Hex's new potential project - WOTR

[hexagonian]

Iskallin

Check your Apolyton private message box regarding th GL... (I need your email address)

I'm hoping to have city placement done over the weekend.

[Turambar]

Just had a thought. How about renaming the tobacco good to pipeweed and placing it round the shire?

[hexagonian]

Turambar
Pipeweed is is, as well as mithril...

Well, it was a busy weekend - somewhat frustrating, but I think I got a handle on most of the issues. One issue is a major one, and I'm hoping it can be fixed via SLIC, because if it cannot be fixed, the Scenario will not work other than as a glorified Mod.

Some good to report - the files seem to be stable in playtesting. One thing I learned was to do all the city placement on a saved gamefile instead of a map file. It would of saved me some headaches...

Mordor is building a lot of military (good). I had to get a handle on the science/production rate of Mordor too, as they were researching/producing at a phenomenal rate, though the base numbers were not much different than Gondor's numbers. This is an area that will have to be tweaked over time though and through some playtesting - my testing was for a period of 40-60 turns with nothing being built by the human player either.

But here is the issue that I need fixed - IMO, its a major one because this Scenario is being built on the premise that Mordor has to be strong defensively in the early game, and also has to maintain that defensive strength for a good part of the game.

One of the sucesses of Cradle was that I made it so a player has to establish himself before being able to go out and conquer another civ - this works especially on large maps, because the combo of limited movement of units, the distance factor between early civs and the presence of Barbarian stacks does make it hard to make a significant dent in another civ. Because of this setup, the AI has time to get established so it is able to field some armies - plus, there are multiple civs in the game, so the human will face threats from all sides.

In this Scenario, all of these factors are nullified to some degree. Mordor and Gondor are right up against each other at certain points - this is unavoidable because I am constrained by the need to make the map reflect the book. Movement is already higher than normal because of the roads that need to be in place for accuracy. The human also has a network of cities in place, so he can focus more on military construction, and he also has the benefit of knowing the map if he has read the books - he will know where to hit. With all of this working in favor of the human, this Mod would be a cakewalk.

So garrison stacks for Mordor are needed, and they need to stay where they are placed. But...

...the AI is able to override a unit's movement of 0, so Mordor's garrison units are moving on the map. Bottom line, I need those units to stay where they are placed. Sauron has to stay in Barad-dur, the Balrog in Mines of Moria, and so forth...

I seem to remember that this was an issue with the garrison SLIC coding that was created by Wouter, but since this Scenario is not using the garrison code - (no new cities being built) - I need a modified version of that code taylored to prevent units with a movement of 0 from moving. And was this issue ever fixed with the AI???

Ths is the list of units that this code needs to fix. Although the Human player units do not move, I am including them in the list so down the line, a player can play Mordor.

UNIT_HURRICANE
UNIT_SAURON
UNIT_SHELOB
UNIT_BALROG
UNIT_WATCHER
UNIT_CATAPHRACT
UNIT_MOUTHPIECE_OF_SAURON
UNIT_SAURUMAN
UNIT_DEF_ORCS
UNIT_DEF_TROLLS
UNIT_DEF_ARCHER_MO
UNIT_DENETHOR
UNIT_ELROND
UNIT_GALADRIAL
UNIT_MILITIA_I
UNIT_MILITIA_II

If this issue cannot be resolved, I may table this work, or I have to rethink a lot of what I had planned.

[Immortal Wombat]

So you want a modified version of the militia code that prevents those units from moving. It is possible to make them moving or not depending on who controls them. I think this code will work. It also includes by neccessity a bit of global code, which will probably be useful for other parts of the code later on.

Is this the kind of thing?

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
So you want a modified version of the militia code that prevents those units from moving. It is possible to make them moving or not depending on who controls them. I think this code will work. It also includes by neccessity a bit of global code, which will probably be useful for other parts of the code later on.

Is this the kind of thing?

Ben
Could you email this to me as a zipped file - I'm having the same problems I have every time I try downloading an attached file in an Apolyton post - I get a message that tells me that the files are not onsite, but are on a missing page...

[Immortal Wombat]

Yup

[hexagonian]

I tried downloading the file off of a PC and I got it. Seems that my Mac won't accept it...

Looks good though - here's hoping it will work

[Immortal Wombat]

Oops. Sorry. The perils of replying too quickly...

[J Bytheway]

Will this code abort movement of units which are stacked with the zero movement ones? If so, might that be problematic?

[Immortal Wombat]

Yes, and no. Mostly.

Many of the units are intended to be lone. The watcher, the balrog etc. There will never be a stack.
The AI has always handled militia well enough. If a unit can't move, it gets unstacked. I think...

It works exactly like the militia code. The militia code works fine, therefore that code works fine.

In theory.

[J Bytheway]

I was just thinking that the militia attack values are probably lower than those of these units, and so these are more likely to be stacked into attack forces, and thus cause a problem.

Just something to keep an eye out for...

[hexagonian]

Thanks Ben, the code seemed to do the trick - at least in a short playtest. The only problem is that when I do a 'reloadslic' on the existing gamefile (either via editor or chatbox), the game freezes up.

I rebuilt the cities on the map with the new code with no problem though. (I hope I do not have to do that with every new SLIC file...)

I'm still not very happy with how the AI is using it's military, but I have some ideas to try in strategies.txt and goals.txt. My test last night was with a barebones setup - no added units for either side - which may have made a difference in what I was seeing from the AI.

[hexagonian]

I should probably give an update on this project.

Ben's code seemed to work too well. In a more extended playtest, it is holding all AI units in place, which isn't going to work either...

I sent Ben the files to take a look at, and I'm hoping that something can be done...Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board.

The base files are stable though - and the graphics are very nice.

[hexagonian]

After email discussions with Peter, Ben and Wouter, it looks like the issue with all the units fortifying has been fixed. Special thanks to Peter who got to the heart of the problem (the use of too many militias was interfering with the AI's ability to process all the orders)

I have sent a test file to Ben and Peter to see how easy/difficult my current setup is - hopefully I can get some feedback, make the adjustments and then open the playtesting up to J Bytheway, iskallin and Turambar.

[Turambar]

Can't wait to try it .

[J Bytheway]

Same here

[hexagonian]

I had forwarded a link to Turambar, Iskallin and JBytheway with a download of the initial gamefile and setup. (Ben and Peter had not gotten back to me)

Anyone try it????

[Turambar]

Had a go over the weekend but haven't had a chance since. I'll email you soon about it.

[J Bytheway]

I've been unable to get online with my own PC, so had some trouble. Will get to it ASAP, probably Tuesday.

[SMIFFGIG]

Hex look in space scenario thread, sum stuff u might light that i posted (if u havent already seen it)

[hexagonian]

Sorry, I've been really lax on this - I've been sucked up into the Emperor/Zeus vortex lately, and I can't stop myself. I do have everyone's test results on file though.

Eventually I'll get back to this

[Turambar]

Sorry I never got round to sending you stuff Hex. I did test it when I first got it but not long after the latop I did it on died and I lost everything on it. And since then I've moved to Uni and not had the time.

[hexagonian]

Well, with the discussion about the SAP strategies and the suggested changes, I decided to get back into the Mod and see what I could do...

I first tried to bump up the attack/siege priority numbers with little success. The AI was still not attacking Gondor cities and doing little more than the occasional pillage. But noticing the huge change in barbarian attack/seige activities with the new settings in my Cradle game gave me an idea. What if I replace ALL of the strategies in LOTR with the Barbarian priorities from Cradle? I noted that the normal Barbarian strategies were only geared toward a few things (attack, seige, pillage, harass - all other strategies were set at 0). So I did it.

Wow!!! 5 Gondor cities lost in the course of the first 25 turns - and numerous attacks on cities and units out in the field. Mordor was out for blood in a big way!!! And the nice thing is that I do not need the AI to do all of those additional things normally in the strategies - all it needs to do is build military, throw them against Gondor and keep competitive in science.

Needless to say, this is a major hurdle that has been cleared - probably the biggest one too. I still have a lot of work to do (the file crashed, message errors) and I wil have to rebuild the map from the point of city/unit placement (doing a reloadslic did not fix the problem, but placing new cities on the base middle earth map did not cause any problems in a short test, so I am cautiously optimistic). It may be awhile before this is completed, but I am encouraged.

[Immortal Wombat]

Nice one Hex! I wondered it that would work... After all, apart from the guy with the eye, Mordor was just a bunch of barbarian hoards.

5 cities in 25 turns?? That is impressive. Gunna be a lot harder to defend Gondor against that lot!

[hexagonian]

Oh this is going to be wicked - just running thru some testing tonight with some very spectacular results. The AI is absolutely ruthless - lots of attacking/sieging...

I'm hoping to post something in the next week or so - and it may be sooner!!!

[kring]

It is looking good from what I have read; I will be interested in trying it out when you complete it.