From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 30543 invoked by alias); 14 Sep 2004 01:07:30 -0000 Mailing-List: contact xconq7-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: xconq7-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 30522 invoked from network); 14 Sep 2004 01:07:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO smtp810.mail.sc5.yahoo.com) (66.163.170.80) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 14 Sep 2004 01:07:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.1.101?) (sampln@sbcglobal.net@67.121.168.201 with plain) by smtp810.mail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Sep 2004 01:07:27 -0000 Subject: Re: Morale and opinions From: Lincoln Peters To: Stan Shebs Cc: Xconq list In-Reply-To: <414638C9.7020508@apple.com> References: <1095119869.28085.79179.camel@localhost> <414638C9.7020508@apple.com> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1095124176.28085.80375.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 01:16:00 -0000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2004/txt/msg01164.txt.bz2 On Mon, 2004-09-13 at 17:18, Stan Shebs wrote: > Lincoln Peters wrote: > > >I've been studying the documentation for morale and opinions, and based > >on the documentation, both features appear to be incomplete. > All half-thought-through. The concept is that morale and opinion are > two different axes (low morale but high opinion runs away but remains > loyal, high morale but low opinion is going to rebel and be dangerous > subsequently), but useful parametrization was hard, very many different > things that one might want to affect. To make progress, you'd probably > want to pick a simplified situation that is interesting for a real game, > make that work first. As I see it: * High morale and high opinion would (mostly?) negate a unit's chance of retreating from combat or surrendering to another side. * Low morale and high opinion would increase a unit's chance to retreat as per withdraw-chance-per-attack or retreat-chance, or both. If the unit can get out of the fight, it would most likely proceed to repair itself by whatever means are available to it. Of course, that last part would only apply if the unit is under AI control (although a human player would probably order it to do the same). * High morale and low opinion would have results comparable to the orc horde scenario: the unit has a higher chance of surrendering to an opposing side, as per surrender-chance or (maybe) revolt-chance. * Low morale and low opinion would affect both the chance of retreating and revolting/surrendering. This could easily mean that the unit would switch sides but refuse to fight for the new boss until some action is taken to raise its morale. I can think of a few factors to affect morale and opinions. The following would raise a unit's morale: 1. Defeating (or damaging) an enemy unit 2. Capturing an enemy unit 3. Being repaired The following would lower a unit's morale: 1. Being damaged 2. Being captured The following would raise a unit's opinion of its own side: 1. An enemy unit defeated (or damaged) within its vision-range 2. An enemy unit captured within its vision-range 3. An enemy unit within its vision-range revolts and joins its side* The following would lower a unit's opinion of its own side: 1. A friendly unit killed within its vision-range 2. A friendly unit captured within its vision-range 3. A friendly unit within its vision-range revolts and joins the enemy side* The following would raise a unit's opinion of an enemy side: 1. Enemy kills a friendly unit** 2. Enemy captures a friendly unit The following would lower a unit's opinion of an enemy side: 1. An enemy unit defeated (or damaged) within its vision-range 2. An enemy unit captures within its vision-range * This should also work in situations where a unit is killed, wrecks into another unit, and the wreck joins the other side. I think that this can happen in wreckreation.g, but I don't know about any other games. ** This may depend on the general attitude of the unit, although if its opinion of an enemy is not raised by the enemy's skill, it probably shouldn't be affected by morale and/or opinions at all. There is a significant overlap between all of these statistics. If two sides are evenly matched and killing each other's units at the same rate, the surviving units will see their opinions of both sides vary slightly but remain steady over time. Morale, however, would be more variable as it would represent the unit's opinion of itself, not its side. Thus, if a unit were successful in battle even when its side is losing, its morale would be rising as its opinion of its side is falling, and its chance of changing sides would rise. If, on the other hand, the unit was severely damaged in battle while its side is winning, its morale would be falling as its opinion of its side is rising, and its chance of retreating would rise. The aforementioned factors that would affect morale and opinions are by no means all of the factors that one might want to use in a game, but I think that they would handle most situations properly. I was hoping to use morale and opinions in the new version of knights.g, so that certain kinds of cowardly and/or greedy soldiers (e.g. bugbears, gnolls, goblins, ogres, orcs, troglodytes) would be generally unreliable but could be made more reliable if they receive good treatment. --- Lincoln Peters anyone know if there is a version of dpkg for redhat?