Topic: Seafaring

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Nasenbaer Topic Opener Joined: 2009-02-21, 18:17 UTC+1.0 Posts: 826 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-01-19, 10:31 UTC+1.0 To bring this a bit forward - I currently worked a bit on the implementation and therefor thought about some stuff: Whether a shipyard produces a ship or a raw boat should be decided through 1) whether water is near - if not, only raw boats are produced & 2) by target quantity - ships should be counted world wide (not per economy), while rawboats should be counted per economy. Ports should be warehouses + military site and should eventually provide an extra button for ships. the more I think about ship tasks, the more I prefer to set them via a ship window: As seafaring was often counter productive in Settlers 2, the player should decide him/herself, what kind of wares a ship will load (so we need a load/unload menu) however some loads like "stuff for new port" should be predefined, so the player can just load that stuff. The task a player assigns is unrelated to the things loaded on a ship - it's the players decission, whether he wants to send a ship on expedition with only 1 plank on it, or a ship for attacking an opposing player without having a soldier on the ship ;). any comments? Top Quote

ixprefect Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28 UTC+1.0 Posts: 367 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2011-01-21, 08:15 UTC+1.0 I disagree about loading wares manually. Yes, the system of Settlers 2 often made stupid decisions, but we're not Settlers 2. I believe that this is a problem that can be solved. If it turns out that we are not able to do that, we can still fall back to manual loading at some point in the future, but we shouldn't just give up before we even started. Top Quote

Nasenbaer Topic Opener Joined: 2009-02-21, 18:17 UTC+1.0 Posts: 826 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-01-22, 18:37 UTC+1.0 I see your point and you are of course right, that we should try to get it running. However in that case we would at least need a manual filling of soldiers for the "attack" tasks - so a player can select how many soldiers (and which) will be involved in a fight. Further ideas: The map creator should be able to set "seafaring" to "enabled" (should be "disabled" per default, as most of the maps are not designed for seafaring) - that way the map creator can care about the correct placing of port spaces, while (s)he does not have to care for "too much" port places on none seafaring maps it is possible that a port space is owned by another player, but no port was build on it (but perhaps a different building) - in that case an algorithm should check, if there are militarysites in a radius of 2 around the port place - if yes, the soldiers on the ship will try to defeat those and burn them down, as well as any other immovables afterwards to make space for the port which's constructionsite will imediately be placed. The same should happen, if an unoccupied port place is blocked by trees (because of the tree spreading feature) Edited: 2011-01-22, 18:38 UTC+1.0 Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18 UTC+1.0 Posts: 1440 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2011-01-28, 21:15 UTC+1.0 I agree that seafaring should be as automatic as possible, that is loading of wares should be automatic. I also think it is okay to man a ship with soldiers manually as that is the way fighting works for buildings too. I am against making seafaring a map option though, I'd rather fix the maps. Adding a seafaring option feels like an afterthought. I can also live with the other extreme: making ports only possible on places explicitly designed to be ports from the map maker. But we had this dicussion before and decided for the solution that every suitable field should be a port. I feel that it is then the only proper thing to also enable this for all maps. Top Quote

Venatrix Joined: 2010-10-05, 20:31 UTC+2.0 Posts: 447 Tribe Member Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-01-28, 22:31 UTC+1.0 I never edited a map before. But as a player, I'd say, it's okay, if there are maps that allow seafaring and some others don't. So the player has to decide whether he wants to play with or without it (of course it has to be clear, of what kind a map is, before he chooses). It could be part of a difficulty level, depending on if its easier for the player to play with ships or just on land. Imho that possibility to enable a "seafaring map option" sounded good and not really like an "afterthought". Another question: How you would like to "fix the maps"? Would you want to edit them all, changing the coast that there's no possibility to build a port anymore? Two is the oddest prime. Top Quote

Nasenbaer Topic Opener Joined: 2009-02-21, 18:17 UTC+1.0 Posts: 826 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-01-28, 22:47 UTC+1.0 Well I can understand SirVer's point of view - it would be one more option... However it is no gamer option, but an extra option for map creators (like the "closable" option for players in scenario games, with difference, that I would like to add it to the map's options menu (where the map creator can set the name the description and the author)). The big advantage of such an option is: If one creates a map, (s)he knows what kind of map it will be: either a "normal" one (in that case the creator surely does not want to take care about every coast and does not want to spend time for removing every port space) or a "seafaring" map (in that case the creator definitely will take care about port spaces). However that is of course up to discussion Top Quote

Marcelo_do_Pagode Joined: 2011-07-23, 18:59 UTC+2.0 Posts: 35 Pry about Widelands Location: Brazil	Posted at: 2011-07-28, 22:46 UTC+2.0 Sorry for the late comment on this topic. I have read all comments so far, and have a few suggestions: From the military expedition 1)What if the island is completely occupied but the owner has been clever enought to destroy all of his military buildings close to shore? How can an opponent claim any land? I suggest that harbouring places can always be claimed by military expeditions if that site is not currently an enemy harbour - but only by military expeditions, not colonizng or scouting ones. By the same principle, all harbours should be militarized sites, which can therefore be atacked and conquered but can also defend themselves from military expeditions. That way, a military expedition will not crush your harbour everytime. So every harbour you construct will be automatically guarded as long as you have soldiers in there or you could implement the same soldier allocation as military buildings, with a fair enough maximum -- that should be compatible with the number of soldiers in a military expedition). Finally, by the same reasoning, the military expedition should make his landing site a military base - culd be a full harbour or only a military base that can be upgraded into a harbour by a colonizing expedition. I vote for option n.2 to keep the importance of the colonizing expedition. Summing up my opinions regarding seafaring: -4 types is all we need: scouting (as proposed: a small group to build a temporary settlement which must be upgraded by a colozining expedition in order to be able to stock a larger ammount of goods); military; colonizing; and pure transport. Regarding rowboats: the idea of needng tho upgrade the flags intended to transport workers as well as goods seems perfect. This way you mainting the obstacle idea and still allows for worker transport. Hope it helps. PS: you're doing a great job with this game, congrats!!! PS2: lots of editing to correct typos Edited: 2011-07-28, 22:53 UTC+2.0 Marcelo do Pagode Ubuntu 11.04 Colorado com muito orgulho! Top Quote

Nasenbaer Topic Opener Joined: 2009-02-21, 18:17 UTC+1.0 Posts: 826 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2011-07-29, 07:06 UTC+2.0 Marcelo_do_Pagode wrote: 1)What if the island is completely occupied but the owner has been clever enought to destroy all of his military buildings close to shore? How can an opponent claim any land? I suggest that harbouring places can always be claimed by military expeditions if that site is not currently an enemy harbour - but only by military expeditions, not colonizng or scouting ones. By the same principle, all harbours should be militarized sites, which can therefore be atacked and conquered but can also defend themselves from military expeditions. That way, a military expedition will not crush your harbour everytime. So every harbour you construct will be automatically guarded as long as you have soldiers in there or you could implement the same soldier allocation as military buildings, with a fair enough maximum -- that should be compatible with the number of soldiers in a military expedition). Finally, by the same reasoning, the military expedition should make his landing site a military base - culd be a full harbour or only a military base that can be upgraded into a harbour by a colonizing expedition. I vote for option n.2 to keep the importance of the colonizing expedition. the current blueprint is similiar (but obviously not understandable written, else you would not have written this ): There are two points that are most important for the implementation of seafaring: Keep it as simple, as possible - every extra feature could make it uncontrolable and hard to use. Put as less as possible changes in the military system, which should stay mainly as it is - a general widelands decission, that we want to keep military aspects of the game very simple. Most important regarding your post is: harbors will be warehouses + militarysites and will be controlable like militarysites regarding the stationed soldiers (increase/decrease number of stationed soldiers and kick out soldiers that you do not want to be stationed) Second an expedition can always try to build a harbor (or perhaps even conquer a harbor) on a harbor build space there are mainly three(four) possibilities: The place is not blocked by any nature stuff(trees, ...) or opposing buildings -> the player can simply build a harbor The place is blocked by nature stuff and/or opposing buildings, but not military ones -> the soldiers will burn down the space needed for the harbor (but not more) and the harbor will be built The place is blocked by a militarysite (or harbor?) on or near to the harbor-place -> the soldiers on the ship will attack and if successful burn down the buildings to make place for the harbor and finally build the harbor (The place is blocked by a harbor -> the player can attack and conquer the harbor) A pure military act is not planned because of the second point above. This means you will not be able to attack a militarysite on the shore, as long as it is not standing on or very close to a harbor build space. Cheers Peter Edited: 2011-07-29, 07:08 UTC+2.0 Top Quote

Marcelo_do_Pagode Joined: 2011-07-23, 18:59 UTC+2.0 Posts: 35 Pry about Widelands Location: Brazil	Posted at: 2011-07-29, 13:49 UTC+2.0 The blueprint seems perfect, congrats!!! Thanks for the explanation, Nasenbaer! Marcelo do Pagode Ubuntu 11.04 Colorado com muito orgulho! Top Quote

Astuur Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08 UTC+1.0 Posts: 733 One Elder of Players Location: Frankfurt / Germany	Posted at: 2011-08-03, 12:25 UTC+2.0 Regarding the question whether all maps should in principle be fixed to become "seafaring suitable" or to make this a mapmakers option to be set per map, I'd go for the latter. I have looked at the existing maps (and some experiments I did myself) with this question in mind, and I was surprised how easily the whole strategy and the intention of the mapmaker is defeated by seafaring. The more planning a mapmaker has put into his map, the greater are the chances that his plans are spoiled by this unexpected possibility. In some cases (desert world) a fix could only mean to replace water by lava -- and that does usually make a "nonsense" map, without interior logic. (geographically) As long as we don't have a variety of convincing alternatives for "inaccessible coast line" (cliffs, reefs etc.), we can not "fix" those maps without distroying their inherent beauty and credability. And even if we had that, the changes would be so drastic, that it seems justified to publish it as a new, seafaring enabled map, rather than as the old one. So all in all I'd vote for leaving the existing maps as they are and "seafaring disabled" as default. See which maps can be made suitable and republish them as different maps. Encourage mapmakers to create new seafaring-suitable maps. 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). Top Quote

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