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| Thread: improvement to the caravan feature | |
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted January 02, 2004 03:49 AM |
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improvement to the caravan feature
maybe caravans should better work as follows: when you create a caravan, you are given a list of groups of creatures that block the way, and if you choose to send the caravan on it's way, it has to fight the creatures when it reaches them. also, a caravan might be visible on the map this way.
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theoretically, the localisation of resources could also be handled with caravans. and it troop upkeep costs (and caravan travelling costs) would be present, transporting resources over long distance would make building in a town more expensive.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted January 02, 2004 02:37 PM |
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I don't see why you would want to degenerate the ease of use for the Caravans?
The only use I found for them is to "ease micromangement", so I don't have to have a hero walking around visiting all the creature dwellings every week to get the creatures.
Occasionally, I've sent the stacks from town to town, but this happens very seldom and only on L and XL maps.
Why? Because it's rare that you want to send creatures from Town to Town, and often it's just as fast (and cheaper) to take the creatures by using a normal army (because of Troughs, Stables, movement artis and so on).
I think the Caravan feature works very well, and it should definiately not be changed for added realism, which means added micromanagement in my mind.
The way the game works right now is it finds the closest path not guarded by any monsters/armies, then it counts out how much movement is needed and then it takes that route. Often this route is not the fastest route, nor is it left free for the duration of the travel. It may be unrealistic, but it is simple and fucntional.
This way of doing it makes the Caravan a way of seamlessly moving troops from point A to point B.
I don't want the Caravan to be an army command, resource management and movement system. It sounds like pure evil micro mangement to me.
Basically, IMO the major pluses of the system is:
- The Caravan is safe (can't be attacked)
- Caravan is reliable (you know the result of sending the caravan when you send it).
- Caravans are relatively easy to manage (through GUI).
All of those things could go down the drain if this is implemented. (A bit depending on what ideas you have.)
About safe:
Making Caravans visible and attackable would be really BAD for game-play. I don't want to have combats where one player attacks a Caravan of 1 Sprite just to bring up the combat screen and waste one minute or more of game time for a bad gaming experience (or if it is an economic caravan, the getting pop-ups telling me I've lost 1 Mercury would be really annoying.)
About reliable:
Only making them visible but not attackable, could lead to game dead-locks since the game will have to recalculate routes. What can potentially happen here is that scripts change the map so that the army becomes lost in 'nowhere'.
An enemy could flag one of your shipyards and without it, you can't reach final destination. What do you do then?
The problem is that at this point the stack could be anywhere, and the location it's on could be a location for a neutral stack). The player is no longer guaranteed to hold a town (or anything else which would make a permissible target for the caravan.)
Example of problem that might arise:
Let's say the player only has one army left, nothing else. Things looks bad... So player never puts army back on the map. Other players can't win. Would be even more annoying if AI forgets or decides the same as the player would.
About easy:
The GUI would have to be more complex. I guess movement paths would have to be recalculated each turn. Player's nightmare to lose a town and have to spend two minutes on Caravan screen to redirect everything going to that town.
My take is that Ubisoft should spend their time on other things. A better Map AI would be a great.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Blue_Camel
Famous Hero
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posted January 02, 2004 06:03 PM |
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well actually.. i think you should make this an option on the caravan screen.. because i've had cases in MP where I am using all 8 army slots, but need to recruit some troops at some external dwellings.. caravan is very helpful for this, but what if way is blocked? then I must send an army that's doing something else to recruit them. if the monster being recruited is L4 (maybe L3 too) then it can probably beat the army that blocks the way.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted January 02, 2004 06:57 PM |
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You are limited to eight armies so you can make strategical choices on what you want to do. (That and to reduce the game time needed to be spent on each turn.)
The caravan screen should not be used as a means for circumventing strategical decisions.
Also the player should not be told what's blocking the path. That's information which simply shouldn't be given.
So I think you should be forced to give a priority to how important it is to clear the road to the dwelling, and if important enough detatch the troops you think will be needed to do the job.
You don't need to send an army to recruit them, you need to send an army to clear the way for the caravan to work.
Usually, if the player plans ahead this kind of problem can be planned for, since the blocks are of two types:
- Month of the XXX, which can be circumvented by recuiting 1-2 days before it happens, and then your armies can clear the way to important external dwellings fairly quickly after it has happened.
- Player or mobile gaurds, these blocks are usually temporary. Try again next turn!
If you want to enhance the caravan screen then try the following enhancments:
- Automatic recruitment from this dwelling (if road not blocked and resources available)
- Caravan town garrison to any external garrison.
- Caravan any wandering army to this town.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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McCaulic
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posted January 03, 2004 12:52 AM |
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I mostly like how it is now, but I do like what you said, if an enemy is blocking it then you can see who it is. Many times for long distances I don't see who is blocking me from making the move.
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"If you expect a kick in the balls, but get slapped in the face instead, then you've had a good day.
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GhostWriter
Adventuring Hero
EtherLight
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posted January 03, 2004 02:01 AM |
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The only things I'd like to see added to the caravan system are the ability to caravan to and from garrisons, and that the manage caravans page actually works. For garrisons, perhaps you have to build a caravan strutcture in them to work, and for managing caravans, I think you should be able to change the destination of a group while it is in transit. I hate sending a huge group of troops from on town to another that needs defending, only to find that the first town is now threatened and there's no way to recover the troops. Also, you often go out and capture a new town, which could use the caravaned troops, but they've been busy moving to a town you've left and don't want to defend.
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~Celestial Heavens~
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted January 04, 2004 09:47 AM |
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as i said, i only mentioned the localisation of resources thing theoretically.
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imho the very reason for using a caravan is that the map is large and a considerable amount of time has passed, so that there are considerable amounts of creatures to recruit in towns that are far from the front lines. by that time, there has usually been a month of something, and if the distances are long enough, the road is very likely to be blocked.
if the player is to clear the road with an army, it's imho almost as good as if the troops had to be transported manually.
i agree that good players probably want to transport their troops manually, but i am a lazy person and so i rather appreciate the caravan feature. imho it was just not as functional as i would have expected it to be.
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getting info about blocking troops is a good point, though. it might often be an enemy army that happens to be on some road, so it would indeed be nasty if players would be encouraged to check all caravan routes each turn to see who is blocking it.
nevertheless, in the case of neutral troops, the people who have tryed to visit their grandmothers in another town might have noticed that some creatures have blocked the road, so there should be rumors about roads being safe to travel or blocked.
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another extreme might be that creatures on the map don't block any caravans. something like the caravan guild that transports the creatures to a new location is respected by everybody and everybody lets whatever caravan pass.
damned rogues, though.
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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted January 04, 2004 10:02 AM |
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I haven't given that much thought to the caravan, except that I proposed that it could be upgraded to a portal, which significantly increases the movement per day. And caravans should be needed to form trade routes, which is an idea that I haven't finished yet.
Moderator's note:This topic has been closed, as it refers to an older version of the game. To discuss Heroes 3, please go to Library Of Enlightenment, to discuss Heroes 4, please go to War Room Of Axeoth.
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Perception is everything.
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