Speeding up battles
 

Heya all. As a lover of Dominions 1, I was very happy to see that Dom 2 has been out for some time, and even happier to see these forums. However, after trying the demo, I have a major complaint (well, its major to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

In Dom 1, you could speed up battles greatly using the number keys 1 through 0, 0 being fastest. However, this doesnt seem to work in Dom 2, which is very disappointing to me. Why? Because I like to watch battles in fast mode to see which units are holding up their end and which arent. The pace in the Dom 2 demo seems *very* slow, with all movement stopping every time someone casts flare, and I really miss this feature. Will it be making a return, or is it already there and I am just missing it somehow? This makes the game pretty much unplayable for my 3d-shooter saturated brain. Thanks!

Re: Speeding up battles
 

This is one of the most-repeated requests by players new to Dom 2 ...

Re: Speeding up battles
 

I agree. A speed up option would be very nice. In one very long siege vs. an enemy pretender, for example, I won and the enemy pretender died, but I missed exactly how he died. The battle was so slow I didn't feel like viewing it again, probably multiple times, to figure out what happened.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

I have found that turning off the background speed up the combat considerably, at least for me. But for the life of me, I can't recall what the keyboard command is to do that... "b" or "v"? (It's late, and I'm quite sleepy, so please forgive me...)

EDIT: Just checked it, it is "w". Zzz...

-Gateway103

[ March 01, 2004, 07:43: Message edited by: Gateway103 ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">its the sole major complaint I have against dom2, and I played dom1 one year and a half before http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ah poo. Guess I'll be sticking to Dom 1 then. Thanks!

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It's your money, but isn't that a bit extreme? Sure, it's annoying but http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Its EXTREMELY annoying. Im thinking of shelving the game until it is fixed.

70% of the battles i dont even bother to watch, which is a damn shame as it is a huge part of the enjoyment.
It also makes the learning curve higher, obviously.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

The problem is indeed that to play the game as it is meant to be played, eg as a game full of subtleties, with magic often prevalent in victory you have to watch battles, so that you understand the finner mechanics of dominions.

But when battles drags for minutes, because arrows flies at a leasury pace, or because the squads are moving one by one... Yaaawnn, its rather detrimental to the game.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Does that mean that its getting fixed? That would be radical, because I really do like the game. Watching battles is part of the fun, but many you just want to skim to see if anything major happened, while you might want to watch a battle involving your Pretender in every detail. It's just too annoying for me to deal with, when the same feature was already in Dom 1.

Heres to hoping..

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Does that mean that its getting fixed? That would be radical, because I really do like the game. Watching battles is part of the fun, but many you just want to skim to see if anything major happened, while you might want to watch a battle involving your Pretender in every detail. It's just too annoying for me to deal with, when the same feature was already in Dom 1.

Heres to hoping.. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If they are professional developers they will of course fix it. Arent they pros? Any huge flaws like this should of course be adressed.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Depends on how "pro" is defined. If it's defined as someone who has successfully made a product for commercial sale, then yes. If it's defined as someone who makes their livelihood from programming, then no. The devs at IW do the programming in their spare time. They each work other day jobs that have nothing to do with IW and gaming.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

That actually explains a lot... There are many small imperfections, that has puzzled me as to why they haven´t been fixed.

But the overall product is so awesome and addictive its strange they havent been headhunted to a bigger company.

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Not everything is also considered a 'flaw' in the game, especially by developers. There is also the time to fix vs actual time able to try ratio.

If the qualifier of a pro is to pander to customers, there are certainly alot of unprofessional people out there making a ton of money from people who buy their product.

[ March 03, 2004, 04:29: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Then don't sell the product at a pro's price. I would not buy a full price car, discover that they forgot to put in blinkers, and say, "Hey, this company is different, they only make cars in their spare time, so it's okay."

I'll cut a little slack here because the developers seem to be decent people who are trying to help, but I'm getting sick of the "it's not their full time job" argument. I paid more for this game than I do for most others; I can trade somewhat crappy graphics and interface for a better game (which I believe is the case), but some things, like being able to watch a core event of the game in a reasonable period of time without tearing out hair should be non-negotiable.

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Thats a minor flaw for such a comment about price. Well ok it seems to be major for a few but they know what they can do about it. Ive paid as much for games with much more damaging flaws than that.

As to the battle speeds....
Try changing the graphics setting to lower-res, try turning off other programs you have running, try zooming in on the battles (use pageUp and pageDown along with the arrow keys), turn off the background with the w key.

Mostly I find that having fewer different types of archers on the field makes the biggest difference.

As to the price, Illwinter didnt set the price. Shrapnel did. All Illwinter had to do with it was going to a publisher instead of offering it at their web site and that was in response to us. The Users of Dominions 1. If you want to compare the price to publisher things like advertising or packaging or Online orders then be my guest.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

I guess you missed the fact that, despite it's flaws, which aren't major (unlike what many of those so-called "pro" games you are probably thinking of have), Dominions II has garnered at least 3 "best game" awards from major magazines. The game is worth every penny of its price, and then some, given how many hours of play it provides. If the game wasn't as deep and rich as it is, then it wouldn't be worth the price. But it is deep and rich, which is why I presume you bought it.

I find that the people who complain the most about the speed of things are those that are "attention-challenged", as are many RTS and FPS players. Most of these sorts of players have almost no patience, and little appreciation for things that aren't glitzy and that are "too complex", like most turn-based games.

The price of Dominions II is based on the value of what the game gives you, not how "fancy" its graphics or UI are. There is also the economic concept of the "economies of scale". Bigger companies with more people and money to throw at a project can afford to make the fancy UIs and such, and sell the game at the same price as a game like Dom because they will make things up in volume.

Finally, Dom is a niche product. Niche products, of any sort, including cars, cost more than average products.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You need to read what people are posting; you are dropping into fanboy defense mode and generating scripted responses to non-existent arguments no matter what was actually posted.

For example, my post had nothing to do with RTS versus turn based. I've been playing turn based games since the Apple II days. I have concentration. However, not wanting to wait 10 seconds everytime a flight of arrows launches in a large battle is not the same as not getting the value of turn based gaming. You are making a straw-man argument (I guess you are a click-kiddy and not intellectual enough, go back to playing Command and Conquer) instead of responding.

I admitted what you said. The battle speed issue, however, is not a minor graphics issue or UI issue; it is a flaw. Things like not being able to tell an Ulm blackplate from the corresponding regular unit without burning out your eyes squinting at the screen are also flaws, although lesser in my view.

[ March 03, 2004, 14:30: Message edited by: Sly Frog ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

The speed of the battles hasn't bothered me at all yet. It could be that I am still learning the game and haven't had any large battles yet, but for now I find myself pausing the action many times during each battle to see how it is unfolding. The archer/crossbow fire is probably the worst part of it, but I do enjoy watching and seeing if any of them make their mark and it allows me to see where they are targetting and observe part of the strategy of my opponent.

Once the battles become tedious and the outcome obvious, I will probably just look at the summary screen of losses and not even play the replay. At least there is this option that is available in the game. Also, and I know this doesn't solve the problem, but can't you immediately interrupt/quit a review of a battle if you don't want to see the rest of it? This would allow you to watch the beginning strategy and initial clash and then abort once you are satisfied with the results.

Personally, I have been looking for a slower game and one that forces me to think more to have success. I would gladly have more detail in the replays vs. more speed. I suppose once my knowledge improves, the battles may seem slow, but it is a minor problem for me anyway overall.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Only since then? You're a youngster. I've been playing them since before the invention of the IC chip. Strategy games pre-date computers. But this is an irrelevant tangent you brought up just to try to impress me. Nice try, but not good enough.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Battle size doesn't make the arrows fly slower on my machine. And they take about 5-6 seconds. I've timed them. Perhaps you need better hardware. Whining about a few seconds per turn, without considering the complexity of the calculations that are being done for each of those arrows, is not being fair to the programmers. I guess if you were a programmer (as I am) you'd have a better appreciation for this. The only legitimate complaint is not having an option to turn the missile animations off, and that might not improve the speed as much as you might want.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've never played C&C. I dislike RTS, and C&C is the worst of that ilk. And I'd be a bit careful about who you call a "kiddy" or "not intellectual". I can assure you that you'd lose on both counts. Not that I care. But you seem to feel the need to act superior to those that hold differing views. Which is a childish attitude, especially ironic given your comments about "kiddies".

For someone who's new to the forum, you're certainly making a nice impression. Good job!

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can exit the replay at any time by pressing the 'q' key. Perhaps Frog doesn't know this ...

Re: Speeding up battles
 

IMO this is a minor but nagging issue. I really would like to be able to see what went right and wrong in my epic games. It's not practical though as things stand to watch an epic battle. For example, I'm playing caleum in my current game, 16 impossible AI's. I just had pretty much the perfect battle with Ermor. Archangel+defending angel unit+90 temple guards+ark killed 2249 units + 34 leaders with no casualties. Obviously I got something very right, but an analysis of what things weren't done (ie were there no archers? no horsemen? etc.) by the other side isn't feasible in a battle that big. I'd be happy with a slider bar that would let me jump around in the battle (like an mpeg).

Obviously this isn't too bad, I still play Dom2 20-30 hours a week http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Cool! <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Me too. It's annoying to replay a battle over and over to see everything that happened. Many people gripe about the replays (due to arrows) taking too long. I'd like an option to be able to slow them down. But, as you suggest, the ideal solution would be to treat the whole thing as a movie, which lets you move forward and back as needed. But I don't think the movie idea would work with the ability to zoom in and out and change the camera angle up and down.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My lord, this is positively hilarious. You literally just proved my point. You did not read my post, you simply assumed what you thought it would say. Reread it, see what it actually says regarding the "click-kiddy" point and whether it was applied to you or implied as an argument you were trying to make against me, and get back to me. Based on the fact that you thought I called you "not intellectual" based on language that was, in fact, suggesting you were implying that of others, I now do have a newly formed viewpoint as to your reading comprehension and intellectual ability.

As for the amount of time playing turn-based games; you are right, it would not have been relevant, if you had not actually BROUGHT UP YOURSELF the presumption that I "didn't get it" because I must be a kid who plays RTSs. Again, you post something irrelevant, and then you act surprised or superior when someone responds and pokes a hole in it.

Another great ASSUMPTION you make; I must have crappy hardware. Instead of using your obviously superior intellect and considering that I might have implied that large battles imply more arrow shots total, leading to more 10 second pauses for arrow flights total than small battles, you assumed I meant that the large battles slowed the time for each arrow flight. Another great ASSUMPTION. I have a P4 2.4 with a TI 4400 video card. If that is "crappy" for purposes of running a turn-based game with the graphics Dominions has, I'm amazed.

It's not a hardware problem, please feel free to throw out another straw-man as to why it cannot possibly be the developer or producer's fault.

You really have a problem. I support this game. I think it is, overall, the best thing to come out in years. I want to see a few things, that I consider decently sized flaws, changed. Yet you savagely attack anyone who even suggests that there is the slightest problem. When games like this fail to catch on, your type is often the cause. Please stop scaring away new blood who might be interested with your foaming speech.

[ March 03, 2004, 16:11: Message edited by: Sly Frog ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

Maybe i am one of those "attention-challenged" people. Or maybe i value my time more than other people. I do not think the speed of the battle is a 'bug', perhaps a 'flaw'. But it definitely is high on my wish list to be changed. Last night i was playing a game, checked my Messages, saw that i captured the castle in Marginon(sp?) (no results other than i captured it, argh!!). The next 3 Messages were telling me how i found magic items. Then i notice that this items were the same as what was on my prophet, how did she die! So i have to watch the whole battle to find out. I outnumbered them 8+ to 1. I had 4 or 5 commanders, they had 10+ commanders plus their pretender (about 12 troops). Every turn would consist of each of their priest/mages casting some fireball/firefly/fire something spell, watching the fireball spell ...slowly...arcing ...thru...the...air, then hitting something (or nothing), then the next spellcaster would cast and slowly watch the graphic. more than 10 times each turn till they fatigue. Plus my 2 archer units, the castle's arrows, my 3 spellcasters, and unit movement. I had to watch the entire battle to find out that the 2nd Last castle firing hits my prophet. I already have the graphics turned lowest in hopes of it being faster (it doesnt really help) and in hopes that i can view the whole battlefield without that darn tree getting in my way ;-).

most of the time i just want to see a specific thing or get a general idea of what went wrong. A speed control on the battle woudl be great!! But i dont think it makes the game unplayable, just have the TV on or have something to read while you are 'watching' it.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I quite understand your frustration. I, too, have had to sit through 20+ rounds of castle assault to see how a particular leader died by castle missiles. But, IMO, speeding up the anims, assuming it's even viable (which I doubt, even if the devs are willing to do it, which they haven't said) may bring on a *new* set of problems. Namely, not being able to tell what is killing what. As has been mentioned, the ideal solution is a variable-speed playback, with rewind ability. That should make everyone happy. Those that prefer to fast-forward and get an overview of what's happened, and those that want to see every Last detail.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

To really speed up your battle replays hit the "w" key. This will hide all 3D things, you'll be left with the combat grid and the bitmaps from the units. Should run pretty fast on every machine.

There was a adjustable speed like in DOM2, but the devs took it out as it caused some bugs which haven't been solved 'til now. (Wonder if they are related to the random-number-problem in the battle engine)

I'm running DOM2 on a P2/400 with 384 MB and W2kSp2, Ge2Ti card, detonator 41.09. Most times I have a mp3 player running too, but still missiles need only 3 sec to cross the whole battlefield from end to end. This is windowed at 1080x810 and low detail, normal filters. So if they take 10 on your 2 GHz machines, you're doing something wrong.

How would you handle spellcasting, if not sequential? Even now there are endless complaints from people who can't understand what is happening during spellcasting - what do you think will happen if all spells of a combat turn will go off at once?


PS: RE-windable combat "replay" isn't possible, as in fact it isn't a re-play, but a re-calculation. Saving all combat data or a video into a savegame is impossible for e-mail game. So essentially a combat is stored as initial random seed and troop setup.

[ March 03, 2004, 16:56: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

The only part of battles that is "too slow" is the "arcing" effects: arrows, shard spells, etc., each of which take 5 seconds or so. There's no question in my mind that this is an issue which should be improved on (someday, even if only for dom3). I have a fast (3.0 GHz, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1 gig RAM) machine. It's clearly not an issue of calculation time, but a choice on the part of the developers.

Possible solutions:

-- hitting a key ends the volley and goes straight to the damage effect animation
-- a slider bar to set speed of volleys
-- a switch to eliminate the volley animations entirely
-- enhanced source and target indicators
-- a rewind / slider bar
-- a text log of effects in combat (like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, where you can go back and review each die roll and modifier)

I'm compiling a list of feature additions/changes I'd like to see, and this is a big one.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

PS: RE-windable combat "replay" isn't possible, as in fact it isn't a re-play, but a re-calculation. Saving all combat data or a video into a savegame is impossible for e-mail game. So essentially a combat is stored as initial random seed and troop setup.


The "jump to the end" and "replay" might be achievable by having the computer run thru the calculations without trying to display it. I dont know if that would be fast enough to be useable. It would probably have to be tested.

[ March 03, 2004, 17:04: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heh, nice to see I'm not the only one to find 10s missile volleys 2-3x too slow. I run a 2.1GHz AMD, 512k RAM, GF4 4400. Dom windowed 1280x1024, at very high graphics detail, with a half-dozen or more apps, including Mozilla, Photoshop, and WinAMP in the background and arrows at most take 6s to reach their max range, usually only 3-4s for a hit at range ~25-30.

You're running it on a system that's only 100MHz faster than the minimum spec, and it blows rings around that P4 2.4 (that has 6x the speed and 20x the CPU power, nevermind the 2 full generations of GF video) ...

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good point, I keep forgetting about the MP aspects. Thanks.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

It would be quite possible if you had to view at normal speed first, but could rewind to anything that you'd already seen (since it would have already been calculated locally). That alone would be a big help -- instead of having to repeatedly rewatch an entire battle for one key point, you could rewind over that one point.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's easy to program.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

That's a great idea, Sand! They could write a new "movie" file whenever a battle is first viewed once through (perhaps even running the first pass at a faster rate). One movie file could be created per each different battle viewed that turn. The movie files would be excluded from MP turn transmissions, and would be deleted by the game whenever you 'host' another turn (so they don't stack up on your drive).

Re: Speeding up battles
 

Oooohhhh and just think of the fun we can have if the movie files could be viewed outside the game! put up on web sites. made part of walk thrus and AARs. Be the starting basis of the Dominions Saturdy Morning Cartoon Show (different thread)

Im not being sarcastic. I really think it would be fun. Does anyone happen to know if there is a 3rd party program which can be used to record the battles to a playable file?

EDITED: I googled and yes such software exists. I will play with some and post what I find to a new topic. Maybe tomorrow

[ March 03, 2004, 17:59: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

Now you have me excited, Gandalf! ...

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm sorry I wasted my time. You really have no hope of ever getting it. I debunk your "you must have an old computer" assumption, and now you literally try to take a complaint about the general speed of combat and ability to conviently use it to tell what is happening, and start fixating on whether something takes at most 6 seconds versus 10 seconds on a reasonable machine.

You have an information intake and processing problem; again, I'm sorry I wasted my time.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

Ug. this debate has turned into the old stale one as before.

SlyFrog, you may be tired that the excuse is that they programmers don't have the time to put forth to the effort of a major company who can do massive updates constantly, or even have the time to figure out how to get to the point where they can update and fix the replay speed.

But the price is the price, obviously if you paid for it you felt it was good enough. I would think that if you did you would feel that the product is good enough to deal with it's 'flaws'.

It's not as if suddenly the entire 'we want battle replay speed' is going to disappear, I just think the developers are tired of hearing and having to defend it, saying the same thing they have said over and over concerning it.

They are obviously continuing to support the product and more than likely intend to well beyond what most 'professional companies' would. And without scheming to get more money out of you.

Battle replay speed adjustment doesn't have anything to do with how fast your computer goes, how fast you see the speed replays, your attention span, or anything of that nature. It has to do with if it can even be programmed within the resources amount of time.

If you can't handle or don't want to accept that the programming in question has limited resources. Then there is nothing anyone can do to convince you otherwise.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">See, this is so much more reasonable. I agree, and again, all told, this is one of the best games to come out. All I am saying is this: I think a lot of people think the lack of combat speed or viewing options is a pretty big detriment. I think they should fix it. I occassionally see people write that, and immediately get shouted down with the "It's not a problem and anyway don't expect them to change it because they are working in a basement and the game is brilliant and we cannot say anything bad or it may disappear into a poof of vapor" speech.

I'm not screaming that it must be done tomorrow. I'm not saying the game sucks. I am saying that every complaint does not need to be shouted down as though it were a fundamental attack on the game, and that at the game's price, I think the complete reliance on the "two guys working in a basement" argument is a little stale. I'm grateful for their efforts, and they seem like decent guys. That does not mean that there aren't some elements that could be improved that, in my opinion, would add a lot of functionality to the game, that probably should have been in there. I do not like to have people posting legitimate problems with the game shouted down. The developers should know if people think something is an issue. Not harassed and hounded with it day and night, but reminded from time to time.

A reasoned response like yours is a lot more palatable than what I have been seeing (not from the developers, they seem pretty decent too, although I wish they would give more of a commitment or answer to whether they will make the changes).

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Sly Frog, I agree. I've got a big list of "stuff I'd like to see", and I'm a little hesitant to post it now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif , but I'm not expecting any of it to show up any time soon. Rather, I'm providing feedback to the developers of such a fine game for them to use as they see fit.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On this I 100% agree. And have from the beginning that if it can, it should be fixed. If it can't, then is another story.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree that nudging reminders should be given, and they are for the most part. You see the same threads popping up every so often so it would be hard to miss. Most of the time they usually go into a "Yeah, I agree this ..."

I don't believe that the 'excuse' of 2 guys in their basement with a dog and a fish programming is an excuse, as much as a limitation. I think that while a little zealous people are trying to tell people what they themselves never knew and were frustrated with the game. I agree they could be a little more reasonable though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think this falls into the classic developer/customer logic. Developers don't want you to know what they are working on, in part for the surprise factor, in part because constant updates take away from their time programming, and Lastly because it spawns so much debate, flames, and other things.

While I feel this forum is mostly free of that, it's probably just another headache of "Why don't you do this, why don't you do that", "How come you are working on x, when y is so much more important" that the developers want to avoid.

[ March 03, 2004, 18:57: Message edited by: Zen ]

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Cool!

Quote:

I'd be happy with a slider bar that would let me jump around in the battle (like an mpeg).

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Me too. It's annoying to replay a battle over and over to see everything that happened. Many people gripe about the replays (due to arrows) taking too long. I'd like an option to be able to slow them down. But, as you suggest, the ideal solution would be to treat the whole thing as a movie, which lets you move forward and back as needed. But I don't think the movie idea would work with the ability to zoom in and out and change the camera angle up and down. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, how much more space would the turn files take (they're already rather large) if, instead of just the battle's initial placement, they included the situation at the start of each turn of each battle? that should let the battle replay "jump" to any single turn of the battle with no additional calculations, which would help a lot with the battle replays (right now, if you want to watch something in a battle and miss it, you have to restart the replay from the beginning!)...

Battles, especially large battles, tend to Last what, 10-20 turns? If the result is to make the turn files 10 times larger, I guess that's not feasible (but I don't know how much of the file is battle placement... I just had a look at my "UlmWorld" game files - World map, about turn 90), and the .trn files are about 360KB, while the .2h files are about 160KB.

Still, there might be another solution, like doing the "battle effect" computations at the start of the replay, and storing the exact state of the battle at the start of each round. Obviously, the complete movement of arrows is just graphical display, and does not need to be stored - it can be recomputed on the fly. It might add a few seconds of precomputation for each battle, but then the battle could be replayed at leisure.

And, adding an option to turn off missile/spell volley would be nice. I like the Spirit Helmet, but since each and every one of them fires in its own time slot, it just makes battles unbearably sllooooooow...


I'm not a (real) programmer, but I really believe an at least partial fix to the battle replay thing should be doable with reasonable effort. I mean, the battle results have already been computed, with no display, and they're being re-computed, with display. There shouldn't be that much of a difference...

Re: Speeding up battles
 

Phil,

I suggested a *separate* file, not one of the 3 current ones. And it should be an option that could be disabled (for those that have small hard drives). Personally, space isn't an issue. Hard disks today are huge, and compared to most games I have, Dom 2 is tiny, and so are the Dom 2 saves. Even 80-100 saved Dom turns don't eat up much space. Not compared to saves for games like CoD, KOTOR, DXIW, etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Speeding up battles
 

Arryn, dont forget people with a modem (not me). Perhaps having a turn file of one meg would bother them.
But the position being stored at very start of a round seems to be a good one.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not forgetting at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I have already said, twice, that I suggest SEPARATE movie files, that are not a part of the MP turn system. I don't know how much clearer I can say it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Speeding up battles
 

What do you mean by separate? Done from existing files by the game or by manually using that program Gandalf has found? Or a script/ macro/ whatever that uses Gandalf's program automatically with every battle?

Just interested.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My original proposal, before Gandalf found a util, is for Dom 2 to create an entirely new type of file, completely unrelated to the 3 turn files, that is only created if:

1. the option for "turn movies" is enabled,
2. a particular battle report is viewed.

For a given turn, assuming you have the feature turned on, and you viewed 5 battles, you'd get 5 separate movie files put somewhere in the Dom directory structure. Players can save these files if they wish, they same way we do now with turn files (by zip, or by DomSaver). When you "host", the game would delete these "temporary" movie files, just so that they don't clutter up your drive. The movie files are strictly local, and not involved in game play (SP or MP) at all. It's just something for the player to look at.

EDIT: To clarify, the movie files are generated based on the data that is already being stored in the game's turn file. It saves viewing time by not having the computer regenerate each battle each time it's to be viewed. The game only does it the first time. After that, you can use the movie file to review the battle and do the normal things you do with movies (fast-forward, rewind, etc.)

If the devs don't want to add this feature, for whatever reason, then I hope that we fans can do something. I'm anxiously waiting to hear what Gandalf will have to say tomorrow ...

[ March 03, 2004, 20:30: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: Speeding up battles
 

There are a couple of shareware solutions to grabbing a video from the current screen (somewhat like capturing a screenshot). My personal favourite, Fraps, requires little enough overall computer power that it's running just fine alongside everything I launch at it. That's a hassle for normal battle reviews, though... start the game, open the battlereport, hit the key to start recording, hit the key to stop recording, minimize Dominions, get out your movie-viewer, launch the captured file, and then jump to the position you want to see again... hrmmm... Can we have adjustable battle-replay-speed like in DomI? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Something that isn't part of the game engine would be mostly useless, IMHO. If you decide to watch a battle replay closely, you'll want to click on units to see what their current state is; you won't be able to do this if you simply capture the movie.

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is correct. besides, I don't actually want to 'watch' the battle replays (although it's fun).

What I want to do is READ the battle replay. So something that generated a text file with all the 'to-hit' rolls, damge, current state of the unit, etc. Basicaly a blow-by-blow text account of the battle would be awesome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Speeding up battles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK I have to agree with everything here. For one thing FRAPS does seem to be the winner so far.
http://www.fraps.com/download.htm
But I will keep looking. For another thing a recording isnt going to be very good. You lose ability to zoom in, check units, all the nice in-game options. Some sort of "movie viewer" option would be needed if Dominions made us a movie. If all its going to do is record the video then FRAPS will do it fine.