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The New Victory


miraeng
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I have to assume it's not just money or even primarily money since the main thing Russ seems to not have enough of is time to work on the project. I'm sure money would help, but I'm not sure how that 'buys' him more free time. Then again, I guess he could then hire someone else to redo the game with new code. That would seem to be the first step before adding to and or altering the current game. RTG, if I'm not mistaken is down to a two man operation now. Many people have offered to help in the past, but I can only assume that it's hard to hand over significant aspects of the game to people you don't necessarily have a close relationship with. I'm just guessing here.

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Guest Spongebob

Brace yourself - Sponge in Serious Mode

 

We all know many of us have the skills and tallent to re-do this game in a better format. But we are also in the same boat, Time is valuable and the rewards too little. Hamish has done a lot of ground work that could be converted and impemented to a new game but the essence of a good game is not what you put into it but a good design that allows expansion.

 

If V2 is ever to see the light of day and all of us are crying out for it then the game should be re-designed in its own image before changes are impemented, if the design is sound then the changes will come in time and at regular intervals.

 

No one doubts RTGs desire or will but financial and time constraints will mean its is a doomed endevour.

 

What should take place is a team of dedicated players with the will and desire start to program a new game from the ground up with that all important upgradable design. Its sole aim to give it to RTG FOC. The days of making money from PBM is over and RTG should be given this so they may continue to provide us with the gaming experience we all enjoy.

 

Other open source projects work this way, why not Victory. Russ can lead while others contribute. I am sure there are tools available that will allow the project to get off the ground.

 

Someone just needs to get it started. Personally I volunteer Hamish to head up the organising of this and then put it to RTG.

 

Ok Normal Sponge Service will now resume - Your all gonna die, Spongistan will rule the world - 4EVA

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Guest Spongebob

Oh one more thing, a good design starts with a new rule book. The design would also have to be playable, keep whats good, change whats not so good and scrap whats crap. Get the rules right and the programming will follow but above all keep it playable, make it too complex and the programming will fail to do it justice.

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I agree with you Paul (sorry, but as a matter of principle I could never agree with Spongebob), I fear RTG is never going to have the time to finish a large project like Victory! v2, and if we really want this we as the players are going to have to contribute to this. I see (at least) two problems with this:

  1. We would have to agree on a target platform. The target platform also determines exploitation costs in the form of operating system licenses or similar costs, and those are business decisions that we as the players cannot make. RTG has to do that.
  2. We would have to agree on a programming language. While there are people here with experience in programming, from what I've seen so far no two people use the same programming language. I am always willing to learn new things, but a new programming language is almost as hard to learn as a new language.

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I agree with you Paul (sorry, but as a matter of principle I could never agree with Spongebob), I fear RTG is never going to have the time to finish a large project like Victory! v2, and if we really want this we as the players are going to have to contribute to this. I see (at least) two problems with this:

 

  1. We would have to agree on a target platform. The target platform also determines exploitation costs in the form of operating system licenses or similar costs, and those are business decisions that we as the players cannot make. RTG has to do that.
  2. We would have to agree on a programming language. While there are people here with experience in programming, from what I've seen so far no two people use the same programming language. I am always willing to learn new things, but a new programming language is almost as hard to learn as a new language.

I respectfully disagree with that last assessment, being one who has learned around two dozen programming languages to date.Yes, if you've only ever learned one, number two will look daunting. But if you've learned a few already, you will have noticed that, basically, at the logic level, they're all pretty much the same. The biggest differences are always in the libraries that come with the language, but with the proliferation of Windows (and, to some extend, the Macintosh) that latter point has become moot. Because, ultimately, all the languages use the same OS API as platform library, and that remains the same.

As for language to use. The current victory is most likely written in Pascal (which was, for a long time, the language of choice for Apple). Most Windows stuff to date is written in c/c++. Either of these would be a likely choice. I myself use a combination of the two. The VCL part is in pascal. My own code (which is on top of that) is in c++. As for complexity. Most of that resides in the order entry programs, as those need to be user (input) friendly.

The game server is pretty much a batch oriented system. You have a database with the current game universe state. You have a turn file with a sequence of orders. Each order is processed, one order at a time. Each order can, or cannot be performed. And if it can be performed, it just alters the state of the game universe. That's about it, in a nutshell.An order entry program (well, mine anyway) has to deal with what/if scenario's, which means it needs to keep and retain multiple states concurrently. Which makes it a lot more complex. The real game server does not have such problems. ;)

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I have to assume it's not just money or even primarily money since the main thing Russ seems to not have enough of is time to work on the project. I'm sure money would help, but I'm not sure how that 'buys' him more free time. Then again, I guess he could then hire someone else to redo the game with new code. That would seem to be the first step before adding to and or altering the current game. RTG, if I'm not mistaken is down to a two man operation now. Many people have offered to help in the past, but I can only assume that it's hard to hand over significant aspects of the game to people you don't necessarily have a close relationship with. I'm just guessing here.

 

Time = Money and vise versa

 

Sometimes it is difficult to chose between the two.

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I agree with you Paul (sorry, but as a matter of principle I could never agree with Spongebob), I fear RTG is never going to have the time to finish a large project like Victory! v2, and if we really want this we as the players are going to have to contribute to this. I see (at least) two problems with this:

 

  1. We would have to agree on a target platform. The target platform also determines exploitation costs in the form of operating system licenses or similar costs, and those are business decisions that we as the players cannot make. RTG has to do that.
  2. We would have to agree on a programming language. While there are people here with experience in programming, from what I've seen so far no two people use the same programming language. I am always willing to learn new things, but a new programming language is almost as hard to learn as a new language.

 

I respectfully disagree with that last assessment, being one who has learned around two dozen programming languages to date.Yes, if you've only ever learned one, number two will look daunting. But if you've learned a few already, you will have noticed that, basically, at the logic level, they're all pretty much the same. The biggest differences are always in the libraries that come with the language, but with the proliferation of Windows (and, to some extend, the Macintosh) that latter point has become moot. Because, ultimately, all the languages use the same OS API as platform library, and that remains the same.

As for language to use. The current victory is most likely written in Pascal (which was, for a long time, the language of choice for Apple). Most Windows stuff to date is written in c/c++. Either of these would be a likely choice. I myself use a combination of the two. The VCL part is in pascal. My own code (which is on top of that) is in c++. As for complexity. Most of that resides in the order entry programs, as those need to be user (input) friendly.

The game server is pretty much a batch oriented system. You have a database with the current game universe state. You have a turn file with a sequence of orders. Each order is processed, one order at a time. Each order can, or cannot be performed. And if it can be performed, it just alters the state of the game universe. That's about it, in a nutshell.An order entry program (well, mine anyway) has to deal with what/if scenario's, which means it needs to keep and retain multiple states concurrently. Which makes it a lot more complex. The real game server does not have such problems. ;)

 

I'm assuming you're a professional programmer. I am not, while I am an experienced amateur by now, I am still just an amateur. I have taught myself VB.NET and a bit of software architecture theory, and right now I'm now looking at HTML5/CSS3/jQuery, but I'm having trouble with JavaScript, and that's something I've used before. So I guess when you've been a professional programmer for years, a new language may be easy to learn, but for me a new programming language would be about as hard to learn as a new real language. I'm afraid most people who are playing Victory! are not experienced programmers either and for them learning a new language (first or additional) would be as hard as it is for me. The point I was trying to make is that I don't think anyone who doesn't know the programming language to be used for Victory! v2 already is going to be able to contribute there.

 

I do agree that the server part is most likely going to be a lot easier to code than the order entry program. But if we build a new version, we can also simplify the order formats and cut the complexity of that as well. Accommodating the versatility of the OMA and OMN orders has taken me more time than any other part of the program, if you split those up into separate orders for all available missions, the order entry program will also be simplified greatly.

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Heh.

 

Handling the versatility of orders like OMA and OMN is not difficult, not in an order entry program anyway. Just treat each variant as a separate, unique order in the front end, and let the order streaming code handle the reading and writing of all the variants. That's how I've solved it. :)

 

That works both ways, actually. I'm treating all the different army move orders as a single order in the front end, which just has a few configurable parameters. The order streaming code knows which parameter combinations map on which specific movement order.

 

And that's the point I'm trying to make here. The data format of the various orders, as stored in the turn file, is largely irrelevant. Unless, of course, players insist on entering that raw format directly.

 

I'm in the group that doesn't like that, or do that. In fact, I haven't manually entered a single order since 2005. For most orders, I wouldn't even know what the exact syntax, parameters or variants are. I've looked at them once, coded and implemented the order streaming to handle it at that time, and since then just use my own front end to specify my orders.

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I am convinced it is technically possible, we do have enough skills in between us to pull it off and enough spare time to do it in.

Summer break is coming.

The key is for RTG to appoint a team which they trust to get this organised,

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  • 2 months later...

I love most of the Ideas that I am reading.

 

Acouple of units suggestions---Russian Guards and over sized american inf. units.

 

I do like the Idea of the 12 div size armies.

 

There are alot of good ideas.

 

Victory II,here we come

 

A couple of other Ideas to add. Do not know if anyone has suggested them yet.

 

To be able to split your armies and attack in different directions.

 

A map that if you type in the name of a city or province the curser will go to that province. Would be nice for those big country's when you are trying to find a province that you have never heard of :) .

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There have been some innovations in other games that would be nice to see for Victory 2. An example would be the map interface that World Conquest and Modern World Conquest had created. In that game, you could move the cursor around the map, select your armies (or cities), and enter orders for them. Once orders were issued for them, the color changed, so it was easy to determine what was left to do. It was a graphic interface that would be very, very nice to have for Victory -- no more accidentally issuing the wrong route for shipping, rail, or attacks, or accidentally forgetting about a secluded army or airforce.

 

Jared

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