Zombie Faction

[Beleg-Aran]

So, after looking at many different new factions and eras, I noticed there were few that added more undead troops, my favorite faction. Especially there were no new zombies. So, after thinking for I while, I wanted to create a zombie-only faction. The way i see that it will work will be the only unit you can recruit is a zombie (Renamed walking corpse) for cheap. however, there will be many advancements for it to take. This is my current tree:
lvl0________lvl1____________lvl2______________lvl3_________________lvl4
_______________________________________Necrotic Golem
_________________________Necrotic Mass->
_______________________________________Necrotic Seige Engine
_________Zombie Horde-> __________________________________
_______________________________________Endless Zombie Army
_________________________Zombie Army->
Zombie->_______________________________Zombie Battalion
_________________________Zombie Soldier->
_______________________________________Zombie Commander
__________Sentient Zombie-> _________________________________
_______________________________________Zombie Wizard
_________________________Zombie Mage->
_______________________________________Lich->______________Ancient Lich

Not all names are finalized, but I like most of them. Sentient Zombie is really the one I don't like. I realize that the zombie-recruitment-only thing may not really work, but I want to at least try it. I have yet to finish any coding, as this is mostly in the idea stage, but I do have a little bit of sprite art done. I want to do an entire undead era eventually, but probably won't get to it for a while as I am very much a noob with Wesnoth, although I do have quite a bit of previous coding knowledge.

Spirte art:

[Rhishisikk]

What do the zombies do for naval/air/cavalry? (Mobility troops, in other words?) Or is it meant to be the slowly advancing tide, crushing the living before them?

[Beleg-Aran]

I hadn't given mobility much thought, and although I do like the idea of them all moving slow, I think it would be nice to throw in at least one faster moving unit. Maybe Necrotic mass and golem move fast and/or letting the zombie commander be mounted would fix some of that. Or maybe remove some units and replace them with mounted ones especially? or adding a third first level branch? I'll need to think about it.

Also, I was thinking about balance issues with the plague feature, and decided that every unit may not need it. For example, the zombie horde tree levels up by adding units, so it should have more of a draining attack. however, converting the dead into more zombies is the main feature of them, so most will have it.

[Beleg-Aran]

First, some naming. Zombie horde changed to Zombie mob, Zombie army changed to Horde, and Endless army changed to army.
Okay, some stats, and a bit more art:
Zombie:
Bite 6-2 impact Plague

Zombie Mob:
Bite 6-5 impact swarm Drain?

Sentient Zombie:
Axe 6-3 blade Plague
Bow 5-3 pierce Ranged

Necrotic Mass:
Slam 7-4 impact Plague and/or Drain?

Zombie Horde:
Bite 6-8 impact swarm Drain?

Zombie Soldier:
Axe 7-4 blade Plague
Bow 6-4 pierce

Zombie Mage:
Bite 6-2 impact Plague
Chill wave 12-2 cold magical
Necrotic blast 9-2 arcane magical Plague

Necrotic Golem:
Slam 10-4 impact Plague and/or Drain?
Festering Goo 6-3 impact ranged poison

Necrotic Siege Engine:
Festering Bolt 17-3 pierce Poison

Zombie Army
Bite 6-15 Swarm impact Drain?
Crows 6-5 pierce ranged

Zombie Battalion:
Axe 7-10 blade Swarm Drain?
Bows 6-10 pierce Swarm

Zombie Commander:
Leadership
Axe 10-4 blade Plague
Crossbow 10-3 pierce

Zombie Wizard:
Bite 6-2 Plague
Chill wave 16-2 cold Magical
Necrotic Blast 12-2 arcane Magical Plague

Lich (same):
Touch 8-3 arcane Drain
Chill Tempest 12-3 cold Magical
Shadow wave 9-3 arcane Magical

Ancient Lich (same):
Touch 8-4 arcane Drain
Chill Tempest 13-5 cold Magical
Shadow Wave 9-5 arcane Magical

Some units I think may be too strong for their level, but I'm not sure.
Sprites

[Turuk]

If you want to add mobility, you could easily add Zombie horseman, just a zombie knight mounted on a zombie horse. Or you could do zombie wolves or something similar, anything can be made into a zombie.

[cobra]

If you want to add mobility, you could easily add Zombie horseman, just a zombie knight mounted on a zombie horse. Or you could do zombie wolves or something similar, anything can be made into a zombie.

You could even make a zombie gryphon, which i think would be more interesting. Keep up the good work!

[Mabuse]

simply add a bat or an undead bat.

however, the faction will not work anyway like that (recuriting lvl0 only) -
but whom i am going to tell that -

[PsychoticKittens]

From Beleg-Aran's post I'd find that making a "crow" unit for mobility would be much more original than a bat. Crows are often implied in most zombie horrors. They would be more likely following than a bat, being as they would feed off the corpses, and more than likely be more aggressive from ingesting necrotic flesh (therefore attacking anything that gets close, and seemingly being on the zombie's side)

[Rex Umbrarum]

simply add a bat or an undead bat.

however, the faction will not work anyway like that (recuriting lvl0 only) -
but whom i am going to tell that -

The Devlings seem to get along fine with just 1 lvl 1. It doesn't seem to be much of a jump to have no level 1's

[Beleg-Aran]

I Like the idea of an individual crow unit, but I think I'll only add it in if it seems like it really needs a faster unit at the end. Maybe I'll change my mind and put it in sooner. not sure.

Anyway, I just made two more sprites, but more wanted to expand on the hopeful Undead era. I haven't given much thought to units for other factions, but wanted to have a vampire faction, a skeleton faction, and a magic faction. The story line will be something along the lines of foolish necromancers giving sentience to zombies, who then killed the masters and swept across the continent. Humans, elves, dwarves, and even orcs had a desperate alliance, along with tenuous protection from Vampires in exchange for citizens (Vampires don't want all living things to die, of course, as they'd starve). A group of mages, wizards, shamans, and even necromancers knew something must be done to combat these undead, or all living creatures would be slaves or worse. So they created a race of intelligent skeletons and forced their minds to fight other undead, especially zombies, forever. They are unable to do anything unrelated to this in some way, and although they dislike it, they are not evil like the zombies.

Or something like that.

[Mabuse]

The Devlings seem to get along fine with just 1 lvl 1. It doesn't seem to be much of a jump to have no level 1's

wow. cool post.

so how many lvl0 do the devlings have and how many lvl0 are planned for the zombie faction ?
so see a differnce here ?

so you can only train mp4 wealking corpses and do somebody seriously think this will work in any way ?
no matter which fatcion you fight the other wil win, becasue it grabs villages so muich faster has way better income and wil simply crush you, mounting an offense with mp4 units only is anyway impossible (except they have a better movetype)

if you fight against me you woudl never ever level s ingle walking corpse, i would just detroy you.

my advice is is general: before making new factions for wesnoth play a bit wesnoth anyway
but well, since it doesent harm anyway if you make it, becasue you will add changes over changes anyway after the first tries when you find out that it is unplayable anyway

[Beleg-Aran]

You know what? you're right. I think I'll make the zombie mob and sentient zombie recruitable and add in the faster crow unit. As you said, it will probably need further tweaking, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

[Turuk]

Just go with what you have, try to make it as balanced as you can on paper, and if when you play the faction against the others, you realize it needs improvement in certain areas, you can always go back later and add a unit or adjust a unit's stats accordingly.

[Beleg-Aran]

2 more sprites. only three more until basic tree is done!


Then animation... ugh... I'll probably leave that till the end...

[Beleg-Aran]

Okay, I think I came up with a solution for the whole Zombie mob (and company) drain or plague problem. instead of plague or drain, I add a now ability that heals them whenever they kill a unit (kinda like necrophage's feeding). If this ability already exists somewhere, that would be nice, but I haven't seen it.