"Generate Random World 3.11" is the old world building function (by Baldwin). I have tried to guarantee that this function will still behave as before. Therefore, you cannot set parameters on it, and the maximum number of cities that will be laid on the map is 199. However, you can use the extended width and height sizes to 254 when using this function.

"Generate Random World 3.50" is the old world building function with parameters allowed, and a few slight changes. It is here that you can produce a very random map. Unfortunately, I suspect we will have a period of experimentation before the best ways to obtain satisfactory result are discovered. But it does give you something to play with.

"Generate Random World with DLL" is the option for those who want to take a stab at world creation themselves. There is a single function call DLL that is linked to during runtime. The API of the c++ version of the function currently looks like this:

extern "C" __declspec(dllexport)
BOOL  WorldBuildDll(
	LPSTR my_map,           //map array (size is map_length * map_width) (output)
	INT map_width,          //width of map in terrain squares (input)
	INT map_height,         //height of map in terrain squares (input)
	BOOL wrap,              //map wrap on/off (T/F) (input)
	LPSTR city_prod_eff,    //indexed array of city production efficiencies (output)
	LPSTR city_prod_spec,   //indexed array of city production specialties (output)
	INT city_array_length,  //length of the two city arrays (input)
	INT wetness,            //wetness factor from user gui, between 0-100(input)
	INT roughness,          //reverse of green factor from user gui, between 0-100(input)
	INT altitude,           //altitude factor from user gui, between -100 and 100 (input)
	INT num_cities,         //number of cities factor from user gui between 0 and MAX_CITIES (input)
	INT num_cities_var,     //variance factor for number of cities from user gui, 0-100%, (input)
	INT prod_eff,           //city production efficieny setting from user gui, 1 to MAX_PROD (input)
	INT prod_eff_var,       //variance factor for city prod efficieny from user gui, 0-100% (input)
	INT city_special        //specials percentage from user gui, between 0-100% (input)
)

The user will see the same parameters dialog before this function is called. The parameters obtained from the dialog are passed to the DLL call, but it is up to the author of the DLL to use them or ignore them. The array my_map is the map itself, with character values for the basic terrain types. The city_prod_eff and city_prod_spec arrays describe the production efficiency and specialty values. The first entries in those two arrays represent the first city terrain icon encountered when walking the map array from the beginning. Upon return, the game program takes this information, validates it, then makes the map look pretty (adds a shore line, etc.).

Sound is in, but midi sound is out. This is due to various issues, some not so technical…but all the sounds and songs are being translated into WAV files (sound was already wav). These will be exposed and the user may change these if he cares to. Unfortunately, the WAV files for the music can be quite large, and will increase the size of the package considerably. The first alpha wrapped with sound was 25 megabytes, though that will be reduced and is still puny by today's standards, but my binaries are still bearing a footprint of around 500K. The exposed images and sound make up the rest.

I have added a SVG processor, and it appears to be able to run through a game. This is an extremely difficult feature to test, but hopefully most of the situations that might keep it from completing a turn have been resolved. Essentially, it will run through a saved game and treat the turn as if the player has not moved at all, even if he has standing orders. Standing orders would have been too intrusive to add. However, it does check the range on planes and sends them home or destroys them when needed. Syntax is:

                 game [infile][outfile][password]

The password is the password for the player whose turn it is. The infile is the SVG to be read, and the outfile is the SVG to be saved. A report file is also generating indicating success or failure.

Since I have been unable to catch the Long Name City bug, I have decided to rework the way name labels are stored and accessed internally. This should prevent such bugs from occurring. I have also resolved the issues with subs and loaded TR's being drawn for the enemy to see when a plan is in a flyover attack. It turns out there were a myriad of ways to detect a sub when a plane flew over it. The majority of these bugs were only occurring during live play.

The only other "Old Game" issue I still am dealing with is the complaints that people have regarding the random generator. The more I look at this, the more I feel a lot of this problem is perception. I have statistics being taken on the combat mini rounds, and right now they appear to be as should be expected. These stats are currently exposed, so during the beta the testers should get a chance to look at the stats and comment on what they see. One thing I had never realized was that, when you exclude neutral cities, a single game actually has very little combat. Therefore, we as humans may tend to focus on particular events that do or don't go our way. I have seen a fighter run through several units, but I have also seen people win several times in a row at Blackjack, it just never seems to be me. I have no conclusive evidence that there is a problem with the random number generator at this time. This will continue to be examined during the beta.

There are various other smaller features that have been added, but stating those here would make this report longer than it already is…I will be enumerating these for the beta crew, and will probably post them on the site at the same time. I am sure I am leaving something out, feel free to ask about it in the forum.

This week has started with me preparing for the beta. I have roughly two dozen people who have agreed to try out the game. My apologies that this could not be an open beta, but it would not work out logistically. Also, I am sorry I have had to turn down so many requests for beta. I assure you I will try my best to get the game to the state of quality it needs to be at and released in a timely fashion.

Hopefully the beta will begin Saturday. I have started to prepare by making sure the game operates on my test platforms available to me. These are W98, ME, 2000 and XP. It looks as if there will be two binaries delivered with the game. I could go with a UNICODE approach, but there is risk involved with preparing the code for that. Two separate binaries are built from the exact same code base and will be sold together. They will be something like Empire98.exe compiled on Windows 98 for 98, ME and 95, and an EmpireXP.exe compiled on XP for Win2000 and XP. I am unsure if Windows 95 will be a supported platform or not at this time, though it will be tested. WINE/linux testing has been planned, but it will not be 'certified' on WINE either.

I had added some techniques to try and make the GDI code more efficient, which involved the preparation of certain bitmaps during startup, but this had to be removed. The GDI resource constraints on Win98 and ME are just too small to do anything like this. Everything worked well on XP and 2000, but Win98 and ME choked. ME has been an extra pain, because the default transparent color (which was purple) used for bit masking explosions and such, would not work on ME. However, the color has been changed and it now works. I am sure once the game goes to the beta testers, I will find other nice surprises such as this.

My Win98 platform is a Pentium III 500, and I do not see performance issues while in the game at this time. I have not gathered stats on the beta platforms yet, but I know at least one is a 350.

Besides the beta, there is documentation and the exposed elements of the game that need to be cleaned up so they can be released early. I hope to release the DLL code and sample graphics sheets this month to give those who want to tinker with them time before the release to do so.

I am excited about entering the beta, but there is much to be done to be ready. So by the next report the beta will be well under way and it should be apparent how much work is going to be necessary before release time. With this month we should be seeing more screens of the new features in action and hearing from others about the game.

Update: February 18th, 2003 - The 'Ad Hoc' Report
Next Update by: February 25th, 2003

This status report is not going to be too detailed, but a lot has happened to Empire Deluxe in the past week and I would like to share some of it while it is still fresh.

The feature insertion phase of development for Empire Deluxe is quickly coming to a close. I have worked hard to get in as many features I feel are worth the risk to the code and worth the time it takes to put them in and stay on schedule. There have been various temptations of feature creep as I see things that could be added, but there is so much more that needs to be done just to produce the game in its current state that I must move on. When it is time to complete the design for the Enhanced Version, there will be some great ideas to add.

Waypoints have been added to the game, as well as a city production status chart and a unit organization chart. These charts may be sorted by any column and unit information may be filtered by land/sea/air. Options also exist to jump to the unit in question.

Waypoints are just labels on a map. The user can give a unit a "Move To Waypoint" command. The waypoints can also act as notes. Each point can store up to 100 characters of text.

Waypoints, Movement Paths, and Unit Orders are also now stored in remote games and will be preserved regardless of who is saving or loading the game.

Patrols have been expanded to 16 legs. Aircraft now can maintain longer patrols as long as they stop in cities or airbases to refuel. So you can have one plane fly completely around an island while on patrol, as long as it stops at a friendly AB or City to refuel. .

Sound has been added to the game. All sounds are now wave files, and are replaceable by the users. Set your favorite song up for the prompt if you choose.

Secure startup for PBEM has been added to the game. This is a new file format that turns into an SVG file once the first turn has been started.

I still have not caught the Long Name bug, though I have not yet analyzed svg files sent in by many players. Thanks to all of you who sent me a file. I have determined that the "Black City Bug" will not appear in the game, due to the addition of custom icons.

I suspect recording a game will not be put in, nor will Direct Play. These would be nice features, but recording presents several security and logistical issues, not to mention building a playback interface, and I have not been able to schedule time to try and install Direct Play. These things will have to wait for the Enhanced Edition.

With the time remaining this week, I want to squash the outstanding Old Game Bugs, (Long Names and Loaded Transports/Subs Revealed on Flyover Attacks), as well as try to increase the game size limits and add a SVG processor to facilitate timed PBM play sites. There's also the never-ending quest to make the network code as solid as possible.

Sometime next week I shall prepare for the beta. So although one exciting time is coming to a close, a new one is coming round. Soon release time will be here!

Update: February 10th, 2003 - Knowing Just Enough to be Dangerous
Next Update by: February 24th, 2003

Well, it's been a really busy week for Empire Deluxe. I have implemented a ton of stuff, and still have a ton of stuff to implement.

All in all it's going quite well, as you can tell by the updated features list. I have added most of the things that I feel would be the most intrusive features to add, and have squashed many of the old bugs. I must take care now, for I am at that point in development where I know the code well enough to find things pretty fast, but don't know it well enough to understand the impact some changes may have on the functionality of the game. I must be careful and not just stumble through the changes I am making.

The features list has been updated with items for the games, some features have been added, some have been implemented, and some have ended up on the cutting room floor. The ones that aren't making it usually are because either too much code would change (hence risking problems) or it would take too long to implement (thus delaying the game's release). If you wish to discuss those features that I have cut, feel free to do so in the forum or send me a mail.

Two notable features that did not seem to make it out of the gate are "Adding More Players" and "Master Reassignment" during a game. The additional players would affect too many areas in the code to insure stability, including the interface, and the steps involved in reassigning the master would be a most difficult and complex problem with the existing protocol, and even if it did happen correctly, it could not be guaranteed because the network setup/firewall issues of all the players could not be predicted. It's best that the humans decide who the master player is going to be. Any player at anytime can save the game and restart it as the master if necessary. This seems satisfactory enough.

Time is a huge factor in the decision to drop a proposed feature. The beginning of May might seem like a long time, but the changes put in will affect the game in ways not yet known, Because of this, a long and stable beta test is needed to insure the game is more stable than it was in version 3.11.

Several features have been implemented and are now in the game. This week I attacked two basic areas, those affecting the Networking Piece, and those that had to deal with players starting and ending the game. Map editing and player statistics/history as well as several other general requirements have not been touched so much as of yet, and will be addressed soon.

A lot of work has gone into the Internet Play part. The chat menu has changed quite a bit. Those who have played multiplayer LAN Empire Deluxe before are familiar with the little edit box at the bottom of the screen. This edit box had a button that would flash when you received a message. When pressed, the message would appear in the edit box, which was quite inconvenient because that is also where you sent messages. Often you could get confused as to what you sent and what was sent to you. Also, when you sent a message, you had to send it to everyone. There was no filtering.

All this has changed. On the main window, the little button has been removed. There is now a little edit box for sending messages, and next to that, a little list displaying the last message and who sent it. This is displayed in the picture below:

In addition to this on the main window, there is now a separate chat window which displays a large portion of the chat buffer, and allows you to set the players with whom you wish to chat. Here is an example of the current chat window:

Now, in multiplayer players are allowed to hot seat at a remote client. Those inclined to send secret messages of their yet to be executed evil deeds will need to remember that messages are really being sent to the client, not the player. In other words, there is only one chat mechanism per client, and there is no way to hide messages intended for just one player on that client. The chat window will always indicate who you are sending messages two via activated push buttons for each opponent.

I am very pleased that players may now switch freely between PBM and Live games. Used to be, once you went PBM, you could not go back. Players now are also able to "Abdicate" their positions, and let the Expert Computer try and do a better job. In an online game, when a player abdicates, the computer player lives on the Master's machine. On the networking side, players can now lose/win/resign/abdicate in the game and still chat with others and remain connected.

During IP play, if a player exits a game without resigning/abdicating, the game will force all players to exit (with the option to save beforehand). This decision was made due to security concerns in a game. In an online game, if all players abdicate, and only the computer players are left, the game will stop.

Old game bugs are also being smashed quickly. Air Craft Carriers can no longer go on land, the infinite air range bug has been squashed, a bug was discovered and fixed in the AI which could prevent the computer player from aggressively attacking transports and carriers, the dreaded Resignation cheat has been fixed, and the soon to be infamous Neutral Cities Reveal Capture bug has been fixed.

Neutral Cities Reveals Capture has been a dilemma for me. I view it as a cheat, but others see it as game play. I have it currently as an option when you start up a game, but I still may take it out. As soon as more people start playing online, the less enamored people will be with this method of play, IMHO.

Stepping away from the feature list, Wydraz has given me a test strip of his terrain sheet. It definitely gives the game a new look. However, I understand that some of us have been playing the game for ten years and like the old terrain the way it was. If you are in that group, do not worry, for a sheet with the original terrain will also be provided.

So this coming week or so I plan on working with the statistic and the map editor. It seems like work never stops on the networking piece, and this week I hope to test several bad socket scenarios. After that, knocking off many of the other general features on the list.

If I get enough time before the end of this month, I plan to look at some of the features that I see still on the list, but are in danger of falling off. These are:

Adding Direct Play

Processing SVG games for Skipped Players

Saving player remote orders in a LAN game

Adding Waypoints

Recording a Game.

Although all these features are cool and would love to put as much in the game as I can, they are all in risk of not being implemented due to the effort and risk involved, as their percentage ratings reflect. If you wish, drop me a line and let me know how you would prioritize this short list.

The mail and support for this project continues to be great. I want to thank those who have made efforts to post in other forums about the activities here. As I have said, it is by your word of mouth discussions that will keep this game alive.

By the time of the next report, I will be very close to a beta (though I hope to sneak an extra report in early next week to tell you how the other features are going). We should have a very good impression of the exact shape of the game. Then the remaining effort will be to add those little things left for such a time, insure quality and stability, as well as document and prepare for delivery. Next month will get to be exciting, because others will get to see it and hopefully will get to share some of their impressions. Very soon after that, you will all get to play it.

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Update: January 27th, 2003 - Now you can reach out and crush someone...
Next Update by: February 10th, 2003

Work on Empire Deluxe is still moving along very nicely. The alpha prototype has now turned into an alpha build that is moving its way towards production. All large-scale features of the game have been implemented in this build to some degree, except for sound. This does not mean the build is almost finished, instead it means real work on making it what it needs to be can now begin.

The name has changed from "Empire Deluxe: Ancient Edition" to "Empire Deluxe: Internet Edition". I believe this is more descriptive as far as the new aspects of the product goes.

And in regards to Internet play, it has been implemented. IP games are now playable amongst up to six opponents. Play has taken place over the Internet between a machine running the Zone Alarm Firewall software and between a machine behind a Linksys DSL Router. Both machines took turns hosting games. I have played games with all six players on my single machine as well. There is obviously more testing that is required, but preliminary results are very good, and it plays better than with COMT in the middle.

There are issues with Internet play that need to be addressed. There are some minor display bugs that appear to have been introduced when the player starts his turn, and the appropriate place where refreshes are required need to be determined. The current message window is grossly inadequate by today's Internet Play Standards (sic). You are supplied an edit box with one line which both sends and receives messages, and your messages are broadcast to everyone in the game. A new detached chat window will need to be constructed and a filter for sending messages will need to be implemented.

The way network play works will be slightly backwards from other games, because I had fit it into the current architecture of the game. Basically, the Master server player gathers the IP addresses of all the client players, enters them into the player selection dialog when choosing players. Meanwhile, the other players set their games up as "Remote Slaves". Then the Master Server connects to each client, and uploads the game information and the game begins. In most other games, the Master player would start a server, and the clients would connect to it before the game would be formed.

Currently under the hood for Internet play, all clients are connected to the master, and the master acts as a router between the various clients. This can cause a problem when the master loses a game, but there is still a game to continue. This scenario has not yet been flushed out, but currently, the master would have to keep his program up to allow the other players to continue play. Hopefully there will be time to come up with a method where a new master can be elected will be worked out. However, there may be stability risk involved, and without completely reworking the way the game flows, this may not be possible. It may be better for the players just to save game when a master is defeated, then restart the session without him. Another issue is that currently players disconnect as soon as they lose, and are not allowed to linger and chat. I hope to address this as well.

So there is still plenty of work that needs to be done to the Internet Play feature of the game. Direct Play is still being considered, but there has been no effort to put it in at this time. There may be too much risk associated with adding it to the existing architecture.

Graphically the game has changed slightly in a few areas. There apparently was a bug/feature in the 3.11 game when you made a wrap map that had a land square next to the top or bottom edge. The edge square would appear as a sea square, and things would look 'strange'. The icon set in the game included a land edge icon, but it was not used. On the urging of Wydraz, I have fixed this issue and added some more edge icons to make it look nice.

Also, I have taken a suggestion from the forum and added eight different city icons. These icons will be set when the production of a city falls within a certain range. For example, a city with between 90% - 100% production would have a particular icon, but if captured or bombed, it would have a different icon to show it has reduced below 90%. There are eight different levels, and I would love to hear you suggestions for what the ranges should be. Due to the way the game works, these ranges most likely will not be customizable.

Players are going to have access to all the artwork (includes units, terrain, and explosion icons) and sound, as well as be able to customize their zoom settings. This in fact is how Wydraz is working with the art. He is able to quickly slip in BMP sheets with the terrain and unit graphics on them to check his work. You will be able to make your own terrain and unit sets and put them in the game.

I have also implemented a simple label displaying the production value of a city. The display of these labels on a map can be toggled on and off. I say simple, but it was an exercise in discovering how coupled the code is. This feature was more difficult to get right than I thought it would be, and it has convinced me that adding features to this code base will be fraught with peril.

I can also save maps, scenarios and games. The new formats of maps and scenarios are the same as they were before, however the sizes of some numbers have changed (now 32 bit). Saved Game files are different in the fact that I am not using the compression code to compress them. (This compression code was originally the property of New World Computing and not Mark and Bob, so I have never seen it and cannot use it). The SVG's are still encrypted, and I may not need to compress them any further, since the average hard drive nowadays is in the 20's of Gigabytes as opposed to the 20's of Megabytes 10 years ago. However, it does mean that the possibility for SVG game files to get corrupted due to old bugs still exists, and I plan to review the code further.

Player history and Preferences have also been installed. The preferences available will change. I have added an INI file which the users can also edit to change certain things. There will be no ECONFIG.EXE to deal with.

So over the next few weeks the build will need to be shaped into a game. At this point, I believe it will be released in May (hopefully early May), and a real beta on it can begin March 1. Since this report is so long, I will not list the features here, but will post it on a separate page.

In the next few weeks, I intend to add sound, revisit the IP play, test IP play more intensely, and work on implementing the features in the features list. By the time of the next report, I hope to have my sights set on preparing the build for beta testers.

There's a lot here to digest, I have left out several details I'm sure. If you have any questions, send me a mail or ask in the forum.

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Update: January 13th, 2003 - We Have Game...
Next Update by: January 27th, 2003

Empire Deluxe work is going better than I anticipated. I have already constructed an alpha prototype. This version consists of working versions of the map editor and the game itself.

The Map Editor has the full functionality of the old version. The only missing feature from map editing is loading and saving maps and scenarios. It does retain the feel of the 3.11 version. Although the code is in 'C', it is being compiled as C++ to properly link with additional code I am having to add. The game portion is fully playable and stable, but I have not addressed all the 16 to 32 bit issues yet.

Speaking of maps and scenarios, it is apparent that the file formats for these will change. I do intend to create a conversion program which will convert old 3.11 MAP and SCN files into the new format. This logic will not be in the game itself, but as a utility. The formats will not be very different. Save Game files (SVG) will not be convertible or loadable. I have had requests for releasing the new formats for those who wish to make their own map tools, and I plan to make such information available.

I am surprised with how much graphics code could be removed from the source. There was a lot of fussing with 8 color and 16 color stuff, and resolution logic that is no longer necessary. The Ancient Edition will support 24+bit color I will be able to add more zoom levels as well.

The game will not use DirectX for rendering, it will use the existing windows GDI code. This appears to be efficient enough for the current task.

I have discussed the art with Wydraz, but do not wish to go into detail on the artwork at the moment for there is something cool brewing. I'll have more on this subject when I announce a features list for the Ancient Edition. This will hopefully be in the next status report.

The name 'Ancient Edition' is also in debate. Some find it too confusing, because of games like Civ and Empire Earth that have 'Ancient' Ages. The word 'Classic' might confuse it with Walter Bright's EMPIRE (v1.0), I am in a quandary over the name. If you have any ideas, please drop me a line or throw it into the forum.

Modem and COM port users will be out of luck, as I do not intend to maintain that portion of the code. Instead, IP socket (Internet) play will be put in. I have not analyzed the possibility of adding MS DirectDrawDirectPlay yet (for the ZONE). The DirectDrawDirectPlay would be in addition to direct IP connect capability if added.

I have looked over the sound files, and while not the greatest, will be adequate for the Ancient Edition.

The Old Game Bug list for Empire Deluxe has grown a great deal. In the features list I hope to list the ones I will try to squash. Also, if there is something you really would like to see in the "Ancient Edition", please drop me a line or put it in the forum.

So with this current alpha build, in the next couple of weeks I plan to investigate IP play, file formats, more graphics fussing and get the sound installed, turn the alpha into a working build, and create a feature list for this Edition. That's a lot of stuff, hopefully I can get it all done or at least well underway. Anyway, it keeps me off the streets.

Hope this gives you a feel for what I am looking at. If you have any questions about the development status, drop me a line or ask in the forum.

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Update: December 31st, 2002 - Diving In...
Next Update by: January 15th, 2003

The code for Empire Deluxe has been received. Analysis of the code can now begin. As explained in the previous status report, it will take about a month to be examined.

Also mentioned before, there is some code and art missing, namely that which was proprietary to New World Computing. This code will need to be replaced.

There is also a little - dare I say it - assembly code, which I am allergic to and will therefore need to be converted to 'C' or re-written entirely. How long this will take remains to be seen, but should be clear after it is analyzed.

I have also had many people request a hook up to Microsoft's "Zone". I have started to look into this possibility as well for the Ancient Edition. In the least, the Ancient Edition should have Direct Connect IP capability. Adding Direct X's Direct Play will allow players to use the facilitation services freely available there (once you give them your name of course).

I will soon ping Wydraz as well and have him look at the artwork and icons, discussing the face lifts and replacements that may be required.

It is my hope that when my analysis is done, I will be able to predict a release date for the Ancient Edition, and list the milestones required to get there. But I will report again before that time and let you know how it's going.

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Update: December 27th, 2002 - Ready to get Started!

The code for Empire Deluxe has not yet been transfered from Mark Baldwin. This transfer is anticipated very soon.

After the code has been received, it will take about a month to be examined. There is some code missing, namely code that was proprietary to New World Computing. This code will need to be replaced. The purpose of this code was minor, and will not effect game play. It mostly will effect some animation aspects of the game.

After that month's review, there should be more information as to the exact product to be released and the time it will take to be ready.

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