Hi David.
well it is certainly possible to use xl, though I must confess mapping is
not a personal strong point, and indeed I myself find games like chess quite
difficult to play without a tactile board physically in front of me.
the one exception to this rule which i have found is time of conflict, which
uses imho some of the most advanced mapping overview techniques by
essentially doing exactly what you said, ---- using the computer to put in
the effort on behalf of the player.
In time of conflict for instance, it's not necessary to sit and work out how
close your military units are to one city, you can simply use arrows to move
your audio curser around the map, and get a context sensative menue on each
area which shows distance to nearest objects.
So for instance, if you are playing the battle of britain map and the enemy
attacks portsmouth, and you want to know where your nearest fighter squadren
is, just arrow over to portsmouth and press alt F, and the nearest fighter
will be at the top of your menue ready to command.
While self voicing and audio cursers might be going slightly far, even with
a standard html interface you could use tools such as drop down menues and
list boxes which could change their context according to other pieces of
information.
For instance, selecting a world in a drop down menue could then show you
what worlds were connected to it, distance to nearest fleets, your
opponents' nearest fleets etc.
Indeed one brouser based space game (where you only play as one ship and fly
about the six galaxies), uses a very similar tool involving drop downs to
calculate routes to different star systems, which totally makes up for the
inaccessible galaxy map.
the game is core exiles at www.core-exiles.com and the plotter tool can be
found at
http://www.core-exiles.com/099e24da60b139021a88d3d4527268fa/route/index.php
you don't need to sign up for the game, just use the galaxy map link on the
main page to see the graphical version of what the plotter represents,
(though you might sign up anyway, it's a fun game ;D)..
Looking forward to the practice game, though odds are sinse I'm in the uk
and may or may not be awake at midnight, I won't be able to get back until
tomorrow.
all the best,
Dark.
---
Gamers mailing list __ [email protected]
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected].
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected].
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to [email protected].
