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Casus Belli Game Design(2006)

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Casus Belli Design Document Version 1.0

Contents

Casus Belli Design Document Version 1.0

Game raison d’etre>

Game Menu Description

Main Menu

New Game Menu

Enter Number of Opponents 1-3 none'

Difficulty Level

Resume Game

Load Game

Settings

Sound

Vibrate

Combat Animation

Instructions

About

Exit

Game Design

Cities

TAX

Spending

Research Spending

Units

Game Play

On screen display

City Popup Choices

Victory

Technology

Turn Order of Events

List of Random Artifacts

>Game raison d’etre

The empire fell a thousand years ago, and mankind has just regained the ability to travel between planetary gates. Planet by planet a new empire is being forged. But another rival empire has just been discovered – Who will conquer the most planets.. ?

Game Menu Description

When the game loads, it displays a splash screen then Press A Key then the main menu.

Main Menu

These are the main menu choices

Exit

---------------

New Game Menu

Enter Number of Opponents 1-3

(Press 1,2 or 3 keys or use a scrolling menu bar)

then choose one of

Press 1 or 2

With Network play, the complete game can be sent via MMS, GPRS or Bluetooth after a player enters his turn.

Difficulty Level

Then (For local play only)

Players choose one of

Then the player chooses the map size.

Then the Player chooses his units colour

The game starts. A map is generated, cities added, and starting cities for the players chosen.

Resume Game

The last saved turn of the current game is reloaded and play starts.

Load Game

All saved games (up to 3 maximum) are displayed and the player can

Select one.

Settings

Select one of these below.

Sound

Toggle sound son/off.

Vibrate

Toggle Vibration for each combat On/Off.

Combat Animation

Toggle On/Off.

If On then with every fight a brief animation shows, lasting ¼ second.


Instructions

These have several pages of instructions explaining how to play the game.

About

Details about the publisher/author credits.

Exit class=CharChar>

Closes the application.

6641">Game Design

The game is based on a map of the specified size. It is rectangular. (Hexes were considered but may push cpu too much???). hexes require masking, whereas squares don’t. [Would like hexes, but squares may have to do!]

Map Terrain consists of 3 or 4 continents, each with the following terrain types.

Value

Movement Costs
 Cost 1 pt.

2. Water   

 Cost 1 pt
 infantry only

4. Forest  

 Cost 2 pts .
 Cost 2 pts – infantry only

6. Radioactive.

Temporarily Impassable for a number of turns

Note I have shown this as bit packed but if memory isn’t a problem then use complete bytes. The largest map is 80x50 so this would need 7 bytes is 28Kb for complete storage. If bit packed that drops to 16Kb.

Map Locations need to contain the following information.

Location Field

Holds
 3 bits.

Owning Player.

 2 bits. (00,01,10,11)
 4 bits (1 bit for each player if have viewed location).

Player See.

 4 Bits. Like Player viewed. See note 1 below.
 8 bits. Index into array of units for the player who owns this location. Max 255 units per player.

Special       

 4 Bits. See Note 2.
 4 Bits.

Note 1.            A shroud covers the map. As players move their units this shroud becomes uncovered. But you only see enemy units if they are within viewing distance (2 squares from a unit, 3 squares from a city). Scan the list of player owned cities/units and set the ‘see’ bits sets. View Bits are permanent in a game; see bits are cleared each turn then set.

Note 2.  Special are for random items. These have a value 1-15. See Random Items.

As soon as they can be seen, random items are shown by a special graphic. Moving a unit into a location reveals what it is


664Cities

Open locations can contain cities. Cities are held in an array and a function is needed to reveal if a city is present in location xy.

1 in 25 locations has random artifact. These can aid the player or for example, make it impassable- (radioactivity). Very large list of artifacts including alien technology, research help, new unit, hidden city, local map, etc.

Cities have the following properties

Field   

 Property
 7 bits (x location 1..80), 6 bits (y locations 1..50 max)

Owner          

 2 bits
 3 bits    See Note 1

Production Type

 2 bits   See Note 2
 4 bits.  See Note 3

Producing      

 3 bits.  See Note 4
Target City. See Note 5.

Note 1

These have five levels of Defence. (Value 1-5)

  1. Undefended.     
  2. Light Defences   +1 Defence
  3. Medium Defences   +1 Atk + 2 Defence
  4. Heavy Defences      +2 Atk  +2 Defence
  5. Heavy Defences + Militia   +2 Atk + 3 Defence

Players own city starts at Level 4. Captured cities start at level 1.

Note 2 (This is what cities produce- its defined at game start and never varies)

  1. Produces Only Infantry
  2. Produces Inf or tanks (Mech)
  3. Inf + Tanks + Ships      (Ships only on coastal) 
  4. I+T+S+Research Lab

Nukes can be built at any city once that tech level has been achieved.

Note 3.

Population starts at 5. It increases by 1 each turn up to 10.

If a city is captured, population drops to 1 then starts climbing.

Note 4

Value of 0-5 for production (unit type). New units appear in a square next to the city.

Note 5.

A city can automatically relay units to another city on the same continent. These take two extra turns and appear outside the target city.


TAX

Each turn, tax is collected from each city 1 tax dollar from each population in each city that a player owns. If a city is not producing anything the tax from that city is doubled.

This is spent on research on

Production at cities depends upon income from oil and steel (see later). Uranium mines are needed for nukes. Each turn all oil wells, steel and uranium mines output a number of units. This is seeded for each location in the Special Value 2 bytes.

A non infantry unit with 3/2 (3 attack, 2 defence) takes 5 steel and 5 oil to build. Cities can only start building units if there is enough steel and oil. Infantry units need just steel.

If a player has no oil, then only infantry units can be moved.

Spending

To increase a city level costs 10* current level. Eg from level 1 to level 2 costs 10. It takes two turns.

Research Spending

Every tax dollar spent on research gives a 1% cumulative chance of rising a level. IE say you have 6 cities, 3 of which are not producing. That gives $9. If all $9 is spent on research This gives a 9% chance of a level rise. If it fails and you have the same cities next turn then the chance is 18% (9% + 9%).

Units

Units fall into four types.

Unit Type

Move Pts

Combat Values

Build Time
 2.

 1

Tank Army    

 3.

2/1

2
 5.

4

Mech Army   

 3.

2/3

2

Combat Values are Attack/Defence.

With higher research levels, units can be built with higher combat values.

There is a limit of one unit per location. Units of the same type can be combined by moving one into the other but the total atk./defs never exceed the current maximum (set by technology level).  Just add the totals.

Game Play

On screen display.

The map will be shown. It can be scrolled left right by using the 2,4,6,8 keys. The centre square is highlighted by a slightly wider square- the ‘highlight’ cursor. When the map is at an edge,  the map stops scrolling but the highlight cursor can be moved so it reaches all locations.

At the bottom, superimposed on the map is a display panel. This shows game status.

E.g. ‘Your Move’ ‘Enemy Move’-  and how many units you have that haven’t moved.

When its your move and you move the cursor over a unit the panel shows its Atk/Def/Move pts and whether it has moved. When the cursor is over a unit press 5 to select it. Press 4 or 6 to select the previous/next unmoved unit,

Pressing 1 at anytime pops up a menu. This is context sensitive. Ie the various menu choices appear only if the trigger conditions apply.

If over a location,  you get the following

Flags aren’t shown but just provide a marker. Press 1-9 to go to or set a marker.

If over a unit you get the following choices

End Turn

Explore Randomly/Cancel Randomly

Board Ship (Only when next to a fleet)

Unload Unit (Only Over a Fleet carrying Units)

Bombard (Only if tank unit or city in range)

Launch Nuke (Fleets Only when possess nukes)

The game is played in turns. The player selects the units, one by one (use cursor keys to move a cursor over). Press 5 to select, this shows the limits of the current units move- a border round the squares.. Superimpose the current units Atk/Def/Move pts on the map in the bottom left.

Press 5 to have the unit move

. If it tries to move into an enemy occupied location or un-owned city a battle starts. Some units cannot move into territory so cannot attack units there.

Defenders attack first.. Each attack point has a 1 in 3 chance of destroying one defence point.

Surviving Attackers then attack.

Eg 3-2 attacks 1-1  The 1-1 attacks and destroys 1 def point. Surviving 3-1 attacks 3 times and destroys 1-1 unit.

Units in cities get a virtual bonus boost. A level 3 city gives +1/+2 so a 2/1 defending unit gets 3 attacks.  Every time the unit in the city loses 1 point, do a 50:50 roll to see if the unit loses the point or the city drops 1 defence level. If there is no defending city then the first point lost is a surrender for the city.

After the combat show a little popup window showing the result. Eg Attacker Lost or City captured.

If a unit moves into a location occupied by a unit of the same type (inf, tank etc)  the two are combined into one. But the combined unit cannot exceed the maximum Atk/Def that you can currently produce.  Eg a 1-1 tank moves into a 2-1 tank. This produces a 3-2 tank but if you can only produce a 3-1 tank, it is a 3-1 and the extra 1 def is lost.

City Popup Choices

 

Victory

When one player owns 75% of the world’s cities he is declared victor.

Technology

Level

Miltary Weapons

Strategic Tech

Logistics
Inf Now = 2/2

2

Tank now 3/1

Aircraft Appear Bomb Range 3     A/D = 4/4 Note 1.

Can repair units at city Note 3
Fleet now 5/5

 Fleets now  3 turns

4

Mech units Appear

Fleets can bombard range 2 Note 2

  
Mech now 3./3

 Tank take 1 turn to build

6

Tank now 4/2

Nukes Appear – range 4 Note 4

Mech take 1 turn to build
Fleet now 6/6

 Fleets Take 2 turns

8

Mech now 4/4

Bombard Range now 3

  
Tank now 5/3

10

Inf now 3/2

Nuke range = 8

All Units 1 Turn

Notes.

Note 1 – All fleets are built with Aircraft. These bomb- ie attack as if a unit (against units or cities). Automatically replenished by 1 each turn up to max.

Note 2.- Can attack a target in range by bombardment. No casualties are suffered by fleet.

Note 3. -Units do not upgrade to higher weapons. They must move next to a city and not move for one turn.

Note 4 – Cities and Fleets can fire nukes. Cities are wiped out (no tax, production etc) and location become impassable for 10-15 turns. After radiation is cleaned up city population starts at 1. etc.

Turn Order of Events

  1. All Oil and steel income is added in.
  2. All tax income is added
  3. Player makes moves until selects End Turn
  4. All new units appear on map near city.
  5. Enemy Player does moves
  6. Check for game end.
  7. Autosave game.

List of Random Artifacts

These are scattered randomly on the land map locations to be found by the player whose units moves through the location first.

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