Civilization in Python?
The other day, I stumbled upon OpenCiv - a Civilization I clone written in Python. I found it while searching for information on tile based strategy games in Python to learn more about making my own game (see a couple entries ago). The code for OpenCiv is getting on 10 years old now, but with a few hours of tweaking last night while I waited up for some friends to arrive, I was able to port this Unix-only code to work on Windows XP! I don’t think that the computer AI was working, but I will see what I can do about that. If worse comes to worse, it will at least be multiplayer capable with no AI players. Once I get around to it, I will run my modified version and the original version through diff to highlight my changes and post my modified version (with permission from the author, of course).
OpenCiv was a great find for analyzing how a Civ-type game is coded. I got some ideas for my tile based engine from looking at the code. I am rewriting the Unit.move() method right now to deal with map boundaries. I am sure that this little project of mine is going to take a long time. It’s cool learning about how a tile based strategy game works though! Not cool like the Fonz, cool like writing messages in a secret code as a kid.
cw
June 17th, 2004 at 2:25 pm
There is no kind of cool quite like that special kind of ’secret decoder ring’ kind of cool.
The OpenCiv game sounds cool. Are you really aiming to improve the gameplay, or are you intending to ‘improve’ it by porting it to XP?
If you really are thinking about writing a completely new game, I have a friend here in K-town who fresh off a design internship with a game maker…the name escapes me now. He’s cool, though, and he’s into lame hobbies…not that making up computer games is an almost completely unrewarding enterprise, financially.
For serious, though. If you get a kernel, so to speak, of an idea that you want to go with, I know a couple of guys who would be into it.
June 17th, 2004 at 2:26 pm
Oh yeah…one more thing. Get on mlb.com and fill all 25 of those all-star ballots with votes for Vic Martinez, Matt Lawton, Ron Belliard, and any other Tribe member you can vote for in good conscience.
June 21st, 2004 at 10:31 pm
I don’t plan on improving it other than getting it working on Windows. I am really excited about looking at the code though, and figuring out how they made different stuff work. I have already picked up some good stuff.
Thanks for the heads up about your computer game programmer buddies. I think I need to get some sort of core put together before I get others involved too much. What I currently have is laughable at best.
BTW, I have voted for the deserving Tribe players that you mentioned. You know that Cleveland is going to get shafted again though. We’ll be lucky if one of our position players makes it.
cw