@sean, I meant we were discussing (in e-mail) the idea of adding variants to the single (main) phpDiplomacy site, rather than setting up completely separate sites for each variant. Sorry, poor choice of words.

I think I"m overestimating the work...

Get a freehost, there are lots out there.
If you're still going at the end of June i don't mind helping out, but quite busy until then

Well it depends airborne. If you just modify the standard map you won't have much to do. If you completely start again and input the map you linked people to you'll have a rather longer task, but the output will probably be neater.

I'm using a smaller map. And using the phpdiplomacy orginal script. Problems is a. The regions are shorten i.e. Mor instead of Morocoo b. The graphical differiance

What type of front and size do you think the phpdiplomacy map uses?

I think its in the credits (off the help page) but i can't remember of the top of my head

nope...The only improvement I think we need is ability to post images.

So now I have to make a edit the 1900 map that will follow phpdiplomacy code.
How do I get access to a dev Server?

bump

You can get a dev server here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAMPP

@airborne:
I've looked at the database and a lot of the normal map features like the territories and countries are embedded in for example the orders database.
Do you plan on "hacking" this variant into place or will you write an abstraction layer between the adjudicator and the maps?

Ideally such an abstraction layer should provide an interface for any map, requiring the mapmaker only to provide the following:
- the map (large + small) and all the graphics stuff.
- cord table for unit placements and arrows
- starting year and turn names
- territories inc type and possible movements
- the countries, their home SCs and starting units
and possibly:
- disband list

Doing this should be relatively easy I would probably do it something like this:
- add a map type field to all map related tables (pD_Borders, pD_Orders..)
- replace all named Countries with dummy names "Country1", Country2"...
- add a mapping table: in mapx, "Country8", "Egypt" "colour" "alt colours1" "alt colours2"*
- edit drawMap.php (and others) to use this table for the colours
- replace all named territories with names like "terr10", "terr20", "terr30"
- 10er step are important: use "terr21", "terr22".. for the coasts of "terr20"
- add a mapping table: mapx "terr21" "Spain (south coast)" which should only be used when displaying this information to the user. (this might also be done by expanding the pD_Territories table)
- alter the dropCoast function to use this new coast notation (easy)
- alter all sql queries to take this changes into consideration (should be easy)

I've probably missed something but that should be an ok first plan.

*since you're editing this anyway might as well allow alt colours for colourblind people.

Erm? It doesn't need hacking at all - most of this is done in the database startup?
True if you wanted to change the country names that would be a hack but not a major one.
All the other things you need to do are just changing settings.
http://byethost.com is quite good for free hosting online

@figlesquidge: the db doesn't have fields for map type, without that how would the adjudicator know which border definitions to use.

I simple hack would be to just change everything to the values of the new map but that would mean having a separate install per map. This could be done with only very minimal code hacking.

The next hack would be to the have the new stuff in new tables with a _mapx suffix.

But an ideal solution would change the table structure slightly to allow multiple maps.

Fair enough I see what you mean, and true.
I was thinking of writing this in over the summer into the main build, but i don't think it would catch on.
I suggested to airborne that he just start his own 1900 install, and not worry that it couldn't run the main game as well. As you say, adding map options would be nice but it would also require many other things to be thought through.

The only variations I can really see being added on this site in the near future are Autumn00 (ie standard game with free starting builds, facilitating Fleet Rome if people wanted to) and anon, because there are too many ways round official installs of no/global press and the increased server load probably rules out other maps.

The actual code itself is pretty flexible, there are very few piece of map/variant specific code. The big problem is, as skeptic said, that the map names are built into the database, so there would have to be a replacement of map names with territory IDs, and then a way to reinterpret the territory IDs with their names based on the variant used

The adjudicator, order generation/validation, and game processing logic however don't provide any barriers to variant support

You're also right about the alternative press rules being hard to enforce. Having anonymous games might work but that would require even more work.

But don't give up on variants and other maps so fast. I'll stop by the dev forum once I've finished my thesis presentation (15.6) and see if can help out.

I'd definitely abstract the map details... the two or three times over the past decades that I sat down to write a Dip implementation (which somehow never got off the ground, those pesky paying-jobs kept distracting me), the map was always abstracted. Kind of a pain to back in those changes after the fact, though. If y'all weren't on php and mySQL, I'd offer to help, but I don't swing that way. :)

ok

http://forum.phpdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=142&p=1088#p1088

NPRZ (NPRZ ~= DPRK) & Sceptic_ka - do come over. Even if you don't write anything for now/ever having more good minds about always helps.
As for abstracting, I'm not sure. I do think that actually it would probably be better to go back to terrIDs (the site used to have them) because it will surely be faster to compare Ints than Strings. However if you don't there isn't a need for that. The current format can be used, just at a map prefix to each one and strip that before outputting. Alternatively another field could be added that covered mapID, then just load all the borders etc based on that. Anyway, this belongs in the internals forum over The Other Side

I don't go there, it makes me pine for phpBB over here. :)

I kid, I kid...

That is getting too complex! I'm just putting i.e. ('Greece', 'Macedonia', 'Yes', 'Yes'),
('Serbia', 'Macedonia', 'No', 'Yes'),
right now