Forthcoming patch notes

[Sombre]

NTJedi said:

After all 4 seasons have finished one year passes. Each season is has three game turns... roughly 1.33 months for every game turn.

1. Why do you think they have a 16 month year?

2. How does 1.3 = several even if they do?

Edit: Seems I was lagging behind a bit here and you've already said your math was off. Question 2 still applies. I feel like you're trying to strengthen the impact of statements in support of your argument. But saying a turn is 'several months' when you thought it was 1.3 goes beyond the usual hyperbole.

[NTJedi]

Sombre said:
1. Why do you think they have a 16 month year?

2. How does 1.3 = several even if they do?

Discussed in previous post... it's actually 1 month per turn as pointed out by Tifone.

Night without sleep. Thus I shouldn't have used the word 'several'. Again... last night I had no sleep.

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A game turn is one month... still a huge difference verses 50 turns on a battlefield. Literally the attacker(and sometimes the defender) are sometimes fighting against a game clock during large battles because of the 50 turn limit. Increasing the game turn limit helps remove this unrealistic variable for battlefield strategies.

[Xietor]

without a new game engine, i imagine increasing the length of battles may make the delay between turns unbearable in large games.

But that is just a guess.

[NTJedi]

Xietor said:
without a new game engine, i imagine increasing the length of battles may make the delay between turns unbearable in large games.

But that is just a guess.

Depends on the computer, which is why an adjustable battlefield turn setting would work best.

[Tifone]

NTJedi,

You are obviously a much more expert player than me (really, no sarcasm, it's true) so I hope you don't mind if I say you one things about a couple of your words.

NTJedi said:
My little force of 2 SCs fought less than 200 units... and since each game turn is a month it's more than enough time to kill 200 units.

Obviously NOT, for this game's chosemn mechanics there is NOT plenty of time in one month (or better, in just the time that the movements of one month leave to the battle) to kill 200 units if your SCs (one of which died) weren't able to do so.

NTJedi said:
The worst part was the enemy was routed and fleeing, my remaining SC wasn't even wounded chasing down the routing enemy... yet auto-killed because of a game turn I lost. This result is illogical and wrong.

This is a different issue we should discuss imho in a different way than the "long battle limbo" idea. I exposed the idea of routing, defeated enemies just dying regardless of the turn if they aren't able to leave the battlefield in a given time, 5 or 10 turns. Another option -while not maybe completely realistic in some other situations, for sorrounded units in fact unable to retreat and even because you won those fight anyway - was to let your SCs retreat in another province instead of disappearing. Suggestions quite more logic than changing the gameplay of all the battles negating the possibilities of reinforcements, and huge battles lasting /more/ than just a month.

P.S. Really - this game has a very nice, interested, respectful community. So it just strikes me that people complain the game mechanics of battle because they don't find appropriate that a mindless SC, instead of retreating like the "minded" ones, just stops working after one month of fighting if he wasn't strong enough to win. Isn't sending *more* or *stronger* SCs more appropriate and tactical and "pro", instead of asking that he is given the "limbo" advantage? ^_^ The other, surely important, issues (berserkers, slow retreating units) can't be possibly treated another better way?

[WraithLord]

I second NT Jedi and concur with his reasoning.
I suggest a humble increase of the turn limit to 100, and optionally (hopefully also) make it adjustable.

[Gandalf Parker]

Keep in mind when you talk about increasing things that you are talking globally. You arent talking about increasing the number of units and turns in a battle. You are talking about increasing the number of units and turns in 1500 battles.

Actually I guess its even more than the # of Provinces limit since you can have 2 or 3 battles in some provinces.

[llamabeast]

Only a small proportion of battles last 50 turns, so only a small proportion would be affected. Also, the majority of the processing time is often spent on the early turns of a battle, when there are more units alive and more mages awake.

So I would suggest that the effect on the processing time of a turn would not be that large.

Personally, I would be very much in favour of including an option for the battle turn limit. I can't see any disadvantages, and I expect that the majority of multiplayer hosts would choose a higher limit than the current 50 turns.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im not sure how such things are handled in the code but if any part of it involves having to have an array large enough to handle the maxs then it would have overflowing impacts. We didnt realize all the different maxs that had to be increasd when we increased the number of provinces. It took a long time to find all the crashes that could generate.

But in general I also wouldnt mind a setting for it.

[Baalz]

Meh, this is such a non-issue.

Mindless units and leaders have a weakness that they can't retreat, so you need to deploy them with that in mind and avoid armies that they can't damage fast enough. I'm ok with that, that's a strategic decision when deploying golems. I'll also get screwed if a non-fire resistant SC stumbles upon a bunch of summer lions. It's just a weakness to keep in mind.

50 turns is plenty for most battles. One of the considerations for SC builds *should* be outputting enough damage, not just regenerating fast enough. If you're using a frost brand and your opponent spams you with undead - well you just got outmaneuvered.

I think it's kind of silly to complain that the turn limit isn't realistically modeling warfare. Come on guys, we're playing a game. Flying units teleport around the battlefield and can be attacked by melee, you die if you run away from an assassin, and its impossible to command your mages *not* to cast a specific spell. You plan your strategies around the boundaries of the game, it seems rather silly to carry on at length about reinforcements and how long the fights last. This is a turn based game, combat lasts 50 turns. Plan your strategies accordingly.