New KaM Remake Demo r2411

[Danjb]

Now that you mention it Lewin, I think a "chop this tree" system would be best; either mark a tree for the woodcutter, or, as has also been suggested, have some way of laborers getting rid of trees.

[Lewin]

Yes replays aren't working, we're not sure why. The game doesn't turn out the same as it did when it was first played and it detects that.

It's on the todo list to improve fullscreen/alt tab support. You should use CTRL ALT DEL and kill it from the Processes List (not tasks) to stop it when it has an error.

Krom and I discussed marking trees to be removed. Here were our thoughts:
- If you could mark any tree to be cut by the woodcutter, it would be very exploitable (people would remove every tree in their area to get the wood, outside his normal radius)
- There's no nice visual way to show a tree being removed by a labour.
- Fitting your village around trees and making allowances for the terrain are part of the KaM experience. If you could easily delete any tree in your way it would ruin that, and trees in a village look nice.

Mainly for the last reason we decided not to make labourers remove trees. We may possibly add more control to the woodcutter eventually with either the checkboxes idea or marking trees to be removed WITHIN his cutting radius.
Lewin.

[GreatWhiteBear]

I usually have at the one place my game opened and at the other the map editor in which I plan my whole town, so I use alt+tab very often.

[Ben]

I couldn't use CTRL-ALT-DEL to minimize the game; though
Anyway, perhaps the check box button for the woodcutter might be best.

[Lewin]

It is far safer to use the Remake in windowed mode at the moment if you plan to switch to other applications.
@Ben: Could you use CTRL ALT DEL to open the task manager and kill it? Another thing to try is pressing the Windows Key+D which shows your desktop, effectively minimising everything.

[Encaitar]

Krom and I discussed marking trees to be removed. Here were our thoughts:
- If you could mark any tree to be cut by the woodcutter, it would be very exploitable (people would remove every tree in their area to get the wood, outside his normal radius)
- There's no nice visual way to show a tree being removed by a labour.
- Fitting your village around trees and making allowances for the terrain are part of the KaM experience. If you could easily delete any tree in your way it would ruin that, and trees in a village look nice.

Mainly for the last reason we decided not to make labourers remove trees. We may possibly add more control to the woodcutter eventually with either the checkboxes idea or marking trees to be removed WITHIN his cutting radius.
Lewin.

I am afraid I can not agree with you, because if you made the option that a woodcutter could only remove tree (with checkboxes as is said), one could easily make a woodcutters house, remove the trees and delete the house. This way you could still remove all the trees inside your village [I would do it this way, btw].

About the "There's no nice visual way to show a tree being removed by a labourer" should not being a point why the idea is good (or bad). It is just a fact that the graphics for a labourer to chop down a tree do not exist, so you could just put this on a long term (or indeed don't make it at all if you think chopping trees down in the village is a very bad idea), till anyone is willing to make the graphics. There are people who can do it, just look at this topic: http://kam.vanmeijeren.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1149. It is dutch, but the picture says enough.

[The Dark Lord]

I don't know if it is possible to have a labourer cut a tree without changing his looks (I assume you want one to cut it, I don't see more ways of removing a tree in KaM).
Then again, if labourers can remove trees, woodcutters would be useless. I dislike the idea. I think it's fine as it is. Marking trees so that they will be cut first IF the woodcutter will cut a tree (so if he wants to plant one he will ignore your mark for the time being) is the furthest I would go.

@Shadaoe
Yesterday you asked for our thoughts on your map and I didn't respond, so I'll do that now.
It was fun to play but I think the resources (iron/gold/coal) in your base are too far away. It is more advantageous to get your resources in the middle straight away. If you build some towers there then there is nobody who can stop you.

[Shadaoe]

Thanks The Dark Lord, I thought about that too and you're right. I'll make it less far and I'll remove those grain fields :p

[Encaitar]

I don't know if it is possible to have a labourer cut a tree without changing his looks (I assume you want one to cut it, I don't see more ways of removing a tree in KaM).
Then again, if labourers can remove trees, woodcutters would be useless. I dislike the idea. I think it's fine as it is. Marking trees so that they will be cut first IF the woodcutter will cut a tree (so if he wants to plant one he will ignore your mark for the time being) is the furthest I would go.

I don't know if I do like the idea that idea if labourers could remove trees. Maybe in my previous post i seems so, but i was just critic about some point Lewin wrote + i did need some time to image how it would be if labourers could remove trees. In the end I do agree with Lewin that building a village with removing the trees is kind of easy. But sometimes that trees are so annoying standing right at the place you want to create a building . Maybe I need testing to see who much it changes the gameplay (however that means that at least the functionality must be written...).

IF ever the labourers can remove trees, there should be IMHO no gain for that (so no wood to the warehouse). Otherwise the woodcutter becomes indeed less necessary. I don't see a right implementation at this very moment.

----
Other things i thought: Maybe we as community (including me!) should stop asking for new functions. First the Remake should became exact as the original game! One very difficult point to make, seems to me the programming of artificial intelligence. In my opinion much more important than if a labourer can cut a tree or not. Maybe Lewin/Krom can enlighten us how they think about feature requests and if they want them at this forum or at here: http://code.google.com/p/castlesand/issues/list.

P.S. Found a bug:
If fast scrolling is disabled (ingame: options > settings > fast scrolling), the shadows of the houses are redrawn over the already existed shadows. You can see for every shadow another one over it if scrolling.

[Danjb]

I was thinking of being able to mark a tree for the woodcutter, but he would only be able to cut those inside his area. That way it's not a cheat, just a way of prioritising which trees should be chopped.

[Shadaoe]

For the new features request, they write it on their todo list, and I think they can manage themselves what is the highest priority and what isn't :p
It's good to share ideas, so they write it and it's not forgotten, after they can do the highest priorities parts even with a huge todo list :p

[Lewin]

I was thinking of being able to mark a tree for the woodcutter, but he would only be able to cut those inside his area. That way it's not a cheat, just a way of prioritising which trees should be chopped.

Yes something like this is probably what we'll end up doing. If trees could be dug up it would make it kind of easy and boring. Also, in the middle ages I think they would have often built their houses around the trees, rather than just bulldozing an entire area. Trees provide shade etc.

Other things i thought: Maybe we as community (including me!) should stop asking for new functions. First the Remake should became exact as the original game! One very difficult point to make, seems to me the programming of artificial intelligence. In my opinion much more important than if a labourer can cut a tree or not. Maybe Lewin/Krom can enlighten us how they think about feature requests and if they want them at this forum or at here: http://code.google.com/p/castlesand/issues/list.

I do appreciate these discussions because I often take ideas out of them and write them on the features list. As long as they are well mannered and realistic. However I think that people shouldn't get too carried away and want the game to be changed drastically. That can be done with mods later on. I prefer the discussions to be on the forum than the Google Code issues page, because then people can comment on them and I can just skim out ideas. The issues page is more for bug reports.

P.S. Found a bug:
If fast scrolling is disabled (ingame: options > settings > fast scrolling), the shadows of the houses are redrawn over the already existed shadows. You can see for every shadow another one over it if scrolling.

Yeah we've tried to fix this but it's complicated, I don't really understand the rendering process in detail so you'd have to ask Krom.

[artanis]

campaign ai have problem they not response when you atacking their city or near army
and i want edit campaign missions can you add this maps on map editor
and if game framerate up a bit more kam will be best 2d strategy game
thanks

[RiT4LiN]

In the current version it is possible to use wine fields to remove trees (and later build road on it to allow building placement).

Maybe the building menu could have a remove tree button so you can mark a tile for tree removal. A worker could then remove the tree and show the digging animation. This would be a good temporary solution.

A good long turn solution would be to maybe make a tree clickable and mark it for removal by the woodcutter. Or give the wootcutter's hut an option to mark a tile for tree removal. Another long term adition could be to mark an area for tree placement. Wood cutters then wont walk around in each others area's. And trees wouldn't be placed in a critical part of the city. A wood cutter should be (possible optional) allow to remove trees outside of this area.

Another problem was that i wanted to remove a tree(before i found out you could use wine field) and the wood cutter wouldn't remove the one tree i wanted gone. He was planting trees and did cut down a lot of trees(most of them further away from his hut).

Hope anything helps. I've also noted you need help on the building placement for the A.I. I thought about helping you guys but i only "speak" c/c++/java and php. I tried reading the object pascal code but it was to mutch of a transition.

[GreatWhiteBear]

Can we have an elevate function for workers so they can lower a certain spot?