We're going to war! (and a myriad of other things)

Friday time, update time!


This week has been quite scatterbrained in terms of sticking to any one part. As more and more begins to take shape, more and more happens to a crazy snowball like effect. As I continue to tick things off, more seemingly take pop up, and despite the time commitment I sink into this weekly (though i cannot complain much due to my enjoyment in the subject matter) I fear I simply do not have ENOUGH time in the day to reach the point I hope for come March 17th.


I recently (last weekend) purchased this book and it, while incredibly basic, has been a wealth of knowledge as I begin to dip my feet into the realm of code. All of that has been very preliminary, and I am debating the value of the 99 dollar developer license. Mainly, if I want to test anything or compile anything I ever make, I need to bite the bullet and just jump two feet in and get it over with. At least it isn't mission critical at the moment so "out of sight, out of mind."


UI
I expanded some more on my UI decisions this week. No beautiful pictures to go along with it, but I plan on making some more next week to have to show based on theory crafting this week. In the nation bar up top, I refined my ideas from a vague "all important nation based information at a glance up here" to a more concrete level.


In the upper left hand corner will be your nations flag/logo, taping this will bring up a pop up with more detailed information for your nation that you can view, and adjust. These things include your nation ranking and standings with other known nations, a list of national policies (that you have played via cards), taxations/upkeep costs (where you can adjust simple sliders and see just how much cash you will bring in along with ramifications of change), military options (spending, war time fundings, additional regiments), international relations (such as espionage [unlocked via tech], trade, etc), and other useful information.


This information will be broken down into 4 main tabs, a general overview, national policy, economy, and military. It serves as the central hub for all things national, and it is called up only when you want/need, leaving the screen empty and de-cluttered otherwise. To help the player, popup ions can appear in the upper center of the screen informing of any important, urgent, or otherwise particularly helpful information that they can tap on to auto take them to the proper part of the nation window.


Along with the flag icon that takes care of all your nation business, you have some at a glance information on the left hand side. There is Populace (which shows you the available number of people in your nation able to reinforce your military), Stability (which shows you how stable your nation is as a whole), and then Treasury (naturally your banked credits). On the right hand side, you have the number of armies (which you can tap to bring up your list of how big they are and where they presently are), and then the turn number and in game date.


Military/Combat
You create military units by playing cards military or defense token cards, or by buying them for a huge cost (if you wish to have a giant army, or simply have war time needs).  You can use your available populace to reinforce your military, though this takes a number of turns and money to retrofit a unit if a card is not used (added recruitment and training time). Also the more of the population percent you add towards your military will affect your nations morale, and your troops morale, which can lead to riots (unless augmented by a specific card removing effect).

Units work on dice rolls, with additional modifiers based on terrain, tech cards, and then morale/logistics.

Their movement is based on length distances (same as logistics/information delay), and is modified by natural territory terrain, and then nation modifiers such as trails, roads, etc.

Units can send back information, much like a recon group, but the information still suffers delay, this can be modified later with tech like radios. Units have base 1 vision (sans any tech modification), and can be expanded or shrunk depending on the terrain type.

Military requires upkeep through taxes, however if you want you can cut this out, but the downside is that while you have a military, they can be under funded or not funded at all which makes them useless quickly. Also should your morale or logistics drop too low, your units will begin to lose men, either to desertion (morale) or to famine/broken equipment (logistics), so it becomes important to carefully mange just how they are doing funding wise.

When taping on a military token, you have the following information presented to you: unit size, dice roll, modifiers, and morale/logistic bar. These things give you an at a glance overview of the most important aspects of a unit to survive. If you tap and drag, you will see a path arrow emerge in which you can tell a unit to mobilize and move to a new territory. once you do this you have no idea how long it will take your units to travel, and as such you have to plan carefully ahead.


The Unit modifiers for Terrain are as follows:

                        Grass plains/open ground: 1 movement, 0 defense, +2 vision

                        Brush: 2 movement, +1.5 defense, -.5 vision

                        Coastal: 1.5 movement, 0 defense, +2 vision

Ravine/gully: 2 movement, +1 defense (SPECIAL: all land units in cannot be seen expect by units in touching regions.), -1 vision

Hills: 3 movement, +2 defense for infantry, +1 vision

Mountains: 4 movement, +3 defense for infantry, +3 vision

Trees: 1 movement, +1 defense, -1 vision

Jungle: 3 movement, +2 defense, -2 vision

Streams: 3 movement, -1 defense, 0 vision

Tech Card modifiers:

Trails: terrain movement divided by 1.25, 0 defense

Roads: terrain movement divided by 2, 0 defense

Highways: terrain movement divided by 2.5, 0 defense

Autobahn (special tech): terrain movement divided by 3.5, 0 defense           

Some things that effect the morale bar are things like outcome of previous battle, size in relation to opposing army, length away from home nation, and funding. You can regain your units lost morale by "resting" them in any allied city.


Some things that effect the logistics bar are things like funding, distance from allied cities, distance from home nation, and terrain (traveling through harsh terrain such as mountains lowers your logistics chain and causes them to be more isolated).

All about Interface

This weeks update is all about visuals. I began mockups of what the game might look like at a frame work level (think pre-pre-alpha graphics) late last week, and had so much fun I decided to continue working on it this week.

The purpose of this whole exercise is to being to get an idea of how things will look and feel as you walk through your program. I have already caught myself finding gaps in my previous logic, coming up with entirely new concepts, and refining old ideas.

Its great work, a lot of fun, and gives me a nice break and ability to flex a bit of creative muscle.

(Press the arrow keys to move through the images)

A Designer Guide to App Development

A great read about just what thought should go into iPhone development.

The Appifesto

The 7 card shuffle

Its friday, and that means it is time for another big long update of progression! What a crazy week in the world of my Public Speaking class, the copious amounts of busy work was a minor set back, but luckily I enter the weekend with everything cleaned off my plate except this (well and Mass Effect 2).

So let's talk about the card system today.

As the game is a game of nation growth and expansion through time (much like civ) you start in the earliest of the stone ages and move into the bright utopian world of tomorrow. For reference, the era's go Stone Age -> Bronze Age -> Iron Age -> Classical Age -> Industrial Age -> Atomic Age -> Information Age -> Quantum Age (thanks ExtraNoise for the original ages). As I took a look at how I wanted the player to move through the game, I came up with a neat idea: why not make it seem like a card game (ala Magic)? Once I had that idea in my head, the rest of the mechanics began to flow like I had opened the flood gates to my mind.

This is what I typed up for myself so I had an idea to follow:

Cards are the main control mechanism for the game; everything must be drawn and then played through cards. But they are not all instantaneous; some items require a certain number of turns to implement. Think of cards as “game changing” decisions, the options available are semi-random; yet tie into decisions that you make changing what shows up. 

Cards work in “Decks”, where each technology age is a new deck. This ties in with the tech research with unlocks new “card packs” that gives you more options. You also have government specific cards that affect your nation as well.

Deck 1 (stone age) Cards: These are general cards; they are common and available from the start. Present are things like settlement cards, basic infrastructure (huts, farms, sharp sticks, and simple agriculture). Cards in this deck set the tone for how your nation moves forward so you are able to also have a lot of basic moral/civic/military choices that push to towards hope or fear style tribal government. 

Deck 2 (bronze age) Cards:  Settlement cards, more advanced infrastructure (mills, buildings, barracks, larger farms, settlement walls). Government cards should be pushing player into feudal age governments by end of deck. 

Deck 3 (iron age) Cards: Settlement cards, more advanced infrastructure (castles, dirt roads, black smiths). Complex political infrastructure cards, actual nations beginning to form. 

Deck 4 (classical age) Cards: Settlement cards, Cultural infrastructure cards in full swing (education, arts, etc), more advanced infrastructure (cobble roads, buildings, etc) trade and civilization improvements. Governments begin to hit centralized. 

Deck 5 (industrial age) Cards: Settlement cards, Electricity and other civic innovations, gravel roads, city formations. Advanced civic concepts (decentralized government facilities, etc), Railways and other forms of mass transportation. 

Deck 6 (atomic age) Cards: Settlement Cards, Large city improvements, asphalt roads available along with mass transportation, power and telecommunications, freeways, ability to begin nuclear research! Governments emerge into modern styles. 

Deck 7 (information age) Cards: settlement cards, mass communications, underground transportation, wireless compatibility, mass electronics. Space constructions begin. 

Deck 8 (quantum age) Cards: Settlement cards, wide spread space networks, governments begin to transition to utopian.

From that I created the basic run down of bullet points to flesh out the idea:

• Each "Age" is represented by a base "deck of cards". 
• Each deck (currently) has 25 cards in it.
• These cards are how you grow and control and grow your nation.
• When your nation evolves into the next Age, the current base deck is scrapped in favor of the new one. This means you cannot go back and get old cards.
• As you progress through technology research, different techs each have "booster packs" of a few cards which are added to your main deck.
• Same for governments, whatever government your nation has adopted adds in its own booster pack.
• The cards are split into 6 main types: Civic, Expansion, Military, Infrastructure, Financial, and Reward.
• Cards also have a response rating, which acts similar to the light side/dark side meter from Knights of the Old Republic. They can fall into: Fear, Minor Fear, Neutral, Minor Hope, Hope. This affects how your government forms around your actions, along with what potential technologies you have access to (some only are available to hope, some only to fear).
• You can hold Seven (7) cards at one time in your hand, you can keep these cards for as long as you want.
• You can also discard a card if you do not want it (for instance, you are playing to a hope side and get a strong fear based card).
• You can also trade cards to other nations once trade has opened up.
• Some cards are "one time" cards that effect overall nation states, and some can be drawn and used multiple different times on military tokens, cities, or other "smaller scale" subjects.

Currently I only have the Stone Age base deck complete (which you can see below), as I spent a majority of the time hammering out the base mechanics for such an important key aspect of the game. Hopefully I can finish another deck this weekend (with the help of some key collaborators), and then the rest as quickly as possible.

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I also spent some time coming up with a rough mockup of how the card viewer/selection will look and work with gestures in game:

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Governments 101: 92% complete

Note: Thanks to my co-conspirator Dane Hill for helping me through this.

So I thought I should start with the ground work for any nation building game: Governments!

I cant show everything yet for two reasons, I'd hate to spoil it and not everything can be finished until I hammer out cards and tech (which is coming up next).

To begin the process, we have to look back to November 2009. I was sitting down in the living room of Mike Barta, genius and IE 4 dev, as he helped me hash out ideas for what directions I should take for the project. He had some really awesome unique ideas which I think have taken on a neat role in how the games narrative plays out.

The general concept is a progression through governments in an organic way. I was then able to break things into five vague government breakthroughs and came up with this guide:

tribal -> feudal -> centralized -> modern -> utopian

Using these five archetypes I then broke each down into HOPE and FEAR. That way depending on how one plays the game and makes decisions, it will begin to steer you down one path or the other. It also allows one to make the transition from hope to fear, although that is easier said than done.

Using DropBox, I quickly sent off an invitation to Dane and he was instantly able to see, access, and make changes in real time to help me work and conceptualize everything. Thank goodness for technology. Together doing some research, scouring wikipedia for references, and generally banging out heads against our respective walls, we came up with our ten primary governments for use in the game.

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Once we had that down we knew the next step was to come up with descriptions of exactly what each government means in terms of the world. With that in mind I set out writing rough paragraphs that explain each government to include into the final game.

Note: These are still early drafts and subject to radical changes. I am not completely happy with any of them.

Hunter Gatherer:
Brought together by their common will to survive, these early nations relied on cooperation to survive harsh conditions. Loose ideas of government and power are masked mainly by their early and primitive concepts of the world.

Chiefdom:
Ruled by fear, chiefdoms are a centralized society overseen by a chief. Characterized mainly by inequality and centralized authority, citizens outside of the ruling class of this government live humbled, hard lives of labor. With a strong lineage, a single family can rule these nations for generations upon generations.

Theocracy:
With a government that recognizes their god (or deity) as the nations supreme ruler, theocracies generally accept a personal incarnation or religious representative as their leader. Theocracies always have a state religion and administrative doings always fall to the will of religion.

Autocracy:
In an autocratic government, the ruling figure is granted complete and unlimited power. This power tends to lend itself to a disconnect between the ruler and the people, which can create internal strife among the government. Most autocrats depend on their close set of nobles, military, and priesthood to operate efficiently.

Republic:
As a nation without a monarch, republics offer the people of the nation at least some say in the proceedings of the government. With a president as the head of state, nations tend to focus on ideals such as civic virtue, rule of law, and mixed government. However, this importance on civic virtues means that individual liberties are often overlooked.

Fascism:
As a single party state, Fascist governments believe that the vast majority of the public are unfit and unsuited to govern itself. Associated with strong nationalism and heroism, these nations pride themselves on striving to recreate a golden era for their nation by any means necessary.

Democracy:
Democracy thrives under the basic concepts of equality and freedom. In these nations all citizens are equal before the law, have equal access to power, and enjoy legitimized freedoms. By using “majority rule”, democratic nations strive to create the best possibly nation for their citizens.

Totalitarianism:
Generally associated with dictatorships, totalitarian nations maintain their absolute power over citizens through all-embracing ideology, propaganda, and total control over all aspects of life. These nations are known for their widespread use of mass surveillance and state terrorism.

Sociocracy:
Sociocratic nations have evolved past rule by “demos” to create a system of decision making by consent. The government has formed autonomous circle organizations that are able to work independently of one another effectively leading their nation.

Noocracy:
As the aristocracy of the wise, Noocratic nations rely of the appointed wise to rule. This hive mind controls all aspects of the nation, providing its citizens with the optimal solution to any conflicts. This has lead to an almost “big brother” situation for the citizens of any these nations.

As I worked out exactly what the governments meant, Dane began work on the relationship matrix. This is the bible for how governments react to one another. Once he had a rough pass down he sent it along to me to go over it, make adjustments, and all around finalize how I felt they should work.

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Of course here you can see that I already have plans for hidden governments, which wouldn't be hidden if I announced them so I pixelated the one viewable to keep the suspense.

So what is left to do for governments? Well, I still need to give people a reason to want to advance governments, and I am working on a series of pros/cons that affect gameplay based on government. I am also working on the threshold matrix which will be the guideline for when/how a nation adopts any given government structure. Unfortunately these have to be back burnered for a bit as I cannot continue them until I have more of the game mechanic struct finalized. After I finish Tech progression and Cards (my next project, expect it done next week) I will return and finish governments.

Until next time!

The times (they are a changin')

Pardon my dust,  as I get more into my project I feel I need to have a more legit website, so I have overhauled the blog to look a little more professional. You can thank the NFL playoffs for that.

Now back to the grind!

Nailing it down: Creating a final feature spec

Well that was a crippling sickness I just encountered out of the blue. One day I have a sore throat, the next I am full on attacked by a sinus infection.

However, first things first, if I want to ever finish this I need to create a finalized feature spec. As much fun as it would be to go all Duke Nukem Forever and spend the next 12 years adding and reinventing and adding some more, I actually would like this project to finish sometime this decade.

I was recently told by a much wiser ex-Microsoft developer recently that for a project you have to plan for Version 5 or 6, and then radically scale back when it comes time to get to work, and so with that in mind, I have begun categorizing my feature list into two camps: Must Haves and Want to Haves.

I do this so that I can keep my core feature set - the things that I MUST include in my game if I wish to present the vision, and then the optional stuff - things that sure are neat ideas, but outside of the scope for a v1 edition. That way, I can still keep the list by my side and implement little extras as time permits as well as have ideas for future revisions, DLC, and or (demand permitting) the sequel.

So what exactly do I NEED to have?

Lets break it down:

NEEDS

• Single player skirmish: Duh, I need to have a single player version to the game, even though it will be rather simplistic "skirmish" mode, where you just play against computer players.
• Decent, capable AI (artificial intelligence): Since the single player game relies solely on fighting against a number of computer players, it is important that they provide challenges. A minimum requirement of difficulties would be very easy, easy, normal, hard, and very hard/unfair.
• Multiplayer: This is honestly where I think the bread and butter of the series lies, in its multiplayer. The minimum requirement would be a turn based multiplayer, where you set the turn limit before the game starts (anywhere from say 10 minutes to 24 hours) and then you play using push notification. Turn priority is determined by random at the beginning of each turn and can be viewed at any time for strategic purposes and all you have to do is submit your turn before the time limit expires. Push notification would be used to announce when the new turn begins AND gives warnings you can set on how many minutes remain before you are "skipped" over.
• In-depth multiplayer chat system: This is tied directly to multiplayer in terms of importance, there needs to be both instant messaging chat as well as a PM system due to the nature of the times between turns. In a game so based around diplomacy, information, and alliances/treaties, it is imperative it is easy, quick, and useful to chat to other players.
• Fully envisioned game map of the world: I have to have a game map! In a perfect world (aka the one I am shooting for) I hope to have a full replication of the entire world, in which you can then scale down to "mini" maps if you don't want the space. For instance you could just do Europe and Africa, or the Americas, or Asia, or Australia and surrounding islands. This allows for a variety of "maps" while still being just one single deal.
• News Wire: I will dedicate a more thorough post detailing this concept, but at a high level overview, this is how you begin each turn, and also how you deal with fog-of-war and general dissemination of information so you are kept up to date on happenings around the game world. This is a critical innovation into the play mechanics and you will see why in a few weeks.
• Logistics: This needs to be implemented in some rudimentary format. Logistics is the great equalizer in this game. It balances giant nations from being able to just steamroll over the rest of the group without thought once they get that elusive "higher tech" like can happen in games such as Civ IV. People need to be tide to imaginary resource daisy chains that limit their rate of expansion as they grow, or it will negatively hurt their nation. This can be as rudimentary as a px/in ratio where so far away equates to needing X. This of course still needs to be fleshed out and turned into a working model. 
• Card System: This is the bread and butter of the play mechanics, this is how you buy, play, improve, and generally interact with the game.
• Battle System: Well there needs to be a way to wage war in a game built around conquest. Most of this will be automated but I need to come up with a way to implement it.
• Morale: Morale is the semi-tangible aspect of the game showing the willingness of your nations citizens to listen to you. For example: if you create a peaceful nation and then go war happy you will have riots and revolts crippling your infrastructure.
• Technology trees: This is what allows you to guide your nation into developing certain cards to fit your play style.

STRONGLY WANTS

• AI "personalities": Think the N64 game Perfect Dark's "Bots". I would love to be able to include different personalities that you could choose from, perhaps you wish to add warmongering dictator bots or a bunch of pacifist nations to change up traditional "balanced" gameplay.
• Multiplayer Bots: Fairly Straight Forward. Just the single player AI that works with... get this... multiplayer.
• Easter Eggs/Cheats: This hopefully wont be too hard to include and can add a lot of hidden fun. Perhaps if you type your leaders name as something it gives you a lot of starting cash.  Just stuff like that.
• Actors: A strong addition to the aspect of morale, though ultimately very time consuming to develop, actors would be "born" randomly into cities and have their own agendas, which they then try and implement. This makes you react and have to deal with them before things grow out of control and bring the nation to a stand still.
• Social Impact: Mostly stuck here simply because I cannot come up with a viable way to represent it, thus leaving it in limbo. I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to implement things seen in social games such as facebook's farmville where you are tied to, and sometimes responsible, for helping out with people with their game. It is the hardest area to come up with something fair and balanced, but it could revolutionize the genre if you could make one player responsible for aspects of another players in a "double blind" situation. 
• Clouds: A little addition to the map, but It would be really neat to have transparent clouds floating around above the map with shadows cast upon the ground. Completely superficial, but its the little touches that add POP to the world.
• 3D game map: File this under strongly want  but almost certainly a future revision. Basically something that looks like THIS. That way you can see the geography of the world as you look around the map. This would help "tie" in logistics modifiers such as mountains, water bodies, and other terrains.

FUTURE REVISIONS

• Single Player "Stories": In addition to skirmish mode, it would be nice to include scenarios or stories that you have to play out. These modes could range from historically referenced to insane, quirky, and off the wall (alien invasions perhaps) to extend the life of the game and give the user more choices in how they want to play. This requires a massive amount of creation, balancing, and writing to create stories however so it is unrealistic that this could make a V.1 release.
• Custom game maps: Similar idea to the map builder in say, the Civilization series, why limit the game to just what the world looks like currently, perhaps the user wants to live in a world filled with a hundred tiny islands. Use of sliders could help forge a randomized world for people to play on, again shaking things up and allowing the user to play how they want. Unfortunately this is a large undertaking is will need to be pushed to future revisions of the game.
• Expanded game concepts: Many of these concepts will have to be very "bare bones" for V.1 (such as morale, social interaction, card systems, logistics, and everything else) which I would love to flesh out into more feature rich variations for further revisions.