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That would be cool but again space is an issue. I've got it tucked neatly into place for the allies to use. It *barely* fit in the space where Escape and Retreat were. I hope adding it to the enemy won't require more space or I might be in trouble.
Once I get it functioning maybe I can play with the algorithms if I can find space but for now I just want it to work (for enemies now).
Update: Both life and raise work for allies. Having enemies pick up the tactic was straightforward… Just had to play with the tactic priorities.
Ah thanks for info on the sprites. Now, to test that "life" thing, wouldnt that be REALLY annoying if they keep reviving their 50,000 troop guys over and over? I would think it would make spamming Ce Mian a necessity even more
Quote:Ah thanks for info on the sprites. Now, to test that "life" thing, wouldnt that be REALLY annoying if they keep reviving their 50,000 troop guys over and over? I would think it would make spamming Ce Mian a necessity even moreIf you put it in slot 02 or 03 (8 tactics) they will only use it when their health is low. Same kinda thing as when they use Wan Fu. However this time they would be reviving someone else, not themselves. Which would change up strategy a bit. Imagine you've killed Sima Yi and you've widdled the last bad guy strategist down to low HP then as his last effort of survival he casts raise and brings his master back…Sima Yi… Yikes… :twisted:
You wanted more difficulty, there ya go!
Late game tends to devolve into two strategies anyway…
Spamming Ce Mian, or spamming An Sha. Both hope to dodge a Wan Fu and Negate.
These two strategies and relying on the RNG is what primarily causes me to put the game down after Wu (or just before the Sima Yi / Thunder castle) 90% of the time. In general, it's not fun hoping the RNG likes you for the 6-20 rounds a fight can take.
Sadly, the game puts the player at such a disadvantage late game due to limited TP's that it really does come down to luck :(.
Chi Tu Ma / insanely high AGI generals helps keep a Ce Mian strategy going… but… I think my point still stands.
I would really love to see a way to have the late game offer more variety. I have no ideas on how to go about accomplishing this, though. Ah Sha and Wan Fu are natural progression of their respected tactics trees… but both make late game rather grrrr.
A Revive spell helps greatly in countering An Sha.
If Wan Fu only recovered, say, 25k (Miracle recovering 5k * 5 max soldiers…)… then… it's a bit better…. but…. that still makes mid to late Wu the same as always.
Is there any chance / room to give the enemy army a TP limit as well ? Should obviously be a lot higher than the player's TP since the AI spams tactics, but…. it might mean no longer having to fear an enemy that has unlimited Wan Fu. I realize this gets more complicated down the line due to having to somehow dictate how much TP different fights or RE's might have (maybe something during the combat start up routines ?)…
Not having to fear constant Wan Fu … means that although someone could Wan Fu themselves 5 times, you *can* still eventually win without having to get lucky.
Are we going to overhaul TP and tactics usage? If so, here's my advice…
* Every officer has their own separate TP count (presumably smaller than what they have now). I suggest 5+(level*(your Int+tactician Int)/256).
* Every officer (except maybe the dumbest of the dumb) learns their own tactics list; we'd have to write up twenty or so tactics lists, though, and assign officers to one of them (presumably based on their int).
Alternately we use the current lists, but officers without enough int learn tactics later (up to a point). Fu Bing, for example, could be learned normally at 220 int, learned late by those with 170+ int with one level delayed for every 10 int. After all, even Lu Bu, Knucklehead Of Knuckleheads came up with the halberd shot ruse and pulled it off flawlessly…
I'm not entirely sure if the tactics system really needs an overhaul. Losing tactics can be a bit annoying, and a variety would be kinda handy (being able to cast Guard as well as Zeal for instance)… I…. dunno. Part of the original game play was for a single tactician and the choices / limitations / strengths therein. Even an idiot can Wan Fu then (player party) :).
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Sadly, my discussion was entirely geared towards the late game…. and hopefully attempting to avoid as much 'work' as possible by the modders :). How it affects early to midgame, dunno.
I wasn't aiming for diversity so much as avoiding leaving fate to the RNG.
Nah, there'd still be a minimum int for everything… just lower than the current value.
And, of course, you can always set the final minimum to equal the initial learning minimum….
And finally, since people would only be casting from their current list, not the tactician's list, high-end tactics would be usable by FEWER people. Jin Xian, for example, would (presumably) only be usable by Zhuge Liang instead of being usable by everyone in the party.
Atma–
All tactics capable generals already learn their own list… it should not be difficult to have the game pull from each officer's own list during battle. However…
As TP remaining is only stored in one place in memory, it would be difficult to implement each officer pulling from their own TP pool.
Having each officer use their own tactics seems to be a better idea, especially when we implement a minimum Int value for using tactics, instead of the stock DoaE's condition of Int > Str. If I get a spare moment tonight, I'll see how easy it would be to implement separate tactic users. The only hitch I foresee is how the game will accept officers who are too dumb to use tactics.
When all else fails... manipulate the source code.
Success!
The function to choose tactic list is found in 0f:df0c (0x3df1c). There, it checks to see whether this is a friend or foe. A foe chooses his own tactics. Otherwise, it goes to a little loop to see which general in your lineup has a "C0" in their "present" byte (80 means the general is present in your army, the added '40' bit means they are the strategist). Then it calculates where in memory to find the tactic list from this info.
To make each officer use their own tactic list, do this:
0x3df26: "a44a4c24df"
0x3df26: A4 4A: LDY $004A (Memory location $004a is where the current attacking officer is stored)
0x3df28: 4C 24 DF: JMP $DF24 (Calculates position in memory to find this tactic list)
That's all there is to it! If the officer has no tactic list, they are given the generic rebuttal "The tactician has not yet prepared any strategies." (This only used to be given for level one armies).
The strategist is still the one powering the group's TP store. So they still have a purpose :-)
When all else fails... manipulate the source code.
Cool Lud. This is almost exactly what we talked about earlier when we decided to go the painful route and do 8 tactics instead. :P You could also put some logic in to use "C0" if the general has no tactics.
The downside of this is that the allies would be too overpowered with every tactic at their disposal. With Ce Mian + Ji Mian you could totally shut down the enemy.
The final part of the "Life" and "Raise" tactics is getting the enemy to target dead guys with them. This has actually been the hardest part as the game is just not designed for the bad guys to use tactics on dead guys :) I've still been backtracking stuff to figure out where the ally target is coming from in the A.I. What's done so far:
– Life and Raise using resurrect code to bring people back to life – DONE
– Removed extra text from the above – DONE
– Call heal tactic code at end of resurrect (Salve for Life and Revive for Raise) – DONE
– Logic to have Life and Raise succeed if it targets a dead guy and fail if it targets an alive guy (opposite of the way it normally works) – DONE
– Enemies have Life or Raise in their tactic list – DONE
– Enemies use Life or Raise – DONE
– Enemy actually targets a dead guy instead of an alive guy for Life or Raise – WORK IN PROGRESS
Life and Raise sound interesting! Would you be willing to write up your findings in such a way that we could implement either one or the other? That would be very helpful!
Quote:The downside of this is that the allies would be too overpowered with every tactic at their disposal. With Ce Mian + Ji Mian you could totally shut down the enemy.I'm not sold on the usefulness of this edit yet either… but I'm itching to do a playthrough without Strategist-standard tactics for one reason… it would definitely introduce some freshness and some different rules for tactics that would have to be reckoned with. For instance… no more gargantuan heal tactics by Zhang Fei and Lu Bu. Tactical effectiveness is not set by Int, but by Int or Str (whichever is greater), so I would often have Zhang Fei heal my group with Remedy while the rest pelt the enemy with Blaze or somesuch.
Essentially the tactician would likely be the least effective fighting general who you can afford to stow their tactics in favor of TP… not sure if that made sense at all.
Depending on how you change up the order/priorities/slots of tactics, especially when you add the extra two slots, you could easily end up with one strategist who packs Ji Mian/Ce Mian. That would be fairly cheap… but Negate can cut through Thwart! So even those two tactics together aren't foolproof.
When all else fails... manipulate the source code.
Quote:Life and Raise sound interesting! Would you be willing to write up your findings in such a way that we could implement either one or the other? That would be very helpful!Of course, I was going to wait till I was finished to share the gory details but the 2 tactics are so similar and so tied together that it doesn't really make sense to have one and not the other.
If you're interested in helping me find a way to make bad guys target dead guys (just for these 2 tactics) I can share what I have so far. Lemme know…
Quote:Of course, I was going to wait till I was finished to share the gory details but the 2 tactics are so similar and so tied together that it doesn't really make sense to have one and not the other.If you're interested in helping me find a way to make bad guys target dead guys (just for these 2 tactics) I can share what I have so far. Lemme know…
Sorry man, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to bow out of this one. I'm going to need my sleep as I'm battling a nasty recurring sinus/upper respiratory bug… it seems to hit me once every two weeks (no exaggeration… I wish it was!) because I drive myself too hard, I have an 11 month old son, and I'm not as young as I used to be :(
But I am interested to hear about your findings, when you're ready, of course. The reason I requested to remove one, but not the other (if it's possible) is that I think that a limited Revive spell swapped for the Escape tactic would be awesome… but I kinda like the Return tactic and believe that a "Revive with full army" would be horrifically powerful… and I don't like the idea of Si Ma Yi using that bad boy…
But, it's your edit, and it's awesome no matter how you pull it off. If you haven't noticed, I'm all about customization and alternative tactics :geek:
When all else fails... manipulate the source code.
That's okay, Lud; your immune system will Wan Fu you soon enough, at which point you can return to the coding dungeon. :Þ
No problem bowing out. I'm getting closer…
If we decrease the power of Wan Fu to say…restore 20000 it wouldn't be as "horrifically powerful". Keeping Gui Huan should be possible but would require re-coding what I'm doing which you'd be more than capable of doing. And it will be much easier once I dump out the details which I will do soon…promise.
EDIT: Eureka! Found the targeting code and as I suspected, it's completely eliminating dead guys for targeting. Time to change that :) But looks like I need to jump to another ROM page for space…
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