4k General

[ReBirth]

The game is easy. However there're some those wrong a bit. My tank is always killed in one to one fight with foot soldier. Plus my tank never could attack in range, make it like a foot soldier.

[Mickelukas]

Mickelukas was correct. There was a bug resulting in enemy attacks having no effect. Now they have. Not sure if it makes the game easier or more difficult. At least enemy artillery should be somewhat dangerous, so there is a good reason to try to overrun them.

Slightly tweaked the combat system so that units can only fire back once. So in addition to being easier to kill when attacked multiple times, there is no risk at all to the attacker when attacking a unit that has already been attacked.

Uploaded new version to the competition site. It's getting late here and no time for the double buffer test. Just hoping that it works for everyone. Good thing there are many days remaining before deadline.

Double buffering works now, well done

And here I thought my post with a link and all suggestions was worth an appreciation 

Mike

[Mickelukas]

4. Grey border means a unit has moved (or been attack... reusing the same code paths).

Now when I knew what to look for it was possible (not easy) to see. Maybe make it even more apparent (i.e. color the whole blue area grey)?

Mike

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[pelle]

4. Grey border means a unit has moved (or been attack... reusing the same code paths).

Now when I knew what to look for it was possible (not easy) to see. Maybe make it even more apparent (i.e. color the whole blue area grey)?

Uhm. True. Grey might work.

Another great idea. Thanks again! It is all very much appreciated!

[pelle]

The game is easy. However there're some those wrong a bit. My tank is always killed in one to one fight with foot soldier. Plus my tank never could attack in range, make it like a foot soldier.

That is some unlucky tank.

The tanks are not really stronger, but 50 % faster. Use them to rush enemy cities or go around the flanks to take out enemy artillery. It is more like reality than many computer games really in that way.

The scale is supposed to be operational, representing large areas, so multiple-hex ranges is for artillery only, not tanks.

[StephR]

Just won all, on level 30. Several interesting levels, especially the last one ( actually the tenth... ) that I found the hardest to win. If you still have some bytes left, you may consider painting the end turn button in a different color than white, and also the edge of the moved allied units in red instead of grey.

You just made a really honourable classic wargame, with a very good and modern user interface. Good job !

[pelle]

Thanks!

There will be a new version very soon. I found several ways to free up more bytes, so despite having fixed several problems and added some new features I'm down to only 4064 bytes.

[pelle]

OK. New version uploaded. Thanks for all the comments and support.

If it has a blue button it is the updated version. Also:

- Fixed so that a level is WON immediately when moving into the last city.

- Made units that have moved grey.

- More units on both sides on most maps. This is because with both sides attacking a lot more units are eliminated. Slightly less enemy artillery though, because they are so dangerous now.

- Bonus scenario 11 reached by winning all 10 scenarios with no loss. A bit lame perhaps? Maybe I should just add a few normal scenarios? I wanted some kind of bonus to fight for. Not that the bonus map is very special.

- Fixed old bug I had forgotten about that a unit in top left corner of map was auto-selected at beginning of each new turn.

- Scenario setup changes. Mostly just unit positions and types, not so much terrain.

- Lots of size optimizations. I have 33 bytes to spare!

Hope it is somewhat fun and not still way too easy now.

[pelle]

Ooops. Silly bug prevented units from crossing rivers. Fixed and new version uploaded. But not it's up to 4084 bytes. One optimization turned out to be a bit too optimistic.

[StephR]

It's much better now to see which allied units have moved or not.

Your idea of an 11th bonus scenario reached by winning all 10 scenarios with no loss, seems really hardcore. Or at least, for my skill !

If you want to add a new feature, you may implement a score. Each destroyed enemy unit may add one point to this score. And then, a minimum score may be necessary to start the 11th bonus scenario after winning the 10th.

Or you could just add one or more scenarios.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[pelle]

OK. I will leave it as it is for now, and probably do some final changes tomorrow.

[pelle]

Managed to reach the bonus scenario. Several almost losses on the way.

I won bonus scenario on third attempt only to notice a bug that makes the scenario counter just update rather than saying that campaign was won. Fixing tomorrow. Not likely that too many will notice it before that anyway.

[pelle]

I will probably remove the bonus-thing, just keep scenario 11 as it is, and then add a few more (and more difficult) scenarios at the end.

[ReBirth]

The game is easy. However there're some those wrong a bit. My tank is always killed in one to one fight with foot soldier. Plus my tank never could attack in range, make it like a foot soldier.

That is some unlucky tank.

The tanks are not really stronger, but 50 % faster. Use them to rush enemy cities or go around the flanks to take out enemy artillery. It is more like reality than many computer games really in that way.

The scale is supposed to be operational, representing large areas, so multiple-hex ranges is for artillery only, not tanks.

So I assume owning a SU-85b tank where my enemy hold RPG

[pelle]

You just have to assume that the tank units are of the approximate size and quality to be about as strong as infantry units of a certain size and quality. If SU-85b vs RPGs work for you, that's fine.

[pelle]

There was one thing that bothered me a lot beyond the gameplay... But it has been taken care of  (not uploaded yet though).  



(Some anti-alias would have been nice.)

[pelle]

Updated! Final version (or I hope so, but please let me know if there is some really bad bug that needs last minute fixing...).

- Hexes look like hexes now.
- Re-added that engineers are twice as good as other units to attack cities.
- Removed the bonus-scenario thing.
- Added a 12th scenario. (I have almost managed to win it once. I'm sure it can be done.)
- Lots of size optimizations (including the status bar now saying "MAP" instead of "LEVEL" to save a few  bytes).
- Some minor graphics tweaks to make terrain look a bit more like it follow the hex shapes.

[StephR]

Just completed your final version, and I didn't find any bug in it. Many nice improvements. I won the 12th scenario by luck on my first try. In my final strike, engineers and both their special qualities were directly involved on the frontline and helped me a lot.

I appreciate a lot classic wargames, and I would like more of them to be as easy to use as yours. Good job !

[sproingie]

Hexes, yay!  Now it looks like a proper wargame

[Nyhm]

Just tried it - very classic wargame elements. Gotta love the hex. My only wish was for something to tell me where a unit had been destroyed. Maybe keep dead units on map, but grayed out (and able to move over). When the battle is over, then you get to review the carnage, too.

[pelle]

Thanks guys! Not sure what I was thinking trying to get away without making the hexes hexes, but I thought it would require a lot more code than it did. It was very simple to add too. 

Showing eliminated units is a great idea, but I have only 2 free bytes and no obvious ways to free more without doing some big changes, and the deadline is a bit too close for that.

[pelle]

And finally I managed to win the last scenario too. Phew.

[Mickelukas]

Last one in 5 turns, did take some luck though

[Localhorst]

What a funny game, is it possible to see the source? Just curious how the AI is working

[pelle]

What a funny game, is it possible to see the source? Just curious how the AI is working

Thanks! Yes, I intend to post the source code.

The code is a mess btw. Almost everything is built around the same flood-fill-algorithm that I just set up with different offsets into the map data array and configure for different purposes. The AI use that too, to spread out influence of different units, and from cities, then the results are added/subtracted to get a score for each hex, and find the hex with highest score. A very simple influence mapping algorithm. It can probably be made a bit better by just tweaking some constants.

I run the code through cpp (the c pre-processor) to #include bitmap data. I need to allocate some time to put together a nice(r) pre-processed version that I can post on the java4k site.

The game can also be compiled in debug-mode, which adds some debug-graphics (and printing), and also adds keyboard shortcuts to edit maps and various cheat-codes (and it runs as a stand-alone Java application, not applet). Can post that version to github if anyone is interested.

[pelle]

Source code posted:
http://java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=400#source

It is preprocessed so it looks even weirder than the original file. For one thing all comments are missing. It was my first java4k game and many things are probably very stupid. I think I should have let proguard optimize more things instead of trying to do so much manually.

Looking at my old java4k files and scripts and just created a stub for a new game.

[ReBirth]

^ I hope it will help others to join java4k

[pelle]

I could not find the time or inspiration to join java4k 2013 unfortunately, but at least I took a few minutes just now to upload the full source code (with Makefile and helper scripts) of this little game from 2012:
https://github.com/lifelike/4kgeneral

Playing with the "scenario designer" might be more fun than actually playing the game, but other than that there is probably not much to see in there (yet?).

[ReBirth]

Too bad you can't join. Your problem might be idea rather time, because we have one year And while someone ran out idea, Apo submitted more than 10 entries

[pelle]

Ah, yes, mostly idea. It is difficult to make a game when you do not yet know what it is.