Sigh
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Hello all, I am a newcomer to Wesnoth.
I am playing the "Rise of Wesnoth" campaign, and am currently on the "A Harrowing Escape" scenario. However, I am having problems.. you see, I was one turn away from killing each leader, and I mean literally: one turn. I had them surrounded and both in red health. I press the End Turn button, and to my dismay, I have lost because of a time limit!
What the hell? Since when does war have a time limit? I'm sure you can all share my frustration I am having. The game is way too random to even think of my luck (hitting a lot vs. not getting hit a lot) returning the next time.
Eh, I'll play it again, I'm just a little annoyed at losing because of a time limit.
I am playing the "Rise of Wesnoth" campaign, and am currently on the "A Harrowing Escape" scenario. However, I am having problems.. you see, I was one turn away from killing each leader, and I mean literally: one turn. I had them surrounded and both in red health. I press the End Turn button, and to my dismay, I have lost because of a time limit!
What the hell? Since when does war have a time limit? I'm sure you can all share my frustration I am having. The game is way too random to even think of my luck (hitting a lot vs. not getting hit a lot) returning the next time.
Eh, I'll play it again, I'm just a little annoyed at losing because of a time limit.
Welcome to Wesnoth and the RNG! 
While it's fun to go for both leaders – in the long run you'll be better off recruiting fewer units and concentrating on the outlaw (don't kill her when she surrenders!) and advancing units (a white mage comes in very handy!) so you can finish early and get a good gold bonus.
The first few scenes are fairly easy – but there are a couple up ahead that are just complete bloodbaths and you'll need lots of gold to get through them.
While it's fun to go for both leaders – in the long run you'll be better off recruiting fewer units and concentrating on the outlaw (don't kill her when she surrenders!) and advancing units (a white mage comes in very handy!) so you can finish early and get a good gold bonus.
The first few scenes are fairly easy – but there are a couple up ahead that are just complete bloodbaths and you'll need lots of gold to get through them.
Welcome to the forums! If I remember correctly which scenario it is, then don't even send an unit into the direction of the orcish leaders. Simply defend your keep, and destroy the outlaw.
BTW, the game (IMO) is not too random. There are a lot of strategical moves you can make, and especially when you come to play in Multiplayer (on the server, unless you haven't done it yet), you will notice there is a lot of strategy.
jg
BTW, the game (IMO) is not too random. There are a lot of strategical moves you can make, and especially when you come to play in Multiplayer (on the server, unless you haven't done it yet), you will notice there is a lot of strategy.
jg
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Yogibear
- Retired Developer
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Yes, i can imagine that is annoying. It is difficult however to get rid of the time limit since it fulfills an important task: If you finish a scenario earlier than the time limit, you get a gold bonus of:
[number of villages] * [turns finished earlier] * [gold per village].
More than capturing villages, this is what makes you accumulate gold for the more difficult scenarios.
Additionally, sometimes time limits are set by the scenario designer to make you choose a more aggressive strategy. Of course one could discuss if narrowing your strategic options is a good thing or not
.
Oh, and a warm welcome on the forum .
[number of villages] * [turns finished earlier] * [gold per village].
More than capturing villages, this is what makes you accumulate gold for the more difficult scenarios.
Additionally, sometimes time limits are set by the scenario designer to make you choose a more aggressive strategy. Of course one could discuss if narrowing your strategic options is a good thing or not
.Oh, and a warm welcome on the forum
.Smart persons learn out of their mistakes, wise persons learn out of others mistakes!
I generally share your contempt towards hard turn limits without any logical reason. If there is a reason for a turn limit, then it's fine, but there usually isn't one. However, due to the way gold is carried over to the next scenario something like this is necessary to prevent the player from just hoarding a huge pile of gold over a hundred turns before winning the scenario.
A little advertisement: in my campaign (Return of the Legions), I've implemented an alternative way. There, you never have turn limits unless there is a logical reason for them (unfortunately, in two of the five fight scenarios there is one) and gold carryover is determined quite differently. If you finish the scenario before turn x, you get 50% of your finishing gold as a bonus added on top of the fixed starting gold of the next scenario. If you finish before turn y (y>x), you get 30% and if you finish before z (z>y) you get 15% (and after z you get nothing). x, y and z are of course defined individually in every scenario. I think this leads to a nice balance, as long as the three limits are defined well.
A little advertisement: in my campaign (Return of the Legions), I've implemented an alternative way. There, you never have turn limits unless there is a logical reason for them (unfortunately, in two of the five fight scenarios there is one) and gold carryover is determined quite differently. If you finish the scenario before turn x, you get 50% of your finishing gold as a bonus added on top of the fixed starting gold of the next scenario. If you finish before turn y (y>x), you get 30% and if you finish before z (z>y) you get 15% (and after z you get nothing). x, y and z are of course defined individually in every scenario. I think this leads to a nice balance, as long as the three limits are defined well.
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JMSHendricks
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There are time limits in war all the time. Often one must conclude a siege and capture certain objectives before enemy reinforcements arrive, or to give oneself a chance in future battles, before the enemy becomes too strong.
As one of many possible examples, in world war 2 the Japanese felt that they had to capture Singapore by a certain date in order to consolidate their position and eliminate the major British stronghold in the region before it could get help from the US.
In the game, the time limit servers an important role in that it prevents the player from 'milking' the situation indefinitely, and keeps the game challenging.
David
As one of many possible examples, in world war 2 the Japanese felt that they had to capture Singapore by a certain date in order to consolidate their position and eliminate the major British stronghold in the region before it could get help from the US.
In the game, the time limit servers an important role in that it prevents the player from 'milking' the situation indefinitely, and keeps the game challenging.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
Just read and came into idea - retained gold should depend on what percentage of your gold you spent for units,and how many villages you capture.
So, there should be a number named GOLD_FACTOR -> G and EXPENSES -> E. Retained gold would be G*E.
Now, E would be 100%-(Gold Spent/Gold Earned).
Now there are two options:
G - constant, now if one captures more villages than usually, he will have standard army, but retain more gold. After some thinking i decided it's simple, but not the most logical way. Moreover, one would be able to milk, because each turn of gold accumulating would be increasing his E - fortunately slower and slower, never going to reach 100%.
The other idea would be G =
10% * gold earned on turn 1
100-10 % * gold earned on turn 2
100-(100-10%) * gold earned on turn 3
This way the earlier you get villages, the more you will retain from it.
The third and last idea would be that G is constant, and E would be counted just like G was in second idea.
Ity all might look complicated here, but it's not that hard to be coded in fe. C. I dunno how would it be with WML probabyl much harder, unfortunately.
So, there should be a number named GOLD_FACTOR -> G and EXPENSES -> E. Retained gold would be G*E.
Now, E would be 100%-(Gold Spent/Gold Earned).
Now there are two options:
G - constant, now if one captures more villages than usually, he will have standard army, but retain more gold. After some thinking i decided it's simple, but not the most logical way. Moreover, one would be able to milk, because each turn of gold accumulating would be increasing his E - fortunately slower and slower, never going to reach 100%.
The other idea would be G =
10% * gold earned on turn 1
100-10 % * gold earned on turn 2
100-(100-10%) * gold earned on turn 3
This way the earlier you get villages, the more you will retain from it.
The third and last idea would be that G is constant, and E would be counted just like G was in second idea.
Ity all might look complicated here, but it's not that hard to be coded in fe. C. I dunno how would it be with WML probabyl much harder, unfortunately.
User:Kshinji
Probably there's no point for me posting here, but i'll raise my PC to 1337 before leaving again ;P -- just kidding.
Probably there's no point for me posting here, but i'll raise my PC to 1337 before leaving again ;P -- just kidding.
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Elvish_Pillager
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No, enemy reinforcements arriving do not make anyone lose anything. It's when those reinforcements actually hack your men to pieces when it counts. Wesnoth reinforcements would logically arrive from somewhere like the edge of the map, meaning that they would still be completely harmless to your troops for some time. When you finish on the last turn you get no penalty (I don't count a possible loss in gold carryover in this case), but if you'd need just one turn more, you can't take it even if you were ready to sacrifice something for it.Dave wrote:There are time limits in war all the time. Often one must conclude a siege and capture certain objectives before enemy reinforcements arrive, or to give oneself a chance in future battles, before the enemy becomes too strong.
Sure...but Wesnoth is a game that generally gives the appearance of recognizing skirmishes between fairly small bodies of troops.zookeeper wrote:No, enemy reinforcements arriving do not make anyone lose anything. It's when those reinforcements actually hack your men to pieces when it counts.Dave wrote:There are time limits in war all the time. Often one must conclude a siege and capture certain objectives before enemy reinforcements arrive, or to give oneself a chance in future battles, before the enemy becomes too strong.
The reinforcements that might arrive could be a full-scale army that the player has no hope of defeating. It is beyond the scope of Wesnoth to represent such occurrences -- simply saying that the player has lost is sufficient.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
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Elvish_Pillager
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Try telling that to whoever wrote The Heist!Dave wrote:It is beyond the scope of Wesnoth to represent such occurrences
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Sufficient, but you can't blame the player when he feels that just losing outright in that situation is wrong. If the objective is to, for example, get Haldric into a sewer and he's one turn away from it, it doesn't make any logical difference whether he enters it now or on the next turn when the full enemy army has already arrived. He could still make it if the reasoning for losing is supposed to be what the scenario claims it is. You can of course claim that the reinforcements have now seen where Haldric went and therefore can easily follow and kill him, or that they have surrounded Haldric and therefore he can't escape, but IMO explanations like that simply break the immersion since they don't follow the game world's own rules: in this case it would IMHO mean actually spawning that infinite army from somewhere that the player could not defeat but might be able to run from for a few turns.Dave wrote:Sure...but Wesnoth is a game that generally gives the appearance of recognizing skirmishes between fairly small bodies of troops.zookeeper wrote: No, enemy reinforcements arriving do not make anyone lose anything. It's when those reinforcements actually hack your men to pieces when it counts.
The reinforcements that might arrive could be a full-scale army that the player has no hope of defeating. It is beyond the scope of Wesnoth to represent such occurrences -- simply saying that the player has lost is sufficient.
I think immersion in a game is hugely important, even in a game like Wesnoth.
It's not wrong. I can see why a time limit is imposed, but regardless, losing because of it is just annoying.
I just wish there was some kind of check involved for these rare occurences. Like, my example, I had both leaders surrounded and in red health. The game could have checked this beforehand and perhaps let me go ahead and kill them since I was going to the next round anyhow.
I had EVERY enemy unit killed (and many level 2 units by that time)...just grrr. I tried to play it again on an autosave near the end, but I kept running out of time, and now have to start over. It's not that I don't enjoy the game, it's just that I like to take my time and plan. I guess I just took too much time, eh?
Anyhow, thanks for the welcomes!
I just wish there was some kind of check involved for these rare occurences. Like, my example, I had both leaders surrounded and in red health. The game could have checked this beforehand and perhaps let me go ahead and kill them since I was going to the next round anyhow.
I had EVERY enemy unit killed (and many level 2 units by that time)...just grrr. I tried to play it again on an autosave near the end, but I kept running out of time, and now have to start over. It's not that I don't enjoy the game, it's just that I like to take my time and plan. I guess I just took too much time, eh?
Anyhow, thanks for the welcomes!