Falconius

If that is true then I can see why you'd like a concrete / no concrete option as a check box on the multiplayer game set-up. But still, we're not paying the guys who have created this OpenRa mod and as such we'd do well to give them feed-back in a positive non-demanding way. And btw I know this ain't Dune2, I play Dune Legacy for my Dune2 fix. And turret walking, as opposed to base walking, against the computer used be fun back in the day before you were born. I have no interest in multiplayer, just tinkering with the game, AI and map making. Hence my unanswered question.

I'm very grateful for this mod. I'm surprised that people moan about the concrete. In Dune2 there used to be a tactic where one could "walk" turrets into strange places with concrete, so concrete has the potential to make the game interesting. I've never used walls and infantry much, so I'd actually enjoy making a mod that made them useful. Is it possible to change the sight ranges for the various units? (The walls have eyes).

You could also add OpenRA. It has a fairly good Dune 2000 MOD.

Overpopulation is a massive problem in my country. And our government is doing everything in their power to make it worse. My father is a school inspector and he told me of a case where he saw 4 pregnant school girls in the same class. When he asked about it he found out that they were pregnant by a 26 year old schoolboy in their class. The "boy" had an agreement with them to get part of their child care money, that is so generously sponsored by the taxpayer. Our current leadership on the highest level hardly sets a good example. Our president has three official wives and 35 illegitimate children (that we know of). The fact that he became president after facing rape and corruption charges doesn't help either. To date Zuma has more than 800 charges of fraud and corruption that has been swept under the carpet by our National Prosecuting Agency. Since our police have stopped keeping statistics I'm not sure how verifiable this is, but I've heard it said that a woman gets raped every 2 minutes somewhere in our country. Our police are rather famous for their contribution to population control though. Unfortunately it has become quite easy for criminals to join the police force and get a gun. Our president sometimes say the funniest things, if you can manage to hear his monotonous voice through all the boo-ing. During one of his speeches in parliament he remarked that people don't understand democracy, that in a democracy the man with more children has more rights. After he said this someone in parliament shouted:"Mr. president, YOU don't understand democracy!". The horrible fact is that Mr. Zuma is perfectly correct.

I have no idea how to answer this. You seem to be stridently and aggressively disagreeing with something I said. But I can't see what it was. Might I suggest a way to steer the conversation away from an unnecessary argument? Why not write down your own alternative theory of creation, either in the name of science or simply fun? (I'm feeling a bit adventurous; I honestly did not expect any reply for at least a week or so). If you follow that line of reasoning you end up in a very strange place. Is energy also just a concept that only "exists" in the human mind? Can energy exist without time? I hope you are beginning to see why I found that theory amusing. That said, I do appreciate some of its merits. Time might end up being a property of energy almost in the same way the colour blue is a property of the sky: we understand why the sky is blue but we still need to find out why or how energy emits time. What you said about perception and science I do appreciate: our lives are full of beginnings and endings and so it is only natural to look for similar patterns in the cosmos. I certainly find it very difficult to try and conceptualize the idea of a universe that always was and had no beginning, as some of the alternative theories postulate. Thanks for the vids X3M.

I found this article rather interesting and thought I would share to get some other opinions: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/apr/25-3-theories-that-might-blow-up-the-big-bang I found the last one to be the most hilarious, the idea that time doesn't exist. What the obvious resistance from the science community to other theories that challenge the "big bang" theory indicate, is a general unwillingness to think outside the box. Also, if you read carefully you can't help but spot some carefully voiced problems with the big bang. The most prominent of those has always been "the beginning" issue. Many of these new theories try and avoid that question entirely by using a "no beginning" clause as part of the theory. Personally I wish the science community would just come clean for a change and let the public know the truth: cosmologists and physicists can explain many phenomena in the universe but the question of it's creation is still a work in progress.

Each generation hopes that they will not suffer as the ones that came before. But since Hiroshima each generation has hoped that the "stars" would not fall, as was foreseen by the prophesy found in Revelations. And so it is that we now envy the ones before us who was able to live their lives without having to witness the horrors that we might soon face. The poisoning of the waters (Revelation 8:11), the severe reduction in visibility (Revelation 8:12), the death of much of the earth's vegetation (Revelation 8:7), malignant sores (Revelation 16:2), the end of ocean life (Revelation 16:3), and the inability of the atmosphere to block out harmful ultraviolet rays, resulting in severe burns (Revelation 16:8) are all expected results of nuclear war. As for praying, and the earnest search for God.. it is the loneliest path. Generally the religions and preachers are there supposedly to help the rest of us but in reality they are trying to score points with God. And once you have innocent little children who are totally reliant on you for everything you will know: it is NOT just a game.

The current US effort to achieve regime change in Syria will also aid in the isolation of Iran for future "peace and security efforts". I'm not convinced weapons of mass destruction is the reason why Iran is in the cross hairs of the US, after all, we all remember how weapons of mass destruction was the buzz word used to justify the war against Iraq. The funny thing is that Iran might soon find themselves getting access to various nice weapons, probably even nukes, courtesy of our very own friendly South African government. What makes this funny is the fact that the old Apartheid regime had very strong ties, especially on military matters, with Israel. The new regime on the other hand has close ties with just about everyone, and don't mind the odd weapon scandal or two. The ANC government even tried to ignore the UN sanctions against Iran by continuing to buy fuel from them. In my honest opinion the country in the world most likely to launch their nukes first is the US. Not Iran.

Well X3M, your determination in creating this game is inspiring to me. Keep it up. I know how it feels to try and get a game "out there" but get little in terms of feed-back. This is a game I created in April: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/918904/line-of-actual-control/page/1 The biggest challenge in creating a game is NOT in having great ideas or doing up good looking graphics, no, the really hard part is in writing a short concise rule book for your game. There are a small group of dedicated gamers in the world that would read and re-read the rules of a mamoth game, and not mind that playing the game takes 6 hours. Unfortunately the greater number of people want a quick fix game that can be played in an hour or less. One last thing: don't worry about people stealling your game. As any proper boardgame designer will tell you: if an idea is good it WILL get stolen. And there really is nothing you can do about it, exept to focus on your game and to get it done and published online on a site like BGG. As far as making money is conserned, I'm afraid you'll do better writing novels, sorry. But if you can craft a good game you will actually also discover that you can write great stories, just use your game/games as a sandbox to help you create a few rough sketches of stories. And then take it further. If you want to see games lead to novels look no further than http://www.blacklibrary.com/ Whichever way you decide to take it, I hope you have fun. That's really the key.

@X3M I've mentioned I have buildings earlier, but I guess a picture is worth.. There are Atreides troops in the front for scale. No sand worms or sand storms at this time. I don't want to scare off my only opponent: my wife. But playing wargames have taken a back seat to studying, the new work and my little baby girl. I have an exam coming up in April, so I'm sorry for being so scarse.

I also like Legacy and I've had a few multiplayer games during the December vacation. There was 2 problems with the game though: the maps was too small for decent multiplayer action and only infantry can destroy regular buildings like wind traps ect. I couldn't find a map editor anywhere to fix the first problem. And for the second problem we'll have to wait for this Richy guy to fix. I'm on Linux so I can't install Hamachi.

Yes other games include vision considerations as a factor of determining effect of fire, but they all without exception ignore the question of who sees the enemy first. In my rules I've borrowed the "cross fire" idea from Epic Armageddon. You get a huge fire bonus if you manage to achieve a "flank" position on enemy units. But no other rules was written to simulate directionality of unit observations. I have given it the highest priority that the rules must be easy to summarize on a single A4 sheet, so I've kept things as simple as possible. This comes straight from Seeds of war, go and check it out. It is quite clever and uses little cardboard chits, not cards. Starcraft is a fantasyflight boardgame and like most of their games the mechanics are borrowed from other more creative designers. But I do apreciate how they have picked up the boardgames industry. There used to be a time when people thought PC and console games was going to make the board game industry die a slow death.

Thanks for the link, I remember reading through it very long ago. Don't be too quick to dismiss Seeds of War: yes, you can see what the position and strength of the opforce is, but the hidden order mechanic means that you have to predict their moves and actions. The element my rules adds to this is summarised in a simple question: who sees the other guy first? I guess the reason why no one else has thought of this yet is mostly due to the fact that we as wargamers are so used to having an omnipresent view of the battlefield that no one in the past 200 years of modern wargaming (started in 1812) has ever thought of the critical important advantage your troops have if they see the enemy well before the enemy sees them. The normal steps followed by a player during his turn in most wargames is to just move a group/unit, pick a target and check with a dice and weapon vs armour plus cover table to see if you've hit and what damage has been inflicted. And this system will work fine for almost all wargaming periods, but war has changed and will continue to do so. I predict that one of the most important changes in warfare will be this: being seen by the enemy will be followed by death in short order. So the new steps are thus: a player still picks a unit during his turn (revealing its order as in Seeds of War), moves depending on orders, and then the player and also the owner of the closest enemy unit must each roll a die for the random factor and add this to terrain plus range plus unit order factors to find out who saw the other guy first. The winner of this can choose to shoot first and inflict kills that are applied immediately, or he can call support fire, or he can give his unit the "hold fire and remain hidden" order that stops the fight from happening this turn. Scouts are good at this. In practice games so far we have had many fights where two units had the same score after the dice and other factors were added, and as such they see and shoot and apply hits simultaneously. I guess this is a minor glitch and not too unrealistic. I didn't claim that I had found the ultimate solution for "fog of war" in wargames. I have taken a completely different approach.

I used some artistic lisence when painting the armies. I didn't want to paint the Harkonnen for example a bright red that basicly shout "Agent in distress! I'm over here!". What I can tell you about the game rules are that they are truly unique and unlike any other rules that are currently available. I have read through thousands of wargame rules for the past 8 years and I've combined ideas from some of them (like Battle Fleet Gothic, Epic 40k and Anticamente) with my own experiences from real life paintball games and leading virtual fire teams in OFP Resistance. One of the biggest challenges that wargame rules writers would dearly love to solve is the fact that players see the full battlefield at all times, and this makes scouting obsolete and is extremely unrealistic. There is a simple solution that no one else seems to have found yet.

Bad camera work again, but here is a battlefield view of the Harkonnen and Atreides armies: From the Harkonnen flank with thopters in foreground: Lone sonic tank. Still haven't made up my mind about this model.

A.S.L. Starcraft Warcraft Gears of war All of these boardgames have their rules posted online. Thought you might find some inspiration from checking them out. Otherwise you might end up reinventing the wheel, as they say. Good luck.

My sincere appology for not replying to this topic. i guess the fact that i only got one reply in 6 months caused me to think there was little interest. Also i'm a slow poster if you take the fact that i've not yet managed to post 150 times on this site even though i've been here for more than 12 years. Status wise i've finished the Harkonnen and Atreides armies in the beginning of 2012 and would have posted images then, but i thought there wasn't any interest. I've taken a good hard look at all the rules systems on the market today and realised that there was a few things missing. So i've written my own set of rules and i've tested them with infantry, light armor, tanks and artillery and i'm pleased to say the game play is as deep as i had hoped. I've bought a complete set of various buildings from Spartan Games so i can do nice looking bases. i've also started building a table based on an old EBFD map that i did when the map editor was first released -> Rocky Throne. This is very hard work, but it can look incredible if you do it right. Just look at this example.

It has been a monumental year so far on my side. I got married in the beginning of the year. And the next generation is expected end of September. I was in the UK in April to visit my sister and Salute 2012 was a major highlight, with this year marking the 200th aniversary of modern wargaming (kriegspiel). Me and the wife also went to Iceland because that has always been on my bucket list. I've met alot of new people this year through my biking adventures on the monstrous Super Tenere called Matilda. And this past week end we moved into the big but old house. The wife has already pointed out that she thinks I should convert one of the rooms into a wargame room. I have too much on my plate, and sleepless nights await. I must admit: I miss Iceland. But the wife has specified the U.S. as the next place we must visit.

Actual writings in a Mpumalanga Hospital 1. The patient refused autopsy. 2. The patient has no previous history of suicides. 3. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital. 4. Patient's medical history has been remarkably insignificant with B only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days. 5. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night. 6. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year. 7. On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it disappeared. 8. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed. 9. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993. 10. Discharge status: Alive but without my permission. 11. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert but forgetful. 12. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch. 13. She is numb from her toes down. 14. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home. 15. The skin was moist and dry. 16. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches. 17. Patient was alert and unresponsive. 18. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid. 19. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce. 20. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy. 21. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation. 22. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized. 23. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function. 24. Skin: somewhat pale but present. 25. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor. 26. Large brown stool ambulating in the hall. 27. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.

Check out this link dude. Both Warcraft and Starcraft are already available as boardgames. As for getting a good real time like mechanic I have to say I liked what they did with Horus Heresy. Don't let this stop you though, new boardgames are always welcome. I too am busy "re-skinning" the good old Assault on Hoth boardgame into a 6 player space fleet boardgame. I'll publish this as a free print & play when I'm done. Keep going on it mate!

Thank you, MrFibble. I'm glad you like it even while the photos are not too good. I have not included a photo of the thopters or the sonic tank because I still need to assemble and paint them.

I've slowly started to buy the required miniatures, assemble and paint them. In terms of the game I intend to use a moddified version of the Seeds of War rules. I still need to re-create the various structures. So far I only have the 2 turret types. Here are 2 based Atreides trikes as seen from above: They have their 2 wheels at the front and the single big wheel at the back, in stead of the oter way around as in Dune 2. But there was no other miniatures that fit the bill. I've used a AA battery for scale. In the next picture you can see the infantry and a quad, 2 launchers and a combat tank: Sorry about the bad photo, taking photos at this scale is not my strong point. For the Atreides I decided to use a khaki colour scheme instead of blue. For the Harkonnens I used red: