30-03-2002 04:23									#31
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Here is the plan for scenario 1 (your plan, I might add):

quote: Tutorial Scenario 1 Start with a fixed map and settlers a la Civ as the focus. Here we will hit the first two “X”s in 4x, Explore and expand. 1. Generate the map, which we can already do no problem. 2a. Make the Clash equivalent of a settler unit and WarriorBand, explore then settle. There will be no “units” other than these two. Since there are no opponents, the warrior bands are only used for exploration. 3. Expansion - we need rules for this, but we can use simple versions of the stuff we're talking about in the Expansion thread. For the purposes of this demo the “people-everywhere” rule I have mentioned before will not apply. 4. Economy - At this point you have a cutting-edge stone age economy with advanced carrot-synthesis methods. I think we should mostly stick to "building" the two units. Also players could use a limited economic gui to build just a few other things, like farms (farm kapital) or increase production (production kapital). One possibility is to limit the player to civ-wide orders to cut down on the confusion factor. For this we will need the capability to let scenarios enable and disable game features. My inclination is to have one special such as gold in the economy to give players some unique squares to try and exploit. That is it for Scenario 1. The player learns to settle land as in Civ and numerous other games, gets to explore, and expand a bit, guided by the help system. The player learns how to move units, and works a stripped-down economic system gui. I am not sure if there’s a point to having victory objectives for this. Since once people figure the basics out there isn’t much stimulation in going further. But we could make a simple easy-to-achieve target like getting your civ to 300,000 people. Is this a good amount for the demo? Too much? Not enough?

This does not resemble Delenda in the least, and this is pretty much the line I have been following.

quote: But the Game in demo 7, after we restructured our approach in the Reworking thread, was still supposed to be something like the old Delenda scenario. At least that was what I thought. If we don't have something like that, we will give the appearance that we are going Backwards in features.

This pretty much goes against the whole notion of the tutorials, and leaves me a bit up in the air.

On the other hand, assuming that this rejection of the Reworking Our Demo Approach is only a temporary aberration:

With the settler unit, 2a is already provided. Suppose we make a type of settler unit which automatically builds a city, and ensure the possibility of building another settler unit exists. Then require the building of two more cities. Ideally this should have the new economics gui available. I do not have too much trouble waiting for that before releasing D7.

Cheers

	30-03-2002 05:44									#32
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas This does not resemble Delenda in the least, and this is pretty much the line I have been following. This pretty much goes against the whole notion of the tutorials, and leaves me a bit up in the air.

I changed over to the "we need both" view about 2/3 of the way down that thread. You may not have seen it, but I assumed that was where we were going because of the near-universal opinion that just scenario 1 on the Dawn track would not be enough to hold players' interest. :

quote: So there seems to me to be varying opinions that can be satisfied by having both a QuickStart Tutorial Scenario, and Also more targetted ones as Plutarck Suggests. As the Dawn sequence gets filled in, it could be the QuickStart one, and pieces of it and/or unrelated scenarios could be the deep-dive ones.

I still think tutorial + complex is the right way to go. Perhaps we can get someone to set up another more meaty scenario for D7 once the example of step 1 of Dawn is there. Or they could use the Hannibal scenario as a template, and just change the terrain to make it mostly land.

Dawn would be the recommended path for people to play at least once for D7, and then Hannibal-sans-Mediterranean would be the meaty one.

quote: On the other hand, assuming that this rejection of the Reworking Our Demo Approach is only a temporary aberration: With the settler unit, 2a is already provided. Suppose we make a type of settler unit which automatically builds a city, and ensure the possibility of building another settler unit exists. Then require the building of two more cities. Ideally this should have the new economics gui available. I do not have too much trouble waiting for that before releasing D7.

I am for getting the new econ gui in, but can't say I'm really excited about that concept overall. Maybe because its so like civ??? I guess it could do.

Cya,

Mark

	30-03-2002 07:33									#33
	Got spare money?

OK, what else do you want to teach them in tutorial 1?

Cheers

	30-03-2002 08:08									#34
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Hiya Gary:

If I'd had any good ideas, I'd have said 'em

After skimming the Reworking thread, how about this...
Goals:
1. Get to X population
2. produce 10 units of Gold, Salt and Tin
2b. implicitly you must produce at least two cities/provinces to do 2

optional:
3. there are barb units that wander about the map. they target settlers only, so you need to escort your settlers. Not meant to be a big threat, but add a little uncertainty.

We widely spread the different resources so you need to explore most of the map to find all three. It is a bit cheezy, but the best I can come up with at the moment. I suggest you give that thread a skim, maybe you'll find something good I've missed.

Cya,

Mark

	04-04-2002 06:15									#35
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: 1. Get to X population

This I can handle when we get the population to increase.

quote: 2. produce 10 units of Gold, Salt and Tin 2b. implicitly you must produce at least two cities/provinces to do 2

I thought a city might form automatically when the population gets to 20,000?

quote: optional: 3. there are barb units that wander about the map. they target settlers only, so you need to escort your settlers. Not meant to be a big threat, but add a little uncertainty.

Of course they are now automatically escorted.

quote: We widely spread the different resources so you need to explore most of the map to find all three. It is a bit cheezy, but the best I can come up with at the moment. I suggest you give that thread a skim, maybe you'll find something good I've missed.

Couldn't find anything useful.

I have (as you can see in the map graphics thread) implemented the coasts. The actual tiles need a bit of tidying up, but that is not a show-stopper. I have emailed Stian.

As I mentioned earlier, I solved the civilization (or anything else) modification (from a generic one) problem in the xml input. It is even possible to get an existing civilization and rename it. However you cannot have two different civilizations based on the same generic one.

About the only thing I can do now is add "Cancel road building", and then some more on the social/government model (which won't have any effect on Dawn 1).

Cheers

	04-04-2002 08:37									#36
	Suffering from ads?

Hey Gary:

Everything you said above is fine by me (just to be clear).

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas I have (as you can see in the map graphics thread) implemented the coasts. The actual tiles need a bit of tidying up, but that is not a show-stopper. I have emailed Stian. As I mentioned earlier, I solved the civilization (or anything else) modification (from a generic one) problem in the xml input. It is even possible to get an existing civilization and rename it. However you cannot have two different civilizations based on the same generic one.

Sounds great on both counts!

quote: About the only thing I can do now is add "Cancel road building", and then some more on the social/government model (which won't have any effect on Dawn 1).

For Dawn 1, there may be some existing bugs that should be looked into also. You could look at the bug list that's on the second post of the D6 thread. I think I have most things rated by priority.

One other issue is that IIRC there are still unresolved tech code implementation questions that I had from about a month back. If you have the time and inclination, you could scan the last page http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...13&pagenumber=4 starting with my post of 26-02-2002 13:25 I'm giving tech slightly higher priority than social since we hope to use it in Dawn 2.

	04-04-2002 09:32									#37
	Got spare money?

Well, I have been asking, then pleading for a useable tech xml file for about eight months now, with no response. I am not really inclined to spend my time coding something that has no data to support it. Sorry.

Cheers

	04-04-2002 09:47									#38
	Inflate your Upload Space

I'm sorry. I didn't know that anyone needed any new tech stuff now. I thought that the existing xml file would be run in the program as a test, and then we would use that test data to make a fuller file.

I have been hit by a major attack of schoolwork, but I'll see what I can do. What exactly did you need?

	05-04-2002 02:43									#39
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Just a realistic very ancient tech tree, up to the bronze age. Things like:

Biology:
Agriculture
Plant breeding (at some primitive level)
Animal domestication
Animal breeding
Horse domestication
Cattle domestication
Sheep domestication
Cavalry horse
Goat domestication
Vegetable growing
Fruit growing (quite a late development)

Metals:
Mining
Copper smelting
Bronze alloy
Casting

Military:
Ritualistic battle
Close order combat
Chariots
Cavalry

Naval:
Dugout
Canoe
Sails
Oars (as opposed to paddles)
Bireme or penteconter
Trireme

Social:
City administration
Writing
Numeracy
Schools

These are just some off the cuff ideas, not meant to be exhaustive - that is your job!

Cheers

	12-04-2002 21:40									#40
	Tired of ads?

Once I do some Econ code cleanup, I will figure out a way to handle population diffusion in a simple manner. It will be based on economic attractiveness of the target square as compared to where the people are now.

I'm still hoping we can get a new high-level econ interface into Dawn 1. However for the more detailed stuff we may still need the old interface for just a bit. If we need to keep the old one I'll also put in some quick code to allow it to be simplified (like leaving out ROI) for the tutorial.

	13-04-2002 02:03									#41
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I am in the throes of implementing a simple event system so that discovering something (pigs, einkorn wheat, grapes, whatever) registers on the system and can have results.

The system I have developed is:

1. Features. These are purely visible terrain features such as a apicture of a horse. They have no other effect on the system, but can be removed by Actions (see below).

2. Events. These are a sort of generic "something happens" class. Currently implemented are two events: VistSquare which keeps a record of all civilizations that have visited that square, and SingleVisitSquare which is triggered only by the first civilization to visit the square. Events can have a list of actions (specified in the scenario file) which are triggered when the event happens.

3. Actions. These do something to the game state. At present the only things implemented are RemoveFeature and SetCondition.

4. Conditions. These are state variables which function a bit like persistent events. They are stored in the civilization concerned. Example are "horses have been discovered by this civilization". This in turn will be queried by the tech model to allow "horse breeding" as a technology.

This system seems to me to enable quite a number of possible scenario events, and is readily extendible to other events and actions. Some of these might become quite complex.

The system also extends readily to diplomacy.

Cheers

	13-04-2002 03:57									#42
	Inflate your Upload Space

Hey Gary:

Those sound good to me. We'll see what's needed as we move ahead. One event we'll need for the tutorial is a "turn number" event. Then on turn 0 (startup) we can tell the player about stunning Clash feature A, and on turn 1 about B, etc. At least that's what I think many people who won't be troubled to read the manual were looking for in a simple tutorial.

	13-04-2002 06:11									#43
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Wec will need TurnNumber, BuiltFarm, CityCreated, and various technology achieved events.

Cheers

	17-04-2002 17:31									#44
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I'm now working on getting colonists to distribute themselves effectively into the different economic sectors (farming, etc.). For now there is no influence upon this distribution of whether the economy is market or traditional. My question (for the longer term) is should colonists that are primarily traditional keep their fixed patterns of distribution into the sectors when colonizing? I don't know if its realistic, but I'm sure it will piss off players to have settlements start out hobbled because there are an inappropriate number of say farmers compared to other sectors given the sites available. My notion of how to handle this for now is that settlers with a traditional economy will distribute themselves near-optimally but after that the traditions are set for that locality, and the proportions of workers in the sectors stay fixed (in a pure traditional economy, which will be rare). My hand-waving argument is that the colonists knew that traditional patterns could be shaken up when they moved.

	18-04-2002 00:39									#45
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Mark, I think your proposal is OK. I think the traditions hold only when there is some amount of infrastructure. Those who migrate are usually ready to start from scratch and seize whatever opportunity is open to them.

On a different topic:
I have been trying to have civilizations start neutral and wait for the player to give orders to move into enemy territory to make the civ enemy. The questions I have are the following:
1) Why on Earth am I unable to make a panel that doesn't look ugly? (you don't have to answer this one)
2) I want a warning popup to appear when a player's army enters a neutral territory, so that they know that they will be at war if they enter there.
Should I: - warn when the army enter neutral territory, - warn when the player first gives the order?

	18-04-2002 05:40									#46
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Hi Laurent, glad the idea sounded reasonable to you.

On your question, I've thought about it a bit, and don't have what I consider to be a good answer... I don't like either of your options. I would prefer notification when the orders are entered, but then if the route is long something that was safe when the move was entered could be settled by someone else by the time you get there. And notification upon entry can interrupt the game flow if for instance it happens on tick 5 halfway through a turn.

How about this -- The default behavior is that troops will never knowingly start a war. However, there is a screen that will be part of the diplomacy interface eventually, where the player can override the default either on an individual civ basis, or for all civs. It's still not great, but it gets around the problems with the other two. Hopefully someone else can come up with something better!

	06-05-2002 07:46									#47
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I was just talking with Gary by email about D7, but thought I should put the discussion up here so everyone can see. What else do we need for D7 ?

1. Gary has pretty much finished the Event model at least up to the D7 requirements.

2. The events will allow me to write an in-game tutorial covering settlement, econ, and military issues.

3. I have finished some simple mods to the econ GUI code that will allow some simplification of the econ interface for playtesters learning the ropes. (Looks like no new high-level econ interface for D7 ) The tutorial will start with a Very stripped-down version of the D6 econ interface.

4. I finished the info needed to drive population diffusion a while ago. It would be nice to have population diffuse in both Delenda and the Dawn Scenario.

5. We talked a bit ago about settling sites with several different types of resources in Dawn. Can we build Settlers for when the player needs to settle something far away? Seems the simplest way to do it to me. Although a simple inteface allowing colonization by teleportation would also work. Thoughts?

6. What else?

Cya,

Mark

	08-05-2002 02:50									#48
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

The event model hasn't been tested yet because I ran into all that trouble with the victory conditions. That is getting straightened out and is much cleaner (I took it out of the event model completely).

However, there are still issues, for example, if there is a complicated set of things to achieve, how is the victory (or defeat) annoncement to be handled?

Suppose we say that to win the Dawn 1 scenario you have to reach a population of 10,000 and domesticate goats. The victory announcement has to know about both of these, and mention them. But they may have happened far apart in time. I do have a system in mind to handle this and hope to have it working today.

quote: 4. I finished the info needed to drive population diffusion a while ago. It would be nice to have population diffuse in both Delenda and the Dawn Scenario.

The Delenda scenario is (apart from a few unused squares in Dacia) wholly populated already.

quote: 5. We talked a bit ago about settling sites with several different types of resources in Dawn. Can we build Settlers for when the player needs to settle something far away? Seems the simplest way to do it to me. Although a simple inteface allowing colonization by teleportation would also work. Thoughts?

This is already implemented and working. You take a military unit (any military unit) and add settlers to it, then move somewhere and drop the settlers off. There are no settler units as such. Believe me there were good reasons for this approach - these were discussed at length somewhere in the forum.

quote: 6. What else?

One thing we will need soon (for Delenda) is the ability to load and unload ships (I am working on a transport, as opposed to trireme, ship image).

Other things we need:

As I have said, ad nauseum, a proper technology tree. One of the things events can do (via Actions) is enable a named technology.

Technology GUI.

Some simple images (like resources) of wheat, goats, horses, for Dawn 1, so players have something to do.

Wandering baddies (for Dawn 2).

Cheers

	08-05-2002 04:34									#49
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Hi Gary:

I have two remaining issues on settlers. There must be a way of telling graphically whether an army unit has settlers piggybacking on it or not. Otherwise things will get hopelessly confusing once the player has more than a few military units and tries to do some settling. Since you seem to be are only artist at the moment, you have any ideas for a graphical way to indicate that a unit has settlers onboard? The other issue is determining how much stuff the settlers have with them for setting up an economy wherever they go. For Dawn 1 we can have the amount of capital they take with them handled automatically. The easiest thing to do is to have any individuals that pick up and move take "their share" of the capital. This will get more complicated later on, but I think we can keep it simple for now.

quote: As I have said, ad nauseum, a proper technology tree. One of the things events can do (via Actions) is enable a named technology.

I have e-mailed Richard again, asking him if he can do this. If we get the technology model to the point where it is ready for Dawn 2, and he still hasn't come up with anything, I'll do it.

quote: Technology GUI.

I had been just asking about Dawn 1 issues, to the best of my knowledge all technology is planned for Dawn 2. But I agree that once Dawn 1 is out of the way technology and its interface should get high priority.

quote: Some simple images (like resources) of wheat, goats, horses, for Dawn 1, so players have something to do.

I thought we were going to use the things Gar was working on... the mines etc. But if you want more variety of resources most of the work is in the graphics, so its fine by me. But since we are trying to keep the econ GUI uncluttered we shouldn't have more than two or three types of resources unless the player can't give orders to build them up. Otherwise the econ gui will be as confusing as before.

quote: Wandering baddies (for Dawn 2).

IMO it would be nice to have a few even in Dawn 1! Not much, but an occasional one. What do you think?

Glad we're starting to close in on this!

Cya,

Mark

	17-05-2002 03:35									#50
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I will try and do something about the visible settllers situation. In the longer term the settlers issue will have to be considered further. For example, how much space do settlers take on a ship? Can settlers travel at cavalry speed if the escorting unit is cavalry?

At the moment I have been somewhat immersed in problems with victory conditions. Every time I feel it is under control, another issue erupts. The current one is that victory conditions, up to now, have been global. Unfortunately, for realistic victory conditions, they need to be civilization specific. For example a victory condition like "Occupy Rome" is a bit silly if the player's civilization is Rome. In that case "Occupy Carthage" might be more appropriate.

Accordingly, I have reached the conclusion that victory conditions must be civilization specific. Only the player's civilization victory conditions will be used. So, for example, the Roman condition is: "Win: occupy Carthage", and "Lose: lose Rome".

I am currently coding this.

On a different point, there is no easy way to find out what the specifications are for the various data files. So I am preparing a manual (in HTML format) for the preparation or modification of the basic data files and scenario files. This is in a basic form at present - I am also working on that.

Cheers

	17-05-2002 05:13									#51
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Hey Gary:

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas I will try and do something about the visible settllers situation. In the longer term the settlers issue will have to be considered further. For example, how much space do settlers take on a ship? Can settlers travel at cavalry speed if the escorting unit is cavalry?

I see what you mean, there are a whole bunch of issues. I'll just throw out one idea for the heck of it. How about having a military unit called a settler? That would automatically be visibly recognizable as containing colonists, and move at an appropriate speed for colonists. When it is not loaded with colonists it would have negligible combat strength and transport size. When loaded with colonists those parameters of the settler unit that would logically change due to the number of colonists would be modified appropriately. The settler unit itself would be free, and created whenever the player wants to undertake colonizing actions. That would eliminate the need for a military unit to be on location when colonists are created. However, there are still issues, such as loading up a settler with ten colonists and going off to explore the world "for free". Of course they wouldn't tend to last very long...

quote: At the moment I have been somewhat immersed in problems with victory conditions. Every time I feel it is under control, another issue erupts. The current one is that victory conditions, up to now, have been global. Unfortunately, for realistic victory conditions, they need to be civilization specific. For example a victory condition like "Occupy Rome" is a bit silly if the player's civilization is Rome. In that case "Occupy Carthage" might be more appropriate. Accordingly, I have reached the conclusion that victory conditions must be civilization specific. Only the player's civilization victory conditions will be used. So, for example, the Roman condition is: "Win: occupy Carthage", and "Lose: lose Rome". I am currently coding this.

I see your point... I think we actually need both civilization-specific and global victory conditions in the long run. If there are generic victory conditions like "control three-fourths of the world" or spaceship landing as in civ, it would really be a drag to have to copy that for every single civ.

quote: On a different point, there is no easy way to find out what the specifications are for the various data files. So I am preparing a manual (in HTML format) for the preparation or modification of the basic data files and scenario files. This is in a basic form at present - I am also working on that.

Excellent idea!

	17-05-2002 12:04									#52
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

That is a great idea to have different victory conditions. However, I could point out that ("Occupy Rome" + "Occupy Carthage") would be a victory condition worth playing. Still, some civ2 scenarios suffered from having a number of victory objectives independent on your civ. Twas way easy to win with one civ, much harder or impossible with others. When the challenge is "just survive N turns", it is worth telling the player they won even if they have a miserable bit of a backwards empire left.

	24-05-2002 17:48									#53
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I have coded 2 things relating to tech, military and econ:
1)Units become obsolete when a new, specified in the xml file, unit becomes available and more efficient.
2)Units can be built only if the required tech is at the required level.
This is OK from tech/military standpoint, but the econ should ask if the Unit is buildable in order for this code to be of any use.
This means econ needs a Buildable interface with isBuildable(Civilization,MapSquare) as discussed elsewhere. I just have to implement the MapSquare stuff in order for boats to be built on the coasts. Mark, is it feasible? I may try to do it myself this week-end if it's easy. I don't want to have to merge some econ code versions however.
One side effect would be to reduce the number of buildable units. F.e. I say warriorbands are obsolete if you can build phalanxes. I focus on the Delenda scenario, as Dawn has little military building in it. We would need to specify different starting tech levels for the various scenarios in order to be absolutely okay but I don't think it is an issue.

	24-05-2002 20:52									#54
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Hi Laurent, that's great! Looking forward to us getting it hooked up.

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare This is OK from tech/military standpoint, but the econ should ask if the Unit is buildable in order for this code to be of any use. This means econ needs a Buildable interface with isBuildable(Civilization,MapSquare) as discussed elsewhere. I just have to implement the MapSquare stuff in order for boats to be built on the coasts. Mark, is it feasible? I may try to do it myself this week-end if it's easy. I don't want to have to merge some econ code versions however.

Probably you should finish up the military side, and let me do the econ part. I can do it very quickly, and then we don't have to worry about code collisions. However, if you want to give it a shot, its ok by me. Just mark your changes so I can find 'em if something goes wrong.

quote: One side effect would be to reduce the number of buildable units. F.e. I say warriorbands are obsolete if you can build phalanxes. I focus on the Delenda scenario, as Dawn has little military building in it. We would need to specify different starting tech levels for the various scenarios in order to be absolutely okay but I don't think it is an issue.

This is a little tricky if you are actively building warriors, and then they become obsolete. What happens to the partly-built warriors? If there is also information available on upgrade path, then old investment can be switched over to the next unit I guess. What if there is no upgrade though? So although I like getting rid of obsolete units there are some details we need to work on. I guess this discussion should be continued in either the mil or econ thread.

An Idea -- brought on by Laurent's comments

Now that tech is getting further along, we could spice up Dawn 1 in the following way. To achieve victory the player must build chariots, the tech of which is not available at the start. To get the chariot tech the player needs to discover horses and invest in an application that promotes horses tech to get it to whatever level is needed for chariots. This proposal would make Dawn1 a little more deep in that the resources that the player needs to search for are an enabler for one of the victory conditions. What does everyone think? And of course this is provided that putting in the tech stuff wouldn't substantially slow down getting the demo out.

[edit] improve clarity of idea

	25-05-2002 16:43									#55
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: This is a little tricky if you are actively building warriors, and then they become obsolete. What happens to the partly-built warriors? If there is also information available on upgrade path, then old investment can be switched over to the next unit I guess. What if there is no upgrade though? So although I like getting rid of obsolete units there are some details we need to work on. I guess this discussion should be continued in either the mil or econ thread.

Units are obsoleted by another unit, so there is always a replacement. I didn't like the civ2 system where discovering a civ could prevent you from building anything. Switching should be possible, as you can retrieve the name of the new unit. I realise there is a bit more to it than what I thought at first. I'll probably just provide the method and interface and let you do the rest

The Dawn stuff looks OK but again I want horses in Delenda thus if we want to have different starting techs, we must be able to specify it in the scenario file.

	27-05-2002 03:56									#56
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Hi Laurent:

I just saw the new Cohort unit become active thru Military Tactics = 20 in Delenda. Pretty cool! It took me like 110 turns to see them with the new slower Tactics progression. Should the Cohorts unit not make Legions obsolete though? The econ gui still shows Legions as buildable. I had assumed by Cohort you meant the manipular legion... which I assume would obsolete Legions.

Things are Really starting to come together!

I think tech is at least coming along decently enough we'll be able to include a moderate bit of it in D7. I will work on tech as needed, but for now I think we need to wait for Richard to tweak the model.

I am going to switch over to trying to implement population diffusion. First I need to look to see if Gary has any code set up to partly do it. Wish me luck! (Gary, if you happen to be able to get access and see this, please let me know.)

	27-05-2002 07:35									#57
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Okay, a few thoughts after plowing through this whole thread:

1. Victory conditions being quite specific are excellent. In the example above, if CivA has "Conquor Rome" and CivB has "Conquor Carthage" then the opposite conditions also need to be true. IE: CivA has "Defend Carthage" and CivB has "Defend Rome". There's no point for CivA to go for Rome if it'll lose Carthage in the process. This is good as it'll create "Capture the Flag" type scenarios.

2. Unit obselesance. Quite simple, when you gain a unit that obsoletes an old unit (warband --> phalanx), then not all the production (training if you will) should be lost. Basic military tactics would stay the same, just how to use the new weapons/armor would change. IE: changing unit from warband to phalanx would result in 50% loss of production/training progress.

3. Unit obsolesence 2. What about existing old units in the field? Will they be able to be upgraded for a cost in production/time? Or does the Civ strategy of having to disband old/build new come into it?

4. Settlers/colonists. My vote is for the unit I can see and move independantly of the military.

	27-05-2002 14:08									#58
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Mark:

The Cohort is normally obsoleting Legion. It doesn't show because somehow the Cohort is not as efficient as the Legion with the current attack/defense/price values. You can also see you can buid WarriorBands but not Phalanxes. This is all subject to tuning that I am doing now.
What happens is the following:
Buildable units in the scenario include:
-warriorband, phalanx, legion, cohort, elephant, bowmen.
Since the horse tech starts at 0, cavalry is not available. Changing the start level would do the work. Same reason for chariots.
I'll make Elephants Carthage-only, and Legion and Cohort Rome-only.
Warriorband will be obsoleted by Phalanx, thus noone will be able to build them. This may be a problem with the dawn scenario.
Legion is obsoleted by Cohort. I must tweak figures so that it works better. Note a different image would be cool in order to give feedback to the player, as right now there is no way to see the difference between old (Legion) and new (Cohort).

Dale:
I don't think we discussed upgrading units .
I think there won't be any for D7. Upgrading units on field should be possible IMO, probably needing irs own special econ section cost. Questions about how/where to do it should go in the military thread.

Other:
We need to remove the Combat activity from the econ frame, as it represents experience gained from battle, so that you can only chose Military in the frame. I suggest a <hidden/> flag in the tech file. I don't know how to implement it so I leave that task to more knowledgeable persons while I go on tweaking figures. I might even try to edit the legion icon if I find some paint program that can handle the task.

	27-05-2002 17:38									#59
	Tired of ads?

Yeah, we clearly need some way to upgrade units to fulfill the "low micromanagement" objectives for Clash. My picture had been more of an auto-upgrade for units that are at home, or very near home. For units far out in the field, or in combat, I'm not sure I like the concept of an auto-upgrade. It could completely change the outcome of wars to have units upgrade in the field. Anyway, we should probably continue this discussion in the Military thread.

Ok Laurent, I will make combat hidden if you want. But it occurs to me that things like wargames that your military can stage could act as something to increase the combat activity without actually fighting. In that light, the still think I need to remove the combat activity from the Econ interface?

	27-05-2002 19:31									#60
	Put an end to popups!

Edit: Posted in bad thread - replace with relevant to this thread only.
Combat shouldn't be seen because the Military activity already includes that part about fake fights / strategy colleges / wargames.
If someone really wants the details, they should mod the technology file to add the detailed activities they want (like removing the hidden tag I propose).

Last edited by LDiCesare on 27-05-2002 at 19:38