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Re: Bugs in Bellum Aeternum


Hi Lincoln,

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Lincoln Peters wrote:

> > 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.  

I would tend to agree. Part of the problem is that city types 
horde more 'c' than they need. Perhaps it would be worth 
investigating whether to provide suggestions about material levels 
to Xconq in the form of tables.

> > 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!

Yes, I noticed that the other day. Probably has something to do 
with a change I made to the occupant-max table. I will fix it 
after work.

> 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).

OK. Sounds reasonable.

> 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.

I don't think I can prevent land units from starting inside any 
type of transport, unless I make their terrain chances 100%.

> 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!

I am not sure that there is much I can do about that within the 
current constraints of Xconq. I do think that what you are 
describing happens fairly infrequently (usually there are more 
coastal waters abutting a land mass, and hence the Sea Base has a 
greater chance of being placed there). I will look at the terrain 
generation parameters; I think I might be randomly sprinkling 
coastal waters in the sea (to simulate groups of tiny islands 
and unsersea ridges). If so, I can turn this off and make 
non-coastal "coastal waters" go away.

> 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?

You can still land lighter aircraft, just not Cargo Planes or 
Bombers. The airstrips of Forts and Towns are not long enough to 
handle these heavier aircraft. I may have to increase the range of 
the these aircraft to compensate.

> 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.

Sure I can do that as a workaround. And I will do that, if I can't 
actually fix the Xconq build code (which I looked into a little 
bit).

> 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'll reconsider. But I think of Towns as being fairly small 
compared to the size of the hex, and so an oppposing unit might be 
able to conceivably share the hex with the Town without crossing 
its defense perimeter or being in range of its relatively weak 
AAA.

> 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).

But that is what the effect of having the 100% retreat-chance was. 
Bombers attacked Capitol; Capitol counterattacked; Bombers 
retreated. But as you mentioned, it was making it hard to get at 
the Capitol.

And I still have a large retreat-chance against Fighters.

  Thanks,
    Eric


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