Imperialism 1974 Board Game
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Hello all!
I've been working on an adaptation of a pretty obscure board game from 1974, Imperialism.
The mod is now available for download in TripleA (named "Imperialism 1974 Board Game"), so please take a look if you're interested.
Note: It should be fully functional with TripleA for human players, but AIs can't play the map and also run into various errors in 2.5. 2.6 fixes some of the errors, but there's still work needed to make the AIs be able to play it.
It has a number of unique mechanics, see the ReadMe on GitHub or the game notes.
One interesting mechanic is you don't just have PUs globally, but they're represented by actual wealth (gold) units that you have to bring to ports (factories) to build units there. Another, is that there is a random chance each territory produces a wealth unit, based on its wealth value.
This is all implemented with triggers and there's tracking of victory points (as a resource) as well.
I thought I'd post about it here to show it off - both for people to try out, and also potentially for other mapmakers to be inspired by some of the mechanics that I've been able to support with triggers, that perhaps could be interesting for other maps.
My next steps are to work on the TripleA engine to make the AIs to be able to play the map and perhaps add some missing engine features to support the rules of the original game (e.g. making land battles optional, which I think A&A 1914 also needs).
Finally, if anyone is interested in helping improve this map, I think one great improvement would be to add a pretty looking terrain map for it. Let me know if you'd like to help.
Other ideas I have is to add variants beyond the original rules - right now, there's a big luck component, but I'm thinking of adding an option to reduce the variance by making it so each territory rolls separately for its income, rather than one die affecting all your territories, as per the original game.
It could also be interesting to adapt the ruleset of this game to a different geographical real or fantasy map.
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@myrd said in Imperialism 1974 Board Game:
One interesting mechanic is you don't just have PUs globally, but they're represented by actual wealth (gold) units that you have to bring to ports (factories) to build units there.
This is very interesting and something I've strongly considered myself as the best representation of anti-shipping wars (like the Battle of the Atlantic).
Never heard of this game, but I'll surely check it out.
I STRONGLY ADVISE YOU CHANGE THE NAME TO JUST "Imperialism 1974". Everything here is a (virtual) board game, so what's the point having "board game" in the title? Cut it out.
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You got several unclear and probably wrong connections, like "The Blue Sea" and "Gondar W Coast". I suggest you make as sure as you can that all connections are correct. I assume several I'm seeing are not.
Also, instead of temporarily having "Neutrals" units in the "Neutral" territories you are supposed not to pick, just make them "Neutrals" like you did in some cases.
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@Myrd
Check out the Easy AI.At least the Easy AI will have a punch up on the Old World.
Shame Easy AI does not deploy the ships. -
Thanks! Will take a look at those.
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@myrd
I notice that your xml has javaClass style of eg.javaClass="TriggerAttachment".
whilst most other map makers maps have a style of eg.javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment"I converted one of my maps to the same format as yours and looked at Task Manager and was surprised that at the start of turn 4, your method uses 200MB less than the normal method.
Your method 1800MB
Normal method 2028MBAny thoughts on the above?
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@thedog the shorter syntax was a more recent feature so if you're ok not supporting versions before 2.5 (not sure when it was added) you should use the shorter one.
For sure, the bigger the XML, the more memory will be used. But I would caution making too definitive conclusions because in Java it can depend on the timing of garbage collection. Tools like VisualVM allow you to forcefully trigger gc which is what I do when I really want to compare memory use.
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@myrd
Thanks, I will convert The Shogun and the Advanced version to the shortened syntax, for a smaller xml and a possible reduction in memory usage. -
There have been a few improvements to the map and to the engine to make this map work better.
A few issues with the map itself were fixed, it got a facelift, and some changes in the 2.6 prereleases have taught the AI how to use consumable units, which made AIs be able to play effectively on the main continent (but not yet explore with ships).
There have been some other non-AI fixes in the 2.6 prereleases fixing some UI glitches the map experiences with 2.5.
I also added the mountain territory effect, but unfortunately we can only use it for territories that are all-mountain, since TripleA doesn't yet support directional territory effects.
Would be interested to hear if people had a chance to try it and have feedback. Cheers!
