Crossworlds Tournament: Sign Ups

[RYTEDR]

According to Nike-it, the winner of this tournament will receive a free game from their online store.

After having witnessed some of the capabilities of the editor, I feel it has the flexibility for me to talk about some of the ideas I've been coming up with whilst waiting for the game to be released. :D

Essentially, I will create a map comprised entirely of shops and share it with the KB community. These shops will have every item, spell, and creature available for purchase, as well as companions and various other tidbits. You will have a certain amount of funds to spend and once you make your army, you post your save and I use your setup in the tournament.

However, to keep it fair, all battles are fought in autobattle with comp VS. comp.

Although this may not be near as fun as real multiplayer, I still think it's a good placeholder until KB: Online is made someday down the line.

The purpose of this thread is to see if I can actually get enough people interested enough to create a tournament. I plan on making various lists for accurate costs of all units, items, and spells to ease the process of planning out your strat. I will have to establish special rules with some aspects of the game to make them applicable here (I.E. the pirate's "Treasure Hunter" ability...yeah, completely useless here unless I change it around a bit). Not to mention making the map and filtering out the spells the AI will not use, and all the little things that would need tweaking.

Basically, I want to see if that effort would be worth it. I think this could be a lot of fun and I can see this bringing a lot of life to these forums. :-P

So how about it, guys? Yay or nay?

EDIT: I am adding a pole, so I can accurately tell who will participate in this tournament. This tournament should have EIGHT CONTENDERS, so please vote now!

[Sneaksie]

Great idea i think! :)

[DGDobrev]

The idea is great, but the AI is kind of stupid... and I wouldn't put my army in its hands really... But still, it might be a fun way to check out how the AI deals with various army setups.

Still, what I don't like is how the AI tends to dash madly into the battle, without heed to unit cost and unit value. In human vs. AI, the task is simple - the AI wants you to lose as many units as possible so that in the end, you lose the game because you don't have the money rto spend on more units. In essence the AI doesn't want to win - it wants to weaken you to the point of no return.

This is why I question the AI's ability to actually "preserve" units :) For example, I have seen the AI fix dead droids, but I have never seen it stall so that the 6 turns will pass so that it could fix more. I also don't think that the AI will use Eviln to resurrect Black Knights. I have seen the AI use resurrection at the most inordinate occasions (let's say it can ress for 10k points, but AI uses it on 700).

What I do like about this challenge is that it would take an entirely new mindset to do this tournament, which is well worth exploring. This way you will have to make sure the AI can do it - not whether YOU can do it.

[RYTEDR]

Alright, so that's two yays. (That is a yay, right DG? :-P)

While I agree the AI is shoddy at what it does, it will be an entirely different way to view your setup and strategy, as you've pointed out. Wise distribution of your limited amount of gold in all aspects of the battlefield will be the most important part of it.

I'm hoping that there were some tweaks to the AI (or, if I will be able to tweak the battle AI) to make it where they can at least use all the resources available to them. The AI in KB could not use invisibility, for example. Does this mean that it absolutely cannot use it, even if they have it? Who's to say it won't if I give it the spell? Won't know until I test.

Also, I've been considering special rules outside the limitations of the game, but for balance purposes I cannot say what will actually be included in the tournament (or any tournament in the future). No leadership limit, for example (This would allow you to have complete control over how many units you want) this little change could really help in sculpting your army the way you want it to be.

However, of course, on paper this looks good, but in practice this could lead to horrendous balance issues. Let's say someone hordes black dragons and has hundreds of them, will they have a fair fight against someone who more reasonably spread out his funds investing in spells, various unit types, and items?

Another idea to expand on is actually using your gold to buy various other benefits. One idea I had is buying barricades and placing them where you wish before the battle begins (you would have to communicate this with me so I can set it up appropriately, of course), or purchasing beehives and putting them near the enemy army so they can take some stingers to the face.

I'm open for any other ideas that anyone may have, by the way. As I've said, this is just a test-thread to see if we can actually get a group and have a tournament.

And just to clarify, I will be posting videos of the battles.

[Zhuangzi]

Yeah I'd be happy to participate in this. :)

[Jaedar]

Sounds like fun, even if the AI is pretty bad.

[RYTEDR]

Alrighttt, two more yays. :D Excellent.

At the moment, I could consider perhaps making a really tiny tournament if everyone was committed. :P

[RYTEDR]

This is the one and only bump I will give this thread before letting it die. :P I really want to get into this and since the game is out now there's been a tiny explosion of activity on the boards, so I'm hoping nobody will miss this. I honestly think this could be quite fun.

So...BUMP! Anyone else interested?

[Nike-it]

From our side I think we can organize prizes for this tournament (like t-shirt and free games).

[Zhuangzi]

From our side I think we can organize prizes for this tournament (like t-shirt and free games).

Well, that should be enough of an incentive! How many people will we need for a tournament, RYTEDR?

[Dwagginz]

Colour me intrigued.

If you get this going, I'd certainly give it a go.

[RYTEDR]

From our side I think we can organize prizes for this tournament (like t-shirt and free games).

Wow. Did NOT expect that. :O Well, that is indeed quite encouraging and definitely makes the tournament worth winning!

@Zhuangzi: I would prefer if I could get a tournament of eight, as we can have three rounds with each round allowing progressively more gold/leadership to be spent for bigger and more epic battles.

As I said, I would be willing to make a tiny four-man tournament if I could get four dedicated votes, but if there's gonna be phat lootz involved I feel there should be a little more of a challenge!

EDIT: @Dwagginz: Excellent! It might take some time but I will definitely work on it (already started, in fact. Various testing to see what I need to eliminate from the tournament) and get the ball rolling at some point or another.

Just a few more people! Come onnnnn. :D

[Jaedar]

Damn, if there's actual prizes involved I may have to cook up a good strategy and not just go magic resistant units+items+armageddon :)

Althought I may do that anyway, just because I can :P

[RYTEDR]

@Jaedar: Careful now, and make sure you have a battle plan for each stage of the tournament, as there will be a massive increase in leadership and gold as the game goes on, from hardly anything to tons. :P First round in the tournament you'll be very scarce on both of these resources.

As a forewarning, as of the moment rage and the pet dragon are removed from the tournament. As it stands I do not know whether or not if I will be able to set up the rage mechanics for the AI. That means many items and skills will have to be changed.

What parameter do you believe should replace +rage on items and skills? I was thinking along the lines of crit, but I believe that would make it too easy to have max-crit setups. Suggestions are welcome.

Also, as a tiny bonus for people who are interested: I uploaded all the character portraits in the game to megaupload and if you'd like to download it and choose the portrait that'll be used in the tournament that'd be great. :D Either my upload or browse the files on your own computer. Whichever's to your liking. :P

DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RAIWR1W0

[Zechnophobe]

Damn, if there's actual prizes involved I may have to cook up a good strategy and not just go magic resistant units+items+armageddon :)

Althought I may do that anyway, just because I can :P

Just to note, Armageddon does Astral damage, so Magic resistence will not help you there :). Still, A certain piece of armor and crown wouldn't be a bad way to go.

[Zechnophobe]

So yeah, you have preset armies, and you fight them with preset Amelies?

The only real question is do enemies have the same 'skills' as she does, or just stats and modifiers?

How will entry work? You say we have multiple 'rounds' where we get more leadership? That sounds sorta interesting.

I'd consider going with an army like:

Alchemists
Bone Dragons
Royal Snakes
Assassins
Skeleton Archers

Sure it'd likely have low morale, but it'd be so frustrating to fight against.

[RYTEDR]

Yes, you will prepare everything with your "own" Amelie and I will use the entirety of that setup for the tournament.

Rounds will work like this: With every victory in the tournament you are awarded a fixed sum of leadership and gold for you to bolster yourself in the next fight. Keep in mind that in the very first match of the tournament, you will have to explore the dynamic of having very scarce resources. Because of this, you have to decide which units would be good for "early" game and which should be used for "late" game. For every round I will make a modified version of the original map and send it to you via a PM. This is a continuation of your setup and amount of gold left over along with the additional gold and leadership available to you through progressing the tournament. You will use the latest map I sent you to continue your "growth" in the tournament. Therefore, you should only use the base map for the first round, as that's the basic template for the tournament.

I'm trying to make it as simple as I can. :D I'm not so good at explaining things.

In terms of skills. I'm...working on it. Initially I was under the impression that skills could be added to enemy heroes the same way you can add spells. It does not appear that way at all, and I'm having trouble finding an easy solution. However, there are workarounds.

Some skills may hit the chopping board if I have too much trouble making them work, but I have a few tricks in mind for making both sides even and fair. When the tournament is ready to start I will have all the information prepared. I would prefer to keep as much content as I can in the game, as every mechanic I cut out will further limit strategic options, so I believe for the most part all of the Might/Mind/Magic skills will be intact, (albeit a bit altered) except perhaps some of the more complicated ones.

[Voxfox]

Hi OP, hope I`m not too late but if there is a space left I`d like to take part.....sounds a great idea.

[RYTEDR]

Absolutely not. :D Thank you. I actually would like a few more people, so there's plenty of room for you. XD

[Nike-it]

RYTEDR how the preparations are going? As promised the winner will get a free game from our on-line shop?

[RYTEDR]

RYTEDR how the preparations are going? As promised the winner will get a free game from our on-line shop?


Thanks for the bump, Nike-it. :D Well, if that's a definite reward I should change the name of the thread then!

I'm still working on it, don't worry, but it's proving to be quite the challenge. There's so much consideration of balance that I'm trying to work out. I'm thinking of simplifying the tournament a bit, but I really don't want to do this, because what's the fun in playing a watered-down version of KB anyway?

If anyone would be willing the lend a hand, that is deeply appreciated. Anyone with knowledge of LUA scripts of any kind could be a great help to me.

What I'm working on ATM:

Editing the behavior of enemy orc adrenaline: At the moment, enemy orcs (the ones who are not on the player side in battle) are given a random amount of adrenaline or increase the amount of max adrenaline based on the level of difficulty on the location. I need to edit this to simply give the amount of adrenaline I so please. I need this highly editable and precise, so I can simulate the effects of some skills.

Runemages: Enemy runemages also receive a random number of rune-related buffs, even though the AI cannot gather runes. I need to specify the number "runes" the enemy has, based on what the tournament contender has.

[Jaedar]

Any updates?

This idea is too cool to die :)

[RYTEDR]

Thank you very much for the bump, and don't think I have forgotten about this. :D I've just been busy as of late and have encountered more and more problems, but have also been able to fix some issues as well.

As of the moment, armor-bearers are on shaky ground, and may or may not be removed depending on how much difficulty I have with them. Only companions from OotM will make it, if any. (The scripted events that some of the other companions have are proving troublesome.)

MEDALS ARE REMOVED. Considering this is a tournament, it's pretty much a given anyway, and their presence is pretty pointless since your army is controlled by the AI. All and all, not a huge loss.

Skills continue to be an issue for me, especially unique skills like frenzy and adrenaline, but I won't give up on them just yet. Will get back to that later.

Basically, this is taking longer than I thought, but I AM working on it, I assure you. I will give further updates when things are steadily moving along.