Game Development Status 1/31/05

Monthly and yearly totals 27 hours.

I got in the zone yesterday for several hours and completed a code sweep. I changed the movement plot list from a public member to a private one within the CUnit class in order to facilitate debugging. Of course, it turns out everyone and their cousin were accessing the movement plot list. In the process of slogging through this code sweep, I kept finding other things that needed to be done. I did some refactoring. I swept the code for magic numbers related to terrain types, replacing them with members of a new enum. I wrote a new CHex method AllowFormation(FormationType eFormation) to return verdicts of whether a given formation type was permitted in a hex. Sweep the code again to put AllowFormation() into use properly. Did I mention unit testing? It's a Good Thing that Diedrichs has free refills!

You know, you don't have to be a programmer to be a programmer, but it helps...

Anyhow, next up is smoke testing the weekend's changes prior to localizing the source of the original problem.

In terms of the big picture, I am continuing to improve the AI's performance in the divisional fight scenario. The AI is doing OK in terms of bulling its way forward, but it's all command push with no finesse; there's very little in the way of recon pull or other forms of steering or maneuver at the moment. I hope to address extending flanks and supporting attacks after breaking through the FEBA in the next week or two, at which point I will switch back to working on Corps-level issues.