The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

[Truper]

Mabuse: insulting those who disagree with you is not a good strategy, if your intention is to provoke serious discussion. "Dr. Spock", as you call it, is an exploit that is very contrary to the spirit of the scenario, and that is why I, and other players, object to it. Having rum raided in Quati magically appear on your ship in Frodom to be sold the same turn you obtain it violates the spirit of the scenario in a way that a raid for gold does not, for several reasons.

Let's suppose you obtained the rum by honest trade. You'd have no choice but to sail your ship to the port at which you want to sell it. Perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the scenario: ships moving from port to port engaging in trade, with goods obtained by whatever means. Oh, and by the way, Trade means moving goods from where they are in supply, to where they are in demand. A player exploiting "Dr. Spock", on the other hand, has no need to transport any goods - and therefore there is no reason at all why the goods should gain in value - the place where they were obtained is effectively the same place at which they are to be sold, so supply and demand balance themselves without effort, leaving nothing for a Trader to do, or make a profit on.

There is nothing to be done about the fact that gold in Wesnoth is simply a pool of cash, accessible from anywhere, but there are things which could be done about "Dr. Spock", making the two problems very different in kind.

And yes, there are risks and tradeoffs to be considered if you intend to employ the Dr. Spock strategy, but that does nothing to mend the gaping hole that it leaves in the spirit of the game.

[Mabuse]

Mabuse, when you get a chance go through the cfg files (yes even the macros/ ) and find all the [scroll_to] wml and add the line check_fogged=true. This will prevent players from seeing events with a scroll_to in it underneath fog.

Or you can grab these files and replace them in your v4 (replace files of the same name, 4 of them in the macros dir):

nice. thats very helpful.

[TL]

Mabuse, I have to say your "the player should adapt to the game, the game shouldn't adapt to the player" stance to border on arrogance. I enjoy the scenario and like to think I am reasonably decent at it, particularly on the original, but that doesn't mean that it can't be improved. The game very well can, and to a certain extent definitely should adapt to what players want from it.

The scenario falls somewhat short of its potential because it exists as a large hodgepodge of diverse features with relatively little cohesion. The original High Seas scenario was a comparatively short game with limited, clearly defined objectives; on the whole it was very boardgame-like in feel. On 30 or 40 point settings, it worked very well--it had plenty of problems, but generally the game would get over before they'd have much of a chance to surface.

Now you've expanded the game and added many improvements, but there are a number of leftover problems from the original which have been left unaddressed and even in some cases gotten worse. For example, sea monsters and enemy ships used to be both a blessing and a curse--they'd get in your way and slow you down, and could do serious damage to your ship and crew, but the experience and victory points you'd get from them made it worth the risk to try fighting them. Even if you brought the man-o-wars down on your head, it was possible to fight them off if you had a good defensive position, and you'd at least be getting plenty of victory points out of them. And if you go down in the end... so what? Unless you're absolutely suicidal, by the time you go down you've still gone through most of the game.

With the focus shifted to the long game, none of this holds true anymore. At higher VP settings, individual VP awards become largely irrelevant--all that matters is getting the heaps and heaps of gold to amass the army and navy you need to rapidly hit the higher VP targets. Until then enemy ships are simply an obstacle to be avoided at all costs, which means that engaging sea monsters is a tremendous risk since they can lure ships to you. Worse, in the latest version the melee attacks that ships have means it is no longer feasible to fight them off in the first place unless you have a very large fleet (which you're not going to, in the beginning). Yes, it was silly beating ships to death with clubs, but as you yourself just pointed out, gameplay must trump realism.

In the old version, the first 25 turns basically were the game. After that there may be a brief endgame period, but by that point you're probably in the home stretch gunning for the VP goal. At the higher VP settings, however, for all practical purposes the real game doesn't even start until turn 25 or later, since you need a serious fleet and army to even think about competing. Now the first few hours of gameplay largely consist of trying to hide from enemy ships (which means hiding from basically all enemies on the world map) while you try to get enough gold to fight them. True, you can still choose to play with old VP settings, but you're still left with the ships-o-doom running around that you can no longer afford to melee. I'm not sure that most players really view this as an improvement over the original; yes, players can learn to work around it, but why should they have to?

[Mabuse]

"Dr. Spock", as you call it, is an exploit that is very contrary to the spirit of the scenario, and that is why I, and other players, object to it.

Let's suppose you obtained the rum by honest trade. You'd have no choice but to sail your ship to the port at which you want to sell it. Perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the scenario

well, i disagree here. however you define "spirit of the Scenario" is not my definition.

The things is: "Dr Spock" doesnt make trading use- or senseless, as said trading is extremely useful, especially later in the game

The Sense of raiding is another, and the good thing is, it can be done independently of the Flagship. this adds much more Spirit to the SCN than wasting Rounds doing nothing.

thats the way the scenario worked all the time, btw, and you can be sure that it stys like this, and in my games i will always adapt to the game, and not the game adapts to me, to fit in my vision of scenario spirit.

Keep your units busy and try to get maximum Profit, build fleet, occupy cities or production plants and crush other Players. Thats the Spirit of the Scenario (for me).

tbh, it was anyway more like you were new to the game and lost, and due to that all was [censored], including my strategy, first it was bad that ai-ships are drawn to people if they fight seasnakes, additionally its [censored] that you dont see things if you havent put man on the rigging, and of course its so important that the flagship is doing nothing as long a raid is going on or something -

just becasue you CANT do it otherwise, becasue you raid with your ship-crew
man, just adapt to the scn, and not otherwise, its not smart to raid with shipcrew, and if you dont raid with shipcrew, you wil find out that you can do things with your ship while the raid is going on

[Mabuse]

I enjoy the scenario and like to think I am reasonably decent at it, particularly on the original, but that doesn't mean that it can't be improved.

The scenario falls somewhat short of its potential because it exists as a large hodgepodge of diverse features with relatively little cohesion. The original High Seas scenario was a comparatively short game with limited, clearly defined objectives; on the whole it was very boardgame-like in feel. On 30 or 40 point settings, it worked very well--it had plenty of problems, but generally the game would get over before they'd have much of a chance to surface.

Now you've expanded the game and added many improvements, but there are a number of leftover problems from the original which have been left unaddressed and even in some cases gotten worse. For example, sea monsters and enemy ships used to be both a blessing and a curse--they'd get in your way and slow you down, and could do serious damage to your ship and crew, but the experience and victory points you'd get from them made it worth the risk to try fighting them. Even if you brought the man-o-wars down on your head, it was possible to fight them off if you had a good defensive position, and you'd at least be getting plenty of victory points out of them. And if you go down in the end... so what? Unless you're absolutely suicidal, by the time you go down you've still gone through most of the game.

With the focus shifted to the long game, none of this holds true anymore. At higher VP settings, individual VP awards become largely irrelevant--all that matters is getting the heaps and heaps of gold to amass the army and navy you need to rapidly hit the higher VP targets.

Until then enemy ships are simply an obstacle to be avoided at all costs, which means that engaging sea monsters is a tremendous risk since they can lure ships to you. Worse, in the latest version the melee attacks that ships have means it is no longer feasible to fight them off in the first place unless you have a very large fleet (which you're not going to, in the beginning). Yes, it was silly beating ships to death with clubs, but as you yourself just pointed out, gameplay must trump realism.

In the old version, the first 25 turns basically were the game. After that there may be a brief endgame period, but by that point you're probably in the home stretch gunning for the VP goal. At the higher VP settings, however, for all practical purposes the real game doesn't even start until turn 25 or later, since you need a serious fleet and army to even think about competing. Now the first few hours of gameplay largely consist of trying to hide from enemy ships (which means hiding from basically all enemies on the world map) while you try to get enough gold to fight them. True, you can still choose to play with old VP settings, but you're still left with the ships-o-doom running around that you can no longer afford to melee. I'm not sure that most players really view this as an improvement over the original; yes, players can learn to work around it, but why should they have to?

1.) you can still play the original

2) you can still play low VP settings because as you have recogbnized, the old game were the first 25 turns, on higher VP settings the game will go beyond that - if you feel the first player raiding a plantation and killing two seasnakes (and lure all MOW during and then beat them to death) shall win, ok, then its ok - for me its just boring

3) in a longer game, the game doesnt strat at turn 25, the first 25 turns are of the same importance, they are just part of the game - the game offers many possibilities

4) i find it extremely nice and fun to sneak through enemy units avoid their line of sight, and if it happens that you engage one nevertheless, you have to flee and dont know if MOW show up or not, and if they show up they can chase you.
(additionally its still possible to beat a MOW to death as described in "Headhunterstyle")

being able to beat ships to death was contradicting the sense of seafighting, additionally dont much has changed anyway, yu can stil beat every ship to death, but now you cant do it every round - (how dumb was that anyway ?)

i wonder which game you enjoyed: "hey theres a "dangerous" mow ?" np i club it to death - huu - there the next .. np i club it to death .. and after you clubbed 5 MOWS to death you have won the Scenario - wtf ??

as mentioned i find it extremely enjoyful to avoid enemies and the tension if a pirate show up then you have to change your plans, becasue you know "THEY will come for you"

and its not "whatever comes, i club it to death", thats just plain, mow werent meant to be no danger, they always should be a danger



seriously in the end i dont know where the problem is, you can stil play the original, so there absolutely no point anyway, i enjoy the gameplay as it is a lot, and yes, as long you are too weak you have to avoid the ai, and i am glad that you cant beat the MOWs (and every other ship too !!) simply to death without taking any retaliation, because what is this for a stupid strategy: engage seasnake at all costs, to lure MOW to you to club em to death (which was possible without any problems)

if you wanna play this then you can still play the original, i admit that my MOD may be harder now, i find that way more entertaining - its realy cool to scout with sight 12 and then select a way, and when you see mows are in your way then you curse because of the time you lose to avoid them -

i love it

[Mabuse]

Let's suppose you obtained the rum by honest trade. You'd have no choice but to sail your ship to the port at which you want to sell it. Perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the scenario

The things is: "Dr Spock" doesnt make trading use- or senseless, as said trading is extremely useful, especially later in the game

btw, and of course not only in the end of the game -

lets maximize it out, while your raiders go in for some quick cash, your flagship spends the gained money into ships, but always keeps 400$ to do honest trade with it. == $$$
your raiding team seeks the next location to plunder in the meanwhile

raid AND trade at same time. Muahaha - thats something i wil try out !

[TL]

thats the way the scenario worked all the time, btw,

Debatable. It's true that raid goods have always teleported in this way, but the actual impact on gameplay always seemed to be smaller in the older versions. Originally, the game basically lasted through two raids and then you're into the endgame. Given that limited timeframe, trying to split up your crew across the whole map was a tremendous risk--even if you did it right off the bat and got away with it, the fact that your original raiding crew is now stranded on the other side of the map would generally offset the extra profits you'd made, since it's unlikely you would have enough leftovers to operate as an independent fighting force given the limited money you had to work with. You just didn't have the time and resources to build up a lot in the way of truly independent groups; you could get away with spreading out a bit, but it was chancy and limited in what you could accomplish that way.

I don't have any objection to the idea of independent groups, per se. On the whole I think it's a good thing, but the original scenario wasn't really designed to support it; while you've expanded things somewhat, parts of the game system are still rather clumsy and unintuitive due to the fact that you're trying to get it to do things that it wasn't designed for.

(i wonder which game you enjoyed: "hey theres a "dangerous" mow ?" np i club it to death - huu - there the next .. np i club it to death .. and after you clubbed 5 MOWS to death you have won the Scenario - wtf ??

More likely, after you have clubbed 5 MOWs to death, you have 20 out of 40 VPs and a battered ship and crew, while the other players have about as many VPs plus hundreds of gold in raiding profits. You were not exactly better off if the MOWs went for you--but you weren't all that bad off, since you'd at least get something to show for it. Now all you get if the MOWs show up is lots and lots of lost time, which can easily be disastrous for you even if you get away without a scratch.

[Mabuse]

1.)
Debatable. It's true that raid goods have always teleported in this way, but the actual impact on gameplay always seemed to be smaller in the older versions. Originally, the game basically lasted through two raids and then you're into the endgame. Given that limited timeframe, trying to split up your crew across the whole map was a tremendous risk--even if you did it right off the bat and got away with it, the fact that your original raiding crew is now stranded on the other side of the map would generally offset the extra profits you'd made, since it's unlikely you would have enough leftovers to operate as an independent fighting force given the limited money you had to work with. You just didn't have the time and resources to build up a lot in the way of truly independent groups; you could get away with spreading out a bit, but it was chancy and limited in what you could accomplish that way.

I don't have any objection to the idea of independent groups, per se. On the whole I think it's a good thing, but the original scenario wasn't really designed to support it; while you've expanded things somewhat, parts of the game system are still rather clumsy and unintuitive due to the fact that you're trying to get it to do things that it wasn't designed for.
-------------------------
2.)
More likely, after you have clubbed 5 MOWs to death, you have 20 out of 40 VPs and a battered ship and crew, while the other players have about as many VPs plus hundreds of gold in raiding profits. You were not exactly better off if the MOWs went for you--but you weren't all that bad off, since you'd at least get something to show for it. Now all you get if the MOWs show up is lots and lots of lost time, which can easily be disastrous for you even if you get away without a scratch.

1.) ok, i basically agree with you.
Let me just point out a few things:
there are only 8 Production PLants, so if 4 Player rid all 2 Times (a Plant) then yu cant trade anymore. Still its of course a HUGE advanatge to get Money from 16 sold resource Units.

A way more solid way of playing is that the raiding crew engages after the first raid a Temple, and/or secures a Production Plant also, while the flagship sells off the goods, buys immediatly new Resources (400 gold), invest the rest in Ships (keeping some 200-300 gold at hand maybe) and go down to the city which is occupied/guarded by the Raiding Team

if there is not much danger the raiding team can then engage a Temple (or another production site if there is something in reach - to destroy as many as possible), while the Flaghsip sells off the resources, stocks up the goods again form the plant here, rest (leaving some rest of course) goes in ships again.

then the flaghsip and fleet goes trading, the raiders go raiding, trading and keeping at least a working producution plant (for yourself) is very important, a fleet is always needed to fight enemy fleets that probably block ports you wanna go to.

thats a possible and solid way to play
hmm, thatwas somehow off the point ... what did i want to say anyway ?


2.) basically you only need to land your LEADER. he can maintain itself. the flagship can run, run, run, thats true, but the raiding team dont need to lose time nessessarily -

sure its true you have to adopt your plans sometimes, i never managed it to raid the bank on ganton in early game, every time i land there there is a cuttle, or in case another player lured it already away, for some random reason MOW showed up -

sure then you have to forfeit your plan raiding the bank, and you lost some time, but that will not cost you the game, really not. thats just some fun, and you have to adapt to your situation.

btw, and its not only the MOW, its other players ships as well.
The Headhunterstyle is extremely deadly, and will destroy your ship in just one round, i think its at least a bit fair that you get the chance to retaliate while your ship is attacked, and of course also MOW should be able to do that.

so i can realyl tell you: i was chased by MOW over the half map, in one game i even lost my flagship (even if i ran initially, but then as i wanted to get to a dock selling my resources i wnted to go with the head through the wall but using Flagship without leader means, that you cant use PILOT

so you can easily die, and my flagship sunk, unfortuanately without having sold the resources before (becasue i refused to sell at a dock which would have given only 2/3 of the highest profit)

so i also lost to MOW and i am realyl careful now, and really like it, for me its part of the initial game, to be careful - you can only dare to act more openly with more firepower when you can sink a seasnake in one turn -

stil mows are the things you want to avoid since even if you kil them, your galleons may take 10 rounds until repaired, speaking of this, at a certain time it could make sense again to supply flagship with thugs, to be able to destroy a MOW at night, with small losses and damage

all in all, yeah i know that it may sucks if you get pounded by ai, but somebody is always the one who gets a beating or will be hunted at least and lose some time - so i suggest you do all so that you arent the one - sure you never can avoid ai units completely, then it is most important to kill ASAP, and move on with the plan (as mentioned once the leader unboared (and the flagship got cargo (which can be also bought on the way though), you flagship can already search for a way back to the other port


NOTE:
btw, with the improvement from GOVERNOR, i think the game will be a lot better, since this was an issue that many players complained about. i am glad if this will help to fix the scrolling problem

this will be in any case incorporated into the V5

[TL]

2.) basically you only need to land your LEADER. he can maintain itself.

Ok, so at this point you're proposing that right at the start of the game, you can sail to a port and get enough crew to do all of the following:

-Run a raid with your leader
-Man your flagship
-Load up enough thugs to reliably kill MOWs with virtually no damage or losses

Sorry, I don't buy that. Even in the old version with no melee retaliation from MOWs, fighting off even a single MOW in the first 15 turns took a huge chunk out of your resources. Once you got some raid profits it became more doable, but even then it was hardly a surefire win.

the flagship can run, run, run, thats true, but the raiding team dont need to lose time nessessarily -

Yes, but your flagship is still losing time running around like a headless chicken. Worse, your ship's ability to get around is going to be hampered without your leader aboard to pilot/navigate for you, and you're not going to have much in the way of fighting capability on your ship if you debarked a reasonably sized raid group--if you get ambushed by anything you may very well be screwed. Since sea monsters all have submerge and flyers can often strike from outside of your vision range, you pretty much have to memorize a lot of monsters' positions (or cheat and look at the .cfg to see their starting positions ). If nothing else, that just makes the game artificially difficult for newbies.

all in all, yeah i know that it may sucks if you get pounded by ai, but somebody is always the one who gets a beating or will be hunted at least and lose some time - so i suggest you do all so that you arent the one

Having a player (or even two!) arbitrarily put out of the running early does not do much to improve my playing experience, even when it's not happening to me.

Bottom line: you did not like the nature of the game before, where the focus of the game was on going after VP targets more than it was on earning gold to build up an army and navy (not that you could get a navy going in the original version anyhow), so you changed it. You adapted the game to your playing style. This is all to the good and is to be commended. Bravo! My hat is off to you, sir.

Now, however, when some players point out that they dislike parts of your interpretation, you heap scorn on them and say the game doesn't have to adapt to them--even after you adapted it to you. Isn't that a little bit hypocritical? You can rightfully say "I made this version to my tastes, so if you want a different version you're free to make one for yourself" and I can respect that. But don't condemn them just because they like different things about the High Seas concept than you do.

[Slann]

Mabuse, you did better upgrades, but on many ways you change the gam style.

() You can recruit more ships, to make a naval battle. The map was a RPG, it would be nice if you change it.

() enemy is now more powerfull. I dont know how you become to kill one man of war, because at the start, if one see you, all will follow you. All will follow you until your death. You cant scape from then. And now enemys like pirates do more damage, so is impossible take earth without the half of your units (or without a ship less).

() You dont ask me about a team game .
On other ways, you made a good map

[Mabuse]

...

lets make it short, i really dont know what problems you have with MOWS, at least i am fine with it. In the old version they were no challenge at all anyway, now they are just about right in my opinion.

newbies wont rock in this MOD, so what ?


@Slann: The Mod will not change. Also you are wrong about "you cant escape the MOWS" - you can always escape them, if you cant escape : then it is just your fault

[Mabuse]

Since sea monsters all have submerge and flyers can often strike from outside of your vision range, you pretty much have to memorize a lot of monsters' positions (or cheat and look at the .cfg to see their starting positions )

lol, btw, that made me laugh.

its no problem running into a submerged seasnake.

the thing is: if you are dumb, you stay and fight it, if you are smart you leave it alone next round, you can always escape, and it will not see you anymore. that easy.

[Dante_Mephisto]

Hey Mabuse, I just played a very entertaining round of High Seas, V3...
I noticed a bug. It was highly entertaining!
Basically, I was in Trutt at turn 13 or so. Another player came sailing into sight from the north... he was running from a sea creep and happened to kill it. I intervened and sunk him, but his captain came along and went right into the plantation I was raiding. I happened to have had some very bad luck the turn before and end up losing my leader and the few remaining units I had there.
So basically, he only had his leader, and I only had a ship with a crew of ruffians on it.
We made peace, and he boarded my ship. I didn't attack him, he didn't attack me. He then began navigating my ship.

That's when we noticed the bug.

He couldn't move, but he could spam navigate. He'd hit navigate, and it'd had to the ship's movement, but he could do it all over again. Before the end of his turn, my ship had 441 MP. It could fly.

The plan was then to go around doing warp-speed trading, and ship assassinations if we saw a player weak - we could always retreat to a shipyard and heal, right? It also slowed my comp down majorly, but it was worth it.
Bug!

[Mabuse]

thx for reporting -

coop isnt really planned, so an enemy (or even allied) Player should never be able to do this (navigate an enemy ship)

teams can be set for sharing sight and support each other (without being an obstacle for each other also) atm

[Slann]

Mabuse, can you say to me on which line and macro you put the number of fencers that board you?