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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Strategy game creation

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DarkNightHunter
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Joined: 21st Mar 2003
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 00:52
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hey everyone,

Has anyone had a go at creating a strategy war games like Age of Empires, is it possible on DBP?
Does anyone has any tips/knowledge or something to contribute to the subject?
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ZomBfied
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 01:12
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Check the gallery. Somebody made a RTS command & conquer type game and somebody else is making an undersea one.

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The admiral
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 01:13
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Yes ive been working on a space rts game that I am still working on.I have come along way on it but bewarned it is not easy in any respects it took me ages of hardwork and pain times when I felt like giving up so if u start you need to be devoted to your project.
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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 02:26
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I'm working on an RTS game engine at the moment and infact i'm guilty of mentioning it in too many threads so I wont say it's name here You can see pictures at my site if you are interested in it.

The beauty of strategy games is they are not dependant on great graphics, but instead great gameplay - and this meens making a good AI.

One of the interesting aspects about this is the AI's written for commercial RTS games are extremely primitive. I remain unconvinced that there is a single commercial AI programmer out there that can make a tough AI for an RTS game without it having to 'cheat' in order to prove a challenge as the existing examples really are apalling, predictable and easy to defeat.

Yet the principles behind an advanced AI are relatively easy to master if you are good at mathematics (heuristics in particular) and know how to organise fairly considerable amounts data.

The AI I am writting for the RTS game I wont name in this thread i'm calling a "heuristic poly-dimensional dynamic heirarchical command structure" and essentially this translates in to it forming a full scale battle plan at each level of the command structure, and dynamically re-assigning units as appropriate.

This meens a subtle change such as an infantryman coming under fire could force dramatic consequences right up the chain of command in order to bring in fire support. The decision as to whether to do so is heuristic, the units actual actions are multi-levelled much like my Gettin' Shot Up 2 game where if you fired on a soldier he'd run for cover before shooting back if it was sensible to do so, rather than standing and firing like a lemon.

Achieving this level of complexity is actually not very difficult, it just takes a pretty good programmer to achieve it quickly enough to handle it for a lot of units, which is my personal aim.

Good luck.

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.
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xtom
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 03:43
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Most rts games suffer from predictable ai. After a while of fighting an ai opponent they tend to repeat the same 2 or 3 attack patterns. And most of the time they just use brute force attacks. I guess this makes it easier for the ai opponent to stay alive longer rather than it taking risky strategies but I'd still like to see ai making more cheeky unpredictable attacks in games. I've been playing generals lately and it does unfortunately still suffer from predictable ai although it's still a blast having 2 or more brutal enemies.
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the architect
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 23:34
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Be warned. There are a million RTS games out there and most stick to the same boring concept. I loved RTS until I realised every new one was going to be the same gameplay as the last except for a little improvement in graphics and different looking units.

The only RTS I respect now are WAR OF THE WORLDS and TOTAL WAR which tried to scale the battles and unit production to a much more realistic balance.

Even the new COMMAND AND CONQUER have changed the format of unit production. I reccomend that if you try to make one try to break away from the repetative format of a million others...

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the architect
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 23:34
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Sorry I meant to say dozens not millions!

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rapscaLLion
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2003 23:46
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sounds cool PD!
I've been wondering... what is the definition of heurostics?

Anyway, in response to the first question, any type of game is possible, the hardest being RPG and RTS. and FPS I suppose... well no games are easy to make but hey, RPGs are prolly the hardest.

Alex Wanuch
aka rapscaLLion
Kousen Dev Progress >> Currently Working On Editors
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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2003 03:31 Edited at: 23rd Mar 2003 03:35
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I've been using heuristics for years but only learned the word myself the other day!

In mathematics if you want to arrive at an answer and you know the question you use algebra, ie. a+b=c.

If you don't know the question then you use heuristics and it's actually quite simple.

You need a frame of reference to work with of course and as we dont know the question, we look at the possible answers. Let's assume a route-finding example as this is perhaps the easiest to explain.

If my choices are up, right, down, and left then those are my possible answers so to work out which one is correct I will use heuristics to 'points score' them using a weighting system.

My destination is above me and slightly to the right, so UP scores 5pts and RIGHT scores 2pts.

However there is a road running from the square below me to the square on my right, so RIGHT and DOWN score 4pts bonus each for the road.

Due to gradient changes to my right where there is a steap hill, it scores -3pts.

My totals are:

UP = 5pts
RIGHT = 2pts+4pts-3pts = 3pts
DOWN = 4pts
LEFT = 0pts

So in this example I would move up. I got to the answer despite not having an algebratic formula for it - this is called heuristics. In the case of route-finding, this heuristic method is reffered to as A*.

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.
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PiratSS
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2003 03:35
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I am working on 3D Pathfinding for RTS!

It's A* pathfinding, but I still have some problems with nodes.

It's really something new without any tutorials.


Cheers.

Current project for RGT:

ALL MY STUFF ARE GONE!! ALL OF IT!!!
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