01-02-2003 01:34									#91
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quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson Lee, I like your mockup. Seems very practical. Add a number slider option for military unit builds and some other types and I think you'll be close to a workable solution.

I meant an number spinner for buying X units per turn.

	01-02-2003 02:11									#92
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Ok, i like the tree idea (exept leave it in 1 window, just expand it), but have a few ideas to enhance them.

1. The 1st level should be the only one the player has to set. Everything else should be possible for the AI to handle by the following:

1a. Have a button to highlight to say autocalulate. This means that you say 70% on infrastructure, i don't care what.

1b. On following levels, there should be another button to 'lock' the item in, preventing you or the AI from changing it while its locked. So say you want of that 70% for infrastruture, you want 10% (no more, no less) to go to roads, you then push that and lock it in place. The other 90% can be moved around and balanced however then and subsequent turns by the AI and yourself

2. The sliders should always for each level all equal 100%, so lowering 1 thing should raise others.

3. It would be nice to also see a chart of previous spending and previous and predicted future growth eventually.

4. Just though of this, again eventually it would be a good idea to have buttons on the top for people who really don't want to do any micromanagment at all to click things like Wartime Driven Managment, Research Driven Managment, Trade Driven Managment, Exploration Driven Managment, Industrial Driven Managment (industrial as in the more general use, not the more contempary version for factories and whatnot), Maratine Driven Managment, Colonial Driven Managment, Balanced Managment, etc.

	01-02-2003 02:29									#93
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quote: Ok, i like the tree idea (exept leave it in 1 window, just expand it), but have a few ideas to enhance them.

I tried a tree, It was my first attempt. Believe me you don't want it as a tree. there is to much on one line that opening it out results in a mess.

quote: 1. The 1st level should be the only one the player has to set. Everything else should be possible for the AI to handle

Thats the idea - though we need some AI fo that.

quote: On following levels, there should be another button to 'lock' the item in, preventing you or the AI from changing it while its locked

That is the idea, I just havn't put it in yet.

quote: 2. The sliders should always for each level all equal 100%, so lowering 1 thing should raise others.

yup, already in - it just doesn't demo well on a static image

quote: It would be nice to also see a chart of previous spending and previous and predicted future growth eventually.

quote: Just though of this, again eventually it would be a good idea to have buttons on the top for people who really don't want to do any micromanagment at all to click things like Wartime Driven Managment, Research Driven Managment, Trade Driven Managment, Exploration Driven Managment, Industrial Driven Managment (industrial as in the more general use, not the more contempary version for factories and whatnot), Maratine Driven Managment, Colonial Driven Managment, Balanced Managment, etc.

Thats a good idea. multiple preset settings for the minister AI

	01-02-2003 04:58									#94
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quote: It would be nice to also see a chart of previous spending and previous and predicted future growth eventually. quote:

Well to see if by spending more on1 more military unit will serverly hamper my long term economy, assuming all things stay the same.

quote: 2. The sliders should always for each level all equal 100%, so lowering 1 thing should raise others. quote: yup, already in - it just doesn't demo well on a static image

Well the 1st level could go over or under to represent ongoing loans and rainy-day funds, but everything else should definatly equal 100%

	03-02-2003 15:36									#95
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quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson Richard, that's what the econ info screen is for! ("Econ Stats" button on the orders window) You can see the production level to gauge productivity or the growth rate to gauge effects of spending.

The problem is that I have no easy way of knowing how much of that production is due to infrastructure improvement, how much is due to technology improvement, and how much is simply due to having a lot of population in a square.

quote: Production per unit labor maybe?

That would be nice.

quote: There isn't any site number improvement so far, but we will eventually need it.

So why is it that the squares in delenda have so many more farm sites than the squares in Jerico? I can´t find anything in the terrain or scenario xml files that would cause this.

	04-02-2003 05:51									#96
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quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns The problem is that I have no easy way of knowing how much of that production is due to infrastructure improvement, how much is due to technology improvement, and how much is simply due to having a lot of population in a square.

Production is the result of a function of infrastructure improvement, workers, number of sites and technology. Its called a "production function" if you want to search on it to see the functional form. The technology part of productivity is easy to show separately. The others aren't easy to disentangle. Production per unit labor is one way to get info to the player, I guess the analagous per site and per improvement values might give you what you want.

quote: So why is it that the squares in delenda have so many more farm sites than the squares in Jerico? I can´t find anything in the terrain or scenario xml files that would cause this.

That is a hard-coded kludge. All scenarios arbitrarily increase farm sites to the point where the local economy can support the scenario-defined square population. Have to get rid of it at some point. Sorry it ended up confusing you.

	14-02-2003 03:24									#97
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

As stated elsewhere, there are problems with obsolescence of units. Most of it is a UI problem:

I corrected one miscalculation which didn't account for the number of men in the formula, which can explain some of the problems seen with obsolescence. The bug remains, however.
I do not understand how the UI works. When playing Carthago scenario, every turn, the UnitArchetype isBuildable method seems to be called (through Buildable.buildSquare) on every unit being built. Additionnally, it is called sometimes when the econ windows is opened. It might also be called by the performTests() econ method in the case of Phalanx, though I am not sure. - btw I'd like the performTests() method to be called only if a seed is fed to the game. I wonder if it cause some slowdowns. -

I observed the following:
The first time I open the econ window, it seems that calls are made, but I am not sure on what they are made. Some calls are made only once, some several times (apparently those orders being built are called many times). When opening an econ window for me (Romans), I'd get lots of calls for Phalanx and Elephant (what the Carthaginians are building). I wonder why. I didn't see any call to the things I was building. If I set for example Bowmen to a value, I'd see one call to Bowmen.isBuildable. If I set Legion to something, however, nothing is called, probably because Legion was already set to a non null value.

Calls to isBuildable should be made before showing the econ panel every time, but that is not currently the case. I don't know how that code works, whether the current code can be fixed easily, but the next UI should manage it correctly (by checking every time the window is opened or refreshed if kept open for more than one turn).

	14-02-2003 06:44									#98
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare I do not understand how the UI works. When playing Carthago scenario, every turn, the UnitArchetype isBuildable method seems to be called (through Buildable.buildSquare) on every unit being built. Additionnally, it is called sometimes when the econ windows is opened. It might also be called by the performTests() econ method in the case of Phalanx, though I am not sure. - btw I'd like the performTests() method to be called only if a seed is fed to the game. I wonder if it cause some slowdowns. - [QUOTE] Hi Laurent: isBuildable is called whenever an order exists and is either attempting to be executed or test-executed to figure out the cost of an order. That is why the econ GUI initiates calls to isBuildable. It is probably also called from performTests when the exectution of orders is tested. We can discuss when performTests should and shouldn't be run. Why do you want to connect it with the seed switch? [QUOTE]I observed the following: The first time I open the econ window, it seems that calls are made, but I am not sure on what they are made. Some calls are made only once, some several times (apparently those orders being built are called many times).

I don't know why this happens. Can you send me the code that exposes all the calls, and I'll try and figure out what is going on.

quote: When opening an econ window for me (Romans), I'd get lots of calls for Phalanx and Elephant (what the Carthaginians are building). I wonder why. I didn't see any call to the things I was building. If I set for example Bowmen to a value, I'd see one call to Bowmen.isBuildable. If I set Legion to something, however, nothing is called, probably because Legion was already set to a non null value.

No idea on this one.

quote: Calls to isBuildable should be made before showing the econ panel every time, but that is not currently the case. I don't know how that code works, whether the current code can be fixed easily, but the next UI should manage it correctly (by checking every time the window is opened or refreshed if kept open for more than one turn).

If everything on the tech end tests out, I'll look into the econ side and see if I can find the bug.

	14-02-2003 19:02									#99
	Treeview Tired of ads?

I'm not sure why you say that a treeview would look horrible, I'd think it would look quite nice and provide the functionality we need, I don't see why it should look vastly worse than the mock up attahced (only a straight graphics cut and past job, so I'm not aware of any kind of coding considerations here...)

(There should also be a scroll bar on this screen, for when the list is expanded)

I think there should be an overall spending category, where you can decide how much of your tax income to spend (this slider should be able to go over 100% to allow you to (try to) overspend if you have money in the treasury.

I think there should be an option to let the AI handly distribution of funds within each category, so each expandable node will need a checkbox to turn on the AI, it should still be expandable to see what the AI is up to though...

Of course some categories (i.e. military) will require both a percentage allocation scroll bar and a total production target. I agree that it would be good to be able to set a desired force composition and let the economy build up to that, at the rate set, with the priorities you set, to do this I suggest the target be set in terms of total numbers, and the existing numbers be shown.

Others (roads, walls) will require a method of aiming either to spend x% or build them in x turns. I'd also suggest these be split into a build new category, and a maintain existing category, since this should be easier to work.

Others will require a ROI setting, though I think this should probably be described as "Turns to pay off", since this is easier for non-economists to grasp (or at least it's how I interpret it when deciding what level to set). These are the hardest, since they will affect the total amount spent in a way that is fairly unpredictable. I suggest that the economy turn processing needs to be set up to spend money in priority order, then if there is any left over (i.e. some investments weren't worthwhile) to go back and spend the leftover money in the proportions chosen within the investment category, then if it finds it runs out of worthwhile investments, to go back and try and spend the money on all the other categories in the chosen proportions.

Actually you could have a toggleable setting which decides whether to send left over money to the treasury or tries to spend it, this could either be by category or global.

Attachment: test.bmp
This has been downloaded 10 time(s).

	14-02-2003 19:05									#100
	Put an end to popups!

p.s. how do you include images that show in the message, rather than as an attachment

	14-02-2003 21:01									#101
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quote: Can you send me the code that exposes all the calls, and I'll try and figure out what is going on.

Just put a trace in UnitClass.isBuildable method.

About the sliders: I suggest they should be a bit smaller than what we saw in the screenshots, and the figure boxes if we use a tree should be aligned to the right of the window. Otherwise, it looks good (certainly better than what we have).

	15-02-2003 18:05									#102
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Hi Owen, I think your observations in your longish post above are pretty good. Some of them were planned already. I do like your suggestion for reviving the treeview. What do you think Lee? I also think the sliders should be shrunk, probably fairly significantly, which would certainly help with the treeview part.

quote: Originally posted by ogj20 p.s. how do you include images that show in the message, rather than as an attachment

Believe it or not, the info is in the faq, you should check it out sometime. Here are the relavent formatting codes.

	15-02-2003 19:16									#103
	What do we do when an old order becomes obsolete? Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I will be trying to get the order obsolescence stuff going today. I'm sure it'll be pretty easy to do. But that leads to a question. Suppose I'm building Warriors at 60% when Warriors become obsolete, and the order is no longer available. What do I do with the order?

My intention at the moment is to find the new order type, Legion or whatever, that made the previous order obsolete, and make an equivalent order for the new category. I would also as a first shot take any invested point in Warriors and transfer them to Legions. Does this sound ok? If not, speak up soon!

	15-02-2003 21:15									#104
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Well I must say I preffer a treeview, to a number of windows popping up. Hmm. I guess I've said that before but I still think that the fewer windows the better. I hate having to close several windows to get back to where I was.

I could live with Owens sugestion, though I'd preffer a slimmer look.

	17-02-2003 20:04									#105
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I think that I prefer the popups to the treeview, but I don´t feel strongly about it either way.

Right now it seems that a unit can only be made obsolete by another unit, and can only have one unit that makes it obsolete. I would like this to be more flexible in the future, for example by giving the possibilty of an event to make a unit obsolete even though there is no replacement. Is there anything in the code that requires this current inflexible structure?

In addition to unit obsolescence, I would like to see, fairly soon, the possibilty of Activities becoming invisible, as described in the tech thread. This should be slightly easier to handle, since everything invested there is spent every turn. The order would simply vanish from the screen, with no other changes.

	17-02-2003 23:05									#106
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quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns In addition to unit obsolescence, I would like to see, fairly soon, the possibilty of Activities becoming invisible, as described in the tech thread. This should be slightly easier to handle, since everything invested there is spent every turn. The order would simply vanish from the screen, with no other changes.

This should be fairly easy to do. Laurent, could you put a boolean into both activites and techs (just for generality) that says whether they should be hidden from the gui? If you can set up the xml on the tech end, I'll read it when I put up the econ gui and we will be able to ignore certain activites and techs as specified in the scenario. Does that work for everyone?

	18-02-2003 01:33									#107
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Everything Richard asks for is feasible, so I'll try to get it done. Right now, you can only have one unit making another unit obsolete, so it needs code change, but it is not much work to allow several units and events.

	18-02-2003 15:58									#108
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Sounds good, thanks.

	18-02-2003 21:07									#109
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Obsolescense still does not work properly. While it does seem to function properly for foot units, it does not work for either Chariots or for any of the siege weapons, which should all make the previous weapon obsolete. To see this, download 7-6-1 and play Delenda as the Romans. They can build Chariots, which should be made obsolete by Chargers but are not, and they can also build all three kinds of siege weapons.

This is not the only case of foot units being treated differently than other kinds. While technology can improve the Movement and Mobility of foot units, I still get an error when trying to do this with any other category of unit. Somehow the category of unit is having a big effect on the code, where it should not.

	19-02-2003 01:03									#110
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I've dropped the size of the scroll bars.

I'll look at redoing the tree format.

I could do with an EconOrder or EconOrderInfo having a method to return an associated Icon to use on the row instead of the text (have the text as a tool tip) - that means icons ( artist anyone )

I havn't worked out a way of building up a tree of orders (by which I mean what top level categories we have and which categories are children of others) as I'm struggling to see where in the existing code there is any sort of relationship indicated I'm tending towards an XML file which holds a tree of ordernames - but this means an extra area to maintain as orders are added/deleted in the game.

	19-02-2003 06:47									#111
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quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns Obsolescense still does not work properly. While it does seem to function properly for foot units, it does not work for either Chariots or for any of the siege weapons, which should all make the previous weapon obsolete. To see this, download 7-6-1 and play Delenda as the Romans. They can build Chariots, which should be made obsolete by Chargers but are not, and they can also build all three kinds of siege weapons.

Hi Richard, I'd seen the Chariot problem when I finished my code mods, and had meant to mention it in the readme for the testbed. Laurent said in an email that if the combate effectiveness vs cost of a unit was still nearly as high as the new one, and old-style unit would not be marked obsolete. You can try increasing the power of each of the siege weapons radically as tech improves, and see if that doesn't fix the problem. Horde was another one where in my version it should not have been there, but was still avialable.

I also have never seen a Trireme order, and would like to get that one squared away.

quote: Lee said: I havn't worked out a way of building up a tree of orders (by which I mean what top level categories we have and which categories are children of others) as I'm struggling to see where in the existing code there is any sort of relationship indicated I'm tending towards an XML file which holds a tree of ordernames - but this means an extra area to maintain as orders are added/deleted in the game.

Hi Lee, good to see you back in the Clash sphere . What is wrong with the classes in GovtEconOrdersInfo?
FE there is a Military category with current sub-classes of supplies, army, and navy units. I think I already wrote you about these, but you may have forgotten, or disliked them for some reason. . .

	19-02-2003 12:37									#112
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quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson Laurent said in an email that if the combate effectiveness vs cost of a unit was still nearly as high as the new one, and old-style unit would not be marked obsolete. You can try increasing the power of each of the siege weapons radically as tech improves, and see if that doesn't fix the problem.

Newer versions of siege weapons already have 1.5 times the power at no aditional cost. It is extra power for free, so the old ones should clearly be obsolete.

	21-02-2003 00:26									#113
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The only things checked for comparing units are attack and distance strength, not brieching power. That can explain siege weapons. I'll have to investigate, anyway.

	21-02-2003 16:24									#114
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Could you just make a unit obsolete if the scenario designer says it is obsolete, and get rid of the code that overrides the xml file?

	22-02-2003 01:24									#115
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quote: Could you just make a unit obsolete if the scenario designer says it is obsolete, and get rid of the code that overrides the xml file?

No for 2 reasons.
One is if a unit is not seen as obsolete in the code it is because it is more efficient than what it makes obsolete, so the player should still be able to build it. An example would be early musketeers that are no better than crossbowmen when they become available, but become better afterwards as tech makes progress. Now if there are bugs in the evaluation of power, then I need to correct that.
The second reason is that a unit should not be obsolete unless something better is available. The way it is currently alows you to make sure that the unit is indeed better than its replacement when it kicks in.

	22-02-2003 12:57									#116
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I must say that I do gree with Richard on how to make a buildorder obsolete. IMO it should be the scenario-designers descission and responsibility to decide when an order becomes obsololete.

If the replacing unit is not better than what it replaces it should be the designers responsibility to fix that. This could be done by raising the tech level that makes the unit obsolete, or by raising the new unit's base strength.

As to making the econ-order-tree dependant on an xml-file I like that Idea. It makes GUI-tveaking much easier and scenario-costumizing the econ-gui will be possible. An example: People that don't like the particulare placement of a given order can move it.

	22-02-2003 18:20									#117
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I can do it but I want both: I want a unit to be able to be produced while its replacement is here too: Musketeers/crossbowmen. The current problem is mostly due to econ not showing obsolete units properly IMO. I would have to add a tag like:
<obsolete>
<name>Legion</name>
<force/>
</obsolete>
So we'd have both options available.

Another point: I am adding an isHidden() method in ActivityData class, so the econ should be able to ask an Activity whether it wants to be shown in the econ UI or not.

	22-02-2003 18:40									#118
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Hi Laurent:

quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare The current problem is mostly due to econ not showing obsolete units properly IMO.

I think I had fixed that with last weeks code. It relies on whether the thing is buildable. If there is a bug in my current code I'll sure fix it. Please do check though, and show me a case where it doesn't work. FE when the Buildable says its ok, but the econ doesn't allow the order.

[/QUOTE]Another point: I am adding an isHidden() method in ActivityData class, so the econ should be able to ask an Activity whether it wants to be shown in the econ UI or not. [/QUOTE]

I have also coded an alternative to this so that in the econ xml you can say "don't show 'Combat Tech' orders" (or Phalanx. . . for that matter). It seemed a more general method than just for Tech Activities would be useful.

	23-02-2003 16:23									#119
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: What is wrong with the classes in GovtEconOrdersInfo?

I missed your change - I'll try and get going with that.


e-mail from mark.

quote: Hi Lee, I finally had my code changes in a state where I thought I could add yours without inviting catastrophe. I checked out your new gui, and it looks pretty cool! For some reason the locked and unlocked images didn't make it, but otherwise it was quite serviceable. Seeing this I am almost certain the tree can be made to work well with your concept. But of course its a lot of hard work to get from here to there. I think you could spice it up quickly by throwing in the appropriate military unit images, and possibly the economic special commodity ones also. Though if you think that'd be time consuming it could wait quite a while. And having it update when a turn is cranked would be good to see also. One other thing I noticed is that orders seem to be normed to 100%. That doesn't always work, FE you can spend a lot more than 100% if you have a big treasury you are willing to draw down and have orders like tech spending that only need services from the economy. (Since services = money in the Clash economy). We may need to discuss in detail what the right way to handle it is. For now it would be simplest not to normalize to 100% for this and some other reasons I don't want to go into now because I'm tired. Good Stuff! Looking forward to the next steps. :-) Soon we'll be able to bury that old piece of you-know-what gui I cobbled together a long time ago... I am done with much of the econ xml stuff. I will do a class to handle order category entry, and their placement in the gui, (and also precedence for spending if orders are more than 100%) fairly soon. Let me know if the lack of that starts to hold you up. Cya,

quote: For some reason the locked and unlocked images didn't make it

Doh. I still had the image locations hard coded. fixed - I'll mail it out later.

quote: and it looks pretty cool

glad you like it, I'm not so sure I do now (I hate designing guis, don't mind coding them - just hate designing them)

quote: Seeing this I am almost certain the tree can be made to work well with your concept.

As I said a while back I had a tree originally - it's not hard to code it.

quote: spice it up quickly by throwing in the appropriate military unit images

Thats what I would like to do, It really needs some method on the econOrder or OrderInfo class to return the Image or ImageName. That way all lines in the Gui would get an image if one was provided.

quote: One other thing I noticed is that orders seem to be normed to 100%

I think that was the original discussion on the forum, but I can unnormalise it if you so desire.


The highest things on my list are the tree structure and the images.I'll should get a few hours later today to do some stuff (if I can see through my conjunctivitus).

	23-02-2003 18:20									#120
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Thanks Lee, everything sounds good!

quote: Originally posted by LFS Thats what I would like to do, It really needs some method on the econOrder or OrderInfo class to return the Image or ImageName. That way all lines in the Gui would get an image if one was provided.

Will do.

quote: I think that was the original discussion on the forum, but I can unnormalise it if you so desire.

Sorry for the changes! Lets leave it not limited to 100% for now, and see what we can come up with later. One idea is to explicitily put inflows to and outflows from the treasury in it. That way if you have treasury at 30% everything else would add to 70% within norming to 100%. Also then if you want to spend more than 100% on orders you could just have treasury at FE -25% with all other orders summing to 125%. Ideas?

quote: The highest things on my list are the tree structure and the images.I'll should get a few hours later today to do some stuff (if I can see through my conjunctivitus).

Sounds good, sorry to hear about the eyes.

Others: I also have put in a command line switch so that you can pick between showing the old and the new econ gui. That way we can get feedback from everyone as the new GUI evolves. (This ok with you Lee?)