Internet Meme Era v 0.0.8

[dipseydoodle]

Cool. Um as I said tho that is only the beginning of the unit. I of course am defiantly going to redraw the sprite. If you want to give me a unit line thats fine. I can start redoing that unit and the rest when I have a brake from the apocalypse era. I was wondering tho. Could you contribute a bit off code to my era, since I'm helping you with this. If not that's completely fine.

[Dixie]

Here is my vision of the various cowboy units (line of units):

The caravan line... I dunno, think far west The guy on the bench should have a rifle or something.
The Brigadier/Cavalry should look more military like, with a uniform rather than cowboy outfits. They should have a saber.
The Canadian Mounted police should be about the same, except with a red/white colour theme and a black hat.
The Raider can be any colour you like (I liked black), but should carry a torch.
The Cowboy/lonesome cowboy can look more cowboy like. They'll have lasso attacks.
You can favor pistols for the cowboy if you like, where as a rifle could be better for cavalry? Or not.
The Cowherd should look like some kinda farm boy with a rifle.
The Wrangler should be some kinda farmer with a pike or fork or something.
The sheriff line of units I imagined with cowboy looks and pistols, but rifles could do too.
The Trigger-Happy line should look cowboyish, but with something crazy or drunk, I dunno. Possibly a pistol in both hands. Maybe with an outlawish feel?
The Gunslinger line of unit should be inspired from the loyalists' duelist, agile and everything, maybe with a single pistol.
The gold/coal seeker line should have a pick and a rifle. It can look more farmer than cowboy, maybe older. That's the weird (limit crazy) dude living isolated, seeking gold nuggets in the river with a pan.
About the indians. Bronzed skin, dark hair, plumed headbands (the big plumed thing for the leader?), not too many clothes. They'll fight using bows and tomahawks, no guns.
The shaman line can have all kind of trinkets or coloured outfits you like. With some kind of stick.

---

About your era. Sure, I can look at it. Be aware that I'm no really skilled coder, though. I just started at this, and I do pretty basic things with a lot of copy/paste from whatever I can find. And I've not tested anything I've coded down so far, so maybe it's a complete failure I can still look at it when my university session's finished and I have more time, in something like two weeks.

[dipseydoodle]

Here is my vision of the various cowboy units (line of units):

The caravan line... I dunno, think far west The guy on the bench should have a rifle or something.
The Brigadier/Cavalry should look more military like, with a uniform rather than cowboy outfits. They should have a saber.
The Canadian Mounted police should be about the same, except with a red/white colour theme and a black hat.
The Raider can be any colour you like (I liked black), but should carry a torch.
The Cowboy/lonesome cowboy can look more cowboy like. They'll have lasso attacks.
You can favor pistols for the cowboy if you like, where as a rifle could be better for cavalry? Or not.
The Cowherd should look like some kinda farm boy with a rifle.
The Wrangler should be some kinda farmer with a pike or fork or something.
The sheriff line of units I imagined with cowboy looks and pistols, but rifles could do too.
The Trigger-Happy line should look cowboyish, but with something crazy or drunk, I dunno. Possibly a pistol in both hands. Maybe with an outlawish feel?
The Gunslinger line of unit should be inspired from the loyalists' duelist, agile and everything, maybe with a single pistol.
The gold/coal seeker line should have a pick and a rifle. It can look more farmer than cowboy, maybe older. That's the weird (limit crazy) dude living isolated, seeking gold nuggets in the river with a pan.
About the indians. Bronzed skin, dark hair, plumed headbands (the big plumed thing for the leader?), not too many clothes. They'll fight using bows and tomahawks, no guns.
The shaman line can have all kind of trinkets or coloured outfits you like. With some kind of stick.

Ok. I'll start out by frankenstiening the current caravan. Then I'll finish the cowboy riffleman sprite.

[Aura]

I might be able to find time for some graphics, in the meantime here is some pirates I made before (frankensteins and edits mostly but they look decent enough). Maybe some will be useful.



Obviously you can edit/whatever. I had also made a ghost pirate that I might be able to dredge up if needed.

[Dixie]

Great news today, cats and kittens: I have completed my first faction! It works! IT'S ALIVE! MUAHAHAHAH!!!

Ok now, enough mad scientist crap. So the Ninjas are operationnal. I'd like as many of you as possible to play-test them, report any bug or any game balance suggestion. As previously stated, I have the idealistic aim of them to be as balanced against mainline as possible.

My first thoughts on them was that they might be a bit underpowered. But I'm not so sure anymore:
- Is the samuraï line of unit hitting too hard, seeing how he should be a tank first?
- About the Nokizaru/Kisho line of unit, maybe I should reserve HitAndRun for lv3 and have poison on lv2?
- Are the costs ok? I feel all my faction have the same average/above-average cost range, and it seriously bothers me. Maybe I could diversify, having the ninjas clearly stronger but cost more overall?
- Are the Exp requierements ok? That's another thing I have a hard time evaluating!...
- Do I lack a main fighter ninja, do I have too many mixed fighters or ability-ridden ninjas?

I also had an idea earlier this weak. Ninjas don't only fight using shurikens and katanas! I could diversify my melee damage using Impact-Nunchakus and Pierce-Saïs. But which unit to give them to? And if some other unit has pierce-melee, I could just scrap the Milician line of unit, which existed only for balace against mounted units. Nunchakus to the Kusa? But mages all have Impact, I liked leaving them with blades. To the Genin line? Should they have two melee attacks? Ain't it too many? I might give Saïs to the Shinobi/Nokizaru/Kisho. Do you think it makes sense?

Well, anyway, I welcome any comments or thoughts! I'll link the file in this post and also in the first one. Note that the unit trees and a excel sheet showing the units' stats are in the units folder.

Btw, thanks for the pirate sprites, Aura! I'll consider using them or something eventually.

[francophone]

Aura, for your monkey, I would reverse the units. Brown is commonplace. I think silver is better for a higher level unit
The "Overseer" is strange. How does he takes his blade ? If he takes like stabbing, the blade should be more in the axis of the arm. If he holds it as a sword, it does not correct.


Dixie, How to test it ?
I put the folder "Internet_Meme_Era" with others add-on
But nothing appears in the list of eras.

[Dixie]

Hmmm... Strangely, for me it works... You are using BfW 1.8, right?

Well now that I think about it, BfW 1.8 seems to have this kind of problem, I think. When I wanna test my era, I put all others in sub-folder (so it loads faster), but when I wanna play and transfer the other eras back to the add-ons folder, the game does not always detect them. Sometimes I've gotta redownload them... Maybe that's what's happening? I'll try to ask questions on some other forum

[francophone]

Oh what ... ! I'm on 1.6
Sorry, I forgot

[Dixie]

Just a heads on of where I'm at:

- I've started coding pirates and cowboys. The unit files are finished, I'm just fine-tuning some abilities and weapon specials, trying to correct bugs.
- I've not yet adresses the balance issue.
- I'm considering removing the gold/coal miners and their special ability (Works), which doesn't suit the faction play style.
- I'm starting to think of the faction as "play style" and "general strategy" rather than "thematic". As such, the ninjas will be highly specialized units, advancing under cover at night. The pirates will be somewhat of a medim/low-mobility, neutral, slightly more expensive orc (lots of melee, fielding lots of relatively cheap units...). The cowboys should be slightly cheaper and weaker drake: hit fast and hard at day, and pull back, with much less melee. As such, I'm thinking of the Robot faction, which might be a defensive, attrition-type faction. General high defenses, some village keeper unit, the works ability to generate income... Might be interesting!

I should get a new release for the pirates/cowboys around this weekend. Robots are only a plan, I won't do them for another week or two. Play-test and balance will come after, and I'll start working on the art around that time too. Don't be afraid to test the ninjas in the meantime and give comments!

EDIT:
- I am also considering removing the Wagon/Caravan from the cowboy faction. I like how it fits the theme, but it has nothing really interesting to add tactically speaking, aside from having one or two more mps... What do you think?
- There's still a slight issue with the minegold/minecoal abilities, but since I think I will remove the two units that use them, I'll let it as is.
- I am releasing a new version for this era. The ninjas, pirates and cowboys are all scripted, with as little bugs remaining as possible (there should theorically be none, except for the one mentionned just above about the minegold/coal ability).
- I think I will reduce the cowboys' general melee damage. I would like the main melee unit of being the indians. I might create lv2 indians, too. And create some more lv1s to split some of the biggest unit lines (like the cowherd).

[dipseydoodle]

That may be a good idea for now until I can to the graphics.

[Dixie]

Some news, people!

- I have started working on a 4th faction, the robot one. They will be a more defensive faction, built around economic war and village control. Should be interesting!
- I have some ideas for the fifth faction, but I am still very far from implementing it. It might be a mutant/zombie one, or perhaps an insectoïd like. To be continued.
- I have made the pirates chaotics, fits more the faction, and I was starting to have many neutral factions, so...
- I have started testing the ninjas and doing some game balance with 'em. To be continued.
- I have removed the gold/coal miners from the cowboys and added a lv1 unit. I have not yet updted the unit trees, but I should do it in the coming weeks.

Apart from all that, I'm starting to think more seriously about my sprites. I might try my hand at art sometime soon (more or less). My priority is still game balance though.

Thanks again for reading!

[dipseydoodle]

I'll work on some bots if you'd like. Do you mind if there retro looking?

[dipseydoodle]

- I have made the pirates chaotics, fits more the faction, and I was starting to have many neutral factions, so...

Actually... Some pirates(known as privateers) were hired by the government to hunt other pirates in exchange for not being killed. Such examples of these are from books such as Carry on Mr. Bowdich and possibly Pirates of The Caribbean or Treasure Island(But I've never really read Treasure Island so I maybe wrong).

[Dixie]

I'll work on some bots if you'd like. Do you mind if there retro looking?

No, I don't mind at all. In fact, I wanted them to feel more steampunk (or retro) than futuristic, so it suits me alright. I will post a unit tree with the sprites currently used. I know, they are from Steelhive and many sprites are used for for different units, but it's just temporary, to test the scripts. I'm sorry. If you want my opinion on any individual robot's look, feel free to ask.

On my side, I might try my hand at sprites, starting with franckensteining for the ninjas. And maybe pirates afterwards, to be continued.

- I have made the pirates chaotics, fits more the faction, and I was starting to have many neutral factions, so...

Actually... Some pirates(known as privateers) were hired by the government to hunt other pirates in exchange for not being killed. Such examples of these are from books such as Carry on Mr. Bowdich and possibly Pirates of The Caribbean or Treasure Island(But I've never really read Treasure Island so I maybe wrong).

Well, I know. They could even be lawful, if you consider pirates had their own code and stuff. It's more for the sake of diversity, I think. I wouldn't want to have three neutral factions out of five.

---

About the insects (which might be zombies or mutants or something else). The main idea for the faction is to be dirt-cheap, even more so than the orcs. I also plan on implenting a special kind of leader ship: 5 times the surrounding insects units levels in % leadership bonus. For exemple, if a unit is surrounded by 2 lv1 units, it would get a 10% (2x1x5%). If it was surrounded by 5 lv3s, it would get 75% (5x3x5%). Or any other combo.

Once again, feel free to report any bug, balance issue, comment or suggestions, your input is welcome.

First post will be updated later today, I must run along for now.

EDIT:
The first post was updated.

[Dixie]

Just a quick note to say I've uploaded the era to the add-ons server.