Speeding up battles

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Kelan:
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.

You can exit the replay at any time by pressing the 'q' key. Perhaps Frog doesn't know this ...

[RadiantFleet]

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

[Arryn]

Originally posted by RadiantFleet:
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.

Cool!

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

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.

[Sly Frog]

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".

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 ]

[joew767]

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.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by joew767:
it definitely is high on my wish list to be changed

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.

[Arralen]

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 ]

[Sand]

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

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 ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Arralen:
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.

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) ...