Spent a good hunk of the weekend working on Turf Wars. I originally was going to do my own graphics rendering, but decided that since I'm in a hurry to get this done (there is never enough time for November 30), I'll just use my licenses for Infragistics and Nevron to simplify the process. So, the map is really based on a Nevron Diagram (not open source) and is just used to help debug and test the system. The eventual goal is to replace it for the editor, but at the moment, that isn't really a big concern.

The best part is that I finally got a view of the map and the relationship of everything together. Like the rest of the system, the information you know or don't know is kept in the internal model and the views give the player knows. This lets me set it up so AI don't cheat (very important) but also to let you "explore" the stage, which I always consider some of the best part of the game. Since this is a ctiy-based game, there really isn't a "fog of war" per say. Everyone is assumed to have maps, diagrams, and other things that pretty much detail out the entire city. So, the "fog" part is information.

One nice thing about the Nevron map is that I can zoom into an area. The following screenshot shows that, but it also shows a very important progression in the development, routes. I decided that the path-finding routines are going to stick to preset routes along the map. The routes are one-directional and they have a rate, so people and cars go slower uphill than they do downhill. A route also has how it is used, such as road or walking. That way, I can plot a route along a sidewalk and people know that they are walking (and it is slower). Eventually, I'll add waterways so the Fauna and Water vassals can move faster, and maybe even sewers for the vassals of Filth and Decay.

The final bit that I added was just a district/lot/building display. Like the others, this only shows information you know, but it is intended to show everything you know, from the income from buildings to their impact on the district's moral.

Emotions

I decided to keep the emotion part of the game fairly simple, since it shows up so often in the game. Every vassal and district (via the Bassan) have a happiness rating. It will be displayed as a number of happy faces or frowning faces (as a net value). Happy and unhappy will be tracked separately, with each action or interaction adding a certain amount. The actual bonus will basically be the log of each value (with unhappy being a negative) and the net result determines their state. This means that you can piss off someone and it takes longer to make them happy each time, eventually you'll stick with a given amount.

The bonuses for happiness (or unhappy) will basically add to all numeric checks. So, vassals have a +4 bonus if they have 4 happy faces. Events need to be triggered based on the happiness rating and it will also take in account the share system (if the bassan are +10 happy with you, you have +10 shares per building). Using that idea, it is quite possible that you can destroy your opponent by just keeping everything happy in a district.

Europe

On the Europe side of the contest, I'm going to stick with the Europe stage selection screen. If I have the time, energy, and the ability to create buildings, I'll probably change the appearance of the buildings based on where they are. Maybe use Google Maps to get an idea of what they look like from the top (I suspect not that different). From the forum, that should be sufficient, but I would like to see more of the Europe theme. Of course, the entire Itrifore world is basically a city covering most of Europe, so I might be able to do something there.

Emblem

Talking with fightertype, we decided to come up with a symbol that represents Itrifore as a whole and the various Lords. It looks like a giant ring. Of course, I'd love to come up with a nice fancy ring that fits here theme, since I think they are a tad too plain, but I really have enough to do before that. Maybe I'll find someone good at 3D modelling or just pay someone to do it for me.