Visible zone of control.

Woodwizzle · Post by **Woodwizzle** » October 28th, 2005, 6:00 am

One of the concepts that hard to understand for newbies is the zone of control. It took me a while to grasp it at least. AFAIK it is a feature unique to Wesnoth so its something everyone has to learn. One way to facilitate an understanding of it would be to communicate it visually. I team color overlay of ther terrain you control would work great I think. It could be an option to turn on, or maybe only be on during the tutorial. We could even make it pretty with transitions. I made some fog of war/shroud transitions that were very lean and used before the much prettier ones we have now were included. They could be addapted for this. I don't have 'em any more, but I look around the forums for 'em or an older version of wesnoth with them if there is any interest.

dtw · Post by **dtw** » October 28th, 2005, 11:30 am

I think this is an excellent idea - one of the best for while. I think the wesnoth rule of "if you can work it out for yourself it should be provided to save you the hassle" would support this too.

It would be great if show hide ZOC could be bound to a keyboard command because even now I get confused about what is restricting my movement, then you could flick it on and off as necessary. i also think it will help people to learn how to use ZOC to protect their units as the ZOC "wall" will be visible.

I;m still waiting for something to be done about the movement highlighter too - it is still awful on lightly coloured terrain!

Post by **Yogibear** » October 28th, 2005, 12:44 pm

How about ctrl+v (show enemy moves)?

Isn't that pretty much what you would like to have?

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » October 28th, 2005, 10:54 pm

A single hex could theoretically be ZOCed by up to 6 teams.
I don't think that could be sanely depicted with graphics.

A better idea would to be to have one color for the ZOC that works against you and another for the ZOC caused by yourself and any allies. An inbetween color could be used for hexes ZOCed by both sides.

An alternate way of showing displaying ZOC would be:
When moving a unit, all hexes that would use up all the unit's movement points, (weather because of ZOC or distance) could be tinted a color. That would prevent you from accidently entering a ZOC and loosing the rest of your MPs.

dtw · Post by **dtw** » October 28th, 2005, 11:15 pm

A better idea would to be to have one color for the ZOC that works against you and another for the ZOC caused by yourself and any allies. An inbetween color could be used for hexes ZOCed by both sides.

I agree but in the case of both I think you only need to see your enemies...

Post by **bruno** » October 29th, 2005, 4:45 am

Woodwizzle wrote:One of the concepts that hard to understand for newbies is the zone of control. It took me a while to grasp it at least. AFAIK it is a feature unique to Wesnoth so its something everyone has to learn.

Zones of controls were used before the mid70s for hex based wargames. Probably they were first used in the 1960s, but I wasn't playing any hex based wargames then and would have to do some research rather than relying on memory.
At least some computer wargames have used zones of control as well as the fantasy game Master of Monsters which provided inspiration for BfW.

Post by **Dave** » October 29th, 2005, 5:06 am

bruno wrote:
Woodwizzle wrote:One of the concepts that hard to understand for newbies is the zone of control. It took me a while to grasp it at least. AFAIK it is a feature unique to Wesnoth so its something everyone has to learn.
Zones of controls were used before the mid70s for hex based wargames. Probably they were first used in the 1960s, but I wasn't playing any hex based wargames then and would have to do some research rather than relying on memory.
At least some computer wargames have used zones of control as well as the fantasy game Master of Monsters which provided inspiration for BfW.

For anyone who has played almost any wargame, Zones of Control are a familiar concept.

However, Wesnoth has attracted an audience among people who haven't had any exposure to boardgame-style wargames, and those people are probably going to be unfamiliar with Zones of Control.

Though I wouldn't think it be too hard for them to learn what's going on with the current interface...

David

pigandforks · Post by **pigandforks** » October 29th, 2005, 9:13 am

i dont see what is so hard to work out you see a unit it has a ZoC around it why do you need colours to tell you this.

dtw · Post by **dtw** » October 29th, 2005, 9:24 am

As I already said the "if you can work it out yourself wesnoth should show you" rule applies IMHO. I at least think it should be shown in the tutorial and I think and option to show hide it in game is not much to ask

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » October 29th, 2005, 6:38 pm

It took me quite a while to grasp ZOC at first, and even after playing for more than a year, i still occasionally make ZOC mistakes. In the jumble of an ongoing battle, (especially when the enemy is the same race) it's not too hard to accidentlly move into the enemy's ZOC, especially for players not familiar with the concept.

gryphonlord · Post by **gryphonlord** » October 30th, 2005, 12:40 am

Eleazar wrote:A single hex could theoretically be ZOCed by up to 6 teams.

Not in tutorial.

Post by **irrevenant** » October 30th, 2005, 4:39 am

pigandforks wrote:i dont see what is so hard to work out you see a unit it has a ZoC around it why do you need colours to tell you this.

Unless the unit's level 0. It's easy to forget about this exception when you're a newbie.

More importantly, you're thinking about the ZoC of a single unit. When you've got a screen like this where enemy units (some level 0, some not) are scattered all over the map, it's hard to tell at a glance which routes are clear of ZoC and which aren't.

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Visible zone of control.

Visible zone of control.

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