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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Clash Demo 5 has been released. The download is available, with the URL lower in this thread. Following is an overview of what we have in Demo 5. The code is completely new from that used in Demo 4, so many features of the previous version have been changed, or not yet included in this one.
What's New in Demo 5:
Completely new code (will accelerate our progress from here on out)
New Military Model
Pathfinding and Improved Movement AI
New Economics Model
New Task Force Orders
The Demo has many intuitive aspects, but we also have not yet made it as user-friendly as the final product will be. Please read the short manual for D5 Before you make comments here so that:
1) you know how you are supposed to work things
2) you know what we are looking for feedback on especially
3) you know which bugs already exist, and that you don't need to report.
I would like to thank Laurent (Military Coder) and Gary (almost everything else coder  ) for their work on the Demo. And I also want to thank Fiera for the graphics.
Let us know what you think!
[edit] Some notes to help people out based on initial problems/questions:
quote:
A. Economy: How is ROI of military units calculated? |
Sorry it should be in the manual that the Only thing ROI currently works for are the kapital investments. ROI for Military builds will be coming fairly soon.
quote:
Specifically in the orders window, I am able to give different orders for the same economic domain, so the question rises which one is taken into consideration? |
For now All orders apply. Orders at the civ level happen in every square you control. Provincial and square orders happen in their respective domains. A 30% civ-level order and a 20% square-level order result in a total 50% in that square, 30% elsewhere. For now each 'city' square is both a province and a square, so there is no difference between a provincial order and a square one. Although if you do them both you'll get double the effect .
quote:
5. I am unable to make any change in my orders persist after I close and reopen the window. They persist only if the windows are minimised. Aren't my orders taken in account in that case? I am totally unable to make the tax rate budge from 10% on any info window. |
That is operator error it works, trust me 
I think what you must have done is issued civ orders, and then looked at the square-level orders or something. Each set of orders is for now completley distinct. The only reflection of civ-level orders you see in the square econ orders box is that there is a cost in the 'Type Cost' column showing an order from a different level is working here. And just to be explicit, each set of square orders are distinct.
Check out the economy.txt file to see in detail what is being done economically in the selected square after you run each turn. There are two turns before the player gets control to fill all the fields for growth rates etc.
Download Clash Demo 5 Here
And before you make bug and feature requests, check out the detailed list several posts down.
More to come, check this space each time you read the thread!
Last edited by Mark_Everson on 26-10-2001 at 07:12
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heardie
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I guess congratulations would be in order. Well done. As a member of GGS I know how hard it can be.
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Ok, I have the download set up! I screwed up the layout a bit, but AFAIK the links work and the instructions will get you a working version of D5. If you try it at this stage, please let me know whether it works or not.
I do not want to announce this more broadly until we're sure it works, so please Don't spread the word just yet.
Download Clash Demo 5 Here
[edit] Add D5 bug list (you needn't report these)
Bugs. (Numbering started with D5 bug list, all bugs resolved as of D5 eliminated)
-31 Moderately large bits of the information frame get blitted to the screen in odd places when the GUI updates after a new turn (but only for a fraction of a second). I suggest we don’t put this at high priority, but it should be looked into sometime.
-37 I can't figure out quickly how to get EconInfoFrame to stick to within the screen, it spills over to the right. (Everything of substance fits in the screen, but the 'x' window icon at upper rt. goes beyond. If you can figure out how to fix it I'd be appreciative! Now to get rid of that window at 1028 res you need to drag it over a bit before the _ and x become visible.
-39 On turn 17 a Carthaginian unit (in 177 BCE) walks on water. Getting a bit ahead of history?
-40 Fairly frequently TFs have moves that show on the map, but don’t exectute them. Just sit there. Canceling the move and re-issuing the order can fix this.
-41 Deadlock of TFs during moves. If two opposing TFS have order to move into each other’s square they can just sit there. No cities are involved, just long-range movement orders. Opposing force was under AI control. This can be used to Cripple an AI attack, by blocking their biggest TFs moves with a single unit! ;-) This May have been connected with fixed zombie TF bug..
-42 Playing 62 turns with some fairly massive armies running around I got an OutOfMemoryError! Something isn’t getting cleaned up.
-43 Got a MilitaryException. I disbanded a monster TF into units (to divide it into two smaller TFs) then when adding one unit to a single-unit TF to try building up my first TF, I got the exception, which said that I was trying to add a unit in a different square to a TF.
-45 The power circles do not seem to match the power lines in the TF box. As long as we are aware of that it is not a show stopper.
-46 Somehow the Chariot graphic got left out. So now when you build a chariot it throws in the default icon (the old spearman).
-47 When purchases exceed by some margin 100% of local tax income get a bug. Will add stack trace later, but trace wasn’t complete anyway. (Mark will fix)
[edit oct 25 01] more bugs/feature requests (48 is of no consequence)
-49 All econ info and orders windows can be opened as many times as one hits the respective buttons. If the specific window is already opened (square x,y info or Sicily info or Carthaginian info) then it should be brought in front.
-50 options to close or minimise all economic views is necessary, to avoid cluttering.
-51 There is no distinction among own and foreign squares when an econ window is called. I, playing Carthaginian, can see thus the orders and perhaps issue orders valid for the Roman civ? I can't tell: I found myself issuing orders over the Roman civ because the Romans took the city from where I had called the civ econ window from and info for the Romans. Some "You have no spies in that area" message should be shown, or at least give only the info window. Perhaps this feature should be overridable with a command line switch.
-52 Tax rate and other fields on econ info window don’t update when tax rate is changed in orders. (Mark will fix)
-53 I had a TF in a city and gave the order "Move TF to nearest enemy". Cycling through my TFs, the specific TF is no longer shown, in the TF and detail frames, to be in the city but alone in the enemy's square, while at another point of the cycle the enemy is shown (along with any of my TFs that are actually there) in the same place. The highlighted square on the map is this target square, while the origin city square cannot be selected. If I cancel orders for this TF, all is well. Definitely a bug.
-54 The orders "Move TF to nearest friend" and "Move TF to nearest enemy city" display a visible path on the map only after a full cycle of the TFs. The orders "Move TF to nearest enemy" and "Move TF to city" do not display a path at all.
-55. When there are two many enemy TFs on a square, right-click does not produce a pop-up window with the details. I noticed this when I let the AI grow huge armies (by turn 80). By that time also the power circle of those mega-concentrations vanishes, cause it's too large and it gets buried under tiles further away which are probably refreshed after that.
-56. I noticed that your AI is targetting the cities, but unfortunately not ALL cities, only those of it's enemy, even if it posseses them all (the army concentrations in my former cities are enormous, while theirs are only garissoned). I wonder if I would be safer if I tried to conquer the Roman cities and let them take mine, if they want them so much?
-57 I can't see how to use the "Move to selected unit" order. Is it supposed the previously selected or next selected unit? Is the button non-functional?
-58 Why is it that when two different units of the same type are in the same square, one has a thicker power line than the other - thicker in fact than it's health bar? Is there a way we could make a better graphic to distinguish which line is which? (I feel this persists form demo4, am I wrong?)
-59 The game window should refresh itself quicker when uncovered from another window, like it does when restored from minimised state. Now everything refreshed under the influence of the cursor. But this doesn't happen all the time.
-60 After having "worked" the game a while, in two consecutive efforts, the game turn computations were "stuck". Does the existance of oversized log files have anything to do with this? I deleted the files and started another game and the turn ended in a split second. Pathfinding seems to cause no overwork to the program, but perhaps opening and closing the large txt files might do that. (Of course this is a wild and uneducated guess, so I'm probably wrong)
Command line switches:
-fe = error logging to a file
-no = no AI movement
-seed = random numbers use constant seed for reproducible behavior
Last edited by Mark_Everson on 26-10-2001 at 07:09
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heardie
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Is there any scenario/civilization I should choose. The first two screens load up then I get the following error in the DOS window:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM>java -jar CLASHD5.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: javax.swing.JDesktopPane:
field OUTLINE_DRAG_MODE not found
at game.view.ClashWindow.(ClashWindow.java:74)
at game.view.ClashWindow.getInstance(ClashWindow.java:29)
at game.controller.Coordinator.getClashWindow(Coordinator.java:69)
at game.view.Start.(Start.java:30)
at game.controller.Game.(Game.java:50)
at game.controller.GameMain.main(GameMain.java:10)
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Hi heardie, thanks for trying it out.
Hmmm... We saw that error back when we were trying to use InstallAnywhere using a full install package. I thought just using the .jar from the desktop fixed it. What this error shows, I think, is that the java version you have isn't compatible with the code.
1. did you try running from the desktop, and doing everything else as it said in the instructions first? I assume you did, but I have to ask!
What can be done: I am not sure. I use what should be the same version at home and it runs fine. Maybe Gary will have some suggestions.
If you have a Fast web connection, you can download the Exact "SDK" I use, and try that. But that's 35MB! If you do have a fast connection, here's the link for that one: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download-windows.html , just hit continue near the middle of the page.
My apologies again, I thought we had this licked!
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F_Smith
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Austin, Tx 78728
May 1999
time: 05:15
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Downloaded the Demo, installed and ran fine. Looks Great! Great job.
I won't have a chance to give it a workout until later this week, but very nice.
Good Job everyone!
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manurein
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Paris, France
May 1999
time: 05:15
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Hi all, Hi Mark
Just wanted you to know that I have downloaded and tried the D5 : it works.
However, I did not have tim yet to try it really.
Thanks
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heardie
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I think it could be my version of JRE. I am still using the one that worked with D3, I believe.
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axi
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Athens Greece
Sep 1999
time: 07:15
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... alas I got it 21 months later.
I downloaded the zip, unzipped and moved the .jar on my desctop manually (since unzipping it on the desctop rightaway made it appear inside a series of 3 consecutive folders: it appears that the file hierarchy on my PC is different than Mark's).
I run the thing and it run smoothly (and much faster than demo4 or F_Smith's ClashEditor). Of course it can't reach the response time of say civ2, that is a C program, but I'm relieved, since a lagging game was my greatest fear. I run a PII 333, 128K RAM, Win98, JRE 1.3 and the system's quite loaded with stuff, so ít's rather slow by contemporary standards.
I opened all three scenarios and I played around, without having read nothing of the manual, which I am downloading right now.
I didn't have the chance to play around more, since I had to send my PC for a small repair today. Btw, Mark I never received any mail from you, but it doesn't matter now.
My first impression was that it's a pity that we can't have a "full" map, like in demo 4, to play on. I thought that this is rather important, since the military aspect will probably get a more "civvish" colour, while with a full map it is more "Risk-like". There is also no way to see who posesses the squares, apart from the cities, who controls the territories and where are the provinces. A full map and visible boundaries are a must for demo 6.
When I found out about the path planning, I said wow! this is cool. Simultaneous movement games have a huge strategic thrill. But then I ordered a TF to move just one square, but after a couple of clicks at the end turn button, it wouldn't budge! It seems it was one of those bug cases I saw mentioned. When I moved my TFs against the hated Huns, another dissapointment. Nothing on the map would tell me how far my units would go each turn. A partial cancellation order is also lacking, so that only the last step of a detailed path will can be cancelled. But the worse thing is that the units are shown jumping from initial to final state, without me seeing their pacing. This is crucial for gameplay, so sliding of units (like in civ2 or civ-evo) has to be introduced. I know that the military model divides the turn into a number of "clicks" (12 IIRC) which would be enough for the sequencing of the turn events.
I also noticed the lack of savegames, which should be introduced as the game grows. I saw the 3 data files generated on my desktop afterwards and I see that everything is already saved there. How hard is it to make them load into the game?
And if demo 6 has a large map, I want an option to automatically resize the game window to 1280x1024, which is the resolution I use. I am simply bored of pulling all windows around till they get to the proper size. (otherwise, the view management system is quite efficient)
Am I spoiled or not?
I will come back with a more in-depth analysis and perhaps some real bugs.
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axi
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Athens Greece
Sep 1999
time: 07:15
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Comrade axi's bug report:
A. Economy: There are major design flaws here and manageability is null. I feel that ROI on many things is initially 0 and that screw up the numbers. How is ROI of military units calculated?
1. All econ info and orders windows can be opened as many times as one hits the respective buttons. If the specific window is already opened (square x,y info or Sicily info or Carthaginian info) then it should be brought in front.
2. Specifically in the orders window, I am able to give different orders for the same economic domain, so the question rises which one is taken into consideration?
3. Also options to close or minimise all economic views is necessary, to avoid cluttering.
4. There is no distinction among own and foreign squares when an econ window is called. I, playing Carthaginian, can see thus the orders and perhaps issue orders valid for the Roman civ? I can't tell: I found myself issuing orders over the Roman civ because the Romans took the city from where I had called the civ econ window from and info for the Romans. Some "You have no spies in that area" message should be shown, or at least give only the info window.
5. I am unable to make any change in my orders persist after I close and reopen the window. They persist only if the windows are minimised. Aren't my orders taken in account in that case? I am totally unable to make the tax rate budge from 10% on any info window.
B. Military: The better part of the game, still not perfect. Chasing the AI around the empty map pissed me off. I witnessed the TF deadlock.
1. I had a TF in a city and gave the order "Move TF to nearest enemy". Cycling through my TFs, the specific TF is no longer shown, in the TF and detail frames, to be in the city but alone in the enemy's square, while at another point of the cycle the enemy is shown (along with any of my TFs that are actually there) in the same place. The highlighted square on the map is this target square, while the origin city square cannot be selected. If I cancel orders for this TF, all is well. Definitely a bug.
2. The orders "Move TF to nearest friend" and "Move TF to nearest enemy city" display a visible path on the map only after a full cycle of the TFs. The orders "Move TF to nearest enemy" and "Move TF to city" do not display a path at all.
3. I can't see how to use the "Move to selected unit" order. Is it supposed the previously selected or next selected unit? Is the button non-functional?
4. Why is it that when two different units of the same type are in the same square, one has a thicker power line than the other - thicker in fact than it's health bar? Is there a way we could make a better graphic to distinguish which line is which? (I feel this persists form demo4, am I wrong?)
5. When there are two many enemy TFs on a square, right-click does not produce a pop-up window with the details. I noticed this when I let the AI grow huge armies (by turn 80). By that time also the power circle of those mega-concentrations vanishes, cause it's too large and it gets buried under tiles further away which are probably refreshed after that.
6. I noticed that your AI is targetting the cities, but unfortunately not ALL cities, only those of it's enemy, even if it posseses them all (the army concentrations in my former cities are enormous, while theirs are only garissoned). I wonder if I would be safer if I tried to conquer the Roman cities and let them take mine, if they want them so much?
C. Runtime: I made a crash course, pushing the end-turn button continuously. The AI totally eliminated me by turn 42 (Carthage scenario) and it kept growing until I got bored by turn 110.
1. The game window should refresh itself quicker when uncovered from another window, like it does when restored from minimised state. Now everything refreshed under the influence of the cursor. But this doesn't happen all the time.
2. After having "worked" the game a while, in two consecutive efforts, the game turn computations were "stuck". Does the existance of oversized log files have anything to do with this? I deleted the files and started another game and the turn ended in a split second. Pathfinding seems to cause no overwork to the program, but perhaps opening and closing the large txt files might do that. (Of course this is a wild and uneducated guess, so I'm probably wrong)
This is all I can see, at a first glance.
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Dale
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Sir! Why do you keep clicking on me?
Dec 2000
time: 15:15
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Edits in BOLD!
Downloaded and am playing the Carthage scen as the Romans. First game report. Have now had a go at every scen.
PC: Win NT4 SP6a, Toshiba Satellite 4090XCDT laptop. At work of course. 64MG RAM, had no crashes or out of memory.
Initial thoughts:
- Looks great, windows and info easily in eyesight.
- Mini map?
- Buttons are big enough.
Econ:
- What the? I gotta look into what I'm supposed to do with econ. I got no idea.  Worked it out. BTW, the text in the econ boxes doesn't fit. Is that just me?
Military:
- I love the idea of individual units and armies.
- How do I group some units into an army? Worked it out. 
- Movement rate. I couldn't discern whether a unit would make the square I clicked in that turn. Maybe a different colour for the route line when it's more than one turn?
Combat:
- WOAH! Too much info for a dumb player like me in the info box! At one stage (had every unit on the map in battle) I had to scroll through pages and pages of info for just one turn.
- AI needs to be smarter. Though it is on the website that it's a basic AI so I'll let ya off for that one.
Overall:
- Really good!
- After turn 5, I'd click in square [4, 0] but it wouldn't get the white box around it. And yes, the info box showed my units and town in square [4, 0].  I've noticed in all the scens that occaisionally a square will decide it doesn't want to be selected, even if you cycle through the units. Different every turn.
- It was taking so long to refresh when I minimized and maximized. I tried to see how long it would take. Went for a smoke, got a coffee, went to the toilet, and it had only put back one button. Too slow, so I closed it and started again.  I was doing well too. *sigh*
Will come back with more when I find it.
Added on later......:
After playing for a while now, I gotta say this is looking really good. I know some of what I found was my fault for just "scanning" the doco. But I've worked it out now. Thanks Mark and the rest of the team.
Last edited by Dale on 26-10-2001 at 07:00
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Thanks for the feedback Dale
quote:
Originally posted by Dale
Econ:
- What the? I gotta look into what I'm supposed to do with econ. I got no idea. Worked it out. BTW, the text in the econ boxes doesn't fit. Is that just me? |
Yep, its just you . That is a bug, but I'm not too worried since that whole interface will eventually be redone in a more sexy and practical way. No doubt with a background skin of a supermodel on a Mediteranean coast somewhere.
quote:
- Movement rate. I couldn't discern whether a unit would make the square I clicked in that turn. Maybe a different colour for the route line when it's more than one turn? |
Something like a new color for each turns' move is in the spec, just haven't implemented it yet.
quote:
- WOAH! Too much info for a dumb player like me in the info box! At one stage (had every unit on the map in battle) I had to scroll through pages and pages of info for just one turn. |
Gary has proposed a much simpler info spec that should be out with D5.1.
quote:
After playing for a while now, I gotta say this is looking really good. I know some of what I found was my fault for just "scanning" the doco. But I've worked it out now. Thanks Mark and the rest of the team. |
Thanks, you're much better than that lousy Axi guy, who can only criticize, and especially my beautiful econ model. 
Cya,
Mark
PS I've edited the on-line econ page of the D5 manual to add some of the explainations and outright dodges I gave axi.
Last edited by Mark_Everson on 26-10-2001 at 07:35
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axi
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Athens Greece
Sep 1999
time: 07:15
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A. Economy:
I played some more and I finally found out what went wrong with me and the economy model. I filled the blancs with the numbers I wanted, but it didn't occur to me that I had to press return, to confirm the input. So, as far as the game was concerned, I was issuing no orders. Doh!
Btw, I hope I don't have to confirm my orders every turn, do I? The reappearance of "Don't Use" in the tax rates field, worries me. And why is the tax rates column made equal to the %spend one?
Now that this was resolved, the econ model makes sense. I like the way I can control everything from one screen. Since my empire is so small, I erased all square orders and did everything from the civ orders screen. I played with the ROI in the production infraclasses and I saw the correlation. Is there a built-in decay rate for infraclasses? (I saw negative growth rates for classes with 0 investment) Or is it just labor allocated to other sectors that is reducing output?
What is really lacking is a last row in the orders window, to provide the sums of all columns.
One strange thing I noticed is that entering a number in the ROI field and pushing return will diminish the number by one (doing it again will continue diminishing), but for certain numbers this won't happen (f.e. 5 won't change, but 4 can be diminished down to 0). What's up with that? 
Is the AI messing with the enemy economy? What are it's criteria?
B. Military:
I witnessed the "military exception" bug twice. Awful one, as it crashes the game.
What is the matter with square control? How come the Romans come into Carthage with vastly inferior armies and posess the city? Does city posession depend on whose units arrived in the city last? Shouldn't a square be totally vacated from it's former owner before it can change hands?
Is the unit's health replenished each turn? My big TF seems unable to eliminate their light cavalry units, although it has beat them to pulp several times.
One thing that is needed is some way to know what units are projected to be created in each square and when. Put this in the details frame or the econ info window. Or rather make a city screen, like in the ole civ2! Integration is the key.
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Hi Axi, thanks again for the detailed feedback!
quote:
Originally posted by axi
A. Economy:
I played some more and I finally found out what went wrong with me and the economy model. I filled the blancs with the numbers I wanted, but it didn't occur to me that I had to press return, to confirm the input. So, as far as the game was concerned, I was issuing no orders. Doh! |
I'll try to fix that.
quote:
Btw, I hope I don't have to confirm my orders every turn, do I? The reappearance of "Don't Use" in the tax rates field, worries me. And why is the tax rates column made equal to the %spend one? |
Orders are permanent until you cancel them. Tax rates for individual infrastructure classes aren't implemented yet, that's why it says "Don't Use". The tax rates column changing to match your input is just an early diagnostic that I never removed .
quote:
Now that this was resolved, the econ model makes sense. I like the way I can control everything from one screen. |
Hooray, that was the Right answer
quote:
Since my empire is so small, I erased all square orders and did everything from the civ orders screen. I played with the ROI in the production infraclasses and I saw the correlation. Is there a built-in decay rate for infraclasses? (I saw negative growth rates for classes with 0 investment) Or is it just labor allocated to other sectors that is reducing output? |
You win the prize, infrastructure automatically decays at a slow rate. So you can in fact get negative growth. Workers being removed from the sector due to population loss can also get negative growth. But frequently infrastructure with 0 investment will still grow due to an addition of extra workers. The extra workers go to where the wages are highest, similar to what happens in a real market economy.
quote:
What is really lacking is a last row in the orders window, to provide the sums of all columns. |
I'll think about this. Although if you are sticking with the civ econ orders window, it tells you up top how much all your orders are costing.
quote:
One strange thing I noticed is that entering a number in the ROI field and pushing return will diminish the number by one (doing it again will continue diminishing), but for certain numbers this won't happen (f.e. 5 won't change, but 4 can be diminished down to 0). What's up with that? |
That is odd, I think it probably comes from a rounding error and then truncation to the nearest integer. But I'm not sure.
quote:
Is the AI messing with the enemy economy? What are it's criteria? |
No, the AI does nothing with the economy so far. That's one reason you are allowed to control them through the econ orders screen if you want.
quote:
B. Military:
I witnessed the "military exception" bug twice. Awful one, as it crashes the game. |
Yes, we should get rid of this one, or at least make it not fatal.
quote:
What is the matter with square control? How come the Romans come into Carthage with vastly inferior armies and posess the city? Does city posession depend on whose units arrived in the city last? Shouldn't a square be totally vacated from it's former owner before it can change hands? |
I had noticed some of that in playtesting, but wasn't sure. I'd added this, and a lot of your other comments, to the bugs/new features list.
quote:
Is the unit's health replenished each turn? My big TF seems unable to eliminate their light cavalry units, although it has beat them to pulp several times. |
For now, elements in each unit our either dead or alive, and there is no healing. Your cavalry units just survived through dumb luck I think.
quote:
One thing that is needed is some way to know what units are projected to be created in each square and when. Put this in the details frame or the econ info window. Or rather make a city screen, like in the ole civ2! Integration is the key. |
I think that's probably a demo 7 feature. There are a lot of other more-important things to do in the short-term. But I agree with you long-term that this must be done.
I think you owe me an entry on the Clash team page .
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heardie
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Okay, I got it woeking now. Will play later tonight.
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axi
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Athens Greece
Sep 1999
time: 07:15
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quote:
I think you owe me an entry on the Clash team page |
I had once vowed that I won't get my name on the Clash Team page, untill demo5 is released. I have been inactive in the project for months now. However, since Mark requests it, I will keep my promise.
quote:
I'll try to fix that. |
I don't think it needs fixing. But you definitely need to warn the players in the manual, about the way field entry works. Some people may be as dumb as I was.
quote:
That is odd, I think it probably comes from a rounding error and then truncation to the nearest integer. But I'm not sure. |
If that were a rounding problem, then it would happen only once, wouldn't it?
quote:
For now, elements in each unit our either dead or alive, and there is no healing. Your cavalry units just survived through dumb luck I think. |
Perhaps if I posted some of the content of the report window, then we might resolve this?
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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quote:
Originally posted by axi
I had once vowed that I won't get my name on the Clash Team page, untill demo5 is released. I have been inactive in the project for months now. However, since Mark requests it, I will keep my promise. |
I was just giving you **** on this issue, paying you back kiddingly for what you said in the past. If you don't feel like being a team member anymore, then I absolve you of the need for you to put up your info. However if you do come to feel yourself a team member again, I'd like to put you back to work .
quote:
If that were a rounding problem, then it would happen only once, wouldn't it? |
No, each time you hit enter it converts the text in the field to a number. (It assumes you have entered something new) If, due to problems in the conversion, it represents 6 as 5.99999969, then truncation would change it to 5.
quote:
Perhaps if I posted some of the content of the report window, then we might resolve this? |
Sure, please do.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:15
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Hi axi,
Maybe your opponent is lucky enough to flee each fight. If you look at the information window, it should state its health. It may flee unharmed if vastly outnumbered (roughly 50% chance when attacked). If the health is 0 and the unit still appears, then the damn zombie units are still after me! (Hopefully, I will get rid from them by design in the next code version.)
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Simon Loverix
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Tongeren, Belgium
Apr 2001
time: 05:15
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I have a very slow and unstable connection, and I'm not able to dowload all the requisite parts for the demo at home and at school I don't have the disc space. Is it possible to make a compiled version available of, say, 1 MB or something like that?
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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Well, I've started a few games and suffered two crashes. In each case, the display just gets blanked out, but if I move the cursor over where the exit button is supposed to be, it appears and I can exit the game normally.
I was paying attention to the second crash, so I can report the details. After spending the first few turns plowing a lot of money into kapital, I had switched all funds to phalanx production as the carthaginians approached my cities. I had built up a massive task force from my starting armies, and it was in the process of pounding the individual carthaginian calvary into bits. ( It seems to me that the game AI should automatically combine two armies into a TF if they happen to be fighting in the same square. They would die a lot less quickly. )
After I hit the end turn button, the game stalled. It said "Starting turn 6" but nothing else. Whenever I clicked "End Turn" agian, the info box said it was still calculating. But the game woudn't respond to anything else.
So it could have been bug 41 or bug 47. Either way, it is annoying and it effectively crashes the game. A few more comments:
I always have to manually resize the map to make it big enough to get rid of the scroll bar. The side windows can take up much less room and still function okay. But the resizing never gets saved.
The ROI system seems to works well, and I like it. But the display window is fairly ugly with a lot of wasted space. Also, for some reason, the farming sector insisted on shrinking despite the fact that I was pumping cash into it. And is there any way to set an "Apply" button to make it so we don't have to hit enter each time? An "Ignore" button would be good too, and should be easy since it does that already unless you hit enter.
I find it odd that the carthaginian cavalry can be sitting on my city, despite a vast army entrenched there. The two armies share the square, fighting evcery turn. But there seem to be no economic consequences to this raging battle. Is this supposed to happen?
Also, does lowering the tax rate do anything good for the civilization? Is there any economic advantage to soaking your people less?
The game seems designed for a 1024x768 screen setting. On 800x600 the information frame is too small to be read, and there isn't enough room to play the game well. And on 640x480 the game is practically unplayable. Is there any way to fix the game for those not fortunate enough to have good monitors?
I know that I may be focusing on little things, but I think that it's the little things like this that are most likely to sap the fun out of the game.
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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Hi Richard, thanks for the detailed report. A lot of your issues are things we want to do, but just haven't gotten around to yet. I'll add lots of your comments to the bug/features list. And several things, like grouping TFs is already planned for D5.1 coming in maybe 2 weeks.
If you run using the batch file (alternate instructions for running) it will give, in the dos window, a detailed stack trace that will help debug. If you want, you could post that. But the code has already undergone serious revision since the D5 version, so its best to just wait for D5.1.
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I know that I may be focusing on little things, but I think that it's the little things like this that are most likely to sap the fun out of the game. |
Don't apologize, that's your Job as playtester! We will try to do what we can to fix all these issues. Its just the problem that we can't fix everything at once.
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The ROI system seems to works well, and I like it. *snip* Also, for some reason, the farming sector insisted on shrinking despite the fact that I was pumping cash into it. |
There is a simulation of a real working market economy under the hood! What is happening to you is the same thing that happens to real governments when they invest in things the people don't want. Specifically there is a bit more food in the economy at start than what the people really want (they would prefer Services or Production more). So food prices fall, and wages in the farm sector fall. Workers look to other sectors of the economy so they can make more money. Also the people's own money is Not invested in farm kapital, since they would rather invest it in other sector for the stuff they want. Kapital (in this case farm tools) also decay in usefulness. Adding all this together, it is quite possible for the govt to invest in farm kapital, and still have farm output fall due to fewer workers in the sector. If you check the economy.txt file I'm sure you'll find this is what is happening. If you instead pump money into "prod kapital" or gold mining you will see a positive response to your efforts, at least for a bit. But once again eventually the people will be satisfied with the level of say gold, and want other things.
quote:
I find it odd that the carthaginian cavalry can be sitting on my city, despite a vast army entrenched there. The two armies share the square, fighting evcery turn. But there seem to be no economic consequences to this raging battle. Is this supposed to happen? |
Think of the carthaginians as hiding in the hills, trying Not to come out and attack. Econ concequences of war just aren't in there yet. Coming soon to a monitor near you!
[QUOTE]Also, does lowering the tax rate do anything good for the civilization? Is there any economic advantage to soaking your people less?[QUOTE]
Yes, they have more money to invest in the things they want, building a stronger economy. But you aren't seeing the full effect yet, since they only invest 5% of non-food surplus in kapital for right now.
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21-10-2001 03:00
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