New team play features coming soon

[softcoder]

I am adding some features requested by the VBros (BOTH are already in git) and would be good to hear your feedback about how they could work.

#1: Shared Team Units
- This game option would allow all players on the same team to control any unit on that team. This
would allow for team embers to organize and have people focus on specific tasks (like gathering resources
or building units or attacking / defending).
- Should a player be considered 'dead' ONLY when the last team building is gone?

#2: Shared Team Resources
- This game option would pool all resources for a team allowing them to be used by any player on a team
(assuming your faction can use the resource of course).
- Clicking on a player 'castle' shows that factions individual resource values (including negative resources for players hogging resources from others on the team)

Thanks

[titi]

I think both features should be disabled by default and it should be possible for the server to enable this in the game itself on demand. Its something that you typically decide while you are playing, not something you want from the start.
As the custom game menu is already very crowded I really prefer it this way.

Team based winnning coniditon: After thinking about it, I must say I don't like this too much as its maybe too complecated for new players.
Modify message

UPDATE: The option to allow teammates to play with your units is of course not a server only thing. All players should have this in their igame menu.

[Coldfusionstorm]

This is a bad idea.

Thare are many culprits with this.

1.Players Joining games to anoy other players and then ruining it not building resources themselves spamming units all the time.

2.If you can change it from ingame imagine you get up arguing with a player he then decides to troll and and just build alot of high resources eating up food for your troops and making your troops die.

3.It promotes single-team-single-faction-play. fx. Tech-Tech-Tech Vs Indian-Indian-Indian
What benefits does this give if you play different factions?. Only Gold and stone for most.

4.A ally decides to troll, Turning control of his units off, Imagine turning these settings off in the middle of a game?.

To be honest this narrows megaglest down, It dumbs down the game even tho it have a few interesting points it's overall bad for the gameplay.

Make it available for LUA and enable LUA for network(i think this already is possible.). And make maps that utilize this specially.

Instead for teamgames enable send/reciving resources from and to allies.

[softcoder]

First of all without trying it you really don;t know what it is like. The feature are selected in advanced game options by the host of the game. You cannot change it mid game, thats far too complex. This doesn't change anything, it adds the ability to play the game in different ways, so if the host chooses to do so that is his ability. Both features are of course disabled by default. As with most game options this option is decided by the host. The features can be used both in a good way and bad and I find it interesting that people can only dream up bad ways to use it (i won't be playing with these features with you.. thats for sure ) because there are many awesome ways to use them. IT all requires good team communication.

For example, new players get put out usually very easy. Other team players could send their own units to a safe map location and tell the newbie (After losing his own faction) that he can have that new safe area of the other team players faction). There are many possibilities.

[filux]

@Coldfusionstorm

Ad. 1), 2), 4)
someone likes to disturb > host observing him >

 

[tomreyn]

I think these new options may introduce a nice variety in gameplay. They also bear the potential for many bugs ;-) (but those can be ironed out over time). As long as they remain one of the many options we have I definitely don't mind.

Like Titi, I am also beginning to dislike that the custom game menu is so cluttered, but to me the solution to this problem is not to choose not to expose options, but to have a user interface which supports pop up windows / widgets, and can pop up advanced options which cover parts of the screen without requiring much space (no more than a button) on the standard screen. Incidentally this major achievement in user interface design has also been the marketing title of some kind of operating system for the past 28 years, and until before the latest major release, is what it did best.

[jammyjamjamman]

Neat idea, but would it be possible to also see how much resources you have collected? Because, when I play I tend to use up all the resources I currently have as quickly as possible (not by creating immense queues, I would just build more production buildings in that case).
It would really start to bug players if I didn't let them have a cut of the pooled resources :-P (and likewise if they didn't let me have any).

One other thing to note is, the scoring system may have to be re-thought out, as it wouldn't make any sense, for example if a player got the high-score for killing a bunch of soldiers or a high production score using the resources collected by another player. (The scoring may only be sensible if you make a team-score rather than scoring on an individual basis).

Turns out you can see how much resources you have (but you can't see how much other players have unless the option to share units is ticked).

[titi]

I was told warcraft has such a thing too, maybe someone who knows it can tell us how it works there. Maybe they found a good way to show the resources of another player too ?

Here is what I meant with allowing control ingame:
1. the game must be started with alowing this feature in general  ( advanced setup )
2. a different victory condition must be set in the game setup too.

But ingame a player should be able to allow other team members to control his units too. This should not be the case form the start.

[Omega]

- Should a player be considered 'dead' ONLY when the last team building is gone?

I like this idea. I agree that players should be considered dead after the last team building is destroyed, as this strengthens the team (versus the player losing control after their faction is destroyed). Losing a teammate cripples a team. Letting that team member help control your units *might* be able to offset that a little.

I feel this could lead to some interesting gameplay. Might be difficult to work as a team in some games, though (in particular, I'm imagining the situation where one player accidentally uses resources that another was saving for something). Still, I see that as a good challenge.

I agree with Tomreyn that the custom game screen is becoming very cluttered. As an alternative to modal dialogs, however, what about converting the custom game screen to a tabbed interface? The host will see tabs for things like "players", "map", "network", and "advanced settings", while the connected players would just see "players". The rest of the game info can be shown to connected players via either a scrollbox (since there's more room now) or perhaps more ideally, an "info" screen, which summarizes the games settings. If anyone else is interested, I could whip up some more information in a separate thread.

[Ishmaru]

While i haven't tried latest svn yet, I can say that this has really fun potential, from one experience showing annex at the Arizona Indie Game showcase. I had my laptop hooked up to a large screen TV with a wireless keyboard + mouse. There was a point where 2 brothers wanted to try Annex out, and decided among themselves to play with one on the tv and the other on my laptop and co-commanded their faction to win the demo scenario I created. It was really interesting to see them stratigize amongst themselves, and they had a blast doing so.

These latest changes by softcoder reminded me of that.

[jammyjamjamman]

I was testing these features out and I had a cpu easy(1.0) on my team and I was against 2x cpu mega.

It was a very fun and long game, but the cpu kept producing/ building stuff I didn't want and attacking at really bad times.

Would it be possible to replace the cpu with some sort of dummy unit so that I have entire control of the other player?

[Ishmaru]

I was testing these features out and I had a cpu easy(1.0) on my team and I was against 2x cpu mega.

It was a very fun and long game, but the cpu kept producing/ building stuff I didn't want and attacking at really bad times.

Would it be possible to replace the cpu with some sort of dummy unit so that I have entire control of the other player?

Why would you do this with an AI Player?

[softcoder]

I guess you mean allowing a player to control multiple factions. I will think about it.

[jammyjamjamman]

I guess you mean allowing a player to control multiple factions. I will think about it.

Yup, that's exactly what I mean. I had no interest in playing with a cpu, I just wanted a second player to control so that I could defeat both megas.

[softcoder]

I have updated the resource view.

If you have either share units or resources or both enabled, there are now always two set of resources rendered.

Line #1: always shows the resource totals of the first selected unit faction. (to know what player, the players team colour with * shows in front of the first resource)
Line #2: always shows the resource totals of the team.

[kratos]

I don' tlike "Shared Team Units" because if i like a strategy with afaction and my friend has another strategy, our strategy are in conflict and probabley the game become hard. I think is more better if any player comands only his faction.

[Ishmaru]

I don' tlike "Shared Team Units" because if i like a strategy with afaction and my friend has another strategy, our strategy are in conflict and probabley the game become hard. I think is more better if any player comands only his faction.

This is an optional mode of play.
Don't like it you don't have to use it

[ctz]

Would it be possible to replace the cpu with some sort of dummy unit so that I have entire control of the other player?

If you modify lastCustomGameSettings.mgg, you can set FactionControlForIndex#=7.  Then you can reload the last settings, and that faction will be under "Human" control--the AI will be disabled.  If you have multiple factions set to human control, then only the last faction is actually under your control ...  but if team unit sharing is on, you can control all factions on the same team.

[Julius]

Actually a sort of minimal CPU, e.g. one that takes care of resource gathering and does some emergency base protection, yet units can also be controlled by players would be interesting too. I am lazy and don't like to do all the micromanagement

[Ishmaru]

Actually a sort of minimal CPU, e.g. one that takes care of resource gathering and does some emergency base protection, yet units can also be controlled by players would be interesting too. I am lazy and don't like to do all the micromanagement

I'd agree to that!

[jammyjamjamman]

If you modify lastCustomGameSettings.mgg, you can set FactionControlForIndex#=7.  Then you can reload the last settings, and that faction will be under "Human" control--the AI will be disabled.  If you have multiple factions set to human control, then only the last faction is actually under your control ...  but if team unit sharing is on, you can control all factions on the same team.

Thanks for the hint ctz, works well. You can also do this though by creating scenarios where the human controls 2 players (that method doesn't actually require the shared resources and units option). Both of these options though are fairly inconvenient (yours less so).