? bug in remake's seige workshop ?

[ayanac2]

First, thanks for the remake -- I got K&M to work under XP, but W7 just won't do it.

Playing r2411, the seige workshop was made and filled with wood and iron, but there's no way to request it to build anything. The carpenter just sits there happily idle. I vaguely recall bing able to select which machine to make, in the original game. Any suggestions ?

Thx,
Ayana

[Encaitar]

That's because siege equipment is not implemented. There is a discussion whether they should be implemented. Two reasons against are:

1. Siege equipment moves 'magically'. No one pushes them.
2. Siege equipment just acts as enormous bows. Many consider it as unfitting for KaM gameplay wise.

P.S. Everything works fine for my W7, what's the problem?

[ayanac2]

To be clear -- the remake works fine under W7, the original program does not. Truly weird color effects, jerky or nonexistent movement for the mouse and the screen... the super-fast screen movement when the mouse goes to the edge was something I fixed under XP but I've forgotten how I did it. I'm not sure I tried the GOG version without the remake, I did have to buy the GOG version because the remake didn't recognize my original program as being installed.

Honestly I'm happier with something that's being actively worked on and used, even if it is in a language I don't care to learn.

And the siege engine thing isn't a problem except that you can build it, and it takes material, it just doesn't do anything. Don't know if there was any way I was supposed to know that, I did try searching the forum for a prior report...
Would be kind to remove the icon from the build map, since the building doesn't work.

Ayana

[Lewin]

The GOG version has a DLL fix that makes KaM work fine on W7. You can also fine it on the English fansite

Of course you are right, the siege workshop and town hall should not be in the build menu when they are non-functional. I already removed them last week

I'm amazed by the amount of opposition to our choice of language. The first thing people ask me is "why aren't you writing it in C++" Delphi is working fine as you can see. I do realise it's a bit unconventional but Delphi still compiles into very efficient machine code. Now if we were writing it in Java or some other interpreted language I'd understand people's objection But I don't want to appear hypocritical here. Sure not many people know Pascal or want to learn it, but we like it and a small development team suits our style

[Siegfried]

Maybe I can shed light on the language choice: it's partly the language itself, partly the editor.

Delphi was rises out of Pascal a similar way as C++ out of C - but a decade later, when Pascal was already old-fashioned. And only short time later Java emerged, which was taught in many universities. So the Pascal/Delphi-community was rather small. Therefore, compared to C++ only a small amount of libraries was released to work with. Which meant, that only a little amount of programers was attracted by Delphi etc.
Is Delphi even an ISO standard? Is it a property of Borland? How many compilers are out there?

And don't underestimate the amount of people what just heard, that C++ is often used for large projects and then ask.

But in my opinion, the more important reason is the lack of a good editor. I have tried Lazarus and it failed miserably to suit my taste. Borland Delphi costs money.

On the other side, the Microsoft Visual Studios are a programing suite that cannot be rated high enough. It is freely available for students, the Express Versions even for the public. For the Linux community, I don't have to mention the gcc, do I?

It is free, known and very good - so don't expect appreciation for a solution that is expensive, unfree, uncommon and bad

[kocsis1david]

I don't like Pascal too much, but neither C++. But I think C++ is still better. The problem with these languages is that they don't have higher level features. Plus in Pascal you have to write a lot of unnessesary things. .NET languages are better but still not really suitable for everything. When I start a work I never know what language should I use, because none of them perfect for me. That's why I'm making my own. There is test when it's 33% faster than the GNU C++ compiler.

[Shadaoe]

Wel, I don't know much, but the remake works perfectly how it's done, so what's the problem ? :p

[ayanac2]

I don't think there is a problem with the language used, it obviously works fine. More folks might be interested in helping code if it was in another language, but that's not necessarily an improvement; this is a small project, given that it's using ready-made resources, and keeping the coding team small can simplify life immensely. I was just commenting that I'd be tempted to help except that it's in a language I don't know yet, and I don't really want to add yet another language.

Anyway, use what you like, and do it the way you want to. The rest of us are all riding on your work, so we're got nothing to complain about! I'll be happy to test out whatever you give us.

[Lewin]

@Siegfried: I agree with your points, those are serious issues. (especially the IDE/editor) What I object to is people that just assume any language that is not C++ will be slow and inefficient. People have said thing to me along the lines of "Does this game lag/disconnect because it's not written in C++?" Answer: "No, it's because we haven't optimised it yet or implemented an auto reconnection system. You'd have the same thing in any language". That's what really annoys me. Delphi is very fast and efficient in my opinion and certainly meets the needs of this game.

If we were writing in C++ we'd get more offers for help, but I think the project works very well with just a few of us. There is room for one or two others (like Danjb) but Krom and I have designed each major system/structure in the code through discussion and we seem to work well together I'm proud of the solutions we have designed.

[krisdw]

I'm proud of the solutions we have designed.

As you should!