I'm still working on a new version of Conquerorgame/Clone of conquerorgame.

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First off, I personally would like this version to become Conquerorgame 2, meaning: I want the current developpers to support this project and the project to be officially theirs.

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Reasons to start this project:I personally love the current conquerorgame as many of you do. However,

The scripting(Coding) in combination with flash is very outdated.
There's a lot of bugs
Current administrators are very busy in real life and don't have the spare time to update(which is also hard because of the outdated scripting+it got messy over the years)
No more need for memory leaks(Crashes in 1v1 are common due to unnessecary memory leaks)
Reducing servers bandwith usage
Playing this game on any machine that supports java.
Actively updating, fixing bugs, adding new options.
(easier future planning for 3d usage(Will get detailed on this more as well)
And there's probably even more reasons, but I guess this is enough for now.

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In my other topic I started posted coding and such, which for now has been completely open-source. I might want to change this to halve-opensource or something like that.
All coding available to anyone that helps, but not for the random coder to come by and completely take it.(Though only small parts of coding will be held from the regular person.)
The point of this part is, I mentioned I could use help and a lot of people are willing to, but I haven't really been specific in how you could help which I will try to make clear in this topic.
(considering the open-source parts etc, I could use help for this being looked into on how this all goes down)

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PART: CONSIDERING CODING

This project will be coded in Java.People that are interested in coding or learning to code.HERE'S YOUR CHANCE! I will startup a side project to learn people Java-programming.
I will start from scratch although after that I will learn you about the specific parts that are needed to help with coding in this particular project.

People may be a bit scared off by it possibly being to hard, or knowning not much about pc's. Don't worry, I will put down here the mininum requirements(I personally think you need)
To join in with the coding part.

For programming I consider you need about an iq of around 100, or more so you can keep up. (Even a lil less then 100 would still do)
At least some time to spend on it, many people are busy which is no problem. I don't ask specificly you to use a certain amount of your time.
But if you have no time at all like ever, then this won't work out for you. If you are busy like most weeks with a bit of spare time after that or more after those weeks willing to spend on this,
its still enough to join in ;). Missing a few weeks of information is no problem either, you can just read it up again later.
I will try to reply to ANY question(If you ask for Banknumbers etc, I still try to reply just dont expect a serious answer tho lol)
I also hope people starting together will help each other out with problems considering coding.
You need to understand English decently, which you already succeeded at if you understood my not so perfectly English typing so far.
You do not have to be pro at computers, knowing about it helps, but as long as you know how to download or such its good enough. Also Questions about these things can be asked.
Very basic knowledge of mathematics.(Example: if you dont need a calculator to do 7 times 8 in your head + you understand that 1 + 2 * 3 equals 7 and NOT 9(which would be (1+2)*3 =9) that's good enough.

I guess this is pretty much all you need to get started if you get someone who knows how to teach(God, I hope I can) :D.
You will not get extremly hard tasks from me or so like that -> I will try not to let you get lost in the web of what today is besides the internet also computers are.

The hardest part about programming I found myself is getting started. I had to read a lot, try a lot.
and spending countless of hours perhaps days, with getting barely results or any results at all. This part I will decrease for you by being specific and also on further info besides this topic.
To give 2 versions of information, 1 with as much possible text left out to still do still do what needs to be done.
And a longer version in which you can gather more information etc to make things understand better. I will try to get you as much results as possible in as less time as possible.

Have you any interests in coding/programming as mentioned above please post so in the forums, if there's enough people willing to learn
( you could use all info learned in here as well to use at diffrent programming environments)

The more people the better, I will even start this up if at least 1 person seriously is interested in getting started with this.
Besides Learning Java programming, there will be some side-tasks or information be along with it.

Basicly you need to know for programming after getting started, is how to use basics + how to use google properly to find what you need.
A Programmer mostly looks up code, then change its into its own desires.This completely normal, no need to reinvent the wheel over and over.
(Which reminds me, if you invented the wheel twice you can build a bicycle)Haha ur lame Paars! :D

Don't worry about the Operating System you use, if its something like Windows,Linux or a Mac those all work for and with this.(Detailed info about why, I will get into a new post)

I'm not a 'pro' at programming, but moderate to say the least. ;) With the intertested ones I will learn with you together.


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PART: CONSIDERING (2d) Images

The game does need images, such as background(s).nicely looking buttons, nice looking chatsystem(Only the looks), banners/logo's, icons for when selecting a build option.
Also the idea is to expand to diffrent maps and diffrent ages, so for that we would need Extra countries cut out and such, perhaps more logo's/banners and diffrently looking icons for selecting.

I personally am really bad at images myself, I could care less if you created images in windows paint, or photoshop.
But if your interested in this part and helping please sign up, I do have extra programs to work with images(for example paint is too basic, photoshop may be to complicated.
I have paint programs available that are in between and such(Legally!)

Rippe has offered to help me with this, but he also is a busy man so it can't hurt to have more people helping with this

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PART CONSIDERING(3d) Images

Honestly, this won't be used or started with in a bit into the game that is. But if you are interested in developping 3d Imaging, please say so.
(I have legal software for the ones interested in this)
Even if you have interest for this, without having interest into helping with new development, dont mind asking for the software.
That It won't be implemented into the game right away, doesn't mean I dont know how to do so.(I shamefully have to admit I know how to manipulate 3d imaging in code better than 2d imaging)

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PART CONSIDERING SOUNDS/MUSIC

First off, Rippe also offered help on this. But as before, can't hurt to have extra people working on/with it.
I know very little about creating such, however, I have no problems implementing this into the game.
I do have some software available for for manipulating/creating sounds, also I don't mind helping out searching for diffrent perhaps more suitable software

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PART CONSIDERING AI(Artificial Intelligence)

In the case of Alexey willing to support us, work with us etc, we may get his old coding for the current AI. This needs to be converted into Java which I can do.
After that it still needs improvement, more options etc.

Acro is already in on this, although he has read into it. He may need help from diffrent people.

However if this is not the case, a new ai has to be created by us.
Especially rational mathematicly people could be used for this, but having a lot of experience by playing conquerorgame is good too.
There's a lot of ways to work with ai, etc.
For this part you do not have to have any coding skills, whatever you think off could be written down into English, later on by someone else be coded down.

I specially mention this part of the game since its a hard task and time consuming if done alone.
If you're interested in helping out with this please mention so and also into what extend.(Giving an idea here or there how ai should behave, or googling your ass off in how ai generally works
Which in most cases is done through search trees in games like chess, but we not nessecarily need it that extreme)

Giving idea's on possible ai options are welcome too.For example, should we add in options to make ai be agressive, passive, indiffrent etc.
Also should an Ai be able to be set up to weak/moderate/strong and such.
Should an ai have the possibility to be hostile to certain other ai's or players or friendly, even make possible peace acts?
(Hostility could for example be increased by attacking the ai, or perhaps influencing its countries with culture)
Making it more friendly could for example be done by attacking someone who he has hostility towards.
Or showing no signs of hostility to him by not attacking him, which would increase its friendlyness towards you overtime.
After that all you damn backstabbers will backstab him when he trusts you. :D
Just some idea's.

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PART CONSIDERING PROJECT MANAGEMENT

So far, I started this up. But my social skills aren't the greatest, organisizing neither.
Someone or some people, that will keep up with all improvements on all fronts, making sure contacts between the whole group is there.
Perhaps finding an extra platform or website to keep the group togerther, post information updates, kick me in the butt for being lazy.
Making sure this group/project doesn't fall apart.

Also depending on if Alexey will support us.If not we need a website, forums and such.
And plenty of more to be done. or thought off.

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PART CONSIDERING GENERAL IDEA'S

If you actively like to support the game but none of the above mentioned work out for you, for whatever reason.
You can still join in, by suggesting idea's or improvements of what was wrong in the old game, or new options you'd like to see.
Also by suggesting idea's when a new version comes out which you have tested.

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PART CONSIDERING TESTING NEW VERSION

This is pretty basic in general all you have to do is, to play the new version and report bugs.
The less basic part is when a certain protocol is used to be tested, so you get a file of information to test step by step.
So for this part I need people willing to test(Which all people do automaticly anyway) but also people who have interests in writing this so called testing protocol.

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PART CONSIDERING PEOPLE ACTIVELY WANTING TO HELP BUT NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLIES TO THEM

I'm sure I've forgotten to write stuff down, if you actively want to help with this project I, or someone else will help you find something to work on you have interests in.

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PART CONSIDERING GROUPIES(SUPPORTERS)

This part is for the people, that just don't have the time to help or dont want to work on the project but would like to see a new version.
Just post for this part if you support the new project. It motivates people to continue working on the project and makes us aware people are interested in this.

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I'm sure I've forgotten stuff posted above, I will update later if I think of what specifically.Or when someone points out something I forgot. ;)

As long no big amounts of money are made with this project, no one gets paid. All volunteerly work.(Seemed obvious to me, still wanted to mention it to make sure)
With exception to, in case alexey does have interest working with us. He gets all the income through paypal and donation(Which, believe me, are all currently used on his server costs)

Please sign up with your name and parts which you are interested in(you can apply to more then 1 job obviously, or just want to sign up for the java programming part and some other stuff)
Also signing up with a possible unmentiontioned application, is highly motivated!

If you sign up for programming-java learning but later decide to stop, that's ok. No hard feelings.
You can sign up for the programming-java learning even when you cant be busy with it now, or you read this topic a while later. You'll be catched up with it. :)
If you would like to be in the part onto giving general idea's but you can't seem to think of any now or even none in the future, that's cool too. Just Sign up anyway if you're serious. :)

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Considering for the java-programming sign up, these are some of the things you will get familiar with to some certain degree. And what you can use you it for next to this project.

- The general Idea what programming is, partly history about how and what.
- Object oriented programming (Java is oop, its something applied in any modern programming language so its usuable information when switching to a diffrent programming environment)
- Basic Java, Java programming is a very much used programming language(Though, for pc's a little less).
But the syntax of Java(How the coding looks like) looks similiar to pretty much any programming language out there
(Which for some strange reason other languages look very diffrently from each other, java is the 'in-between'). Going from java to PHP, C#, C++ or a lot of others, makes the transition a lot easier
- side stuff as knowing better how to use google (Its scary to see how many people cant find a lot of information just because they dont know the possible search options)
- Basic Database stuff, how this is put together. How and why it is used.(And a bunch more)
- a lot of other stuff I must have forgotten about at the moment. :)

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The team so far:

Programming/coding: Paars
sounds: Rippe
Imaging etc: Rippe
AI: Acro

(Only put myself to programming which is the most important part I do, but I guess I could be named with most of the possible applications, same goes for Rippe and Acro)

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If any questions at all, please do not hestitate to ask.

New conquerorgame/ConquerorGameclone general document 1.0
Written by Paars


Greetings,

Paars.

I would like to learn Java, however i do not know yet, where i am able to help with this project :)

Welcome to the team ;),

I think I will soon put up a website, or/and forums dedicated to the java learning.

as for the project, helping with the programming part won't be possible right away. You will be able to in a while. ;)

I personally think you're capable of helping out a lot with the ai part, if you're interested in that, that is.

General idea's also is some part I feel like you could think some good idea's off.
Perhaps project management(But I doubt you want that :p)
Testing version when it comes out, I dont even have to ask. I know you're always willing to help with testing considering the past.

Greetings,

Paars.

Hey Paars,

Seems like an interesting project, i hope you can get it up and going. I would like to volunteer to be a definite groupie/tester, can maybe come up with a few ideas about ai and features and stuff (will give it a bit of thought). I done a little bit of pascal programing at college years ago so I will check out your java learning and see if i can get my head around it (but dont get yer hopes up lol) i suspect i may suck at that. Hopefully theres a few dudes and dudettes out there that can help make this happen!!!!!!!

KrazyKat

tl;dr

I'm guessing you put forward good ideas and showed initiative for improving this game, but it would have saved you writing all that wall of text if you remembered that this game will never be improved. History teaches us lessons.

Just make your own game and get everyone to play that. I'd check it out.

Xi, this will be a new game. :), hopefully with alexy's support version 2.0
(This hasn't anything to do with updating the current version)

Greetings

Paars

Well then I stand corrected, but it is not completely my fault as posts that look like they might take longer than 17 seconds to read make my eyes glaze over and my brain go duuuuuuuhhhhh.

I blame my generation for this

I read that book articles hold our attention for 30+ minutes, magazine articles hold our attention for 1-2 minutes, and internet articles hold our attention for less than 30 seconds, on average. Not 100% sure on all those #'s, but it was interesting internet articles usually don't hold our attention for more than a minute.

As I stated in the previous topic, I have multiple college level photoshop and photography classes. I have adobe photoshop.

I am working on my bachelors in business management, so taking upper level management classes. Can help organize jobs, tasks, and priorities with other people.

If you want the help, I can talk to my father who is a programmer. He has his bachelors in computer engineering. He has mentioned it would be fun to write a game with me, so he might join in (if he has the time).

My brother also has upper level classes in game design and development, along with 3d computer imaging classes (and the photoshop and photography classes). He doesn't know coding but he could help develop the game.

Neither of these people have any knowledge of this game (I've introduced it to them but they were not into it, they liked it but just not into it.). So I am not sure they would be all up for it.

If you want any help, IM me, I'll give you my E-mail address. I don't get on too much anymore, but I would totally be up for playing with photoshop and having fun on this project and getting back into touch with all the players I enjoyed conversing with.

Here is a simple program my father has done. [tjspool.com]

Hi I would be interested in learning java as well.
might have some more time on my hands in a few weeks or so.
The ai stuff seems interesting. Don't give me an essential task tho.
have some basic fortran, bash/standard linux stuff, matlab(is that even a language) experience but consider myself a bad programmer.

Alright Nice, to see so much interest.

I will post a short update now, try to expand it later on to the day.

- player Jynxxx has joined the team, aka Scum. He will take up a bunch of stuff, such as management of project, photoshopping(talk bout it with rippe). Also, he has started up a basic forum for us a put it online, i ll give link soon.
Also Has started building website, which is hosted now at my laptop, also will post it later cuz i need to check some security issues.
Link to our new (temporarily) forums: [conquerorgame.46.forumer.com] please register. :)


- winx added to the team, brother of Jynxxx/Scum interested in photoshop stuff, programming and good with implementing idea's/chosing priorities.

- I have to private message Rippe still, but as Jynxxx also thought it was cool to build a Usa/north america map instead. We will go with that.

- Lobbysystem working, will today implement some extra functions + fix some dumb bugs. I will post link to download soon(I could now but since Im posting all the other stuff later anyway, this will also)

Webserver and Lobbysystem both hosted at my laptop.


- Will also post some more detailed info later on about the java teachings. Seems like we now have a bunch of people interested I ll really put my best efforts into it.

Again, will update later on

greetings

Paars



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2010 06:32AM by Paars.

I was having a search on google for possible Conq2 maps and thought this 1 was interesting and could maybe inspire a few ideas. It has USA, Canada & Central American States and Countries. Larger states such as california have been split in 3 to feature san francisco, los angeles, san diego in the same way original conq has done with the old european map




[www.diplom.org]

KrazyKat

Both maps are really good. I remember reading an article about how geographic and cultural barriers would play a much larger role if the USA was to shatter. We have to remember that the states are man-made borders that do not represent those regions very well. For instance, I live in Oregon. I actually am in Washington more than Oregon sometimes, because Washington has a culture I like more. Orchids and wineries are up there. Same with the other side of the mountain, the people are very different. In fact, it is often argued that our state is not properly represented because the majority of the population resides on the other side of the mountains, causing our senate and majority of our house votes, but mainly the governor and local policy makers to be selected by people who do not live inland. Making some of our policies clearly favorable to people who do not live in similar conditions and do not have similar believes. You see the same things in Washington because Seattle is on the west side of the mountains (although tri-cities is picking up significant importance in that state).

The point is, natural barricades and cultural differences would play a larger role than some silly sign saying "You are in California". Which gives us more ability to draw a more fair and round map for 3v3 and other such team games, as RIPPE has mentioned.

Some maps to consider when re-drawing our own map of the USA
Population: [www.visualizingeconomics.com]
Roads: [www.united-states-map.com]
Counties: [0.tqn.com]

And I got to go do some stuff, so will finish this post and more ideas on how to divide the territories later. If any players/veterans would like to suggest how to break up countries to make for more even games, that would be nice too.

EDIT: and just found this, someone else take on division of states: [paradoxoff.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2010 07:42AM by Scum.

would it really be smart to include central American states as on KK's map? Mobility seems too low around there

I applaud your enthusiasm, Paars and others.

But may I suggest focusing first on the essence of the game, and adding the rest later?

I do not only mean graphics, but also sounds, AIs most of all. I think you will come across some frustrations, and your motivation is more likely to stay high if you first commit yourself to a very simple version of the game.

I would suggest something like a checkerboard map, 2 players, no AIs. At first maybe even no forts, defense bonuses, etc. Maybe even start with standard lands all generating one army per turn, no farming or culture. Just the basics. Capitals in the corners of the checkerboard. Options: move armies around, fight.

The rest can then be added later.

i think emp is right here, the basic structure is needed before it makes sense to think about anything else. but i cant really add to those things since i have no programming skills at all. all i can provide are top notch graphics and sound which will turn the pope to an atheist and gandhi to a terrorist. + i can turn shit to gold if needed.

I get your idea Emperror, but that that´s excluding pretty basic stuff. Except the checkerboard idea. But it would be completely diffrent from the original and have to rewrite the whole class. (I've used such coding before for Creating a rushboard game solver, also used this background idea for 'game of life' which simulates some kind of virus based on his neighbors if it gets to expands, gets to live or just die.

checkerbord idea is easy to display on a component you can draw on, 2 dimennsional array created by 2 for loops.


The most important stuff would´ve have to be included anyways. User id(name), a way to connect to each other, sending information over.

The project has been divided in rough blocks, the lobbysystem which I've planned the database part for later on. And the game system, which you could also see in some rough parts to do. Anything in this project I've done before in some way or another with a small exception of a few options we need to display the images on screen.

I have/am leaving our the extra defense bonus and forts. also I won't include right away option to lose troops when cut off. Also not sure where I will let troops leave when you can't pay. I guess the most logical should be to do the expensive ones. (Later on I guess we can add options for the player to chose which have preference to be payed.)

Well, I wouldn't set up a checkerboard in an iterative manner, if you know that later on you will have lands with different numbers of neighbors. I just mean, don't get into making fancy maps rightaway. You could start out with a 3 by 3 map, for a start. The code should be flexible enough to easily translate to any other map, I think.

Indeed the connection and id stuff seems like the most important part to get done. You can do that all around such a simple map.

I'll leave it up to you. I know some programming, but I think this would take too much time for me.

Connecting to a lobbysystem, chatting, sending information over such at game like players,countries, soldiers is all working already.

"Considering people wanting to learn Java"

I haven't specified a starting date yet, but expect it to be soon(rough guess: less then/within a week)

Prepare also for a rederiction to some new forums (Which also are used for the new project)You will need to freely register there if using it. Besides that, I will try to keep updates posted on a website I will host on my home pc.(No need for registering, but interaction and stableness compared to forums are low)

I've gotten a backup tutorial ebook. Which I will use as personal reference myself.Also for the people here to be used, who want to get ahead of things, or find it more understandable then my going to be explinations. :)
[www.megaupload.com] is the link for this, you will need a program to unrar it.(such as Winrar). Its a .chm file originally I doubt anyone will have problems opening it.If it does so, please post it.

For now I've decided we shall use JCreator light(free) design evironment, but need to check if its available for mac/linux too.
Its not comletely sure we ll use this yet, so I won't go into much details here yet.

For the ones not caring its not sure yet, if you are going to download it make sure you download one of the latest(also free) Java development Kits(JDK).
Some JDK 6.X to be used with it.

to Display java applications/applets you have to have a 'Java Runtime Environment'(JRE). This as I believe usually is automaticly included with a JDK, besides that, most people have it installed already anyway.

Just some global 'ahead of time' information here.

Greetings,

Paars

- expect link to forums soon
- expect link to website soon
- expect choise for java programming environment soon
- [www.megaupload.com] java reference tutorial, uploaded
- expect a specific starting date soon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2010 10:24PM by Paars.

WOW looks like a cool project, I'm just wondering if i could fit in somehow. I have some programming experience but no java.

one thing that has bothered me in the old version is the whisper thing. it would be nice to just click on the person to whisper to when you are playing the game, not only when you are in lobby.

There are several other things that could be improved for people like me (team players throw and throw).

HST