Improved The Wilderlands

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name
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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Pentarctagon wrote: September 25th, 2022, 4:14 am I suppose this wouldn't work with the plan to put this on the 1.16 add-ons server eventually, but would the new raised/lowered terrain feature that's been added to 1.17 be useful here?
It may give the drakes faction too much of an advantage, since only a leader can retrieve this scenario's quest item, and only drakes have flying leaders who could simply ignore this sort of obstacle.

For multiplayer scenarios, the best use of this new feature may be on small maps like Isar's Cross or Merkwuerdigliebe, where drakes are at a disadvantage. It is similar to using a lot of chasm terrain.
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FrostBlade5
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

Post by FrostBlade5 »

When i first played wesnoth i remember wilderlands was my favorite map, absolutly great work, it really is an ispiration to create scenarios on your own.
Played it many times, the wilderlands is great!
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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FrostBlade5 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 10:22 pm When i first played wesnoth i remember wilderlands was my favorite map, absolutly great work, it really is an ispiration to create scenarios on your own.
Yeah, it really is a great map, and my favorite as well, even to this day. The perfect canvas for adventure.
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands Dragon tamer!

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Updated the first post with a new version (Alpha-3) focused on player v player balance (computer players included), customization and polish.

Changes:
Monster spawn rates, population caps and their tame percentage now have customization sliders in the set up menu
Map tweaked so players can reach armor closer to the same time
Cut movement bonus from armor
Cut annoying "monster tamed" message broadcast
Improve armor bearer icon
Fix OOS error occurring during online play and replays
Atreides wrote: September 12th, 2022, 7:28 pm Maybe just throw the % of tameables into a slider option?
Now this power, along with many others, is yours to use or abuse!
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

Post by Atreides »

Whew, hard to believe it's been a month. I've been distracted playing a lot of War in Russia (SSI/1993/DOS) lately (current events ya know) as well as some good stuff personally : ).

Anyways I'd given the latest version a few tries and kept getting slapped down hard but I'd planned to try again using default era and the default slider settings (I'm a curious cat and just had to mess with them, I turned up the max # for the smaller monsters and loyal down to 15) and presto today's attempt was a success. I also changed tactics, it seems in the latest version you must run for the armour on turn 1 (which was a mistake before - needed to build up a little then go) else the AI _will_ take it.

Replay attached. I did get Dwurfs so maybe that helped as per earlier posts. Of course since the emphasis is now on a quick commando raid you'd think they aren't ideal anymore. Slow, no healers... <shrug>
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm I'm a curious cat and just had to mess with them, I turned up the max # for the smaller monsters
"Not to fifty!"
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm I also changed tactics, it seems in the latest version you must run for the armour on turn 1 (which was a mistake before - needed to build up a little then go) else the AI _will_ take it.
That is thanks to the fantastic work of mattsc. I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the new default AI could be tweaked to play this game mode so well.

Technically, the computer players wait until turn 3 to send their leaders to fetch the armour (so as to allow time for recruiting and deployment). But that does not leave much of a window given there is 3 of them and only 1 of you, as 3 out of 4 times one of them will get there first (all other factors being equal). Something you can do to adjust the difficulty is leave some player slots empty or set it to a 2 vs 2 team game (if your computer teammate escapes with the prize it is counted as a team victory for you both).
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm Replay attached.
Wow, the other players were really closing in during your daring escape.
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

Post by Atreides »

name wrote: October 27th, 2022, 6:33 am
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm I'm a curious cat and just had to mess with them, I turned up the max # for the smaller monsters
"Not to fifty!"
LOL, tiny to 9, the next 7 then 5... not sure if it was really that significant, I think the new tactics mattered more, all the prior failures were not due to monsters but because the AI was so fast at grabbing the armor, each time I tried to run them down but was too late.
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm I also changed tactics, it seems in the latest version you must run for the armour on turn 1 (which was a mistake before - needed to build up a little then go) else the AI _will_ take it.
That is thanks to the fantastic work of mattsc. I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the new default AI could be tweaked to play this game mode so well.
Yes! The AI impressed me, I could feel them trying to intercept me. Well it seemed like. : )
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm Replay attached.
Wow, the other players were really closing in during your daring escape.
It was pretty cool having a Fire Dragon pop up on my escape route. On one turn it had the option of attacking my leader just at the limit of its range but it seemed to find a better target (Steelclad's I guess are a tough chew even for a Dragon - I shudder to think if I'd had a White Mage leader...)

Yeah like I said the AI was "on the ball". I'd managed to outsprint them (barely) so they all found a nearby keep and started to turn out troops. The NE Drake nearly got me because I'd tried the escape in a cardinal dir (NEWS) trick again but with his proximity that wasn't so smart. Now it looks like my old idea of escaping in the dir of your start keep is better again.

This thing is pretty polished now, any plans on uploading to addons server?
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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Atreides wrote: October 27th, 2022, 5:30 pm Yes! The AI impressed me, I could feel them trying to intercept me. Well it seemed like. : )
Your sense is correct, the combat AI naturally has assassinating enemy leaders as a priority. And with you so close to them, you surely became an interception target.
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm Now it looks like my old idea of escaping in the dir of your start keep is better again.
Definitely true, since proportionately other armies are more of a threat now, and they are coming from a direction generally opposite where you came from. (Whereas before with omnipresent monsters as the primary threat, taking the shortest escape route was best.)
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm This thing is pretty polished now, any plans on uploading to addons server?
Yeah, it seems like we are close to that point now.

I possibly have just a couple more improvements to make to the monster spawning. The first is to base the population caps on monster type rather than monster side, so that friendly monsters are population capped also. This will enable players to optionally set up "pokemon" style games where they can have even 100% tame monster spawning if they so wish. The second is to have every monster type spawn randomly and independently of each other, rather than at set turn intervals. This should mean far fewer instances of several creatures popping into existence around a player all at once.

I may test it out on The High Seas first. Especially since a lot of my focus has been... sunk into that recently. (Had to rewrite quite a lot of it to support boarding of all ships and playing other maps).
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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name wrote: October 29th, 2022, 4:05 pm
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm Now it looks like my old idea of escaping in the dir of your start keep is better again.
Definitely true, since proportionately other armies are more of a threat now, and they are coming from a direction generally opposite where you came from. (Whereas before with omnipresent monsters as the primary threat, taking the shortest escape route was best.)
Since the ldrs relocate on a line between their start keep and the centre the radius danger now covers a greater area than when they lurked in their start keeps.
What is interesting is that indeed the main threat is now other players and I can see this as only helping make it a better MP game.
Atreides wrote: October 26th, 2022, 4:34 pm This thing is pretty polished now, any plans on uploading to addons server?
Yeah, it seems like we are close to that point now.

I possibly have just a couple more improvements to make to the monster spawning. The first is to base the population caps on monster type rather than monster side, so that friendly monsters are population capped also. This will enable players to optionally set up "pokemon" style games where they can have even 100% tame monster spawning if they so wish. The second is to have every monster type spawn randomly and independently of each other, rather than at set turn intervals. This should mean far fewer instances of several creatures popping into existence around a player all at once.

I may test it out on The High Seas first. Especially since a lot of my focus has been... sunk into that recently. (Had to rewrite quite a lot of it to support boarding of all ships and playing other maps).
That would be interesting, a zoo of tameables. I can imagine players building their fastest scouts to try and nab the best pets!
Oh, I thought that the wave arrival had been changed earlier. It doesn't seem as bad now though. But if someone turns up monsters numbers a lot I can see it becoming a matter of concern again.

Gee, I thought the High Seas was dead, hehe. You've been quietly working on it. : ) I love the idea of more maps, while the included map is very fine IMHO repeated playing will rather wear it out.
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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Atreides wrote: October 29th, 2022, 7:22 pm What is interesting is that indeed the main threat is now other players and I can see this as only helping make it a better MP game.
That is true when using the default settings for the four monster respawn timers (11, 7, 5, 3) though one can set them back to 7, 5, 3, 2 for the old "jurassic park" style survival experience that keeps you on your toes!
Atreides wrote: October 29th, 2022, 7:22 pm That would be interesting, a zoo of tameables. I can imagine players building their fastest scouts to try and nab the best pets!
I imagine they would do that, at least initially, and then the faster monsters would become the scouts, being used to reach still more monsters. Alternatively, the monster spawn rates could be turned down, so pets would be rare finds, but still potential game changers for skirmishes far away from camp.

It is all up to the players to decide now; the customization options place the power of gods into the hands of men.
Atreides wrote: October 29th, 2022, 7:22 pm Oh, I thought that the wave arrival had been changed earlier. It doesn't seem as bad now though.
Yeah, it is already improved from how it was before, but there are still clumps of respawns falling onto certain turns, like turn 15 where potentially 16 monsters will appear all at once. Given the size of the map, these will generally appear far apart from each other, but not always.
Atreides wrote: October 29th, 2022, 7:22 pm Gee, I thought the High Seas was dead, hehe. You've been quietly working on it. : )
Unfortunately it turned into a real distraction from work on these other scenarios. The High Seas is quite complex and needed a lot of rewriting to allow new features like those discussed over the summer. Especially making ship to ship boarding a main feature, but you really cannot have a scenario about piracy without that.
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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The first post has been updated with a new version (Alpha-4) which focuses on smooth monster spawning and improved customization.

Changes:
  • Monsters spawn individually and randomly rather than in blocks at set turns
  • Starting monster quantity customizable
  • Monster spawn rates can be set from 0% to 100%
  • Tame monsters can be set from 0% all the way up to 100%.
  • Monster population caps can be set from 0 to 100 monsters.
Now players can mutate the scenario into different styles, such as disabling monsters altogether, making them all friendly and tameable, or cranking up their population to apocalyptic levels.

With luck, this should be the final alpha as we head into beta and the upload of this scenario onto the 1.16 add-ons server.
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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Well finally managed to get to try the latest version out. I suppose since I left the sliders at default I didn't really test out all the possibilities but that's something for later. I guess an all tame monster fest might be intriguing!

Anywho, took 2 tries to get a win in, I kinda SNAFU'd try one by exposing my saurian leader to 2 fire wraiths right at the beginning. Guess having two of them load within striking distance of my start keep (NE corner) should have alarmed me more than it did. I thought, that's ok he's level 2 and they're ummm 1? Anyways, enough of this foolishness... Oh and Saur's bake well IIRC so that fiery bath made him extra crispy.

Try 2 went very well, lucked out and got my best faction (Undead) so it was pretty much a slam dunk from there on in. No need to describe it. Will attach replay. Most notable events were the early appearance of Dragon (SE corner start) so once I got to the armor (1st) I wasn'a gonna go back laddie! Went north (away from the foul beast) through the darned Gremlins. Know them like the back of my hand (I did enough work on them, I ought to...) so that was a easy route. [Secret trick: always take their villages else the nasty little vermin will use their teleport to swarm you from them]

Anyways, no bugs, plays beautifully!
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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Glad to hear the scenario is still working correctly after the rewrite - even despite the presence of gremlins. ^_^
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

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name wrote: December 16th, 2022, 8:36 pm Glad to hear the scenario is still working correctly after the rewrite - even despite the presence of gremlins. ^_^
I _may_ have fed them after midnight...
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Re: Improved The Wilderlands

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Can you change the retreat AI code to move the leader (with grail) to a map edge and not a corner? Moving to a corner takes longer and they end up getting ambushed by 1-2 mobs and die quite fast.
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