Topic: Thoughts while playing Widelands again after some time

I was (and am) a great fan of the old settlers games (actually i like Part 1 more then Part 2&3), so i watching the evolution of widelands with interest. Recently i found some time to play the widelands again (the latest bzr, 6466). Because i don't have the time (yet?) to help programming, and not the ability to do some graphics/sounds i like to help the widelands team with some feedback.

Most of the things in this post came to my mind while playing the tutorial campings of all three tribes and one free game. If some of this points should be filed as bugs, just say so, i do it. If there is a better forum for this: Also just say so.

First i want to thank and congratulate the widelands team for the achievement so far. The game is very playable, graphics and sounds are nearly complete, and very very nice. I only miss the sound after destructing a building and during fights. There is an awkward silence. For the graphics, the mines itself are pretty good, but (at least for the barbarians) its hard to distinguish between coal, iron and gold mines. Maybe one should optimize the color of the coal/iron/gold-heap in the front.

Also the tutorial-scenarios are very good and very educational.

Concerning the gameplay/economy:

First a word about the complexity of the economy: From the players point of view complexity influences the attractivity and the difficulty. A simple economy is boring. A very complex economy is difficult to manage. From my point widelands is complex enough. At some places i even liked less complexity (e.g. normal and deep mines are enough). Maybe one should emphasize a model like "barbarians - (relatively) less complex", "empire - moderate complexity", "atlanteans - complex".

The next point is maybe related to the complexity/difficulty thing. A complex economy is very greedy. To explain my point i first have to state my favourite kind of settlers/widelands-game: A first expansion rush, then long phases of developing with at less armed conflicts as possible (some kind of "race of economies") and finally the "final battle" which shows whose economy produced more and better. But during the free game I had some problems: First: there where far from enough iron on the map. One may say "Ok, play a map with more iron" but I think thats not correct way to handle this. There where still plenty of coal, granite and even gold, but nearly no iron left. The economy needs a huge amount of iron, so maybe one can increase the amount iron-ore one miner gets out of a placed iron-deposit of the map. If there are arguments against this, maybe one can make this configurable, e.g. as part of some difficulty settings.

Related to the complexity is also the balance between production and consumption. And IMHO is a little unbalanced. E.g. i tested with a test-game, that one bakery needs 4 farms at 100% productivity to get 100% itself. Isn't that a little to much? Also the shown productivity changes strangely. With 1/2/3/4 farms i get 10/30/60/100% productivity. For the brewery this is even stranger: with one farm i get 0% with two 100%. And to make it really strange: if i only use one farm, queue wheat until the brewery can start with a full storage, i get also 100%. The same effect i discovered for lumberjack/ranger: two lumberjacks/two rangers: 100% for both lumberjacks. Two lumberjacks, one ranger: 20% productivity for both lumberjacks. Also the output of a lumberjack at 100% is too small, IMHO, I need so many Lumberjacks (and rangers) to keep my economy expanding (and again consuming iron). And this goes all the way through the economy: The output of one steps seams to be to small compared with the input needed by the next step. (Or maybe, i am not sure: a small problem in one step causes a huge problem in the next step of a chain.)

Now to the user interface:

For the handling of the warehouses i wish some "stop storing all wares"-button (and analogous for ejecting and normal). Marking each item and then press the stop/eject/normal-button just sucks.

Also there are some inconsistencies: A stopped building doesn't gets resources. That was a good think while the storage at every site was not user-controllable, but now this is wrong. Stopping a site may automatically set this sites priority low, but if a good is available and a stopped site has a free storage for this good it should be filled (Else there is no great difference between stopping and reducing the storage-space of each good to zero).

Also the buildings window closes after stopping/starting automatically, but this is not an action which requires the window to close (like destruction or dismantling).

Further, destruction has a security-question dismantling not. IMHO both actions should have a security-question.

Finally, soldiers: a "exchange all possible soldier"-button and "Change amount of soldiers in side by distances to the border/enemy" was afaik already discussed. I would like those too. Additionally i propose a better presentation of the soldiers at a warehouse. It would be nice if one does not only see how many soldiers are in this warehouse, but also how many of each level.

Finally: The defensive AI seems pretty aggressive to me. For free games i really like to have a AI which only attacks after being attacked first.

Let me finish with thanking all people involved with widelands again. You all did a great job so far. And even if this post got very long, all points are just my opinion and meant to make widelands even better.

[edit: added two more inconsistencies]

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SirVer wrote: Welcome to the forum and thanks for your comments. Most of the issues you state are actually known and some are even worked on - e.g. the security question is now implemented in the dev version for everything.

This is confusing. I thought the bzr branch is the dev version. How can i obtain this dev version you speaking of for testing?

I find the comments about complexity interesting - we recently had a discussion where people were complaining that widelands is not complex enough.

Yes, i saw that thread, but i didn't find the right place to insert my view there.

Balance is also always an issue - a hard one though and we are very careful in making changes.

In my opinion documentation and the balance (and maybe the AI) are the biggest issues left for making widelands a very good game. I hope i find some time in the next time to start with some improvements on the first one and maybe even playing a little with the source for the second one.

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r6475 contains the confirmations for dismantle, destroy and enhance, as well as separating them a little bit from the others to avoid accidental clicks.

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~widelands-dev/widelands/trunk/revision/6475

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Matter of Production I can't confirm and may be I didn't got the Point but if the Point is that "Bakeries need soo many Farms" than I don't agree with.

About WareHouse-Control: Perhaps Buttons from MailBox to clear and invert Selection to get same and more than just a Select-All-Button. Also keeping old Selection-Setting is useful for Managing.

Ivan the Terrible is dead .. Genghis Khan is dead .. and I do not feel well, too.

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I like the Introduction of Term Age to describe a Change in Technology but to address Matter of different Needs of Challenge I would prefer to deal on Tribe-Level via different Tribe-Configs/Tribes (which may look same but have a simpler Economy) and a Comlexity-Level-Attribute for Tribes and Filter of Game-Server that just Tribes which match Requirement for Tribe to keep it fair for Players.

I embrace the Way how you suggest to encounter different Complexity-Levels but instead to learn 20 Ways to butter a Slice of Bread I propose to boundle Varity in Lessons: Tut-I: {Eco-I, Military-I, Polytic-I, ..} Tut-II: {Eco-II,Military-ÎI,Polytic-II,..}

MY Idea with Tribe-CLevel is about TUT-Lvl-i would deal with Things needed for Tribe-CL-i (Tribes with a Complexity-Lvl-i).

Ivan the Terrible is dead .. Genghis Khan is dead .. and I do not feel well, too.

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