Features for 0.8

[turin]

I think it would look cool if the screen faded from dawn to day, day to dusk, dusk to night, and night to dawn between the turns for about half a sec. I would also reallyreallyreally like to see animated terrain. (specifically water)

the screen as in the day/night indicator, or the whole screen? it WOULD be cool if the terrain itself changed shade into what the new time of day was.
animating terrain is hard, but certainly worth doing, especially water.

[telex4]

it WOULD be cool if the terrain itself changed shade into what the new time of day was.

I shouldn't imagine that'd be too much work with alpha support now in the code. It would be nice, as I have to admit that I often don't even notice the time of day until I wonder why I'm having such bad luck

[Woodwizzle]

I'm just talking about the actual terrain itself. I don't think fading the indicators into each other would be a good idea.

[Christophe33]

I don't mind much the AI taking some of my villages. It happen rarely enough to be a minor problem in most scenario. Instead of more or less complicated options it would be possible to make the AI smarter in his choice as an ally (including on how to use its troup). Since it is already possible to attribute a value for village, it should be possible to have the AI making a decision to take a village based on criteria like wounded unit would take an ally village only if there is no other village available and no healer. I noticed that the AI is really not good at using healers even when I placed one near its wounded unit.
If the unit is not wounded, the choice to take an ally village could be based on income. Something like" if income<0 and ally income>0 (or any number) then ally village value=10 ..." This could be used for some gradual setting. I don't mind loosing a village when I have a good income but I do when I have a negative one.
I'm also in favor of animated terrain as I mentioned a while ago about burning forest and wave in water.
I also think that the defense provided by castle should be increase quite a lot ffor most units. Right now, the bonus in comparison to plain is from 0 to 20%, most of the time 10%. The defense in castle should be at least equal to the best terrain defense a unit have, except maybe woodland units.
What about fortified city with high income like 5 gold and hamlet with income of 1? Also temple that heal but don't provide any income. The gold mine should provide good income but no healing.

[turin]

Why, o why do you people want more buildings?
it takes more effort to keep track of what building is what, and to keep track of how much gold everything gives you. it is better how it is, having to remember only that each village gives you 1 gp, 1 upkeep.

as for castle giving more terrain bonus, why? 40% is still good, if they have two strikes (ie any horse unit) they have a large chance of not hitting you at all. note that on grass most units have defense 40%, meaning you have a 60% chance to hit them. this is a big difference. i, for one, do not think that the chance of hitting should fluctuate all that drastically. most units, except on extreme terrains (which castle is not) have 60, 50 or 40% defense, and it still makes a big difference. why change it?

[Christophe33]

i, for one, do not think that the chance of hitting should fluctuate all that drastically. most units, except on extreme terrains (which castle is not) have 60, 50 or 40% defense, and it still makes a big difference. why change it?

If a castle is not an extreme terrain (giving a lot of defense) why did people bothered spending 20-50 years or more building them?
Practically speaking taking a castle by pure force requires a lot of time and troup even against few troups. In most cases castle were conquerer through lenghty siege, negociation or trickery... like one I visited witch was captured by soldiers sneaking at night though the toilet window someone forgot open (not to mention that having an umprotected window only 5 m from the base of the wall is fairly stupid).
Armored unit for example have fairly bad defense in all terrain specially when compared to elusive foot or woodland unit. While it is understandable for most terrain, castle should be a place were armored unit have really good defense.
For those who want to try playing with the parameters, it is possible to change a unit defense in a given terrain by opening the unit file and add something like:

[defense]
castle=30
[/defense]
In that case it would set the defense in castle to a 30% chance to be touched. Since castle terrain is not that common and that not all not would get such a good defense (equivalent to the one of elf in forest or elusive foot in quite a few terrain) I don't think it is going to desequilibrate the game. However, it will allow for the building of defensive line in places with castle terrain.

[Dave]

I know this is probably stupid, but why do we have to change village flagging at all?

The desire to change flagging derives from dismay at watching allies take over villages you have spent time and effort collecting to use as revenue sources.

Admittedly some of the suggestions are getting a bit complex, but it seems reasonable to me to try simply not allowing the AI team to take over allied villages, but just use them for healing.

Okay, why don't we just make people happy:

- make it so the AI will NEVER take over its allies villages. Not if it needs healing. Not if it can gain a strategic advantage in attacking an enemy from the village. Never.

It's simple, and it'd work.

Any objections?

David

[miyo]

I know this is probably stupid, but why do we have to change village flagging at all? i am fine with it if the AI flags my village. I am also fine if he flags a village before me.I just want to be able to take it back. I don't want to have more options (as in a pref that AI never/always takes village) and i don't want to answer an option that pops up whenever you flag a village. from my point of view, all of your suggestions are, while they solve the 'problem', worse than the current 'problem'.

I agree.

no 'war panel', we are not supposed to have to keep up diplomatic relations with the enemy, we are supposed to be their ally, and never be able to turn on them in the middle of a battle (unless the scenario designer wants you to :) )

I agree.

i think that having new buildings would not be good. fortress; castle is a fortress, why not just have castle give upkeep? oh wait, it already gives you gold! gold mine- this is a skirmishing game. it is not like HoMM, where it is like a war, there are multiple battles in one map, and the buildings are completely separate from the map.

I agree.

- Miyo

[Christophe33]

Okay, why don't we just make people happy:

- make it so the AI will NEVER take over its allies villages. Not if it needs healing. Not if it can gain a strategic advantage in attacking an enemy from the village. Never.

It's simple, and it'd work.

Any objections?

David

Err, I think you should just let things as it is concerning the village. I would really hate loosing a game or some units just because the AI can't use some village . Making the AI a bit more "intelligent" in when and how itt takes allies village would be nice (see my previous post) but not a priority.

[cobretti]

About the villages question.

I think it is good as it is

I mean, the whole question starts with a comment like 'Hey!, an allied unit is taking my villages!. Take your hands off, you little b******!'. The user is guessing his ally is not very loyal, since he's taking a village. Do you think who is complaining never took an allied village? He complains just because these are his villages.

Do your ally take your villages? Retake them He won't attack you.

In my opinion, the matter looks like: 'Hey!, than ***** ally killed the unit I was attacking!. That was my experience!'

I hope it doesn't look too rude, but I find the whole matter very kiddish

[turin]

i, for one, do not think that the chance of hitting should fluctuate all that drastically. most units, except on extreme terrains (which castle is not) have 60, 50 or 40% defense, and it still makes a big difference. why change it?

If a castle is not an extreme terrain (giving a lot of defense) why did people bothered spending 20-50 years or more building them?

Do you really think there were castles in every place where there was a battle going on in this story? if there were a castle were you start on Bay of Pearls, why wouldn't the orcs have taken it over? they are not real castles, i think, but are camps. you know, tents where the people who are not in the battle live, to recall/recruit you say "hey, you in the tent, i'll give you 20 gp to get out here and fight".

[Eponymous-Archon]

they are not real castles, i think, but are camps.

They are what we say they are.

Both viewpoints seem to me to be possible. Surely if they are really castles, then they ought to provide more defense than they do...but they don't have to. We can decide that.

[Dave]

I think it would look cool if the screen faded from dawn to day, day to dusk, dusk to night, and night to dawn between the turns for about half a sec. I would also reallyreallyreally like to see animated terrain. (specifically water)

This'd be kinda cool, if not completely trivial to implement. I'll see what I can do

Also, what do people think about having more exagerated shades of color for day/night?

David

[lala]

yeah, animated terrain... cool, I hope it doesn't slow the game down (make it an option?)

as for dusk, dawn, etc: use shades on terrains like mountains, hills, edges of forest, that rotate and in/decrease during the day? A hard thing to draw this in a convincing way, I think though.

[llogiq]

Animation of innocent (background) objects or terrain could distract the player from the battle that' is going on. On the other hand, animation could make the battleground "come alive" in some sense.

BfW is often compared to commercial games of the early 90's. I recall a game review from that time that mocked a game for it's characters being as inanimate "as a pudding".

Small background animations can add much to the feel of a game. Waves in the water being an obvious example. But also other, not field bound animations like some birds flying over the battlefield (maybe even set off by some story event).

I also vote for making the distincition between day and night stronger. It was first in 0.7 when I realised that the whole game screen was darker by in-game night, and I really appreciate the distinction. Perhaps amplifying the cold, blue tones a bit while softening the warm, red tones could add to making the night more frightening...