Archipelago - Time and Tide

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Introduction

Time and tide wait for no man.

The last two items on the implementation roadmap for trade contracts both required a measure of time to be added to the game. Trade contracts are activated by an initial delivery of goods but the resulting trade routes need to held open for a period of time in order for the contract to be completed. For the duration of the open period trade routes can be interrupted and cancelled by obstacles, for example pirate ships moving onto their line.

With most of the game operating around the figure eight and octagons, the eight phases of the moon seemed like a fitting measure for time. Each series of player turns represents one phase of the moon with each moon month lasting 8 full turns.

The new features in this contribution are thus:

• Addition of moon and time measure
• Adding time to trade contracts
• Obstacles cancelling trade routes (first obstacle is pirate ships)
• Assigning quadrants to pirate ships (game play improvement)
  
  

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Phases 2 (Resources, Goods, Building, and Trade Contracts) and 3 (Conflicts) of Archipelago development are now well underway.

For a full view of the current state of the game development see my github-hosted page.
https://miniature-tiger.github.io/archipelago/

Please note that the game is not yet complete - you can see current progress and test functionality but you will have to wait a little longer to play!

Background details of the project can be found at the end of this contribution post.

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Repository

The repository for Archipelago can be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago

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New Features covered by this Contribution

Addition of moon and time measure

The graphic for the current moon phase was added to the top right of the board, together with a written date. The moon graphic uses two arcs, one for each side of the moon, superimposed upon a background circle. At some point in the future I may animate the transition from one phase to the next but it looks good for now.

A new SVG layer was added to the game board for the moon graphic. The approaches to adding canvas and SVG layers to the board were simplified and added to methods to avoid repeated code.

The moon phase and moon month are updated after each player has moved, i.e. after the pirate moves.

_{Moon phases}

The code changes for the above new feature can be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago/pull/66/files

Adding time to trade contracts

Once a contract is established between a player and a Kingdom island it must be maintained for a period of time. The time period I have initially chosen is a full turn of the moon, i.e. eight phases, although this may be adapted during gameplay testing. The contract requires delivery of one good per turn which is assumed taken by Kingdom ships along the mapped trade route.

This new feature:

• Adds a countdown of the remaining time required for an active contract to be completed.
• Updates the contract dashboard (on the right sidebar) to show the remaining time for each contract.
• Reduces a resource tile's goods each turn based on the contracts that are active (typically a resource tile will produce 1 good each turn which is immediately delivered if a contract is active).
• Adds the resource tile coordinates and the contract trade route to the contract array for later use.

_{Contracts dashboard showing an "active" contract with 2 phases on the moon remaining until completion, together with some open contracts with their initial delivery requirements and some closed (or completed) contracts.}

In addition some simplifications and additions were made to goods production and new contracts:

• Simplification of the initial and renewal amounts for each contract generated.
• Simplification of the resource tiles to all produce 1 good per turn except for one of each resource type which produces double.
• Update of the left sidebar to show this double resource with "2x".
  
  

The code changes for the above new feature can be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago/pull/67/files

Obstacles cancelling trade routes (first obstacle is pirate ships)

For the duration of the open (or active) period of eight moon phases a trade route can be interrupted and cancelled by obstacles, for example a pirate ship moving onto the route.

_{A pirate ship has ended its move on a trade route which will be cancelled at the start of the next Red Team turn}

The implementation of this feature required:

• A method to check whether a pirate ship sits on their trade routes at the start of each player's turn.
• An update to the contracts game logic for the removal of an existing trade route and resetting of that trade contract.
• The elements of trade route SVGs to be combined into a single group for ease of removal of the SVG.

The code changes for the above feature can be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago/pull/68

Assigning quadrants to pirate ships (game play improvement)

The wind direction and game board edges were resulting in pirate ships clustering together, often at the edges of the board. An improvement was made to assign a quadrant of the board to each of the four pirate ships, and a tile towards which they return if they stray outside that quadrant (once they have finished chasing any cargo ships).

I also took the opportunity of this change to rework the pirateShips array to contain permanent information on each pirate ship (home tile and return tile). This is likely to be the underlying approach followed when automating the computer opponents.

The code changes for the above feature can also be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago/pull/68

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Proof of Work Carried Out

This is the full url to my github account:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger

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That is all for this update. If you have any queries please drop them in the comments or contact me on discord.

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Details of the Archipelago Project

What is the Project About?

Archipelago is a new project that I have been working on. The aim is to develop a seafaring and trading turn-based strategy game. Players will guide their ships around the islands, searching for goods to aid construction of ships and their bases, trading with the Kingdom settlements and avoiding hazards like pirates and whirlpools.

Technology Stack

The project is a browser based game:

• Mechanics: Javascript
• Visuals: HTML and CSS initially but now moved across to Canvas and SVG.

Roadmap

Phase 1 - the first main goal of getting ships on the board and moving at different speeds under the influence of the compass is complete.

The graphics overhaul is also now complete.

Work is now ongoing on Phase 2 which is resource discovery, goods production, building and the trade contracts that underlie the game.

Work has also begun on adding pirates and conflicts.

Phase 1 - Board and ship movement: COMPLETE

• Board set up - COMPLETE
• Basic ship creation: functionality and graphics - COMPLETE
• Manual ship movement and board updating - COMPLETE
• Basic compass creation: functionality and graphics - COMPLETE
• Turn based activity of ship movement - COMPLETE
• Logic of length of longer moves around obstacles - COMPLETE
• Chaining together transitions to allow graphics of longer moves - COMPLETE
• Separation of board layers (Canvas base layer, Canvas activation layer overlay, SVG piece overlays) - COMPLETE

Phase 2 - Resources, Goods, Building and Trade Contracts

Resources

• Add Resource tiles (forest, ironworks, flax, gold etc) - in progress: forest, ironworks, quarry, plantation added
• Discovery of resource tiles - COMPLETE
• Claiming of resource tiles - COMPLETE
• Dashboard of player pieces - COMPLETE

Goods

• Creation of new goods each turn - COMPLETE
• Loading, unloading and transportation of goods - COMPLETE
• Dashboard of goods pieces - COMPLETE
• Goods icons - COMPLETE
• Variable quantity of goods to be loaded / unloaded - COMPLETE

Contracts for delivery:

• Semi-random (equitable) generation of trade delivery contracts - COMPLETE
• Creation of trade settlements - COMPLETE
• Dashboard for contracts - COMPLETE
• Mechanics for contract sign-up - COMPLETE
• Mechanics for contract delivery - COMPLETE
• Island naming: for describing location of trading settlements - COMPLETE
• Graphics of trade routes - COMPLETE
• Continuance of contracts over time - COMPLETE
• Breaking of contracts due to interference - COMPLETE

Building (On hold - decide if necessary once contracts implemented)

• Recipes, time to implement, graphics etc

Scoring:

• Work out scoring mechanism (linked to contracts)
• Add score dashboard

Phase 3 - Conflicts

Pirates

• Add pirate ships - COMPLETE
• Automate pirate ship movements (basic movement with wind and search for cargo ships) - COMPLETE
• Search - telescope range of 5 tiles for stronger search for ships - COMPLETE
• Consider separate cargo and war ships for teams

Forts

• Add fort icons - COMPLETE
• Create safe harbour from pirate ships - COMPLETE

Conflicts

• Attack - Develop conflict method between ships - COMPLETE
• Stealing of cargo - COMPLETE
• Limping back to harbour - COMPLETE
• Ship repair - COMPLETE

Phase 4 - Game Management and Settings

Settings

• Settings pop up box created - COMPLETE
• Options added - In progress - game speed added, developer tools added
• Local options (player name etc)
• Game saving and replay

Phase 5 - Central trading centre

• Develop central market allowing players without resources to trade and fulfill contracts

Phase 6 - One player version development

Artificial Intelligence levels for computer players

Phase 7 - Rules, roll-out, documentation, testing etc

Contact / Contribute

You can get in touch with me on discord if you would like to contribute.

You can find the current state of the game here:
https://miniature-tiger.github.io/archipelago/

The repository for the project is here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago

Have fun!