Earthquake, flooding, lightinings & c.

[RokStar]

English is not my language, so please don't be rude if i will write something grammaticaly weird.

Ok, the game is hard enough sometimes, but it could be more "realistic" if in same scenarios natural events could happen. I.E. in a volcanic island it is possible to have a random eruction that burns random hex (with units), or in a deep forest could happen that a tree get caught by a litghtining when it is raining. Also, in the mountain there could be rock falling, in the coast a flooding, etc.

I think it is all possible with WML, but it would be nice if everything could (or could not) happen in every map (obviously a flooding in a mountain with no water is not so realistic).

Maybe it would be even better if these disaster could be enabled / disabled in the config menu, to mantain the game as it is for new player and allow skilled player to fight also against luck and natural disaster. Obviously the enemies can be affected by these disaster.

[vicza]

Ok, the game is hard enough sometimes, but it could be more "realistic" if in same scenarios natural events could happen. I.E. in a volcanic island it is possible to have a random eruction that burns random hex (with units), or in a deep forest could happen that a tree get caught by a litghtining when it is raining. Also, in the mountain there could be rock falling, in the coast a flooding, etc.

Have you played HTTT:The Scepter of Fire? There's something like this in new versions. Chasms with lava moving, units falling therein...

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Definitely something to be implemented in individual campaigns or MP maps. An MP map with this would be fun.

[Dave]

These things can be and are implemented in various campaigns. In fact, UtBS begins with a shower of meteorites!

However, something like a volcano erupting or an earthquake is a rather rare event. I don't think it'd be "realistic" to have it coinciding with a battle.

David

[turin]

Have you played HTTT:The Scepter of Fire? There's something like this in new versions. Chasms with lava moving, units falling therein...

Gah... unless done well, that can be really irritating. Having units die randomly, with no warning or chance to save them, is just stupid.

It can work if you first have the terrain change to something signaling danger, and then the next turn it kills the unit...

[Dave]

Have you played HTTT:The Scepter of Fire? There's something like this in new versions. Chasms with lava moving, units falling therein...

Gah... unless done well, that can be really irritating. Having units die randomly, with no warning or chance to save them, is just stupid.

It can work if you first have the terrain change to something signaling danger, and then the next turn it kills the unit...

Yeah you definitely have to have some kind of warning; otherwise it's just plain irritating.

Something like a fire that moves one hex a turn (or some random amount but within a reasonable range) or a lava flow that steadily comes down a mountain, or something like that is fine. Just give the player a reasonable way to plan for it and strategize around it.

David

[Edward V Riley]

These events should be treated(with the exception of Lightning) as dragons in Wesnoth, rarely seen. Why? These events truly don't happen every day and if a ton of campaigns had it, it would cheapen the experience. Lightning happens more often, but to implement this you might have to implement rain and thunder and the effects they have on mobility...which would violate the KISS principle.

I think moving lava was also a feature on Saving Elensefar or something..where the 2 kids and their mother had to save horses before the lava hit.

[irrevenant]

However, something like a volcano erupting or an earthquake is a rather rare event. I don't think it'd be "realistic" to have it coinciding with a battle.

It's probably more likely if the disaster precipitated the battle (As Atlantis sinks into the sea, the two factions fight over its resources) or both are consequences of a shared cause (The evil mage causes an eruption to cut off the villagers escape as his horde moves in).

But really, isn't most adventure fiction about exceptional circumstances anyway?

[Edward V Riley]

You've got a point there Irrevenant. What's funny to me is how often a ship sinking is used. If one didn't know the real statistics and relied on just what was in the books, you'd think ships were built for the sole purpose of sinking. But how fun is "They set sail and safely made it to their port"?

[megane]

Related question: say I'd like to have a scenario happen during a rainstorm; is it possible for me to set some sort of cycling "rain" animation to play over the whole battlefield? If not, I think that might be a worthwhile addition; for example, there's a scenario in HttT in which it's supposed to be snowing heavily, and actually showing the snow falling would make it much more dramatic. I suppose it might be a CPU drag, so, if it's implemented, one should definitely be able to turn it off as one can standing animations. It'd look cool, though ^^;

[vicza]

Gah... unless done well, that can be really irritating. Having units die randomly, with no warning or chance to save them, is just stupid.

Well, when I played this new version first time, I lost, at least, one shaman. Simply didn't expected she will fall there.

[Urs]

Related question: say I'd like to have a scenario happen during a rainstorm; is it possible for me to set some sort of cycling "rain" animation to play over the whole battlefield?

Oh man, this would be really, really cool if implemented.

[Edward V Riley]

I don't know if it would help, but the rain cycling has been done in some games. The weather front's move to affect mostly movement. Hearts of Iron 2 has this, and it makes you "hold off" on that invasion of Russia til some of the snow clears, or you can go ahead and watch your units flounder.

HOI 2 also had "daylight/darkness" cycling over the entire planet, but I prefer what we have now.

Perhaps a factor can be introduced for rain to make it fall every 4 days of gameplay(after 8 turns?), and if the campaign takes place in the far north or far south, then snow can be introduced every x days.(I use x as I live in the southern US and snow doesn't fall here but once in about 4 or 5 years)

But what I fear is this will intoduce other factors into the strategy and may be too much. For "realism" players would complain that on rainy days:

1) bows are heavier(as they're made of wood) and therefore far less accurate

2)Movement is halved or taken away by 1

3)Armor would rust(yeah, I know it's silly, but I'd bet money someone would put this on a thread)

4)Flying units can't fly in rainy or snowy weather. It makes sense, but this would be a pain in the posterior to implement

5)Mermen and Naga get some sort of advantage.

6) Dwarves can't move in the mud or some such nonsense.

This is all I can think of at the top of my head. I'm just playing Devil's Advocate, so don't get mad.

[megane]

Well, randomly changing weather will not make it into mainline. That's pretty much a certainty. I just want the ability to do it graphically so that it could be used for UMC's, wherein one could, if obsessive compulsive, implement any or all of the above effects; think Dark Forecast on steroids.

[lord_midnight]

Im glad I found this, I was just about to ask if I could replace the day night cycle with a weather cycle, to represent longer battle. Many battle were fought over the course of weeks if not months. I would love a simple weather system that could replace the day night cycle, or even seasons, if playing an 'Epic' campaign, to represent years of war. This can be done as of now right ? using WML, and such ? I thought I read you can customize the time cycle.

As for effect on battle, some rain making most land tiles take an extra MP to traverse would add a lot of depth to the game, and I think it could be done while keeping KISS in mind. I'm all for this idea, what would it take to implement weather and disasters in battle ?

The Lava-flow can be done using basic scripting and the terrain tags right ? I used to live in Hawaii when I was younger, lava is really powerful, it can creep at a snails pace, and rush like a river, changing speed and direction without warning. The idea of a rock plain, where the crust collapses dropping you into a river of molten rock seems pretty cool to me. Floods washing some units downhill and a bit of damage could add that extra bit of help to turn the tide of battle.

I like these ideas, how can they be implemented ? What needs to be done in the engine to permit them, or can it be done new ? Looks like some of these ideas can be done already, which ones simply cannot be done in WML, and require engine changes ?