Colonial Conquest

[Monty]

Hmmm, can't see any screenshots...
Is it me (or my browser), or aren't they here?

Edit: It was my browser, obviously.
Edit2: Ah, no, I can see them only when logged in...however...

WTF!!! How f**king cool is that!? I must be dreaming...
Shit, now I can hardly wait much longer!

[Monty]

Really, this ist one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time!
It's so kind of unreal, watching these pictures. Thanks for this alone, Pascal!

[KoinKoin]

Great news here !

Hope to see the next screenshot ! And maybe participate to a beta ...


Koin Koin

[Batlin]

Hi Kroah,

The screenshots look like real Atari ST GEM, even down to the greyed-out "-----" menu separator... how did you do that?!
Did you emulate the AES/VDI in your client, or just simulate the look-and feel?

p.s. very impressive

[Kroah]

Hi Kroah,

The screenshots look like real Atari ST GEM, even down to the greyed-out "-----" menu separator... how did you do that?!
Did you emulate the AES/VDI in your client, or just simulate the look-and feel?

p.s. very impressive

Welcome on board Batlin!

Thank you for your words.

I've tried the best to reproduce the feeling of the original Atari ST (even if the rules are from the 800 XL one). I've emulated nothing, i can do almost everything with .Net framework.

The font is a TTF (true type font) i've done with some tools using an old bitmaped font. Concerning the GFX, they are directly extracted from the disk image. The map is built from 16x8 blocks. I've even coded a good old filling algorithm used when conquering an area.

I'm currently tweaking the AI and the biggest remaining thing to do is the save game feature. I think i'll do a public beta without it first. What do you think ?

[Batlin]

I'm currently tuning the AI and the biggest remaining thing to do is the save game feature. I think i'll do a public beta without it first. What do you think ?

Well, I think the sooner you can do a beta (once the thing isn't riddled with crash bugs anymore) the better. Just like the sooner you write unit tests the better (in my case, before I write the relevant production code if possible) .
But I never played this game on my ST... I just know how GEM and the ST's fonts look from my early computing years on some STFMs. I'd certainly play the beta if and when you release, though - the game looks great.

Are you rewriting with your own AI or implementing the strategies used by the ST/XL versions?

[Kroah]

I'd certainly play the beta if and when you release, though - the game looks great.

I think you'll find the remake (and the original one) a little boring if you don't play for nostalgia. But who knows, maybe you'll love it

Are you rewriting with your own AI or implementing the strategies used by the ST/XL versions?

As i've explained in my previous posts, the ST version is too much bugged (AI and rules), so i only took the gfx of the ST, taking the remaining from the XL. But even if the XL AI is interesting, it does lot of mistakes, so i begun to improve it, trying to keep the feeling of the XL. That's why the AI is still stateless, analysing the board each turn, allowing him to be very reactive and responsive.

Maybe i'll add the vanilla AI in the futur if i've enough time.

Pascal

[Symoon]

This looks absolutely amazing !
I had begun working on Colonial Conquest for Oric, long ago. I made some graphics and had begun analyzing the saved games; but finally dropped it because I didn't have enough spare time (and honestly not the programming skills either).

That would be great if, once the work is finished, the algorithms could be made available for adaptations to other computers

Oh, and a multiplayer game over the internet... Argh, I can't wait

[Kroah]

Welcome Symoon!

This looks absolutely amazing !
I had begun working on Colonial Conquest for Oric, long ago. I made some graphics and had begun analyzing the saved games; but finally dropped it because I didn't have enough spare time (and honestly not the programming skills either).

Glad to see another 'CoCo' fan

You're right about the spare time. That's why i don't give any deadline. Sincerly, i've almost finished. Last 2 weeks i was on a f*king bug. Here's the story:
Each client (and the server which is the authority) runs its own simulation and without any reason, the simulations became out of sync after around 20 turns... I checked everything: the random seed, the independance of each country thread using the simulation. To find the bug, i implemented a checksum check for each object between the simulations... and i got it. It was a badly named variable (a typo) used by one country thread accessed by another country thread of the same simulation and the execution order of each thread may gives different results on different simulations. Now it's really stable.

I know few people may understand the above explanation about the implementation of simulations in each clients (without client side prediction ,nor rollback, nor latency compensation) but who knows .

That would be great if, once the work is finished, the algorithms could be made available for adaptations to other computers

I don't know if this will be useful for adaptations. Because of the original game bugs, i've improved and adapted the code (mainly the AI and combat algorithm), trying to keep the original feeling.
But i will certainly release the source code because there's still the code to extract original datas, it's almost the same than the other versions. And maybe this will interest some hardcore coder of multiplayer game .

Cheers,
Kroah

[Symoon]

That would be great if, once the work is finished, the algorithms could be made available for adaptations to other computers

I don't know if this will be useful for adaptations. Because of the original game bugs, i've improved and adapted the code (mainly the AI and combat algorithm), trying to keep the original feeling.

Programming the AI is exactly what stopped me in my try.
I thought that at best, I could do a human/human game but didn't feel like I could spend months trying to understand the way the AI works or how I shouls make it work.
Having the algorithm would simply leave me with the problem of coding it

Anyway, I sent a link to this forum to a few former Colonial Conquest players, I think at least one of them will test it with me

Cheers
Simon

[Kroah]

Some news concerning Colonial Conquest.

The final name of the remake is CoCoNet. CoCo was the name i used in my childhood with my brother ("Hey c'mon, let's play CoCo").

CoCoNet is currently in private alpha testing.
After this, when sufficiently stable, it will be in public beta test.

Requirements are:
- Windows XP (not tested on Vista)
- 1 or more players, each one on a PC, on LAN or via Internet (TCP/IP)
- At least Microsoft .NET Framework v3.0 (not tested with v3.5)
- At least DirectX v9.0 (for DirectSound)

See you soon!

[Symoon]

Great news
Can't wait to try it
Thanks for all the work

[Fabrice]

Hi All !

Found your forum today, remembering good old times of Colonial Conquest games with my friends 15 years ago.
We used to play a lot with that game up 6 players at the same time. A real very big mess
We tried to play the emulated version, but the bugs remain and "spoil" the game
If you look for beta-testers for your work, I'd be glad to play.

Pour info : Mes amis et moi sommes en France... si jamais le French is necessary

[Kroah]

Welcome aboard Fabrice,

Found your forum today, remembering good old times of Colonial Conquest games with my friends 15 years ago.
We used to play a lot with that game up 6 players at the same time. A real very big mess. We tried to play the emulated version, but the bugs remain and "spoil" the game.

Never played with 6 human players. The most i played with was 3 players... and it was already a big mess! Too bad we couldn't finish most games because of the bugs, still really funny anyway!

If you look for beta-testers for your work, I'd be glad to play.

I'll get in touch with you if we need more feedbacks. Thank you for your support.

Pour info : Mes amis et moi sommes en France... si jamais le French is necessary

Le français n'est pas nécessaire mais facilite les échanges, surtout pour expliquer certaines choses déjà assez complexes à la base
J'habite à Orléans, à 1 heure de Paris. Utilises-tu msn en conversation audio?

Cordialement,
Pascal

[Fabrice]

Hello Pascal,

Any news about CoCoNet ??

Fabrice, still on air.