C-evo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. This article has been tagged since May 2008. |
| C-evo | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Steffen Gerlach |
| Designer(s) | Steffen Gerlach |
| License | Public Domain |
| Platform(s) | Windows 95 or newer; Unix-like using Wine |
| Release date | May 21, 1999 2006-05-21 (v1.0) |
| Latest release | 1.1.0 / 2008-05-26 |
| Genre(s) | 4X turn-based strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single or hotseat play |
| System requirements | 200 MHz PC High color display |
| Input methods | Mouse, keyboard |
C-evo (standing for evolution) is a game similar to Civilization II. The game was written in Delphi and the main programming is done by Steffen Gerlach. The source code is in the public domain but the graphics are freeware.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
C-evo is an empire building game, dealing with the history of humans from antiquity into the future. This includes aspects of exploration and expansion, war and diplomacy, cultivation and pollution, industry and agriculture, research and administration. Players must constantly make decisions such as whether and where to build cities, roads, irrigation and fortresses, whether to form an alliance with a neighboring country or attack it, and whether to devote scarce resources to education/research, warfare, or the well-being of the populace. A successful player manages to find a balance among these choices. The game starts with the development of the wheel, and ends when the first player has successfully constructed a spaceship headed for a nearby planet outside the Solar System. As the game progresses, the player finds that the building of factories, for example, leads to increased pollution, which must be cleared up and can be eliminated through development of cleaner technologies.
The game can be played against computer-controlled players, human players, or both. It does not have a client-server architecture and cannot be played over a network; hotseat play is possible.
[edit] Steffen vs. Commercial games
Steffen constantly drives his project as "Doing what commercial games can't do".
Fun by Challenge vs. Fun by Novelty
Steffen pushes his idea of "Fun by challenge" stating that commercial games are "Fun by novelty". That novelty runs out sooner or later, so they release tons of sequels. But Steffen aims to make his game "Fun by Challenge."
AI freedom and Symmetry
Another thing Steffen pushes in his game is AI freedom. He says that commercial games the AI's job is to keep you entertained and make the game interesting. "In C-evo, the AI doesn't have a job, it has a goal. It's goal is the same a yours: To win,". The AI's don't target you specifically, as a matter of fact they can't. This game doesn't even know who's an AI and who's a player. Both the AI and player are just modules that connect to the main game. This basically gets rid of the whole (Quote from Steffen) "Game orbits around you" thing. Every player is completely equal to each other.
[edit] Resources
On the C-evo webpage, the game and its source code, and player contributions such as additional nations and AI modules, are available.
The game has an open AI interface, which means the player can replace the standard AI contained in the package with other AI algorithms, either for all nations or for individual nations. The documentation of the AI's DLL-interface is available from the project homepage. There is also an AI development kit.
[edit] Comparison to Civilization II
Some notable differences between C-evo and Civilization II are:
- C-evo is completely deterministic: Its only randomness lies in what the map looks like and where each player starts. Player's decisions will always yield the same result. For example, if a player were to save their game to reload it a hundred times before attacking an enemy unit, the player's unit would either die in its attack a hundred times, or it would kill the enemy unit a hundred times.
- C-evo AIs play by the same rules as humans and cannot cheat behind the scenes. The game does not distinguish between AI and human players
- In C-evo, only a few advances immediately "unlock" unit designs (allowing construction of such units). All other unit designs are specially made by the player with trade-offs allowed between qualities (for example, mobility vs. attack power). Scientific advancement generally allows for stronger units and more options. Designing a unit costs research points, which must be channeled from general research into unit development. In Civilization II, units are simply made available for construction when their required advances are made.
- Building the spaceship requires scarce special resources. Without access to territory containing these resources, the game cannot be won.
- Unlike Civilization II, the player can not immediately apply advances traded from other nations. Additional research is necessary to achieve the new technology.
- Unlike Civilization II, irrigation does not require a nearby sea or river.
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||
