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Topic: "Northmen" Tribe Page

GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2018-04-06, 09:42

Also keep in mind that those tips are for beginners - advanced players can of course operate on 0 hammers in reserve where appropriate.

In the scenario, the problem isn't simply having no hammer, the problem can also be that the hammer is sitting very far in the East, and it will take time to transport it all the way to the west, even if you order the tools to be sent there first. I had 7 warehouses to cycle through to give those orders, and that also takes time. Anyway, the problem should be solved now, because we're slowing down the flood a bit.

When we balance the farms, we also need to keep maps in mind that don't have a lot of big building spaces. I think the Fjords map would be a good test case for this, since it's even tighter than The Nile.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2018-04-16, 21:35

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

That is a good idea, because in the early game you have to wait a lot until the first barley is harvested. But faster growth will not speed the production speed of the farm significantly up.

I suggested to do the latter and do it again. Imperial farms, corn farms and blackroot farms produce between 45 and 50 wares per hour, and barbarian wheat farms are the slow ones with ca. 36. But compared to frisian farms they are very fast, as those produce ca. 24. Makes not much sense.

Despite of that I don't like if somebody is denying sense in somebody elses work, the productivity of the barley farm is very low.

Nordfriese never said that it should make sense that the farms are so slow.... As far as I know... face-wink.png

But how do you calcualte your numbers.

I didn't calculate it, I measured it. That's a nice service, isn't it? face-wink.png

from the lua file it seems that the actual numbers are worse than that. According to the lua files an empire or atlantean cycle to plant and harvest a ware lasts 40 seconds plus walking, for the barbarians it lasts 70 seconds and for the frisians it lasts 260 seconds but produces two wares, so yes probabaly we should not speed up the growth but the production cycle of the farm.

I suggest to do both

hessenfarmer wrote:

I have done a lot of experiments and I think one way to get a better balance might be the build costs. I had reduced them for some of the buildings in a test branch and this showed very promising results. reason is it is not so much about cost it is about time to build the buildings if there is too much materials that need to be used for the building.

Changing only the build costs will not be enough for making a correct balance of the tribe...

As I wrote we should try to improve the balance and make it better, I never said it would be perfect. In my opinion there isn't one single correct balance. it is just a matter which measurement we decide to be the basis for balance. In my opinion the current tournament organised by einstein is a pretty good measurement for a tribes balance even though it is restricted by the influence of the map and the time when you do the measurements.

The tournament is an indicator. But it contains matches in "endless game" condition, not autocrat, collectors, wood gnome etc....

But basically the ability to produce x soldiers per time unit is the key criterion for balancing in my eyes.

Not for peaceful win conditions. And the strength of those soldiers is also very important.

Therefore I suggested the reduction of the buildcost to be able to build more buildings in the same amount of time. Surely we should have a look in the production cycles (like for the farms) as well. the good thing in focussing on competitive speed is we don't need to change anything in the innovative and well suited economy cycle of the frisians and we do not need to change the character of the tribe.

We'll see about that face-wink.png

So any observations and sugestions to improve the speed of the tribe up to a competitive level while keeping its character and economy should be very welcome. They surely are the more welcome the more they are formulated in a positive manner.

It's good that you want to make a branch for frisian balancing face-smile.png

You also need to make sure that you have a hammer so that you can occupy the shipyard, because you start without a shipwright. If you don't have one in reserve, you need to build a Blacksmithy and wait for that too.

For all tribes, the in-game ware encyclopedia says about the hammer: "Make sure you’ve always got some in reserve!"

That's not the best encyclopedia hint of all time...

Not having one is always a mistake…

No, it's not. Why should it be?

Perhaps it is not always a mistake but there are a lot of occasions where you will be glad to have a hammer ready and not need to wait for one to be made.

So we can agree on "not always" face-wink.png

GunChleoc wrote:

Also keep in mind that those tips are for beginners - advanced players can of course operate on 0 hammers in reserve where appropriate.

If the beginners play barbarians and frisians, the tip is good. Maybe also for empire. But I don't know if it's a good tip for atlanteans...

In the scenario, the problem isn't simply having no hammer, the problem can also be that the hammer is sitting very far in the East, and it will take time to transport it all the way to the west, even if you order the tools to be sent there first. I had 7 warehouses to cycle through to give those orders, and that also takes time. Anyway, the problem should be solved now, because we're slowing down the flood a bit.

Why do you need the hammers in the west? The port space is in the East, so it makes sense to build the docks in the East. And the flood starts in the west. Or has the scenario been changed?

When we balance the farms, we also need to keep maps in mind that don't have a lot of big building spaces. I think the Fjords map would be a good test case for this, since it's even tighter than The Nile.

I have to admit that I've already played Frisians on Fjords - even though I complained about this map once. They perform very bad there...


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2018-04-16, 22:57

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese never said that it should make sense that the farms are so slow.... As far as I know... face-wink.png

As far as I remember the growth was slow due to the frisians being a tribe in the north with barley being more robust but slower in growth. There was no discussion about why the farms are slow as well. However my first assumption is always that som ebody who does something is doing this for good reason therefore I prefer asking if a behaviour is intended before denying any sense in it. However:

I didn't calculate it, I measured it. That's a nice service, isn't it? face-wink.png

How did you do that? By hand or by script? I would be really interested as this could help me a lot. Would you be able and willing to provide accurate measurements for every production cycle? Or advise on your method of measurement? p the growth but the production cycle of the farm.

best regards hessenfarmer


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 04:42

GunChleoc wrote:

Also keep in mind that those tips are for beginners - advanced players can of course operate on 0 hammers in reserve where appropriate.

If the beginners play barbarians and frisians, the tip is good. Maybe also for empire. But I don't know if it's a good tip for atlanteans...

As I said, those tips are for beginners. Players with some experience will find out by themselves when they need them. So they will then find out how many hammers they need for Atlanteans too. I am against expanding the tips with lots of exceptions etc, they are supposed to be simple. This is an important tip for beginners.

In the scenario, the problem isn't simply having no hammer, the problem can also be that the hammer is sitting very far in the East, and it will take time to transport it all the way to the west, even if you order the tools to be sent there first. I had 7 warehouses to cycle through to give those orders, and that also takes time. Anyway, the problem should be solved now, because we're slowing down the flood a bit.

Why do you need the hammers in the west? The port space is in the East, so it makes sense to build the docks in the East. And the flood starts in the west. Or has the scenario been changed?

Because I got my directions switched when I wrote the post.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 08:16

Just another thought:

@ WorldSavior: Do you plan to participate in einsteins tournament? If (or probably if not as well) would you consider to do at least a 12 hours run with the current frisians to have a benchmark to compare with. At least I choose the frisians and tried my very best but it would be better to have benchmarks from a champion as well in addition to a mediocre benchmark. Of course that would mean we have to redo the whole thing at least another time to test the balancing changes.
I will start the branch soon after havi ng completed some string fixes which I currently work on.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 14:43

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese never said that it should make sense that the farms are so slow.... As far as I know... face-wink.png

As far as I remember the growth was slow due to the frisians being a tribe in the north with barley being more robust but slower in growth. There was no discussion about why the farms are slow as well. However my first assumption is always that som ebody who does something is doing this for good reason therefore I prefer asking if a behaviour is intended before denying any sense in it. However:

i haven't participated in the frisian project for a while, but I was in the concept. the idea was that barley would grow slower but the farm would have the same productivity; it would just need more fields to achieve it. I don't know if they underperform because you made them too close or because they were poorly scripted, or scripted with a different idea.

hessenfarmer wrote:

Just another thought:

@ WorldSavior: Do you plan to participate in einsteins tournament? If (or probably if not as well) would you consider to do at least a 12 hours run with the current frisians to have a benchmark to compare with. At least I choose the frisians and tried my very best but it would be better to have benchmarks from a champion as well in addition to a mediocre benchmark. Of course that would mean we have to redo the whole thing at least another time to test the balancing changes.
I will start the branch soon after havi ng completed some string fixes which I currently work on.

that's actually a good idea. I should also try it myself, except that it would take a long time for me to learn frisians and I'm not sure I want to invest it.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 16:34

hessenfarmer wrote:

I didn't calculate it, I measured it. That's a nice service, isn't it? face-wink.png

How did you do that? By hand or by script? I would be really interested as this could help me a lot. Would you be able and willing to provide accurate measurements for every production cycle? Or advise on your method of measurement? p the growth but the production cycle of the farm.

best regards hessenfarmer

I measured by hand. When I do that, I let the game running at 30, 60 or 120 times of normal speed - deactivated autosave - and I set it to pause, when the farm runs normally. Then I can press pause again at the same time as the button of my stop watch, and I can watch the amount of barley in the game by inventory (everything, not stock). After a certain time I press both buttons again at the same time.

For most buildings, it seems to be not necessary to measure their speed, as you can easily calculate it from lua-files (just include the 3.6 (or 3.75?) seconds which the worker needs to bring a ware to the flag).

I measured barley farms, beekeepers, fruit collectors, clay pits, berry farms on tundra (this one in an older version) and aqua farms. Fruit collectors can collect more than 70 units per hour, beekeepers more than 50, clay pits ca. 54. Aqua farms produce ca. 50.

But I also compared the lua files of other buildings with the lua files of the equivalent buildings of other tribes (for example fishers and woodcutters). Fishers produce between 80 and 100 wares per hour, and woodcutters around 60. Hunters cannot be much faster than woodcutters. Frisian buildings seem to be similar to other buildings here.

I don't know exactly how productive berry farms are, but if I'm not mistaken one farm can be almost be enough for one collector on good soil.

GunChleoc wrote:

GunChleoc wrote:

Also keep in mind that those tips are for beginners - advanced players can of course operate on 0 hammers in reserve where appropriate.

If the beginners play barbarians and frisians, the tip is good. Maybe also for empire. But I don't know if it's a good tip for atlanteans...

As I said, those tips are for beginners. Players with some experience will find out by themselves when they need them. So they will then find out how many hammers they need for Atlanteans too. I am against expanding the tips with lots of exceptions etc, they are supposed to be simple. This is an important tip for beginners.

Okay

In the scenario, the problem isn't simply having no hammer, the problem can also be that the hammer is sitting very far in the East, and it will take time to transport it all the way to the west, even if you order the tools to be sent there first. I had 7 warehouses to cycle through to give those orders, and that also takes time. Anyway, the problem should be solved now, because we're slowing down the flood a bit.

Why do you need the hammers in the west? The port space is in the East, so it makes sense to build the docks in the East. And the flood starts in the west. Or has the scenario been changed?

Because I got my directions switched when I wrote the post.

So that's why, that can happen...

hessenfarmer wrote:

Just another thought:

@ WorldSavior: Do you plan to participate in einsteins tournament?

We'll see. I think that doing this requires a lot of time. At least I don't plan to play frisians there, because the results would be much worse than the results with other tribes...

If (or probably if not as well) would you consider to do at least a 12 hours run with the current frisians to have a benchmark to compare with. At least I choose the frisians and tried my very best but it would be better to have benchmarks from a champion as well in addition to a mediocre benchmark. Of course that would mean we have to redo the whole thing at least another time to test the balancing changes.

Well, 12 hours are very long. Can't we find an easier way for such a comparison?

I will start the branch soon after havi ng completed some string fixes which I currently work on.

Okay

king_of_nowhere wrote:

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese never said that it should make sense that the farms are so slow.... As far as I know... face-wink.png

As far as I remember the growth was slow due to the frisians being a tribe in the north with barley being more robust but slower in growth. There was no discussion about why the farms are slow as well. However my first assumption is always that som ebody who does something is doing this for good reason therefore I prefer asking if a behaviour is intended before denying any sense in it.

i haven't participated in the frisian project for a while, but I was in the concept. the idea was that barley would grow slower but the farm would have the same productivity; it would just need more fields to achieve it. I don't know if they underperform because you made them too close or because they were poorly scripted, or scripted with a different idea.

It seems like they are scripted with a different idea. @Nordfriese: You thought that the production speed of the farm is proportional to the growth speed (generally)? I'm sure now that it's not the case because I made a little experiment.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 21:10

Originally, the frisians_farm and the barleyfield_ were exact copies of the barbarians_farm and wheatfield_ with all times (grain growth and work/sleep times) multiplied by 3. Now, all these times are multiplied by 5 instead and the farm produces one extra barley per field.
Multiplying grain growth and farming speed by the same factor means that the frisian farm needs the same amount of clear space for fields. If the farming speed but not the grain growth was improved, the farm would require more space to work efficiently.
And yes, when considering slowdowns I always think about the times I can get from the lua files – that is, the farm´s sleep+work time and the barley growth time. I´m aware that "production per time" vs "growth time" is not linear. Give me an easy formula to calculate the long-term-average for the output_per_hour from these values and I´ll start thinking in terms of production speed…

By the way, I played frisians (HQ start) against an atlantean trading outpost AI on Fjords and won. This was some time ago, when barley grew slower than now and most construction costs were higher.
I´m also playing a frisians game on The Nile for the tournament, but I don´t know if I´ll have enough time to finish it, as I´m spending the little time I have for Widelands mainly for frisians development (currently chiefly scenario 3).


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 23:19

Nordfriese wrote:

. If the farming speed but not the grain growth was improved, the farm would require more space to work efficiently.

As far as I remember the discussion this was acceptable. Still I would rate a bigger space consumption better than a slower production cycle.

By the way, I played frisians (HQ start) against an atlantean trading outpost AI on Fjords and won. This was some time ago, when barley grew slower than now and most construction costs were higher.

Unfortunately playing against the AI isn't a measure for the balance of the tribe I'm afraid. And the AI isn't a measure for the balance as well as it performs differently with different tribes due to the vast amount of factors it can be influenced by. Currently I think it performs better with frisians on some maps than with atlanteans.
So the only measure for balance is a human player. Even a human benchmark is always biased as well. That is why I am asking for experienced players help when I start the balancing branch. Furthermore even this is not enough as WorldSavior correctly stated there are different win conditions.
Conclusion is we will need a lot of playtesting to balance the frisians. We will need a lot of theoretical calculations tom reduce the effort for playtesting to a bearable amount. We need to focus on specific issues and specific performances step by step. In all this effort we shouldn't loose the character of the tribe and the basic economic challenges of it. This is so complicated that it is only achievable together and it will take a lot of time. Probably the frisians won't be very balanced for Release 20.

I´m also playing a frisians game on The Nile for the tournament, but I don´t know if I´ll have enough time to finish it, as I´m spending the little time I have for Widelands mainly for frisians development (currently chiefly scenario 3).

This effort is really appreciated, especially with the new features you brought into scenario design. Therefore I took the burden to create and moderate the balancing branch and task. However I won't merge any change if you are not content with it, cause it would harm the characer of the tribe, which you know best.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2018-04-17, 23:29

hessenfarmer wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

. If the farming speed but not the grain growth was improved, the farm would require more space to work efficiently.

As far as I remember the discussion this was acceptable. Still I would rate a bigger space consumption better than a slower production cycle.

That's map-dependent. on good land, it's basically the same; you need more space to produce the same amount of barley. on bad terrain, you can build your farms at the edge of mountains or deserts so that the extra space required won't be stolen from other buildings. In such maps, bigger space consumption is much better than slower production. If I am correct, frisians are supposed to be good in large, bad terrain, and that was the concept for the farms.

But I believe in order to work effectively frisian farms should be somewhat more efficient than those of other tribes, if given the extra space required. I think "needs 6 fields to work at 100% but makes one barley in 70 seconds " (it's 4 fields and 80 seconds for other tribes, 100 for barbarians) would be a good target


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