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Mark_Everson
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Canton, MI
Jan 1970
time: 00:24
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Clash Demo 7.2 Features and Tips
Demo 7.2 has several new features in the military and economic areas, and also some GUI tweaks and bug fixes. I'll give a brief list of what's new here, followed by a more detailed list of what the new features and GUI changes are. At the bottom I'll put a link so you can download the Demo 7.2 jar file.
Features:
Fortification and Siege Model
Naval Combat
Militia that automatically forms in a square to fight off invaders
Economic Specials (Gold, Cloth, Tin, Salt)
Merchants that automatically trade in these goods and others
Jericho Scenario AI Improvements and "ladder" of difficulty
GUI changes:
More-streamlined movement interface
Economic orders panel comes up alone, econ info available via a button
tweaks to increase clarity on change province capital menu
Bug Fixes:
teleporting units and settlers
intermittent crashes when econ windows left open
Some more details...
1. Fortification and Siege Model
The demo has a first implementation of a fairly-detailed model of fortifications and sieges. One of Clash's goals is to have more-realistic outcomes in warfare and other areas. Walls give the defender a decided advantage, but can be overcome either by siege weapons or a significant manpower advantage of the attacker (numerical advantage needed increases with wall strength). Play the new SiegeWars scenario to see it in action! You can now build your own fortifications using the "Wall" button on the toolbar, and pay for the build similar to how you do for building roads. You can read more about walls and combat involving them in the Fortifications and Sieges thread.
2. Naval Combat
We've now got a naval combat model that allows for fleet battles. One fleet from each side is near the "toe" of Italy in the delenda scenario if you want to fight a quick naval combat. This will get a lot more exciting when the AI knows how to use naval power, hopefully in demo 8! For now, ships that are caught in port fight as low-value land units, and are usually destroyed unless their side has land superiority.
3. Militia that automatically forms in a square to fight off invaders
Your whole city of people won't just sit there like spineless wimps to be taken over by a few old arthritic soldiers anymore! If the relatively poor combat potential of a local militia could turn the tide of battle, the people will join in! At least, if they like you better than the other guys  . If militia units were active in a combat, you'll be notified of it in the detailed combat report.
4. Economic Specials (Gold, Cloth, Tin, Salt)
Specials are scarce "strategic" resources that are found locally (gold, tin, salt), or specialty finished goods that can best be produced where the primary resources are (cloth). The people in your economy automatically use these locally as needed, and merchants can also redistribute these goods to wherever is most willing to pay for them! For now we only have special commodities in the delenda scenario. You can read more about special commodities and are future plans for them on the Economy page of the Clash web site. Actually, both specials and merchants were already in Demo 6, but hadn't made it back into Demo 7 until now.
5. Merchants that automatically trade in these goods and others
In accord with Clash's low-micromanagement philosophy, merchants automatically search the world for good trade deals. These can be involve any type of good, but frequently at least one leg of the trade involves a special commodity. That is because specials have a value that varies depending on whether they are locally available or not. The specials I have in so far, and the basic good they convert to are: Gold -> Services ; Tin -> Resources ; Cloth -> Manufactured Goods ; Salt -> Food
6. More-streamlined movement interface
We got several requests for improving the movement interface so that it involved fewer clicks, and provided a way to cancel the last move segment. When you are in move mode you can now exit by either hitting End Move, as before, or double-clicking on the last selected square for the move. This works even for single-square moves, just double-click the square you want to move to after entering move mode. If you make a mistake while entering moves, a right-click will delete the last movement segment. There is also a movement option we're testing that doesn't use the move button at all. If you want to enter a simple order to move to a square, you can select a TF in the Units Box and then double-click on the square where you want the TF to go. This should show a movement path as normal. If it doesn't (there are still some bugs in this approach) just enter the move normally.
7. Jericho Scenario AI Improvements and "ladder" of difficulty
In response to several comments on the Jericho AI, we have made a few simple changes. (Major changes will have to wait until the real AI gets going.) The results are that Jericho as Jericho is now even tougher to win. We'll see who's first to win it! There is also now a clear ladder of difficulty with the civs at the bottom of the choice screen being very easy to win with, and with the challenge increasing noticeably from the middle of the list on up. We have also made technological progress more achievable in the scenario, although it is still fairly slow.
Finally, we added a credits screen so that all the people who have contributed to the demo can be recognized. I'll append the list here so everyone can get credit for their hard work! My sincere thanks to everyone who helped to bring this and our previous demos to life! 
Clash of Civilizations Demo 7.2 Credits
Coders:
Gary Thomas (Map, Technology, and Much Else)
Laurent Di Cesare (Military Plus)
Mark Everson (Economics Plus)
Alex Zuroff (Overview Map)
Vovan Sim (Bug fixing)
Artists:
sas [Stian Stokken] (Terrain)
Fiera [Juan Gonzalez] (Units and Cities)
Model Design:
Military - Paul Krenske, Laurent Di Cesare, Gary Thomas
Technology - Richard Bruns, Lord God Jinnai [Leejay Lockhart]
Economy - Mark Everson
Government (partially implemented) - Rodrigo Quijada
Scenario and Tutorial Design:
Gary Thomas, Mark Everson, Laurent Di Cesare, Dale [Kent]
Tips:
Play the Dawn Tutorial Scenario First if you're new to Demo 7. It has a wealth of info about the GUI and game mechanics. Questions about issues that are clearly explained in the tutorial will be met with: PTFT! (like RTFM)
1. You shouldn't play Attila unless you have a fast computer or are patient. It can run quite slowly on older computers. We are looking into fixing that.
2. At present you can't get the win notification in the Delenda or Jericho scenarios. So don't expect a victory message!
3. In the Dawn tutorial scenario you'll frequently need to run five to ten turns after achieving all the objectives before you see the victory message. As before, the Dawn tutorial is the first thing you should play!
The Team really wants to hear what you think about the Demo! Comments and criticisms are solicited. Before you type a lot of detailed comments, you might want to check and see which are already in the bug or feature requests lists near the top of the D7 thread, linked at the bottom of this post.
Download Demo 7.2!
This thread is purely for purposes of announcing the demo. Please put comments in the
Demo 7 Download and Comments thread.
Last edited by Mark_Everson on 10-01-2003 at 01:29
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09-01-2003 06:10
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