Assistance with Faction/Era Creation

[kantus]

Hi all,

So, I decided to try and create a Faction for myself, inspired by such excellent addons as inferno8's Era Of Magic. While I'm well aware that something of that scale takes an enormous amount of time, effort, and co-operation, I'm not aiming that high just yet!

I decided to try and create just one faction for now, and figured that the best way to start would be to copy EoM's file structure and simply change the details as necessary. This kind-of-sort-of worked: I managed to copy the complete file structure, importing the necessary images, utils folder, etc.

The current problem I'm having is with getting my faction to appear in the multiplater launcher. When I tried to load into Local Multiplayer, I got a message telling me that there was an error at line 20 of AoS_eras.cfg. This line is:

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{AOS_SIDE irondwarves}

I'm guessing this means that the game can't find the "irondwarves" faction. I created "irondwarves.cfg" in the factions folder, but it's still not working. Exactly what files, folders, etc, do I need to set up in order to get a faction and era to appear in the multiplayer launcher? I've tried looking at the examples given on the wiki, but I don't seem to be able to get much out of them.

Thanks all,
kantus

P.S.
In case it matters, I have a background in Java, so that you know what you're dealing with.

[Shiki]

Hi kantus

reffering to EoMa, there is a macro defined in _main.cfg

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#define EOMA_SIDE ERA FACTION
    {~add-ons/Era_of_Magic/factions/{FACTION}-{ERA}.cfg}
#enddef

where ERA and FACTION are arguments, which are when used for the filename.

What you actually want in the era definition is

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{~add-ons/Era_of_Magic/factions/irondwarves.cfg}

[zookeeper]

Regarding files: you never need any specific file/folder structure. You could always simply have a _main.cfg in your add-on directory and put all of your WML in it (you usually shouldn't, but you could). So the question is never "how do I need to organize my stuff", but "how should I organize my stuff so that it's easy to make sense of it later?".

In your case, AOS_SIDE is a macro and there's an error either because you're not defining that macro anywhere, or because the macro does something with the argument that requires it, for example, to match an existing directory or something.

I'd very much have recommended starting out by cloning a simple era, because all the advanced and complicated stuff in something like EoM is likely only making things harder to understand.

[kantus]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the assistance.

What you've suggested so far has worked perfectly - I've even gotten my era (Age of Smoke) to appear on the Multiplayer launch menu!
Unfortunately, when I try to load into a game with it, the game CTDs, because, seemingly, the Age of Smoke has no factions defined, despite having

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choices=irondwarves

inside AoS_eras.cfg. Still a big step up from not getting anything to load, though!

Oh, and thanks for the advice about copying a simpler era. It's been making things easier already, in the first little while I've tried it.

Thanks all.

[ForestDragon]

ummm, choice=<insert faction name> is not possible. here is an example of my era (it works, has factions, replace {TGA_DESC} with whatever you want, i used it since the description is pretty lenghty)

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[era]
    id=The_Golden_Age
    name= _ "The Golden Age"
    description=_"{TGA_DESC}
    
    Includes Humans,Sylvan,Outlaws,Dwarves,Sea Creatures,Drakes,Undead,Undead Pirates,Orcs."
    require_era=yes
    {RANDOM_SIDE}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/human.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/sylvan.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/outlaw.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/dwarf.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/drake.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/undead.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/orc.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/khalifate.cfg}
    {~add-ons/The_Golden_Age/factions/default/north.cfg}
[/era]

[Shiki]

Regarding files: you never need any specific file/folder structure. You could always simply have a _main.cfg in your add-on directory and put all of your WML in it (you usually shouldn't, but you could). So the question is never "how do I need to organize my stuff", but "how should I organize my stuff so that it's easy to make sense of it later?".

I totally agree with that, better try to understand what actually happens

About the Code above:
You can add this macros too:

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{QUICK_4MP_LEADERS} #gives leaders which have just 4 Movement Points the quick trait
{TURNS_OVER_ADVANTAGE} #decides a winner if the turns are over instead of just saying you lose.

They are defined in data/multiplayer/eras.cfg. Don't worry, there's no need to have to understand how the code works in detail.

[kantus]

Thanks to everyone who's given me advice so far. It's been great! As a matter of fact, I've actually managed to get the Iron Dwarves working in game! They're still very, well, incomplete, but they're now functional - and their master-slave mechanic is even working (hey, looks like my implementation actually sort of worked out!)

Would it be OK if I continued to ask questions in this thread as they pop up, or is there another thread that ought to go in?

Thanks.

[zookeeper]

Would it be OK if I continued to ask questions in this thread as they pop up, or is there another thread that ought to go in?

Usually best to keep them in one thread (this one).

[kantus]

So, I've been mucking about with leadership auras, since my faction relies on maintaining "leadership coverage" over a large number of your units, or else they'll fight significantly worse. How it works is this: there are two classes of units, Masters and Slaves. Slaves get -25% damage if there is no adjacent Master, but receive bonuses instead if there are Masters nearby. My idea was that high-level (think Level 3) Master units could get an unusually big "Aura", so that they can provide this boost to Slaves that are within two tiles of them, rather than just adjacent. Is this possible? I've seen that normal adjacency auras have something like:

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 adjacent=n,ne,se,s,sw,nw

to make them affect the 6 adjacent hexes. Would it be possible to get a two-tile aura by putting in nne, nnw, etc, into this?

Thanks.

[zookeeper]

to make them affect the 6 adjacent hexes. Would it be possible to get a two-tile aura by putting in nne, nnw, etc, into this?

No, you can't have an ability directly affect anyone who isn't adjacent. You'd need to do it in a more complicated manner, perhaps by giving the actual ability to the slaves, and having it only be active on locations adjacent to locations adjacent to a master.

[kantus]

By the way, everybody, I've taken a break from designing the Era (which is why there have been no recent posts). However, if I'm going to get back into it, it seems prudent to raise a question - is there a forum around here where one could get assistance, feedback, etc for balancing concerns, playtesting, etc?

Thanks

[ForestDragon]

well, this forum is for that too, btw

[kantus]

Alright, so, after a few days of development, I've come to the point where the initial rush of success at having implemented something for the first time has worn off, and now I've realised that I need to plan ahead if I want this project to actually go anywhere. With that in mind, and keeping in mind the fact that which tools a Faction does and does not have access to largely defines its character, I'd like to ask for design assistance. (If you guys think it would be best to start a separate thread for this, then please say so, and I'll move it). Without further ado:

The Age of Smoke is a small era, featuring two factions. My aim is to create two factions that are well-balanced against each other, and that are as distinct from each other as possible. Faction A, which has already been mentioned, is the:

Iron Dwarves
The Iron Dwarves are an expansionist slave society, divided into a rigid caste system ruled by Mages, who double as Priests of the state religion. In battle, they rely on strong melee capabilities, large numbers of low-quality slave soldiers (primarily Orcs and Ogres), and a hard core of Dwarvish elites. They are dependent on maintaining formation - Slaves suffer a -25% damage penalty if no Slavemasters are present, but receive a 25% damage bonus if they are*. All Dwarves are Slavemasters, and certain Slave units can promote into Slavemasters.

This system means the player has to choose between moving his Slaves forward at full speed and suffering a penalty, or restricting them to move alongside Dwarves**. The faction's other weakness is a lack of ranged damage - they have no true archers, and must rely on expensive Mage units for reliable firepower.

*I'm considering changing this to simply removing the penalty, rather than conferring a bonus. It depends on precisely how useful the Slave units turn out to be.
**They do, however, have a non-slave unit that can move quickly, to prevent them from being screwed in the village-nabbing phase).

Faction B is:

The Green Banners

The Green Banners are a rebel faction, defending their land and peoples from the predations of bigger Factions, particularly the Iron Dwarves. I've not done as much work on them as I would like, and thus they are less well-defined than the Iron Dwarves. However, I do know that they are meant to be defined by opposition: they should be as unlike the Iron Dwarves as possible. Where the IDs are formation-reliant, they should be independent, and have noteworthy skirmishers (this might also help them to snipe Slavemasters, which would make for interesting play between the two). Where the IDs are relatively straightforward and rely on brute strength, the GBs should have to rely on movement, terrain, and status effects to even the odds, and so on. My initial vision for the GBs involved Saurians + Humans, but this is not settled and could easily be changed.

So, that about sums it up. I am by no means wedded to any of the ideas set forth here, and am willing to change them if they prove unfun to play with, a balancing nightmare, or generally ill-conceived. I am not delusional enough to think that everything that comes out of my head is perfect, or even tolerable!

In any case, thanks for reading, and feedback is welcome.

[Sudipta]

I am not delusional enough to think that everything that comes out of my head is perfect, or even tolerable!

I literally burst out laughing reading that one. It's not everyday u hear someone say stuff like that. For the record, i think your idea about the Iron Dwarves faction is pretty good- particularly the master-slave concept but i imagine implementing it in battle and then balancing the two will be really tough. I lack the coding skills necessary to help you, but i could help playtest the faction after u complete it. But, u should come up with a better idea for the Green banners faction IMO. Humans + saurians does not sound good. Anyway, i wish you good luck for your work. You'll need it.