Franconaute - For the Glory: Carnet de développement 3

Nous sommes mercredi, jour des Dev diaries!

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Hello everybody, and welcome to our third development diary for ‘For the Glory’ (FTG).

There is no grand strategy game like FTG without a database behind it for countries, monarchs, leaders, provinces, religions, cultures, technologies, events, etc. With AGCEEP, this database became huge and some map mods for EU2 even added more countries and provinces, but there was a limit with EU2 for this database. The first one was the number of possible “objects”. The second was almost all rules that could apply to these objects were inside the game.

The primary goal of FTG was thus breaking most of the EU2 limits and externalizing rules as much as possible. A new database structure was required for this and thus a new database engine in order to handle it. The new database engine for FTG was created by Wreck. With it, road was open for a full rewriting.

The first thing to do was converting EU2 csv files to a more user-friendly text files structure. The next step was going through the source code, identifying all well known effects that were inside it... and some more deeply hidden.

For example, do you know there were chokepoints in EU2? Here is the result in FTG database:

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control_seazone = {
445 #Gibraltar
732 #Tangiers
357 #Thrace
307 #Sjælland
251 #Skåne

}Every fleet that comes from the port of these coastal provinces has a bonus for interception of enemy fleets in the adjacent sea zone.

The result of this work was a model that can be extended very easily. All EU2 players know there is a permanent casus belli for Catholic and Counter-Reformed countries against the owner or Roma if not the Pope, or against any country at war with the Pope. I am playing Venice in AGCEEP and Aragon just decided to declare war to Papacy...

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/3307/cbpapacy.png

Corresponding parts of FTG database are:
1. for Roma:

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religious_cb = {
religion = {
province = 399 #Roma
type = catholic
owner = { PAP }
}
}2.

for Papacy:

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religious_leader = {
PAP = catholic
}

PAP is the country tag for Papacy and “catholic” in the database is for a religious subgroup that includes Catholic and Counter-Reformed as two very close but different religions with specific rules. Religions will be detailed in a future development diary but this simple example shows how the model can be extended for any province, any country and any religion. There is no limit.

The next step of the process was using the new database structure for reworked and new scenarios. Garbon handled this task for standard scenarios. The goal was just enhancing the scenarios with more historical setups and keeping in mind those scenarios are best suited for multiplayer. For example, you will see Hussite is now a specific religion for Bohemia. Garbon also added a scenario for the Age of Timur that starts in... 1399, of course!

The other idea was externalizing values used in formulas. As a result, there is a DB file called defines.txt that includes more than 250 values. Here is the content of the mercenaries section of this file:

Code:
mercenaries = {
_MER_INFANTRY_BASE_PRICE_ = 20 #Positive
_MER_CAVALRY_BASE_PRICE_ = 40 #Positive
_MER_ARTILLERY_BASE_PRICE_ = 65 #Positive

_MER_MAXBEFORE_OFFSET_ = 81 #Positive
_MER_ARTILLERYAFTER_OFFSET_ = 81 #Positive
_MER_MINAFTER_OFFSET_ = 281 #Positive
}The first three entries are for the base price when hiring mercenaries. Current level of inflation of the hiring country will be added for available mercenaries.

The last three entries are for time information according to the defined timeframe of the game. The default timeframe is indeed 1419-1819 but there is no limit, from 0 to...

MaxBefore means more available mercenaries for the first 81 years of the game. ArtilleryAfter means no available artillery in the first 81 years of the game. MinAfter means only a few available mercenaries after 281 years in game. This offset rule applies to any value related to dates and not only in defines.txt. Just think about technologies in particular.

Enough of database and text files for now, let’s go back to the interface!
MichaelM created a new option at the start of a game. I am in the multiplayer country selection screen waiting for other players:

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/422...entchoices.png

Normal (default), Historical or Random for A.I. event choices?

Well... MichaelM will explain it in a future development diary. The next one will be devoted to enhanced and new game features first.

Encore un journal "technique", mais bientôt plus de détails sur les nouveautés!