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Topic: Zero capacity for military buildings

ypopezios
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Posted at: 2018-05-16, 15:46

Is there a good reason that already occupied military buildings cannot be set to 0 capacity (like warehouses can)?


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einstein13
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Posted at: 2018-05-16, 16:01
  1. The military building should be occupied to be treated as military one (a bit of reality here). Imagine that a barracks in Iraq are empty. They will no longer be barracks face-smile.png .
  2. Easy to conquer Widelands empire with empty military buildings. You can conquer with speed of 1.8 unit/sec whole empire.

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Ex-Member
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Posted at: 2018-05-16, 16:20

Perhaps warehouses, or definitely ports, should be military buildings as well? They do store soldiers and currently players have no control of them.


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ypopezios
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Posted at: 2018-05-16, 17:27

einstein13 wrote:

The military building should be occupied to be treated as military one (a bit of reality here).

Couldn't we say the same for any other building? Why not enforcing minimum occupation to all buildings or none instead?

einstein13 wrote:

Imagine that a barracks in Iraq are empty. They will no longer be barracks face-smile.png .

If I'm not mistaken, there were many empty military structures in Iraq. There are many in my empir...err...country too. Guess what? All of them are deep inside the country.

einstein13 wrote:

Easy to conquer Widelands empire with empty military buildings. You can conquer with speed of 1.8 unit/sec whole empire.

Nobody will obligate people to empty their military buildings. Actually, the inverse is true: The other time I conquered without effort an HQ empty of soldiers, no matter it was surrounded by many military buildings, which could not defend it because they were all filled with 1 soldier each. That doesn't pass reality check...

Tinker wrote:

Perhaps warehouses, or definitely ports, should be military buildings as well? They do store soldiers and currently players have no control of them.

That has been suggested in the past. I'm not against control, but that should include emptying it.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2018-05-16, 20:53

put that way, I'm not against setting 0 military capacity. Could make sense, you build a second line of defence and leave it unmanned unless you actually need it. Right now you'd have to assign a low soldier to it, which isn't a big deal anyway, so from game perspective there is little difference


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2018-05-17, 08:03

Well, Widelands is not realistic, it's a computer game. Removing the minimum requirement of 1 soldier would change the game's strategy. It's an obstacle to overcome that wouldn't be there any more.

We'd also need to differentiate between 0 soldiers (currently not occupied) and 0 soldiers (was never occupied). Otherwise, the enemy could instantly attack any finished militarysite before the player has had a change to send some soldiers there.

Tinker wrote:

Perhaps warehouses, or definitely ports, should be military buildings as well? They do store soldiers and currently players have no control of them.

This has been on our wishlist forever and there's a blueprint and an open bug for this on Launchpad.


Busy indexing nil values

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ypopezios
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Posted at: 2018-05-17, 13:17

GunChleoc wrote:

Removing the minimum requirement of 1 soldier would change the game's strategy. It's an obstacle to overcome that wouldn't be there any more.

A player who needs the last soldier of a building will probably destroy it. The AI may dismantle it (although it won't be quick enough). I don't see how that affects strategy at all. It seems to me like an artificial requirement left from the time that territory-control needed permanent military buildings. This is why I made the initial question of this thread, to see if I'm missing something basic.

GunChleoc wrote:

We'd also need to differentiate between 0 soldiers (currently not occupied) and 0 soldiers (was never occupied). Otherwise, the enemy could instantly attack any finished militarysite before the player has had a change to send some soldiers there.

They should rather be identical. An empty military building should become like a never occupied finished military site (flag down, non-attackable, no territory-control, vulnerable to enemy's expansion). In other words, like it got destroyed by the player and immediately rebuilt. No need for special third state to implement or teach to players.


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2018-05-17, 17:56

What is the benefit of your suggestion?


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

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ypopezios
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Posted at: 2018-05-17, 18:27

kaputtnik wrote:

What is the benefit of your suggestion?

This thread started with the inverse question ("What is the benefit of the restriction?"), for me to see if I miss something. If it turns out that there is no good reason for the restriction, then I could think of a few benefits from removing it:

  • Unoccupied buildings cost less CPU time.
  • Consistency with other buildings.
  • Availability of more transferable soldiers, both for training and fighting.
  • If the player changes his mind, there is still a building to use.
  • Easier identification of front-line regions.
  • Easier programming of better AI.
  • Potential for some special scenario, where the player has to decide which part of an existing empire to protect.

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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2018-05-17, 20:57

ypopezios wrote:

kaputtnik wrote:

What is the benefit of your suggestion?

This thread started with the inverse question ("What is the benefit of the restriction?"), for me to see if I miss something. If it turns out that there is no good reason for the restriction, then I could think of a few benefits from removing it:

I don't see a restriction... A building becomes 'working' when the needed person come to it. If it is a bakery, smeltingworks or sentry. All production buildings without the needed worker do not work. So why should a military building do 'work' if no soldier is in it?

Military buildings have the task to enlarge and safe your territory. So they are needed mainly at the border. Normally (from my perspective, and i think most good players do think the same) military buildings deep inside your territory have no reasons to be there. Usually i dismantle them to get back some wares and the soldiers.

Depending on this thought, and with regard to your suggestion, i should leave military buildings empty on the border?

  • Unoccupied buildings cost less CPU time.

Has to be evaluated how much CPU time it costs

  • Consistency with other buildings.

As explained there is a consistency with other buildings (at least production sites). A comparison 'Warehouse <-> Military Building' isn't satisfying, imho.

  • Availability of more transferable soldiers, both for training and fighting.

As explained: if you dismantle military buildings deep inside your territory, you get also the soldiers back. If you'r lacking soldiers, you've made a failure with your economy.

  • If the player changes his mind, there is still a building to use.
  • Easier identification of front-line regions.

I don't understand this point.

  • Easier programming of better AI.

Has to be answered by Tibor.

  • Potential for some special scenario, where the player has to decide which part of an existing empire to protect.

Isn't this also true right now?

Sorry, but i see currently no good reasons for implementing your suggestion. Just my opinion face-smile.png


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

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