Beta 6 is here!

[Litude]

My point was that there were a few groups of axe fighters/bowmen quite close by, who wouldn't protect that tower but the next one along they would. Still, never mind, because otherwise they'd be way too agressive and would send all their troops at once.

Considering that your base is quite far away from the southern yellow team increasing the defense radii (is that how you write radius in plural?) shouldn't cause any problems.

As a matter of fact there is plenty of gold in that hill, about 4 mines worth! (I mean 4 locations to build a gold mine, each reaching places the others can't) This map has as much or more gold than mission 4. I only had to construct 1 mine and only about half of the minable gold from that section was mined. (there was still lots left, and still more places to build mines that couldn't be reached from there)
I think 200 is way too much for this mission, and 100 would be far more suitable.
But still, I won't get hung up over it if you say no.

Seems like my memory failed me on that one, the mountain is small but it's completely filled with gold. Still, I'd rather not change starting resources without a good reason.
Also I think you started with quite a low amount of food so perhaps the creators thought some more starting gold was necessary so that a rich production of food could be ensured before venturing into gold production?

Yeah, just leave it. Not such a big deal, they did send something eventually, and there is only 1 square you can stand on without the enemy archers shooting back at you.

Okay.

Thanks, although I was really after the main menu stuff to try to add a battle tutorial button.

Okay, I might be able to dig up the address but I think you might find it faster.

[Lewin]

Mission 7 TSK tested:
- Inn is not allowed, even though you have one at the start. Should be changed in my opinion.
- Message about the attack has perfect timing, they were just walking over the bridge. Looked great.
- Parts of the northern snow mountains need blocking. (I can tell my troops to walk on them, when they are completely inaccessible)
- When I was in the first enemy village, I could just see the other village over the mountain. IIRC I couldn't before in TSK. My guess is it's because of the higher scout LOS, I had some scouts with me. I kind of liked the second village being unknown, just a line of troops and watchtowers. Don't know what we can do about it though, make the mountain bigger? Decrees the scout LOS? Move the village/troops away? None of them are really good solutions, so I guess we will just have to ignore it.

Mission 8 next...
Lewin.

[Litude]

- When I was in the first enemy village, I could just see the other village over the mountain. IIRC I couldn't before in TSK. My guess is it's because of the higher scout LOS, I had some scouts with me. I kind of liked the second village being unknown, just a line of troops and watchtowers. Don't know what we can do about it though, make the mountain bigger? Decrees the scout LOS? Move the village/troops away? None of them are really good solutions, so I guess we will just have to ignore it.

I think the best solution would be to return the scout LOS to 9. Starting to look at it more and more as a good idea because the game was never designed to have units with more than 9 LOS, hence these strange bugs...

Mission 8 next...

I wish you luck in surviving the initial attack :twisted:

[Lewin]

Hi,
I've finished mission 8.

I think the best solution would be to return the scout LOS to 9. Starting to look at it more and more as a good idea because the game was never designed to have units with more than 9 LOS, hence these strange bugs...

Yeah, that would fix the issue. It would also make some of your "naysayers" happy, but the question is, will it make the "yaysayers" unhappy? Well, it won't bother me. I never really minded either way, I could see reasons for both sides of the argument.
So unless a lot of people complain then it probably is best to change it to 9.

I wish you luck in surviving the initial attack :twisted:

Hmm... Have you changed anything? To tell the truth I did find it a bit harder than normal. I survived with only 1 little axe fighter, and about 5 watchtowers. It still only took 1 attempt though.

Mission 8 TSK:
- So the first attack was great. Tough, but not impossible.
- Other attacks were also good. I attacked the enemy to the left quite early on, so I can't really judge his attacks. (he only got one chance other before I started attacking him) However the other team attack very well. (often taking me by surprise because I was off killing the other enemy)
- The in-game message has poor wording. It uses the word "defenses" twice in the same sentence, making it sound a bit Engrish. (repeating words like that is a big no-no in English ) However, I had trouble thinking of a better word. What about changing it to one of these: (original above, then suggested alternatives)

  Code:

It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall breach thy defenses! ----- It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall breach thy lines! ----- It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall crush thy village! ----- It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall breach them![/quote] I dunno, just giving you a few ideas. If you've got a better one just say so. Back to the report: - Some places in the northern hills need blocking. I think it would be worth checking all the maps for places that this hasn't been done on. Just open them in Krom's editor and see if there are any inaccessible places without red crosses on them. It looks kind of dodgy when you tell troops to move and they say "move" but just sit there. :wink: - When I breached the defences of the left enemy, I found that his serfs were is a huge muddle. I tried to screenshot it but somehow that failed and I lost the save. So I just explain it: There were serfs all trying to get in and out of the southern storehouse, causing huge congestion. There was a trail of clogged roads leading all the way to the barracks, and the inn was blocked too. So this must have been majorly slowing down their economy. I suggest you try to fix it by: A) making more of the area around the storehouse paved with road. B) maybe placing another storehouse somewhere else, down and to the right of the current one. Note that this bug might be caused by the AI now taking all wares into his storehouse. That would create more of a block up. - The defence of the top base was really excellent. I thought I'd killed all their troops, (I'd already destroyed half their watchtowers) so I charged all my troops in a disorganised manor. Big mistake. They had a few more barbarians and some pikemen hidden somewhere which killed half of my army. - This is just a general thing that I happened to notice whilst playing this mission, maybe it has always been this way. The iron smithy only produces 1 iron. I could have sworn that in TSK he made 2. (I found iron production to be very slow this game, compared to what I thought TSK was like) Still, quite probably my mistake, so don't take me too seriously. :) I'm a few hours in to mission 9, looks ok so far. Will provide a full report once I've finished. Lewin.

[Litude]

Hmm... Have you changed anything? To tell the truth I did find it a bit harder than normal. I survived with only 1 little axe fighter, and about 5 watchtowers. It still only took 1 attempt though.

Surviving with one axe fighter should explain it . In TSK this attack sent three troops of barbarians at you but because the AI changed in TPR the scripts didn't work in the same way and only two troops were sent in TPR. Changed it so it's like it was originally in TSK.

- The in-game message has poor wording. It uses the word "defenses" twice in the same sentence, making it sound a bit Engrish. (repeating words like that is a big no-no in English ) However, I had trouble thinking of a better word. What about changing it to one of these: (original above, then suggested alternatives)

  Code:

It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall breach thy defenses! ----- It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall breach thy lines! ----- It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall crush thy village! ----- It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy defenses well or the scoundrels shall breach them![/quote] I dunno, just giving you a few ideas. If you've got a better one just say so.[/quote] How about [code]It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy troops well or the scoundrels shall breach thy defenses![/quote] Not exactly the same, but the troops make up the defense don't they :wink: [quote="Lewin"] - Some places in the northern hills need blocking. I think it would be worth checking all the maps for places that this hasn't been done on. Just open them in Krom's editor and see if there are any inaccessible places without red crosses on them. It looks kind of dodgy when you tell troops to move and they say "move" but just sit there. :wink:[/quote] I haven't started doing this for any maps yet. I wonder whether I should... You can find these unblocked areas in pretty much every map. [quote="Lewin"] - When I breached the defences of the left enemy, I found that his serfs were is a huge muddle. I tried to screenshot it but somehow that failed and I lost the save. So I just explain it: There were serfs all trying to get in and out of the southern storehouse, causing huge congestion. There was a trail of clogged roads leading all the way to the barracks, and the inn was blocked too. So this must have been majorly slowing down their economy. I suggest you try to fix it by: A) making more of the area around the storehouse paved with road. B) maybe placing another storehouse somewhere else, down and to the right of the current one. Note that this bug might be caused by the AI now taking all wares into his storehouse. That would create more of a block up.[/quote] Perhaps, will need to look into this. [quote="Lewin"] - This is just a general thing that I happened to notice whilst playing this mission, maybe it has always been this way. The iron smithy only produces 1 iron. I could have sworn that in TSK he made 2. (I found iron production to be very slow this game, compared to what I thought TSK was like) Still, quite probably my mistake, so don't take me too seriously. :)[/quote] Iron production has always been this slow. [quote="Lewin"]I'm a few hours in to mission 9, looks ok so far. Will provide a full report once I've finished.[/quote] Sounds great!

[Lewin]

Surviving with one axe fighter should explain it . In TSK this attack sent three troops of barbarians at you but because the AI changed in TPR the scripts didn't work in the same way and only two troops were sent in TPR. Changed it so it's like it was originally in TSK.

Well I haven't played the TSK campaign in TPR, so I was comparing it to the original TSK version anyway.

How about

  Code:

It shall not be long 'til the barbarians fall upon us. Prepare thy troops well or the scoundrels shall breach thy defenses![/quote] Not exactly the same, but the troops make up the defense don't they :wink:[/quote] Not for me!! Watchtowers are my weapon of choice, and they are also the ones that takes the most preparation. After all, troops just need to be told to stand somewhere, but watchtowers must be built. I did think of using troops instead, but I thought it was inaccurate based on my tactics. Still, it probably sounds better than the ones I suggested. [quote="Litude"]I haven't started doing this for any maps yet. I wonder whether I should... You can find these unblocked areas in pretty much every map.[/quote] Well I guess it's not a big deal. I think it would be better if they were blocked, but I'm not going to get hung up over it if you say no. What is your objection to it anyway? It's not like many people will notice anyway. Hey, I had another crazy idea for the patch. I don't know if you noticed, but some of the images don't take on the colours of the team. For example, if the human player is not red then in the school the unit in training will always be red, not the team color. Similarly when catapults/ballistae die they are always red. I think this looks messy, and it would be good to fix. As I see it there must be someway the game knows where to replace red with the team color. This could be stored in: A) The EXE (seems very unlikely to me, seeing as there are thousands of images) B) The RX files. (Seems quite likely to me) So lets assume it in the RX files. Either there is a simple switch saying wheather or not it is color coded, or maybe it depends on the palette used. Either way, it should be fixable. Only 2 people really understand the RX files: Harold and Krom. I just had a look at the decoding infomation and it appears that everything is known. Or maybe there is a footer? Or didn't Harold explain something properly? I thought that it also said which palette to use, but it appears I'm wrong there too. @Harold: Can you help us out? Anyway, just a crazy idea. Not really a big deal because in the original missions you are always red, and the enemy rarely has siege equipment. Lewin.

[Litude]

Well I guess it's not a big deal. I think it would be better if they were blocked, but I'm not going to get hung up over it if you say no.
What is your objection to it anyway? It's not like many people will notice anyway.

Yeah well I don't feel like messing around with the maps too much but I guess this has to be fixed.

Hey, I had another crazy idea for the patch. I don't know if you noticed, but some of the images don't take on the colours of the team. For example, if the human player is not red then in the school the unit in training will always be red, not the team color.
Similarly when catapults/ballistae die they are always red. I think this looks messy, and it would be good to fix.
As I see it there must be someway the game knows where to replace red with the team color. This could be stored in:
A) The EXE (seems very unlikely to me, seeing as there are thousands of images)
B) The RX files. (Seems quite likely to me)

It has to be the EXE, simply because when e.g. the recruit icon appears in the school queue it is correctly colored, but once it's in production it turns red (but the graphic is obviously the same).

Another quite weird bug I noticed is that Rogues use different attack sound effect when they're attacking buildings than when they're attacking units. I wonder if this could be fixed from the units.dat file.

[Kevmo]

did you fix the going out of sync on the multplayer?

[Litude]

No, unfortunately it hasn't been fixed.

[Lewin]

It has to be the EXE, simply because when e.g. the recruit icon appears in the school queue it is correctly colored, but once it's in production it turns red (but the graphic is obviously the same).

Uh, yeah. I didn't think of that.
So: Maybe when it calls the function to load a graphic it passes a parameter telling it whether or not to do the colour changes. That sounds way too hard to fix without the source code.

Another quite weird bug I noticed is that Rogues use different attack sound effect when they're attacking buildings than when they're attacking units. I wonder if this could be fixed from the units.dat file.

Not really a problem IMO. If you can fix it in units.dat then that would be great, but I don't think it's really a big issue.
I never noticed this bug.


TSK Mission 9 Tested:
It was pretty good. From what I've heard people say I thought the auto build enemy would be really stupid. He wasn't too bad. I attacked him first, so I never really saw how good he was.
- The auto build enemy appear to have too few serfs. (lots of stuff was waiting) This might be because he was too busy training recruits, and the village layout was inefficient. Does it work out how many serfs automatically, or do you set it?
- SERIOUS: The top left enemy had a huge hungry problem. All of the villagers were trying to get to the inn, but it was never full. The problem was the serfs couldn't fill it up fast enough. (they had food in the storehouse, and the serfs were continuously delivering it) I would recommend giving them another inn, because their economy must have really been suffering from this. (A lot of villagers weren't working)
- The top left enemy has a spare (idle) blacksmith. He was standing outside the inn so I guess there is just one too many in the script.
- At some point I got a message saying that a huge attack was making it's way towards me. The wording in the message made it seem like it would be very soon, so I set up my troops and waited. After ~5 minutes nothing had happened, so I assumed they weren't coming. (I guessed that was because I had attacked them so much) They did come, but it was a good 10-15 minutes after the message. Way too long for an attack "making it's way towards thee".
- Their is a pike/lancemen defence position for the top right team just bellow the auto build enemy's base. However, when the group is full half of the men would be standing on the iron hill. (so they were just standing randomly around the place) I think you should move it out a bit.
- The auto build enemy had built 2 watchtowers, but they were on the wrong side of his base. (they were against the edge of the map, not towards my base) The were quite close to each other so it looked like he was expecting an attack from that direction. Are tower positions calculated based on the AI start location? Does he put them somewhere else if you move the start location towards the human base?
- The top right enemy has a spare (idle) farmer, same as the top left blacksmith.
- SERIOUS: The top right enemy didn't appear to be making troops! He had some recruits in his barracks but even though I was attacking him slowly he didn't seem to be making new groups. Normally when I attack a base the enemy will be training troops all the time, but over 5 minutes or so (I waited to see) he didn't. Could just be a weird once off bug though.

So that's the most bugs found by me so far in one mission. I am now playing mission 12.
Lewin.

[kuba11100]

Some testing after some long break...
12 TPR:
Attacks and radiuses are PERFECT! I didn't have any problems with enemies taking more soldiers. However, they could have more gold (400 for eastern and western and 300 for middle-north is a small amount). Also a small stone trace problem - picture describes it the best:
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/8755/12tprstonetracewy6.png
(copied mountain from 1 TSK, isn't it? BTW, look at the plough field)

13 TPR:
- Enemies don't keep their positions - there are attacks in the script instead of defense positions.
- you can win without killing the blue crossbowman troop at the eastern hill

14 TPR: (only a look in the script)
- too many goals (Litude said that there's a limit of 10 goals (winning conditions and messages, there are 12 in the mission)
- start positions of AI players are all in the same place - on the hill near our storehouse

[Litude]

Not really a problem IMO. If you can fix it in units.dat then that would be great, but I don't think it's really a big issue.
I never noticed this bug.

Once you know about it, it's hard not to notice. But I don't know my way around the units.dat though...

TSK Mission 9 Tested:
It was pretty good. From what I've heard people say I thought the auto build enemy would be really stupid. He wasn't too bad. I attacked him first, so I never really saw how good he was.

The auto build AIs are very dumb, though I guess most of the hate is caused by saving and loading which makes the build process freak out.

- The auto build enemy appear to have too few serfs. (lots of stuff was waiting) This might be because he was too busy training recruits, and the village layout was inefficient. Does it work out how many serfs automatically, or do you set it?

No idea, they do have the normal worker facotr there but whether it works or not I haven't tested.

- SERIOUS: The top left enemy had a huge hungry problem. All of the villagers were trying to get to the inn, but it was never full. The problem was the serfs couldn't fill it up fast enough. (they had food in the storehouse, and the serfs were continuously delivering it) I would recommend giving them another inn, because their economy must have really been suffering from this. (A lot of villagers weren't working)

I gave them one more inn already and from my testing it seemed that it was only the first time when the workers had to eat when this delivery shortage occured. Did it conitnue through the mission for you?

- The top left enemy has a spare (idle) blacksmith. He was standing outside the inn so I guess there is just one too many in the script.

Okay I'll check, though sometimes the AI just trains too many of a certain citizens. In this mission I think they were pre-set, however.

- At some point I got a message saying that a huge attack was making it's way towards me. The wording in the message made it seem like it would be very soon, so I set up my troops and waited. After ~5 minutes nothing had happened, so I assumed they weren't coming. (I guessed that was because I had attacked them so much) They did come, but it was a good 10-15 minutes after the message. Way too long for an attack "making it's way towards thee".

Yeah... But the army they attack with is gigantic so a 15 minute warning sounds reasonable for me. I mean for the one who is prepared that 15 minute wait will be an annoyance, but if you aren't prepared 15 minutes is enough to get an army going.

- Their is a pike/lancemen defence position for the top right team just bellow the auto build enemy's base. However, when the group is full half of the men would be standing on the iron hill. (so they were just standing randomly around the place) I think you should move it out a bit.

Yeah, generally the defense positions were real weird in this mission anyway and I was a bit afraid of managing to overlap another defense position or valuable building space if I moved them. The AI defending ends up real weird if a building is built on a defense position.

- The auto build enemy had built 2 watchtowers, but they were on the wrong side of his base. (they were against the edge of the map, not towards my base) The were quite close to each other so it looked like he was expecting an attack from that direction. Are tower positions calculated based on the AI start location? Does he put them somewhere else if you move the start location towards the human base?

The start position tells the AI where to start building his base, so moving it leftwards would move all his buildings leftwards. Thing is, the buildings are placed quite randomly so fixing the watchtower problem would be pretty much impossible.

- The top right enemy has a spare (idle) farmer, same as the top left blacksmith.

Okay.

- SERIOUS: The top right enemy didn't appear to be making troops! He had some recruits in his barracks but even though I was attacking him slowly he didn't seem to be making new groups. Normally when I attack a base the enemy will be training troops all the time, but over 5 minutes or so (I waited to see) he didn't. Could just be a weird once off bug though.

Weird, did he have the equipment? When I tested the mission the top right team did attack me some 10-15 minutes after the warning message was sent so he had to be making troops.

Some testing after some long break...
12 TPR:
Attacks and radiuses are PERFECT! I didn't have any problems with enemies taking more soldiers. However, they could have more gold (400 for eastern and western and 300 for middle-north is a small amount).

Great! And yeah the average gold amount for the AI in The Peasants Rebellion mission is quite low. In TSK it is around 800, TPR is around 350 so the amount in TPR will be increased (besides, the AI produces gold in a lot of the TSK missions).

Also a small stone trace problem - picture describes it the best:
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/8755/12tprstonetracewy6.png
(copied mountain from 1 TSK, isn't it? BTW, look at the plough field)

Yeah... Those stone trace problems caused by uneven terrain are a real pain to fix. My testing shows that sometimes the stonemason can manage to cut the whole mountain and sometimes not, depends on which pieces he cuts at first...

13 TPR:
- Enemies don't keep their positions - there are attacks in the script instead of defense positions.

Yeah but I wonder as it is a battle mission, are they supposed to? Perhaps they should though.

- you can win without killing the blue crossbowman troop at the eastern hill

I thought that this was done as it would be a bit weird that you don't have to kill the bowmen on the western hill either (they are inaccessible, but still...).

14 TPR: (only a look in the script)
- too many goals (Litude said that there's a limit of 10 goals (winning conditions and messages, there are 12 in the mission)

Yeah all these problems have already been fixed.

- start positions of AI players are all in the same place - on the hill near our storehouse

Perhaps they are all supposed to attack the same area?

[kuba11100]

Yeah... Those stone trace problems caused by uneven terrain are a real pain to fix. My testing shows that sometimes the stonemason can manage to cut the whole mountain and sometimes not, depends on which pieces he cuts at first...

I think it depends on the shape of the bottom of the mountain: it needs to be flat.

Yeah but I wonder as it is a battle mission, are they supposed to? Perhaps they should though.

After some blue crossbowmen walk it looks like this:
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8031/13tprdefensepositionstz7.png
so why not?

14 TPR:
- drunk soldiers bug after about 3 hours (first attack of northern blue enemy)

[Litude]

Okay I will add defense positions to the units. Will also decrease the amount of soldiers present in mission 14 TPR.

@Lewin: I checked this thing with blocking areas that are not accessible. There are some problems with this as this will remove all map objects from the area and any possible animals (mostly crabs) that might have been placed on such locations. Should I still go ahead and do this, or only do it for areas without objects or animals?

[kuba11100]

I still think that there's too less stone in TPR campaign.
I counted number of stone in some missions (of course once, I'm not so bored to check every one stone!), that in the mountains and storehouses:

TPR:
1: 120 (tactic)
2: 0 (tactic)
3: 1000
4: 999
5: 0 (tactic)
6: 1387
7: 943 (1252 if counting the remote one)
8: ? (tactic)
9: 1210
10: 1408
11: 0 (tactic)
12: 1207
13: 0 (tactic)
14: 3999

Tutorials:
TSK: 4303
TPR: additional 1170 in enemy's base
battle: ?

TSK:
1: 770 (excluding that outside the base)
2: 1330
3: ? (tactic)
4: 1495
5: 1666
6: ? (tactic)
7: 1107
8: 1323 (4020 with enemy's)
9: 2366 (5517 with enemy's)
10: ? (tactic)
11: 2490 (2976 with enemy's)
20: 3999 in script (1000 in commented second storehouse)

(incomplete list)

Even now it can be easily noticed that it's below 1400 of stone in TPR missions with the biggest maps, and it's more than 1400 in small TSK maps.

What do you think about it?