Revamping "usage"?

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Ken_Oh
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Revamping "usage"?

Post by Ken_Oh »

This is just a loose idea and a stab to try to feel if this has any relevance. Also, here are the only threads I could find on the concept (back to 2004):

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... ight=usage
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... ight=usage
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... ight=usage

I'll just say that I've been working on a campaign and just find the usage scheme a little wierd. When I was building my first recruitment_pattern tag, I wanted the enemy to recruit mages. I looked at http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/UnitWML and didn't find a mage tag so I thought maybe archer would work, since Mages are long range fighters.

Of course, when I eventually looked at the Mage unit file I found usage=mixed fighter. Dark Adept, on the other hand, is archer for he has no melee attack.

But, compare Elvish Archer to Mage. The EA is archer who's ranged vs. melee potential (normal) damages are 20 vs. 10. But take Mage, who's ranged vs. melee damages amount to 20 vs. 5. Plus, as we all know, Mage's staff is usually less likely to hit than his magic.

Shouldn't Mage then be more of an archer than the Elvish Archer?

Some other things don't make total sense, like where Bruno (in the 2nd and 3rd links above) notices that some archer units have healing properies, but aren't labeled as healer. Also note that Lich has a stronger ranged attack than Necromancer (v1.1.2) but is labeled fighter, while Necromancer is mixed fighter. Also, White Mage is healer while Mage of Light is fighter. Anyone else notice how each of the Dwarves with guns has a different tag? How does Thunderer = fighter??? There are plenty more where that came from.

My few questions are:
1. Does AI require that usage tag? I mean does the AI make fighter units act like fighters and scout units act like scouts (regardless or in conjunction with unit stats), or does that only come into play during recruitment?
2. If AI uses usage other than in recruitment, would revamping it require huge AI changes that probably wouldn't be worth it?
3. Is the whole thing useless anyway?

I've found that I could use a few more tags simply for recruitment_pattern, when I want more of one kind of fighter than the other. Consider these:

-archer fighter for when you want units that are more archers than they are fighters
-fighter archer for when you want units that are more fighters than they are archers
-mixed fighter for units that are pretty well balanced on both sides
-leader for units that have leadership ability
-skirmisher for skimisher units
-mage for units that rely mainly that magical 70% to attack

You know, I could go on and on, mixing elements like healer, scout, archer, fighter, mage, etc. in a hundred different ways. I'm just curious if anyone can answer my questions above and then I guess we can go from there.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Remove usage. Anything the AI wants to know, it should be able to find out for itself.

...I mean, how stupid is it to have "usage=healer" when upwards in the same file you see {ABILITY_HEALS}?
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Good idea, but it still leaves the question of recruitment_pattern tags for when you want to direct scenario recruitment.
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Post by toms »

Yes, what do you do then if you want the ai to recruit determined amounts of units (in relation)?
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Easy - make it "recruitment_pattern=Elvish Fighter, Elvish Fighter, Elvish Archer, Mage" instead.
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Capitol idea, EP.

I wonder if anyone has considered this before. There really isn't any talk about it either.

I'd really like to see some documentation about exactly how it all works.
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Ranger M
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Post by Ranger M »

Actually, I have a problem with this, it completely looses the randomness of what the enemy AI will recruit. Often there are two different units in a faction with the same label (eg, two units with fighter) and so you don't know which is coming next, but with this, then it would be blazingly obvious what is coming next, even to a player who isn't watching for it, because the AI would always recruit the same units in the same order.

although having a degree of control like this possible is a good idea (say you really want the AI to have many of a specific unit when it recruits, so you just add it to the recruitment pattern), having it as the only option is IMHO, bad.
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

OK, maybe the usage tags could be revamped and then recruitment_pattern could allow for both usage tags and/or specific unit IDs.

For example, you'd see recruitment_pattern=fighter,fighter,White Mage,archer
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Post by irrevenant »

It sounds like the ideal would be to allow units to have more than one tag.
eg. the White Mage/MoL could be Archer+Healer.

That would actually increase the randomness of AI recruitment.
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

Should abilities/specials be made into specific usage tags?. I would prefer having some "support" tag for things like the White Mage. Yes he can be very effective shooting four lightbeams but one doesn't throw him to the front like any other soldier. I basically would want very specific tags like skirmisher being avoided since it states that all skirmisher would be used the same.

Maybe the AI could consider the abilities/specials in a paralel way with the tags. One could have a fighter unit with a minor poison ranged attack. Then the AI would consider if he needs either of those and recruit. Would this be more for the AI to read when making a decision?.

What is the difference for AI to choose between an Ulfserker or a Fighter anyway?.
For example, you'd see recruitment_pattern=fighter,fighter,White Mage,archer
Sounds good.
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Post by toms »

I think now it is a good time to tell something really weird that happened to me once:

I wanted an ai player to recruit elvish captains, while fighters are also in his recruit list. The captain has fighter as usage. The ai did never recruit any, until I tried to use mixed_fighter. Then he did at once.
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Noyga
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Post by Noyga »

IIRC, thoses usages are handled specifically by the AI :
- scout
- healer
The other usages are just conventions and only influence the recruitment with the recruitment_pattern.
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