Tutorials and FAQs
Here you can see a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), as well as tips and tutorials that will help you in using the website. This page is intended for players, as well as admins.
Table of Contents
- What’s up with all these icons? They’re not very intuitive!
- Why doesn’t the graph in my game work?
- Where’s the turn timer? Why isn’t the Turn Timer working?
What’s up with all these icons? They’re not very intuitive!
I’m first and foremost a backend programmer, and not much of a designer. I came up with a few “clever” ideas that save space in the website design, but some people have commented that they’re hard to figure out the first time. I’ll go over a bunch the icons here, to clarify them.
- “Info” Icons
This icon means that a player has played his turn. If they haven’t played their turn, the icon is just isn’t there.
This icon means this player is an AI, or Computer Player.
This icon means this player is a human, but has not been “claimed”. You can click on the hand icon to enter the join password for the player, and associate it with your account. The hand can have a green or red background, which shows if the player is online or offline.
This icon means this is a claimed human player, and is online.
This icon means this is a claimed human player, and is offline.
- “Administrative” Icons
This icon is used to set the email settings in the selected game.
Admin Only. This icon is used to declare a winner for your game.
Admin Only. This icon is used to change the game settings.
Admin Only. This icon is used to edit all the player information.
- “Tag” Icons
This icon can be clicked to “tag” an event, and add a short blurb about it. Other people can see these tags, and they can be used to “tell a story” about your game as it goes on.
This icon shows that there are tags on this event. Hover over it to see them. It also works just like the above icon.
Why doesn’t the graph in my game work?
The graphs for a game rely on “New Turn” events to separate the score changes into turns. If your game has no “New Turn” events, you will see a JGraph error, saying that the X-axis is size 0, meaning that there are no turns to separate the score changes on. The reasoning for needed the “New Turn” events is because a players score can change multiple times in the same turn, or not at all. One player could have 5 score changes over 2 turns, and another player could have none. To make the graph lines line up, we only take the most recent score change for any given turn.
Another issue you might have with graphs arises when the game admin has not properly set the nations / civilizations for a game. The graph’s colors are based on the colors of the civilizations in the game, and if the civilizations aren’t set, the colors can’t be known. The score graphs are also stored by nation, meaning that a game with no nations would only have a single point of data. Please set the nations / civilizations properly if you want to use the graphs.
Where’s the turn timer? Why isn’t the Turn Timer working?
The turn timer should appear right above all of the Game Information, under a separate heading that reads, not surprisingly, “Turn Timer”.
The Turn Timer uses JavaScript to count down the timer in real time. If you are using a plugin/tool that blocks JavaScript, you will need to disable it, or grant PlayYourTurn.com access to run simple scripts.