Dex Stewart
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File: The War.hold (2.3 KB)
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License: Public Domain

So here's what I was thinking.

Seeing that we now have Stalwarts and can therefore simulate battles between two armies, I though if we could, you know, simulate entire wars. Given that any DROD level is conviniently split into rooms, which could be used as territorries, I though that some Risk-style gameplay would fit in nicely(i.e. player can move units between territorries and the more territorries one has, the more units one gets at the beginning of each turn).

I wanted to be able to do this with more than 2 players; that's why I decided that a unit will be able to be both. A unit is now a Stalwart when attacking and a Guard when defending.

Attached is the map with the basic outline and five rooms already done(actually only two, the middle one, and one room which appears four times because I want the battlefield to be perfectly symmetrical).

Now to explain the properties of the two rooms:
The middle is designed the way it is, because I wanted it to provide many extra units, but be particularly hard to defend. A defender's units are split in two (I'll put in a rule to force that) while the attacker can place his units anywhere along the perimeter, thus letting him get rid of the two groups separately.

The other room is made the way it is, because I would like it to be a "fortress". It would somehow mean a lot to the player(that's why there will *always* be a slayer there, which cannot be moved and which is revived whenever it dies, serving whoever controls the fortress). The Guards in the middle only activate after the Stalwarts enter the "building" because this allowed me to implement a defense mechanism: the hot tiles. As you can see in 2N 2W, many Stalwarts die on them, but not that many Guards (you'll see for yourself why.)

I eagerly await feedback, and hope that you didn't suffer too much by reading stuff written by me at 1:00 AM.

Chaco
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It looks like 3.0.2 ate your guard scripts in 2N2W - somebody will have to run Stefan's utility on the hold to make it work properly.

I like the idea of placing guards and stalwarts and having them fight each other, but how exactly would we place them? Would we send you a hold file with our stalwart placement, and our opponent would send you a hold file with their stalwart placement, and you would make the room with the same movement order and a combination of both the placements?

Who would move first?

Would the stalwarts at the end of the battle retain their positions in the next battle for that territory?

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Dex Stewart
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Well, about the script, all there is to it is that the guards turn to monsters when the first Stalwart steps on a hit tile.

I think that is how I'll handle placements, with the detail that there will be rules regarding where the attacking units and the defending units can be. And what do you mean by saying "with the same movement order"? Can I decide in which order the units move?

Positions in battles aren't retained(as an example, the defenders in the entrance would always be reset to the middle of the room, no matter how often they are attacked and survive).

Chaco
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I'm saying - assuming we are going with the "send in the hold file with the attacking positions" idea - that the stalwarts are necessarily going to be placed in a certain order, and the outcome of the battle might get affected by this order.

The question is, should the players of the game worry about movement order when they are making their files and sending them to you, or are you going to agree on a standard placement and the players can forget movement order (like, leftmost then topmost entities move first for example) ?

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Dex Stewart
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Well, I'll make it so that they don't have to worry about it, but... Can the architect influnence the movement order?

Dex Stewart
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File: The War.hold (3.1 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

Here's a slightly more developed version of the battlefield.

I'm thinking of alowing the players to be able to "buy" some things like hot tiles and briars with units. What do you say to that?

Kevin_P86
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Dex Stewart wrote:
Can the architect influnence the movement order?

... Monsters move in the order they were placed...

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+++++[>+++++<-]>[>+++>++++>+++++<<<-]>.>+.>-------.<++++.+++++.

Stephen4Louise
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To have two players competing in a single room you could work it like this...

Each player has a set number of Stalwarts or Guards.
Split the room in two. This can be decided on a room by room basis, depending on the layout.
Each player must give 10 sets of coordinates in order they want their pieces placed in the room.
A toss of a coin decides who gets first placement, then using both lists, alternate between placing a stalwart and a guard.

I'm not sure if guard and stalward AI is the same, but if not, the amount allocated to each player should be adjusted to ensure a fair battle. At least to begin with anyway.

Steve.

Jatopian
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There is one major problem to this idea: Stalwarts practically never beat guards. Ever. Ignore me and look at the next post.
All my in-editor tests were with them an odd number of squares apart. Oops.

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 06-19-2007 04:15 AM : I stand corrected.]

TFMurphy
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Untrue. It boils down usually to a parity problem and is highly chaotic. But usually, a single Guard and Stalwart facing each other will grant victory to either simply depending on how many steps apart they begin.

Because of this, moving a Stalwart or Guard even a single tile can snowball and effect the entire reversal of the previous outcome.

Of course, until 3.0.2 becomes stable, Stalwarts are going to have a rather nasty disadvantage in not being able to backswipe. But otherwise, their tactics towards each other have no concept of self-preservation and always focusing on closing the distance and getting the first kill, which boils down to "who moves first" or parity, with chaos ensuing from simple changes.

coppro
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AFAIK, the war scenes in TCB are not scripted.

mrimer
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coppro wrote:
AFAIK, the war scenes in TCB are not scripted.

That's right. I went with the approach used in the LotR movies -- their huge computer-generated battle scenes were played out automatically by automated agents with their own battle logic. (I ensured these cut-scenes would still work after making the stalwart change to 3.0.2.)

____________________________
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Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 06-19-2007 05:20 PM]

Dex Stewart
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File: Big battle.drh (1.1 KB)
Downloaded 45 times.
License: Public Domain

OK, I totally redesigned this, got less ambitious and actually believe that I am now ready to start. I have to apologize beforehand though: I suck at explaining stuff like this. I fully expect much to be unclear, so feel free to ask questions.
I need four players, though I would accept (and actually prefer) more players controlling one army.
We play with rules very similar to Risk. There are four armies, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Each army initally has five soldiers in it's starting territory and gets one extra, per territory, per turn. When moving troops, any number of soldiers can be moved in the same turn. Moving a soldier into enemy territory leads to battle and immediately ends the soldiers's movement for the turn. When moving soldiers between own territories, they can be moved at any distance instantly, as long as there is an unbroken chain of territories between start and end point. If a soldier is moved between own territories, it can't attack in the same turn. All movements of one army must be announced to me at the same time.
First all movements which do not involve attacking happen simultaneously. Movements must be such that, after this happens, also after all soldiers that attack are (temporarily) removed, before battles happen, at least one soldier is present in each territory.
After this, battles happen. The defending army can place soldiers in the area marked by the floor mosaic, while the attacking army can place soldiers at any point which can be reached with three moves from the room edge common with the territory where the soldiers came from. Movement then happens Smite-to-the-Death-style, where the players simultanously submit series of 5 moves for every soldier. Movement order is alternating, beggining with the defending army.

I think these are all the necessary rules, except for obscure cases, which I can either judge individually when they come up or you can just ask questions now.

Someone Else
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I'll play red. What are the territory boundaries?

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[Last edited by Someone Else at 05-20-2009 12:14 AM]

Dex Stewart
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The rooms are the territories.

Also, I should point out why I wanted multiple players to play the same army: This is a very slow game, with many moves to be made. Having more players on a team, who can act independently (at least most of the time, especially in battles, where it is needed most) will definitely speed up the game.

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[Last edited by Dex Stewart at 05-20-2009 11:07 AM]

12th Archivist
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This game seems really cool. I could play blue.

Should we say our movements in the thread, or should we PM them to you.

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Dex Stewart
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Since all moves are 'simultaneous' (and your opponent therefore should not know them when sending in his own), you should PM or e-mail them to me. I'll decide exactly what to use when we really have it going.

Another thing upon which I'll decide upon later is the timing. I don't know yet whether I want moves sent in by a certain deadline or whether I just wait until every team sends in a set of moves.

zwetschenwasser
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We need a Mafia contest...

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