View Full Version : Wish-list for Multiplayer Improvements in MTW
Dionysus9
08-07-2002, 01:39
Since Creative Arts is taking an interest in our discussions, I thought I would make a thread to discuss the various multiplayer improvements to MTW that we have been dreaming/hoping for. Here are mine:
1) Army Selection Memory: When a player drops from the army selection screen (connection time out) and everyone has to go back to the game lobby, the game forgets what army I just took 8 minutes selecting. It would be awesome if, the next time I made it to the army selection screen, the game remembered what I had selected for my last (aborted) army. The other option is to use the proposed "custom formation editor" to save various florin-amount armies to file. Then select the file and instantly your army selection is complete.
2) Custom Formations: Although this modification would require a simple "formation editor", it would MASSIVELY increase the tactical possibilities of MTW. What I propose is this-- Enter the formation editor, select and deploy your army, then SAVE it as a formation (ex. "10K Defense-- Standard"). When you enter a 10K multiplayer, you select the "10K Defense Army-- Standard" file. It automatically selects your chosen units and you are all ready to deploy. When you get to the battlemap your units are already in the chosen formation (which you can "ghost" around the map to select a spot to deploy). Instead of taking 10-15 minutes to select and deploy units, we are talking 3 minutes. In game, you could switch between custom formations, so lets say the enemy is setup for a charge, you change to "10K Defense-- Charge." Your men change to your selected formation. Obvious variations on this idea open an incredible variety of tacitcal opportunities.
3) Group-Ghost Formation Box-- When units are grouped and you wish to move them as a group, it would be nice to see where the "center" is, and where the "edges" of the group are BEFORE having to click and commit to a location. This could be done with a ghost-box with a little red x in the center. I guess this goes beyond multiplayer, but what the heck it would be nice.
Well thats my wishlist, any additions from the peanut gallery?
MagyarKhans Cham
08-07-2002, 03:48
allowing to use the speedbutton if 2 sides agree to it.
furthermore make it possible to give signals on the minimap by pressing the ! button for allies to see
Why isn`t multiplayer campaign included in MTW? If CA thinks people won`t bother finishing a multiplayer campaign because it takes too long due to battles etc. they could instead have a multiplayer campaign with auto-combat. You`d get to set formation and attack tactic beforehand and your AI general would implement it behind the scenes.
1. Remebering army selections (just like custom battle dos) would be seriously GREAT. It would just mean less time selecting armies, more games to play.
2. I agree with Magyar on the speed slider...it would be a good feature.
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
i'm all for custom formations, or just being able to use the "ack i screwed up my mod defensive formations" during the actual combat, instead of the setup phase.
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-All knowledge is worth having-
Papewaio
08-07-2002, 09:35
alt key click and drag to form a semi-circle/arc to circle formation
Similar approach to forming a square out of a single units.
Melding of units to form a single. Ie like a chocolate eclair... spears on the outside, longbows on the inside made out of just two units (the melee units surround the missile units).
This is a wish list http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Quote Originally posted by MagyarKhans Cham:
allowing to use the speedbutton if 2 sides agree to it.[/QUOTE]I couldn't agree more. This would make it much, much more tolerable.
youssof_Toda
08-07-2002, 14:54
Being able to transfer money to ur ally in 2v2/3v3/4v4
LittleGrizzly
08-07-2002, 15:36
i like the last one....
Toda Nebuchadnezzar
08-07-2002, 16:46
Good point Youssof-san giving all youe excess florins to one guy whou could then buy one more unit if he needed it or just that little bit of higher honour or weapons and armour would be a life saver.
Also Pape's idea although prolly not possible at this late stage, it would be damn handy to stop those cavalry charges at times.
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Jaguara-Spoken like a TRUE SPAMMER Toda!
No Fear Legend.
1, Allow to host 5v5 or 6v6 battles.
2, Fog of war during deployment.
3, Allow us to set deployment zones.
4, Allow team mates to share deployment zones.
5, Allow us to set the place and time of the entry of reinforcements.
6, Allow reinforcement battles even if there is no castle on the map.
7, Allow the host to switch off the minimap for all the players (like fatigue, unlimited ammo, etc.).
8, The AI should take over when a player dropps from the battle.
9, If there is no shared deployment zone for allies then allow us to select position independently from colour.
10, Do not put the "your allied general is fleeing from the battle" type of messages into the middle of the screen.
Generals dying with 60 man unit while chasing routing men or winning easily...
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
Also...
Campaign
-Optional 4 turns a year (seasons).
-Update the status of a castlemap (castlewalls will not be repaired while under siege, but you can reposition trebuchets and continue knocking down inner sections in the next turn).
-User is free to decide the amount of gold used for a bribery attempt: less gold may be enough to persuade a desperate general, insulting low may trigger a war (hehe), more may increase the chance.
Scenarios/historical battles
-Reinforcement of entire armies (BDF file).
-Beserk levels (the willingness to attack is solely driven by combatskills now). This is in fact the same thing as the request to seperate morale and combatskill. An outraged crowd is impossible to make.
-Scripting.
-better support for custom sounds, movies, intros/outros and in battle sounds/movies.
Multi campaign/scenarios
-Tools to support fanmade Multicampaign. We have logfiles, in a similair way you should be able to use log files to start a battle. Historical battles use ADF and BDF files for that, the campaign may use a mechanism of internal ADF files.
PHP/Java tools to submit and process moves.
Custom urls to send battleresults to.
Multi skirmish:
-Internal statmanager: host can select a custom stat like he can select a custom map.
-User can set unit 'max', both the absolute and the relative one MTW has.
-User can set the upper caps for valour.
-User can set the lower caps for valour.
-User can toggle battlefield rewards on/off.
-Morale slider (Puzz3D).
-Fatigue slider (Puzz3D).
-Toggle for usage of no man's land between deployment zones in order to delay rushes.
-Advanced teamgame: 2 teams with 16 players each (1 general and 15 squadcommanders).
-use custom armies (Japanese armies from STW while using the better engine of MTW).
-allow host to select available armies.
-option to disable usage a certain unit (Kraellin).
Edit
-mapfiles containing paths to custom texture/backdropfolder (game has 4 'modes': use 1 of the 3 default texture maps or use the custom path described in the map).
-custom deployment zones in map (game has toggle to use the default ones or the custom ones as described in the map).
-custom dimensions of maps.
-waterfalls, mountainlakes/rivers (not likely to happen) in battlemaps.
-Landbridges in battlemaps (Pegasus Kraellin).
-edit the strategic map, provinces and properties of those.
-add custom sounds to battlemap.
-insert custom fractions.
-What if scenarios using a starting pool of units. Option to add units depending on progress.
-Edit of 'barbarian' invasion: place, time, strength.
-unitstats describing the how and the cost of upgrading of a certain unit (unit A upgrading 1 valour results in increased morale and attack, unit B upgrading 1 valour results in increased accuracy).
-Not sure what's already possible there, but properties of missiles/siegeengines should be editable. I'ld want mobile catapults/demiculverins and 100% rigid trebuchets (no fire cone of 60 degrees).
-edit names used, also those for historical persons/events.
GAH!
What they said.
I'd add this: when besieging a castle for an extended period, the besieging forces should suffer random casualties due to disease. Occasionally, a massive outbreak could occur if there have been many consecutive turns with disease events, which could wreak their forces and wipe them out, or reduce them to a tiny fraction of their original size. Of course, this should not happen too often. But at least it would provide an incentive to not just sit and wait the defenders out for a decade...
Likewise, an option to hurl dead into a city from the strat map to induce disease within would be nice too. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Of course, this would require a bovine chukka AND an outbreak of disease within your own besieging forces...
More...
Allow ships to assist the land army in bombarding a castle if the map is a beach map.
Maybe a faction/startup position/resources randomizer for SP. That way, England could start out in Scotland and Scandinavia one time, North Africa and Corsica the next, etc, if this option is selected. If not, you get the existing predefined/historical setups.
GAH!
Ability to edit a strategic map too. That way you could choose to play on the European map, or say, a map of central Asia, a map of Anatolia only, a map of Spain only, etc. The Europe map would just be the original one. Custom ones could be added, and once created, could be an option for new campaigns!
GAH!
Konnichiwa,
-Possibility to make changes from within the host menu. At this moment you've to logout, go into options to change unitsize 120 to 60, change restrict camera or turn off some performance stuff and log back on. Quite tedious.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Kraellin
08-08-2002, 00:08
damn vanya,
when you get serious and arent making some wise-ass funny you come up with some pretty good ideas ;)
as for me, i'm not posting all my suggestions again. go read the archives :)
the only wish list item i'll post here is that i wish CA would hire me to make maps and design games and features.
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
Kraellin,
Many of your good ideas didn't make it into the archives.
BarryNoDachi
08-08-2002, 02:02
i find bachus's ideas very helpfull and reconmend them all and i'd like to add that when you push space your allies armies should show up aswell http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
the centre of your army would be particulary helpful
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
Quote Originally posted by MagyarKhans Cham:
allowing to use the speedbutton if 2 sides agree to it.
furthermore make it possible to give signals on the minimap by pressing the ! button for allies to see[/QUOTE]
Gil@CA mentioned something about maintaining 14/15 logical-fps, and graphical fps will be dropped if things get too slow (causes jerkyness), and lag is due to logical-fps going down (not sure)? I think in order to speed things up, all the machines must be able to increase the logical-fps, no?
Dionysus9
08-08-2002, 12:56
I dont understand your lingo there Goldie, but I if you mean that speeding up a multi-game will put too much strain on everyone's CPU, that would make sense to me...
Two more wishes:
1) Option to choose weather type for multi games. NO UNWANTED RAIN!
2) Option to download missing custom maps directly from an archive maintained by Game-spy (maps could be downloaded directly to the proper folder). NO MORE EXCUSES NOT TO PLAY!
Konnichiwa,
-Save the progress of a battle (the battlerecorder can prove useful there. When the player loads a savegame, the battlerecorder just 'plays the record at great speed' till where the game is saved, unitcontrol is then handed down to the AI and player). I sometimes find myself in 1-2 hour battles while only having 40 spare minutes.
-Tootee reminds me of this: the mapeditor has a random map generator, online and custom battles could use one too (some modern commercial games have this feature).
GAH!
Save REPLAY game files as MPEGs! Or at least, have an option to do so! If its too intensive, allow CONVERTING a saved replay game file to an MPEG from the menu somewhere so it doesnt have to happen in-game.
GAH!
[This message has been edited by Vanya (edited 08-08-2002).]
Konnichiwa,
The replays are not videos, but a kind of commandfile used by the game engine to re enact the battle. It's important to replay using the same stats, unitsize (?) and map. Otherwise the replay won't be correct.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
I'd like to second Tosa's save the battle idea. Ordinary RTS's can do it. It's really bad when several fights happen in the same turn and you can't even save between them.
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CONITOERGOVINCO
Sjakihata
08-09-2002, 01:54
It would be cool, if one unit ( I mean ONE soldier), would cost a certain amount of money. Then you would pay for ONE soldier, and the armies would be different, and more realistic.
This would too, be a great feature fo online campaigns
youssof_Toda
08-09-2002, 02:22
Quote Originally posted by Vanya:
GAH!
Save REPLAY game files as MPEGs! Or at least, have an option to do so! If its too intensive, allow CONVERTING a saved replay game file to an MPEG from the menu somewhere so it doesnt have to happen in-game.
GAH!
[This message has been edited by Vanya (edited 08-08-2002).][/QUOTE]
How would this improve MTW?
Papewaio
08-09-2002, 08:00
For ego it is good... hey bro check out this battle where I was outnumbered 4 to 1 and just managed to win.
Good for training see what the wolves do with this stuff.
An mpeg would allow it to be easily transferred.... the problem is it would be one point of view for the battle.
So I think the best option would allow multiple battle records to be recorded up to a max of say 128...120 provinces means that at most you could have is 120 battles... this allows every battle between turns to be saved and then reviewed for tactics.
youssof_Toda
08-09-2002, 12:52
That's what I mean, within MTW you can scroll urself over the battlemap to see it from different points of view. Next to this you can put ur mouse over the units to see their status like fatigue and morale. Doubt that would be possible with mpeg files.
Konnichiwa,
I don't say no to it, but MPEG video files are still several mb in size.
-Seazones like the boardgame Axis & Allies by Milton Bradley has. Travelling from France to UK by sea is much less far than travelling from Danmark to Jeruzalem by sea.
-For this and other reasons: 'internal clock' based on months not on turns.
-Configuration files for 1 month, 3 month and 12 month turns (fans could decide to make these or any other).
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
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