possible improvements

Talk about everything related to CoCoNet or Colonial Conquest!

Moderator: Kroah

possible improvements

Postby mael15 » 17 Jan 2012, 21:44

hi everybody,

i have some suggestions to make to further improve coconet. i hope we can discuss them and maybe kroah likes to implement some of them:

a) there could be a tool to move troops through a chain of countries with one step, i.e. from mexico to columbia. of course this only makes sense (should be available) when you own all countries inbetween.
usage: left-click mexico -> move army -> left-click columbia. then in the standard move dialog, the maximum is limited to the highest number of troops in all the countries in the chain. this should also be the default value.

b) one could play without showing the battles if one could see who attacked a country after the battle phase. there could be flags of the attacking countries unter der fire symbol, or some info in the mouseover window?

c) i find the display geography option useful, but i also have to see if there is a fortification on the country or even its worth. you could display the geography by a coloured frame or an additional number/letter. this way one could seeing worth and geography at the same time.

d) i would like an option to have the chat window fixed on screen, maybe also set its size. or can i just set Messages_Delay to a really high value to see the chat window for longer? i could not find any info on this. even better, an audio chat would be awesome, but skype also works fine... :)

e) i always fortify all my countries. doing this with a single button would be nice.

f) i have a 1920*1080 screen resolution and maximizing the window with the zoom * 2 option leaves a black strip at the bottom. the fullscreen option unfortunately does not change this.

g) it always bugged me that one cannot conquer ALL territories. it would be a dream come true if you could make all these colour patterned countries conquerable: northern + southern new zealand, tasmania, islands east of new guinea, iceland, sachalin (north of japan), islands east of java
and possibly join these islands with some other country: sicilia+sardinia+corsika with italy, islands north of canada with some country south of them, islands between luzon and mindanao, island south of lukien with lukien, tiny speck north of moscow.

h) a plattform to find other players and even play tournaments would be nice! has anyone experience with this? probably something like this already exists?

i) i would spend hours creating new scenarios. i would only have to know some format requirements like map size/resolution, colour limitations, country names and territory values in xml file(?) etc.
EDIT: in this other post kroah explained that this will be possible in the next version: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=119&p=615#p615 GREAT!

j) how about additional languages? i love english but maybe the game would spread more if there were additional languages. i could provide German.

i also am a c++ programmer with some years of experience, so i could write some code or do some beta testing or whatever. but kroah made it clear in some other post that help in this way is not nescessary, or is it?

so, what do you guys think?
mael15
 
Posts: 44
Joined: 26 Nov 2011, 23:40
Location: Germany

Re: possible improvements

Postby Kroah » 21 Jan 2012, 18:10

Welcome Mael15,

mael15 wrote:a) there could be a tool to move troops through a chain of countries with one step, i.e. from mexico to columbia. of course this only makes sense (should be available) when you own all countries inbetween.
usage: left-click mexico -> move army -> left-click columbia. then in the standard move dialog, the maximum is limited to the highest number of troops in all the countries in the chain. this should also be the default value.

Nice idea, but it needs some coding like allowing the user to cancel moves.
The problems come when something in the chain is updated by an external event (losing a country, losing armies in the chain, etc).

mael15 wrote:b) one could play without showing the battles if one could see who attacked a country after the battle phase. there could be flags of the attacking countries unter der fire symbol, or some info in the mouseover window?

Actually this feature is almost implemented. The user can see the attacked countries (the ones with a little explosion symbol) and the game already internally records the attacking countries, but don't show them.
I think adding the flags in the pop up window (in a future release).

mael15 wrote:c) i find the display geography option useful, but i also have to see if there is a fortification on the country or even its worth. you could display the geography by a coloured frame or an additional number/letter. this way one could seeing worth and geography at the same time.

The geography will be more important in CoCoNet than Colonial Conquest because it can be random in custom maps (actually it's predefined).
That's why we need, like you said it, to be able to display several information (i.e. worth, army, navy, fortif, geo) without hovering every country one by one.
I still need to find a good way to do it.

mael15 wrote:d) i would like an option to have the chat window fixed on screen, maybe also set its size. or can i just set Messages_Delay to a really high value to see the chat window for longer? i could not find any info on this. even better, an audio chat would be awesome, but skype also works fine... :)

Yes, you can put a higher value for Messages_Delay in Config.Xml.
The chat window is still very basic. I added it to help people without any voice communication software.
I agree we could enhance it like you described it.
I thought adding a link in the lobby to launch skype/Teamspeak but i don't know if those softwares allow it.

mael15 wrote:e) i always fortify all my countries. doing this with a single button would be nice.

Yes, on the todo list.
Actually you can only see the total of unfortified countries.

mael15 wrote:f) i have a 1920*1080 screen resolution and maximizing the window with the zoom * 2 option leaves a black strip at the bottom. the fullscreen option unfortunately does not change this.

Yes, it's the intended behaviour.
If you don't want the black strip at the bottom, your screen resolution needs to be lower than the map height (or 2x the map height with the 2x zoom enabled). But using a resolution other than the native one (in your case something lower than 1920x1080) will degrade the picture.
I tried adding a zoom 3X, but the result wasn't very good: the UI can't be stretched and the difference between the zoomed map and the UI was too big.

mael15 wrote:g) it always bugged me that one cannot conquer ALL territories. it would be a dream come true if you could make all these colour patterned countries conquerable: northern + southern new zealand, tasmania, islands east of new guinea, iceland, sachalin (north of japan), islands east of java
and possibly join these islands with some other country: sicilia+sardinia+corsika with italy, islands north of canada with some country south of them, islands between luzon and mindanao, island south of lukien with lukien, tiny speck north of moscow.

Very good idea.
In the next version, the original maps are written on disk at startup, so we could use it as a base for an enhanced map.

mael15 wrote:h) a plattform to find other players and even play tournaments would be nice! has anyone experience with this? probably something like this already exists?

Only oldschool gamers (using atari computer) know Colonial Conquest. There isn't a big community actually. The only social network i know about this game is this forum and a facebook group.
I agree something can be done to do match make up.

mael15 wrote:i) i would spend hours creating new scenarios. i would only have to know some format requirements like map size/resolution, colour limitations, country names and territory values in xml file(?) etc.
EDIT: in this other post kroah explained that this will be possible in the next version: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=119&p=615#p615 GREAT!

Yes, custom map is the main feature of the next release. It will allow user to create maps like the vanilla map and a little more (but still a lot of room for enhancement). I try to keep it "simple" while giving the maximum customiaztion.

mael15 wrote:j) how about additional languages? i love english but maybe the game would spread more if there were additional languages. i could provide German.

Yes, on the todo list too.
But i wait the game to be in a stable state to do this.

mael15 wrote:i also am a c++ programmer with some years of experience, so i could write some code or do some beta testing or whatever. but kroah made it clear in some other post that help in this way is not nescessary, or is it?

Thanks for your help.
I actually don't need coders. But beta-testers are welcomed, I will keep you in touch.
I'm still very busy until mid-february, then i will have some free time.

Thanks taking time writing a constructive post like this.

You and some people in this forum give many ideas to improve the game while keeping the original feeling. Love it. :)
Kroah
Site Admin
 
Posts: 430
Joined: 07 Feb 2006, 01:01
Location: France

Re: possible improvements

Postby mael15 » 23 Jan 2012, 14:40

Kroah wrote:I actually don't need coders. But beta-testers are welcomed, I will keep you in touch.


yeah, do that! i could run coconet in windbg and send you the output or whatever is helpful.

one more thing, i do not know if you thought of it. when new maps are possible, one should also be able change the playing nations and their strengths. i am thinking about a map of central europe during the 30 years´ war http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drei%C3%9Figj%C3%A4hriger_Krieg and would change the nations to austria, spain, france, the netherlands, sweden and denmark. just an example.

looking forward to the new version!
mael15
 
Posts: 44
Joined: 26 Nov 2011, 23:40
Location: Germany


Return to CoCoNet Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests

cron