From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 27751 invoked by alias); 27 Sep 2003 02:38:03 -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 27717 invoked from network); 27 Sep 2003 02:38:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO garm.central.cmich.local) (141.209.15.48) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 27 Sep 2003 02:38:00 -0000 Received: from leon.phy.cmich.edu ([141.209.165.20]) by egate1.central.cmich.local with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713); Fri, 26 Sep 2003 22:37:56 -0400 Received: from localhost (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by leon.phy.cmich.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id D490A70014; Fri, 26 Sep 2003 22:37:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 13:08:00 -0000 From: Eric McDonald To: Lincoln Peters Cc: Xconq list Subject: Re: Bugs in Bellum Aeternum In-Reply-To: <1064627075.4834.1789.camel@odysseus.peterslan> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-OriginalArrivalTime: 27 Sep 2003 02:37:56.0177 (UTC) FILETIME=[5B87DC10:01C384A0] X-SW-Source: 2003/txt/msg00463.txt.bz2 Hi Lincoln, On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Lincoln Peters wrote: > > Yes. Do you think it is too small? It is a 1 in 20 chance, iirc, > > and if you bring enough armor for the task, probability is that > > the Capitol will fall sooner rather than later.... > > It seems fine if that's what you want. And there isn't anything wrong > with doing it that way. > > I think that the reason that I was somewhat confused by it was the first > time I played it, I swarmed a bunch of armors around the capital and > started pounding. When that 1 in 20 chance finally came around, the > game ended quite abruptly (at least it was abrupt in comparison to most > other games). But, if the "Stubborn Sides" option is on, then the self-unit should get resurrected as any other unit that can be a self-unit (capital ships, field HQ's, other capitols which you own, grand citadels). As a side note, I am playing a game where 1 armor was able to capture a Capitol after 15 tries. > > I think these are good ideas. > > One more thing regarding standing orders and such automation mechanisms: > I ran into a situation where there was a severe shortage of 'c' at the > front lines, despite the presence of a Field HQ unit. It would be nice > if I could set a condition (perhaps that its supply of 'c' drops below > 25) under which it would move to a predetermined place (most likely a > metropolis), resupply 'c', then return to its previous location. > > On the other hand, maybe I'm just not swarming enough Field HQ units to > keep up with my other swarms. What is your other unit to Field HQ ratio? And what is the admixture of the other units? When I have playtested, I have generally thought that there was still too much command-and-control ('c') floating around, and have been contemplating tuning it down even more. But your comment is giving me second thoughts about that. > > But, if you send an Engineers into a Ruins, then the Ruins should > > be able to perform a disband action, because the Engineers doubles > > (in theory, haven't tested this yet) the Ruins' ACP, thereby > > giving it 2 ACP, which should be sufficient to do a disband. > > The only problem I can see there is that the engineers might vanish > along with the ruins. Although I haven't tried it. I also had that concern, which is why I opted to use the acp-damage-effect interpolation list, so that when Ruins HP reaches 2, then its ACP goes up to 2, thereby allowing it to finish itself off. In theory. I haven't been able to test this, because ever time I issue a disband command to a healthy, Engineers-occupied Ruins, Xconq says it is going to perform the task and then doesn't. I need to figure out if this is a result of something screwy in my module or in Xconq. > What I did in bolodd.g was: > > * Ruins are always independent (they aren't useful for *anything*). > * They start with 50HP. > * They lose 1HP per round (as per attrition). > * They can be attacked and suffer damage comparable to what an attacker > would inflict on a base (usually 1d6). > * Engineers, however, inflict 6d6 damage vs. ruins with every blow, and > so they can clear ruins very quickly. > * Finally, engineers don't require any ammo to attack ruins. And I could certainly adopt something like that (it is a good idea), if it was not for the fact that Towns become Ruins if you destroy them, and so you end up with Ruins that are owned by a side. > > Also, once the Ruins gets down to 2 HP, you should be able to > > withdraw the Engineers and let the Ruins finish itself off. > > Obviously this is also untested, and there is a higher chance that > > this might not work correctly, since I haven't looked at the > > interpolation-list code in a while. > > I think it would work, but there is probably an easier way. See above. Yeah, what I did was a bit hackish, but I think we are approaching the concept of ruins slightly differently, so I am not sure that I can adapt what you did. Just out of curiosity, I see the word "bolo" in "bolodd". Is your module a take on the old "Bolo" tank game? In any case, I would like to try it out sometime. > 1. This is probably beyond the current capabilities of Xconq, but it > would be nice if there was a way to prevent two sides from starting on > the same continent. When they do, the game often ends too quickly for > anyone to build a grand citadel, a fully-loaded fleet carrier, etc. I could change the terrain generation params to make continents that are smaller than the country radii. I think that would solve the issue. Also, I already plan on adding a sea transport to each side's initial reportoire of units, so that sides which start out on islands will not be as disadvantaged. > 2. It looks like a name is assigned to every capital, but the only time > Xconq refers to a capital by name is when it is captured (the rest of > time it's refered to by coordinates, e.g. "your capital at x,y"). It > might be useful for Xconq to refer to capitals by name, especially if a > game has lots of sides and consequently toward the end, a few sides have > a lot of captured capitals (if nothing else, I could easily find a > specific capital using the "Find" command). I can fix that by altering the description-format property for Capitols. Thanks for the feedback, Eric