Conquest 2.0 - on 1.8 server

[Lich_Lord]

I tried to host a game, but once it started every single player except for me and miso, who also had the newest add-on, dced. With my previous version of conquest, you only needed ageless to play a couple of the maps, like Samrock and Torath, but now its getting a little annoying to play with somebody who doesn't have the add-on because they dc on any map.

host a game with the conquest Era, then only people who have the add on can join

as said the old "policy" was that only mainline units can be used, you decided to use other units, so here we are, currently the thing is: you only need conquest to play conquest.
thats not a bad thing

Yes, but the only problem is that so few people have downloaded your new version of conquest that its very hard to get a game going. Also, I'm not able to host with the previous conquest because your code is mysteriously infiltrating my copy of the previous version of conquest.

EDIT: Also, Kalifa were only used in a few maps, the majority of the maps in conquest still didn't use Kalifa.

[Lich_Lord]

I'd just like to point out that the drake general and some of the other new 25gold units you're adding have a few big advantages. The drakes (and skeletal and fire dragons?) can cross deep water, so this is making it possible to launch an offensive over water, so that the enemy can't see, with an immense attack force.

well, the drakes have also some big disadvantages.

1)
they dont have an assassin
2)
the infernodrake is weaker than a general due less terrain def
so its ok that the inferndrake is mobile
3)
The drakes dont have BOATS either, so its very neeed that they can cross sea.
(they have, however, lousy water defense)


the skeletal dragon has just 4 moves (and is overall slightly weaker)
the fire dragon will not get added

Personally, I think the game should be less focused on fliers, which can be partially done by limiting the fliers that can cross deep water easily to weaker units like 6 or maybe 8 gold. This shouldn't be too hard to do, and who's heard of a giant drake crossing a sea anyways? It might also be good to make all flying units slightly slower on deep water, like 2 or 3 movement cost, because at one movement cost units can cross entire oceans pretty easily, which really shouldn't be possible.

the existence of a drake and a skeletal dragon which has move 4 doesnt focus the game on fliers.

the undead have quite some fliers (the ghost must pay 2 for crossing water, the skeldrake has move 4) which arent real sea crossers (may cross a river), and the drakes consist of fliers (and all of them get their asses kicked by the equvalent boats)

well thats about the only fliers in the game.

atm, i dont see balance problems, pls load up a save-game to prove that something is unbalanced due to the flying ability of the inferno drake or the skeletal dragon


summary:
i may make the skeletal dragon not be able to cross water (if it really is a problem), but the infernodrake will stay as it is

Mabuse, you are speaking as if the drake villages are generally on the front lines of battle. This is rarely the case, and when it is, they are usually next to lots of good terrain for them, like sand. My main problem is not that, but that players can selectively recruit some drakes, such as the drake general, and then move them up to the front lines and do a couple of things:

-Pressure many villages at once, forcing the defender to spend tons of gold to secure their villages.

-Create invisible invasions from a place nowhere near a drake village, by recruit drake generals and lower level drakes and moving them close to a deep water river, so that even if the defender sees the army, they have next to no way to hold their bonus because militia spam won't help, and the drake generals will kill generals if they have 2 or 3.

This almost happened to me once in a game on Surdmark, where 13arrage brought a army of a drake general or two, and some lower gold drakes (2 and 6, and a 8 I think). He put them right next to my bonuses of Vindoth and New Calron, and I basically had no way of holding my bonuses from him, as even a general wouldn't stop his flying, drake generals.

[Lich_Lord]

I've spoken to a lot of players about this, and many of them have agreed that the income table displayed at the start of every player's turn can be disruptive. First off, if players ever want to play a game without knowing each-others income and agree to not look at alt-s, they no longer can. Also, it does still take away some of the mystery of the game, mainly in 1v1 games because before you could always know how much bonus your enemy had, but you could never know how far they had expanded and how many villages they had taken, but now with the bonus table, you can know exactly how many villages they have, and know for sure whether you are winning or losing, which can take away the excitement of the game.

Some people also like the table though, so I'm not going to advocate for all out removal of the table, but at least make it an initial game option, so that players can choose whether they want the table or not.

[blobsy2]

Figured I'd finally have to stop by these forums to voice my opinion.
1) The income table should have an option to disable it for those who don't want to know exact income of other players. It also needs to last longer when it does display.

2) I definitely agree with Lich_Lord about the problems of overly powerful flyers.

3) The 'Fortify' ability is the stupidest thing ever. Firstly, it greatly complicates the game of what units can kill each other and secondly, instead of being able to look at the map and easily see what the situation is I now need to check each unit that can fortify itself. There's effectively 2 units for each graphic now. It's a ridiculous addition to the game. Lastly, are the units gaining this ability going to receive some other disadvantage to balance them out? or are you just making all such units stronger than they were before?

[Mabuse]

Yes, but the only problem is that so few people have downloaded your new version of conquest that its very hard to get a game going.

well, they can always dl the newest conquest or cant they - its size is 130kb - and unless they dont have a crapload of other add ons already installed, its a matter of less than 3 minutes altogehter

im sure that is not an overly complicated task, and every person who is able to turn on a computer should be able to get that.

afterall, you put the new units in and made the game dependent on other dl.
now that i make it independent you still have something to gripe at ?

because the people could be too dumb to dl conquest, is this meant serious or what ?

as an alternative i may simple delete the kalifas again from the pack, and as look for a different unit for the mounted general (or use an overlay).

Also, I'm not able to host with the previous conquest because your code is mysteriously infiltrating my copy of the previous version of conquest.

i dont know exactly if you try to imply that there were malicious actions taken by me.
this is not the case

im sure with proper WML knowledge your problem can be solved.
you surely understand that, since its not my problem at all, i cannot help you on that matter.

I've spoken to a lot of players about this, and many of them have agreed that the income table displayed at the start of every player's turn can be disruptive. First off, if players ever want to play a game without knowing each-others income and agree to not look at alt-s, they no longer can. Also, it does still take away some of the mystery of the game, mainly in 1v1 games because before you could always know how much bonus your enemy had, but you could never know how far they had expanded and how many villages they had taken, but now with the bonus table, you can know exactly how many villages they have, and know for sure whether you are winning or losing, which can take away the excitement of the game.

the income table at start of each game is a really great thing, since it helps to evaluate the game of the game to a certain degree. and thus enhances the overall quality of a game.

im tired to see "hard battles" where "a" with 50 income fights "b" with 25 income and "b" thinks he seriously has a chance (but doesnt do anything to improve his state, since he simply isnt aware of the fact that he is extremely behind in income), or even better: "b" allies with "a" against "c" who has 25 income.

i can imagine though that players who want to prolong a game longer than nessessary or whoese game is based on decieving and manipulating noob to agree to "naps", or whatever, think its not so good if an enemy knows they have so much more income, because they wil likely give up and simply start a new game.

however, since i watched that conquest went exactly into a direction which i didnt wanted to, this stat table is absolutely nessessary. it gives even the most ignorant player an overview of the current game state which wil of course enhance the quality of the game.


in a normal wesnoth map you also know how many villages your enemy has.
this is: total - your villages

so if there are 16 vils total, and you have 7, you can be sure the enemy has 9 and thus a better eco.

also i dont care what "a lot of players think".
i can tell you how "i have spoken to a lot of players" work in reality.

for example, of course i play conquest on the add on server, using another nick then mabuse ofc (reasons are that i simply want to play a game and thats it).
and what can i say ? people who are "cooperative" and are "friendly" on the forum, talk bad and spread lies, based on their own incompetence.
Lies which are believed become truth that you have to live with.
This is how Opinions are made, and i must say that i dont like what i see on the server.
These People include Gwledig for example, whose falseness really disappoints me abit.

Seriously, his MOD is terribly unbalanced and i would never play it.
in a lot of ways. it starts with the units he chose, goes along with te superbonus and "shop" and end with the "new towers" he implemented to be build.

if his mod was any good he would not need to talk main conquest bad in any way.
this should be clear to everybody.

but i also disappointed about you (also due to yout alks on server), and wil now stop cooperating with you, since i dont see any solid base for a productive cooperation. you assume the wrong things and your gameplay is not that what i want to have in conquest. your gameplay is like "napping" with everybody tand gain due to that biggest advantage and then kil every other.
ofc the stat table make sthings not so easy for you. so you are against it.
you simply lack objectivity which is needed to improve the game i a positive way.

i like your maps though and ackknowledge the work you put into them.
i dont see that you ackknowledge the work i spend into balancing conquest to the current point - i ma even go so far to deny you the ability to evaluate the changes i made, in its consequences.

also i cannot thrust you anymore. what is apity, i hoped you could understand the balance changes and implementation of the new things (score table, fortify) a bit to a certain degree, but it seems you are just in an allience with eople who strongy disagree with that.

for that reason i can only recommend to sit together with these people and make an own conquest clone, since the main conquest which i maintain, will stay as it is and dont support the interests of a few people.
i dont mind if you add 10 new units to your clone or any other things.

i reset the upload and activated a new passphrase again.
you are free to cooperate with other people to make the conquest that fully serves your imaginations of how the game should be and serves the way you have learned to play.



conclusion
---------------
the new version 2.9.8c is balanced and will stay as it is for now.
(unless there are bugs or new maps to be added)
its always important that a game is functional working for me, and the balance and overall gameplay makes me happy anytime i play it.


the next 3.0.0 version may be openly accesssible again, with kalifas deleted and mounted generals be used as an overlay.

[Mabuse]

Figured I'd finally have to stop by these forums to voice my opinion.
1) The income table should have an option to disable it for those who don't want to know exact income of other players. It also needs to last longer when it does display.

partially agreed, i may make the display time 1 or 2 seconds longer

2) I definitely agree with Lich_Lord about the problems of overly powerful flyers.

pls post replays in which it is shown that too powerful flyers pose a problem in conquest.
im sure that these problems are caused mainly be mistakes of the player.

3) The 'Fortify' ability is the stupidest thing ever. Firstly, it greatly complicates the game of what units can kill each other and secondly, instead of being able to look at the map and easily see what the situation is I now need to check each unit that can fortify itself.

well, its not that complicated. once you know.

the following table assumes the attack attacks from 40% def terrain)
(and no luck)

a raw and most basic overview, luck can always chage tis to a certain degree.


a fortified inf (3) can defend versus (5) or lower
(is surely broken by elite inf+ (8))

fortified pikes (5) can defend versus (9) or lower
(is surely broken by lieutenant+(15))

fortified elite inf (8) can defend versus (10) or lower
(is surely broken by knight+ (or even lieutenant) (20))

fortified lieutenant can def versus (20) or lower
(is surely broken by general (25))

fortified 20 gold unit can defend versus everything
(cannot be broken without taking losses)

There's effectively 2 units for each graphic now. It's a ridiculous addition to the game. Lastly, are the units gaining this ability going to receive some other disadvantage to balance them out? or are you just making all such units stronger than they were before?

no, its cool.
it has realy great advantages that players who get +5 fgold more income for a hsort while cannot break their opponents immediatly.
you also agree that this a helpful thing


of course fortified units are stronger IN DEFENSE. but they are also bound to a certain spot. and cannot act on the next turn
that a hard thing to consider.

any yes, the infantry units that can fortify get just this advantage wihtout any disadvantages (actually, this makes them useeable)

if i play conquest i still use mainly mobile units

i have played some conquest game and i like the feature very much, it turned out really good.

[Gwledig]

Mabuse I apologise for any gossip in game which were offensive to you, but if you were in the game the other day as the nick I won't mention since you want to stay private, you should realise a lot of it was just messing about & humor and not particularly serious, you should have noted I refused to say I "didnt like Mabuse" cos I think you are a pretty interesting guy and indeed the debate on forum has been stimulating and useful, despite any bad feeling.
yes we all know you are in charge and noone disputes your skills and work youve done on conquest but I think that most people are a bit shocked by what's happened on the forum, so we need a little more diplomacy now.
Also my own 'clone' is intended to be a test place for conquest and I never imagined people would play it as much, playing instead the main game, and I am ready for any flak about my units and stuff as I agree it was all done with an emphasis on the creative not balance, as I said anyone can take anything from it you like.
People will gossip but let's have a clean start now and I suggest lets all agree to drop the crap and maybe think about some ways of working together, eg Im planning on making a world map which may be usable in the main pack.
I also agree that those few units making it DL dependent is probably not worth it. I think there is a need for a 'basic' conquest pack which everyone can play and join, then maybe an identical code base with some more interesting factions build in like Rome and barbarians say, so you could maintain them in total sync and youd have total acess for the noobs who want to join a casual game, but another pack for players who are ready to DL and play the other stuff.
I think I've been clean on stuff last night & apologised so lets move on

[Gwledig]

I think the scenario objectives needs to be bigger font, its like size 1/6 maybe the text can be reduced a bit to make more room or use a winder window to fit more in horizontally

[Lich_Lord]

and what can i say ? people who are "cooperative" and are "friendly" on the forum, talk bad and spread lies, based on their own incompetence.
Lies which are believed become truth that you have to live with.
This is how Opinions are made, and i must say that i dont like what i see on the server.
...
this should be clear to everybody.

but i also disappointed about you (also due to yout alks on server), and wil now stop cooperating with you, since i dont see any solid base for a productive cooperation. you assume the wrong things and your gameplay is not that what i want to have in conquest. your gameplay is like "napping" with everybody tand gain due to that biggest advantage and then kil every other.
ofc the stat table make sthings not so easy for you. so you are against it.
you simply lack objectivity which is needed to improve the game i a positive way.

i like your maps though and ackknowledge the work you put into them.
i dont see that you ackknowledge the work i spend into balancing conquest to the current point - i ma even go so far to deny you the ability to evaluate the changes i made, in its consequences.

also i cannot thrust you anymore. what is apity, i hoped you could understand the balance changes and implementation of the new things (score table, fortify) a bit to a certain degree, but it seems you are just in an allience with eople who strongy disagree with that.

Mabuse, I think we are having a misunderstanding. The conversation that me and Gwledig were having last night was mainly about the changes that we do not like in conquest, however, I do recognize that you have improved conquest both in the past, and recently. The arguments that I was making both last night, and on the forums though, were applying to only specific sub-type of the changes that you are making.

I've spoken to a lot of players about this, and many of them have agreed that the income table displayed at the start of every player's turn can be disruptive. First off, if players ever want to play a game without knowing each-others income and agree to not look at alt-s, they no longer can. Also, it does still take away some of the mystery of the game, mainly in 1v1 games because before you could always know how much bonus your enemy had, but you could never know how far they had expanded and how many villages they had taken, but now with the bonus table, you can know exactly how many villages they have, and know for sure whether you are winning or losing, which can take away the excitement of the game.

the income table at start of each game is a really great thing, since it helps to evaluate the game of the game to a certain degree. and thus enhances the overall quality of a game.

im tired to see "hard battles" where "a" with 50 income fights "b" with 25 income and "b" thinks he seriously has a chance (but doesnt do anything to improve his state, since he simply isnt aware of the fact that he is extremely behind in income), or even better: "b" allies with "a" against "c" who has 25 income.

i can imagine though that players who want to prolong a game longer than nessessary or whoese game is based on decieving and manipulating noob to agree to "naps", or whatever, think its not so good if an enemy knows they have so much more income, because they wil likely give up and simply start a new game.

however, since i watched that conquest went exactly into a direction which i didnt wanted to, this stat table is absolutely nessessary. it gives even the most ignorant player an overview of the current game state which wil of course enhance the quality of the game.


in a normal wesnoth map you also know how many villages your enemy has.
this is: total - your villages

so if there are 16 vils total, and you have 7, you can be sure the enemy has 9 and thus a better eco.

also i dont care what "a lot of players think".
i can tell you how "i have spoken to a lot of players" work in reality.

What I was saying here is mainly a critique of the income table for TEAM and 1v1 games. Your response to this is an example of a ffa game where a noob gets taken advantage of. But, I am not saying that the table isn't good for this situation, but rather that it can remove the excitement from a 1v1 or team game. I do not see any solid reasoning behind having a income table for a team or 1v1 game, as it does take away some of the mystery of the game. Also, your reasoning about the 16 villages, and you have 7 and the enemy has 9, does not apply to team games unless they are played in standard mode, which is pretty rare.

For example, say that you are playing Surdmark in 1v1, with cap mode. On turn two without the table, you'd have only a rough idea of your opponents income, they probably took 1-3 villages and possibly a bonus, but you can't be sure about the extent of their expansion. With the table, you will know their income exactly, however, you can't assume that they have 175 villages just because you only have 6. In games such as these, the game tends to be over before orange has even been completely killed, so even on turn 15, if you have 60 villages, your opponent could have any number between 40 and 80 and you wouldn't be able to know.

I also have a save of a 1v1 using the bonus table on slow's Surdmark map with teleports. Not only was the game over before roughly 30% of the orange units were taken, but I was also able to keep a detailed list of my opponents income using the income table, which you can see near Yetrab and Hamilcar on the map. I was able to calculate how many villages they took each turn, along with their bonus, so it gave me a much more detailed picture of their location than just using alt-s. (The table that I made does start to get inaccurate near the end, but that is because I knew I'd already won, so I stopped bothering to keep track seriously).

Without the table, I could have never known how many villages my opponent had in the game, I just knew it was roughly as much as me, but with the table, I knew exactly what his village count was.

For these reasons, I'm still advocating making the income table an option, as there is really no good argument that it "helps" team games, except possibly that it lets players realize more quickly that they are doomed, in which case they would always have the option to use the table during the game, if they are really so scared that neither of them will realize that its gg before the table makes it clear.

Another possibility would be to have an option at the start of the game where players chose if they are playing a team game, or ffa. This would allow for more differentiation between the games, and could possibly make coding more easy in the future and avoid future arguments. It could also allow the fortify bonus to be reduced in team games, though that is more of a minor issue.


Also, what is this stuff about I don't appreciate changes such as fortify? I thought I had made it clear, or at least I will now, that I do not oppose fortification in ffa games, and only have a few minor problems with it in teams games, but it is just me being picky, and not too important overall.

[Lich_Lord]

Also, I'm not able to host with the previous conquest because your code is mysteriously infiltrating my copy of the previous version of conquest.

i dont know exactly if you try to imply that there were malicious actions taken by me.
this is not the case

im sure with proper WML knowledge your problem can be solved.
you surely understand that, since its not my problem at all, i cannot help you on that matter.

Sorry, by that I did not mean to imply that you were purposefully making the previous version of conquest work, but rather if you knew why it was not working. Btw, you say that "with proper WML knowledge my problem can be solved" which is something that I do not have, but that you do, yet you go on to say "I cannot help you". This is a contradiction, because if anybody is going to know how to fix this problem, it would be you.

Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this, such as changing the code so that it never uses the word conquest, but instead something like conquest2?

Also, the reason why I'd like to have my previous conquest is so that people without the new conquest add-on can play and so that I can play 1v1 games without the income table, which I haven't managed to find in the utils.cfg yet, and so I'm not able to take it out. Or to possibly create another conquest clone (though I'd rather not), if relations between me and Mabuse continue to deteriorate. But, working together and creating one, good conquest, rather than multiple with ones, all with problems, because you can, and are making some good changes to conquest and I think its best to collaborate, rather than create dissent and hatred towards other players.

However, it is important to realize that everyone has their own opinions, and that these are not necessarily created from the "rumors" or opinions of other players. Because of this, I think that maintainers should be relatively open to criticism of changes that they have made. I think this is roughly the problem that we are facing here, and a misunderstanding of what the criticism players are making actually is. For example, I've mostly been against not the general changes that you've been making Mabuse, but more specific implications. Therefore, I think it is not correct to say that I "oppose" these changes, but that I think that they could use some tweaking to make them better.

[Gwledig]

Lich
the ID or name may need changing, many old Conq maps show "conquest" or the wrong ID in the Lobby, you'll notice my maps show the same ID/name as the actual map name.
Look in the map scenario and you can change the ID/name correctly, this sould fix how its shown in the Lobby (if this is what you are asking)

Can you describe briefly what problems exactly you see when you try to start the non-working version of conquest 2.7?
It may be simpler for me to give you my copy of 2.7f or whatever which I beleive is your last version and try this it works ok for me...

we could also look at the sterr file if theres a WML problem.

attach the dead one here and we can see what you on about....

[SlowThinker]

Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this, such as changing the code so that it never uses the word conquest, but instead something like conquest2?

If you create a new add-on you must define "addon-name". This "addon-name" corresponds to an appropriate folder in data/add-ons/.
Mabuse chose an addon-name "Conquest" for his new add-on, which was also the name of the original Conquest. I think this is why your original Conquest files are deleted or overwritten by the Mabuse's Conquest.
In other words the original and Mabuse's Conquests can coexist on your computer only if

• you rename one of them (then you must change both the directory name and the content of some .cfg files)
  or
• Mabuse renames his add-on

More details are here.
http://wiki.wesnoth.org/BuildingCampaignsThePBLFile

the ID or name may need changing, many old Conq maps show "conquest" or the wrong ID in the Lobby, you'll notice my maps show the same ID/name as the actual map name.

This is another problem.
Each MP scenario should have an unique id. But Id of any Conquest scenario is set to id=Conquest.
By accident it doesn't cause serious problems (besides the wrong scenario name in the lobby) now and scenarios work. But this may change in any future version of Wesnoth.
More details are here:
http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 33#p467133

[Gwledig]

Ye I also PMd Lich some other stuff and ideas why it wasnt working, if the path of the main.cfg and maps and so on point to "\Conquest\" then that is what it is looking for as a folder name, so if Lich just renamed the old one to "Conquest 2.7" it aint gona work unless he goes through all the files in 2.7 to make the path accurate to the new folder name.

[Lich_Lord]

Lich

It may be simpler for me to give you my copy of 2.7f or whatever which I beleive is your last version and try this it works ok for me...

How could this work for you if you also have Mabuse's version of conquest?

I have not been able to get both to work side by side yet, but I'd assume I missed one of the things mentioned above or because I lacked a info.cfg

Something even more confusing to me though is that whenever I go to look at the list of maps I have for conquest, it repeats all of the maps three times. This occurred when using Mabuse's version, but then when I deleted that version and replaced it with 2.7.2f (Gwledig's copy), I still got the list to be repeated 3 times (though with a few more maps). I then deleted 2.7.2f and reinstalled Mabuse's version, but still got the list of maps 3 times.
Note that when I "deleted" the add-on, what I did was removed it using Wesnoth, which deleted all of the add-on except the folders, and then I went and deleted the remaining folders, or replaced them with a different version of conquest.

How is it even possible that something like this could happen, and any ideas on how to get rid of this bug?

[Gwledig]

I suggest start from a blank slate, backup anything in addon u wanna keep elsewhere on your PC
then go to Wesnoth and use the addon tool to remove all addons
Then go to the addon folder and make sure its empty
Then go to userdata/ cache and delete all the cache files.
Then unzip the 2.7 zip I sent you into the addon folder and make sure it's called "Conquest"
So you should have add-ons/Conquest
This conquest pack has the main.cfg and so on configured to point to the Conquest folder, so it should all be set correct.

Now just start Wesnoth and create a multiplayer game, look in the map list and you should see all the Conq maps listed, no problem.

your problem could be a cache issue...

Also ensure you are only working with the 1 conquest installation, if you have it installed several times on ur PC and also 1,9 it could be using the same registry data (I suggest using the 'store in local folder not register' or to that effect when installing wensoth).

I would just try to get to working basically 1st then if u need to rename the folder u can try this, but its also worth deleting ur wesnoth cache when u try updated addons etc.