[Suggestion] Travel takes too long, add Gate spells

I like this idea. Frogboy's version is sort of a really good one, but I also feel like there should be more stuff to make magic matter, and this is a good way to do that. I feel like it should be possible to make gates, although certainly only at a particularly advanced spellbook and level.

Seems to me, the easiest way to make this happen (by my perception) would be as follows:

Caster casts gate:

A gate is formed between caster's position and target tile, which must be on the casters land. That fits fluff easily because of the land rejuvenating. Then the gates exist. Sending units through costs some amount of mana. Anyone can use these gates. So it's not something you should go doing all the time, because you're spending a ton of mana to create something that your enemies could use to get straight into your territory, and it costs some massive amount of mana to create, and more to use.

Black-Knight, we get that you don't like teleporting, chill out. You don't need to worry so much about this particular implementation of teleportation spoiling things, because as long as it's properly implemented, establishing lots of gates should by both very costly, and strategically dangerous. Frogboys "you just sort o find them" model lacks this inherent limiter to their number, but the number could easily be limited directly, and their tactical viability is limited by random chance. They should still have a mana cost associated with use, I think. But maybe not! It'll need some playtesting to be sure.

Also, gates are not a sci-fi thing. They are very fantasy. They've been imported to sci-fi in recent years because of wormholes, but that's basically irrelevant.

Quoting Black-Knight,

reply 10

Quoting Frogboy, reply 7Personally, I would prefer to have a tech that allows players to find Moon Gates or something like that. But that would be some thing in the future.
Hopefully that one will send to te moon those players who like teleporting spells!

This, while a horrible post, brings to mind an important point: Why are they called Moon Gates? What do they have to do with the moon?

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One game that had non-game breaking magical transportation was Lords of Magic; all magical travel was a one way trip that required the units being transported to be in a specific building. Because the units had to get back to the "teleporter" it caused it to be a way of having a strategic reserve, rather than a way to take over the world with one army. Also for each of the structures (and there was never more than two on a map) you would only be able to move one stack per turn.

One structure was an "earth gateway" that would allow movement to any of the "great temples" (there was a max of eight) if you owned the temple. Units needed to be at full move to use the structure, the temple must have room in the garrison for them, and after arriving the units have no move.

The other the "teleportation shrine" which can work one of two way: you can move one set of garrisoned units to any valid location within a limited radius without expending move or there was a spell that would bring the units to the caster if the parties were capable of merging. I never got the second way to work, but the game said it could be done and had the spell for it.

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THe problem I have with a high rate of movement for overland travel is that your vision needs to be extended too. The AI's units might as well materialize in front of your offensive unit if you can only see 4 and he can bring troops from up to 8 squares away, that just turns the whole tihng into luck and having stacks able to deal with any eventuality. Not much different than teleport in my mind.

And teleport is NOT just a sci-fi concept and repeating it over and over doesn't make it true. I get that you don't like it and slightly agree with you but that still doesn't make it sci-fi only.

What is needed is a system to build roads. That way you can travel through your "pacified" territories quickly but you cannot just zoom past the front lines. Perhaps a method of buildign roads from city to city but you must control both cities, that way you could get troops near the front lines but not actually into the frey in one turn.

I am just saying this worked for Alexander the Great, and he was considered pretty good at this warfare thing.

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Quoting Gwenio1,

reply 27

One game that had non-game breaking magical transportation was Lords of Magic; all magical travel was a one way trip that required the units being transported to be in a specific building. Because the units had to get back to the "teleporter" it caused it to be a way of having a strategic reserve, rather than a way to take over the world with one army. Also for each of the structures (and there was never more than two on a map) you would only be able to move one stack per turn.

One structure was an "earth gateway" that would allow movement to any of the "great temples" (there was a max of eight) if you owned the temple. Units needed to be at full move to use the structure, the temple must have room in the garrison for them, and after arriving the units have no move.

The other the "teleportation shrine" which can work one of two way: you can move one set of garrisoned units to any valid location within a limited radius without expending move or there was a spell that would bring the units to the caster if the parties were capable of merging. I never got the second way to work, but the game said it could be done and had the spell for it.

I agree that that worked really well. But it can't really work well for Elemental, because it lacks great temples or any such static items of significance. Indeed, it lacks anything static at all. Brad's idea of placing it on randomly spawning locations is the closest we could get to this. If we want the strategic limitations of the earth gate then they could register control, like other resources in the game, and they could allow a garrison.

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Quoting DrApostle,

reply 25

We need to change movement so that it is less tedious across the board, but not facilitate superstack teleportation.

Agreed.

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Quoting Frogboy,

Personally, I would prefer to have a tech that allows players to find Moon Gates or something like that. But that would be some thing in the future.

I'd rather see gates be something anyone can use and become strategically valuable.

I love this! portals that can be found and you don't know their destination like in HOMM, linking them to a tech adventure is a great idea that fits with elemental theme. There could be a mechanism to ensure portals to every island or non-reachable places are created. This would help the AI inmensely.

It would be great if there's a sorcery tech (with the "gate" adventure tech as prerequisite) to allow an improvement to be build on the portals, so you can redirect them. Then you can travel bewteen redirected portals with a new action button. It could have a mana upkeep or a cost to travel across it or both. It would be better without costs, because it will make cycling between portals easier, when there are more then 2.

Alternatively it could also be an upgrade for city levels, unlocked by a tech.

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Quoting Cruxador,

reply 29

I agree that that worked really well. But it can't really work well for Elemental, because it lacks great temples or any parallel static items of significance. Brad's idea of placing it on randomly spawning locations is the closest we could get to this.

I posted it to provide ideas, not as a solution. Of course it would need to be modified to fit in Elemental, but it is one of the better systems that I have found.

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Quoting yaromir,

reply 2

Quoting cpl_rk, reply 1
The problem with spells like this is that the AI does not use them, hence they provide a *huge* benefit to the human player and as a result the human easily whips the AI.

Teach AI to use them? I don't think it is all that difficult to make AI understand strategic nodes in its graph and try to shorten the length of travel between them.

Alternatively, create the equivalent of "Strategic Redeployment of HOI" within the magic lore. I very much miss this feature whenever I need to move many units at once across my empire

Do you have any idea about how AI coding is done? Pathfinding is its own thing, but when you add in an extra dimension of a stack needing to examine

1) If it should move

2) Where it should move

3) Toward defense or toward attack

4) Toward which strategic points within 3) should it move?

5) To attack or defend within its local area movement reach or within its teleport movement reach?

6) How does it prioritize threats within its local area?

7) How does it prioritize threats within its teleport areas?

8) Is it move efficient to move a local army to a strategic point than to teleport? (which local army)

9) Is it more efficient to teleport a different army to a strategic point than this one? (which teleporting stack)

10) If not, does the strategic advantage outweigh the disadvantage?

That's just scratching the surface. Behind each of those subquestions is probably 100 different functions that each must be QA'd. And those are just the concerns I listed off the top of my head in 30 seconds. There's: your AI should know how to do this, and "you shouldn't design a program where an AI needs to do this." That's elementary computer science.

People that have never coded before should never speak about how easy it is or isn't for a computer to do something.

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with strategic movespeed. Some more diversity would be nice.

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Quoting hairrorist,

reply 33

Quoting cpl_rk, reply 1
The problem with spells like this is that the AI does not use them, hence they provide a *huge* benefit to the human player and as a result the human easily whips the AI.

Teach AI to use them? I don't think it is all that difficult to make AI understand strategic nodes in its graph and try to shorten the length of travel between them.

Alternatively, create the equivalent of "Strategic Redeployment of HOI" within the magic lore. I very much miss this feature whenever I need to move many units at once across my empire

Do you have any idea about how AI coding is done? Pathfinding is its own thing, but when you add in an extra dimension of a stack needing to examine

1) If it should move

2) Where it should move

3) Toward defense or toward attack

4) Toward which strategic points within 3) should it move?

5) To attack or defend within its local area movement reach or within its teleport movement reach?

6) How does it prioritize threats within its local area?

7) How does it prioritize threats within its teleport areas?

8) Is it move efficient to move a local army to a strategic point than to teleport? (which local army)

9) Is it more efficient to teleport a different army to a strategic point than this one? (which teleporting stack)

10) If not, does the strategic advantage outweigh the disadvantage?

That's just scratching the surface. Behind each of those subquestions is probably 100 different functions that each must be QA'd. And those are just the concerns I listed off the top of my head in 30 seconds. There's: your AI should know how to do this, and "you shouldn't design a program where an AI needs to do this." That's elementary computer science.

People that have never coded before should never speak about how easy it is or isn't for a computer to do something.

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with strategic movespeed. Some more diversity would be nice.

Like I said, if the AI can't be programmed to use that spell (doesn't matter what spell it is) don't add it. It doesn't matter how much or little I know about programming. If the human uses something that the compueter doesn't, and this gives the human an overpowering advantage, then the AI is going to be easily beaten. Period. All posts about weak AI have supported this to some extent or another.

Adding additional (unecessary) spells are just going break the AI even further. We already have a teleport, why add a second teleport? I don't have a problem with adding spells, as long as the AI uses them as the human uses them & can provide a challenging game in so doing. If adding new spells is too difficult to program for the AI as you point out in 1 to 16, and the AI is unable to use them, then don't add the new spell. It's that simple.

By the way, I don't know who you're quoting: only the first sentence is mine and I stick by it 100% because it's 100% correct & spot-on.

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People that have never coded before should never speak about how easy it is or isn't for a computer to do something.

Fair enough, except that most of your points are also true for regular movement, not just for teleport (where, when, prorities etc...)

portals that can be found and you don't know their destination like in HOMM

I think that would be even more of a mess. If My game starts and I am close to a teleport I would just quit and restart: any time any superstack could pop out... I played all the M&M games the basic AOW game before the teleport revolution and I know how much that sucks!!

We need to change movement so that it is less tedious across the board, but not facilitate superstack teleportation.

Agreed.

I agree completely! A little faster movement, not too much though, because by increasing movement the relationship between the area of vision and the movement would change: IE you could not see units before they reach you, which would make armies move "blindly" across the map. With higher speed should come higher vision, that's why I mentioned several times watchtowers that can be built anywhere except in enemy territory. Those watchtowers would also have a very tiny influence area around them which could help shaping the territory.

Being too fast would also spoil the sense of epic I was talking about. I would say that infantry move by3 cavalry by 4 and so on. The game should allow to build more units not to have a unit that can be everywhere. Strategy is mosttly about positioning, if you go too far you can't come back in time, period! Essential for multiplayer!

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brings to mind an important point: Why are they called Moon Gates? What do they have to do with the moon?

Fist time I saw Moon gates were in the Ultima games and then in Ultima online. There were a number of moon gates around the world. When you stepped in, your destination would depend on the phases of the two moons. You had to look at a map and figure out the phases required to take you to your desired location. Was kind of neat.

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Quoting nOObonian,

reply 36

brings to mind an important point: Why are they called Moon Gates? What do they have to do with the moon?

Fist time I saw Moon gates were in the Ultima games and then in Ultima online. There were a number of moon gates around the world. When you stepped in, your destination would depend on the phases of the two moons. You had to look at a map and figure out the phases required to take you to your desired location. Was kind of neat.

I was hoping he was joking... Well having the Moon in the name is very appropriate Brad, since teleport is a SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE NOT A FANTASY ONE!

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I have been giving it some thought and here is how I think castable transportation should be changed:

- There is a one per faction structure that acts as a teleportation terminus.

- The low level teleport will take the caster and only the caster to the terminus.

- The high level teleport will allow the caster to bring a unit for the terminus to them.

- The cost of teleportation increases each time a unit is teleported.

- When a squad or other size larger than an individual is transported, it cost and increase to teleportation cost are the same as teleporting each member individually.

- To teleport, a unit must have full move and will lose all its move after teleporting.

- Casters that bring troops to themselves loose their move, preventing them from escaping. This means it you send a caster into enemy territory to bring in an army, you have to risk them.

- "Caster" refers to a unit with the ability to cast spell that is selected as an end point for travel, as strategic spells will be caster independant in 1.10.

- Optionally the terminus could be as structure that is only buildable on special tiles, in which case you would select one rather than just having the one.

This way teleportation is not as useful for jumping around the map, and is instead more of away to make moving on a large map easier.

------------

However magic travel is done, it should leave the transported units without move so that enemies have at least one turn to counter.

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Quoting Black-Knight,

reply 37

I was hoping he was joking... Well having the Moon in the name is very appropriate Brad, since teleport is a SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE NOT A FANTASY ONE!

Both science fiction and fantasy are about things that are not in the world as we know it. The diffrence is not in what they do, but how it is accomplished. Fantasy = magic, sci-fi = techonology.

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Quoting nOObonian,

reply 36

brings to mind an important point: Why are they called Moon Gates? What do they have to do with the moon?

Fist time I saw Moon gates were in the Ultima games and then in Ultima online. There were a number of moon gates around the world. When you stepped in, your destination would depend on the phases of the two moons. You had to look at a map and figure out the phases required to take you to your desired location. Was kind of neat.

Sure, but that wouldn't apply to the ones in Elemental.

Quoting Black-Knight,

reply 35

I agree completely! A little faster movement, not too much though, because by increasing movement the relationship between the area of vision and the movement would change: IE you could not see units before they reach you, which would make armies move "blindly" across the map. With higher speed should come higher vision, that's why I mentioned several times watchtowers that can be built anywhere except in enemy territory. Those watchtowers would also have a very tiny influence area around them which could help shaping the territory.

Being too fast would also spoil the sense of epic I was talking about. I would say that infantry move by3 cavalry by 4 and so on. The game should allow to build more units not to have a unit that can be everywhere. Strategy is mosttly about positioning, if you go too far you can't come back in time, period! Essential for multiplayer!

I agree entirely with this. But I also feel that portals don't detract overly much for this, as long as they're implemented in a manner that it's only practical to use them sparingly. Then you might use them to deploy an army or critical reinforcements across the land, but it would still matter who's where. If you don't have someone where they need to be, it should be a fixable problem (because games should be fun) but you should have to pay through the nose for it.

Quoting Black-Knight,

reply 35

portals that can be found and you don't know their destination like in HOMM
I think that would be even more of a mess. If My game starts and I am close to a teleport I would just quit and restart: any time any superstack could pop out... I played all the M&M games the basic AOW game before the teleport revolution and I know how much that sucks!!

No, these would take an advanced adventuring technology to detect, so you wouldn't know they were there until later.

In addition, it would probably be the case (and it should be!) that people couldn't use gates that were within the territory of someone else. Thus you could not get super stacks appearing on top of you.

Quoting Black-Knight,

reply 37

I was hoping he was joking... Well having the Moon in the name is very appropriate Brad, since teleport is a SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE NOT A FANTASY ONE!

I don't know if you're being sincere, or if you're trolling, or if this is intentional, but you're basically turning yourself into a strawman here. Teleporting is not a sci-fi exclusive concept, especially with relation to gates. You could argue that the word is a sci-fi word, but that's essentially a meaningless argument, since the idea of people in fantasy speaking modern English is silly to begin with, but nobody wants to go learning an artificial language just to play a game. You could call it something like the "seven league step", I suppose, but that's a somewhat unintuitive naming paradigm. However, what you're saying is that the concept is incompatible with fantasy, which is blatantly false, and you're merely repeating it with no supporting evidence. The end result is that you appear to be an imbecile, and detract from your argument. Which is a bit of a shame, really, because you are otherwise making some decent points. You really just need to avoid the noise and stick to signal, as it were.

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Quoting Black-Knight,

reply 37

I was hoping he was joking... Well having the Moon in the name is very appropriate Brad, since teleport is a SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE NOT A FANTASY ONE!

You say that a lot, so let me point out that there are 2 types of science fiction: "hard "sci-fi and fantasy in space. Teleport is in the fantasy in space camp, and is a longtime staple in more traditional fantasy as well, mostly as gates and sometimes individual casters. So to sum up: teleport IS an accepted fantasy feature, both in Tolkien-esque worlds and fantasy-in-space, so please stop saying this over and over.

That said, you make a good case for excluding teleport in general and either excluding or heavily limiting gates. I'd kind of like to see them for both the 'wow' factor and the reduction in late-game cleanup tedium, but they do seem very abusable.

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Quoting DrApostle,

reply 25

Ideas to speed up movement (brainstorming):
3. Create a second "Caravan" tech to decreae movement on roads from .5 to .25

I'd love to see the introduction of paved roads (as an upgrade which could reduce movement cost to .25), but I'd hate to see it as another caravan tech. Caravans automatically creating roads is cool and reasonable in that there's now traffic so it creates a natural dirt path, but anything better should require investment and / or upkeep (as roads do - just check your neighborhood potholes). In other words, I'd love to see either an option or a special unit to upgrade existing roads for a cost in materials, and probably an upkeep cost in gold.

For that matter, I'm not clear on why a super-awesome magic empire can't create roads as civic works to wherever they want (so long as they keep them up)? I can see why it would be harder, slower, and cost more than improving an existing trail, though.

There's definitely a reason why the great empires throughout history were known for their awesome roads.

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Quoting cpl_rk,

reply 34

Like I said, if the AI can't be programmed to use that spell (doesn't matter what spell it is) don't add it. It doesn't matter how much or little I know about programming. If the human uses something that the compueter doesn't, and this gives the human an overpowering advantage, then the AI is going to be easily beaten. Period. All posts about weak AI have supported this to some extent or another.

Adding additional (unecessary) spells are just going break the AI even further. We already have a teleport, why add a second teleport? I don't have a problem with adding spells, as long as the AI uses them as the human uses them & can provide a challenging game in so doing. If adding new spells is too difficult to program for the AI as you point out in 1 to 16, and the AI is unable to use them, then don't add the new spell. It's that simple.

By the way, I don't know who you're quoting: only the first sentence is mine and I stick by it 100% because it's 100% correct & spot-on.

I would say it does not have to be useable by the AI to be acceptable in the game. What is needed is for it to not be so powerful (high cost and/or limitations) that no other tactic makes sense, and it needs to be counterable both by the AI and players.

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Quoting Gwenio1,

reply 39

Quoting Black-Knight, reply 37I was hoping he was joking... Well having the Moon in the name is very appropriate Brad, since teleport is a SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE NOT A FANTASY ONE!

Both science fiction and fantasy are about things that are not in the world as we know it. The difference is not in what they do, but how it is accomplished. Fantasy = magic, sci-fi = techonology.

And this reminds me of the Migh and Magic RPGs, a typical fantasy game... until in the endgame you find out some magical items from an ancient race are actually laser guns. It was a mighty WTF back then, but enjoyed it. Of course fans always heavily cirticixed the introduction of technology in the game...

I could also mention a novel series Darksword involving both genres for an epic surprise, too bad I ruined it, if you haven't read it.

So the point is, sometimes you can't even differentiate between both genres.

Also on an unrelated note, talking about realism in science fiction or fantasy theme is inane, unless you created the lore yourself. ANything can be explained in those settings, you're only making assumptions on how things work.

Black-Knight> Regarding portals appearing next to cities, it could be changed so they appear in neutral territory only. They won't show st the start, as they're tied to a tech requirement, you missed that part. I liked this idea a lot as I'm reading "Well of Darkness" right now, which features one of those magical gates.

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I'd love to see the introduction of paved roads (as an upgrade which could reduce movement cost to .25), but I'd hate to see it as another caravan tech.

Great point. So have a tech to upgrade roads, but not a caravan tech. Done!

I have another idea to go along with my previous 6, but this one takes some thought.

7. +1 movement in one's own territory. It makes sense because one should know his/her own backyard. I just worry about the balance when running or chasing an opposing army.

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Quoting DrApostle,

reply 45

7. +1 movement in one's own territory. It makes sense because one should know his/her own backyard. I just worry about the balance when running or chasing an opposing army.

Make that a strategic spell that takes sufficent casting time, mana cost, and mana upkeep and it is good to go. Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic has a spell like that called "haste domain" that give all friendly units in your magical domain the benifet of the haste spell.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

Black-Knight, your 'teleporting is not a fantasy thing' thing is purely a matter of taste; I love teleport-free Tolkien-land, but I also appreciate many other fantasy settings where movement mojo is a minor detail and/or a major plot element.

What we are really lacking here is the cosmology for the world of Elemental. There is no description of what magic in the game really is, much less how it differs from and/or relates to 'realistic' physics. Lacking any sort of meta-rules, it is pretty hard to make serious claims about what the best set of game rules ought to be. At least if you don't want to exclude everyone who plays to play as much or more than they play to win some zero-sum thing.

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While this thread has clearly advanced, just for the record I'd like to say that I quoted the wrong post.

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I want movespeed options like :

Turtle (current)

Slightly faster turtle (current + 50%)

Normal (double current)

Fast (3 times current)

WTF (4 times current)

Autowin (enables teleport)

Though perhaps we need new numbers and some people may complain about the honest naming of teleport mode.

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I think the fact that it can take upwards of 40 turns to go from one end of the map to another is a good thing. It makes it much more difficult to go around with a single stack of death and steamroll everything in your path, and forces you to actually think about deploying your troops ahead of time. Given the build times of units (ranging from 10 turns on the low-end to 50+ turns on the high end) move speeds are perfectly in line with the other factors in this game.

I'd actually say the bigger problem is that (like far too many TBS games) that all battles in elemental take exactly one turn. This means there's basically no such thing as a delay tactic. In practice, this makes a scorched-earth strategy devastating. One poorly protected city can easily be taken down in a single turn, and razed the same turn.

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