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dexter4dxm
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CA, USA
Jul 2001
time: 21:21
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This thread is for the updates and discussion of my new Alternative Civ, still named "civiliza". The original concept I had for the game was lost within the first two demos, because I didn't know enough at the time to construct a mutiplayer engine around the game. I was hoping I could go back and add multiplayer after I got close to finishing the game, but that was just wishfull thinking 
The most basic general concepts of Civiliza will be kept (more like resurrected, but whatever), including:
- Simplicity in general.
- Unit Turns instead of Player turns, and Cities on Timers
- Quick-action interface (the less clicking necessary, the better)
This game is being developed using Microsoft Visual C++ 6 with DirectX 7
Currently, the only available bit depth is 8 (256 colors, which is all this game needs..), and available resolutions of 320x240, 640x480, 1024x768, 1280x960, and 1600x1200. Also, this time you can run it in windowed mode, and resize it to whatever size you would like, as seen in the following screen shot
 Attachment: shot1.jpg
This has been downloaded 140 time(s).
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neonext
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Offical Lists, no longer updated (as of 9/19/02) (wait for beta!)
REVISIONS:
- Added DirectDraw and DirectPlay systems.
- Added DirectInput and DirectSound systems.
- Added windowed mode (resizable).
- Added basic lobby system. *ok
- Added terrain drawing and terrain clipping.
- Added multiple resolution support (fullscreen only).
- Added basic map editor.
- Added map loading (local only).
- Added unit drawing.
- Added unit moving. *ok
- Added unit move restrictions (terrain ocean).
- Fixed clipping for units.
- Added auto-centering of units off-screen or near screen edge.
- Added auto-selecting of ready units.
- Added drawing of selected unit cursor. *
- Added city drawing.
- Added ability for users to build cities. *ok
- Added unit coloring.
- Added city coloring.
- Added movement points.
- Added city unit production. *ok
- Added city unit select.
- Added unit move countdown timers, based on how many units you control.
- Added ability for units to attack each other. *ok
- Added mouse support and ability to control city unit selection with the mouse.
- Added drawing of roads.
- Added road movement modifiers.
- Added ability for settlers to build roads.*ok
- Added unit hit points. *
- Added piece sliding for moving and attacking.*
- Added AI players, and ability to select which civs you want to be controlled by the AI. The host computer will run all AI activities.*ok
- Added AI's ability to build cities.*ok
- Added land ownership.*
- Added build city restrictions for AIs and users.
- Added political map drawing.
- Added grid drawing.
- Added A* pathfinding system.
- Added AI's ability for settlers find new city spots.*ok
- Added AI's ability for move unit goto's.*ok
- Added AI's ability to select new city unit to build.
- Revised combat system to be back and forth until a unit dies (no random hits yet however)
- Added beach drawing.
- Added AI's ability to build roads between cities.*ok
- Adjusted pathfinding system to account for roads.
- Added grid and political map as togglable options.
- Added in-game help menu.
- Added hitpoint display.*ok
- Added AI's ability to attack with its units.*ok
- Added ability for both users and AI players to take cities (will raze if no spots left).*
- Added random hits to combat system (will revert to civ2 standards eventually).
- Added shroud for each player.
- Added city name, city work project, and city size display.
- Added goto command, including path drawing with step numbers.
- Changed blinking for selected unit cursor (won't blink if unit is engaged in combat).
- Updated AI unit selections.
- Revised A* pathfinding algorithm to make better use of roads.
TO DO (short term):
- Multiplayer setup/start screen.*
- game setup
- player setup (done)
- chat inteface (done)
- Multiplayer teams. + option for locked at game start
- Victory conditions. (including team victory)
- End of game stats screen.
- Start location loading.
- Terrain movement costs.
- User messaging (in-game chat). *
- Stacked unit counter.
- Terrain-based shroud removal.*
- Join game resitrictions.*
- Defense bonuses (city/terrain/fortify).
- Techs/Research. (will add as needed)
- City improvements. (will add as needed)
- Sound effects.
- Focus on battles happening when no units selected.
- Mouse-look mode.
- Map swapping.
- omg there is so much to do!
* = Specific multiplayer message coding still needed.
*ok = Multiplayer OK'd (finished and tested)
TO DO (long term):
- Music.
- Sea units. (user and ai support)
- Air units. (user and ai support)
- Nuke system.
- Wonders.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Windows 98, ME, XP
- Color depth of 16 bits per pixel
- DirectX 7 and above.
- DirectPlay 6 and above.
BUG LIST:
- Colors do not convert in windowed mode when desktop is set to higher than 16bpp
- Unit control is a little too sensitive.
- Units are drawn over each other, including move countdown timers.
- Click positions are not calculated correctly when in windowed mode and the window is stretched.
Last edited by neonext on 20-09-2002 at 14:37
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neonext
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i have a few screens to show the progress of the new civiliza so far.
Attachment: shot2.jpg
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neonext
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here is the right side of the multiplayer setup screen, where it lists the players in the game. at the bottom is a text box for you to change what name you want to use.
Attachment: shot3.jpg
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neonext
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and here is what it is like testing the multiplayer functionality on my system.
i had the shrink this image down to 25% of its size, so it is all blurry, but you get the idea
thank god for windowed mode and 1600x1200 desktop resolution, it makes things MUCH easier
Attachment: shot4.jpg
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neonext
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i plan on having game setup information in the area to the left of the player list, and the rest of the screen will be like a chat room, so the players can discuss settings.
oh and you can't see the mouse cursor in the first screen shot because this is my first game to you the actual windows cursor, and it doesn't show up from a print-screen. you can use either the mouse or the keyboard to make your unit selections for your cities. it is a standard right-click interface similar to civ3.
in the pursuit of making things simple, i think i am going to do away with the city screen entirely. with such a strong focus on multiplayer, it doesn't fit into the streamlined gameplay i have planned. in fact, since the game is essentially real-time, i should probably incorporate all the menus and advisor screens into some kind of side bar that could be placed over part of the map.
as you can see, i have yet to design most of the game. i could use some help in that area.
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neonext
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u know the whole reason i'm making this is to get a programming job in the game industry, and i have to say that even if firaxis offered me a job i doubt i would take it because i am losing all respect for that backwards company. from beta testing to PR to missing features that are a standard in today's game industry.. it really has me wondering what they were thinking.
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neonext
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hmm what about the slow downs between turns (obviously because of AI routines)? are the designers at fault there also? or are the programmers?
perhaps they just didnt care. they just wanted to quickly write a routine that works, and that's it. it makes sense because they were too lazy to write multiple resolution support (what the heck are they paying these guys? do u know how much time they had?!)
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neonext
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lots of progress being made. i will post new screens soon.
on a side note, it gets kinda hectic playing civ2 in semi-real-time with 8 players total on a tiny map, especially when all you can build is units. as with the last civiliza, i can watch the ai players play out a whole game, and it is very interesting to say the least. right now it's almost impossible to see all the battles that happen on the map, as there can be up to 8 actual fights going on at any time. the only exception so far is when you run the game in 1600x1200, at which almost the whole map can be fit on-screen.
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neonext
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at this time there are still many systems yet to be put in, such as technologies/research, food/resources/improvements, and many interface issues, options, and features, however; the game is already fully playable with AI opponents. i have yet to get someone to join me for some network team-play action (sorry, only in-house testing for now), but i have tested the multiplay on my system and it appears to work fine.
overall, when it first comes out, the new civiliza will put ALL of my previous demos to shame.
as to when it will come out, well let's just say that there will be no 'demos' this time around. work will continue to progress rapidly as always, and an announcement regarding the first beta release will be made when internal alpha testing starts.
stick around, i will be discussing important gameplay factors as the game is developed, along with showing an occasional screen shot. this project is going to tie in with civ2 much more than the previous one, but there will still be changes and improvements.
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neonext
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some issues with the screenshots have come up. i'll try to get one of the multiplayer game setup screen when it is ready...
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neonext
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btw, i finally got a multiplayer session going over here, and everything went surprisingly well. honestly, i was pretty shocked to find such a low amount of bugs (3 to be exact - only 1 of which is directly related to gameplay)
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neonext
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i can't show any more of the in-game interface until beta, but here is a quick screen shot showing cities, roads, shroud and combat occuring between America (dark blue) and China (light blue). Apparently England (orange) wishes to join the fray, but has only sent a warrior so far...
btw, this shot was taken at 800x600
Attachment: shot6.jpg
This has been downloaded 74 time(s).
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neonext
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btw the art taken from other games such as civ2 WILL be completely replaced by the time of release.
the only unit in the screen shot that will probably look the same is the swordsmen unit which i drew myself.
i need ideas and suggestions for the game! ask questions if you don't know about certain areas u are concerned about! i will be releasing a complete run-down of how certain features will be handled, but many features are still up in the air, such as under-water cities and inter-planetary warfare. there has got to be a huge list of things i haven't even considered, and i'd like to hear about them. not everything will fit in the real-time orientated world of civiliza, but dont be afraid to submit ideas
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neonext
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quote:
Originally posted by Dale
1. Infrastructure. PW (CTP) or Workers (Civ3) or a different system? |
Although it has not been decided yet, I am leaning much more to the side of PW or something similar to that. It will likely be something like the last civiliza, where you can click to place the roads wherever you want as long as they are connected to your cities. Keep in mind though that I have not played CtP for over five minutes, and in fact I have never even built a road in CtP so I really have no idea how the PW system exactly works - I am only going off of what I've heard. If you or someone else has ideas on the best way to implement this, I would love to hear them. Oh, and even if I decide on a Civ-like system for this, there will be no workers unit, only settlers/engineers/whateverthefutureeraunitiscalled
Btw, I want to mention that there will be at least 3 types of roads. This is one of the things that will be unchanged from the old civiliza. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the road system in civiliza, it is basically like this: you can build roads which will effectively double (NOT triple, like in the Civ series!) the movement rate of your units. Next, you can build highways, which quadruple your movement points. Lastly, you can build circuit links (futuristic mode of transportation similar to monorails) which will increase your movement by a multiple of 8. Railroads will be in the game however they will not placed or seen on the map. They will function like airports and harbors, in that you place a railroad station city improvement in your city and it is automatically connected to cities on the same continent. The rules related to railroad connections and the benefits it brings are not set in stone yet, and many ideas regarding this issue have to be worked out still.
quote:
2. Empire vs City State. In Civ2, it always gave me the feeling of running a group of city states, whereas CTP2 gives me the feeling of running a full Empire. How will you be trying to help the feeling of running an Empire (desirable) over running a group of City States (undesirable)? |
I understand what you mean about Civ2 completely. It was very much city-based. Again, I'm not very experienced with CtP or CtP2, but even Civ3 has a complete change from Civ2 in that control is shifted more to an empire level than a city level. Now, given the real-time and simplistic nature of the new civiliza, the focus will definitally be on an empire-based system. I'm very open to ideas that will affect the player's "feeling of running a full Empire" that you pointed out.
quote:
PS: Like MAD. Will you have MAD? Judging from the previous incarnation of civiliza, I'd say yes.  |
Yes! MAD will definitally be in the game. As I said long ago about the first civiliza, the entire nuclear war system held some of my best ideas for changes for the game, and that statement still holds true today. In fact, the ideas are better because I can now make it exactly how I envisioned it.
I've been holding off on talking about the nuke system because I didnt want it taken from me. I have decided though to come out with everything about the new civiliza, because the lack of info is keeping people from looking forward to it. So, Firaxis, you may take my turnless mode (or come up with that on your own like how i did the city info layout - its only logical), but dont take my nuke system!!! 
Here's a run-down on the current design for the nuke system: players can place a nuclear silo on a tile within their borders similar to how they place mines or irrigation. You have to pick one of the 3, mines, irrigation, or nuke silo - so the process of determining where to put it is important. Also increasing the importance of where you're putting it is visability. If your enemies want to successfully wage a nuclear war against you, they will have to find out which tiles the silos are placed on. This increases the need for espionage, reconissance and spying. Once you have a good idea of where most of the enemy's nuke silos are, you can launch a pre-emptive strike and eliminate most of the opposing nuclear threat. When nukes are launched, they will fly through the sky in real-time arcing towards their target. The time it takes to reach the target is very critical. Add in missile defense systems, nuclear subs with lots of firepower and silos that you can pre-set with a target and launch condition and you have a design that requires lots of strategy (not to mention the fact that it will be very cool to watch a nuclear war unfold). Btw, just to answer your question specifically, MAD is in this system because you can A) stockpile all your nukes and B) set your silos to launch nukes at every city in the enemy's country when a launch against you is detected. Given the pre-set available with the silos, imagine 4 or 5 nuke neighbors all involved - one would trigger the other, which would trigger the other, and so on until the sky is filled with nukes flying past each other. Needless to say, it is very possible for everyone to lose this way.
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neonext
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btw, thanks for the reply Dale. keep those questions and suggestions coming!
here are some other ideas i'm toying with:
- keep viewing information inside player information, so that when players get advances spying technologies they can get live feeds on what other players are viewing.
- list of main laws, togglable. based on government type and possibly tech levels. for example, under ancient goverment (and onwards till democracy-era), slavery should be an option that is turned on or off depending on whether you like the effects, which should be something similar to increased production at the cost of potential uprising (including civil war), lower eductation, etc.
- embassies: choose what city u want to put them in, relocate for a cost?, always free to investigate that city plus other uses
- a way of quickly restarting the game after you've seen you're start location, for those people who simply must have the perfect start location (or just a decent one...)
- ships sinking in ocean: tiny maps 100% chance of sinking, small maps 75% chance, medium maps 50% chance, large maps and above get 25% chance of sinking. possibly could be also affected by difficulty.
- eras: ancient, medievil, industrial, modern, future, nano
(this is pretty much set in stone by now)
- right of passage in war time: if civ A attacks Civ C by ways of passing through Civ B's territory with a right of passage agreement, Civ C's attitude towards Civ B will NOTICABLY drop.
- speaking of Civ's attitudes towards others, it will be similar to the method used in MoO2, where their attitude is measured from 0-100 and fluctuates based on what happens (they are many things that affect this. for example once media is discovered, you will be able to support or denounce EVERY declaration of war made by anyone, and those decisions will affect world opinion!)
- bring back government-specific units, however this time have ALL governments have a specific unit.
- food by era:
ancient: irrigation(+1), granary(actual use of granary undecided yet, but will probably either allow irrigation or increase food yield from irrigation)
medievil:
industrial: farmland(+2)
modern: supermarket(increases food from farmland+1)
future: biofarmland(+3)
nano: foodgen(city improvement that creates food)
- random events/disasters (which will definitally be an option that you can turn on and off) included but not limited to floods, volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes, asteroid hits, and alien invasions. these will all be carried out in real-time.
- media technology, which i mentioned earlier, also allows marque across bottom of screen telling latest happenings across the world. by that time there will be a lot of events happening all the time which u will want to know about, and the marque is a great way of handling it.
- different nukes: fission bomb halves city population, anything 2 and under is destroyed. fusion bomb (hydrogen bomb uncontrolled fusion tech) destroys whole city. future anti-matter makes a crater there and destroys surrounding tiles. (still revising this, but the basic idea is set)
- city borders are instantly 2 away, hopefully removing ics as a strategy (you cannot build overlapping cities!)
- ability to secure sea resources such as oil, like building an oil platform in waters that are not anyone's, and there will be more reason to fight wars in the ocean.
- an option for red squares to show up around tiles that are being worked by a city but does not have improvements on it (no mine or irrigation)
- democracy allows gp to run below 0 (deficit) however there will be an interest charge
these are some of the ideas i've come up with for the game. some will definitally make it in the game, and some wont. if you like or dislike any of these ideas, or you have ideas of your own, let me hear it!
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neonext
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ok, well they might not all be specifically MY ideas. some ideas originated from the apolyton community. i want to improve civ2 a lot, but i want this to be a people's civ2 also.. i want to put in the features that i think people have been missing the most from the civ series
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Dale
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Sir! Why do you keep clicking on me?
Dec 2000
time: 15:21
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PW in CTP: Basically, each city contributes a certain percentage (adjustable) of production to the national coffers. This all adds up to become your PW storage. All tile improvements (including terraforming) cost an amount of PW depending on what it is, and what terrain. IE: roads on grass is 60PW/tile, road on mountain is 400PW/tile. No need for settlers/workers, just select a tile imp, and click where you want it. This is done on a national level, so you could have a city in the west producing infrastructure (all Prod goes to PW) supporting a road building effort in the east of your empire. This is more empire based, where the settler/worker system is more city-state where that unit is tied to a certain city. Hope that helps clear it up a bit.
3 types of roads, good!  I always hated the railroad tile imp. Unlimited move? Pffft!
Civ 3 is still not as "Empire based" as CTP2. There are still a lot of things that depend on each city. In CTP2 you can run things at either a city level, or a national level. If you want, you don't even need to work at the city level in CTP2, just the national totally.
I like the nuke system you've developed. CTP2 almost goes as far as that, but lacked the "silo" idea. It just had units that you could pre-target and pre-empt with. Those units still had to live in a city.
Overall, sounds like a lot of very solid ideas coming through. Another thing I thought of is governments. Are you still going to follow the current Civ style of only the ideological governments, or are you going to include theological governments as well? I hated Civ3 for dropping Fundamentalism. IE: Patriarchy, Papacy, Demi-god (like ancient Egypt), Muslim.
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neonext
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quote:
Originally posted by Dale
Hope that helps clear it up a bit. |
Yes, very much so.
quote:
I always hated the railroad tile imp. Unlimited move? Pffft! |
exactly
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In CTP2 you can run things at either a city level, or a national level. If you want, you don't even need to work at the city level in CTP2, just the national totally. |
Interesting...
quote:
I like the nuke system you've developed. CTP2 almost goes as far as that, but lacked the "silo" idea. It just had units that you could pre-target and pre-empt with. Those units still had to live in a city. |
I forgot to mention nuking with bombers, which plays into the whole pre-emptive strike strategy. I'm not sure yet how I will handle stealth technology though...
quote:
Overall, sounds like a lot of very solid ideas coming through. Another thing I thought of is governments. Are you still going to follow the current Civ style of only the ideological governments, or are you going to include theological governments as well? I hated Civ3 for dropping Fundamentalism. IE: Patriarchy, Papacy, Demi-god (like ancient Egypt), Muslim. |
Another good question. When the government system finally makes it in, Fundamentalism will likely be in. The whole government model is completely open at this point though. I can definitally use help in this area.
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Dale
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Sir! Why do you keep clicking on me?
Dec 2000
time: 15:21
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I suppose with Gov's (and more broadly Society and Culture) it all depends on the timespan of the game. If you start in 8000BC then you can bring in all the nomadic and tribal Gov's, but if you start in 4000BC, you pretty much had a Dynastic society by then, more centralised and organised than the tribes.
An even better idea might be to work out a system where you don't chose a "government" as such, but policies. Each policy can determine a certain aspect of your Civ. You have it on a 100% scale, so promoting marshall law will a negative pull on economics, science, society, laws, etc. Conversely, if you move your policy more towards decentralisation, people are happier, the economy grows, science goes ahead (due to the enhanced freedom), but military and navy drop (centralised objects). Basically, in the same vein as EU2 has it's domestic policies.
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neonext
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i guess it is agreed that we will have a list of policies for the user to adjust, based on technology level and government type.
do you mean to have each policy on a slider, so the user can select a percentage of how much they want that policy to exist within the nation?
would you like to beta test Dale? (before the public beta)
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neonext
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ok cool, i will email you when the time comes. the file size is less than 500K right now (compressed).
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Apolyton Time is 00:21. |
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18-08-2002 08:11
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