Hot Seat Suggestions

[OllyG]

I have played a few games of hotseat Wesnoth and I have a couple of suggestions to help improve the game.

1st, When playing hotseat it is hard to keep your ambushing units positions secret as when you press end of turn the game immediatly shows you the next players position. When a player is finished with their turn the game should not go directly to the next player's turn. It should instead bring up a dialogue box to say whose turn it is next (with a blacked out map behind it). That player can then press OK to start their turn after the previous player has had a chance to get off the chair. This will stop you from seeing the game from your opponents view point - allowing you to see ambushing units etc. This has a problem that if a player attacks you or moves within sight of your units you would not be able to see what is happening. When we play we try to avaoid looking when another player is playing, so they can have secrecy, but we will call the other player to watch when we attack.

2nd and very minor point, is how can the second and other players avaoid being called anonymous local player? If they can't there should be a way.

[Dragon Master]

I like your blacking out screen idea, but I think it should be optional as you wouldn't need it when playing with fog

[FleshPeeler]

I like your blacking out screen idea, but I think it should be optional as you wouldn't need it when playing with fog

Fogging out the screen then? And IIRC, whether or not there is fog holds no bearing with Ambushing units. Even with full map view enabled, Ambushers can still hide.

I once had a shareware version of a turn-based Capture the Flag game. It was literally kids outdoors playing Capture the Flag. That game had a surprisingly intuitive Hotseat system, and I think Wesnoth could benefit from these ideas as well.

1. The screen would be blanked in between turns so players could trade the chair fairly.
2. At the start of each player's turn, it showed a replay of the opponent's turn with fog of war set to your view. This made hotseat viewing the same as online play viewing.

Other features that Wesnoth probably doesn't need included a report of units lost, and displaying the view from each unit's point of view (For example, the message "Teddy saw this:" would appear before zooming in to Teddy and displaying enemy movements from that unit's point of view).

[Sniper]

You do not understand poblem of ambusers. Player 1 see ambushing units of player 2 because he ended his turn and the turn of player 2 started immidiatelly (so, the one who should see the units is player 2, but there is no waiting time for player 1 to leave after ending his turn). The black screen should solve it.

[Viliam]

I think blacking out screen is necessary, even when fog is turned on.

The game cannot switch immediately between "player 1 view" and "player 2 view". The person who caused this (player 1 having clicked End Turn) would for a moment see a part of other player's view, which may contain a critical information. There must be a "neutral view" between -- blacking out the screen is the easiest way.

Imagine that I finish my turn and click "End Turn" and immediately see an enemy unit with ambush just 2 hexes from my castle! This is a very important information (probably opponent is preparing to assasinate my leader), and it is difficult to prevent seeing this... switching screen focus to my keep before clicking End Turn is nothing bad... it is natural, if I recruit at the end of turn.

(Edit: Sniper wrote it faster and shorter...)

[Mythological]

A good idea
I hope it gets implemented....

[Rhuvaen]

1. The screen would be blanked in between turns so players could trade the chair fairly.
2. At the start of each player's turn, it showed a replay of the opponent's turn with fog of war set to your view. This made hotseat viewing the same as online play viewing.

I concur that these are features that are actually necessary for real hotseat play. As it stands now, Wesnoth doesn't really have hotseat functionality, it simply has a button named "hotseat" in multiplayer mode.

Either get rid of the button and merge "versus AI" and "hotseat" into one, or implement those features for hotseat mode.

[Oxenfrogga]

Hi folks,

after trying the 1.2 version I was a bit disappointed that the suggestions above could not find their way into the actual Wesnoth version. Maybe it helps just to bring it in mind again to make an implementation more probable for the next release!

Just to emphasise the need of the changes mentioned above: some friends and me play the hot seat mode from time to time and it is always quite a nuisance to have a glimpse at the follower's map.

Additionally, the always repeated question "have you attacked any of my buddies?" is -- maybe -- unnecessary (on big maps with a lot of fighting and after several beers it is quite impossible to answer it honestly, too). Thus, an "intelligence report" would be desirable from my point of view, too.

The positive feedback above supports this opinion, I think. Hm??

Saludos,
Oxenfrogga