Better gamesetup descriptions

[elexis]

Find myself having to explain the gamesettings again and again. A proper description should just be displayed in that textfield that currently shows the mostly unneeded map description.

The attached patch adds a number of strings depending on the chosen settings and hides some of them for 1v1s (as for example locked teams or last man standing is irrelevant in that case).

The strings explain the victory condition, rated game setting, locked teams / diplomacy setting and last man standing / allied victory setting. The number of players text is removed as it is redundant.

[elexis]

Another issue that troubles me:

The "mapsize" option for random map scripts in the gamesetup is wrong and misleading.

The title recommends a number of players which doesn't actually correlate to the effective mapsize. A "normal" map seems to be the perfect size for 3-8 player matches. A "small" or "medium" mapsize seem to be the best options for 1v1 matches.

If one picks a smaller mapsize, one will be very close to the enemy and at most one CC can be built in neutral territory. If one picks a greater mapsize, the performance will reduce drastically and one needs a long time to reach the enemy city, having a negative impact on the playability (boring waiting times, too much territory to control, bad for sending reinforcements).

The current options (see map_sizes.json) are:

{
{
	"Name": "Tiny",
	"LongName": "Tiny",
	"Tiles": 128
},
{
	"Name": "Small",
	"LongName": "Small (2 players)",
	"Tiles": 192
},
{
	"Name": "Medium",
	"LongName": "Medium (3 players)",
	"Tiles": 256,
	"Default": true
},
{
	"Name": "Normal",
	"LongName": "Normal (4 players)",
	"Tiles": 320
},
{
	"Name": "Large",
	"LongName": "Large (6 players)",
	"Tiles": 384
},
{
	"Name": "Very Large",
	"LongName": "Very Large (8 players)",
	"Tiles": 448
},
{
	"Name": "Giant",
	"LongName": "Giant",
	"Tiles": 512
}

No matter how the figures are changed, they lie. The best idea is probably to just remove LongName.

[fatherbushido]

• i agree to remove the number of players wich is misleading (and push players to use too big map, and to have more lag...)
• i will test the description patch

[elexis]

av93 sent me a message:

Hey elexis, just a suggestion about this patch. I think that would be useful to display that info also when playing, with a icon near diplomacy, trading, etc at upper right corner. Don't know if it's very difficult to do, or it can be done with a little effort.

He is absolutely right! Those strings should be moved to gui/common/ in preparation of #3263.

[elexis]

Updated version to work with the session

[elexis]

• Created a github branch here: ​https://github.com/elexis1/0ad/commits/3263-gameinfo-dialog

The mapname has to be added and some cleaning has to be done.

Design questions:

• Button or menu entry?
• Should the properties and the values be aligned? (I.e. use 2 objects per row instead of one object for everything?)

[elexis]

Everything besides the map-sizes strings should be done in #3263 unless my approach is completely wrong.

[elexis]

In 18692:

Objectives dialog. Icon by Lionkanzen. Reviewed by bb, fixes #3263 #4141.

Explain the new victory conditions and last man standing option in the gamesetup.
Add an ingame dialog showing these explanations and all other chosen gamesetup options,
so that players don't have to recall them and late observers don't have to ask.

[elexis]

In 18854:

Remove the number of players recommendation per mapsize as it's plain wrong, refs #4141.