Sea battles and telescopes - Archipelago

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Introduction

Up until now the pirate ships haven't acted as much of a threat. They moved around the map nicely and would jump on cargo ships that strayed within range. But generally they were easily avoided and on the odd occasion they did manage to catch a cargo ship nothing actually happened.

Two changes to improve their functionality:

• Pirate ships now scan a certain range of tiles in all directions (with a telescope / spyglass obviously) and will move towards cargo ships in visual range even if they cannot reach them on that turn.
• When pirate ships catch a cargo ship a sea battle ensues with resulting damage and loss of cargo for the loser.

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Phase 2 of Archipelago development (Resources, Goods, Building, and Trade Contracts) is 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

Adding telescope to pirate ships
Previously pirate ships would only look for cargo ships that they could reach within one turn. This led to circumstances where a pirate ship might be only two tiles away from a cargo ship but then decide to move away from the cargo if the wind did not allow them to reach it immediately.

In this change an additional step is added to the the logic of pirate ships. The sequence of priorities now becomes:

• Look for cargo ships within wind range (i.e. that can be reached that turn) and move to attack them.
• Look for cargo ships within a 5 tile radius in all directions and move as far as possible towards any cargo ship found (this is the new step).
• Move as far as possible in the direction of the wind to seek out new opportunities.

An example is shown below. Rather than moving as far as possible with the wind towards the North-East (starting from the empty tile amidst the red tiles) the pirate ship now moves North-West in pursuit of the Green Team cargo ship.

_{Pirate ship in pursuit!}

The code changes for the above new feature can be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago/pull/52/files

The change required a rewriting of the logic used to find the paths over which ships move. Previously only paths that could be reached within one turn were investigated. Now all efficient paths up to the localMaxMove boundary (5 tiles in all directions) are captured. Only tiles within the move cost allowance are activated (turned red) but the information stored on other paths can be used by pirate ships to move towards cargo ships beyond the activated range.

The change also required a method be added to find the last active tile on a given path, so that pirate ships move along the path towards a cargo ship but do not travel beyond the active range.

Sea battles!

If a cargo ship is within wind range then a pirate ship will move towards it and attack.

This change adds the functionality for the ensuing sea battle. The change takes the following steps:

• Pirate ship stops one tile short of cargo ship.
• Ships turn parallel to each other.
• Simulation of cannon fire.
• Losing ship is damaged - the mast is broken and the oars come out.
• Cargo ship goods are taken by pirate ship if pirates are victorious!

An example gif is included below:

_{Orange team repel the boarders!}

The code changes for the above features can be found here:
https://github.com/miniature-tiger/archipelago/pull/53/files

The main change required were:

• Addition of a new graphics method "damageShip" to convert the sailing ship SVG to rowing
• Addition of a method shipConflict to animate the sea battle, calculate the winner, and transfer any stolen goods
• Update of the game flow logic for conflicts and the priorities of pirate ships

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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

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

Conflicts

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

Phase 4 - Game Management and Settings

Settings

• Settings pop up box created - COMPLETE
• Options added - In progress - game speed 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!