As the combat side is ready enough to play out simple battles against the AI, I moved on to the strategy scene. One big thing to do here is the strategy AI. It can already expand quite nicely but it assumes there is no one else in the game. While I was planning how to do the whole AI opponent I decided to improve on some small things in the Star Map scene which make it a bit smoother to play.
The object that is currently pointed is now highlighted and the fleets on the star map now go into nice circular formations around the planet they are at. But the biggest thing I implemented was a message system which logs important things that happen and lists them for the player on the right hand side of the screen. These things include discovering new planets and tech and informing that a colony ship could colonize a planet etc. Clicking on the messages changes focus to any corresponding location or panel.
Here you can see a short gameplay video showing these new features. You can also see some other things which I haven’t shown or explained yet like the AI expanding, different planet types, the planet panel which you use to set what the planet does. At some point I’m going to do videos about these and explain how the production, research, food and population growth mechanics work.
YrdVaab 