Hell faction

[Dixie]

Pictures does look good and they look different from each other aswell. Looking forward for this.

Most of them especially look borrowed from other add-ons

But hey, it's okay, I'm not blaming you, you wouldn't be the first to do this. Although giving credit is always good. Just thought I'd mention it.
Appart from that, most of the tated costum abilities ook doable. Darken is a classic, Restore genies is a simple heal ability with a filter for genies, Pack fury is certainly doable, although quite a bit more complicated if you don,t know what you're doing (I did something like this for Internet Meme Era's Triffid faction back in the days), Inaccuracy is realtively easy too. Allurement is alos doable, there are examples of similar abilities on the WML abilities wiki page, or, once again, in my Internet Meme Era. Note that it's a very, very powerful ability. Petrification is not too complicated to do, but it raises a few issues (look at Archaic Era's thread for some). Fear is surely doable, but looks a bit complicated as it is and would clutter unit code if it is done without Lua (IIRC). To simplify this, I would suggest you perhaps consider a negative leadership applied to ennemies? I did something like this some time ago, once again for IME.

Good luck with your project

[The_Other]

This seems like a simpler approach to Pack Fury, it's a variation of Leadership that only affects those types of unit. You might want to change the percentage to a higher or lower value - probably lower if this stacks with multiple adjacent units. Off the top of my head, I don't know if several leaders can boost a single unit's attacks at the same time, but if they can then this will work exactly how it's supposed to. If it doesn't work you could try changing the 'cumulative=no' to 'cumulative=yes' - the WML Reference does not say what this does with Leadership though, so it might be something completely different!
For simplicity I've assumed that these two units only are of the race 'hound'. Otherwise, change the filter to whatever works.

Hope this is useful!

Code: Select all

#define PACK_FURY
    [leadership]
        id=leadership
        value=25
        cumulative=no
        name= _ "pack fury"
        description= _ "Pack Fury:
This ability causes all adjacent Hell Hound and Cerberus units to cause 25% more damage."
        affect_self=no
        [affect_adjacent]
            adjacent=n,ne,se,s,sw,nw
            [filter]
               race=hound
            [/filter]
        [/affect_adjacent]
    [/leadership]
#enddef

[battlestar]

I think the highest leadership takes precedence... never seen one unit affected by multiple leadership, though not 100% sure.

When i tried cumulative=yes for this particular ability, it caused the leadership to loop itself. That was years ago, I don't know if this has changed.

[The_Other]

That's what I thought would happen, but I figured it would be worth a try to make sure!

[battlestar]

1.
It would be worth a try if alexanderthegre thinks so when he does the ability. I'll try it if he lets me do that one instead.


2.
As for crediting, this faction's art was done back in 2007, I mouse-drew each of them from scratch (learning from core imgs as I went) except for borrowing the core's wolf as a base for the cerberus and the hound. I have no idea to what add-ons they look similar to other than two hell-related factions. One I found out as an aftermath while the other was developed at the same time.

Up to this day, all of my sprites and abilities are my original idea and design either made from scratch or semi-frankenstine product from core images. Though I thought it's implied any user-made content implies credit to the core itself, a portion of my art do trace back to the core folder images, where all contributing artists deserve credit.

Though I admit that many of my art and ideas for abilities and otherwise either coincided with existing work or work that came later (especially that I dragged it out this long). I do take crediting to heart, and I only see Alexanderthegre, core art contributors as a group, and forum commenters deserve credit in this particular project.

3.
@ Dixie: Thanks for your comments on the abilities, they'll come in handy.

[alexanderthegre]

Yeah you can do that one. I'll start right now on the others, though.


Off-topic: The 'darkens' ability is so common that maybe it should be mainlined? I don't mean puting it on any default unit, but maybe just putting a macro for it in abilities.cfg?

[battlestar]

Yeah that's a good idea. Actually, can all the abilities be in put in the abilities.cfg? There's reusability for some of the other ones, at least for my future plans.

Oh and for the healing ability in the genie, my thought for limiting it to genies alone was so that they would be associated with their own more tightly (and be isolated from other units) since they look nothing like other demons. And this limited healing would be too useless to warrant a drop in the genie's combat abilities. Your thoughts?

Wait... there's a scythe already in the core?

[alexanderthegre]

Yeah that's a good idea. Actually, can all the abilities be in put in the abilities.cfg? There's reusability for some of the other ones, at least for my future plans.

Ah... I'm not sure what you mean. I was talking about mainline. But anyway, I'm already putting all of the abilities in an abilities.cfg file.
On a related note, we should probably coordinate the development a little more; probably a couple of PMs are due on this one.

Oh and for the healing ability in the genie, my thought for limiting it to genies alone was so that they would be associated with their own more tightly (and be isolated from other units) since they look nothing like other demons. And this limited healing would be too useless to warrant a drop in the genie's combat abilities. Your thoughts?

I think that, (ignoring that the unit in question is lvl 4 and will never be used,) given that genies are the 'mages' of the faction, you are only really supposed to recruit one or two of them. Thus, unless their power and cost are drastically reduced, they won't be swarmed very much.

Wait... there's a scythe already in the core?

Yeah, it's amazing what you'll find in the data/core/ dir that isn't actually used.

[battlestar]

Ah ok, got what you mean with the abilities.cfg now. I've made modifications on the movetype files, tomorrow I'll start going through each unit and see if there's anything that I would change. I can't think of anything else to update now, and will pm you with further developments. Feel free to pm me too with anything.

So are we making the Genie heal +4 then? How about heal +2 or 3?

Yeah, I made that scythe, for this faction XD I just realized that it was in the core. Thought it was just the few items I made, but they probably told me.

[alexanderthegre]

Yeah, heals +4 sounds nice to me right now... No additional coding necessary.

Anyway, shoot me a .tar when you're finished and I'll sync my changes with it.

[alexanderthegre]

I was looking at terror (I've started mostly finished coding it) and noticed 3 problems with it:
1. It's way OP
2. It's hard to code
3. It doesn't really fit with the flavor of the faction

I would suggest changing it to -1 damage, permanantly, per hit? This would be easier to implement, drastically less overpowered, and fits with the rest of the faction.

You're in charge here, so it's your call in the end. That's just my opinion.

[battlestar]

OK for -1 damage on hit to a maximum of -1 (-1 per hit sounds pretty overpowered as well), but it can't stay permanent (I know it's hard to implement, you can have me do that part). It would cause trouble when used in the campaign I planned for it.

After some thoughts, I recommend the genie line own regeneration ability instead of being able to heal other demons. If survivability is an issue to the demons, we'll counter-balance by increasing their hp and their attack. The question is whether they should get regen +2, 4, 6, 8 or +1, 2, 3, 4 for magical servant, jinn, ifrit, and inferno respectively.

I'll still need to double check the codes and in-game, and make a new unit to the Fiend line for concern of resistance changes when going from Hell Fiend to Abyss Lord, and name it Pit Lord (lvl3 with leadership +2)

Question: Can traits be defined for individual unit types instead of whole race?

P.S. If the main.cfg could be edited to include defaults in the era definition, could you add that in? Thanks!

[alexanderthegre]

OK for -1 damage on hit to a maximum of -1 (-1 per hit sounds pretty overpowered as well), but it can't stay permanent (I know it's hard to implement, you can have me do that part). It would cause trouble when used in the campaign I planned for it.

After some thoughts, I recommend the genie line own regeneration ability instead of being able to heal other demons. If survivability is an issue to the demons, we'll counter-balance by increasing their hp and their attack. The question is whether they should get regen +2, 4, 6, 8 or +1, 2, 3, 4 for magical servant, jinn, ifrit, and inferno respectively.

I'll still need to double check the codes and in-game, and make a new unit to the Fiend line for concern of resistance changes when going from Hell Fiend to Abyss Lord, and name it Pit Lord (lvl3 with leadership +2)

Question: Can traits be defined for individual unit types instead of whole race?

P.S. If the main.cfg could be edited to include defaults in the era definition, could you add that in? Thanks!

Yeah, regeneration sounds right for them.
Traits can be defined for individual units. See the boats and most undead for examples of this.

Here's the current add-on.

[battlestar]

Last post:
I'm done with initial modifications from your first attachment. Going to triple check things and incorporate additions from your second attachment in the next day or two.

Now:
I've made adjustments all over the board, too much to name out one by one. When I double checked everything seems in order. The new abilities are now incorporated, with minor modifications to limit terror to the level only plus now it -1 to melee attacks with 10% chance only upon each hit. Genie restoration is now hidden but not deleted. I have not yet checked in-game after the merging and incorporation of abilities.

P.S.
Checking the Demon race in the help menu causes the game to freeze, not sure why.
P.S.2
I haven't incorporated the default era in yet, so it can't yet be played against other factions, will do it in the future.


Please let us know if any bugs are found, and if there are any suggestions to stat changes (Please go by current upload, stats in page 1 is now obsolete).

Thank you!

[alexanderthegre]

Yeah, I'm noticing the demon-race-in-help-causes-crash issue too.

Anyway, to add the default factions to the era (plus random and quick 4mp leaders) add the following in between the [/multiplayer_side] and the [/era].

Code: Select all

	{multiplayer/factions/loyalists-default.cfg}
	{multiplayer/factions/rebels-default.cfg}
	{multiplayer/factions/northerners-default.cfg}
	{multiplayer/factions/undead-default.cfg}
	{multiplayer/factions/knalgans-default.cfg}
	{multiplayer/factions/drakes-default.cfg}
	{RANDOM_SIDE}
	{QUICK_4MP_LEADERS}