siegeengineers/border

A small app for showing BuildOrders on top of a game.

Border

Note: A major update has been pending for a while. My apologies for the delay.

Border is a simple overlay for RTS games (such as Age of Empires 2) for displaying build orders on top of the game. It is mainly intended for new players or getting help playing new maps. This will help you to learn the strategies that are used online. You might find features that are tailored to Age of Empires 2, since it was the reason for my to build this. For Starcraft 2 there is a widely used commercial app.

If you have no idea what a Build Order is or don't know what the app means with something, check out this for a short read.

Important: Not all build orders have been tested by multiple people, so I'd be happy if you comment on the default Build Orders. You leave your comments on this issue.

Features

• Show Build Orders on top of your game
• Quickly cycle through build orders
• Highlight your current task
• Click through the overlay and control it with hotkeys
• Default Build Orders included (AoE2)
• Create and share your own Build Orders

Getting Started

1. Download the latest version of the app
2. Launch the app
3. Right-click the to see all the options.
4. Press Alt + \ or right-click and press Click Through Window
5. Start the Game and play versus AI
6. Select a Build Order (Alt+ArrowUp/ArrowDown)
7. Press Alt + Space to Highlight the first step
8. Execute the highlighted step
9. Repeat step 7 until done
10. Win the game
11. Press Alt + \
12. Right-click -> Quit
13. Be happy

FAQ

Can I use this online?

It's up to you. The current version of this overlay does not communicate with the game so I doubt they will detect it.
I think it's okay, I used to have my tablet up with a couple of Build Orders. But I always lost track. But one could argue that it removes the skill of game knowledge.

Why did you make this tool?

I wanted to learn a new programming thing and I was really into learning Age of Empires 2.

Can I add my own Build Orders?

Yes, it does require a bit (straightforward) of editing a textfile (e.g. Notepad) though. See this page for details.

If you made great build orders you and would like to donate them to this app open an issue.

I want to change some hotkeys and some colours. How do I do that?

You can edit the settings.json file with a text editor. Which will allow you to modify the values. You can get the key codes from this page, use the codes that look like 0x01.

How do I know if there is a new version?

The app will bug you about it.

Your Build Orders Suck

FeelsDautMan.

All Hail King DauT!

Amen

Is there a Forest Nothing Build Order included?

1

Can I help with the app?

Try out the app, and test the default Build Orders. Want to do some programming? Sure, fork & play around with the code for a bit, then check out the issues.

How do I compile the code?

Fork the code, then open it in Visual Studio with the latest C# and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) installed.

Can I ask you something else?

Si, either on twitter or by creating an issue.

Possible Future Features

If people want these features I might add:

• A settings window
• Timer - automatically advandce through the steps, or keep track of your speed records.
• Variants - quickly update the build order based on the situation.
• In-App Build Order Designer
• Share Build Orders with others

Authors

abductedPlatypus - Original Author

border's Issues

Update?

Would it be possible to get an update to this amazing tool?

By transfering this repo to SE the auto updater broke.

A quick fork or and a more permanent solution would be advised.

Test and Verify all default Build Orders

They work for me, but I'm just a pleb. So feel free to comment and suggest updates and add/link missing ones.

Better json error handling

If there is an error in the settings, build order and even (external) update files the app will crash without explanation. It would be great to point to the error (line number + description) before quitting, or continuing when we can recover (e.g. a faulty build order) or reset (settings).

Add Language Options

With adding translations, adding an option to change the language would be great.

Hide App

After finishing the build orders it would be great to hide the app until the game is over.

Either:

1. Make the window invisible, in addition to Click Through.
2. Toggle the AlwaysOnTop setting, by adding a hotkey to the menu item.

Disabling Build Orders

If I keep adding situational Build Orders (e.g. Forest Nothing) It would be great to be able to disable build orders from showing up and being part of the quick cycle.

Adding Hooks to the game for automatic Build Order advancement

I know it is possible to add some sort of automatic advancement. (i.e. when there are 3 villagers are on wood highlight the Boar lure task.)

This does require hooking into the game. For single player I guess this would be okay, but I don't think it would be easy to disable it for multiplayer where this becomes more problematic and could (should?) lead to bans.

Question remains if this is a good idea.

Variants

Adding variants, so it is possible to update the build order after finishing the initial steps. (e.g. after a Drush go either FC, archers, M@A, etc.)

Add International Keyboard Support

Make sure alternative keyboards like AZERTY and QWERTY are supported. (Mainly the special symbols could become a problem.)

Translations: German // deutsche Übersetzung

Someone from the German community has offered to translate Border. To accommodate this I will put all strings on this link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rgjE7nOfzjX7ZGGbCD53FlL0DGY3VRjCNS5kx9eQudk/edit#gid=0

And people can add translations to it.

I will also allow pull requests, specifically to this file: https://github.com/abductedPlatypus/Border/blob/master/Border/Properties/Strings.resx
But add add a language suffix to it like Strings.de-DE.resx. (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/commerce-server/ee825488(v=cs.20))

Since Border is in active development I will add strings at times. When that happens I will post a reminder here. I expect to revamp most build orders this weekend, with less text and more images. So I omitted those for now.

If you still want to translate build orders, they can be found here:
https://github.com/abductedPlatypus/Border/blob/master/Border/BuildOrders/builds.json

Also if you find mistakes in English, feel free to fix those as well.

In addition to translations, I will need someone to check if the hotkeys are still valid in German. I will add an extra layer that will attempt to automatically fix this, but I don't have a proper means of testing if it works.

Add clickthrough buttons as alternative to hotkeys

I'd suggest either implementing custom "buttons" by capturing the mouse position at all times and implement the same relevant interfaces or quickly switching back to the game after losing focus due to the button click,