I like giving the map designers the option to en/disable the tree spreading
feature.  If disabled, does it make sense to still enable a die/remove
action?  That seems counterproductive for a map intended to be predictable
in this respect.  It would theoretically render any map treeless given
sufficient time.

Just my 2 cents.


On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Nasenbaer <email address hidden> wrote:

> @Kristin (#20): I understand. And (although I did not understand #16 the
> way you understood it) you are of course right, that we should stay
> impartial.
>
> However, I think we have heard quite a lot opinions. Most are for
> keeping the feature + adding the possibility for map creators, to
> disable tree growing.
>
> So my idea would be:
> * change the "remove" command (when trees die) with a new "die" command -
> if the tree cycle is active it will directly call the "remove" command.
> * add a test to "spread" command and only run it, if tree cycle is active.
> * add a lua variable for wl.Game() to en/disable the tree cycle.
>
> What do others think?
>
> --
> Opinion: Remove the tree life cycle again
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/654078
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> widelands.
>
> Status in Widelands: Opinion
>
> Bug description:
> This is the direct opposite of bug 536511.
>
> I am quite annoyed with the tree spreading feature and I want to bring up
> some arguments why I think it should be removed again. For each argument, I
> give some examples and tell a story where it bugged me before. I put this up
> for discussion as I expect there is some controversy around it.
>
> 1) It takes freedom from the map designers and introduces arbitrary
> randomness which is always a bad idea in a competitive game in my opinion.
> I think map designers should decide how a map should look. If I want to
> block expansion, I build a big forest. If I want to make trees scare, I
> plant less of them on my map. I do not want to have an area overgrown with
> trees because the player needed 5 hours to reach that part of the map and I
> planted a forest there before. Shortly: currently I cannot design map
> features as I want to; because I have no control how much the forest has
> grown when the player gets there. Same for dying trees: I might want the
> player to has not many trees in one location, but when he reached the
> location, the few trees I planted have likely already died; so he has none.
> Not my intention.
>
> Story: I played the (new) Atlantean tutorial mission and couldn't expand my
> territory to the east because there was an inpenetratable forest there.
> Nasenbaer only planted a few trees in the Editor, but they seeded and grew
> together. Not his intention.
>
> 2) It introduces bugs
> In the tutorial campaign, I programed a certain number of buildings to be
> warped in in the eastern part of the map. If the player took to long to
> reach this part (and/or randomness played against us) the place was crowded
> with trees: no place for the roads that I wanted to be constructed there. I
> hacked some stuff into the scripts to remove the trees where the buildings
> and roads should be build, but this looks rather awkward. I looked at the
> map as it was in the editor and planed the city there; the tree spreading
> destroyed my planing - for no reason at all. Another problem could be a
> computer player that is inactive for a while and gets activated by a lua
> trigger: in the meantime, he could be completely surrounded by trees because
> he had no lumberjacks. He will then die right at the start.
>
> 3) It makes balancing of maps harder.
> Playing widelands in multiplayer, fairness is very important. Making maps
> fair is hard work; but one thing that is easy is to make sure that everyone
> has the same number of stones and trees at his starting location. The tree
> spreading adds arbitrary randomness to the number of trees: some more might
> die for one player than for the other.
>
> I feel the feature adds very little: The game becomes more realistic, but
> there is no added gameplay value to this. The spreading of trees is very
> hard to see while playing (one only sees trees disappear randomly from time
> to time and at high speeds, one occasionally sees a new tree popping up) and
> the only thing the player gets to see from this feature is massive forests
> as he expands. I also think the randomness is a bad thing. I vote for
> removing this feature from widelands completely.
>
>
>