The Dark Lord's multiplayer maps

[Krom]

@TDL: When do we start testing out the scripts for TowerDefense? )

[thunder]

'Ow Thunder nice plan! I've played that loc a few times and your plan seems possible. Enough coal and just trade some trunks to iron ore. I think its possible to get a few xbows before pt ends indeed.'

Thanks Revo!
And it was a weakly game for me. i made only 58 building in the PT with towers, and i didnt build fishermans house because beilive that no fish on the map but....so i had starvation too. This need only 5 buildings so not seems to really hard strategy. Just need lot board....

[The Dark Lord]

Arrgh that blasted building still gets in my way huh?!
Nice find, very innovative. 15 xbow, 10 axe fighters and 10 lance carriers isn't bad for a leather loc. I don't mind people doing this, I think it's very original and I like such 'tricks'. But I guess it should be the same for every location, so I can do two things:
- make sure all players can build an iron mine at an empty mountain somewhere
- make sure none of the players can do this
Now to make my decision I need to know whether using this really gives you an advantage. Your army may have been stronger, but if you look through the originality it was no more than a rush: you traded a lot of timber so you couldn't build fast and your town was dying of hunger. I need to know how strong it is when it is executed really well and if it is overpowered compared with normal leather towns. If so, I'll make sure you can't build an iron mine anymore; but I hope I don't have to do that because I really like it hehe
Thanks Thunder!

P.s.: how expensive is a coal --> iron ore trade? I sense some trouble coming up with that.

@Krom: the map has been finished for a while so I'm waiting for the events to be implemented.

[Ben]

Wait...mirror tool?! This isn't in the Remake is it?

[Lewin]

Wait...mirror tool?! This isn't in the Remake is it?

No, it hasn't been released (yet) because I think it would result in hundreds of mirror maps, which is the last thing we want. The Valley of Dangers and TDL's tower defence are good uses of a mirroring tool (I sent it to Shadaoe and TDL), but I think every day maps should be handmade so both sides look different. I don't like to "hide" things from people like this, but I would really hate to see lots of mirrored maps and end up having to reject a lot of them. If anybody wants to use the tool they are free to write to me and tell me their ideas.

[Krom]

@TDL: I was thinking about TD map, adding required scripts and it occurred to me we could simplify ATTACK_WAVES. Here's how: add defence positions for the AI and instruct AI to to do a repeating attack when it has e.g. 10men. Now, at the start AI has no men, but we will give it to it via event (e.g. TIME 100 ADD_UNIT x y type count), AI will automatically fill them into defence positions and will start an attack (since it has required 10 men). So .. attack creation is simplified just to ADD_UNIT action - neat? )

I will think about ATTACK_REPELLED trigger replacement now ..

[Lewin]

A simple way to do the ATTACK_REPELLED trigger would be to use TOTAL_NUMBER_OF_TROOPS_LOST_BECOMES_EQUAL_TO (with a better name of course, maybe just TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST)

So lets say you have 4 waves, the first wave has 20 troops, the next 30, and the next 40. You want the waves to start as soon as the last one finishes, and the first wave starts after 10 minutes, and after defeating all waves the player gets a bonus added to his storehouse. So the triggers are:
First wave: TIME 6000
Second wave: TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST 20 (meaning first wave died)
Third wave: TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST 50 (meaning first AND second wave died)
Give player bonus: TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST 90 (meaning all waves died)

The only way this could cause a problem is if some of the units decide to walk home or get stuck somewhere the player can't kill them or whatever. And obviously TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST would need to specify the player it applies to.

What do you think? That would certainly be easier for us to implement than ATTACK_REPELLED.

[Krom]

@Lewin: Thats an excellent idea!

[The Dark Lord]

Your suggestions would work on my TD map; but wouldn't it be better if the triggers/events could also be useful on other maps? You see, in theory TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST works, but on an open map a lot can go wrong. Example: human player kills a couple of AI troops before the attack starts --> TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST value will be reached before the whole attack has been repelled.
Having made a lot of missions myself, I can say that subtleties like these are dangerous and can cause trouble. It would be best to avoid fixed numbers.

ADD_UNIT idea sounds okay, although a bit confusing. What about calling it CREATE_ARMY or something like that? ADD_UNIT makes me think of adding a carpenter or a stonemason to a town.
On the other hand, ADD_UNIT won't be of great use outside my TD idea.

[Ben]

How about an ability to turn the tigger off until the attack? So if the attack was to happen 30 minutes into the game, there would be a timer. After 18000 ticks, the trigger would turn TOTAL_TROOPS_LOST on and set it to 0. That way pre-killing wouldn't be a problem

[Krom]

TROOPS_LOST is a valid trigger by itself and could be used in various mission ideas (e.g. player must defeat AI without loosing more than 10 units, otherwise he gets defeated). If that would work for TD - good, if not - we need to find a better easy-to-implement alternative

ADD_UNITS (renames it to GIVE_UNITS) is a universal action, it can give any type of unit - thats the charm of it You can add 30 serfs just as easy as 30 xbows. Units get placed in a rect formation: UnitsPerRow = Sqrt(Count). Again, I can see many missions, where player could get support during the play (if e.g. School or Gold is blocked, or it's a battle mission)

@Ben: Thats a good idea, I thought about it, but then something different popped in: I have posted further ideas in viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1173 topic.

[Da Revolution]

Dark I've got a nice image for you of paradise island loc 1:



I only made on smelter but i could easily make 2-3 of them working.

[The Dark Lord]

You traded for coal?

[Da Revolution]

I didn't trade coal. Timber to iron.

[The Dark Lord]

I guess I should prohibit players on leather locs from trading iron.