Add new gamemode!!!

[MikiTheBerserkr]

Add a gamemode where you don't pointlessly fight 20 random factions who attack you for no reason, while you are on your way to buy groceries, this is boring!
Maybe give us freedom, let us go wherever on the whole continent, build and manage our cities, make alliances and fight wars as we wish, defend ourselves from invasions!! That would be epic!

[lhybrideur]

There are already several add-ons doing that.
They only thing preventing them from going mainline is the lack of quality. You are more that welcome to test them then contact the maintainer to improve their quality enough that they will be considered for mainline.

[dwarftough]

I don't think Altaz Mariners lacks quality, although it's about sea journey, not continent. There are some other addons, like An Independence War, for example.

I wouldn't say they lack quality, you just can't put everything in mainline, especially if it's not about Wesnoth mainline history events and setting

[Straff]

Maybe Wild Frontiers is what you are looking for.
I recommend this add-on.

[MikiTheBerserkr]

Maybe Wild Frontiers is what you are looking for.
I recommend this add-on.

You don't understand at all.... I am describing like a normal strategy game... Where you can create your kingdom on open world map... And freely fight, or work with other nations, without being bound to certain scenarios and time frames...
Building is a nice addition, for example designing your own defenses would be helpful... But it's not the main point...

And this mod seems to be just normal wesnoth, but you can build.

[beetlenaut]

What you are describing is a completely different game. This is not a mode that can be tacked on to Wesnoth. It would require rewriting huge sections of the code to make something that works that differently.

Try out Civilization VI. It has a lot of the features you want.

[MikiTheBerserkr]

What you are describing is a completely different game.

Not completely different, but much better.
It would still be wesnoth, but not as boring...

This is not a mode that can be tacked on to Wesnoth. It would require rewriting huge sections of the code to make something that works that differently.

Weird, because last time I checked there were mods with open world map, or no turn limit, that weren't bound to scenarios...
Strange legacy has all of those, but it's not strategy it's rpg...

[beetlenaut]

The way Wesnoth is written and the way the API works requires scenarios. Some UMC authors have been creative on how to move from one to another, like in Strange Legacy, but you always need to be in one.

Removing turn limits is very easy to implement, but it requires changing the way gold and experience work as well, so most creators don't do it. (If the player can just sit and farm gold or XP as long as they want, it makes other scenarios too easy, and it's boring for the player too.)

I can't see any way for most of the other features you want to exist. Wesnoth just isn't made for diplomacy, city management, open warfare, kingdom building, and so on. It's too scripted. The author would need to anticipate everything the player could possibly do in order to script the consequences. It would also be nearly impossible to balance an open world strategy game, because the author wouldn't know what resources the player would have at any point. That's probably why Strange Legacy is an RPG instead.

Maybe you should be playing Dwarf Fortress. You can build any kind of city, trade, declare war, go on raids, survive invasions, and much more. That's because almost nothing is scripted. Even the world map and boss units are procedurally generated. However, that is a very different game. Maybe a better game, but it's not BfW.

[Heindal]

Thanks for mentioning my add-on. I will add my five cents.

Beetlenaut is right, that you need scenarios, because when you enter a new map, it might have a different size than the main map. And it is just easier to code and maintain, as you can work modular. You can change an entire map, to pretend that it is the same map, but you can also just load the next scenario right away when moving to a spot.

While a new game mode that Miki described is quite possible with pure wml, some things are not that easy to pull off. But demanding a new game mode as core has a very low chance, and asking some one to pull it off as an add-on is probably unrealistic.

You could probably come up with a prototype of such a add-on in round about 24 hours (working time), so lets say 3 working days, this prototype would probably be lame in game play. Running around from city to city and add some options and variables for diplomacy is not the hard work (see Five Fates World Map, which is even the Wesnoth map, exactly what Miki is looking for but RPG ). Building can be done easily by adding a help-menu changing the terrain and giving the player an income. You could check if an enemy unit steps on the terrain and destroy the building, reducing it to a ruin terrain. You could attract the enemies by just making each of these new terrains (except defenses) a village.

But still the ai would behave stupid such as conquering your villages, even you are allied and maybe not focusing the right things.

The complexity lies in the problem that the other factions should behave naturally and maybe make war and try expand their territory. The ai needs to be coded handish, especially for this add-on. You can use some tricks as I mentioned above, but still. So far Miki has described a vague idea, which sounds like a walking simulator. I could add to my challenge list in the next advent calendar, but than you have to compete with the 'WesCom' idea, the 'Blue Dew Valley Harvest' and or Cute Animals II (and we urgently need a honey badger (Codename: rocket) ).

[Kapiork]

If you dislike how "boring" the Wesnoth gameplay is, then what do you actually like about Wesnoth?

[MikiTheBerserkr]

The way Wesnoth is written and the way the API works requires scenarios. Some UMC authors have been creative on how to move from one to another, like in Strange Legacy, but you always need to be in one.

And where's the problem?

If the player can just sit and farm gold or XP as long as they want, it makes other scenarios too easy, and it's boring for the player too.

I think you forgot that we are talking about open world strategy game here, lol

Wesnoth just isn't made for diplomacy

Well, I guess making AI capable of diplomacy would require some work. But to say that it's just not possible to implement can't be right...

Also by diplomacy I didn't mean advanced diplomacy. Just might be cool to have an ally.
But if not, that's fine too I guess.

city management

Wild Frontiers does that

open warfare
[/quote}
cap

kingdom building

Kingdom building is just city managements of many cities, and/or conquests.

The author would need to anticipate everything the player could possibly do in order to script the consequences.

wdym

It would also be nearly impossible to balance an open world strategy game, because the author wouldn't know what resources the player would have at any point.

I would do that without a problem (if I could code)

[beetlenaut]

And where's the problem?

can't be right...

wdym

I would do that without a problem (if I could code)

You are talking to people here who CAN code. We are telling you that some of the features you want would probably be too difficult to code, not interesting to play, or are not well-enough defined. You disagree, but remember that we do know what are talking about.

Now, I wouldn't mind being proven wrong! Maybe an add-on with all the features you want would be possible with creative enough programming, and maybe it would be engaging enough to play. Maybe. The only way we will know is if YOU learn to code. I'm not going to try to make this, and I'm pretty sure nobody else is either. We all learned to code because we had our own ideas--for this one, it's up to you. I'm not going to argue about it anymore.

[shevegen]

The invincibles offers quite large maps.

I do, however had, also have noticed that large maps can cause the game to slow down, especially on older hardware. So I guess there is a limit as to how big a map can be? Would be fun to know how big a map can be.

I also think playing on large maps, aside from resources or speed, can be very hard. I don't think I can easily manage, say, 50.000 tiles with 300 of my own units. I like big battles of course, some mods offer that, but it can become tedious. Especially underground huge battles that seem impossible to win.

Perhaps the in-game map editor could be extended and help with autogeneration (some parts) of maps, something like "give me 50 random but cohesive village tiles at this position, left-mouse-click event follows" - something like that. Even then I think mostly smaller maps are usually better. One of the coolest add-on is the one where you can summon djinni and what not. In one scenario you have to defend a city that is attacked by two factions. I think these are maps that are "realistic" - not too huge, but still large enough to allow for flexibility to maneouvre (or however you spell that word...).

> There are already several add-ons doing that.
> They only thing preventing them from going mainline is the lack of quality.

That's a bit too harsh IMO. For instance, I think legend of the invincibles is an epic mod. It has a high quality too, though balancing is always an issue. I don't think "lack of quality" would be a reason for it to not be in the main campaigns though. Or the one I mentioned with djinnis: my favourite add-on. Epic quality. Yet I also don't think it belongs into the mainline campaigns.

Speaking of which, it would be nice if the devs could adopt some policy for extending the mainline campaigns. I understand time constraints in an unpaid game, but something sensible, say, +1 new mainline campaign of at the least 10 scenarios, every 3 years or so. That should be reasonable and managable I think. Does not even have to be completely new, but could be picked from the existing add-ons (and authors can probably give permission to do so via a text file in their releases or so, e. g. "allowed_to_be_in_the_mainline_campaign: true" or something like that).

[lhybrideur]

Speaking of which, it would be nice if the devs could adopt some policy for extending the mainline campaigns. I understand time constraints in an unpaid game, but something sensible, say, +1 new mainline campaign of at the least 10 scenarios, every 3 years or so. That should be reasonable and managable I think. Does not even have to be completely new, but could be picked from the existing add-ons (and authors can probably give permission to do so via a text file in their releases or so, e. g. "allowed_to_be_in_the_mainline_campaign: true" or something like that).

The problem is that every mainline campaign needs to be maintained.
So it is not a one time job but an additional burden.