Alpha Version 1.03 released

[Mark Pay]

New version available!

As slapdash as ever.

http://www.thespiritengine.com/Brass&Steel/Files/Brass&SteelAlpha103.zip

Changelog for 1.03:
---------------------------
- New units ( Jeep, BMW R75, PzIVG Commander, Partisans )
- Improved urban area generation
- Hills
- Unit veterancy
- Mission objectives
- Save & load
- AI and balance tweaks

[Geos]

Hey Mark, have you considered posting about your game at various indie-game sites? I'd really love to see your game getting popular. I think it can help a lot with publicity, since demo is free at the moment. Maybe starting a couple of work in progress threads at large forums? Here's some sites that might be worth checking and promoting at:

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewforum.php?f=13&sid=836a0e3382edbdc96cc3d14a16b523e8

http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/

http://playthisthing.com/

http://www.tigsource.com/

[Imperial Dane]

Well considering there just was an article about this on Eurogamner.. and that was how i learned about this great Turn based WW2 rts.. Might not have a lot at the moment. But what there is, is great fun

[Mark Pay]

That's fantastic! Thanks Tim!

I really don't enjoy self-promotion. I'd like to think that a good game can survive on user recommendations from friend to friend. Now that I'm back in comfy freeware-land, I can't even bring myself to think about it. Yuck, boring.

I've noticed this week that a couple of crash bugs have crept into version 1.03. I'm sorry to anyone who's had their game interrupted by one. I'm trying to hunt them down at the moment. I wish I was programming this in a language that's easier to debug. :/

[Imperial Dane]

Had the occasional crash. But so far i am just trying to figure out the game itself.. Certainly ended up in a lot of situations with the quick start.. Including being completely sealed in by bocage and no heavy vehicles to break through

Would be a nice feature if you could pick a certain force type in the quick start as well.

Also, thumbs up to the great variety in units so far. From Volksgrenadiers to Waffen SS and Humbers and Cromwells.. All good stuff.

[Mark Pay]

Thanks Imperial Dane.

The hedge generation code is a bit of a nightmare. I spent a lot of time on it, and it still does Silly Things. A lot of it needs throwing out and rewriting from scratch.
I think I've found and fixed the most prevelant crash bug. I'll release an updated version in the next couple of days. I'll get that force type selection added to Quick Start too.

Thanks again.

-Mark

[Mark Pay]

I've updated the download in this thread to 1.03b. It fixes the frequent crash bug (a divide by zero failure).

Also included is a switch from the silly 2-directional to a more realistic 8 directional vehicle armour system. Vehicles now get their frontal armour value in the front 45 degree arc only. The next 45 degrees of rotation give most of the frontal value, and the rest are rear values only.

[GiB]

E. P. I. C.
Any release date yet? When we can expect 1.04?
_________________
Trust in wisdom.
Live in peace.

[Imperial Dane]

Cool stuff Mark, and nice to hear you will be implementing that

Another feature that might be nice would involve the FlaK 88 on defensive missions, perhaps some feature to place them before hand ? As in the only defence battle i managed to get them so far.. they were all hidden away in the forests, most of them not able to get a target for most of the battle.

But keep up the good work

Belated edit:
But i do recall one place where you mentioned you did have some misgivings about the force selection feature since you talked about that it might lead to some trouble in dealing with armour for infantry units.

Which i am not so sure about to be honest, i mean an Infantry company would have hand held at weaponry if possible an AT guns, so i suppose that would work ? Otherwise, i'd suggest perhaps you add in a small thing called support company where you within the alotted points or something can choose something to support you, like armour, or heavy armour if you are infantry or mechanized, or some infantry if you go armour.

At least a suggestion

[DemiImp]

Glad to see the update!

I'll try it out sometime in the next few days.

Keep at it

[Mark Pay]

Thanks guys. 1.04 will take at least another couple of months. I want to focus on polishing up skirmish mode for the moment.

Imperial Dane - There's code that is supposed to deploy units favouring good cover and line of sight in the right direction. Looks like it needs some work though! The AI will need it too, so I want to focus on improving that first.

Most of the infantry companies do have some AT options. Terrain is more of a problem - if you get infantry on a wide-open map and your opponent gets tanks and artillery, you might as well just quit.
However, I've been working on the terrain sliders recently, and I think I should use those to dictate skirmish force choice, which is currently random. So, for example, if a map with lots of open space is generated, the game should give both sides a tank-based force. If it's urban, infantry.

The plan for campaign mode is for the player to deploy several companies for an attack/defense. So the player will be able to call in support from nearby friendly or AI forces.

That's a long way away though! Adding campaign mode will be like programming a second game on top of the the first.

[Imperial Dane]

Sounds like some good ideas actually. Although would be fun if you could choose your own force (at your own peril of course ) Just the thought of being able to choose a Volksgrenadier force for example and then adding in some StuGs for support that could be fun.

And quite impressive plans you have for the campaign mode. So will you have different types of divisions and sort of strategic goals and what not for it or ? Stiill, quite impressive