Travelling Tradesmen - a trading scenario with advanced AI

[Hirgwath]

Yeah, Kira and I have played the 1000 gold setting once. The low creep level doesn't necessarily make the game easier, it just makes it easier for everybody. The wide open map resulted in a pretty close race. I do think it was probably too wide open, since you can sometimes practically get away with autoclicking on the village most distant from you. Fighting your way through the creeps is important for variety's sake.

Also, if we had been playing with more humans, I would assume that we'd all become psychotic murderer merchants in order to gain xp, with there being so few creeps around. I don't know if the pvp combat is something you're hoping to encourage, but that is what I think would happen.

[Eskon]

I was warned of monster attacks at turn 50 (or something), as was planned - but they never came It's turn 92 now and all that's running around is your average level 0 brigands. I chose a "very long" setting, that shouldn't have an impact, should it?

I have great fun with the scenario though. One thing: I get money for villages right now, should that happen? I chose "Use Map Settings". I don't think it's logical that the villages pay you taxes, given that you're not the government. Maybe it's intentional to avoid situations in which you dropped down to under 20 money and no items, leaving you unable to trade anything, but even then you can still mug someone with your fists and take some of their money to get back into the game.

EDIT: Buying a lamp resets me to my ordinary max HP of 50 (level 2) even though I bought two endurance potions and have 70. Also, my horse was magically transformed into a flying machine. Bug, I presume?

EDIT2: Also, even though it now shows 5 pockets as per flying machine, I still actually have six. Beneficial bug to get an extra movement point and superior defenses and movement cost with no downsides!

EDIT3: Almost forget to mention I finished my round; second monster warning came at turn 112, again with no change to the various level 0s. I can reaffirm the impression that the game became mostly about merchant murdering past a certain point, at least for the AI, allowing me to run away with the win starting from the moment I had a horse and level 2 (allowing for wondrous profit margins on each run across the map). Though it should be said merchant murdering seems to be a perfectly valid strategy as a level 1 trader, since level 2 items let you make money that much faster. Chasing level 3, however, is a fool's errand without the level 1 and level 2 creeps. At one point I preyed on a recently recovered, still low-HP merchant in town to level to 2; honestly the cost of a healing potion in any stage of the game but the very earliest is a joke, so I don't really see a reason to award free kills to whoever is lucky enough to catch a trader between un-petryfing and buying the potion. I'd rather see the money loss upon killing increased, but let the character fully heal; as it is losing 10% isn't enough of a threat. Then again, money might have not been sparse enough due to the taxes I collected for some reason. I'd have the character lose 10% to the attacker, plus a fixed amount to pay for full recovery, significantly more than the healing potions (perhaps: nothing or 10 gold for level 1s who have it bad enough anyway, 50 gold for level 2s and 100 gold for level 3s.). In the early game I was actually happy if I died right after buying my weapons in a remote village, because I could restart in the city much closer to my goal.

I think the horse/flying machine balance is quite good; flying machines let you complete a lot of trade routes one turn faster, which equals the money you would have made from the sixth slot, and just happen to give you superior defense in combat compared to the horse. The 50 gold knapsack seems like a waste of money to me.

In the version I played, the lantern was pretty useless due to the random outlaws being too weak anyway, and it's actually harmful in combat against the flameheart or mermaid (or the random peasants). Of course if the creeps get fixed to include level 1s and level 2s again this assessment will likely change. I'd love to play the next version.

EDIT4: New entry in the list of things that are completely annoying: AI opponents who keep getting imprisoned on top of the only general store. Would you please install a proper jail in the damned city so I can buy my horse

[Kvinkunx]

Hirgwath: Thanks, mate. Changed the creep settings again. PvP is something that I think should be a matter of opportunity here, not a regular approach to levelling up.

Eskon: Thank you for the report! Is it possible that you played an older version than 1.3.0? The creeps should already power up to L1 and L2 in the respective turns alright. Session length shouldn't affect the creeps in any way, true.
It is intentional that villages give you 1 gp per turn for the reason you mention. It is also logical, if you think along the lines of eg. the Hanseatic League: your guildmaster shares profit with you for every village where you establish trading connection for your guild.
I thought about proper prison initially but soon rejected the idea because it would require quite a lot of hexes since there are up to 8 players. I have added another General Store though in the latest update.
Bugs related to Endurance pots and General Store items should now be fixed.

[Kvinkunx]

2.0.0 is out!

The biggest change is the implementation of the new map which is visually identical to the original one but has fluctuating market.
There may still be errors, gameplay may suck, you may find the icon drawing phase annoyingly long, etc.
AI cannot play this map yet.
Also note that the stock distribution is totally random so you may feel at a disadvantage at the beginning sometimes. I may think up some initial stock distribution but for the time being I think random is fine for testing.


Other changes:
* Two creeps start in each sector again and their refresh rate is a bit more frequent.
* Fixed missing attack icons of bought weapons.
* Fixed bugs with improper leader changes when buying lanterns, horses, flying machines.
* Fixed wrong price displayed at the General Store.
* Changed basic attacks of default traders, traders on horse and traders with flying machines - horses now have the Charge special, flying machines use ranged bomb attack.
* Added one more General Store in the city.

[Eskon]

I downloaded whatever was on the addon server yesterday morning, and I'm pretty sure it would have had to be 1.3.0. That was also when I discovered the add-on for the first time, so if you put up 1.3.0 on the add-on server before yesterday it's the only version I ever played.

The problem might very well be that I never bothered to upgrade Wesnoth from 1.8.0 though! Maybe test compatibility with that version on your machine too? The minimum version of Wesnoth required is sure to be useful information!

Anyway, I'm going to give 2.0.0 a spin now. If I detect problems with the creeps again, I'll install Wesnoth 1.8.3 and try again.

EDIT: Argh, I just read there is no AI Now I have to play against myself...

EDIT2: You probably wouldn't have to add a seperate jail, just move the imprisoned guys somewhere else, maybe on the walls. It's pretty impossible for all eight players to get imprisoned at the same time anyway, so you should be able to get away with a four-hex prison, or four one-hex cells (moving evildoers to the closest free one). If there's ever more than four prisoners, you can then go back to letting them stay where they are.

That, or just have the second general store. Perfectly good enough solution.

Also, there is still AI for the fixed prices map. Yay!

[Kvinkunx]

Dammit, just realized the powerup-creeps bug still persists. Will fix tomorrow.

I think two General Stores would do.

[Kvinkunx]

Still can't fix this bug, it happens only in some sessions.

So far it seems the bug is likely to occur in full 8-player sessions, possibly only those with just one human, playing as team 1. Can anyone confirm, please?

[Kvinkunx]

2.1.0 is out!

* Fixed the bug with creeps not powering up to L1 after turn 50 and to L2 after turn 100
* Fixed bug with bad L1/L2 creep cap calculation
* Changed price of the Endurance Potion to 150
* Thieves' Dens now offer Ruffians, Thugs and Bandits for trader ambushes. Dropped prices: it is now 10, 25, 100 for the respective criminals.
* Removed central weapon shop from the fluctuation market map
* Added attack animations for default trader attacks. It's advertisement time!

[Kvinkunx]

2.1.1 is out!

* Walking traders now have defensive animations with sound
* Raised penalty for death to 20% of money. While the greedier guys among you may complain, it feels like 10% is too little a penalty if you need to prevent a leading trader from winning (which usually has to be done at your expense too because you need to hire criminals to do the dirty work).
* Fixed bug with criminal assignment in Thieves' Dens. Now the available targets work as they should even if you leave empty player spots between sides.
* Dropped fee for money deposit to 1% at Thieves' Dens. In combination with 20% money loss upon death it feels more likely the players would want to deposit excess money.
* Changed sling icon for the fluctuating market map. It wasn't clearly visible how many slings were on display in a shop.


Next in line is the stuff related to Sheriff/Don... stuff.
More animations once I get kissed by a muse again.

[Kvinkunx]

2.1.2 is out!

Mostly minor fixes and changes this time.

* Thieves' Dens now allow one group for hire per visit. You can deposit gold first but once you hire any kind of criminals, you are thrown out.
* Bandits for hire now cost 50 gp
* You cannot send criminals after a trader stationed in the city anymore
* Fixed a couple of wrong sprite settings for traders; traders on horses do not unmount when defending, etc.
* Redesigned the way the fluctuation market map restocks the goods. The main production type adds 5 pieces to its stock while all the other randomly add one piece, reduce one piece or stay unchanged.

[Daravel]

I played this a while back and promised that I'd leave some feedback - I broke that promise. So I downloaded the latest version and played a very long (5000) game versus 4 ai players.

- The dialogue/game messages could use a little work, they are a little odd in places (I can give examples, or even touch it up for you)

- Is the placement of initial enemies random? If not, then as player 1, I couldn't attack an NPC on my first turn, but all the ai's could

- My base weapon is, an advertisement. Did I miss a joke somewhere?

- The thugs you hire shouldn't attack you. I laid an ambush and took the kill. Then my own hired thugs killed me!

- As far as I saw, if you kill an ai character, they don't get the XP for the fight.

- Some NPC's spawn in the impassable void terrain and have 100% chance to hit

- The ai doesn't use the thieves den to hire thugs

- The ai buys lots of different types of weapons, rather than buying one and taking it to the other side of the map

- Perhaps decrease the gold value of everything, increase the weapons you can carry but limit how many of one type you can have (to get around the weapon display on the right, only show 1 type of each weapon attack). This means you can plan a route to sell numerous things.

- Should the player get a % of the gold when their hired thugs kill an ai?

- Someone mentioned changing terrain, how about patches of fog that then hides the players/NPC's. This will put more tactics in play and also makes it easier to go for the 4 corner bosses - as you won't get mobbed.

- Perhaps include shields and things, not just weapons.

- The flying machine's bomb attack doesn't improve when you level up

- The price seems to vary wildly on items. If you buy something in the bottom left (ice wands) then go to the Swords (top left) you buy for 50 and sell for 79.. Two turns to the right, at the fire wands, you sell for 150. Is there a east/west divide in terms of pricing? Shouldn't it be directly proportional to distance travelled?

- Some of the weapons have strange names: "shatterer", "dragon breath" and others (Again, I can provide examples if you like)

- If you want to move the focus away from soley trading, then you could get a small amount of gold when you kill an NPC

- There needs to be more to do once you hit level 3, apart from avoiding trouble and moving between 2 points

- Would it be possible to see everyones gold during your turn, to plan thieves guild stuff - Although, remembering the information from the update would require more skill

- You can technically level up after level 3 (the XP bar is blue, not purple) but nothing happens apart form a standard increase in hp

- In the miscellaneous villages, you could randomly spawn rare artefacts that sell for 200 or something.

- To add more strategy: Every turn you hold a miscellaneous village for, the cost of everything in it reduces by 5% (cheapest being 10 for level 1, 25 for level 2 and 50 for level 3). It resets if you lose it.

- Give each player a secret challenge with a gold reward: Kill 10 goblins, sell 20 ice wands, ride a horse from arcane to spears, etc...

- The ai doesn't take villages (except to heal). I held 13 villages at one point with 14 gold a turn... On average I'm making 10 gold a turn, which is a lot.

- Add in the potential to lose weapons when you are killed

- Pickpockets could be hired in the thieves guild and have a % chance to steal an item (which can be auto sold at nearest shop, so that it doesn't cause a problem if you have max number of items)

- It's very easy against the ai. It dies a lot. I got bored when I had 2.5k on the 5k game. The ai needs to use the thieves guild and be les aggressive and be smarter in it's weapon choices.

- It'd be nice to see more upgrades to your trader - not sure what though.

- We should organise some 4 and 8 human player games to see how this really works out.

Hope these ideas help

[Rigor]

- My base weapon is, an advertisement. Did I miss a joke somewhere?

- The thugs you hire shouldn't attack you. I laid an ambush and took the kill. Then my own hired thugs killed me!

- Perhaps decrease the gold value of everything

- Should the player get a % of the gold when their hired thugs kill an ai?

- Someone mentioned changing terrain, how about patches of fog that then hides the players/NPC's. This will put more tactics in play and also makes it easier to go for the 4 corner bosses - as you won't get mobbed.

- Perhaps include shields and things, not just weapons.

- Some of the weapons have strange names: "shatterer", "dragon breath" and others (Again, I can provide examples if you like)

- If you want to move the focus away from soley trading, then you could get a small amount of gold when you kill an NPC

- Give each player a secret challenge with a gold reward: Kill 10 goblins, sell 20 ice wands, ride a horse from arcane to spears, etc...

- Add in the potential to lose weapons when you are killed

- Pickpockets could be hired in the thieves guild and have a % chance to steal an item (which can be auto sold at nearest shop, so that it doesn't cause a problem if you have max number of items)

- It's very easy against the ai. It dies a lot. I got bored when I had 2.5k on the 5k game. The ai needs to use the thieves guild and be les aggressive and be smarter in it's weapon choices.

- It'd be nice to see more upgrades to your trader - not sure what though.

- We should organise some 4 and 8 human player games to see how this really works out.

yes thats a joke, ha-ha!

thugs are thugs and ur a merchant. what did u expect, really ;D

decreasing is cool and stuff...however im not sure its fun to reach 5000 gold with selling stuff for a profit of <100

im not sure but i would have loved to see thugs giving ME the money. but then again, see point 2.

fog on that map is the dead of the multiplayer traders version

would be nice to have a shield! and other...stuff.

well you see we all r no native speakers, maybe u provide better, non-unintended funny names. else we might lack the sensitivity to detect ridiculous names.

killing eh knocking out your concurrents should give u gold that makes sense. and it should be more than the gold u get from thugs, because traders know each others secret pockets, but lets say shortly before the other guy was knocked out, he decided to hide his extra gold in another place. so not the full amount is taken but less.

i dont like this kind of kill 500 wolves and u get the wolf axe thing. maybe you do, but i dont or maybe if thats too extreme, dont let the amount be higher than 5.

yes losing stuff makes sense when ur knocked unconscious. but if ur low at gold lets say 5 gold, and then u have nothing in your pockets? u can give up ? XD

you should describe your concept of pickpockets a bit better. a thief with a 1-3 attack that can leech gold from you when he hits you?

you can say this about the AI in wesnoth in general.

describe your upgrades a bit better, please

how do you want to organize 4-8 players? through this board?

next time try to say few words in one post, im kinda exhausted already and i think everybody is kind of reserved to reply to such a large chunk of text - so - in the end you dont really help yourself

[Daravel]

It's how I work... I play the scenario/campaign and I write down any and every idea I have.

Of course, it's meant for the developer, who will be more interested in my ideas than everyone else. They can choose to ignore me though.

They are all ideas, I have no idea if any of them will work, or if I would actually like them in practice. I just played it and thought "Oooh, what if...?"

[Rigor]

well you dont have to invent the game, but since your ideas were quite useful i thought i could bring you to tell me about their implementation. you scratched over the surface, and i responded. its your turn now we all are interested to make the game faster better smarter

[Daravel]

I was mainly replying to your point about it being a long post with lots of ideas; my answer being, that it's really only meant for the developer and any interested parties (which you obviously are). I will of course answer your reply.

thugs are thugs and ur a merchant. what did u expect, really ;D

True, but you can give the thieves your money and trust them not to steal it, but you can't pay them to attack someone and trust them not to kill you?

decreasing is cool and stuff...however im not sure its fun to reach 5000 gold with selling stuff for a profit of <100

But you have more to sell. Instead of 3 items @ 200, you sell 10 items@20. But, you can't have lots of the same item. So you must plan a route rather than move from A to B and repeat.

im not sure but i would have loved to see thugs giving ME the money. but then again, see point 2.

Again, you can safely store your gold with them. So why not get 50% of the gold the player lost when they die?

fog on that map is the dead of the multiplayer traders version

Sorry, I don't understand.

well you see we all r no native speakers, maybe u provide better, non-unintended funny names. else we might lack the sensitivity to detect ridiculous names.

I'm happy to provide changes, if it is wanted. I just bring up the issue to see if it is actually an issue.

killing eh knocking out your concurrents should give u gold that makes sense. and it should be more than the gold u get from thugs, because traders know each others secret pockets, but lets say shortly before the other guy was knocked out, he decided to hide his extra gold in another place. so not the full amount is taken but less.

I meant, gold when you kill one of the random monster NPC's, not the other traders. Although, I'm not sure what rationale you could use for mugging a goblin?

yes losing stuff makes sense when ur knocked unconscious. but if ur low at gold lets say 5 gold, and then u have nothing in your pockets? u can give up ? XD

Capture villages for gold.
But perhaps there should be hardship fund? So, if you go below an amount of gold, then you get given 50.

you should describe your concept of pickpockets a bit better. a thief with a 1-3 attack that can leech gold from you when he hits you?

You go to the thieves den, and you hire a pickpocket (higher gold cost gives a thief who can steal higher level items). Then they have an x% chance to steal an item off a certain player.

describe your upgrades a bit better, please

I hadn't thought of any specific ones. Just it'd be nice to have more.

how do you want to organize 4-8 players? through this board?

Sure, get some volunteers and sort out a date and time. I think it would really help to see how this scenario works for real.