Khalifate Era

Discussion of all aspects of multiplayer development: unit balancing, map development, server development, and so forth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Locked
User avatar
Quetzalcoatl
Posts: 207
Joined: March 18th, 2009, 3:26 pm

Khalifate Era

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Now as some balancing was done and finally Khalifate goes in it may be beneficial to have new feedback thread about this faction :).

I have some balance concerns tbh. I think Kalifate doesn't have any special unit that is bold enough. You know drakes have drakes :), undead have adepts, necromancers and liches even loyalists have wizards... but Khalifate doesn't have anything. They are nothing more but ordinary humans. I know in the past Wesnoth was game with no religious references but thankfully this times are behind us now and if it so maybe we can give Khalifate some kind of cleric who would summon divine power or so. Its just an idea - not sure if appropriate.

Other than that like as I mentioned before as no-religion times are finally behind as maybe it is also appropriate to rename loys to cursaders. This way we would be able simulate historic conflicts better and new faction could jihad and dominate properly.

I know in the past topics about Khalifate were closed but pls don't close now. Now as faction is in and beta out we mp players could give some feedback to improve things.

Pls discuss.

Thx
Q
Last edited by Quetzalcoatl on October 26th, 2014, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
User avatar
tekelili
Posts: 1039
Joined: August 19th, 2009, 9:28 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by tekelili »

Quetzalcoatl wrote:Other than that like as I mentioned before as no-religion times are finally behind as maybe it is also appropriate to rename loys to cursaders.
In some places crusade sounds pretty near to Third Reich, and I wouldnt blame them for feel offended reading such name.
Be aware English is not my first language and I could have explained bad myself using wrong or just invented words.
World Conquest II
User avatar
Quetzalcoatl
Posts: 207
Joined: March 18th, 2009, 3:26 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Great news! If it so then doing some jihad vs them would a right thing to do. To me making such change makes even more sense now.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
User avatar
alpha1
Posts: 198
Joined: February 29th, 2008, 12:57 am

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by alpha1 »

I respectfully disagree with you, Qu :) You see, wesnoth is a high-magic western fantasy setting, with dwarves, elfs, orcs, giant walking trees, fire breathing dragons and whatnot. Even the human faction (loys) have magical units, mages. And then... BAM! Another human faction... but without magic... and arabic. So in a way khalifa don't need bold units, cause they are a bold faction in their own right. I mean, it would be an easy thing to find some magical creatures in arabian folklore, some genies or rocs etc. But it was a clear design choice to avoid such things and keep it as realistic as possible. So in a way, the bland non-magical khalifa that look sorta out of place, actually bring the fresh, exotic wind into the boringly typical western fantasy setting that is wesnoth. I really hope this will be the revitalizing push, that the mp-community has been waiting for so long! :)

And i'm afraid giving them a divine caster unit or whatever would destroy this whole idea.

As to the jihad/crusaders suggestion, i'm not opposed to it, as it would be imho a good thing to turn wesnoth into a more of a historically realistic wargame. The only issue that comes to my mind is, that we would probably need to remove loyalist mages first. A religious faction fighting against another religious faction is cool and realistic. However, if there are units wielding supernatural powers in one faction, while the other have non of them, it becomes pretty clear, which faction fights for the true God and which isn't. Hence, to make it all a bit more politically correct and not offend anyone, mages should be removed from the loyalist faction before renaming them into crusaders.
If you have any wishes or suggestions concerning the TGT or just want to drop me a message, pls pm me at: alpha1_pm
I won't be able to see any messages that are sent to alpha1.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Mabuse »

well lets conclude this a bit:

i think the kalifate stats are a bit weirdisch, but thats ok for gameplay purposes.
(maybe they are even interesting to play)

in any case you would not be able to make historic factions out of loys and kalifa without completey rebalancing them.

a historical crusaders-era could use the unit-images as bases but would need a serious rebalance (imo).
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
User avatar
alpha1
Posts: 198
Joined: February 29th, 2008, 12:57 am

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by alpha1 »

Spoiler:
Nah, you see, in my opinion, moving away from fantasy and in the general direction of a historically realistic setting is the way to go. The whole high fantasy thing served us well for many years, but now it became kinda obvious that this model is obsolete and we need something fresh and new :) And haradrim, while not being overly magical are still quite fantasy-ish.

Now, I must admit your critique about khalifa having unintuitive stats or being a redundant faction that doesn't really fit into the setting, is true at this point of time... BUT! I think its all just a growth problem! A new thing can never be perfect from the very beginning! And while khalifa is far from being perfect right now, its definitly a step in the right direction! Basically speaking there are two ways to harmonize the setting with khalifa: 1. (the one i hope devs won't go) is to turn them into another 1000 and 1 night faction with genies and flying carpets and whatnot. 2. (the one i argued for above) to turn wesnoth into more of a historical kind of setting and slowly make all other factions more realistic. Either way the khalifa will fit in greatly!

Now to your balance/design suggestions:
better give the kalifate a comeplete different kind of unit like war-elephants

too indian
and restrict the cavalry to horse-archers or something.
too mongol
despite this the kalifate cav is slower then their loy counterpart, and thus leaves the impression they are more heavily armored, which is also kind of unintuitive for a desert civ.
Good point. I guess the khalifa cav is modeled after the parthian/sassanid cataphracts which used to kick asses back then, as every history buff will tell you :3 However they are more of an antique fighters and don't really fit into the middle age arabian setting. So I guess there is still some space for improvement here, from a historical point of view.
if you would make such a thing like "crusades era" you probably would rebalance the kalifa faction compeletey, and base it more on loyalist stats with some few exceptions.
Hmmmm i didn't think about it this way. But it kinda makes sense, if you consider, that khalifate are humans too. So plus point for the realism. However i have a feeling this might be somewhat detrimental to the gaming experience, so we should definitly discuss any such changes before implementing them.
If you have any wishes or suggestions concerning the TGT or just want to drop me a message, pls pm me at: alpha1_pm
I won't be able to see any messages that are sent to alpha1.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Mabuse »

alpha1 wrote: Now, I must admit your critique about khalifa having unintuitive stats or being a redundant faction that doesn't really fit into the setting
btw, now that you mention it ...
the whole faction itself is kinda unintuitive.

so lety see what we have in wesnoth:

orcs .. everybody know orcs, and it fits all the expectations a player may have.
of course there are some exceptions like assisins, but these are welcome. since the remaining simply fits the expectations.

nobody would accept orcs as fragile, intelligent beings with high defenses and mostly relying on magic.

dwarves ... fit

elves .. fit

drakes and saurians .. are new and strange but their appeareance is also strange so you can make of them whatever you want and the stats reflect their appeareance (drakes big and high hp while low def, etc..)

undead... classic and fit

loyalists: something like humans are, but they are more some kind of ancient humans with mostly having spearman in their ranks, roman like.


and now you throw in ... maybe a lotr-inspired haradrim-clone, which would be kinda intuitive because it can serve some expectations? ..


no, you throw in some kind of historical factions, with arabian unit-names .. so the only refernece these units might have is a historical arabian armies .. but where are the factions that you could compare their stats against?

the loys are in no way comparable, since they are half-roman half medival inspired.

seriously, its just a unit image (and perhaps a name, ... and perhaps some stats),. but if you exchange the current califa cavalry with elephants of some kind and adjust the stats (less def (-10% all, (few exceptions: all terrains with 20% stay at 20%)), +20% more hp, divide the damage from 1 strike into 2)
and it would fit a lot more imo.


then i would not need to worry about why the hell, kalifa cavalry is slower, has less weak to pierce then loy cav (AND elvish cav .. so all cav has -20% against pierce .. except kalifa cav). this really annoys me. also the fact that they do all the damage in ONE strike and the other chargers use two. nobody can understand that. Except that you say "for balancing reasons". (but i would not think so, because you could also change some other things so it fits again).

make them elephants ;)
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
User avatar
alpha1
Posts: 198
Joined: February 29th, 2008, 12:57 am

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by alpha1 »

make them elephants ;)
I'm afraid elephants would not really fit in in the historic medieval arabic theme... And tbh. it wouldn't be very realistic either, cause elephants don't live in the desert :eng: BUT! I really like this idea, especially since there were many armies that actually used them! And elephants are also kinda exotic animals which compensates for the lack of supernatural magic. So maybe one could add another historic human faction fielding war elephants in the future? (from the top of my head, the armies that used them were indians, seleucides, ptolemeans (egyptians) and ofc carthage!). Imagine how cool it would be to fight as carthage against orcs or dwarves... Or to crush those pesky elves with your indian war elephants... ;)
Ofc i would really like to see these additions asap, but there is no need to hurry. 1. Creating an original fleshed out faction takes its time. 2. There are lots of balance issues that should be considered (like do we want to make every human faction lawful? Cause this would be the realistic approach imho). 3. while those changes can't go fast enough for me, many people may still prefer the fantasy setting and will need some time to get accustomed to the new historical changes.
So, while it seems kinda really far away atm, i think it would be really cool if we could get another historical human faction by the time of 1.14-1.16 (and another one by the time of 1.16-1.18 but thats just my wishful thinking :) )
If you have any wishes or suggestions concerning the TGT or just want to drop me a message, pls pm me at: alpha1_pm
I won't be able to see any messages that are sent to alpha1.
User avatar
Quetzalcoatl
Posts: 207
Joined: March 18th, 2009, 3:26 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Ah guys we are making great progress so far! I would like to comment on a few things.

alpha1

You pointed out how well boldness and theme fits and tbh I have to admit you are totally right about those. Arguments you made make a lot more sense tbh but I have some secret agenda Im trying to accomplish here and unfortunately I have to reveal it now as new perspective way more appealing than mine was presented. So far we had few factions inside Default era, but now? We have whole new era. To me that has symbolical meaning! (and it is indeed great way to celebrate shift we are making right now) Whats the point in having new era thats called like one of the factions if it wont shine bright enough. I mean so far Khalifate looks very appealing, but can we take even the smallest possible risk it wont be so? We all know multiplayer faction balance isnt perfect and it will never be. If it is so and factions arent even then why not to make Khalifate slightly above everything else. Doesnt it makes a lot of sense? We dont want to risk ppl will wont like to play new faction or it wont be taken seriously as if in such case feedback will be limited and after all lets not forget we are in the Khalifate era now. I mean its like medieval times where peasants fight with mongol horde and there are no knights anywhere.

The suggestion about removing wizards from crusader faction. Its brilliant! Its probably my favorite balance-oriented suggestion ever made. Im totally for it!

Mabuse

I dont understand ur concerns about weird stats tbh. Maybe both factions are humans, but common... they draw their powers form different divine sources. Under such circumstances it makes perfect sense to have stats so different. It would even made sense if K had 4mp horses (maybe one divine power blesses horses while another channels more of it through humans).

As for the faction name we should never change it to haradrims. Are you serious sir? How wrong is that! I mean Tolkien was guy who wrote silly stories for kids based on pagan germanic folklore. For sure we don't want to have such controversial influences in wesnoth as it plainly feels wrong. For now we have all those silly fantasy factions in but as some more important conflicts have to be resolved first I think they can stay in during this transition period and hopefully after that they will be taken care of properly.

Best regards
Q
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
User avatar
Temuchin Khan
Posts: 1790
Joined: September 3rd, 2004, 6:35 pm
Location: Player 6 on the original Agaia map

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Temuchin Khan »

alpha1 wrote:
make them elephants ;)
I'm afraid elephants would not really fit in in the historic medieval arabic theme... And tbh. it wouldn't be very realistic either, cause elephants don't live in the desert
But there are desert elephants:

http://www.namibian.org/travel/wildlife ... phant.html

Oh, and while it doesn't fit our image of Medieval Arabs, they did use at least some elephants. For example, Caliph Harun al-Rashid gave Charlemagne an elephant.
User avatar
pyrophorus
Posts: 533
Joined: December 1st, 2010, 12:54 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by pyrophorus »

Hi !
Quetzalcoatl wrote: As for the faction name we should never change it to haradrims. Are you serious sir? How wrong is that! I mean Tolkien was guy who wrote silly stories for kids based on pagan germanic folklore. For sure we don't want to have such controversial influences in wesnoth as it plainly feels wrong. For now we have all those silly fantasy factions in but as some more important conflicts have to be resolved first I think they can stay in during this transition period and hopefully after that they will be taken care of properly.
I strongly disagree with your opinions about Tolkien and heroic fantasy here, but this is not important and don't bother me at all (Hope it will not bother you as well). What bothers me more it's looks like you have some strategy of your own to change Wesnoth according to your opinion. But IMHO, Wesnoth is great because it allows many different people to play differently, and still discuss and collaborate. Maybe you don't like those "silly fantasy factions", but other people can like them, and even, like me, just because they're not realistic. A way to remember we're not IRL but in a game.

I can't see why removing mages from loys and renaming it "crusaders" would be a progress, except if you want to create here, in Wesnoth community, real factions flaming against each other. And don't invoke historical accuracy. This can't be achieved in a simplistic environment like Wesnoth, and would be an endless discord source.

Battle for Wesnoth, yes... on the maps, not IRL.

Friendly,
User avatar
Quetzalcoatl
Posts: 207
Joined: March 18th, 2009, 3:26 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Sir, in this thread I made an attempt at being as sarcastic as I could be :). By no means, regarding recent developments, religious context and first of all lack of fantasy theme inclusion of Khalifate era can be called an epic win. Its totally opposite to a win, but still epic ;). There was no/very little mp-development for quite a while but is it still exists? Rly? Maybe new balancing team would do the trick.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
User avatar
Ravana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2949
Joined: January 29th, 2012, 12:49 am
Location: Estonia
Contact:

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Ravana »

I would like to point out that Khalifate faction has been available at least since 1.2 and 2007, so that is not really recent. (True, then there were 6 units less than now)
User avatar
Iris
Site Administrator
Posts: 6797
Joined: November 14th, 2006, 5:54 pm
Location: Chile
Contact:

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Iris »

Quetzalcoatl wrote:Sir, in this thread I made an attempt at being as sarcastic as I could be :).
If you want to give (constructive) feedback like you said in the opening post, then you’d better drop the sarcasm, because it’s not helping with getting your points across.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
User avatar
Quetzalcoatl
Posts: 207
Joined: March 18th, 2009, 3:26 pm

Re: Khalifate Era

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Fair enough:

- BfW is game with fantasy theme, new faction isn't fantasy-themed,
- BfW is game without religious references, new factions (at least concerning name) is all about religion,
- regarding recent developments, its to controversial to put in material that has references to current real world violence / genocide.

Those are the problems. I assume (maybe I am wrong here) that inclusion of Khalifate (at least in current shape) was serious failure. Solution:

- make faction fantasy themed (alpha1, Mabuse already gave some very decent sugestions),
- rename faction to something fantasy related.

If above is not possible:

- remove faction.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Locked