Conquest 2.0 - on 1.8 server

[Mabuse]

ok, version 2.4.1 is up on the 1.8.x server

1.6.5 is no longer supported (and i recommend not to play the version i uploaded in the old thread since it contains a bug)


ok, version 2.4.1 is recommened

1)
it fixes a bug which ddidnt gave the workers and militia of all racs 0% balde resistance.
so dwarven militia is stronger than intended, not to mention the skeleton militia

2)
beside this there were some small gfx changes concerning the dwarves (all infantry (except lieutenant) is now guardsman-line, the 20 gold unit of the dwarves is a giant spider)

3)
small gf change for drake general, its now an inferno drake instead of an armageddon,
because the new drake gfx look a ton cooler than the old ones.

4)
now there are two game modes:
STANDARD MODE and REALM MODE.
in standard all villages get distributed randomly, as we all know it.
Players income is also slightly higher for the later players.

In Realm Mode Players can select their starting REGION. Of course Regions are not equal, this is a bit related due to higher staring gold of the weaker regions, in esence it is now balanced in a way that (assumed nothign wil change) all players have the same gold on turn 3.

example: wesnoth has the value of 17 gold (7 cities, 9 income), wesnoth starting gold is 17.
on turn 3 it has: 17 + 17 + 17 = 51

aethenwood has only a value of 9 (4 cities, 5 income), but its starting gold is 33.
on turn 3 it has: 33 + 9 + 9 = 51

so theres plenty of time and military to conquer Blackwater.
(and be ahead again)

so its related a bit, but i dont claim it is balanced in any way. CONQUEST ISNT BALANCED.
However, since its an FFA, players may get away with slightly weaker positions.

The remaining Cities will get filled up with AI Militia (is unable to move and will just defend)

The only Maps that support REALM MODE are: Wesnoth Map and Crusade Map.
I know these MPas, they have a good size so Realm Mode CAN work.

Europe Map is simply too small to offer 6 Players a place to live, we have
Turkey, Britain, Russia, Spain, Germany .. and then ?

i dont know what i shall give the 6th player. if i give away france then west is crowded (and quick bloody battle), if i give ukraine then immediate war in east, if i give sweden and itals to 6th then germany has weak potion and also immediate naval battle.
so europe isnt suited.

for Jel Wan Island i have no reference so far, if alda wants me to make Jel Wan support Realm Mode he should post 6 Regions which may be distributed among the Players. ( i just need the regions, the starting gold and stuff i can evaluate then, n.p.)


Edit:
The idea that players can "select" their RACE was abandoned since its OP then.
of course players will chose races that have flyers, and then there will be flyers everywhere, but the starting points for flyers-cities are balanced .. so i just .. abandoned this.

[ViK]

I played the realm stuff on crusades and though interesting, I am not sure if it would work well. Here are issues that will cause problems.

1. Fog is pretty much standard these days. With Fog on, and you limited to 1 region, you wont see a lot of action. I ended up waiting a long time to see any action.
2. First mover advantage. I think first mover has very good advantage. If he takes Seljuks, he can very quickly grab most of the north east. (may face lil resistance for Georgia but he has better chance)
3. Region Balance. Arabia has 4 vills and 6 gold bonus. While jerusalem has 7 vills and 9 gold bonus, plus good chance to take ascalon, cyprus, can fight or make a deal for armenia and edessa with who ever has Seljuks

[Mabuse]

I played the realm stuff on crusades and though interesting, I am not sure if it would work well. Here are issues that will cause problems.

1. Fog is pretty much standard these days. With Fog on, and you limited to 1 region, you wont see a lot of action. I ended up waiting a long time to see any action.
2. First mover advantage. I think first mover has very good advantage. If he takes Seljuks, he can very quickly grab most of the north east. (may face lil resistance for Georgia but he has better chance)
3. Region Balance. Arabia has 4 vills and 6 gold bonus. While jerusalem has 7 vills and 9 gold bonus, plus good chance to take ascalon, cyprus, can fight or make a deal for armenia and edessa with who ever has Seljuks

1.) in normal game you also dont see much action, sicne you will lose your undefended villages pretty quickly. in general you are usually always restricted to your regions.
i dont see a problem here.

2.) First Mover has always advantages. There is no Problem with the Seljks though, in Fact the Seljuks may face serious Problems with the BYzantine if they push full head north east.
(=they will lose)

also, Jerusalem is also there and can reach edessa with pikeman.
jerusalem can reach armenian shore with ships easily.
abasid will have georgia.

with all these troubles, seljuks can hardly get trebizond, if the players know what they do.


3.) yes jerusalem is strong, but also Cairo etc is strong for example.
you must really play some game to say more.

in fact jerusalem can also not do what it wants

in any case i dont see more problem wiht balance as in random mode, in fact random mode is over when the first players have their regions, until this point one or more players are already dead (or nearly dead) even.

area mode thakes the game to a new expierince level, every region has its options and critical points, it usualy depends on the players . its faa and players have also diffrent capabilities, also since the mod is new, you have to think more about and adapt, you cant exspect that you understand the game fully yet (i do not, i havent analyzed the best starting strategies for the different positions yet).

in random mode the strategy is limited to: "get your region asap and hope nobody fights you, then clean up the mess." in area mode its more complex, imo, sincde here yu have the region and start as if you are in a much later stage of the game

i had most entertaining games so far and i enjoy it starting with a region, this is a fastergame with much more options that make the game interestinf, sure it may be a bit different - if you like the random thingy and like the trading negotations you may miss them.

i can only recommend to play more area games, but if you dont like them its also ok of course.

but i may make more maps for CONQUEST, the next one may be a "middle earth" inspired map
(but not a clone of corse due to copyright)



EDIT: the byz/seljuk border will usuall balance itself out, byz dont have the starting resource to strike hard at the start, a hard seljuk strike can be countered, however getting a lieutenent for seljuk on round 1 in the area is most important - this along with some cav in the background, will also force the byz to adapt (they can only try to block them, not to have stromger units on round 1).

[Mabuse]

3. Region Balance. Arabia has 4 vills and 6 gold bonus. While jerusalem has 7 vills and 9 gold bonus, plus good chance to take ascalon, cyprus, can fight or make a deal for armenia and edessa with who ever has Seljuks

ah also forgot to mention that gold is evens out. a weaker region is granted with more starting gold, so you have much better chance for taking things early

the realm mode takes the game to a different stage, i dont wanna say what is more balanced than the other, but i like region mode


EDIT:
For region Team game i recommend:

3v3 (north versus south):
-----
Byz, Seljuk, Abasid (39 income, 66 starting gold)
versus
Cairo, Arabia, Jerusalem (35 income, 74 starting old)


2v2v2 (north vs. east vs. south)
-----
Byz+Seljuk (27 income, 42 start gold)
Jerusalem+Abasid (26 income, 44 start gold)
Cairo+Arabia (21 income, 54 start gold)


income and start gold is just one factor, but also the position is iportant (it make no sense in a 3v3 to put one player between 2 of another team)

[Mabuse]

btw, after some thoughts i think balance is a bit difficult in realm mode.

1st player advantage is quite when using SOME regions.
to fix that i will make availability of some regions dependend on the fact if other regions are already chosen.

for example on crusade map:

jerusalem is only available is abasid AND seljuk were already chosen
byzantine is available if seljuk is chosen
cairo is available if arabia is chosen


so from start on you can selct abasid, seljuk and arabia the other regions get available later then
this should reduce the first player advantage (soemthing similar to wesnoth map)

there may be also some slight map changes on crusade map,
as well as a new map of course (maybe later though)

i cant work on this before monday though


im open for other suggestions how to improve this.


actually - it is of course playable, but the first (or early) player advantage need small nerf

[Mabuse]

2.4.2b is up
it contains an balance update for realm mode (and some slight changes on crusade map)

regions that depend more on expansion or better said which expansion is severely limited if other regions move first, must be selected first.

for crusade map that is:

byzantine if seljuk is taken
cairo is arabia is taken
jerusalem if seljuk and abasid are taken

seljuk, arabia and abasid can be selected from start


for wesnoth:
knalga if orcs are taken
wesnoth if knalga and aethenwood are taken
eastmark if lintanir and aethenwood are taken

orcs, lintanir and aethenwood available at start

[IPS]

I have tought the elvish militia haves much adventages to the human Militia, them have a 60% in forest, so better is producing elvish units, because them have a better control of the forests without penalty.

An Elvish Calvary is very superior than a a normal calvary because it requires less MP to move in a forest and it haves a 60% of def in the forest. I think the Elvish units exeptly the militia should have a hp penalty or something like.

[Araja]

Isn't that why Elvish units can only be recruited from some villages? I thought they were supposed to be better than the human infantry because you can't get them everywhere. Try to recruit only elves and you might well be stuffed.

[Mabuse]

what araja said.

btw, new version is out 2.4.3.


1)
i completely forgot to make cairo also dependent if byzantine was already taken.
so cairo available if arabia and byzantine are taken
(i made cairo move after byz so byz has chance to take chandax, since cairo can take Silan 100%)

2)
also knalga is only available if lintanir was chosen.

3)
a slight crusade map change hopefully made the byzantine/seljuk starting situation a bit better now. before seljuk could make huge pressure on byz (they still can, but byz can set up def better).

Dorylaneum was moved from 11,9 --> 10,8 .. so theres one more hex between them now.

[monochromatic]

Are the units supposed to have ZoC? The recruit menu says they don't but they apparently do (except for workers) ...it makes it hard when two players who are "allied" with one another march their armies together to defeat a common enemy.

[oesis]

I enjoy playing this add on but the one thing that always bugged me about it was late game play. If good players are playing they will generally band together when they see someone getting to far ahead. This can make the game last along time because no one can expand without getting ganged up on.
Anyways I thought one way that this could be prevented from happening was simply putting a turn limit on the game. This would prevent late game stalemate because with time running down players would have to be aggressive, or at least try something.

Anyways I gave a shot at coding this into the scenario. The way I choose to make it work is that the person with the most income, not counting workers, wins. Then the person with the second most income gets second ext. At the start of the game you choose how long you want the game to last.

Conquest.zip holds the modified conquests maps, and turn_limit_macros.cfg is the macros I made separated out for convenience but only Conquest.zip is needed to run mod.

I'm hoping mabuse doesn't think I'm trying to steal his territory.

[monochromatic]

One more thing: in the south part of the Wesnoth map, there is a region called "Than". Don't you mean "Tahn"?

EDIT: One more. The starting militia you get are lawful. Is that intended? (the others are neutral)

[Mabuse]

hey, quite some posts.

first i want to make a statement to IPS question wether the elvish (or other) inf shouldnt be weaker since they have movement and defnse advantages.

of course the points that araja said are right. since they cant be produced everywhere, this dont affect the balance.

but of course i also took some "race vs race" balancings into account.
the elves have no doubt the better infantry, since it can move through woods easy and have def advantage there. their cav is also much better, it has better defenses in cities and in woods also, can move over mountains etc.

on the other hand elves dont have pikes. and pikes will usually defeat any normal cavalry. the hvy cavalry (9 gold unit) of the elves is a bit weaker (human has 10 gold unit with firststrike), so they should lose out in open field. their 20 gold unit is great, since it has good defenses in city and woods, but also less moves and is slightly weaker in open field (human knights have firstrike), lastly elves dont have generals (25 gold unit)

this applies in the one or other form also to the other races.



coming canges:
---------------

1)
@oesis:
ok, looks fine, i will add your code.

2)
i also want to add something like a realm team mode (members of the teams can only select certain regions) (3v3 team, 2v2v2 team) - for crusade and wesnoth map

2.)a)
@elvish sourereign
yes, i think units have zoc is good to have, i will remove the lines that state units dont have zoc. (btw, units always had zoc, but it said it from version 1.0 that they dont ...)

but according to the problem you mentioned i will include
"real alliances"/naps. there may be a diplomatic menu where you can see the diplomatic status of the players to each other, also you can set yourself towards anoter player as allied, on his next turn the player may accept the offer or not. then there will be "real teams" which can share each other fogs, zocs, non-allowed and can team-chat. if you end an alliance, the player will be informed at start of his next move, and only then the alliance is ended.
(so you cant end and attack immediatly, instead you give your ally the initiative since on his turn the alliance will end and the can attack)

same applies to initiate an alliance, you can make an offer to a player, but only if he accepts it there will be really an alliance.

to activate the diplomatic menu you will have to right click on your leader

There will be an option to activate or deactivate this at start of game.

3)
new game mode: "capitol mode" will be implemented, players can select certain cities and spread out form them. it will be a small "region"mode, since players have to expand first.
players will have a fair amount of starting gold, and later players will have more gold.

there will be also an otion to set if the neutral cities wil be easy, medium or hard defended
(militia, infantry or cavalry)

4)
the initial militia wil be set to neutral (thx to elvish souvereign)

5)
some eye candy may be added to the menues, since wesnoth has great gfx resources (portraits etc.) we can use them to spice the apperiance of the mod a bit up

6)
maybe some more units, races, options ... lets see

[Mabuse]

ok, small update, since i was lazy, i did basically this:

- capitol mode, every player gets 5 random cities and 8 to 13 gold at start, other cities will be randomly filled with ai of varying strengh (militia, infantry, cavalry)

- time limit thingy with some turn numbers at start of each turn and stuff

- some menu gfx

- cut out that zoc message

[Mabuse]

some dev news:
-----------------

1)
- capitol mode kinda sucks atm, at least its not optimal.
what i really want is that every players gets 3 cities, which are placed near (mor or less) each other

so this one gets changed in next version



2)
- healing. it kinda bugs me that healing has no role in conquest.

first off the healing i have in mind is not called "heal", it is called "reinforce".
it is (will be) done by right clicking on the unit, WHILE it is on A VILLAGE or OASIS.
a unit can be reinforced as long it has some movement left. after reinforcing a unit, it will be reduced to 1 move.

reinforce will fully heal the unit, the costs depend on how much percentage the unit is damaged. the original unit costs will be multiplied by the percentaged damage taken, and again multiplied by 0.75. so healing a 99% damaged unit wil cost 75% of its original cost.
(a 60% damaged unit wil cost 0.6 x 0.75 = 0.45% of its original cost)

this is to take care of your survivors, since you may heal them for cheap(er) money than buying new units. however you have always to evaluate if you want to have additional firepower or reinforce your unit.

(militia or workers cannot be reinforced)

(reinforce will also cost some XP (if the unit has some), the unit will lose the percentaged damage in XP, so a 60% damaged unit will lose 60% of its XP if it gets reinforced

this is made to make more strategical options available as well make the players take more care of survivors


3)
expierience.
units may spend their expierience, to get enhanced combat stats (do 1 more damage, +5 HP, ... lets see)

in any case you can upgrade your units once they have a few XP gathered, by right clicking on them

(you can only upgrade uits if they have full hp)
(upgraded units may be marked with a "hero symbol" ---> get reinforced and lose XP due to that)

this is made to make more strategical options available as well make the players take more care of survivors

(optional: this may happen automatically)


4)
real ranged units.
this one is only in a planning stage.
the base concept of ranged units is that their ranged attack will not have berserk (obviously), the damage they do with their ranged attack will be within the usual bounds of a same cost melee unit. ranged units will be able to shoot over several tiles (2 to 3) and be able to wound their targets without getting retaliation. their combat stats (HP and melee damage) will be reduced, and be (significantly) lower than that of a same cost melee only unit. ranged units wil be used to soften up strong targets and to "steal some HP from them.

this one is only in a planning stage, since it may be taht it may only make combat more complicated witout having any real benefit. if arcerhs are too weak them brute force may be just better, if they are too good then they wil become the "new unit". of course there will be just one or two ranged units per race (if there will be one).



5)
just as a side note:

the elvish infantry (archer sprite) gets replaced with a scout lvl1, a light cav, wil have stats of a 3 gold unit, but with 10 move abd the movementtype and defenses of an elvish scout lvl1

(i make this just in case there wil be ranged units at some point, and them the archer sprite may cause just confusion -- also i think it looks weaker than the elvish militia atm, but exchanging them now would just lead to confusion, so i replace it with a light cav)





tell me your opinions