Yeah this is true. Adding zones of control would be a huge undertaking beyond the original scope of the game. Also they are missing literally tons of much more easily to add features that they apparently don't intend to add so there isn't a chance in hell of something like zones of control being added. I am also not sure even a modder could make the game work well with this type of mod either because I just don't feel the basic gameplay mechanics required for this are even part of the game.
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A realistic Zone of Control is actually very easy to implement without increasing complexity
- Thread starter Death2Tyrants
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Hmm?
It is actually pretty easy to give a flypaper debuff around hostile castles. I don't know any way to get around the enforced 1.0 move speed minimum though, so no stonewall-type ZOCs.
Death2Tyrants
Veteran
Like he specifically said no?
Death2Tyrants
Veteran
I've read through logistics. At a high level, it's fairly similar but in terms of implementation, yours is way too complex.
I would argue that much if not all of the planning ought to be left to the AI. Having the player decide the schedule is just too troublesome. For rp purposes you can assume your quartermaster is managing it. Hmmm maybe even add a perk to the steward tree that manages this better.
The visual line is also aesthetically displeasing. The supply lines mod just sends out caravans from the nearest friendly city. Nice and easy. You don't need to call for it, you don't need to schedule it, you don't need to do anything except wait for it to come. What's lacking from that mod through no fault of its own, however, is that the game allows one to carry enough supplies to last a generation in the field.
Death2Tyrants
Veteran
Yes the AI needs fixing. I have another proposal that will address this.
Death2Tyrants
Veteran
These ideas are freely offered. Any modder may use it as they will.
No. He just said nothing about it, even though he was posting in the thread.
Death2Tyrants
Veteran
Well..hopefully they're quietly working on it...ha ha ha.
A workable solution has already been offered. By limiting the AI to ONLY taking castles or towns ADJACENT to their territory (or on the same coastline as their own territory), the AI can only raid behind enemy lines, not conquer. The nonsensical taking of distant castles that can't be protected, and the roaming around of multiple enemy armies deep in hostile territory, would be eliminated or at least minimized.
This is pretty clearly the next baby step. When we see working proof that the ai knows what a border is, then I will start to believe it can maybe handle zones of control. It's not that I don't like the idea, I'm just not sure that its 'actually very easy to implement'.
JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo
Recruit
A more abstract solution would be to base armies out of towns or castles, which each castle say supporting 1 army while towns support 3. Then the further you get from your support town the more cohesion you lose until your army falls apart. That would incentivize monkey-branching from castle to castle instead of leapfrogging all over the place. Since sieges can take awhile factions would need to grab nearby castles to support their armies before settling down for a town siege.
It sounds complex to read, but the practical application is simple:
you go to a city, select "create supply line", select 2-3 customization options and finally ski from the city and head where you need to go.
As you walk along the odd line a line forms between you and the city, but the line you see only serves as a reminder that you have a supply line associated with your party, it is not the actual supply line.
The real supply line is made up of the wagons that travel that trajectory.
When I wrote the thread, there was still the multiplayer beta, so I didn't know what abilities there would be.
So I wrote the thread in such a way as to leave room for changes that were independent of the rest.
In my opinion the system should have both methods.
Both have the player manage the supply lines directly, and the AI for those who do not want to manage them personally.
Maybe in the thread I was not clear but that's exactly what happens.
The line that forms serves to keep track of the trajectory that the wagons follow.
It can be activated or deactivated, but it is a tool for the player.
If there were more support lines, the number of wagons would be greater and without a clear identification of which wagons make up YOUR supply lines, which wagons make up your ALLIES or SUBSIDIARIES and which are simply merchant's freight wagons, it would be very confusing. .
Clearly it is a tool that can be activated or deactivated.
Deactivating it you do not see the line but still see the wagons that travel to go where they need to go.
It means that you don't have the space to introduce spy missions.
That you don't have the space to introduce messenger interception missions.
In short, "not doing additional things", which apparently seems like a convenience, implies that you have fewer methods to attack the enemy in forms other than battle.
As already mentioned, these things could be handled by the AI through the quartermaster, if he and ate would handle it, only messages like:
"our supply line is ready"
"the line was attacked near the city X"
"I sent the messenger to restore the supply line"
"the messenger has returned with good news" or "the messenger is late beyond the time necessary to carry out the mission (maybe he is a traitor who knows)" or "the messenger has never returned".
And perhaps in the middle of the field, as a mercenary or single soldier with few men and with great scouting skills, you would see these "messengers" (good at hiding and fast) darting towards who knows where carrying who knows what.
Simplicity is easy by definition, but on the other hand it involves a series of approximations which in the case of a game imply fewer "levers" or "degrees of freedom" on which to act to ensure variety.
For a RPG, which has to offer a great variety of answers to the same situation through the diversity of construction of the character and the way in which it is played, is simplicity good?
Not if it goes against that variety it should offer.
Actually I kind of like this idea. You basically restrict just the large armies from moving through a zone of control based on the new region system and the cities/fortifications surrounding them. Basically if you want to move through with an army, you HAVE to take the City or Castle controlling that zone first.
Individual lords however could actually move past these zones of control and raid wherever they wanted, just not siege anything past the border.
Actually I love this idea. It will never be implemented and probably couldn't even every be implemented as a mod without the devs adding it in the first place but I love the idea.
You can save time by not thinking of or writing overly complex threads, and instead concentrate on simpler designs that don't need a manual to play. You can also save time by getting rid of the bloated formal format (which is fine in a formal design document, but not usable for presentation of ideas) and get to the point more efficiently.
Boom! Time saved, now you are a modder.
You can save time by not thinking of or writing overly complex threads, and instead concentrate on simpler designs that don't need a manual to play. You can also save time by getting rid of the bloated formal format (which is fine in a formal design document, but not usable for presentation of ideas) and get to the point more efficiently.
Boom! Time saved, now you are a modder.
While it is true that the guy has some interesting threads, his handicap is clearly the formatting
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As for the main topic, do you guys know UnfriendlyTerritory?
In the forum I read that most of the threads are "requests" and "suggestions" written without a minimum of detail of how the suggestions work.
The task of a suggestion that really wants to help is not to provide a generic request or advice like "you know we could do this, that would be nice" but to give advice with an argument that contains the details of operation and a theoretical demonstration of how applying that tip solves one or more problems.
Simple tips are easy to write but tend not to give the developer a clear insight into how that tip should be implemented, and they don't even offer REASONS to implement it.
And the reasons are closely related to the gameplay balance, the problems it solves and, in my opinion most importantly, the number of levers, degrees of freedom or mechanics that that suggestion introduces and that allow the developer to be able to act on those to balance the game rather than constantly changing the same parameters.
For example, the balance between ranged and melee units, including those with shields, could depend on factors other than simply changing armor values or arrow damage or archers' accuracy.
For example, they could depend on the number of protected and unprotected hurtboxes, leading to ranged combat being evaluated on a statistical rather than a parametric basis.
And the shields filled with bullets should add some bulk to the character.
In the game, a character with a 2-handed weapon (no shield) and very heavy armor still falls to the ground with 3-4 arrows, and it is irrelevant where the arrow has hit, because even taking into account the localized damage, if there are not 3 arrows that they kill you then they are 4.
Vice versa imagining a different system of armor, more based on the number of hurtboxes and on the cover they have by means of the armor, whose armor value can be well raised since we are concerned that where the armor covers the protection must be "realistic", then a warrior with a 2-handed weapon, no shield and very heavy armor, even if he will never reach the archer, at least if the archer does not aim well at the uncovered hurtboxes, he will not knock him down even with 50 arrows.
And to aim well you need to be closer.
So from a distance the relationship between bullets and armor is statistical:
you shoot 100 arrows and the probability with which you will hit will be equal to the ratio between the area offered by the uncovered hurtboxes and the total area of your body, clearly only the projection on the plane orthogonal to the speed vector of the arrow.
These are not calculations that the CPU or the player must do, it is simply what should emerge from a statistical analysis made on a given number of tests that can be carried out by placing archers on one side and infantry on the other.
So there are no arbitrarily placed coefficients. It all depends on the kinematics of the arrow and the hurtboxes that are hit. The more they are exposed, the more likely they are to be hit.
So from a distance a large number of arrows would throw down a heavily protected soldier.
On the other hand, closely it will all depend on the aim that the archer has and in his ability to hit the uncovered hurtboxes compared to the covered ones.
In hand-to-hand combat, the spam of attacks would also be inconvenient since it would be likely to hit a covered hurtbox and therefore would inflict little damage in relation to the armor value of that protection (which we said is no longer "paper" like the armor that there are now).
Conversely, those who tend to aim for the right hurtboxes without spamming the shots will be rewarded.
Clearly, spam is discouraged but not entirely eliminated.
For example, low protection armor tends to reward spam.
So in general better protection (in terms of armor value) and greater coverage of hurtboxes limit spam, but DO NOT MAKE INVINCIBLE.
In fact, hitting an uncovered hurtbox, for example a joint that cannot be covered with any armor, inflicts maximum damage, reduced at most by the damage location.
So even a naked character could kill a heavily protected one in 3-4 shots, but only if he aims well and hits those unprotected points, generally small hurtboxes that reside between two protected hurtboxes, or by hitting those uncovered hurtboxes that are not such if a given condition is not satisfied
(for example the armpit remains covered, despite not having protection, until the opponent raises his arm to attack for example).
I have already changed the formats in which I write for this purpose, but if a discussion is long it is because it has content, not because I like to write a lot.
If I write a lot it is just to leave no room for doubt and clarify.
If this were not necessary, I would write telegrams.
The point is the detail.
If I just wanted to write "do this" without explaining the how and why, there would be no reason to do something.
I am not a modder in the sense that I do not use graphics engines, I do not know the programming languages suitable for the purpose and unfortunately I do not have the time or the energy to learn them now because I study other subjects.
Threads and tips are the only way I can help improve the game, and within I put as much effort and (simplified) knowledge as possible in order to make clear the detail expressed in the topics.
Topics and technical details that in themselves are aimed at the developers, not so much the community.
The "non-technical" part is directed to the community and therefore he only has to see if he is interested in it and if so then he should support it.
And if the community is also interested in the details and wants to contribute, that's even better.
You can add it as a mod. There was already one released that did essentially that, just by adjusting the AI siege targeting.
@darksoulshin
Here you go again with the rambling exposition. It's something you personally prefer and not something that contains some necessary detail to get ideas across, in fact, it's counter-productive as people are not willing to read a blob of text.
Writing clearly and concisely is a learnable skill, no one is born with it, but you have to recognize it as superior to walls of text to learn it.
There's no evidence that developers would ever read your blobs of text or that they are helpful to them in some way. If you want their attention, you need to realize that player suggestions are pitching ideas, not writing ready-to-implement formal designs as if an idea was grinlit and just needs to be implemented. I would love to be proven wrong on this one, but that's unlikely.
For example, you go on about your hurtboxes, but that line of thinking is unhelpful as adding more would significantly affect performance (it's a mass combat game, not a fighting game). You choose to ignore this reality and keep talking about it as if it's something worth doing. In addition, you aim for increased complexity just to model one little feature more, even claiming that added complexity makes balancing easier, as you have more levers to pull. This makes balancing harder, not easier, because the levers are inevitably interconnected. You just personally like complex models, and try to rationalize this preference as useful, when it's really hindering you from communicating clearly.
While the average poster here may indeed produce random or weakly argued ideas, there are enough veterans or thoughtful people that DO post reasoned suggestions where the whys and the whats are easy to understand. You can't pretend your style of posting is superior to theirs, it is arguably worse.
Personally I believe that a general design goal is to produce simple and elegant game mechanics. Complex models need serious justifications in how they add to gameplay and fun. They also tend to fail in more unforeseen ways and then need to be patched up with the design equivalent of duct tape.
There are a minority of players who like complex models and are hypnotized by the complexity, not the resulting gameplay benefits. But most players are not interested in watching clockworks, they want interesting and fun gameplay regardless of the degree of modelling behind it.
The best designs are simple illusions of complex mechanisms, virtual Potemkin villages.
Here you go again with the rambling exposition. It's something you personally prefer and not something that contains some necessary detail to get ideas across, in fact, it's counter-productive as people are not willing to read a blob of text.
Writing clearly and concisely is a learnable skill, no one is born with it, but you have to recognize it as superior to walls of text to learn it.
There's no evidence that developers would ever read your blobs of text or that they are helpful to them in some way. If you want their attention, you need to realize that player suggestions are pitching ideas, not writing ready-to-implement formal designs as if an idea was grinlit and just needs to be implemented. I would love to be proven wrong on this one, but that's unlikely.
For example, you go on about your hurtboxes, but that line of thinking is unhelpful as adding more would significantly affect performance (it's a mass combat game, not a fighting game). You choose to ignore this reality and keep talking about it as if it's something worth doing. In addition, you aim for increased complexity just to model one little feature more, even claiming that added complexity makes balancing easier, as you have more levers to pull. This makes balancing harder, not easier, because the levers are inevitably interconnected. You just personally like complex models, and try to rationalize this preference as useful, when it's really hindering you from communicating clearly.
While the average poster here may indeed produce random or weakly argued ideas, there are enough veterans or thoughtful people that DO post reasoned suggestions where the whys and the whats are easy to understand. You can't pretend your style of posting is superior to theirs, it is arguably worse.
Personally I believe that a general design goal is to produce simple and elegant game mechanics. Complex models need serious justifications in how they add to gameplay and fun. They also tend to fail in more unforeseen ways and then need to be patched up with the design equivalent of duct tape.
There are a minority of players who like complex models and are hypnotized by the complexity, not the resulting gameplay benefits. But most players are not interested in watching clockworks, they want interesting and fun gameplay regardless of the degree of modelling behind it.
The best designs are simple illusions of complex mechanisms, virtual Potemkin villages.
Conquerrr
Veteran
In fact, a great mod of Warband called Custom Commander already has this function.
While it is true that the guy has some interesting threads, his handicap is clearly the formatting
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As for the main topic, do you guys know UnfriendlyTerritory?
Death2Tyrants
Veteran
Seems like a bandaid solution. It's just more hardcoding.
I agree that the AI behaves poorly now but forcing it into taking specific actions just because it's programmed to do so instead of developing systems is precisely why the game is so bland right now.
I mean, I don't want a chokehold to exist simply because it HAS to take it. That just makes it so easy to cheese the game by stacking a castle. Going back to my example, if we put max troops in Antaconia Castle, the invading army might be stuck forever.
I don't want that. They ought to be able to consider bypassing Antaconia Castle. Find another route. If we hardcode them to always take the closest, the game will just go into gridlock.
