Widelands

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GunChleoc
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Widelands

Post by GunChleoc »

Seems like this is RTS games release week - 0 A.D, Wesnoth, and now Widelands as well. We have just released Build 19 :)

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Widelands is a free, open source real-time buildup strategy game with single player campaigns and a multiplayer mode. The game was inspired by Settlers II™ (© Bluebyte) but has significantly more variety and depth to it.

You are the regent of a small clan. Your task is to build an ever growing settlement. Every member of your clan will do his or her part to produce more resources to further this growth.

Widelands offers a single-player mode with campaigns that tell stories of the tribes and their struggle in the Widelands universe. However, settling really starts when you unite with friends over the Internet or LAN to build up new empires together – or to crush each other in the dusts of war. Widelands also offers an artificial intelligence to challenge you.

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pyndragon
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Re: Widelands

Post by pyndragon »

It's been so long since I've played Widelands. Congrats on your new role and the big release!
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GunChleoc
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Re: Widelands

Post by GunChleoc »

Thanks :)
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Widelands

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

I used to play Widelands a few years back, it didn't have most of the animations back then and I think that the Atlanteans didn't exist.
These days not only does it have all the animations but all the races look totally different (in settlers only the soldiers looked different).
Not only does it look pretty but it is interesting to play, the Barbarians, Empire and Atlanteans do things in different ways. I put this one up there with Wesnoth and Shovel Knight and fully endorse it without reservation.
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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GunChleoc
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Re: Widelands

Post by GunChleoc »

Widelands Build 20 Released

The Widelands Development Team is proud to announce the immediate availability of Widelands Build 20. Widelands is a free, cross-platform economy strategy game in which players control the fate of a small tribe that can grow into a big empire, in a style of play that is unique in the open source world.

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Since the previous release, we have implemented over 400 features, code cleanups and bug fixes. Build 20 features a new tribe – the Frisians – as well as four new campaign scenarios and a new “Barracks” building for recruiting soldiers. Also, the AI has been rewritten to use a genetic algorithm. The user interface comes with new features that make it easier to use, like map zoom, dropdown menus, a new ships list, and improved keyboard navigation. Build 20 also continues the behind the scenes cleanup, polish and modernization that was started with Build 19. There have been additional improvements to the stability and performance, as well as numerous bug-fixes.
Full announcement on Widelands Homepage
Velensk
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Re: Widelands

Post by Velensk »

I have a fondness for this game despite the fact that it manages to have the most boring combat of any game of this style I've seen (and games of this style tend not to have great combat). I'm not fond of the slow pace but generally I consider the game compelling enough anyway.

That said, I feel that the new Empire levels are painful for sheer length of time it takes to get moving and then for the amount of time it takes to finish your enemy off after you've already got things rolling and will inevitably win. On the third one it took me three hours (mostly of doing something else while the game was running) to get a single ship to get off that island and another eight or so hours to finish off my poor foes who apparently didn't know how to train their troops despite having the resources and 11 hours to do so. The fourth one, well, that one is painful by design and actually it's pretty satisfying to sort things out even if you have to go through that painful period with only three loggers and two foresters but finishing it was a massive slog of repetitively crawling your way forward across a vast stretch of land occasionally having to pause while your building materials catch up to your army so you can see the next target to attack. At least this time the enemy wasn't quite so hopeless but it still wasn't particularly fun.

In general, I feel two things are compelling about the game but one of them is by definition finite and the other can get repetitive.
--The first is the initial development of the economy. It's a nice little micro-optimization puzzle and has that feeling of growth. Unfortunately this only lasts until you actually have a developed economy at which point the game transitions to the other compelling point.
--The second is once you have a developed economy trying to figure out how to streamline and power it up most efficiently. This is actually the more strategically interesting of the two to me but I find that it runs into the issue of feeling somewhat pointless as there's no particular resistance once you are here. Now in theory, the military aspect of the game gives you a way of comparing the output of fully developed economies in a compelling way and frequently for a brief period it can be pretty intense but as it is basically a measurement of economic strength it's not actually that fun for itself then after you've determined who is stronger, it may still take a few hours to actually close in the the AI's headquarters (assuming it was you, if you know you're coming off weaker you have the blessing of being able to leave the game immediately and the curse that the best way to get back to where you were is to replay several hours of economic development with a better plan).

In any case, I'd see what you can do to focus on the interesting aspects of those two strengths and how you might avoid the feeling of just 'building more things to have more things' and the tedium of extended conquest in later levels. Those two levels were enough to kill my interest in playing the game for awhile and I haven't even gotten around to trying the new faction.
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GunChleoc
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Re: Widelands

Post by GunChleoc »

Thanks for your feedback :)

If it did take you 3 hours to collect the building materials for a ship in Empire 3, you did not follow the scenario instructions in some place. It might be interesting to find out where you went wrong so that we can tweak it.

If you want more of the challenge fro the AI, you can set it starting conditions to "Trading Outpost" which will give the AI freebie resources periodically.

It would be good if the AI was capable of playing Collectors or Wood Gnome etc, but we're not there yet.
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Re: Widelands

Post by gnombat »

GunChleoc wrote: May 15th, 2019, 5:47 pm If it did take you 3 hours to collect the building materials for a ship in Empire 3, you did not follow the scenario instructions in some place. It might be interesting to find out where you went wrong so that we can tweak it.
According to my saved game it took me 4 hours to get that far :lol:
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Re: Widelands

Post by Velensk »

GunChleoc wrote: May 15th, 2019, 5:47 pm Thanks for your feedback :)

If it did take you 3 hours to collect the building materials for a ship in Empire 3, you did not follow the scenario instructions in some place. It might be interesting to find out where you went wrong so that we can tweak it.

If you want more of the challenge fro the AI, you can set it starting conditions to "Trading Outpost" which will give the AI freebie resources periodically.

It would be good if the AI was capable of playing Collectors or Wood Gnome etc, but we're not there yet.
I'm not sure what to say, I spread out until I found the one large building spot, built a farm there, waited quite some time to collect all the wheat, tore down the farm, built a sheep farm, waited until I had 50 wool, tore down the sheep farm, built a weaving mill and waited for my ship to build. I suppose if I'd been a bit more on top of it, I'd have used the port spot for a second farm and tore it down once I'd had the wheat but it'd still have been painfully long.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
tinker
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Re: Widelands

Post by tinker »

There are in fact 2 large plots plus the port in the Empire campaign, you can build a ship fairly quickly or build up supplies of bread and beer by leaving the farm working as well as building a ship quicker than you seem to have done.

If you think the last 2 Empire campaigns are long and boring then do not bother trying the Frisian ones, they are longer and totally boring.

More interesting than the scenarios are the free form games, pick a map, pick a start state for each player and a win condition. You can set all the AI on one team with trading post start and play yourself with village start and have a real challenge on your hands.
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Re: Widelands

Post by Velensk »

I explored the entire island looking for a second large building plot and didn't find it. I'm going to guess it was probably under one of the medium plots I was using (the rest of the plot still being covered by whatever was covering it) and I just never was aware of it. There's no way I'm aware of to determine what size of plot would form if all obstacles were removed from the field.

I am aware that for what I like from the game, it would probably be better to just play skirmish games. This doesn't change the fact that there are elements from the campaigns that I would find interesting if it weren't for the kinds of issues I mentioned. For all that the fourth scenario was painful and dragged horribly at the end, I did still find it somewhat interesting to have to sort out it out.

While I'm giving feedback, I've always wondered why the economy controls are on the flags on your roads instead of being among the buttons at the bottom of the screen which is exactly the place I instinctively go looking for them. When I came back to try the game again, I actually wondered if for some bizarre reason you'd removed it because I couldn't remember where to go looking for it and it wasn't where I would have expected it.
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Re: Widelands

Post by tinker »

The 'hidden' economy controls, and many other improvements are being worked on. Due to the slow release process that widelands seems to prefer you are often better off using an interim build, already many improvements are added, or are in testing, but will not be in an official release for maybe 2 years.
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Re: Widelands

Post by GunChleoc »

The economy control has been discussed before and we haven't found a solution to the problem yet. The reason that it's on the flags is that you can have multiple economies with individual settings, unlike the other settings which are global.

One idea we have had is to make them accessible from warehouses too, but we haven't gotten around to implementing that one yet.
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