Saving wasted movement points. Balance quick trait.

[sparr]

My idea is thus:

A unit can save movement points. Saved movement points can only be used to move the first hex of a turn, and only if the MP cost to move into that hex is less than the number of points that were saved.

This may sound complicated, but it succinctly addresses almost all of the concerns that were brought up while we hashed this idea out on IRC a few months ago. The implications of the restriction are that a unit can only use saved movement to move into 'difficult' terrain, and then only if the unit used all its movement range getting TO the difficult terrain the last turn. The case where this simple version would fail is when a unit moves from a 2MP terrain onto a 1MP terrain, leaving him 2MP short of moving onto the next 3MP terrain. The system as described above would allow the unit to use the 1 saved MP to move onto a 2MP terrain that he may have been able to reach on the first turn. This may come up rarely enough to simply be ignored in implementation, or it could just be considered a viable tactic (explained in-game as planned maneuvering or whatever).

Allowing units to save movement in this way would eliminate the current huge 'speed' gaps that exist on rough terrain when units with high MP are reduced to very slow movement. It would also make the 'quick' trait slightly more fair.

Consider the worst case scenario, a horseman with 7MP and his quick counterpart with 8MP, stuck in a cave. The first one can only move one hex per turn, while the second can move twice as fast. Of course, this doesn't come up very often, but the same problem exists in much more common situations. Most 5MP units moving through snow or cave or shallow water are horribly outpaced by their quick counterparts moving 50% (3 2-MP hexes instead of 2) to 100% (2 3-MP hexes instead of 1) faster, despite only having 20% more MP.

[Zhukov]

Was this so important we had to see it four times over?

[SkeletonCrew]

Was this so important we had to see it four times over?

The forum was and still is not responding good at the moment, so I guess the extra threads have been caused by this problem. I deleted the other threads.

[Dragon Master]

So if you let a unit sit around for a while, he can dash right up to the leader? This idea sounds rediculuos. Movement points are restricted by rough terrain to do just that, restrict movement. Saving movement points is like saying that all terrain should require a certain amount of movement points.

[Rhuvaen]

So if you let a unit sit around for a while, he can dash right up to the leader?

That is a total misrepresentation of what was suggested.

I think the idea is good, except that it should be seen as reducing movement costs of the first hex moved into (if that has a higher movement cost than the points saved), and that the reduction should only happen if the unit tried to move into that hex the turn before (it has already "started" movement into that hex). That means, as a player you already committed to spending those movement points by moving in a certain direction (you may, of course, choose to forfeit the movement points and move somewhere else, by clicking on the unit prior to your turn).

It should NOT work for units which are merely sitting around.

Of course, you'd also have to show this when highlighting enemy moves during an opponent's turn.

[Xeron_]

I actually like the idea - it would get the "Heavy infantry encounters a 1 hex river" situation less annoying

- you mostly have got at least a few points saved then and don't lose a full turn crossing difficult hexes

[Darth Fool]

From my perspective this is BWH from gameplay reasons, assuming that it is implemented properly. This means, amongst other things like proper save/load behavior, that it should only be able to reduce the cost of moving into the first hex that the unit moves through in a turn, and only if it could not have moved into that hex the previous turn. To make this more mathematical, let S be the number of saved movement points from the previous turn, and B the base cost to move into the hex, then the cost,C, to move into the first adjacent hex for that unit is:

C= (B>S)? B-S : B; S=0;

The only thing against this is that it does make the first hex movement of a turn different than the rest, and I am not sure how ugly this would be to code. One ugliness would be making sure that S gets properly set at the end of turn so that a unit that hasn't moved doesn't accumulate saved move points from turn to turn until it has enough movepoints to move onto impassable terrain. This could be accomplished by setting S=S>M?M:S at the begining of the turn, where M is the max movement points of the unit.

my $0.02

[PingPangQui]

I don't really see a need for it, also because the faction balancing is based on the present way of movement. Furtner more it implies that a unit would be faster after just having dealt with a difficult terrain.

Irrespective the above, what happens when I move with my human spearman over mountains, one hex away from wide open grassland, towards an orc on grassland. Thus I can't move futher on but can not go back either since I have already used 3mp out of 5. Do I have next turn 7mp?

Another thought that came on my mind thinking about the discussed matter. Why not say: in order to attack one needs to have minimum 1mp left. That would give a higher value to those units that have to waste mp anyway, but it would surely weaken those units that need in most cases only 1mp per hex, especially dwarves, since they would need a min distance of 3hex before an attack.

[sparr]

I don't really see a need for it, also because the faction balancing is based on the present way of movement.

First you have to assume that the current factions are balanced based on the current system. Through trial and error over the years this is probably true.

Second, it seems evident that the coarseness of possible movement speeds over slow terrain means that even if they are as balanced as possible, having a more fine grained (1.5 hexes per turn instead of just 1 or 2) movement system would allow for more precise balance tweaking.

And finally, I think that this idea would make faction balancing easier, especially for new factions, since the overall speed of a unit will be more predictable.

Furtner more it implies that a unit would be faster after just having dealt with a difficult terrain.

This is true. But if you want a realism explanation... A unit only spends 3/5 MP to move into the mountains. They SHOULD be faster the next turn, because they spent almost half the last turn just sitting around resting. This neglects the fact that just sitting still won't provide a speed boost, but its at least believable.

Irrespective the above, what happens when I move with my human spearman over mountains, one hex away from wide open grassland, towards an orc on grassland. Thus I can't move futher on but can not go back either since I have already used 3mp out of 5. Do I have next turn 7mp?

Yes, you have 7MP, but 2 of it can only be spent on the first move, and only if that move costs 3 or more MP. In the case you describe, you would spend 3 to move onto the last mountain, then 4 more to move across 4 grassland hexes. Yes, this DOES make the unit "faster", but no faster than his MP rating indicates that he should be. In 2 turns a spearman is supposed to get 10 MP. That should let him cross 2 mountains plus 4 grassland. With the current system he gets cheated out of 2 MP on the first turn, and can only cross a total of 2 mountains plus 2 grassland in 2 turns.

PS: sorry for the quadruple post

[AT]

I may misunderstand the idea, but it seems overcomplicated. Wesnoth is generally a simple game; I don't think players should have to manage fractional hexes or accumulating MP. Making units sometimes able to move farther, depending on what they did the previous turn strikes me as anything but simple.

The way I see it, in two turns, a spearman does not get 10 MP. Rather, in one turn, they are allowed up to 5 MP.

[Soliton]

I agree with AT, this idea violates the KISS principal too much. Apart from the implementation problems Darth Fool mentioned it also allows for some dubious tactics. Like positioning a unit behind rough terrain saving the highest possible MPs and thus allowing it to rush into enemy territory to take that village which is usually out of reach. It quite seriously changes the way you play with fog.
On that note: How does this idea interact with how far units can see?

[nightcrawler]

Allowing units to save movement in this way would eliminate the current huge 'speed' gaps that exist on rough terrain when units with high MP are reduced to very slow movement.

The speed gaps are a game design feature.

[Zhukov]

If I understand this right (and I probably don't) then it scatters KISS to the winds. KISS in the gameplay sense that is.

Not quite sure I agree with the reasons for it being proposed either.

[zookeeper]

I very much agree with the reasons, but I too think that it would be too complex to be easily understood by the player.

[Leo]

As for me this is good and balanced idei, but this idea is BIG kiss violation