Speeding up battles

[Arryn]

FRAPS is a handy snapshot tool, even if you use it for nothing else.

[ March 03, 2004, 23:04: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[alexti]

Originally posted by PhilD:
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...

Current turn files may not contain actual unit placement (I don't know if they do, but it is not necessary to store them). The user can only control placement of commanders and squads which implies that the initial placement of all units can be reconstructed from these data. During the battle each unit moves on its own, thus the state after each round of the battle has to be saved completely, which will make it large (and what's worse Illwinter may not have code that can do it, meaning that it will require additional development).

I don't think that there's a need to pass this information, because it can be recomputed locally. It is drawing that slows down the battle replay, not computations. For example, on Orania map one turn hosting (about turn 80) takes 1-2 minutes (on my computer). This includes 6-10 battles with my participation with 1 or 2 including large number of units. With about 10 nations left, this means that an approximate total of 8*10/2 = 40 battles is processed including 7-8 large ones. It's easy to see that the large battle resolution isn't taking more than 5-10 seconds. So the state of the battle after every round can be calculated locally.

More difficult question is how to manage these data, depending on the internal program organization it may vary from very easy to very hard. But developers mentioned that the feature was in game, but was pulled out because of bugs.
And considering that recently Johan K. made few comments implying that he was using unpatched MSVC (ouch!) with unpatched STL, I believe our prospects of getting advanced battle replay capabilities are good

[Arryn]

Originally posted by alexti:
More difficult question is how to manage these data, depending on the internal program organization it may vary from very easy to very hard. But developers mentioned that the feature was in game, but was pulled out because of bugs.
And considering that recently Johan K. made few comments implying that he was using unpatched MSVC (ouch!) with unpatched STL, I believe our prospects of getting advanced battle replay capabilities are good

I'm glad you reminded me of this. I have a hard time understanding why they haven't patched the heck out of MSVC. Unpatched it was buggy as a swamp. It took over a year of patches to stabilize MSVC6 (aka MSDEV98) to the point where MSVC5 was at the time v6 was released. It would not surprise me if some of their problems were to "magically" disappear once they applied the latest patch set to MSVC6.

[alexti]

Originally posted by Arryn:
I have a hard time understanding why they haven't patched the heck out of MSVC. Unpatched it was buggy as a swamp.

Keeping up with MS bug fixes is a full-time job. And Illwinter only has one "part-time" programmer

[ZJ]

Yes, the battles in this game are way too slow when several types of archers or just a few spirit helmets are part of it. I enjoy watching battles, but only those without ranged units.

No amount of excuses will take away the fact that it's a flaw.

I'd just like to add that I feel sorry for SlyFrog because of some responses he got and I fully agree with him. I just hate it when some people take the slightest criticism against their favourite game as a personal attack...

[Aikamun]

Sly Frog,

At least 90% of the flame-wars, on this forum, are started by two people. You have already met them. The vast majority of posters are helpful and respectful.

Welcome to Dom2 and good luck,
Aikamun

[ March 04, 2004, 06:28: Message edited by: Aikamun ]

[PhilD]

Originally posted by ZJ:
Yes, the battles in this game are way too slow when several types of archers or just a few spirit helmets are part of it. I enjoy watching battles, but only those without ranged units.

Now, since modded ranged weapons seem to have no missile animation (I learned that from the Ashikaga mod, where the archers are just as deadly, but fire much faster), it might be possible to "dummy-mod" all basic ranged attacks in the game so that they lose the animations... (basically, replace the ranged weapons of all units that have them with fake "new" weapons with the same stats, but with no missile animations).

Of course, if the next patch "corrects" the missing anims, they'll be back. And, you cannot watch where stray arrows land (you only get the blood splat where they hit home). But, for the sole purpose of replay time, that would probably work (at least, the Ashikaga archer volleys are fast in replays).

Note: I'm not going to start doing such a mod; I don't have the time and energy to go into this. I'm just offering the idea for a quick and dirty fix...

[z0dd]

A newbie perspective.

I've been playing the demo for the past week, deciding whether or not to purchase the full game. As this topic presents, one qualm I have is the lack of combat playback/speed/VCR-like controls.

Have the developers commented on whether not such a feature will be added (or not) in an update?

Thanks!

[PhilD]

Originally posted by z0dd:
A newbie perspective.

I've been playing the demo for the past week, deciding whether or not to purchase the full game. As this topic presents, one qualm I have is the lack of combat playback/speed/VCR-like controls.

Have the developers commented on whether not such a feature will be added (or not) in an update?

Thanks!

Don't hold your breath.

It was present in Dominions 1, but the devs' comment is that it was buggy in Dom2, and was removed for this reason.

They haven't commented on it since then, AFAIK.

It is indeed quite annoying.

[Ragnarok-X]

hi everyone, my 2 cent:

The problem is not the battle replay itself, but its really the missiles imho. given you put your archers at the bach and they shot a volley each turn, then you waste quite a lot of time watching those arrows. I played approx 50-60 hours until now, and sometimes im really PISSED about the arrows. It happens that i quit a combat as soon as i realize that this one will take like forever to resolve.
The worst thing when zoom archers arent in range, the ones at the front fire their arrows, the arrows fly and hit something. then the archers at the back of that "regiment" move forward and shot another volley. this is really...well...BS

My conclusion: the game is good, BUT it could be by FAR better if some of the bigger bugs/flaws would be taken out. And whatever you all say, 50€ or whatever is FRIGGIN expensive for bugged things like this. Its not unplayable, but you sometimes think "well what if this would have been fixed by now"

just my 2 cent.
^^
oh yeah, dont let this end in a fanboy flame again