Welcome (was: (no sujet))

[Jens Granseuer <jensgr@gmx.net>]

Hi, and welcome.

On 19.08.2004 22:28, BenjiPower@aol.com wrote:

> I have only just discovered Crimson Fields and have not been through the  
> full source neither throw the full documents (as usual I just dove into the deep  
> end, woops) and must apologise if any of the questions I ask seem stupid and 
> may  have been debated previously!
There is no such thing as a stupid question (Well, almost. In any case
people who contribute a translation are granted 2 free stupid questions.)
;-)

> What can I say? WOW! [yeah I suppose I can say that] Well done! And it is only 
> at version 0.4.3! It looks so promissing and even in it's current state, it 
> has kept me up late at nights battling away in a state a commercial game  
> could not even push me into!
Glad you like it so far.

>     -First of all I live in France and have started the  french translation 
> of Crimson Fields using the source code as of 18/08/04 and  hope to be
> able to send it to you soon.
Great. May I ask how soon is "soon"? You may have noticed that we're
planning a release for next week, and if you say you'll be finished
that soon I can delay for another day or two if you need the time. If
you'd rather wait for the next one, that's of course fine with me, too.

>     -I was also wondering if you could plan battles for  more than 2 players? 
> (just the thought of a recreated D-Day with 8 players  makes me tingle with 
> excitement!)
That would be a nice feature to have but requires a lot of work on the
coding side of things. Dave already suggested something similar a few
days ago, so right now I guess the answer is a definite "Maybe".
Don't hold your breath, though.

>     -If this is possible, could some players be  programmed "vegetables" that 
> would either act as a neutral tribe in the middle  of the battlefield or if a 
> car-chase was recreated, could one be used as  the on-comming traffic 
> (without a purpose, just to block the player from chasing  his target)? It
> could be a possibility when creating a group of civilians  (if the units are people) 
> that a player would have to protect (since  these civilians would be AI-based it 
> would be more unpredictable and  interesting)?
I imagine that wouldn't be too hard to do if we supported multiple players
and it's about as likely/unlikely to get added.

>     -Next I was wondering about multiple hex units like  big "mecha-type" 
> robots that rule over the battlefield or giant bombers fighting  giant ships, 
> would that be possible? [Actually out of all these questions this  is the one I 
> would really like to get an answer from, since I'm a big fan of  
> robot-dominating-battlefields!!!]
Another nice-to-have. For me this is not a high-priority item. I wouldn't
reject a patch, though ;-)

>     -That brings me onto my next point... What about  using the flexible 
> scale of Crimson Fields instead of it being in the "tradition  of Battle Isle"*? 
> Could it be used more as an "engine" for tactical war-games  than just the
> Nexus vs. Kand campaign? What about being able to raid a building  as SWAT
> policemen to save hostages, with each hex being a soldier (even if gives it more of 
> an RPG feel with this scale but hey, that's not to bad since you must treat 
> your soldiers as children) and the games would be on smaller maps... to more 
> "epic" scale fighting with Star-Wars-rip-off space battles (even recreate the 
> actual Death Star battle?)... to, who knows, the Riders of Rohan charging 
> into hordes of orcs in a Lord Of The Rings map or a medieval-era carnage?
To a certain extent this is already possible. The approaches so far haven't
been as radical as your SWAT setting but Alan has posted the beginnings of a
Roman set a few weeks ago, and I have a mostly complete set of units for WW1
lying around.

>     -Would this mean that a launcher could be  programmed to select the 
> proper tile-sets and map-sets instead of having to  rename CFUnits.bmp and
> CFTiles.bmp if such extentions as stated above would  start to pile up?   
No. The mechanics for multiple tile and unit sets are already in place in
crimson, cfed, and comet. There is no need for a launcher. It's just the
mkuniset and mktileset utilities which still need some work to allow for
externally distributed sets in source form and people without coding
skills creating them. (Alan, have you tackled this, yet?)

>     [-This last question is pushing the wargame aspect  of Crimson Fields and 
> even though I know its first goal is to do this, could  scenario information 
> be fed through progressively?  i.e. once the spy,  controlled by a player,
> enters a complex and goes after  Dr. Evil, could messages be flashed up once he 
> enters the Doctor's  lab ("There are some horrible-looking torture machines 
> scattered  around the room and on a table in the center is a sign saying "Out to  
> lunch"... I guess I've got a check out the restaurent.") to update the map
> objectives (in the example create a new objective "Find the  restaurent"),
> create a dialog between characters or generals... ?]
Yes, we're doing things like that already (on a minor scale). Without a doubt,
the facilities Crimson Fields provides in this area will be expanded as more
complex maps are made but the basics are all there.

> Whew, well that about sums up it up. Once again I would like to congratulate 
> Jens for such a great game and wish you luck with your future and  Crimson
> Field's as well
While I did most of the work Crimson Fields wouldn't be what it is today
without the help of a score of people around the world. Even users just
reporting what they like/don't like is important motivation for continuing
to work on the project (at least for me). Your feedback is much
appreciated.

Thanks
Jens