W6 Java Edition / News: Recent posts

Oh boy was that easy! Should have implemented that a long time ago!

I got a bug submition saying that there was no non-Mac OS X release. So I thought, while in the process of clearing that up, I would explain why there is a Mac OS X specific release for something written in Java!

First of all, there is a standard release for any platform. If you look on the files page there will be two downloads for every release. One that is in a .zip formatted file, and another that is in a tgz'd Mac OS X package file.... read more

Just thought I should mention that I rarely use IBM VisualAge anymore. I have to two source repositories, one on my Macintosh and one on my PC. I am using Apple's awesome free, multi-platform IDE (that wholly supports pure Java technology) called Project Builder on my Macintosh (OS X rocks guys). I am still developing on my PC but have pitched IBM VisualAge for Sun's Forte CE. I had tried Forte a long time ago and thought it was too slow, but now it is speedy and I love it. So bye bye big blue. I have my apples and sunshine to code with. That's all you really need isn't it?

Ok so I haven't been working on it as diligently as I had hoped but things started popping up. I am a starving college student, ya know?

But what I have done to W6 is really exciting. I reworked the scenario loading process so it is much faster. The old process used a lengthy java properties file and was somewhat of a dog to load. To improve performance (not to mention ease of scenario making) I implemented an XML parser and I was very pleased with the results!... read more

I am going to be releasing a working binary build of W6 very soon. Definitely before the new year. Right now I have to work on the end game goings-on and beautify the interface (which is looking quite sloppy-may I add). The sloppiness is okay for right now, I am more concerned with the logisitics working. The fluff will come later and as of right now the logistics is 99% complete.

I have finished the first incarnation of the AI that will fight against human players. It is rather primitive being only based on automated reasoning but I hope that just as I refined the rest of the system the AI will also improve to great extents.

I've taken off work this week and part of next to concentrate on my final examinations and projects. I rarely take work off, so there is definitely no way I will have time to work on W6 until probably next weekend.

ODBC is out and a Properties file is in! No more tedious and very uncompatible ODBC connections to setup, just go to command prompt and run it. Make sure you have downloaded the scenario file I am working with.

The first is about game design. Whenever you click on a country information will come up to inform you of how many troops are occupying it (if it's yours), what the current government is, population, who owns it, etc. Now the problem I run into is whether to make these integrated into the main display or make separate windows or even make child windows for them. Tell me what you think!
The second one is about whether the game should be real-time or turn-based or both. The original was real-time, but I thought some people might like to play turn-based. Maybe a compromise would be to allow the user to choose. Now you choose! Tell me what you think? Real-Time, Turn-Based, or BOTH?

From now on, I will use VAJ's jar maker to create jars for all releases. I have been changing the architecture of te GUI so I had to disable the the attack line. The current attack line is rather primitive. It only allows one attack at a time! This is unnacceptable but I will change it later. GUI Changes: I moved the map into a JScrollPane. I was talking to some friends about it and they wanted to know how people could play on my huge map with tiny monitors/res so here it is (scaling will come later, heh). I also added a Menu bar (and a status bar that can be removed and shown with it).

I have installed IBM Visual Age on my computer with hopes that it will simplify the organization process (that I suck at so much).

Select country functionality worked out, single player attack sequence begun and a "transfer troop" window template setup to specify invasion details.