What can improve strategic multiplayer ?

[SKAcz]

Hi,
I wrote some ideas already to other topics, the rest based on games with my chessplayers friends with which we trying now use wesnoth as environment for playing strategic multiplayer I will write here. We playing often with shroud and fog of war to be more close simulation of real war decisions in empires.

Motto : "Strategy multiplayer game is close to be simulation of decisions in real historical situations, the idea is that wars are leading to divide the world resources. If game one against one is like a medieval battle, multiplayer is more like a world war. "

I have to thx all for feature that chat is stored like part of game and when replayed game, negotiations we can see !

NEW :
(map skipping)
Sometimes I have big explored map (investment is sometimes high, but many wars was won thanks to intelligence service informations).
Always when some combat is realized somewhere on the map the map is centered on this point. We playing using time, and when I have not so much time I have to try sometimes invest every second when other players moving to study my situation and planning my next move.

I.So its possible to switch off skipping/center map to any combat runned ?
II. Its possible to add some switch to center it only to combat including my unit ?

[SKAcz]

Wesnoth server.
Its very good that here exists also wesnoth server, where can meet players or play when dont have public IP to host the game or seeking new friends.
(unique names)
What could very improve this environment is
add some database of nick - password
for registered users.
Because it can serve as authorization that man X is man X and not man Y,
and also when somebody losing connection , nobody else can take his nick.
It also will allow in future maybe log some history of games player played on wesnoth server, so is more easy to select opponents of similar power.
Also this way we can recognize who is newbie and who is hard core player and who for example had big number of disconnected games.

In present we prefer play in group of good known friends, but of course we opened to all. On wesnoth server often somebody joined to play with us and then soon disconnected and for us it was only waste of time, so in present we prefer often play with friends we know or on which we have icq, mobile phones etc. to be able save game and wait for continue in game for example, when we know what happened and from which reason who disconnected.

[Yogibear]

You described some of the problems you face on the multiplayer server and suggest a couple of ideas to solve them.

Passwords, authorization and statistics have been proposed and discussed before. Authorization has not been realized yet, mainly due to the implementation effort that is needed for it.

Statistics don't carry reliable information, since we can't say yet why someone disconnected.

If you search on the forum, you will find some threads dedicated to this.

You also presented your own solution for it: Keep to people you know. Actually, that's what most long time wesnoth players do (and find totally sufficient).

[SKAcz]

(fast recruit key)
In multiplayer is unusefull the alt+r recall menu,
here could be added instead something like "repeat last recruit" this could rapidly decrease lost time in game where every secs is important.

[Soliton]

(fast recruit key)
In multiplayer is unusefull the alt+r recall menu,
here could be added instead something like "repeat last recruit" this could rapidly decrease lost time in game where every secs is important.

ctrl+alt+r

[SKAcz]

I tried ctrl+alt+r in both stable 1.2.8 and last dev wesnoth-1.3.14a and it do nothing only works ctrl+r+number+enter what is too long combination

[Clonkinator]

I tried ctrl+alt+r in both stable 1.2.8 and last dev wesnoth-1.3.14a and it do nothing only works ctrl+r+number+enter what is too long combination

Change the shortcut then.

[SKAcz]

Alternative victory condions :
(some can be implemented very easy and can make game much more interresting)

[Gold Win]
Can be very easy to add some check box option like : "who will reach number of gold ... is winner.
This can allows to win some very loooong games where many units and its only of question of time when will win player with much better economic income.
With Gold Win option he can win much sooner by using much beter income than opponent(s) which sitting and only defending and slowly losing.

Very interresting is some second aditive checkbox option
public gold account to all every X turns,
which can work like server will every X turns public who has how much gold. This can especially in multiplayer show who how good/bad it is on it and making game interresting.

More sophisticated is version
[Gold Point win]
which will allows to buy points for gold and will win who will reach some number of points, the difference compared to simple Gold Win is that
if u will invest into points sooner then later when Your income will be negative, You will not lose points, especially together with games with fixed turn lenght this can lead to very interresting shorter multiplayer games. Can be allowed to buy one point for example simly for one gold, or for G golds.

[Weeksy]

it can be done in WML. Granted, it would have to be put into a scenario/era, but that kind of thing could be fairly easily done.

[SKAcz]

Thinking on opponent's time :

often when i have big exploration in turns into disadvantage, because when some combat happens somewhere on second end of map,
the game skipping and scrolling into this part of map,
its possible add some switch off option of auto-skipping and scrolling map to combat especially when 2 enemies army in figt, i am not interrested in it, i prefer thinbk on my positions and i am enough happy to look on result later. But this auto-moving of map is really annoying [/b]

[SKAcz]

Conclusion for now:
All seems works perfect now for strategic multiplayer (game where goal is war for resources and final state dividing it based on how succesfull who was, everybody vs everybody typically) this way: we playing WESNOTH 1.10 with NO LUCK ERA for like 20 rounds, some fast time control, fog of war,
then score winning. Game about 2-3hours length. This fit the gold win idea, because wesnoth nice way measures gold, units as gold cost (even better if hp less then percentually) and income for 5 points of score for every 1 gold of income.

As one said:
"In the world where poker is sometimes too random and chess too 1 vs 1 and loong variant calculating game, Wesnoth coming as perfect strategy field of many options to explore, and maybe the alternative taking best from both extremes ..."

Thanks ALL who helped realize it !!! And happy christmas and new year!
PS. some maps we do for strategic multiplayer (I like nice (to be like real country some a bit, or phantasy one nice, where peoples would like to live) asymetric maps, but with equal chances (some compensation has every start position) even if it is not easy to create and sometimes somebody wins from every positions, because is able find right strategy to use maximum from opportunities:) ) can be usefull even for other variants, You welcome visit our web pages where we publish it and use it.
http://strateg.ic.cz/Wesnoth
Not always in every map every position is for every race,
even if we try, but we often play that everybody can take position + race which he think will like to play and always some positions are universal for random race.
Good asymetric map requires more creative thinking of players in using unique properties of every part of map, and open space of more opportunity windows to catch Your chance.

The only way how could be improved wesnoth is toimprove random map generator by adding
parametr to create more small castles to recruit units.
Often i do it manually, adding many 2-3 squares keeps.
This adding into game possibility to moving hero on map instead of sitting in castle on same place whole game, what add into game another dimension of possible strategies.

Well here is second thing which could be in future improved in wesnoth:
Solving security of hiden information in fog of war game.
Now server sends to clients (players pc) info and save of everything,
if somebody would like to cheat, he can run second wesnoth and load last save and view what any opponent only should see. Sure most of players dont cheat. Or we assume they dont. Especially when its game for fun only. But to make game professional: Here should be possibility of mode, where during the game to players client is send only what he can see, and all info is only on server and only after end of game is everybody can see whole record of game. Same way like in Starcraft or so.

PS. Wesnoth is definitelly one from best strategy turn-based computer games ever and developers and designers and users also did great work from the times when i offered adding clocks into game in version like 1 or 2 Wesnoth showing that open source like idea and cooperation of interrested peoples can work. In this is big hope for future. Big example, that things can be done to make many peoples happy. To allows them explore new problems, learning english or strategic and tactic thinking or simply having fun from tense game with friends thru internet sitting even somewhere on other part of earth.