| Author |
Message |
Arie Rudich (Arier)
| | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 8:15 am: | |
Hello ZOG friends,
I'm implementing a board war game, remotely related to Stratego, and need your help.
The initial phase of the game is, similar to Stratego - the deployment of the army, placement the pieces on the board, and should be done in secret, hidden from the opponent.
When this phase is over the location and type of the pieces are revealed.
The technique used by Andreas Kaufmann in his Battle v 1.1 Stratego implementation uses two sets of pieces. The payer's regular pieces, and the opponent's "upside down" pieces with indistinguishable "back of the piece" images.
This works nicely for playing with the computer opponent, but is of no use for Net play.
Any idea on how to improve on this?
Unlike Stratego, in this game the placement is sparse, and during the secret phase, the locations of the pieces should not be known to the opponent.
One extension Kaufmann's idea, and as such not applicable to Net play, is to start by filling the opponent's deployment area with "empty" pieces, whose images are the same "back of the piece" images.
Then, drop (from off) or move (from a visible pile) the pieces for deployment (also using "back of the piece" images).
When the initial phase is over, scan the deployment area, replace each "upside down" piece by it's real version, and remove the "empty" ones.
What do you think?
Is it a good idea to do this scan? Do you have code, or a pointer?
or is it better to somehow drop the real pieces on the hidden ones?
Any alternative ideas?
What about the Move List? any idea how to hide the coordinates there?
Many thanks,
Arie |
Andreas Kaufmann (Andreas)
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 11:23 am: | |
For Net play you can try the following method. Create a ZRF for "open" variant of the game but with 3 piece image sets:
1) White pieces visible, Black invisible (green rectangle)
2) White pieces invisible, Black visible
3) Pieces of both players are visible.
Before starting the game, White selects piece set 1), Black 2). When setup fase is over, both players switch to piece set 3) and use it until the end of game. This method certainly assumes fair play of both opponents.
In "Move List" you can only hide the name of the pieces (using "notation" command). I don't think it is possible to hide coordinates. So for Net play, players should close "Move List" window to avoid accedently see the opponents moves. |
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