Topic: Atlantian Campaign difficulty/ballance -- need cheat codes

dansan Topic Opener Joined: 2024-01-31, 00:04 Posts: 3 Just found this site	Posted at: 2024-01-31, 00:17 Hello, I'm on the Atlantian campaign scenario where you have to start over again, make nice with the barbarians and then fight the empire. I'm finding that the empire takes over barbarian territory too quickly and then invades when I only have the original 8 soldiers. In order to cheat I had to edit the binary save game files using the source code for reference, which was really hard. In fact, I ended up with a bad game at one point that I couldn't seem to repair, so had to go back and do a different (and more correct) modification (moving both the building AND the flag it was attached to). So it seems that a few cheat codes could be handy, especially when dealing with a scenario that might not yet be perfected. I suppose I could start over and asap build a castle with foresters on that particular border, but that's difficult to manage when I'm starting out with so few resources, tools, and workers. Maybe it would be helpful to expand in that direction as quickly as possible (with guardhouses) and set up the foresters expecting to loose some of that territory? Then I would have time to build a castle further in so that when the boarder is taken, they would have to clear trees before being able to build a tower in order to attack? Top Quote

hessenfarmer Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16 Posts: 2745 One Elder of Players Location: Bavaria	Posted at: 2024-01-31, 09:21 -1 for implementinmg cheat code sometimes it is just recommendable to start the scenario again. As the fight between empire and barbarians is a bit luck based. using foresters is always a good strategy if you are in a weak position. Top Quote

dansan Topic Opener Joined: 2024-01-31, 00:04 Posts: 3 Just found this site	Posted at: 2024-01-31, 10:33 No, depending upon luck is a bad idea. Perhaps a script-based approach would be helpful to prevent the Empire from attacking the Barbarians within a certain range of the player's territory until a certain point in the game? I'm sure there are other options for balancing it. I like a good challenge, but this is a near wipe-out before you're even able to get workers / tools up to the level or a normal game starting point. I don't know this game's internals (other than learning the packet/load/save code to hack it), so I don't know what you can do with the AI via scripting. Top Quote

hessenfarmer Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16 Posts: 2745 One Elder of Players Location: Bavaria	Posted at: 2024-01-31, 12:05 dansan wrote: No, depending upon luck is a bad idea. Perhaps a script-based approach would be helpful to prevent the Empire from attacking the Barbarians within a certain range of the player's territory until a certain point in the game? I'm sure there are other options for balancing it. I like a good challenge, but this is a near wipe-out before you're even able to get workers / tools up to the level or a normal game starting point. I don't know this game's internals (other than learning the packet/load/save code to hack it), so I don't know what you can do with the AI via scripting. we can't influence the Ai much by scripting. Only thing that can be done is prevent it to attack a player based on some events defined by the script, and forbid the AI to build some buildings. However our fight system is luck based to a certain amount and this is the part what is counting in here most. so if we delay battle between empire and barbarians too long both of them have time to grow their military as well. In the end you need to get to new ressources very fast and you need to spend your small ressources wisely. Top Quote

knarf Joined: 2024-01-03, 21:20 Posts: 45 OS: Debian Pry about Widelands	Posted at: 2024-02-01, 08:05 Isn't that also the scenario where the time when the two other nations start fighting depends, at least in part, on the time you build the scout (one of the tasks), and delaying that helps delaying their fight and thus, keeping them more even for longer? Top Quote

hessenfarmer Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16 Posts: 2745 One Elder of Players Location: Bavaria	Posted at: 2024-02-01, 11:31 knarf wrote: Isn't that also the scenario where the time when the two other nations start fighting depends, at least in part, on the time you build the scout (one of the tasks), and delaying that helps delaying their fight and thus, keeping them more even for longer? Yes. Exactly, however I am thinking on how to make this better. But I can't imagine any solution yet. Top Quote