Waygates as opposed to teleportation

I'm in support in all options.  I want way gates (HoMM style) wizard towers (MoM style) plane walkers (D&D style?) teleport spells (everthing) super speed things that seem to move instantly (uh... the Flash?  and air elementals from MoM) random holes (subtle knife style? insert cave to another world here)

I thought that was half the point.   Atari isn't making an MoM 2... Ubisoft isn't either.  Micropose is dead.   We NEED an MoM sequal.  The only problem is it isn't allowed to be made, so the next best thing is being made instead.  A game that WOULD be the sequal under a different name.  (I mean improved obviously, no reason to keep un-memorable features or bad mechanics.  But the multi-world thing isn't bad and its basically required for a true MoM sequal)

I presume that NPC travel (caravans, etc) will also route through waygates?  Or are there other things, like zerglings waiting in the shadows of the Way?

Wheel of Time-style waygates would be awesome! Having doors scattered around the map, each connected in another world through a maze of paths inhabited by unfriendly creatures. With enough strength/stealth, waygates would be a really cool cost-free way to speed up traveling to certain places!

Cost-free? In the books waygates certainly weren't a cost-free way to move armies.

I think having a network of teleports would be a mistake. They need to be very rare, long distance, and have fixed destinations. In this way they become something valuable to fight over, and at the same time do not completely obsolete the traditional way of moving armies around.

By cost-free I meant it would require no effort on the channeler's part to use the ways. The cost associated with using the ways would come in the form of lost/degraded units. Your troops would be vulnerable to attack from all sorts of dark creatures, and like Denryu suggested units that have spent too long in the ways could be negatively affected. I'd like to see most types of units that spend far too long there even desert and become malevolent creatures, so that no player can really take control over the ways.

Even more, the maze-like structure of the ways would make them difficult to use until you've managed to explore a fair amount of it. The relative positions of the exits from the ways shouldn't be related to the relative positions of the waygates in the real world, either. This way it will only be possible to make efficient use of the waygates in certain circumstances (the waygates are fixed, and not that common), and only once you've mapped out a lot of the ways. Mapping out the ways would be a drain on your resources, it's just that the associated cost isn't directly born from your channeler.

I would not mind that kind of travel. It actually seems cool. With so many possibilities for desaster it's cool.

 

I would also add that once you beat the creatures at the entry port that it not stay free forever. Meaning another creature could come and make it his home once again. MOM always left it open once you beat the creature. I did not like that. I would of liked it if another creature showed up after a while. It could cut off yoour troups and leave you stranded in the ways.

Either way, the big issue is getting the pathing to handle these sorts of "shortcuts" effectively and efficiently.

I thought that was why we had Cari_Elf?

Of course, I favour player-constructed gates (as described in the original thead), since I oppose any kind of multi-layering of the game map, because my own pathfinding is worthless.

I agree. It's always kind of bothered me that in most games, once you clear something of guardians they're gone for good. But what would be really cool is if you defeat the guardians, scary things can come out of the ways. I don't mean whole armies, but maybe smallish raiding bands and the occasional powerful monster. 

I can see why portals/shortcuts of any sort might be a pain in the butt to whoever is in charge of pathfinding, but we know it can be done. HoMM has portals, and the underground can often function as shortcuts. The AI in HoMM III at least seemed to use them fairly effectively. AoW:SM doesn't really have portals but it has the shadow realm and underground. Any form of map layering at all can effectively be shortcuts between points in the real world, due to terrain.

 

The thread you refer to as "the original" is talking about teleportation. that is why this thread is titled "Waygates as opposed to teleportation". I certainly agree in a MOM game there could and should be teleportation spells and possibly even insta port gates that can be built in cities. Waygates would just be yet another travel option, one that I would really like to see.

I think your pathfinding wouldn't be an issue. As above noted, Waygates entrance and egress would not need to correlate to the positions on the map.

I see where that can be troublesome.  This is especially true if you get some sort of plane-shifter that can move between planes because the possibilities would be great.

Good old fashioned number crunching.   I'm curios to find how a fast computer and a slow computer might work together if they find different pathing solutions in X amount of time.

I understand what you're saying, but this thread got up about 9 hours after the original, and is basicly a reply touching the exact same issue. It's a variance of the same thing, and there were really never any need for another thread. If everyone that wanted to make a comment of slightly differing opinion made a thread, the forum would be cluttered beyond sensability.

Which is the absolutely greatest problem, both when it comes to my pathfinding and the computer's. Trust me, my pathfinding would most likely be the biggest problem in this case.

That's great! What better way is there to feel like you're part of the gameworld than to get lost in it?!  Seriously, the way you describe your pathfinding skills I really hope the devs don't use you as the benchmark .

I don't claim to know anything at all about programming pathfinding, but I do know that AI's of 10 years ago could handle portals and shortcuts to a reasonable extent. That leads me to believe that stardock is capable of implementing it (in fact I'd be very disappointed if portals/shortcuts aren't implemented because of pathfinding). I could see the proposition of a system like the waygates, with the positions entrances/exits in the two worlds being uncorrelated, being a problem - but it would still be really cool to see! 

Personally, I like being able to deticate certain amounts of CPU to pathfinding.  I know that makes it hard for things like multiplayer games, but I like to do it.    I can think of very few games that allowed for that (baulder's gate being the only one I remember notably changing anything).  I figure I should be able to adjust it the way I do my Chess AIs.  Or at least have an option for a 'custom AI' that has different settings.  

The game that I wanted to change the pathfinding CPU usage the most was supreme commander.  When I first played and selected a bunch of units, telling them to move, my machine would almost have a heart attack (and I don't blame it).  It would drop to effectivly <10 frames per second, and all sorts of problems would start to occur.  (usually it wasn't even the fps, but rather just the game locking up.  My graphics card was very new when that game came out, but the Ram and CPU just barely met the 'recomended' settings) I could tell in multiplayer games when other players (especially AI players) would mobilize for war because suddently my computer would crash and burn on proformance.  My video card was pretty super (top-o-the linke from the 7000 series, BFG geforce 7950 to be exact)  Then after I upgraded my CPU to what I have now, I wish I could turn it up higher since I think the path finding is 'meh' and I have a PC that can handle the crunching (video never being a problem)

To fix path finding issues, when opening a gate bettween 2 citys, do something like this:

Each city needs a pree built gate.

To connect citys you need to "explore the eather for a route" A space time relm thats differnt from our own, days weeks or months could pass for the people in the "eather" while only a turn passes for us.

Weak units could get killed to the nastys.

Once you create a route you still have drawbacks, including raids from the eather, possable backdoor into your city from other players (which would require geting a spy into your city) troops need to keep the route clear for city trade, and your "hero" would have to give some of his magic to keeping the gate open, OR you need to train lesser magic users in the city (and reduce the magic the city gives the hero)

Finally repeated trips through the "Eather" could age units due to the differnce in space time, which would show up as hurt units etc.

One of a the cool point tou can add if implementing a Well of Time gate is that even after having defeated the different guardians to the entrance, you can still be attacked in the gates... It would be really fun to have a network of gates taht allow your army to travel from one point to any other gate ( with a delay, let's say 3 turns to go from A to B ) and have a battle pop-up from time to time ( let's say on turn 2 for example) against NPC units or evne against another player unit using the same way.

I think the best reason to mention the Wheel of Time in this thread is that "as opposed to" might be better as "in addition to." WoT included the Ways, portal stones, Skimming (kind of Ways-like channeler-made rapid movement), and Traveling (temporary channeler-made teleportation gateways). The portal stones stuff is certainly too much bother for a TBS game, but I don't see why the game couldn't support analogs to the Ways, Skimming, and Traveling.

Investment-oriented players (heavy essence spenders) might favor big, permanent gates, while those who focus on channeler strength would learn to open temporary gateways of ludicrous size to help armies appear out of nowhere. And maybe players who like to have a strong group of spellcasting hero units would have several elite squads that could Travel independently of the channeler unit.

I think the Ways are certainly the most interesting because of the trade-off they involve in your army getting attacked by taint.

Another idea for pathing might be that during 'down time' when the game isn't crunching something particularly important like enemy AI's turn.   it can just overview the map and find quick common routes and stash them between locations.   Points of intrest like cities and portals could have quick access 'closest route is XXXX' saved so it doesn't have to do the math again everytime somebody tries to move a unit between the two locations"

I'd imagine shortest path algorithms are prety well known. I think I remember studying them in college. A gate is fairly likely easy to add at the code level in a way that's simple for the AI to adapt to. Internally it's added as an "adjacent" location to some other location on the map, perhaps several. It's all pointers internally so that each location knows what's considered an adjacent location.

Once a gate is established, it's just a link that's traversed in calculating costs to move from point A to point B. Nav systems do this all the time, comparing side streets vs. freeways, etc. Arbitrary teleportion would be more difficult for the AI, since that's a link that exists for one unit for one turn. A permanent link would essentially act like terrain deformation, adding a new "terrain" spot and noting what it's adjacent to. The fact that new "terrain" location connects distant locations isn't something the path finding algorithm would care about. All the algorithim knows is that the addition of a gate prompted it to recalculate the shortest route based on paths through the "terrain" now on the map.

I'd guess the harder part making the AI smart enough to build it's own gates. If gates are just preset at certain locations (ala Wheel of Time) and not something players can construct, then that AI concern wouldn't be relevant. Pathfinding treats them as non-existant (or MAX_INT move cost or some such) until discovered/opened, after which they'd become visible to the pathfinding algorithm.

I don't code at all (puttering with XML and HTML don't count, IMO), so I just have more questions.

This sounded on first read like a reasonable cause of death for my interest in some teleport spells. But could it be a category mistake to even consider pathing along with point-to-point teleport functionality, at least if the teleport has no range limits? Wouldn't the AI problem there be more about deciding whether the mana cost is worth the benefit of opening a temporary gate to somewhere?

On the other hand, this does sound like a close analog to an AI decision about a one-time teleport. Doh.

Yep. You've described a good simple scenario better than my rambling . Pathfinding is pretty well known. Static gates are just a part of the path, so there's no real AI involved in whether or not to use them. If it shortens the journey, it uses them.

You've described the more difficult problem in AI (not that I'm really remotely an AI person, but I understand code problems with "goal" oriented behavior). When is it worth committing resources to do something? How do you weight it? It's sort of an increasing level of difficulty based on the flexibility of the goal. In, what in my mind, goes from somewhat simple to really hard to code:

• Deciding on whether to capture a static gate. Assume your AI wants to reach some location. Now, the AI needs to compare the value of the delay in going overland versus the value in taking a gate that'd make that delay much shorter. The AI does have to factor in the value now versus the long term value, which complicates it a bit.
• One time teleport. I was thinking this would be really hard, but it has a clear cost and a clear value in terms of time saved, so maybe it falls under the same algorithm the AI uses to decide the value of casting any particular spell. This might very well be simpler than the first bullet.
• Creating new gates. This is a strategic AI concern. You've got the same problem as the first bullet, how much is it worth to lower the cost of transport? However, you add on the problem of where to build the gate. You can connect many different locations and it's a permanent fixture. Taking a static gate is a "narrow" scope change in that it's basically an adjustment to the map in a fixed location. Arbitrary gate creation could connect any two points. Brute force calculation of the value of all possible connections isn't possible, so you have to intelligently pare down the options. Chess programs pare move trees regularly to throw away "useless" lines of investigation, but chess programs have had decades to determine what's "useless".

Again, I'm not an AI guy, but the more options an AI has to pick from the harder it is for the engineer to build a decision algorithm that would make the right choice. Just describing in words how people would make the choice can be really hard, much less converting that into something the AI can crunch numbers on.

Your forgeting Fairy Trod for Nature mage's , Cloud Trapeezing for Air mage's , Astral Gateways for mage's to take others with them, Shortcuts through the lands of the Dead for Death mage's emerging back in the land of the living at their destination nearly instantly.  Earth Mage's could meld with the land and re-emerge at their destination, Fire mage's could do some crap like in Hary potter with the fireplace's hehe. Blah blah blah.  The more options the better.

I like the idea of a "gaurdian". This reminds me of Master of Orion 2 where most of the Largest/best planets were gaurded by huge space creatures that you had to kill before you could colonize said planet. This would make it very difficult to get those planets until around mid game when you had the technology to defeat them.

--For Elemental they could also add in an additional angle. You can either kill the guardian...or convince him to join your army!!!

Well HoMM uses that all the time.   

MoM's guardians for the wizard towers (or whatever the gateway howers were called) were not really the only thing protecting the gateways as well.   That is, to go through a tower, cross the world of myrrer, and out of a different tower can be really hard since monsters and such on the other world are very powerful.

Alternativily, you can't see things on the other world, so an AI would need to be able to realize that the benifit of movement outside the field of vision that other players might have.   I know I love to move units around the long-way around just because I know the other players have fog of war there.  That is going to be a pain with waygates.