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Topic: Tips overhaul

kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 11:12

On each start of a game or the editor some Tips are presented. Since the editor loads too fast to show the tips they will be put in the Help. See:

Convert editor/game tips to Lua and display them in the in-editor/in-game help.

While working on this the idea raises up to give the tips a general overhaul. Following tips are used now. It would be nice if some of you could reread, verify and eventually add additional tips:

In Game

General

  • "The building process will only start after a road is built to the construction site.",
  • "Be sure to send a geologist to survey sites before building a well or a mine.",
  • "Your territory can be expanded by building various military buildings – Sentry, Fortress, Blockhouse, etc.",
  • "Miners will work only if supplied with food.",
  • "Split your roads into shorter sections by planting some flags. This will speed up transportation of your wares.",
  • "Any further questions? Our FAQ, the wiki and of course our community forums can be found at www.widelands.org.",
  • "Use the priority buttons in building windows to adjust delivery of a specific ware.",
  • "Use the ‘configure economy’ menu to adjust the target quantity of wares. It can be accessed via the flag menu.",
  • "Manage your messages more efficiently: press ‘N’ for News to access the messages window, then use ‘G’ for Go To, and the Delete key to archive messages.",
  • "Press Ctrl+(0-9) to store important locations, then press 0-9 to recall them.",
  • "Removing a road while holding Ctrl lets you remove all flags up to the first junction.",
  • "New soldiers are recruited in a barracks. Their abilities can then be improved in training sites.",
  • "If you like to live dangerously, pressing Ctrl while clicking the enhance, dismantle or destroy building buttons will skip the confirmation.",
  • "Press I to quickly toggle the display of your stock inventory.",
  • "An economy consists of all buildings and flags connected by roads. The supplies and demands of buildings are handled in its economy.",
  • "Some buildings, such as the farm, have a very small work area. If the building is surrounded with trees or roads, production will stop.",

Empire

  • "Keep an eye on your fishers. After fish resources are exhausted in their work area, they will stop fishing.",
  • "Always build a forester’s house so you will not run out of logs.",

Barbarian

  • "Keep an eye on your fishers. After fish resources are exhausted in their work area, they will stop fishing.",
  • "Always build a ranger’s and a gamekeeper’s hut, so you will not run out of logs.",

Atlantean

  • "Keep an eye on your fishers and build a fish breeder’s house. After fish resources are exhausted in their work area, the fish supply cannot be regenerated.",
  • "Always build a forester’s and a woodcutter’s house, so you will not run out of logs.",

Singleplayer

  • "Our computer players are too boring? Visit our website at www.widelands.org and meet other players to play online.",

Multiplayer

  • "You can use the ’Page up’ and ‘Page down’ keys to adjust your desired speed – the real speed is then democratically set.",
  • "You can use ‘/me’ at the beginning of a chatmessage: ‘/me is tired’ will be printed as ‘-> Nickname is tired’.",
  • "Use ‘@name’ at the beginning of a chat message to send it to only one player.",

Editor

  • "You can find general help for the editor as well as a short tutorial on our wiki at www.widelands.org",
  • "You can select multiple animal types if you hold down Ctrl during selection. If you then click on the map, an instance of one of the selected animal types will be placed.",
  • "Just like with animals, you can also select multiple immovables or ground textures with Ctrl + mouse click.",
  • "Holding down Shift switches the first alternative tool on. This tool is in most cases the complete opposite of the normal tool (for example deletion of an object instead of placing one).",
  • "Holding down Alt switches the second alternative tool on (if it exists).",
  • "The number keys (0 - 9) allow you to directly set the size of the selected area around your mouse cursor.",
  • "Space key behaves like in normal game. It switches if building spaces are shown on or off.",

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Venatrix
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 11:45

Barbarian

  • "Always build a ranger’s and a gamekeeper’s hut, so you will not run out of logs.",

"… and game." … or did you mean ranger’s and lumberjack’s hut? In that case you should add the lumberjack’s house to the Empire too.
In any case there could be a hint about the gamekeeper’s hut for the Barbarians.


Two is the oddest prime.

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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 13:02

Thanks, definitely gamekeepers and hunters needs a tip, IMHO.

Can someone verify the fishers thing:

  • "Keep an eye on your fishers. After fish resources are exhausted in their work area, they will stop fishing."

My observation is that fishers keep working if fish resources get exhausted. And since we have the statistics and messages of no resources i think this tip is superfluous...


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 17:07

The problem with the fishers' no resources message is that by the time it's triggered, the fish is already gone. There is no easy fix for that. So, I think we could still leave this in at this time.


Busy indexing nil values

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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 18:10

editor

  • when placing a forest, you can look in the help to see which trees are more likely to survive on which terrain
  • you can place a small building on any corner where there is a slope no greater than one in the south-east direction and no greater than 3 in any other direction
  • you can place a medium building on any corner where there is a slope no greater than one in the south-east direction and the height of all corners in a radius of 2 is within minus/plus 2 of the selected corner
  • you can place a large building on any corner where you could place a medium building and there are no obstacles/unbuildable terrain in the west, northwest and northeast corners.
  • if you do not set water and fish resources, a default amount will be used.

multiplayer

  • if the game crashes, don't worry! A saved game is automatically generated, and you can reload the game afterwards

general

  • if a building is destroyed, workers within will look for a close flag from which they will move by road to a warehouse. If there are no flags connected to a warehouses nearby, they will wander until eventually they die

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Notabilis
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 22:40

"Press Ctrl+(0-9) to store important locations, then press 0-9 to recall them."

In the current trunk this is no longer valid, Ctrl+0 resets the zoom level. Maybe also a message like "Zoom with the mouse, press Ctrl+0 to reset"?

What about a warning for empire and barbarians, that upgrading a building should not be done before there is an upgraded worker available? Also maybe a hint that it is possible to kick out workers from buildings. Hm, and maybe a tip like "some buildings can / have to be upgraded". Or are we assuming knowledge of the tutorial and are only printing more advanced tips?

Empire could need a hint about looking for its marble resources, I think this is a quite frequent problem for new players. Probably something according about cloth for atlanteans ("build weaving mill + spider farm + farm early"?). Is there such a critical ware for barbarians?


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-01-23, 23:33

Notabilis wrote:

Empire could need a hint about looking for its marble resources, I think this is a quite frequent problem for new players. Probably something according about cloth for atlanteans ("build weaving mill + spider farm + farm early"?). Is there such a critical ware for barbarians?

Barbarians can run into the deadlock of granite mines. Not extremely dangerous...


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2017-01-24, 08:55

I think the Tips are meant to be more generally. They can't describe the whole game face-smile.png But a decision on what a 'general Tip' is, is difficult face-upset.png

I guess the longer the list, the less it will be read.

From my point of view:

To what king_of_nowhere posted +1

Notabilis wrote:

In the current trunk this is no longer valid, Ctrl+0 resets the zoom level. Maybe also a message like "Zoom with the mouse, press Ctrl+0 to reset"?

+1

What about a warning for empire and barbarians, that upgrading a building should not be done before there is an upgraded worker available?

Just run into that with empire miners face-grin.png But i am not sure if it is worth a tip. I do not play Barbarians, maybe because one has to upgrade much buildings face-wink.png So in the end: +1 for a Barbarian tip

Also maybe a hint that it is possible to kick out workers from buildings.

+1

Hm, and maybe a tip like "some buildings can / have to be upgraded".

-1

Empire could need a hint about looking for its marble resources, I think this is a quite frequent problem for new players. Probably something according about cloth for atlanteans ("build weaving mill + spider farm + farm early"?). Is there such a critical ware for barbarians?

What about:

Empire

  • "Empire needs a lot of Marble. Keep looking for marble resources."

Atlantean

  • "Atlantean need much cloth. Build the needed infrastructure early in game."

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-02-27, 00:46

kaputtnik wrote:

What about:

Empire

  • "Empire needs a lot of Marble. Keep looking for marble resources."

Nice

Atlantean

  • "Atlantean need much cloth. Build the needed infrastructure early in game."

Well, actually they don't need tons of cloth. But cloth is very important, they need it for a lot of buildings. And the corn/cloth-deadlock is the most dangerous deadlock in the whole game... So the first sentence is not that what I would write, but the second one is very good

Edited: 2017-02-27, 00:49

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2017-02-27, 09:59

How about:

Atlanteans need spidercloth for many buildings. Build the needed infrastructure early before you run out."


Busy indexing nil values

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