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Generals.io – Capture enemy generals to defeat them
- _private 3y agonice little game!
- shakezzz 3y agoWhat do you think are they using for the map?
- codefined 3y agoOne of the original devs here. The map is just html with position offsets!
- ivanjermakov 3y agoHTML table
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y agoI used to play the 8-player version of this game a lot. Here's an analysis of the strategy. I put it in rot13 in case you prefer to discover for yourself. Gurer ner 3 onfvp fgengrtvrf va gur rneyl tnzr: 1. Encvq nffnhyg. Jnvg sbe n qrprag-fvmrq nezl ba lbhe pncvgny, gura fgneg punetvat nebhaq gur znc naq ubcr gung lbh ner noyr gb pncgher nabgure cynlre'f pncvgny juvyr vg'f cbbeyl qrsraqrq. 2. Encvq tebjgu. Sbphf ba pncghevat greevgbel naq arhgeny pvgvrf. Ihyarenoyr gb encvq nffnhyg, fvapr pncghevat pvgvrf jvyy qrcyrgr lbhe sbeprf va gur fubeg grez naq yrnir lbhe pncvgny ihyarenoyr. 3. Qrsrafvir tebjgu. Fybjre naq fgrnyguvre pncgher bs greevgbel naq arhgeny pvgvrf, jurer lbh tebj pnhgvbhfyl naq sbphf ba fheivivat encvq nffnhygf. Vg graqf gb ybfr gb encvq tebjgu, ohg jva ntnvafg encvq nffnhyg. Fb gur guerr fgengrtvrf unir n ebpx/cncre/fpvffbef eryngvbafuvc. Vs lbh abgvpr gung n cnegvphyne fgengrtl vf cbchyne va gur pheerag zrgntnzr, lbh pna nqwhfg lbhe bja fgengrtl nppbeqvatyl. Va rvtug-cynlre, lbh xabj gurer jvyy or frira ybfref. Vs lbh jnag gb or gur bar jvaare, lbh unir gb trg yhpxl. Fb vg znxrf frafr gb yrna gbjneqf n uvtu-inevnapr fgengrtl yvxr encvq tebjgu be encvq nffnhyg. Va gur zvq naq yngr tnzr, cynlref graq gb or birezngpurq ntnvafg rnpu bgure. Lbh'yy unir whfg 2 be 3 rzcverf erznvavat. Hfhnyyl bar rzcver jvyy or fvtavsvpnagyl fgebatre. Vs lbh ner gur jrnxre rzcver, lbhe orfg fubg gb jva vf trarenyyl gb sbez n znffvir nezl jvgu nyy bs lbhe sbeprf, punetr vagb lbhe bccbarag'f greevgbel, naq frr vs lbh pna gnxr gurve pncvgny qhevat n zbzrag jura vg'f cbbeyl qrsraqrq. Vs lbh ner gur fgebatre rzcver, lbh xabj lbh'er tbvat gb jva ol qrsnhyg qhr gb gur fabjonyy angher bs gur tnzr. Fb gur vzcbegnag guvat vf gb qrsraq ntnvafg gur fbeg bs fhecevfr nggnpx V whfg qrfpevorq. Gurer unir bayl orra n srj gvzrf jura V ybfg sebz n cbfvgvba bs fgeratgu, jura zl jrnxre bccbarag znantrq gb bhgcynl zr ba gur onfvp zrpunavpf bs greevgbel naq pvgl pncgher. Nernf jvgu n uvtu qrafvgl bs pvgvrf ner rfcrpvnyyl inyhnoyr gb gnxr pbageby bs, vs lbh pna znantr gb qb vg, juvpu graqf gb or qvssvphyg.
- Jabrov 3y agoDeciphered if you don't feel like doing it and want to read it here: There are 3 basic strategies in the early game: 1. Rapid assault. Wait for a decent-sized army on your capital, then start charging around the map and hope that you are able to capture another player's capital while it's poorly defended. 2. Rapid growth. Focus on capturing territory and neutral cities. Vulnerable to rapid assault, since capturing cities will deplete your forces in the short term and leave your capital vulnerable. 3. Defensive growth. Slower and stealthier capture of territory and neutral cities, where you grow cautiously and focus on surviving rapid assaults. It tends to lose to rapid growth, but win against rapid assault. So the three strategies have a rock/paper/scissors relationship. If you notice that a particular strategy is popular in the current metagame, you can adjust your own strategy accordingly. In eight-player, you know there will be seven losers. If you want to be the one winner, you have to get lucky. So it makes sense to lean towards a high-variance strategy like rapid growth or rapid assault. In the mid and late game, players tend to be overmatched against each other. You'll have just 2 or 3 empires remaining. Usually one empire will be significantly stronger. If you are the weaker empire, your best shot to win is generally to form a massive army with all of your forces, charge into your opponent's territory, and see if you can take their capital during a moment when it's poorly defended. If you are the stronger empire, you know you're going to win by default due to the snowball nature of the game. So the important thing is to defend against the sort of surprise attack I just described. There have only been a few times when I lost from a position of strength, when my weaker opponent managed to outplay me on the basic mechanics of territory and city capture. Areas with a high density of cities are especially valuable to take control of, if you can manage to do it, which tends to be difficult.
- mat_epice 3y agoIf the GP wanted to hide it, it’s a pretty strange thing to explicitly unhide it.
- jimmywetnips 3y agoI appreciate it
- whoChumpedwho 3y agorematch
- Jabrov 3y agoJust tried this out for the first time and I'm hooked! It even works OK on mobile
- matrss 3y agoI just played a few matches on my phone and there seems to be some bug that can detect you as afk and loose you the game for no apparent reason (i.e. while making moves). It's really a good game otherwise.
- reitzensteinm 3y agoBlast from the past! I played this a bunch when it was first posted here, rose to #2 on the 8v8 US leader board, then went on to make a similar game called Starjack which hit ~1k concurrent players in 2019 (although it's no longer available). Luck plays a role, but the game is almost entirely about reading what other players are doing and thinking and reacting appropriately. It's poker, not chess. I had a win rate significantly over 50%, and hit a greater than 10 win streak at one point in 8v8. To add to some strategies posted here - although I haven't played in five years (around the time that movement started to be buffered), so things may have changed. I played a quick game to jog my memory while writing this (and won it of course!) The army count list tells you even more than exploring, and correctly reading what's happening is key to high level play. 1) An AFK player will slowly accumulate units on a predictable schedule. They may or may not come back. AFK to build up units and suddenly attack is a poor strategy, so you don't have to be worried about them, but there are edge cases where you can get stung. 2) Players that have army counts that drop together are adjacent - use this to understand where on the grid players are. 3) If only a single player has an army count drop, they're attacking a neutral city. It's a good time to attack as they've made a large, long term investment. 4) Players that have expanded but not lost any armies in a while are looking for a chance to attack - be careful if you're next to them. 5) When players fighting a war of attrition, stubbornly trading armies when they're not the only two left, they're probably not very good. A well timed swoop in at the end of the fight will capture all of the production. Don't get involved before that, because they're not very good and will start a war of attrition with you :) 6) At the start, neutral territory has an immense ROI. Capture as much as you possibly can. Don't worry too much about cities. 7) Generally, neutral territory with high numbers at the end of the game correlates with starting locations. 8) Pay a lot of attention to the star ratings of the players to know who is good and who isn't. Picking on beginners is fantastic strategy, because you can generally capture their armies intact. 9) Pay just as much attention to how well people are playing. Expert players will maximise neutral ground, and after the first pop at turn 25, you'll immediately see who you have to pay attention to. 10) If a player has launched a massed attack on you, it's often a better strategy to counterattack if you think you know where their base is better than they know where yours is. If you win, you'll capture their army intact and this often guarantees a win. 11) If you're not in the lead, throw everything you have into conflict where you think you have advantage. You are at this point "default dead", and if you play conservatively you'll lose. 12) If you are in the lead, you can now profitably consolidate cities without the power drop opening you up to attacks. Keep a good chunk of an army close to your base to prevent sneak attacks, and expand out to neutral territory as quickly as you can, preparing to jump on anyone that's weak. You're "default alive".
- taway789aaa6 3y agoI keep losing games because "you went AFK" even though I've been moving units. What is considered "AFK"? Pretty frustrating tbh
- calderknight 3y agoin FFA, you need to take at least 10 tiles by turn 60. That means 11 tiles including your general. But if you encounter another player before turn 60 it won't make you afk no matter what.
- cjbprime 3y ago(And note that to play well you'd want more like one tile every two-or-less seconds in FFA.)
- EduardoBautista 3y agoIt appears as though, for the keyboard shortcuts, they are matching on the "key", as in the actual letter, instead of the "code", which is more accurate regarding the actual position of the key. Just a minor annoyance for alternative keyboard layout users. Cool game, though!
- jtokoph 3y agoThis is something I never thought about. So key codes are based on the physical location of the key on a standard layout/qwerty, and changing your layout will cause the key value to change but not the code?
- an_ko 3y agoYes, approximately. In X11 at least, the hardware codes are called keycodes, and the human readable names are called keysyms. Example of the XkbKeycodeToKeysym function in use: https://github.com/anko/xkbcat/blob/8abc3402cb679027a3bd03135a44c4884e5eccf6/xkbcat.c#L126 https://github.com/anko/xkbcat/blob/8abc3402cb679027a3bd0313... Keysyms don't necessarily strictly match "key location"; keyboards are allowed to output whatever codes they want for whatever key they want (see e.g. QMK firmware; often used in custom keyboards to do complex conditional key remapping), but they're in practice relatively consistent between common keys on most keyboards, and consistent on the same keyboard even if you switch keyboard layouts in software, unless you have some custom keyboard firmware which functionality is stateful.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- brainzap 3y agoI thought the turns are fixed
- birracerveza 3y agoThis might have the best UX for onboarding I've ever seen. The game is pretty damn good too. Turn based but real time is really interesting. EDIT Ok this is addicting. Mobile version when? It is playable on mobile but having a touchable direction pad would work wonders.
- spintin 3y agoYou need WASD and E... and mouse. I have bluetooth keyboard + mouse on my tablet. XD
- alias2999p 3y agoCheck out Utopia-Game! MUGA also had a hand in that and it's a personal favorite.
- fodkodrasz 3y agoGreat game, great UX. On suggestion for the UI: in replay the POV checkbox should be unfocused after click, or event bubbling stopped, as space-bar toggles both the autoplay and the POV now.
- avdlinde 3y agoNeat clone of empire attack (now defunct, https://www.ianandrew.com/empire-attack https://www.ianandrew.com/empire-attack). Used to play the 10 day variants there which were great fun, although more defense focused I think.
- vzhou842 3y agooriginal creator of generals.io here (late to the party) really cool to see people still having fun with this game I made in college! I sold the game a few years back because I didn't have time to properly maintain it, and I'm glad the new owners have kept it running. Linking to some past HN threads on this: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13145781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13145781 original generals.io post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13562866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13562866 launch of the Bot API
- umvi 3y agoHow much does a game/IP like that sell for, if I may ask?
- winterrx 3y ago+1 also curious
- pton_xd 3y ago2-3x yearly net revenue, more if you're lucky. Revenue is ultimately a function of DAU, either via ad RPMs or IAP / subscription conversion rate. Also most sales agreements have a confidentiality covenant.
- umvi 3y ago> 2-3x yearly net revenue, more if you're lucky. And what is the yearly net revenue of a game like generals? > Also most sales agreements have a confidentiality covenant Yeah that's super annoying. I'm mainly just interested in the ballpark. $10k? $50k? $100k? $500k? >$1m?
- losteric 3y agoJust curious, how would that ballpark number be helpful? This thread has inspired me to do further research and explore monetizing/selling some of my side projects. I am curious how a ballpark sales value is useful...
- gdsdfe 3y agoI'm always amazed how a simple game can be fun
- voidfunc 3y agoThis used to be the game I played during long nights at my previous startup when I had downtime. Both good and bad memories.
- xaellison 3y ago"This username is not okay." c'mon "barfnuggets" is not that offensive
- saulpw 3y agoThis game is a dopamine trap that has been bad for my brain (since 2020). I have a bogus entry in my /etc/hosts to keep me from playing it, and yet I too often disable it because I can't help myself. It's like crack.
- encoderer 3y agoYeah I had the same issue with it in like 2017-18. Very addictive and ultimately unsatisfying gameplay. Juice not worth the squeeze. If you struggle with distraction and dopamine loops just avoid it. You aren’t missing much. I also did the hosts file block and removed it. It’s just like any addictive behavior though: break the habit for a week or two and you won’t miss it. For me I was visiting family for 2 weeks and they had terrible internet so I couldn’t win the game anyway.
- xeromal 3y agoHad the same issue with Supremacy 1914 and I ended up getting the shakes from it. Had to go cold turkey
- balaji1 3y agothe game is a big trap... why is the post still on the HN home page...
- cirex-web 3y agoNo it honestly is - the only productive thing to come out of my 5-hour long gameplay session was this blog rant: https://www.cirex.dev/blog/dopamine-hits-hard https://www.cirex.dev/blog/dopamine-hits-hard
- dwaltrip 3y agoHoly shit you are not kidding. I played until 2am last night :) The short and fast matches, simple yet deep mechanics, map randomness, FFA chaos, and poker-like aspects combine together into one spicy addiction package… There’s something extra sweet about victory in an 8-person FFA.
- hardlianotion 3y agoI saw this the first time around. Loved it. Then I started losing quickly…
- hardlianotion 3y agoAnyway. Would do again.
- bl4kers 3y agoI tried playing but it booted me for being "AFK" even though I was tapping the whole time
- psikomanjak 3y agoI am loving this
- johnmorrison 3y agoI love this game, got pretty into it around 2016/17 and rose to the top of the global 1v1 leaderboard for a while. Really cool to see it still running :D
- joshuaturner 3y agoI used to play this game all the time - great blast from the past seeing it posted today. It's like a mini RTS. I love how easy it is to jump into/out of a game quickly, at most, you're only ever committing 10 minutes.
- Kinrany 3y agoI wonder why it doesn't offer any kind of higher level controls. Surely it gets old to have to click all the tiles repeatedly to collect the army
- zdc1 3y agoThis game frustrates me because city positions and explored/unexplored information aren't retained on the map (vs Age of Empires or any game with a "fog of war"). You can be scouring the map in a tight race to find your opponents capital with no idea what tiles you've already explored or where previously held cities are.
- lolinder 3y agoI actually really enjoy that aspect of the game. It gives an extra layer of skill to the game, where you can outwit your opponent by quickly capturing back territory to restore the fog of war before they notice that they walked right by your general. But you don't know for sure that they missed it, so you're still on edge even if you're actually in the clear. Having to keep track of where the enemy general was in the moment of crisis (as you scramble to get a larger army out there) is also honestly kind of fun.
- floyd_b 3y agoThis is pretty fun
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