[glob2-devel] Discussion moved from the forum

[Eli]

(I can't figure out how to make these things quoted properly.)

[quote="Andrew"][b]Fruiting[/b]

[quote="Elvish Pillager"][instant Inn View is] Unfair. The primary 
reason for this is that it can basically force all opponents to take 
drastic action within 3 minutes or lose.[/quote]

How is that a problem?  Any decent player will guard fruit trees in 
case this happens.  Even if they had chosen not to use them (say, by 
putting a forbidden area around them), all they have to do is make the 
trees available and their globs will do the rest.[/quote]

Ah, but that's the same in every game. "Any decent player will do this" 
is the same as "Every player should do this in every game". If there's 
a static action that should be done in every game, then that's a boring 
task. A boring task is often OK (i.e. building the first few Inns) but 
not only it is boring, it is also a very constant task (you don't 
choose where to build the trees) and the punishment is too great for 
not doing it.

Basically, either you don't guard trees, and you get screwed, or you do 
guard trees, and you don't. So you do guard trees. Everyone does in 
every game. It's just an extra botheration, not a strategic device.

[quote="Andrew"][b]siege towers[/b]
(unless you can think of something else to call them)

[quote="Elvish Pillager"]Ignore them. They would not cause traffic 
problems, because the forbidden areas would not be traversed by anyone 
else.[/quote]

What if you have one siege tower going towards a battle and another 
coming back, and they both meet in a one-square-wide alleyway?  If you 
have other globs walking past the alleyway, 18 warriors will be 
completely hemmed in.[/quote]
That doesn't happen because siege towers don't come back from battles.

[quote="Andrew"]Ah!  So how about saying that a war flag (or any 
building or area, for that matter) which is over-subscribed should 
prefer better fed warriors over hungrier ones?  Also, there is a 
general issue here that the current system for getting hungry is too 
static - workers that never stray more than a few paces from an inn 
should keep working until they only have 1 or 2 percent food left, 
while warriors should automatically eat before setting off on a long 
journey.  There is a discussion somewhere in the suggestion forum about 
having a movable inn, which would solve the problem too.

Now you mention it, I have found my warriors peeling off in long 
battles.  Again, I'm tempted to say this is a good thing because it 
makes it harder to wipe out an enemy in one fell swoop.  That's not 
much fun for an attacker, but it means you as a defender might get a 
second chance.[/quote]

It doesn't only mean you get a second chance. It also means that the 
defender might destroy half the attacking army by localized 
superiority, and then march to their territory and decimate the rest 
(if towers are not involved.)

In general, it seems that hungry units should act like this:
1st priority: Go back to the inn if it cannot get back to an inn 
without starting (or coming very close to starting) to starve.
2nd priority: If it can get back to an inn in a reasonable amount of 
time, and is busy, it continues its task.
3rd priority: Go to the inn.

Also, instead of the siege tower, it does make sense to have a mobile 
inn. Here's my take on the situation:

War Wagon building. It's like an mobile, armored Inn which also acts 
like a defense tower. It takes 8 wood and 2 stone to build, and stone 
to fire. It moves when there's a War Flag, towards the nearest War 
Flag. Only warriors use it as an inn, and it can't hold fruit. Its 
capacity is 4-6-9, its armor is 8-12-18, and its hitpoints are 
200-350-500. It does not have extra stone slots, as the defense tower 
does, and it moves at half the speed of a level 1 warrior.

[quote="Andrew"]Personally, my strategy against the computer for this 
is to beat them back until I can reach their resources, then set up 
inns and hospitals in their territory, to mount a final attack 
from.[/quote]
The AI is pretty weak. I generally do a tower-rush (getting a ton of 
level 2 towers around your settlement before the first enemy attack = 
ownage :D) and then win however's easiest. That's usually a wheat 
genocide (not applicable in the more current version) or converting the 
enemies.