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Topic: Destroying a military site which is under attack

jmoerschbach
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Joined: 2019-09-26, 21:40
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Posted at: 2019-12-28, 22:51

Hi,

Some time ago, I noticed in a multiplayer game following "hack"/"cheat":

Being attacked and loosing the battle (last defending soldier gets low on health) the defending player destroyed his own military site just before his last defending soldier was defeated. This resulted in a not-conquered building for the attacking player and of course the defending player's land was not reduced. Is this intentional? For me, it looks like a cheat...

I've got already a patch on my machine not allowing dismanteling/destroying a building under attack, which needs some refining, though. Just wanted to know if this would be worth some more work face-wink.png

Let me know what you think!

regards

jonas


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king_of_nowhere
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Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
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Posted at: 2019-12-29, 01:29

nobody sees it as cheating. it's simply basic strategy. i know the ai does not do it, and some people used to play against ai may be miffed that humans can avoid losing a building that way, but really; just because it's an ai weakness, there's no reason to force it on humans. in fact, i'd go the opposite way and make it authomatic, because there's no reason whatsoever anyone would ever want to not destroy one's own building.

and i insist for keeping this feature because it's already hard enough to defend against a superior army. burning your own buildings is just a delaying tactic anyway, the opponent can still make his own and gradually advance. currently, the defender has no advantage in fighting, and the attacker has the advantage because he can choose which soldiers will go attack, can choose which buildings to attack. his wounded soldiers will retreat unless surrounded by enemies, while the defender's wounded soldiers are still forced to go to battle.

if the attacker has the advantage, then the only correct strategy is to attack as soon as contact with the enemy is made. this leads to very short games. which are not desirable when your whole game is based upon building up infrastructure and economy. so, the defender needs every advantage they can get. so, retreat by scorched earth must remain a viable option.


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stonerl
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Joined: 2018-07-30, 00:03
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Posted at: 2019-12-29, 11:54

Well, I think destroying a building under attack should still be possible. What I don't like is the fact that a building can be dismantled while under attack. I don't like this at all and like to see this gone.

-1 for disabling destruction. +1 for disabling dismantling.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-12-29, 17:24

Well,
I am fully with KoN. In my eyes this is nearly the only thing a player can do to defend himself. Automatic defense is so easy to trick with a properly launched second attack you'll find your best military sites nearly defenseless. And I am also in favor to keep the dismantling possible.
Furthermore I am not sure how do we determine that an attack is underway normally the defending player is only allerted if an opponent is on his land but the attack started much earlier in fact.
so -1 for disabling any option of the player.


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WorldSavior
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Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
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Posted at: 2019-12-29, 17:40

For me the best solution would be if a building gets automatically dismantled instead of conquered, and if there would be an additional button where can you can activate "let the enemy conquer this buildling" or something like that if you want to.

See also older threads about this topic.


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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jmoerschbach
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Posted at: 2020-01-02, 23:30

Alrighty, it stays the same as it is right now face-wink.png

If someone is interested, how my approach would look like: https://github.com/jmoerschbach/widelands/tree/no-dismantle-when-attacked

Regards


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2020-01-02, 23:46

jmoerschbach wrote:

Alrighty, it stays the same as it is right now face-wink.png

Fine face-wink.png


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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stonerl
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Posted at: 2020-01-03, 11:04

jmoerschbach wrote:

Alrighty, it stays the same as it is right now ;)

I'd say we start a poll on this. This would give us a clear picture of what the users want.

If someone is interested, how my approach would look like: https://github.com/jmoerschbach/widelands/tree/no-dismantle-when-attacked

I'm going to check this out.

Regarding the whole "defenders are under powered" debate. IMHO the fact that buildings, that are under attack can be at least dismantled was an oversight in the first place, that turned into a game mechanic for some/many players. We should think of ways to improve the defending site instead of relying on "broken" game mechanics.


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jmoerschbach
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Posted at: 2020-01-03, 13:24

stonerl wrote:

Regarding the whole "defenders are under powered" debate. IMHO the fact that buildings, that are under attack can be at least dismantled was an oversight in the first place, that turned into a game mechanic for some/many players. We should think of ways to improve the defending site instead of relying on "broken" game mechanics.

yeah, this is kind of my feeling, too. I would start by letting the player send out "defending interceptors" manually, so she can choose who should stay at home/go intercepting (only healthy, only trained soldiers and how many). This creates some more fighting tactical aspects, which I personally would really like face-wink.png

When the attacked player does nothing, no soldiers are sent out intercepting and the attacked building's defenders need to be defeated one by one (which is the behaviour of original settlers II I believe?)


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niektory
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Joined: 2019-06-03, 20:06
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Posted at: 2020-01-03, 17:15

jmoerschbach wrote:

When the attacked player does nothing, no soldiers are sent out intercepting and the attacked building's defenders need to be defeated one by one (which is the behaviour of original settlers II I believe?)

IIRC Settlers II had a slider in the military settings that determined roughly how many soldiers would be sent intercepting. It was a global setting, so it applied to all military sites.


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