Hi people,
after many considerations I thought of finally presenting to you my baby that I’ve been working on sporadically for quite some time 
The project is called openwar and is an open source project that aims to recreate a gaming experience known from the Total War series. For those that do not know: It is a mix of real time battles and strategy where you have a world map with cities and armies you need to manage and secondly, battles and sieges where you actively take control of your troops and command them.
Openwar is basically an engine that allows for arbitary scenarios, or “modules”, as I call them. So right now I work on the engine itself and at the same time on a “rome” module with ancient Italy and some factions. At this stage, I am implementing game mechanics for the world map and did not even start working on the battles part (maybe later, maybe never).
The project is hosted on googlecode (http://code.google.com/p/openwar/) and a first download can be found there. I encourage you to download and test it. Right now it starts with 800x600 windowed. If you want other settings, open the config.xml file and adjust
This post is also a plea: I am in desperate need of artists and ideas!!! While I’m able to tackle the coding side of things, I need assets (textures, UI!, models) for the “rome” scenario/module. I have the bad feeling that the lack of assets is seriously affecting the pace with which I’m able to proceed with the project, apart from other things (Real Life, oh how I hate you 
). And besides the fact that I need to do all of those myself, they look crappy 
So if you like the scenario, the idea, the open source movement and that your art will be Creative Commons: Join me in my struggle!!!
Oh, and please post your experiences with the download
“WASD” for movement, left and right mouse buttons to interact with buildings, armies etc. and press “G” to see the grid!
Very very very cool! I can’t try the download since I’m on an iPad at the moment, but the screenshot looks exactly like the Total War series
Hi,
since I expected a bit more resonance (thx sbook 
) and made some bugfixes that also included fullscreen mode on different OS’s, I hereby push my thread.
A download link can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/openwar/downloads/list
Just load it and start openwar.jar!
I would especially like to hear about starting issues on Win, Mac and Linux. If you start it in the terminal, make sure that you are in the same directory.
Still in search for artists and game designers
Cheers!
Have you tried checking out the WorldForge assets? They could probably be very helpful to you and are already available as a jME asset pack.
Yes, I looked into them and they would suffice for a start. But I’m essentially in need of UI textures and guys who want to think with me through the whole concept. And maybe someone who wants to take a start in implementing real-time battles
It’s a great project, but I think your vast, wide open scope might intimidate some prospective contributors. That, coupled with the fact that you seem to be replicating an existing game, lessens the appeal of an otherwise above-average strong project in terms of leadership, technical savvy and consistent progress. I could be alone in thinking this, but if my concerns have crossed your mind already, they’d probably be worth addressing.
I have two suggestions:
1 - Settle on a first playable milestone. Ideally only 2-3 months away in your development right now. Aim to be at a point where you have a ~2 minute snapshot of what your final game roughly will be like. Right now when I play your game, I’m presented with some pretty terrain and music, but I’m not being led in any way, be it by plain text or intuitive mechanics. At this point it’s not really playable.
If within 2 minutes I’ve:
- identified an enemy faction
- I’ve grouped up some forces
- I’ve sent my forces to attack my enemy
- the battle, regardless of combat mechanics, resulted in either victory or defeat
… then I will definitely come out of it feeling like I just playtested a game.
2 - Make something different from Total War. It doesn’t have to be big, but you really ought to do something that separates your game from Total War. Ideally some new game mechanic that you and your prospective team mates will get to play with and explore. It’s nice getting to look at a complete game rather than an abstract game design document to keep your game on track, but I think along the way you also lose that excitement of delving into the unknown, however small a part it may be.
This is all coming from the perspective of a not-very-technical design nut, so bear that in mind.
Hi erlend,
thanks a lot for your lengthy response.
To 1) Yes, I know that I don’t provide very much of an explanation of what to do. Actually, under the hood a lot is already there. You can build buildings and recruit units in cities and you can command them, merge them, garrison them etc. and even order them to attack hostile armies and win or be defeated in battles. Also there is a population and tax and order calculation in the settlements. Furthermore, turns and rounds logic is also implemented. It is just not displayed because I am lacking a proper UI That is why I’m searching for someone that can help me with a good visualization of all the stuff that is already in the game!!! What is REALLY missing is a (simple) AI that acts in its turn and sends armies your way. There are already two enemies in the game (Greece and Carthagian Rebels) but they just sit idle on their islands… Need to implement ships
To 2) I have indeed some ideas that differ from Total War (i.e. the things that were missing or badly realized in Medieval 2 or Rome) and I am still searching for new ideas and concepts.
Hi Dodikles,
I tried your game. It works on Win 7 64 bit. The user interface needs some polishment indeed., If there is so much under the hood I think it would be very interesting to the finish some of the UI stuff.
Please don’t give up. It looks promising and maybe someone wants the help you if the UI a little bit more finished.
Hi Vortex,
thanks for trying it out. Indeed, I will follow erlands advice and try to create a short but coherent gaming experience. That means implementing ships so that one can actually reach the enemy :P, some basic AI and an explanation at the start what to do. Oh and yes, do a bit of UI polishing
Till the next update
Posting from my phone so this’ll be brief, but I would definitely try asking around on GameDev.net and Reddit… Pretty neat general ’ game development communities
Hi, yes I will! But first I will try to finish my teaser. Already implemented docks and ships
Hi people,
after tinkering a bit further with the engine and now that hermetic is aboard the team, I would ask about some ideas concerning the theme. Right now the Rome module is finished (to that state that it could be used for engine testing) and now we are looking for themes.
Right now we have: Pirates/Carribean, 30-year war in Europe, American Civil war and (my favorite ) post-apocalyptic, Fallout-style.
Any ideas?
Hey monkeys,
@hermetic and me worked continuously on our baby and we don’t want to keep you in the dark, therefore the next update: Revision 200 ^^
So what’s new?
- Revamped world map with models and finally the ability to actually “win” the scenario. Winning here means that you are able to capture all the cities. No “win notification” yet, though…
- The first draft of real-time battles is implemented. That means moving armies on a battlefield with formations, self-organizing units, “Dragging of formation placement” etc. Anyone who played Total War should be immediately familiar with the controls
Big thing missing is the AI right now
But will come!
So how to win? You play the Romans and have to build a dock in your cities to recruit ships which will appear at a the docks once recruited. Send them to the beach and let armies enter them by right-clicking. Let the armies disembark by right-clicking the ship again. The three buttons at the bottom of the screen switch beween building and recruits in your town and the “T” button ends the turn.
By the way: Is there already a way in nifty to scale the size of text elements. Right now the only way to display differently sized texts is to use differently sized font-styles, which totally defies the idea of a scalable GUI. So this and the AI will be there till the next update.
DOWNLOAD AT THE USUAL PLACE: http://code.google.com/p/openwar/downloads/list
And some screenies
Wow! Looks so nice! Goodluck with this project man!
Impressive, man. A large-scaled RTS with jme would be a huge success for the whole community. So keep going!
Thanks guys. Such comments really push me to go forward
erlend: Yeah, this would be a great thing. Point is: the game is still rough around the edges. Static models, a lot of placeholder graphics in the GUI, no AI etc. If those are cleared up a bit, I might consider an entry in indieDB! And thx for the tweet
AI is a promise for the next update XD