Terrain Effects for movement

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.

redrum

@Cernel "any possible non integer movement left for the remaining movement either" - In short, no. Movement left will allow decimal values for flexibility and to your point if there are eventually maps that allow movement during both phases and for air. Putting a limitation on movement left to be an integer based on fuel, I don't think is the right long term direction.

"Selectable Zero Movement Units" - Correct but if you are going to allow 0 move units to be selected and move then you should be setting that property already (TWW being a good example). I think you could argue that it should have been a per unit setting rather than overall game property and that is something we could consider changing. I don't believe the property is relevant to the AI (though the AI doesn't really handle 0 move units that can actually be moved well at the moment) and really is actually more of just a UI functionality property that allows the player to select them and try to move them. I would much rather improve that existing property than try to hack something with weird movement costs. If that hacks work then you are welcome to try and use them but I definitely don't think either of your examples are really the ideal way to achieve those things.

Cernel

@redrum Well, I said that they were hacks, but is really making the material etc. movement 1 and giving +1 to all land territories more hacky than making it movement 0 and giving -1 to all sea zones?:smiling_face_with_halo:

On the user side, the second one is much a better solution, currently, as it will allow you not to have selectable 0 movement units, both saving you keeping selecting all those factories, plants, etc., and having the material etc. highlighting upon hovering (as all units that can be moved should really be).:winking_face:

Really, I would rather say that it is the "Selectable Zero Movement Units" property that is sort of hacky, or at least unpolished, both as a matter of gameplay and as a matter of usability (allowing selecting but not highlighting what you can select is really half-baked).:unamused_face:

Anyways, no worries, I was just pointing out some options currently to achieve the result of having immobile land units able to self moving into ships only, if that is wanted.

The second method would also allow limiting it to harbour only, if you have the unit having 1 movement, the harbour giving 1 movement and all land territories having +2 movement modifier while all sea zones having +1 movement modifier.:smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Frostion

@redrum
I was just asking about how fuel would work. I really didn’t have any intentions of proposing fuel charge/usage changes.

But now when you might make fuel usage be affected by the territory, I am already thinking about how to make use of this feature

As I see it ... yes a wormhole should also let the ship unit save some if not all fuel, but a territory with highways compared to a territory with small roads should not necessarily let the units save fuel buy racing across the territory in high speed. So in my mind movement cost should not always affect fuel cost.

Cernel

@Frostion The matter is arguable. Faster roads are usually better roads, and better roads are usually fuel saving. But, yes, it can go both ways, or anywhere in the middle, in practice.

redrum

@Cernel I think you officially win the award for the "most emotions expressed by emoji in a single post"! But yeah, the others are a bit more hacky but could be better for certain situations. The good news is that they all should work. And yes unit selection/highlighting for 0 move units isn't very polished or flexible (seems like it would be a good feature request).

@Frostion Ok. Well, I think having it proportion to movement cost rather than just number of territories moved is probably better as a default. But really whoever makes the first good map with fuel and movement cost can request how they think it should work and most likely I'll adjust it then.

Frostion

I have been testing out the territory effect that should affect movement. To be honest I think it is so un-intuitive that it is bordering to useless, as players probably have a very hard time figuring out how it works and how it will affect the unit movement.

Like this example:

A ship with 2 movement wants to go from X to X
It is adjacent to a “windy” sea zone (all sea zones with a bouy) giving "movementCostModifier" count="-0.5"
Can this be done in a single move? How far can this 2 movement ship actually sail in this turn, towards the goal?

The point is that all players should be able to give the answer immediately, if it was intuitive and user friendly.

I can’t remember why it was decided that that the modifier should be given to units ENTERING and not EXITING a territory. I can’t remember how we got to the decision that a “movement cost modifier” was the way to go instead of just a +1, +2 or -1 to the units original movement... or if I even advocated these things. But this is not the point of this post, so I will not read this entire thread again.

But I do think that the feature should be altered to something more simple, like into that the effects should apply to units already in a territory and just give + or – a number to the movement.

Does any map actually use the feature as of now? (Not counting my Warcraft map that is testing this feature out, but will probably scrap it because of its un-intuitive nature)

Cernel

@Frostion said in Terrain Effects for movement:

I can’t remember why it was decided that that the modifier should be given to units ENTERING and not EXITING a territory.

Maybe because only 1 user was advocating giving the modifier upon exiting (or at least having a property to customize the behaviour), and everyone else was suggesting giving it upon entering. Just making a guess. Of course, at the end it was up to @redrum to decide.

redrum

@Frostion So I'm open to adjusting this as I don't think any map has fully implemented yet. I tried to implement what I felt the majority of folks commenting were asking for.

For your example, my general intuitive answer would be it depends if the last movement requires units to have enough to cover that move. So looking at it I would expect the moves to cost 3 * 0.5 for the 3 windy tiles then 1 for the last tile so 2.5 total. Whether you can make the move then just depends on if units can use any remaining movement to move into the last tile or require enough movement for the last tile. Am I missing something? Is that not how most other TBS games like Civilization handle it?

Frostion

@redrum Well, the 2 movement ship cannot go from X to X as it wanted, but it can go further as this screenshot shows, as the unit gets a discount on entering yet another windy zone.

My point is that if this system requires the players to do "0 point something" multiplication or division math to figure out how the territory effect affects the units, then I think it is too complicated for use. I mean, all other territory effects are pretty simple to understand and figure out, but this one is totally different.

I also don’t think any map has implemented this system. But I am actually curious if any one would perhaps make use of this feature as it is now …. Perhaps having some map setup where the current system would be really useful and make sense? @Hepps @alkexr @wc_sumpton @CrazyG @Schulz @Cernel ??? <-- Just the names I could come up with

redrum

@Frostion Yep that's what I expected. If you want it to be able to move X to X then just set this property:

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

I generally think that property is probably more intuitive in most cases as true but there are arguments on both sides of it. This is essentially the difference between Civ 5 and Civ 6 movement. Civ 5 let's you use any remaining movement to move into any territory regardless of cost while Civ 6 doesn't allow that and requires enough remaining movement to cover the territory move cost.

In terms of decimals, this is really like roads in say Civilization or other games which are making the territories cost less than 1 movement per territory. I personally think that is fine though if you didn't want decimals you could make every normal water territory cost 2 moves and then the windy ones cost 1 move and double all ship movement.

Cernel

@redrum In the @Frostion example, it would take 2.5 both if you charge upon entering or upon exiting.

If I have to think in terms of user friendliness, I would say charge the highest cost between the territories you are moving.

In the Frostion example, you would pay 0.5 if you move from barrel to barrel, but 1 in any other cases (no matter if moving between no barrels at all of with a barrell in only one of the territories you are navigating).

That way, you could just think in terms of saying "I move 2 per movement point as long as I'm moving in the territories with the barrels, or 1 space per movement point otherwise".

However, here I'm just thinking in terms of user friendlyness, so I would have to ponder the matter more whether or not, on general terms, I would think such a solution would be better than my preferred way of charging only upon exiting.

Clearly, a solution like this would make totally useless single or isolated movement bosting territories, as they would get always overridden by all the movement costlier territories they connect to.

On the other hand, that would increase the influence of single or isolated movement draining territories. In the @Frostion example, if the Maelstrom would give some movement malus, say charging 2 movement points instead of 1, then your movement 2 ships would be able to enter the Maelstrom only if bordering it before moving or moving of only 1, if starting inside the Maelstrom.

Anyways, I think I would still prefer charging upon exiting only. In the example, if the Maelstrom would suck my speed, I think I should not be penalized when I decide to get into it, but only when I want to get out of it (and it would also make sense I cannot get out of it if exiting the Maelstrom would require more movement than I have, thus getting stuck inside the Maelstrom forever (realistically, ships should be lost if they cannot reach a sea zone adjacent to a friendly territory with a port after a given number of turns, but this would be a feature request)).

So, I guess I'm still for charging upon exiting, but maybe taking the worst one of both territories might be at least more user friendly, if not better, than charging upon entering.

But, really, the best would be just leaving the mapmakers free to set, per each territory effect, a modifier for entering and for exiting. This can also have a use to represent things like "high ground", where the high ground would give a malus upon entering (as you are moving upwards), but giving a bonus upon exiting (as you are moving downwards), while such bonuses and maluses would cancel each other as long as you are moving between same altitude territories.

Anyways, I've personally no immediate plans to use this feature, so here I'm talking Platonically.

Cernel

@Frostion said in Terrain Effects for movement:

@redrum Well, the 2 movement ship cannot go from X to X as it wanted, but it can go further as this screenshot shows, as the unit gets a discount on entering yet another windy zone.

My point is that if this system requires the players to do "0 point something" multiplication or division math to figure out how the territory effect affects the units, then I think it is too complicated for use. I mean, all other territory effects are pretty simple to understand and figure out, but this one is totally different.

In your example, if the movement would be charged upon exiting (instead of upon entering), both ways would require 2.5 movement points, thus both movements would be impossible, no matter any current properties, as you would have fully expended your movement 2 capabilities upon reaching the third barrel.

No idea if that would feel easier on you?

Captain Crunch

did this thread get derailed?

there's at least 3 or 4 posters who make like the exact same hilarious parent's basement troll posts :

This is classic Frostion:

"I was just asking about how fuel would work. I really didn’t have any intentions of proposing fuel charge/usage changes."

"As I see it ... yes a wormhole should also let the ship unit save some if not all fuel, but a territory with highways compared to a territory with small roads should not necessarily let the units save fuel buy racing across the territory in high speed. So in my mind movement cost should not always affect fuel cost."

"I mean, all other territory effects are pretty simple to understand and figure out, but this one is totally different.

I also don’t think any map has implemented this system. But I am actually curious if any one would perhaps make use of this feature as it is now"

This is Classic Cernel:

"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."

EPIC FUNNY

I thought to make a thread called "New to forum - ignore the aliaser trolls" because it helps get more people to the forum and keep them if they know who the nitwit trolls are

It's like Shulz, Frostion, Lafayete, and Cernel are nerdling quadruplets separated at birth lol amiright

.
(don't ban me )

Frostion

@Captain-Crunch
Well, the whole issue discussed here was not original involving "fuel", but I think it was pretty clear to all that territory effect movement modification could/should/shouldn't affected fuel consumption somehow.

So of course the discussion evolved to also include fuel. And after implementation of a new feature, the new feature should be tested and evaluated .... and the discussion, and maybe peoples stances, change. I think that is ok I thought about making a new thread with my feedback, but then I decided to just post in this old one as it still had the old ideas and intentions. (as stated I can not remember the original discussion and didn't think it that important as we are now more like i an evaluating and testing phase)

redrum

@Frostion Did setting the above property to true allow the movement you were looking for?

Frostion

@redrum I wasn't really looking for any specific movement options for the ship unit moving from X to X. More like challenging people to figure out its movement options, like if they were playing the game and had to move the unit.
What I wanted to say with the challenge is, that I think that the multiplier effect that is affecting a unit every single time the unit moves from one territory to a neighbouring territory is a pretty complex (too complex) system to be user friendly. Nothing as simple as if the effect was just a +1 or -1 to Movement out of a territory.

Yes, the Civ games use the same concept. But in that game most units just move 1 or 2, and the system just handles if it is possible for a unit use its 1 or 2 movement to enter a territory. That is pretty simple, unlike calculations we se in my example. Imagine if it was not a 0.5 multiplier but a 0.33. I would guess that it would challenge most players trying to figure out how this territory would affect a given 1, 2, 3 or even 4 move unit.

I really hope some mapmaker would give his input in regards on any thoughts about using the system as it is constructed now, or if it also to them seems to complex for fun.