And slowly, but surely, they drew their plans against us...

OpenFracas includes a few features that the original Fracas doesn't have; resizable gameboard and maps of any size are two that come immediately to mind. These features are relatively trivial, though. Sure, they make the game more usable, but they don't really place OpenFracas above the original in a significant way.

What we've wanted to have for a while now are features that impact gameplay that Fracas never had; features that feel natural for this style of game and make the game different. Making capitals optional was one such feature; teams is now another. We're excited to have added this feature, since it helps to distinguish us from the original game, and was something that was surprisingly easy to implement...for the most part.

Initially, teams confused the AI to no end; they would keep attacking other players they were allied with. At least, they tried to. The game wouldn't let them get away with it, and they'd get thrown into a never ending loop trying to attack their friends. A surprising amount of effort had to go in to getting the AI to work in teams. It had to stop 'fearing' nearby troops owned by allies, and start recognizing them as allies.

Now that the AIs are able to work with allies, it presents an interesting cop-out. Our AI is bad, and we know it. The truth is that its a very complicated thing, getting an AI to play well, and we have too many other things that still need doing to give it the attention it deserves. But what would playing against 5 AIs, all on one team be like? I can't say that I've tried that - yet, but I suspect that it might just be a little bit harder than when they're all on their own. Perhaps that is one way for human players to get a little bit more entertainment out of the AIs when playing against other humans isn't an option.