Expand UserActionAttachment & PoliticalActionAttachment To All Resources

alkexr

@cernel I've noticed a problem with the check-then-remove approach while thinking about it. The conditions only check whether you had enough resources before the user actions phase. If you spend resources for user actions, the conditions won't be reevaluated, and all other user actions will still be available regardless of whether you have enough resources or not. At least this is my understanding of how conditions work.

Cernel

@alkexr As I already said, conditions are tested upon getting the actions panel. Just test it.

Cernel

@cernel You can test it with "Napoleonic Empires: FFA 5 Player", if you set Relationships Last Extra Rounds equal to -1.
Conditions are tested anew after each time you take an action, and this is intended.

General_Zod

@cernel

The ability to check any resource quantity for any players in conditions is a cool feature and has much potential. I would love to see it come to fruition someday. I'm not one to hold back progress but it should be a separate feature request.

There are overlapping functionality, but as it relates to user/political actions specifically, as I understand it, it will require more xml code to implement the same outcome as compared with this method. Also this assumes you are correct about the conditions being constantly checked and rechecked for multiple user/political actions performed on same players phase (after each individual action).

Anyways the 2 methods each have advantages and disadvantages but are not mutually exclusive. Meaning we can still hopefully get your method and all its functionality, down the road. This would also keep in line with existing xml structure as well, as there are currently areas where the same outcome can be achieved by different methods.

General_Zod

@redrum

Cool feature. I look forward to implementing it in Big World 3 once it is merged. Thanks.

redrum

@cernel Can't really remove the auto display of the resources amounts as that would pretty much make any existing maps that use them unusable. Unless you are volunteering to find/update all of them

And if something has a chance to succeed then whether it does or doesn't I'd expect the player to pay for it. Similar to tech tokens.

Cernel

@redrum Ok, but you probably mean similarly to v2 tech, then. Since v3 tech (token based) you keep the tokens if failing, that is effectually closer to paying the cost only with success (the only difference is that the tokens oblige you to try again, instead of using the money for something else).

I agree that would be good to update all maps having costPU, especially for, then, removing the costPU from the engine (instead of merely deprecating it), in favour of the new costResources. If @Frostion is good with that for his maps, I can look updating the rest. Agreed?

redrum

@cernel I'd love to remove costPU instead of just deprecating it as it really isn't needed with costResources so as long as folks can ensure all existing maps are updated then I'm glad to remove it entirely.

Cernel

@redrum Let's wait for @Frostion, then. Very few other games use costPU, and they amount to almost 0% of what is played.

alkexr

@redrum said in Expand UserActionAttachment & PoliticalActionAttachment To All Resources:

so as long as folks can ensure all existing maps are updated

I'd have assumed there was some standardized procedure for such scenarios. The task is just a simple mass replacement across files, isn't it everyone's first thought to just write a script and do it? Don't we have a bot that can do regex replacement across all game xmls? Wouldn't it be awesomely useful?

redrum

@alkexr Well we did a ton of mass map XML changes when we fixed a bunch of the spelling issues like attatchment. It ended up being a huge debacle IMO as we ended up missing a lot and it made it so if you upgraded your engine version you had to upgrade all maps and if you didn't upgrade your engine version you were stuck with all the old maps before the change. Though that was because many of the XML changes weren't compatible then.

I'd love it if someone wanted to take more ownership of doing mass map changes but also being more careful on what we change and ensuring we don't miss a lot of maps. The other problem is @RogerCooper keeps are fairly large repository of other maps that aren't in the official repos. So generally, I just don't want to spend the effort doing myself and no one else seems to want to volunteer to do it. What we really need is some 'map admins' which have probably some basic scripting/regex skills that help manage all the map repos. Would be great to have some of them help evaluate/categorize/improve/retire maps as well.

Cernel

@redrum said in Expand UserActionAttachment & PoliticalActionAttachment To All Resources:

And if something has a chance to succeed then whether it does or doesn't I'd expect the player to pay for it. Similar to tech tokens.

There is also the other case in which the action's success is dependent on a player's acceptance.

Cernel

The only games currently using "costPU" are @Frostion's

Age_of_Tribes_Classical.xml
Age_of_Tribes_Cold_War.xml
Age_of_Tribes_Modern.xml
iron_war.xml
iron_war.xml
iron_war_europe.xml

Hoping @Frostion agrees to delete the already deprecated costPU from them all, I would, then update only:

Civil_War.xml
Civil_War_Eastern_Campaigns.xml
Domination_1914-Weltpolitik.xml
Domination_1914_Blood_And_Steel.xml
Empire.xml
FeudalJapanWarlords3Player.xml
FeudalJapanWarlords4Player.xml
FeudalJapanWarlords5Player.xml
Greyhawk_Wars.xml
pact_of_steel_2.xml
Total_World_War_Dec1941.xml
Total_World_War_Dec1941_Beta.xml

and related properties, to tell the resources,

and remove all occurrences from:

another_world.xml
FeudalJapan.xml
Napoleonic_Empires.xml
Napoleonic_Empires_FFA_5player.xml
Napoleonic_Empires_FFA_8player.xml

These last 5 ones have only this useless code:
<option name="costPU" value="0"/>

Since @redrum already agreed with both my suggestions and and I am just waiting for @Frostion, if anyone owning any of the games above don't want me to touch them (preferring to do it himself), please let me know in here.

Also, if someone else, especially @redrum, wants to double check I'm not missing some games, that'd be good too.

p.s.: @Frostion I believe you shouldn't keep an xml outside the games folder, referring to your iron_war map (or I've no clue why you want that).

Cernel

@cernel I think I will first do civil_war only (2 games in 1 map). If I get the feeling that goes decently enough, especially referring to dealing with GitHub, I will do the rest, otherwise nevermind. The more of those games are removed from my list because others want to do it, the better. It would be also good if someone plays a game of Civil War after the changes and see if it appears working fine.

General_Zod

@redrum @Cernel

I use costPU extensively for diplomacy in Bad-Ass 4 Nation FFA. I also use it in my existing Big World 3, but only a few there so far.

Cernel

@general_zod And you plan to stop using it, in favour of "costResource"?

General_Zod

@cernel Only if it is (costPU) being removed entirely. Otherwise no need.

Or if the changes you guys are discussing will mess with my current functionality.

Cernel

@redrum Whatever is deprecated (like "costPU" already) should probably give an error message, I tend to think. I don't even know if there is a list of anything deprecated somewhere, or how mapmakers are supposed to know it.

redrum

@cernel Well, I don't really want to display a bunch of errors to the end user because the map is outdated or the map maker used deprecated options. In theory, we'd have more of a map review process and a map refresher process to ensure deprecated options get replaced and aren't being used in new maps.

Cernel

@redrum I recall that in the past there used to be two levels of errors. Those that would give a pop up and those that were tracked in the console without presenting it upon occurring. I tend to agree that it would not be nice to throw a warning for deprecates as, for example, "isInfantry" is deprecated, and you would get it in a lot of, if not most, maps. Likely if you would get an error for any deprecates, most games you have would have tons of errors; so, yeah, that would need to be hidden from default users.
A first step would be to actually know what the deprecates are, but this is off topic, I'll open a ticket.