Scripting demo release candidate

[Lewin]

Yes it's not hard to control buildings unlocking with dynamic scripts, in fact you can do a lot of very powerful stuff with them. However we aren't obliged to accept every script that someone writes, for example I could make a map with a script so that every time you build a house it has a 50% chance of being destroyed. Obviously nobody would want to play that map and it would make the game feel very inconsistent

In general we'd like to keep scripted maps (e.g. Tower Defence, King of the Hill) in the special maps section, because when players choose something from the building maps section they expect to get a standard building map and a consistent experience. But very minor things like customising the unlock order a bit doesn't do any harm.

@Pawel: I don't see a problem with having this change in singleplayer. It makes the game faster/less slow and uninteresting which matters for singleplayer too because people don't want super slow singleplayer games either. Using speed up seems like a cheap solution if you always end up fast forwarding through the first 10 minutes of the game because watching the school/inn/stonemasons get built one by one with nothing else to do is boring.

[pawel95]

I can still only disagree. First you have in like every 2th mission of the TSK/TPR starting troops. Up to you scout your region, you just have finished your sawmill 2nd like I said, sure that we can wait for feedback of the players later on. (I thought that maybe players from "normal release" will be all just happy about the change, but it really doesnt look like that when I´m asking them personaly {Most often the answer why its bad, is: It isn´t a remake than, its an other gamesystem})

So like a sum up, you haven´t that many SP maps. Often many players just "waste" time little bit before they attack,because you can save it and play whenever you like(not like on mp maps). So also i dont get the argument of "wasting time", when you just need to scout the map or whatever, than at least your stonemeason/forester is ready normaly. The biggest argument is just like the other players say, which are not that good gamers, that it changes too much. In TPR/TSK you have that thing, that like in EACH individual map you have buildings that you can build from the start.
Just look at TSK01, you can build like everything and its good and makes sense(for begginers for example). In TSK08 you can build towers from beginning, because it makes just sense, also=>Need to protect against barbs.

I dont want to make any pressure to you. However I want just warn you nicely that most of the players won´t like it propably when this change will be finished. I will start to make a vote maybe on the german forum, just too see the mind


EDIT: BTW, you can easily set x10 for some players, that cant wait So its more logic for me FOR SP GAMES, than change the whole system and get the risk that many players wont like to have it at least in the sp maps.


EDIT2: BTW², one question. You had implemented the new building order but allow people to change all their maps(only these mapmakers that want this) back to the old system with the script?
Than why not to let is just like the original game worked and show people (with a tut) how to make a script for the NEW buildingsystem?
Thats just the thing I dont understand , so every kam player on the world could be happy about this thing, for sure

[Matt]

I just want to say that not everyone feels the way Mully does, I am quite alright with crazy changes ofcourse at first I might be soft raging but at the end of the day its you guys who develop and decide what to do with the game

[Lewin]

The other day Krom and I just had a discussion about the arguments against this change, and I thought you'd like to read it some of what was said: (summarised by me)

1 - "I don't like it, it's not KaM style"
Makes no sense, KAM style allows to unlock many things at once later in the game. Besides it's not as if we unlock smelter before mines or something.

2 - "Newbies get confused by being offered more than one thing to build"
I don't think it's a big deal, that happens in all RTS games, KaM's initial linear tech tree is very uncommon (most games you can build 5 or so things right at the start). How many other RTS games restrict you to 1 option of what to build for the first 5 buildings? This change gives you more choices and less restrictions that slowdown the game. Storehouse, school and inn are unlocked together, that's sensible as they're all core buildings in your village. Woodcutter and stonemason are unlocked next because they're both for supplying building materials.

3 - "Players forget to build the inn because in multiplayer you must build it later in order to keep up with your enemies"
That's an important issue. Forgetting to build the inn is certainly a mistake but it's a bit harsh for it to be a fatal mistake. Two options to fix this:
a) School unlocks nothing, Inn unlocks stonemasons+woodcutters
b) Player gets shown a message when units are getting hungry but he doesn't have an inn (could be shown a few minutes in advance of units first getting hungry, so the player has 5-10 minutes to build the inn before anyone starves to death)
We think b) is the better option, because a) means the early game is sped up less, plus the inn is not needed for the first 20 minutes of the game.

4 - "Maps will need rebalancing"
That happens with lots of changes we make, we'll post a memo in the next RC email so the map authors are aware of it.

5 - "Map authors should be able to choose build order, why can't they choose the old original one?"
They can thanks to dynamic scripts. And maybe this will encourage more map makers to try out dynamic scripts and see how powerful/fun they are

6 - "Why does this apply to singleplayer too?"
Because we want to it to be a global change, in the same way we also made the shields defence bonus in both SP and MP. Making the early game more interesting and giving the player more choice applies equally to SP as it does to MP. Also, in singleplayer players can choose to what they do, there's no need to rush to build as much as possible before peacetime ends. So people who don't like the change can simply ignore it and build the old way (school, inn, stonemason, woodcutter) if they want to, so it's a very minor change which only affects players who choose to use it (and if you have some special SP map which requires a certain build order you can customise it with scripts)

[dicsoupcan]

5 - "Map authors should be able to choose build order, why can't they choose the old original one?"
They can thanks to dynamic scripts. And maybe this will encourage more map makers to try out dynamic scripts and see how powerful/fun they are

If this was mentioned ealier it would have saved a lot of trouble in this topic, but at least you know what the side effects are of the new unlock system. things are turned around now, instead of the mapmaker choosing to unlock the cutter/stonemason earlier they can decide to unlock it later. My apologies for not thinking of this earlier (that is what you get for being bad at scripting and not exploring the possibillities ).

So all we have to do is wait for the crashes to be fixed and we can test things properly, although i must say(and stated it earlier) that the farm patch works and you can see a real difference.

[sado1]

What if we think of a crazy solution (a mutator perhaps), that would cut 10 minutes off the peacetime: before playing, you can put (just as in the editor) school, inn, 3 stonemasons, 1 (2?) woodcutter(s) and 1 sawmill wherever you like, then you press some kind of Ready button and start playing. Of course, every road and building would take some wood/stone from the storehouse. You could skip some buildings, but:
-it would need to be ok with map's building unlock settings
-obviously, you wouldn't get more time or something if you didn't make an optional building (like inn on BitD) - the only 'advantage' you'd get would be the wares that were not used.

I'm not sure if I really like it, but from a certain point of view, that makes sense (if we really think game speed is the most important thing out there) and if it's going to be just a mutator, this would be loads better than the new build order. Still, I do realize that my idea is rather controversial (or just plain stupid! ).

[Thorakh]

Wait, what exactly is changed about the building order unlock?

[Lewin]

If this was mentioned ealier it would have saved a lot of trouble in this topic

A bit of discussion about this change is hardly "trouble" in my opinion (Mulberry's rant about the way we run testing was completely unrelated to this change)

@Sado: We originally planned to have an option to start with everything built up to the sawmill, like TSK/TPR did. We might add this feature in the future, we could possibly get the AI to choose where to place the buildings so map authors don't have to do that for every map like they did in TSK/TPR (and it means you could choose to have more or less built if you wanted, e.g. set the exact number of stonemasons you get).

(I thought that maybe players from "normal release" will be all just happy about the change, but it really doesnt look like that when I´m asking them personaly {Most often the answer why its bad, is: It isn´t a remake than, its an other gamesystem})

This is really a very minor change in the grand scheme of things, it hardly makes it not a Remake I mean, if unlocking houses slightly differently is such a massive change then what do you think about the introduction of peacetime? Or replays? Or the balance changes? (shields bonus) Or dynamic scripts? Or woodcutter chop-only mode? Or the market? All of those things are FAR bigger changes than this minor tweak to building unlocking. If Remaking a game equals not changing/improving anything then why Remake it at all?

Wait, what exactly is changed about the building order unlock?

Old:
School and storehouse unlocked at the start
School unlocks inn
Inn unlocks stonemason
Stonemason unlocks woodcutter
Woodcutter unlocks carpenter

New:
School, storehouse and inn unlocked at the start
School unlocks woodcutter and stonemason
Woodcutter unlocks carpenter

[The Dark Lord]

then what do you think about the introduction of peacetime? Or replays? Or the balance changes? (shields bonus) Or dynamic scripts? Or woodcutter chop-only mode? Or the market?

WELL, if you REALLY want to know...

[Ben]

Trolololol!

[thommerd]

I noticed a sort of glitch with the speed function/pt in lobby.

With coop it is not possible to speed up the game or set the pt, I dont know if this is intended or not. Anyway there still is a trick to do this I noticed, you can first select a build map and set a game speed and the pt. Then you select a coop map and you can play it with the speed you set before.
I hope I explained it good enough for you to understand:D

Btw sorry for all the crash reports Lewin:D I hope you dont get crazy
The last thing I want to say now is that I really like most of the changes altough I really need to get used too some of them:) Thanks Lewin & Krom!

Edit:

Something else I noticed when playing across the desert with AI was that they did not build any weapon makers(iron nor wooden), they only build the armor makers. This way they could not equip soldiers themselves, silly ai Only after I built 1 weapon maker for one AI (by changing players with f11) he could make weapons and train soldiers.

The strange thing is that 1 different AI did make weaponmakers themselves(although significantly more armormakers). This particular AI was "buffed" by me because I gave them like 1000 axes in the editor.

Another AI(are you still following me? ) on the other hand to wich I gave some starting horses(no weapons I know) did not make weaponmakers like most of his AI mates.

Now I just ran another test on a unedited Across the Desert and the same problem occurs but now no AI made any weaponmakers. So that means the starting weapons seem to have an effect on the build style of AI?

[BloodTree]

In r5057 at map editor I could not find where i can make magic water and how i can make a move back if i make something wrong.
And I can say now map making is much better.

[thommerd]

@Bloodtree that is because these two functionality's are not yet implemented.

[Lewin]

With coop it is not possible to speed up the game or set the pt, I dont know if this is intended or not. Anyway there still is a trick to do this I noticed, you can first select a build map and set a game speed and the pt. Then you select a coop map and you can play it with the speed you set before.
I hope I explained it good enough for you to understand:D

That's been fixed, you're allowed to use game speed in coop maps but not peacetime (since the person who made the coop map plans when the AI will attack you, there's no peacetime in the original campaigns)

Btw sorry for all the crash reports Lewin:D I hope you dont get crazy
The last thing I want to say now is that I really like most of the changes altough I really need to get used too some of them:) Thanks Lewin & Krom!

We never complain about getting crash reports, they tell us about bugs and make it easy for us to fix them
But in this case all the crashes you reported have already been fixed already, so I filed them safely under "resolved".

Something else I noticed when playing across the desert with AI was that they did not build any weapon makers(iron nor wooden), they only build the armor makers. This way they could not equip soldiers themselves, silly ai Only after I built 1 weapon maker for one AI (by changing players with f11) he could make weapons and train soldiers.

The strange thing is that 1 different AI did make weaponmakers themselves(although significantly more armormakers). This particular AI was "buffed" by me because I gave them like 1000 axes in the editor.

Another AI(are you still following me? ) on the other hand to wich I gave some starting horses(no weapons I know) did not make weaponmakers like most of his AI mates.

Now I just ran another test on a unedited Across the Desert and the same problem occurs but now no AI made any weaponmakers. So that means the starting weapons seem to have an effect on the build style of AI?

That's also a bug we noticed. I think it works something like this:
On across the desert the AI is give a really low equip rate, so he thinks he needs to make one soldier every 15 seconds or so. He thinks to himself: In order to make 1 soldier every 15 seconds I'm going to need 10 amour smithies and 10 weapon smithies!" So he tries to build 10 armour smithies, but runs out of space before gets to the weapon smithies. He should build armour, weapon, armour, weapon etc. to keep it balanced, an he should also realise that there's only a certain number of iron mines he can make so he shouldn't make more smithies than he can produce iron for.
For now you can "fix" that by reducing the equip rate, but we'll try to get a proper fix implemented. AI are complicated...

[pawel95]

5 - "Map authors should be able to choose build order, why can't they choose the old original one?"
They can thanks to dynamic scripts. And maybe this will encourage more map makers to try out dynamic scripts and see how powerful/fun they are

6 - "Why does this apply to singleplayer too?"
Because we want to it to be a global change, in the same way we also made the shields defence bonus in both SP and MP. Making the early game more interesting and giving the player more choice applies equally to SP as it does to MP. Also, in singleplayer players can choose to what they do, there's no need to rush to build as much as possible before peacetime ends. So people who don't like the change can simply ignore it and build the old way (school, inn, stonemason, woodcutter) if they want to, so it's a very minor change which only affects players who choose to use it (and if you have some special SP map which requires a certain build order you can customise it with scripts)

These 2 points don´t make any sense for me together. Now I/every other player need to get a way to implement a shit script in every mission of the campaigns?