Imperial Multiplayer Era - version 0.17 released

[UnwiseOwl]

Good point, that.
I've been playing a few games with them, and I think they need a bit of work aside from the balancing, all those melee units all just feel more or less the same...I'm not quite sure how to go about achieving it, but they need more variety. They also need a scout type unit, I'm thinking that maybe making the Essedarius line recruitable or something might be a good start. Any ideas yourself?

[Temuchin Khan]

Good point, that.
I've been playing a few games with them, and I think they need a bit of work aside from the balancing, all those melee units all just feel more or less the same...I'm not quite sure how to go about achieving it, but they need more variety. They also need a scout type unit, I'm thinking that maybe making the Essedarius line recruitable or something might be a good start. Any ideas yourself?

They definitely need a scout. Maybe I can still find some of my original notes about the faction.

Also, my Orcei Gladiatores certainly need balancing. When I first made them (except the art - Turin did that), I was mainly concerned with getting them out there.

As for whether they need more variety, that may be true. I'll think it over.

[UnwiseOwl]

It's your faction But hey, here's some thoughts anyway.
The minuti lines are fine, but I find the magni boring, of the 8(!) evolved forms, none have ranged, they're all just too similar.
The pugnator is your troll, high damage, high HP bruiser, and his evolutions give a couple of nice options, between them you get high impact and pierce damage. He's fine.
The Gallus is the grunt, but his evolutions are also significantly divergent to be interesting (I love spamming murmillos, myself).
I think the Samnis is where some work needs to be done, give them all ranged to distinguish them from the gallus lines, just throwing dagger or something, maybe? The more heavy defensive Hoplomachus is fine as he is, and secutor would feel more different from teh gallus if he just had a ranged attack, it doesn't need to be special. The Thraex is the wild orc, I think it would be cool if he had poisoned daggers, maybe. I think such changes wouldn't require any changes to the art but would make the orcei divergent enough to be more interesting.

[Temuchin Khan]

It's your faction But hey, here's some thoughts anyway.
The minuti lines are fine, but I find the magni boring, of the 8(!) evolved forms, none have ranged, they're all just too similar.
The pugnator is your troll, high damage, high HP bruiser, and his evolutions give a couple of nice options, between them you get high impact and pierce damage. He's fine.
The Gallus is the grunt, but his evolutions are also significantly divergent to be interesting (I love spamming murmillos, myself).

Good. I'm glad those lines seem to be O.K. as they are!

{cut}

They still need a better scout, so let's give them a lion cub. Lion's were often used in beast fights in the Roman Arena, after all!

Leo Minor (lvl 0) -> Leo (lvl 1) -> Leo Maior -> Leo Magnus (lvl 3) -- fast movement; bite blade melee

EDIT: The lion could gain ambush when it reaches level 1.
EDIT 2: I reconsidered some of what I said after reading Drakefriend's comments.

[Drakefriend]

No. The Thraex and Secutor were close-quarter fighters, and the Threax did not poison. However, the Thraex should have a special that wold allow him to ignore resistences, as the falx was used to attack the bare back of the opposing Murmillo. And of course, the Retiarius should be elusive, as the point of Secutor vs. Retiarius actually was the armoured-but-tiring Secutor against the agile-but-vulnerable Retiarius. And of course, Retiarius should be the same level as Secutor as they were balanced to fight each other in a duel.
Remember, Gladiator types were balanced for exciting fights against specific other types, and these fightes were mostly close-quarter.
And the thing that made the Hoplomachus an interesting enemy of the Murmillo was his lance, thus having longer reach than his oppugnent's short sword, but having only a small round shíeld, while the Murmillo used a large triangular one. So the Samnis upgrades are all wrong.
For reasons of distuingishment, remember that a primary purpose of the ahields were for bashing the other one, so maybe add a slowing-crush attack to the samnites?

[Temuchin Khan]

No. The Thraex and Secutor were close-quarter fighters, and the Threax did not poison.

Very true. I only agreed to the alternative because I couldn't think of any other way to add diversity to those lines at the time.

However, the Thraex should have a special that wold allow him to ignore resistences, as the falx was used to attack the bare back of the opposing Murmillo.

Thank you! A suggestion based on how the gladiators actually fought! Let's do this instead of adding ranged attacks.

Alternatively, instead of having the Thraex's attack ignore resistances, we could give the Thraex backstab.

And of course, the Retiarius should be elusive, as the point of Secutor vs. Retiarius actually was the armoured-but-tiring Secutor against the agile-but-vulnerable Retiarius.

Again, I agree. That would be a good historically-based change.

And of course, Retiarius should be the same level as Secutor as they were balanced to fight each other in a duel.

I'll have to think about how to accomplish that without upsetting the faction balance.

Remember, Gladiator types were balanced for exciting fights against specific other types, and these fightes were mostly close-quarter.

Exactly. that's why I had so much melee in the first place.

And the thing that made the Hoplomachus an interesting enemy of the Murmillo was his lance, thus having longer reach than his oppugnent's short sword, but having only a small round shíeld, while the Murmillo used a large triangular one.

Then we could differentiate them by giving the Hoplomachus a pierce melee attack instead of a blade melee attack.

For reasons of distuingishment, remember that a primary purpose of the shields were for bashing the other one, so maybe add a slowing-crush attack to the samnites?

That also sounds like a good idea.

EDIT: Added comment above about Thraex and backstab.

[UnwiseOwl]

Historically speaking, I think you have a number of very good points there. But at some point, historical accuracy has to give way to gameplay (after all, these guys are ORCS already...), and a faction without ranged attacks at all for most of their units is at a sore, sore disadvantage. I agree that we don't want to change the gladiator flavour of the Orcei, but at the same time we have to seek to make them playable in a greater range of situations. I think something like throwing daggers, which would at least give them some retaliation to ranged attacks without become their focus (because they do better damage with their swords), is needed. It doesn't have to be that, but the fact remains that these guys have no range, and when you have 7 level 2 units without a ranged attack, you just get a bland army, no matter what abilities you give them. Scoutwise, maybe the river lizard could act as an all-purpose scout, its movement is good on land at the moment.

In other news, in the more recent versions somebody has been screwing with the movement types, of units all over the place (and it's not me). I didn't notice this before but the defence ratings are all over the place, for example, for some reason the Legion has 50% in the forest. What is going on?

[Temuchin Khan]

Historically speaking, I think you have a number of very good points there. But at some point, historical accuracy has to give way to gameplay (after all, these guys are ORCS already...)...,

This is also a good point. I like Drakefriend's historcially-based suggestions, though, and would like to incorporate them before considering other possibilities. In particular, I'd like to give the Thraex backstab -- which is similar to what Drakefriend wanted, but much easier to implement.

...and a faction without ranged attacks at all for most of their units is at a sore, sore disadvantage. I agree that we don't want to change the gladiator flavour of the Orcei, but at the same time we have to seek to make them playable in a greater range of situations. I think something like throwing daggers, which would at least give them some retaliation to ranged attacks without become their focus (because they do better damage with their swords), is needed. It doesn't have to be that, but the fact remains that these guys have no range, and when you have 7 level 2 units without a ranged attack, you just get a bland army, no matter what abilities you give them. Scoutwise, maybe the river lizard could act as an all-purpose scout, its movement is good on land at the moment.

True, the River Lizard can double as a scout. Also, if the Orcei Gladiatores need more ranged, maybe we could give the goblin riding the River Lizard a ranged attack. They already have an archer, so maybe the Khampsa-riding goblin could have throwing daggers.

In other news, in the more recent versions somebody has been screwing with the movement types, of units all over the place (and it's not me). I didn't notice this before but the defence ratings are all over the place, for example, for some reason the Legion has 50% in the forest. What is going on?

I don't know who did that. Someone in the past did say he wanted to do some balancing changes, but I can't remember who. The Lavinian Legionnaire, as we originally designed it, should be very weak in the forest - only 30% defense there. If you see changes that don't make sense, feel free to change them back to how they were.

EDIT: Also, I do have to disagree with one of Drakefriend's points. He suggested that the Secutor and the Retiarius should be the same level, but it seems to me that this is one of the cases where historical accuracy should take a back seat to gameplay. It makes sense, from a gameplay perspective, to make the Retiarius an upgrade from the Piscator, and the Piscator is level 0, so the Retiarius should be level 1. It also makes sense to make the Secutor an upgrade from the Samnis, and the Samnis is level 1, so the Secutor should be level 2.

[Adamant14]

Not sure if it's the right topic, but I got this error while playing 'Gails Contract' :

'Error while playing the game: game_error:Could not find the unit being advanced to: Cavernai journeyman.'

The problem is 'advances_to=Cavernei Journeymann'
because 'id=Cavernei Journeyman' has only one 'n' at the end.

One 'n' to much at the end of Journeyman in the units.cfg of the Cavernei Watcher.

Needs to be fixed.


I played Gails Contract version "0.18.0" , with Imperial_Era_Fixed "0.19.10" , with BfW 1.10

[Temuchin Khan]

Not sure if it's the right topic, but I got this error while playing 'Gails Contract' same error as Njord.

'Error while playing the game: game_error:Could not find the unit being advanced to: Cavernai journeyman.'

The problem is 'advances_to=Cavernei Journeymann'
because 'id=Cavernei Journeyman' has only one 'n' at he end.

One 'n' to much at the end of Journeyman in the units.cfg of the Cavernei Watcher.

Needs to be fixed.


I played Gails Contract version "0.18.0" , with Imperial_Era_Fixed "0.19.10" , with BfW 1.10

That must have been an oversight, after we decided that non-humans would be called "mann" or "menn" with two n's.

This is the right place to report it, but I'm not the current maintainer. Still, I trust he'll be checking the thread.

[Temuchin Khan]

I hope to be able to get around to implementing the proposed changes to the Orcei Gladiatores within the next few weeks. But however long it takes, I do like some of the proposed changes and would like to implement them, or at least something like them.

[Temuchin Khan]

Here they are, the first major changes to an Imperial Era faction in quite some time!

Anyway, I've revised the Thraex, Hoplomachus, and Retiarius lines according to some of the suggestions in that discussion we had about them several months ago.

To try out the changes, download the attachment and replace these old files:

Thraex.cfg, Thraex_Paratus.cfg, Hoplomachus.cfg, Hoplomachus_Fortis.cfg, Piscator.cfg, Retiarius.cfg, Fleet_Retiarius.cfg. retiarius.png, fleet-retiatius.png, imper-orcei_gladiators.cfg, imper_champs-orcei_gladiators.png, and imper_rpg-orcei_gladiatores.cfg

With these new files:

Thraex.cfg, Thraex_Paratus.cfg, Hoplomachus.cfg, Hoplomachus_Fortis.cfg, Piscator.cfg, Retiarius_Minor.cfg, Retiarius.cfg, Retiarius_Maior.cfg. retiarius.png, fleet-retiatius.png, imper-orcei_gladiators.cfg, imper_champs-orcei_gladiators.png, and imper_rpg-orcei_gladiatores

EDIT: Piscator.cfg needs to be replaced since the Piscator now advances to the Retiarius Minor (same as old Retiarius but with a new name) instead of the Retiarius (same as the old Fleet Retiarius, but with and advancement).

[Temuchin Khan]

...and a faction without ranged attacks at all for most of their units is at a sore, sore disadvantage. I agree that we don't want to change the gladiator flavour of the Orcei, but at the same time we have to seek to make them playable in a greater range of situations. I think something like throwing daggers, which would at least give them some retaliation to ranged attacks without become their focus (because they do better damage with their swords), is needed. It doesn't have to be that, but the fact remains that these guys have no range, and when you have 7 level 2 units without a ranged attack, you just get a bland army, no matter what abilities you give them. Scoutwise, maybe the river lizard could act as an all-purpose scout, its movement is good on land at the moment.

True, the River Lizard can double as a scout. Also, if the Orcei Gladiatores need more ranged, maybe we could give the goblin riding the River Lizard a ranged attack. They already have an archer, so maybe the Khampsa-riding goblin could have throwing daggers.

I had forgotten about this suggestion! Maybe I'll still do this.

In other news, in the more recent versions somebody has been screwing with the movement types, of units all over the place (and it's not me). I didn't notice this before but the defence ratings are all over the place, for example, for some reason the Legion has 50% in the forest. What is going on?

I don't know who did that. Someone in the past did say he wanted to do some balancing changes, but I can't remember who. The Lavinian Legionnaire, as we originally designed it, should be very weak in the forest - only 30% defense there. If you see changes that don't make sense, feel free to change them back to how they were.

Actually, if you haven't made any changes yet, double-check which Lavinian units have 50% in the forest. If it's the Auxiliary and it's upgrades, then that does make sense and is as it was intended. So if it's the Auxiliary tree, leave it alone. The Legionnaire should be weak in the forests, but not the Auxiliary.

[Temuchin Khan]

And here is round two of the Orcei revisions:

Replace these old files:

abilities.cfg, imper_champs-orcei_gladiatores, Khampsa.cfg, Khampsa_Audentis.cfg, River_Lizard.cfg, Samnis.cfg, Secutor.cfg, and Secutor_Leonis.cfg

With these new files:

abilities.cfg, imper_champs-orcei_gladiatores, Khampsa.cfg, Khampsa_Audentis.cfg, River_Lizard.cfg, Samnis.cfg, Secutor.cfg, and Secutor_Leonis.cfg

And add this file to the attacks folder in the images folder:

lightfocus.png

I replaced imper_champs-orcei_gladiators because I noticed that both the old version and my previous revised version left out the Minuti River Lizard and the Minuti Khampsa. I have corrected that.

[Temuchin Khan]

So, now that we've had a few weeks to get a sense for the changes, what do people think?

Personally, I'm quite pleased with the sun glare interrupt I gave the Samnis and Secutor. I took it from the Ninja faction in the Internet Meme Era, with some necessary modifications, but I think it works just as well for gladiators. What inspired me was this:

It was a union of boxing and wrestling, and was opened by an attempt to force one’s adversary into an unfavorable position with the sun shining into his eyes.

I thought to myself, "Pankratists tried to get the sun into their opponent's eyes. They weren't gladiators, but this was a method actually used in some ancient Greek and Roman combat sports, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to give the Orcei Gladiatores something similar." I settled on the sun glare interrupt because the Samnis and Secutor have shields, and why couldn't they reflect sunlight off the shield into an opponent's eyes, thus disrupting his vision and concentration and making it more difficult to complete a ranged attack? Also, giving them an interrupt preserves the melee-oriented nature of the faction, while enabling the Samnis to have an effective response to archers.

So again, how are the rest of you liking the new Orcei Gladiatores?

EDIT: Minor syntax error.