I have started work on having more than one game phase. You can’t even end your turn now. What I’ve been working on this weekend, though, is the troop deployment phase. Before the first turn, each player should be presented with a set of troop units and a set of places on the map where he can deploy them.
In this screenshot, the player has deployed one tank already and has four more tanks to place, shown at the bottom of the window. He can only place them in the highlighted area in the middle.
(to anyone about to tell me that I should use brighter colors: this screenshot shows a state where 90% of the screen is grayed out. Most of the map is supposed to look dull here, to make the highlighed area stand out more.)
The scenario I imagine is that Denmark has surrendered and Germany uses them as a springboard for an attack on Sweden. That is why the troop deployment area is near the Danish coast.
To make this work properly I have to do some work on automatic layout of buttons and the mapping from mouse clicks to scene graph nodes, and give the Scheme code more fine-grained control over the scene graph.
August 16, 2008 at 12:03 am
Sorry if you have stated this elsewhere, but — for someone who’s new to the Panzer General series — what are the main features you are aiming for? Turn-based strategy? Any resource management? High realism? Any resemblance to eg the Civilization games?
Thanks in advance for the enlightenment
I hope it’s going well!
August 16, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Things are still going well, but the pace has dropped a lot since my vacation ended. It is definitely going to be a turn-based game. Not much else has been set in stone..
First of all I’m aiming for the Panzer General feature set. That means quite simple rules, with details of supply chains and industrial output hidden from the player. Prestige points earned on the battle field was the only currency and could be traded for equipment and troops.
I’m not sure which direction I’ll take when that goal has been reached, but I have lots of ideas .. =)
Maybe I’ll make a light version with easy rules for people who just want to kill an hour or two, and another version with historically accurate equipment, supply management, and a model of the economy for wargame fans.