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Topic: Tournament 2022

Nordfriese
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Joined: 2017-01-17, 18:07
Posts: 2044
OS: Debian Testing
Version: Latest master
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One Elder of Players
Location: 0x55555d3a34c0
Posted at: 2022-11-20, 01:43

Just some random thoughts…

  • The rapidly shifting alliances added an incredible amount of depth to the game. When I implemented that feature I had no idea how much potential it offered.
  • The fighting action was extremely asymmetrical, with the-x and hessenfarmer having hours to build their economies in peace while I was fighting a desperate two-frontiers war and constantly worrying I was about to lose to kaputtnik.
  • The use of custom starting positions also made everything much more interesting.
  • I had definitely underestimated Magenta. From the buildup I saw while we were teammates I assumed they'd be a very weak player, but they turned out to be surprisingly resourceful and difficult to defeat. Okay, if I hadn't had my heroes at the other end of the territory to hold off kaputtnik it would have been much easier.
  • When the-x closed the enormous distance to attack kaputtnik he quickly surrendered. By that time I had gained some advantage on him but it would still have been uncertain if we'd remained at 1v1.
  • The temporary alliances between hessenfarmer and the-x, which were more or less openly preparations to backstab the ally, were also a fascinating strategy.

I'm not one for 1v1 multiplayer matches or short games, but I would very much like to play such a large match again. I'll be keeping my playtime scheduler up to date from now on and perhaps we can arrange another such game sometime soonish.

IMHO it would be better to play a different map every time instead of using the same one again, especially since Cycles is not a particularly varied or aesthetical map. With custom starting positions, a map doesn't have to be 100% balanced either so long as there's a good selection of decent locations.


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kaputtnik
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Joined: 2013-02-18, 20:48
Posts: 2533
OS: Archlinux
Version: current master
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One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2022-11-20, 10:34

Don't know how but just after Nordfriese and me had the first contact i ran into trouble with rations (probably because i didn't build enough taverns face-grin.png ). So my mines didn't worked well and my two training camps became ineffective, not to say useless... That's widelands: One failure makes the difference for win or loose.

Congrats to Nordfriese and the-x!


Regarding the custom starting positions here is how i had chosen my starting position:

By looking at the map i saw there are some starting positions which have some animals nearby, and others have no. E.g. the red player has some animals nearby which gives some advantage. After i noticed that choosing a player color and after the game has startet the first position on the map will be just the starting position of that color, i tried to become the red player and all i had to do after the game had launched is to click on the map on that map position to place my headquarters. So i didn't had to search around for a good starting position.

So maybe it would be good to have not the position of the chosen player color after the game has launched, instead a random position of the map should be used?

Regarding diplomacy: It's definitely a great feature! But for me it is hard to use, because it makes the game more hectic. Beside managing my own economy i have to watch the notifier popups which steal my concentration and time… But i think in this game this was just because the teams exchanged a lot for testing. In an other game this feature of building teams would not be so excessive, i guess, and the whole game may get more patient.


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hessenfarmer
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Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16
Posts: 2726
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One Elder of Players
Location: Bavaria
Posted at: 2022-11-20, 12:59

Congrats to the winners as well fromm my side.

I strongly believe it was a historic match of Widelands. I never played or witnessed a game with 7 human players at a time. The honors for this event however belong to Seefahrer who had the idea.

As well as Nordfriese I will keep my playtime schedule up to date, in order to identify potential dates of a following round. Anybody is invited to announce such an event if enough players a re available. You don't need to wait for me.

Furthermore I will open a new thread, to follow this topic as it is somewhat misplaced here.

Thanks to everyone participating for the exciting evening.


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