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Topic: High speed Widelands

WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2018-11-07, 22:12

Trunk brings the command "auto_speed" which will let run many games automatically at a speed of 30 times standard speed (in most cases). This is not only useful for testing, but also for playing. It offers some big advantages, for example the AI is much more challenging there, and the matches don't consume that much time. (So two of the biggest disadvantages of Widelands are removed in that mode.)

But there is a problem: Recently I saw a bug report which says that it doesn't work at all if several human players play at once. So maybe an option in all games - "minimum speed" with zero speed as default - would be nice to have?


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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kaputtnik
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Joined: 2013-02-18, 20:48
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Posted at: 2018-11-07, 22:52

I am feeling not understanding your proposal, because if human players are playing, they should all agree on a speed. And this is already implemented i think?

A problem can be if a multiplayer game sets some AIs?


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2018-11-07, 23:25

30x? In the first hour of game, I find it already difficult to play 2x. No, thanks. I like something slow-paced. If I wanted something requiring 500 inputs per minute, I'd be playing starcraft


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stonerl
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Joined: 2018-07-30, 00:03
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Posted at: 2018-11-07, 23:32

I filed the bug report WorldSavior mentioned. The description for the --auto_speed argument is a little misleading. It is only supposed to work with local multiplayer ( in the sense of ONE computer) or train the AI.

So it isnt't really a bug. Only a matter of an ambiguous description, I'd say.

@WorldSavior: I don't get your proposal. With Page Up Page Down the speed can already be increased or decreased. And in multiplayer it is consensus between all participating players that sets the speed.

As a side note; I don't think that the slow paced gameplay of Widelands is a disadvantage. That is one of the main reasons I like the game.


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2018-11-08, 09:43

The original reason for the auto-speed is to make AI training as fast as possible, depending on the computer's resources. For normal games, how is this varying speed better for you rather than hitting the page up/page down button?


Busy indexing nil values

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Tibor

Joined: 2009-03-23, 23:24
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Posted at: 2018-11-08, 12:04

The auto-speed just tries to keep fps in some range, about 14-17, and this is just approximate metric measuring how CPU copes with the game.

And this can be problem in multi-PC games, when PC's CPUs have varius performance and thus trying to force various speed, I think.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2018-11-08, 13:05

kaputtnik wrote:

I am feeling not understanding your proposal, because if human players are playing, they should all agree on a speed. And this is already implemented i think?

For true Speed-Widelands it must be impossible to lower the speed. And it's useful if the game is automatically very fast, because otherwise one has to speed it up manually.

A problem can be if a multiplayer game sets some AIs?

Why?

king_of_nowhere wrote:

30x? In the first hour of game, I find it already difficult to play 2x. No, thanks. I like something slow-paced. If I wanted something requiring 500 inputs per minute, I'd be playing starcraft

... or ultra fast chess face-wink.png

stonerl wrote:

@WorldSavior: I don't get your proposal. With Page Up Page Down the speed can already be increased or decreased.

See my explanation above

And in multiplayer it is consensus between all participating players that sets the speed.

I don't think so, it's not consensus but compromise with some special cases.

As a side note; I don't think that the slow paced gameplay of Widelands is a disadvantage. That is one of the main reasons I like the game.

Even though that can make Widelands very time-consuming?

GunChleoc wrote:

For normal games, how is this varying speed better for you rather than hitting the page up/page down button?

See above


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einstein13
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Posted at: 2018-11-08, 15:22

Old Settlers II games could last for 12 hours or even more. And players were very happy. Of course, "valid" speed was only 1x or 2x, but computers in that times were also much slower than today (even 50 times slower). I can't hear any voice against S2 because of that speed. I could hear voices about the gameplay mechanics. (matter of taste).

Why I am talking about S2 here? Because Widelands bases mostly on that mechanics. Fast games that last less than 4 hours are only because we found them. But some of the players (me included) like long games more than short ones. I like to build up an empire where all my workers are going happy and my economy is set up properly. With no rush. Of course that is not the solution to win with you, but it is my solution to have fun.

Maybe that is the reason why some of us are arguing with you, WorldSavior. They just don't see the reason of such an option. Minimum speed is something most of players will not ever use. Maybe better solution is to add a "default speed" option that will be useful for changing a bit how compromise of speed will be calculated?


einstein13
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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2018-11-09, 08:12

I still think we could have a low-tech solution here: Everybody in the game agrees in chat on using a minimum speed of x before the game starts.

And if you're playing against AIs only, you can just use the auto-speed option on the commandline anyway.

If we should decide to implement this option, there should be an setting in the game setup screen too.

Edited: 2018-11-09, 08:16

Busy indexing nil values

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Ex-Member
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Joined: 2014-09-12, 10:53
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Posted at: 2018-11-09, 10:58

I think this just highlights the fact that one or two people seem to want to play a different game and try to bully devs into to creating the game they want. Many people are happy with standard speed and with games that take take many hours, or days, to finish.

I would suggest that if someone wants a combat game that is played at 30X then they should not be looking at widelands, which is supposed to be a slow paced economy building game.


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