Conquest 2.0 - on 1.8 server

[Gwledig]

LOL

if all you have done is put a hypen after Conquest this is not distinguishing it at all.

So the host (and players joining games) will see either the main game eg

Conquest Wesnoth

or your version

Conquest- Wesnoth

Although it is a big problem using a longer name, because this is too long for the map list width, this is why I changed Conquest Extra to Conquest+ but this is a lot more descriptive than just adding a dash (-)

It might be better to have

Conquest(-) Wesnoth
or
Conquest[-] Wesnoth

because just adding the - is a bit meaningless, and most people won't know its a main game or a minus version they are joining (or even hosting)

[SlowThinker]

So the host (and players joining games) will see either the main game eg
Conquest Wesnoth
or your version
Conquest- Wesnoth

The main game? Does it still exist? It was not deleted?
You mean the pirate version? Install both Conquest- and the pirate version and you will see. (both maps are shown and distinguished)

[Gwledig]

OK ST I see what you are doing...

but if you want it to look like the definitive Conquest, this won't work either, because adding a - is just not going to be dis-similar enuff.

Mr. Noob wants to Host a Conquest game, he goes on the Add On server and downloads everything with the word 'conquest' in it (hmm he's not sure if he needs all or some of these packs to host..)
Then he makes a multiplayer game, and see all the maps, and he wants to host something called "Conquest"
So he scans the list and runs "Conquest Wesnoth" cos that looks cool, he also sees "Conquest+" which obviously has "extra" stuff.. hmm maybe try this as well later as it's obviously a modification of Conquest.

But your pack name is going to be meaningless if it's just - and players who really want to host a "classic" game might well be forgiven for just running the main pack (what you call pirate), or most probably they will think it's a bug and the maps are just listed twice.

But let's see what happens!

[SlowThinker]

I didn't want to use "Classic" as one day it will stop to be Classic (when it will start to develop).
Maybe I will test whether it may be renamed, and if so it might be "Classic" some time...
But ... map names with "Classic" are too long...

[Mabuse]

code polishing:
{VARIABLE garrison $random} has been applied

btw, for further code-polishing you probably just want to delete the complete kalifa-folder (implemented by lich lord, contains unit-cfg's and race.cfg) from your upload, since it isnt used at all. and therefore obsolete. the infos about the units come from ageless era.

i mean come on, getting upset about some extra lines of code (already fixed in my 2.9.x, btw) and you put a complete obsolete folder inside your upload.

i guess you dont know it better though

also "conquest minus" is a bulls... name
seriously, i could give a singlehandely and instantly a better name

if you would have called it "conquest main" or something (then i would probably get upset), but "conquest minus" ...., if i would be malicious i would say the name pretty much fits. :p

[Mabuse]

Slow u are obiously right.I totaly hate the chart with incomes that apears(as well as all good players i asked-Amangon,Condor,neila,Svetak,xy,Elrood and...)well some of them arent so great players but they are wathcing many good batles:).So there should be option to disable this.

2ndly i would say forification is a good idea but 75% defense is awesome and unbalanced.There should be suc hthing but in other variant,althought i wouldnt care if fortify dont exist.

3rdly.The problem with flyers(not only drakes).Its just crazy there are some spawns that garant u 100% of some maps( i mean the teleport surdmark) and on on Jelwal the drakes in center rules.I saw mabuse said dont cry if u have many rivers and flyers near them,but even witohut rivers they are just Awesome.Something should be done with them,i think there is only 1 map with them where they are balanced.( i m talking forr capitol ffa or capitol team/1v1 in standart the problem still exist but not so much and not on nearly all maps).

----------------------------------------------

1)
income table will stay in the one way or another

i plan to implement a choice "INCOME STATISTICS" where you can select "EXACT"
or "ESTIMATED"

ESTIMATED will simply multiply the base income (region bonus+2) by 2.25 and always round up.
EXACT will be the EXACT VALUE (as it is right now, not taking workers into account).

I simply will give players a raw estimation of how the game is progressing without forcing them to "alt-s" all the time. And you can estimate the income from the region boni, no matter what "HONK 123456" says.

Of course ESTIMATED will not be EXACT and therfore sometimes a bit higher (not bad since its always abit higher (due to workers)) or a bit lower (ah well, being estimated too low isnt bad in Conquest games ), but thats all what i can do about.

-----------------------------------------------

2)
75% is good. As it actually have the effect im looking for.
If you say its not balanced then i recommend to BACK UP your opinion with some NUMBERS or EXPLANATIONS

else its just senseless stuttering.

3)
If flyers are not balanced then dont add them to your map. its really that easy. (ah well, of course i dont feel like balancing other peoples maps, so it wont happen)




MORE THINGS:
---------------

i plan to overwork the recruiment lists in a way that all units are included in macros and to make new recruitment lists you just need to place the unit macros there.
more details are no nessessary.
but the effect is that you can make new recruitment lists with less effort, also some defualt one wil be altered slightly.

in this context i may also add some recruit lists based on gweldigs ones, but with an overworked concept, stats and design (the thing what gwledigs factions partially are missing)

for example you can have UNDEAD recruitment list without flyers and stuff (ai also add some new units instead of them)
as i see there are some problems with flyers on some maps, so some maps will get altered recruitments lists (the only solution with flyers is not to put them in a map unless you know what you are doing -)




giant spiders (dwarven 20gold unit) and troll (orcs 20gold unit) will get 55%/60% city def.

[SlowThinker]

Mabuse, I really don't care when you are upset, since I suppose you are upset by any post that doesn't start by "Mabuse is best and he is our leader".

i mean come on, getting upset about some extra lines of code (already fixed in my 2.9.x, btw) and you put a complete obsolete folder inside your upload.
i guess you dont know it better though

I know better some other things, for example I don't work with 50 lines of the code if it may be replaces by {VARIABLE garrison $random}.
Concerning the kalifa I don't like your solution, as it forces people that only join to download the add-on. So I asked here.

[Lich_Lord]

I don't really want to get into to big of a debate, but I agree with slow that you are overlooking some of the points made by people. My main problem is with what you are saying about the fliers, so let me make it perfectly clear what my objection is:

That the new changes to the flying races are not beneficial to conquest, but the changes do cause balance problems. Therefore, 8 gold fliers should be removed, and drakes should be reverted to their previous terrain defenses, or make it extremely hard/impossible for them to cross deep water (they would still have an advantage since they can cross shallow water quickly). Here is my reasoning:

Spoiler:

I put the fliers in my maps because I wanted to, and I placed them in a way so that I knew they'd be relatively balanced. However, now the flier's stats have been changed dramatically, so that, drakes in particular, are much more powerful than they used to be, though so are all other fliers now that they have 8 gold fliers.
Also, your solution to my objection, in which I used an example of using drake generals to break bonuses, was that the defender put generals on the villages threatened by drakes.

That is a completely unfeasible option.

If a attacker has a drake army on the border, though its blocked by a deep water river, that drake army might be able to threaten 3 or 4 villages, if placed correctly. Therefore, what you are suggesting is having a player waste 75-100 gold on some generals that will not even be on the front lines of combat, in the hope to stop some drakes. There are two main problems with this argument.

• 1) 75-100 gold is a huge amount for a defending player, especially if they haven't saved up any gold before the fight occurred. This also leads players away from certain offensive strategies, which simply prolongs the game. (I believe that the majority of us here would not want to play a ffa game that goes on forever.)
  2) The troops used to defend against the drakes might not ever even fight, so it can be used as a tactic to divert the defender's resources away from the front lines of the battle. Sure, this problem exists with weaker fliers, but it is simply blown way out of proportion with the increased strength of fliers.
  EDIT: 3) Using generals will only work to a certain extent. The attacker can also just go around these generals, forcing even more gold spending, on the part of the defender, or they can general suicide, knowing that the enemy will probably not be able to retake the village.

I do agree that these problems are still evident with the fliers we had before (and they did need some balancing), but making fliers stronger only increases the effect of these things, turning them from an interesting tactic to a balance issue that knowledgeable players can exploit.

Btw wtf_is_this, do you know how to use quotes?

[Mabuse]

I know better some other things, for example I don't work with 50 lines of the code if it may be replaces by {VARIABLE garrison $random}.

well, i also took your solution.
so its already fixed in my upload.

and yes, this one slipped through my fingers, so what ?
now you are proud to be a grandmaster of wml, and i am a noob, right ?
(well to make it clear: of course im a wml noob, no doubt, but you are an unexpierienced wml noob)


and your upload has currently a lot more than 50 lines of obsolete code, the unused unit and race declarations. (not the things mentioned that coud be placed inside macros (which woudlnt change anything about gamespeed nor savegame-size, so its optional, and only of importance if you can save time editing it)

also i see that you use this line of code
(for village distribution on standard mode)

Code: Select all

{VILLAGES_DISTRIBUTIONS 150 6 8 10 12 14 16 7 9 11 13 15 9 12 15 18 12 16 20 18 29}

which is of course also pretty lame, since its cycles 150 times through the village distribution code, regardless of the number of villages on the map.

so if there are only 60 villages your code makes 90 obsolete cycles (of pretty more than 10 lines of code, but even if it woudl be only 10 lines per cycle (i gues its about 50 though), this means obsolets 900 lines (in case of 50 per cycle: 4500).

and THIS has a measureable and recognizeable effect (the 50 lines of code saved by you has NOT (still its better looking so i changed that too)). it will be a slow down.
still np on better computers
i dont like THAT "SOLUTION"


but what about that, mr. wml :

even worser perhaps, each time you add a map with more than 150 villages (for example SURDMARK which has ALREADY 180 villages - LOL), they are not filled completely

also (just as a sidenote) this old n' lame piece of code still says "all 60 villages are filled"

what about fixing that ? mr "know it all, i saved 50 lines of code which mabuse the noob has [censored] up"

a little hint:
its already fixed in my code, and since i already told you how to fix that 25 gold income of a 3 player game bug ("a missing "$"), you can as well look the solution up in my code.

anyway, i initial ynever wanted to lose a word on this since i was amused about your brgagging, but its also not bad to make some things clear:

you (or better said: my and aldas) code lacks some things, so it would be cool if you fix them.

if i were you i would really take on some help from GWELDIG since it seems he knows what he is doing. his code and ideas are partially refreshing and inspiring. he makes a lot of things right.

Concerning the kalifa I don't like your solution, as it forces people that only join to download the add-on. So I asked here.

i asked that before.
its not possible to change the image.

also, its (=my) an easy solution.
i dont like it too much either though.
still better than making conquest ageless dependent though

but as i just think about i came across another solution, i have no doubt that you cannot realize it though . so i might just as well do it in my Version

btw, initially i dont had anything against you, but you are a pretty insolent person, i must say. not only that you call my version a pirate version, which is annoying enough.
(of course this version is (if anything special) the "official" version. but surely its not a pirate version.)
now you even stole the old version and make people like wtf think its "yours" and you are a righteous maintainer of it.

of course you can load up clones how much you like, but i want to make clear, that im not a pirate.

[Mabuse]

I don't really want to get into to big of a debate, but I agree with slow that you are overlooking some of the points made by people. My main problem is with what you are saying about the fliers, so let me make it perfectly clear what my objection is:

That the new changes to the flying races are not beneficial to conquest, but the changes do cause balance problems. Therefore, 8 gold fliers should be removed, and drakes should be reverted to their previous terrain defenses, or make it extremely hard/impossible for them to cross deep water (they would still have an advantage since they can cross shallow water quickly). Here is my reasoning:

btw, the drake DEFNSES didnt change.
i changed the FLAT defnse of the normal drakes (not the sky drakes) from 30% to 35%.
now you wanna tell me that this 5% OP the drakes ? you must be kidding. (30% to 35% def is 7% less effective damage, on FLAT only as mentioned)

the sky drakes already had 50% def.
and if you didnt know that you are a noob.
its really that easy.

and i dont care about how many ffa games you won due to some random noobs let you win.
we can always duke it out 1v1. i hope for an interesting game.
hopefully you can show me how OP drakes are.

I put the fliers in my maps because I wanted to, and I placed them in a way so that I knew they'd be relatively balanced. However, now the flier's stats have been changed dramatically, so that, drakes in particular, are much more powerful than they used to be,

no, they havent.
see above. drake def only raised ON FLAT by 5%. to make them actually useable that is.

though so are all other fliers now that they have 8 gold fliers.

which is ok in my version since you can defend also with fortified infantry
see some uploaded games

i agree though that the 8 gold fliers are pretty strong.

infact i might raise their cost to 9.

Also, your solution to my objection, in which I used an example of using drake generals to break bonuses, was that the defender put generals on the villages threatened by drakes.

That is a completely unfeasible option.

If a attacker has a drake army on the border, though its blocked by a deep water river, that drake army might be able to threaten 3 or 4 villages, if placed correctly. Therefore, what you are suggesting is having a player waste 75-100 gold on some generals that will not even be on the front lines of combat, in the hope to stop some drakes. There are two main problems with this argument.

• 1) 75-100 gold is a huge amount for a defending player, especially if they haven't saved up any gold before the fight occurred. This also leads players away from certain offensive strategies, which simply prolongs the game. (I believe that the majority of us here would not want to play a ffa game that goes on forever.)

no, i also suggest that you might use 20gold units for defnse and fortify them. this reduces the needed gold by 15-20 (for a total (if you realy want to hold all villages))

if the drake player attacks them, he will lose 1x 25 gold drake FOR SURE. the other one can kill the defnder then, and is left heavily wounded. then you also must hold the village.

the attacking force of the drake need to be also around 60 gold
2x armageddon + an 8 gold flier

so thats about the amount of defense.
in my version.

also you can put some mobile units at a good spot and try to attack the few suvivors (as said, one armageddon will be dead, the other extremely wounded), and try tio kil the drakes off

not to mention that you actually have to move all these drakes up to the frontline.
in that time i can easily raise a defense.

and since you cannot do these things in the OLD VERSION, you are pretty much [censored] up.
in my version, you can defend.

concerning your armageddon problem, i see no way how you can defend in the old version against the scenario described by you (other than using generals)

OF course ( i just mention that for completion) the drake can just threaten your villages to bind your resources. this is a smart tactic, so its still a good thing to pace drakes wisely on a map.

2) The troops used to defend against the drakes might not ever even fight, so it can be used as a tactic to divert the defender's resources away from the front lines of the battle. Sure, this problem exists with weaker fliers, but it is simply blown way out of proportion with the increased strength of fliers.
EDIT: 3) Using generals will only work to a certain extent. The attacker can also just go around these generals, forcing even more gold spending, on the part of the defender, or they can general suicide, knowing that the enemy will probably not be able to retake the village.
I do agree that these problems are still evident with the fliers we had before (and they did need some balancing), but making fliers stronger only increases the effect of these things, turning them from an interesting tactic to a balance issue that knowledgeable players can exploit.

well, as said you must stil leave me a prove were the change from 30% to 35% is a dramatical change. of course its not. my clacs showed that already.

so you are assuming a lot of wrong things. in fact in my new version it is a lot easier to defend against fliers, and therefore "the fliers" also got an 8 gold flier
(which is a bit too cheap though, since well, flying is an advantge so making it cost +1 gold is ok)

defense versus fliers works well via fortified units.
a fortified pike can take out an 8 gold flier, a fortified elite inf will even do better.

as said, the new version is kinda a "pro version", versus "knowledgeable players" you cant get so easy to an advantage.



MORE PRAISE TO FORTIFY:
----------------------------

fortifying is also great that it enables a players who is behind in income to TRY TO deefnd actually versus a stronger player. and bind or make him sacrifice resources.

of course the player with the higher income has always the advantage, this is still valid and wil always be the case. but in my version you can compensate slight advantages, which isnt really possible in the old version.

(now you might say: "this only prolong the game".
i can only answer: well you can also simply set up a 5 turn game and see who has most income then. because this decides that game in the old version.)

as said the old version is way to simple and offers not enough options, as you really cannot compensate even slightest lack of income, and is therefore even more luck dependent.

"balance issues" as you (or others) call them are just related to your lacking knowledge of how to use the new options. newer and more skilled/open players wont have problems with that.

of course im open to suggestions, but believe me, the 8 gold fliers pose no problem in the actual, official 2.9.8c version.
in fact they are nessessary.



DEFENSE OLD VERSUS NEW
------------------------------

also, that applies both for old and new version, you can always place some cheap militia as blockers, however, this kind of defnse is really just a short tactcial thingy to buy you some time. basically this is only an option for aplayer who has the time working for him (= stronger player)

since the militia has no strengh it is just 1 gold for nothing.

FORTIFYING on the other hand makes a unit somewhat stronger than usual. this applies most for high def terrains like cities). if a stronger player wants to take a fortified position he must invest money. this invested money can compensate lack of income and is threfore real defense.

still militia blocking is good to use.

also FORTIFYING is a double edged sword. the unit which is fortified is basically useless on the next round. this is a real thing to consider.

also the +15% are nessessary. this makes the effect. if you out it simply to 10% or whatever, the effect is to weak.
with only +10% a lieutenent on a city cannot hold versus a 20 gold knight.
which is the same as if the lieutenant would have not been fortyfied at all.

of course we can debate if 14% would be also ok.
probably. but do you realy want a def of 74% ?
probably not.

as said fortify doesnt unbalance anything.
if you dont see that i cannot help you or anybody else.
i can see only advantages.

[Mabuse]

one thing:
we may really debate about the income chart, i see this is maybe really making a game too obvious, and i may add an option to disable that.


initialy i didnt wanted to disable that, but a knowledable player will anyway be able to estimate the income roughly (due to region bonus), and set up his game after that


the next version:
3.0.0 will contain some updates. including an option to disable the income chart.
and a +1 gold cost for the 8 gold fliers (since these have all 10 moves also, and 50% terrain def).

[SlowThinker]

[personal]

not only that you call my version a pirate version, which is annoying enough.

Don't take everyting so seriously, it was a kind of humour. Notice I don't complain when you post your humour (e.g. "you are an insolent person")
(BTW your clone IS a pirate and illegal version.)

of course im a wml noob, no doubt, but you are an unexpierienced wml noob

Very correct. But I don't have a chip on my shoulder, like somebody else has

and your upload has currently a lot more than 50 lines of obsolete code...

My upload is the original 2.7.2f (with 3 extremely minor modifications).
Direct your complaints to Mabuse and other authors.

[/personal]

[SlowThinker]

Concerning the kalifa, maybe a best solution would be to use mainline units, and to modify their hue, so that they have a common look.

[Mabuse]

ok.

btw, slow, i would appreciate it if we woudl talk from now on as normal human conquest players.



other suggestion:

using an overlay over mainline units:

Negative:
is bad since all normal mainline units also change direction on move and are animated, so it may look awkward.


BUT:
maybe the best solution is still to use overlays though (use the images you already have, how overlays are applied to a unit you can look up in the boat units - the dhow and caravel use also overlays - also: i used overlays on a boat unit, since it was small and not animated)

Positive:
a 1frame, invisible (no sprite) and therefore small enough unit with no "awkward looking" potencial is the "fog clearer".
it can be easily overlayed with anything , without making it look awkward (except maybe when its crossing a river , since the overlay will not sink in)

original unit code
(just for info)

Code: Select all

[unit_type]
    id=Fog Clearer
    name=_ "dummy_unit^Fog Clearer"
    race=monster
    image="misc/blank-hex.png"
    hitpoints=1
    movement_type=fly
    movement=1
    experience=1
    level=1
    alignment=neutral
    advances_to=null
    cost=1
    usage=scout
    hide_help=true
    do_not_list=yes
[/unit_type]

useage:
you may also want to change some other stats as unitlevel, movetype, etc.
(as you already know)

Code: Select all

...
							[unit]
								type=Fog Clearer
								name=whatever
								side=$side_number
								x=$x1
								y=$y1
								random_traits=no
								upkeep=loyal
							[/unit]
[object]
								silent=yes
								[filter]
									x=$x1
									y=$y1
								[/filter]
[effect]
....
[/effect]
[/object]

well, of course players that dont have the conquest pack, wont see anything, since fogclearer is a "null" sprite.

but very well suited for overlays.
so in other words you can always overlay with single frame images the basic unit "fog clearer", and add whatever unit to conquest.

new players will still be able to enter a game, but they wont see the gfx.


speaking about that, i just realize that it is no option for me since i use overlays on fortified units. ... i may change that, and search for another solution in that case (concerning the fortify overlays)


but maybe your solution with mainline units and different HUE is also good
sounds also like i may check this out

[SlowThinker]

First of all is I don't understand how the Dhow works. It is made from a mainline Boat, but why the original Boat's picture is not seen behind the overlay?