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Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

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Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#21

Post by barbs »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #16
barbs wrote: post #7

I wanted to get into this game, but I seem to remember being turned off by the amount of luck in it. Maybe I should give it another go?

I have never liked purely deterministic, non-random games. I think part of it is that they encourage analysis paralysis--if I know that a single mathematically perfect move exists, I'm not happy unless I can find it; I'm more willing to settle for "good enough" and move on with the game if I know that even a perfect move can be derailed by the dice, and even a bad one might luck out. And part of it might be that non-…

I can totally understand that, it's definitely a preferential thing. I do like some randomness, but overall I prefer having a lot of different choices, and the challenge of trying to work out the optimal one. I think I prefer that feeling of "analysis paralysis" to having your work completely undone by an unlucky dice roll or card draw. Plus, the feeling of satisfaction of forming a creative strategy or tactic is awesome.

I've recently gotten into boardgames, and the ones I enjoy the most follow this line of thought (in particular Caylus and Terra Mystica).

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#22

Post by dagurp »

Jach wrote: post #18
barbs wrote: post #7

I wanted to get into this game, but I seem to remember being turned off by the amount of luck in it. Maybe I should give it another go?

While you shouldn't need to at lower difficulties or on easier campaigns, you can always quick save before a move or at the end of your turn and reload if you didn't like the result of your move or the enemy moves. Do it a lot in the early scenarios to build up hero unit reserves and see if you can make it through later scenarios without reloading. Mark the turn start save and try a strategy, if it fails go back to t…

So, cheat?

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#23

Post by guard-of-terra »

barbs wrote: post #7

I wanted to get into this game, but I seem to remember being turned off by the amount of luck in it. Maybe I should give it another go?

I used to feel like this too.

Then I understood I just had bad tactics.

If you fight the right way (cover every units' back, use beefier units to guard weaker ones) you don't suffer from bad luck nearly so much because you don't hang on the edge and can stand few bad blows.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#25

Post by Jach »

dagurp wrote: post #22
Jach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you shouldn't need to at lower difficulties or on easier campaigns, you can always quick save before a move or at the end of your turn and reload if you didn't like the result of your move or the enemy moves. Do it a lot in the early scenarios to build up hero unit reserves and see if you can make it through later scenarios without reloading. Mark the turn start save and try a strategy, if it fails go back to t…

So, cheat?

Basically, yeah. Since this only applies to single player, if it doesn't affect your personal enjoyment (or if it can actually increase it), why care that it's cheating? Personally I find victories with a lot of reloading / other methods of cheating somewhat hollow, so I try to avoid it. Except sometimes I just want to advance the storyline and try a different scenario, maybe come back to that pain-in-the-ass one later (it's especially great to do that when you have a 'eureka' moment in general strategy that you find out in later scenarios). Or in Wesnoth specifically, I think there are some campaigns that are just about unwinnable even with gratuitous reloading unless you did particularly well on the previous N scenarios; I don't want to waste time replaying previous scenarios that I didn't do so great on but that I still won, at least not so soon. That would just decrease my enjoyment of the game.

Also in a sense save points are a cheat -- back in the Ikaruga and Contra 3 and Asteroids days, if you lost, you lost! Start over. Great fun for me at least. :) Now we have saves, and the enjoyment of the game comes from other areas besides committing to muscle memory a movement sequence that beats a level with a certain score, and someone opposed to saves can always just not save or not load from an autosave... Having quick saves just takes having saves to its logical conclusion of decreasing wasted player time. You have to find your own limits for what constitutes cheating yourself out of entertainment, but if you've ever thought "thank god I saved before I tried doing X" or "damn it last time I saved was hours ago" you might want to give shorter save-load durations a thought.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#26

Post by jwdunne »

ZirconCode wrote: post #9

This is an amazing game. If you are interested in it's structure, there is a good chapter on it here: http://aosabook.org/en/wesnoth.html

This is really strange because I read that chapter before checking HN and to my surprise its here. The chapter is a great read and gives some ideas on how to architect a game, especially one that you want the players themselves to contribute too.

A similar game hooked me on programming at an early age. It's called Graal and you had to pay to contribute. I wish I had found this game instead.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#27

Post by sspiff »

Jach wrote: post #18
barbs wrote: post #7

I wanted to get into this game, but I seem to remember being turned off by the amount of luck in it. Maybe I should give it another go?

While you shouldn't need to at lower difficulties or on easier campaigns, you can always quick save before a move or at the end of your turn and reload if you didn't like the result of your move or the enemy moves. Do it a lot in the early scenarios to build up hero unit reserves and see if you can make it through later scenarios without reloading. Mark the turn start save and try a strategy, if it fails go back to t…

This technique has a (derogatory) name in the world of strategy games, "save scumming". I think in a single player game, the only thing that matters is that the player has fun.

It is more common practice in games like RPGs, but less looked down upon, since certain quest lines and story elements are mutually exclusive. Think of the typical choice of being a "good" or "evil" character, and how they sometimes lead to different subquests.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#28

Post by bru »

Cheerios wrote: post #17

There's a great port of this on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androthsof...

Is that legal? That version seems closed-source!

And I couldn't even access the developer's website (www.androthsoft.com). If the money went to the authors/official website I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but in the current situation I'd rather circumvent the official download channels...

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#29

Post by bentheax »

barbs wrote: post #7

I wanted to get into this game, but I seem to remember being turned off by the amount of luck in it. Maybe I should give it another go?

Giving it another go would be worthwhile.

I can't speak to multiplayer, but one of the most interesting parts of the game is thinking about how to approach each scenario so that even when things take a turn for the worse, the units you lose are expendable.

This means things like purchasing low tier units to pad your ranks, not positioning key units where better-than average odds will take them down, and occasionally sending out a sacrifical lamb to prevent your lines getting broken.

I think a save at the start of each scenario provides a good balance of tension. If you reach for the save/reload buttons every turn, you'll tend not to learn the skills you need to play successfully and enjoyably.

Occasionally you'll hit a wall where it seems like you have to rely on unusually good luck to succeed. This is usually a signal that you've either lost too many key units, or that your composition isn't right for the campaign. That just means it's time to replay at an earlier point with your new knowledge.

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