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Topic: new tribe: amazons

king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-08-22, 17:24

I think that's everything that's needed as far as numbers and descriptions?

if you need more input, let me know. otherwise, i think i'll be needed next at the playtesting level.

actually, we forgot the scout hut. easy to fix that one.

EDIT: by a quick glance, I'd surmise amazonians in their current shape are somewhat weaker than the other tribes, because they have an expensive basic economy - especially setting up the rare trees, needed for most advanced buildings, and getting enough ropes, as they are made slowly.

on the other hand, it's hard to gauge how much of an advantage it is to not have to mine iron, with all the related costs, and how actually expensive or cheap the rare woods used in its place are. so, I'm curious to see how it goes.

Edited: 2019-08-22, 17:43

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-08-22, 21:06

king_of_nowhere wrote:

it also makes sense that trying to stop amazonians with trees won't work well face-tongue.png

haha, yes

graphically, i envisioned a platform being built on top of the tree. it would have low conque radius (5 or 4) but decent vision (10 or 12)

And the treetrop sentry requires a small building space under the mountain? It could be otherwise too overpowered, for example if it makes expanding over mountains possible.

About foresters: Couldn't there be a junglemaster hut (small building) and a junglemaster mountain hut (mine building) at the same time?

it could - and we could pretend it's the same by giving it the same name and graphics - but then it could be built also on non-forested mountains.

Yes it could, but could be still build at the edge of the mountain where it is useful. Maybe it's too much of an advantage?

Nordfriese wrote:

port: normal port build cost: 4 wood 3 balsa 3 stone 3 rubber 3 rope return on dismantle: 2 wood 2 balsa 1 stone 1 rubber 2 rope

and no gold??

Maybe also both trainingssites should cost cold....

kaputtnik wrote:

Amazing!

Nice pun, kapunttnik face-wink.png

king_of_nowhere wrote:

on the other hand, it's hard to gauge how much of an advantage it is to not have to mine iron, with all the related costs, and how actually expensive or cheap the rare woods used in its place are. so, I'm curious to see how it goes.

Me too.


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-08-22, 23:46

WorldSavior wrote:

And the treetrop sentry requires a small building space under the mountain [I assume you mean tree]? It could be otherwise too overpowered, for example if it makes expanding over mountains possible.

Yes, of course. there should be a building space under the tree. the idea is that amazonians can expand faster through foorest because they don't need to chop trees, not that they can expand where others cannot at all.

About foresters: Couldn't there be a junglemaster hut (small building) and a junglemaster mountain hut (mine building) at the same time?

it could - and we could pretend it's the same by giving it the same name and graphics - but then it could be built also on non-forested mountains.

Yes it could, but could be still build at the edge of the mountain where it is useful. Maybe it's too much of an advantage?

would be strongly map-dependent. most maps don't have forested mountains. the only map that has lots of it that i can think of is fjords, where saving space is a strong advantage.

but then, amazonians could only save space to build foresters on the mountains. they'd still need the woodcutters on normal ground. and they need more woodcutters than most, because they work slower.

probably it would still be an advantage overall on fjords, because amazonians need lots of trees and the only abundant thing in that map is space for planting trees. but then, that would be true nonetheless, regardless of whether they could make foresters on mountains or not.

and having a modest advantage on a very specific map because of a very peculiar characteristic of that map is not, imo, a strong advantage, merely a specific interaction with the map. just like atlanteans are strong on fjords because they need less large buildings. or like empire is strong on archipelago sea because they have unlimited fish and they suffer less for the scarce wood.

EDIT: oh, you meant they can make foresters on mountains to save space for trees on the plain? I see that. Again I don't think it's a big deal, it's just a single node taken, but I don't much like the visual look of the forester sitting on the barren mountain and planting trees far away. So, it's one more argument for making it buildable only on forested mountains, or not buildable on mountains at all. If we need to balance it, we can do it with slight changes to the lenght of the sleep time anyway. /EDIT

Maybe also both trainingssites should cost cold....

Agreed, they should need to make a gold mine before they can train a hero soldier, same as with everyone else.

I am uncertain if I should edit the list I made a page ago or copy it new

Edited: 2019-08-22, 23:49

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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 09:47

king_of_nowhere wrote:

I am uncertain if I should edit the list I made a page ago or copy it new

Best for me in implementation would be a complete Summary of the actual discussion in the first post. face-smile.png


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 11:06

Coding changes are up for merging.
The treetop sentry will still require a small plot to exist under the tree. The tree has a flag of course. When the sentry is dismantled, the tree is restored; when it´s destroyed, the tree is also burnt.


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Tibor

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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 12:27

How are buildacps handled? A field can have one of 4 builcaps (small, medium, big, and port). So you say it will be possible to build a building on a filed where nothing can be built - because there is an immovable?

Did you consider another buildcaps like "TREETOP"? That way the filed would be 'buildable', AI would include it in its buildable fields.... though It would need to keep track of so many new but basically useless quasi-buildable fields, this is disadvantage of this solution...

But would be fully compatible with current AI code, where we have list of buildable fields and set of buildable building, with restriction of what can be build on which type buildable field.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 12:39

The normal buildcaps systen isn´t sufficient here. I don´t want to hardcode that only trees can be allowed as base immovables but any attribute. So the field has BUILDCAPS_NONE (because there´s an immovable on it) and any suitability checks work like:

  • if the building has get_built_over_immovable() >= 0

  • check whether the field contains an immovable with the required attribute

  • if so, check whether the field´s maxcaps (= the buildcaps as if there were no immovables at all on the map) are sufficient for the building´s size;
    and of course the field to the lower right needs to have BUILDCAPS_FLAG and all nodes that would be covered by the building and the flag need to be interior fields for the player

If the AI should be able to build treetop sentries, it´ll have to carry out those checks as well…


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Tibor

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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 13:04

So there will be some code to "fake" buildap, or we will create "virtual" treetop buildap just to be used for AI. Disadvantages:

  • currently AI is messaged about each buildable field when it becomes available or disappears (no longer buildable, player has lost the territory and so on.) So those virtual buildable fileds will be very fluid. The three is cut down - it disappears, the tree changes from young to mature - it re-appears. Normal buildable fileds does not change that much. All this means CPU overhead...

  • it ceates new category of buildable fields (now PORTSPACES and SMALL+MEDIUM+BIG), that means additional complexity. This is why I would prefer to have it regularly included into SMALL+MEDIUM+BIG group


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 14:47

Hi Tibor, Good to see you on board. However we should only begin to make AI compatible with Amazons after they are somewhat stable, as we did with frisians. As Amazons are very different in comparison to other tribes Iwe need to think about proper setting of the Ai hints for the buildings anyway. But this is still very far away.
For the treetop sentry we could allow the AI to build it togther with the tree (Ai could use that bit of cheat as it cheats in other regions anyway)


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Tibor

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Posted at: 2019-08-23, 15:30

hessenfarmer wrote:

Hi Tibor, Good to see you on board. However we should only begin to make AI compatible with Amazons after they are somewhat stable, as we did with frisians.

Thnks. The preparatory branch is just reviewed, so if we want to introduce the new buildcap this is the right time. If not - OK then..

As Amazons are very different in comparison to other tribes Iwe need to think about proper setting of the Ai hints for the buildings anyway. But this is still very far away.

OK, let just be aware that there are some challenges on AI's side with this idea...

For the treetop sentry we could allow the AI to build it togther with the tree (Ai could use that bit of cheat as it cheats in other regions anyway)

OK, this I like. AI would use regular (empty) buildable field and add a tree with building...


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