The Golden Age

[ForestDragon]

Hey,
As you didn't have time to finish our Match, i replayed the entire scenario while playing both sides. I went Undead and elves. The elvish side definitely had it easier than the undead, although those weren't fairing that Bad as well. I guess that's due to the lack of healing they have. I don't know how, but maybe you could Code something to counter this advantage. Or you could place more villages. That would reduce the importance of healers AND reduce the Problem that at some point you've got too many high level units so you get negative income. In return you could reduce the starting gold a bit to Balance this out.

ok, i guess a bonus pair of villages (1 on each side) will do (btw, more spread villages means less crowded fighting around them ) btw, i fixed campfires not working for side 2

The Ending was impressive! :O i've rarely Seen such Visuals in wesnoth. Definitely on the same lvl as IftU-Bossfights. Really enjoyed it!

thanks yeah, IftU bossfights were the thing that inspired me to make this

Overall I have to say that the waves were rather easy if you can avoid fallen faeries ganging up on you (by blocking the trees).
The end on the other side was really hard and although I had two really good factions i was reduced to only my leader on one side.
So i'd suggest to make the normal Wave a tad harder and the bossfights a bit easier

ok, will work on it

EDIT:btw, i fixed the units not becoming ghosts on death, now this balances Sylvan/Undead out a more, since now the Undead have a large advantage of being immune to this

[Xargon]

I want to write a longer comment at some point, but don't have time right now. So I'll restrict to something important I noticed now: Having a Will-o-wisp will corrupt any further save files, making you unable to load them. I found this old topic about the cause: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37162
Also, I really like this era!

[ForestDragon]

I want to write a longer comment at some point, but don't have time right now. So I'll restrict to something important I noticed now: Having a Will-o-wisp will corrupt any further save files, making you unable to load them. I found this old topic about the cause: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37162
Also, I really like this era!

aha! now i get it why i couldn't reload on my Sylvan/Undead match, i'll change the ID to Will_o_Wisp istead of Will-o-Wisp, thanks for feedback any further feedback is welcome too. i am currently making a big update (somewhat done, but can't have enough ) and i'll include this bugfix

[Xargon]

I will write multiple (semi)short comments, related to stuff I tried out right now, else I will forget about it or postpone it forever
Hm... after doing some testing, I am not sure anymore which of the following issues are caused by Wesnoth displaying the wrong unit information (when there is more than one unit with the same name in the database). For example, for the Orcish leader, it shows me the wrong unit information panel, with no advancement option - but it can advance ingame. Do you know a way to avoid this, except having no other era installed (I am not even sure if this would solve the problem completely)? Some of the following issues are according to the unit information panels of the recruitment options, so they might be wrong as well - though I tried to check most of them ingame. I will hold off compiling a more complete list until I know how to make sure the information is actually correct...

- There are also some units without lower level units advancing to them
- Red Mage can only advance to Silver Mage, not Arch Mage. Is this intended?
- Elvish Shielder / Line Holder has 85% physical resistance, which is probably not intended. If it is, it's way too much...
- Black Knight and Bone Captain have double terror
- Outlaws seem to have no higher level (4+) units, which is a bit sad when comparing with other factions. Lack of sprites again? The same seems to be true to some degree for orcs and drakes.
- Deathblade as leader cannot advance
- When recruiting a Ghost, it seems to give a different version (the standard one?) than recruiting a spook and leveling it up
- Faceless Knight has strength of darkness written three times (once as ability, twice as ability upgrade)
- Skeleton Recruit -> Skeleton seems to give a different skeleton version (the standard one?)
- Thundergobo/Vundergobo have no sprites?

After realizing that there are some problems with the unit information, I noticed strange behavior there: For some units, neither of the versions it displays matches the ingame unit. For example, I see two Ghost versions, one of which can advance only to Wraith, the other can advance to Wraith, Shadow, Faceless Knight (probably the intended version in TGA). But when recruiting a ghost ingame and leveling it up, it can advance to Wraith and Shadow. Not sure what went wrong there...

[ForestDragon]

After realizing that there are some problems with the unit information, I noticed strange behavior there: For some units, neither of the versions it displays matches the ingame unit. For example, I see two Ghost versions, one of which can advance only to Wraith, the other can advance to Wraith, Shadow, Faceless Knight (probably the intended version in TGA). But when recruiting a ghost ingame and leveling it up, it can advance to Wraith and Shadow. Not sure what went wrong there...

- There are also some units without lower level units advancing to them

well, i put a variety of units in my era, and sometimes there isn't a lower level for them in the first place (most relevant to monsters, but it can also be the case for other races too)

- Red Mage can only advance to Silver Mage, not Arch Mage. Is this intended?
- Elvish Shielder / Line Holder has 85% physical resistance, which is probably not intended. If it is, it's way too much...

i already fixed these bugs, but didn't yet release the version with them, btw, elvish shielder/line holder is supposed to have 15% resistance (which he now does in the unreleased version)

- Black Knight and Bone Captain have double terror
- Faceless Knight has strength of darkness written three times (once as ability, twice as ability upgrade)

these abilities are actually the AMLA ones (they upgrade their abilities by AMLA)

- Deathblade as leader cannot advance
- When recruiting a Ghost, it seems to give a different version (the standard one?) than recruiting a spook and leveling it up
- Skeleton Recruit -> Skeleton seems to give a different skeleton version (the standard one?)

i think i fixed these bugs in the unreleased version, but i guess i could take another look

- Outlaws seem to have no higher level (4+) units, which is a bit sad when comparing with other factions. Lack of sprites again? The same seems to be true to some degree for orcs and drakes.

i'll dig into LotI(Legend of the Invincibles)'s files again, there are plenty lvl4s, i just didn't have time to copy them

- Thundergobo/Vundergobo have no sprites?

well, they just use a goblin spearman+thunderstick franken sprite from Swamplings

After realizing that there are some problems with the unit information, I noticed strange behavior there: For some units, neither of the versions it displays matches the ingame unit. For example, I see two Ghost versions, one of which can advance only to Wraith, the other can advance to Wraith, Shadow, Faceless Knight (probably the intended version in TGA). But when recruiting a ghost ingame and leveling it up, it can advance to Wraith and Shadow. Not sure what went wrong there...

i think it was caused by the fact that i forgot to add the 'correct' version to the TGA recruit list, i think i already fixed it in the unreleased version

thanks for your feedback, if you encounter any more issues, don't forget to report them to me

[Xargon]

Haha, I see you already fixed most of the issues in the unreleased version. Maybe I will wait for that version before trying to find more small things. Did you check for the same things in the Heroes/Legend version? I tried out the Legend version at some point to see if there are more units with no way to advance to, and saw many more examples of recruitable units where the unit description showed something strange (no way to advance to or from the unit in several cases). I didn't check these things ingame, though.

One other things I wanted to comment on is the balance between the Elvish Ascetic/Mystic line versus the Sorceress line. The former seems to be better in almost all regards from lvl2 onwards (lvl2 might still be somewhat debatable, but the difference becomes bigger at lvl3 and I believe lvl4 is just better in all regards). There is also the cross-advancement from Sylph (lvl4) to Avatar (also lvl4). I would probably suggest to weaken the Ascetic line's attacks somewhat to distinguish the unit line from the Sorceress line (it has healing capabilities, after all!), and possibly remove the Sylph-Avatar advancement. Alternatively, one could remove the Ascetic line's slow attacks.

edit: The Thundergobo/Vundergobo sprites are not displayed at all in the unit information, that's why I asked.

[ForestDragon]

Haha, I see you already fixed most of the issues in the unreleased version. Maybe I will wait for that version before trying to find more small things. Did you check for the same things in the Heroes/Legend version? I tried out the Legend version at some point to see if there are more units with no way to advance to, and saw many more examples of recruitable units where the unit description showed something strange (no way to advance to or from the unit in several cases). I didn't check these things ingame, though.

i think it's caused by the fact that i mostly update the default TGA, and forget to do the same for the Hero/Legend versions, i think i might need to update then at some point

One other things I wanted to comment on is the balance between the Elvish Ascetic/Mystic line versus the Sorceress line. The former seems to be better in almost all regards from lvl2 onwards (lvl2 might still be somewhat debatable, but the difference becomes bigger at lvl3 and I believe lvl4 is just better in all regards). There is also the cross-advancement from Sylph (lvl4) to Avatar (also lvl4). I would probably suggest to weaken the Ascetic line's attacks somewhat to distinguish the unit line from the Sorceress line (it has healing capabilities, after all!), and possibly remove the Sylph-Avatar advancement. Alternatively, one could remove the Ascetic line's slow attacks.

about the healer line: i don't really find them TOO unbalanced (since this line only has lvl2 and lvl3, while the classic sorceress line now stretches all the way to lvl5, making a difference in the long term), but i did some nerfs, first one (not sure if it's in the released, or unreleased version) is the fact that i nerfed her arcane resistance (lvl2: 40% >10%, lvl3: 60% > 20%) and in the unreleased version, while looking in the line's code after your comment, i nerfed the lvl3's staff damage from 10-2 to 6-2 (lvl3 enchantress has 6-2 melee too), btw, Elvish Avatar's level in the unreleased version is now 5, and no, i won't remove her.

edit: The Thundergobo/Vundergobo sprites are not displayed at all in the unit information, that's why I asked.

well, in the unreleased version everything seems to be working, so i can't be too sure.

[Xargon]

about the healer line: i don't really find them TOO unbalanced (since this line only has lvl2 and lvl3, while the classic sorceress line now stretches all the way to lvl5, making a difference in the long term), but i did some nerfs, first one (not sure if it's in the released, or unreleased version) is the fact that i nerfed her arcane resistance (lvl2: 40% >10%, lvl3: 60% > 20%) and in the unreleased version, while looking in the line's code after your comment, i nerfed the lvl3's staff damage from 10-2 to 6-2 (lvl3 enchantress has 6-2 melee too), btw, Elvish Avatar's level in the unreleased version is now 5, and no, i won't remove her.

I believe you misunderstood some things I wanted to say. First of all: the Ascetic/Mystic always continued to lvl4, the Elvish Avatar, right? Did you remove that at some point, or why do you say that it has only lvl2 and lvl3? It's true that the Sorceress has a lvl5 unit, but I would not count that as a huge advantage when considering balancing, since it will hardly ever matter in a normal game. I did not want to suggest removing the unit, just possibly the advancement option Sylph-Avatar, since I found it weird to stay on lvl4. But if the Avatar is lvl5 now, that is already taken care of... I mainly found it strange that there were different units of the same level where one is simply a stronger version of the other (Sylph<Avatar, Enchantress<Mystic), and thought one could give them some different characteristics.[/quote]

[ForestDragon]

I believe you misunderstood some things I wanted to say. First of all: the Ascetic/Mystic always continued to lvl4, the Elvish Avatar, right? Did you remove that at some point, or why do you say that it has only lvl2 and lvl3? It's true that the Sorceress has a lvl5 unit, but I would not count that as a huge advantage when considering balancing, since it will hardly ever matter in a normal game. I did not want to suggest removing the unit, just possibly the advancement option Sylph-Avatar, since I found it weird to stay on lvl4. But if the Avatar is lvl5 now, that is already taken care of... I mainly found it strange that there were different units of the same level where one is simply a stronger version of the other (Sylph<Avatar, Enchantress<Mystic), and thought one could give them some different characteristics.

[/quote]
i think i might need to change the TGA version of Ascentic/Mystic's sprites to make sure that they are actually a different unit branch, and not just Ascetic/Mystic, but with different stats, btw, here are new images (i added a hood to give them a more priest-ish look):

zealot.png (3.06 KiB) Viewed 4514 times

high-priest.png (2.6 KiB) Viewed 4514 times

EDIT: tweaked lvl3's hood's color a bit:

high-priest.png (2.62 KiB) Viewed 4513 times

[Paulomat4]

the hoods actually look quite good! nice work

[ForestDragon]

the hoods actually look quite good! nice work

thanks

[ForestDragon]

Well, many of you have been waiting for it, for somewhere around a month (or even more. I didn't really keep track of the time that passed since then.) well, here is a looooooooong changelog of the 1.4.0 version (i updated my version system) which i decided to put in spoiler just to save some space on the screen:

No big spoilers here:

changes to te Dark Cultist line (added lvl1 and lvl3, and the line can now get a fearless trait to make sure that it's already low damage won't go down to entirely useless at day) added Dwarvish Gryphon Scout (opt. lvl2 from Gryphon Rider with a net ranged attack), new melee/ranged attack icons for the Carapacian Forager line, tweaked Arch Necromancer sprite, added Initiate Lich (opt. lvl2 from Dark Adept, advances into Lich), renamed units from the Battle Mage line, added a halo for melee whirlwind attacks (like slitherblade's), added Elvish Bloodmaiden (opt. lvl2 from female elvish hunter. she is a swordswoman with skirmisher, whirlwind and lesser marksman, but no bolas), added Dwarvish Earth Adept line (they have a weak/fast impact magical attack, and a strong/slow arcane range magical attack), added Archer Knight (lvl3 Horse Archer, he has his own description), added a swoosh halo for melee attacks for many animationless units (animation charity ), added Plunderer (opt. lvl2 from Thug), new sprite for Dwarvish Headhunter, added Archaic Wose (lvl4 wose), renamed dwarvish ancient berserker to dwarvish ormserker, added a new description for Dwarvish Alchemist and Dark Cult Enforcer, added Wyvern, expanded Tyrserker's AMLA, added Dune Worm, added Weasadillo, added Royal Hound, expanded Tyrserker's AMLA, added Dwarvish Hammerdin, made athvari a separate race, added Lost Athvari, added Unforgotten Athvari, added a description for the Ice Golem line, added Rakib (opt. lvl3 from Faris), tweaked animations from Dwarvish Bear Rider line, tweaks to Waghad-al-lahab (new ranged weapon, added flaming combustion ability, death anim, bob anim), added Bear, added a trample attack to Lunatic Knight, new sprite for Troll Boulderlobber, added Black Dragon, and it's skeletal variant, death/recruited animation for Saray, added najae-snake, added Scarab, added Celestial Mage (lvl4 from Mage of Light), tweaked Elvish Hunter line (lvl1 cost is now 19, made hill/mountain defense normal, but descreased their movement cost there), added a 'teleport strike' weapon to Golden Mage, added Quismat, added Soul Shooter (lvl4 from Banebow), added Ancient Ogre (lvl4 ogre), added Dwarvish Rapidfire (opt. lvl3 from Dwarvish Smuggler, made 'incinerates' special not work on some units and be curable by standing in water),added Wyvern Rider, some tweaks to Saray, added Greatsword (opt. lvl3 from Swordsman, who has resistances of the Heavy Infantryman line), added a new attack icon for bear rider line's ram attack, added Vasi, added Storm Tower, added Grand Storm Tower, recolored Living Nightmare's red cloth to TC, added Spikes, added Healing Tent, tweaks to Corrupted Forest ,added some color variations for Vizier, added a portrait for Sea Orc line, added Ustura, added Ascended Ustura, added Dwarvish Roamer, added Uyanmak line, added Dwarvish Monarch (magic-oriented opt. lvl4 from Dwarvish Lord), a new sprite for Sea Orc, as well as franken from it as a new orcish marine sprite, once again some balancing tweaks to the units, this time i won't go into details to shorten the lenght of the changelog (you can look at the TGA forum thread), added Magical Scimitar, added Elvish Gryphon Knight, added a new sprite for Dwarvish Warden, added Catapult line, faeries now can get the 'dextrous' trait, new portrait for Orcish Witchdoctor branch, added a new sprite for Elvish Spearman (and his guard advancements) and removed the javelin attack from him, added TC to the Outcast line, fixed some outlaw lvl2s not appearing in the leader selection (like lvl2 arsonist), renamed the Outcast line's lvl2 and lvl3, added a new 'magical' race for units like Ice Golem and Fire Guardian, added a new attack icon for Ice Golem's melee (yeti fist looked awkwardly out of place there), added Dwarvish Phalanx (opt. lvl3 from Dwarvish Stalwart), the 'cold flash' attack has a different icon now, added Merman Praetorian Guard, added Merman Corsair line, added Merman King line, fixed 'Will-o-Wisp' making games non-reloadable (caused by ID issue),added a portrait for the Flesh Golem, added Young Saurian (lvl0), added Armored Crossbowman (opt. lvl2 from Bowman), added Rock Golem line,added Gryphon Knight (opt. lvl2 from Gryphon Rider), added Jouster (lvl1 Lancer), added Rogue Leader, new sprites for the Fire Guardian line's lvl2 and lvl3, added Light Bringer (lvl.4 from Paladin, and opt. lvl4 from Mage of Light), made the Fire Guardian line unslowable, new sprites for the Elvish Zealot/High Priest, added Horse Lord (lvl4 Grand Knight), added Tidal Wave line, fixed the Thug line not being able to advance to it's lvl4, added Exterminator (lvl4 Assassin), added Mauler (opt. lvl4 from Highwayman), added Librarian (NPC), added Wanderer, renamed Athvari Wanderer into Athvari Spirit, added Horse Cart (NPC), added a new portrait for Elvish Noble, added Wolf Archer (opt. lvl3 from Goblin Knight), added Dragon Rider (lvl5 Grand Knight), added Woodland Enchantress (lvl4 unit without advancefroms for now), added Gryphon Sky Captain (lvl4 Gryphon Lord), added Immemorial Wose (lvl5 wose), added Orcish Pikeman, added Phoenix, added Undead Mage, added Steel Crusher (opt. lvl4 from Iron Mauler), added a movement animation which is used when moving past enemies and an idle animation for Elvish Vanquisher, added North Ranger, added Coast Fisherman, added some animations for Fire Wisp, added Giant Ant, added White Whelp and White Troll, added Druid

also, i decided to put the corrupted forest map changes separately:

feel free to look at it, but i warn you, it will ruin most of the surprise:

a few wave tweaks, added some forested hills/a few mountains to make dwarves not as useless in this map, and added 2 villages, fixed campfires not working for side 2, as well as units not turning into ghosts on death, added a new portrait for boss stage 2, added thunder sounds before lightnings strike, made the AI prefer to target wounded units (below 50% hp), added halos for campfires, replaced the boss's 'thunderstorm' spell with 'shockwave', ghost portals are now half as likely to spawn lvl3s than before, replaced lvl3 woses with new lvl4 Archaic ones in the boss wave, changed the boss's name, the 'summon_ghosts' spell can no longer summon lvl3s on normal, and has low chances to do that on hard, campfire options now are only shown to the side which is using them, added a best friend for the main antagonist (she also has a special item, which you can obtain after defeating her), the 'campfire' labels are now automatically translated, and have a yellow-orange-ish color , added orcish huts in the densely forested parts of the map to make them more interesting (you can gamble there),tweaked some enemy attack lines, and added a few new ones, made the 'Help' message during the start of the game a bit fancier, as well as made it viewable again via a rightclick option on a leader, minor decorative tweak to the ending, and added credits, made the boss slowly lose max hp while dying, reworked dialogue at the start of boss stage 2

also, here are the screenshots featuring new units:

once again, just to shorten the screen size:

[Durin_the_great]

Hey

As always, about the dwarves. Nice to see improvements, such as many updated animations and stuff. Won't go about balancing, I don't have much qualification in there. A few questions:
Is lv2 gryphon master supposed to have an advancement option to lv2 gryphon knight?
Where is the arcanister gone?
Will you try to fix the unwesnothian style of dwarvish monarch?
Is loremaster and all his line supposed to have magical melee?

So much for now.

Yours

Durin

[Angelonius]

You removed Flailbearer-chan?

[ForestDragon]

Is lv2 gryphon master supposed to have an advancement option to lv2 gryphon knight?

whoops, i think it was caused by the fact hat the knight used to be lvl3, and i changed him to lvl2

Where is the arcanister gone?

i don't know, might take a look at that

Will you try to fix the unwesnothian style of dwarvish monarch?
Is loremaster and all his line supposed to have magical melee?

first question:no, i am not that good at pixel-art
second question:yes