taskLordsAWar! - Tasks: task #15621, characters

 
 

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task #15621: characters

Submitter:  Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Submitted:  Thu 30 Apr 2020 02:01:00 PM UTC
   
 
Should Start On:  Thu 30 Apr 2020 04:00:00 AM UTC Should be Finished on:  Thu 30 Apr 2020 04:00:00 AM UTC
Category:  None Priority:  5 - Normal
Status:  None Privacy:  Public
Assigned to:  benasselstine Percent Complete:  0%
Open/Closed:  Open Effort:  0.00

Fri 19 Feb 2021 09:46:39 AM UTC, comment #5: 

I'm slowly implementing this.

The Characters button on the Game Preferences Dialog should not be desensitized when there are only human players.  Characters now means more than AI parameters because there can be starting items that also affect human players.

The idea of saving the blurb in a HeroProto object kinda fell apart because of the introduction of the Character object.  Characters are what's in the HeroTemplates class (the heronames.xml file), and HeroProto objects are what arrives at recruit time.  We take a Character object and combine it with an ArmyProto (of type hero) to make a HeroProto.

There's no limiting on the size of the blurb, and that's something of a problem.  Only a few words are suitable as we display it in a stack info tip.

The HeroProto object was doing double duty before being both, but now the code makes more sense, even though something called a <herotemplate> is a Character object.

Heroes now point back to their hero type which refers to a Character in HeroTemplates.

Hero AI isn't implemented yet but there's a HeroStrategy object that can be None (acts like any other stack), Random (switches strategy every so often), and Simple Quester (goes on quests with help.)


Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Group administrator
Tue 16 Feb 2021 08:51:27 AM UTC, comment #4: 

A starting measure is to show the hero name when we right-click on a stack.

The idea here is to have the hero name on top, the stack, and then later on when Characters are implemented the blurb on the bottom.

When we right-click on a hero and we're not 'showing enemies' as a game option, we don't see the stack but we see the hero details.

Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Group administrator
Mon 15 Feb 2021 06:59:38 PM UTC, comment #3: 

whoopsie, this was on the wrong task.

Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Group administrator
Mon 15 Feb 2021 06:58:40 PM UTC, comment #2: 

All done.  It would be nice to have more images to use the multi-mask thing but I'm not an artist and limited it to the hero army unit, and it only affects the black player as it now has a secondary colour of red.

Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Group administrator
Sat 13 Feb 2021 07:24:53 PM UTC, comment #1: 

We need a way to see the character blurbs in-game.

When we right-click on a stack that is led by a hero we see its armies and the blurb beneath it.

When the game option "view enemies" is turned off we don't see the stack contents but we still see the blurb.

If we're going to change the hero prototype, it would be nice to add a list of items that the hero starts with.

Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Group administrator
Thu 30 Apr 2020 02:01:00 PM UTC, original submission:  


In Warlords 2, it introduces "characters" at the start of the game in the form of heroes who haven't arrived yet.

When we go to look at the characters for human players there are none, but the computer players have them.  They have little blurbs like "Formidable, treacherous, horse-lover, gets to the point." to suggest what their personality/strategy will be like.

The sex of the characters is not provided, nor is any kind of image, and the names are not changeable.  It shows a name and a blurb for each hero and that's it.

Warlords 2 Deluxe got rid of characters on the start game menu, and in its place there was something called 'Enhanced'.  Perhaps this checkbox is for enabling the per-hero AI, I don't know.  Perhaps they didn't see the value in introducing characters that might not ever show up in the game.

Adding "characters" to LordsAWar! involves this set of subtasks:

Invent a few parameters to differentiate hero AI.  Not sure what those are.  Maybe we'll just do one parameter for six different styles and go with that.

Make a new Characters Button on the Game Preferences Dialog (below the Game Options Button) that brings up a Characters Dialog.

The Characters Button is sensitized according to whether or not there are any computer players.

The Characters Dialog has a set of tabs across the top with shields, like the Triumphs Dialog.

Inside each tab is a treeview with hero names for that player, and then when we select it we see a description box populated with the blurb.

The Scenario Builder needs to be changed to allow for a blurb to be written per hero, and also to select the AI parameters (in the Heroes Dialog.)

The HeroProto class needs to be changed to load/save a blurb, and AI parameters.

The value in this task is that scenarios can add a little more story up-front that accompanies the scenario description.  A cast of characters is a nice way to add more colour/flavour, and it doesn't cost us much, and it also would improve the AI and make things a little more random/varied.  One cost is that the already cluttered Game Preferences Dialog gets even more cluttered.

Ben Asselstine <benasselstine>
Group administrator

 

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    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2021-02-15 benasselstine Open/ClosedClosed Open
    2021-02-15 benasselstine Open/ClosedOpen Closed

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