What is Forge?

[mtgrares]

Download the Newest Version

You can download the newest version of Forge at this Link:

Forge Beta: 11-05-2015 ver 1.5.47

New beta versions of Forge are given a new topic and they follow the naming convention found in the link above. The newest version topic is given a status of "Sticky" and this will make this topic appear near the top of the list of forge forum topics. You should be able to find them without to much trouble.

Card Pictures: You can either get from the zip file below or click the "Utilities" button at the home screen and from there click on the "Download LQ Card Pictures" button. You should also consider downloading the set pictures by clicking on the "Download LQ Set Pictures" button. The "Download Quest Images" button will download graphics that are used by the quest mode.

Support Files

High Quality Pictures:
Part 1 (180Mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?z3cwckz8i5ccq35
Part 2 (180Mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?kxeb01o8rv723m2
Part 3 (180Mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?ufmsg9frsdbgewi
Part 4 (80.36Mb): http://www.mediafire.com/?f3m9yts5h4mmwy3

Low Quality Card Pictures (100 MB) - includes all of the cards in Forge 06-28 including mana pool, morph (the backside of a card) and the fantasy card Tortuge, the card pictures are the same size as on dailymtg.com and Gatherer. The picture files are no longer placed in the /res/pics/ directory. Instead use the following information to find where your pictures should be placed:

All the set images folders must go to
( instead of C:\ of course it will be your main drive letter)

C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Forge\Cache\pics\cards\
or
C:\Users\<yourusername>\Application Data\Roaming\Forge\Cache\pics\cards\
or
C:\Documents and Settings\<yourusername>\Application Data\Forge\Cache\pics\cards\
(depending on which version of window you're using)

For Mac it should be something like
<your home directory>/Library/Application Support/Forge/Cache/pics/cards/

Pre-Constructed Decks - includes 342 decks. The deck names that start with "AI " are designed for the computer. Put these decks in the /res/decks/ directory. These decks were designed back when Forge had less than 1,500 cards and are now out of date. You can find better decks to try out at the Forge Decks forum found at this link Forge Decks. The deck topics that were started by "gos" contain a large number of quality decks. Enjoy.

Java - in case you need Java installed on your computer

As it is unconvenient to hunt down and patch together several torrents or filehoster archives with gamedata, Mark prepared ready to use archives for forge and keeps them up to date:

• High Quality Set Pictures: Gathered from several torrents and other archives available here and packed into a single archive. It contains complete editions and thus more files than forge already supports, so you do not have to download the archive every time again, when you upgrade forge.
• Low Quality Set Pictures: All files that forge itself will download with the "Download LQ Card Pictures" button, but available at a faster speed and in a single download. Use it as base archive and if you miss pictures after updating forge, you can use forge itself to update the missing pictures.
• Preconstructed decks: about 180 preconstructed decks from several editions; duel decks; premium decks; basic, unlocked and DLC decks from Duels of the Planeswalkers 2011 and 2012; about 60 World Championship decks; some other/own decks.

Notes: You need either the HQ set or the LQ set (using HQ is officially unsupported but looks much nicer).

The Downloads and more information can be found on Mark's website: http://mark.tvk.rwth-aachen.de/software/forge/

 
What is Forge?

Forge lets you play the card game Magic: The Gathering against a computer opponent with full rules enforcement. Forge runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc...

This is very different than playing solitare Magic with Apprentice or Magic Workstation because the AI will attack and play spells. Currently there are over 10,000 cards ranging from old power cards like Ancestral Recall and Lightning Bolt and newer cards like planeswalkers. The user interface is basic, but it does let you download all of the cards pictures and view them while playing the game.

(If you don't know how to play Magic: The Gathering download this windows demo or from here. Also checkout the YouTube videos at http://playmagic.com. The main website for Magic: The Gathering is dailymtg.com)

You can also play sealed deck, draft, or the new quest mode. In draft mode the AI drafts for the 7 other opponents and builds the decks from the cards that it chooses. In the quest mode you start out with a few cards and the more games that you play the more that you win. As you get more cards you can update and change your deck.

Me (mtgrares) originally started Forge and wrote the first 1,200 cards. DennisBergkamp was the lead programmer for a period of time but became too busy with real life to continue over the long term. Currently Forge has many developers including Rob Cashwalker, ArsenalNut, Dave, Doublestrike, Friar Sol, Hellfish, Jeff Wadsworth, Marc, Max, MCrawford, Skiera, Slapshot5, Sloth, Chris H. and many others.

My Magic and Computer Programming blog: http://mtgrares.blogspot.com
 

[SaintWaldo]

Hey, I like the program, thanks for the hard work.

I'm trying to download the source from google code (svn checkout http://forge-card-game.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ forge-card-game-read-only), and all I get is an empty directory for Revision 1. Has the repository moved, or is there a different way to get a public copy of the head revision than what they show on the google code page?

Thanks again for any help you can give.

[Snacko]

The svn is under another project http://cardforge.googlecode.com/svn/src/

[SaintWaldo]

Thanks!

Maybe mtgrares could update the project link on his blog, because that's what I was following. If he has the time, of course.

[mtgrares]

Added SVN link to blog.

[SaintWaldo]

Thanks for finding the time, now other newbs will save a step.

I've been adding my first card (more on that in a different forum later), and I'm really digging the way you've done this, especially the heavy use of patterns. Expect more from me in the future, but for now, nice to meet you, great code, and thanks again for the link cleanup.

[ptoner87]

Thanks for this thread, it's really helpful.
Reason I'm posting is because one of the links in the original post doesn't seem to be working:
"Misc Pictures - includes pictures for the mana pool, morph (the backside of a card), and the fantasy card Tortuga." which apparently links to "http://forge-card-game.googlecode.com/files/tortuga%20-%20morph%20-%20mana%20pool.zip"
I get a 403 error - access forbidden when I click it. Is this link even necessary given that the previous link's description reads that it includes the mana pool, morph, and Tortuga anyways? Just a little confused.

[Althuna]

How is Forge compared to Manalink 2.0? Is the AI better or worse?

[Chris H.]

How is Forge compared to Manalink 2.0? Is the AI better or worse?

`
The AI for Forge is getting better as time goes by. The AI for Manalink might be frozen. There is some work being done on Manalink but the Manalink devs might not be in a position to improve it's AI.

[Braids]

How is Forge compared to Manalink 2.0? Is the AI better or worse?

it's not a predictive ai; all of its intelligence is coded as rules of thumb in certain scenarios. it's pretty smart for ordinary situations. it usually makes excellent attacking and blocking decisions. in contrast, i think manalink 2.0 still attacks with creatures inflicted by an opponent's Spirit Link.

it doesn't handle unusual situations very well, and there are some cards it simply cannot handle. nor is it good with mana converters, like Dimir Signet. i would suspect it cannot solve most "magic: the puzzling" puzzles. if it has the cards to win a game, it might not always play them. for example, it might choose to burn a creature with a lightning bolt when you are at 5 life. this isn't always the best play.

Wagic's ai is better overall, from what i've heard.

Edit. a lot of people have put a lot of time into coding Forge's decision making. they have done a good job. the next major step for Forge's AI is to predict more outcomes of various actions, including predicting the human player's moves. this is very slowly coming to fruition, with no expected release date.

so, again, kudos to forge's AI developers. it is a good thing. it's more of a fun AI, as you would find in most solo video games, as opposed to a replacement for a sophisticated human opponent.

[Althuna]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds pretty promising, the fact that it's constantly being improved is nice, because like you said manalink is a bit stuck in the past. I have played Wagic extensively and the AI is not very good. It does an 'ok' job, but with such ridiculously powerful cards in MTG these days, if you are a decent player, you can steamroll the AI in 99.9% of games. I was interested in Wagic for a while, but the devs just don't seem interested in improving the AI. They are so busy working on all the bugs and adding remaining cards and stuff, whenever anyone mentions AI they just say, "Yeah AI sucks, we know". Maybe some day they will improve it but it looks like it's at the end of their priority list for now, which is a shame because it's the only real issue I have with the game.

Manalink I think is pretty good. Again if you start going ape with Eldrazis and stuff, you can still wipe the floor with it in most games, but I think it's the best I've seen so far (maybe besides the modern Duels of the Planeswalker games).

I'll definitely check out this Forge though, and keep my fingers crossed it continues to be developed!

[frwololo]

I was interested in Wagic for a while, but the devs just don't seem interested in improving the AI. They are so busy working on all the bugs and adding remaining cards and stuff, whenever anyone mentions AI they just say, "Yeah AI sucks, we know". Maybe some day they will improve it but it looks like it's at the end of their priority list for now, which is a shame because it's the only real issue I have with the game.

We constantly improve the AI. There's a difference between what we say and what we actually do. Especially Zethfox talks a lot about how we won't improve the AI, but in the latest release (0.16), he taught the AI how to use instants during its opponent's turn. Sounds like some basic feature to some people, but it wasn't here before.
We also added in 0.16 the concept of AI Hints. Nobody's used it so far, but it basically allows players to tweak the AI's behavior based on its deck. So now in Wagic, you can change the AI's behavior without needing to compile the game. Of course it would be best if it worked "out of the box" but I wanted to point out that we do improve the AI with every release. I actually can't remember a release where the AI wasn't improved.
Of course, most of the time, it just means "keeping up with the new cards", making sure that the AI won't choke on the dozens of new mechanics we add with each release...

So for the player it looks like no improvement was made: attacking/blocking decisions are still meh... but the truth is, the fact that the AI is able to use the hundreds of new cards we add with each release *is* an improvement of the AI.

About comparing Forge's AI and Wagic's AI. we all have this dream of having the AIs fight each other to see which one is best... I haven't tested Forge in a while... 2 years ago Wagic's AI was better, but I know that more and more devs are working on Forge, so there probably was lots of improvements here.

there are some cards it simply cannot handle

I think this was the big difference between Wagic and Forge when I compared them. For each new card, Forge needed to have the matching AI code. In Wagic, even if you create your own cards, you don't have to come and knock on the devs' door to get the AI to handle it correctly
I assume some progress has been made about this in Forge.


Edit: Althuna, if you get to test Forge, I would actually be interested on a report, and I'm sure the forge guys too. Not to know which one is best, but to know what A does better than B, and why. I think we can all learn from the other's decisions here

[Braids]

. . . Althuna, if you get to test Forge, I would actually be interested on a report, and I'm sure the forge guys too. Not to know which one is best, but to know what A does better than B, and why. I think we can all learn from the other's decisions here

i agree! a constructive positive compare and contrast would be a very interesting read!

[Althuna]

Sure I can do that, may take a while but I'll definitely reply here. I loved Wagic, so promising, I only stopped playing because the AI was a bit easy to beat. But I will check it out with each update, and I'll try forge in the meantime too.

I also play manalink too which is great, best I've played so far. But it could be overtaken by wagic/forge.

[xanderhunter]

I'm trying to test this out, but the download forge link is broken, and the svn doesn't seem to leave me with a executable. I was linked to this by someone who said it was able to do drafts and let you play out the matches with the decks you drafted. I wanted to use this to get some practice drafts in before jumping into MTGO. Does it still work like that and can anyone help me get it set up? Thanks for your time.