Post by Major Pain on Nov 1, 2015 22:51:54 GMT 1
I actually agree with adding the gun crews onto the trucks. On most of my trucks, I set the passengers to 13, but the gun crew is handled by a different set of code that does not even look at the passenger population cap. So the Gun Crew seems to take precedent over a Squad. In effect this mostly does prevent the squad loading if the gun crew is present. So the obvious answer is to use 16 or 17 for the Total passenger Count.
My research shows that during WW2, most countries were using the standard ten man squad in Europe. The original number goes back to the Legion of the Roman influence that survived over 1800 years in philosophy and the Eastern/Asian Armies under the Art of War.
OK... time to release some GEN II information... and it is not as promising as I had hoped for. I will be talking about current Game Engine capabilities along with conceptional design within Blitzkrieg I.
There were situations where two or three Squads were realigned to preserve numbers, which created 12 to 15 members in the resulting squad. The game does not allow such realignments so this must be handled manually by the Player, unless they can supplement losses with the Add Humans Function by a Supply Truck. The game does allow the re-structuring of the Squad, however the Officer is the Focal Point, and this squad reconstitution takes the shape of that Officer's original Squad members. This does create situations where soldiers change weapons to reform the original member set, and this does create Orphans that cannot be reassigned somewhere else. Since Officers tend to survive as the last member of the squad... and if you have left-over officers, you have the capability to form new Squads from these orphans. Lacking Officers, you do not have the ability to form Squads.
The best method to re-build the squads is to put them all together and change their Squads back to the Original Numbers and counts. This is done with the de-formation and re-formation controls. Think of this as Unpacking and Repacking the Squad members. Orphans will still be left over. This is the only way to reconstitute weaken squads short of the Supply Humans Function performed by a Supply Truck. I tend to assign this function to the Medical Trucks since it is from the Wounded that manpower will come from in most cases. New people are assigned to new Squads and not filling in depleted Squads once Squads are used up. So in this concept, the game performs poorly in how Squads are repopulated.
Germany, for instance, did not (by rule of thumb and policy) rebuild original Squads. Surviving members were simply added to the member pool and assigned to new Squads. The depleted Squads simply were erased from the Squad pool, but in most cases, this is where the Ghost Armies came from, when Officers reported inflated manpower strength by listing the Older Squads to their OOB Reports. So Strength was always inflated by this false data and surviving Squads and in most cases... Platoon level or even Company Level values.
It is an ongoing mission to overhaul this squad issue. As you are aware if you have been tracking the news on GEN II, my updates provide several additional ways to create Squads. One concept is to create Squads within the game itself. This is a matter of survival in extreme cases and would have been in use throughout the war by nearly every country. Part of this concept is heavily dependant on some other pending issues related to Squads and Crews. (READ below)
In the game, there is no specific code function that assigns a Squad to the Platoon or Company, so the tactical level assignments is lost to us. Trying to use larger Squads to replicate Platoon Values of the 3 Squad Standard only leads to a mass chaotic situation. The larger Squads are not handled well within the game since you have too many officers within the Squad which confuses the Game Engine. The Officers will always be the Squad Anchor but the Close relationship tends to create officers trying to occupy the same piece of ground for their Squad influence. Squads with more than two Officers will cause nightmares within your armies, because the game does not have a Officer Rating system to replicate the actual Chain of Command. All officers carry the same influence and weight. They have the same purpose regardless of what you try to assign them to... So in your army, the Colonel carries the very same value as a NCO.
In GENERATION II, I'm trying to create the Chain of Command influence to allow more of the tactical influence and benefits. Since there is not any original code that does this, all research and treatment is based on new code which must blend into the current picture. This work is not easy and not going well. In effect, this is a major shift in the game engine design and philosophy. It does not appear to be solved without a Concept Redesign which will change game play.
I am certain this is exactly why the Moral Function was not implemented... the Influence of Chain of Command was not within the game design but this missing element causes the moral function to break down. You must use multiple officers that are given specific weights before they can effect Moral. Because the game does not use any rating system for officer influence, only the closest officer is counted, which is most generally within a Squad. The only part of what could be called Moral, is actually what controls a units fighting ability, without any wounds counted within the structure. And this is very much controlled by the presence of the officer.
Officers have no influence over Armor or Trucks. Armor units are only valued by the total number of the exact same armor units. This is a major flaw within the game engine. Instead of counting or placing a value to define the fighting ability based on the total number of tanks by Type, rather the exact same total number of that specific tank, we have a critical issue. This also needs to be changed if tactical level play is to function. So at the moment, no major game engine issues have been possible to resolve without going back to the code structure and making a huge overhaul. This has resulted in a hold for the moment until I figure out the best way to move ahead. This is exactly where the extra set of trained eyes would really come in handy since whatever I or we do to move forward, will forever redefine Blitzkrieg.
I do not wish to lose what we already have just to acquire the tactical element that was missing in the beginning... IF we lose what most us already have gained experience from. The only place that really focuses on this hidden value... the fighting ability which in my mind is a major part of moral, shows up in the outcome data within Campaigns and Chapters. Simple one on one maps do not use this and units do not gain experience or acquire new abilities. Whatever the unit definition is in the 1.xml plus the un-documented weights that are in place by Type of Unit and Value points that provide some influence upon units because of the number of specific units is what you currently have. I am beginning to think this was not the original design concept but a last minute change was forced upon the code writers to dumb it down.
Do not mis-interpret what I have just revealed. The game engine is stout and damn good at what it does. Nothing else even comes close to it. But if these issues were not gutted, Blitzkrieg would not have had any competitors... It has been the most significant war game ever written that the others are trying to stand up to.... Do you realize that the Enigma Engine is what everyone else wishes they had, but have not been able to replicate. Instead of a direct head to head comparison, they went a different direction in Company of Heroes and Men At War. Imagine what we will have if I/we are able to get to the Tactical Level game play with a Chain of Command Structure which does work.
The only game that even comes close by design concept is Gettysburg from Firaxis Games and Sid Meier. If it was not only based and restricted upon the Battle of Gettysburg, Antietam and South Mountain, I would rate the game engine superior to Enigma. But it also has its flaws which are very much part of the Moral and Fighting Ability... which are in place. Both game engines use the exact same 2D Sprite handlers for Squads and Individual Soldier functions. Gettysburg is not a true ISOMETRIC design since it pre-dates Blitzkrieg by 5 years (1997). Where Blitzkrieg is based on the philosophy that everything on the battlefield can be destroyed... Gettysburg only concerns itself with the Tactical Element of the Players abilities based on his Troop Strength. The challenge at the moment is how do I put this unique Gettysburg tactical element into the Blitzkrieg engine.
I do not use the word awesome for a reason... in my vocabulary awesome means something very good and beyond the scope of originality or concept... without any challenge or influence from anything else. It is much like a ongoing resource that feeds itself. Can you say Super Collider and huge magnets?
Blitzkrieg, with its faults, is still the best RTS War Sim ever written... and Sergey knows it. If BK3 has any significant game play advantages, we very well could see BK4 with a shift back to our roots. NIVAL designed the Enigma Engine, but stopped any further development or use back in 2007 with BH2. They have moved to a new Game Engine which is easily coded for most game designs... UNITY 4.x by Unity Technologies. UNITY is a cross platform game engine which already spans 15 different platforms. Read about if you have an interest in the future of game designs.
So here is what i am thinking right this moment. Can I move Blitzkrieg I to UNITY without any major code issues? My first investigation tells me yes, it is possible since all of the code is written in either C or C+, which are Native Clients in Unity. This of course is not without some technical issues. But the major advantage is the new flexibility to bring in a huge amount of options. The Units tables become much more Flexible and the game engine actually will support a more Natural Artificial Intelligence (AI) which does learn by reading the player's strengths and weaknesses. That would change game play to about a 50/50 Challenge, which is what Multiplayer should be.
And of course, i would require NIVAL's consent to move to UNITY. Since they have already used UNITY on several games, I do not predict this will be a huge obstacle. But I have been wrong before...
I would truly like to hear what you guys think based on what limited issues I have presented here. GEN II is still ongoing and safe, and i have no plans to abandon the project. But I am at a critical crossroads which I knew would be reached at some point. So far my attempts to circumvent the Command issue and bring in Moral have not been promising, and will be a huge issue as players begin to figure out how to defeat it easily. I have already tested this and found the weaknesses within the functions. If you have only one officer on the map within the span of control.... you instantly have at least 75% Moral which will not change due to loss of troops, squads or armor units. I just cannot drill this value down any lower because of predefined hard-coded aspect of the concept design. I am sure this was locked early in the game engine as a benchmark if Moral was implemented. But its use was not this intended purpose. The AI does not have the same benefit from a single Officer and is impaired tactically since it uses a built in Moral already. It would be like putting to much whipped cream on a piece of pie... it can only take so much before nothing else matters anymore, the outcome is some is going to spill over and hit the floor. Using this analogy is the best way I can think of to just tell you that the AI just crashes and loses its Bird's Eye View Advantage along with the secret passing of your army intelligence... cheating? Yep it does.
Embedded within the code is the Function SPY, written in LUA 4.0. The AI gathers your data every 3 minutes on troop movement and strength. I was not going to release this info because I long suspected it did do this, but I think most players also had their suspicions. In fact, most AIs are programmed to do this in RTS. Remember, I was the guy that said we would improve the AI by giving it EARS... and use the sounds from our troops and armor for it to make decisions. That was one of the easiest things to actually do... because the conduit was already in place. The data sent was just a bit different, but additional data would be easily passed.
We do not always understand what we cannot see. This is well planned and utilized within the game system. The AI is not intuitive... it cheats. Damn it! Cheater cheater pant's on fire.
If you tell anyone that MAJOR PAIN told you this, I will deny it.
Seriously, I think of the work that I am doing has validity and must be conducted by someone at some point. Perhaps another programmer would not tell you some of the stuff learned from within the code and flowcharts I had to reconstruct by following out each block of code and along with the associated functions. But I look at this as a learning curve and each step is documented and reported on.
Some stuff I will not actually report on the content... but it has to do with Programmers notes... which if you understand programmers, they are much like the guys that wrote messages on bombs destined for Berlin and Addressed to the Fuhrer. I am certain it never crossed their minds that anyone in their right mind would ever see it, because no one in their right mind would open this Pandora's box.
So I must conclude I am not in my right mind... Right? Actually no... I do what I do with a very clear and concise game plan.
We deserve what we get because we challenge the unknown using only what we think we know.
How many times have we taken something apart and put it back together again, but still have some parts left over?
I hope this was not very important while I examine the very small spring. Yeah , my wrist watched died within the next 20 hours. The small spring was part of the self winding feature and without it, self winding was impossible. I only know this because it cost me $40 to repair the watch where they also told me not to take the back off again...
When I first began Disassembling the BK code... Secret messages just oozed out of the box in a huge way. Humor to you and I is not the same as a True programmer...
I am more of the hacker, lone wolf guy that can do it, but does it for another reason...
What I learned about our original code writers here was quite amazing. Imagine entire conversations conducted within the code as chunks are passed back and forth between several people during the initial phases... The code is passed to other people for their inspections and based on the philosophy that four or more eyes are better than two. I have actually identified at least 4 different people posting notes inside the comments. But I also have at least two others that have not provided anything about their identity. This is clearly what separates the men and boys.
A veteran programmer has already seen his life turned upside down when these messages are discovered. Just ask some of the oldtimers who can now actually laugh about it. At least I can only think of a single cookie I truly regretted fearing the discover later... but so far so good...
No... I will not tell you this was game I worked on in 1991 or 1996 or somewhere in between. And that is the only good hint I will provide. It was one of those messages you see on the bathroom wall with a phone number... your worst enemy's phone number. Ordinary Drama. But in this case, it happened to be my direct supervisors info... who I did not get along with the whole time I worked for ... You must figure out the rest. Another Hint... the code is written in VisualBasic... which can be read by Excel as a CVS file.
So the hunt begins for the Major's secret... Even if you guess correctly, I will not tell you if you are correct.
IIWII guys IIWII.... it is what it is. I do not play or fight fair so you should not expect any quarter from me... lol...
But do please tell me your thoughts about this GEN II issue. Perhaps we just move on without Moral... or perhaps we move to UNITY. I will let the consensus guide my path... Moving to UNITY has not been entirely mapped out or explored in totality. But it could take months just to get the initial code changes ready for transplant. From there it is just like a pull down menu...and making choices.
I have not revealed this before here, but I am a member of the FREECOL Project Team since 2003. The purpose of FREECOL was to replicate the original Sid Meier 1994 Game "Colonization".... not the one based on Civilization IV.
The FreeCol Team has completed the total rewrite of the game structure and code in JAVA. The initial challenge was disassembling the code and tracing the functions and subroutines. Changing how the game files were populated was one of the keys to the success of the project. Now at Version 0.11.6 still within BETA which is ongoing... we continue to solve AI issues.
Part of the Project is based on a new linear time line and new functions or commands. This brings in a unique aspect and what is based for all MODS to be written under. You have to understand the original game and the concept... then you understand why we provided the alternate version. MODS were not possible, nor was Multiplayer. So call this a Modernization Project on a Historical Site.
The game engine was completely redesigned and re-written as part of the project... so this concept is not new. All of the original artwork and sprites have been redesigned and original to FREECOL. Part of the original concept was based on College Computer Science Students but has evolved far beyond that.
If you want to see an old benchmark game modernized... this is a good place to start.
More to come later guys...
Later today I will post the first images of the CCKW Gun Trucks... in BETA and ongoing development right now...
My research shows that during WW2, most countries were using the standard ten man squad in Europe. The original number goes back to the Legion of the Roman influence that survived over 1800 years in philosophy and the Eastern/Asian Armies under the Art of War.
OK... time to release some GEN II information... and it is not as promising as I had hoped for. I will be talking about current Game Engine capabilities along with conceptional design within Blitzkrieg I.
There were situations where two or three Squads were realigned to preserve numbers, which created 12 to 15 members in the resulting squad. The game does not allow such realignments so this must be handled manually by the Player, unless they can supplement losses with the Add Humans Function by a Supply Truck. The game does allow the re-structuring of the Squad, however the Officer is the Focal Point, and this squad reconstitution takes the shape of that Officer's original Squad members. This does create situations where soldiers change weapons to reform the original member set, and this does create Orphans that cannot be reassigned somewhere else. Since Officers tend to survive as the last member of the squad... and if you have left-over officers, you have the capability to form new Squads from these orphans. Lacking Officers, you do not have the ability to form Squads.
The best method to re-build the squads is to put them all together and change their Squads back to the Original Numbers and counts. This is done with the de-formation and re-formation controls. Think of this as Unpacking and Repacking the Squad members. Orphans will still be left over. This is the only way to reconstitute weaken squads short of the Supply Humans Function performed by a Supply Truck. I tend to assign this function to the Medical Trucks since it is from the Wounded that manpower will come from in most cases. New people are assigned to new Squads and not filling in depleted Squads once Squads are used up. So in this concept, the game performs poorly in how Squads are repopulated.
Germany, for instance, did not (by rule of thumb and policy) rebuild original Squads. Surviving members were simply added to the member pool and assigned to new Squads. The depleted Squads simply were erased from the Squad pool, but in most cases, this is where the Ghost Armies came from, when Officers reported inflated manpower strength by listing the Older Squads to their OOB Reports. So Strength was always inflated by this false data and surviving Squads and in most cases... Platoon level or even Company Level values.
It is an ongoing mission to overhaul this squad issue. As you are aware if you have been tracking the news on GEN II, my updates provide several additional ways to create Squads. One concept is to create Squads within the game itself. This is a matter of survival in extreme cases and would have been in use throughout the war by nearly every country. Part of this concept is heavily dependant on some other pending issues related to Squads and Crews. (READ below)
In the game, there is no specific code function that assigns a Squad to the Platoon or Company, so the tactical level assignments is lost to us. Trying to use larger Squads to replicate Platoon Values of the 3 Squad Standard only leads to a mass chaotic situation. The larger Squads are not handled well within the game since you have too many officers within the Squad which confuses the Game Engine. The Officers will always be the Squad Anchor but the Close relationship tends to create officers trying to occupy the same piece of ground for their Squad influence. Squads with more than two Officers will cause nightmares within your armies, because the game does not have a Officer Rating system to replicate the actual Chain of Command. All officers carry the same influence and weight. They have the same purpose regardless of what you try to assign them to... So in your army, the Colonel carries the very same value as a NCO.
In GENERATION II, I'm trying to create the Chain of Command influence to allow more of the tactical influence and benefits. Since there is not any original code that does this, all research and treatment is based on new code which must blend into the current picture. This work is not easy and not going well. In effect, this is a major shift in the game engine design and philosophy. It does not appear to be solved without a Concept Redesign which will change game play.
I am certain this is exactly why the Moral Function was not implemented... the Influence of Chain of Command was not within the game design but this missing element causes the moral function to break down. You must use multiple officers that are given specific weights before they can effect Moral. Because the game does not use any rating system for officer influence, only the closest officer is counted, which is most generally within a Squad. The only part of what could be called Moral, is actually what controls a units fighting ability, without any wounds counted within the structure. And this is very much controlled by the presence of the officer.
Officers have no influence over Armor or Trucks. Armor units are only valued by the total number of the exact same armor units. This is a major flaw within the game engine. Instead of counting or placing a value to define the fighting ability based on the total number of tanks by Type, rather the exact same total number of that specific tank, we have a critical issue. This also needs to be changed if tactical level play is to function. So at the moment, no major game engine issues have been possible to resolve without going back to the code structure and making a huge overhaul. This has resulted in a hold for the moment until I figure out the best way to move ahead. This is exactly where the extra set of trained eyes would really come in handy since whatever I or we do to move forward, will forever redefine Blitzkrieg.
I do not wish to lose what we already have just to acquire the tactical element that was missing in the beginning... IF we lose what most us already have gained experience from. The only place that really focuses on this hidden value... the fighting ability which in my mind is a major part of moral, shows up in the outcome data within Campaigns and Chapters. Simple one on one maps do not use this and units do not gain experience or acquire new abilities. Whatever the unit definition is in the 1.xml plus the un-documented weights that are in place by Type of Unit and Value points that provide some influence upon units because of the number of specific units is what you currently have. I am beginning to think this was not the original design concept but a last minute change was forced upon the code writers to dumb it down.
Do not mis-interpret what I have just revealed. The game engine is stout and damn good at what it does. Nothing else even comes close to it. But if these issues were not gutted, Blitzkrieg would not have had any competitors... It has been the most significant war game ever written that the others are trying to stand up to.... Do you realize that the Enigma Engine is what everyone else wishes they had, but have not been able to replicate. Instead of a direct head to head comparison, they went a different direction in Company of Heroes and Men At War. Imagine what we will have if I/we are able to get to the Tactical Level game play with a Chain of Command Structure which does work.
The only game that even comes close by design concept is Gettysburg from Firaxis Games and Sid Meier. If it was not only based and restricted upon the Battle of Gettysburg, Antietam and South Mountain, I would rate the game engine superior to Enigma. But it also has its flaws which are very much part of the Moral and Fighting Ability... which are in place. Both game engines use the exact same 2D Sprite handlers for Squads and Individual Soldier functions. Gettysburg is not a true ISOMETRIC design since it pre-dates Blitzkrieg by 5 years (1997). Where Blitzkrieg is based on the philosophy that everything on the battlefield can be destroyed... Gettysburg only concerns itself with the Tactical Element of the Players abilities based on his Troop Strength. The challenge at the moment is how do I put this unique Gettysburg tactical element into the Blitzkrieg engine.
I do not use the word awesome for a reason... in my vocabulary awesome means something very good and beyond the scope of originality or concept... without any challenge or influence from anything else. It is much like a ongoing resource that feeds itself. Can you say Super Collider and huge magnets?
Blitzkrieg, with its faults, is still the best RTS War Sim ever written... and Sergey knows it. If BK3 has any significant game play advantages, we very well could see BK4 with a shift back to our roots. NIVAL designed the Enigma Engine, but stopped any further development or use back in 2007 with BH2. They have moved to a new Game Engine which is easily coded for most game designs... UNITY 4.x by Unity Technologies. UNITY is a cross platform game engine which already spans 15 different platforms. Read about if you have an interest in the future of game designs.
So here is what i am thinking right this moment. Can I move Blitzkrieg I to UNITY without any major code issues? My first investigation tells me yes, it is possible since all of the code is written in either C or C+, which are Native Clients in Unity. This of course is not without some technical issues. But the major advantage is the new flexibility to bring in a huge amount of options. The Units tables become much more Flexible and the game engine actually will support a more Natural Artificial Intelligence (AI) which does learn by reading the player's strengths and weaknesses. That would change game play to about a 50/50 Challenge, which is what Multiplayer should be.
And of course, i would require NIVAL's consent to move to UNITY. Since they have already used UNITY on several games, I do not predict this will be a huge obstacle. But I have been wrong before...
I would truly like to hear what you guys think based on what limited issues I have presented here. GEN II is still ongoing and safe, and i have no plans to abandon the project. But I am at a critical crossroads which I knew would be reached at some point. So far my attempts to circumvent the Command issue and bring in Moral have not been promising, and will be a huge issue as players begin to figure out how to defeat it easily. I have already tested this and found the weaknesses within the functions. If you have only one officer on the map within the span of control.... you instantly have at least 75% Moral which will not change due to loss of troops, squads or armor units. I just cannot drill this value down any lower because of predefined hard-coded aspect of the concept design. I am sure this was locked early in the game engine as a benchmark if Moral was implemented. But its use was not this intended purpose. The AI does not have the same benefit from a single Officer and is impaired tactically since it uses a built in Moral already. It would be like putting to much whipped cream on a piece of pie... it can only take so much before nothing else matters anymore, the outcome is some is going to spill over and hit the floor. Using this analogy is the best way I can think of to just tell you that the AI just crashes and loses its Bird's Eye View Advantage along with the secret passing of your army intelligence... cheating? Yep it does.
Embedded within the code is the Function SPY, written in LUA 4.0. The AI gathers your data every 3 minutes on troop movement and strength. I was not going to release this info because I long suspected it did do this, but I think most players also had their suspicions. In fact, most AIs are programmed to do this in RTS. Remember, I was the guy that said we would improve the AI by giving it EARS... and use the sounds from our troops and armor for it to make decisions. That was one of the easiest things to actually do... because the conduit was already in place. The data sent was just a bit different, but additional data would be easily passed.
We do not always understand what we cannot see. This is well planned and utilized within the game system. The AI is not intuitive... it cheats. Damn it! Cheater cheater pant's on fire.
If you tell anyone that MAJOR PAIN told you this, I will deny it.
Seriously, I think of the work that I am doing has validity and must be conducted by someone at some point. Perhaps another programmer would not tell you some of the stuff learned from within the code and flowcharts I had to reconstruct by following out each block of code and along with the associated functions. But I look at this as a learning curve and each step is documented and reported on.
Some stuff I will not actually report on the content... but it has to do with Programmers notes... which if you understand programmers, they are much like the guys that wrote messages on bombs destined for Berlin and Addressed to the Fuhrer. I am certain it never crossed their minds that anyone in their right mind would ever see it, because no one in their right mind would open this Pandora's box.
So I must conclude I am not in my right mind... Right? Actually no... I do what I do with a very clear and concise game plan.
We deserve what we get because we challenge the unknown using only what we think we know.
How many times have we taken something apart and put it back together again, but still have some parts left over?
I hope this was not very important while I examine the very small spring. Yeah , my wrist watched died within the next 20 hours. The small spring was part of the self winding feature and without it, self winding was impossible. I only know this because it cost me $40 to repair the watch where they also told me not to take the back off again...
When I first began Disassembling the BK code... Secret messages just oozed out of the box in a huge way. Humor to you and I is not the same as a True programmer...
I am more of the hacker, lone wolf guy that can do it, but does it for another reason...
What I learned about our original code writers here was quite amazing. Imagine entire conversations conducted within the code as chunks are passed back and forth between several people during the initial phases... The code is passed to other people for their inspections and based on the philosophy that four or more eyes are better than two. I have actually identified at least 4 different people posting notes inside the comments. But I also have at least two others that have not provided anything about their identity. This is clearly what separates the men and boys.
A veteran programmer has already seen his life turned upside down when these messages are discovered. Just ask some of the oldtimers who can now actually laugh about it. At least I can only think of a single cookie I truly regretted fearing the discover later... but so far so good...
No... I will not tell you this was game I worked on in 1991 or 1996 or somewhere in between. And that is the only good hint I will provide. It was one of those messages you see on the bathroom wall with a phone number... your worst enemy's phone number. Ordinary Drama. But in this case, it happened to be my direct supervisors info... who I did not get along with the whole time I worked for ... You must figure out the rest. Another Hint... the code is written in VisualBasic... which can be read by Excel as a CVS file.
So the hunt begins for the Major's secret... Even if you guess correctly, I will not tell you if you are correct.
IIWII guys IIWII.... it is what it is. I do not play or fight fair so you should not expect any quarter from me... lol...
But do please tell me your thoughts about this GEN II issue. Perhaps we just move on without Moral... or perhaps we move to UNITY. I will let the consensus guide my path... Moving to UNITY has not been entirely mapped out or explored in totality. But it could take months just to get the initial code changes ready for transplant. From there it is just like a pull down menu...and making choices.
I have not revealed this before here, but I am a member of the FREECOL Project Team since 2003. The purpose of FREECOL was to replicate the original Sid Meier 1994 Game "Colonization".... not the one based on Civilization IV.
The FreeCol Team has completed the total rewrite of the game structure and code in JAVA. The initial challenge was disassembling the code and tracing the functions and subroutines. Changing how the game files were populated was one of the keys to the success of the project. Now at Version 0.11.6 still within BETA which is ongoing... we continue to solve AI issues.
Part of the Project is based on a new linear time line and new functions or commands. This brings in a unique aspect and what is based for all MODS to be written under. You have to understand the original game and the concept... then you understand why we provided the alternate version. MODS were not possible, nor was Multiplayer. So call this a Modernization Project on a Historical Site.
The game engine was completely redesigned and re-written as part of the project... so this concept is not new. All of the original artwork and sprites have been redesigned and original to FREECOL. Part of the original concept was based on College Computer Science Students but has evolved far beyond that.
If you want to see an old benchmark game modernized... this is a good place to start.
More to come later guys...
Later today I will post the first images of the CCKW Gun Trucks... in BETA and ongoing development right now...