WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Thank you for the replays!
I think the simple attack micro ai was causing the leaders to prematurely leave their keeps and attack you.
I've changed it so simple attack works only for leaders that cannot recruit.
I don't think I noticed anything else out of the ordinary.
I'm running out of things that annoy me (apart from wesnoth rng and some enemy units are slippery buggers :annoyed: )
I might revisit the custom goto and zone_guardian micro ais. I'm not fully satisfied with them.
I might be dropping the lynx for 1.15, haven't decided yet.
Let me know what annoys you.

Edit:
weewah wrote: February 27th, 2021, 3:31 pm Year 2, difficulty spiked because all the orcs and undead start spamming level 2s endlessly. Is there a way to make them recruit a mix of level 1s and 2s instead of just level 2s? Like, maybe at the start of each turn, randomly disable/enable their ability to recruit level 2s?
Oops, I forgot to address this :|
Sure, I'll look into it.
vorwi
Posts: 58
Joined: July 3rd, 2018, 10:11 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vorwi »

vghetto wrote: February 25th, 2021, 11:16 am
vorwi wrote: February 24th, 2021, 6:37 pm btw custom units advancment make mages unable to use runes.
hmm, I'll see about fixing that. For now you can add those custom types to one of the CASTER_* in utils/unit_vers.cfg.
Can you give me a unit type to test on as an example?

Edit: nevermind, i think i got it.
Im sorry. I had to make my operation system reinstall and i somehow couldnt find time to visit this site.
vorwi
Posts: 58
Joined: July 3rd, 2018, 10:11 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vorwi »

I see some cool updates incoming. Do caravans no longer need to be ordered to wait? They will wait on their own until someone will take item from windmill?
Do i understand that correctly?
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

No, that wasn't it. But I'll do what you asked for anyway :)

Let me see if I can explain the existing change better.
Each time the caravan offers 3 items, you won't get those same 3 items until all other possible items have been presented first.
For example, if Wose Sense was offered among the 3, regardless if you took it or not, the next time you might get Wose Sense will be 18 caravans later.
vorwi
Posts: 58
Joined: July 3rd, 2018, 10:11 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vorwi »

vghetto wrote: March 4th, 2021, 5:09 am No, that wasn't it. But I'll do what you asked for anyway :)

Let me see if I can explain the existing change better.
Each time the caravan offers 3 items, you won't get those same 3 items until all other possible items have been presented first.
For example, if Wose Sense was offered among the 3, regardless if you took it or not, the next time you might get Wose Sense will be 18 caravans later.
Daaaamn. Thats even better.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

vghetto wrote: February 24th, 2021, 7:09 am
weewah wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 11:58 pm [*] The Library's Farm report really should not say that farm yields under construction are farms that I do not own. It should be telling me that I don't own a farm only if an enemy has taken it. (I'm actually confused why yields are pre-built while farms and all other buildings are post-built. Is there a reason yields can't be post-built too?)
Technical reasons. It has to do with deciding if two farm yields are adjacent or not.
Fixing this requires adding an intermediate terrain type, (not interested in doing that right now).

I went with the short cut of using the final terrain type but only capturing it on completion. That is why they appear in the report along with the other unowned villages.
The upcoming 1.14.0 version will fix this. The ones under construction won't be added to the count.
The other major change in this version will be the addition of one directional tunnels.
I noticed that the AI turns slows down a lot if I allow them to use the tunnels as well. So for now, the tunnels are restricted to side 1 only. They get destroyed when the enemy steps on them.
Side 1 Caravans are forbidden from using the tunnel, btw :whistle:
I think the tunnel system makes the gameplay snappier and you don't have to manage a huge army for each front.
Changes are already on github.

Edit:
As everyone is aware, WF has a huge gold problem! There's just too much of it after a short while :|
So, in thinking of a worthwhile gold sink, I was considering taxes as OTna suggested ages ago or upgrading buildings etc.
I was even considering limiting the number of villages or farm yields allowed.
In the end, I think I'm going with these options:
I'll allow upgrading the XP training by 1 for the cost of 10000 gold.
I'll allow decreasing the mission requirement by 1 for the cost of 5000 gold. (recurring)
Spawn market caravan at will for 1000 gold. (if there aren't any)

Let me know what you think of these gold values?
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

I suggest having the costs increase exponentially to make it so the gap between rich and poor players isn't too wide.

For training XPs, how about 1000 gold for the first upgrade, and every upgrade doubles in cost? So 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000...
That way a rich player could get maybe 2 times the training xp rewards of a poor player, instead of 20 times.
(Might be better to make this even cheaper, starting at 100 gold for the first upgrade. That way even the poorest players can afford an upgrade or two.)

For market caravans, how about 200 gold for the first caravan of the season, and every caravan doubles in cost? So 200, 400, 800, 1600...
And then reset the cost at the end of each season.

As for missions, I'm not too sure. 5000 gold is so high that by the time you can throw that kind of money around, you should have already unlocked one of the factions. Later on it would let you spam summon level 2 units of your choice for 25 gold each, so it does save some gold and lots of xp...

Maybe start at 100 gold and make the cost 4 times as much for every upgrade? So 100, 400, 1600, 6400, 25600 and so on?
That way even at early game, you get some benefit from the diplomacy upgrade, and a rich enough player could eventually complete all the 5-requirement missions instantly, but no player could reasonably get 10 diplomacy mission upgrades (the 10th upgrade costs > 1mil gold) to instantly complete every mission.
vorwi
Posts: 58
Joined: July 3rd, 2018, 10:11 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vorwi »

vghetto wrote: March 13th, 2021, 3:01 pm
Edit:
As everyone is aware, WF has a huge gold problem! There's just too much of it after a short while :|
So, in thinking of a worthwhile gold sink, I was considering taxes as OTna suggested ages ago or upgrading buildings etc.
I was even considering limiting the number of villages or farm yields allowed.
In the end, I think I'm going with these options:
I'll allow upgrading the XP training by 1 for the cost of 10000 gold.
I'll allow decreasing the mission requirement by 1 for the cost of 5000 gold. (recurring)
Spawn market caravan at will for 1000 gold. (if there aren't any)

Let me know what you think of these gold values?
I am a huge fan of upgrading stuff in games. I hate limits.
So for me idea with things to spend money for is great while limiting income by reducing number of villages is terrible.

weewah wrote: March 14th, 2021, 10:07 am I suggest having the costs increase exponentially to make it so the gap between rich and poor players isn't too wide.
For training XPs, how about 1000 gold for the first upgrade, and every upgrade doubles in cost? So 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000...
1k gold for first upgrade on hard and 20% of that amount on normal and 10% of that amount on easy.

This one sounds perfect for a type of gameplay which WF has:
weewah wrote: March 14th, 2021, 10:07 am I suggest having the costs increase exponentially(...)
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Awesome suggestions, thanks!
I'm thinking of doing this instead, I'll make the cost of training, market and mission requirement be (current player gold / 2) + 300. This will make everyone poor sooner or later :lol: much like real life :) Go equity!

Edit: And seems I'll make the training level reset back to 1 at the end of the season.
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

vghetto wrote: March 14th, 2021, 2:06 pm
I'll make the cost of training, market and mission requirement be (current player gold / 2) + 300.
NOOOOOO!!!

This will make gameplay INCREDIBLY ANNOYING because you would have to have exactly 600 gold whenever you want to upgrade, or you lose gold unnecessarily. Which means whenever you upgrade, you should first spam recruit a bunch of units, because these units would be effectively half price (or even cheaper for multiple consecutive upgrades). Then now I have a truck ton of not-very-useful units to micromanage and gain minor utility out of in exchange for ridiculous effort.

Worse, having upgrades depend on current gold amount is incredibly PUNISHING for mistakes. I can already see the following scenario happening to me over and over and over:

At the start of the turn, I see I have more than enough gold for the upgrade. So I use up the excess gold recruiting units, building structures, placing runes, etc. And then I forget to buy the upgrade and end my turn. Next turn I realize I forgot to buy the upgrade, so I either have to again use up the excess gold income, and risk forgetting again, OR go back to replay the ENTIRE previous turn from scratch.

Which, considering the utterly ridiculous number of units I would have to recruit, would be an incredible pain in the neck!


Seriously, never make gold prices depend on the current gold amount.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

weewah wrote: March 14th, 2021, 7:32 pm NOOOOOO!!!
Eeek! ^_^
weewah wrote: March 14th, 2021, 7:32 pm ... or you lose gold unnecessarily ...
This is whole point of this change, to rip off the player. :lol:
When you have a lot of gold, you can recruit a lot of units which diminishes the enjoyment, imo.
At least this way you don't go empty handed, you do get a little something in return.

As always, this is not final, and might be subject to change in the future.

I uploaded WF 1.14.0 to the server, do give it try and see if it's as bad. I hope it isn't.

I included some intermediate terrain types, so this version won't be compatible with older saves, sorry :(

I'm also allowing for consecutive divert stream lines from a single water source. As long as you have a peasant working on diverting a stream, another peasant next to it can divert as well, the second one doesn't have to be next to the water source.
Disruption anywhere along the line doesn't matter.

Thanks!
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

Ok, let's attack this idea from another angle.

Suppose I start a turn with 1000 gold (possibly because I just completed a fief).
The cost of the upgrade should then be 1000/2 + 300 = 800 right?

But I can cheese this pretty easily by getting 10 peasant workers to begin construction of 10 lighthouses, costing 400 gold.
Now my current gold drops to 600, and then I buy the upgrade for 600.
After which I simply cancel the 10 lighthouses to get my 400 gold back.
(Then have my workers build whatever I actually wanted them to build in their current locations instead of lighthouses.)

So at the end of the day, it isn't difficult to just cheese all the upgrade costs such that they take only 600 gold, regardless of how much gold you actually have. It is just annoying tedious to start and cancel all the constructions. But if a hundred extra clicks can save 500 gold? Or even more? It would be hella wasteful to not do so.

(And I assume this would also make replays pretty boring to watch since you will spend the majority of the time just waiting for me to finish starting/canceling constructions to get the optimal current gold value.)
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

weewah wrote: March 15th, 2021, 3:22 am But I can cheese this pretty easily by getting 10 peasant workers to begin construction of 10 lighthouses, costing 400 gold.
Now my current gold drops to 600, and then I buy the upgrade for 600.
After which I simply cancel the 10 lighthouses to get my 400 gold back.
I haven't thought of that, it's so cool. Thanks for pointing it out.
This could be fixed by including the running projects costs in the formula
300 + (current player gold + running projects cost) / 2

But I feel that won't alleviate your main concerns, which unfortunately I'm not able to see.
Is it that with this feature, you'd perpetually be around the 600 mark because otherwise a lot of gold would just go to waste?
It is a money drain after all :/
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Look, here is the line

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE wf_vars.gold_cost "$(300 + ceil( 0.5 * ($wf_vars.side1_gold + $projects_cost)))"}
Give me the formula of what you want it to be and I'll do it. I think you've earned it.
You can base it on number of villages+yield instead of gold if you like.
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

vghetto wrote: March 15th, 2021, 5:27 am
This could be fixed by including the running projects costs in the formula
300 + (current player gold + running projects cost) / 2
Oh god I think I made things worse :shock:

There are two main problems I have with setting the upgrade prices to be a fraction of current gold.

First problem: it STRONGLY STRONGLY encourages mass unit recruitment. Like, hundreds of units. After all, they are now effectively sold at a ridiculously tiny fraction of their original recruit cost, since the gold you lose from recruiting them gets divided over and over until it becomes nothing. Seriously, buy 5 upgrades, and then any units you previously recruited each effectively cost you less than 1 gold!

Think about it this way: if each horseman cost 1 gold instead of 23, why would you do anything else but spam recruit horsemen every turn? Their cost effectiveness becomes so great that it doesn't even pay to train any of your units or use any tactics, just spam more 1 gold horsemen and swarm all enemies with them. Why wouldn't you when they are effectively so cheap?

Effectively, the upgrades encourage you to recruit even MORE units than before, even though having too many recruited units was the entire problem we were working to address in the first place!



Second problem: The system PUNISHES you very heavily for careless mistakes. Any time you end a turn without remembering you wanted to buy an upgrade? You lose HALF the income of the next turn to buy the upgrade! If it is the season end you also lose HALF the fief gold reward! For no reason at all other than a careless mistake! And that's assuming you only wanted to buy one upgrade this turn.

Or if you have autosave on, you can just reload from the start of the turn again. But then you are forced to completely replay the previous turn AGAIN! And with all the massive number of units caused by the first problem, replaying a turn becomes way way way more tedious and annoying than it is now!

And if you forget to buy the upgrade a second time because of how damn long it took to play the next turn or replay the current turn? I lack words to describe how incredibly frustrating that would be.



Now you might be wondering if you can just fix the upgrade cost at the start of each turn to avoid punishing careless mistakes. Or even at the start of the previous turn. But honestly? That just makes things even worse, because now I have to do math, calculating expected income and expectd expenses, all just to ensure I have the right amount of gold at the later turns. And in the end, careless mistakes would STILL cost me half my gold income or force me to replay turns, just now with the additional mental burden of having to do lots of math or lose gold.


Please just don't. Don't make the upgrade costs depend on your current gold. No decent RPG, RTS, or literally any other game has such half-your-gold prices and for good reason. It just causes frustration and annoyance for any player trying to play the game reasonably optimally.

Edit:
vghetto wrote: March 15th, 2021, 5:48 am Look, here is the line

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE wf_vars.gold_cost "$(300 + ceil( 0.5 * ($wf_vars.side1_gold + $projects_cost)))"}
Give me the formula of what you want it to be and I'll do it. I think you've earned it.
You can base it on number of villages+yield instead of gold if you like.
My preference is still for some starting cost between 100 to 1000 gold for the first upgrade, then have the price double or triple with every upgrade. So something like 600 for the first upgrade, 1200 for the second, 2400 for the third, 4800 for the fourth, and so on. That would let players sink gold into it without getting too much advantage.

The end result is the same as the current system: the richer players get to buy logarithmically more upgrades than the poor players, allowing them a slight advantage.

But now players can simply buy the upgrades at the start of each turn, no need to cheese, no need to math, no need to spam recruits, and no horrible punishment for forgetting to do things at the end of each turn.
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