Walking speed of units on some types of terrains

[lucas92]

I've played a few games of 0.A.D and I noticed there is no difference in the walking speed of units depending on the terrain type.

For example:

• Concrete path/ dry grass/ light sand : 1x speed for any unit
• Deep sand/ Deep snow, Marsh: 0.75x for cavalry/camels/elephants, 0.5x for infantry, 0.25x for siege weapons

This additional map flag should add some realism to the game.

What do you think about this idea?

[nylki]

It's probably harder to balance maps that way. But yeah, it could create new strategies.

I've played a few games of 0.A.D and I noticed there is no difference in the walking speed of units depending on the terrain type.

For example:

• Concrete path/ dry grass/ light sand : 1x speed for any unit
• Deep sand/ Deep snow, Marsh: 0.75x for cavalry/camels/elephants, 0.5x for infantry, 0.25x for siege weapons

This additional map flag should add some realism to the game.

What do you think about this idea?

Edited February 6, 2014 by nylki

[sanderd17]

Giving different speeds per terrain type would be possible, however, the new pathfinder wouldn't be able to handle it. It was foreseen in the old pathfinder, but as everyone knows, that's too slow and had more serious problems too. So certain features had to be taken out of it, the main one is different speed according to terrain.

This means that your units won't follow the fast terrain, but will still go in straight lines over different terrains. This will cause more micro (people trying to avoid slow terrain), and thus is something we want to avoid.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

As far as micro with different terrains is concerned, one can simply queue up appropriate paths for the way the units should go. That shouldn't be very difficult.

[Rodmar]

But didn't a group of warriors move in straight direction when ordered? Very locally, a man would avoid an obstacle, but a troop in its whole would go through forest, bushes and other difficult terrain (they wouldn't run a mile in the opposite direction without being ordered so, or without facing an obvious impracticable terrain to cross).

I feel like we are here at the boundary between boring, non useful, artificial micro-managing, and the reality of tactical orders, the spice of this game, aren't we?

So, would it be possible not to include all the possible local terrain variety in the pathfinding computing, but have an additional layer map (I don't recall how Gimp call that kind of layer) that would only grossly depict the terrain with a big "brush" and maybe only three "colors" : fast, medium, slow, non passable. This map would be the one used to compute the general path, the direction, but the real speed and the rendering would be computed using the real detailed terrain map.

[sanderd17]

The problem isn't a troop doing a mile detour. But say you have a round shaped lake. People can walk in the shallows, but that's slower. When you task them to go to the opposite site of the lake, the pathfinder will take the shortest way and not the shift the path a few meters to the solid ground to have a faster move speed.

If you want that faster move speed, you'll have to command it by hand. Approaching round shapes with straight lines is always cumbersome.

[wraitii]

Though tbh you can just approach this in 3 clicks with a bit of luck.

Maybe we could give cleverer pathfinding to a "general" formation in an army (if we ever implement this) but otherwise it's not really worth it.