Topic: keep it simple!

1 — 10 of 14 Posts 1 2 next ››

k54e56 Topic Opener Joined: 2011-01-24, 16:20 Posts: 14 Pry about Widelands Location: Capital of Austria	Posted at: 2011-01-28, 08:11 First and foremost: Thanks to all of you who make the effort! I am an S2-veteran and only a couple of weeks ago downloaded WL. So there is a lot to do for me and even more to learn. I've only played the first 3 missions twice now and am therefore not really in a position to qualify the game a lot but still .... What i miss most is some kind of guidance as to the amount of buildings required for optimum performance: all the ratios between "production an consumption" (how many farms per bakery, how many taverns per mine ... ratio of coal / iron / gold ...) There are hints in the forum-postings and there is a huge chart for every economy but simple basic guidance would be very much apprechiated. Please don't overload the game with features: I've found some postings especially concerning seafaring, where some posters asked for lots of different ships, or some remarks on fish-breeding with automatic restocking form the oceans. In my view the economic model is already a lot more complex than S2! Some minor issues from a newbe (don't bother, if a solution would be a major effort): a) why is there an in-game button to describe wares but not buildings? b) the insertion of the buildings ("S", "C") is way to big c) can you make the music stop when the game is paused? d) i do miss a load button in the game menu (i've read the comments in the forum but do not agree - i usually save before a major decision and if that turns out to be a bad one i'd like to easily return to the saved progress) e) the info windows of buildings that are idle are not very user friendly - mostly understandable but syntax sounds like programming language f) my (idle) bakery reported "economy needs water not bread"; in the HQ - practically next door to bakery and well - were stored > 20 water; i guess water has a very low priority and does not get delivered when logs and stones are in demand(?) g) there are some more issues like 2 lumberjacks running out of trees (working at 0% - 2ß%)althoug a forester works at 100% apparently - i'll monitor that in further games That's it for now; thx for listening to a newcomer and all the best for future efforts (i hope my donation helps a little - i feel it is only fair to support you if i download, try and do not delete) Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18 Posts: 1445 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2011-01-28, 20:51 Hey and welcome to the forum! We feel that establishing a good order is a major part of widelands. You will also realize after a while that the widelands economy practically never reaches an equilibrium as it did in Settlers II, so such ratios are harder to measure and change over time. We hope to give enough guidance in the tutorials though. We are aware of this danger and we also know that a lot of opensource software tends to die under feature-creep. We have lengthy discussions about each feature in the game to try to find a simple enough approach and not overdo it. That said, there are features we plan to incorporate which will make the game more complex, mainly seafaring, trading and science. a) because no one wrote it yet. A help is on the agenda but harder to realize then one would imagine. b) I do not understand what you mean. c) yep, if you feel strongly about this, please open a bug report for it. d) Reloading from a running game is technically challenging. We had it before and it made a lot of bugs, so we removed it. It might return one day "done right" but don't hold your breath for it. Also a bug report would be appropriate (there might already exist one...). e) yep, others feel the same. We think about other ways to construct such a text, but this won't be in build 16. f) if you feel you need more bread, you can increase the target quantity of bread in the economy window. This message just says that you have the number of breads you desire in store but not the amount of water you desire. g) you'll need more foresters for barbarian woodcutters than for imperials. Also note that the trees have favorable undergrounds: they grow better on greener soil than on rocky one. Thanks for your comments. Fresh input is always appreciated! Hope you stick around. !SirVer Top Quote

k54e56 Topic Opener Joined: 2011-01-24, 16:20 Posts: 14 Pry about Widelands Location: Capital of Austria	Posted at: 2011-01-30, 07:04 b) I do not understand what you mean. When you press "c" and "s" you get insertions on top of your buildings (what it is and productivity) - i feel that the font size is way too large New issues (sorry about the constant wailing but it's always things you don't like you feel strongly about ...): i had 2 mines, both miners reaching next level almost at the same time; upgraded both mines; both advanced miners went to the same mine, so i hade none for the second mine - is this a "feature" (do i have to micromanage that i only uprade one mine at a time) or can you make sure in the code, that a deeper mine is filled with one advanced miner and one apprentice if a minimum of advanced miners in the warehouse in not exceeded in the 3rd mission of the Barbarian tutorial you ask for a boot camp and an arena but never mention beer (or did i miss that?) have a nice sunday! Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18 Posts: 1445 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2011-01-30, 11:23 Ahh okay. I disagree about the font size: on my screen this is barely legible - of course this strongly depends on the resolution you play widelands in. The problem with the mine is known and not intentional - we just have not yet fixed it, so it persists in build 16. We are aware of it though - it bothers me as well. I think beer has been added in a recent version of the 3rd mission. Do you play build 15 or a development snapshot? I dimly remember there has been a bug report about this already, you might want to search in our bug tracker. Top Quote

ixprefect Joined: 2009-02-27, 13:28 Posts: 367 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2011-01-30, 13:48 Perhaps we can consider adjusting the size of those C/S-texts based on the screen resolution, but honestly I'd never noticed a problem with those texts. Top Quote

fuchur Joined: 2009-10-07, 13:01 Posts: 186 Widelands-Forum-Junkie Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-01-30, 15:49 One thought on the font size of ingame texts (for me it has the right size): I don't know if this is difficult to implement, but maybe a setting in the options would be useful: small - medium - large. The idea of having a fixed dependency on the screen resolution is a bit difficult to me. Some people may want larger font sizes than others. Top Quote

k54e56 Topic Opener Joined: 2011-01-24, 16:20 Posts: 14 Pry about Widelands Location: Capital of Austria	Posted at: 2011-01-31, 07:19 I'm playing the last "official" build - much too scared to try development snapshots I'm playing in the higest resolution possible (13yy)in 16 bit, widescreen - in 32 bit the road looks rather funny and for the rest doesn't seem to make a difference (?) Top Quote

k54e56 Topic Opener Joined: 2011-01-24, 16:20 Posts: 14 Pry about Widelands Location: Capital of Austria	Posted at: 2011-01-31, 09:53 Original Post What i miss most is some kind of guidance as to the amount of buildings required for optimum performance: all the ratios between "production an consumption" (how many farms per bakery, how many taverns per mine ... ratio of coal / iron / gold ...) There are hints in the forum-postings and there is a huge chart for every economy but simple basic guidance would be very much apprechiated. SirVer wrote: We feel that establishing a good order is a major part of widelands. You will also realize after a while that the widelands economy practically never reaches an equilibrium as it did in Settlers II, so such ratios are harder to measure and change over time. We hope to give enough guidance in the tutorials though Understood and accepted! Still, a suggestion to help beginners: I believe that most beginners will play the 3 Barbarian missions, especially the 3rd mission (at least i did twice so far and will try again). It does not matter that i won on my first try, because i think i can still optimize. What i would very much appreciate is guidance from some experienced players as to the buildings they had working at the time when they first attacked (how many farms, bakeries, mines ....). I think i'm getting better at judging which builings i need when so as to not run out of needed ressources, but production of wares for the trainig camp still seemed slow (not enough iron?). I'm not (yet!) asking for a full walk-through, but a snapshot of the size of the economy might help a lot. Top Quote

k54e56 Topic Opener Joined: 2011-01-24, 16:20 Posts: 14 Pry about Widelands Location: Capital of Austria	Posted at: 2011-02-10, 13:10 SirVer wrote in the thread "simplified economy flow-charts: @k54e56 and aubergine: We are aware of the annoyance with the workers and we will fix this eventually. bear with us . I find it interesting that you feel widelands is a lot of micro management. In s2 I always had to micromanage my gold production (no delivery of gold to building that are not on the border) and the production of tools. As a s2 veteran myself I enjoy the micromanagement that widelands needs more more - though it still leaves much to be desired, I agree. [End SirVer] As I said in a previous posting it's maybe old S2 veterans that are so much used to managing the S2 economy that they just have to learn a lot more on the main subtleties of WL. (Gold in S2: totally easy - you had your fortress somewhere safe, where you produced the generals and sent them to warehouses near the border; tools: stop production and only turn on for the tool you need if and when - agreed, that was annoying, but something i got used to and accepted it; and there where more annoying "features" in S2 that we learned to live with). Let me put one thing totally clear: i fully agree with aubergine, that the sometimes frustration is a direct result of loving the game! I "upgraded" from build 15 to the latest release and was amazed at the improvements. I'm well aware that this is work in progress and i find it fascinating to be able to at least watch this progess as it happens (sorry, i'm totally unqualified for any active help). Best, K Top Quote

Nasenbaer Joined: 2009-02-21, 17:17 Posts: 828 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-02-11, 09:45 k54e56 wrote: What i miss most is some kind of guidance as to the amount of buildings required for optimum performance: all the ratios between "production an consumption" (how many farms per bakery, how many taverns per mine ... ratio of coal / iron / gold ...) There are hints in the forum-postings and there is a huge chart for every economy but simple basic guidance would be very much apprechiated. The more I think about your post, the more I have to admit, that I have no real clue, how many farms are needed for a bakery and how many foresters for a lumberjack... The point is, that Widelands does not only have a more complex economy structure than Settlers 2 (different kind of food going to different kind of mines + trainings sites, etc.), but that there are some other factors, that are very important to take care of (e.g. depending on the type of ground trees are growing well... or not, farms need a lot of space, if they do not have enough, they still work, but not at 100 % ). It's one of the things I created a new strategy for in Widelands - following the branches of my economy an trying to figure out, what is missing as fast as possible - e.g. if I see a mine running at 10%, I check what's missing - if it is e.g. bread, I check my bakeries - if they work at 100%, I build one ore two more bakeries, if they do not work at 100%, I check what they need to have full production... and so on :). I know that is not what you wanted to hear and of course your request is still valid and fully understandable - however I hope you understand my point, that things are not that easy to explain as one wishes ;). Cheers Nasenbaer Top Quote

1 2 next ››