New scenario concept: "Worldwar"

[TL]

Some people may have read an idea I posted in this thread about a scenario capable of running multiple independant battles, linked together by a world map on which armies can maneuver between battles. I now have the first version of exactly such a scenario up and running, currently published on the add-ons server under the working title of "Worldwar".

This version is far from finished; there's still very limited documentation, and so far there's no variety in terrain so all battlefields are identical. Moreover, the map won't work properly if you try playing it with fewer than 4 players or with anything other than default era. The basic gameplay appears to be working properly now, though.

Basic rules:
-On turn 1, each player recruits up to 3 additional leaders (if you don't bother recruiting 3, the other slots will be filled with whatever your initial leader is).
-On turn 2, each leader unit has an army unit created on a central strategic "world" map. Army units move 1 hex/turn and their attacks do no damage; when an army attacks another, a separate battlefield area is created and each army's respective leader is transported there.
-Once a battle is joined, it plays out in more or less standard Wesnoth fashion, with each battlefield having its own separate statistics for gold/income/upkeep/etc. In effect each battlefield is a separate MP match being played out simultaneously; players can switch at will between which of their commander units is recruiting (since Wesnoth is not good at handling multiple units with the ability to recruit).
-The one very significant difference between this and standard MP is that additional commanders can join the fray at any time by "attacking" the hex with the battle in progress. Having multiple leaders in the same battle does not give you any extra gold to recruit with, but being able to recruit and fight with two leaders instead of one is a decisive advantage if used properly.
-Once joined, a battle continues until only one side has any commanders left on the field, at which point the surviving commanders are returned to the center board to continue maneuvering and attacking. Any leftover enemy units are automatically wiped out. Victorious units gain a small XP bonus for each enemy lost, and are stored in the recall list of the winning side's leader for use in future battles.

Known issues:
-Gameplay is fairly slow. Since the initial playtests I have added extra recruiting areas somewhat closer to the center of the battlefield, so hopefully battles should finish a little faster now.
-If a battle is won when you have multiple leaders on the board, it is unclear which leader they are joined to. Any suggestions on the best way to handle it? I'm thinking either closest leader (may be ambiguous on ties, and possibly laggy) or else the leader that recruited/recalled them (still creates ambiguous situations if that leader is no longer alive).
-I can't swear to the quality of the map balance; the constraints of having to create a map that can be fought from any two opposing sides, and can have additional recruiting units or even extra sides entering at any time and from any edge, makes conventional map balancing difficult (and I don't claim to be a real expert on map balancing in the first place).
-No variety in strategic terrain. The idea is to have the center board carpeted with a patchwork of different terrain types that would have their own battlefield maps, but at present there's only one battlefield map. Mapmaking is not my strong point, so if anyone wants to pitch in on making maps I'd greatly appreciate it.

(Made some progress on the last point: the current version now has a total of 4 different terrains with their own maps. The more the better, though, so if anyone wants to volunteer a terrain map to add I'd still be grateful).

[suvorov]

attempt to load_game: attempt to deserialize unit failed... or something like that.


I like the idea TL but having trouble getting it working, have tried in default and age of heroes eras

[suvorov]

ok we figured it out... we were trying to play with only 2 players leaving the 3rd and 4th players empty slots, but you cant do that.


I wondered why I dont get a defensive bonus for sitting in a town and letting them start a battle with me.. wouldnt the defender have more advantage...

Also I think random maps would be awesome, although I dont know how you could code for that.

[enclave]

the idea is great itself..

i think it would have a big future at least in the single player mode..

speaking about the leaders where u mentioned that its unclear which units will go to which leader: If we had more colors, you could make every leader have different color which would also mean that its different race controlled by local player (3 races of same player). In case you still want it to be same gold for all of them, if you are common to coding (which i guess you are if u managed to create 3 leaders of 1 race etc.) then you could make the gold changed for every of 3 races if one of the leaders of 3 races recruited...

my english sucks, forgive it..

If i was creating, if i could and was willing to create your project, i would dissallow income on the battlefield (village income 0), and forbid recruiting.. I would give gold from the land.. like taxes.. allowing leaders to move from land to land.. with their own recruits.. which you could exchange (assign between leaders)

Maybe therefore every land would have one special income like woods, stone, iron, magic sources(crystals or something).. from which you could make bows, mages etc.. but this idea is too far-going.. and maybe not exactly what u wanted. So dwarfs would ahve problems to attack elvish forests.. elves would hardly get dwarvish mines.. humans would get less profit from cavelands.. too fagoing, you may forget what i just wrote..
but few upper ideas are not so bad? maybe..? i have too many thoughts on the theme... ask me if interested..

[nataS]

I played it like 5 times now, but most games got broken because they are too long. And one time someone says he was too confused.

Maybe three instead of four armies and a map for three instead of four players would help. And I think the battle maps can be made smaller (then) too.

Also a right click menu help file and/or step by step notes on how to play in between the first few turns would help.

Let me know if you want help in any of this.

[TL]

ok we figured it out... we were trying to play with only 2 players leaving the 3rd and 4th players empty slots, but you cant do that.

Yeah, a known shortcoming. Next update I'll have this fixed.

I wondered why I dont get a defensive bonus for sitting in a town and letting them start a battle with me.. wouldnt the defender have more advantage...

I agree that this would be a good idea. Not only is the current behavior slightly counterintuitive, it also puts players 3 & 4 at something of a disadvantage since they can't do anything to stop the player to the left of them from contesting their village.

Hmm... I'm thinking maybe the defender could start with control over a bunch of (perhaps all of?) the villages on the village battle map itself.

I played it like 5 times now, but most games got broken because they are too long. And one time someone says he was too confused.

Maybe three instead of four armies and a map for three instead of four players would help. And I think the battle maps can be made smaller (then) too.

I don't think it needs be that long (well, in comparison to other long-haul scenarios) or that confusing; I suspect both problems may be cleared up when and if people start getting used to the scenario. Nonetheless I agree that variants with fewer players/armies would be a good idea.

Aaaaactually... now that it no longer chokes if you set it to have fewer than 4 players, it wouldn't be difficult to have it automatically adjust the center board into a suitable configuration if you have fewer than 4 players. Similarly, I could make it so that everybody is limited to however many commanders player 1 recruits.

Also a right click menu help file and/or step by step notes on how to play in between the first few turns would help.

Not sure a right-click option would be the way to go. Many players (particularly inexperienced ones) are probably not inclined to look for right-click options when they get stumped by something. I agree that some form of in-game documentation is definitely called for, though. I was thinking along the lines of labels (though they'd have to get refreshed every turn or so in case someone clears them). I suppose I could have the labels direct players to the right-click option.

Maybe therefore every land would have one special income like woods, stone, iron, magic sources(crystals or something).. from which you could make bows, mages etc.. but this idea is too far-going.. and maybe not exactly what u wanted. So dwarfs would ahve problems to attack elvish forests.. elves would hardly get dwarvish mines.. humans would get less profit from cavelands.. too fagoing, you may forget what i just wrote..
but few upper ideas are not so bad? maybe..? i have too many thoughts on the theme... ask me if interested..

Not a bad concept, but the gameplay is consciously patterned after standard Wesnoth play as much as possible. If anyone else wants to take the concept and run with it, feel free to use whatever you want out of my WML (if you can follow it, anyhow).

By and by I might start looking to spice things up a bit myself, but I don't want to make things too complex since people are already having some difficulty figuring the scenario out (which puzzles me since the meat of it is modeled directly on standard Wesnoth MP, but then again I made it so I'm probably not the best judge). People have expressed a desire to see possession of strategic terrain become more significant; one possibility may be to have an open-ended recruit list based on what terrain types you have access to (once more terrain types get filled in, of course). This would be a long, long ways off though, and would really be more of a separate scenario.



Thanks for the feedback, all. I'll be working on fixing things up over the next few days, so look for an improved version soon.

[nataS]

[TL]

I have uploaded a new version. The battlefield maps have been scaled down to a somewhat more reasonable size, and starting keeps have been pushed in a few hexes, so hopefully battles should be a bit faster paced now. I think the point should be made that the concept is not so much a longer than normal scenario as it is a shorter than normal campaign. Suffice to say it's still not a quick game.

[St.John]

you should look at the high seas
might give you some ideas
capable of running multiple battles at once
only one leader though

[Tyder]

For some reason the armys can't attack each other... I downloaded the game today for the record but no matter what I do I can't attack another army and start the battle... any Idea why?

[TL]

Ack, you're right. Old versions of the game wouldn't let you remove the last attack from a unit, but it seems that no longer holds true. I just uploaded a version where it should be fixed (0.15).

[Grand Marshal Aditya]

Great idea...Just think...we could set up a huge tournament...

[Hushpuppy]

Is this scenario still downloadable? I didn't see it when I went to load "addons" from within BfW.

Thanks.

[Aethaeryn]

Is this scenario still downloadable? I didn't see it when I went to load "addons" from within BfW.

Thanks.

http://www.wesnoth.org/addons/1.4/

Search for "Worldwar" on this page and note that it is for Wesnoth 1.4.