[Freeciv-Dev] Technology demo.

["Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some of you may recall that I have previously mentioned that I am
working on another game in the same general genre as Freeciv.  I have
just updated the website, so I thought I'd direct you to it in case you
want to peek at it for ideas and inspiration.  (Many of the ideas are
actually derived from discussions on the Freeciv lists.)

It is nowhere near being a complete game, but I do have screenshots of
the parts that are working.  For the near future you should think of it
as a technology demo rather than as a game.

It has a Game Manager to spawn client and server processes as required,
but I know you guys are already well on the way to having that
implemented, so there's no news there.

The game uses a hexmap rather than squares.  It also represents
elevations, and rivers are generated by "putting some water" in each hex
and letting it run down to the sea, accumulating the water as it goes,
so you get some really nice, naturalistic river patterns.  The rivers
also get wider as they run to the sea, though right now I'm just drawing
them with straight lines rather than artwork.  (I actually draw them
with width = Log2(size), since otherwise the big rivers get *too* big
before they reach the sea.)

Perhaps the nicest feature, though the idea probably needs to evolve a
bit more, is that the player client has a notebook of several maps
rather than a single map.  You can create new maps at run time, and give
them distinctive names that will show up on the tabs of the notebook.
Each map in the notebook can zoom and scroll independently, so you can
create maps for all your hot spots and bring them up each turn by simply
clicking on the appropriate tab; the map is right there where you left
it, except that the contents have been updated.

[I have mixed feelings about the zooming.  I implemented it with the
GTK+ pixbuf, so you can zoom to any arbitrary scale that pleases you.
However, there are some substantial resource consumption issues when you
try to do this with large maps.  It's not too terribly bad if you pick a
zoom and leave it that way, but I'm still not very happy with it.
However, I've made a lot of efficiency enhancements already, so perhaps
I'll think of some more in the future.  Also, there are new versions of
the libraries out, so I may get an efficiency boost when I upgrade,
too.  Efficient arbitrary zooming would be a nice feature in almost any
game.]

Another feature, which is not actually shown on the screenshots, is that
you can add a text label to any point on the map.  This would be useful
for players who like to play solitaire and develop their civilizations,
but probably not for competition matches.  However, if you end up
implementing assembly points such as someone suggested a few days back,
it might be nice to let the player assign an arbitrary label to a map
cell, and then use that label as the target for a GoTo, waypoint,
assembly point, etc.  That would keep you from having to scroll the map
and click on the destination of a GoTo, which can really be a nuissance
when you're moving large armies far across the map.

That's all for now.  There are screenshots and notes at the website.  I
have a pile of other ideas, but I haven't worked out the details or
written any code for them yet, but I'll keep you posted on whatever I
come up with.  I should have more opportunities to work on it this year
than I did last year.

The game is GPL'd.  You probably don't want the code, because it's
written in Ada, but if you do want to see it drop me a line and I'll put
a tarball out for you.  (I didn't link it, because it's in a pretty
messy state right now.  Everything is experimental, so there's still
lots of embarrassing "if false then...else..." kind of stuff in it.)

However, none of the screenshots are "simulated'.  What is shown does
actually work, though of course I generated half a dozen worlds and
picked the best one for the screenshots.

The Web site is
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bdbryant/yasfync/index.html.

Later,

Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas