Advance-Heal no heal?

[SnowyRiver]

Okay, I've spent some time nosing around the forums, and the documentation, and I haven't found any explanation of something that I've noticed. With certain units, I've found that they stop advancing. Oh, sure, they have an experience requirement, and when they reach that requirement they do their glowy thing, but they end up just the same as they were.

For the most part, I don't mind this too much, as this usually only seems to happen with relatively advanced units, but it's cost me several units when I'm expecting them to advance-heal, but they don't, and therefore are killed off (I've even had this happen to Delfador, which, of course, ended the game).

So, why is there a level restriction? Why isn't it mentioned? Why is there an indicated experience allotment for advancing, when there is no advancing?

I read elsewhere in these forums someone offer the argument that the fact that the player can recall much higher level units counts favorably against the AI's ability to recruit level 2 or level 3 units. This falls a little short when I haven't been able to advance any unit (except Delfador - level 5) past level 3.

[Baufo]

I think it is explained here: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13956

[SnowyRiver]

Okay. Thanks. That explained part of it. But what about the fact that ALMA doesn't give the Advance-Heal benefit? At the very least, this should be made much more apparent, as should the question of what the various max levels are, IMHO.

[Gus]

You can't know the "max level" from the beginning, but whenever you have a unit, you can know if it can advance or not. Just bring up the info screen with "d", and you'll see to what it can advance. If there's nothing, it means it cannot advance.

Also, AMLA (After Maximum Level Advancement - i'm not sure it's Advancement, it doesn't look like a real word to me but whatever) does not heal, i guess, because the whole deal is that levelling is mostly good, and AMLA is mostly a wait of XP. You should try to avoid AMLA.

[Yogibear]

You can also look at the units XP bar. If it is white, it will level, if not (i think it's some kind of violet then) it will just AMLA.

I don't know if there is a special reason for AMLA not healing the unit. I guess it's just the way it is.

[Desert Plah]

I've often fancifully wished (only at certain moments ) that AMLA did heal my high-level units. I really don't think it's overpowering them too much, IMO. But I guess the common 3-point overall health uppage is enough.

[Darth Fool]

You can also use the dfool theme which has indicators for what type of amla the units can use:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... =amla+icon

This feature never really caught on (for a few reasons) but the basic mechanism is there.

[joshudson]

I wish it would at least heal them the three hitpoints that it added to their maximum health.

[Clonkinator]

AFAIK AMLA does heal the unit by the 3 points it adds... At least in version 1.0.1...

[F8 Binds...]

agreed. ALMA should atleast fully heal the unit, otherwise it's quite useless. then you have the decision to say "hey i can heal my unit by killing his grunt" rather than "crap how is he going to get to that village"

i can see where it would be useful.

[Gus]

As i've said before in the thread, i always assumed that it was a feature, not a bug, in that you should not feed XP to already advanced units.

[F8 Binds...]

i realize it's unpractical to give experience to a lvld unit. if AMLA could lvl a unit, however, and your lvl 3 elvish avenger has only 13 hp, and is nearly going to AMLA, it would be helful if you could kill a lvl 1 and have a fully-healed unit.

[Gus]

I understand, i'm just saying it's meant to not be helpful, IMO =)

[Fiach Dubh]

I think the reasoning behind it is that only the Necrophage can heal via an AMLA, to simulate the fact that it regains health by eating enough enemies. BUT, if you want AMLA_TOUGH to heal your units too, just copy this:

Code: Select all

#this file contains macros for After Max Level Advancement (AMLA)

#Fiach Dubh's modified AMLA, for added HP and full healing
#define AMLA_TOUGH HP_ADVANCE
[advancement]
strict_amla=yes
max_times=100
id=tough_{HP_ADVANCE}
description= _ "Max HP bonus +" {HP_ADVANCE} _", MAX XP +25%"
icon="misc/icon-amla-tough.png"
image="misc/icon-amla-tough.png"
[effect]
apply_to=hitpoints
increase={HP_ADVANCE}
increase_total={HP_ADVANCE}
heal_full=yes
[/effect]
[effect]
apply_to=max_experience
increase=25%
[/effect]
[/advancement]
#enddef

Paste it into the file named amla.cfg (in the game's main data folder), REPLACING what is already there. Don't worry about losing AMLA_NECROHEAL, because it's no longer relevant - just edit the Necrophage so that it gets AMLA_TOUGH 3 instead, and give it {WEAPON_SPECIAL_DRAIN} on its melee attack to simulate its cannibalistic healing.

I STRONGLY suggest copying the original amla.cfg file to another directory before you do this.

[podunk]

After a certain point you have ample advanced units. Throw in a few level ones to help in zone of control and cover up an important unit whose attack failed and you've got it.

Once I reach that point I go for AMLA's for my units that are somewhat tender. For instance Assassins and Slyphs save you tons of gold in Return to Wesnoth but at the default hit points have no chance at all if caught by 2 or more enemy units. Li'sar has a devastating attack - but not many hit points. If she misses on a Royal Guard it's bad trouble unless she's had a few AMLAs.

A 68 HP assassin is not only a hell raiser - it's fun to use.