Re: [glob2-devel] Nicowar Update!

[Joe Wells]

I'm not replying to most of Bradley's comments because nothing needs
to be added to them.

"Bradley Arsenault" <address@hidden> writes:

> On 7/25/07, Joe Wells <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>     Given that you are already working on Nicowar, here are what I think
>     are the most important points for improvement:
>
>     1. Nicowar could really benefit from better handling of resource
>        overgrowth that cuts off individual buildings (and sometimes traps
>        individual globules) or which divides the main base into two
>        portions.  I would suggest computing some kind of minimal spanning
>        tree that connects all of Nicowar's buildings and placing clearing
>        areas (and maybe also clearing flags of radius 0 and 1) on this
>        spanning tree.
>
> Interesting, I never considered doing clearing areas between buildings, only
> arround single ones. A minimum spanning tree... that would require constantly
> updating the clearing areas based on distance. Perhaps a compromise would be 
> to
> pathfind from newly created building to the nearest 1 or 2 buildings, and make
> sure that a 2-wide path stays intact between them. This would keep pathways
> open without trying to create unneccessarry pathways as circumstances change.

At the very least, it would be good to _detect_ if buildings (or
groups of buildings) are cut off (don't have a sufficiently short/wide
path to other buildings or have no path at all) and do something then.

>     3. Nicowar should use its ground attack explorers once it gets level 4
>        schools to attack enemy bases and to support ground attacks.
>        Otherwise it's just a matter of holding out against Nicowar long
>        enough to get your level 4 schools and then you can nuke Nicowar
>        with ease.
>
> This is in my plan, to build an army of explorers if the ressources are
> available.

It would even be a big improvement to simply _use_ the explorers that
it has with explorer flags that ask for ground-attack explorers.

Ground-attack explorers are so massively powerful that it is a crime
not to use them.  :-)

>     6. It would be nice if Nicowar switched into war mode (and chose the
>        attacking player as its target) if attacked early.  Otherwise (and
>        this happens quite a bit on random maps unless the map is huge) if
>        you start close enough to Nicowar you can just go on the attack
>        immediately and wipe out the mostly defenseless Nicowar.
>
> Again, I don't yet have a defense mechanism. Currently it doesn't even know
> that its attacked, or even that its buildings are damaged. This is certainly a
> good idea though, I had considered that it should target whoever is the most
> offensive at the current time, as to keep all enemies at odds while it 
> destroys
> them

I think at the least it should detect that it is being attacked and
switch on more warrior production.  A counterattack would be helpful
in relieving the pressure.

>     7. Nicowar should clear wheat/wood in order to have a good path to
>        stone/algae for building schools.  On random maps, Nicowar often
>        fails to build/upgrade schools because resource overgrowth makes it
>        harder to get to stone/algae.
>
> I suppose this would be easy enough to do. When schools or barracks are under
> construction, clear a 3-wide path to the nearest stone.

Having a path to algae can also be important.  On islands sometimes
the entire island border gets overgrown and there is no path to algae.

-- 
Joe