I always knew the basics of A* pathfinding, but never tried to implement it. Since I took off the last three days (well two days and a holiday), I was working on various parts of Turf Wars. I got it so the vassals can get to one place to another in a relatively little period of time. Some routes can be more expensive (tolls) while others can be faster and the system picks the best one (fastest or cheapest). That was the very hard part.

I also got it so the vassal go home at night. Yep, at the end of their working day, they head on off to the place you designate as their home. The main reason is because Nightmare has a half-night, they work 18 hours instead of 12. Vassals of Transportation don't have transportation costs and the system is up to handling that.

Not much on appearance though, just the same old images, just more dynamic and moving around. I saw Heroes of Might and Magic 4 last night and it actually had a lot of the interface things that I think Turf Wars should have. It starts with a top-down view, but you can zoom in and rotate the screen around, which is perfect for what I'm looking for. So, at least I have a model/example of the interface I want.

At this point, I have five months left to complete this. I see the game engine itself being about 30% done (orders would really help with this) and the front end being not even started. But, I'm pretty happy with what I got.