Heal the highest level, healthiest soldier first

Bug #849896 reported by Astuur
8
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
widelands
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Currently the healing of retreated soldiers inside the military buildings seems to be "first in - fist healed".
Once the system starts to heal a soldier, it goes on until this one is fully healed.
The next one in line seems to be the next one who entered the building.
If I was to optimze the procedure, I would always heal the most valuable soldier available first. (higher levels).
If this is not considered as inhumane according to Widelands' moral standards, I would opt to change the mechanism accordingly.

Tags: gameplay

Related branches

Astuur (wolfsteinmetz)
tags: added: gameplay
Revision history for this message
Venatrix (elisabeth) wrote :

There is a waiting queue for healing soldiers? They don’t heal simultaneously? I would have expected so. Though I never really had a closer look.

Revision history for this message
Astuur (wolfsteinmetz) wrote :

Yes, there is. If you want to see it more clearly just set the healing rate higher in the conf.

Revision history for this message
Victor Pelt (victor-pelt) wrote :

What would people think about making it a choise. For example make it configurable if one would invest in a healer. A healer would take up 1 space (1 less soldier). Maybe even take some resources but in return one would have control of the healing priority used.

Revision history for this message
Astuur (wolfsteinmetz) wrote :

The concept of healers was once inside the game already.
For reasons I cannot remember all traces of it have now disappeared.
Personally I would not mind having healers in the game.
The small advantage that you mention here seems very marginal though.
If anything, a healer inside the building should have more impact IMO -- like an increased healing rate.
If we can better fine tune the healing rate (Sirver self-assigned) we may perhaps reconsider
such a thing?

Revision history for this message
Victor Pelt (victor-pelt) wrote :

I know healers were partly in the game. I think in general the problem with healers is that they must not become overpowered. That's why i was thinking of making it just more of a choice thing that a real must have benefit.

An increase in healing rate would be possible but should come with a significant resource usage. Otherwise it might just foster stalemate situations. (and i think sirver/et al don't want to turn widelands in an rts war game)

that said, i'd love to know what other people think about options like having someone in your building to (slightly) change the behaviour

Revision history for this message
Venatrix (elisabeth) wrote :

I’m not sure, that I want the military economics more complex than it is right now. A (at least for me) completely new worker? Someone in whom I don’t see a great advantage? I think I wouldn’t want someone like this. I rather would change the healing behaviour itself. I don’t mean the healing rate. But as I said above, I would expect the soldiers to heal independently from one another. Why don’t make them?

Revision history for this message
Astuur (wolfsteinmetz) wrote :

@ Venatrix:
Generally speaking I'd have no objections to a new profession, or even to an increased complexity in general.
I consider it a natural evolution when a game matures, and I'd welcome any new feature where WL surpasses
the old S2 game and goes beyonds its scope.
It should not confuse new players and be easily understood though. As for healers, I think that is straight forward
enough and very "natural" concept that needs not much explaining.
Admitted, healers will work inside military buildings and so be part of the military in a way, but they still have a different
quality for me, compared to - say- catapults.
I have been thinking lately about a new win condition that would reward a player for the fewest casualties compared to
their economic progress. Just a raw concept so far, but healers seem to fit in there well.
Your idea of a healing evenly administered to all soldiers inside the building would have an enormous impact on the
defend/attack balance of the game, and terribly weaken the defender - something that definitely goes in the wrong direction IMO. Did you think of this?
(Explanation: You need _one_ soldier initially to send out and fight the aggressors, in order to give the rest more time for healing.
So it is important to always have _one_ fully recovered soldier ready for combat. As the system always chooses the most healthy one, the current system works a lot better than having a bunch of evenly half-alive soldiers in the building.)

@ Victor:
I have always liked how WL traines skilled workers (Master miner, Master Blacksmith) and disliked skilled professions
that come without effort (like geologists). In that light, I would vote in favour of a healer's training.
I am not thinking of a new building here, but rather of learning by doing and experience gained on the job.
If healers needed to be sustained in some way (bandages produced by weaving mills) it would also
change a lot in the way battles are fought. Currently, if you can afford to send enough attackers to form a full garrison, there is no immediate disadvantage from not being able to connect conquered buildings. With a healer depending on roads, there would be. On the long run, the need for bandages would force you to built decent roads, warehouses and a fabric-producing industry near your border. I would welcome to see the avalanche type attacks checked, that we see so often, since you can take over enemy military sites in a usable state.
To sum it up: I think the healing priority should be changed to "most valuable soldiers first" - automatically, non-configurable.
Healers in the house is really a different question. I still like the idea, but their effect should be an increased healing rate, not
another configurable option with little effect. Remember that the healing rate will be adjustable in 10ths or even 100ths of the units we now have, after SirVer's modifications.

Revision history for this message
SirVer (sirver) wrote :

Healers were in the original design of the game (as I imagined it) but were decided against because they add more complexity to the military aspect of widelands. I am not fully oppose them as they do offer some interesting properties, but I would urge this discussion to post 1.0.

That said, healing the "most valuable" soldier (the one that goes out to defend first) seems like a logical solution to me. I set this to triaged if noone complains.

Changed in widelands:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Medium
Revision history for this message
Venatrix (elisabeth) wrote :

@Astuur:
>Your idea of a healing evenly administered to all soldiers inside the building would have an enormous impact on the defend/attack balance of the game,

Well, could be… But I would think that the attack/defence strength depends on the tribe, so the healing rate could be different in every tribe…?

> and terribly weaken the defender - something that definitely goes in the wrong direction IMO. Did you think of this?

Weaken the defender? Like I said, I would not change the rate itself, I rather would heal all soldiers in the building at the same time. Of course you see, I did not think very hard about that, I just said, which behaviour I had expected (tell me, if I repeat too often, then I shut up…).

>(Explanation: You need _one_ soldier initially to send out and fight the aggressors, in order to give the rest more time for healing.
>So it is important to always have _one_ fully recovered soldier ready for combat.

Yes, understood.

> As the system always chooses the most healthy one, the current system works a lot better than having a bunch of evenly half-alive soldiers in the building.)

Does it? I always thought, it takes the first one in row and that doesn’t have to be the most healthy one, does it?

@SirVer:
I understood the „most valuable“ soldier to be the best trained one…

Revision history for this message
SirVer (sirver) wrote :

currently, the soldier with the most (current) HP is deployed when defending first, therefore this is the "most valuable" soldier in my view.

Revision history for this message
Astuur (wolfsteinmetz) wrote :

@Venatrix
Yes, it always sends out the most healthy soldier.
Just watch it in game - easy enough :)
It once was the way you assumed, but has changed quite some time ago.
Otherwise, if this was random, you'd be right and evenly healing would seem more natural.

@ Sirver... totally d'accord ......hm--- what does it mean when you " urge this discussion to post 1.0."
Never really get the all the clues with this coder's lingo :)

Revision history for this message
Astuur (wolfsteinmetz) wrote :

The system sends out the soldier with the most hitpoints to fight.
But the question about who get helaed first, should be decided by the training level.

Revision history for this message
Paul Pogonyshev (doublep) wrote :

Just read up on the discussion. I don't quite like concept of healers, as they add tiresome micromanagement, in my opinion. (It's already annoying that soldiers don't go to train automatically and you have to manually check 20 military sites from time to time.)

I think soldiers should just slowly heal when inside. If that would give a boost to defending side compared to now (i.e. when only one is healed at a time), just reduce healing rate. Or start healing soldier only after he spends X seconds without leaving the base, so that healing gives little during an attack, but allows to automatically restore surviving soldiers given some rest.

Revision history for this message
SirVer (sirver) wrote :

#13 soldiers are healing slowly now - so what you suggest is already implemented.

I agree that at the state we currently are, healers would be annoying to juggle - but when soldier are not as micro intensive anymore, they would add a new layer to the economy that would be very optional and only used in very late game. This is interesting, because it would add more optional buildings and therefore a little more depth later on. They would also be an easy concept to understand for the player. I am a big fan of the proposal, but it must be fun :)

Revision history for this message
SirVer (sirver) wrote :

Setting to incomplete for bug sweeping.

Changed in widelands:
status: Triaged → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for widelands because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in widelands:
status: Incomplete → Expired
SirVer (sirver)
summary: - Who gets healed first? (Opinions wanted)
+ Heal the highest level, healthiest soldier first
Changed in widelands:
status: Expired → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd) wrote :

Since the attached branch was merged in r7527, is this considered fix committed, or is there more remaining work?

Revision history for this message
GunChleoc (gunchleoc) wrote :

We probably just forgot to update the bug status. Thanks for checking.

Changed in widelands:
status: Confirmed → Fix Committed
milestone: none → build19-rc1
GunChleoc (gunchleoc)
Changed in widelands:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
GunChleoc (gunchleoc) wrote :

Fixed in build19-rc1.

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.