Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A few days on the grind

Working on the valuation algorithm. It's going surprisingly well, though I've only made it work with the most regular units possible (e.g. Thug, Bandit, Heavy Infantryman, etc.).

One challenge: Low-level units are constantly being under-valued. There's an imbalance between Wesnoth's Mainline gold value of a unit and its value if upkeep isn't involved. A level 5 unit in Wesband will use as much upkeep as will a level 0 unit (none). Perhaps I should say that the average scenario in Wesnoth is 20 turns long, so the actual value of a Spearman should be 14+(1*20). That is to say, a units true cost is its initial recruitment cost + (upkeep * turns in an average scenario). So, instead of a Peasant being valued at 8 and a Spearman at 14, it should actually be 8 and 34 respectively. Ouch. As I'm writing this, it hurts, because that would mean most of today's work was for nothing. Haha.

Another challenge: What is the value of a secondary attack of the same range as another attack (e.g. Dwarvish Fighter's hammer attack)? Sometimes it can mean a slightly better attack, but other times it's useless. How would I put a gold value on versatility?

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