Posts from Simultaneous turn in a turn-based strategy game.

Have you considered how data is transmitted from one player to another?
Yes, it's probably not that simple, but it's not impossible.
There are websites where freelancers bid on projects, such as website development, logo design, or application development. The only inputs in these cases are the tasks and a certain amount of money.
Then, several people submit their solutions and developments; after that, the candidate who best meets the requirements is selected. This is common in marketing, web design, and so on. I think there's a similar section on freelance.ru for IT and application-related tasks.
If there are freelance programmers who are willing to try and create what's needed, it would be great to get a great result for 30-50k.

I think that no matter how much you gather, it takes at least a couple of months for a person to understand it, and a couple more years to implement it. Let's hope I'm wrong...

Let's assume you're right. That's how much time it takes for a person to "build a beaver."

I think that no matter how many people you gather, it takes at least a couple of months for a person to understand this, and another couple of years to implement it. Let's hope I'm wrong...

You're not wrong. I've heard from many programmers that it's easier to write something from scratch than to figure out what another person wrote.

P.S.: In general, I think that such actions, bypassing Baratorch, are not very beautiful, to put it mildly...

You are not mistaken. I've heard from many programmers that it's easier to write something from scratch than to figure out what another person wrote.

P.S.: In general, I think that such actions, bypassing Baratorch, are not very nice, to put it mildly...

"Such" - what kind of actions?
I want OH in SOD. What should I do? Suggestions?

It's not meant to offend Baratorch, but Kostya, you are completely wrong. He doesn't have any rights to a patent, even if it's in a rudimentary state. This idea was partially implemented in other versions of the game (not to mention Heroes 5). Therefore, talking about some kind of "workaround" is simply absurd. All Baratorch said was that they agreed not to pursue this for commercial purposes, in exchange for certain developments that Sav provided (and without which, it seems, this idea would not have been implemented anytime soon). I think Baratorch won't do anything without Hotak's approval (which is why I personally have a problem with these guys). As for attracting external programmers, that's a different story. For now, it's just a lot of noise about nothing, but if someone talented is found, why not reward them with money for their work. P.S. Hotak is a fairly high-quality product made by intelligent people. There will always be those who don't like the new features (especially some of the artwork and the hexagonal fire walls :Kreygasm:). After all, our game is based on a certain conservatism among its audience, although in many ways it has no analogues among modern games. But I would like this product to attract its audience not with such tricks, but with things that are not taken from existing ones.

A message to all mod developers for SoD and HoTA (especially to Baratortch):

I'm not speaking on behalf of the community, just expressing my personal opinion.

1. Guys, I need simultaneous turn-based gameplay in SoD.
Not in HoTA, but specifically in SoD. Or in HoTA, if it's possible to disable everything that differentiates it from SoD, which, obviously, will never happen.

2. Is anyone willing to collaborate on this? What is your general stance? Can we come to some agreement?

Regarding HoTA:
1. I understand that the product is aimed at new players, or people for whom the integrity and coherence of the product are not as important as they are for me.

2. I don't play and will never play HoTA for one reason: the new features are visually jarring. That is, it's not even about the essence of the new features, but about how they look. A new Castle, new buildings, new artifacts - visually, it looks to me as if (sorry for the pathos) the painting "The Last Supper" was redrawn and another character was added - Buddha, for example... and in a different style...

In general, I want to continue playing SoD with all its reasonable modifications (current and future), but I have less and less time for it every year, which is normal... that's why the issue of simultaneous turn-based gameplay is so important to me (or playing M200% or Arenas :) that's also an option).

In the new template editor, it will be possible to disable new castles, new objects, and new artifacts.

2 evil romantic This isn't spam; it's a perfectly clear answer to the question posed in the topic.

2 Wicc
This is flooding...
I suggest continuing the discussion about flooding or any other topic in private messages; this thread was not created for competitions in wit. I will delete any further off-topic messages.

coherence and the overall quality of the product are more important to me than anything else.

2. I don't play and will never play HotA for one reason: the new features are an eyesore. In other words, I want to continue playing SOD with all its reasonable modifications (current and future).

WT changed SOD much more profoundly than HotA, and yet people liked it.
It would be great if OH was everywhere; maybe I would play SOD more often, but alas.

It would also be great if the online component wasn’t buggy.

I wrote to Baratorch on his YouTube channel not too long ago regarding OH in SoD with an offer of money. But there has been silence in response until now. Therefore, we need to look for other people. And since WizarDX is supposedly going to redo the guild for HotA, the number of people who could handle this is dwindling. But I would also try to collect a sufficient amount of "gold" for SoD...

Sometimes it's easier to make something from scratch than to dig through the resources of a closed game. Write a Heroes game in something like Delphi and every schoolboy will be able to improve the game. At one time, I started making them; there are many developments from that time, but there isn't enough time to continue (possibly in the future). Plus, this wouldn't limit or delay the improvement of the game as a whole. But then there will be a problem with copyrights and more. Therefore, you shouldn't make a 1-to-1 game; take the Heroes mechanics, but make noticeable changes.

Here is a video from almost two years ago of those developments (although some things were finished afterward, bugs were fixed, a template editor was made, developments on conducting battles, and so on):
Video
Some developments

Sometimes it's easier to make something from scratch than to dig through the resources of a closed game. Write a Heroes game in something like Delphi and every schoolboy will be able to improve the game. At one time, I started making them; there are many developments from that time, but there isn't enough time to continue (possibly in the future). Plus, this wouldn't limit or delay the improvement of the game as a whole. But then there will be a problem with copyrights and more. Therefore, you shouldn't make a 1-to-1 game; take the Heroes mechanics, but make noticeable changes.

I'll speak as a programmer who not only works in an office but also writes online Preferans in his free time (essentially "ancient" Heroes with cards).
Writing from scratch takes oooooovery much time (I have free time here, but still, let's say divide the time by four if a person devotes all possible time to it). The game from idea to nearly finished implementation took six months, meaning a person would simply write it in, say, 2 [years] (I'm giving myself another 2 months for polishing).
But the idea can be transferred to Heroes 3. The idea is no different from Preferans — a web server is created that holds the game state, and then there are clients (browser, later mobile ones can be added, though that's harder due to the lack of a right mouse button).
What are the pros?
1. Simultaneous turns are implemented there with total ease.
2. Also, glitches where you sometimes can't see how an enemy hero moved or got stuck in an unknown place in the forest disappear.
3. Also, the need for HamACHI disappears since we have a regular browser and don't need

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with network emulation.
4. If the game previously crashed in an unknown place and then there was a debate over who was to blame and what to do (for example, during FB), here the state resides on the server; wait for players to reconnect and move forward again (even during a battle). Also, for judges, it's easy to just reveal the current state of affairs and they can make a decision simply by opening another tab and looking.
Cons? I don't see any cons. Maybe someone will suggest some.
Now for the difficulties.
1. Unlike Preferans, where I simply took the client part from http://www.brainjar.com/css/cards/demo.html for example, here (I couldn't find the link where I got my cards), in Heroes there is

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huge amount of work in transferring all the graphics to the browser. Perhaps, at first, there will just be non-animated images that move along lines. Theoretically, I think it's possible to make all animations, but for me, it's all complicated; I am more of a server-side programmer.
2. There are significantly more rules and peculiarities in Heroes, so there's more logic, more states, and more checks. Errors in calculations or state transitions are possible. And someone has to find them (players, for example). Though, this is simply a question of more time.
3. AI. In Preferans, players sit at the table and make all possible changes through their actions. In Heroes, AI is needed. And here there are also two questions — either port the AI from SOD with its peculiarities (which is damn hard and hardly 100% possible), or write your own, from wildly stupid to perhaps even smarter than the current one over time.

If I were doing this, I would probably do it in three stages, each of which would be the next level of development.
1. A game like the Polish arena. Immediately create the battlefield, define the creatures and their peculiarities, skills that affect the battle, then players choose their factions, and instead of running around with a rusty dragon on fast roads, they generate a hero using buttons. And they enter battle immediately.
2. The next step of development. Write AI for groups of identical monsters. And make it possible to play templates without computers (JC, 2sm, Anarchy). There isn't much work on top of that; it's mostly monotonous, the difficulty being the generator.
3. Finally, add the ability to play with computers and write AI. Then we finally have a full-fledged replacement for Heroes.

In general, that's it. Regarding money — hardly anyone would sign up for such a chunk of work for pennies, because you would realistically need to keep a person on a programmer's salary. And it's unlikely that every interested party would be ready to chip in several thousand dollars a month. And you'd probably need at least two — one who knows how to work with graphics and CSS, and another to write the server).

That's about it.

The problem is that there are many issues: 1) Everyone programs in a different language. 2) Everyone has different amounts of free time. 3) Some are willing to work for free, others are not. 4) Some find it easier to start from scratch (like me), while others prefer to tinker with the executable files and resources of a closed-source game. And this is just a part of the problems. Yes, a browser-based version has several advantages in many aspects, and I agree. As for the possible drawbacks, I can note that, depending on the implementation, the game may consume a lot of traffic (but there are some tricks that will require more code to be written and save traffic). So, the problem is solvable. And again, if no one addresses the copyright issues, if the project is released as a game. Unfortunately, I cannot help with this – I only program in Pascal-like languages. I have a lot of experience in creating games of different genres – this is my job, but mostly in Delphi... You can also create a combination of Delphi and PHP (for the server), for example. There are many options. But, of course, it is better not to do everything alone, but at least with two or three people. And again, the vision of what you are doing and how it should be done must coincide, or you need to be able to compromise (working in a team is very different from working alone). I also have experience working in a team, and for the most part, it was negative because in the end, the projects ended up depending on me, while everyone else had other things to do. We are all adults, and it is not possible to allocate time for creation according to a specific schedule. But the feeling that the project is not standing still while you are busy with other things is important from a psychological point of view. Creating mini-games usually takes me from half an hour to 3-4 days. Of course, Heroes will require much more time. In any case, I am all for any activity! The main thing is the result, and it doesn't matter who and what they will use to create it – players don't care.

Is it possible to create an online hub (OH) similar to the Heroes of Might and Magic Online (HOTO)? Instead of rewriting the game from scratch for the online hub, could it be done in a similar way? What is the difficulty? Is it related to resolving technical issues?

IMHO, with the introduction of restructuring, HotA Mage Guild will irrevocably steal the spotlight. And it's not even about personal preferences.