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Topic: Report Frisians Playing

hessenfarmer
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Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16
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Posted at: 2018-09-19, 08:03

WorldSavior wrote:

Is there any reason why the campaigns should be played after each other? For me it looks like it would be better if all four of them would be independent from each other, if I don't overlook something.

There was a reason in the past when the barbarian campaign was used as tutorial. But this reason has gone imho. So I really would vote for having all of them visible but only the first scenario of each campaign playable. the next scenarios should be either invisible or greyed out.


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Fresenius
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Joined: 2018-08-26, 09:45
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Posted at: 2018-09-19, 11:05

GunChleoc believes there is educational value in the succession. I can see the reason for playing Barbarians first as they were the historical first and the missions there in particular explanatory (though I believe they need an overhaul). So if you say the new user shall relive the game history, then this progression makes a lot of sense! I'm not against this but I also see value in the freedom of choice.

What we can take from here is, I believe, that:
- an option for unlocking all missions shall be implemented (I would prefer the program options as location)
- all locked missions (including perhaps tribes' first missions) are displayed greyed out. You can still consider whether or what explanatory texts shall be visible in a greyed state (as perhaps you don't want to convey too much information in advance).


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Fresenius
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Posted at: 2018-09-19, 11:38

I want to add two more observations for the in-game surface.

1.f - ideally, the button for 'Objectives' could be greyed out and not functional if and as lonmg as it contains no messages (avoid noise).

1.g - it is not obvious for the user whether in the Frisian mines "the main seam is exploited". There is no visible marker for this (as is in other tribes) and the hover-text of the site has a false priority policy in my view. This text "the main seam is exploited" only shows for a very short time in case the mine has supply problems. Then the supply shortage is displayed in priority thus covering the more important "empty state" message. Perhaps something should be done here.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2018-09-19, 11:45

Regarding campaigns order, see also this bug

1f: +1

1g: The mines do look different, though the difference is small. The ladder lies across the entrance to the pit. For the message issue, see this bug


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dreieck
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Joined: 2018-08-25, 11:48
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Posted at: 2018-09-19, 18:54

Fresenius wrote:

If I may mention something, in my latest version of the game I can't find the ominous "mission", probably an introductory mission, in the overview of the campaign screen. So what I'm saying is that I don't have access to the Frisian campaign (though I had been interested and was searching).

You can enable the missions by hand, without the need to play other missions before.

On my unix system, I needed to edit the file ${HOME}/.widelands/save/campvis and changed the values after the campaigns and missions from false to true.


(empty signature.)

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2018-09-24, 12:32

1f: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/1794061


Busy indexing nil values

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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-05-15, 22:27

I'll reopen this old thread (if there are newer ones for frisian balance, point me to the correct places) to add a couple of observations and a general balancing idea.

first, berry farms and fruit collectors have a problem in that the collector has the same range of the farm. this means that, since you can't build the two on top on each other, there is always the chance that the berry farm will plant a bush outside of reach of the fruit collector. I find this a little nuisance that adds nothing to the game in terms of planning or decision-making. So I would propose to increase the action radius of the fruit collector and beekeeper from 4 to 8.

Second, the swords have a very light image, especially the broadsword. while they look good, the problem is that when looking at a training camp it is difficult to tell if the sword slots are empty or full. I kept a training camp stopped for half an hour waiting for the swords before realizing that they were already there. Something should be done to make them more visible. Maybe give them a hilt of a strong color (say, red) that would make them stand out from the background.

Third, as a general concept, the frisians need a lot of different buildings - they have more buildings than any other tribe - and many of those also require more space - most notably the farms. I think as a point of balance frisian buildings should work faster, so that the overall economy performance would be balanced with the other tribes. In particular, I found it takes an ungodly amount of mines, furnaces, and armor smiths to feed a single training site. this should be cut down to something more reasonable.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-05-16, 00:50

king_of_nowhere wrote:

I'll reopen this old thread (if there are newer ones for frisian balance, point me to the correct places)

"Frisian Balancing" is a newer thread, I guess

to add a couple of observations and a general balancing idea.

first, berry farms and fruit collectors have a problem in that the collector has the same range of the farm.

I disagree, the collectors have two more range points, so they can collect everything if you place them directly next to the farm. But I wonder if berry farms are efficient enough. Even if you have good soil they are ineffective, and then there can be maps whith very bad soil which makes it even worse.

Third, as a general concept, the frisians need a lot of different buildings - they have more buildings than any other tribe - and many of those also require more space - most notably the farms. I think as a point of balance frisian buildings should work faster, so that the overall economy performance would be balanced with the other tribes. In particular, I found it takes an ungodly amount of mines, furnaces, and armor smiths to feed a single training site. this should be cut down to something more reasonable.

Yes, for example honey bread bakeries are very slow, and training consumes a lot of food, and there is no cheap evade training and so forth. At the other hand, a pair of Frisian trainingssites trains supersoldiers faster than any other pair of trainingssites. But this is not reason enough...


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-05-16, 06:39

first, berry farms and fruit collectors have a problem in that the collector has the same range of the farm.

I disagree, the collectors have two more range points, so they can collect everything if you place them directly next to the farm. But I wonder if berry farms are efficient enough. Even if you have good soil they are ineffective, and then there can be maps whith very bad soil which makes it even worse.

The radius is fine, trouble only arises if you place them far apart. I usually have 3 farms for 2 collectors running smoothly, but the berry farm could be made a bit faster

Second, the swords have a very light image, […] Maybe give them a hilt of a strong color (say, red) that would make them stand out from the background.

OK, I´m going to redesign the worker icons anyway soon, I´ll change the swords as well then

Yes, for example honey bread bakeries are very slow, and training consumes a lot of food

OK, which buildings should be sped up?

  • Honey bread bakery and mead brewery

  • Smokery?

  • Normal bakery and brewery are fine IMHO

  • Tavern/drinking hall are also fine

  • Armour smithies already were greatly sped up, not again please

  • Furnaces could be improved


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-05-16, 09:24

king_of_nowhere wrote:

Third, as a general concept, the frisians need a lot of different buildings - they have more buildings than any other tribe - and many of those also require more space - most notably the farms. I think as a point of balance frisian buildings should work faster, so that the overall economy performance would be balanced with the other tribes. In particular, I found it takes an ungodly amount of mines, furnaces, and armor smiths to feed a single training site. this should be cut down to something more reasonable.

The Frisian farm for example is already faster than the barbarian one so a Frisian farmer needs 66 seconds + 2 times walking time + 3,6 s to produce 2 barley (you need to take into account that they are always producing 2 barley in one cycle) a brabrian farm needs 48 s + 2 times walking time to produce 1 wheat. Furthermore the Frisian farms don't need their complete working area to be productive, so you can overlap their working areas very good. Normally in a long road I overlap them to just touch the adjacent building. most effective if you squeeze a beekeeper in between somewhere. Only thing about barley is it takes longer to grow so it takes time to reach the Harvest cycle which means the farmer has planted more fields than he can harvest. But you could use them with the second farm in a row.

I would like to continue the balancing discussion in the balancing thread though.


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