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Is there any interest in a graphical basic strategy game, somewhat similiar to Civilization 3, with the ability to build up an empire, and engage in diplomacy and war with AI opponents?

Dude, no way. I was just about to make the same post. Anyway, might as well add mine on to yours. I am making Command & Conquer in BASIC, but using Omnicalc's "sprite(" command (which I am extremely fond of) because it is the only thing that lets you do graphics-intensive programming in BASIC with any decent speed. The main drawback is that you can't back up any programs using the command in groups; when you try to ungroup them it says, "ERROR:INVALID" or something like that. Anyway, the game. It runs insanely fast (probably because I have not touched the AI yet), and you can create units that automatically find an empty place to go by the building and you can click on them and move them really fast and stuff and then my calc crashed. So, I am in the process of reprogramming the entire thing from scratch. Oh well... It's one of those huge programs that takes up all your entire RAM and has about 20 subprograms and uses all available pics. (For all you whiners, that's usually the sign of a really good program. For example, Quake IV) If I don't lose interest in it it should be out in about a month.

My program doesn't really need speed, it's turn-based. After it loads the graphics and stores them to the pics, (takes a minute) it runs very fast, considering the only thing I have to draw is the interface. It makes no use of omnicalc, just 1 subprogram that draws sprites. You are right... good programs do take up all the ram... mine uses all pics + matrices...
Anyway, your program looks cool; I am a huge fan of C&C. How are you storing unit and building data? Thnx.

Well, I didn't mean to make anybody think that C&C is going to be in real time. That would run incredibly SLOW, no matter how good of a programmer you are. By speed, I meant that everything happens pretty much instantly, nothing has to process or load or anything. Anyway, mine is turn based also, but I try to disguise (for lack of a better word) that and make it seem like real time. I have the turn structure so that you can do two actions per turn (build a building and create a unit from that building, or create a unit and attack w/ it, etc). As to how I am storing unit and building data, I'm not to that part yet...
So far, it features:
* Fast moving cursor
* 4 buildings
* 3 units (including ore drone)
* Self-Destruct option (destroys a building and everything near it, very useful if multiple enemies have surrounded a building)
* Learning AI (Just Kidding!!!)
* Good monetary infrastructure
* Excellent GUI
* more to come...

Not that anybody cares, but I think this game is cursed. I have made many, many other games, and none have been as troublesome as this. The game itself never crashes, but certain stuff in the TI-OS keeps crashing my calc. As I said before, you can't group these , so I have 10 backup programs and recovering from a crash is REALLY annoying. So far, I think it has crashed, oh, 7 times!

One more thing: I am thinking about changing the name. It's not really Command & Conquer anymore, since I've added my own ideas and modified it so much. (Don't get me wrong, it's still very similar!) It also borrows stuff from other RTS games. So, any ideas for a good, original name for an RTS game?

Hey, I just wanted to know if you were making this in Assembly or BASIC. I already tried to make a Turned Based Strategy in BASIC but I didn't plan it out as well as I had thought and by the time I got player one's stuff done, it took 20,000 bytes!! But if you need info on how to keep track of people's health, I came up with an awesome way to. And it works!

If this is in BASIC use a Matrix. Make it be 8x16 or however big you want it. In Asm. I think you call it an array but I'm not sure. When you tell the program that there is a unit on the second row down and ninth column across it recognizes that as a number. Call that Matrix [A]. Make another grid that on the same spot [A](2,9) be the number representing that unit's health. So they kind of overlap. When that unit moves one space to the left, make it so his health moves one space to the left also. When he is told to attack the enemy above him, all you have to do is tell the calc to subtract however much damage your guy does from the space above your guy. If that number is less than or equal to 0, then tell the program to put a zero in Matrix[A], this tells that there is no longer anyone there.

That is how to control the health and movement of units.

By The Way (BTW), ONLY READ THE LONG MESSAGE IF YOU YOURSELF ARE A PROGRAMMER INTERESTED IN MAKING A TURN BASED STRATEGY. OTHERWISE IT IS A WASTE OF TIME...almost.

DON'T TRY TO READ THIS UNLESS YOU CARE ABOUT MAKING A STRATEGY GAME IN BASIC FOR TI-83 PLUS.

OK, here's what I'm doing. I emailed it to whats-his-face that asked for it, but here it is again. The main strength of this od is that the vars take up less RAM, and you can have unlimited stats for units/ buildings. Well, here we go...

All this is assuming you have 4 stats per unit: Actual HP's, Max HP's, Attack strength, and Armor. Using the od you described above, this would take up five matrices (One is actual unit type matrix). Instead, you only need two matrices, but you would need 4 lists. The first matrix would be the main matrix. The second matrix would be the matrix that keeps track of the list position of the unit's stats. Example:

You create a tank at 5,2. # equ of a tank is 5, max & actual HP's are 120, attack strength is 60, and armor is 20. So it:
1) Puts 5 in [A](5,2)
2) Searches for a 0 or -# in L1 *
3) If no 0 is found, extend all lists by 1 and use that position. Otherwise, use the "0" position. Position will now be referred to as Z.
4) Store Z in [B]
5) Store 120 in L1(Z) and L2(Z)
6) Store 60 in L3(Z)
7) Store 20 in L4(Z)

Now lets say you move the unit to 2,8. You need to move the unit in both [A] and [B], but you don't need to mess w/ the lists. When you need to access that unit's attack strength, all you need to say is:
:prgm <theta>CGETILE (converts cursor pos [A,B] to matrix pos [C,D].
:L3([B](C,D->N
where N is what you want the attack strength stored in, and C,D is the matrix position equivalent of the where the cursor is.

Well there it is. Hope somebody can make use of it. If you notice any errors, reply.

* This automatically uses any empty slot, so unless you have 50 units, your list lengths won't go over 51. (When a unit is destroyed, it actual HPs [L1] are < or =0)

You do not have to reference variables that are unchanging, such as max health, damage, or armor. To store this in additional lists for each unit wastes space, unless these change like in Warcraft 3. Overall, good concept.

Well, I've hit a (major?) setback in C & C. Here is my sad, sad story: As I said before, I was having problems with the OS (which was 1.13) so I decided to get OS 1.15, thinking that maybe they fixed a bug they thought wasn't worth mentioning. I backed up all the C & C programs and data on my PC, and installed OS 1.15. Then I discovered that I could not resend the back to my calc! I had TI-Graph Link software, so thinking that TI-Connect would solve my problem, I got that. Still didn't work. I think the problem is that the link protocols are having issues with the Omnicalc tokens, since everything else works. If there is no way to fix this, I will have to stop making C & C, because there will be no point in finishing a program that nobody will be able to send to their calc... DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM???

Omnicalc and OS 1.15 do not seem to like each other... but Omnicalc and OS 1.14 do. Either refer to the link in the URL to get 1.14, or wait a while for a possible new version of Omnicalc.

Any o yall heard of the Mr. Chun series?
I found the first one but when I got it it wasnt finished. Could anyone send me Mr. Chun?

Thnx

P.S.: These games r so fun but I cant find em!!!!!!!!!!!!

I to be one of those annoying people that asks for stuff to be emailed to them, but I need OS 1.12 or 1.13 and I can't find them anywhere. So, if you have one of the two and wouldn't mind emailing it to me... That would be great... Thanks...

I've just started on my first asm game called NHL HITZ for the ti 83plus. Its my first so its gonna take forever but wish me luck.

Hello, Coudl anyone help me with ASM Programming?

check out jame's matthew's (i think thats his name) asm guru. i can't tell you where to find it; you might want to try "googling" it.

never mind; click on the link above. it is for the 83 and not the 83 plus, so you can't copy the example code exactly...

OK, Istarted it in asm, but now I've moved it over to ion so i guess when its done it will work for both 83 and 83+, its gonna take a long time, I've been workin on it nightly and its taking forever to add in the constraints for not going off the screen or through the goals. And its alreadt 3600bytes so hopefully it won't be to big when I'm done.
Donald

Well, I am currently learning assembly using ASMGuru and EZAsm. When I'm done, I'm going to start making Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. I'm hoping to make it in real time and using the beatiful scrolling routines from AB4: Final Assault. Hehehe. Lucky for me, Ensemble Studios included some well-commented example AI and random map scripts written in C. If I can hand-convert them to z80, AoK will have the actual AoK AI & Random map scripts! If it gets too big, I will try converting it to a 32k app.
So far, I can only see two problems, both dealing with screen size:
1) I would love to make the maps the same size as in the actual game, but it would be almost impossible, as it would take 5 minutes to scroll across the entire map. One possible solution would be to make it scroll 8 pixels (1 tile) at a time, but that would take away from the overall looks of game. I don't know...
2) Units are going to have to be 8x8. This means there are going to be problems making the units look like the real thing. THIS means there will probably be only ten or so units. Oh well...
One thing I can foresee as being very difficult to program is the fog of war. It might not have it. Oh yeah, and I'm still working on Command & Conquer in basic. Anyway, that's all for now. Questions? Comments?

YES! I'M STARTING ON IT NOW! I JUST FINISHED ASMGURU AND I FEEL SO EMPOWERED...

Semma donna you're getting too excited.

Semma donna you're getting too excited.

Semma donna you're pressing "Post" too much.

AoK update: I just finished looking at the grayscale development package released for 83+. Age of Kings will Definitely Have This, but only if it doesn't slow the game down too much. Also, I was planning on making the mouse routine interrupt driven, so a conflict might emerge there...

Ok, forget the grayscale, it slows down the game way too much. Just moving the mouse around was slow. (The Zelda demo was "fast" because it moved 8 pixels at a time.) The flight simulator is on hold, I'm re-inspired with Age of Empires... for now.