Forum

by **KEYOGI** on Sun Feb 18, 2007 2:33 am

Conquer 4: Back in Development

I've been craving some creative outlet lately, so I might just give this thing one last try.

If spinwizard or anyone else wants to continue coming up with alternative options I'm more than happy for that to continue.

by **sully800** on Sun Feb 18, 2007 2:51 am

I doubt it would be very popular, and I think your image making skills would be better served on a more intriguing map.

I'll admit that the 4 in a row concept woudl make playability very different but I still don't think it would be popular. Also, 5 in a row would give you two different 4 in a rows. And since you can get 6 in a row vertically, 7 in a row horizontally or 6 in a row diagonally some bonuses would get to be quite large. I suppose you could somehow eliminate that problem through an idea similar to that of USApocalypse, but the coding for that would get to be a little complicated. Even just adding in each 4 in a row continent would be quite a lot.

by **Skittles!** on Sun Feb 18, 2007 2:52 am

I quite like Connect 4.. It's quite fun.

I think it would be a great map, after some effort. I hope it does happen.

by **oaktown** on Sun Feb 18, 2007 2:58 am

KEYOGI wrote:Any interest in a Connect 4 map?

There's 35 spaces to the board, so we'd need to come up with one more additional space.

My theory is there would be no continents, you just have to work on getting four in a row to get bonus troops. Not sure how popular this idea would be, so lets see what you all think.

I'm always a fan of mashing games (maybe you could tell by my map).

I'm looking at the picture, and it looks like it's 6x7, which gives you a nice round 42. And you could make it any size you want... 6x8 brings you up to a very playable 48.

The trouble will be in coding it so that four in a row gets you a bonus, but five in a row doesn't get you two bonuses. If you have five connecting spaces you basically have two fours overlapping. You can fix this by saying a,b,c,d = +2, and b,c,d,e = +2, but a,b,c,d,e = -2, like the US Apocalypse map. But it will make your head spin if you start the turn with eight +2s and six -2s.

We ran into the same question when discussing a Deck of Cards map a while back - how do you give a bonus for having a straight without giving two or more bonuses for extending the straight by one or more?

by **KEYOGI** on Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:32 am

oaktown wrote:I'm looking at the picture, and it looks like it's 6x7, which gives you a nice round 42. And you could make it any size you want... 6x8 brings you up to a very playable 48.

You're right. The first picture I looked at had 5x7. When it comes down to it I guess you could make it as many as you want.

I thought the code would be the hardest and most time consuming part, but I hadn't taken into consideration 5 or 6 in a row and how that would affect getting a bonus.

Oh well, I'll wait and see how the poll goes anyway. I'll only attempt the idea if there is an overwhelming majority in favour.

by **Wisse** on Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:02 am

KEYOGI wrote:
oaktown wrote:I'm looking at the picture, and it looks like it's 6x7, which gives you a nice round 42. And you could make it any size you want... 6x8 brings you up to a very playable 48.

You're right. The first picture I looked at had 5x7. When it comes down to it I guess you could make it as many as you want.

I thought the code would be the hardest and most time consuming part, but I hadn't taken into consideration 5 or 6 in a row and how that would affect getting a bonus.

Oh well, I'll wait and see how the poll goes anyway. I'll only attempt the idea if there is an overwhelming majority in favour.

and than you have to mess with the horizontal rows to

and diagonal

by **santon836** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:52 pm

yea that's horrible...
same problem in king of the mountains and settlers of catan.

by **sully800** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:52 pm

Actually this problem would be solved much more easily than the deck of cards map.

Let's say you want to make each 4 in a row +2 but it has to be unique beyond 1 piece (meaning 5 in a row wouldn't count as 2 seperate 4 in a rows, but 2 crossing diagonal 4 in a rows would count as 2). You'd simply have to write a +2 bonus for every 4 in a row and a -2 for every 5 in a row. You wouldn't even have to think about 6 in a row or higher because each additional peice adds a 4 in a row and a 5 in a row for no net gain. I'm pretty sure that's all correct anyway. Oh, and 7 in a row should count as 2 seperate 4 in a rows since each one would only share one piece. So You'd have to add +2 for 7 in a row.

So for the 7x6 board you have shown there would be

21 vertical connect 4s
24 horizontal connect 4s
24 diagonal connect 4s (both ways)
10 vertical connect5s
18 horizontal connect 5s
12 diagonal connect 5s
6 horizontal connect 7s

Once again, I'm pretty sure thats alright but if I made a mistake feel free to correct me. In total that would be 115 different continents you would need to include in the XML. A bit tedious sure, but you could do it with time. It's no where near the combinations you would need to make the deck of cards map work (though that map would be a bit more interesting as well).

by **sully800** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:56 pm

Also- you could give higher bonuses for 5, 6 and 7 in a row if you wanted. It would only require a few more continents because of the connect 6s that I didn't list. I just didn't include them since the goal is to connect 4 and not any higher. I really don't think the bonuses would be hard to work out now, so if you want me to try and figure out possible combinations I could. Just give some examples of what you think 4, 5, 6 and 7 in a row should be worth.

by **luckiekevin** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:59 pm

and copyright issues?

by **oaktown** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:41 pm

luckiekevin wrote:and copyright issues?

as long as you don't call it "Connect 4" you're fine... actually I just checked the Milton Bradley/Hasbro site and they don't list "Connect Four" as having a copyright. I suspect "tic tac toe" isn't copyrighted - that's essentially what it is. The game play itself is non-proprietary.

If you want to make it simple you could make the board 7x7 and give bonuses just for six in a row or seven: 6 in a row could be +3, all 7 could be +6, which wouldn't require any complicated coding.

by **sully800** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:59 pm

But that's not connect 4!!

by **KEYOGI** on Tue Feb 20, 2007 5:02 pm

Thanks for the all that mental work sully. I'll continue to let the poll run and see if it gains popularity. I don't see much point putting all that work into the xml if it's a map that won't get played much.