I wrote a new mod, and it is public! It is called King of the Hills and is very simple: Capture all hills and hold them until the end of the turn to win instantly.

An example game:
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26150729

Adding the mod to something as simple as strategic 1v1 changes the entire game. The hills redirect the attention of both players as certain areas become more relevant than others. Income and armies do not matter if one player has both hills. On the other hand, if you fail to grab the hills quickly and have no income, you will simply lose the game. So you have to find a balance or attack at the right moment. Please, try it out!

The mod is updated! It now supports automatic distribution and team games. The rule for team games is that a team has to hold all hills at the end of a turn. The combination of players who contribute to this does not matter.

You should probably explain what the hills are. I looked at the game and it took a while of digging through the settings menu to find it was the two territories that start with 7.

Hi!

When playing yourself, there is a pop-up that you get at the start of picks (manual distribution) or the first turn (auto distribution). It should look something like this:

When trying to search the hills later, they can be found at

where it looks like

These texts are a bit shorter in this version, so for the game linked they are slightly different. I will try to find a new game.

As it is unclear now, I will add the path to reach this to the mod settings. I have tried to make the links clickable but was unable to do this. Is that even possible in mods?

Edited 3/20/2021 20:40:53

I updated the mod description and present mod settings client to direct to this menu. It should be more clear now.

I really love this mod.
Played quite a few games already and I like how it can mix things up, allows for a completely different kinda game while being very easy to understand

It's such an original take on pre existing templates, makes for such different gameplay; once again, big thanks for making this Derfellios!

You could use cities to highlight hills (at least as long as it's not commerce game)

Edited 3/21/2021 01:12:20

You could use cities to highlight hills (at least as long as it's not commerce game)

Boss icons.

This is a great idea . . . but isn't this functionality already present in the Extended Winning Conditions mod? But tbh I've never successfully used that functionality of that mod b/c it has caused issues with games I've created and thus had to abandon use of it. I think it's not compatible with Commanders and also not with large maps (and in my case, I think it got confused and just randomly gave someone the win on an early move).



Also, some recommendations for future functionality:

*Permit choosing the territories which will become the hills when creating the game if desired. But also leave the option to just let the mod pick the hills randomly.
*Make it so holding the hills can be set to be for some # of turns, not just 1 turn.
*Make it so you only need x of y hills, eg: 7 of 10, etc.

This would make the mod even more versatile. But sounds like a great mod so far.

Has this been tested with other mods, with commanders, with commerce, with large maps, etc? Just curious if any limitations have been identified so far.

I really love this mod.
Played quite a few games already and I like how it can mix things up, allows for a completely different kinda game while being very easy to understand

It's such an original take on pre existing templates, makes for such different gameplay; once again, big thanks for making this Derfellios!

Thanks a lot!

You could use cities to highlight hills (at least as long as it's not commerce game)

You could use cities to highlight hills (at least as long as it's not commerce game)

Boss icons.

I will take a look into this. I know bosses/commanders are very hard-coded, so that may be a not too nice to work with. I am not familar with using cities in mods, so I do not know whether that would be an option.

This is a great idea . . . but isn't this functionality already present in the Extended Winning Conditions mod?

The Extended Winning Conditions mod is not very friendly to work with as you need to type in the names of the hills yourself. I prefer them to be randomized and be some kind of wasteland to make it a lot harder to grab it. King of the Hill is very different.

Also, some recommendations for future functionality:
*Permit choosing the territories which will become the hills when creating the game if desired. But also leave the option to just let the mod pick the hills randomly.

This is difficult to do. When doing this in the template creation menu (like Extended Winning Conditions), one cannot access the territories and typing them manually is the most user-friendly possible. So not very good. So you need some way to do in game: a menu or so. But this also seems inefficient at best.

*Make it so holding the hills can be set to be for some # of turns, not just 1 turn.

I got this suggestion before. When I have time I will look into it.

*Make it so you only need x of y hills, eg: 7 of 10, etc.

This is a decent idea. Thanks!

Has this been tested with other mods, with commanders, with commerce, with large maps, etc? Just curious if any limitations have been identified so far.

I cannot see any problems that would arise from commanders or commerce. large maps work fine as long as the number of hills is somewhat reasonable. I will limit to 10 or so in the next update of the mod so this cannot give issues. Other mods should not interfere as long as they do not overwrite territories in the distribtution (this is not a major issue, the hills stay hills, only the army amount is changed).

Hey!

I made a short survey about which features should be added to the mod.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4d1i9sms5rrjLpclF-COJAd2yGXAAYDRsCHLmxJQqfNblXQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Could you fill it in if you played the mod and have a few minutes to spare?

@Derfellios

I get the difficulties in making it able to choose territories ... I've seen the mods like Extended Winning Conditions, 1-way Connections, etc - both of which are great ideas, but yea agree the implementation is terrible b/c of the lack of UI provided to write the mods that target territory selections, etc. But unfortunately lack of pre-defined Hills means the distribution can never be strategic and thus not much point in Manual picks. Anyhow, I get it re: difficulty of implementing it. Unless a better API is provided, perhaps there could be a turn 1 config for the host.

Until then ... I have an idea on how to do this without mod intervention . . . going to try it in a game I'm making now. Just setting it up still.

@Derfellios

I get the difficulties in making it able to choose territories ... I've seen the mods like Extended Winning Conditions, 1-way Connections, etc - both of which are great ideas, but yea agree the implementation is terrible b/c of the lack of UI provided to write the mods that target territory selections, etc. But unfortunately lack of pre-defined Hills means the distribution can never be strategic and thus not much point in Manual picks. Anyhow, I get it re: difficulty of implementing it. Unless a better API is provided, perhaps there could be a turn 1 config for the host.

I do not really understand what you are trying to say. Non-predefined hills can make a template strategic if they are already known during the picking phase as in the current implementation. I see less strategic value in fixed hills; The randomness aspect puts pressure on different areas on the map, depending on where the hills are. This randomness provides variety.

On most templates I tested, the mod works the best in a 1v1 when there is a limited number of hills: 1, 2, or sometimes, 3. Make them large enough such that it takes 3-5 turns to capture them if the opponent does not show up. If you have any concrete examples where you want specific territories, shoot me a mail.

Edited 3/24/2021 21:56:04

Derf is completely right.

The responses of the survey were mixed in many ways:

Should more features be added?

Average 3.1/5. The response seemed to favor more functionalities. I will try to see which can be implemented in the least hacky, broken ways. Maybe, if that is impossible, I will have one stable, bug-free version of the mod and one with more functionalities that might have minor issues.

Hills have to be hold for N turns before victory is awarded

Average 3.9/5. This suggestion was quite popular. I will try to build this but need to figure out a few details. Do you need all hills for a timer to start? Should the timer be reset if you lose a hill, or will it continue on the amount you had? Will it become publicly known if a player has all hills?

In team games, 1 player has to hold all hills to win

Average: 1.6. This was the most unpopular suggestion. So I keep the current set-up for team games.

One only needs to hold a certain amount of hills to win

Average: 3.0. Kind of popular, but not so popular that I want to add this immediately. I could foresee problems with multiple players securing enough hills simultaneously and with the first new suggestion. Maybe I will add it to an extended edition.

The ability to pick specific territories to be hills

Average: 2.7. Some people seem to love it, but I do not see any applications to strategic games. If other forms of play have applications, let me know, and I will consider implementing that idea. It will not be added until I figure out a way to do it with a decent UI. That seems another major issue.

Hills are indicated on the map with cities or boss icons

Average: 3.8. Another popular suggestion and the problem is the implementation. Cities are very weird outside of commerce games, and that might give problems. I got to look into that. Disabling commanders or bosses is a little hacky, and I have bad experiences with that. Maybe having them appear only during the distribution is an option, but some problems stay. For example, they have to be assigned to a player (which is impossible at that moment). A menu with clickable buttons where the territories flash up also seems impossible in the current framework. If I find a way to do this cleanly, I will do it.

Which other features would you want to be added?

A few decent ideas:

You can start in the hill

This would be possible, so it becomes a commander game with commanders who cannot move, basically. Some sort of capture the flag.

If can't specifically name the territories to become hills, should at least have a distribution mode for them similar to starting points - random, only 1 in a given bonus, etc. This would prevent a game from having all hills really close together (or at least letting the game host choose).

A way of assigning via an interface on the 1st turn would work too. Could be a way for the host to assign them. Could also have a mode where all the players vote for a territory, and if there is a tie, randomly chosen from the selections. The available voting options would be tied back to the distribution choice (random, max 1 per bonus, etc).

A few remarks. More options on how to distribute hills would be a good idea. Only, in my experience, few hills play the best. Then there is the most tension. Otherwise, it would boil down to a very late game feature that would barely ever matter. More distributions could be added to an extended version of the mod. I dislike the idea of a host assigning hills when the game has already begun. Even in diplo games or FFAs, I see no real purpose. Voting would be fun in any mod would be fun, but I don't think hills would be the best designation. For example, voting on who gets card pieces would be a reasonable addition to FFAs/diplos.

only thing that still came to mind is the concept of "growing hills", +1 army every turn or so, could give an interesting dynamic

Yeah, this could be cool. I would playtest this first whether it has true potential before adding it to the main mod.

could the hills icon be a new different icon?

lol. No. Impossible in the current framework.

@Derf

Does the mod choose and show the Hills before manual picking? If so then you're totally right on this.

Does the mod choose and show the Hills before manual picking? If so then you're totally right on this.

Yes, it does. First you get a pop-up, giving the territory names of the hills. Then there is a menu which during picks can also be accessed which gives the names. See the picks in the 4th post of this thread. Only, having them as links to flash up seems impossible atm. So for visibility another tool would be nice.

Edited 3/25/2021 18:07:36

Average 3.9/5. This suggestion was quite popular. I will try to build this but need to figure out a few details. Do you need all hills for a timer to start? Should the timer be reset if you lose a hill, or will it continue on the amount you had? Will it become publicly known if a player has all hills?

Yes, you need all hills for the timer to start. Once you lose any of the hills, the timer resets to 0. In order to award rushing the hills or some other behaviour, and also to keep the game a bit more exciting, it should remain secret if someone has all the hills.

Hills are indicated on the map with cities or boss icons

This really isn't needed (assuming the hills are a different size then neutrals and wastelands). For example, in one of the recent KotH games i played all territories were 2 or 4 and the hill was 15. The fact that he hill was the only territory with 10+ neutrals made it clear that that was the hill, both during picks and in game.

Hill size, time resets, making known which hills are captured or if all hills have been captured, etc - all this should be configurable within the mod. These are all simple to do. Why choose one way for everything? Configurable flexibility is king.

As for conflict of getting X of N Hills where X<N to win, and 2 players get X on the same turn, and technically 2 players "winning" - nope, WZC has orders within a turn, so only 1 player will ever truly get them "first" even if both do it in the same turn. Look at move order to determine who is the "king" and thus wins. But my best guess is that most games would still require an X of N where X>0.5N (note not X>=0.5N thus breaking any ties) whereby it's moot. But if someone uses for example 10 Hills, and capturing any 1 Hill is a win condition ... sure, that's a valid game if someone wants to do that ... and the first person to do it down to the move order within a turn would be the winner. (Aside: This could even be an interesting game on a huge map with a custom scenario where you're fighting 4-5 players in your general vicinity for the Hill while also racing against all the other players around the map who are also fighting 4-5 players fighting for their Hills.)