21-12-2001 17:02									#1
	Ships and movement/boarding Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: My problem is that units can only be loaded onto carriers in ADJACENT squares. My order system cannot handle that. Nor do I think it is a good idea. The implication is of a 100km gangplank. On the other hand, if we reject the adjacent square approach, we have to deal with the concept of ships in land squares. This gets back to my original arguments for rivers and coastlines to be in land squares (and beaches and ports also). This is the wrong thread to extend this discussion - but at least I have explained the reason for the delay.

Well, Gary, here is the Good thread
I can understand that adjacent ship and armies is poor, but is it possible to say that when army is given orders to go to a water square, it follows the path needed to get there, then realises it cannot cross water and stops, unless there are ships in the square, in which case it boards the ships instead of moving? It is kind of if (terrain not allowed) then (try to board something there). I am not sure it is user friendly, but it can allow for rendez-vous between land army and transport easily.

Also, a point in allowing an army to move even if water is somewhere along the path is when you move through black tiles. (Actually this has very little in common but I think as I type or the other way round): I'd like to be able to give orders to go through hidden terrain, then all the terrain should be considered neutral from a pathfinding point of view. I don't think it is now, which
1) prevents me from moving 10 squares west into the unknown if that square is a water square
2) allows me to artificially know the land/sea map by trial and error on the pathfinding algo.

	21-12-2001 22:25									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Also, a point in allowing an army to move even if water is somewhere along the path is when you move through black tiles. (Actually this has very little in common but I think as I type or the other way round): I'd like to be able to give orders to go through hidden terrain, then all the terrain should be considered neutral from a pathfinding point of view. I don't think it is now, which 1) prevents me from moving 10 squares west into the unknown if that square is a water square 2) allows me to artificially know the land/sea map by trial and error on the pathfinding algo.

I am aware of this problem. The reason it remains is that at the moment hidden map data is kept only for the human player. The path calculation you suggest should also apply to the game AI. So it is waiting on me devising some way of non-player civilizations knowing about unknown squares.

Cheers

	21-12-2001 22:34									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

I really do not like the adjacent square idea. What I am working toward is having the MovementData object that you introduced to units also record the last square the unit was in.

Then a couple of things become possible:

1. A ship can enter a land square provided the last square it was in was a legal sea square. From that square it can move to the previous square, or to certain adjacent ones. This rule can be worked out to allow movement along edge rivers. However, when a ship is in a land square, it is viewed as being on the edge of the square, not the middle.

2. It would make retreat easy to calculate - I personally do not think a unit should ever retreat more than one square in a tick - even that is 100km in three days.

Cheers

Gary

	22-12-2001 12:17									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

That seems a good approach. I actually had a last square in the beginnings of the code (early d5) so I can't say it's a bad idea.
It makes for one glitch however, that is if a ship wants to follow a coast, they have to back in-sea before coming back in-land. You may have trouble pathfinding around that. We could allow ships to move to land squares that are coast squares contiguous to the current coast. Configs like this can be messy:
SSS
SLL
SLL
If you come from the middle S square at the left, then go in the middle L, you should be able to go to any square but the lower-right one. This requires finding Sea squares around adjacent land squares, and seeing if these are adjacent to the original sea square...

	08-01-2002 01:00									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

It shouldn't be too difficult to work out all the possible combinations and produce a method to say whether a particular move is legal or not. We will (I think) also need to record the side of the square a ship is on, and the side it was previously on. For example:

code:

+-----+-----+wwwww+
| 1   |  2  w  3  w
|     |     w     w
+wwwww+wwwww+wwwww+
|  4  |  5  |  6  |
|     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+

	08-01-2002 21:46									#6
	Put an end to popups!

I can see you are subreptitiously putting rivers between squares here. A question: How do you know a riverine unit is in square 2 rather than 5 in your drawing? Geographically, it is in-between. Do we say 2 has a river on the edge with 5, so that it owns the relevant art and units, or can units be in both squares?
Anyway,
I agree that with such a model I need a last edge.
I am not sure about the rivers-between-square stuff however. Did anyone agree with that? I would tend to give in if the river belongs to a square and borders another one, thus being on the edge of the square. It would make it all the easier since I'd have to record either a last-square or last-river in the MovementData.

	08-01-2002 22:13									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas A ship is in the sea square 3, and wants to move up the river between the land squares 2 and 5. On its first move, it moves onto the coast of 2. Its last square is 3, and its last edge is null, its new edge is East. Next move it stays in 2. Its last square is 2 and its last edge is East. Its new edge is South. On its next move it moves up the river to 1, edge South. It could equally have crossed the river to 4, edge North. I don't think sorting these out will be too difficult.

I think that sorting these out will be very difficult, at least from the player's point of view. I'm already confused.

How will a player know which edge something is on? What will they think when they order movement and the ship stays in the same square.

I vote for staying with the ship boarding that Civ 2 used. It was easy to deal with.

	09-01-2002 07:01									#8
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Hi Everyone:

AFAIK we never did reach agreement on whether rivers are in-square or between-squares in Design decision - Rivers - In square or on edge of square?. There are points for each approach, as you can read in the thread. If we get to the point where either art or coding needs to go forward, and its still a tie, then whoever has to do the most work to implement it gets the deciding vote in my book. I think by a slim margin that would be the artist.

	09-01-2002 07:39									#9
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

For the sake of getting something going, I will accept the Civ way of doing things. The ship cannot move along rivers. The ship stays at sea (normally) and the land unit moves onto it. If there is a city in a land square, the ship can move onto the land square and is considered to be in port. The land units then get an extra option on the orders menu, allowing them to board the ship. If a ship attempts to move onto a non-port land square, the player is asked if they want to unlod, and which units to unload.

In passing, Civ 3 has rivers on the edges of squares.

Cheers

	09-01-2002 08:27									#10
	Got spare money?

No ships on rivers? I really like ships on rivers, especially for pre-modern small-draft shipd. Without ships on rivers, modeling the Vikings getting down to the Byzantine empire is just about impossible to do. I'm sure there's an even better example but I'm drawing a blank right now.

For in-square rivers you just handle ships like land units, but that can only move along rivers. Boarding would be by special order just like when the ship's in port. My proposal for on-edge rivers would be that both banks of the river get a pointer to the ship. You of course draw the ship on the river. For boarding you can board from either bank as just proposed for a ship on the coast, but with a special order to distinguish from units that want to cross the river without boarding the ship. When the ship moves you update both pointers. Ships are only allowed on edge centers, not on 'corners'. Seems simple to me... why ditch it?

	09-01-2002 13:39									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I suggest we allow ships to go from a sea square to a land square and let boarding happen there. It has to do with coastal squares, and makes some sense: It will make it easier to have naval bombardments in the same square. Until recently, you could not bombard from 100km away. I'd rather let the rivers thing sleep until we know where those damn rivers should go (please nobody say "down to the sea"). Getting units board ships and cross seas already has a great potential for fun and bugs in itself.
Although art may be a problem, can't rivers be seen as another layer on top of the squares? Or additional polygons? They would hold their own unit info, they would be rendered after the terrain as an overlay, and have pointers to the square(s) they border, and the rivers and seas they connect to. Although visually you still have to decide if they are in the middle or on the edge of squares, the code and rendering would be pretty independent. I know that it may be hard from a graphics point of view (because of trees and such), but if we paint 1-terrain 2-rivers 3-trees/cities, it may work?

	10-01-2002 01:03									#12
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As I have said elsewhere, the only real argument for in-square rivers is that you can treat them like roads. The big disadvantages are that they then interfere with roads, they cannot be used as boundaries, and they have no effect on combat.

I have never believed that there is any difficulty in placing rivers, and the ships on them, including their picture, on the edge of squares. How this is handled internally is a coding issue and not relevant to the forum discussion. My main point here is that it can be done. If the code is more complicated, that is not an issue for general discussion. The ship will be deemed to be where it appears to be - in the middle of a sea square, or between two land squares (on the river). Deciding where the ship can go next is a problem for the path algorithm (me, in effect) and I have no problem with it.

Laurent's point about moving ships onto a land square is one that I have no problem with either, as long as the ship knows where it came from. Otherwise ships will be able to cross an isthmus (who would then need the Panama Canal?) or shortcut across a cape.

However, if ships can move onto coast squares it immediately leads to the question, if a ship is on a land square, can it move directly to an adjacent land square off the same sea, as opposed to moving to sea, moving at sea, then moving back to land? If the answer is that it can move directly, then, in effect, we have arrived at the situation I have been discussing in previous posts (up to my most recent, when I tried to give up). Everyone seemed to think that that approach was too complicated. Or something.

Cheers

	10-01-2002 05:10									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas However, if ships can move onto coast squares it immediately leads to the question, if a ship is on a land square, can it move directly to an adjacent land square off the same sea, as opposed to moving to sea, moving at sea, then moving back to land? If the answer is that it can move directly, then, in effect, we have arrived at the situation I have been discussing in previous posts (up to my most recent, when I tried to give up). Everyone seemed to think that that approach was too complicated. Or something.

Everyone? AFAIK Richard was the only one that expressed the view that it was complicated. And if I may be so cheeky, its just because your discussion was overly complicated. Discussing boats being either on the north edge of this or the south edge of that. All players need to know is that if you could sail a ship in that way in real life, then you can do it in Clash. Troops can board from any square that shares a common edge with the river segment the boat is in.

	10-01-2002 19:21									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I have a question about rivers, is the current plan to allow units to cross rivers ala Civ-series? I never liked this idea, as rivers are good geographical borders in ancient/middle eras. I believe that rivers shouldn't be crossable by units unless there is a boat to ferry them across or a bridge has been built across it.

BTW I just found out about this project now. Im at school so as soon as I get home im going to download the demo and boot it up. From what ive been reading this looks like an amazing project. I really look forward to trying it out.

	11-01-2002 17:46									#15
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Hi HugoHillbilly, yeah I'd like to see rivers have more effects too. Some rivers though are easily crossable. We'll just have to decide how much detail we want in that area.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions!

-Mark

	12-01-2002 04:46									#16
	Put an end to popups!

quote: I have a question about rivers, is the current plan to allow units to cross rivers ala Civ-series?

We still haven't decided whether to have rivers in squares on on edges, though I naively though I had won that argument. If they are in squares, they cannot be barriers. As the main proponent of on edge rivers, I feel that as boundaries (that is, political boundaries) and barriers are a very important factor.

Cheers

	14-01-2002 17:01									#17
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I'm now leaning toward square-edge rivers. It seems they on balance will allow a more rich environment visually, and for game effects. How about others of the old in-square group? Can you look over this thread and the rivers one again, and see if you're persuaded that square-edge is at least as viable as in-square rivers.

	20-01-2002 14:40									#18
	Got spare money?

5 days since that post, and no objections yet...

Cheers

	21-01-2002 06:10									#19
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I've thrown my 31,000 Turkish Lira into the river thread, and since I'm taking a break from my civ3 LWC Mod work, I figured I'd try commenting here too.


For one thing, why would ships moving into land squares be more sensible than land units moving into water squares? If nothing else it seems like a wash, though I would argue that while people can swim, ships can't walk.

The main problem is obviously the "man, where do you store this gangplank when you aren't using it" problem, but when troops wish to board a ship would not the ship move as close to land as possible to receive them, or (for the big ships) send out row-boats to pick the men off the land?

One question though: Will coasts just be water squares where land units cannot move, as in Civ3, or will coasts somehow be half-and-half, allowing both naval and land units to be in the square? Or would it just be land terrain that looks different, and that's it?

I'll assume the former, as that's how I'd propose it be handled anyway (a sepperate issue, to be sure).


There would be 2 kind of ship units here. One would be a transport unit, and can only drop off/load troops at suitable port facilitys. The other kind would be a landing craft, capable of delivoring troops directly to the shores. Each LC couldn't carry near as many troops as a transport/cargo ship could, of course, but they'd be neccessary for landing an assault force on land you don't have a foothold in.

There could also be a land Army Engineer unit which can go a shore without using an LC (as could perhaps Marines, or any unit classified as "amphibious"). Not strong fighters, but they could establish a make-shift dock/port/establish a beachead so that you can land your heavier troops. In the modern era this would not be as required because of the level of advancement of LC and Amphibious Assault Vehicles, but before that tanks can't just be stuck on a raft and floated towards shore - you have to have some way to get them off the ship without running aground.

Landing craft could be allowed to move onto land/shore/coast (whatever), but if they move it must be directly out to sea.

	22-01-2002 11:17									#20
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Now that the question of edge rivers has been settled, I am more comfortable in addressing the question of boarding ships.

Ships will be able to move onto land squares, but can only move off them onto the square they came from. The way Civ uses cities as canals should not be allowed. When canals are implemented, they will be real canals.

Ships on land squares represent ships in port (if there is a city present) or on or by the beach.

The question of whether land units can move onto ships in a sea square needs to be resolved. I am against it - the ships are, on average, 50km out at sea. This is particularly valid since the beach or port are actually on the land square.

The movement of the ship onto the land square will represent the loading time, in a sense.

Cheers

	22-01-2002 18:58									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

OK Gary, you will have the last square info for units in the next code I send you. The board methods haven't changed since last time I explained, if you can't find it I'll tell it again.

	22-01-2002 23:06									#22
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I'd like to chip my 2 cents in about movement:

If a river is by a populated square within your borders, it should be assumed that there is a bridge there for your troops to use. If a TF is in the wilderness or enemy territory, the river should be impassible unless the TF has an "engineer" element.

I think the assumption of improvements should hold for all your territory. If you have your people living in a tile, there will be roads and supplies, so units should move a bit faster and have better supplies than they would in the wilderness. The roads that the player orders build are equivalent to big Roman-style roads and wold of course give a bigger movement bonus.

The ships on land tiles should work fine. What confused me was the ship being on the edge of a tile, but now that they don't sail rivers we don't have that problem. In the future, maybe we should make it a rule that ships can only land at ports unless there is an engineer element aboard. Even if we don't go that far, there should be a big advantage to using ports.

	23-01-2002 07:24									#23
	Got spare money?

Gary:

Yeah, I think the ships entering the land square will work better overall. Although I would show them graphically near the tile edge just for aesthetic purposes. Could be if we show them Just inside the edge from which they entered the square it would look good, and also let the player know from where they came.

Richard:

I have had in mind for a long time the sort of things you are talking about. I'd pictured them as being represented by something like the value in "transportation infrastructure" or perhaps "commercial" infra if we want to keep the number of infra classes down. If two squares have high enough value you might automatically get a bridge between them if the river is bridgeable with current technology at some cost threshold.

Indeed I think there should be much faster strategic movement within established areas of one's own civ. The origin of the advantage would be from knowing the terrain better, local roads if they exist, not needing pickets and scouting, etc. Details TBD.

	23-01-2002 11:04									#24
	Tired of ads?

Mark:
I sort of thought of having them at the edge of the sea square, but near the land. Should look quite good.

Richard:
There are ships and ships. Greek galleys were pulled up on the beach as were longboats. The vessels that really needed ports were actually the merchantmen which will not be represented by units.

Remember that the rivers in Clash are BIG rivers. I would expect that they are in the 10km across category. No bridges in ancient times. Ferries though.

Cheers

	16-02-2002 08:38									#25
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Since I have started coding the boarding gui, this is how it works:

Ships can enter land squares, but only from a sea square. If there are transports in the land square, "Board" will appear on the task force menu.

Land units can enter sea squares, but only if there are transports there to receive them.

In both cases, if there is a choice of transports, a menu will appear for each unit (not taskforce), allowing selection of the transport it is to go to.

If the selected unit is a loaded transport, it will have an option on its orders menu "Unload". If this option is selected there follow various options depending on the number of units loaded, and whether the transport is in a sea or land square.

In all cases, loading or unloading takes 2 ticks (that is, six days).

How does this sound?

Cheers.

	16-02-2002 13:12									#26
	Increase Your PM Length

Sounds good Gary.
About trireme as carrier ships: There is a BoardSpace tag in the military xml file. Triremes should have 0, and another ship (roundboat, you suggested) 1. What we miss is graphics for that ship.

	17-02-2002 03:05									#27
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: What we miss is graphics for that ship

I know, but there is a really encouraging comment by Stian in the map graphics thread.

Incidentally, the system I described is pretty much identical to Civ3.

Cheers

	17-02-2002 03:22									#28
	Got spare money?

It all sounds good. My one question is:

Is there an option for "just load all the units on the ships, and I don't care how." ? Or does the board order automatically do that?

	17-02-2002 04:39									#29
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I certainly think that should be an option, but you have to be able to hand manage it as well, because the transported units may have different destinations.

Cheers