YESSSSSSS!

Or the alternative would be to allow only teleporting heroes and wizards ALONE.

(But if you find any fantasy novel or movie other than Star Trek where things like that happen we could even reconsider... MMMH No we wouldn't!)

BEAM ME UP KARISSA!!!

BTOOIC RULES!

[This message has been edited by Black Knight (edited 04-08-2002 @ 09:38 AM).]

Errmmm... Actually its a bit against BTOOIC strategy policy (to directly adress devs). We were to do this when we have reached the cow but its OK Rorschach, our brave one. When the fire is burning in our harts its burning... Everyone, drop by at our party: we'll have wonderfull acts and great speeches planned this evening. Devs are welcome too!

[This message has been edited by swolte (edited 04-08-2002 @ 09:41 AM).]

I would like to add that this is the first time in three years I see such a determination in petitioning the devs (even if not "directly"... ) for a specific detail!

This is serious guys! Teleporting units from one city to the other messes up the strategy!! In fact all kinds of teleporting are quite bad for the strategy but the city to city one is the worst!!

Personally I would omit any kind of teleporting, but I could accept if heroes and wizards ALONE could use it (with a considerable cost in terms of mana).

Teleporting large armies is a superpower never seen before!!!

Even in AOW1 Town Gate was the most devastating spell.

You could just jump in a second to any city under attack and start bombing the enemy army (which had to travel a long way to get there) with global attack spells like lightning and stuff. Just have one hero casting town gate and another two casting the global attack, then you use your superstack to finish them off ... An incredibly powerful defensive strategy... and when this kind of games offer a too powerful defensive strategy the gameplay becomes VERY weak, since nobody attacks anymore!

And remember:

All maps are the same if you teleport instead than using the terrain and if all maps are the same the game soon becomes boring!

Boring game = angry costumers....

(well I did it again I spoke directly to the devs... when will I learn?)

[This message has been edited by Black Knight (edited 04-08-2002 @ 10:08 AM).]

Well Black Knight, you're certainly not shy about using space to promote your (our) view.
Not double hitting enter-button for each line-shift could solve the problem. Or maybe it's jammed?
No offense, have a doughnut!

BTOOIC!

We have almost reached the cow in the BTOOIC recruitment thread, so if anyone would be willing to join and help us we would be really grateful. Remember though, we are NOT a "lynch the teleporters" organization, we only wish the option to disable them in games. So if you like the idea of city teleporters, but also like to be able to turn them off, you'll be just fine if you join the BTOOIC.

However, let's not address the Devs directly for this city teleporter off option before we have all played the demo. We do not yet have a good idea of how city teleporters affect the gameplay. Once we have played the demo, (assuming there are city teleporters in it) we will continue the discussion about the city teleporter off option we want.

Let's keep it a cease-fire for now, as Swolte and I agreed with each other before we founded BTOOIC.

[This message has been edited by Iznoghoud (edited 04-08-2002 @ 05:05 PM).]

Well spoken, Grand Vizier!

Yes, this thinking is of most excellent minds. We must wait (patiently) for the demo to arrive, then and only then should we bombard the devs with our agenda.

*cough*

There is a demo of teleporters already: it's name is HOMM IV They call them caravans and it takes some time to teleport, but it ruins the game preaty well

Jader

I beg to differ honoured members of BTOOIC.

BTOOIC SHOULD be in demo, so that the educated crowds can judge whether or not it's a good idea. Waiting for the implementation of this GREAT feature would kill my enjoyment of the demo.

OR: the devs could make a point of how "teleporters will be optional in the full version of the game, go buy it now!" That would certainly make me wanna buy the game

I'm not very fond of teleporters, on some maps we need them but I do NOT want buildable teleporters....teleporters should only be placed in the editor....thats what I think.

Have a nice day

Well MOM had buildable teleporters so then should AOW. A good rule of thumb "If it works in MOM it works".

They shouldn't be cheap however, and certainly not early game options.

BM

Hee Eriksson!
The famous Monthly Challenge winner!!

How are you? Would you be interested in a guest speaker performance? Like a lecture or an exciting PBEM-adventure/challenge story to entertain the our guests at the BTOOIC party?

You'll get free coffee and home-made doughnuts?

()

Most games allow to teleport (vector, route, ...) only newly built units, not heroes or units already in play. This approach makes a lot of sense, in my opinion:

- it takes care of a lot of micromanagement (building up a new army at a border town is a chore),

- and it limits the number of reinforcements that can appear "out of thin air" by the total build capacity of your empire

All in all, it's a reasonable compromise. Don't you think?

-- Aub

Greeting Eriksson, Barman, and Aub. How would all like to join the BTOOIC?? Please come here and look around. If you like what you see, why not join? If not, we'll let you have a doughnut, and you can be off. We try to be as friendly as possible!

heh heh heh heh...

Hey...thought I'd put this here first..

I'm sure you all read the interview with Lenart Sas...he said specifically that the teleporter was a wizard tower upgrade, not something that is a city upgrade. Does this indicate that it, like the library he also mentions, is only for the wizard? I assume we'll have to wait and see, but read the article again, tell me if I'm imagining things or not.

Being a Wizard Tower upgrade means that a city teleporter is an EXTREMELY expensive upgrade, and is only realistically going to be built in a couple/few towns, unless you're dominating the map so badly that nothing could alter game balance for you...

hmmm...but still, the off option is needed for mapmakers who don't want teleporters in their map. Maps like Middle Earth, or any other map coming from literature.

Hey Josh, have a doughnut...

So we've heard. I'm personally waiting til the demo til I pass judgement on anything, but I'm not too worried about this. But hell, if it's an option, that means more variety, and that's always good. It does make me feel more at ease to know it's a wizard tower upgrade, and not a city one. That seems to be an important distinction.

And we've heard elsewhere that this is the last wizard tower upgrade, from a fully upgraded town...sounds like this won't even be an option til much later in the game. If it takes a couple of turns to complete one type of upgrade, that'll be lots of turns before it is even an option.

Anyway, all judgements reserved til I see it in action, I was just passing that along for those who are more concerned than I...

Edit: Good point about the literature-themed maps... I'm not a mapmaker myself, so I never thought of that. (though with these towers and such, a LotR map would be really good. Sauron in Barad Dur sending out the black storm over Minas Tirith, Saruman enchanting his orcs from Orthanc...cool stuff. I can't wait.)

[This message has been edited by Undine (edited 04-09-2002 @ 10:06 PM).]

Yes, and what about the home-made-maps that want to start out with big upgradable cities? (Often big multiplayer powerplay-maps like those found in the map archives!) Will the teleporters not greatly affect gameplay in those situations, then? I mean we can't ask the (rich) AI to not upgrade, or the human players.

just fears, just fears...

Swolte

Heh sure we can ask...it just won't happen.

But hold up...I didn't mean to re-start the argument, just pointing out that it might not be so bad, what with the latest interview. We're waiting til the demo...waiting patiently til the demo...*attempts to wait patiently til the demo*

That's a good point swolte, in maps like LotR, some cites (like Rivendell, Minas Tirith, Barad-Dur) are going to be fully/near fully upgraded at the start, so having units teleporting around in the first 10-20 turns would be a bad thing. Bad. Option to turn off good. Good.

Quote from Josh:

"a city teleporter is an EXTREMELY expensive upgrade, and is only realistically going to be built in a couple/few towns, unless you're dominating the map so badly that nothing could alter game balance for you"

I respectfully disagree with the assumption that when someone dominates the map badly he is necessarily going to win. I have found myself a few times in the most desperate situation (in multiplayer) and I still managed to outwit my enemies with a series of move that could have simply been impossible if the town teleport spell had been there.

I had just a couple of incarnates and my enemy had, well... he had the whole map. I managed to kill them all, but what could I have done if he had had the chance to build teleporter everywhere (and he DID have the means to do it!!)

Those games are the best most challenging games I have ever played and I REALLY hope I will be able to find them back in AOW2!!

ONLY WIZARDS AND HEROES ALONE SHOULD USE THE TELEPORTERS! (Or even better just don't put any sort of teleportes in the game).

[This message has been edited by Black Knight (edited 04-10-2002 @ 05:03 AM).]

Yes, that wizard idea ain't soo bad IMO... Thinking about it, I (personal opinion) could even imagine a fine LOTR-map with it. Unfortunately, it is probably NOT the case. As Lennart said in an interview, the teleporters were meant to find the ring...DOW!...to reduce micromanagement in the end-game. Therefore not meant (at that time!) to just transport Wizards... I'm pretty sure here.

Man, BK. You took the words just out of my hart. With the words of mister Pickles: option good, option good.
Want to guest-speak at the party (with a that is?). We are in desperate need of extremely funny acts!!!

[This message has been edited by swolte (edited 04-10-2002 @ 05:31 AM).]

Well, I'd like to see an option in the editor to disallow specific buildings in specific towns. If it doesn't fit your map concept for a certain town to be able to build "Mega Monster Generator MkII", you should be able to disallow it. This would solve the teleporter problem too.

Oh, and for the record, I am vehemently opposed to buildable teleporters. Not that I fancy the "normal" ones that much either. They strip away your ablitity to excercise control, when an enemy stack may any minute pop up in your back yard...

K.

What's this hostility against teleportation? It's part of just about any high fantasy and roleplaying games (like AD&D). The whole point is that a very advanced faction/race/empire should have some spectacular skills/tools to move around.

Master of Magic had teleportation(and plane moving) through buildings, they werent cheap but once you got there you were already very powerful. It's just a manifestation of how advanced your group is.

Is AOW2 to be the MOM successor or not?

BM

It looks like there's still some people who don't understand our aims. It's not to get rid of buildable teleporters completely, it to have an option to turn them off in custom maps.

Hmmm...Kaljamaha, do you want a doughnut?

oh ye of little faith, this teleporter issue is such a small thing.

It is not like other games haven't had similar features. Remember in Master of Orion, how you could build a "Warp Gate?" They didn't unbalance the game, they made it interesting.

Still, I suppose if this is the only complaint you guys can come up with consistently we should be grateful, as we have it covered, and it just means this game is gonna be all the more successful and addicting.

--Ray

Quoted from Rayb:

Erm..which one Ray?

2 consistent ones are left and still relevant IMO:
REMEMBER: its about an OPTION to play without buildable teleporter in cities, just like the good old leaders-off!

1. Medieval Atmosphere?---> post 18.
2. Big powerplay multiplayer games with upgraded towns? (most relevant one IMO)--->post 20.

Swolte

If it comes down to 'mass raze your cities' tactics or 'teleport in new armies' tactics, I'd rather go with the later.

Without teleport/quick transportation options, most of my late game tactics consist of burning your empire to the ground. I don't bother to hold cities near the front line because it takes so long to bring up reinforcements. After every big battle when a city changes hands, it's razed/looted because I have no expectations of being able to hold it. Mines/Nodes come next.

Once the level 3+ flyers come out, its a slow battle to see who's empire is in ashes first. By the end, the winner only has a couple cities near the back left, and all they produce is fast/flying units.

Teleporting armies > flying razing armies.

I do admit that this might affect certain 'story based' scenarios, but I can see problems with several units/spells/buildings all doing this, not just teleporters. There would need to be a much more comprehensive 'turn-off turn-on' feature list in the editor than just teleporters to achieve balance in these scenarios.

Nordramor
Nordy!

Cities in AoW2 aren't just gold and unit factories anymore, 2^nd the number of cities is reduced, so I think that in AoW2, you have to be really desperate if you opt to raze a city. Cities will provide more than just units and mana, they for example also increase your domain size if they have a wizard tower. You'd be crazy if you'd raze a city that could increase the size of your domain, which means more influence. Cities will be worth holding much more than in AoW1.

Evidently no amount of reassurance will ameliorate your fears, and so I leave it to you to wait and see. I contend it is not unbalancing and is a fun feature where used strategically... You think it's gonna be abused.

If we implemented features based upon our fear that some user will find a clever strategy that works on some maps in some cases to tip the balance of the game, we would simply go back to implementing PONG and leave it at that.

:P

--Ray

( thanks for commenting)

Ok sorry I misunderstood, if it's an option I'm ok with it. But also, I don't want ANY changes at this moment that riscs delay of the beta demo. I will soon threaten to strangle my Cat if I can't get the demo. I'll go crazy any day now .).

BM

Thanks indeed, rayb, for commenting.

Quoted from Rayb:

I am not really promoting the teleporters off option out of fear of abuse and loss of strategy, because I do expect you devs have balanced the use of teleporters pretty well in the normal game. I wouldn't want you guys not to include the buildable teleporters, and I can't wait to try them out.

I am more concerned about what buildable teleporters will do to story based scenarios that require no buildable teleporters, e.g. a LotR scenario. I would even be happy with only the ability to disable certain upgrades in cities in the editor and no teleporters off option like the leaders off option in AoW1.

There are many people that want to make/play story driven scenarios without buildable teleporters, and because they could ruin the story, I would like a way to disable them in that kind of scenarios.

But if it a city inhabited by an evil race when your units are made of of good races (and your alliances etc) and the time cost of migrating the city just isn't worth it (i.e you have a very nice stack that WILL get killed if you don't move out of there fasssst)then why not raze it? Personally I would loot it, but I think that takes the same amount of time as migrating.....

If it is an important city at the heart of the enemy's empire, eg his capital (and logicaly the most upgraded city he has) and I know I cannot hold it then yes, I think I woukd comnsider burning it down. That would totally screw him up.....fcourse, in the interests of player netiquette, we have to agree to these things beforehand!

"There are many people that want to make/play story driven scenarios without buildable teleporters, and because they could ruin the story, I would like a way to disable them in that kind of scenarios."

I can't really see a big problem, if map makers think teleporters will ruin the story, they just need to tell the map users not to build teleporters, and if they do anyway and ruin the story, then it's their own problem...

Kris

I agree with you Kris. We shouldn't be worried about the tele issue. There are many issues that could make a scenario go poorly---mostly due to a bad map design. As Kris said, the way I look at it is that all a mapmaker would have to do is to tell a player if he builds a city tele in this scenario, he would be cheating. You would have the occasional person who would cheat, but most players would like to play the scenario "fairly." I have way more satisfaction playing a map fairly than I do cheating it and I think most players would feel the same way. The AI probably would still build them, but the AOW II AI in all likelyhood would never be a match to a savvy human player. The AI needs a little help now and then.

Sounds words, Kris and Tekk.

At this point, all the complaining in the world isn't going to change it. Lets just wait and play the demo and reserve judgment until then, okay?

[This message has been edited by Angel Draco (edited 04-10-2002 @ 09:47 PM).]

my only question is, how do you ask the ai not to use tele?

And even if it might need some "help", there are still maps where teleporters should be optional. The more choice, the better.

[This message has been edited by Mister Pickles (edited 04-10-2002 @ 10:20 PM).]