non-castle "keep"

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PingPangQui
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Post by PingPangQui »

Kestenvarn wrote:Why not go with "Rally Point"? Simple, easy to understand.
Hm, not for me. Camp sounds more obvious to me and it's shorter. Anyhow, I must admit that I'm not a native English speaker.
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Woodwizzle
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Post by Woodwizzle »

Rally point does sound better, but it has a similar but different meaning in many RTS games, which might confuse some new users.
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PingPangQui
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Post by PingPangQui »

Hm didn't know this. Although being a non-native English speaker and a non-RTS-game player Rally Point sounds to me more like the point were you are heading to, like the post sign in many campaigns.
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Kestenvarn
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Post by Kestenvarn »

Think of it like "rallying to a standard" or the like. Drawing* your forces to a single area.



*Recruiting, in game mechanics.
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Post by deoxy »

1. Name: in military parlance, "rally" is generally a recovery type of action, "The general rallied his scattered army." "muster" is specifically for gathering troops. This doesn't mean we have to call is "muster point", but it should be something we keep in mind.

2. Another thing to keep in mind: this could easily be used IN CONJUNCTION with a castle or keep - that is, have an actual keep and a hex or two of castle, then add more "muster point" hexes to allow the amount of recruiting you might want to give without having to use more castle than you want. For this reason (among others), I think additional graphical work is going to be necessary. Using two banner/marker graphics that are simply added to existing hexes appeals greatly to me, as it would allow ANY type of hex to be used.
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khamul
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Post by khamul »

I think it's essential to have a marker to say which hexes you can recruit from.

If there's no marker, then you don't know which hexes you can use to recruit unless you know the rule. How are we going to make sure all new players know the rule?

There's got to be a marker. It's the simple answer: and if you have a marker, why limit which hexes are available?


Regarding the marker, is there any reason why a faction flag wouldn't be sufficient? The only problem I can see is if you had a village near the muster/rally point. You wouldn't be sure whether you could recruit from it, or not.

Maybe the best solution would be to have an icon at the top of the flag that shows whether the hex can be used for recruiting - like the crown on a unit that shows that the unit can recruit.

As an addendum, a useful WML feature would be linking an arbitrary hex with an arbitrary keep - so in a campaign, for example, taking that keep would let you recuit in those villages. You could use the icon on the flag to show which villages are linked with which keep. I guess an empty pole (flag, without the flag bit) + icon would indicate an unclaimed village linked to a keep.
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PingPangQui
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Post by PingPangQui »

khamul wrote:I think it's essential to have a marker to say which hexes you can recruit from.

If there's no marker, then you don't know which hexes you can use to recruit unless you know the rule. How are we going to make sure all new players know the rule?

There's got to be a marker. It's the simple answer
No there has not to be a marker. I could also ask: How does a new player know to recruit at all? In most cases because they played the tutorial, and that is exactly where such thing should be explained (Being able to read might be a prerequisite though).
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khamul
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Post by khamul »

You're right, a new player can learn it from the tutorial - if they play the tutorial. And then they have to remember it, and precisely how it works... and, unlike recruiting from a castle, it's not something you have to do every day.

Actually, you can argue that Wesnoth's current interface isn't as good as it could be in this regard: the rule today is "if it's a castle hex, or fort, or something like that, and there's an unbroken chain of such hexes attached to a keep hex, and you have a leader in the keep, you can recruit from it". You're suggesting adding "unless it's a special 'rally' hex, which looks a bit different, in which case you can recruit from any of the surrounding hexes which are 'flat', whatever that means".

It's not a very good rule, because it's not clear. For example, what if you have a fort 'keep', some fort hexes and then a castle hex attached to them: can you recruit in the castle hex? I don't know. Can I recruit mermen in water hexes next to a rally hex? It's 'flat' land for mermen.

A much better rule is "if you have your leader on a hex with this icon of this colour, any hex with that icon of the same colour, wherever they are can be recruited from". That's a _very_ simple and obvious rule. Simple and obvious is good. Flexible is even better - and it is that, too.

It would be neat to be able to modify recruit lists on a per-hex basis, as well - so this village hex allows you to recruit thieves, and that water one allows mermen only.

EDIT: spelling, clarity.
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deoxy
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Post by deoxy »

khamul wrote:It would be neat to be able to modify recruit lists on a per-hex basis, as well - so this village hex allows you to recruit thieves, and that water one allows mermen only.
This is a neat idea... but runs afoul of your earlier remarks about "simple and flexible" and being "clear". What about a village where you can recruit thieves and peasants? How about Peasants and Spearmen? How about Peasants and cavalry? How about Peasants and Spearmen and bowmen? Etc.

And what about an Orc player coming to one of those spots? Would there have to be similar units for the orc player to recruit there? Or would he be able to get units from a different faction?

All in all, it's a neat idea, which I like... and it has been done fairly extensively in the Warlords series of games, which has a MUCH for complex and powerful city interface than Wesnoth has (or is likely to be developed, as simplicity is generally the guiding principle).

Also, the number of easily identifiable markers for so many different combinations of possible "inherent" recruiting is just too low.

That said, I can see some campaigns or specific scenarios where it would be wanted... but I think it could be done with WML fairly well (if with some difficulty). It's worth discussion, I think, but it could probably us its own thread.
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deonjo
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Post by deonjo »

maybe, the ground could be glowing. So if a leader is ever on a hex that allows for recruiting on a certain spot. all hexs that can be recruited from starts glowing.
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Post by Weeksy »

I think deonjo's idea has some merit... just have some basic halos showing where you can recruit, it would make things fairly easy to view, and still leave flexibility...
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Na'enthos
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Post by Na'enthos »

Hmm. Rather than having a glow or something similar, I'd prefer to have items. Like having a camp of tents, with a special tent being the 'keep' and the remainder being the palces where units can be placed when recruited/recalled.

That, or something more subtle, possibly.
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gabe
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Post by gabe »

I like the idea of a muster point
but for some cases even a tent might be to much stuff
as what of a running scenario where the leader is recruiting but has no real camp to speak of

I think a flag of some sort and an outline of recruit squares would be nice
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn »

I like this idea, first of all! I think:

Keep->Banner (not a simple flag)
castle hexes-> the tent icon from dirt keeps. IIRC, we have several variations of that, right? If not, we can always post in ArtDev (open) section to ask for "shabbier" tents, right?

IMO, I always thought that the wooden palasade was supposed to represent that type of fort, but I can see how it wouldn't. (That is, it seems now to equal orc/outlaw fort)
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Temuchin Khan
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Post by Temuchin Khan »

One thought that occurred to me was that the "keep" could be represented by a large flag/banner/pile of skulls/what have you, and the "castle" spaces by smaller ones.
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