[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

To be honest, I just learned today thanks to natty_dread. I was using chipv's tool, that gives a decent aproximation. But looks like this page gives real values. It also checks for XML syntax

Go to this page

http://www.conquerclub.com/mapmaker/index.php

You will need those values!

XML URL: http://www.arrakis.es/~oliverfa/Researc ... .36.01.XML
MAP URL (big): http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/4919 ... 8large.jpg
MAP URL (small): http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/3331 ... 7small.jpg

And enjoy!

PS: How can you count your posts in the thread? Or is this your most active thread?

It's my most active thread, making up 41.32% of my posts. It used to be higher before I joined a clan and started posting regularly in the clan forums

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

The image links are updated to point to the versions 10

So does this mean we're all ready to go and we're just waiting for the XML and Beta stamps?

[OliverFA]

I used some modding magic.

I see

[natty dread]

Ok... your XML is so big that the map inspect tool refuses to inspect it.

I'm a bit worried. Your XML is 620 kB. The Hive is only 116 kB yet it plays a bit slow for some people. I wonder if this map will be playable with an XML this large?

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I'm just looking over the small map version with 888s, a number of thoughts on the positioning:

- NH4 and E6 both have their numbers being printed off the edge.
- EA2, EA3, EA4, MD4, WC2, SG2, and SG6 may be able to use being bumped down a pixel
- ND3 could use being a few pixels over to the left and possibly up one or two so that it doesn't interfere with the label.
- ME3 could use some work... I don't know if maybe TaCktiX could move the label to the top of the region and the number could be moved more to the center bottom?
- SB5, SC1, and, WB2, SEC might be able to use being a pixel or two over to the left so that 888's fit within boundries.
- SWC has its 888 running over the boundry. I think the capitals are one of the few spots we can expect to have anything over 99 on at any given points during the game. I wonder if the start could be moved to the top right corner of the region and then the army count could be moved down to the bottom center?

That's all I can catch for the time being. I really don't know that any of these NEED to be addressed, it's really likely to be me just being overly obsessive about things being centred or in borders, especially considering most of these are only an issue on the 888 which I don't know how much we'll even see about 99 on any given spot, save for the capitals and Doomsday.

[TaCktiX]

888's I know are going to be sloppy due to the crampedness of the small. Fixing them would be obsessing over something that won't be noticed by most players. It's not an issue on the large at all, I made sure of that.

[OliverFA]

Ok... your XML is so big that the map inspect tool refuses to inspect it.

I'm a bit worried. Your XML is 620 kB. The Hive is only 116 kB yet it plays a bit slow for some people. I wonder if this map will be playable with an XML this large?

I know... It works with the "only positions" option but not the other way. The syntax check also worked, but can't simulate a game The original file was 1,4 MB. I cut it to 620 KB but I am afraid it won't be enough.

I am thinking about more "optimization" ways. This would involve making some features less granular.

- Cuting "normal" territory reinforcement (without tech) to 2 each 6 territories (instead of 1 per 3). This wold reduce 50% of the "normal territory reinforcement" part.
- Alternatively, implementing reinforcements normally through the reinforcement tag and add reinfocement MINUS for the tech tree. Not sure what the saving would be here.

- Reducing mining techs to work each 2 mines instead 1 mine. This would cut the mine's part by 50%

First of all will update the calculation of how many lines go to each concept to see which one is more worth to optimize. Will keep you posted.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Ok... your XML is so big that the map inspect tool refuses to inspect it.

I'm a bit worried. Your XML is 620 kB. The Hive is only 116 kB yet it plays a bit slow for some people. I wonder if this map will be playable with an XML this large?

I've been a bit worried about the XML file size as well. Unfortunately there's not a lot that can be done that hasn't already been done to keep it limited... short of somebody convincing Lack to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to slip some code into the XML hardcode for the site that would allow a mapmaker to designate territories within a continent and then assign bonuses depending on how many you hold of them. Basically it would allow the XML to read something like 'Land Territories' then assign bonuses for holding a tech (or no tech) and a certain number of territories. Oliver has kind of done this already as much as he can by designing setting up a 'holding x territories' and then assigning it to the tech with another continent, but he still has to recreate the entire 174 territory list for each 'hold x territories' instead of just assigning a bonus/requirement tag at the end of the 'land regions' group.

[natty dread]

Cuting "normal" territory reinforcement (without tech) to 2 each 6 territories (instead of 1 per 3). This wold reduce 50% of the "normal territory reinforcement" part.

Sounds good.

- Reducing mining techs to work each 2 mines instead 1 mine. This would cut the mine's part by 50%

Sounds good also.

These two should probably be enough to cut the size down to something acceptable...

[OliverFA]

I'm just looking over the small map version with 888s, a number of thoughts on the positioning:

- NH4 and E6 both have their numbers being printed off the edge.
- EA2, EA3, EA4, MD4, WC2, SG2, and SG6 may be able to use being bumped down a pixel
- ND3 could use being a few pixels over to the left and possibly up one or two so that it doesn't interfere with the label.
- ME3 could use some work... I don't know if maybe TaCktiX could move the label to the top of the region and the number could be moved more to the center bottom?
- SB5, SC1, and, WB2, SEC might be able to use being a pixel or two over to the left so that 888's fit within boundries.
- SWC has its 888 running over the boundry. I think the capitals are one of the few spots we can expect to have anything over 99 on at any given points during the game. I wonder if the start could be moved to the top right corner of the region and then the army count could be moved down to the bottom center?

That's all I can catch for the time being. I really don't know that any of these NEED to be addressed, it's really likely to be me just being overly obsessive about things being centred or in borders, especially considering most of these are only an issue on the 888 which I don't know how much we'll even see about 99 on any given spot, save for the capitals and Doomsday.

Thanks for taking the time to look about it. One thing that I saw yesterday is that we have to pay attention both to the 888 and 88 versions. Some territories look well with 88 but don't look well with 888. If we can make bouth versions looks well, that's good. But if not, we'll have to give precedence to the 88 one (except for Doomsday Device).

As you say, capitals should also receive special attention because it's probable that a lot of armies will be stacked there.

I'll look at your comments (I mean, the ones that could be fixed with the <position> tag) and post what I see here.

One last thing: This weekend I am visitng parents and family so no R&C I am afraid But I'll come back at full speed on Monday.

[OliverFA]

888's I know are going to be sloppy due to the crampedness of the small. Fixing them would be obsessing over something that won't be noticed by most players. It's not an issue on the large at all, I made sure of that.

I noticed it. The big version is great, with absolutely no issues for territory numbers. The small version... well, it surely needed a really hard work to make everything fit in so small space.

One thing that has already been noticed but I didn't comment about it. Your name is hard to be seen. You should fix it. Maybe by making the background of our name's part a bit more whiter or anything like that,.

[OliverFA]

Unfortunately there's not a lot that can be done that hasn't already been done to keep it limited... short of somebody convincing Lack to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to slip some code into the XML hardcode for the site that would allow a mapmaker to designate territories within a continent and then assign bonuses depending on how many you hold of them. Basically it would allow the XML to read something like 'Land Territories' then assign bonuses for holding a tech (or no tech) and a certain number of territories.

Has this suggestion been made in the XML suggestions thread?

[natty dread]

Has this suggestion been made in the XML suggestions thread?

Sure, I think it has... but if you're going to wait for XML updates from lack, you're probably going to wait for a long time

[OliverFA]

Has this suggestion been made in the XML suggestions thread?

Sure, I think it has... but if you're going to wait for XML updates from lack, you're probably going to wait for a long time

Of course I won't wait for it! I was just afraid that no one had made this very useful sugestion

[natty dread]

No, what I mean is it's better to fix the XML now rather than wait for updates...

[OliverFA]

Version 0.38 has it size reduced to 415 KB:

http://www.4shared.com/document/lmPSbuI ... 03805.html

Optimizations made:
- Reduced normal territory bonus to [2 each 6] instead of [1 each 3] (That hurts me but it's an extreme measure..)
- Replaced all spaces by tabs
- Eliminated all superfluous spaces and tabs at the end of lines
- Eliminated many comments (the ones I thougt were less needed)

For the moment I continued with the granularity 1 of mines. Not sure if it's worth to change to granularity 2.

[OliverFA]

If we absolutely need to continue down this road, the map could be split in 2 or 3 areas and track bonuses for each area individually. Only if we need to...

I made some calculations

Now we have 29 reinforcement continents. Each of them has a size of 6,270 bytes for a total of 181 KB
Dividing the land in two areas and maintaining the 29 continents would put us at 3,135*29=90KB (saving 90 KB)
Dividing the land in three areas and maintaining the 29 continents would put us at 2,090*20=60KB (saving 120 KB)

For the mines each mine is 1,453 bytes for a total of 58 KB. The potential saving here is only about 38KB at best case.

I almost forgot. We can cut about 30KB by changing Doomsday Device from "can attack any territory" to "can attack any capital". Not as impressive as the current version, but if we are desperated...

[OliverFA]

Getting obsessed about this. Removed all comments except for the ones which are really needed. Cut down to 404 KB

http://www.4shared.com/document/xuVtmdC ... 03807.html

[natty dread]

Just remove all comments.

[OliverFA]

The only comments left help me move through the XML file. Not sure if it's a good idea to remove them. But I can always keep a "edit version" with comments and remove them for the "definitive version"

[natty dread]

The only comments left help me move through the XML file. Not sure if it's a good idea to remove them. But I can always keep a "edit version" with comments and remove them for the "definitive version"

Yep, that's what I'm talking about.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

So are we just waiting for the powers at be to wake up, approve the XML, and beta the map, or is there more that Oliver and/or TaCktiX need to do?

[OliverFA]

Hi . On my part, on Monday will test if the new optimized 400KB version works with the map analizer. If it works, I will stop there. If it doesn't work, we should evaluate one (or more) of the possible optimization options:

If we absolutely need to continue down this road, the map could be split in 2 or 3 areas and track bonuses for each area individually. Only if we need to...

I made some calculations

Now we have 29 reinforcement continents. Each of them has a size of 6,270 bytes for a total of 181 KB
Dividing the land in two areas and maintaining the 29 continents would put us at 3,135*29=90KB (saving 90 KB)
Dividing the land in three areas and maintaining the 29 continents would put us at 2,090*20=60KB (saving 120 KB)

For the mines each mine is 1,453 bytes for a total of 58 KB. The potential saving here is only about 38KB at best case.

I almost forgot. We can cut about 30KB by changing Doomsday Device from "can attack any territory" to "can attack any capital". Not as impressive as the current version, but if we are desperated...

[TaCktiX]

We shouldn't sacrifice at any point gameplay for XML speed. People's computers are powerful enough to handle a little heavy-weight XML.

[natty dread]

We shouldn't sacrifice at any point gameplay for XML speed. People's computers are powerful enough to handle a little heavy-weight XML.

I think it's more about server load...