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Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

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Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems all that could have been avoided by using rationals in general and the condition for living being >0 instead of dying The more I write code, the more I notice how rarely one truly should want floats in most kinds of programs and how they almost always carry a whole bag of problems with them.

> Seems all that could have been avoided by using rationals in general It's 2023: I'm still surprised that so many new languages/platforms still only provide only basic integer and IEEE-754 types for numerics: Rust, C#, Java, Swift and others still lack built-in, runtime-provided, nor even standard-library-provided rational types, which I assume really should be the preferred type for most business/domain/application…

> It's 2023

This is a game originally from 1999. Although i doubt it would make a difference.

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#112

It’s great that Microsoft are still actively maintaining a ~24 year old game! Blizzard ought to take note. A few years back they announced “Warcraft 3 reforged” with great fanfare: a remastered version of the classic Warcraft 3, updated for modern systems with improved graphics etc. It looked/sounded fantastic! But despite it being a paid upgrade, what they released was a buggy mess that did little justice to the cla…

The amazing thing is that this new version of AoE was a fan made upgrade, and they did such a good job that MS brought them in house.

The Forgotten Empires team is brilliant and I can't be more grateful to them for bringing back a childhood favorite.

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#113

What a weird coincidence. I thought at first this would be about the Guild Wars game, but turns out they both have something to do with monks and 55: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/55_Monk

Wow, another 55 monk enjoyer. I used to farm hydras outside of the Crystal Desert with this.

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#114
post #98
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh nostalgia. I thought so too. This was such a fun build. I miss GW1 a lot, GW2 missed the mark, and is no true successor.

Man, I miss GW1. That skill/class system was amazing and still goes unmatched in its flexibility and depth today.

I want to create a spiritual successor to this but I'm only a dev, and not an artist. It's really killing me. I want to make a game like this before I die, but it's looking unlikely.

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#115
post #2

From the comments: "This was caused by a floating point rounding error. A unit switching jobs internally becomes a different unit (i.e. a monk with a relic becomes a monk without a relic), and when doing that, HP is scaled proportionally based on the old and new max HP using 32-bit floating point maths." And there are YouTube videos about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MytWNbpnAVY

I woke up in the middle of the night and of course opened up HN. This was near the top and was an interesting read.

I told my GF that last night I had insomnia and found myself researching why Aztec monks die when picking up a relic, and that doing so resulted in plumbing the depths of an important computer science topic.

She said "Sounds like you were reading Hacker News". She knows me so well now :)

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems all that could have been avoided by using rationals in general and the condition for living being >0 instead of dying The more I write code, the more I notice how rarely one truly should want floats in most kinds of programs and how they almost always carry a whole bag of problems with them.

> Seems all that could have been avoided by using rationals in general Why can’t they store HP internally as “millihealth” integers, do integer arithmetic (including division), and then divide that by 1000 purely for display?

This would require competent senior programmers who are way too expensive, and anyways once hired are used for bullshit tasks like project management.

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#117

Fun fact: The competitive AoE2 scene remains very much alive and thriving. Several top players are able to make a living from it, thanks to streaming revenue and tournament prize money. There are even some streamers, such as T90 and MembTV, that have managed to create successful careers despite not being competitive players themselves.

And some players have come a long way. One of my highlights was, when DauT won the Red Bull Wololo 3 tournament as someone who is playing the game 20+ years. And some fans are doing great stuff too, like this video that was released shortly after (DauT is back):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u-SisO8ers

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems all that could have been avoided by using rationals in general and the condition for living being >0 instead of dying The more I write code, the more I notice how rarely one truly should want floats in most kinds of programs and how they almost always carry a whole bag of problems with them.

> Seems all that could have been avoided by using rationals in general It's 2023: I'm still surprised that so many new languages/platforms still only provide only basic integer and IEEE-754 types for numerics: Rust, C#, Java, Swift and others still lack built-in, runtime-provided, nor even standard-library-provided rational types, which I assume really should be the preferred type for most business/domain/application…

>It's 2023: I'm still surprised that so many new languages/platforms still only provide only basic integer and IEEE-754 types for numerics: Rust, C#, Java, Swift and others still lack built-in, runtime-provided, nor even standard-library-provided rational types

C# has the base-10 high accuracy decimal type: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-ref...

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#119
post #44

What a weird coincidence. I thought at first this would be about the Guild Wars game, but turns out they both have something to do with monks and 55: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/55_Monk

Ahh nostalgia. I thought so too. This was such a fun build. I miss GW1 a lot, GW2 missed the mark, and is no true successor.

Depends on what you're after. In terms of mechanics it's a completely different game, but lore wise a phenomenal amount is tied in to GW1. It's almost fan service: the game.

Re: Aztec monks with 1/55 HP no longer die when picking up or dropping a relic

#120

When read with a history bias, that title makes for a long and deep source of confusion.

I mean, Age of Empires 2 is a very historical game. Everyone knows that the Halberdiers of the Inca are pretty good especially when paired up with Inca's famous archers: their Crossbows and Arbalesters. /s

These historical games have two ways of doing things. Staying historically correct (which is unbalanced... such as Hearts of Iron where Soviets + Germany will likely crush Poland in the first move every game), or you balance the game so that everyone has a fair chance like AoE2. But balancing the game naturally introduces significant ahistorical aspects.

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AOE2's historical campaigns are pretty good though, and somewhat representative of famous battles throughout history.

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