Population count, idea for campaigns (perhaps reg games too?

[Unnheulu]

Hmm? You can't undo recruit?
Well, ignore me then

[Molean]

Hulavuta, you sure seem to find it much easier to criticize then you do really reading what your replying to and giving thoughtful replies. I know it is possible to give thoughtful replies because others have done it here.

If you don't need to worry about it at all, why even have it?

Please pay attention. You do need to worry about it, you need to worry about not losing too many units, and you need to pay attention the story of the campaign. How many units you need to worry about losing will depend on the campaign designer.

And if you recruit more units, doesn't that increase the chances of your units getting killed?

No, recruiting more units allows you to kill enemy units faster before they kill yours and rotate out damaged units easier too. Saying something like that, its like you have never played this game before, (or played for a few days or something)

If you haven't recruited anyone, they can't kill them.

Then your leader and her friends die and you lose. (or things time out and you lose, depending on the campaign) Again, like you've never played before.

Finally, the name of it is also called "recruit" for a reason. Perhaps they are not all population units?

If you are that worried about the meaning of the term population, and that concern is shared by enough other people, we can just use a different term. But that is immaterial, I am not going to argue meaningless, pointless, semantics with you that has no bearing at all on the idea.

Hulavuta, if your future replies are of the same or worse low quality as that last one, I may just ignore it altogether.

[Hulavuta]

I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to say. That's what I gathered from it.

You can't accuse me of not playing the game long. I have been playing well before version 1.0 came out.

You must have misunderstood what I said, and it is somewhat difficult to put into words what I'm trying to say. If any of what I said doesn't make sense, the point still stands:

A population cap is un-kiss and is not needed. Upkeep and actual gold amount still applies here, which is a similar thing but is already done and is a bit easier. You can make up for that by grabbing villages and making more gold. A population count doesn't work because different factions have different needs. Even more for campaigns, which you mentioned this would be for mostly.

As I see it, you have only countered my crappy points, and none of my others.

And, like I and others have said: If you think it is a good idea, and you REALLY want it to happen, you can easily do it yourself. If you succeed in convincing us and it becomes part of the game, someone will have to do it anyway. If you show us to it ingame, and it is good, then that's better convincing than just telling us. And if you read the 6th and 7th items on the "giving your idea the best chance of getting accepted" thread, it says:

6. Consider and address your idea's weak points

7. Show that you're willing to put your effort where your mouth is

I'm not saying that population is a bad idea. They have the same thing in StarCraft, which is a wonderful game, and it works well. I do see the appeal of it IN campaign, but it is against the philosophy of the game, which is to make it simple.

But a question: Do you consider population a "resource," since it, like gold, puts a cap on how many units you can recruit?

[Molean]

I am just going to reply to this one thing so that it isn't missed this time.

They have the same thing in StarCraft

No they do not. This idea is nothing like what is in starcraft.

[Hulavuta]

2 things:

1: How is it not like StarCraft? Just saying it's not doesn't mean it's not. Tell me why not. The only differences I see is the fact that you can't increase the amount you have and all the units take up the same amount of population points. (1)

2: You haven't countered anything else I've said in that post. Are you then saying that I'm right about that? (Or are you just busy?)

[Unnheulu]

2 things:

1: How is it not like StarCraft? Just saying it's not doesn't mean it's not. Tell me why not. The only differences I see is the fact that you can't increase the amount you have and all the units take up the same amount of population points. (1)

2: You haven't countered anything else I've said in that post. Are you then saying that I'm right about that? (Or are you just busy?)

^

Why can you demand a feature/idea without being able to put in the effort yourself?

[Hulavuta]

Are you adding more to what I said or are you disagreeing with what you quoted from me?

[Molean]

2: You haven't countered anything else I've said in that post. Are you then saying that I'm right about that? (Or are you just busy?)

Most of what you have to say isn't worth replying to anyway, I don't want to spend all day going back and forth with someone who doesn't make quality posts or even pay attention to what I have to say, so that I end up repeating myself over and over.

Anyway, I wanted you to note that you are misunderstanding the idea this time, since you keep on missing that point. That is the main reason, and I said so in my last post too.

2 things:

1: How is it not like StarCraft? Just saying it's not doesn't mean it's not. Tell me why not. The only differences I see is the fact that you can't increase the amount you have and all the units take up the same amount of population points.

I explained how it is not like RTS systems like that in a previous post, but fine I will do so again and in even greater detail since you apparently need this spelled out.

Starcraft:
1. You are allowed so many units per, whatever.
2. You are often bumping your head against this limit.
3. Story has no effect on this allowance.
4.A unit dying frees up space to recruit more.

This idea:
1. You have so many recruits you can produce, immaterial of anything you make so you don't have to consider that.
2. If you do the campaign right, depending on the campaign, you may never end up bumping your head against the limit.
3. This value changes depending on the whims of the campaign designer.
4.A unit dying reduces the number of units you can recruit.

Aside from the common thread of potentially being some kind of restriction on the number of units you can produce, they couldn't be more different.

[Hulavuta]

Okay, you're right about the StarCraft thing. However, I added some completely new things to that post. You are just ignoring them.

I think I understand now. After re-reading your posts a couple times, and trying to understand through the cluttering and wahtnot,

you are stating that your system reduces the amount of units you can recruit by one if a unit dies right?

A similar thing was done in Wonderboy's Orc campaign, Battle Against Time, except that it was that you only have 50 or so turns to do the whole campaign. But yours is that you only have a certain amount of units you can recruit the whole campaign, but story events increase/decrease it right?

If that's the case, then I see no problem with somebody doing it for their campaign at all. However, in the title it mentions "perhaps reg games too?" and I have to completely disagree with that, for reasons mentioned several times earlier.

If this is planned for UMC, then I genuinely believe it could be a good idea. Like Wonderboy's campaign.

Anyway, if that is the case, I have misunderstood, and I somewhat apologize, but now I only have one thing to say:

Can already be done with WML.

All you have to do is set a variable to go up by one whenever you recruit a unit. Then set the disabling recruit event to activate when you hit the number you want. (If the pop cap is 40, when you reach 40 recruits) When it hits the number, it will fire an event that will disable your recruits list. I'm not sure how to make it so that your full possible amount of recruits goes down if a guy dies, but quite frankly I never use variables, so I wouldn't know. Maybe someone else does.

[Sangel]

I don't like the tone or direction of this conversation.

Hulavata: Please be more careful of your tone when posting critiques of new ideas. While there might be challenges and flaws to address in the idea of a running "Population Count" of any kind, it's possible to discuss these issues without directing arguments towards Molean.

Molean: I think your idea could make for a very interesting campaign. However, as you rightly note, writing a campaign and coding a new game feature in WML are both very challenging. Wesnoth is a community of volunteers; people work on the game purely for their own satisfaction. You want to avoid the appearance that you're demanding someone else do work for you, no matter how useful or interesting your idea might prove in practice.

[Molean]

Not sure how I seem to be demanding, I just presented the idea, and discussed the points of it. But I apologize if that is how it appeared.

You are stating that your system reduces the amount of units you can recruit by one if a unit dies right?

A bit more to it then that, but that is the essence of it, that and specifically planned programing events modifying this quota value.

This idea would be for campaigns, and if programmed, could be tested for MP games. No point in further discussion of the hypothetical effect on MP games, lets leave that to actual testing.

I'm not sure how to make it so that your full possible amount of recruits goes down if a guy dies, but quite frankly I never use variables, so I wouldn't know. Maybe someone else does.

It's not necessary, by merit of the fact the recruitable pool would go down by one with every recruit, and up by one via every dismissal of recall unit, any death would reduce the number of recruitments since it would not go to recall. Thus no special would even need to trigger on the death of any unit.

All you have to do is set a variable to go up by one whenever you recruit a unit. Then set the disabling recruit event to activate when you hit the number you want. (If the pop cap is 40, when you reach 40 recruits) When it hits the number, it will fire an event that will disable your recruits list.

Well, we also could use a display showing how many recall and new recruits are available to manage the whole thing.

I also love Sangel's idea of a # value of non-fighting people that could go up and down via preprogrammed campaign events, the effects of which would default to be nothing, but could be programmed to do specific things.

@Hulavuta
If there is something else you have said that I should reply to, I will look for it latter when I have time, or you could point it out to me, perhaps in PM, what I still need to reply to.

[Hulavuta]

It's not necessary, by merit of the fact the recruitable pool would go down by one with every recruit, and up by one via every dismissal of recall unit, any death would reduce the number of recruitments since it would not go to recall. Thus no special would even need to trigger on the death of any unit.

ooohhh, I get it. So when you recall/recruit a unit, this count will go up by one, and when dismiss a recall, it goes down by one. But what would happen if you recruit up to the population cap and then recall units? Is recall going to put a counter on that limit too?

@Sangel: It's good to have moderators sometimes. This is one of those times.

[pauxlo]

It's not necessary, by merit of the fact the recruitable pool would go down by one with every recruit, and up by one via every dismissal of recall unit, any death would reduce the number of recruitments since it would not go to recall. Thus no special would even need to trigger on the death of any unit.

ooohhh, I get it. So when you recall/recruit a unit, this count will go up by one, and when dismiss a recall, it goes down by one.

No, the other way around. And recalls would not count.

But what would happen if you recruit up to the population cap and then recall units? Is recall going to put a counter on that limit too?

As I understand, each side has a pool of "unit population". This is divided in

1. "units on the field",
2. "units in the recall list", and
3. "units available for recruit"

The pool is manipulated on these events:

1. scenario end: moves (all) units from A to B,
2. unit dismissal: moves one unit from B to C,
3. recruit of a unit: moves it from C to A,
4. recall of a unit: moves it from B to A,
5. dead of a unit: moves it from A out of the pool.

Effectively, we only have to keep track of number C by adjusting it on events (b) and (c), the others are maintained by the game already. Additionally, there may be other scenario/campaign-specific events changing this number.

I think, this could work on some campaigns, yes, and is not that complicated to implement in WML. It would be a good project to start learning. (Take some campaign where it would fit and modify it, then test how it works, adapt, release on the addon server.)

Flavor-wise, I'm not really sure that dismissal would really work this way: can you really re-recruit your former heavy infantryman to be a mage or fencer now? (Or even: can your former Naga now be a Orcish grunt?)
You may need separate pools for the individual races (and genders?), at least.

[Molean]

Thanks pauxlo, that is said much better.

Flavor-wise, I'm not really sure that dismissal would really work this way: can you really re-recruit your former heavy infantryman to be a mage or fencer now? (Or even: can your former Naga now be a Orcish grunt?)
You may need separate pools for the individual races (and genders?), at least.

I don't really have any problem with the change of class, they do start at zero experience level 1's in most maps. It would be nice if race, name, and characteristics were kept track of, especially race. But I don't see that as strictly necessary, even without that, it is still a improvement both in campaign immersion and realism IMO. Regarding gender, I don't think many classes even come with two genders, so no point worrying about it.

We would want it made easy for events to be able to modify and check/path differently according to population numbers and hopefully have the values displayed on the screen for easy reference.

Also, for units recruited for you, so that they start out, out, should count down the total recruitment #. But I suppose the campaign designer could do that.

Another benefit to this idea, is a way to compare performance. One could perhaps brag that they got through with X few losses, and perhaps got X ending.

A couple words regarding application of MP:
We could test it with different values of different races, if using the same value doesn't make for a even match.
And it could be a interesting handicap for one player who is much more skilled then another. Even gold, but the skilled player must win efficiently or have major difficulty winning at all.

[Hulavuta]

So, the number of people you have in your population is split between recallables and units on the field? So if you have 35 recallables and 5 guys in battle, you can only recruit 10? (If the limit is 50) If you dismiss a guy from your recallables, it subtracts 1 from the limit? Okay.


@pauxlo: You said the other way around, but I'm not sure what is around and what is supposed to apply to what.