Removing concept of scouting nodes/lairs/towers
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 10:05 pm
I'm now starting to look at writing combat in v0.9.5, its the last big thing I have left to do. The first part to that is the scouting screen, where it pops up saying "You have found a Chaos Node, scouts report seeing a Great Drake, do you want to continue?". So I've been looking in detail at how this worked and getting frustrated... again... at how many fudges, workarounds and special rules there are specifically because of this. Examples are (and honestly, if I listed everything out it'd be over a page):
So, I'm thinking from 0.9.5 I'm going to completely remove the concept of scouting nodes/lairs/towers. So:
- If a player can see a map cell where an enemy unit is, then of course they can see the unit... But not if its a monsters player guarding a node/lair/tower, in which case the only time the player knows the full details about the units there are when we're in combat with them.
- The monsters player itself is an exception to that exception, in that they do know about the monsters units when they aren't in combat with them, because its their own units.
- Even if we attack and then lose the fight, and so know exactly what units are guarding the lair/node/tower, we're somehow stupid and forget what we knew, and can't see on the map how many units there are there (that particularly bothers me in relation to writing a good AI - as things were, the AI could not remember the strength of a lair/node/tower and so estimate the size army it needs to attack it with to capture it).
- If we scouted a node/tower, find out there's some kind of monster there, then walk away and come back later to see an enemy wizard unit standing there, we implicitly know that the lair is now empty of monsters, otherwise they couldn't be standing there.
- Same applies for implicitly knowing nodes have been clear if we see another wizard's aura there.
- Nodes/towers containing monsters hide the units inside and require scouting; nodes/towers containing units owned by enemy wizards allow the units to be seen and can be attacked directly, so there's 2 very different sets of rules there. And it doesn't even make sense, are monsters so much better at hiding than regular military units?
- ..and so on, and so on
So, I'm thinking from 0.9.5 I'm going to completely remove the concept of scouting nodes/lairs/towers. So:
- There will be no more popup "You have found a Chaos Node, scouts report seeing a Great Drake, do you want to continue?" popup window.
- Just by standing next to a node/lair/tower, you'll be able to see what's inside, not just 1 unit type, but exactly how many, what health they're on, and so on.
- One of the units will then appear onto the overland map, exactly like if you ticked the "Show type of monster in scouted nodes/lairs/towers" checkbox in the Options screen in 0.9.4.
- Similarly just by standing next to a node/lair/tower, you'll be able to tell if its empty.
- Moving onto that map cell will then just immediately start the attack, you can't then pick 'No' and abort it. So attacking a node/tower full of monsters becomes just the same as attacking a node/tower full of units owned by an enemy wizard.
- All of the rules, exceptions and complications around the monsters player just go away and they get treated just like any other AI player (except that they don't move on the overland map or pay upkeep for their units).