Some ideas

[Aeh2019]

I'm relatively new to this game (I started playing about a month ago) and think it could be improved to require less micro management on larger scenarios or games with a time limit.

1. Cued Orders
I think you should be able to give multiple orders to a unit during one turn. If anyone here has played the rts Total Annihilation then you know why it can be such a big help. If you haven't played it before then think of playing a big map in wesnoth with a few dozen villages and a very small time limit. If unit cuing was a feature then you could order a few scout unit to capture all of the villages around your area, taking less time telling them to capture and giving you more time to assemble an army.

2. Guard Orders
Another of my wishes for this game is to be able to specify an area that a unit is supposed to guard. If an enemy unit moves into the zone the unit is guarding, the unit with the guard command begins moving toward it to attack. And maybe as well as being able to set an area for the unit to guard you could also set a tile for it to return when no enemy units are around. This would also be a useful feature if when a unit that can heal is given an area to guard then any friendly units with less than full hp walks into the area the healer moves over to heal it.

3. Follow Orders
You should be able to select one of your units, right click another unit, and select follow unit from a drop down menu. This could be useful if you commonly go straight for the leader with a group of skirmishers. You could order them all to follow the leader then make them attack when they are next to it. It would also work to make a small force and make all but one unit follow the one unit. Then you could move the entire group by selecting just one unit from it.

4. Group Selecting
Self explanatory. One of the main reasons some scenarios take so long to play is because of needing to give each individual unit orders one at a time.

Those are most of my ideas for improving game play. I have more but they are kind or far fetched and require AI coding. I hope to see some of these in future builds!

[zookeeper]

Features like this would basically never be used by good players but only by newbies who'd think that since there's a group selection feature it'd be a good idea to use that.

Suggestion 1 is the only one which makes a bit of sense. It could probably be implemented reasonably easily by just allowing goto_x and goto_y to take comma-separated lists of coordinates as the path and having the necessary UI for it.

[Turuk]

I have to agree with zookeeper. I cannot think of a time that I have had so many units/so much gold to waste that I was willing to move my units as a group and accept in whatever order they ended up and attacked. The ability to choose each unit, when it attacks and where it attacks from may take longer, but is the only viable way I see to beat any of the scenarios on any decent difficulty level.

[Aeh2019]

Thanks for both of your responses, but what do you think about the guard feature?

[JW]

Too RTS. Not compatible with how terrain works in Wesnoth. Otherwise they're pretty standard ideas.

[Limabean]

I think these ideas have some merit. Zookeeper, I agree that these features probably couldn't be used intelligently on most of our current maps, but thats because none of the mainline maps are very big. There are no big maps because they simply aren't fun, and they aren't fun mostly because it is boring to move tons of units around one by one. Some kind of grouping feature could open up a whole new range of map size for multiplayer. Personally, I think it would be really cool if gigantic maps in could be made feasable as well as fun .

Thanks for both of your responses, but what do you think about the guard feature?

tbh, I think the guard idea has the least potential. The ai can be trusted with movement, but I would never trust it with fighting.

[Turuk]

2. Guard Orders Another of my wishes for this game is to be able to specify an area that a unit is supposed to guard. If an enemy unit moves into the zone the unit is guarding, the unit with the guard command begins moving toward it to attack. And maybe as well as being able to set an area for the unit to guard you could also set a tile for it to return when no enemy units are around. This would also be a useful feature if when a unit that can heal is given an area to guard then any friendly units with less than full hp walks into the area the healer moves over to heal it.

Thanks for both of your responses, but what do you think about the guard feature?

This may come off sounding incredibly harsh, but it is actually a serious, non-sarcastic question. What would the benefits of these orders be beyond the questionable healing use? I say questionable because you have the problem of the healing unit moving around to the least healed units in an effort to heal them, and therefore forsaking other units because they are no longer in range. Which is why I like it when I can use all six of the healing spots effectively.

I can see the whole idea of setting a unit to guard an area, but as the point was raised, I am not confident of the AI choosing the smartest/most efficient method to attack an enemy. Also, if prevented with two choices, which enemy would it go for? And what if it is not the enemy that it should attack? Example: It could attack a level 3 with 15/50hp or a level 1 with 30/32 hp. If told to attack the wounded unit, both are wounded. Going after the more wounded unit would mean attacking a unit with less hp, but stronger attacks to retaliate with, which could kill the guard unit. By the same token, having the unit configured to attack the lower level unit means it is attacking a unit that it could not kill in one turn, whereby (even though it may get hurt more), it might be able to kill the level 3 in one round. Or, if one unit enters the guard range with full hp, and two more units enter with 1/4 of their hp, should it be set to attack the first unit that enters it's range, or the units that enter their range first unless other units come in with less hp.... which could lead to it constantly switching targets and thus never finishing off one target.

I know that there are many other examples or possible scenarios, but these are just a few that spring to mind most readily that could potentially create problems with the idea of the guard order.

[beetlenaut]

I think you should be able to give multiple orders to a unit during one turn.

I would like the ability to tell a scout to capture this village, then that one, then a third, then head for the bridge where I'll be fighting. That's the only way I'd use that ability, but I've often thought it would be handy. I agree with all the comments on the other ideas.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Wesnoth in not as RTS. These are all RTS features; they don't work too well with a turn-based system where the exact spot your units are placed can make a huge difference in whether you win or lose.

I can see a use for suggestion 1, however.

[Limabean]

I'm wondering, how hard would it be to implement something like this? Just curious.

[Skizzaltix]

It shouldn't be too hard. I can think of a way to do it in Python, but I doubt it would be compatible with Wesnoth's engine--I suggest that you do it, and then post your code snippet.

[Limabean]

i'd do it, but I don't know anything about coding, other than WML of course.

[Skizzaltix]

It's true, this probably wouldn't be the best place to try and learn... Other than doing what you've already done (Mentioning it here) there isn't anything more you can until you have the know-how to put your code where your mouth is :/

[roadkill]

*edit*
sorry its a long one
*edit*

I like these ideas and can see the benifits for most of them.

Assuming very large games where time is tight.

1. Cued Orders
One of the less useful ones, but may be useful for early village grabbing. However good players may find other uses for this. Where time is tight queuing movement order around terrain for multiple turns would be handy, and yes we already have it! Infact It will even work out the shortest route for you.


2. Guard Orders

Somthing else that may be good is a "chase until dead order" you could call it pursue.
For instance you have a horseman on the edge of the map, you opponent harasses your villages with a bat, lets assume there are no reinforcements nearby (its a large map and there is a massive fight on the other side).

You could waste time (perhaps 20 seconds per-turn, chasing this bat), 20 seconds is a fair amount of time "wasted" per turn, if your turns are 3 minutes long, after 5 turns of chasing this bat you have wasted a WHOLE HALF TURN! think about how much you can actually do in half a turn, especially in a large "game deciding combat".

Simple being able to order your horsemen to chase until dead is a good idea, on the virtue of time saved in subsequant turns.

And this is the value of guard. A horseman moves 8 right? on open plains the horsman can attack 324 hexes (9 north, 9 south, 9 east, 9 west). Wouldn't it be nice if you horseman would automatically attack any bats that flew into one of the 324 squares? Without you having to spend 20 seconds to do it!

I think a better name for guard in this instance would be "patrol" or "lookout"
Perhaps a modified sentry AI could do this?

3. Group Selecting
A group select & move to location, or just a way to issue multiple move orders at the same time would be handy on larger maps, just to save time, just to make using time limits & hence larger maps/more unit games more appealing.

Of course the best way to move your units is to micro manage every single one. However to save time I often find myself clicking multiple turns away, just because I don't have time to move 20 units individually every turn!

Therefore I'm giving up my control of these units for a bit, with group selection I would actually be able to re-take control of these units in a time-effcient manner, more control is always good.

4. Follow Orders
When in very large games, when I don't have hours to spend thinking to myself.

"If I recruit a wose on this turn it'll take 16 turns to get there, it is 1st watch now so when it gets there it will be morning, but if I recruit a mage..."

This is where I start to recruit squads of mutually supporting units that can hopefully adapt to changing battlefield situations, & I find this organisation of squads helps me organise my strategy, and also most importantly, keeps my force adaptable while reducing thinking time.

The problem with squads are there is no way currently of keeping squads coherent without micro managing your movement! Arrgh! more wasting time...

Being able to set a well-rounded squad of rebels, to follow the slowest units (like a wose) so they can march to unexplored territory and capture 10 villages would be good, the only option other than slow micromanaging that I have at the moment results in my units arriving there, piecemeal.

Maby I'm the only person who uses these coping methods, maby I'm the only person who plays large timed games? I don't think I am, maby a little more research on what people could make use of in large game would be useful.

[Turuk]

How many people play games of such size that these orders would have a real effect? Also, for the group selecting and movement, different units will be slowed by the different types of terrain, water, or impassable mountains, so does the group move at the speed of the slowest?

Just exactly how large is the map you tend to play on?