Targeting Hexes
Several important parts of the game involve targeting specific named hexes and sometimes their neighbours.
I did consider trying to come up with a mathematical solution to convert board hexes to Maptool coordinates but soon rejected that idea, since I would need to come up with a naming convention for the hexes that surround the nests (numbered 1 to 7 in the image above).
My alternative strategy is to place all the board coordinates as appropriately named images on the Object layer. So the "A1" image is called "A1", the fountain in the centre is called "F7" etc. If I need the X&Y coordinates of a hex, I can just use
findToken("F7") followed by
getTokenXand
getTokenY. In the end I decided I could control the entire game through token states rather than by placing tokens, but the principle still applies.
States instead of Tokens
Rather than use lots of tokens I intend to use the coordinate images (the "A1", "A2" etc) on the Object layer, combined with different statuses to build and display the boards.
I use a number of different statuses in the game, which get applied and removed from the hexes. Those statuses are "Food" to repesent the presence of food on the hex, the player's colour (i.e. "Black", "Blue", "Red" etc to represent the presence of an ant of that colour), "isConnected" (used to indicate the hex is part of a valid supply line), "hasPeasant" and "hasSargeant" (to represent an ant's type).
The statuses are then ordered to that the food images is at the bottom, then the player colours, followed by the ant types. The "isConnected" is currently a circle that displays around the images. Though I'd like to come us with something better.
Building a Supply Line
The other important part of the game is building your supply line of Peas-ants from your Queen Tyr-ant to your target, whether thats food or opponents. Moving across the board costs one 1 move per hex, except when you are moving along your own supply line, which is free.
To calculate the valid supply line I use the following pseudo-code:
- Clear all tokens of the "isConnected" state
- Set the current player's Queen to the status of "isConnected"
- Use the getWithState function to find all tokens with the state "isConnected"
- For each "isConnected" token use the getTokens function combined with the "range" and "setStates" options to select the surrounding hexes that contain a peasant of the appropriate colour (i.e. has the states "Black" and "hasPeasant").
- Use setState to set all the found hexes to the state "isConnected".
- Repeat the previous 3 steps until no new hexes are added.
I then know that all tokens with the "isConnected" status are part of a valid supply line for the current player.
