DESIGN: Possible alterations to movement

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by Flinx
I was thinking of any movement command either by keyboard or mouse.

Give a unit with a positive movement score a movement command; It moves one tile and the movement penalty of that tile is subtracted from the unit's movement score; If the unit still has a >0 movement score, it is available to move again that turn; If the unit has a 0 or negative movement score it cannot be moved that turn; each unit 'remembers' it's movement score and at the beginning of the next turn the movement points of the unit are added to that score up to a maximum positive score equal to the movement points of that unit; if the unit has a positive movement score, it can move that turn, if the movement score is still negative, it cannot move.

Sounds quite OK,

BUT: (sorry if I sound to negative )

This would give the person with Horse-riding a HUGE advantage in the beginning of the game.

And it is not all the way 'logical'. Like why does a warrior need 3 turns to move through mountains? Main reason why fast units need longer, they have to take care of their horses and similar (like building bridges). But it is far easier to move foot-based units through the mountains than others. Similar for hills/forest/whatever.

So me thinks that units with 1MP shall be exluded from the calculation like this, or only be punished by halve. To illustrate a bit further:

Yes, for sure you can't run through forest, but you are not running all the way over plains either
A forest is easier to pass by foot-units as anything else. A human is compared to mounted units far more flexible, they can bypass most obstacles without need of cutting down trees or similar.

[The Big Mc]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch

Yes, for sure you can't run through forest, but you are not running all the way over plains either
A forest is easier to pass by foot-units as anything else. A human is compared to mounted units far more flexible, they can bypass most obstacles without need of cutting down trees or similar.

Just to point this out the ancient postal service in the Aztec empire could move a message just as fast as now. Ok they had paths to run but you can get a lot of speed throw light jungle.

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by The Big Mc


Just to point this out the ancient postal service in the Aztec empire could move a message just as fast as now. Ok they had paths to run but you can get a lot of speed throw light jungle.

Yes you can run quite a bit, but it sounds like you never tried to run with some laguage, or?

I did quite some travelling with the rucksack and believe me, you don't really want to run with it

And those people were trained to run.........

[child of Thor]

And just a quick one on the horse/foot soldier going through trees.

It has been a classic infantry tactic, used globaly, that when fighting units on horse, you used the advantage of forrest or wood for cover and because it restricted the mounted unit from fighting effectively[EDIT: So i'm kinda thinking that a horse unit should also have an disadvantage when going through woodland without a road, as for mountains].

Im going to have to digest the other posts for a bit before comment, but one question - how does CTP2 calculate its movement points at present, i thought it kinda did as Flinx is suggesting - take away from the unit total depending onthe terain travelled over?

[Gilgamensch]

Actually no,

it just uses max.MP - Mp usage for to be entered terrain.

For MP=1 units, it doesn't care at all.
If MP>1, then you need to have at least MP=max or MP=usage for terrain to enter.

[child of Thor]

ok, but for example lets look at a unit with more than 1 MP(like a knight(4MP)).

It remembers the terrain it travels over, so different terrains seem to deduct different amounts. You can move the knight along a road for example which increeses its range(by reducing the tile penalty), and you can still end its movement(due to only having a % of required movement points left) BEFORE its used up its total amount(the unit still comes up as you cycle through next unit).

does this make sense, what i've just written!

This is the current system no?

[Gilgamensch]

Yep, understood it. (At least one here )

And the worst thing for me:

You moved him along the road and have like 1 2/3 left and it can't enter the hill in front of him...yeah...great.

[child of Thor]

Yes exactly

I find it frustrating enough(and sometimes combat critical) when that happens, as its very difficult to casualy calculate at a glance how to get your critical unit to square 'x' at the right time.

What i'm slightly concerned about in making this system even more complicated(not obvious to the player) is that this kind of misunderstanding will happen more often.

And i think most players wont want to sit there with a calculator for each troop movement?

Whats people's thoughts on this? maybe i'm being overly stupid?

[Maquiladora]

Yep, understood it. (At least one here )

And the worst thing for me:

You moved him along the road and have like 1 2/3 left and it can't enter the hill in front of him...yeah...great.

I can say with certainty that this has never crossed my mind, and if it did it wouldnt bother me in the slightest. I mean come on people, is it really a tragedy if you lose 1.75 move points (because you didnt plan ahead), for the sake of keeping movement simple and intuitive?

-A warrior has 1 movement point.
-The warrior ends a turn with a movement score of 1 i.e. it did not move that turn.
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it again has a movement score of 1 {min(1+1,1)=1}
-You select the warrior and press 9 and the warrior moves diagonally up and to the right onto a mountain tile which has a movement penalty of 3 which is subtracted from its movement score making it -2 (=1-3)
-The warrior has a negative movement score and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of -1 {min(-2+1,1)=-1}
-The warrior has a negative movement score and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 0 {min(-1+1,1)=0}
-The warrior has a zero movement score and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 1 {min(0+1,1)=1}
-The warrior has a positive movement score and you press 6 to move the warrior to the right onto a grassland tile which has a movement penalty of 1 which is subtracted from its movement score making it 0 (=1-1)

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Maquiladora

I can say with certainty that this has never crossed my mind, and if it did it wouldnt bother me in the slightest. I mean come on people, is it really a tragedy if you lose 1.75 move points (because you didnt plan ahead), for the sake of keeping movement simple and intuitive?

Well planning ahead is all well and good, but you cant realy be telling us you've never had a serious momment in CTP2, where by a crucial army movement resulted in either the loss of an army/city etc - because your unit(s) had run out of movement points that you hadn't planned for?

I think the problem is that there is no real visible clue to movement cost, you just have to know in your head that woods cost '.3'mp more.

So maybe as we complicate this process it will become even less apparant where all the points are going. And thus harder to just look at the screen, see your armies, see your enemies and say 'ok it will take my army x turns to move too and defend that pass' ?

And at your - i felt the same

[Flinx]

[child of Thor]

But i like the idea, so dont surrender just yet we just need some more thoughts on this.

[Maquiladora]

Well planning ahead is all well and good, but you cant realy be telling us you've never had a serious momment in CTP2, where by a crucial army movement resulted in either the loss of an army/city etc - because your unit(s) had run out of movement points that you hadn't planned for?

No, im saying how is it the system's fault if i expect it to do things it wont? I understand the simple rules of movement and if my unit wont go any further thats my fault. If we change the system then i can expect different results. But then again if we change the system of movement i wont expect much because itll be too complicated to work out

[Flinx]

When movement in all directions is a whole number, it should not be too hard, but when you make movement in some directions 1.4 or 1.5 times movement in others (not my suggestion) it gets

we will need to make sure pathfinding is fixed before the '+' versus 'x' movement is seriously considered, and I think it should maybe be an option on the map setup.

[Martin Gühmann]

Re: DESIGN: Possible alterations to movement

Originally posted by J Bytheway
It means that there is more likely to be a single optimal path to any objective, rather than several different ones, which always struck me as silly. When there are several options it is often optimal to take a path different from that which the game suggests, which is a nuisance. I noticed this during the democracy game - it made it more difficult to decide where we should send our units.

Well I didn't have much time, so I reply on that without reading the rest of that thread. One thing think to note about that is that the game didn't suggest the best path probably. Fromafar already posted a fix to make the path finding algorithm more like an A*.

-Martin