Latest Posts

Topic: idea: gifting soldiers to an ally

king_of_nowhere
Avatar
Topic Opener
Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
Posts: 1668
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Posted at: 2020-02-20, 20:00

i was wondering why i rarely play this game online, and one of the reasons is that the games are always 1v1, and i don't like them much. i compare it with civilization4, where my favourite mode is 4v4; i never play 1v1 there, no wonder i also don't in widelands.

so i considered team games, unfortunately this game does not support teams very well. you either have both players come into contact separately, so that the game is basically two separate 1v1, or one player never comes into contact with the enemy. it's hardly a team game. for comparison, in civilization you can move your soldiers through your ally's land, to help fighting. you have one front player having a fast contact with the enemy who needs to build up military fast, and a back player who will have a delayed contact and must play for growth to offer greater support to his front in the mid and late game.

so i was thinking if something of the sort could be done in widelands. since you can't move through ally land and i have a hard time seeing a way around it, the only way is to gift soldiers. so if your land is cut off you can still contribute to the action. You'd need adjacent borders to exchange soldiers that way.

i see a potential problem in that the code is not equipped to deal with soldiers of different tribes in the same land. warehouses would need to be changed; instead of "soldier", you'd have "soldier: barbarian", "soldier: empire", and so on. and soldiers would have a tag for the tribe in addition to their levels. AI could have an additional line about gifting soldiers to your allies if the allies are in contact with an enemy and the owner is not and the allies have less military power than the ally, making also "human vs many machines" challenges more challenging.

it would also solve the skill gap problem: so far there is ws who is much stronger than anyone else, and there is me and i should still be a fair bit stronger than anyone else, and i think then the-x is stronger than anyone else left. i don't know if mars is still around, he may be close to the-x. anyway, there's not much incentive to dueling. but if we could use teams to balance the stronger players by giving them weaker allies, it may give more incentives to play.

what do you think? do you think it would push people to play more? do you think it's even reasonably feasible?


Top Quote
the-x
Avatar
Joined: 2019-01-19, 13:23
Posts: 967
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Posted at: 2020-02-20, 22:06

king_of_nowhere wrote:

it would also solve the skill gap problem: so far there is ws who is much stronger than anyone else, and there is me and i should still be a fair bit stronger than anyone else, and i think then the-x is stronger than anyone else left. i don't know if mars is still around, he may be close to the-x. anyway, there's not much incentive to dueling. but if we could use teams to balance the stronger players by giving them weaker allies, it may give more incentives to play.

Yes, I also often thought about that. I mean I play for the fun and so it is no problem if I win or lose, but also for some players the result is the important and so they dont play, cause they say, i already know that i lose.

I like this point - an other Idea would be to bring a little random events in the game, like my so much preferred Diamond Mine, which only gives diamond to 5% chance - so sometimes you have to wait a bit longer. This could also make it possibly that world sometimes face-wink.png loses to anybody else even if he plays 100% face-wink.png which is a good thing I think cause you dont know the result before the game starts


Top Quote
JanO
Avatar
Joined: 2015-08-02, 11:56
Posts: 177
Ranking
At home in WL-forums
Posted at: 2020-02-20, 22:34

So basically this thread is about trading? I guess this is a really hard one, not only for a good concept but for coding as well. Nevertheless you are probably right that this would push multiplayer a lot.


Top Quote
Solstice_s_Return
Avatar
Joined: 2020-01-28, 13:24
Posts: 62
Ranking
Likes to be here
Location: Finland
Posted at: 2020-02-21, 11:17

As of late, I've thought out an entire trading/diplomacy system for Widelands, including relations with computer players and a kind of a diplomatic victory conditions. I know that it would be a huge project to implement it, but at least I'd be happy to voluntarily help as much as I can to get it implemented. It didn't contain trading soldiers, but it wouldn't be much in addition to what would be required for the whole system. If anyone is intrested about discussing more about it, I can start a topic about it.


Top Quote
Nordfriese
Avatar
Joined: 2017-01-17, 18:07
Posts: 1929
OS: Debian Testing
Version: Latest master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: 0x55555d3a34c0
Posted at: 2020-02-21, 11:21

A trading system is already long under development.

https://code.launchpad.net/~widelands-dev/widelands/market/+merge/330830

https://code.launchpad.net/~widelands-dev/widelands/market1/+merge/331233

The implementation is functional but still incomplete, that´s why the market building is hidden from players for now.


Top Quote
king_of_nowhere
Avatar
Topic Opener
Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
Posts: 1668
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Posted at: 2020-02-21, 17:50

Nordfriese wrote:

A trading system is already long under development.

https://code.launchpad.net/~widelands-dev/widelands/market/+merge/330830

https://code.launchpad.net/~widelands-dev/widelands/market1/+merge/331233

The implementation is functional but still incomplete, that´s why the market building is hidden from players for now.

but the market trades resources only, not soldiers. and there is all the mess with different promotion levels to fix


Top Quote
WorldSavior
Avatar
Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
Posts: 2091
OS: Linux
Version: Recent tournament version
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2020-02-28, 00:16

king_of_nowhere wrote:

and there is all the mess with different promotion levels to fix

Which mess?

The idea is not that bad. For example one could send soldiers to the ally by "attacking" (any of the allies buildings), this could be a way to implement this.

And what if allies could share territory, roads and carriers? Too complicated?


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

Top Quote
king_of_nowhere
Avatar
Topic Opener
Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
Posts: 1668
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Posted at: 2020-02-28, 03:27

WorldSavior wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

and there is all the mess with different promotion levels to fix

Which mess?

you are atlantean. you gift soldiers to your barbarian ally. what soldiers do your ally receive?

in my idea, your barbarian ally should get some atlantean soldiers, with their own promotions (that can't be promoted in barbarian training sites). but that would require adding some code.

otherwise, your ally can receive barbarian soldiers. but then, what would happen to the defence promotions that barbarians lack? and what would happen if barbarian gifted a soldier with attack 5 and defence 3, which atlantean does not have?

And what if allies could share territory, roads and carriers? Too complicated?

share... how, exactly?


Top Quote
Solstice_s_Return
Avatar
Joined: 2020-01-28, 13:24
Posts: 62
Ranking
Likes to be here
Location: Finland
Posted at: 2020-02-28, 08:14

With my diplomacy layer it would work like this: A player builds an embassy. Diplomats move into that building according to how many other players or AI:s there are in the game. There they train their basic skills to make an agreement. To train their skills they need paper, which is made from some crop fibers combined with cloth and the process takes also one wood and one water. This is done in paper makers hut and from the wares that already exist.

When a potential enemy border gets discovered, it is very important to scout the area to find a warehouse. Immediately when a warehouse (or port or headquarters) is discovered, one of the diplomats walks to there (with or without basic skills) Now basic diplomatic relations are estabilished, but they are still pretty useless, because any big deal requires a lot of paper to all drafts and other scrap paper to get accomplished.

If player's Diplomat is skilled enough, he/she can now make a deal about renting soldiers. If it gets agreed upon, the other player gets hired soldiers and the another compensation in wares. At first, the soldiers move into the warehouse in which the Diplomat resides. Now they are available to use almost like an own soldiers, but: In case relations break and war ensues, Diplomat returns to the embassy. On a level where soldiers can be rented, there shouldn't be a possibility to start a war immediately. The owner of the rented soldiers can see them all the time (exept when they are inside a building) and if the deal breaks up, the soldiers return to the nearest warehouse in their home territory.

With diplomacy, this is just one deal among others, but the whole thing is ofcourse a big deal to get developed and implemented.

Edited: 2020-02-28, 08:22

Top Quote
hessenfarmer
Avatar
Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16
Posts: 2646
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Bavaria
Posted at: 2020-02-28, 10:20

I don't know this well, but has anybody already tried the shared HQ in start starting condition?

Edited: 2020-02-28, 10:20

Top Quote