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AppGameKit/AppGameKit Studio Showcase / Dominance early map editor demo

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Santman
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Posted: 1st Jun 2013 02:59
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Hey all. Decided to post this to get early comments. My new project, Dominance, is aiming to be a variant on the Civ series, only if development goes well I will be extending it all the way into space after the Civ games always give up.

Anyway, a VERY early tech demo of the map (it's really quite Epic I think, supporting 9000(!) game tiles). The game will feature a built in editor and full online functionality so that players can design their own maps and upload them/share them in realtime. Bear with the graphics please, they are a little clunky as I'm not primarily an artist, and at this point I'm focusing on getting the code running.

The editor is capable of building smooth joining maps, and stretching surface decorations automatically so that tile joints are less visible. Next will come terrain type smoothing (depending on how fast I get it working - my fast tablet runs this at 60fps at max zoom, but drops to around 40fps when zoomed all the way out), then I'll focus on unit movement and city building as I have those graphics already. The ocean in the background is also still a WIP and doesn't move correctly when scrolling around as it's comprised of three layers and I haven't got that down yet.

This is only about a weeks work all in, so it is very early. Does anyone think though:

1) The map/world is too big?
2) The ocean (except the scrolling) looks ok?
3) The min/max zoom levels are ok? (you will be able to move by clicking the map soon)

Any feedback greatly appreciated, I will continue to update as I go along.

http://youtu.be/d1q4kIq4B8A
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Santman
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Posted: 12th Jun 2013 01:08
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Well, it's been an eventful ten days, and not always for a good reason. The initial engine worked fine with the small test map that I was using, however once the potential existed for the entire 9'200 tile map to be populated it became unplayable. So, the core engine had to be entirely rebuilt and the results are here for all to see, running at 60fps smoothly on my mid range android tablet irrespective of map size/usage.

This build also adds variable FOW seen in almost all civ style games, with undiscovered map being totally blocked out, and previously discovered map tiles being only partially hidden.

The initial settler unit can now also be used to move freely around the map. The video shows the settler being used to move around and discover some coast line. Note: the entire control system is designed to use single tap inputs rather than drag or slide as I find these difficult to use for long periods, partly because the screen gets hot, and partly because my tablet screen isn't the most sensitive. This also shows the first major difference to civ game play as everything is based on time and cost. In this example the settler takes 100 days to move from any tile to another.

This also shows the map editor now totally glitch free and working in realtime to edit the map and decal layer at will.

As always, any thoughts or comments welcomed.

http://youtu.be/AITyNy_GQX8

Coming next:
The settler will found a town
Movement times for each tile will be displayed prior to moving
Movement time will be dependent on the terrain being crossed
The minimap will display only discovered map tiles (currently it shows everything!)
The editor will turn off FOW so that editing is easier.

Hopefully all the above will not take more than about a week, assuming I don;t need to rewrite the base engine again!
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Santman
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2013 04:08
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Well, it's been a couple of weeks now and things are getting a little more complicated, but progressing well. The core engine is a little "bitty" but everything is essentially in place to a degree as far as graphics go. This new video shows the map now has dynamic smoothing for tiles that are adjacent to one another to get rid of that blocky square look (not active on all tile elements yet). In addition, the woodlands deco layer is now animated, though not very well, but as it's built in further animation can be added as and when graphics allow. The basic sound engine is in place, and now sound effects play and stop dynamically dependent on what's on screen - birds are heard only when tree's are present, winds howl through the mountains, and the ocean laps away...assuming you can see it. (Note: guys, volume control on sounds would be just AWESOME!).

The crowning jewel for me though is the basic path finding algorithm that I now have in place. It's an A* algorithm employing the Manhattan method, and I reckon it's working pretty well for 3 evenings coding from scratch. At the moment tile terrain movement penalties aren't taken into account, however the next version will add this so the computer will find it's way around hills, forests and mountains if a faster path exists. For the curious, a complex(ish) map needing more than 90 tiles calculated to find the path takes less than 60 milliseconds on my android tablet, a measly 3 milliseconds slower than my desktop. It;s basically instant for my type of game. Gotta love AGK.

Hats off to Patrick Lester for his awesome guide to A*, best I found. Everyone should check it out..
http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm

Anyway, here's the vid...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPKv7u23dg
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MikeMax
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2013 09:34
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Quote: "Hats off to Patrick Lester for his awesome guide to A*, best I found. Everyone should check it out..
http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm"


Yes great guide


Due to the square Tiled Map, you should avoid diagonal moves in you A* Path ... no ?

Can't wait for character movements ! And your map editor is great. and ocean animation looks OK for me

Keep up the good work !
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Santman
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2013 13:09
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Thanks Mike, much appreciated. Not up to the impressive standards of Speed Racer though.

I'm not sure about the diagonal movement. I didn't restrict it as the game is turn based like civ, and I don;t see why diagonal movement shouldn't be allowed. The only exception to that I think I will put in is where the movement appears to be occurring over water, such as where to outcrops appear. Other units can move over water, and others only on water, so three versions are running anyway - and on top of that terrain types such as mountains, forests etc all have their own penalties so the movement would be much longer without diagonals. Swithering - later on will let gameplay decide. Lol.
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Ched80
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2013 16:30
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Cheers for the link to A* it's now.much clearer to me and I'll be adding it into ky game.

Yours looks promising!

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Santman
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2013 18:31
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After an unseemly amount of issues, including totally wrecking the path finding routine to the point of returning to a backup copy (never underestimate the benefit of creating a back up as soon as something new works!), the path finding now manages (of a sort) to move across terrain taking into account varying costs of certain types. Phew.

http://youtu.be/qNPn2DRJcQA

@Ched80,

You're more than welcome and many thanks. The last major coding hurdle now is computer AI....what a joy that will be!
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Phaelax
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2013 18:39
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Quote: "1) The map/world is too big?"

I thought it looked small

Quote: "2) The ocean (except the scrolling) looks ok?"

When you pan the map and the ocean moves at a different speed, I see you were going for a parallax appearance but it makes it seem as though the ground is floating above water.

Quote: "3) The min/max zoom levels are ok? (you will be able to move by clicking the map soon)"

Seems find to me, how's you do the zooming?

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Santman
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2013 18:53
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@Phaelax,

The displayed world is only what's discovered - the full map is 160*50 tiles, which is around 20 screens wide by 8.5 screens tall when zoomed normally. I didn't want the game to run for epic periods given it's target hardware is mobile/tablet devices, and the fact that I intend to continue to the game right into space and not end it where all the civ games do.

Yeah, the water I'm having issues with. At the moment it;s basically three separate sprites set behind the map with varying transparencies and texture scroll speeds, so getting the texture scroll to move correctly to the map is proving difficult to calculate. I may ditch them for tile based water graphics if I can't get that working right soon.
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Santman
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Posted: 8th Jul 2013 13:56 Edited at: 8th Jul 2013 13:58
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Been a quite couple of weeks as personal issues meant I didn't code for a week, but back in the swing now. Spent the better part of four evenings completely rewriting the screen drawing routine though. Previous, when the screen got complex, the frame rate on my android devices could drop to as low as 45,and when zoomed out it could be 20 or less and as low as 30 on the pc. Now the pc never drops below 60 and the android devices maintain 60 with only an occasional drop to 57-58. A couple more optimisations are needed, and I'm confident I can maintain 50+ regardless of the screen content and with 4 extra detail levels as my understanding of agk and sprites is now pretty good, but I have a concern. My phone is a note 2,and the tablet is a dual core with quad core dedicated graphics, so both would be mid to lower high end in spec. Does anyone have an android device that they would consider lower in spec that they would be prepared to run it on for a fps check if I upload an apk??
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Santman
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Posted: 10th Jul 2013 02:28
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Ok, here is the latest build of the Dominance game, which now shows the earliest inclines of actually solo game play....no computer opponents yet though. Despite my week out, I think it's coming along ok. The video averages 48-50 fps but this is bandicam, the actual game runs along quite happily at 60fps.

Changes in this update are:
* path-finding is now dynamic - if something changes after the initial path is calculated for a unit it will look for an alternative route - or notify the player depending on it's type
*finally sorted the water parallax and redid that a little
* basic resources can now be added to the map in the editor
* units can now move around the map "slidey style"
* settlers can found a town which will start at 1000 people but grow (in number and graphic) depending on nearby factors (each city has a unique birth/death rate - this will later take account of resources, disease etc)
* city borders have been added, and the ability to switch them between a border outline and shaded colour to represent ownership
* my keyboard algorithm has been built in, and a separate new keypad version built and added - touch screen typing is now a joy.
* screen drawing routine has been done again from scratch - now rarely dips below 60fps.
* the minimap generator has been rewritten and is now roughly 50% faster.
* map centering has been added so the map centers on units needing orders etc
* the minimap can now be clicked to move around large discovered maps

Phew. It doesn't seem a lot typed, but this was hard work!!! Lol. Next changes are integrating my server code to allow maps to be saved to the "cloud", and the ability to save multiple maps on the device/cloud. I'll bring in the first water based unit to allow ocean exploration, and land units to transport to new islands. Ocean will be split into coastal area's and deep sea (important later). Rivers and new terrain features. Roads. City growth based on nearby resources (including an early influence map for CPU players), and the commerce system will be active. A basic city screen (and maybe a few basic buildings!), and lastly the ability to build more land units (settlers for now).

Once all that is in, I hope to upload a demo if anyone is feeling generous to try it out, and maybe throw together a map or two.

(The link still has 46 mins to upload, but I have man flu so I'm going to bed...please be patient with it )

http://youtu.be/zKMjrSaZjJU
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Santman
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2013 02:33
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Well, it's been a while since I last posted so I thought I'd throw in this little update to keep the thread alive as much as anything else. I've attached a screenshot of the game as is, and another video:

http://youtu.be/B2MYfJ2ukC8

which shows some basic exploration for a single player (no CPU involvement yet). Please note, the ship unit is for testing and is faster than it will be in game, and would not be available at this point.

Not much more done from the list of new features I'd hoped for, partially down to limited coding time recently, and partly down to MILLIONS OF BUGS showing up left right and center. Still, the pathfinding is now (fingers crossed) fully bedding in (to cope with land, sea, land & sea, and air unit types), and the basics of city management are now worked out, and many other bugs are now gone. I've also added some basic interface elements such as message boxes YES/NO elements and such too, which I hadn't planned to add for some time but they just kind of skipped up the queue one night when I got bored bug hunting the movement code.

So where am I:
*Map saving (including on the "cloud")
*Water based unit with exploration -
*Transporting land units over water
*Coastal area's for oceans -
*Rivers and new terrain features
*Roads
*Commerce system - (in but not active)
*Resource effects on cities
*Basic city screen -
*Ability to build more units -

I must admit, my enthusiasm wavered slightly as of late, and I'm now thinking it's not going particularly well, although it does look and play well on a tablet so far, which is it's intended target audience. Once all the above is finished (roughly two weeks i should think) I will fire up a demo if anyone would be so gracious as to try it out for me. In the meantime, any thoughts/comments/suggestions for additions are more than welcomed.

P.S. I know the graphics are rubbish, but I'm not an artist so they are very, very much a work in progress until I can find an artist to work with.

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Auger
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2013 05:24
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Looking good. Kind of reminds me of the old seven cities of gold game or the Sid Meier Colonization series. Don't worry about the graphics too much. I'm in the same boat so I know that feeling.



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Santman
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2013 23:56
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Thanks Auger, much appreciated. Colonisation/civ was what I was aiming for, so can't be doing that bad a job after all. What's your current game? Got a link?
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Auger
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Posted: 6th Aug 2013 00:06
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Been taking a short summer break from programming (weather is too nice to sit inside). I've been working on word game based on the code I wrote for the Intel competition I was in last year. Once I get back maybe I'll start a WIP. Been working on setting up the database online for saving scores and user info.

When you need someone to test ... I have 2 android devices and an ipad. Be happy to help out .

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Santman
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Posted: 14th Aug 2013 01:02
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Auger,

As it happens, testers is exactly what I'll be needing very very soon.

I hope by this weekend to have a playable demo up and running (I have it working already, but want to do a little bug hunt first), but thought I'd get some opinions on some basic units for the game that I redraw. These aren't quite the completed articles, but they are now getting pretty close. What does everyone think? Almost acceptable?

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3d point in space
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Posted: 18th Aug 2013 19:47
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Santman. I can see you are really trying keep it up. Its hard when to create a game so just keep it up.

Developer of Space Chips, pianobasic, zipzapzoom, and vet pinball apps. Developed the tiled map engine seen on the showcase. Veteran for the military.
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Santman
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Posted: 20th Aug 2013 03:05
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3d point in space, thanks very much for the encouragement, it's always very much appreciated.

Ok, here's the first (kind of) playable android demo of the game core. Still no enemy AI, but other than that you can play with the map editor (it doesn't save more than one, and it's not yet transferable so I wouldn't spend too much time), and you can found a city, build a few buildings (as of yet currency and research are not active in this demo so the market and library will do nothing), recruit some units and explore a little.

Anyone wishing please feel free to have a go, but if so I would appreciate feedback on usability, performance (even basic android phones should give around the 30-40 fps mark. Couple of things that I am aware of, most notably the map zooming isn't refined yet so it tends to bounce you around quite a bit as you zoom in and out. You cannot as of yet earn anymore income, so once the initial £20'000 is gone it's time to restart. Graphics are largely placeholders still. Some text object scale issues still. Other than that, critique away - the more the better.

CONTROLS: pretty simple. Click a unit, a small command bar appears at the bottom, allowing you to move, sleep, delete and unit specific actions, such as board a ship. Hold on the screen and move your finger to scroll about, just click to choose a tile. If/once you've built a town, hold you finger on it for half a second to enter the city screen. Once orders are issued click the top left "END MOVES" button to advance time until something happens, clicking anywhere during this time will bring back control.

Not as much done as I hoped, but the core engine is now pretty much functional for units and is quit plug and play: now new units, once drawn, take less than two minutes to incorporate, as do buildings. I've also (hopefully) found an artist to work with, so hopefully some major visual improvements will come soon.

Hope you enjoy if you choose to try, please remember this is very, very early demo without computer AI.

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Santman
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Posted: 28th Aug 2013 02:34
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For those who wish to lend a hand, the alpha of my app is now on google play store. If anyone wants to follow updates to the game now (as this post seems not overly popular! Lol) then this link here

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116972023085921799679

if for it's google+ community. All members are authorised as alpha testers for the app, so as soon as you join you'll be sent the link to download the app. From then on, all updates will be delivered through the playstore like any other game.

I'll probably be back early next year when the game will hopefully be nearing it's "phase 1" completion, but in the meantime feel free to try it out, and let me know your thoughts on how it should proceed.

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haliop
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Posted: 28th Aug 2013 12:01 Edited at: 28th Aug 2013 12:10
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Asked will be delighted to try it out man. i really like the Game civilization which i think this is similar ?

Edit: as seen in the videos , please insert a feature for "auto Move" so you wont have to click the end turn button, like in Civ and other strategy games... "enable/disable auto move".. cause like this its kinda weird now i dont say copy Civ but allowing players who are recognized with this type of mechanic will make them happier.



http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=198467&b=22
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Santman
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Posted: 28th Aug 2013 13:34 Edited at: 28th Aug 2013 13:36
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Thanks haliop, greatly appreciated - and that's you accepted.

Regarding the option, how do you mean so you don't have to click end moves - an option soothe game just jumps forwards when no units are waiting to move? Easily done, I'll add that as a changeable option before the next build.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I posted the download link in the community, but if you have any issues just shout me.
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haliop
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Posted: 28th Aug 2013 13:45
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sure.
in civ 4 / 5 when you move a unit to a tile.. you dont have to click the end turn button, they just moves there and after everyone moved it sais "click to end the turn" ....
so you can have 2 options.
1. you assign each unit the wanted route , command etc.. and need to click the end turn to start the process.
2. you assign each unit the wanted round , command etc.. and they automaticly start doing it by the amount of stuff they can do each turn...


so if you set a route for a unit to move 10 tiles to the left and it can move 2 tiles per turn.. it will automaticly move 2 tiles and stop and until you hit the end turn it will stay there once you click the end turn it will move again 2 tiles and stop .. so then you still have the turn base technic but it looks and feels abit more real time which is something i would want not everyone .. but for me after years of playing civ i kinda get used to it..

so lets say you start a war and you assign alot of units to move towards the enemy base.. each unit has about 30 tiles to move, some can move 2 tiles some can move 3 some can move 1 ..
at the start point each moves at its paste then you can simply click the end turn about 30 times at most.. since some units have only one tile movement and everyone moves right? this is the same as you already did probably only that they star moving at the start of a turn rather then at the end after clicking..

its just a bit more dynamic theres really nothing much to it.. then to act like Civ games..



http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=198467&b=22
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Santman
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Posted: 21st Sep 2013 02:12
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Ok, I'm back with a bit of an update. Been a while since I posted here as the android beta community testing is up and running and that allows new alpha demo's to be delivered directly to the testers as they happen, so if anyone with an android device wishes to test the game please feel free to join this google+ community
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116972023085921799679
and you're automatically a tester - you'll be helping me out greatly. A link there takes you to the store to join the alpha program and download the game.

However, for the first time I have uploaded a PC demo here as well for anyone who wishes to play around with it can - any and all feedback is appreciated (haliop, I've not forgotten your auto-end moves request, it's in but for some reason buggy so it's disabled here).

Still in it's infancy, however the single player mechanics (not features/content) are essentially now complete and linked together, with the exception of research and diplomacy which will come with computer opponents.

So, updates since the last build:
*selected units now display their current orders, and how long until completion
*land units can now board sea units from cities and land tiles, if one with sufficient space is viable
*rivers have been added (in the editor these work like a toggle - WIP)
*cities can be cycled through from within the city screen
*worker units can now clear forest, build farmlands, and work/harvest special resources
*some buildings and units require specific resources to build
*some buildings require a certain city size to build
*military units can annex land at a cost. each separate "island" within any map can only be settled once. if a settlement owned by any player is already present on an island then additional settlements MUST be on owned/annexed territory. different islands do not have this requirement. Be wary - the cost of annexing land is linked to the distance from the nearest city on the same island - the further away it is, the more it costs!
*cities are now limited to their maximum size. building farmlands will allow for larger cities, but the effect is only within two tiles of any city and closer farmlands give larger bonuses
*a basic options screen has been implemented
*now supports up to 5 separate save games (can be used for now with the editor to create different maps - cloud saving will come when I renew my hosting package)
*stacked units now have a visual selection process (not implemented for units leaving ships yet - these disembark in the order they embarked)
*city screen has different backgrounds to visually depict the current size of the city
*the editor will now intelligently separate and identify individual islands irrespective of shape or complexity
*a simple tutorial interface is implemented (currently only guides you through founding your first city, but code is complete)

AND SOME BUG FIXES
*fixed city names only displaying at zoom levels where they do not corrupt
*fixed persistent unit command icons when no unit is selected
*city screen now displays population level correctly
*text objects size correctly on devices not in the standard 16:9 ratio
*some layout fixes
*resources indicators no longer appear on top of cities, obscuring them
*fixed a path finding issue where plains were allowing continuous instant movement until the terrain type changed again

There's also been a lot of behind the scenes work done on various things. At the moment what I am most proud of is that the entire game is almost completely modular - when it's done the in game editor will allow almost ANYTHING to be modded, from unit/building names and the effects they give, to the very graphics themselves (at the moment graphics are largely placeholders, however I have a separate code to be integrated which allows any texture to be uploaded and the game can generate game tiles based on this, including smoothing and coastlines etc). So once done, you can if you want create a new game with new graphics, units, buildings, techs, descriptors for just about everything, then upload them to share.

Anyway, I hope this shows a little progress in the right direction, but if not just tell me what you don't like. I'm now moving onto enemy AI, so by next month hopefully there will be barbarians to fight off and an enemy civilization to start dominating!!! Maybe I will get all the mechanics together and working by Christmas after all.....if I stay of GTA 5 for a while!

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3d point in space
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Posted: 24th Sep 2013 05:59 Edited at: 24th Sep 2013 06:03
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Wrong post, but your editor is cool

Developer of Space Chips, pianobasic, zipzapzoom, and vet pinball apps. Developed the tiled map engine seen on the showcase. Veteran for the military.
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Santman
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Posted: 24th Sep 2013 13:25
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Lol, I'll admit i was a bit confused by the email of your post till I saw the edit.

Thanks though.
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Santman
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Posted: 14th Oct 2013 02:47
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Quick update this time, with a simple video link.

Here attached is the first video of combat within Dominance, and how it's handled.

http://youtu.be/FB1wZGHF2M8

Unlike the Civ games Dominance is based on, combat does not take the form of a "unit X is this strong, unit Y is this strong, so there's a Z percent chance you'll win" calculation. Instead, players are dropped into a turn based strategic battle. This small section shows the player tackling some barbarians. Although the barbarians are static and as of yet do nothing other than defend, the mechanics are shown. The engine can allow up to ten units in the attacking force, and 100 in the defending (once formed, armies can have up to ten units within them. Although the player will only ever attack with a maximum of one army, they could in theory be attacking more than one).

The engine will also allow obstacles such as hills and swamps which slow units, mountains which ranged units cannot shoot behind, and trees which the defender can use to hide forces ready to ambush the attacker.

The engine also allows a multiple unit combat scenario. That means, for every friendly unit attacking the same enemy unit simultaneously, the defensive ability of the unit being attacked is reduced. This means that even the strongest of units can quickly be overwhelmed if swarmed by much weaker units from all angles. This will bring a significant tactical element to the traditionally uninvolved system of the Civ games.

The interface took a while longer than I hoped for, and still needs some polish, but now it;s done this week some AI should be in which means the barbarians will actively attack settlements and units, and fight back in battles.
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Santman
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Posted: 26th Dec 2013 19:29
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Been a long while since I posted here as I had about a month and a half off while I, amongst other things, upgraded my PC. However all my recent work has been on AI and the battle engine, none of which is visually ready or interesting at the moment.

So today I decided to look into a simple procedural forest generator to improve those extremely dodgy, stodgy hand drawn ones. It's less than 3 hours work start to finish, so it's very basic, but I think it looks better already and is entirely automated.

The next version will allow individual animation of each tree, control over the sway speed, and will be built into the in game engine so that custom forests of the same/better quality can be added by anyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VK5Q3_GQos&hd=1

The battle engine is almost done in it's first draft (I had to start a fresh and rewrite the entire thing, however now battles are great when 6 or more units fight it out!), so within a month or so I hope to have a video up showing the first AI units, barbarians, roving the map, attacking the player intelligently, and some nice semi turn based/semi RTS style battles in full swing.
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Naphier
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Posted: 26th Dec 2013 20:05
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Looks pretty cool!

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Santman
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Posted: 26th Dec 2013 20:22
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Thanks. It's never going to be a visually stunning game, but almost anything would be better than my hand art! Lol
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Santman
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Posted: 2nd Jan 2014 02:05 Edited at: 2nd Jan 2014 02:08
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Another quick update to show, and hopefully get thoughts on, the current AI for battles. This short video now shows functional AI for barbarians, and runs through two short combat scenes showing how the outcomes vary drastically between sending in weak swordsmen against armoured military spearmen.

http://youtu.be/_24ZO-k2sNQ

So what do you think of the way the combat system is shaping up in comparison to the civ style games of just doing a percentage based estimate?

TECHY NOTES:
The code as stands supports:
*up to 20 units in any one battle (the player can form armies of up to 10 units which can attack at once, which the AI can obviously accommodate too for large army vs army battles).
*every unit has close and ranged attack and defence ratings, and these are accurately taken into account in every assault and defence based on the actual soldiers left in the unit at the time. This is augmented by a small random factor of casualties to enhance the realism of actual combat and ensure battles are never just maths or pure random percentage chances.
*multiple units attacking a single unit will have a detrimental effect on both the defence of the attacked unit as well as the amount of damage it can return to the attackers so that even powerful enemies can be defeated by enough smaller enemies
*units who neither move nor attack will "entrench" for one move, which raises their defence against close attacks (swords etc) by 25% however will lower their defence against ranged attacks (bows and arrows etc) by 50% so that against a mixed force the player must choose very carefully which form of attack to do

Next up, more battle plans (barbarians simply attack non stop), demonstrations of the player taking multiple units into combat against larger enemy forces and landscape factors such as trees (at the start units placed in tree will be "hidden" to the enemy until they are either moved or the enemy stumbles on them - trees will make movements take two turns instead of one, however if the enemy walks into a hidden unit then an ambush bonus will raise the attack stats of the hidden enemy by 25% and lower the defence stats of the unit which walked into by 75% for one fight....which can be devastating even for powerful units. After that, another playable demo will be out. Phew.
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Santman
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Posted: 17th Jan 2014 19:38
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This will be the last vid for a while as the next section is going to be tackling map based AI so it's going to be a large chunk without any playable functionality, however this last video (quite a long one) now shows a better idea of the games pacing and how it will eventually play. A simple tutorial will guide the player into founding a settlement, and then locating and destroying a local barbarian horde (this will become a mission style of format later, which will be randomly generated in the background to stop the game becoming slow and empty).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a9ZqiYFk8w&hd=1

*armies are now functional (was actually far more complex than I expected!!!!)
*battles now have trees and hills in them which are randomly generated, the frequency of which is determined by the tile the combat is taking place on. These affect movement speed.

Any thoughts anyone? Anyone interested in having a try of a PC/android version?

I also hope to try a kickstarter for this to refresh the graphics - any thoughts from anyone who's done a kickstarter as to which area I should improve first before going with it?

(Sorry for the video skipping a bit, I had to get it below 15 for YouTube)
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Santman
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Posted: 26th Jan 2014 23:26 Edited at: 28th Jan 2014 01:46
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Ok everyone, I have finally pieced together a PC demo. Please be aware that this is still pre-alpha, highly incomplete, and WILL feature bugs and glitches.

This will allow some simple gameplay, a tutorial mission guiding you through creating an army and attacking some nearby barbarians (later not fulfilling these will lower city happiness). Beyond this, you can play with the editor as stands (currently only the map, units etc are still manual at the moment) and you can expand your nation to many islands. This build also has the complete world (of sorts) built into to show the rough expanse that is possible.

The full game is aiming for July/August this year, but I hope to start a kickstarter early next month so please offer any feedback you want.

I already have issues to redo the movement system to be more touchscreen friendly (invert etc), and to add more PC specific controls (mouse wheel scrolling etc), however I'm focusing more on android first to begin with.

If anyone wants an apk to try on an android device you can either join the beta group here:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116972023085921799679

to get updates as I do them, or I'll upload this one here.

Thanks in advance, I know testing others work is a big favour to ask.

P.S. All the assets in here are mine, save for the music, however it goes without saying that I am uploading here in good trust.


EDIT: The .exe which I attached before was the wrong one, that one was buggy and within a few units will have caused graphical corruption and a crash to desktop, as well as unit vision not to update when moving. I've re-attached the correct archive here now.

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Santman
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Posted: 31st Jan 2014 01:59 Edited at: 31st Jan 2014 03:04
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This is positively the last video that I will be posting for a while, as I've been working away on the graphical elements of the game and have made some minor improvements to the appearance, but finally sorted a key part of the main game - map smoothing.

This video shows the new system, now easily and instantly modded, in action. The game is run with it's default 6 tile types, and the editor shows some of the blending going on, merging one tile into another. I then exit the program, delete one of the tiles, and replace it with a brand new repeating tile I downloaded about 15 mins before - NO WORK HAS BEEN DONE ON THIS. Once loaded into the blending tool a smoothing texture is created, and the game reloaded where the new graphic is used right away, and blended into the surrounding tiles. This will eventually be completely done in game, once the editor gets an upgraded later.

There are also additional detailing textures applied to the landscape - it's probably not visible in the video, however every tile can have an optional detailing texture added (alterable in the editor) which adds subtle shading changes to each tile to stop it looking quite so "tiled" if you will, though this is early still. On top of this, some random decals are now also scattered adding small ferns, rocks and fallen trees etc (again, customizable and at the moment only for technical setting and more variations will be added).

http://youtu.be/39SNp7B1wk8

All in all, if it's compared to the video's/images from when I started, I think it's looking ok, given my limited art skills.

NOTE: for this video, I gave the unit a much larger visual range, and you'll have to bear with me as only one of my two screens is recorded.
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Boulderdash
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Posted: 31st Jan 2014 03:49
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Quote: "
Once all that is in, I hope to upload a demo if anyone is feeling generous to try it out, and maybe throw together a map or two.

(The link still has 46 mins to upload, but I have man flu so I'm going to bed...please be patient with it )

http://youtu.be/zKMjrSaZjJU"


Thanks for the Utube demo, very nice to watch
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Boulderdash
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Posted: 1st Feb 2014 09:23
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Just a thought, what about hexagon shaped tiles for something different ?
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Santman
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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 01:17
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@Boulderdash,

If I had to start over again then maybe I would go with the hexagonal tiles, however at this stage I'm far too far into development to change, to much code would need altered now. Maybe Dominance 2.

Anyway, I'm about to fire up a kickstarter and was playing around with the editor and did some quick graphics replacements to test. These are entirely done within 90 mins (both of them - thanks google for the image help!) as a demo, and is to demonstrate how easily the graphcis can be swapped out. Thought I'd share. Be aware, they are rough, but that because I'm not an artist and they were literally just lifts off of google to demo how easy it is.

[img]null[/img]

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Santman
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Posted: 6th Apr 2014 02:29
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This quick post is more to keep the thread alive than anything else, but the attachment shows the functional influence mapping in the game now. Essentially a land value graph, the yellow colouring shows the increasing value of the land which the AI uses to decide where to build cities and which enemy cities are the best ones to attack.

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