Bug Bug Thread: Discussion - Page 182

Kristoffer O · #**1811** April 24th, 2008, 02:19 AM

The first one is an auto retreat, but some units don't retreat. Paralyzed beings included. Thus the 75 turn check kills units to prevent battles from going on for ever.

Edit: mindless units that rout dies.

vfb · #**1812** April 24th, 2008, 02:23 AM

Without auto-death, it's possible that a battle could never end. You could have two fatigued armies passed out on the battlefield, neither able to kill the other, and not even able to retreat even if they wanted to.

Oh wait ... maybe I see what you're saying. When turn 100 is reached, just treat the entire attacking army as if it *had* retreated, and flee it to the surrounding provinces. Sounds like it might work.

vfb · #**1813** April 24th, 2008, 02:28 AM

The 75% HP loss auto-route does not take into account the full HP of additional forms. Like Cor2 above, I had a mage flee an assassination attempt because the mage was carrying a bottle of living water, and the elemental's first form dropped to 7HP. Looks pretty nonsensical when you watch the battle.

Argitoth · #**1814** April 24th, 2008, 04:24 AM

I don't see why mindless beings have to die. They walked themselves to the battle, they should be able to walk themselves out of it.

I don't mind the 50 turn limit, I logically explain by saying "attacking army is tired, they are retreating so that they can regroup and make another attack." That's completely logical. Now, mindless beings ruin that logic by dieing. If mindless beings can't retreat, that means whatever is controlling them can no longer control them. They can attack, but they can't retreat. That makes no sense.

What I mean is...say a mage controls some undead to enter a battle. It's illogical to say that the mage all of a sudden loses control of the undead and cannot make the undead retreat along with the rest of the army. It's like saying you can turn something ON but you can't turn it OFF.

Really, WE DON'T NEED LOGIC TO EXPLAIN THE 50 TURN LIMIT! If my mindless supercombatant dies because of a turn limit I start to dislike Dominions. If I start to dislike dominions, that means I might not reccomend dominions to someone else. That means money loss. That means customer loss. Maybe I won't buy Illwinter products in the future. BY THE WAY, I did recommend Dominions to a friend recently, and he did buy the game. I'm not just spouting words.

I think this rule should be changed not in the name of logic, but in the name of fun. By the way, FYI, games are supposed to be fun.

Edit: Wait, why are golems mindless if they can walk themselves around? I think if we remove the mindless attribute, that would solve the problem for me.

Quote:

vfb said:Oh wait ... maybe I see what you're saying. When turn 100 is reached, just treat the entire attacking army as if it *had* retreated, and flee it to the surrounding provinces. Sounds like it might work.

That is, in my opinion, the best solution. Even better if the armies go back to the province they attacked from. Not only that, 100 is a better turn limit than 50.

Zeldor · #**1815** April 24th, 2008, 05:36 AM

Kristoffer O:

For SC commander that is mindless it really shouldn't be like that. 50-turn limit should force all creatures with their minds to retreat and thus all mindless would dissolve. On a Golem 'never routs' makes it an disadvantage, not a good thing. He is a commander, he should be able to fight till the end [auto-kill on turn 75 could be somewhat tolerated more, but still unfair].

Kristoffer O · #**1816** April 24th, 2008, 01:01 PM

Thematically:
The golem is animated with a divine word and it acts on that principle. It is in his nature to acts and not to rout. When forced to rout the divine principle is broken and the golem is rendered inanimate.

Mechanics:
We can't make exceptions on mechanics for all units that should behave in a particular way. Exceptions are fun and interesting, but are time consuming and makes the code more jumbled.

Argitoth:
I think it is fun when my enemy's golem dies.

Retreating mages lose control over their undead just like I lose control over my students, when I rout from my classroom. I wish I could have the necromancers prudence and skill to make my students disappear when I rout.
I'm also under the rule of 50 turns. I automatically rout from my class after 50 min. If I am prevented from fleeing, I will pass out after 75 minutes.

Also I don't care much about customer loss. By now I'm pretty certain there are people who like my game, as well as people who dislike it. I'm content with knowing that there are people who like what I made, and I'm happy to continue working on projects I believe they will like in the future. It is nice if I do fix things that people like, but I will not fix things I think are OK or good. I might change my opinion on different matters though.

Argitoth · #**1817** April 24th, 2008, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Kristoffer O said:Argitoth:
I think it is fun when my enemy's golem dies.

I like to play fair games. If it were me, knowing I caused a massive lost to my enemy because of a turn limit, I wouldn't find it very fun.

"I win the battle because my tartarian got paralyzed for 50 turns and wasn't killed, so your golem is dead."

How easy is it to remove the mindless attribute from golems in a mod? That will be my solution.

NTJedi · #**1818** April 24th, 2008, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Kristoffer O said:
... Thus the 75 turn check kills units to prevent battles from going on for ever.

Here's the major problem... what should be done is an 'auto-retreat' instead of an 'auto-killed' . This 'auto-retreat' means at turn 75 any units remaining on the battlefield are instantly retreated to a friendly neighboring province. The 'auto-retreat' means instant and automatically completed thus ending the battle.

The 'auto-retreat' means very powerful SC's unable to conquer provinces leave and return another day to continue the battle. The 'auto-death' currently in existence means every Ascension War has this all powerful union establishment which enforces death on the battlefield.

Kristoffer O · #**1819** April 24th, 2008, 02:36 PM

The auto kill is there as some units don't retreat. Target was paralyzed, stunned and immobile units, as other units supposedly already had been auto-routed.

What units do not get routed by autorout?
Berserkers

Argitoth · #**1820** April 24th, 2008, 02:45 PM

If it's too hard to remove auto kill from the game, the only solution is to raise the turn limit. Why 50? Why not 100? Why not 500? Why not the limit be a game setting before a game is created? Maybe that's too complicated to program.

It's easy for the computer to process turns in which not much is happening. By turn 50, turns can be processed very quickly because most units have died and the rest are paralyzed or locked in a very small never-ending battle. 500 sounds good to me.