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yiotro / Antiyoy

A source code of android game called 'antiyoy'.
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Add option to disband (kill) units #9

Open ThrawnCA opened 7 years ago

ThrawnCA commented 7 years ago

It would be good to have the option to disband a unit that isn't needed any more. This would need to be on the unit's turn, so you can't escape the maintenance cost by building a baron, attacking with it, then immediately disbanding, and you probably wouldn't get any money back, but I think it makes sense to have the option.

It might also make sense to have units leave behind crosses when they are killed in this fashion, to discourage players from trying to save time on large maps by killing & recreating units instead of moving them.

yiotro commented 7 years ago

There are few problems with this:

  1. What about UI? Where should this button be located? I don't want to randomly throw around buttons on screen. And I don't know good place for new button.
  2. This is actually a big change to balance. It will result in serious change in playstyle and require even more adjustments to AI which is already quite weak in 'new rules'.
ThrawnCA commented 7 years ago 
What about UI?

I'd suggest showing an appropriate button (eg a big red X on top of a person, or the white cross picture), maybe at the top right, when a unit is selected. The display already changes significantly when that happens (putting a black circle around the selected unit and highlighting its potential moves), so I'm guessing this wouldn't be a drastic change.

This is actually a big change to balance.

Well, maybe. There's actually a Slay clone on Sourceforge that is much more generous, allowing you to retire a unit and get all your money back. A disband action that didn't give any refund and left a cross -> tree behind would have much more limited usefulness. If the computer detected that it was running in deficit, for example, it could start disbanding units.

ThrawnCA commented 7 years ago

Currently I can approximate this by fortifying with plenty of towers and then turning everyone into barons - though I've only tried this in the endgame.

LorenzBung commented 6 years ago

This would certainly be a nice feature, especially since units can't move to fields that have buildings on them. It is possible to "lock in" units by separating them using towers or farms. Also, more movement paths could be opened by the player by simply removing unnecessary towers.

yiotro commented 6 years ago

Well, one of important aspects of gameplay is that player has to plan his actions ahead. Adding ability to remove your stuff would just make game more easy. It may be cool at first, but without any challenge you'll be bored very quickly.

eXoShini commented 6 years ago

I admit it's more challenging and requires player to think about his next moves, however your game got a lot growth potential. You could add quality of life stuff like this, to separate rule set just like there is slay rules option.

vovkss commented 6 years ago

This doesn't sound good to me for the following reasons.

Currently, the player can accidentally "lock" units with farms or towers, and thus the player must think ahead to avoid this (which is good, IMO). This is especially relevant to the situation where the player's territory is located on a narrow stripe and the player has to "fights on two sides": when the war is won on one side, there should be a way to move the remaining troops to the other side. And this requires strategy and thinking ahead.

With the proposed change, the player could just "disband" the remaining troops and isn't forced to think ahead, which doesn't seem good (to me) in a strategy game.

The same applies to "locking the farm-area" with towers which has an even greater impact — the troops can at least be destroyed by artificially running out of money, but a tower cannot (except for an enemy destroying it).

If the player is allowed to disband the troops, (s)he also needs to be able to disassemble towers (and farms), which would have even more (questionable) impact on the gameplay.

ThrawnCA commented 6 years ago

With the proposed change, the player could just "disband" the remaining troops and isn't forced to think ahead,

Not entirely true. I'm assuming that disbanding doesn't refund anything, so if the player wants to kill all their armies on one front and hire new ones somewhere else, they'll have to pay full price to create their new soldiers. So, it requires either careful planning, or such an abundance of money that they'd probably win regardless.

jinksunk commented 5 years ago

I know this thread is a bit old, but I was playing the other day and had the same thought (that disbanding unused/un-useful units would be pretty convenient). However, along the lines above:

so if the player wants to kill all their armies on one front and hire new ones somewhere else, they'll have to pay full price to create their new soldiers.

It seems to me, then, that adding the disband option is very similar to allowing the player to pay a 'teleportation' fee, basically paying the cost of a unit to replace that unit anywhere on the board. Although I do like the idea of the option in general, it does seem to constitute a significant additional strategic power for the player.

ThrawnCA commented 5 years ago

It seems to me, then, that adding the disband option is very similar to allowing the player to pay a 'teleportation' fee, basically paying the cost of a unit to replace that unit anywhere on the board. Although I do like the idea of the option in general, it does seem to constitute a significant additional strategic power for the player.

If the player is willing to pay the full price of a unit, they can already place a copy of it anywhere. This doesn't really add all that much strategic mobility. The difference is not in movement speed, but in paying for extra upkeep.

jinksunk commented 5 years ago

For sure, however the advantage of the 'teleport' is that you're not accumulating upkeep. This might not matter much for a handful of weak troops, but if one has planned poorly and ends up with a significant army stuck in a corner of the map, could be the difference between a lost and won game.

I do think it'd be nice to see this as an option though.

ThrawnCA commented 5 years ago

For sure, however the advantage of the 'teleport' is that you're not accumulating upkeep. This might not matter much for a handful of weak troops, but if one has planned poorly and ends up with a significant army stuck in a corner of the map, could be the difference between a lost and won game.

It would be helpful in some cases, yes. I just don't think that "teleporting" is the right way to think of it, since the ability to instantly place troops on the opposite side of the map already exists.

Note that my original proposal suggested leaving crosses behind, which would become trees, so there would be an ongoing cost to using this - not as immediate as unit upkeep, perhaps, but a cost.

Maaartinus commented 5 years ago

Note that my original proposal suggested leaving crosses behind, which would become trees, so there would be an ongoing cost to using this - not as immediate as unit upkeep, perhaps, but a cost.

This cost is neither immediate nor significant. You save 52 gold for upkeep and pay 10 for a cheap unit to cut down the tree. Even when you can't get rid of the cheap unit, it only costs 2 per turn.

My only problem with the impossibility of unit disbanding is that sometimes you're just on the mercy of your enemies. Sometimes, if they aren't nice enough to kill or cut off an expensive unit, you may get stuck for several turns and eventually lose. This is highly unrealistic as suffering military losses is not the usual way to win.