Imperial Era

[Temuchin Khan]

Actually, guys, once the IE-experimental gets implemented, I'll be much more open to trying out big changes in it.

Risking Temuchin's wrath, I'd like to try a chaotic/neutral split for the Orcei somehow, probably on magni/minuti lines. I've suggested it before and we decided not to go ahead, but if we've got a development era I still think it's worth a try. If it makes the Orcei better I'm sure that we come up with a justification for it, otherwise at least it will shut me up about it

How about liminal-lawful instead? The reason they are no longer chaotic is because they've been forced to adjust to life in Lavinia, but I could see some of them failing to make a full adjustment and becoming liminal rather than lawful.

But if you guys don't mind big changes, I would suggest to make samnis's sun glare work only under good sunlight...which at least make some sense, you know.

There is truth in that. I got the ability from the ninja faction in Internet Meme Era (Have they been credited for that?), and made a few little modifications. I'm really not good with WML, though, so someone else would have to code it to work only during the day. Well, arguably it could work at dawn and dusk, too.

[AxalaraFlame]

Not good at it either. I will try ask some experts

How about liminal-lawful instead? The reason they are no longer chaotic is because they've been forced to adjust to life in Lavinia, but I could see some of them failing to make a full adjustment and becoming liminal rather than lawful.

Liminal is fine if you could explain the rationale. Orcs might hate both sun and night because of some implicit reasons. For instance, because these orcs are the slaves of lavinians, they are imprisoned in dark dungeons, where they can hardly see each other and fight worse. During daytime, they fight; but as Up from Slavary canon has mentioned, orcs don't usually fight those who they want to fight, and sometimes they must fight those who they like, so they deter this sport and fight worse. They could only fight freely during dusk and dawn when they are released for a short break and get fed.
I am not sure whether it sounds like a good explanation, though. I don't really think there should be any liminal creatures, or it would be very bizarre. I am better with neutral. (FYI, lawful orcs would be totally a bullshix theory. We would show much disrespect to old good Tolkien )

Besides, for lv1 samnis, I suggest to give them at most 1 strike for interruption instead of 2(I don't even think we shall give lv1 this ability). Removing all 5+ ridiculous strikes before lv3 and the totally insane 6+ strikes from lelee units is another important thing, because the existance of traits would bring lots of imbalance.

[Temuchin Khan]

Not good at it either. I will try ask some experts

How about liminal-lawful instead? The reason they are no longer chaotic is because they've been forced to adjust to life in Lavinia, but I could see some of them failing to make a full adjustment and becoming liminal rather than lawful.

Liminal is fine if you could explain the rationale. Orcs might hate both sun and night because of some implicit reasons. For instance, because these orcs are the slaves of lavinians, they are imprisoned in dark dungeons, where they can hardly see each other and fight worse. During daytime, they fight; but as Up from Slavary canon has mentioned, orcs don't usually fight those who they want to fight, and sometimes they must fight those who they like, so they deter this sport and fight worse. They could only fight freely during dusk and dawn when they are released for a short break and get fed.
I am not sure whether it sounds like a good explanation, though. I don't really think there should be any liminal creatures, or it would be very bizarre. I am better with neutral. (FYI, lawful orcs would be totally a bullshix theory. We would show much disrespect to old good Tolkien )

Besides, for lv1 samnis, I suggest to give them at most 1 strike for interruption instead of 2(I don't even think we shall give lv1 this ability). Removing all 5+ ridiculous strikes before lv3 and the totally insane 6+ strikes from lelee units is another important thing, because the existance of traits would bring lots of imbalance.

Well, that leaves either all neutral or a chaotic-neutral split. I suppose we could make the Magnuti chaotic, and say that they were never able to adjust to Lavinian life.

[UnwiseOwl]

I'm pretty sure that I could code the sunglare thing to work only during the dawn, dusk and daytime. Should be pretty doable. As to the chaotic/neutral/lawful, I don't mind too much. I know that turin didn't want lawful orcs for Tolkien reasons, but our orcs are not inherently evil, the progenitors of the orcs are a true neutral faction, so just because Tolkien did it doesn't mean that we have to follow.
That said, the feudal era orcs ARE chaotic, so from a continuity POV I come up on the chaotic side, but it shouldn't be a given.
And no, I don't think that the internet meme era has been properly credited. I've just added them to my version, so they'll be included in the next update.

[AxalaraFlame]

Owl:
1. I don't usually compromise that much to irrationale. I wish you could persuade me one very basic thing: how do you suppose to glare me down during dusk and dawn? we can have a duel and check it, and I have full confidence that the effect of glaring does not matter with your experience in using that shield, because there is simply (nearly) no effect

2. I wanna go for unofficial wesbreak, which is the contrary side of dev's wesbreak: I do not play wesnoth anymore, and do something else constructive. I figure out that I can translate Imperial Era, so I want your po file and start to rock

[UnwiseOwl]

I don't know if you've ever driven into the setting sun, but there's plenty of glare in such a situation. If other motorists were deliberately reflecting that into my eyes, I'd probably miss the rest of my attacks too.

[AxalaraFlame]

I don't know if you've ever driven into the setting sun, but there's plenty of glare in such a situation. If other motorists were deliberately reflecting that into my eyes, I'd probably miss the rest of my attacks too.

Lets do an experiment. If you could prove it working all the times during dawn and dusk, I will invite you for a great feast.

[Temuchin Khan]

I don't know if you've ever driven into the setting sun, but there's plenty of glare in such a situation. If other motorists were deliberately reflecting that into my eyes, I'd probably miss the rest of my attacks too.

Lets do an experiment. If you could prove it working all the times during dawn and dusk, I will invite you for a great feast.

But that's the point. There is still sunlight at dawn and dusk, it just isn't overhead. So "sun glare" should still be possible under those circumstances, at least for someone who knows what he's doing. And someone who's using it as a tactic probably does know what he's doing. Still, it is a weird for it to be an option at night.

I'm pretty sure that I could code the sunglare thing to work only during the dawn, dusk and daytime. Should be pretty doable.

Good!

As to the chaotic/neutral/lawful, I don't mind too much. I know that turin didn't want lawful orcs for Tolkien reasons, but our orcs are not inherently evil, the progenitors of the orcs are a true neutral faction, so just because Tolkien did it doesn't mean that we have to follow.
That said, the feudal era orcs ARE chaotic, so from a continuity POV I come up on the chaotic side, but it shouldn't be a given.

Good point. We could handle it, as I said before, by saying that the Minuti never fully adjusted to the rhythms of life in Lavinia. Maybe we could even say that the Lavinians deliberately kept the Minuti from adjusting to their lifestyle, in order to increase the variety of gladiatorial combat (chaotic vs. neutral). But it's good for us to discuss the in-world explanation, because part of what always made the Imperial Era unique was that we would take the time to think things through and do some real world-building, instead of just making changes for game play reasons.

And no, I don't think that the internet meme era has been properly credited. I've just added them to my version, so they'll be included in the next update.

I'm not sure anyone's even maintaining the Internet Meme Era anymore, but it's good that we credit them.

[AxalaraFlame]

But that's the point. There is still sunlight at dawn and dusk, it just isn't overhead. So "sun glare" should still be possible under those circumstances, at least for someone who knows what he's doing. And someone who's using it as a tactic probably does know what he's doing. Still, it is a weird for it to be an option at night.

Anyway, it is your project. I won't interfere your will, but removing the effect in the night and test its capability is necessary. Presumbly, I think one strike+firststrike is enough.

[Temuchin Khan]

But that's the point. There is still sunlight at dawn and dusk, it just isn't overhead. So "sun glare" should still be possible under those circumstances, at least for someone who knows what he's doing. And someone who's using it as a tactic probably does know what he's doing. Still, it is a weird for it to be an option at night.

Anyway, it is your project. I won't interfere your will, but removing the effect in the night and test its capability is necessary. Presumbly, I think one strike+firststrike is enough.

I think I see the problem. You're thinking of early dawn and late dusk, we're thinking of late dawn and early dusk. Wesnoth doesn't make those distinctions in-game, so we end up talking past each other. Well, what we can agree on is that making it unavailable at night makes sense.

[AxalaraFlame]

Did you guys notice that, when maradurers have a civil war, it is basically axeman vs axeman?
Besides, in faction Maradurers, warriors are obviously too weak and incompetent (but good at vs legionairres, which is different story), while axemen are very competent and awesome.

I need a standard race to start my work, but there is no standard, so...I took Frost Elves as the standard of Imperial, due to three facts: nearly balanced price/unit quality, no magical weapon special, easy to use in general.

If you guys don't have any objections, I might start now.

[UnwiseOwl]

I'm not convinced that the Issaelfr are a good choice, actually, given that they are generally just a class above the general level of the IE, and are not one of the core balanced factions. If you need to pick a faction to balance to, I'd pick the Legion, but if the Legion is not appropriate due to having too many abilities, may I suggest that you use one of the mainline factions, so that we can scale the whole era down the mainline level at the same time?

[AxalaraFlame]

Ok, then not Frost Elves. I was not proving or persuding anything, just ask your opinions

Imperial Era is far out of the standard range of default era factions. They remain comparable, but not preferable to be choosen as references. Maybe I should explain that rationale in former posts, but I forgot it. In short, unit-ability/unit-price should be a constant when it is choosen to balance overlapping factions, but the value would become very different if you changed one faction (let alone all), or you simply move to another standard (what we are exactly facing).

So Lavinians are considered as the most balanced faction, is it your idea? I guess it might be trisky to get through(legionairres), but I will try it.

[UnwiseOwl]

The three most 'balanced' factions of the IE are undoubtedly the Sidhe, Lavinians and Marauders, so whichever of these is most appropriate for your purposes would be the one that I'd recommend (there used to be an "Imperial Balanced" era including just these... After that, the Orcs. The other three factions are still a long way behind, in my opinion.

[UnwiseOwl]

I am pleased to announce that the latest version (0.21.0) is up on the 1.11 server as "Imperial Era", and incorporates a number (but not all) of the changes that we've talked about in this thread. I'm probably going to be otherwise occupied for a couple of weeks, so I thought I'd post what I have now. Once I'm available again, I'd expect a number of small changes as people suggest changes to try out in the new development version and we test them, and as people make art contributions (VERY exciting). I'll also be working to get the campaigns up and running soon.
The full changelog has been updated in the first post if you want to see what has and hasn't made the cut.