Re: Bugs in Bellum Aeternum

[Lincoln Peters <sampln at sbcglobal dot net>]

On Sun, 2003-09-28 at 18:07, Eric McDonald wrote: 
> Hi Lincoln,
> 
> On Sun, 28 Sep 2003, Lincoln Peters wrote:
> 
> > I probably had a mixture of 20 cavalry and armor scouring the place with
> > 1 Field HQ in place.  As soon as I found that it wasn't working, I
> > scrambled another Field HQ to the area as quickly as I could.
> 
> Yeah, that is a lot of cnc being consumed in one area.

Perhaps the 'c' isn't being moved around as efficiently as it should
be.  

> 
> > > When I have playtested, I have generally thought that there was 
> > > still too much command-and-control ('c') floating around, and have 
> > > been contemplating tuning it down even more. But your comment is 
> > > giving me second thoughts about that.
> > 
> > Well, I'm still learning the game!
> 
> I am too. Just because I made it doesn't mean that I can 
> anticipate how everything is going to mesh. Hence the public 
> beta....

Actually, I've written (or tried to write) enough games that I know how
that is.

> 
> To be honest, I have been doing more intensive play-testing 
> (playing it like a game, rather than treating it like an 
> experiment for certain features) lately, and I am beginning to 
> agree that the amount of available cnc could be tweaked slightly 
> upward rather than downward.
> 
> > > I also had that concern, which is why I opted to use the 
> > > acp-damage-effect interpolation list, so that when Ruins HP 
> > > reaches 2, then its ACP goes up to 2, thereby allowing it to 
> > > finish itself off. In theory.
> > 
> > I don't think that anyone has ever used acp-damage-effect to give a unit
> > more ACP when it is damaged (although it might be appropriate in fantasy
> 
> It is admittedly somewhat of a hack, or "novel use" as I will 
> prefer to call it, if it works. (Still haven't tested it.)

I just tried it, and I couldn't get the engineers to enter the ruins!

> 
> > You could use a line such as:
> > 
> > (add ruins possible-sides "independent")
> > 
> > I think that panzer.g also does this.
> 
> I'll look into it, especially if it forces a wrecked-type to 
> change owners (from a player to independent).

It does.  I've already used it (and I've seen it work in Panzer).

> > It is, but just barely.  It combines the idea of a simple tank game with
> > Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy elements, such as robotic units that
> > resemble werewolves, giant spiders, elementals, etc.  And the AI is
> 
> Nifty.
> 
> > > I could change the terrain generation params to make continents 
> > > that are smaller than the country radii. I think that would solve 
> > > the issue.
> > 
> > Although there would be fewer towns in the vicinity that could be
> > captured early on, at least without the aid of transport ships.  Perhaps
> > it would be appropriate as a variant.
> 
> You might want to try playing the game with the "Large Continents" 
> variants turned off (it is on by default).

I'll try it.

> 
> > > Also, I already plan on adding a sea transport to each side's 
> > > initial reportoire of units, so that sides which start out on  
> > > islands will not be as disadvantaged.
> > 
> > That sounds like a good idea.
> 
> I added a sea Transport, Patrol Ship, and Frigate to the starting 
> pieces for each side. (If you try laying any Sea Mines with the 
> Patrol Ship, you might notice that the Xconq build code gets a 
> little bit over-zealous.)

I noticed that, with the recent changes, the following problems can
occurr:

1. I think that the ships should not be at sea at the start of the game
(it would make more sense for them to start in the Sea Base).

2. Land units have a chance of starting in the Sea Transport, which is
probably not what you want.  Additionally, if the Sea Transport is not
in the Sea Base, it can slow down the side at the start of the game.

3. If a side starts with shallow waters in its country but it's not next
to land, there is still a chance that the Sea Base will be created in
those shallow waters!  That makes it rather inconvenient to get land
units to the Sea Base!

4. This may or may not be related, but I'm finding that I can no longer
land air units in towns.  Is there a reason for that?

I had noticed that, but I forgot to mention it.  Perhaps it would work
better if you set mines to require 3 CP and only allowed Patrol Ships to
add 1 CP per "build" action.  I think future.g also does this.

> I also experimented with your suggested change of increasing 
> Town's capacity to prevent traffic jams. It worked okay, but what 
> I ultimately ended up doing was decreasing the size-in-terrain for 
> Ruins, Towns, and Bases from 16 to 13. This allows 3 other units 
> to pass through the sector (without incurring any mp-to-enter/mp-to-leave 
> penalties).

That makes sense, too.

> And I modified the zoc-range for Ruins and some other units. One 
> thing that can occur now is that enemy land forces can force their 
> way into the same hex as one of your Ruins or Towns.

I'm not sure that it makes sense for towns, but definitely for ruins. 
Having towns exert ZOC against land units makes capturing them rather
awkward (I click the town to attack, and even if the capture action
failed, the attacker is suddenly sharing the cell with the town
anyway!).

> 
> I cut down the retreat-chance for air units when they are 
> attacking city units. I still would like them to have some retreat 
> chance, because if a Capitol or Metropolis is not producing 
> anything, it has a lot of ACP to expend on AA activities.

I would imagine that the best solution would be if the air units only
retreated when they are under a direct attack (e.g. intercepted by enemy
fighters) or they are counterattacked (e.g. after hitting a capitol or
metropolis).  I don't know if Xconq can do this (it's not documented
anywhere).