VR Designs

Some more news about AT Gold! In this posting a preview is presented of all the features that will be added to the engine in AT Gold.

The most important ones are the speeding up of the AI, with about a factor of 100 times, the adding of alliances (hex sharing between regimes) and the use of resources. For modders and scenario designers the possibilities have been greatly extended as well. AT Gold can justifiably be called a wargame construction set.

In future preview postings the new random games will be discussed in more detail and later on some screenshots will be put up for preview as well.

Here follows a selection of new features the AT Gold engine will be equiped with:

-Actioncards that you can play on specific hex or on specific unit
-Extra layer of landscapetype graphics you can paint on a hex to display extra information or symbols
-Conquest of a hex can result in an actioncard being triggered (“You conquered Paris!”)
-Battle Stack point rule for normal, artillery and air attack. This rule will terminate the gamey exploit of attacking the same hex over and over untill it breaks.
-Original Owner rule option so that reconquered original territory from ally returns to ally when liberated.
-Items can belong to upto 4 different ProdMod categories. Each people has 4 different prodmods.  This will allow much more complicated ownership influence of production.
-ItemTypes can set XP, Mor, People, MoveType of what they produce
-Production prediction takes into account resource use, and resources can now be seriously presented and used by the player. For example: Raw, Fuel, Manpower…
-LocationTypes can be drawn by overdrawing a graphic over the hex graphic instead of replacing the landscape of the hex.
-LocationTypes can now require research and resources to be build
-LocationType building can be limited to certain value in certain areaslot.
-Building a locationtype can change the value of an areaslot 
-Messages can now play a sound file when they are shown to player
-Version is checked and remembered per player. so in PBEMs you can see who’s on which version. This will be usefull when patches will come up later for possible cheat bugs.
-Regimes can mirror their siluet pictures for their SFTypes
-Research cards can have cost in Resources instead of in Political Points.
-MoveType overrule on subformation level
-Readiness loss per Attack is an option
-Penalties in first rounds of attack for attacker rule is now an option
-Prevent Hit statistics for SFTypes (like a halftrack can catch a hit for an infantry) is now an option
-Defensive Hitpoints for each SFType to per unitgroup that attacks them. To create special vulnerabilities.
-Resource rules that can influence movement and attack scores of SFType. Can be used to model Fuel.
-An enormous load of new EXECS and CHECKS (like 100 extra checks and execs)
-Stringlists as seperate data-object, they allow easy importing and exporting of data sheets for scripting purposes.
-Tempstrings in event editor, so you can now dynamicly build text replies for messages.
-Lose EP on movment rule option
-Allow Free Movement rule (for making for example a free deployment phase) option
-Resource costs can be charged for road and bridge building
-Declare War costs rule option
-Battles can cause movement delays (ap penalty on hex) rule. This makes it very hard to attack in waves if there is a serious defense.
-Airfield Surprise Rule
-Air Intercept Chance Rule , these 2 new air rules will make it possible to eliminate the huge air stock always wins problem.
-Naval Movement can get ambushed rule 
-Alliances!
-allies share recon rule
-Allies support ally in combat versus other ally rule option (or stay neutral in that battle)
-3 Zoom modes
-Campaign Room functionality (a scenario without map stuck in command center screen with special background and title)
-New Random algorithm
-Neutral Sea Hex sharing rule (for example japan and american naval units can share hex)
-Giving of units to ally
-Giving of hexes to ally
-Giving of research to ally
-Resource window (with predictions of next round levels after and before production uses resources)
-Full hide enemy rule option (for free deployment phase)
-Moddable systemgraphics (everything is moddable)
-Execs to play background music and wavs
-Watch the AI move while its moves come in while its making it.
-Scriptable startup of game through startup text files and optional mod files to chose from
-A combat detail screen for those who like to study exactly how each modifier was used.
-The AI has been increased by almost a factor of 100x on huge maps.
-option to give locationtypes NoHQ or AutoProd settings
–A hell of a lot of small changes to rules and bug fixes
-Save/Load speed improvement
-AI works in seperate thread now.
-Extra hex painting, roads and rivers graphics options
-And probably a lot more i forgot i even added.

It’s been more then a year since the last patch to Advanced Tactics and more then two years since the last serious upgrade. And that’s a real shame since the AT game and concept are great. I still play PBEM games myself even after working on it for over 5 years.

ATs flexibility has been praised often, as has its very extensive and complete game editor. The engine can do “Empire” like 4X games, but also strategic (world at war) games and operational wargames, even Space games. Personally I have been very pleased to see and play the dozens of great scenarios players have made with the AT engine. See the scenariobank on www.advancedtactics.org to check out these scenarios.

I felt for a long time the game must be continued to be developed further and supported with novel features and improvements. And now finally I can announce that the further development is actually continuing.

Advanced tactics Gold (AT GOLD) will be the next step for the AT engine. It has been in the making for quite some time and is now slowly nearing towards completion. It is named AT GOLD because it is a much extended and improved AT, not a whole new game. AT GOLD will look like AT and play like AT but will be much more then its predecessor and will have much higher potential for scenario creators.

Among much requested improvements in AT GOLD are increased AI speed (up to a 100x in large scenarios) and that you can now see the AI moves while it is making them.

Main new game play features are alliances… Alliances allow different regimes to all have units in the same hex and share research fields. Also it allows you to give away units and hexes to your ally and enjoy continued supply and recon over allied territory. But dozens and dozens more changes have been made including for example new aircraft battle rules and stacking rules.

Also included will be a completely new random game creation mechanism that creates full countries with different peoples spread over a map with climate zones (arctic to tropical) and raw materials and fuel.

But maybe most importantly the editor is now much more powerful and you can do truly amazing things with AT GOLD. I will highlight some of the new features available for scenario designers over the coming months. But I can already say that new features for scenario designers include custom data tables and total customizable systemgraphics (including startup main menu) and sounds/music. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg…. there are dozens upon dozens of new features that the scenario designer can now use.

AT GOLD will be the first release in what hopefully will be a continued and sustained support for the Advanced Tactics engine.

Release is probably, but not certainly, in 1st quarter of 2011.