Fight!

[sado1]

So. I started reading a discussion in mini-chat and thought that it deserves its own topic.

Fighting on tactic maps versus fighting on building maps. Is it the same, or different? Does being good in one, help in being good in another? Which one is more fun than the other? Etc, etc. I'd like to quote some opinions that I saw in minichat:

Well I have to say that most people that are very good in fighting maps, have also a good fighting in economy maps. In my opinion this "training" helps you quite a bit, even if the armies are "illiogical" because you have more swords,scouts and pikes combined than bowmen for example, but HEY the enemy has the same So if you win all these tactic games, you will also win fights in eco games where you have 50 bowmen and 40 swords (and the enemy has less/more/same than you)

I agree and disagree. It only helps in a certain way. The thing which definitely such training helps with, is micro. You can easily get better in using horses (for dancing or flanking), for example, however there are some things which make the tactical map skills not enough in many situations, when fighting on a building map.

First and the most obvious one - building phase. You might be a good fighter but without ability to produce army. But this is as obvious as the fact that I will never be the best KaM player around. So lets move on. The second thing, and much more important, is the difference between most fighting maps and building maps. Tactical maps focus on simply dumping some troops, equal for everyone, and after the initial army is beaten, nothing helps the defeated to recover. Building maps fights however, are based on the fact that 1. peacetime army isn't everything you will have in the entire game; 2. reinforcements of your enemy can be stopped from appearing if you destroy his economy, 3. you have multiple goals - both offensive and defensive; you can always choose if you want to respond to enemy attacks in one of those ways - either sending reinforcements to help the defender, or to attack somebody else from the enemy team instead. That's why I agree with Ben's critical comment about tactical maps:

In fighting maps, all you have to do is win the battle. That's it. In economy maps, it's very important where you fight and the result of the battle. You must hold certain positions on the map in order to assure the best outcome and to defend your territory. This doesn't hold true for fighting maps.

If you want to know how professionals treat fighting maps, here is Blud's opinion:

For me in kam fighting there are many "random factors" that make fighting maps not interesting for me

I agree too. Ironically, tactical maps, in my opinion, are not random enough. They are very predictable, I mean. And sometimes not that fair (thats what Blud meant with "many random factors").

There are also some special maps which seem to be much more fun than usual tactical maps for me. Just see how much more popular are maps like Knights Frenzy, Conquest, or more recently Furious Warriors. I'd also add Stalemate Tournament, which I like very much, to the list - being easiest to understand of them all (maybe except Frenzy ), I think it will be really popular amongst randoms. All of these maps have fixed the problems of usual tactical maps somehow. There are waves of troops coming out from the barracks (or from other buildings), there are goals to defend/attack (Conquest and FW- buildings, Frenzy - the tower; Stalemate - the... ground? or maybe campiness? ) on which your and enemy's reinforcements amount depends on.

Here are my thoughts on the topic. Now, does anyone want to dive into this pointless discussion with me?

[thunder]

Is it the same, or different?

Hm. Yes we have to discuss this question. This is really interesting, and hard question. I think to "everybody knows" this answer in very deeply inside.
Of course the answer is NO, the fights aren't same.
Almost every fights are different. Still on the tactical maps where the starting units are the same amount/or balanced. Almost everytime.
I think to the question is wrong. Fight is fight. The destination is different, and the attention time also. The players have to focus only onto the fight on a tactical map(100%) but on a building map need to focus on the village also(if the village is "full/ready" then the fighting is 70++%).
So the building map fights are a little bit, just a slightly complicated than tactical maps. Of course there are new dynamic scripted maps...so

[pawel95]

It depends what your focus in fighting you have on fighting maps. If you just make some stupid horse moves and dances that´s cool and can help you to kill some ranged units, but it´s not the main thing there. If you play as I plan mostly to play (and how me and TDL played mostly in the 1st Battletournament) is, to use all possiblities that you have also in a building missions. Splitting up melee and ranged units is a key there imo. If I see most playes in tactic maps just attacking in the same groups AND formation, as they are from the beginning, I don´t want to hear their opinion really. IN economy games you also don´t have normaly 50 bowmen in one group, but rather 2-3 groups with 15-25 bowmen.

Mostly it´s in economy and tactic that way: "You do most damage with the smallest groups that are possible to control." That´s the way cmowla win many missions in Singleplayer. The only Problem on this sentence is the part with "that are possible to control".
So there are many possibilites in fighting and eco maps, but many people just don´t think of "micro" in these things.


If anyone says "Fighting on fighting maps is too random" or anything else, like you quoted Blud for example, Sado. Well KaM has a random fighting system. However that works in eco and fight
Mostly it´s in economy and tactic that way: "You do most damage with the smallest groups that are possible to control." That´s the way cmowla win many missions in Singleplayer. The only Problem on this sentence is the part with "that are possible to control".
So there are many possibilites in fighting and eco maps, but many people just don´t think of "micro" in these things.


If anyone says "Fighting on fighting maps is too random" or anything else, like you quoted Blud for example, Sado. Well KaM has a random fighting system. However that works in eco and fighting maps the same way.
For me such quotes are sometimes also a try to find an excuse: Now if I for example win with TDL nearly all games in the First tournament of battle and won all battles so far in the 2. Tournament, noone can tell me You had just more luck than all other 25 players had and you had more luck in all 50 games, you have won.
I agree that it´s random. Sometimes you have more swordmen than the enemy has axefighters and you loose a battle. This random-aspect can be minimized a bit with ranged units.
That´s also the only part in KaM that does so, because ranged units can "flee" from a fight and they can move when someone is attacking them. (That´s why I don´t like KaM maps without ranged units in total )

Back to the fighting system.Many of us should know how the fighting system in the Remake and in KaM works:

If 2 swordfighters attack in the same direction and you come with another swordfighter(group) from an 45° angle, the enemy get´s a bit more damage!
If 2 swordfighters attack in the same direction and you come with another swordfigher(groupt) from an 90° angle, the enemy get´s even more damage from that!
If 2 swordfighters attack in the same direction and you come with another swordfigher(groupt) from an 180° angle, the enemy get´s the highest possible damage!

For most of you that´s nothing new. HOWEVER I don´t see these tricks in most strategy AND eco maps. If you have one meleegroup fighting with another meleegroup and you send your knights to kill these melee units FROM BEHIND, it will kill them all in a few seconds. What some people do, they send like 10 knights on 40, that doesn´t make sense at all.


The things that I agree are, that many fighting maps have strange armyconstalations (20 bowmen, 20 lances, 20 knights, 20 swordmen/ in building you would have 30 bowmen, 10 lances, 30 swordfighters and 5 kngiths e.g.)
However if you win this way (both players have the same amoun of army), I can tell you that you also improve your fighting in ECO maps when you have more than your enemy
I though know many players in eco games that have a great army but did terribly after PT and I know some people that have nearly no army and still do a very good job at PT. A mix of both is probably the best, without an army it´s not fun, without fightingskills also

I also agree that without an army, you can´t win an eco game. However I do really bad sometimes in eco games, if I don´t play for a longer time. Some of you may noticed that I can still beat a guy some times if I have like 3/4 or even less army than him, that actualy depends on the fighting skills of the enemy. If that depends that I´m also quite decent on fighting maps? I guess so Ladies

About Ben´s quote, true but his quote shows directly his opinion. He is the "Simcity" guy and that´s it Like you mentioned with your example of Conquest (I would say Battle of Octumn is even a better exmample) it´s not that you have to fight on one place only. Some maps /special maps have nearly the same fighting situations like big eco maps.


My posts just shows my personal opinion. It shouldn´t also show like "YEAH I´M SO GOOD IN FIGHTING GAMES", it´s just an example that it can´t be that random... Also I don´t want to say that other people opinions or quotes are false, I just say why for me they are wrong/incorrect
Sorry also for some mistakes in my post, it´s late already

[Esthlos]

I am very bad at map making, but I think this can be a good idea so I'll just leave it here: what about making a map where every player just has a Market, Barracks full of Recruits and a few Serfs.
In the market there already is a fixed amount of wheat.
The players are kept isolated from one another by blocked passages.

Every player has some time (let's say 3 minutes) to buy weapons, shields and armors, train an army and position it, during which a script keeps everybody fully fed.

After the time passed, the buildings, serfs and exceeding recruits and wares get removed by a script, the passages get opened up and the battle can finally start.

What do you think?
Would this solve the problems that you mentioned with Battle maps while keeping their feeling and core features intact?

[Kamykos]

Tactic missions can teach you fast how strong every unit is and how to judge whether you will win the battle or not. In economic missions you have to wait 60 minutes every time to fight and learn in which situations you should retreat or stay. It is very important skill imo.

[dicsoupcan]

I am very bad at map making, but I think this can be a good idea so I'll just leave it here: what about making a map where every player just has a Market, Barracks full of Recruits and a few Serfs.
In the market there already is a fixed amount of wheat.
The players are kept isolated from one another by blocked passages.

Every player has some time (let's say 3 minutes) to buy weapons, shields and armors, train an army and position it, during which a script keeps everybody fully fed.

After the time passed, the buildings, serfs and exceeding recruits and wares get removed by a script, the passages get opened up and the battle can finally start.

What do you think?
Would this solve the problems that you mentioned with Battle maps while keeping their feeling and core features intact?

there is one little problem with your idea, if the wares are already in de market you cannot trade them. serfs actually have to take it from somewhere and deliver it.

[Esthlos]

there is one little problem with your idea, if the wares are already in de market you cannot trade them. serfs actually have to take it from somewhere and deliver it.

I checked in the editor, and you can't even add wares to the Market directly... but you can give a Storehouse with the wheat to each player, which should reach the same purpose.

[Lewin]

You can add wares to the market from the script, although they won't be traded (a serf needs to bring it in to perform a trade). But you can use the script to perform the trades artificially at the correct ratios when the player increases the order amount (there are now enough commands for that)

[Esthlos]

You can add wares to the market from the script, although they won't be traded (a serf needs to bring it in to perform a trade). But you can use the script to perform the trades artificially at the correct ratios when the player increases the order amount (there are now enough commands for that)

Oh.

Is it also possible to have the script move the bought wares to the Barracks and have it replenish the Recruit numbers?

[Lewin]

You can add wares to the market from the script, although they won't be traded (a serf needs to bring it in to perform a trade). But you can use the script to perform the trades artificially at the correct ratios when the player increases the order amount (there are now enough commands for that)

Oh.

Is it also possible to have the script move the bought wares to the Barracks and have it replenish the Recruit numbers?

Of course

[Esthlos]

Of course

Thank you.

[Esthlos]

-post moved in a more appropriate thread-

[Esthlos]

I maed dis!

I modified the fighting map Atoll in order to have customizable armies... I tried it in a quick 1v1 over LAN and it seems to be working, but 1 game is not to be considered extensive testing...

The script should be versatile enough to make it easy to adapt it to other maps; this is just a test for the general idea.

It shouldn't work in r5503, but if you're using the release candidate there should be no problem.

I'm attaching it, just in case anyone else is interested.

PS. MYOA stands for Make Your Own Army.

EDIT: Temporarily removed to investigate a fatal error that would have been nice if it had shown up yesterday.

EDIT2: It seems that it was caused by not having a "default" player, which meant that choosing "random" as your position was not handled correctly. Or at least, I hope it was that... it hasn't happened again anyway after setting a "default" player.

[Bo_co]

About fighting possibilities, do it is better fight on battle maps or on eco maps?

For me it is easy, the bigest army you have and much verariety, you have greater chance to winn a fight
+skillful fingers and good mouse.

Conclusions:

The smaller army and the similar army, your chance to win are the more depends of luck .