The game guide

[Firetooth]

It's been discussed before, but I think seeing as the topic was brought up in the suicide thread it might be a good time to continue it.

It's a good resource, and a lot of work has clearly been put into it, howevere there are a few issues with it:

• It doesn't give much useful information for playing competitively. The information contained is good for a beginner, but there should also be a more advanced section with some basic strategies for each race...races like Wildcat and Stoat can only really be played a certain way, and this should be made clear to newer players. Some complex things like leaders are obviously never going to be easily explained, but the current guide has made a good attempt, I think people just need more information on how they can actually use leaders for production, offense and defense. Maybe include some more basic equations, like the current one on figuring how to get a 175 ratio under "learning leaders."
  
  I know some people here, including me, have wrote up some basic race descriptions. These could also go in.
  
  Info in the below thread could be a good starting point:
  
  http://www.redwallwarlords.com/forums/index.php?topic=12996.0
  
  At the least, if the game guide is to be exclusively the basics, there should be a link to a topic like that with a outline on how strategies work and which races (typically) use which strategies. I get that it's for the basics, but sections like the below seem a tad counter-productive in teaching players how to play well long-term.
  
  

  As you spend turns, you will notice that you gain or lose money and food each turn. If you run out of food or money, your troops will begin to desert. You will need to watch out for this!!
  
  If you see that you are running out of food or money, you will have 3 options:
  
  1. Build more markets or foragers.
  
  2. Sell some of your army. This is not a bad thing, because you will get it back eventually. You can sell your army by going to the "Mercenaries" button and clicking on "sell goods". From there just type in the number of items you want to sell.
  
  3. You can also take out a lone from "Cluny's Hut." This is generally not recommended, but you can use it as a last resort.
  
  There are also other ways you can spend your turns that in increase your cash and food. You can *Loot and *Forage.
  
  * Loot: This will give you a lot more money, if you have markets.
  
  * Forage: This will give you a lot more food, if you have foragers.
  
  

  
  There is a brief section on strategies, however it is not indepth enough and could use some work.
  
  

  Info from Sevz
  
  Knowing the game is important. Strategy earns rewards.
  
  RUNNING TURNS No matter what race you are/teamed or not, the objectives are always similar. Growth against your non allies. Best method of producing is Land+Networth. Get land from the best source to start with, continue from the rest in an effective order. Gain as much land as practical.
  
  INDY is an empire who generates troops per turn. (Race choice- Rat) Build Barracks to make troops, when you have a bunch and there's not many people left to attack, demolish about a quarter and build camps to sell for a good price on the mercenaries. This will pay for re-generating more when you switch back to all barracks.
  
  LEADERS is a player who builds Huts and uses Leaders for all methods. The aim is to have a pile of cash food and loyalty (resources). Gather land at the start of your turns, sell troops and build Huts. Earn loyalty until you have a strong ratio and cast Loot/Feast in Generals Hut. By the time you have 0 turns you would ideally have a good amount of land with extra resources
  
  FOOD MASSER The most dominant way of massing food initially is wolf or marten using leader. Best done with medium land, no troops and around 170 ratio. Generals Hut Feast up to 99mil networth. Go to Market, Store maximum food for 25. when you reach a point that it's not worth storing food, stick under 100mil networth, send off the un storable food to a friend and loot 120bil. From here, focus a few runs on massing loyalty and destroying other peoples supplies. Once comfortable, make heaps more food and defend land.
  

  
  It's a good start, but is outdated (no magpies+ferrets) and as I said needs to be more specific. It also doesn't feature the wildcat and stoat races.
  


• It's hard to access. Ingame, I can't see a single link to it. This is quite a minor issue, but an ingame link would be cool.


• Some information is outdated. The clan section still contains information on passwords, and I don't see anything on custom titles or member caps. Also, there are some other incorrect things such as the aid regardless of your clan members net (I think there is a limit, if I am thinking straight, of like 5* your net?) On this line, some pages (generals hut, a key one) don't even currently exist.

I think the guide is a great resource with some great info, especially for beginners, however I think some more information and detail would help to encourage newer players to start playing more effectively. Also, I know several people here have expressed interest adding to it. Perhaps it could be done in a format similar to a wikia, where members can edit it freely but it is enforced? Just throwing an idea out, idk if that would work.

Does anybody have anything else to add?

Edit: Expanded a bit on the first point.

[Daryn]

Can you correct "lone?"

I think it's loan; it's been disturbing me.

[Firetooth]

Is anybody alive in the development forums lol?

[Shadow]

What I suggest that people do to help with the guide is what Firetooth just did. There is a lot of information there that is out of date. Our changes generally did not get put into the guide and over time, the guide sometimes tells outright lies.

It would be an enormous help if people could go through maybe a coupe of pages each and identify information that is outright wrong. That should be our first priority to update. If you don't have edit priveleges you can get them from windy, but PLEASE, if you make changes, post a short blurb here detailing the gist of the change so that we can keep track of what has been updated without going through the logs of each individual page.

If you are unsure if a formula given there is wrong, or are unsure of the correct one to go in its place, just post the details here and we will take a gander at the code and sort it out.

Once we have the guide updated so that it tells the truth, we can move on to adding new features like mini guides, and cleaning up the pages, etc.

[The Lady Shael]

Shadow hit the nail on the head. If you want to help RWL in any way, this is absolutely the way to do it. The staff is usually too busy or too invested doing other things, and the game guide is seriously lacking.

[Abby The Rat]

Sounds like it time to switch to a wiki format, if you want to allow users to edit the game guides.. There's a few Wiki software, some you could actually hack a bit and make it sync with the game, there's already a few "plug-in" for a few of the wiki software that works with SMF.  If there's desire in someone to help the newbie, then they will be willing to make changes to the wiki. The problem is maintaining that, specially with this size of players.

At the very least, it makes it easier to make changes without going thou the whole edit file, upload, check to make sure nothing is broken.

[The Lady Shael]

It is a wiki format. =p windy switched it to that a while ago, anyone who wants to edit it just has to ask windy for access.

[Abby The Rat]

Interesting, I Didn't see this.. I guess it's in game which could explain why I didn't see it.. I only saw the offline guide.

[Firetooth]

Oooh, sounds neat.

I'll ask for access sometime and try correcting some out of date stuff. :)