The tutorial is very unclear

[sideburns]

I've just run across Glest and would like to learn how to use it.  However, the tutorial is very, very unclear.  It tells you what you're expected to do, but there's not even the slightest hint on how to do it.  I had to exit and restart it just to get the workers "built" and working, and never did figure out how to "build" a cow, although I finally managed to get a worker to the farm.

I'd like to point out that the purpose of a tutorial is to tell the new user how to do things; if you have to keep going back to the start over and over to work out how to get the tasks done, there's no real point in using the tutorial.

[Omega]

Well, there's two unofficial tutorials which may make things a bit more clear. You can find them here:
http://glest.110mb.com/mdc/index.php#advancedmt

These are less series and put a (little) bit of storyline in them, and I can should provide a bit more fun while you learn the ropes (I should know, I made them ).

[sideburns]

Thank you.  Do they tell you how to do things, or just what to do?  I've been using computers since 1968, played more computer games than I can remember, and still found the official tutorial useless.  If nothing else, a HELP function would be a Real Nice Idea.

[Yggdrasil]

You probably want some highlightning of the gui elements you need to use which is quite standard in commercial rts games. That's currently not prossible. Lua scripted scenarios like the tutorials have no way to interact with the ui presentation. So, one could only describe in more detail what one needs to do, no hightlightning of buttons for now.

[sideburns]

No.  Don't just tell me the result of my next step, tell me how that next step is done.  Instead of saying "build a cow," say, "do FOO, BAR and BAZ to buy a cow."  As an example, check out Globulation2 at http://www.globulation2.org/wiki/Main_Page because their tutorial is very well done.  (Another reason to check it out is that the designers managed to avoid the "micromanagement issue;" tell the game you want 5 workers harvesting wood, and it will decide which five to send.)

[Omega]

Well, the Military Tutorials do that, though they are for military, not for magitech.

For example, this is one of the early lines:

Code: [Select]

The headquarter's also produces the Private, a unit that is the building block of your team, since while it seems weak and simple, it is the only unit that can harvest resources and construct buildings. Let's produce a private. Select the Headquarters and click the "Recruit Private" button.
Of course, the step by step thing only appears in the basic tutorial, which is step one. Because all production and the like is done the same way, the next two parts of the tutorial simply tell you to do something and what it does, while the first part is mostly how to do it.

Military can be found here:
http://glest.110mb.com/military

[sideburns]

That's for a different game, isn't it?

[Omega]

That's for a different game, isn't it?

No, its a glest mod. Basically, you know how you can choose different factions and techtrees, maps, etc when playing a game? A mod simply adds more techs, maps, whatever. In this case, Military has the futuristic military faction and 80+ maps, 3 tilesets, 20+ scenarios and 3 tutorials.