Terrain Effects for movement

[redrum]

@wc_sumpton I'm thinking about whether units can enter territories when they have remaining movement points but not enough for that territory. My thought is to have an XML property which controls whether they can or can't rather than doing a range on each individual territory effect. So something like:

    <property name="Units Can Enter Territories With Higher Movement Costs Then Remaining Moves" value="false" editable="true">
      <boolean/>
    </property>

[Cernel]

@redrum This property would indirectly allow charging upon exiting. You just need to have in each territory a unit giving (at start turn) the exact same modifiers as given by the territory effects, then the practical behaviour would be exactly the same as charging upon exiting.

I indirectly agree to this.

[Cernel]

@redrum I also think this would be good for defining territories you cannot move through, but you can move into. Sort of no blitz territories, except that it applies also to non combat movement. Currently you either have fully passable or fully impassable territories, while there is not an option for a territory to be accessible but not transitable. So, yeah, I think this is a good property to have. I can think of some uses, also for triggering territory effects during the course of the game.

[redrum]

And it starts to become a reality...

XML

        <attachment name="territoryEffectAttachment" attachTo="Mountain" javaClass="TerritoryEffectAttachment" type="territoryEffect">
            <option name="movementCostModifier" value="germanStrategicBomber" count="5"/>
        </attachment>

Showing that a strat bomber that has 6 movement can't enter Austria as it would cost: 1 first move + 6 (1 base + 5 mountain) = 7.

[Cernel]

@redrum Please clarify if movement value 0 and remaining movement 0 units can enter a movement cost 0 or less territory, or, probably better, have a property for defining it. This is quite important to settle a matter.

[redrum]

@Cernel I'm still deciding if its going to be feasible to allow 0 movement left units to continue to move. Due to how units work today, once they hit 0 movement they can't move any more.

[Cernel]

@redrum My suggestion is having a property for it (could be removed if we sort out we really want one or the other). If not, I tend to think that this can be bundled with the property for entering with partial movement left. If that is true, then you can enter 0 with 0, otherwise you cannot.

[redrum]

And allowing bombers to have free movement into urban territories:

        <attachment name="territoryEffectAttachment" attachTo="Urban" javaClass="TerritoryEffectAttachment" type="territoryEffect">
            <option name="movementCostModifier" value="germanStrategicBomber" count="-1"/>
        </attachment>

Bomber with 0 movement left can move to a urban territory

Bomber with 0 movement left can't move to a non-urban territory

@Cernel I think I'm going to always allow units with 0 movement to move into adjacent territories that have movement cost of 0. I think that is the most natural approach and the way route finding is done, it would cause weirdness if you couldn't. Example if we allowed using all my movement points to move next to a territory with 0 movement cost and then not allowing moving into it in a separate move vs moving to the 0 movement cost territory in the original route would be allowed. This means if you have 0 movement cost territories, then 0 move units could move into them if they are adjacent. Generally, 0 movement cost or negative movement cost will be possible but in most cases isn't advisable unless you are essentially considering those territories as kind of "part of certain adjacent territories" or maybe like a wormhole.

        <attachment name="territoryEffectAttachment" attachTo="Urban" javaClass="TerritoryEffectAttachment" type="territoryEffect">
            <option name="movementCostModifier" value="germanAntiAirGun" count="-1"/>
        </attachment>

[redrum]

And an example of fractional movement cost. Here we assigned coast to only have a movement cost of 0.5 for infantry so they can move 2 only across coast:

        <attachment name="territoryEffectAttachment" attachTo="Coast" javaClass="TerritoryEffectAttachment" type="territoryEffect">
            <option name="movementCostModifier" value="germanInfantry" count="-0.5"/>
        </attachment>

[Cernel]

@redrum Ok, so it is official that I can have "production" units that have basic movement 0 and if I assign -1 for them on sea zones, then I can load them on transports without requiring any land transport units to go into the transport too?

[redrum]

@Cernel Yep. Here is an example:

        <attachment name="territoryEffectAttachment" attachTo="Sea" javaClass="TerritoryEffectAttachment" type="territoryEffect">
            <option name="movementCostModifier" value="germanAntiAirGun" count="-1"/>
        </attachment>

[Frostion]

@redrum How much fuel will be used? Will there be decimal fuel used? And will the player's fuel in bank also be like 102.75 fuel left?

[redrum]

@Frostion I'm not changing any of the fuel logic with this initial implementation. It will still just be based on the number of territories moved through. But if a map is going to use fuel and movementCost then I'll take a look at updating fuel cost to be based on movementCost instead.

But to your point, one of the issues is that resources don't support decimals at the moment so that would either need to be changed or fuel would have to round up/down.

[redrum]

@Frostion Actually taking a quick look at the fuel logic, I don't think its much effort to update it as well. The only limitation is I'm not going to update resources to allow decimals yet so fuel will have to round off. So my proposal is the fuel cost will be based on movement cost of the route (doesn't change for maps without territory effect movement costs) but will round the amount used up (the reason not to round down is that you could potentially game the system by moving 1 territory at a time). So an example would be lets say I have a tank where it costs 1 fuel per move and it has 2 moves (so costs 2 fuel total to move 2 territories in a turn with no territory effects). Now let's say I add Road territory effects so that territories only cost 0.5 to move across. Now a tank could move a max of 4 Road territories (would be charged 4 fuel without these fuel updates) but here would be the fuel charges that I'm proposing:

• Moves 1 Road territory - costs 1 fuel (0.5 movement cost rounded up)
• Moves 2 Road territories - cost 1 fuel (1 movement cost)
• Moves 3 Road territory - costs 2 fuel (1.5 movement cost rounded up)
• Moves 4 Road territories - cost 2 fuel (2 movement cost)

[Cernel]

@redrum To avoid having to make all movement 0 units selectable (this should have really been a setting per unit, not general) can I, instead:
1: Make the unit movement 1 and give +1 movement cost for it in any land territories (no effects for sea zones), so it can only go into sea zones. In particular, a land unit offloading into a territory will always do it without any movement cost implied, so that it doesn't matter if that land territory would normally be movement cost 1 or 2 or whatever, for it?
2: Make the unit movement 1 and giving -1 movement to self, and -1 movement cost in sea zones only. So, this way it will work just like if it would be a simple movement 0 units (but I can keep the other actual movement 0 units non selectable).

[Cernel]

@Cernel Assuming you'll confirm it, the fact that movement cost is never applied for offloading units (offloading always being an exactly cost 0 movement) should be documented in pos2, especially with reference also to the fact that offloading into a territory increasing your movement would not do it (as also per the general rule that you cannot move after offloading). Confirmed?

[Cernel]

@Cernel Finally, a land/air transported unit will ignore whatever movement costs to self, both the basic 1 and any modifiers from territory effects, correct?

[redrum]

@Cernel All 0 movement units are already selectable so nothing changing there.

Correct, unloading units doesn't check movement and ensures any unloaded units can't move any further.

Land/air transported units shouldn't be impacted at all since they don't check movement and just like unloaded units can't move any further.

[Cernel]

@redrum said in Terrain Effects for movement:

@Frostion Actually taking a quick look at the fuel logic, I don't think its much effort to update it as well. The only limitation is I'm not going to update resources to allow decimals yet so fuel will have to round off. So my proposal is the fuel cost will be based on movement cost of the route (doesn't change for maps without territory effect movement costs) but will round the amount used up (the reason not to round down is that you could potentially game the system by moving 1 territory at a time). So an example would be lets say I have a tank where it costs 1 fuel per move and it has 2 moves (so costs 2 fuel total to move 2 territories in a turn with no territory effects). Now let's say I add Road territory effects so that territories only cost 0.5 to move across. Now a tank could move a max of 4 Road territories (would be charged 4 fuel without these fuel updates) but here would be the fuel charges that I'm proposing:

• Moves 1 Road territory - costs 1 fuel (0.5 movement cost rounded up)
• Moves 2 Road territories - cost 1 fuel (1 movement cost)
• Moves 3 Road territory - costs 2 fuel (1.5 movement cost rounded up)
• Moves 4 Road territories - cost 2 fuel (2 movement cost)

I'm thinking, also, but not only, for consistency, probably you shouldn't have any possible non integer movement left for the remaining movement either. You are supposed to make all your movement in 1 go, so you can sum it all up, round it up, and apply it to the unit always as integer. Players are not really supposed to make multiple moves with the same unit, but rather use Ctrl to set the path, if needed (I know many casual players don't realize there is this possibility, but we can assume maps with non integer costs will be played by the fanatics). Unless in future there will be a way for non air units to move both in combat and non combat (which may be cool, especially for land raiding), the matter is current truly relevant only for air units, that would have their movement cost rounded up to integer at the end of their combat move, thus possibly moving less then what they could (for example, a fighter that moves through cost 2.5, would have only 1 movement left in non combat movement, instead of 1.5). So, how about being consistent between movement and fuel costs, and always rounding all up to integer at the end of the single (possibly multi territories) movement? It really impacts only on air units, currently, and only on any units able to move both in combat and non combat, in case this might be extended outside air units only, in the future.

[Cernel]

@redrum said in Terrain Effects for movement:

@Cernel All 0 movement units are already selectable so nothing changing there.

Not sure if you misunderstood what I was saying. Are you aware that is the case only if the property "Selectable Zero Movement Units" is true?

I'm not actually sure if that is relevant only for the human player and not for AI, actually (since the AI doesn't have to manually select). This would be interesting to know, if only as a curiosity.

To make an example, what I was saing is that, in Total World War, in order to be able to select, thus move, the "material", you need to generally make all movemnt 0 units selectable, that means you will be able to pointlessly (and a bit confusigly) select also factories, plants, fortifications, etc.. I just said that would have been cleaner as an option per unit, like you can make selectable only the material, instead of as a property for all movement 0 units.

And, then, I just added a couple of way to hack it, that is leaving the "Selectable Zero Movement Units" false and have the movement 0 units you want to select being actually movement 1 and giving -1 movement to self or, now that you have territory effects, having them as movement 1 but having a -1 additional malus in all land territories, so that way you will both achieve having a clean selection of only the relevant units unable to move on their own on land, as well as achieving the feat of freely loading them on sea transports.