Wose Faction

[Dixie]

Don't underestimate the value of a: cheap units and b: upkeep-less units.

Also, you could possibly make him level in other kind of woses, not only the default one, adding flexibility to it. Maybe even give him an advancement path that is not normally recruitable.

About the "archer": I agree thorns could make sense, berries would be silly unless they were really acid or something (fire damage) and leaves look kinda weird... but then again, as you said so many times, they are not real trees, they are rather fey-like in nature, so why wouldn't they get iron-hard, razor-shard special leaves to throw at enemies? Or anything else that suits your fancy. However, with the introduction of a solid shaman line (they're necessarily gonna be harder than regular mages, if only for the wose's resistances), maybe you don't really need a pure natural archer. The shaman and poisonning shroom could possibly fill the ranged roles fine for the faction, I guess. Unless you decided to make the shrub more of a mixed fighter, which could help support both melee and range-wise, without tipping the balance too much one side or another, if needed.

[Exasperation]

I actually think this is a cool idea - Strangler figs are an awesome thing. HOwever as a lord? No. Maybe a sneaky, assassin-type unit. It would throw and attack in melee with strangling epiphytes/vines, and if it made the kill, they'd take root into a new level 0 version.

So, just for fun I made a quick edit of the Wose into a Strangler Wose - made it lighter in color (the pictures of strangler figs looked pretty pale, and it helps distinguish it from the basic Wose), gave it grasping tendrils instead of fists, made it hollow, and thinned the leaves a bit.

[thespaceinvader]

looks cool =)

It was something i was wondering about doing myself. I'll have to take that as a challenge

[Exasperation]

I look forward to seeing what a better artist than myself can do with the concept.

[Phyreprooph]

Dixie, I like the way you think. =] We'll scrap the idea of an archer as we already have a mage, poison, the shrub plus the Cactose. Also we still have a water unit to talk about which will probably end up having a ranged attack. Problem solved. Discussion still open for suggestions. =]

I guess there's no harm in having the sapling in there somewhere. If majority wants it in there then sure why not. =]

The strangler looks cool too. Good job. =] With a bit of tweaking that could turn out pretty cool. I look forward to seeing where it goes. =] Also feel free to use my scout sprite if you need. They have the same sort of tendril-like hands i guess and it's body is slightly different to the original wose as well so go for it. May as well make it useful for something. =]

Also hope you guys don't mind and this could get a little irritating but I'm gonna try and re-cap every now and then on where we're up to so that everyone's on the same page. And I might get it wrong along the way so just let me know so I'm also on the same page.

Re-Cap:
Definite Units:
-Wose line, including the sapling. Alternate levels can be arranged.
-Cactose line, still needing an extra level.
-Shrub line, not sure what for but it seems to fit. Sprite could also use a little tweaking.

Under Contruction:
-Poison line. Includes the Sicks, the Carnivorouses and the Mushrooms.
-Strangler.

Needs attention:
-Water units.
-Faster units.
-Mage units.

[Vladcara]

As a way of incorporating both non-Wose units and making a 'fast' unit without detracting from the 'slow and purposeful' feel of the Woses, why not have some kind of bird unit - maybe a falcon, there are already sprites for such in the Kalifa faction of extended era.

Just a thought. In any case, great ideas so far, and I look forward to seeing this faction finished!

[Phyreprooph]

While yes that does seem like a possible solution. I personally don't like the idea of adding animals and people to a wose specific faction. It doesn't feel like it fits. But I dunno.
If we're gonna have woses that shoot magic at people and swim across the water. Why can't we have one that moves a tad faster. That's my argument anywho. =]

[Dixie]

I still think this is a good idea for a fast unit:

crazy idea here, though I oddly like it. Why not give the woses a spore/sycamore (important its a type of 'seed' (techinally spore isnt a seed but shusss) that can 'fly') which have the ability 'Settle/Take Root'
Settle/Take Root - When this unit captures (or maby lands on) a town, it turns into a ........ (revelant unit based on what seed it was, e.g. spore goes to some fungal plant, sycamore goes to wose shrub/sapling.
Would give the wose team some early faster units that then 'become' part of their normal forces

Maybe you could scrap the "morphs into another unit when landing in a village part" if you wanted (although if it's jsut the code that scares you, I could help with that), but I think a moderately cheap, abolutely non-powerful, but fast and flying samara or a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achene]cypsela[/ur] kind of unit could fit. Or a Tumbleweed, if you prefer, could also do the job.

For the shrub, I don't know what you could use it for. Definitely not a Lv0, since the place will apparently be taken by the sapling, and you don,t want to overdo it.

For the mage, you should see what the Shaman has for attacks and stats. I'd think a decent melee impact, a ranged magical arcane or cold and a ranged slow could do the trick. I don't think you are gonna need fire: you will already have plenty of impact to fight undead. And that's if you don't give your shaman an arcane attack. I'm not too sure you will need the cold either: The cactose should already be a good weapon against most drakes, and if you had arcane to this, you're mostly done, I think.

For the strangler, I guess it could be an alternate Lv2 for the Wose. The original idea from TSI was to make it some kind of plague attack - which could work fine, but is kinda an aggressive special.

For the Carnivorous plant, I could really see it having drain on Lv1 (instead of regen or added to it?), and it could cap at Lv2 but have some nice specials such as Feeding, and that other one the increases melee damage by 1 which each kill (in the same fashion than feeding). I'm not sure if it should be a branch of the main wose or not.

I would personnally scrap the sick wose. As I saw it, the mushroom was gonna take it's place as the poisonner. Although you could possibly draw inspiration from it to create a swamp-wose with yet-undetermined attributes, save for swamp ambush. I'm not sure if it would really be needed if you add a water unit to that, though. Unless it has somewhat decent properties in water, but splits into either a better swamp unit (RIPLIB) or more of a water generalist (a Kelp or something with Submerge? Or a Mangrove?)

And, well, the mushroom would have poisonous spore as a ranged attack. Maybe with magical or something? Or maybe not. It could get good defense in Mushroomgroves, maybe mushroom ambush, and maybe be chaotic, or at least neutral/fearless.

Anyway, try to balance the faction so that the wose remains a central unit to it, and not a specialist like it is for the rebels. I don,t know if it implies making the other units less efficient in regard to their cost or what, but it would be sad to have a wose faction where the actual original wose is a sparingly seen specialist...

[Cybermouse]

First off I applaud you for trying to tackle such a huge project. I've been developing a campaign; quite a bit of work in the art department, even using other UMC art. As I'm a software developer I'd be happy to help out with WML. Just let me know what you need. I don't know a lot about eras and such but I'm confident that I can figure it out, as I've tweaked them before to make ad-hoc all faction eras (before I knew about the BEEM and Ageless eras). The main workload in era WML development, from what I understand, is the individual unit config files -- animating the sprites, making the stats for each unit, and balancing their attacks. Everything else code-wise is pretty simple.

I think this faction is awesome so far and can't wait to try it. I have always liked the wose line, and wished there were more of them.

About the sapling, I agree with the comments, and I'm glad to hear you've decided to keep it in. I use L0 units quite a bit. They're especially good for distracting the AI.

I like the sickly wose line. I think the sprites you've done for those are very good, but I'm no artist so take that for what it's worth. I would be disappointed if the sickly woses die off, so to speak XD

Also, I think you should just keep the cactose line with only a L2 at the top, and no L3. Many of the Wesnoth devs have posted in multiple places that an unbalanced unit tree is better than a balanced one, and I agree. I also really like your shrub unit, it's great as its own line to change things up.

Tivinu's idea about a spore / seed flier is great. I really think that could go somewhere. Like Tivinu said it would work well to have a L0 spore level into a fungus, and a L0 seed have the option of becoming a sapling or a shrub (although in that case the saplings and shrubs would need to be L1 units).

Lastly I had an idea (maybe this was mentioned before, I don't know but I read through most of this thread) about how to incorporate different types of woses. I think they should branch off (pun intended) from either the L1 wose or the L2 ancient wose, most likely the L1 because that's where most unit lines begin to branch off. Anyway, from there it should branch into ancient wose, wose shaman, and a few more representing the magic woses, such as cold for winter, fire for summer, etc.

[Golden_Soldier]

I was wondering about your winter wose on the first page
wouldnt it make more sense if he didnt have any leaves?

[Phyreprooph]

The "sick line" will probably stay but it will most likley be changed to a mushroom type unit as my sprites are pretty dodgey and don't fit well with the whole theme. Or something. =\

Still wondering what to do with the shrub and the spore/seed idea as it's a little blurry to me. If you want to help out with some coding there's always that spore idea to give a try. You may as well considering no one else has tried to tackle it quite just yet. but the shrub will most likley be a level 1 with it's own evolutions and in my little imagination i can picture it having a two unit branch off but stopping at like level 2.

Branching from the original wose is a very interesting and easily doable idea, what to put there that isn't going to be too abstract is the main issue.

thespaceinvader, if you ever happen to get round to perking up that shaman i'd really like to see the result cause that would be a great help for which i can use to fill the mage spot.

The strangler is apparently being worked on and i'd also like to see that finished aswell. An alternate for the wose seems to almost fit perfectly but it always has the potential to be an individual wherever it wants to go.

The carnivorous is also a good unit which can be used and with sprites already in place statistics and what not can be talked about. =)

The only problem that i can see so far is that the faction is lacking is fire resistance as while the cactose can fight of drakes, it's still gonna get raped by red mages and...drakes. A water unit still needs discussing but it's probably better to stay focused with what ever you're focused on right now cause that way we can get more work done.

I'm gonna try work on a few attacking animations done for the L2 cactose and then I'll try and put like a beta or something together that you guys can test out and give feedback on. It may take a while so don't expect much soon but i think it would be good to have something to play around with. I'll add in as many units as i can that we have already talked about and i'll try my best to balance out their stats and pricing and whatnot. Wish me luck and good luck to all those who are working hard. =P

[thespaceinvader]

I already am.

[Phyreprooph]

Awesome thanks heaps. =D

[Phyreprooph]

Alrightly then. I've made an attack and defend animation for the Cactose. It uses the same animation for both ranged and melee attacks just like the original Cactose. There's a bit of flickering in the shadow but that's only because the program i used can't do the transparency properly. Hope you all like it. =D Please comment.

Should be getting Photoshop soon.

[Leid]

I think that you should close the mouth of the cactose when he is attacking (or maybe when he is static).
And see the roots of a cactus:

They are not similar to the roots of the woses.