Add a second front

[Melon]

Another of my old ideas is to add the possibility of playing on two maps at once. The basic idea is simple, upon lunching a scenario that has a tag stating that the map has two layers set to true, the game launches both of the scenarios at once. During his turn, the player may coordinate his units on both of the maps simultaneously by clicking on a button that switches between the two views. In some cases the units will be able to cross from one of the maps over to the other by stepping on a specially designated transition tile. Each of the maps will use its own map and cfg file, adding the possibility of having different schedules and map dimensions. Implementing this will add the possibility of a vast number of alternative campaign and multiplayer possibilities:
-An underground/dungeon level: This will be useful in a vast number of campaigns and could make for some interesting situations in multiplayer matches. For example, the campaign maps: "DiD-A Small Favor" and "AToTB-Guarded Castle" could use two maps that contain both the interior and the exterior views of the location.
-A second front: An interesting possibility for campaigns. The player is forced to fight on two different maps at once. Could be a good addition for campaigns that have multiple events happening at the same time. For example at the end of the bandit route in tSG, the player might have the possibility of simultaneously playing on both the "Pebbles in the Flood" and the "Tides of War" maps.
-Various dungeons and locations in multiplayer campaigns

I'm not sure to what extent this idea might have been discussed before, so I'm sorry in advance if this is something that was already suggested in the past.

[Lord_Aether]

Sounds pretty interesting.

[TheMasterOfBattle]

Yes, this does sound interesting, however, I am not sure WML supports it. :-\

[Lizard]

I doubt it is possible with a button, but just throwing 2 battlefield divided by void into one maps and placing a few teleporters shouldn't be that difficult. (you have only one leader for 2 fronts though)
schedules can be added via [time_area] or s.th. like that.

[zookeeper]

I doubt it is possible with a button, but just throwing 2 battlefield divided by void into one maps and placing a few teleporters shouldn't be that difficult. (you have only one leader for 2 fronts though)
schedules can be added via [time_area] or s.th. like that.

Yeah, it could easily be done with that method. Definitely no one would really write engine support for such a strange thing unless someone first demonstrates that the resulting gameplay rules.

As for the dungeon/underground thing: you could do it in a shoddy way using the context menu, but it'd be quite a pain to try to get it to interact with the AI in any meaningful way. But that problem would remain even if it was an in-built feature.

[Melon]

As for the dungeon/underground thing: you could do it in a shoddy way using the context menu, but it'd be quite a pain to try to get it to interact with the AI in any meaningful way. But that problem would remain even if it was an in-built feature.

Can't the AI just mimic what it already does for the Silver Mages teleport ability if this was a built-in feature?

I doubt it is possible with a button, but just throwing 2 battlefield divided by void into one maps and placing a few teleporters shouldn't be that difficult. (you have only one leader for 2 fronts though)
schedules can be added via [time_area] or s.th. like that.

That's an interesting suggestion for an alternative method. Could definitely be used for a custom campaign of some sort.

[zookeeper]

As for the dungeon/underground thing: you could do it in a shoddy way using the context menu, but it'd be quite a pain to try to get it to interact with the AI in any meaningful way. But that problem would remain even if it was an in-built feature.

Can't the AI just mimic what it already does for the Silver Mages teleport ability if this was a built-in feature?

I assumed you meant that the second layer/level of the map would appear in the same x,y space as the main map, and you'd just switch between the views via some command. If not, then yeah, that would be done the same way as the 2 battlefields thing.

[Turuk]

This could be a very good idea for campaigns or MP RPGs in adding a bit of depth to castles, towns, or dungeons. As mentioned before, you can have multiple levels in castles or dungeons, but think of the possibility of launching a sneak attack in town by creeping through the sewer and coming up at certain points on the map? Or you could have battles fought on inside of a cave on and on the entrance to the outside, providing a better simulation of fighting to hold the entrance, or actually fighting to get into the cave. The two fronts or areas being dependent on each other would require much greater consideration of strategy.

I think this could be a great way to provide a great deal more depth to scenarios, and provide a greater number of possible options for campaign designers.

[Lord_Aether]

I would put in the ability to have not just two maps, but actually a bunch of maps in one scenario, because the next step after two maps is... more maps...

That is, if I had a clue how to code this in the first place.

[AI]

Actually, you could have 2 leaders, you just need 2 player-controlled sides. (one for each 'map')

I haven't seen anything in this thread that isn't already possible. (other than making the AI understand it (through different means than writing your own))

[KingdomAmericaCMG]

It can be done now if you wanted it to, both maps would be on the same view just put some off user terrain between, have 2 leaders on one side its possible without needing to open a new window view. TL's World War map is sorta like that. It will open up mini maps in the middle of play.

[cool evil]

The problem with this is that you can't truly have two scenarios that interact dynamically (cross-over is not practical because wesnoth is a turn-based game, not an RTS, changes would not take place instantly, sometimes having to wait until a scenario is complete so a variable could be stored). It could work as one big scenario with two seperated maps, as stated before. Obviously, there will be different objectives you have to complete, the win conditions and the lost conditions from both scenarios would be applied to just your one faction, thus creating a huge mess. So unless wesnoth has some kind of co-op divider screen like those in video games and a specialized game engine, it wouldn't work very well.

Currently, there are branching scenarios in many of the campaigns, in one certain level, there can be 2 or more scenarios, labelled "a", "b", "c" and such. You have the option to select from one of these scenariso to proceed on further into the campaign, occasionally resulting in an alternative ending. The coder therefore can have as many suceeding scenarios as he/she wants, such as 10 different dungeon maps that could be selected by the player placing a certain unit at a specific hex.

I'm not sure how this would work, but in certain scenarios where you are presented a pop-up window to select your path, you could select one of each options and then save them, open up multiple wesnoth windows and play them at the same time. I haven't personally tried this but you could give a shot, there would likely be a problem where only results/variables from one of the scenarios can be saved.

[CMaster]

There is one way, in which a solution in the game engine would be superior to the teleporter solution:
Parts of the map could be shared between the two (or more) maps.

Take for example the tunnel entrance:
The tunnel would be on one partial map, the mountains above it on the other.
The grassland directly in front of the opening would be on both maps. This could actually be a quite large part of the map.

Consequence:
Some hexes would effectively have more than 6 neighbouring hexes (the shared ones at the cave mouth). I'm not sure, wether that could be easily handled by the game engine, but it would provide for a much more natural coupling of the levels than the teleporter method.

[Jodwin]

The problem with this is that you can't truly have two scenarios that interact dynamically (cross-over is not practical because wesnoth is a turn-based game, not an RTS, changes would not take place instantly, sometimes having to wait until a scenario is complete so a variable could be stored). It could work as one big scenario with two seperated maps, as stated before. Obviously, there will be different objectives you have to complete, the win conditions and the lost conditions from both scenarios would be applied to just your one faction, thus creating a huge mess. So unless wesnoth has some kind of co-op divider screen like those in video games and a specialized game engine, it wouldn't work very well.

Granted I'm not 100 % sure I got your point correctly, but at least in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (which is a TBS) you have scenarios with two maps: One on surface and then one underground, which you move between through cave entrances on the map. I don't know how they implemented it there, but as for Wesnoth one options could be this: First add a third coordinate for units to store their location (you guessed it, Z). It could, and should, be hidden from the user. Then have a (possibly limited) list of "maps" each scenario can have and assign each its depth value (it could default to 0 for scenarios with only one layer). If you want to allow layers which aren't all same width and height, then also allow defining (X,Y) offsets for layers (though this really isn't necessary...). Now if you have a scenario with layers 0, 1 and 2, you use those values as units' Z-value to define their location. The biggest question would be how to manage moving between layers, namely when there is a unit blocking the "cave entrance." Maybe there could be a special rule that disallows moving to the cave entrance unless you can also move away from it (moving away from it could be automated), or maybe you could attack from one end of the entrance the unit that's blocking the other end.

For example, lets say we have an entrance on layer 0 and the other end on layer 1 is blocked by a troll. You could move the cursor over the entrance on layer 0 and the troll is shown on the side panel, after which you could move a unit there and attack the troll. Granted it's not an ideal solution since it allows one strong unit to bottle neck the entrances... Or maybe if when holding the entrance on layer 1, the troll is also simultaneously holding it on all layers that share the same entrance? So it could be attacked from all hexes adjacent to the entrance(s). (ps. Maybe, for simplicity's sake, a single entrance should only be allowed to connect two layers and no more)

Now for a very, very simple model:

Code: Select all

[scenario]

layers = 3
[mapdata]
 layer = 0
 data = .....
[/mapdata]

[mapdata]
 layer = 1
 data = .....
[/mapdata]

[mapdata]
 layer = 2
 data = .....
[/mapdata]

[entrance]
 location = X1,Y1,0 ; X1,Y1,1 (x,y,z)
[/entrance]

[entrance]
 location = X2,Y2,0 ; X2,Y2,2
[/entrance]

...

[unit]
 location = X3,Y3,Z3
 ...
[/unit]

...

[/scenario]

[CMaster]

The biggest question would be how to manage moving between layers, namely when there is a unit blocking the "cave entrance." Maybe there could be a special rule that disallows moving to the cave entrance unless you can also move away from it (moving away from it could be automated), or maybe you could attack from one end of the entrance the unit that's blocking the other end.

Now, I just answered that question: Just make parts of the map shared between layers! A Troll in front of the entrance would be on both layers, as would be the grasland he's standing on. A mage in the cave would be on just one. As would be the dwarf standing right on top of the mage in the mountains. Both would be next to the troll, able to attack him.

If the ai could be made to work with more than 6 neighbouring hexes, the ai could actually navigate those entrances quite naturally. However, I have no idea, how much trouble that would be for the ai-coders.