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any way to watch the finished games?

Mon, 23 November 2009 10:07

paul_ik

Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 98
Registered: November 2009
Location: Belarus GMT+2

Hi.
Excuse me, in case my question has already been discussed (I've tried searching for it, but no results). Is there any way to watch the games after they are finished? I mean to see each turn without any "fog of war", to see everybody's situation throughout the game and the reason the opponent was stronger.

It seems like stars! doesn't support this feature. The only hope is using history files, saving them on each turn (and reminding each other "hey, don't forget to save your history!"). It's kind of stupid so are there any utils for this?

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Re: any way to watch the finished games?

Mon, 23 November 2009 10:56

Altruist

Commander

Messages: 1068
Registered: August 2005
Location: Berlin

paul_ik wrote on Mon, 23 November 2009 16:07

It seems like stars! doesn't support this feature.

Correct.

And getting all files of a game from all players will be rather difficult and not very likely. Even if you host a game and have access to all the files, it's a hassle to follow the game.

The best way might be to read some of the topics in the Game Stories section. For some games there are quite detailed maps and tactical descriptions.

Another source is the
* Stars! Official Strategy Guide (zipped, 1305 kb)
with lots of great chapters to race design, tactics etc. Especially interesting might be:
* Operational Stars! by Example
where one fo the most famous Stars!-encounters is described in depth.

One of my own and better documented games, including maps:
* http://stars.arglos.net/games/infight/

Some more good sources especially for race design:
* Stars! Official Strategy Guide: Basic Race Design (especially the info about breakpoints at the end)
* Basic Race Design by Art Lathrop
* "Race Design, Step by Step" by Mahrin Skel 1997 v2.6/7
* Lots of more articles: Race Design/Strategy

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Re: any way to watch the finished games?

Mon, 23 November 2009 15:03

Coyote

Lt. Commander

Messages: 906
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pacific NW

This would be kinda cool for FreeStars...

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Re: any way to watch the finished games?

Tue, 24 November 2009 10:03

slimdrag00n

Lieutenant
Helped track down one or more Stars bugs

Messages: 630
Registered: January 2009
Location: new york -5

In are duel, dont worry. Ill save back ups you can look at when the game is over. Basically you have to open each turn one by one to see it play out.

......
Ranked games: 8-1
Recently won the game Knife Fight.
Looking for a practice duel.
.......

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Re: any way to watch the finished games?

Thu, 26 November 2009 07:11

m.a@stars

Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left

paul_ik wrote on Mon, 23 November 2009 16:07

It seems like stars! doesn't support this feature. The only hope is using history files, saving them on each turn (and reminding each other "hey, don't forget to save your history!"). It's kind of stupid so are there any utils for this?

Well, however you want to go about reviewing a game, the gist of it will always be collecting all the relevant m files and/or the h files. Whip

You can make colorful maps with Xtreme Borders, and even collate them as animations as seen, among other places, here. Cool

Other than that your best bet might be PaulCr's work, as seen, among other places, here. His tools can peek inside most game files and output readable xml. They are still a work in progress, so he'll appreciate volunteers. Teleport

So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: any way to watch the finished games?

Thu, 26 November 2009 08:23

paul_ik

Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 98
Registered: November 2009
Location: Belarus GMT+2

The animation looks very cool! (I watched it five or six times and especially liked purple player exploding style population growth Smile

)
But still making such a work demands a lot of error-prone messing with files. Then processing them...

Implementing all this stuff to be collected and organized on the fly in freestars is a nice idea (if I understand correctly, the term "freestars" is not longer related only to the particular project but the whole concept Wink

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Re: any way to watch the finished games?

Thu, 26 November 2009 08:47

Micha

Commander

Duel Club Champion 2005

Duel Club Champion 2004

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1

paul_ik wrote on Thu, 26 November 2009 14:23

The animation looks very cool! (I watched it five or six times and especially liked purple player exploding style population growth Smile

)

This particular animation was build by using only the files of 1 party (a team of 3 in this case). So the data is incomplete until we (the AI) had scans of the entire universe. You can see there it at the start with 4 planets (I played the IT).

The "exploding" you see is (my guess) the result of Death Stars being build by the AR player in that team. You can't scan an AR population (you only get exact numbers when you make the base go 'pop') I suppose Xtreme Borders uses the full 3.000.000 in it's calculation ...

Quote:

But still making such a work demands a lot of error-prone messing with files. Then processing them...

In this animation there was no messing around. 'Simply' opening the three turn files, exporting the .p files, using those in Xtreme borders and creating an image of each year ... The game lasted 90 years ... this is a LOT of work. I think I only made an image every 2 years ... maybe 5 in the first years, can't remember.

There was a second edition of the game, you can see the results here. For this universe an observer race was used (the grey color). With a simple hack that race had penscan nubs with tachyons all over the place from turn 2401 or 2402. Much easier to make the map since only the file of that player was used.

mch

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