(1.10) A New Land Classic 0.14.4

[Kernigh]

Problem: In PvP games, battlefield flooded with units and structures.

My name for this problem is Too Much Gold, or TMG. Players buy many units, and flood the front line with units. TMG causes a slow game. The front line stalls. In one turn, a player might kill a few units and conquer a few hexes. The battle takes hours. Everyone quits. TMG is why PvP maps are not fun. TMG has ruined games of Dome Isle, Aybabtu Valley, and The Great Wall.

Higher costs will not prevent TMG. A village, farm or mine always continues to give gold. In the long run, it always earns more gold than it costs. After a player builds enough villages, farms or mines, then TMG still happens.

I have other ideas against TMG:

• Pay a "tax" for large armies. Then players would recruit fewer units.
• Sell upgraded weapons to units. Then players would kill more units.
• Limit the number of villages, farms or mines.
• Limit the gold from researching agriculture or mining.

I now prefer the last idea. TMG happens when farms or mines earn around 9 or 12 gold. So, if I would limit them to 6 gold, then TMG would lessen. This is only an idea, and not yet part of A New Land Classic.


These are new screenshots of new features of the next version, A New Land Classic 0.14.4.

Dwarves for Loyalists

In the standard era, Loyalists will have access to Dwarves. This was already possible in the mainline map, "4p - A New Land", but was not possible in A New Land Classic 0.14.3.

Grab flaming sword

anl-sword-hex.png (26.6 KiB) Viewed 4851 times

Take or leave flaming sword

When a unit moves onto a flaming sword in The Great Wall, a new menu will offer the choice to take the sword, or leave it there. In 0.14.3, a unit always took the sword.

Show progress in menu for sharing knowledge

anl-share-menu.png (219.79 KiB) Viewed 4851 times

Show progress in announcement of sharing knowledge

When donating gold or sharing knowledge, the game will display the amounts of gold or progress. Version 0.14.3 does not display these amounts.

Version 0.14.4 is not yet ready. The current version is still 0.14.3.

[Xudo]

Nice work.

You made a good point what limiting of "max income from hex" will have only lessen TMG, but do not cure it.

Advantages of making progressive cost for units, researches, buildings:
* Player will always be interested in spending money for estabilishing of the universities and researching.
* Players will have limited options for expanding of its territory. At some point, use of other sources of income will be better solution.
* You can create maps of any size without worrying about TMG.
* Any object (building or unit) will be much more valuable than it is now.

Introducing of "upgrades via buying" will add undesirable complexity to this era.
Limitations are not contrary to the progressive costs. You need to decide whether you like the fact, what players are able to research everything to the end before game actually ends, or no.

What about of making research "woodcutting" - increasing amount of gold which you get from chopping the forest?

[Sjoerd]

ANL TLS with 1 x 25G player (win)

[Kernigh]

Version 0.14.4 is now on the add-on server. Try using dwarves in A New Land: Standard, or try using "Diplomacy" to donate gold or share knowledge, or try recruiting a Thief in Aybabtu Valley.

Code: Select all

Version 0.14.4:
 * WesCamp can now try to translate this add-on.  Older versions had
   at least one flaw preventing translation.
 * Some messages now appear only to allies.  Enemy teams can no longer
   see messages about completing research, donating gold, or sharing
   knowledge.  This only works for network games, when enemy players
   use different computers (not a hot-seat game).
 * In the standard era, Loyalists can now use "Diplomacy" to negotiate
   for Dwarves.  This matches the mainline map, "4p - A New Land",
   where Loyalists can already get Dwarves.  The expanded era remains
   as before: only Outlaws can get Dwarves.
 * In "Diplomacy", when donating gold or sharing knowledge:
    * Each menu item now displays the amounts, as in "Gold: 4 => 24"
      or "Progress: 1/3 => 2/3", so players can check these amounts.
      For example, a player might donate gold to its poorest ally, or
      share knowledge where an ally has made the most progress.
    * Each announcement to allies now displays these same amounts, so
      the receiving player understands what is happening.
    * All factions can now use these options.  So, Outlaws and Orcs
      can now donate gold, and Undead can now share knowledge.
    * A player can no longer share knowledge where an ally already has
      full progress, like 3/3 in agriculture.
    * A player can no longer share knowledge of warfare with an ally
      who already knows everything about warfare.  This fixes the
      equivalent of mainline bug #14822 <https://gna.org/bugs/?14822>.
    * When player has less than 20 gold, or less than enough
      knowledge, then these options turn red and disable themselves.
      (When player has no allies, these options still disappear.)
 * If a player learns warfare but forgets to "Choose New Recruit",
   then a reminder now appears every turn.
 * A player who knows everything about warfare can no longer continue
   to research warfare.  The researchers silently switch to studying
   agriculture; and in "Oversee Research", the option for warfare
   turns red and disables itself.
 * A player, who makes fast progress, can now complete research more
   than once per turn.
 * The enemy leaders in The Great Wall and The Last Stand now have
   "garrison" as a visible trait, to inform players that these units
   never move off their castle.
 * Aybabtu Valley:
    * Thieves lost "dagger" and keep "pick pocket" as their only melee
      weapon.  The weapon now displays "steals 4 gold" as a weapon
      special.  Each hit now makes 1 damage.
 * The Great Wall:
    * A unit that finds a flaming sword can now choose whether to take
      or leave the sword.
    * Guards in caves now have the loyal trait and one random trait.
    * Team flags now have the same wind direction as village flags.
    * Host can now change income of human sides.
 * The Last Stand:
    * AI can now destroy more types of buildings. Encampments and Orcish
      Castles, and villages that replace forests, are no longer immune
      to destruction.
    * Destruction of an enemy mine now lowers income by 10, not by 8.
      The message already said, "10 less income," so this fixes a bug.
    * Spiders now have the loyal trait.
    * Each enemy side has less income. This compenstates for not paying
      upkeep to loyal units.
    * Host can now change income of human sides.

[marvalis]

I made a new map for this addon:

scenarios.zip

(5.91 KiB) Downloaded 286 times

Just put it in the data/add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/ folder with the other scenario's.

Please check it out and consider adding it to the package.

[Xudo]

Looks like you forgot to add .map file for your map.

[marvalis]

How embarrassing. Here is it.

2p_The_Last_Stand.map

(24.47 KiB) Downloaded 228 times

About the too much gold problem:
You obviously need to cap the amount of farms/peasants/villages/mines you can build. You could also put a cap on population (number of farmers+units+villages). This might vary from map to map, and could be a game option (or a WML option).

It might also be interesting to make diplomacy and research automatic, in the sense that it is no longer needed to put a unit on a university, but rather that you can choose your research / diplomacy path like in the civilization game series.

So for example, each university might contribute some research (with diminishing returns the more you have) and then you choose your active research topic. Right clicking anywhere might give you the option to change research goal.

Suppose the player can choose the following research:

Research options
-> Agriculture (3 turns) (farms produce 4 gold) -> advanced agriculture (4 turns) (farms produce 5gold)
-> mining (3 turns) (mines produce 5 gold) -> advanced mining (4 turns) (mines produce 6 gold)
-> warfare (4 turns) (new unit choice) (repeatable)

Leader options (repeatable, automatic)
-> Improve charisma (2 turns) (allows you to recruit more peasants) (up to a certain maximum)
-> Diplomacy (4 turns) (allows you to recruit dwarves/elves/whatever)


Just some ideas,
cheers

[Xudo]

20120628 20:50:56 error general: The following add-on had errors and could not be loaded:
D:/BfW 1.10.3/userdata/data/add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/_main.cfg
ERROR DETAILS:
Macro/file 'TRAIT_GARRISON' is missing at ~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/scenarios/TLS2P/define_sides.cfg:42 included from ~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/scenarios/2p_The_Last_Stand.cfg:68 included from ~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/_main.cfg:18 included from ~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/scenarios/TLS2P/define_sides.cfg:47 included from ~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/scenarios/2p_The_Last_Stand.cfg:68 included from ~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/_main.cfg:18

It's better to zip all content of ANL excluding images and sounds and share it at once instead of partial files.

[marvalis]

I hope it works this time

A_New_Land_Classic.zip

(86.09 KiB) Downloaded 297 times

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for you time.

[marvalis]

Can you also add

Code: Select all

    random_start_time=no

to the scenario tag? It should start at second watch.

Code: Select all

#textdomain wesnoth-A_New_Land_Classic

# scenarios/2p_The_Last_Stand.cfg
# The Last Stand is one of three original scenarios by Bob_The_Mighty edited by Ron.

[multiplayer]
    id=(A New Land Classic) The Last Stand 2p
    name= _ "ANL 2p — The Last Stand"
    map_data="{~add-ons/A_New_Land_Classic/maps/2p_The_Last_Stand.map}"
    description= _ "Survival: Two players must work together to rebuild their forces and make their last stand against humanity's enemies." + {USE_ERA}
    experience_modifier=70%
    turns=unlimited
    random_start_time=no

    {SECOND_WATCH}
    {DAWN}
    {MORNING}
    {AFTERNOON}
    {DUSK}
    {FIRST_WATCH}

[Xudo]

@marvalis
Your map is very, very, VERY luck dependent.
First of all you roll a dice whether you recruit a unit with "quick" trait (to reach mermen at second turn) or not.
Second time you roll whether your mermen will survive 4 goblins before he kills enemy leader. If he is not, you will be overruned by horde of goblins.

@Kernigh

Spoiler:

#textdomain wesnoth-A_New_Land_Classic

# eras/1_Standard.cfg

[era]

• # This era has no custom units.
  id=(A New Land Classic) A New Land: Standard
  name="A New Land: Standard"
  require_era=no
  
  # Macro INIT_ALL_SIDES will infer faction from recruits:
  # * Peasant => Loyalist
  
  [multiplayer_side]
  • id=Random
    name= _ "Random"
    image=units/random-dice.png
    random_faction=yes
  
  [/multiplayer_side]
  
  [multiplayer_side]
  • id=Loyalists
    name= _ "Loyalists"
    image=units/human-peasants/peasant.png
    {MAGENTA_IS_THE_TEAM_COLOR}
    type=Lieutenant
    leader=Lieutenant,Swordsman,Pikeman,Longbowman,Javelineer,Duelist,White Mage,Red Mage
    recruit=Peasant,Mage
  [/multiplayer_side]
  
  # ------------------------------------------------------
  # ANL Scenario Logic
  # ------------------------------------------------------
  
  # Initialise variables and options
  [event]
  name=prestart
  {ANL_PRESTART (
  • era=standard
    worker=Peasant
    researcher=Mage
  )}
  [/event]

[/era]

Random side option is absolute nonsense if you have only one choice.

Sharing of "warfare" or "agriculture" will increase progress of research by 1 instead of its level.

[marvalis]

You can win without the merman. You could put it one tile further away so it cannot be reached with a quick peasant. You could even remove the merman and the griphon, since that griphon will never be reached in time anyway.

BTW that piece of code you pasted there, was not written by me but part of the original map.

I just edited the 4 player version of the map.

Also, if you do not get any resilient peasants, (20+hp) then the game can be harder. So yes, the map is luck dependent but you need a lot of bad luck if you don't get a quick peasant or a decent hp peasant.

[Xudo]

In original map you had some time before enemies reach you. Key for winning was is in building a good base. If it is true, you get wide variety of peasants and you can choose resilent ones to make front line.

In your map, enemies going to attack at the second turn and you have very few people to resist.

[Kernigh]

(Thu May 24, 2012) What about of making research "woodcutting" - increasing amount of gold which you get from chopping the forest?

As a research option, "woodcutting" would have two uses. First, players would research "woodcutting" before clearing forests on maps like The Great Wall. Second, players would try to earn gold by planting and chopping trees. There is a problem with the second use: woodcutting would need to become automatic, like farming and mining are now. Players of A New Land for Wesnoth 1.2 did not like to click all their peasants to work each farm or mine. So, the ANL hackers invented automatic farming and automatic mining. The problem is that woodcutting cannot be automatic. Sometimes, players want to retain forests for defense, or clear forest to build other stuff. Peasants would automatically chop down forest where I want to retain forest, or plant forest where I want to build something else. This is unless someone can design automatic woodcutting to prevent this problem.

Players can already chop down forest and plant farm there. We might not want "woodcutting" as a research option if we already have farming.

(Thu Jun 28, 2012) About the too much gold problem:
You obviously need to cap the amount of farms/peasants/villages/mines you can build....

It might also be interesting to make diplomacy and research automatic, in the sense that it is no longer needed to put a unit on a university, but rather that you can choose your research / diplomacy path like in the civilization game series.

It is difficult to decide the exact caps for farms/peasants/villages/mines. One must remember that one player can build a farm/village/mine and another player can capture it. Suppose that the limit is 10 farms per player. Then player 1 might build farms and player 2 might capture them. Player 1 stays under the limit while player 2 continues to capture more farms, thus bypassing the limit. Perhaps the limit should be 20 farms per map, but then players will race to fill this limit. Another idea is an auto-working limit, where a player can build more than 10 farms, but peasants can auto-work only 10 farms.

Research in A New Land is already automatic, because when a side orders a Mage to study mining, all Mages of that side automatically study mining. Diplomacy is not automatic yet. There are still possible ways to make research more civ-like. A New Land now has three progress meters (one for agriculture, one for mining, one for warfare). Freeciv has only one progress meter, and when I learn a technology, I can move the extra bulbs to a different technology. It might be possible to redesign A New Land to have one progress meter, like Freeciv.

(Thu Jun 28, 2012)Sharing of "warfare" or "agriculture" will increase progress of research by 1 instead of its level.

This has been true since at least A New Land 0.9.0c for Wesnoth 1.2. In that version, each menu option displays the text "+1 to an ally's study progress". A later version removed this text, so many players never knew the effect of each option; this is still true with mainline "4p - A New Land" from Wesnoth 1.10. A New Land Classic 0.14.4 added the text "Progress: x/y => x+1/y", so players can again know the effect of each option. The effect has stayed at +1 to progress through all these versions.

This is why A New Land must have three progress meters, and not one civ-like meter. My ally might give +1 to agriculture while I am studying warfare, so I need more than one meter.

Players almost never share knowledge, because +1 to progress is almost nothing. Ideas about how to share more knowledge are welcome. However, with such ideas, scenarios like "4p - The Last Stand" might become too easy. If players can share more knowledge, they might do research too fast.

(Jun 25, 2012) I made a new map for this addon.... Please check it out and consider adding it to the package.

I would like to include "2p - The Last Stand" in the add-on. In fact, I have already added it to my current code. The add-on does not have enough maps, so I am trying to get as many maps as I can. I have made a few minor changes to your map; players who are Orcs or Undead (from expanded era) now start with mushroom farms rather than flower farms.

Here is a .zip with the current code. (This .zip is missing the 'images' directory, so keep the 'images' from 0.14.4.)

EDIT: I would like to rename this map. There are now two scenarios named "The Last Stand", so when I say "The Last Stand", no one knows if I mean the 2p or 4p version. Any ideas for a new name for the 2p version?

[Xudo]

... The problem is that woodcutting cannot be automatic.
... Sometimes, players want to retain forests for defense, or clear forest to build other stuff.
... We might not want "woodcutting" as a research option if we already have farming.

I agree with these arguments, but if you want to introduce researching caps, ANL needs more things to research.
So I propose following research effects:

1. Woodcutter gets 1 movement point after cutting/planting once per turn (being able to cut 2 tiles)
2. Woodcutter can build castles (encapement-like) on forests and lose movement points as usual
3. Woodcutter gets 1 movement point after building forest castle.

It will change not quantity but quality.

One must remember that one player can build a farm/village/mine and another player can capture it. Suppose that the limit is 10 farms per player. Then player 1 might build farms and player 2 might capture them.

Player 2 will automatically destroy captured village.

Another idea is an auto-working limit, where a player can build more than 10 farms, but peasants can auto-work only 10 farms.

Introducing of this mechanic will cancel cap of farms at all. Players will manually work on them.

Research in A New Land is already automatic, because when a side orders a Mage to study mining, all Mages of that side automatically study mining. Diplomacy is not automatic yet. There are still possible ways to make research more civ-like. A New Land now has three progress meters (one for agriculture, one for mining, one for warfare). Freeciv has only one progress meter, and when I learn a technology, I can move the extra bulbs to a different technology. It might be possible to redesign A New Land to have one progress meter, like Freeciv.

I think you should not make ANL more <something>-like. Several researching progress meters is basic rule for ANL.
You have a number of other ways to solve this problem.

1. Introduce individual research.
   Add "continue default research" option in "select research" dialog.
   Add dialog, which will open after player chooses research, with options:
   • Make research default
   • Study individually
2. Leave it as-is. Consider losing of research points as "penalty" for having a lot of scholars.

However, with such ideas, scenarios like "4p - The Last Stand" might become too easy. If players can share more knowledge, they might do research too fast.

Shouldn't players to cooperate on survival maps? Maybe map designer should care about this scenario of playing, not engine designer?
I think the only right option is a intuitive - sharing of knowledge must increase its level.

Any ideas for a new name for the 2p version?

TLS2p