Writing engine for Galaxy Lords

Hello everybody. I’m back from my holidays and almost instantaneously went back to coding. As you may know from my last post I’ve began coding simple 4X game with a working title Galaxy Lords. I just wanted to tell you how things are progressing. Well… I must say quite well… I’m working on the game engine core and the progress is neat. I’ve written several classes dealing with State, Event and Process Management, Textures, Animations, Screen functions and began to write Animation Sequencer and Scene management system. Engine is supposed to be very simple, yet quite powerful. There’s still yet to be developed input and sound system. However I have to say that there’s no way to find any decent sound system libraries for Python and I’m quite fond of it. I may end up using standard SDL mixer system for sound, but I wanted to use something more powerful like for example OpenAL bindings for Python. However it turned out that PyOpenAL is not developed anymore. So I have checked PySonic library which is supposed to be a binding for FMOD sound system in Python, but it’s also not developed anymore and quite frankly it doesn’t compile on my system at all, despite my best efforts to compile it. SDL mixer isn’t very bad, but it doesn’t support directional sound, no special effects for sound and the mixing system is very limited. I’m just disappointed. There’s no decent sound system libraries for Python at all. Anyway the engine core is at least 75% complete. Besides the input and sound system and scene management it’s almost complete. The engine uses Rabbyt, PyGame (SDL bindings for Python) and PIL (Python Imaging Library).

As for the game itself I have few things in my mind about how some things should be done. I have played many 4X space games like GalCiv 2, Sword of The Stars, Space Empires V, Ascendancy, MOO2, Imperium Galactica, Thousand Parsec and Alpha Centauri. I must say that still the best 4X space empire game is MOO2 with Space Empires V at the close second place. There’s also very simple 4X game for mobile phones named Rise of Antares by WarDreams, quite similar to simpler MOO2, which is quite cool when you don’t have computer near you. Recently I’ve been playing sword of the stars, but I must say. It’s quite cool when you start the game, but later it’s getting veeery boring, and despite the fact each race has it’s own unique ways of transportation and each game-run gives you quite different technology tree it’s simply boring. GUI is not very obvious, you feel like the game is playing with you, not you’re playing with the game. Technology tree is boring and options to develop your own starships is quite limited. Also weapon development progress is not noticeable, options for armor and shields are limited. There’s no way to develop your colonies and the game is quite strange. I’ll tell you about my game in a spiral galaxy, playing humans. After almost hundred turns I’ve finally began to explore the galaxy, but then I’ve encountered the Hivers. Despite the fact that I’ve began in one arm of the spiral galaxy that was connected to main cluster of the galaxy via node lines, after conquering Hiver colonies in my arm, the node-lines connecting my galaxy arm to main cluster where gone. I have asked myself – WTF? Needless to say it’s quite frustrating that you have absolutely no control over development of your colonies other than infrastructure and terraforming. This is bad. There’s no circle of climates and each “star system” consists only of one planet. That’s bad. It’s even not realistic, it’s great oversimplification.

But let’s get back to Galaxy Lords and what I’m planning to do. Well… MOO2 GUI wasn’t bad at all despite the small glitches and later micromanagement issues. I find Colonies screen one of the best aspects of that GUI. You knew how many people are scientists, workers, farmers… You could control what to develop first on your new colonies. Each planet had it’s own capabilities like climate, resources and size. It was quite obvious. You had few indicators to keep an eye on. You could run your empire with ease, despite the fact later in the game you had to keep a lot of micromanagement stuff under control. I want to go the MOO2 way in overall look and feel to it. However I don’t want to go with the technology tree introduced in MOO2. Some of my ideas are to keep focus on what our current science knows and predicts. I would like to construct some of the technologies based upon our current knowledge and what may be possible in future. Some of the most promising aspects of our science currently is fusion, cold fusion (LENR/CANR), genetic modifications, various aspects of mind control, intelligent management systems, A.I., development of information technology and many others. However I have an idea that some technologies should not only bear positive effects with them, but also negative ones. Think about it this way. Suppose humans in the game will develop cybernetic interfaces for computer networks or implants allowing them to better control populations, giving it better scientific or industrial output. However this will have downside like for example population feeling controlled and the morale being lower. Or for example development of virtual reality systems that will make population happy, but some of the population quite rebellious, because of the fact that population will be obedient to the will of those in power. I’m planning to create something like loyalty system among empire population. Colonies farther of governing bodies will be more susceptible to revolt and start independence moves. In 4X games the cultural influence factor is greatly dismissed, but it can really create very interesting strategic and tactical opportunities. What I disliked the most in MOO2 was Diplomatic and Espionage system. I don’t know if I’ll be able to develop sophisticated systems for diplomacy and/or espionage in Galaxy Lords, however I have few ideas how should it be done. Well… In my opinion diplomatic system in MOO2 was not obvious. You should have a way to determine if your actions are going to succeed to some degree… You could use spies to mark fleet positions of the enemy and gather some data regarding their colonies. There should be spy satellites that will constantly monitor the movements of the enemy fleets. Also in real $X strategy games you should be able to take advantage of asteroid fields, cloaking devices, nebulas and other objects that occlude your presence within the enemy systems. Your spies should try to steal technologies you have marked for stealing. Your spies when developed sufficiently should try to change orders of colonies and fleets. They should really influence the enemy empire given sufficient funding. Each population unit in your empire should have it’s own profile. There should be people wholove your politics and those who don’t.

I’m not sure how much of this I could implement, however I’ll try to put into Galaxy Lords as much as I can without sacrificing the overall goal of relatively simple and fun to play game. I know that I want to develop technology tree that focuses on things that are real. However I’m planning that each race should have independent technology tree. This could really make the game more interesting. Imagine trying to exchange technologies not available to you, with a technology not available to other races. Simply because of different thoughts each race has. Or maybe even exchange of technologies giving you something else than the race that exchanges the technology with you. I know that I want to focus the technology trees depending on each race abilities. And not only this, but this could be the most significant achievement of Galaxy Lords.

Well, there’s much to say what I could do, but ideas are very simple to come up with. It’s hard to get them into the game. So these are my ideas I’d love to see in my game, but still I’m quite realistic person and want to achieve quite playable game, that will be fun for anyone playing it, despite the fact it may be quite simple.

I’ll keep you informed how things are progressing.