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Topic: Loosing Soldiers as Refugees

Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733
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One Elder of Players
Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2010-04-29, 19:19

At some point in a game I usually need to attack an enemy because I need a little more room for another building and not because I am prepared to invade his territory for a final battle.

The way the border changes in WL can sometimes make this a frustrating experience - there is no way to get "a little" more space. The game tends to give you a good bit more (if you can conquer several buildings) or nothing at all (if your soldiers can only take one).

I dont want to dicuss that feature here, as I can see its benefits. But part of the game's behavior is, that you can rarely connect your most peripheral conquered military site to you street system. As a consequence there will be no replacement troups and you will most likely loose the soldiers in that building during ongoing enemy assaults.

In a situation like this, I would often prefer to burn down that building - a retreat, before all my soldiers therein are lost. And now finally here comes my point: I you do that, about half of them get refugees and will be lost. That hurts. And there is not much you can do.

Has anyone found a good solution for this?

Can it be improved - perhaps by giving soldiers of larger range of sight, so that they can see their home flags more easily?


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367
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Posted at: 2010-04-30, 15:34

Are you playing with build 15 or with trunk? We talked about this some time ago, and I've already modified the behavior in trunk so that fugitives have a much bigger chance of finding home.

Another tip is that fugitives are looking for flags with a connection to one of your warehouses. So by just building a couple of flags directly at your border that are connected to your main road network, you can also increase the chance of them returning home.


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Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733
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Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2010-04-30, 18:42

I'm currently playing the 5280 (Tino's W32 package) The observation is from that version and the ones slighly older. Those soldier have a tendency to always start out in the wrong direction face-smile.png

Yes, I have discovered that flags help, and I try to build a "safety fence" for my soldiers --- if that is possible. Thanks for the tip anyway.


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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mitchix

Joined: 2010-05-01, 18:22
Posts: 7
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2010-05-01, 19:41

this is going to be fun to explain...

the person attacking from south to north or from east to west has an unfair advantage with Conquered buildings.. i'll see if i can make asc art work

(asc art sucks sorry)

legend

defenders border = .

attackers border = -

building = b

road = r

s (filler to get it all to line-up)

pic of attack from south to north borders

sss.......

sss.-----.

sss.- b -.

.....- r -......

----- r -------

attack from north to south borders

----- b -------

.....- r -......

sss.- r -.

sss.-----.

sss.......

what this shows is that when attacking from the south you can connect to your newly conquered building to send reinforcements etc...

while when attacking from the north you can't... this creates unbalance in game play..

soldiers already have logic to travel without roads they will use closest road if they can... or just path to the target...

so make this universal for soldiers then borders/roads won't matter (add they move @ 1/4 speed off road maybe)

only other easy fix i can thing of would be make space around conquered buildings, but still advantage will still be to the attackers from south/east since there will never be anything blocking the entrance to the building...

something will get figured out...


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Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733
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Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2010-05-10, 08:15

ixprefect wrote: ... and I've already modified the behavior in trunk so that fugitives have a much bigger chance of finding home.

True, it has become a lot better. But with the weird zig zag that the border tends to make, there still are some situations where it's pretty hopeless.


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367
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Tribe Member
Posted at: 2010-05-10, 11:23

I think the default line of sight for workers is 2. I personally wouldn't mind increasing that to 3 for soldiers. It's a small increase, but the way the fugitive code works it should give a significant boost to the chance of your soldiers finding home.


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Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733
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One Elder of Players
Location: Frankfurt / Germany
Posted at: 2010-05-10, 17:56

If this was a value in a conf file, it could be tested easily, but I dont think it is. I'd gladly test the new value if the change is released.


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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