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Topic: The role of the Headquarters

Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
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Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2011-03-03, 09:39

I remember that it was a possible strategy in Settlers to go for the enemy's Headquarters.
Once you destroyed this, the war was won.
That is not so in Widelands. Here the HQ seems strangely unimportant. Conquer it, and nothing much will happen!
Currently there are no tasks that are unique to the HQ and you could describe this building as a fully featured warehouse with and some properties of a military site.
To be specific, you can store, but not station soldiers there. That means that your HQ is undefended, unless you build some extra protection near it.
It does command an area (slightly more than a donjon) and has a (relatively small) vision horizon.
I am not sure whether it currently heals soldiers and with what healing rate.

There are feature requests and even a blueprint in beta state about this, but I don't know whether it will introduce the "sudden death" feature -- i.e make the HQ more than just one among all other military sites. Probably not so.

I wonder, was this a decision for the game, taken for some specific reason, or is this just an unfinished corner?

Having played Settlers a lot at the time, I still tend to guard my HQ heavily, as soon as I can afford it, but other than the warehouse functionality, there is really no reason to.

Should this be changed? Do we want to make the HQ the heart of the realm and its destruction a fatality?

I'm quite fond of this approach. I think it would introduce an additional strategy, and do away with the rather dull obligation to conquer the last little barack before you have really won the game.

But there is more to it: Making an intact HQ a precondition to continue, would enable the developers to attach some parts of the UI to that building and give them the place that newcomers would look for them.

The minimal storage level adjustment (sorry, only programmers think a flag is a logical place for that face-wink.png
The upcoming "trade" interface.
The number (and training level) of soldiers in the HQ that defend it.
Economywide seafaring options?
A "surrender" of more generally speaking a "diplomacy" interface.
An adjustment for more vs. better trained soldiers, if that is to come.
Last but not least, it may feature an UI element used to access all production sites of the same type and make adjustments for all of them at once. (helpful for large maps and long games)

All of this can be done in other ways of course, but the HQ looks like a good place all the same.

Any opinions?

Edited: 2011-03-03, 09:44

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
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Posted at: 2011-03-03, 09:48

I've never played Settlers 1, but in Settlers 2, the HQ played exactly the same role as it does in Widelands, so I'm a bit surprised about this.

I also don't think that we should change anything. I remember a split-screen game of human vs. computer I played many years ago with a good friend of mine. He was badly hurt by two computer players early in the game and lost his HQ, but managed to build himself back up after I had attacked one of the computers from the other side, and managed to beat them back eventually. This was by far the most legendary game I've ever played in Settlers 2, and it was only possible precisely because the HQ didn't really have any special purpose.

(It might be that S2 sent some message like "You lost" after the HQ got destroyed, but you could in fact continue, and we did.)


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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
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Posted at: 2011-03-03, 09:50

Some of your other points could be considered; for example, setting the minimum desired storage is something that could be associated to warehouses rather than flags - but that would be a minor cosmetic change, and I am somewhat sceptical about it, because then users might think that the settings pertain to the warehouse when, in fact, they pertain to the economy.


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Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
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Posted at: 2011-03-03, 10:50

Hmm-- Should I really be so wrong in my memory about Settlers (yes, have played S1 and S2 -maybe mixed them up)? You send me to double check this....(which I should have done before writing) I can still play S1/S2 with a hardware emulator. I hope that still works face-smile.png

No, the minimal storage at the warehouses is much to confusing; Maybe rather create a new top level for economywide settings like this.


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
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Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2011-03-03, 17:35

Just come from a game of Settlers2 against the AI. Guess what?
@ everybody: mea culpa! Ixprefect is 100% correct, and I was wrong.
I don't know where I got the illusion from --- probably from winning against the AI. I think, it gave up, when the HQ was taken. Should verify this, too face-smile.png --- but obviously I could not test both at the same time.

I don't know about Settlers 1. I did not get it to work due to the fact that my machine has no COM2.
Maybe I'll try again later on an older machine.
So, Settlers or no Settlers .... winning the game by taking out the HQ is no good?
Anyone who likes the idea?


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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Nasenbaer
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Joined: 2009-02-21, 18:17
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Posted at: 2011-03-03, 18:08

Hi,

actually one difference to Settlers 2 is a "guarding" feature - in Settlers 2 you were able to define the wished number of stationed soldiers in the headquarters - all soldiers in that "guard" were marked as "used" and so not available for other military sites.

There is a wishlist bug report somewhere and we as well disscussed this feature some time ago. Raúl Ferriz wrote a nearly complete implementation for that feature ~ one year ago, but unfortunally was unable to finish the feature due to missing free time -> you can take a look at his branch here

I tried to bring the branch up to current bzr HEAD, but unfortunally was unable to get it to run - however we really need such (or a similiar) feature once seafaring and ports are fully implemented, to have control over stationed soldiers in harbours - else the enemy will have an easy game in defeating your ports from their ships.

Edited: 2011-03-03, 18:09

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LAZA
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Joined: 2010-05-22, 12:34
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Location: Winterhill, Swabia, Germany
Posted at: 2011-03-25, 21:18

So as an player, who has only player Siedler 1:

The games wasn't won, if the HQ from an enemy was destroyed!!!

The enemy lost only - the soldiers (beaten before, shurely) - ressources, which where stored in it - the area, the HQ occupied.

So in this, Astuur is (i must say so) wrong.

BUT: The truth is, if the HQ is lost, it was burnt down (automatically) and all the ressources are gone and all soldiers in the HQ dead there was no great chance to come back (and normally the computer gave up).

So for me i makes sense to place soldiers in the HQ and also to choose either good or bad one...


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