Features for 0.8

[Dave]

Before you do so, wouldn't it be a better ability than a trait (it seem very strong as a trait). Some units could be even made with little or no attack and this ability (such as healer, flag-carrier, scholar).
Hum,... scholar would be nice (useless unit until he gets a new level where he turns into a very strong unit).

I suggested it as a trait and not an ability for a couple of reasons, although I grant that my inexperience with the underlying mechanics and distinction between the two may not justify this belief. (To clarify my thoughts, in case I am wrong, abilities are specific to different types of units, and individual units of the same type get random traits, right?). As a trait It does self-balance by taking up a trait slot that might make a unit more powerful otherwise. The result is a unit that gets experience in a non-violent manner and therefore might be easier to get to higher levels, but ultimately the unit will always be weaker than a different unit of the same type and level that has another trait like resilient(as Dave pointed out).

As an ability with say a scholar unit, I can imagine it being quite hard to balance. If it was an ability, I would say that units that had it should almost uniformly have weak/no attack and/or be really wimpy, but perhaps have some other cool ZOC ability that makes them still useful. As I said, though, it would be difficult to balance.

Firstly, let me say that if this were to get made into a trait, the unit would only gain a small amount of experience 'vicariously'. Probably 1 xp for every friendly unit they see kill someone.

Having some kind of 'scholar' unit would end up with a unit that you have to coddle everywhere, trying to get it to advance a level. I don't think it'd be a very interesting playing style.

Having a 'wise' unit would allow more interesting tactics IMO -- any type of unit could be wise, and could gain just a little extra experience in a number of situations.

The main potential problem I see with the idea is that to take advantage of 'wise' fully, might involve some tedious gameplay: moving units around to witness killings at every possibility in order to get them extra experience.

Still, I may implement it, to see how it works out.

David

[Lithorien]

It may work out well or poorly depending on who plays with who. Let me figure out this CVS thingy for Windows, and I could arrange a game with you to show you the ramifications of village-grabbing with "scout" units.

Keep in mind, if you get popular enough, eventually the "we want power" group will show up and exploit things like this. I'm just warning you of that possibility.

At any rate.. let me know if you want a demonstration of the "screw-overage" principal and I'll try my best to get the new CVS version.

Well, if people are going to try to do this to each other, I think it can happen either way: if you can capture villages off allies, then they can just wait until all your units are away fighting, and grab their villages.

If someone is intent on 'screwing you over', I'm not sure why you'd play with them.

The Wesnoth community has thusfar remained small enough to avoid anyone too obnoxious, but I'm sure you are right, that eventually a minority of the userbase's playing style with consist primarily of anti-social techniques.

Still, I think that a not-nice ally could always do nasty things to you, and so you should simply choose not to play with them.

But sure, I'd be happy to have a game with you the VC++ project files are included in CVS now, btw.

David

I'd love to grab the CVS files, but, er.. I'm trying to grab them, and here's the message I get:

C:\Program Files\CVS>cvs -z3 -d:ext:anoncvs@savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/wesnoth co Wesnoth

> nongnu.org:Connection timed out
rsh: can't establish connection
cvs [checkout aborted]: end of file from server (consult above messages if any)

[Dobob]

Dave, if you implement the "wise" or the "scholar", could you make it both as a trait and as an ability (or, make it an ability, but allow traits to add abilities). That way people could check wether the gameplay is tedious or not.

Anyway, one way to reduce the tediousness of making the scholar/wise unit go next to each unit about to get a kill (which is very similar to what units with leadership do) would be give xp everytime one of their allies get attacked (so, always in your enemy turn, and harder to do). But that not a very good idea ...

[miyo]

07:37 < miyo> Sirp: This capturing villages has been discussed few times in the past
07:38 < miyo> Sirp: And we have agreed with "Lithorien"
07:38 < miyo> Sirp: I disagree with the change.
07:38 < miyo> Sirp: Now taking villages, etc is matter of communication =)
07:38 < miyo> Sirp: I'll take one from you, you can take one from me? I have less than you, can I take some villages from you?
07:39 < miyo> Sirp: So I agree with Lithorien on this, as I have done before
07:39 < Sirp> miyo: main concern is single player. I don't think AI should take villages from human, and I don't think that
the human should be able to take from the AI.
07:39 < miyo> Sirp: Think of underground missions
07:39 < miyo> Sirp: allied dwarves are "sure" to capture some villages before you...
07:40 < miyo> Sirp: What about your plans to capture some village and whoaa... allied scout just captured it before you.
07:40 < miyo> Sirp: There will be "fighting with ally about villages"
07:40 < miyo> Sirp: Even more when there is AI... it is either how fast you can capture villages or ally capturing villages
from ally
07:41 < miyo> Sirp: ally is losing.. I can not start recapturing his/her/its villages before he/she/it has lost
07:41 < miyo> Sirp: Not good.
07:41 < Sirp> hmmmmm
07:41 < Sirp> this might be right, I will think about it.

[Dave]

I'd love to grab the CVS files, but, er.. I'm trying to grab them, and here's the message I get:

Sometimes the CVS server can be a little ermm...flakey. You might have to try again later.

David

[Lars]

I don't know but could this town takeover thing solved by this kind of rules.

1. AI cannot takeover friendly town, but can use it as a defense or healing.
2. Human player is asked wether he wants takeover the town or not.

I am not sure would this effect to the game balance. At least I would be using also option not to takeover the village

[miyo]

1. AI cannot takeover friendly town, but can use it as a defense or healing.

AI should be just another player and follow same rules... no special rules like e.g. human players can capture ally villages but AI can't. AI should not capture villages from you except for healing or if villages happen to be on their path (as point where they stop). This is matter of AI behaviour and therefore AI coding.

2. Human player is asked wether he wants takeover the town or not.

In multiplayer if it is not your turn you don't get any dialogs... e.g. if your unit happens to advance to next level (and there is multiple paths to take) there is random selection. Partially this is due our network solution, another point is that player should not be asked to made any selections when it is not their turn (this allows you to do other things when it is not your turn, e.g. develop the game, report bugs, fix bugs, put your son to sleep, cook some food, etc. - feature which have been quite valuable for me especially when there are many players in multiplayer game).

- Miyo

[miyo]

One possibility would be that on your turn you can donate villages to ally, but:

* AI, how would they know when to donate villages, one solution of course is that they never donate villages
* This would be mis-used, when your leader is about to die you would donate your villages to ally (preventing them to go neutral when your leader dies and therefore ally does not need to re-capture them)
* Mis-using can be minized by allowing only one village donation per turn

- Miyo

[ahwayakchih]

2. Human player is asked wether he wants takeover the town or not.

In multiplayer if it is not your turn you don't get any dialogs... [...]

Miyo, i think You misunderstood Lars. Human player is asked in his/her turn (because You can't capture village on other player's turn, right? ).
IMHO such question would be really good (of course if "only stay for healing" option will be implemented).
As for AI, for now it could just choose randomly (to implement it faster), and later some kind of additional option ("let AI capture friendly villages") could be made. And even later, AI could check if it needs more villages (because of "holes in budget" ), or not.

[Accipitradea]

Could we get a change name option in the unit description box? As much as I love the pre-fabed names, I'd like to be able to rename them to things I can remember easier.

Along those lines, how about a "Find Unit" menu item? It could be a list of all your units with their coordinates that would center the view on them when you double click on their name.

[Dave]

Could we get a change name option in the unit description box? As much as I love the pre-fabed names, I'd like to be able to rename them to things I can remember easier.

This option is already available, although it has somehow found itself out of the menu system. If you select a unit and press "ctrl+n" it will bring up a dialog to rename her.

It will be back in the context menu in the next release.

Along those lines, how about a "Find Unit" menu item? It could be a list of all your units with their coordinates that would center the view on them when you double click on their name.

From the main menu, select "Unit List". This is pretty much what you describe.

David

[tefkab]

To revive the idea of the scholar unit:
If I understand the source (v0.7) correctly, the only possibility to get experience points is fighting. Why does a healer have to fight to get xp?
What do you think of getting xp for healing? For example a healer could get 1xp for healing more than n health points in one turn.

[miyo]

Miyo, i think You misunderstood Lars. Human player is asked in his/her turn (because You can't capture village on other player's turn, right? :)).

I stand corrected.

IMHO such question would be really good (of course if "only stay for healing" option will be implemented).
As for AI, for now it could just choose randomly (to implement it faster), and later some kind of additional option ("let AI capture friendly villages") could be made. And even later, AI could check if it needs more villages (because of "holes in budget" ;)), or not.

I am not sure it adds to simplicity in game, I think:

* when capturing ally village you are asked if you want to take over
* when ally captured your village you are asked if you want to give control
* donating villages

any of them adds complexity.

- Miyo

[Dave]

What do you think of getting xp for healing? For example a healer could get 1xp for healing more than n health points in one turn.

This idea, which has been suggested a few times before, has some merit, although it does have a major problem: it is hard to imagine that this will not make it fairly trivial for such a unit to get enough experience to level-up with little or no risk.

David

[Dave]

* donating villages

One possibility is to make it that you can donate any village which your ally has a unit on top of.

However, this does indeed add complexity.

David