it would be nicer if any unit that has been in the square for 2+ turns got the defensive bonus, instead of the people who control the square. That way if you are defending a square you've owned for a while you get the bonus same as always. If it was this way then if you take some place they can take it back quickly. It would also make longer seiges less horrible for the attacker since they would only suffer the defensive penalty for the first turn. If the defender can't gain a significant edge over the defender in the first turn (not combat round, I'm talking full turn) then he probably doesn't deserve to win the war.

As for the graphics I'd make the forests darker. The power circles make sense for the most part but I don't see why there is a circle for the actual population of the square as well as the military units in your territories. Also some of the colors are hard to distinguish when military units cover the squares or the squares are small.

	05-01-2000 10:56									#12
	Suffering from ads?

Listen, i know the economic model is going to be changed but i think i need to post this so the next version doesn't have this fatal flaw.

Ok, any civ that decides to build up economy and not expand will become stonger than any other civ (enemy 1 usually does so) This is fine since that civ is usually quite small. However the flaw comes if they decide to expand. If they do they can of course overrun a whole lot of area really quickly being so well fortified, but the thing is even if they become extemely huge, bigger than all the other civs or bigger than the previously large one, there economy is still shown to be atleast double or tripple that of all other civs. This isn't right since except for a few squares they started in they really haven't had time to develope the rest of the land and this really makes for a major imbalance.

	06-01-2000 05:14									#13
	Suffering from ads?

LGJ:

Well first, all the AI parameters are now set randomly within a range, so nobody usually does anything... it may be that in a few games that you have played they have happened to be that way.

Also, there is nothing unfair about the old economic model. There is no instantaneous development, they must build up conquered territory step-by-step. However, if you conquer territory from a civ it is generally better economically developed than territory conquered from a culture. This takes significant resources and some time. The old economic model is actually very detailed. The problem is that it is a top-down model like in civ, and I just thought that it was too artificial. By the way, is it the guys to the South that you're talking about?

It's possible there are some bugs involved, but I haven't seen any behavior like this. How many games are you basing your statements on?

	09-01-2000 11:44									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

ok i have played over a hundred turns myself and i have let the AI play maybe a thousand turns or so...the graphics work, obviously they are going to be better but for a demo they are good enough...now i have two problems with the game

one is that some of the military results odds don't seem reasonable

for example when attacking unoccupied squares with a fairly large power ring there have been times when i have lost two foot soldiers out of seven to just a fairly large but not huge power ring

and my second problem is how do u determine when new military units appear?

my enemies seem to rapidly rebuild and strengthen their armies while my forces remain small and get smaller with almost every attack and even when i sieze most of the land around me my supposedly strengthened economy doesn't churn out more troops (and tweaking my economy doesn't help any, in fact it and research seem to have no effect on the game)...the purple bad guy civ below had a much smaller economic base in one of my games but still seemed to be out producing me in new troops...

one more suggestion
instead of taking a square and getting a defensive bonus on who owns the square make it where you have to assimulate the square into your culture (which always takes time) but like glak said if u are in the square for 2+ turns then u get the defensive bonus...once i didn't defend in depth and the AI took the square that represents rome with an amphibious force and then they had the defensive bonus when i was trying to retake my homeland

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited January 09, 2000).]

	10-01-2000 10:02									#15
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Korn469:

Welcome Back korn469! Glad you're back on the net.

First of all you should remember, as it says in the manual, that the defenders get a 50% bonus to their combat power. So you need to remember to account for that. (The MilPower stats shown at the beginning of each combat give the actual power used in the combat) Secondly, just to keep the bookkeeping simple, a single unit takes all the hits until it's dead, and then damage moves on to the next one; so in the more refined combat system, you would have ended up with several mangled but not eliminated units. Third, I guess your commander just had a bad day. It's possible, the way the numbers work now, that even with a large force you can do relatively little damage in any one phase. So if you did lousy in the first phase, and the defender did really well, you could well lose a unit or two when attacking the equivalent of two or three enemy units.

In each phase, the maximum damage each side can inflict on the other is their mil power divided by the number of phases. For right now the number of phases is 3. The actual damage inflicted, is the maximum damage times a uniformly distributed random number from 0 to 100%. This is extremely simplified, and I'm sure will change at some point, but that's the way it is now. So even with an arbitrarily large force if you "roll" close to 0, you won't do much damage. However, I don't think this approach is really unreasonable. A result near zero means that the enemy achieves some sort of tactical surprise in the first battle, leading to one side being rather ineffective. This randomness tends to even out in the long run because there are three individual phases. Hopefully, now that you understand what's happening your combat results will make a little more sense to you.

New military units etc....
Please remember that this was the part of the game you weren't supposed to evaluate There is a lot of old stuff in there that is from when I was just working on the game by myself. I'll describe briefly what I think has happened in the game you paid the most attention to. All this will be changed shortly anyway. Right now all the civs have a setting for essentially guns vs. butter. IIRC the guns percentage going to your economy can vary from something like 40-70%. I expect what happened in the single game, or maybe two that you played, is that your civs setting was very low, and the guys to the south was very high. Perhaps I should have removed this variability for the demo, frankly I just forgot about it. So this is how someone with a smaller economic base can actually outproduce you in troops.

Keep in mind also, that actual economic development is happening. When you seize an underdeveloped square from a culture, it can take a long time for its productivity to raise to the point of what your initial people produce. Tweaking economic settings does in fact have a great effect, you probably were just not doing the right thing. It's no fault of yours that you weren't doing the right thing, since I haven't explained it. However, I think it's rather pointless to discuss something that is going to be history soon. There are better ways to invest our collective time IMO. By the way, research only has effect on economic things in the old model. There are in fact no military affects of technology implemented in the demo. Wait for demo 5.

On the defensive bonus...
Most of the defensive bonus originates in a force that is there being able to dig in and fortify. This has Nothing to do with who controls the province's hearts and minds, it has to do with who is actually there and can prepare defenses. In your example, they could easily have built a series of fortresses while you were regrouping, and have been defending using those. I don't want to take this too far, because all this will obviously be refined when the Real military model in detail gets implemented. This is just a quickie thing that I did in implementation.

Now I agree that what you say is correct for the defenses of the indigenous population, but that is usually small compared to the military force. Your people definitely wouldn't be aiding strongly in the defense of your homeland against you!

	10-01-2000 03:38									#16
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Mark:
I'm basing this off of every game in which i did not defeat them right away. More than 66% of those cases that is what happened. At most they'd take 2 or 3 squares then wait for about 300 turns then attack. Like I said, those squares would be much greater economically, but the rest would just be the same (actually less because invading armies tend to deter economic activity so athough you might have 8 really goods squares the rest for the most part aren't that great and because it seems to be applied on a civ-wide basis that is what makes it unfair.

	10-01-2000 07:51									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

In the one and only game that I managed to carry on beyond turn 40, some interesting things happened. I managed to hold on to the game until turn 682, without ever pressing the 100T button, and using the 10T for only about half the turns. That means that I had my PC turned on for a whole day, since there is no save. Savegame ability is a must for demo 5!

That's what's happened to me: I stuck with this game because it went well for me: I obliterated the two Italian cultures and the bad guy to the south (bad guy 13) and I also took over Greece (sp?). I thought that, if I stayed up all night, I could conquer the world, but then, something spooky happened: there came no more new TFs! I had then about 120 Mil Power and up to that point the armament rate was at it's peak. I waited for centuries, but nothing. All this time, my power dwindled, as my Swiss neighbor was pushing hard on me and I also, in my fury, mindlessly attacked the Corsican guy. After a series of disasters, my power plummeted to 20 and I lost Greece to the belligerent pink Balcan culture. I even tried fiddling with the econ model, though I had no idea what I was doing. And then, surprise again! The TFs started to reappear, and slowly, because I had defensive losses all the time, raised myself to 60. By then however, all my conqueror's pride had blown out, so i shut the thing down and went to sleep...

	10-01-2000 08:47									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

LGJ:

Well, I'll try and look into it. I'm not sure I understand everything you say is going on though. First of all, 300 turns is a long time. You should be able to have a pretty big civ by then if you've been expanding while they are just sitting there. Now is it before they exploded their economy is shown as really huge, or afterwords? Have you try using a similar strategy? If you do it again, and the same thing happens, can you send me back some diagnostic information? What you need to do this select a square of the bad guys in question so that it shows as pink in the middle. Then hit the C key. An information box willpop up showing their economic statistics, and some other information. Can you send me the numbers above and below the "Units" label, and also just copy the whole big text box. That will hopefully help me to figure out what is going on.

Axi:

Well, I'm glad it had you thinking about staying up all night! That's very encouraging. Sorry it screwed up on you. There is some old stuff in the models that might have caused your problem, or it may have been some kind of bug. If you should ever try it again, and get to the point where your military power has plateaued, obtain the same kind of diagnostic I asked LGJ for above, and I will see if I can figure out what is going on. And yes, I will try to get to save going for Demo 5...

You attacked the Corsicans! Watch out, I've heard that some of them can be pretty mean ;-)