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• Turn-based Strategy Loop

  - by Djentleman

  I'm working on a strategy game. It's turn-based and card-based (think Dominion-style), done in a client, with eventual AI in the works. I've already implemented almost all of the game logic (methods for calculations and suchlike) and I'm starting to work on the actual game loop. What is the "best" way to implement a game loop in such a game? Should I use a simple "while gameActive" loop that keeps running until gameActive is False, with sections that wait for player input? Or should it be managed through the UI with player actions determining what happens and when? Any help is appreciated. I'm doing it in Python (for now at least) to get my Python skills up a bit, although the language shouldn't matter for this question.

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• techniques for an AI for a highly cramped turn-based tactics game

  - by Adam M.

  I'm trying to write an AI for a tactics game in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics or Vandal Hearts. I can't change the game rules in any way, only upgrade the AI. I have experience programming AI for classic board games (basically minimax and its variants), but I think the branching factor is too great for the approach to be reasonable here. I'll describe the game and some current AI flaws that I'd like to fix. I'd like to hear ideas for applicable techniques. I'm a decent enough programmer, so I only need the ideas, not an implementation (though that's always appreciated). I'd rather not expend effort chasing (too many) dead ends, so although speculation and brainstorming are good and probably helpful, I'd prefer to hear from somebody with actual experience solving this kind of problem. For those who know it, the game is the land battle mini-game in Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) and you can skim/skip the next two paragraphs. For those who don't, here's briefly how it works. The battle is turn-based and takes place on a 16x16 grid. There are three terrain types: clear (no hindrance), forest (hinders movement, ranged attacks, and sight), and rock (impassible, but does not hinder attacks or sight). The map is randomly generated with roughly equal amounts of each type of terrain. Because there are many rock and forest tiles, movement is typically very cramped. This is tactically important. The terrain is not flat; higher terrain gives minor bonuses. The terrain is known to both sides. The player is always the attacker and the AI is always the defender, so it's perfectly valid for the AI to set up a defensive position and just wait. The player wins by killing all defenders or by getting a unit to the city gates (a tile on the other side of the map). There are very few units on each side, usually 4-8. Because of this, it's crucial not to take damage without gaining some advantage from it. Units can take multiple actions per turn. All units on one side move before any units on the other side. Order of execution is important, and interleaving of actions between units is often useful. Units have melee and ranged attacks. Melee attacks vary widely in strength; ranged attacks have the same strength but vary in range. The main challenges I face are these: Lots of useful move combinations start with a "useless" move that gains no immediate advantage, or even loses advantage, in order to set up a powerful flank attack in the future. And, since the player units are stronger and have longer range, the AI pretty much always has to take some losses before they can start to gain kills. The AI must be able to look ahead to distinguish between sacrificial actions that provide a future benefit and those that don't. Because the terrain is so cramped, most of the tactics come down to achieving good positioning with multiple units that work together to defend an area. For instance, two defenders can often dominate a narrow pass by positioning themselves so an enemy unit attempting to pass must expose itself to a flank attack. But one defender in the same pass would be useless, and three units can defend a slightly larger pass. Etc. The AI should be able to figure out where the player must go to reach the city gates and how to best position its few units to cover the approaches, shifting, splitting, or combining them appropriately as the player moves. Because flank attacks are extremely deadly (and engineering flank attacks is key to the player strategy), the AI should be competent at moving its units so that they cover each other's flanks unless the sacrifice of a unit would give a substantial benefit. They should also be able to force flank attacks on players, for instance by threatening a unit from two different directions such that responding to one threat exposes the flank to the other. The AI should attack if possible, but sometimes there are no good ways to approach the player's position. In that case, the AI should be able to recognize this and set up a defensive position of its own. But the AI shouldn't be vulnerable to a trivial exploit where the player repeatedly opens and closes a hole in his defense and shoots at the AI as it approaches and retreats. That is, the AI should ideally be able to recognize that the player is capable of establishing a solid defense of an area, even if the defense is not currently in place. (I suppose if a good unit allocation algorithm existed, as needed for the second bullet point, the AI could run it on the player units to see where they could defend.) Because it's important to choose a good order of action and interleave actions between units, it's not as simple as just finding the best move for each unit in turn. All of these can be accomplished with a minimax search in theory, but the search space is too large, so specialized techniques are needed. I thought about techniques such as influence mapping, but I don't see how to use the technique to great effect. I thought about assigning goals to the units. This can help them work together in some limited way, and the problem of "how do I accomplish this goal?" is easier to solve than "how do I win this battle?", but assigning good goals is a hard problem in itself, because it requires knowing whether the goal is achievable and whether it's a good use of resources. So, does anyone have specific ideas for techniques that can help cleverize this AI? Update: I found a related question on Stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3133273/ai-for-a-final-fantasy-tactics-like-game The selected answer gives a decent approach to choosing between alternative actions, but it doesn't seem to have much ability to look into the future and discern beneficial sacrifices from wasteful ones. It also focuses on a single unit at a time and it's not clear how it could be extended to support cooperation between units in defending or attacking.

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• Which algorithm used in Advance Wars type turn based games

  - by Jan de Lange

  Has anyone tried to develop, or know of an algorithm such as used in a typical turn based game like Advance Wars, where the number of objects and the number of moves per object may be too large to search through up to a reasonable depth like one would do in a game with a smaller search base like chess? There is some path-finding needed to to engage into combat, harvest, or move to an object, so that in the next move such actions are possible. With this you can build a search tree for each item, resulting in a large tree for all items. With a cost function one can determine the best moves. Then the board flips over to the player role (min/max) and the computer searches the best player move, and flips back etc. upto a number of cycles deep. Finally it has found the best move and now it's the players turn. But he may be asleep by now... So how is this done in practice? I have found several good sources on A*, DFS, BFS, evaluation / cost functions etc. But as of yet I do not see how I can put it all together.

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• Turn-based games [closed]

  - by Blue

  I've been looking for tutorials on turn-based games. I found an incomplete tutorial series by InsugentX about turn-based games. I haven't looked through it, but since it's incomplete, I worry that I won't be able to finish the scripts. I'm looking for tutorials or some good tips or advice to create turn-based games(similar to Worms). Recently I finished watching the WalkerBoys' tutorials so I am familiar with code. Where can I find some info and/or tutorials on creating Turn-based games? I'd prefer it to be video format. How can I create turn-based games (not the entire thing, only the set-up) or a turn-based event like in Worms? To explain more, How do I create 2 parties(1st player, 2nd player) exchanging turns(turn-based games and/or hotseat). While parties have characters similar to Worms(having more than 1 character within each party)? Do I use an array, an enum? I don't have any experience in turn-based games, so I would like to know how to actually make turn-based games. I can't find any reference to help me with construction of a turn-based game code similar to Worms in a programming language I can understand.

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• Adding interactive graphical elements to text-based browser game with HTML5

  - by st9

  I'm re-writing an old virtual world/browser based game. It is text and HTML form based with some static graphics. The client is HTML and JS. I want to introduce some interactive graphical elements to certain parts of the game, for example a 'customise character' page, with hooks to server side and local data storage. I want to use HTML5/JS, what is the best approach to designing the web-site? For example could I use Boilerplate and then embed these interactive elements in the page? Thanks

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• Strategy Design Pattern -- *dynamic* !!!

  - by alexeypro

  My application will have different strategies for my objects. What's the best way of implementing that? I would really love the case when we can make strategy classes implementation dynamically loaded from, say, some relational database. Not sure how do that better, though. What's the best approach? Idea is that say we want to apply to object MyObj strategy Strategy123 then we just load from database by ID 123 the object, deserialize it, get the Strategy class, and use it with MyObj. The maintenance while sounds easier from the first look can be a pain in the long run if Strategy interfaces changes, etc. What can I do also? I want to find solution when I should be keeping Strategy classes in codebase -- just for the sake that I don't need code change and re-deployment of the application if my Strategy changes, or I add new strategy. Please advise!

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• Closing the gap between strategy and execution with Oracle Business Intelligence 11g

  - by manan.goel(at)oracle.com

  Wikipedia defines strategy as a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. An example of this is General Electric's acquisitions and divestiture strategy (plan) designed to propel GE to number 1 or 2 place (goal) in every business segment that it operated in. Execution on the other hand can be defined as the actions taken to getting things done. In GE's case execution will be steps followed for mergers/acquisitions or divestiture. Business press has written extensively about the importance of both strategy and execution in achieving desired business objectives. Perhaps the quote from Thomas Edison says it best - "vision without execution is hallucination". Conversely, it can be said that "execution without vision" is well may be "wishful thinking". Research overwhelmingly point towards the wide gap between strategy and execution. According to a published study, 49% of surveyed executives perceive a gap between their organizations' ability to develop and communicate sound strategies and their ability to implement those strategies. Further, of these respondents, 64% don't have full confidence that their companies will be able to close the gap. Having established the severity and importance of the problem let's talk about the reasons for the strategy-execution gap. The common reasons include: -        Lack of clearly defined goals -        Lack of consistent measure of success -        Lack of ownership -        Lack of alignment -        Lack of communication -        Lack of proper execution -        Lack of monitoring       There are multiple approaches to solving the problem including organizational development practices, technology enablement etc. In most cases a combination of approaches is required to achieve the desired result. For the purposes of this discussion, I'll focus on technology.  Imagine an integrated closed loop technology platform that automates the entire management cycle from defining strategy to assigning ownership to communicating goals to achieving alignment to collaboration to taking actions to monitoring progress and achieving mid course corrections. Besides, for best ROI and lowest TCO such a system should also have characteristics like:  Complete -        Full functionality -        Rich end user access Open -        Any data source -        Any business application -        Any technology stack  Integrated -        Common metadata -        Common security -        Common system management From a capabilities perspective the system should provide the following capabilities: Define -        Strategy -        Objectives -        Ownership -        KPI's Communicate -        Pervasive -        Collaborative -        Role based -        Secure Execute -        Integrated -        Intuitive -        Secure -        Ubiquitous Monitor -        Multiple styles and formats -        Exception based -        Push & Pull Having talked about the business problem and outlined the blueprint for a technology solution, let's talk about how Oracle Business Intelligence 11g can help. Oracle Business Intelligence is a comprehensive business intelligence solution for reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP, dashboards and scorecards. Oracle's best in class BI platform is based on an architecturally integrated technology foundation that provides a unified end user experience and features a Common Enterprise Information Model, with common security, query request generation and optimization, and system management. The BI platform is ·         Complete - meaning it delivers all modes and styles of BI including reporting, ad hoc query and analysis, OLAP, dashboards and scorecards with a rich end user experience that includes visualization, collaboration, alerts and notifications, search and mobile access. ·         Open - meaning the BI platform integrates with any data source, ETL tool, business application, application server, security infrastructure, portal technology as well as any ODBC compliant third party analytical tool. The suite accesses data from multiple heterogeneous sources--including popular relational and multidimensional data sources and major ERP and CRM applications from Oracle and SAP. ·         Integrated - meaning the BI platform is based on an architecturally integrated technology foundation built on an open, standards based service oriented architecture.  The platform features a common enterprise information model, common security model and a common configuration, deployment and systems management framework. To summarize, Oracle Business Intelligence is a comprehensive, integrated BI platform that lets you define strategy, identify objectives, assign ownership, define KPI's, collaborate, take action, monitor, report and do course corrections all form a single interface and a single system. The platform's integrated metadata model and task based design ensures that the entire workflow from defining strategy to execution to monitoring is completely integrated delivering end to end visibility, transparency and agility. Click here to learn more about Oracle BI 11g. 

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• Resources for creating a turn-by-turn navigation system

  - by benwad

  I'm trying to create a kind of turn-by-turn satellite navigation system using the iOS SDK. I get the directions from the server and draw them on the map, then I keep getting location updates from the iPhone's GPS chip. Currently I start by finding the nearest turning point then, each time the user comes within a certain distance of the next turning point, a verbal cue is given and the turning point index is incremented. This is a delicate system and I'd like to make it more robust so I can tell when the user is going the wrong direction etc. Basically I'm looking for some literature about turn-by-turn navigation, in terms of tracking the user's progress and whether they're going the right direction. I'd have thought there's a lot of research out there but I can't seem to find anything apart from simple tutorials on how to use a given SDK or directions API. Can anyone direct me to a good run-through of the various techniques used in software such as TomTom or Google Maps Navigation?

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• What was missing from the Content Strategy Forum?

  - by Roger Hart

  In April, Paris hosted the first ever Content Strategy Forum. The event's website proudly proclaims: 170 attendees, 18 nationalities, 17 speakers, 1 volcano... Content Strategy Forum 2010 rocked the world! The volcano was in Iceland, and the closest we came to rocking the world was a cursory mention in the Huffington Post, but I'll grant the event was awesome. One thing missing from that list, however, is "94 companies" (Plus a couple of universities and freelancers, and what have you). A glance through the attendees directory reveals a fairly wide organisational turnout - 24 students from two Parisian universities, countless design and marketing agencies, a series of tech firms, small and large. Two delegates from IBM, two from ARM, an appearance from RIM, Skype, and Facebook; twelve from the various bits of eBay. Oh, and, err, nobody from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Play, Twitter, LinkedIn, Craigslist, the BBC, no banks I noticed, and I didn't spot a newspaper. You get the idea. Facebook notwithstanding, you have to scroll through a few pages to Alexa rankings to find company names from the attendee list. I find this interesting, and I'm not wholly sure what to make of it. Of the large, web-centric, content-rich organizations conspicuously absent, at least one of two things is true: They didn't know about the event They didn't care about the event Maybe these guys all have content strategy completely sorted, and it's an utterly naturalised part of their business process. Maybe nobody at say, Apple or Play.com ever publishes a single piece of content that isn't neatly tailored to their (clearly defined, of course) user and business goals. Wouldn't that be lovely? The thing is, in that rosy and beatific world, there's still a case for those folks to join the community. There are bound to be other perspectives, and things to learn. You see, the other thing achingly conspicuous by its absence was case studies. In her keynote address, Kristina Halvorson made the point that what content strategy really needs is some big, loud success stories. A point I'd firmly second as a content strategist working within an organisation. Sarah Cancilla's presentation on content strategy at Facebook included some very neat, specific examples, and was richer for it. It didn't hurt that the example was Facebook - you're getting impressively big numbers off base. What about the other big boys? Is there anybody out there with a perspective? Do we all just look very silly to you, fretting away over text and images and users and purposes? Is content validation and maintenance so accustomed a part of your business that calling attention to it is like sniffing the air and saying "Hmm, a lot of nitrogen about today."? And if it is, do you have any wisdom to share?

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• Modified Strategy Design Pattern

  - by Samuel Walker

  I've started looking into Design Patterns recently, and one thing I'm coding would suit the Strategy pattern perfectly, except for one small difference. Essentially, some (but not all) of my algorithms, need an extra parameter or two passed to them. So I'll either need to pass them an extra parameter when I invoke their calculate method or store them as variables inside the ConcreteAlgorithm class, and be able to update them before I call the algorithm. Is there a design pattern for this need / How could I implement this while sticking to the Strategy Pattern? I've considered passing the client object to all the algorithms, and storing the variables in there, then using that only when the particular algorithm needs it. However, I think this is both unwieldy, and defeats the point of the strategy pattern. Just to be clear I'm implementing in Java, and so don't have the luxury of optional parameters (which would solve this nicely).

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• Turn Based Event Algorithm

  - by GamersIncoming

  I'm currently working on a small roguelike in XNA, which sees the player in a randomly generated series of dungeons fending off creeps, as you might expect. As with most roguelikes, the player makes a move, and then each of the creeps currently active on screen will make a move in turns, until all creeps have updated, and it return's to the player's go. On paper, the simple algorithm is straightforward: Player takes turn Turn Number increments For each active creep, update Position Once all active creeps have updated, allow player to take next turn However, when it comes to actually writing this in more detail, the concept becomes a bit more tricky for me. So my question comes as this: what is the best way to handle events taking turns to trigger, where the completion of each last event triggers the next, when dealing with a large number of creeps (probably stored as an array of an enemy object), and is there an easier way to create some kind of engine that just takes all objects that need updating and chains them together so their updates follow suit? I'm not asking for code, just algorithms and theory in the direction of objects triggering updates one after the other, in a turn based manner. Thanks in advance. Edited: Here's the code I currently have that is horrible :/ if (player.getTurnOver() && updateWait == 0) { if (creep[creepToUpdate].getActive()) { creep[creepToUpdate].moveObject(player, map1); updateWait = 10; } if (creepToUpdate < creep.Length -1) { creepToUpdate++; } else { creepToUpdate = 0; player.setTurnOver(false); } } if (updateWait > 0) { updateWait--; }

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• How to implement turn-based game engine?

  - by Dvole

  Let's imagine game like Heroes of Might and Magic, or Master of Orion, or your turn-based game of choice. What is the game logic behind making next turn? Are there any materials or books to read about the topic? To be specific, let's imagine game loop: void eventsHandler(); //something that responds to input void gameLogic(); //something that decides whats going to be output on the screen void render(); //this function outputs stuff on screen All those are getting called say 60 times a second. But how turn-based enters here? I might imagine that in gameLogic() there is a function like endTurn() that happens when a player clicks that button, but how do I handle it all? Need insights.

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• How Would I create alternate players (Turn base Event)

  - by Blue

  The picture above shows 2 players. Each containing 3 characters. I want to know how to make a Turn based event starting with player 1 alternating turns with player 2. And in every alternation each character gets a turn. If a character dies, the next character on the same team goes, and so on. How would I create this? Is there a tutorial? I haven't made any turn-based games so I don't know how to program these kinds of stuff.

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• Simultaneous AI in turn based games

  - by Eduard Strehlau

  I want to hack together a roguelike. Now I thought about entity and world representation and got to a quite big problem. If you want all the AI to act simultaneously you would normally(in cellular automa for examble) just copy the cell buffer and let all action of indiviual cells depend on the copy. Actions which are not valid anymore after some cell before the cell you are currently operating on changed the original enviourment(blocking the path) are just ignored or reapplied with the "current"(between turns) environment. After all cells have acted you copy the current map to the buffer again. Now for an environment with complex AI and big(datawise) entities the copying would take too long. So I thought you could put every action and entity makes into a que(make no changes to the environment) and execute the whole que after everyone took their move. Every interaction on this que are realy interacting entities, so if a entity tries to attack another entity it sends a message to it, the consequences of the attack would be visible next turn, either by just examining the entity or asking the entity for data. This would remove problems like what happens if an entity dies middle in the cue but got actions or is messaged later on(all messages would go to null, and the messages from the entity would either just be sent or deleted(haven't decided yet) But what would happen if a monster spawns a fireball which by itself tracks the player(in the same turn). Should I add the fireball to the enviourment beforehand, so make a change to the environment before executing the action list or just add the ball to the "need updated" list as a special case so it doesn't exist in the environment and still operates on it, spawing after evaluating the action list? Are there any solutions or papers on this subject which I can take a look at? EDIT: I don't need information on writing a roguelike I need information on turn based ai in respective to a complex enviourment.

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• Part 3: Customization Strategy or how long does it take

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  The previous part in this blog should have made us aware, that many procedures are required to manage all these steps. To review your status let me ask you a question:What is your Customization Strategy?Your answer might be something like, 'customization strategy, well, we have standards and we let requirement documents approve'.Let me ask you another question:How long does it take to redeploy all your customizations into a fresh installation?In 90% of all installations the answer to this question would be: we can't!Although no one would have to do it (hopefully), just thinking about it and recognizing that we have today too many manual steps involved, different procedures and sometimes (undocumented) manual steps to complete a customization installation. And ... in general too many customizations.Why is working with customizations often so complicated and time consuming?Here are the key reasons as I have identified them in my projects:Customization standards defined, but not maintainedDifferent knowledge on developer side (results getting an individual developer touch)No need to automate deployment (not forced by client)Different documentation styles, not easy to hand over to someone elseDifferent development concepts, difficult for the maintenanceJust the minimum present for testing, often positive testing onlyDeviations from naming conventions accepted, although definedComplicated procedures, therefore sometimes partially ignoredAnd last but not least, hand made version control (still)If you would have to 'redeploy all your customizations' you would have to Follow all your own standards and best practiceTrack deviations and define corrective tasksAutomate as much as possible, minimize manual tasksDo not allow any change coming in without version controlUtilize products to support you in deploymentMinimize hand made scripts and extensive documentationReview regularly used techniques to guarantee that all are in line with the current release and also easy maintainableCreate solution libraries and force the team to contribute and reuseDefine quality activities and execute themDefine a procedure to release customizationsI know, it is easy to write down, but much harder to manage. Will provide some guidelines in my next blog.Volker

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• how should I network my turn based game?

  - by ddriver1

  I'm writing a very basic turn based strategy game which allows a player to select units and attack enemy units on their turn. The game is written in Java using the slick2d library and I plan to use kyronet for the networking api. I want the game to be networked, but I do not know how I should go about it. My current idea is to connect two users together, and the first one to join the game becomes the game host, while the other becomes the client. However after reading http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game-programmers/what-every-programmer-needs-to-know-about-game-networking/ it seems my game would be suited to a peer to peer lockstep model. Would that make programming the networking side much easier? Any suggestions on how I should structure my networking would be greatly appreciated

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• Serverside memory efficiency and threading for a turn based game

  - by SkeletorFromEterenia

  Im programming on a turn based war-game for some years now (along with the engine) and Im having quite a hard time at figuring out what the games server architecture should look like, since most game server architecture articles I found focus either on FPS oder MMOGs, which doesn't really fit since I want many matches with 1- 16 players on my server, with each match being played in turn based mode. My chief concern is memory usage, since the most basic approach of loading every game that is being played completely into RAM should be quite inefficient, so is there a suitable strategy for selecting only the needed bits and loading them? Another question I got is how to design the threading on the server, since I think using only a single thread could be a problem due to the fact that the game or part of it might have to be loaded from the database. I would be very happy if you could share your knowledge or point me to material on this topic.

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• How should I structure my turn based engine to allow flexibility for players/AI and observation?

  - by Reefpirate

  I've just started making a Turn Based Strategy engine in GameMaker's GML language... And I was cruising along nicely until it came time to handle the turn cycle, and determining who is controlling what player, and also how to handle the camera and what is displayed on screen. Here's an outline of the main switch happening in my main game loop at the moment: switch (GameState) { case BEGIN_TURN: // Start of turn operations/routines break; case MID_TURN: switch (PControlledBy[Turn]) { case HUMAN: switch (MidTurnState) { case MT_SELECT: // No units selected, 'idle' UI state break; case MT_MOVE: // Unit selected and attempting to move break; case MT_ATTACK: break; } break; case COMPUTER: // AI ROUTINES GO HERE break; case OBSERVER: // OBSERVER ROUTINES GO HERE break; } break; case END_TURN: // End of turn routines/operations, and move Turn to next player break; } Now, I can see a couple of problems with this set-up already... But I don't have any idea how to go about making it 'right'. Turn is a global variable that stores which player's turn it is, and the BEGIN_TURN and END_TURN states make perfect sense to me... But the MID_TURN state is baffling me because of the things I want to happen here: If there are players controlled by humans, I want the AI to do it's thing on its turn here, but I want to be able to have the camera follow the AI as it makes moves in the human player's vision. If there are no human controlled player's, I'd like to be able to watch two or more AI's battle it out on the map with god-like 'observer' vision. So basically I'm wondering if there are any resources for how to structure a Turn Based Strategy engine? I've found lots of writing about pathfinding and AI, and those are all great... But when it comes to handling the turn structure and the game states I am having trouble finding any resources at all. How should the states be divided to allow flexibility between the players and the controllers (HUMAN, COMPUTER, OBSERVER)? Also, maybe if I'm on the right track I just need some reassurance before I lay down another few hundred lines of code...

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• Is there a market for a Text-based empire-building game?

  - by Vishnu

  I am working on building a text-based in-browser empire building game. The screen will be split into a console and an EXTREMELY rough vector map of your empire (just squares in a bigger square). Commands such as building and expanding would be typed into the console and automatically reflected in the map. Would there be any market for such a game? Would anyone want to play? To clarify, it would be online and everyone's empire would be in the same 'world'.

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• Adobe Air turn based multiplayer Game, sockets vs http bandwidth

  - by Arin Aivazian

  I am developing an Adobe Air multiplayer game for iPad. It is turn based and not realtime. It is like checkers game. I want to use a client server model. I have found 2 options to connect to server so far: socket connection and http requests My question is: Is the bandwidth requirement for socket connection vs http requests different? I need the game to work with very low speed internet connections

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• Turn-Based RPG Battle Instance Layout For Larger Groups

  - by SoulBeaver

  What a title, eh? I'm currently designing a videogame; a turn-based RPG like Final Fantasy (because everybody knows Final Fantasy). It's a 2D sprite game. These are my ideas for combat: -The player has a group of 15 members (main character included) -During battle, five of the group are designated as active, and appear in the battle. -These five may be switched out at leisure, or when one of the five die. -At any time, the Waiting members can cast buffs, be healed by the active members, or perform special attacks. -Battles should contain 10+ monsters at least. I'm aiming for 20, but I'm not sure if that's possible yet. -Battles should feel larger than normal due to the interaction of Waiting members, active members and the increased amount of monsters per battle. -The player has two rows in which to put the Active members: front and back. -Depending on the implementation, I might allow comboing of player attacks and skills. These are just design ideas, so beware! I have not been able to test this out yet- I have no idea yet if any of these ideas bunched together will make for a compelling game. What sounds good on paper doesn't necessarily have to be good in practice! What I'm asking now is how to create the layout for this. My starting point are the battles in Final Fantasy VI, with up to 5-6 monsters on the left and the characters on the right- monsters on both sides if it's a pincer attack. However, this view would not work feasible with my goal of 20 monsters and 5 characters. All the monsters on the left would appear cluttered unless I scale them far far back. If I create a pincer-like map, then there would be no real pincer-attack possible. If I space the monsters out I force the player to scroll the screen- a game mechanic I've come across and not enjoyed imho. My question is: does anybody have any layouts or guides for designing battle maps in turn-based RPGs, especially with a larger number of enemies taken into consideration? How should it look? I am not asking for specific combat mechanics, just the layout for the moment.

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• Combining pathfinding with global AI objectives

  - by V_Programmer

  I'm making a turn-based strategy game using Java and LibGDX. Now I want to code the AI. I haven't written the AI code yet. I've simply designed it. The AI will have two components, one focused in tactics and resource management (create troops, determine who have strategical advantage, detect important objectives, etc) and a individual component, focused in assign the work to each unit, examine its possibilites and move the unit. Now I'm facing an important problem. The map where the action take place is a grid-based map. Each terrain has different movement cost. I read about pathfinding and I think A* is a very good option to determine a good route between two points. However, imagine I have an unit with movement = 5 (i.e, it can move 5 tiles of movement cost = 1). My tactical AI has found an objective at a distance d = 20 tiles (Manhattan distance) from my unit. My problem is the following: the unit won't be able to reach the objective in one turn. So the AI will have to store a list of position and execute them in various turns. I don't know how to solve this. PS. In my unit code, I have a list called "selectionMarks" which stores all the possible places where the unit can go in this turn. This places are calculed recursively using a "getSelectionMarks" function. Any help is appreciated :D

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• Better Understand the 'Strategy' Design Pattern

  - by Imran Omar Bukhsh

  Greetings Hope you all are doing great. I have been interested in design patterns for a while and started reading 'Head First Design Patterns'. I started with the first pattern called the 'Strategy' pattern. I went through the problem outlined in the images below and first tried to propose a solution myself so I could really grasp the importance of the pattern. So my question is that why is my solution ( below ) to the problem outlined in the images below not good enough. What are the good / bad points of my solution vs the pattern? What makes the pattern clearly the only viable solution ? Thanks for you input, hope it will help me better understand the pattern. MY SOLUTION Parent Class: DUCK <?php class Duck { public $swimmable; public $quackable; public $flyable; function display() { echo "A Duck Looks Like This<BR/>"; } function quack() { if($this->quackable==1) { echo("Quack<BR/>"); } } function swim() { if($this->swimmable==1) { echo("Swim<BR/>"); } } function fly() { if($this->flyable==1) { echo("Fly<BR/>"); } } } ?> INHERITING CLASS: MallardDuck <?php class MallardDuck extends Duck { function MallardDuck() { $this->quackable = 1; $this->swimmable = 1; } function display() { echo "A Mallard Duck Looks Like This<BR/>"; } } ?> INHERITING CLASS: WoddenDecoyDuck <?php class WoddenDecoyDuck extends Duck { function woddendecoyduck() { $this->quackable = 0; $this->swimmable = 0; } function display() { echo "A Wooden Decoy Duck Looks Like This<BR/>"; } } Thanking you for your input. Imran

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• Pub banter - content strategy at the ballot box?

  - by Roger Hart

  Last night, I was challenged to explain (and defend) content strategy. Three sheets to the wind after a pub quiz, this is no simple task, but I hope I acquitted myself passably. I say "hope" because there was a really interesting question I couldn't answer to my own satisfaction. I wonder if any of you folks out there in the ethereal internet hive-mind can help me out? A friend - a rather concrete thinker who mathematically models complex biological systems for a living - pointed out that my examples were largely routed in business-to-business web sales and support. He challenged me with: Say you've got a political website, so your goal is to have somebody read it and vote for you - how do you measure the effectiveness of that content? Well, you would. umm. Oh dear. I guess what we're talking about here, to yank it back to my present comfort zone, is a sales process where your point of conversion is off the site. The political example is perhaps a little below the belt, since what you can and can't do, and what data you can and can't collect is so restricted. You can't throw up a "How did you hear about this election?" questionnaire in the polling booth. Exit polls don't pull in your browsing history and site session information. Not everyone fatuously tweets and geo-tags each moment of their lives. Oh, and folks lie. The business example might be easier to attack. You could have, say, a site for a farm shop that only did over the counter sales. Either way, it's tricky. I fell back on some of the work I've done usability testing and benchmarking documentation, and suggested similar, quick and dirty, small sample qualitative UX trials. I'm not wholly sure that was right. Any thoughts? How might we measure and curate for this kind of discontinuous conversion?

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• iOS Game Center - Quit turn-based games for previous version of app

  - by rasmus

  I have a game on the iOS App Store that uses Game Center for turn-based multiplayer (GKTurnBasedMatch). I recently updated the app with a new game mode and I had to change the network protocol for that to happen. As a result I marked my new version as incompatible with the old one. That is, you cannot see the old games within the new app and you cannot initiate a game with someone with the old version of the app. This works as expected. However: The old games remain active after updating. There seems to be no way to quit them. What is worse is that they still count to the maximum number of games you can start. I have been contacted by players that can only start 1-3 games without hitting the roof. Have anyone experienced this before? Is there any way to quit the games? Thanks in advance

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