The Yōkai

[Skizzaltix]

This stuff looks real cool! Almost makes me want to reinstall Wesnoth so that I can play it

...Wait. Moe youkai with frilly clothing? You wouldn't happen to have been playing Touhou games, would you?
Anyway, some part of my small, shriveled, Japanophile soul just can't get around the fact that you have things like banshees nymphs in with tengu and onryo (Obviously, there's nothing wrong with this--It's your faction, you can name it what you like)... I don't know if this is necessary or welcome, but if you'd like, I could help out with any Japanese cultural or language references that you need.

[Melon]

You wouldn't happen to have been playing Touhou games, would you?

no

[Skizzaltix]

...Of course not. How ever could I have made that mistake?

Edit:

So, I did just redownload Wesnoth... This faction is fun. Like, really fun.
But, I did come across a couple of things that seemed strange--For one thing, river fords--Because the river ford takes the movement value and the defense value from shallow water and flat terrain, and goes with whichever combination is best, the fords cost 3 moves to walk through and give 100% defense, which results in my taking out my opponent's heavies with... A pixie. Even if you want this, I think you should lower the defense value of flat terrain to 90% or 80%
(I also noticed that the steppe orcs have the same "problem")
Also, this isn't really your responsibility, but I think Extended Era needs a map pack, if it doesn't already have one--I couldn't find any, and most of the default maps are made up almost entirely of flat terrain, which makes it kind of hard for the youkai to get around
Anyway, great job! Especially on the art--It's nice to see an original faction with good art (As opposed to all the ones I made, with the crappily edited Saurian sprites that were phased out in 1.0)

Double edit:
Oh, yes! I knew there was something else. I think the Weaver's web attack should be below her bite attack, instead of above--Even though the web attack is probably the one she should use more often, it's a little confusing to defy the standard. Anyway, minor stuff.

[Rex Umbrarum]

In 1.4 flat was called grassland, so it's possible the Yokai are programed for 1.4 and just act strangely when played on 1.5. (i.e. not recognizing flat and making it "-" movement and 100% defense)

[Skizzaltix]

Yes, I just checked--They are. I thought the "can't move over open terrain" thing was a little weird

Also, on a random note, wouldn't it be cool to define them their own name generation list (I've done it before, it's eeeasy)? Though, it could be kind of hard to split the names for the things from different cultures, especially seeing as some of them level up into each other... Oh well, that's a polish thing anyway. Not important.

[Melon]

The 1.11 update is here.

changes:
-Gave the Feyborn Witch a "love potion" attack (A huge thanks to Krotop for coding it). Further decreased her maximum hp.
-Updated some sprites
-Added curing for the nymph, healing for the leshi and extra healing for the elder leshi to make them less useless. Tweaked the stats a bit and increased the xp requirement to advance.
-Decreased the xp requirements for Kitsunes and Feyborn.
-Decreased the xp requirements for Medusas.

[Skizzaltix]

Ooh, nice ability. Though, it's possible to lose your leader by having her miss an enemy unit with this thing (I tried--You lose immediately). Also, if you miss once you lose the unit immediately--So, even though it hits twice, you only have one chance to either charm the unit or lose your witch.
That said, I like the ability a lot--This has definite potential

PS: I'm now playing on my new dual-core Intel processor MacBook with 2 GB of RAM (Which arrived in the mail today), instead of my old iBook G4 with 768 MB of RAM. I never realized that Wesnoth had smooth scrolling implemented. Coolness.

[Melon]

Ooh, nice ability. Though, it's possible to lose your leader by having her miss an enemy unit with this thing (I tried--You lose immediately). Also, if you miss once you lose the unit immediately--So, even though it hits twice, you only have one chance to either charm the unit or lose your witch.
That said, I like the ability a lot--This has definite potential

It only hits once, you're probably looking at the damage. The chance to lose your Witch is always equal to your opponents defense. Therefore, it's awesome if used against dwarves in water for example, but utterly useless against elves in forests. Since it doesn't work against anything higher then a level 1, you always stand more to lose then you do to gain. Lots of fun in survival maps (Another good survival map strategy for the Yokai is to use a Medusa as their leader, promote her to Witch status, and make a statue in every adjacent hex).

Also, on a random note, wouldn't it be cool to define them their own name generation list (I've done it before, it's eeeasy)? Though, it could be kind of hard to split the names for the things from different cultures, especially seeing as some of them level up into each other... Oh well, that's a polish thing anyway. Not important.

I thought about this, but I honestly think that the default Wesnoth names work just fine.

Anyway, some part of my small, shriveled, Japanophile soul just can't get around the fact that you have things like banshees nymphs in with tengu and onryo (Obviously, there's nothing wrong with this--It's your faction, you can name it what you like)... I don't know if this is necessary or welcome, but if you'd like, I could help out with any Japanese cultural or language references that you need.

I lot of people seem to think that this is some sort of a "Japanese mythology faction", which it isn't. There are 32 units, of which only 5 are directly taken from Japanese folklore. I guess that it's mostly the faction name that makes it so misleading (For anyone who does not remember, the faction was originally called "The Fey").

Also, this isn't really your responsibility, but I think Extended Era needs a map pack, if it doesn't already have one--I couldn't find any, and most of the default maps are made up almost entirely of flat terrain, which makes it kind of hard for the youkai to get around

I'll have to agree with you on that. I've made a few maps of my own to compensate for it. I've attached a map pack at the bottom of this post.
-The "random temperate" maps look prettier then the generic random maps and don't have any of the random snow/desert stuff on them.
-The "random caverns" map generates a cave and makes for interesting matches against cave-dwelling races.
-"Duelist Paradise" includes just about every possible terrain and tactical situation imaginable in the smallest possible map size. It's tons of fun against a human opponent, but pointless against an AI.

[Skizzaltix]

Yeah, I read this whole thing through from the start (Um... I have free time, I guess), and I assumed you wouldn't want or need help, but... What can I say. It's your faction

Oh, woops... Yeah, somehow I managed to get the damage and the number mixed up. Shoot, I have a Japanese midterm in two days, and I'm probably not going to get much more sleep over them... My teacher's going to have some pretty weird answers to check on Thursday.
Then again, I already gave her a story about aliens stealing a man's feet and replacing his friends with spies from outer space when she told me to "write a sickness dialogue" (That is, something like "Isn't you face pale? What happened?" "I caught a cold a couldn't sleep." "Why don't you take some medicine?" etc), so she's probably used to it.
But I digress.

Ooh, neat generators. I should play around a little with those things--I never really did anything with them (My maps were at least partly abstract art. Usually playing with hexagonal symmetry, too).
Actually, the Duelist's Paradise one reminds me of one of my first maps, Island Bash--Same thing with a very tight, very terrain-heavy setup. Though, Island Bash wasn't quite that heavy, and it had four players.
I believe I also used a modified version of the map for the first scenario of my first campaign. Shame on me.
Anyway, I can see how Duelist's Paradise could be real fun against a good human player--The AI's tendency to stick their leader right in the middle, in a pool of water, on the second turn kind of messes things up

Yeah, I actually like the Wesnoth name generators--They're pretty well put together (Though, I haven't checked yet--Do you still turn up orcs with names like "Pink", or did they fix that?).

I have to admit that I have yet to get a Medusa Witch--Partly because I never really spent time playing Wesnoth and it's been a year and a half since I played, and partly because I'm one of those people who keeps the leader back at home base recruiting stuff, rather than running them forward to help out in the fight/level up every so often (The two facts might be connected).

(Edit to avoid double-post)

Having played a few more games, I find that an Elder Leshi makes a rather good leader, too--The healing and high attack make it an excellent aid to leveling up new recruits.
Also, soultaker. Rock on, baby. Seriously. 20-2 is not to be laughed at. That ability's definitely a keeper.
I do keep finding, though, that I feel like Feyborn ought to deal 1 more damage--I keep thinking, "Okay, I need something that can deal high damage at range. Feyborn? ...Actually, maybe I'll just spam surglers". Particularly as I don't find the Feyborn's level 2 options particularly useful (I'm too conservative to use Love Potion, if I want fast-moving units I'll go for Fairies, and by the time I've leveled up a Feyborn, I usually have a Banshee or two already on the field).
On the other hand, the faction has enough variety that, although it lacks direct melee heavies and ranged damage-pumpers, it makes up for it with things like 12-gold skirmishers and two different units with slow, so... I'd have to play a lot more games to really figure out whether or not it's a problem.

Double edit: No, never mind--The Feyborn's attack is 7-3, and, compared to the Dark Adept, they have fairly similar average damages (Feyborn is 14.7, Dark Adept is 14), and although I could pull in arguments like "Dark Adept has 7 more health" or "Dark Adept has more variety in attack types", I think that neither of those is particularly important, given the low health of the Youkai in general, and so it's probably just that I'm not using my Feyborn effectively.

Speaking of the Wesnoth name generator:

[Orcish Shyde]

Is there a story reason why the Feyborn haven't got a melee attack? Not saying they necessarily should, but it's not like they've been training so long and hard that they're as exhausted and feeble as a Dark Adept. Certainly the portrait doesn't exactly look sleep-deprived.

Which is not to say I don't like this faction, quite the contrary; now if only I'd got enough playtesting under my belt to make a campaign featuring these guys... though admittedly my first thought was "you are a human officer sent to deal with these annoying creatures that keep stealing people away so they can make Feyborn".

[Skizzaltix]

"You are a powerful spirit sent off to deal with a human officer sent to stop you from stealing people to make feyborn."
Actually, that sounds like a pretty cool idea... I'd love to see it done.

[Melon]

I'll try to make the next release compatible with 1.5, but I have no idea what the difference between the two versions is. It would be awesome if someone could give me a list of all the stuff that needs to be changed.

Now for the questions:

Is there a story reason why the Feyborn haven't got a melee attack?

It's mostly there for the balancing. But if you think of it, she's a 14-ish year old girl who doesn't know the first thing about fighting. I thought about adding a melee attack where she thumps her enemies with her book for 2-1 damage, but I don't really know if that's necessary. I'll probably give the Kitsune a weak dagger attack in the next release, just so that the berserkers wont always 1 shot kill them.

@Skizzaltix:

Feyborn are most useful against well defended enemies: agile units like thieves, dwarves in mountains and swimmers in water all make good targets.
There are several things that you always have to consider if you want to play Yokai effectively:
1: Move in a swarm, keep defenders (Poltergeists and Sproutlings are a good choice) at the front, Feyborn, Surglers and other weak units at the back.
2: Make a large variety of different units, the Yokai are great at supporting one another. The only time when you should even consider spamming nothing but one unit is when you're playing against undead.
3: Slow all the most powerful enemies and always keep a few weavers handy.
4: Plan your promotions. After you get an enemy down to low health, think carefully about who should make the kill. For example if you're playing against drakes, then you should try to get a Medusa, if you're playing against undead then you should level up your weavers.

Marisa only has one s in her name, and I'm not going to include a name generator just to make Touhou references.

[krotop]

You have to check the WML syntax changes. The [unit_type] change is indispensable for the era to work. The others will lead to misfunctionning of custom abilities.

Also, some terrain references have changed if you use custom movetypes :
- tundra -> frozen
- cavewall -> impassable
- canyon -> unwalkable
Better check that on the data/core/units.cfg file to make sure.

Finally, the line advanceto= will soon be deprecated in favor of advances_to= although you could still use the former for 1.5.5. That's all I can think of, not sure this is completly exhaustive.

Hope this helps

[Skizzaltix]

Yeah, I am doing most of that stuff, it's just that I don't ever find Feyborn to be particularly useful--I only ever have one or two of them, and they rarely attack.
On the other hand, that once or twice when they do attack is probably going to be important, so... Moot point.

I'm not asking you to stick in a name generator, and I'm not asking you to make Touhou references. I only posted that because I thought it was funny when I noticed the unit's name right after I hired her.

[capricious one]

I wanted to play with the Yokai and realized that the only version available for 1.6 is the Ageless Era version which plays very differently from any of the versions Melon created and had ability issues.

So, I took Melon's last release and made it 1.6 compatible. Since EE is to my knowledge not around anymore (well, BEEM is...), I made the era Yokai + Default and stole the layout and config files from Era of Myths and the Imperial Era.