1 move per turn

[JW]

Forgive me if this has been mentioned previously, but how would Wesnoth be different if players weere allowed only to move 1 unit per turn?

Would recruits count as a move or no? Time would have to be slowed - or would it? Perhaps varying degrees of bonuses? How would level differencecs be taken into account? Perhaps a limit on moving the same character twice in a row?

-just thinking aloud. Brainstorm as you see fit.

[zookeeper]

Well, at least that'd be pretty easy to WML-code and try out. Would probably tell you more than a pageful of speculation, after all.

[Jozrael]

Erm. Wouldn't that just make games take days instead of hours?

[Unnheulu]

It would certainly mean no reading the forum whilst playing.

[JW]

Well, at least that'd be pretty easy to WML-code and try out. Would probably tell you more than a pageful of speculation, after all.

Perhaps. If the right type of preconditions weren't set up to make it playable at first though, it could be a horrible disaster giving an untelling vision of its potential.

Besides, this is just an idea I had before school today.

[grrr]

Been done before. Try the Elf Chess add-on. IMHO, one-move-per-turn sucks for Wesnoth. The only possible way to make it an interesting variation of gameplay would be to have "Leadership points" which you can gain during a campaign. Each point would then allow +1 move per turn.

[JW]

Been done before. Try the Elf Chess add-on. IMHO, one-move-per-turn sucks for Wesnoth. The only possible way to make it an interesting variation of gameplay would be to have "Leadership points" which you can gain during a campaign. Each point would then allow +1 move per turn.

Okay, you're renouncing a whole type of play from on variant that I can't guarantee was executed well or even in a similar fashion.

Let's not be too hasty to judge so broadly, shall we?

[Jozrael]

I can easily see that this would be incredibly, incredibly slow. My ONLY problem with Wesnoth is the amount of time turns take, and I'm willing to deal with it because there's no better solution (you need that amount of time to think through in a real match).

Making it single move per round is ridiculous, IMO. I don't even need to try it out to realize that I'd prefer the current style of play. Chess is an entirely different type of game, and obviously suited for one piece moves. I don't believe Wesnoth is. If you think about it, there are approximately 60 moves (30 turns). That is easily accomplished in the first...5 turns in Wesnoth, before combat has even begun.

Chess games can take 8 hours.

I think we can agree that exponentially lengthening a Wesnoth game is fairly ridiculous.

[MDG]

An interesting idea conceptually as an alternate style of game play. The reality, if poorly implemented, has been pointed out by others. I won't comment further at this point as I am still thinking it through.

[off-topic]
On initially seeing this thread, particularly some of the responses, I wondered if it would have been better posted in the game development section of the forum. On further thought, I'm not sure if that's the correct place for it either. I've considered several times what a game based around BfW but with some of the core game play rules changed might play like (not RNG). I don't expect the developers to do anything to make this happen (honestly!) but, I do like to be able to post the idea up for feedback as other's will often spot potential issues that would need to be resolved along the way. Posting in the ideas section tends to draw posts that seem full of assumptions that it's aimed at the mainline devs and the mainline content, and then individuals start discussing how it 'wouldn't work for mainline' or 'screws mainline balance'. Posting in the game development section seems to imply a new game is already under way. I'm not always sure which section of the forum is most suitable for this kind of initial discussion.
[/off-topic]

EDIT: (avoid multi-posting)
At the moment, you can change your tactics when it is your turn and therefore can react to the outcome of individual moves you make as they become apparent. On your opponents turn you have to wait until they've completed all their moves before reacting in any way. This means, there is more potential for them to wreak havoc on you and just more potential for the nature of the game to change significantly before you are able to respond. All obvious stuff.

One turn per move increases the granularity of the action and perhaps the flow of any changes (tactically, as opposed to time wise). You get the chance to react to the outcomes of individual actions sooner and therefore more chance to influence the direction the game is heading in (same for your opponent). More chance to recover from unexpected outcomes? There's elements of managing the randomness involved at a different level here (as opposed to changing the amount of randomness). More likely to impact tactical decisions rather than strategic and perhaps attempt to keep a strategy on track where it might have needed to be abandoned otherwise. Interesting line of thought JW.

Regards the impact on time for games. The issue is mainly a player issue not a system issue. The amount of time a turn takes is mainly about how long player's spend thinking about moves. Any belief that if you have ten units to move and you take ten minutes to complete your turn then this would, by extension, result in it taking 100 minutes to achieve the same in this set-up is, I suspect, flawed. Fast players will play fast and adjust to the more granular changes faster, slow players will play slow and take longer. I haven't played chess in ages but, when I did, I also used to play speed chess (5 minutes total for each player... lots of fun). It tended to be the best players, most familiar with the overall game, who excelled at speed chess and I'm guessing it would be the same for this system. Those players more confident, comfortable and practised with the game would likely take less time than nervous, indecisive players more inclined to get panicky and uncomfortable. Two faster, more experienced players might well be able to play games of this nature. Alternatively, there have been suggestions before about PBEM (a valid way of playing for chess), this system would work fine for that as well. Not for everyone's taste but, potentially valid for some...

[Yogibear]

Chess and wesnoth are very different in the aspect of killing units: Chess only needs one hit to kill a unit (and the determinism makes sure it always happens).

There is almost no chance to do the same with level 1 units in wesnoth. So if i play carefully and don't let the enemy trap my units, i will always be able to retreat a wounded unit. Killing something is extremely difficult under these circumstances (unless you don't have ulfserkers ).

IMHO this would have to be changed if one-move-per-turn should make sense.

[Jozrael]

Agreed. You'd have to advance units one at a time, and if the attack wasn't successful, a simple pin by one of the enemy units would be extremely easy. (Granted, then they would be vulnerable). ZoC takes on an entirely different meaning in this context.

I agree that I may have overestimated the amount of time difference it would make in the game. Games for sure would go on longer. But it could be fun having a ten second timer for each move or something like that.

I think that this would only really be fun on something like Isar's Cross or something TINY like that. Large maps would just be...boring. In MOST of the turns in a game, over half of your moves are noncombat and largely trivial (bringing reinforcements from your castle). I find it silly that you would have to pick between continuing a conflict or bringing up reinforcements. That your units would just stand still while they were beaten on if you wanted to bring up reinforcements.

This isn't even considering the hell that a RETREAT would be. Only being able to bring one unit back at once... -_-.

If you think about generic wesnoth, a lot of the game is a bit of positioning where people move their entire army from one strongpoint to the next in either an offensive push or defensive fallback. That would be impossible under this situation.

Also, how to implement time of day? If the same, only -six units- would be moving every day. Drakes would be extremely imba because they could always attack with a unit on its strong point. Then again, they would always have a unit that was able to be attacked on its weak turn. Still. This messes with Wesnoth in far more ways than I believe it has been considered to be.

[MDG]

Good points (especially about ZoC).

Things like healing, poison, and upkeep would need to be dealt with as well (or removed...)

[Jozrael]

As someone said in a different thread: I think you want a different game.

[MDG]

As someone said in a different thread: I think you want a different game.

Sort of. I sometimes like to discuss ideas for the sake of it, mainly because better understanding of more subtle points can come out of the discussion (i.e. just for the sake of learning), plus it can result in new ideas.

[JW]

Slow down, slow down. Some good ideas above, and indeed poison would need to be redone, as well as berserk probably.

I fail to see how this would make the game longer though. The reason the game takes so long now is people try to analyze whole battles before they happen planning on multiple contingencies, etc, that they wouldn't have to deal with in a 1 move per turn system. You have so many logical possible moves. Pick one. I imagine it would go much FASTER, if the pace were to significantly change in either direction.

As for TOD, I questioned that above. I imagine days would need to extend over 4x the number of moves they do now (meaning an average of 4 units move per current Wesnoth turn). As a guesstimated theoretical starting point that seems rather reasonable, doesn't it?

Another issue would have to be income and how that is calculated. Also, assaulting villages would be more difficult as the defender could replace a lost unit with a fresh one - though this could provide for an interesting reworking of maps.

Anyway, I like the thought that's being put into this. Keep pumping out ideas - these are good.