Trading

[Lewin]

A tax on sending resources to other players is standard in other games (Age of Empires, Empire Earth) because otherwise it can become overpowered (it can be more efficient to mass produce something for your entire team than for each person to produce it individually)

[Ben]

It may be more effective for a player to, for example, only make food and send it to his allies who are only making weapons, but I'd like to point something out:

In AoK, "slinging" is a very effective strategy because of the technologies in the game. Just like on KaM, knights are very powerful in AoK. In AoK, some players like to rush knights as soon as possible, but the technology needed to train them is expensive, as well as the upgrades that a player can research to make the knights even stronger. If all four players on a team are making knights, the team as a whole is researching the same technologies four times. Knight rushes can be much more powerful if a player sits back and slings resources to his allies. With a slinger, all the resources that would have been wasted on the technologies are used to make extra knights, and this can be devastating if the apposing team isn't taking advantage of the same strategy.

However, in KaM, there are no technologies. KaM teams that have a slinger may be at a disadvantage because they are not using any of their iron. If they are on a leather location, then yes, it would certainly be effective to send food to iron location.

At the moment, the only effective sling strategies that I can think of would be to sling food, iron bars, (not using extra coal on making weapons and also avoiding the construction of armor and weapon smithies), and maybe to send leather to an ally (skipping only the armory workshop. Doesn't seem so great to me.).
Good player may be able to take advantage of sending other materials, but most everything else is something you need to produce anyway (timber, stone, etc). Food is the biggest one I'd be worried about, but again, if a player makes 8 farms to feed both himself and his ally, he's neglecting his iron.

[Da Revolution]

The one I'm worrying about is corn, but I think it's hard to abuse trading between players (even without trade-loss). Anyway I'm quite sure that this option could bring diversity to the team games.

[Ravior]

First off,

none of you seemed to have ever understood the meaning of the saying "If someone tells you to jump out of the window, would you do it?".
Things like "Other games have taxes" are no argument. The fact that we in real live pay taxes is absolutely astonishing stupid in so much ways, that already prooves none of all the people ever understood or dont want to follow the saying. But not too much offtopic.

@Ben: I have had at least 50 situations in the 10 games I played with friends where I would have helped them out soooo much that with just sending them some materials, but I couldnt, which made us loose a game which we could win easily, just these things holding us back. I know, it's about a good economy, but helping out when youre not so good can even help not so much experienced teams to improve by good communication and trading.

@Krom: Taxes? Why? Why do we need to loose so much of our stuff instead of having a trade off that just needs us to plan our transfers more carefully? Also the "It needs time to be transfered" method I suggested does at least a little support the original kam way of thinking that each good needs to be transported from where it was created to where it finished its existence. Taxes don't make sense because we are commanding our people to do what we want, why should we pay taxes now? Also, in all the other games its also not making sense that immortal people who command everything pay taxes for trading. Its just bad game-design, they all did. We can do better and improve this by our own ideas and do something thats not like it.

Also I would like to suggest that we start with a multi-implementing strategy, letting the players choose certain things in the lobby of the game, like how much resources there are in their warehouses (just multiplying them by either 1x, 2x or 4x) or this stuff would be good for it too. Players could choose, if they want to pay taxes or either if they need to plan their stuff a little better.

Also about these software-engineering principles I said we could use: These make sure anyone who is involved in the development process understands nearly exactly how everything should work. And if changes are made to a build up system, these can easily be seen on how they affect all the other features. That's basically the reason why these exists and why every professional developer team uses them.

[H.A.H.]

@Ravior: I was planning to make, as an excersise, UML diagrams for the KaM remake project to shed light on the code structure and behaviour. I have now worked some time with it, and it is structured very clearly already (a very good job by Krom and Lewin!), but those tiny details I had to figure out myself could be neatly documented in UML.

[Krom]

@Ravior: We look at other games, because they already spent a lot of time and effort choosing their strategies. It would be foolish to put that aside and invent each new bicycle from scratch.

I don't know how much stuff should be lost in taxes. Maybe 0, maybe 50%. Taxes are made not because "that immortal people who command everything pay taxes for trading", but because they add something to the game or prevent bad gameplay experience.

We would like to see some examples of "software-engineering principles" in KaM. Can you make us a few examples please?



@HAH: Would be great if you could post them and add to KaM svn.

[Ben]

none of you seemed to have ever understood the meaning of the saying "If someone tells you to jump out of the window, would you do it?".
Things like "Other games have taxes" are no argument. The fact that we in real live pay taxes is absolutely astonishing stupid in so much ways, that already prooves none of all the people ever understood or dont want to follow the saying. But not too much offtopic.

Your argument fails, because I can just say that other RTS games are designed by professional game designers, and the they have actually studied the concepts of RTS games more than we have, and we can look to them for wisdom. Their intellect is much more wise than the concept "jumping out a window."

Also I would like to suggest that we start with a multi-implementing strategy, letting the players choose certain things in the lobby of the game, like how much resources there are in their warehouses (just multiplying them by either 1x, 2x or 4x) or this stuff would be good for it too. Players could choose, if they want to pay taxes or either if they need to plan their stuff a little better.

I couldn't disagree more. When playing AoK online, it's almost impossible to find someone who agrees with you on what is the "correct/best/most fun" way to play. Dozens of lobbies are open with just the host, because people can't get others to agree on what settings to use. We are already getting lots of different settings added to the lobby (game speed in PT, game speedd after PT, PT, random locations, map). I really don't think that we need more.

And setting different starting wares for a map is a terrible mistake, I think. If the author is putting any thought into his map at all, he will put the amount of wares in the storehouse that are necessary for the location.

[Ravior]

I couldn't disagree more. When playing AoK online, it's almost impossible to find someone who agrees with you on what is the "correct/best/most fun" way to play. Dozens of lobbies are open with just the host, because people can't get others to agree on what settings to use. We are already getting lots of different settings added to the lobby (game speed in PT, game speedd after PT, PT, random locations, map). I really don't think that we need more.

And setting different starting wares for a map is a terrible mistake, I think. If the author is putting any thought into his map at all, he will put the amount of wares in the storehouse that are necessary for the location.

You know what *cut* sucks? Trying to show ten of your friends this awesome remake, all of them being discouraged because of the unevenly hard gameplay which derives from what map authors think would be good for the players. It would be so easy to have a nice start and explore everything if you would just not need to worry about everything at once. If players would be able to set that they want to have twice the amount of stuff in their warehouses, an easy start could be done well. And thats also nothing new, in your terms. Thats what the "wisdom of other gamedesigners" has shed on us in dozens of examples.

Your argument fails, because I can just say that other RTS games are designed by professional game designers, and the they have actually studied the concepts of RTS games more than we have, and we can look to them for wisdom. Their intellect is much more wise than the concept "jumping out a window."

Well, I don't know where you live, but just look out of the window and you see how much my argument does not fail in most of the cases. But well, you will need some philosophical and relativistic thinking for that I guess

I'm getting 25 years old this year, and I figured so much: The society I live in LIVES from that term. They all do whats taught to them, just because everyone else does. They go to shool where they learn 95% bullshit they will never need, the buy stuff they never needed, they listen to music and concentrate on those "stars" from hollywood. They pay their tickets and are being taught that they have to park their car in the other direction by police officers, even though just some few flight-hours from where they live, people are being murdered, agonized and more. Why is that? Nobody gives a shit. They all jumped out. Just because everyone does. And thats comfortable. WE as developers often do the same, we copy techniques others build up and just think "well its been like this, and its been well, doesnt it?". Its BASIC psychology. And it has NOTHING TO DO with using their wisdom by simply copying stuff others made. Everything should always be questioned, else we just have "another game" and not "a great or special game, which does something else, making it better or more fun then all the others in the genre". Short explain here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyFv__EkML8

@krom:

We would like to see some examples of "software-engineering principles" in KaM. Can you make us a few examples please?

Yes, I'm working on it Offtopic: Best music matching to working on something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4sQNLB7X78

@Hah: Cool Add this to the resources krom just named.

!	MODBREAK: Mind your language, thank you.

[Ben]

If your friends are having a hard time playing a map, than play an easy one. Why are you playing hard maps/ multiplayer in general with your friends when they first start? I don't blame them for quitting.

This is totally off topic.

[Ravior]

Well, where can I see which skill level a map requires? I never noticed.

What did you mean with its offtopic? The thing with my friends failing in the multiplayer maps?

And, wait, what? You dont blame them for quitting?

Its one thing a good game should have: Enable players to dive into it. If theres no way in having an easy start, no one wants to play stuff like this. Why should you want to play a game thats hard in the first place? It's supposed to be fun. And that is it, if you can start up easily, having an enjoyable time. This one setting I described would enable this whole fact. Otherwise, the community could be seriously harmed when it comes to growing just because the game is too hard to get into.

[The Dark Lord]

Town tutorial.

[Beatmaker]

As TDL said, and you can ofcourse 'practice' in the missions. I think almost everyone has started with those

[Menszu]

Its one thing a good game should have: Enable players to dive into it. If theres no way in having an easy start, no one wants to play stuff like this. Why should you want to play a game thats hard in the first place? It's supposed to be fun. And that is it, if you can start up easily, having an enjoyable time. This one setting I described would enable this whole fact. Otherwise, the community could be seriously harmed when it comes to growing just because the game is too hard to get into.

Ever heard of Dwarf Fortress?
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/ ... nComic.png
Fun is in mastering the game. Especialy the ones with their own, more complex mechanics. And I still count KaM as easyiest among Civilizations or Europa Universalis'es games. DF if above the league.
So it probablly depends on the players attitude ; )
Still it might be good to think about more advanced tutorial. Not only caring about how to play at all and don't starve, but how to play competitively.

[Ravior]

@ TDL and Beatmaker: I said, that I wanted to show them the game. This for me is not to point them at it and say "play the tutorial" but them and me starting a multiplayer session, exploring everything and me explaining stuff or answering questions. This is what its like if you do something together with your friends. Not playing the tutorial. And Thats what the game just isn't good at all.

@Menszu: And is mastering like getting into a game? I don't think so.

Like I said twice already, everything would be wonderfully easy for everyone to experience the game if the amount of resources could just be selected from the start on. That has nothing to do with having dozens of options where players would argue about over hours before starting the actual game. Its just "Few, Normal, Many". Easy as soap to implement.

But well, I don't see this getting anywhere. Game development via a community seems odd to me right now. It Doesn't work if anyone can say something when there is people who have widely spreaded experience in differencing levels. I won't continue on this one. After all, no one likes it if in his thought where he could have taken several hours or even days of thinking into it, it just won't work out if someone who has none experience at all besides playing games comes in and sais like

And its all out again.

I would love to support this Project, but I'm so sorry I dont have all day for arguing with theroetically anybody in the community on anything.
If this is wanted to get anywhere, there should rather be a kind of a team selected which does everything on their own, reporting results to the community regularly, receiving feedback from the community (which would be filtered through someone from the team). Like this I don't see this really becoming something.
Someone said its five years now that everything is being done. If that is really so, I would like to point out that this is a fact which clearly displays that the project is seemingly standing without any movement. And I'm sure one of the main reasons for this is the way the project is being developed.

[Siegfried]

You know what *cut* sucks? Trying to show ten of your friends this awesome remake, all of them being discouraged because of the unevenly hard gameplay which derives from what map authors think would be good for the players. It would be so easy to have a nice start and explore everything if you would just not need to worry about everything at once.

I can confirm this. As the host of regular LAN-parties, of course I've tried this, too. But it does not work because the learning curve is such steep that's it's impossible to have any fun.

But I don't agree that it's the hard start that makes it impossible to mix games between experienced and novice player. I am pretty sure that it's the fact, that the game is lost in the second that you loose your last troop. There are no truly defensive buildings (towers are too weak) and it takes ages to recruit new troops. As soon as your first troop is inside the opponents town, you've won.
Almost all other RTS are not that strict (we can even call it unbalanced) in that aspect.