Introduction

I am working on making a video game similar to Civilization. I am doing the entire thing on my own. It's been a dream of mine ever since I played the original Civilization game around 1991. The World Remade is written in Java.

The game is intended to be a heavily modifiable scenario engine. The main game I'm making is similar to the RPG Gamma World. I am also trying to make The World Remade capable of playing a game like Civilization 2.

I intend to release the game as freeware with the clause "please send me a donation if you like the game."

This web page details my progress on The World Remade so far. The most recent changes are at the top of the web page.

My name is Alex Shields and you can reach me here: alexshields34 @ gmail.com. Or you can contribute to discussing this project here (my user is Phlegmak): Discussion thread at Civilization Fanatics Center

My other project is my music which you can experience here.

News

Work culminating to August 5, 2008

Not a lot was done during the time since the last screenshots due to various events going on, such as me starting to compose music again and also going on a vacation.

This is the unit detail dialog.

This is the latest version of the client. You can see the minimap and smaller flags.

May 20, 2008

Much work has been accomplished. This is taking forever. A multitude of little things have gone in since the last screenshot. Here's a new screenshot showing a portion of the changes. Notice that this is a screenshot from two different clients connecting to the same server. Some of the features partially or completely done are:

• View mode (partial)
• Unit detail dialog (partial)
• Multiple clients can walk around and view the same map, and see each other doing it.
• Flags for units and cities are in. Units have a hitpoint bar above the flag
• A sweet gui config xml was added to handle which nation uses which graphics.
• Action points get consumed by walking.
• End of turn button partially works
• When a unit tries to move to a tile needing too many action points, the unit order GOTO is added to its order list. You can see this in the New Texas warrior with the word "goto" at the base of the unit.
• Dithering between different tiles
• The fog of war used in the screenshot is one of two algorithms I have. This algorithm is the slower of the two, but more foolproof. The other is buggy.
• Multiple image terrain is back in. The forests are two frames each
• Cities have names

May 3, 2008

The progress I've made so far is pretty good. I got the base of the game working. The server and the client are communicating, and all actions that can change the planet are sent to the server. For example, to move a unit, the command must go to the server first. Then the server sees if the unit can move, and if so, it performs the action, and it tells the client what has changed.

So what I have now, that can actually be seen, is the following:

• Commands are executed over the network. This is the basis for all operations in the game.
• Build cities with settlers.
• Make any unit walk around, which explores the terrain.
• Fog of war (tiles that are explored but not currently seen are darker).

In the screenshot below, I have the new, extremely rudimentary client. What you see is an explorer in the northwest, a warrior in the east, and a huge city in the center. The city is much much larger than a regular civ 2 city. I put it there just for fun. The city was built via a settler unit. The terrain is completely randomly generated right now.

March 21, 2008

Made a program to display the percentage chance of winning battles of one unit vs. another. The program uses Civ 2 style combat, which is units have attack and defense values, firepower, and hitpoints. This program will also work for Civ 1 (use firepower=1 and hp=1) and Civ 3 (firepower=1). If you use very large numbers for hitpoints, the program takes forever to complete. The maximum rounds of combat is 2^{(attackerHp/defenderFp + defenderHp/attackerFp - 1)}. All those rounds of combat are computed. There must be some nicer way to do this.

Example of long running battle:
Civ 2 battleship vs. Civ 2 cruiser
Battleship has att=12, hp=40, fp=2
Cruiser has att=6, hp=30, fp=2

To compute such a battle, it's recommended that you divide the hitpoints by 5. It gives a different result of the battle, but it's adequate.

Source code
Requires Java 1.5.0. Newer versions of Java probably will work.
Compile like so: javac -d . UnitCombatPercents.java
Run like so: java UnitCombatPercents

Work culminating to March 11, 2008

I did a lot of work recently. I finished the design of the protocol between the server and client. I had to redesign a lot of my original classes. The original work I did on the graphics will have to have a major overhaul. My original work was mainly for the sake of me seeing something concrete, so it was expected it would have to be redone.

Work culminating to May 20, 2007

I've been working on it. I've made little progress due to my heavy workload at the office.

I changed the name of this page to The World Remade, instead of Alterworld.

I'm in the process of making major changes to how the map works for the sake of the multiplayer game. The entire game is going to be a server-client setup.

Work culminating to May 10, 2006

Added an import from image function. It can import gif, png, and jpeg files. It reads the pixels in shapes of the tiles of the game. It determines what is the average pixel color within each tile from the image, and determines what is the closest terrain.

That algorithm is flawed, as can be seen from these screenshots. If it's not apparent in the screenshots, the reason the algorithm is flawed is because ocean in the original picture tends to result in jungle or swamp in the map. The import image function and the algorithm need work. Plenty of work. I'm going to have to make a fancy JFrame specially for the import image function.

Google map of the US
Imported Google map of the US

Any image can be used.
Tortoise
Imported tortoise

April 23, 2006

Renamed the game to Alterworld. This may change again. Gamma World is going away.

Added hills.

Added an Import from Civ 2 function. This screenshot shows what reading from EUROPE.MP looks like. I painted some radiation onto southern Great Britain. I had to turn down the quality of this jpeg so it wouldn't be humongous.

Work culminating to the date of April 22, 2006

This is a more complete map editor. Added the following:

• Saving works.
• Loading works.
• The New menu item under File works.
• After loading or saving, the filename is in the title.
• Paint mode vs. pointer mode for the mouse. Notice the two buttons at the top left.
• 5 different brush sizes.
• Clearing all terrain in the map to one specific terrain.
• Can set size of map. (Also used when clicking New)
• Exit menu item.
• Can paint Pollution, Blasted, and Radiation intensities.
• Can paint terrain.
• Clicking and dragging works while painting. It's relatively fast, but for some reason, it periodically hangs. The hanging must be something in Swing, because it's not in my code.

Circa February 5th, 2006.

This is the map editor. Right now, I just have random terrain generated everytime I run the program. I like the way the radiation looks. I put in the dithering as well. The graphical output is heavily optimized. The dithering and the radioactive terrain is all precomputed.

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4

Circa November 26th, 2005.

Same map as before with some more radiation effects. It has glowing. It's way too distracting and "busy". Dithering works too.

Circa October 12th, 2005.

Another graphical experiment. I was fiddling with a variety of terrains.

Same map as before with some radiation effects. No glowing.

Circa September 24th, 2005.

Another graphical experiment. The trees in the forest glow. The halo covers the top of the tile below it.

This is the same map I used for Empire. It's converted to be used in Gamma World. This is read from an xml file.

Circa September 21st, 2005.

An early graphical experiment. The desert glows. Coloring tiles works. Darkening and lightening tiles works. Arranging the tiles as they are in Civ 2 works. The green halo that goes around the desert is visible by itself in the lower right corner. The little green ball is what's used to create the halo.

The World Remade is copyrighted 2006, 2007, 2008 by Alex Shields

last updated: March 11, 2008