Beiträge von General Chaos

Though others may differ in opinion, I think Renaissance is already in a very playable state (probably more so than other versions of The Guild). The most recent patch breaks multiplayer but I'm sure Nirvana will release a patch soon.

Perhaps the best way to gauge support is just to go through the patch thread and look at when the patches have been released and what they have fixed/changed. So far the support has been good.

I sincerely hope that Nirvana will continue to release patches, even if infrequently.

Damn, when H.P. Lovecraft steps in you know things have gotten out of hand. That makes me think: why not just replace enemy dynasties with Cthulhu? He would be super aggressive.

In all seriousness. What are some ideas for how to fix/improve AI aggressiveness? I still say it should relate to your relationship with that dynasty.

I have some other ideas but they are more complex, and I don't want to be too unrealistic. Needless to say, they involve different variables (e.g. current wealth of dynasty vs. average wealth of all dynasties, religiosity, average dynasty disposition, number of rogues in dynasty, political positions held). Basically, let's say a dynasty was extremely poor (thus, lacked financial means to achieve their goals), had no political ties, poor average disposition, and no ties to the church or local politics and relationships with a lot of rogues: this dynasty would have more incentive to be aggressive (i.e. criminal).

Each one of these variables could be measured for each dynasty and then given a + or - value. In the above case this dynasty would have a +5 aggressiveness which could then be checked against their relationship with your dynasty. Each level of relationship could be given a +/- value as well. So if they absolutely hated you, they'd have a +10 chance to be aggressive toward you. Basically they'd be attacking you constantly.

Like I said: complex and probably completely impossible given the programming involved, but in my "ideal" game this is probably how it would work. It would give each dynasty a lot more personality as well.

So, with that, anyone else have ideas that are reasonable/unreasonable?

Zitat von mjsegaline

Well you being female would explain why you would not notice the lack of aggression. Females play games like the sims and find enjoyment. Men like something a bit more challenging and "war" like.

I hope you realize at some point what a gross generalization you're making, not to mention how offensive it is.

On top of that, there is nothing inherently better or worse about a game that focuses on combat or one that focuses on social aspects. By all accounts I am a male and I enjoy The Sims and a number of other games that have little or no combat focus. My wife also plays The Guild and while she does not focus on combat at all she is always far richer than my dynasty. We also play Dawn of Discovery, Demigod, and Left 4 Dead together.

Besides all of that, I wish more games would focus on non-combat oriented aspects. Many cultures are far too focused on competition and violence, which is probably one of the reasons these gender-prejudices and hyper-masculine notions arise, viz. "real men solve their problems with violence." I find it refreshing when games attempt to provide alternatives that focus more on creation and cooperation. Ah well, I'll just have to settle for being less than a real man.

Just a thought here, but rather than thinking about AI aggression in general could we perhaps think about it based on the player's relationship with other dynasties?

For example, if I'm on good terms with a faction they shouldn't be aggressive toward me at all. If I'm on horrible terms they would obviously be much more aggressive. This is already built in to some extent I think, but is it possible to modify it so that there is even more distinction?

Along with this would probably need to be a modification of how quickly relationships decay and can be built up, because right now it's fairly easy to gain and lose favor (although some times it's damn hard to get people to like you). Favor does decay over time pretty quickly though. If this process were a little slower it would allow the aggression of enemy dynasties to be ramped up a lot while not ruining the game for people who are willing to "play nice" with other dynasties.

Again, just some thoughts - I know programming this stuff is infinitely harder than conceptualizing it.

I did say it was a problem. I'm simply saying that AI aggression in The Guild should be about much more than just combat aggression. I like challenging games but The Guild has a lot more to offer than just Combat. The game could be just as challenging from an economic and political standpoint. I'm on your side here, but I just don't want the economic and political style players to be left out.

For clarification, I do play on the hardest difficulty and still find it too easy.

One last thing: I think it's always good to voice concerns about a game, but I get the impression that Nirvana is not updating and patching the game because of pressure from the community. I think he's doing it b/c he loves The Guild and wants to support the product that he and Runeforge put out. It's easy to forget that Runeforge formed and began creating Renaissance as a FAN effort. He wants a good game as much as we do.

I agree that the AI is not all that aggressive, but I'm not sure I want them to be aggressive in terms of combat all the time. That scenario would probably force the player to focus on combat as well. I'd rather see the AI mix things up: make accusations, use items like toad slime, slander people, etc. This would give the player more strategic options to counter with (e.g. economic, political, combat).

I'm going to comment on some of these individually, as I've been playing multiplayer quite a lot sense release and have experienced many of the same issues. I'll add my perspective in such cases:

2. Complicated micro-managing
I agree with your observations and am currently in a game where I'm running a pub and having to send the prostitutes out from the pub each day is a bit of a hassle. Could we possibly just have them work 24/7 and make a little less on average per "service" provided? It seems like prostitutes would probably be working late nights anyway.

3. Pawn shop/Money Lender
Completely agree here. I've tried playing as a money lender on a few occasions and have never made much money. Your solution sounds like a good start.

4. Market ping
Again, same observations here. I know that early on there were some problems with markets not stocking necessary base goods and I believe a lot of those have been fixed. Still, I've encountered maps where a basic good was never or at least almost never in stock. I still think part of this has to do with AI not running their businesses poorly. Some of it might just be a lack of the producing business on that particular map, which is obviously also a problem.

5. Robber camp overpowered
This is absolutely true. I think multiple solutions are needed to fully fix this, including the beefing up of cart guards so that robbers need to be higher level to pull robberies off regularly. I also think hiring new robbers should cost more. In combination this would create some balance, though it still wouldn't solve the problem of being "blocked" by robbers. Perhaps lowering the cost of cart guards could help with this, or extending the town guard patrol route into the wilderness slightly more (this would cause some other problems though).

9. XP not given
There are definitely a lot of examples of this. I would love to see the XP system revamped to include more actions like guarding/escorting. This is far too involved a redesign, but I think for a future version of The Guild it would be interesting to have attributes evolve more organically, i.e. they evolve as you perform actions associated with them.

New bug that my wife experienced tonight:

Owner of the bakery cannot enter the building or be assigned to any work there. Carts cannot drop off any goods there and the workers do not seem to be showing up inside the bakery even though they are assigned to jobs. I haven't seen this before but if it's a known bug feel free to delete this post.

Thanks in advance.

I tried that too and get the "has no time" message. I couldn't remove her from the group any way other than through the family tree gump, which I did. She's still stuck and can't be added back. Will probably have to restart from an old save. Truly odd.

Oh - by the way, I think the "smoke" was definitely a fire because when I zoomed in the fire sound was audible. Still, the buildings health was going down much faster than when buildings are normally on fire.

Experienced a pretty weird bug tonight:

I was building a mansion when suddenly the building started smoking (no flames). It was still during the build phase, so basically just a frame of the building. The health of the building went down rapidly, it finished being constructed and continued smoking (still no fire) for some time. All the while the health was decreasing faster than if it were on fire.

Finally it stopped, I sent one of my dynasty members there to spend the night together and she then became stuck. The only action available for her is to look at her inventory and she won't move and canceling her current action does nothing.

Any ideas?

After testing it more I've found the same thing. You can see the name but not the other player. The years do seem to be working fine in MP so far.

Just feedback on what I've tested so far:

The naming mechanism seems to work but I haven't been able to see if it has a long-term impact in any way (e.g. whether or not other dynasties will buy directly from shops with changed names, etc.). Basically I can just say that the name does definitely change.

I haven't been able to to test the 2,3,4 year in multiplayer. Obviously the 1 year is still working fine.

Another reoccurring bug is that occasionally during a council meeting all possible measures appear at the bottom of the screen. This isn't new but it's still there, so figured I'd mention it again.

Two more issues not directly related to this patch:

The plague has not happened at all in two multiplayer games I've played, each lasting at least 50 years. I'll allow for this being a product of "luck," though. I will continue to play and see what happens.

Most importantly, enemy dynasties are still blowing their liquid assets immediately, and I think in the process making it nearly impossible for them to buy titles and apply for offices. Somehow their spending needs to be modified so that they save at least a certain percentage no matter what.

Anyway, I'll try to convince my wife to start a new multiplayer game so I can test the other year options.

Thanks guys. I was an idiot and forgot to update my fresh install before applying the most recent patch.

I need help with a little issue I've just encountered. Basically the items in the market window are cut off on the right side. I'm not sure why this just happened but any help in fixing it would be much appreciated.

I'm going to do a fresh install and test it. I have a feeling it has something to do with the mod I had installed previously. I will post an update.

Update: Okay, it works after a fresh install. Sorry for the false alarm.

Okay, I tested it again and it is working. The year in game increases by 4 but the characters only age 1 year... is this the way it's supposed to be? I will continue testing b/c I swear not this many years have passed, but maybe time just flew by in this MP game.

I tested the 1 year/round in multiplayer and oddly enough characters are aging 2 years. I'm not sure if this would have anything to do with it, but I did have a mod for 1 year turns in MP already installed. I just installed this patch over it. The option is there, I clicked it, but still aging 2 years.

Hmm. I'll agree with the suggestion to add an illness tracker somewhere. I also haven't seen the plague at all in probably 20+ years. I may be alone on this, but I'd like it to at least have a 25% chance of occurring once a well equipped medicus is in town.

One other thing that has been discussed at some length is the frequency of war. Since this is a main source of gaining fame it might be worth increasing the chances of war.

That said, as always I'd like to thank Nirvana for his continued efforts. I for one really appreciate it.

Couple of things that probably aren't related to this patch, but still bugs, I think:

1. The game froze when I used the measure "free trade." It didn't freeze until my character was actually about to perform it (whatever "it" is; I've never used it before).

2. When using the ban goods measure with the tax inspector I was given a message telling me that the stalls were not appropriate targets for that measure. Am I just doing it wrong? I tried targeting each type of trade stall.

I'll list a couple of weird issues I've seen, with a disclaimer that this might not be the first time they've been reported:

1. During a town hall meeting one of my characters was taking part in, his portrait didn't display the icon indicating he was taking part. When I double-clicked him it took me inside the building and showed the meeting cut scene but at the bottom all possible measures were displayed in a long row. First and only time I've ever seen this. The election went on as normal.

2. Not sure how market stocking is supposed to work now, but the AI wood cutter is only supplying oak and no pine. There is also no wool, and rarely leather. It could just be that someone is buying everything up before I see it. On that note, I'm curious about the market stats. Does the "buy" column represent what the market is buying most or what the customers are buying most?

3. Controlling the credit business (i.e. giving out loans) needs to be revisited, addressing these issues:
a. No experience is gained when giving loans
b. It seems that few if any people take out loans (see c)
c. Those who do take out loans are usually poor and only take out small loans (often less than 100).
d. It's a little unclear how interest works, when we get it back, etc.

4. Similar to controlling the credit business, begging (as a vagabond) also doesn't seem to give experience for dynasty characters. My thinking about this and any other sustained action like giving loans is that it should give some experience to make up for your character being unable to train or work at a business where they otherwise would get continuous experience.

...and I think that's all I can think of. Basically The Guild is finally REALLY close to being problem-free (for the most part anyway).

Keep up the good work Nirvana and company. These patches are great!