itch.io

Yes, UNITY is limiting in the extreme! I now get that. Perhaps the choice to use the FREE  "Personal Unity Game Engine" may not have been such a wise choice. 

I have developed on multiple platforms and you take the strengths, not the least common denominator, of each platform when you develop and application. Then you port it to another platform and work through the issues of implementing the same or very similar functionality.  These all in one development tools usually are limited to the least common denominator between all OS and that usually means slightly better than single active window DOS functionality. Yeah, I will take a very long break from EDCE. It is nowhere ready for prime time. I want fluid, fast flowing fully featured games and this is not even close to it, yet. Why does it use 37% of all processors just sitting IDLE???? (for instance, just the opening screen but everything is 37% or much more  processor utilization (all processors) no matter what the game is or is not doing) 

Figured out how to lock up the game every time. If I select sort on the right border set of icons and then click on an icon, it seems to work but since I didn't complete the "sort" so it just locks up tighter than a tick.

Similarly  with the bottom set of icons

Imho, all the icons should be disabled while "sort" is enabled and if you single click on them, they should just return a message "finish sorting" or some such.

Apparently, damn nearly impossible given the extremely rudimentary  limitations of the Unity Engine.

It is a shame that you picked such a rudimentary development environment. The look and feel of the game is very similar to the original DOS version of Empire (Before EDIE). I still have a copy of that. Hope you figure out how to fix the general level of sophistication so that it more closely meets current UI Standards (Linux, Windows and Mac). The game concept has taken a giant leap forward but the usability has taken a giant step backwards. 

Oh if you would only fix the sound in EDEE!!!! 

Is the AI code for EDCE posted on the Killerbee web site? Is it the same as EDEE.

The game continually freezes up and my only recourse is to close the application. SAVE/EXIT does not work and neither does BAIL.

For buy/place games, why not permit Mines to be placed? If made expensive enough, that could provide interesting entertainment.

I had not wanted to Sort the list or keep it sorted but it is a rather arcane way to drag and drop from my experiences in Windows and Linux - I have both.

It still remains that the unit list for the city is very difficult to use if you have an accumulation of units.

By not being able to specify a load sequence the LOAD ALWAYS picks up AA, Artillery FIRST. It would be more appropriate to have the load function load infantry, armor, engineers, Seabees first rather than AA, Artillery that I usually want to leave in a city for defense. From my perspective, if this is always going to be the way LOAD works, that button and keystroke are useless in my play. Perhaps some compromise could be reached?

It seems to freeze up on REPORTS after looking at the other displays.

I was attempting to place a fighter in a city! I it was implicit in my description that I was trying to perform a placement in a transport container. I could not.

I created the 200x38 map and populated a city with about 50 units I placed there. 

In the list of units, if you move a unit it swaps the unit. It should remove it from the list, and insert it in the list rather than swapping. This means anytime I drag and drop, my well ordered list gets all messed up. Moving a unit from near the bottom of the list to near the top of the list next to the units that I wanted to load onto it was tedious and time consuming in the extreme! Again, what it should do is when I reach the top of the list, the list should start scrolling until I get to where I want to drop it. I had to do 6 drag and drops to get it where it needed to be. 

Now if the load feature wouldn't always pick up my defensive units first (AA, Artillery) that might, repeat might be helpful. If I could, like EDEE select a "DEFAULT UNIT TO LOAD" or have a priority list for each unit that can host others that would be fantastic. (one priority list for each host unit). Drag and drop is extremely picky as far as positioning the item and there is no feed back like drag and drop in Windows that highlights the entry you are dropping onto before you release it. So a lot of my drag and drops just failed. What would be beneficial is if there was a Move Up or Move Down button (just one for the entire list) and pressing and keeping it pressed down would move my unit up or down in the list until I released the button. Better if I could select a group of units and move all of them as a group (like all of my infantry to my helicopters). What I would really like is a persistent Tree window like EDEE that allows interaction with the map. I could very rapidly organize (load/unload) and move out units. In most cases, for a city, I like to deal with all the  units in that city at one time.

You commented that a lot of people really liked the game. If you play a very simplistic game with very few units, yes, it is ok. Once you start accumulating units in one place, it becomes very tedious and onerous to deal with the unit lists. How to make this really  workable  - when I select a unit in the  list and I highlight  the load button, an additional list of all the units present in the City/Port/Airbase for my selected unit that I wish to fill  pops up and I get to select the units to add (multiples). That would really ease the tedium over the very the onerous multi Drag and Drop in these situations.   

Maybe a lot of the people who like this game just don't mind numbing, time wasting and extremely keyboard/mouse intensive tedium of doing what should be simple things with what I have found to be an extremely rudimentary interface. I am sincerely trying to be constructive. 

This game has absolutely tremendous potential for the concept but the interface needs a lot of turbocharging! It is sort of like an NFL game where every play gets flagged and every play has to be reviewed - it just ruins the flow of the game. By the time I get something done, I forget why I was doing it in the first place.. 

I created a map 200x38 with wrap only horixontally. This means that the whole map fits vertically on my screen with room leftover top and bottom from the icecap. IMHO, I should not be able to move the borders of the map beyond the top and bottom but I can. If I press center on a unit, it should center it horizontally and ignore vertical. Essentially the way EDEE works. The way it is it is really wonky!

I did a little poking around in your GE name file. The diacritical E and umlouted o are not valid in UTF-8. That is the reason that the file won't load in an xml editor or in a UTF-8 only editor. It is also inconsistent with your stated standards for the file in your HELP - all the files need to be UTF-8.   I changed the characters to an e and an o and removed the one single quote and that worked.

https://www.liquid-technologies.com/XML/EscapingData.aspx 

I rather suspect failure to escape the single quote may be what is  hosing up the Unit DB. I suspect when you make the copy of the Unit DB, you are not processing the single quote properly. This could cause all kinds of issues. 

The same issue with single quotes is present in some of your other files like the Localization XML. I went ahead and escaped all the single quotes per the standard and you are probably using a standard XML parser because all the single quotes appear like they should in the help and tool tip texts. I not sure why that was not giving you a problem with the game - maybe it is! In any case it appears that the escape sequences are being processed as they should be.

The City Name toggle ... persists between instantiations of the App. Exiting from the gain does not reset toggles even if a new game is started.

I was playing with efficiency and city name stuff and the game is now frozen solid.

No I wasn't in Production Mode. 

When play begins, the Placement and Remove Placement button should go away. 

Ok, when I copied the Advanced DB without any changes, no air units may be placed

When I copied the Enhanced DB without any changes, no air or orbital units may be placed

When I tried my database with a new unit, no air units are placeable. I tried playing it and discovered that my new unit could not be produced in a city. I went back into the DB editor and added my new unit as transportable by the city. I started a new game and all the air and orbital units may now be placed ??? If I go back into the DB Editor, the terrain placement blocks are still grayed out and inaccessible. If I save the DB and start a new game, no air or orbital units may be placed.

By the way, it is spelled Seabee (not Sea Bee)  No space, no capital B

http://www.public.navy.mil/seabee/Pages/default.aspx <- straight from the U.S. Navy

Got around to trying to actually play the game. 

There are a plethora of mildly irritating technical bugs with the interface.

There are some other bugs that make some of the features useless.  If you have a variety of units in a city with an air transport and perform any of the load functions, the priority of which units get loaded is arcane. I put one of every unit in a city. Load put the Long Range Nuke onboard the Air Transport first.  In EDEE, in the unit db, you could select the default unit to load for the specific transport unit. That is missing from the implementation of EDCE. A default would be workable but better would be able to prioritize the list of units to be transported.  

If you make a copy of any existing Unit DB, you cannot place any Air or Orbital unit (as applicable to the database) if using the copied database. The Terrain Placement Icons are grayed out and can't be changed. 

 Using the Enhanced DB that came with the game, whenever I bring up a unit that can be loaded (Truck, Helicopter, Transport, ...) in the unit dialog, the Load/Unload buttons are grayed out. The only way to load them is to activate the unit and then use either the keyboard binding  (if configured) or the buttons at the bottom of the screen. 

When I open the city dialog and the view the list of units, clicking on a nit should activate it. You have to go to the view units button at the bottom and then you can activate a unit in the list and then you can open the unit dialog by clicking on the active unit. Kind of cumbersome but it is inconsistent.

The save config dialog does not save the database. If you change the database, close the game, reopen the game and load the saved config, it does not restore the database for that config. It is unclear to me whether the database is being saved even when not desired or if the database if the database is not being saved separately.

Can't get the update. Not going to use STEAM. How do I connect EDCE to ITCH to get the email with download link.

Ok, you had to have at least one set of images for a new unit to test the feature. Put it in a zip file and send it to me! Better, update your release to include it in the directory that it goes in ... call it sample for some such.

I have never heard of a Game Reference Directory before. What exactly is the Game Reference Directory ??

Here is my current game path ... D:\Games\EDCE\win64\EmpireCombined_Data\Profile - can my profile data go in that empty directory you provided or should my profile be off the Game Reference Directory whatever the heck that is.

So in my terminology, there is the game ROOT directory (Win64) with the EDCE executable and then the game subdirectories.

When I open the game, it says that Version 3 is out. How do I download (where?) and/or upgrade my game software?

I really, really, don't want to subscribe and endure all the advertising that subscribing to STEAM will obviously generate. More spam! I hate advertising. If I register on STEAM, I will bet I will be inundated with all kinds of propaganda about buying or paying to play games and gaming equipment and such. 

Changing the directory doesn't work. 

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Why steam, what is steam, why do I need or want it?

What "Regular Forums" are you referring to? On Itch or someplace else?

Win64

The WORST "feature"!!! I was really hoping that my custom settings would be in the game directory - NOT ON MY JAMMED UP C DRIVE. Is there a way to configure this for another directory - like a subdirectory off the GAME directory.  I regularly backup my games directory to the cloud (not on my C Drive). It just sucks that you did this! Now I have to setup a script to copy from my C to my D to make backups quick and easy. I rarely  backup my C Drive (OS) because I don't keep DATA on the C Drive. For the same reason, I do backup my other drives frequently and often because they contain volatile data. I really don't play on the laptop.  

Other than that, everything is so tedious and everything seems to be so manually oriented for configuration. Little or no usable documentation on  what all these parameters and such mean in the Unit DB. Where is it stored. It would take me days to create new UNIT NAME FILES, for instance. I was really hoping for an easy way to import my unit names files! Sadly, none that I have discovered. The GE file XML is corrupt and won't load in my XML editor.

I was really hoping to be able to import my custom unit database(s) and names files from EDEE as a starting point in EDCE - Apparently I cannot. I have configured so many great features in the unit databases in EDEE like Subs can't deep submerge in coastal waters or can't enter coastal waters while deep submerged, I added an air superiority fighter which is great for Air to Air but not great for attacking ground targets. I also added a special "wild weasel" aircraft that suppresses anti-aircraft fire (very highly resistant to Air-to-Air and Ground to Air fire) for the rest of the air attack to follow. Ships should have to refuel like planes but on a much longer time scale. My aircraft carriers are Nuclear so literally no refueling. I replaced the Patrol boat with a Guided Missile Cruiser that can carry and launch 2 short range missiles. I made my satellites have a very wide detection range (just like satellites do on Earth). I permitted my A/C to carry Helicopters, Fighters, Air Superiority Fighters, Wild Weasels. My submarines can carry 2 missiles and can launch while surfaced or submerged but not deep dive. My bombers can carry 1 short range missile.  My Carriers and my Submarines can move faster than my Cruisers, Battleships and Destroyers. My trucks can carry and launch 1 missile. All ground units have been given a range (large) but it requires they enter a city or port periodically to replenish supplies and fuel. For instance, the range on Armor set so that every 12 turns they need to enter a city or port or be  transported. The range on a Battleship is similarly set. In real life, ships all must replenish and refuel - even nuclear powered. Nuclear powered AC and CR and Submarines. For nuclear powered ships, it is every 40 turns. Another change is that all ships can only go at half speed in coastal waters. All of these updates more clearly simulate today's military environment.    

Haven't gotten around to playing a game yet.  I am not particularly impressed with the difficulty imposed by XML for editing name files and such without the facility to cut and paste lists of names of units into those files.