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Kevin B. Smith
United States
Margate
Florida
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About a week ago, I bought a copy of Caylus Magna Carta (CMC) in a BGG auction. Unfortunately, the seller let me know that he wasn't going to be able to send the game out until tomorrow (hopefully). Being impatient, and having read everything I could about the game, I really just wanted to play it.
Theoretically CMC is available online, but it's at jsp. I don't know if it is my lack of French, or that I run Linux, or that their site has problems, or just that I'm missing something. Whatever the reason, I have never gotten jsp to work (unlike Yucata and BSW, which are merely confusing, as opposed to unusable).
Fortunately, I'm a computer programmer, and I have written computer versions of several games. They tend to be crappy barebones implementations, with few if any graphics, no sound, and often requiring cryptic keyboard commands instead of mouse clicks. But they allow you to play the game.
So I decided to try creating a software version of CMC.
After about 30 hours of work, I have a version with almost all of the rules implemented. I haven't done the provost yet, nor the "free discard and redraw" at the start of the game, but both should be easy to add. I think I have all the other rules covered. To save time, I created a (very simplistic) AI first, and all my testing as I built the game engine was with two (or occasionally four) robots playing against each other.
Right now, it's just a scrolling, text-only, command-line app. I structured it in a way that it should be pretty easy to put a pretty interface on top of it at some point. I don't know if I would want to put a desktop GUI front end on it , or drop it into a web server for purely online play. Doing a desktop app would be easier, and would allow offline play against the AI. Later I could add the ability to play against other users across the internet.
Last night, I added the ability to accept human input, so I was able to play my first game ever of CMC. I was allowed to choose my actions each turn, and which buildings to remodel. I haven't yet added the ability for the human to make the smaller decisions, like what wildcard cubes to receive or pay with, or how many prestige tokens to buy, so the AI rules take over for those decisions. I have some ideas for how to make the AI much better without a lot of work, but it would probably take quite a bit of effort to make it truly competitive with experienced players.
The code is in Java, in case you're curious, and it's under 3000 lines of code so far.
I have emailed Ystari Games to see if I could get permission to release the game if I do end up getting it to the point where it would be useful to other people. It has only been a few days, and haven't heard back yet. Fingers crossed.
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