New KaM Remake Demo r2411

[Lewin]

Oh by the way: at a certain moment yesterday in our game I recruited about 16 crossbowmen, 8 archers and 21 militia all at once and the militia didn't form a group. They all left the barracks seperately! I guess that's a small bug?

Yes we know about it, not exactly sure why it happens but we'll be fixing it.

[GreatWhiteBear]

Archers having a range bonus from hills is a good idea and I think it will be implemented. The maths you used looks like the way we'd do it, and we'd tweak the values like the maximum bonus until it feels right. This could change game dynamics a bit though so it would need to be tested and tweaked.

But then the map editor should have heights displayed at every square and height max should be increased, probably to 200(if 100 is the current max).
Having heights implanted will increase the usefulness of infantry on the offense and ranged units on the defense.

Though I think the math would be good I really think that we should decrease damage done by arrows that travel further than the normal range and those that fire to higher grounds.
Further would be like 1%damage decrease per 1%extra range.
Higher would be like 1%damage decrease per 10height difference.

[kocsis1david]

It's an awesome project, but I found a bug. I wanted to build a storehouse, but serfs didn't deliver stone to it, only wood, but I had stone in the stone mine. I tried to build it to another place, but it was the same. When I enabled serfs to store stone in my old storehouse, they delivered it to the construction.

[Thorakh]

We will be making the deliveries more intelligent which may improve this a little bit.

If something needs to be picked up and delivered, how does the game select which serf will do it? The most nearby, unoccupied serf?

I've always refrained from making extra large cities out of fear that serfs will deliver stuff to the other side of the map. Is this fear ungrounded?

[The Dark Lord]

Okay, as promised some of my ideas. The first two are very logical and of course you already knew this, yet I had to give my view on it.
Also you already said you were planning a replay manager so those suggestions aren't probably very useful either. Most things I mentioned aren't crucial but small details that could use a look into them when there aren't greater things to fix.


Suggestions involving gameplay

- Win conditions (I don't think the original win conditions will suffice as it is still possible to rebuild your town without a storehouse, school and barracks if you have serves and labourers. All barracks, schools, vehicle workshops, town halls and serves or labourers will do. And soldiers of course. This requires more debating though as I can understand people disagree. Not destroying storehouses seems strange to me as well.)
- Balanced fighting (Archers and crossbowmen seem to die too quickly when attacked by melee units. They often die in just one hit and that is by far not enough, especially for crossbowmen.)

Suggestions involving the campaign screens

- In my opinion the 'moving briefing screen' is really annoying. I'd rather see it how it originally was: on the right side, and only on the left side if the mission you are about to start takes place on a location that would otherwise be hidden underneath the briefing
- The images of the campaign map seem to be in low quality
- The red dots on the campaign maps are placed in wrong positions or not placed at all (TPR)
- The red flags on the campaign map have a background that is not fully translucent.
- A possibility to save the game between missions would be nice. Loading a save from such a point should restart the briefing.

Suggestions involving the multiplayer screen

- Possibility to see which map is selected by the host in a multiplayer lobby or which map is being played if the game has already started
- Possibility to sort the servers on aspects like number of players, lobby/game/none, server name, etc.
- Possibility to look at the server list with all the information that goes with it while being in a room already

Suggestions involving the multiplayer lobby

- Scroll bar for map description (if needed)
- A somehow lengthened bar for map names as mine doesn't fit!
- A 'closed' player 5, 6, 7 and 8 when the map is only for 4 players, and closed 7 and 8 when it is for 6 players, etc. (Or the people who join after the possible slots are taken should become spectators automatically.)

Suggestions involving replays

- Fast forward and rewind option for replays
- Slider for replays showing the total game time and the progress of the game. By moving the slider you can move from the start of the game to, for example, a moment halfway so you do not have to wait/fast forward to get there
- Option to name and save a replay.

[GreatWhiteBear]

- A possibility to save the game between missions would be nice. Loading a save from such a point should restart the briefing.

You can select mission one by clicking on the red flag. Maybe the click ability caused the back ground to screw up.

[Lewin]

It's an awesome project, but I found a bug. I wanted to build a storehouse, but serfs didn't deliver stone to it, only wood, but I had stone in the stone mine. I tried to build it to another place, but it was the same. When I enabled serfs to store stone in my old storehouse, they delivered it to the construction.

That bug has been reported already and will be fixed, thanks

We will be making the deliveries more intelligent which may improve this a little bit.

If something needs to be picked up and delivered, how does the game select which serf will do it? The most nearby, unoccupied serf?

I've always refrained from making extra large cities out of fear that serfs will deliver stuff to the other side of the map. Is this fear ungrounded?

At the moment it works like this: When a serf completes a job he looks in the list of deliveries and takes the best possible one given his current position. If there are none available, he goes to sleep for 10 seconds and then checks the list again... so as you can imagine this does not give the most efficient results as it is matching the best delivery for the serf rather than the best serf for the delivery. We will be changing it so that it keeps track of available serfs and allocates jobs to the closest ones. (I think, I need to talk through that with Krom) So no it's not ungrounded, but something to keep in mind is that a village with slightly too few serfs will be much more efficient that a village with too many in the current system.

- Win conditions (I don't think the original win conditions will suffice as it is still possible to rebuild your town without a storehouse, school and barracks if you have serves and labourers. All barracks, schools, vehicle workshops, town halls and serves or labourers will do. And soldiers of course. This requires more debating though as I can understand people disagree. Not destroying storehouses seems strange to me as well.)

We can add a lot more flexibility to the script for this as well, the mission could define exactly what conditions must happen for you to lose. (such as a certain type of building being destroyed, or even a single specific building defined in the script)

- Balanced fighting (Archers and crossbowmen seem to die too quickly when attacked by melee units. They often die in just one hit and that is by far not enough, especially for crossbowmen.)

I seem to remember both bowmen and crossbowmen in the original dying from a single hit all the time... Please create a comparison mission (e.g. a long line of militia killing a long line of bowmen) and we can test it properly if you think it's not right. I've made hundreds upon hundreds of test missions like this over the years to measure things from KaM...

- In my opinion the 'moving briefing screen' is really annoying. I'd rather see it how it originally was: on the right side, and only on the left side if the mission you are about to start takes place on a location that would otherwise be hidden underneath the briefing
- The images of the campaign map seem to be in low quality
- The red dots on the campaign maps are placed in wrong positions or not placed at all (TPR)
- The red flags on the campaign map have a background that is not fully translucent.
- A possibility to save the game between missions would be nice. Loading a save from such a point should restart the briefing.

But I think it's nice to be able to see what's under the briefing. We were planning to make it fade from one side to the other rather than jumping which might improve it. Also, you need to be able to see things under it at any time as you can click on the flags to chose to re-play a mission you have already won.
Ah, the quality is probably because we're using the image from TPR and its menu was only 800x600, so they'll be stretched to 1024x768. We can use the 1024x768 image from TSK, but there's not much we can do able TPR except for making the image smaller or forcing people to use a lower resolution. (neither of which are a good solution)
Red dots haven't been placed yet. We're going to improve the campaign system by placing them all in a folder Campaigns so people can make their own. (including the map with flag and dot positions) When that happens you can help by typing up the list of dot coordinates if you like
We'll fix the flag transparency, thanks.
You can go back to any completed mission by clicking on it.

- Possibility to see which map is selected by the host in a multiplayer lobby or which map is being played if the game has already started
- Possibility to sort the servers on aspects like number of players, lobby/game/none, server name, etc.
- Possibility to look at the server list with all the information that goes with it while being in a room already

The first two are planned, (we'll also show the time the mission has been running for as well as the map name) but looking at the server list while in a room is a bit more complicated, how should that work from an interface point of view? The server list takes up most of the screen so it would have to hide the room you are currently in and I think that would be confusing... I usually run two windowed copies so I can keep an eye on the server list at the same time so I understand why you asked about this

- Scroll bar for map description (if needed)
- A somehow lengthened bar for map names as mine doesn't fit! Razz
- A 'closed' player 5, 6, 7 and 8 when the map is only for 4 players, and closed 7 and 8 when it is for 6 players, etc. (Or the people who join after the possible slots are taken should become spectators automatically.)

Scrollbar for the description has already been added.
If you can suggest a way to make the map name wider I'll do it. We're planning to redesign that UI a bit so we might be able to make the dropdown wider then.
Closed slots are planned.

- Fast forward and rewind option for replays
- Slider for replays showing the total game time and the progress of the game. By moving the slider you can move from the start of the game to, for example, a moment halfway so you do not have to wait/fast forward to get there
- Option to name and save a replay.

I don't think you quite understand the complexity of a replay... Our system works like this:
A replay is two files: a save of the mission at the very start from before the game began (.bas file) and a record of the user input during the game. (.rpl file) This is very similar to the way multiplayer works, all computers start with the same game state and then exchange user input before executing it. (multiplayer is like a live replay)
This is good because a replay is small, the record of events is small and a snapshot of the game takes between 500kb and 1MB. However it means you cannot treat it as a video, and just skip backwards and forwards. To reach a point in the file you have to execute every command before it from the start and simulate every event of the mission, meaning the fastest it can go forwards is the maximum speedup your CPU can cope with. Going backwards is pretty much out of the question because we don't have a way to undo user input and simulate the mission backwards! The only way I can think of allowing skipping would be to include a snapshot (save) of the mission at 5 minute intervals, then allowing you to skip to one of these (will require loading the save taking the same amount of time as loading a regular save) then you could play it from there and skip to other points. The problem is that a save game is usually between 500kb and 1MB, (although it can be more or less) depending on the size of your map and the number of units/houses you have. So to store one of these every 5 minutes would take maybe 20MB per hour and skipping positions would still take a few seconds to load and only give you 5 minute precision as to where you skipped to. We can't save an actual video of the game because that would only show you the player's perspective, (right now you can view the entire map and look where ever you like as it is a full simulation) the file would be massive and a lot of people's computers can cope with recording videos using something like like FRAPS anyway.
So at the moment I can't see a good way to make replays do what you suggested. Naming and saving the replay will be possible of course when we have a replay manager (you'll probably save the replay from the Results screen)
Thanks for your suggestions.
Lewin.

[Ben]

Interesting. I learned quite a bit from your post, Lewin. Especially from the section about the replays.

[The Dark Lord]

Hm I could've known that. I've seen some of the replay files and was indeed surprised by the small size. I had no idea however that it worked like this, I didn't really think about it. As Ben pointed out it is quite interesting to know though.
Then forget about the replay ideas. Although if you have a 3 hour match and you want to watch the final fight, a couple of saves would be nice. 5 minute intervals might be too much, but I'd say that at least a few are necessairy to watch it in a comfortable way.
Didn't know about the campaign flags, I now wonder how I missed it and did not come up with the idea to actually click on them when I noticed there was something strange about them.

I haven't yet thought of a solution for the map names. You could do it like this:

Warfare in the
Wilderness
(using my problem child as an example )

But that's a bit odd. I'll come up with something better.

I seem to remember both bowmen and crossbowmen in the original dying from a single hit all the time... Please create a comparison mission (e.g. a long line of militia killing a long line of bowmen) and we can test it properly if you think it's not right. I've made hundreds upon hundreds of test missions like this over the years to measure things from KaM...

Yes, bowmen often die in one hit, but crossbowmen don't. Especially not when attacked by weaker units without iron weapons. Today I saw one of my scouts killing 3 crossbowmen in just 1 hit in a row.
Maybe that was just luck. I might take a look into it and do some tests.

you can help by typing up the list of dot coordinates if you like

I THINK I prefer working on new maps...
Haha no if I have time I might help with that.

- Possibility to look at the server list with all the information that goes with it while being in a room already

Maybe this can be achieved by tabs. One tab brings you to the server list, and by clicking the other tab you return to the lobby. I just love tabs.
But I can understand if it is difficult to make it fit in the menu nicely.

[Ben]

I also noticed that crossbowmen died too easily; although it worked quite nicely for me: I was attack by 10 or so crossbowmen and 4 militia easily killed them before being reinforced by some soldiers, who were close enough to be seen on the same screen.

Way too weak.

[GreatWhiteBear]

Can we make woodcutters have a check box:
Plant Trees
Cut Trees

This could be useful if you want to clear out an area for construction.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

I was thinking: maybe it's a good idea to show the radius' of buildings that have one..

Like:
- Quarry
- Woodcutter's
- Farm
- Vineyard
- Fisherman's
- Watchtower
- Coal mine

You can show it with a red circle / square with 50% opacity (or something). I think it would be a pretty nice idea, especially for woodcutter's and farms..

[Siegfried]

Yes, bowmen often die in one hit, but crossbowmen don't. Especially not when attacked by weaker units without iron weapons. Today I saw one of my scouts killing 3 crossbowmen in just 1 hit in a row.
Maybe that was just luck. I might take a look into it and do some tests.

Crossbowman have the same amount of life points that archers do - 1.

So it is possible to kill a crossbowman with one hit, it already was in the original KaM.

If a scout attacks from the front, the chance of killing the archer is 1x0.35/3 ~ 12%.

If the scout attacks from the back, the chance is ~60%, so that would fit perfectly to your notice.

I also noticed that crossbowmen died too easily; although it worked quite nicely for me: I was attack by 10 or so crossbowmen and 4 militia easily killed them before being reinforced by some soldiers, who were close enough to be seen on the same screen.

Way too weak.

All archers have a minimum distance of 4 squares to attack. If the militia storm towards the archers, this was a perfect strategy already in original KaM.

Each milita has 3 lifepoints, each crossbow shot will reduce the life point by one (chance 120%), so a militia can survive two hits. Enough to get close to the crossbowmen.
Archers _ALWAYS_ definately and without exceptions have to be guarded by infantry or cavalry for exactly this reason.

[Chimerae]

I was thinking: maybe it's a good idea to show the radius' of buildings that have one..

Like:
- Quarry
- Woodcutter's
- Farm
- Vineyard
- Fisherman's
- Watchtower
- Coal mine

You can show it with a red circle / square with 50% opacity (or something). I think it would be a pretty nice idea, especially for woodcutter's and farms..

Yeah, i would love to see that too!

[Thorakh]

Can we make woodcutters have a check box:
Plant Trees
Cut Trees

This could be useful if you want to clear out an area for construction.

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely this. If there is any quality of life improvement that has to be made it's this one. I know you don't want to divert too much from the original but this change has to be made in my humble opinion.

Is there information somewhere that details how the combat system works? I posted before about something feeling off in regards to fighting but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I thought about it some more and I think it's that the difference between increases or decreases in attack and defense is bigger than in the original. That's why iron units feel so strong.

As for the replays, I know SC2 re-enacts the whole fight, so it's not physically possible to skip forward, but it does have a slider that you can move around in the timeline you already re-enacted. Maybe it saves something during the replay that makes it possible to do this? Some food for thought.