| Author |
Message |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 12:08 pm: | |
Hi Keith,
in your game Generals the pieces of the two parties
have nearly the same colour. I have problems to see
the difference, and there is no alternative piece set which I could use instead. Would you mind making the colours more distinct, please?
By the way, your old email address does not work anymore.
Can you send me your new one?
Thanks, Karl |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 12:12 pm: | |
your old email address I have is
keith@tsongas.com
(it somehow disappeared in the previous posting).
Can you send me your new one?
Thanks, Karl |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 6:46 am: | |
Hello Karl,
I would be happy to make an alternative piece set and will do so right after I post this message. Sorry to create a problem for you. I thought I had enough difference in the colors. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 7:05 am: | |
For anyone that would like to contact me by email my address is litigation.technology@gmail.com
FWIW Generals is a game I had finished a long time ago but did not post because it did not quite meet my quality threshold. The game is okay but feels to me like some small change in the rules is needed to really make the game click. I decided to release it because of earlier discussions on this board (Comments/Suggestions For Existing Games: Crusade-promotion) about posting game designs, even unpolished ones, so others could run with the idea if they wanted.
So if anyone has an idea for Generals (including a better name) please let me know. Mats? Greg? |
Mats W (Kålroten)
| | Posted on Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 7:57 am: | |
I also have a look at it and I made the same reflection, that it is a promising concept. The simplicity is attractive and it is challenging, but perhaps something is missing that could make it more interesting. Maybe hurdles on the board. Or other methods of capture and movement, approach capture, bounce capture, catapult capture, etc (I have myself used many unusual methods).
/Mats |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 12:10 pm: | |
I have created a second piece set to be the altnernative to the grey set (first player). The second piece set is orange. I am going to send it off directly to Karl and if it works for him I will send it off to Ed to post on the site next Saturday.
Mats: capture by approach sounds interesting. Let me know if you give it a try. I would like a copy of the zrf. Otherwise I will give it a try myself sometime in the next few weeks. |
Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt)
| | Posted on Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 8:09 pm: | |
Hi Keith,
I'm glad that you posted Generals. I too like the game and its simplicity.
One thought I had would be to slow down the tempo a bit. The tempo appears to increase geometrically as the pieces gain mobility. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, it just leads to short games. A thought would be to increase the mobility by one only when a piece advances in the direction of the enemy (S or E for blue, N or W for gray). I think it would reduce the "action at a distance" effect that can occur by simply toggling a piece's movement within adjacent squares. I can't say if this idea could be considered an improvement or not as I haven't tried it. If you make changes to the game, please consider keeping the original either as the primary game or a variant.
BTW, I like the blue/gray color. Please consider continuing to make it available along with the new orange piece set. Using alternate piece sets would make sense for this once you decide which particular color arrangement should be the default.
Just my 2 cents. Thanks again for posting Generals.
-- Greg |
Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt)
| | Posted on Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 8:22 pm: | |
Oops, please ignore the last part about piece sets in my previous post, it appears as though Keith already plans on making the new color scheme an alternate piece set.
-- Greg |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 8:27 pm: | |
I have not heard back from Karl on the orange piece set. I think I will go ahead and send Ed the new version.
Greg: The branching factor of the decision tree does grow very quickly as pieces gain mobility every turn. Built up pieces tend to get lost as soon as an exchange is initiated so only building up one or two pieces doesn't work out well in the long run. What I usually see is a broader build up. In my games where neither side makes a whoops move the games run about 40 moves.
FWIW the blue pieces are RGB 9, 9, 118 and the grey pieces are RGB 115, 115, 142 (and the orange rgb 218, 114, 11) for anyone wanting a guide to how much difference in colors there needs to be in their graphics. |
Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt)
| | Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 - 11:52 am: | |
Keith,
I had not intended to say that increase of mobility should only be limited to one or two pieces. What I had intended to say is that mobility is only gained when a piece moves in the direction of the enemy (S & E for blue, N & W for gray). And this would be true for all pieces. Thus 'retreating' moves would not result in a piece gaining mobility. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this change would have the effect of reducing the overall branching factor.
I hope this makes sense and sorry if my previous message was unclear.
-- Greg |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 - 10:41 pm: | |
Greg: I understood the idea of advancing a piece only when forward movement is made. It seemed like your motivation for the suggestion was that advancement every move leads to short games. I was letting you know that the games I have been playing run about 40 moves and why.
It would be nice to have a more drawn out variant where a piece has to do something more proactive than move in any direction to advance its mobility. Forward movement might work. The neat thing about Zillions is that in a few minutes I can edit the zrf file and start testing your idea. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 - 11:39 pm: | |
FWIW I have gone back through my AI playtesting database for Generals as first posted and about 80% of the AI moves are advancing towards the enemy general. |
Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt)
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 6:55 am: | |
Keith,
After reading your recent reply, I re-read your earlier post and I now understand your point about the game duration. To be sure, I think Generals is a good game as it stands and there is strong potential for some interesting variants as well. Good luck with your experiments and please keep us posted on your findings!
-- Greg |
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