Empire is a lightweight browser-based grand strategy game with role-playing elements, limited communication, and concurrent turns.
The implementation is split into two groups - the frontend and backend.
Currently, the rules logic is implemented separately for the backend (in Java) and the frontend (JavaScript) separately.
All data is moved as JSON.
The backend runs on a typical Google App Engine stack and is responsible for syncing player orders and authoritatively evaluating the result of orders as the turns advance.
The backend lives in the /backend folder.
The frontend serves a UI for players to view the current game state and issue orders, along with predictive tools to help understand the outcome of actions and applicable modifiers and forecasting. It can be run on any basic HTTP server or even from local disk (no PHP or similar - it is entirely static assets).
The frontend lives in the /frontend folder.
The repository also contains some tools, including the map editor and various GM tools.
The tools live in the /tools folder.
The backend can be run locally and persists a database to your local filesystem. Start a local instance of the backend:
cd backend && gradle appengineRunThe frontend can be run against a local server or against the production
server. By default, if you open a local file (i.e. use the file: protocol),
the frontend will connect to localhost:8080. If you use http: or https:, it
will connect to the standard production backend. The default can be overridden
by adding the server=prod or server=local query parameter to the URL of the
page.
Open the frontend and the kickoff tool using
google-chrome frontend/setup.html frontend/map1.html tools/kickoff.htmlModify the URL of both frontend tabs, appending ?g=0 to access game ID 0.
Set up the game as you see fit in the setup.html tab, start it using kickoff.html, and then manipulate it using map1.html and kickoff.html to the effect you desire.
When you are done, stop the backend (CTRL-C in the terminal running it). The backend will reuse any state it saved on later runs. If you need to clear out the state and start fresh, use:
rm backend/build/exploded-empire/WEB-INF/appengine-generated/local_db.bin