Global Triumph

- Units now have a "merge" option.  (See the Plans / To-Do List thread for more info.)

- Bridges can now be created and repaired by construction trucks.

- Sea bases can now be created and repaired by construction trucks.

- Sea units (transports and warships) are now available.  Transports can carry a land unit across water.  Warship attacks are similar to land attacks, except they conclude with an option to fire upon a sector that is within reach of the attack path.

- Land, sea, and air bases can now be sold.  If the bases have never been used to create a unit, you will receive a full refund.  Otherwise, they can be sold for 40% of their original value.  In either case, the refund will be reduced if the base is damaged.

- When setting an attack, you can now select straight attack paths with one click instead of having to click each sector along the path.

thank you soooo much for that 5th update! it's made the game way less time-consuming =)

I agree with you chessmaster2000.  Nice job.

I'm glad it helped!  I also plan on adding a "clone attack" option that duplicates an attack you just set, so you can apply it to an entire line of units with just two clicks per unit (unit -> clone attack, unit -> clone attack, etc.).

- Unit strengths now range from 1 to 9 instead of 1 to 99.  This will prevent battles from being too lopsided, especially between an established country and a newer one.  The few units that were over 9 have been reduced and the countries have been credited.

- Moves and attacks have changed significantly.  Land unit moves can now only be done when on a land base or when adjacent to a transport (except for construction trucks, which can still be moved at any time).  Sea unit moves can only be done when adjacent to a sea base.  Movement is now primarily achieved via attacks, including across your own land.  As such, attack distances are now calculated realistically.

- Land units now have a "clone attack" option.  Once you set a normal attack, you can use the clone attack to automatically copy the last attack to another unit.

- A new Daily Cycle script is running that creates a log of battles that take place.

- A battle log viewer is available in the game.  The icon appears in the top-right corner of the screen, next to the overview icon.  Hovering an entry highlights the area to the right.  Clicking an entry centers the game map on the sector.

- Air bases and attacks will be available after the next Daily Cycle (July 4, 4:00am CDT)!  The first air attacks will then be processed during July 5's Cycle.

- Holding the Ctrl key while clicking a land unit will apply the clone attack, so you no longer have to click to see the menu and then click the clone attack option.  (You still can use the menu, though, if you prefer.)

- Transports now move/attack slightly shorter distances when carrying a land unit.  If the strength of the land unit is higher than the strength of the transport, the move/attack distance is further reduced.

- Country sectors that aren't occupied by bases, defenses, or units now have a "vacate" option.  It will reset the sector to be unoccupied.  This function will be vital when treaties are in place and you'd like an ally to take land you currently occupy, since the game wouldn't allow the ally to attack your sectors.

Thank you for that.  I was hoping we wouldn't have to turn off the treaty just to build "bridges" across our land for our allies.

- Air bases were accidentally coded to only allow development when a construction truck was located on it.  It's been corrected.

- Attacks are now processed by country, with the order of the countries being completely random.  (Of course, a particular country's attacks are still processed in the order in which they're set, since that's vital to moving groups of units.)  Basically, there's no longer any advantage to setting your attacks before other players, since it's unknown which country's attacks will be processed first.

When you say that attacks are processed in the order in which they are set, does that mean that two units can follow one another along the same line of attack as long as the lead unit goes first?

Yes.  As long as a unit doesn't run into another one of your units, it'll keep going.  So, if they lead unit is set first, the path should be clear for another unit to follow.

Oh sweet.  Well that changes things a whole lot.

- The latest YouTube map video has been uploaded.

- Treaties are now implemented in the game.  Once a treaty is requested and accepted, attacks on each others' sectors or units will not be processed in the Daily Cycle.

- Treaty requests are made within the game itself.  When viewing the country info (after clicking the country name in the sector, base, or unit info screen), you'll see options to request, accept, or break a treaty with that country (depending on the current treaty status).  When a treaty is requested or broken, the other user will receive a note notifying him/her of the action.

- If a treaty is broken by either player, attacks between the two countries will be allowed after 21 days.

- The latest YouTube map video has been uploaded.

very cool

Sweet.

- The "World" overview now includes a menu bar that lists the current sector being hovered over and has several buttons.

- The "Display" button is used to turn on/off map highlights (including bases and specific unit types).

- The "Search" button is used to search for any sector, base, unit, defense turret, or sector name.

- Land and sea units can now be sold when they're within the unit's "move" range of a base.  Currently, the sell back percentage is 60%.

- Sea units now have a clone attack option (which can also be used as a ctrl+click shortcut).  If a warship attack is cloned, it will fire on the same destination sector (if its within range).

- The zoomed game view uses buttons instead of icons for "World," "Battle Log," and "Settings."

Today you are my favorite person.  Really.  Its true.

Approve +1.

- An "Attacks" button has been added to the World overview.  It overlays all currently set attacks (land, sea, and air).  The exact implementation may change (e.g. it may become a "sticky" display option, like the others), but it's a click-activated feature for now.

hahaha  Thanks!  I try.

Damn dude.  Now you're just showing off.  F-ing sweet.

I'm liking this one, too.

One day, when the game is done and I'm no longer an active player, my dream is to have a big LCD on the wall in my office that shows the full map with all the attack lines from all the countries that refreshes once a minute.

I think that would be a cool feed as day old data.

- On the World overview, you can now add a reminder "pin" to the map by holding the Ctrl key when clicking.  To delete the pin, hold Ctrl and click it again.  (This will likely be most useful when spotting and tracking enemy ships.)

- Air attacks have been redesigned.  Instead of clicking on the base and locating the target, you now click on the target and select the "air attack" option (which appears on sectors, land units, and sea units).  You'll then see a window highlighting the air bases and units within reach.  Clicking on the base ID then allows you to select the attack level and submit the attack.

- The game has been changed to no longer allow newly created construction trucks to create new land bases.  (With the recent ability to sell units, it created a flaw where a user could get units across a vast space somewhat cheaply by creating, moving, and selling bases and trucks.)  New trucks can build land bases after a Daily Cycle has passed.

That was mean.  Truck jumping was fun - and highly effective.

Did you just now - like as of 30 seconds ago, add an icon to a ground unit that has been set for air attack?  If so, you are again my favorite person.

- An air attack indicator icon now appears over sectors being attacked by an air base.

That's not just cool.  That holy-sh*t-hot-damn cool.

This is shaping up to be a nice wargame.  Now I can strategize.

Now what we need, if you really wanna get cool about it, is for players in an alliance to be able to see the air attacks of other players within that alliance, so that they can truly coordinate.  I think the only thing missing in the game right now is some functionality between alliance members, and coordination of attacks and troops movements. 

Still WTB Right of Passage by the way.  I figured out why its so important.  Its important because a player currently moving across his alliance member's territory leaves a trail across the map that any fool can follow.  Sneak attacks and sneak movements become impossible, but if McGraw wants to allow me to use his territory to move a massive number of troops across in order to attack someone at his border, he should be allowed to do that without losing territory, and I should be able to do that without leaving a trail of bread crumbs 16 miles wide.  See what I mean by that?

I was actually going to ask about that.  I was thinking about doing that for the World view pins, too.

The one issue I see is that alliances are more geared towards giving a group of players a place to discuss privately.  It doesn't necessarily make the people in an alliance a "team."  I thought it might be better to share attacks and pins across treaties, but again, it's not the ideal grouping.

I'd almost have to create a new "team" grouping, but that just starts to get confusing.  Maybe Alliances can be reconceptualized (I'm sure that's not an actual word) into a team type of thing, where all of that sharing is built it.  And people would only be allowed to join once alliance.


See what I mean by that?

Yes, definitely.  The real problem there is that, structurally, the game couldn't support that.  I kept things with a more basic structure when I started this game because the 10,000 ideas I had would have taken years to get up and running (since, unfortunately, I still need an actual job to pay bills and such).

There's quite a bit that a GT 2 may have, especially if I can get this version launched and see some success out of it.  There's a whole list of new ideas I've gotten from developing and playing this game, too, so I think the next one will be really interesting to develop.  I have to keep that out of mind for now, though, or this one will never get done. haha

the alliance of MCXA is a team of friends though. we came to this game together, and created a place to chat about things going on on our various borders. all of us have treaties with each other, but not all of us have treaties with all the other outsiders that every other player comes across.

to us, the alliance is the cohesive entity, the team. that's what the definition is anyway, so that's what we're using it for. if i wasn't going to be friends with someone, i wouldn't let them in, so why not share pins?


but if pin-sharing was going to be the case, then they should have added functionality. placing a pin would prompt for a note to be inserted. clicking 'done' would place the pin, and it would show up as:

*pin* [message box]parandiac: boogra's ships[/message box]

this way, all members of the alliance would see who dropped the pin, in this case me, and my note- "boogra's ships". because some people might mark all manners of things, instead of just ships, and having a notation would make things a little easier.

also, you'd probably want to make the pins a little smaller, and have the message box be something that comes up when you click it, and goes away when you click it again, just like a unit.

Wow.  That's a hell of an idea there, Para.  Nicely done, man.

The Pin sharing thing would solve a lot of issues. 

Would showing the alliance air attacks at least be a real pain?

thanks. sorry to use you in my example, but it just seemed easier since you're the one i see the most on here.

pins could also be added to the display menu so that there wouldn't be a thousand little pins all over the place.

I'm not entirely sure if I'm a fan of this.  It seems like it could favour people who sign on later in the day, as they'll be able to see which of their units are being targeted, and at least try to react accordingly.  People who sign in earlier might miss this heads up if the attacks aren't set yet.

It could also tip someone off to a sneak attack if they're not in a war at the time.

You're the only one who can see your attacks though.  You can't see attacks I have set against you or another player.

- Air bases now have an "attacks" option that displays its current attacks.  Hovering over an attack in the list will highlight it on the map.  Clicking an attack allows you to cancel it.

Gogo!  Yay!

Definitely.  There wasn't much of a point when pins were for personal use, but they'll need labels if they're shared.

Showing attacks shouldn't be a problem once I decide on what to base the sharing.

I suppose I could restructure some things and make alliances tied to the game (rather than to the site, as they are now) and block users from joining more than one.

I just wouldn't want to get into letting users choose which attacks/pins should be shared with which alliances.  That would make it way too complex and annoying to use.

With Alliances possibly being tied to the game and a player being limited to being in just one, maybe we need another "something" to take the place of current alliances.

Not all alliances may be for the purpose of combining attacks.  Some may be for the purpose of discussing various things that may or may not be with "friends" that you don't want the whole world to hear...