Introduction
Heyo, Sorry about the lack of updates for the past couple of days. I've been ill and having really been able to work on TOW, but now I feel better and I'm back to coding!
Since I haven't really explained the Empire system yet I shall attempt to do so in this article.
Basics
Currently the Empire system is made up from 10+ sub systems in order to make it work. The larger sub systems are the Production and War systems as well as minor ones like Research,Project and Job systems.
The Production & War systems are actual abstract, Goal based systems and systems like Research and Job/Project Systems are the ones that actually do things rather than plan and calculate what to do.
There are several parameters that control the Empire and makes it able to calculate what to do. These parameters are Threat, Reputation and Resources.
Depending upon the current Threat the Empire is under, the Empire will places its resources in the Production or War systems.
Example: If the Empire is under a lot of attacks it will calculate that it needs to defend itself, therefore it'll place most of its resources in the War system.
Vice-versa if it is not under attack, it'll go towards more of a production heavy Empire.
Production System
This system focuses more on Production, such as Farms, crafting Tools and constructing Factories, Production Researches and other such things.
It also handles who to trade with depending upon reputation, generating production related quests for Resources or perhaps constructing Buildings.
War System
This system handles more of the War based things in the Empire. Such as crafting Weapons, constructing Barracks, Armories, Weaponsmiths etc.
It also handles who to go to war with, Soldiers, where to defend, where to attack, generating Attack quests, defend quests, infiltration quests etc.
Job Manager & Project System
These systems handles requests from the War & Production system.
Example: The Production system sends a construct building request. The Project system will generate a new Project and get the data from the Structure system and will start interfacing with the Job Manager to actually hand out the Job requests to the citizens in order for them to perform the tasks required to construct the building.
Conclusion
This is only scratching the surface of the Empire system. But currently most of this is already in place and the last thing to do is actually make it start calculating the Goals properly to work.
I feel as if though this design with loads of sub systems interacting with each-other is a very powerful one and has a lot of potential.
It's also very easy to implement more sub systems for the Empire to do more things.
Ending Statement
Do excuse me if this update was a lot of text and not many images showing it all off, but I felt as if though I wanted to explain what the Empire system does and how it handles everything.
Now I'm going to get back to my bed and medicine so that I'll start feeling better soon and can get back to working on TOW. Hopefully this will not have an effect on the first Alpha release date.
P.S.
I'm implementing Controller support very soon which will mean you'll be able to play this with your own favourite controller if you choose to. I'll also have re-bindable keys.
I've been waiting for a post like this, the empires are mainly what has drawn me to your game. Thanks and good luck with development!
Cheers!
My current development focus is on the Empires, so expect a lot more updates about the Empires and things revolving around them.