Spicing up the automatic commentary

[Hannibal]

Kor, well done for varying the automatic commentary so that it says "wins", "overpowers" etc, instead of always "attacks" (which was always anyway ambiguous as to whether it succeeded, at least for new readers).

I can't find where the post is hidden, but you welcomed more variations?

I think my first list was:

Occupies
Wins
Overpowers
Crushes
Takes
Vanquishes
Triumphs over
Overcomes
Conquers

I think the last one or two haven't showed up in a commentary yet - maybe by chance-selection, or did you discard it?

Since you asked, here are some more variations:

Defeats
Beats
Overwhelms
Seizes
Grabs
Marches into
Takes over
Overruns

So you probably don't need less obvious ones (internationally) like:

Subjugates
Secures
Trounces
Thrashes
Snatches
Subdues
Prevails over

Your pick.

[Hannibal]

And while you're at it, we might revisit that area of adding even more flavour to the autocommentary, by sometimes saying a bit more about what happened:

Now, I assume the above variations will be applied to both Duel and Standard. They give no extra information away, they just add flavour. The suggestions below might only be for Duel; because they give info away to other players in Standard, whereas in Duel, both players know what happened, it's in their TR's whenever they clashed and there are no third players to learn free info.

Again, they are to add flavour, but also to tell any readers a bit more of what happened?

Can you rise to the challenge of separate commentary algorithms for Duel and Standard?! Or is that going too far?

The ideas are:

1) Walks into #XX unopposed, perhaps rotated with Strolls into #XX unopposed and Slips into #XX unopposed. Obviously this would be instead of Occupies, Overpowers etc, whenever the algo detects that it was taken without a battle.

2) Occupies/Overpowers/Conquers etc #XX after a great battle. If you can add words AFTER the prov (well, you do with "and fails"). This would be reserved for, say, whenever BOTH sides had more than 15 armies. And ...#XX after an enormous battle, which would be reserved for battles when the algo detects that BOTH sides had more than, say, 30 armies involved.

3) I thought about .... #XX without loss. But that might give away too much too often, even in Duel, if it applies also to battles against neutrals ..., so no.

I realise that, technically, sometimes even the Walks in/ Strolls in, and the big battle, would give something away to the other Duel player, when it is a human on an empty neutral or a Robo, or Robo v Robo or neutral. But that would be rare, and liveable-with, for the gain in flavour. Or else you could apply (1) and (2) ONLY to human v human battles, but I don't see the need.

Even I don't think we need to change "attacks #XX, but fails". That's nice and crisp, and wd be going too far in terms of clarity.

Any other ideas anyone?

[korexus]

Erm, actually I already changed some of the failure messages. Current options are "attacks ... but fails", "invades ... but is repelled", "attempts to grab ... but is turned back" and "finds the defenders in ... rather too strong".


I added all your original ideas, there's not been many turns run under that system so random chance could stop some of the 9 showing yet.

I will eventually add these to Standard too, but for now I'm using the Duel engine to test them. (a lot of the attack script is the same, so if I have a finished version in Duel I can just transfer it across. If I have to kep updating two versions, I'll get confuse!)

That being said, I can keep some differences between them.

Different comments when there's been no fight are fine (didn't I suggest this to you?!)

Comments on size of battles is harder, but I'll think of something.


Chris.

[trewqh]

The third group of words from Han's first post in this thread is too much, I'd say.

As for 'great battles' I think, rather than reflecting the number of armies taking part in it, it could depend on the number of turns fought. So if in a battle 10 armies against 10 armies there is an incredible number of draws and the number of turns exceeds, let's say, 50 then it's a 'great battle' as well. And the number of turns fought in a battle is a variable that is already used in the code to calculate LEV bonuses.

[korexus]

So if in a battle 10 armies against 10 armies there is an incredible number of draws and the number of turns exceeds, let's say, 50 then it's a 'great battle' as well. And the number of turns fought in a battle is a variable that is already used in the code to calculate LEV bonuses.

Give that man his php level 1 certificate!

So, you want to go add it too now?


Chris.

[trewqh]

Do you want to spend the rest of your life tracking the bugs I cause?

[korexus]

I'm going to be tracking bugs anyway, someone else's might vary things a bit...

Ok, I'll do it myself. I'm just lazy this morning!

So, when successfully attacking a province we want:
{word for conquers} {province number (and owner?)} {description of fight length (in some cases)} {description of how close? (without loss, by the narrowest of margins, etc.)}

and after a failed attack we want:
{word for attacks} {province number (and owner?)} {mention of being a miserable failure} {description of fight length} {description of how close?}

So a line in the commentary could read
trewqh C missiles neutral 54, then conquers neutral 54 without loss, crushes korexus C's 52, makes a grab for korexus C's 51 but is turned back after a long fight.


Comments for how this would work in duel games only please. We'll do the Standard WoK headache after we've got things sorted here...


Chris.

[trewqh]

So, when successfully attacking a province we want:
{word for conquers} {province number (and owner?)} {description of fight length (in some cases)} {description of how close? (without loss, by the narrowest of margins, etc.)}

A. I'd move the {description of fight length (in some cases)} in front of {word for conquers/attacks} to make it sound better:
"After a great battle, takes over 57 by the narrowest margin."

B. And how about (in case of failed attacks), instead of using {attack word}{prov no.}{mention of failure} make it -> {word for failed attack}(prov no.}and so on..

I don't mean to make up a few but just use sth like, "fails to take 43" (if we agree to that then {descript of lenght} can also be moved to the front.)

C. Another change I'd suggest which seems necessary is to make each attack appear in a new line to make the commentary easier to read. Ex.:
Dubya:
1. Attacks Afghanistan, but fails.
2. Attacks Iraq, but fails.

D. As for indicating the owner of the taken province - if not too difficult to code then it could be indicated by colouring the number of the province with the colour of the previous owner.

[Hannibal]

The third group of words from Han's first post in this thread is too much, I'd say.

I agree. I said myself "you probably don't need ... internationally ...". They were, I guess, just there because I'd sorted my list into yes and no, and didn't want folk to think I'd thrown everything in as a yes .....

As for 'great battles' I think, rather than reflecting the number of armies taking part in it, it could depend on the number of turns fought. So if in a battle 10 armies against 10 armies there is an incredible number of draws and the number of turns exceeds, let's say, 50 then it's a 'great battle' as well. And the number of turns fought in a battle is a variable that is already used in the code to calculate LEV bonuses.

Even I, as a non-coder, can spot that this is a very smart and "elegant"solution, well done T.

[Hannibal]

Erm, actually I already changed some of the failure messages. Current options are "attacks ... but fails", "invades ... but is repelled", "attempts to grab ... but is turned back" and "finds the defenders in ... rather too strong".

OK, great. I was partly trying to save you yet more effort, but partly found it better simpler in that case. I'd ditch the last of the 4 as overkill, like my third list.

Different comments when there's been no fight are fine (didn't I suggest this to you?!)

Yes, I think you did. Good idea.

[Hannibal]

A. I'd move the {description of fight length (in some cases)} in front of {word for conquers/attacks} to make it sound better:
"After a great battle, takes over 57 by the narrowest margin."

It's probably marginal, but I prefer the clarity of stating the "result" first, followed by any or all qualifiers, eg "overwhelms #57 after a great battle, by the narrowest of margins." ... if there ever IS more than one qualifier ....

[korexus]

the failed attack words are declared through two variables, so we can have a few which don't say anything after the province number. No problem. Just give some examples on the thread.

Colours are easy. I had to do the tricky bit when I set up coloured names in the first place. Now I can just hijack that code...

I'll wait to see what other people say on the positioning.

I can put in new line statements easily too, but won't that make for a very looong commentary?


Chris.

PS, as statements for each event are randomly chosen, the more options we have, the less chance there is of one being repeated loads. - This will make the commentary feel more real, so keep the suggestions coming!

[trewqh]

I can put in new line statements easily too, but won't that make for a very looong commentary?

It will take up more space, but it will be much clearer than separating moves with just commas. And if we adopted the syntax that you suggested and Han supported along with my 1move-1line suggestion then someone who doesn't want to read the whole commentary will be able to skim it very quickly to see what happened.

[Hannibal]

the failed attack words are declared through two variables, so we can have a few which don't say anything after the province number. No problem. Just give some examples on the thread.

Ah, I see our misunderstanding. My fault. No, I meant that we should keep victories simpler by result first, any qualifiers after. But I was always OK with "attacks #XX but fails". Because that is somehow the order of events, he attacks ... and/but he fails. So it's RIGHT, for me, that your failure words are some words before the #XX and some after, just as they are.

[Hannibal]

I can put in new line statements easily too, but won't that make for a very looong commentary?

It will take up more space, but it will be much clearer than separating moves with just commas. And if we adopted the syntax that you suggested and Han supported along with my 1move-1line suggestion then someone who doesn't want to read the whole commentary will be able to skim it very quickly to see what happened.

I agree with Kor. The lines won't be THAT long. No need to start a new line for each order, commas will do, or else it is spread too long. Just a space and new line each time it's for a new colour.

Let's try it and see how it looks?

[trewqh]

Sure.

[korexus]

the failed attack words are declared through two variables, so we can have a few which don't say anything after the province number. No problem. Just give some examples on the thread.

Ah, I see our misunderstanding. My fault. No, I meant that we should keep victories simpler by result first, any qualifiers after. But I was always OK with "attacks #XX but fails". Because that is somehow the order of events, he attacks ... and/but he fails. So it's RIGHT, for me, that your failure words are some words before the #XX and some after, just as they are.

actually, that bit was refering to when trewqh wrote:

B. And how about (in case of failed attacks), instead of using {attack word}{prov no.}{mention of failure} make it -> {word for failed attack}(prov no.}and so on..

I don't mean to make up a few but just use sth like, "fails to take 43" (if we agree to that then {descript of lenght} can also be moved to the front.)

Basically the engine can insert blanks into any of the bits between {} so we have more flexibilty in writing comments.

I'll try the layout without extra line returns first. We can always add them later...


Chris.

[korexus]

Colours are done.
http://www.kaomaris.com/phpNuke/modules ... =56#action


Chris.

[trewqh]

Wow!

It even takes the changes of province ownership that take place during the attack phase into account.

[Underdog]

I think you should just go back the way it used to be. All this extraneous stuff is CORNfusing. NOW back in the day when I was but a newby and we had all the great players like Piebald and Dameon and Massielita and Egbert and Bjorn Toulouse and Goatherder and Dark Monk and Queen Pea and Diana and The Duke and Thin King and Lord Fredo and Calidus and X-Wing and Tristao and Strider and Pemca and RevAmp and Edsu and BenIII and Crusher Bob. And any others that were around that long ago.

Now what was I complaining about? Oh yeah right that commentary thing I guess it is ok the way you have done it Korexus. I just really wanted to come in and type a long winded message just to see if I could still do it. I guess I am still no competition to Hannibabble but it wasn't too bad.

But back in the day, the GM actually had to make up the commentary. I remember spending hours just trying to figure out what to type to keep it interesting but not give away anything. ah the memories.

Well I will return in another few months.