civil-devel Mailing List for Civil

On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>> Ooh, you dare say 'A' without saying 'B'...? :D
>
>Just a little tease! :P
>
>Suffice to say, expect something along similar 
>lines to the full-screen statics I've already 
>done. Except with dead people... ;-)

Sounds promising... I assume we'll have to wait and see what materializes
in CVS then?

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

> Ooh, you dare say 'A' without saying 'B'...? :D

Just a little tease! :P

Suffice to say, expect something along similar 
lines to the full-screen statics I've already 
done. Except with dead people... ;-)

G


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On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:
>
>>   * end-of-game screen with statistics about 
>> the battle
>
>I've got something special in mind for the 
>backdrop of this screen... :)

Ooh, you dare say 'A' without saying 'B'...? :D

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:

>   * end-of-game screen with statistics about 
> the battle

I've got something special in mind for the 
backdrop of this screen... :)

G


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On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>At 06:58 PM 4/25/01, you wrote:
>>The button is being used now, have a look at the screenshots page too, I
>>added a new shot there (two really today) showing the new button.
>
>:)
>
>>I'll tag this as 0.20 tomorrow, just to mark that we're approaching 1.00
>>(we'll have to increase the speed at which the version number increase if
>>we want to reach 1.00 before we run out of stuff to implement).
>
>Whoah. That's feeling kinda good right now. 0.20! :)

:-) Well, there it is now, tag is CIVIL-0_20. To get exactly that version
use:

	% cvs co -r CIVIL-0_20

So, what is up next?

  * simple dialog for inputting chat messages

  * calculate real command delays as we now have access to all commanders

  * start working on combat (although I'd rather do the movement parts
    properly first so that it works fine)

  * AI. It should be a hour worth of time to add the stubs for a brutally
    simple AI that connects and just 'sits' there and does nothing. Could
    make testing easier and provide a framework for someone more skilled
    in AI design.

  * saving/loading games

  * end-of-game screen with statistics about the battle

  * reinforcements (in scenario and code)

  * muchos else?

>>Virtual beer and champagne all around!
>
>I think you deserve to get drunk more than I atm. You've been storming the 
>last couple of months. Well played...

No I haven't. It just seems so as the changes have been quite easy to do
and required very little time...

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

At 06:58 PM 4/25/01, you wrote:
>The button is being used now, have a look at the screenshots page too, I
>added a new shot there (two really today) showing the new button.

:)

>I'll tag this as 0.20 tomorrow, just to mark that we're approaching 1.00
>(we'll have to increase the speed at which the version number increase if
>we want to reach 1.00 before we run out of stuff to implement).

Whoah. That's feeling kinda good right now. 0.20! :)

>Virtual beer and champagne all around!

I think you deserve to get drunk more than I atm. You've been storming the 
last couple of months. Well played...

G



-- 
"Computer games don't affect kids. I mean if Pacman had affected us as
kids, we'd all be running around in a darkened room munching pills and
listening to repetitive music." -- Unknown
--

On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>In the dialogs/ there's a file called butt-help-close.png

The button is being used now, have a look at the screenshots page too, I
added a new shot there (two really today) showing the new button.

Notice also the short label after the unit name. It shows the "hq status"
for the unit. That particualr unit contains the hq/commander for
the organization "Regiment 1". So the hq stuff from the scenarios is
actually parsed, assigned and used right now. Note that only
scenario10.xml is still being used.

I'll tag this as 0.20 tomorrow, just to mark that we're approaching 1.00
(we'll have to increase the speed at which the version number increase if
we want to reach 1.00 before we run out of stuff to implement).

Virtual beer and champagne all around!

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>Hi,
>
>In the dialogs/ there's a file called butt-help-close.png
>
>Apologies for not uploading it last night, I was doing some documentation 
>for work and kinda lost track of time...! ;-)

Njet problemos. Nothing should depend on a delay of a few days. We do this
when we have time and it's fun.

>BTW -- I've been playing around, and the help system is working really 
>nice. Thank you for the code Jan, I think it was well worth the effort...

Thanks, I'm quite satisfied too.

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

At 10:11 AM 4/25/01, you wrote:
>Gareth: feature request! Could you add something simple for a cursor that
>can be used when rotating a unit? Maybe something simple like two arrows
>pointing at each other a bit like the normal "recycling" logo? Ahem, ascii
>follows:


Lol! Yup, I know what you mean. I'm knee deep in documentation for work 
atm, so it'll probably appear over the weekend... No problemo...

Personally, I'm inclined to keep you're ASCII representation! ;-)

G


-- 
"Computer games don't affect kids. I mean if Pacman had affected us as
kids, we'd all be running around in a darkened room munching pills and
listening to repetitive music." -- Unknown
--

Hi,

In the dialogs/ there's a file called butt-help-close.png

Apologies for not uploading it last night, I was doing some documentation 
for work and kinda lost track of time...! ;-)

BTW -- I've been playing around, and the help system is working really 
nice. Thank you for the code Jan, I think it was well worth the effort...

G

-- 
"Computer games don't affect kids. I mean if Pacman had affected us as
kids, we'd all be running around in a darkened room munching pills and
listening to repetitive music." -- Unknown
--

Hi all,

I interpreted silence as approval, so each highlevel organization now has
a company where the commander is placed. I merely added an attribute "hq"
to the scenario files, see scenario10.xml for an example (it is btw the
only one that is updated, to other ones are not, and will not work until
they are). The hq is indicated using the company id. This is ok, as the hq
is actually set after all suborganizations (and therefore all companies)
have been loaded.

I need some ideas as to how the player can be shown that a unit is a
headquarter. Maybe blit out some stars? One for battallion hq, two for
regiment, three for brigade, four for division etc? Or use the official
"markings"?

Gareth: feature request! Could you add something simple for a cursor that
can be used when rotating a unit? Maybe something simple like two arrows
pointing at each other a bit like the normal "recycling" logo? Ahem, ascii
follows:

          ___
         /   \
         ^   v
         \___/

Ouch! Hideous. :-) Or something like:

         _  _
        / \/ \
        v |  v
          |

Ouch! Horrible. But you understand what I'm after? Or if you have other
plans please use 'em. And as usual I just remind you of the existence of
such a need, thus indicating that the need is not urgent... :-)

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:
>
>
>> :-) I'll add it to the dialogs tonight then. On 
>> the other hand I got a
>> TV-card I plan on outting in our entertainment 
>> box tonight too, so I've
>> got a conflict of interests...

>Actually, do your TV card tonight. My girlie is back from her 'holiday'
>today, so I'll be spending all night 'snuggling' up... ;-)

Sounds familiar. :-) "Now I'm home again and you'd better show me some
attention or else..."

Of course my fscking PC thought putting three devices on the same IRQ was
a good idea, and apparently that locks the machine up. Solid. 

>I'll get it done and up tomorrow. I don't think I'd live till the end of
>the week if I touched a PC tonight...

No panic at all, I made it use another old button for the time being, so I
could test it out. 

I thought about bumping up the version number once again after this
commander issue has been solved and implemented, just to make it look like
we're progressing. Maybe 0.20?

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

Hi all,

Remember my question about wether we should use dedicated headquarter
units or just assign commanders to some company? Well, it seems like it
would be best to assign the commanders to one of the companies in the
ortganization they command, and designate this company somehow as a "hq".
We really don't need to do anything else than have some kind of "role"  
flag in each company that inform the player what it really is, e.g.

	* division hq
	* brigade hq
	* regiment hq
	* battallion hq
	* regular company 

Each company would of course have its normal commander, but some would
have an additional higher ranked commander taking care of a larger
organization. The company would thus act as a kind of hq, maybe at reduced
size to simulate the staff and optional guard. The only change to the
scenario files *could* be to add the id of the hq company to each
organization, so the snippet below:

      <brigade id="1" name="Brigade 1">
        <leader name="Gen. Molger">
           <experience value="90"/><aggressiveness value="80"/>
           <rally value="70"/><motivation value="60"/>
        </leader>

would become:


      <brigade id="1" name="Brigade 1" hq="10">
        <leader name="Gen. Molger">
           <experience value="90"/><aggressiveness value="80"/>
           <rally value="70"/><motivation value="60"/>
        </leader>

where "10" is the id of a company. The company is flagged as a brigade hq,
and the leader added to it.

Does this make sense or not? Unless objections/better ideas materialize
I'll start working on this scheme tomorrow, just to drive the coding
forward.

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:
>
>> Due to popular demand the CVS version of Civil 
>> now has help-texts for
>> all
>> states. Press F1 at any time should bring up a 
>> small dialog with the
>> help
>> text. Cool or what? :-)
>
>Very cool. Very cool indeed. Many thanks, that 
>will help quite a few people out...
>
>I'll probably go over the docs sometime this week 
>and make some updates where required.

What really would be needed is a "player's manual" that would help players
get into the game. It should eventually be very complete as to what the
game does behind the scenes, how modifiers affect battle outcome etc. For
now we could try to document what is stable and will unlikely change, such
as starting a new game and basic in-game stuff. 

We could try and bounce a little "table of contents" on the list for a few
days, and add things we would like to be in such a manual.

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:

> Due to popular demand the CVS version of Civil 
> now has help-texts for
> all
> states. Press F1 at any time should bring up a 
> small dialog with the
> help
> text. Cool or what? :-)

Very cool. Very cool indeed. Many thanks, that 
will help quite a few people out...

I'll probably go over the docs sometime this week 
and make some updates where required.

G


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On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Jan Ekholm wrote:

>On 23 Apr 2001, Mike Earl wrote:

>>Mmm, yes.  Is anything besides help going to need that?  If not, might
>>be simpler just to pass the 'escape to' state to the help state when
>>it's triggered...
>
>There may (likely will) be others too. I don't think it to be that
>unlikely that we may want smaller "substates" to take care of some minor
>task, and then again be faced with the problem. I'll check wether passing
>'self' to the states can be used. If it does, that could be a pretty good
>solution, as it enables a stack (if needed), but it can also be ignored
>too.

Ok, I'll respond to myself here... It is quite easy to pass along the
'caller' to selected states, such as Help. In fact I added the few missing
lines and now it works just fine.

What would I do if you weren't there and stopped me when my creativity has
gone all wild... :-)

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On 23 Apr 2001, Mike Earl wrote:

>On 23 Apr 2001 20:31:10 +0300, Jan Ekholm wrote:
>> 
>> Due to popular demand the CVS version of Civil now has help-texts for all
>> states. Press F1 at any time should bring up a small dialog with the help
>> text. Cool or what? :-)
>
>Very slick.

Thanks!

>> It could use some more colors, images (when needed) font etc, but that's a
>> later problem. I could whack up some simple "markup" to let you tag stuff
>> in the help texts as color, bold etc, but that's also for later.
>
>That Way Lies Madness.  But then, I think the <font> tag was the ruin of
>HTML, so maybe my opinions on eye candy are not widely shared. ;)

Yeah, you are right. It was more a joke than meant to be taken seriously.
But *if* we need something I can come up with something simple to enable
more nice stuff.
 
>> The solution could be to have a stack of states, and the topmost is the
>> active state. Activating some states would clear the stack, but some
>> states would just push themselves onto the stack, thus making it possible
>> to later resume another state. Maybe a "global" in scr/scenario.py?
>
>Mmm, yes.  Is anything besides help going to need that?  If not, might
>be simpler just to pass the 'escape to' state to the help state when
>it's triggered...

There may (likely will) be others too. I don't think it to be that
unlikely that we may want smaller "substates" to take care of some minor
task, and then again be faced with the problem. I'll check wether passing
'self' to the states can be used. If it does, that could be a pretty good
solution, as it enables a stack (if needed), but it can also be ignored
too.

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On 23 Apr 2001 20:31:10 +0300, Jan Ekholm wrote:
> 
> Due to popular demand the CVS version of Civil now has help-texts for all
> states. Press F1 at any time should bring up a small dialog with the help
> text. Cool or what? :-)

Very slick.

> It could use some more colors, images (when needed) font etc, but that's a
> later problem. I could whack up some simple "markup" to let you tag stuff
> in the help texts as color, bold etc, but that's also for later.

That Way Lies Madness.  But then, I think the <font> tag was the ruin of
HTML, so maybe my opinions on eye candy are not widely shared. ;)
 
> The solution could be to have a stack of states, and the topmost is the
> active state. Activating some states would clear the stack, but some
> states would just push themselves onto the stack, thus making it possible
> to later resume another state. Maybe a "global" in scr/scenario.py?

Mmm, yes.  Is anything besides help going to need that?  If not, might
be simpler just to pass the 'escape to' state to the help state when
it's triggered...

- mikee

Due to popular demand the CVS version of Civil now has help-texts for all
states. Press F1 at any time should bring up a small dialog with the help
text. Cool or what? :-)

It could use some more colors, images (when needed) font etc, but that's a
later problem. I could whack up some simple "markup" to let you tag stuff
in the help texts as color, bold etc, but that's also for later.

There is a small problem with the state machine right now. If you for
instance select a unit, activate the help and press escape to close the
help the game has "forgotten" that a unit was selected and returned to the
"idle". Activating help will always forget the last state, unless it was
"idle". The resone for this is that "idle" has no way of knowing what
state should be activated one it's done.

The solution could be to have a stack of states, and the topmost is the
active state. Activating some states would clear the stack, but some
states would just push themselves onto the stack, thus making it possible
to later resume another state. Maybe a "global" in scr/scenario.py?

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:


> :-) I'll add it to the dialogs tonight then. On 
> the other hand I got a
> TV-card I plan on outting in our entertainment 
> box tonight too, so I've
> got a conflict of interests...

Actually, do your TV card tonight. My girlie is 
back from her 'holiday' today, so I'll be 
spending all night 'snuggling' up... ;-)

I'll get it done and up tomorrow. I don't think 
I'd live till the end of the week if I touched a 
PC tonight...


> With some extending it can be used for other 
> more advanced formatting
> too,
> such as labels with images, tables etc. The 
> sky's the limit.

He He. You'll regret saying that later! ;-)

G


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On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Gareth Noyce wrote:

>Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:
>
>{SCHNIP}
>
>Hey, that looks really cool. I like that! I like 
>that a hell of a lot... Excellent Jan! 
>Excellent...

Thanks. It mainly rips the border from EditField and adds a few labels. A
little bit from here and a little bit from there.

>> (anywhere) or pressing Escape. I'll add a 
>> button later when one
>> materializes into the CVS, which is the reason 
>> why it's a bit too tall
>> right now.
>
>Ooo, that was me wasn't it?! Sorry, I have 
>actually done this. I'll push it into CVS 
>tomorrow when I get near my PC...

:-) I'll add it to the dialogs tonight then. On the other hand I got a
TV-card I plan on outting in our entertainment box tonight too, so I've
got a conflict of interests...

As another note the dialog stuff can really be used for all kinds of texts
that should be shown to the user, as long as it requires no extra
formatting besides the currently used "one line == one label".

With some extending it can be used for other more advanced formatting too,
such as labels with images, tables etc. The sky's the limit.

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

Quoting Jan Ekholm <ch...@in...>:

{SCHNIP}

Hey, that looks really cool. I like that! I like 
that a hell of a lot... Excellent Jan! 
Excellent...

> (anywhere) or pressing Escape. I'll add a 
> button later when one
> materializes into the CVS, which is the reason 
> why it's a bit too tall
> right now.

Ooo, that was me wasn't it?! Sorry, I have 
actually done this. I'll push it into CVS 
tomorrow when I get near my PC...

<sheepish-grin>'Thought I'd already added it... 
</sheepish-grin>

G



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Hi,

I hacked up a quick'n'dirty version for help dialogs. Look at the new
screenshot on the homepage. Doesn't look at all that bad, and it's quite
easy to use. Each state in the game and easily activate the Help state by
creating an instance and passing it a list of labels, like this:

def callbackX (self):
    # create labels
    labels = [ "Ho, ho, this is the first line",
               "And the second",
               " ", # an empty line
               "F1 - show this help" ]

    # create and return a new state showing our labels
    return state.help.Help ( labels )	

See example in src/state/Idle, method help(). The help is activated
(currently) with the key F1, and closed by clicking the left mouse button
(anywhere) or pressing Escape. I'll add a button later when one
materializes into the CVS, which is the reason why it's a bit too tall
right now.

It's just a matter of some manual labor to integrate the help into the
rest of the states, and I'll do it asap. :-)

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On 22 Apr 2001, Mike Earl wrote:

>On 22 Apr 2001 18:04:32 +0300, Jan Ekholm wrote:
>> Oh, sure I can do that. But things haven't stabilized yet wrt to keys etc,
>> as the actual functionality of the in-game orders & functions hasn't yet
>> stabilized. It is quite easy to find all the keys in the source, just look
>> through the BaseState subclasses in src/state/. All subclasses have a
>> member self.keymap which is a map from a key to a callback.
>
>
>Gives me a thought; longer term, the documentation will be better
>maintained if the code is self-documenting.  Maybe an in-game command
>("h" or "?") can pop up a full-screen display of all available commands?
>Rather than this being hardcoded, it would be derived dynamically by
>querying all the state classes (add a method to each to describe its
>function, probably returns a short string).  Would this be a big deal to
>implement?

No, it wouldn't be a big deal. It was one of the things I thought could be
done using a new "message box" layer to the playfield. It just hasn't yet
"lift off". :-)

To summarize all keys for all states in one window is maybe not the best
way to do it, it could become quite a lot of data. Could we display a help
for each state, i.e. the keys that can be used at that specific moment?

--------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |     Balrog New Media    http://www.balrog.fi/
   Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, nobody hears your screams

On 22 Apr 2001 18:04:32 +0300, Jan Ekholm wrote:
> Oh, sure I can do that. But things haven't stabilized yet wrt to keys etc,
> as the actual functionality of the in-game orders & functions hasn't yet
> stabilized. It is quite easy to find all the keys in the source, just look
> through the BaseState subclasses in src/state/. All subclasses have a
> member self.keymap which is a map from a key to a callback.


Gives me a thought; longer term, the documentation will be better
maintained if the code is self-documenting.  Maybe an in-game command
("h" or "?") can pop up a full-screen display of all available commands?
Rather than this being hardcoded, it would be derived dynamically by
querying all the state classes (add a method to each to describe its
function, probably returns a short string).  Would this be a big deal to
implement?

OT: the 802.11b stuff itself works pretty well at home, getting the
wife's Win98 laptop happy with it was a bit tricky, but not too bad for
a Unix geek like me.  (Actually, from what I hear of the security issues
and interference problems, I wonder if it's not better suited for home
use than corporate...)  We're using the Linksys BEFW11S4
router/switch/wireless bridge combo, would recommend it for most people.

- mikee