HUGE Maps

[PsychoticKittens]

as a side note to [replace_map] masks are a viable option for replacing chunks that represent player locale.

[Araja]

People never ever want to re-load anything more than one time.

I have to disagree with that, RPG's are fine to play in segments, especially as most of them are so large you can only play them in segments.

Bringing Brotherhood of Light back into the picture, that scenario can take four or five sessions to complete, which gives a group of friends the opportunity to continue where they left off.
The majority of Wesnoth players might not want to re-load a scenario too many times, but there are some dedicated RPG people out there who think that a map so huge you can just keep playing it is good fun.
I myself have a habit of filling my User Maps with so many monsters and making the terrain so rough it takes the two of us 2-3 sessions to play.

[Jojos1mian]

Is there a maximum to the number of possible players? If not, a huge map, correctly balanced, could be used to host epic multiplayer battles, assuming the commitment is there from all participating members.

[Rya]

I think the maximum is 9 players.

[Gambit]

Yes and no. Maximum number of player leaders is nine. By adding in a bunch of leaderless sides and then assigning them to the obs you can have as many players as you want. I've only half tested this up to 7 sides in gladiator arena but I think it would work. I've never made any addons that required over 9 sides... (one more thing for the summer to do list I suppose). This is the part where silene comes in and explains it to us.

I wish I knew just half as much as that guy...

I would love to see a Noth game of capture the flag with one player per unit

Araja have you seen anyone playing Brotherhood lately? I am aware we all used to have much fun on those kinds of things. But lately all I see is default and survivals. Nobody seems to like irregular rules and long matches anymore.

[Araja]

I saw one just last week!

But it's true most players seem to be after instant action these days, and I'm starting to wonder what % of the Wesnoth community joins an Isar's Cross and yells GO GO GO...

[Aethaeryn]

I saw one just last week!

But it's true most players seem to be after instant action these days, and I'm starting to wonder what % of the Wesnoth community joins an Isar's Cross and yells GO GO GO...

It was always like that, even back in the 1.2 days. On the other hand, back then 1.3 was mostly decent players and had some cool add-ons that were only possible with the new feature that let add-ons add right-click menu items. This development version has nothing really special to draw veterans, and usually has less than a page of games up at any given time.

[TheGreatRings]

Yes and no. Maximum number of player leaders is nine. By adding in a bunch of leaderless sides and then assigning them to the obs you can have as many players as you want. I've only half tested this up to 7 sides in gladiator arena but I think it would work. I've never made any addons that required over 9 sides... (one more thing for the summer to do list I suppose). This is the part where silene comes in and explains it to us.

Interesting. When I have time, I might want to try something like this. I've had the odd idea that would benefit from over 9 sides, though none that I've put into practice due to a mix of ineptitude and lack of time. In any case, I hope you get around to trying this.

The 9 side limit is actually something that really annoys me, and while 9 sides are usually sufficient, the limit seems kind of arbitrary.

[Aethaeryn]

The 9 side limit is actually something that really annoys me, and while 9 sides are usually sufficient, the limit seems kind of arbitrary.

Nine sides is actually always overkill; I haven't seen any successful ([acronym=If there's 9 players, there seems to be *several* who exist solely to screw up the game for someone else, especially if it's a non-standard game like Modern Combat.]*[/acronym]) nine player games. For mainline, I've only seen 8 max, and those usually involve no actual strategy because the maps are (relatively) small. Six player is pretty much as large as it gets for a standard game. I've never seen a 9p RPG, and the trend is actually toward decreasing to 3p rather than increasing. For survivals, I've only once or twice seen 6p Team Survival (in mainline, and the largest survival I know of) filled. It also seems that the longer the content in question, the fewer players you can get and reliably hold.

I think that if anything had more than nine players, even a tiny leader duel with no depth would take hours. Time while waiting on the other players to get back to your turn is the issue: solve the time issue and you can come up with a large-player game that is beatable. And yes, it would have to be beatable in one sitting, because good luck getting 12 people to come back over multiple sessions. A 12 player game that had the length of 3 hours would theoretically be the depth-equivalent of a 30 minute game among 2 players, but there's a higher chance that it would be stalled somehow.

Tying back into the original subject, a 9+ player game on a huge map wouldn't be finishable.

On the other hand, please prove me wrong and come up with a fun add-on. It would be great if you could address these problems. I'm sure if there were more 9p games being played, the devs would consider upping the limit.

[AI]

The limit is a technical one: the current map format allows only 9 starting positions, indicated by placing a digit next to the terrain character. Of course, changing this wouldn't be too much work, but there hasn't really been any need.

This is the only limit involved, you can have as many sides as you want.

It also seems that recently, [side] x,y have been implemented, so you can place leaders that way too.

[Gambit]

On the other hand, please prove me wrong and come up with a fun add-on. It would be great if you could address these problems. I'm sure if there were more 9p games being played, the devs would consider upping the limit.

Your wish is my command. I actually already had something like this in the works and I just turned in my 30 page paper so now I have some free time. But it's missing something very important. How do I set the turn timer via WML? I did a google search, a forum search, and a search for just this website and can't find it.

[AI]

I don't believe you can, it can only be set when creating a game on a server.

[Soliton]

This is the only limit involved, you can have as many sides as you want.

Locally probably. The server enforces the gamemap::MAX_PLAYERS (9) limit. I think the client doesn't do that everywhere for whatever reason and you can actually have more sides but as long as no one bothers to properly raise the limit the server is stuck with 9 sides max.

[Gambit]

Haven't tested online. But local game on 1.7.6 is running with 10 leaders from the start. They all get to pick their unit in the lobby too.
Apparently 1.7.7 came out so it's going to be about an hour before I can test it online. Crappy download speed

[TheGreatRings]

Nine sides is actually always overkill; I haven't seen any successful ([acronym=If there's 9 players, there seems to be *several* who exist solely to screw up the game for someone else, especially if it's a non-standard game like Modern Combat.]*[/acronym]) nine player games. For mainline, I've only seen 8 max, and those usually involve no actual strategy because the maps are (relatively) small. Six player is pretty much as large as it gets for a standard game. I've never seen a 9p RPG, and the trend is actually toward decreasing to 3p rather than increasing. For survivals, I've only once or twice seen 6p Team Survival (in mainline, and the largest survival I know of) filled. It also seems that the longer the content in question, the fewer players you can get and reliably hold.

I think that if anything had more than nine players, even a tiny leader duel with no depth would take hours. Time while waiting on the other players to get back to your turn is the issue: solve the time issue and you can come up with a large-player game that is beatable. And yes, it would have to be beatable in one sitting, because good luck getting 12 people to come back over multiple sessions. A 12 player game that had the length of 3 hours would theoretically be the depth-equivalent of a 30 minute game among 2 players, but there's a higher chance that it would be stalled somehow.

Tying back into the original subject, a 9+ player game on a huge map wouldn't be finishable.

On the other hand, please prove me wrong and come up with a fun add-on. It would be great if you could address these problems. I'm sure if there were more 9p games being played, the devs would consider upping the limit.

My only counter-argument is that I would probably only ever make a twelve side scenario if the majority of those sides were AI-controlled. I am well aware of the difficulties of trying to keep even four people together for a long game, and the amount of time it takes each player to make their move.

What I'm thinking of is a large RPG map with a lot of different AI sides.