turn based strategy game created in Visual Basic.Net 2008

A turn based strategy game created in Visual [login to view URL] 2008 or higher. No images are used (although placeholders for icons will be present). No jumping, platforming, 3-d modeling required. The user simply sets their options, presses End turn and responds to dynamic events that are generated by the system. ## Deliverables I will be posting a more detailed technical specification. The following is the "High Level Design". *The program must be created in **Visual [login to view URL] 2010** (I can accept earlier versions if it can convert to 2010). **Summary:** Turn-Based Strategy Game that I will use as a 'shell' to create other games, by altering strings, and adding text. The player will first set up their character by selecting options, such as gender, name, etc. The player will then administrate their dominion. This involves setting the cultural, economic and military options. (Provided in the tech specs). When the user is satisfied with their choices, they will select "End Turn". The user may also "Save" or "Load" any number of saved games which saves their progress. They may also create a new profile and start a new character without deleting their old one. The game will be 2-D and be played without animations/graphic images. I will ask you to put place holders for images, since the game will be created at a generic level. The initial setting of the game will be a "Medieval Castles" game where the player rules over a Fantasy Kingdom. I will be re-using the code to change the setting for future games. The game should have a method to "Unlock" it as a "Full Version" after 20 turns using a code, so that it can be sold. When the "End Turn" button is pressed, three things are evaluated: ***End Turn Maintenance:*** This is where based on the users resources, debit and credits of resources are added to the players current totals. (Details in tech specs). **Random Event Table**: Random event (including a "No-Event" where no pop up will be selected) are chosen for the user from a text file of possible events. This the meat of the program, and the system must be intelligent enough to only select relevant events, based on whether this event has fired before or not, and weighted based on frequency. (Example to follow) ***Combat Resolution: *** If the user has selected to attack during their turn, the system must evaluate the conflict. To do this, the user will get an "Intelligence Report" based on what they estimate their enemy to be. They will then pick one of several tactics (The system must be intelligent enough to not offer certain tactics, such as "Flanking" if the user has no cavalry). The battles are played out in rounds, where the user can adjust their tactics including possible retreat options. (Details in the tech spec) *I will go ahead and provide a slightly more detailed summary of the Random Event Logic:* Scenario: Picture a computer game where the player is in the role of a King in Jolly old England of the Middle Ages. The player fiddles with how many Knights they want to recruit, sets the tax rates, allocates workers etc and presses "End Turn". Each turn, I process how many gold, stone, wheat, whatever gets added/deducted from the players inventory. A simple strategy game. This part I think I know how to do, so far. The part that eludes me, is creating random events when the player presses "End Turn". Some criteria/requirements: --I do not want the user to have a random event every turn, so sometimes "No event" is the event (to the user, nothing appears to happen, but the system has simply selected an event that had no pop up boxes. --Otherwise, I want a message box to appear before the player, that says some text such as "My Leige, Robber Barons are harrassing Merchants in the North Realms." The box then presents a variable list of solutions, such as A) Send Sir Haramond to deal with the Robber Barons B) Dispatch 100 Knights to deal with the Robber Barons C) Do nothing, let the Merchants know that they must resolve the matter themselves. D) Send word to the Robber Barons, I wish to meet with their leader. --This means that there must be a way that the system is intelligent enough to know that this event has or hasn't already transpired. The system should know that the player has Sir Haramond before offering that as choice A, or that the user has "Northwoods" as a province. --I would also like to assign a frequency to random events, that makes some more likely than others. As an example, one about a dispute between two merchants perhaps I assign a 5 to make it 5X more likely than a rare event that I feel may be more rare like a Hero offers his service. --Some random events can occur more than once, while others will occur only once. --Some random events are mutually exclusive of one another. If for instance the "Banish Sir Haramond" event triggers, it means perhaps the "Promote Sir Haramond" event never happens (and its frequency is 0) --Some random events are triggered by others. If for instance "Sir Haramond takes a squire" happens, then I may want to make "Sir Haramond's Squire wants to become a Knight" happen within 10 turns. IDEAS: The way I envision this working, is that the player has several "flags" or attributes set. For our example let's say first there are any number of text based flags. Such as "HasNorthwoods" or "HasSirHaramond", I could also use "NoNorthwoods" or "NoHasSirharamond" if I want to indicate that the flag has not been set but leave a place holder. I would also have certain resources, such as Gold 100, Knights 50, that I track as an integer. What I picture happening is each time the user clicks "End Turn" I run my maintenance process, and then I run the "Random Event" code. (The part I need help with) All the events are stored in a text file or visual basic excel tab. One column is the name, One column is the message box text, 10 columns represent possible choices, then each of those choices has a requirement to appear (if blank it automatically appears) in the message box. I would also need a column for each of the events requirements, and one for each of the possible choices ot the player. I would also need a "Frequency" column that tells me how heavily to weight this event. The system takes all the possible random events and then uses a random number to select which one to present to the user. Once the user answers the question, the system will execute a process to store a flag and adjust attributes based on the users choice. As an example "SirHarmanondtoNorthwoods" gets set if the player had chosen option A, and their flag "HasSirHaramond" gets deleted.