Topic: How to beat "the green plateau" as scenario?

kraileth Topic Opener Joined: 2010-03-14, 16:34 Posts: 59 Likes to be here	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 00:10 I just tried out the map "the green plateau" as a scenario map. It is no problem to reach the green player's border - but since the building in the middle of the plateau is a fortress, its range is extremely big. And I am not able to build any big building near the border. Yet small military buildings don't have a high range so that I can't see (and thus can't attack) the fortress. It stays in shadows even if I build a military building as close to the border as possible. Any suggestions on how to win this map? I'd really like to play a scenario map and later on try to create my own test scenario. Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18 Posts: 1440 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 10:53 kraileth, I noticed this when I played the scenario. I pushed a fix in my lua branch. If you are interested in creating scenarios, I suggest you take a look at the lua branch as well because the system how to make scenarios will change radically after build15. Documentation can be found here[1]. I am also eager to help you out. [1] http://wl.widelands.org/docs/making_scenarios/ Cheers, !SirVer Top Quote

ixprefect Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28 Posts: 367 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 15:14 There is still the remaining problem that a player can make himself unattackable by building a boundary of fortresses. Perhaps the rules can be changed to allow attacking a military building that has been discovered, but is under fog of war? Or we can design some interaction with the new Scouting feature. Either way is probably fine, though I would personally prefer being able to attack buildings under fog of war (or the scouting feature has to be designed in a way that it isn't terribly frustrating when you miss the short frame of time during which the scout is actually close to the target building). Edit: How does your fix work? If it works generically (i.e. it doesn't just workaround the problem in that particular scenario), then forget what I said. Edited: 2010-03-17, 15:15 Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18 Posts: 1440 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 16:21 My fix is just a work around: it keeps the area around the building visible so that it can be attacked. I agree that a proper fix for this must be found. Maybe just incresing the view range of fortresses? Top Quote

ixprefect Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28 Posts: 367 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 17:26 You mean military buildings in general? Because the problem could be that one cannot build fortresses to begin with (only small buildings can be built due to terrain, or something like that). Is there any specific reason against allowing one to attack military buildings under fog of war? It is harder to implement because instead of attacking a building or flag, this would mean attacking a node on which a flag may no longer be present, but it somehow seems the "logical" approach to me: After one has scouted an area once, it makes sense to just send in the army even if you no longer have perfectly uptodate scouting information. Top Quote

Nasenbaer Joined: 2009-02-21, 18:17 Posts: 826 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 19:15 I playtested the scenario before committing it. And I had no problem to capture the Castle. Did you try to build a donjon? Towers (like the donjon at the barbarians) have the highest vision range and vision ranges are set up that way, that each tribe has the possibility to attack each military building of other (or same) tribe, if they build a tower building at the borders. Further it might be a good idea to build a scout's hut and to wait until he discovers the door of the castle - than you can send an attack (if it's to fast for you - just press "page down" to pause and take any time you need to select the amount of soldiers to send ) So if there is really a problem, the only thing I would change is the vision range of the donjon - but still I am 90% sure, that i had no such problems, when I playtested the map (still 10% left ) Top Quote

kraileth Topic Opener Joined: 2010-03-14, 16:34 Posts: 59 Likes to be here	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 19:29 SirVer: Well, about scenario making, I guess, I'll wait a while, until a few things get taken care of. But to shorten the wait, I did as you suggested in the German thread and got bzr to work. Downloading widelands sources worked fine (and now "pulling" updates is no problem, too). I had a hard time installing all the required libs 'n stuff (could not find pngrewrite at all for example, but I found out that it's optional) as I abandoned the windows platform just a little time before and I'm not at all familiar with the linux world, yet. But in the end I got it to compile and the linked executable works. Perhaps I should take your offer of giving me a little introduction to bzr. This way I could at least just fix English strings instead of having to file a bug report that only means to give somebody else more work. Hm, I guess, I'll write you a PM now as it's probably not of common interest what I have to tell you. For the problem with the military buildings in the fog I'd suggest the following (and while it would certainly be quite a bit of work to implement it, I think it's a fairly practical solution): In original S2, you send a scout to a flag and he starts scouting the surrounding area. I don't know how it is in WL so far, as I did not have a scout so far. Now if you could send a scout to a map spot of your choice and he'd start scouting there, it'll be all fine. Condition for that: the spot must uncovered (either currently seen or foggy) and the way to there must not lead through unknown (black) territory (to avoid sending a scout to an area that has been visible because of an event). And it must also be in range of the scout's house (which should be a rather big one, I'd say). Such a scout would surely be an interesting tactical element in other situations of the game as well. Any opinions on that? Nasenbaer: I'll just try again and post the result here in a minute. Nasenbaer is right, it does work! I don't know, why, but this try I was able to build even a big building near the border. And a medium buildung (donjon) is sufficient. However I was quite sure that I could only build a small building there, last time. Strange. Well, I guess, this answeres my question. Still, I'd like to hear about the scout thing, anyway. Edited: 2010-03-17, 19:39 Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18 Posts: 1440 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2010-03-17, 21:15 To the scenario: there was a nice spot where a big building fitted so that was fine. And Nasenbaer is right, the tower buildings see farther as the castles, should had thought of that :(. So I will remove my workaround and instead add an information in one of the messages, maybe even add an objective to build a donjon at the border. About the scouter solution: I'd really like if the scouter could be micromanaged to search in a particular area. That would solve the problem. ixprefect, attacking a building that might no longer be there leaves the problem what to do if the building indeed vanished. The scouter solution would add to the importance of the scout and it would allow to also detect completely black terrain. Some constraints must be added though to keep this reasonable. kraileth, we talk in PM ;). Cheers, !SirVer Top Quote

ixprefect Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28 Posts: 367 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2010-03-19, 22:02 Yes, I see your point of increasing the importance of the scout. Maybe one could have a scouting option where the scout lingers for a longer time near enemy military buildings. Or they could do that always and automatically, also to just annoy the other player Top Quote