Day and Night turn

[Negern]

KGB

Making a balanced non symmetrical map would be harder if areas changed overtime. But sure, if it would be like you say, that the map maker would decide if seasons would be active, then it wouldn't be a problem.

Got a non-symmetrical FFA coming up, just for the record.

[smursh]

Changing seasons can add some spice to the game. Instead of a static map you would have a more dynamic map. Depending on how the seasons affect different units advantages could go back and forth from one side to the other. The key would not be waiting around for favorable weather, but taking advantage of each change, much the same way on a map with varied terrain a good player will use the terrain to his advantage.

[Horyu]

Changing seasons can add some spice to the game. Instead of a static map you would have a more dynamic map. Depending on how the seasons affect different units advantages could go back and forth from one side to the other. The key would not be waiting around for favorable weather, but taking advantage of each change, much the same way on a map with varied terrain a good player will use the terrain to his advantage.

thumb up. I hope we can implement "attrition" to the game like unit desertion, hunger , disease , malnutrition , mutiny .... a random event to unit while marching in terrain every turn. This can offer hero a new traits "Charisma" and "Sphere of influence" to reduce attrition chance and influence non hero unit stack. Building structure like supply depot may also help to reduce attrition

[Experix]

I find the complexity of the game high enough and don't see any reason why it should be increased (I think it should be a pretty good one to do so). And I read about more and more ideas, which are only getting the game more and more complicated... If all of them were implemented, I think the game would become more or less random clicking game, because no one would be able to understand it
Overall, I quite like complex things, but only if they are not too complicated in its base; if there are more and more unnessesary rules added, the fun and playability disappears...

What's the point? Should the player spend several months just learning the basic rules and then years by trying to understand them and learning how to use them in his favor? My personal, quite recent experience of an absolute beginner: First two month of my playing I had constantly opened warpedia in order to learn very basic attributes of units and to figure out why something did not go the way I supposed it should (repeatedly forgetting some bonuses and similar things). Now, after five months, I still have to open it quite often, though only for minor issues like which unit is better for plundering. Not mentioning a lot of very important rules (namely the 90% rule in battles) is nowhere to find, except for that they are mentioned in some old threads in forum.

There are cca 350 players at all now - I would like to see more players to learn the game and become competitive in reasonable time.

FOW is increasing a complexity in way you have to learn how to use your scouting units properly and you don't see your opponent's progress (but if you want to play melee games and are curious about that, you can get quite enough info about it from the stats).

But the change like this completely changes the game mechanics. First, you have to learn and remember how each season affects the map/units. That is, you have, say, twice as much information to learn. When you are done with this - even more difficult (at least for most people, I think) and time consuming task begins - you have to learn how to use all these information together in your favor.
Now I have some small target I would like to achieve (for example getting some important city). I choose some units and plan their ways depending on the terrain, some income sites and ruins nearby and so. Sounds easy, but I find it also very easy to lose some turns on it or arrive to the target too weak because you made it in a wrong they. I can't imagine that I should take into consideration that map would change several times during the process or I should count whether my group arrives to that city in the exactly bad time. This sounds for me like a task for some super genius or walking encyclopedia...

[KGB]

Experix,

That was a great post. It's important to get a feel for how new players see the game since many of us have been playing for a couple of years now. One question, did you ever play Warlords 2/DLR or is Warbarons your first experience with this type of game?

Ultimately over time I expect the game to get ever more complex. There are a lot of things still not in the game that were in the games (War2 and DLR) that inspired Warbarons. I suspect quite a few of those features plus totally new ones like weather will make it into the game.

Years ago I remember on the side of an Othello game box it said 'A minute to learn, a lifetime to master'. That to me is exactly what I am looking for in a strategy game, easy to play, addictive with deep complexity that rewards your experience from playing prior games.

That said, learning all the things as they currently are can be difficult and definitely take more than 1 minute. My understanding from talking to SnotlinG/Piranha is that they hope to streamline and simplify much of the current combat system/bonus's etc in an upcoming version (probably after 0.9). That should help the learning curve and make adding new game features easier. Playing solo games against the AI should help too and I suspect not enough players play those types of games to help with their learning curve.

You mentioned that there are only about 350 active players (not sure how you got that number) and want to see more new ones. I think we all do. The big question is why we don't have more. Is it because the game is too hard to learn? Or maybe it's because for hard core strategy players the game is too repetitive once you learn it. Or perhaps it's because of the delay time between turns (not everyone likes the 1+ day wait between turns).

KGB