I have an awesome idea but not the skill.

[FG_Prince2000]

I have really cool idea for a new faction I would love to make, but I don't have the skills or the time.(Though I would probably make the time if I had the skill).

Is there someone who might be interested in making it with me? That person would get the credit of course, as I would only be able to do the menial jobs not requiring non-basic WML skill. I just want to be able to play with this faction!

NOTE! Creating this faction will require more WML knowledge than most of the existing factions, I think.

[Ravana]

If you wish to acquire the skills, explain what you need.

[zookeeper]

Is there someone who might be interested in making it with me?

Honestly, you're not going to find a lot of capable people with a desire to make a faction of which they know nothing about except that someone else on the internet thinks it's an awesome idea.

[Dugi]

Makink a faction that has interestink properties is easier than makink a faction that needs unit sprites. By reusink old, unused sprites, factions can be made quite quickly.

Hovever, telling that you have a cool idea is not enough. Let us suppose that you vill do everything except that special property. If you describe that speciality that makes it cool, someone might vrite the necessary code to get it vorkink, it might not be as much vork as you think (or, of course, it may be a huge amount of vork or be entirely impossible).

[FG_Prince2000]

Hi guys,

Thank you for the great advice guys! I didn't tell my idea because I wanted to know if people would be interested at all. Though, in retrospect, it might have had the opposite effect.

Have any of you red the Blades of Acktar fantasy series? This faction is based on the Blades. It is a League of twelve assassin/spies that have trained all their lives for the task. They are all adept at camouflage, hiding in the shadow, fighting multiple people at the same time using only the many knives they carry on their bodies, which some are able to accurately use as ranged weapons.

This is all good and well, but what is so hard about it?

There must only be twelve of them. When one dies, all the blades of a lower rank are promoted once, and there is an opening for a new recruit. In-game they must be expensive because all the blades are highly trained, as mentioned before, and they can not upgrade normally because they have learned all they can about knife fighting. Every individual Blade, when recruited, will have one of two or three ability sets, some ranged attacks, some skirmisher, some poison weapons, all back-stab. When they are promoted their skills improve, from constant practice on the field. The First Blade will be the most powerful of them all, the Twelfth Blade will be the greenhorn, and the rest will be everywhere in between.

Thats the gist of my "Great Idea".

Be ye the judge of its worth.

[FG_Prince2000]

Makink a faction that has interestink properties is easier than makink a faction that needs unit sprites. By reusink old, unused sprites, factions can be made quite quickly.

Maby so, but I only have basic knowledge of WML. Enough to make a couple of simple factions, but nothing like this.

[Dugi]

Maby so, but I only have basic knowledge of WML. Enough to make a couple of simple factions, but nothing like this.

As I expected, all you need are some units vith a few attacks, damages, resistances and abilities set. All help you need is related to the advancement think. It should not be hard to do, but it might be a bit tricky.

Am I right that you need to allov one unit type to be recruited, dependink on the units deployed?

[FG_Prince2000]

Yea, I only want one recruit-able unit, that when it spawns, it receives one of the categories randomly.

[FG_Prince2000]

By that I mean, one unit available to recruit. And when it is paid for, one of the unit categories is recruited randomly according to the percentage chance they have of being spawned.

[Dugi]

You mean like 30 possible domains of expertise and each unit receivink three of the unassigned ones? There vould be only one unit type? This looks very much doable vith a bit of Advancements and event code in the unit_type. Of course, you vould be the one to vrite the advancement code, I could help you vith the event that assigns them.

[The_Gnat]

This seems like it could be a good idea! I personally think it would better though if the player could choose the advancements that their assassins got. Also i think it would give this faction an unfair advantage if they all advanced when one of them dies.

Limiting the recruits to a certain number (so the faction could have no more than 12 assassins at a time) would be a good idea and would make it unique.

Personally (just an idea) i would think (rather than what you suggested) the assassins would be able to upgrade their weapons as well. Such as more powerful throwing daggers, poisoned knives, backstab, etc. along with advancements such as nightstalk, ambush, faster movement, better defenses.

[FG_Prince2000]

Thank you so much, Dugi, for offering to help me. I really appreciate it. But if I am going to do that, you will have to tell me what the "advancement code" is. I've only done one and a half functional factions, and that completely based off of preexisting code. I also read the whole WML for beginners thing on the website.

I was thinking more along the lines of three domains of expertise and each unit receiving one of them. Only because I could only think of three main areas though.

The reason for all of them advancing, Gnat, is only because that is the way the Blades from the book's hierarchy worked. The First Blade would not be more powerful than a level four unit, and the Twelfth Blade not weaker than a level one unit. The differences in power from one Blade to the next would be minuscule. I do love the idea of them being able to gain abilities though.... They could have one set of basic Blade abilities like ambush, back-stab, or throwing knives to start out with, then their actual attacks don't increase unless one of the higher level Blades die, but they can attain new abilities and attacks by upgrading normally.

Perfect!

[Dugi]

But if I am going to do that, you will have to tell me what the "advancement code" is.

No problemo. Check out the [advancement] tags in this example, their usage should be self-explanatory. If it isn't, I vill explain.

[FG_Prince2000]

Thanks Dugi, that was indeed self explanatory. Would I be able to just stick other stats and stuff into into your example to create mine, or is there some trick to it?

All that I still need to know before starting on this unit is how do I get all the Blades to advance when one dies, and how do I keep the normal advancements (that are going to upgrade non combat abilities), apart from the Blade advancements. How do I do the Blade advancements?

In essence, when the Tenth Blade dies, I want the Eleventh and Twelfth Blades to turn into the Tenth and Eleventh Blades, name and all.

I also want their names to initially be dependent on how many other Blades have been recruited before. Also, if I were to use this faction in a game like the plane-walker mp campaign, I would need the Blades to "upgrade" even before I recall them, if need be. For example, If I recalled only the Second, Third, and Fourth Blades for one scenario, and the Third Blade dies, I would need the un-recalled Blades to upgrade as well, not just the Fourth Blade. Otherwise there would be a gap in the ranks during the next scenario.

[Dugi]

It's an example of using the [advancement] tag, other stuff there may be hard to get vorking. Better stick those [advancement] tags into units from core.

It's easy to change a unit's type. The easiest way to get it workink with these special ability variations is to create 12 unit types that all share the same advancements. The special code vould add unobtainable advancements that grant them the basic domain abilities and would be required by most advancements. I mean that all advancements of the invisibility domain would require an advancement named 'invisibility' that would require advancement 'unobtainable'. Vhen recruited, three of the advancements requirink 'unobtainable' vould be taken by code (ignorink their unmeetable requirements) and the other advancements that require them vould become available.