A cap on units?

[Insinuator]

I was wondering, will there ever be a cap on the amount of units in BFW? Already in multiplayer experiences by myself and in the general forum, I see many units. It's nice to see so many idea and many of them are great, but for so many units, it seems we don't have enough "game", if you get what I mean.

[Dacyn]

yes, IMCO[1] we have way too many units already.

[1]in my crazy opinion

[Sangel]

So long as each unit is properly weighed, has proper art, and is included with a purpose, I see no reason to "cap" the unit numbers.

[Dave]

I don't really think we have 'too many' units. In a campaign, I think it's much more interesting when you have a diverse range of units to recruit and an even diverser range to fight against.

In multiplayer, we only have ~8 base units per side, which is hardly a huge number.

Of course, the biggest advantage of less units is that we would be able to put more artistic effort into each unit, but I tend to doubt that that'd happen anyhow, because adding animations to existing units isn't as 'fun' as drawing new ones.

David

[scott]

Hello, just registered, have been playing since 0.6.99.4

I think he is talking about number of souls, not number of unit types. If you're in a position to support more than, say, 25 units then I say more power to you.

[Sangel]

Welcome to the boards Scott!

While I don't think Insinuator meant "units in play at one time", I suspect that there should probably be a coded cap on the number of units any side is allowed to have, just in case - probably something unreachable like 100, or even 200.

As for the other interpretation - well, Dave summed everything up nicely.

[Dave]

I suspect that there should probably be a coded cap on the number of units any side is allowed to have, just in case

I'm not sure why we would put an unnecessary hard-coded limit it. Just in case of what?

We won't make any side get out of hand in the official release, but if any user wants to modify their game data and add an insane number of units, then more power to them. I don't see any reason to restrict this.

David

[Sithrandel]

The only reason I can see for capping units is to keep filesizes down. There might come a time when Wesnoth has many campaigns. In that case, all you need to do is package campaign specific units with the campaigns and have campaign packs as separate downloads.

[miyo]

There might come a time when Wesnoth has many campaigns. In that case, all you need to do is package campaign specific units with the campaigns and have campaign packs as separate downloads.

Not really multiplayer compatible way as all players need to have units available that are going to be used in games. Though not all units have to be available in multiplayer.

- Miyo

[Darth Fool]

Of course, the biggest advantage of less units is that we would be able to put more artistic effort into each unit, but I tend to doubt that that'd happen anyhow, because adding animations to existing units isn't as 'fun' as drawing new ones.

David

It may not be as fun, but it is a lot easier, especially for those of us who are artistically challenged, and, at least for me, it is a good way to learn!

[Insinuator]

I know we have a good amount of units right now, and to me, the diversification factor is great. But at a rough estimate, I can think of at least 15 more unit types that have been proposed. If they were all included (discounting, of course, another race), they couldn't it lead to some units not being recruited, and kind of useless?

[Dave]

couldn't it lead to some units not being recruited, and kind of useless?

Sure. We will not make any single faction become 'bloated'.

David

[Gafgarion]

I know we have a good amount of units right now, and to me, the diversification factor is great. But at a rough estimate, I can think of at least 15 more unit types that have been proposed. If they were all included (discounting, of course, another race), they couldn't it lead to some units not being recruited, and kind of useless?

With the use of Eras, I don't see how it's a problem if a unit isn't used in one era.

[turin]

Well, i know i'm disagreeing with everyone here (except Dacyn), but...

I feel that you can easily have too many units. Even more so if you include all of them in multiplayer. Two of the things I personally dislike are special units and too many specialties. You can't have neither one of these and still have a lot of units, unless you are going to create uberunits.

I think 200 units (including upgrades) is a reasonable limit. Anything over that is too much.

[Dave]

I feel that you can easily have too many units. Even more so if you include all of them in multiplayer.

I concur. Though sticking them in different factions or in different eras can alleviate the problem in multiplayer.

In campaigns, I think the player should have control of relatively few units, but I don't see so much problem with them being opposed by many different types of units. I think it makes the campaign more diverse and interesting, especially if it has special units that fit with a certain setting.

Two of the things I personally dislike are special units and too many specialties.

I concur with too many specialties. I especially don't like complicated or contrived specialties. Regeneration, for instance, is a nice simple ability I like -- especially since the healing is the same amount of healing as for a village.

I also liked the original model for healing -- that a healer would heal like a village in all adjacent hexes. Sadly that turned out as way too powerful. The model has become a little more complicated, which I don't like, but is still relatively simple.

Things like 'ambush' and 'plague' are heading toward the side of complexity, which I don't like so much.

'Skirmish' meanwhile, is nice and simple -- it can be specified completely in a single sentence. "The unit ignores enemy zones of control."

I like the attack ability 'charge' because it's so simple. Poisoning and Slow are slightly more complicated, but not so bad.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'special units'. If you're talking about units that aren't primarily combat-oriented, but which have a plethora of special abilities, I concur. If you're talking about once-only campaign units like the Yeti or Cockatrice, I disagree, I think they are things that make the campaign alot more fun to play.

On that topic, I think specialties like 'turn to stone' that the Cockatrice have are fine, if they're just in a single scenario of the game.

You can't have neither one of these and still have a lot of units, unless you are going to create uberunits.

This is true. Originally units could only have one special ability -- I did this largely because I wanted to avoid uber-units. The motivating reason for changing this was the Mage of Light, a pretty good reason to change it, I think.

I think 200 units (including upgrades) is a reasonable limit. Anything over that is too much.

I don't think we should let the number of units get out of hand, but I also don't think we should set ourselves arbitrary limits. If we were having this discussion when there were 70 units in the game instead of 140, someone would have probably said that there should be a limit of 100 units in the game.

Since there are a number of different campaigns, and multiplayer eras, that can use units, to me setting an across-the-board limit makes no sense. It would only squash potetially creative campaign ideas if we went around telling people "your campaign will not get included with the official version of the game because it includes more units and we don't want anymore units."

David