bitter pill to swallow

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
[QBThe size of the .trn files would increase as well if battles Lasted longer, if battles Lasted several hundred turns and you had a few of those your trn files would get pretty big, big enough to be a bit of a bother for players playing pbem and utilising dial up modems. [/QB]

Are you sure this would actually happen? From what you've said in the past, the debug dumps, as well as past bugs, battle replays seem to consist entirely of a starting seed value, the data of the combatants, and their scripted orders: Everything else is generated clientside using the random number seed given, yes? Otherwise battles would always be rather huge, particularly if there are a fairly decent number of large battles....

[Arryn]

For the issue of the auto-rout limit, the size of the turn files is of minor consequence. The majority of players of computer games, even this one, play SP. IW surely realizes this, despite the fact they designed the game primarily for MP, else the game wouldn't have an AI, nor would IW keep tweaking it as players find flaws in it. That said, if you play SP you won't be concerned with transmission of turn files. Hence, the file size issue is fairly moot.

If JK (or whomever) adds the auto-rout limit as a game setup parameter, like IW did for commander renaming, along with a warning and/or guidelines for the filesize impact, then Users who do play MP can decide for themselves (rather than have IW arbitrarily do it for them) how big the files can get and how many turns battles can go for.

It'd be a win-win for both players and IW. Players will no longer argue about why the limit is set as it is, and IW won't have to read all the Posts griping about it. Considering this is probably the single biggest remaining complaint about the game that IW can do something about, it seems to me that it'd be sensible and prudent for IW to address it. Of course, it would require a minor UI change, and we all know how IW feels about UI changes ...

[Esben Mose Hansen]

It's just a rule, and I for one do not think it is so important. I for one would rather have more themes, sites, spellcasting AI/scripting and so on than this. It also provides a convenient counter for the SuperCombantant problem. And more importantly, prevents the ever-Lasting-battle-syndrome.

You my 2?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
It's just a rule, and I for one do not think it is so important.

Perhaps if you predominantly played SP on huge maps (where you might frequently see large armies and/or very powerful lone SCs) you might see the issue a bit differently. I, personally, have not experienced the shortcomings of auto-rout, but that is because I have taken great pains to ensure that my battles won't Last that long. Even so, I expect it's only a matter of time (pardon the pun) before this questionable game design decision bites me in a tender spot.

I for one would rather have more themes, sites, spellcasting AI/scripting and so on than this.

As do I, but such things are harder to implement than changing one in-game constant to a variable and exposing it to players via the UI.

And more importantly, prevents the ever-Lasting-battle-syndrome.

I'm not advocating doing away with auto-rout. I'm advocating allowing players to decide at what point it should happen. And for the minority that doesn't want auto-rout at all, to disable it. I'm a firm believer in the "give the user as much choice as possible". IW has shown that it doesn't disagree with the concept of choice in principle, since they implemented the much-asked-for option to allow commander renaming. Which had to have been much harder to implement in the code than the change I'm proposing.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Are you sure this would actually happen? From what you've said in the past, the debug dumps, as well as past bugs, battle replays seem to consist entirely of a starting seed value, the data of the combatants, and their scripted orders: Everything else is generated clientside using the random number seed given, yes? Otherwise battles would always be rather huge, particularly if there are a fairly decent number of large battles....

You are right. It shouldn't affect it. I had a recollection of battle replay's affecting trn size but I must have got it mixed up with somethibng else.

[Boron]

yeah a configurable battle turn limit as arryn suggested it would be great

then especially for sp everyone could configure it to their likings .

the people who don't like sc's can set it to e.g. 30 turns while others can set it infinite .

Originally posted by johan osterman:

If you have two immobiles without offensive spells, one teleporting in, troops on both sides routing, you would end up with an infinite amount of turns. Battles where both sides have several summoners could also potentionally Last very long.

that could of course be a problem but at least in sp it doesn't happen almost 100% sure .

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Boron:
the people who don't like sc's can set it to e.g. 30 turns

Setting it shorter than 40-50 turns is a very bad idea as many battles against strongly-held forts will Last 25+ turns, unless you bring awesome magical power to bear, or many flying troops. Otherwise, the bottleneck at the castle entrance will assure that the battle takes a while. IMO, a shorter auto-rout limit is not a viable solution for those that have SC-phobia.