Victories

[Titus]

Whoever engages an enemy first gets the victory if the enemy is defeated. This may be intended, but perhaps it would work better if whoever caused the most damage or killed the last enemy got the win. This perhaps may not be a bug, but an idea... I'm not sure.

[Viriato]

That's fixed now. I will restart engine soon, and then, when an army flees or is massacred, the one that gets the win is the one who did more damage.

[Titus]

Another trouble I've had is: both my army's and the enemy army's morale had got really low (less than 20%), and the enemy started routing. The next turn my army routed as well. I got a victory AND a defeat.

[Viriato]

Ok! Thanks for the info. Would be bad if no win for you Like it seems to happen often to AVERUS

More seriously, that's my foult. I wanted to make the combat abit more dynamic, where multiple players could start combat, leave meanwhile, others join, others flee and leave, and so on. It seems it causes more bugs and unfair/unlogic situations...
The true problem here is the routing armies and how to evaluate the battle results (when they are destroyed it's plain easy). I've come to a solution that I expect to implement during this week. When done, I'll post exactly how things will be processed.

It's not a promise, but I will try hard to fully fix army combat (with your inputs) and implement "world" during this week.

Thanks for the information.

[Titus]

I don't think Averus is getting that many losses because of bugs, but more because of going out of range. That's what I've deduced from playing. I could be wrong, but that's what I think.

I don't know if this would work, because I've never learned how making MUDs works, but here's how I think about the defeats and victories could go:

A third ending for battles could be made for the neutral ground between losing and winning. A 'draw', or something to that effect. That way, if you go out of range, or both (or all armies) rout, there would be no win, and no loss. In ancient warfare if an enemy outran you, it didn't mean you lost the battle, but that your enemy outran you.

That would fix the problem with the two people in one battle and one of them getting out of range because the enemy is retreating.

[Viriato]

Eh! Your surname should be "Bug Finder" (joking! be careful: you can only set your surname once!) Good job and good suggestions, thank you. I guess the draw will also solute part of the problems.

[Titus]

I could use "Cognoscere Insectum", which means to find out insects, according to my English - Latin dictionary.

[Viriato]

Good research!
Ok, I've fixed and going to implement army combat as soon as Averus awakes! It's much similar to previous combat (almost just bug fixing), but still needs to be tested - not only to see if it breaks engine, but also in search for those small bugs of victories, defeats, retreats, and whatsoever.
So, those are the changes:
- Each battlefield now have 5 zones: WESTERN_LIMIT, WESTERN, CENTER, EASTERN, and EASTERN_LIMIT.
- The first army engaging starts in WESTERN, and it's target in EASTERN. Each new army envolved in combat will start in one of those places, considering if they are friends of the engaging or engaged army.
- Status now shows a coloured battlefield scheme, and details your and your foes positions (and the army you are targetting).
- To retreat, an army must move to it's LIMIT and stay there for 2 turns (if you started WESTERN, you need to retreat to WESTERN_LIMIT and stay there for 2 turns, and vice-versa).
- If your army massacre an enemy army, you earn a victory and they earn a defeat.
- If an army retreats without any casualty, it's a draw and noone earns nor looses anything.
- If an army that suffered at least one casualty retreats, it will earn a defeat and the army who inflicted more damage to it will earn a victory.
- Now you are able to initiate combat against more than one army, and change your focus during combat (if in your room you have your army plus 3 foes, you can for instance engage all of them; the last "engage <army>" order will be the one you will be focusing your attacks - you will suffer 3 attacks, though; also, if during combat you wish to damage first engaged army, just type again "engage <army 1>" and you will refocus your attack).
- Now, casualties can be dead or wounded soldiers. In pratical terms, being dead or wounded it's the same: they do not count to inflict damage in your enemies, nor your enemy attacks will "hit" again wounded soldiers. The only advantage is that when you get reinforcements, your army will only loose VETERAN status if more than 50% are really dead soldiers.

I guess I said it all. Please test and give some feedback. Corpses for dead soldiers are on the way

Enjoy!
only the DEAD

[Titus]

I just had a battle against three armies (Averus was helping), and it was great! Very fast paced. A bit confusing, but I'm sure me and Averus could help out any new people if we ran into them.

The bugs:

In battles against TWO enemies, I get no defeats and no wins, no matter what I do. Battles against one enemy works fine still.

That's all I've noticed, really, so far. I'll keep testing around.

Ideas:

Zones could be added to the battlefield: North Western Zone, North Eastern Zone, South Western Zone, South Eastern Zone, North Eastern Limit Zone, South Eastern Limit Zone, North Western Limit Zone, South Western Limit Zone, South Center Zone, and North Center Zone. With that addition, strategy would come into play. If the enemy has some archers, an army could go around the side and kill them while his friends army keeps the bigger army busy.

The ADVANCE command could then be replaced with NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST. To retreat, one would have to move to his Limit zone and use the command RETREAT.

Instead of having a color for each zone, perhaps make all the areas white, and change the color of the zone to the color of the enemy occupying it. Your army could be, for example, RED, and your allies armies could be GREEN. The enemy could be BLUE. When more than one army was in a zone, a number could be added to the end to show how many were there. In example: W2, NW4, etc. If an enemy and an ally (or your army) was in the same place, it could show that a battle was going on between the two with a certain color... Orange, or something.

By now the map would be rather big and complicated, so instead of sticking it in the STATUS area, it could have it's own command, such as "battlefield", or "battlemap". Some people may just want to see how organized their army is without all that map in the way.

It's very difficult in the heat of battle to LOOK at an enemy army to see how many troops are in it. Could the number of troops be put next to the name somehow? That way you could just LOOK, without specifying, and see next to the names of the armies in the room how many troops are left.

If there are any uncommanded ally armies in the area, they could have a 50% chance to join in the fight and aid you. Same for the enemy armies. The thoughts behind 50% is that they may not see or notice the conflict (in an imaginary sort of way). This chance could perhaps change according to the season and weather. Rain might change it to a 40% chance, while clear skys might change it to a 60% chance, etc.


All this may be more complicated than a MUD needs to, or can, be. As it is, the battles are quite good.

[Titus]

One last thought. The messages that tell what you and your enemy's army is doing become rather difficult to read when you are fighting with one person on your side and three on the enemy's. They sometimes cover the whole window. Could an option to have "Short battle messages" be made? So if you want to only see, for example, "Huge Lusitanian Band Advances" "Huge Lusitanian Band attacks in a mass attack" "Huge Lusitanian Band Advances (or Retreats)" you could?

[Viriato]

Hail.
I've put those ideas on todo list. Some are right in the top (the easiest ones or the ones I believe are essential), others more to the bottom (big grid for armies takes some time to implement, so I'll just "attack" them right after implement some other priorities, such as food or the party system).
At the moment I have some other IRL duties, so I will slow the development pace meanwhile. Slow but constant

By the way, victories are now fixed As far as I am aware, currently there are no known bugs, only suggestions for development. Which is really good

Thank you!

[Titus]

Grand. And IRL duties of course come first.

About the victories, it seems that one army vs. one army doesn't work. I'm getting no defeats or victories.

And that idea about the army having 50% chance to join in the fight, it might make it too difficult for newcomers to win battles.

EDIT: I realize what's going on with the no victories or defeats. When an enemy retreats, and even if I've killed some of their guys, I get nothing. Massacre is the only thing that works. Also, I don't get a defeat for retreating either, even when many of my men have been killed.

[Viriato]

Found the bug. Later I'll update engine
Thanks!