DevBlog #41 - Game

    More progress has been made, and I feel like a million bucks because of this game.

    1) Tech Tree Restructuring: I have switched my 1D list to a 2D list so that I can store all of the data about the branches and their different techs in each era. I have made it so that you can smart scroll through eras and through each tech category. Once researching the first tech, settlement, you can then get access to all other tech categories (Military, religious, education, industrial, etc), and each tech in that tree for each era. At the bottom, you can press a button to increase or decrease the era that you want to view. However, you can only increase up to a certain point, either the max of era 3 or the furthest era that branch goes to. This makes the tech tree feel a lot more advanced and less crowded.

    2) Auction House: I have now got the viewing system working for all of the cards in the auction house, as well as the system to reassign who it is that is adding the card to the auction house. I have yet to get to the purchasing system for the cards, but it should be easy as I can just integrate into the card dealing infrastructure already set up.

    3) Parenting and Child Treatment: I have then implemented a system just to make it easier for me as the developer that will parent the entire empire of each player to a player empire storing object. This means in the editor, I can expand or collapse the object and see all of their buildings, troops, cities, etc.

    4) Tech Placements: I went through and placed down all of the tech buttons in the tech tree for era 1. I will go back later and add in the tech data, along with the cards that go to them. The main hold-up in this process is the 3D modeling of each building.

    5) Government Actions: I have finally added in the cards/effects/techs that will allow the player to establish their government, and have it assigned to their empire/self. This is important as their government will be used for war support calculation, religious interactions, player interactions, card drawing stat changes, and so much more.

    6) Color Changing: I added to my card and auction house visualization scripts, and made it so that they now show the color of the tech category they belong to. This will make it easier for them to make quick purchases, discarding, and trading decisions, as is needed when you are playing an RTS.

    Discussing Next Steps:

    1) Modeling: I need to start improving and creating more 3D models for buildings, units, tiles, and more. I will need these as I go through the game because I am building/customizing/implementing the effects of buildings/cards/and units as I make and add them to the game.

    2) Units: Will be needed for settlement creation, early game income (clearing fog of war), warfare, exploration, and defense. Units are a key part of the game, and as such I will need to start working on them. Their pathfinding, unit movement, animations, and so much more.

    3) Multiplayer Testing: Once I will need to go in and check out how my game runs in this current state, as weel as figuring out the next directions for multiplayer testing. I will also need to begin testing the game with multiple people once the game is in a more playable state.

    4) Youtube: I NEED to create a youtube channel to start documenting the game, and putting out "brand" awareness so that when I release my game it is not just to my friends and family, but is to also 50 other people on the internet. This will also be a good way to keep motivation and commitment high while documenting my progress on the game.

    Alright, that is all for now, good night, and have a lovely day!