Change the AMLA system

[Melon]

I still haven't gotten around to finishing the WML for the rest of the units since I ran into a few snags along the way. In the meantime I'll answer some of the questions:

In terms of getting things to happen, melon is amazing

nice idea. You play DnD, don't you, just as a side-question

Thank you. Though I don't actually play DnD, I'm quite familiar with the rules and own a few of the manuals. This idea was based more so on the Heroes of Might and Magic advancement system then the DnD system.

The current AMLA system has an advantage that it can be applied forever. If you gain enough experience, you could have AMLA 100 times. (Yes, that would create a really overpowered unit.)

I think it would be nice to preserve this also in the new AMLA system. Whatever new options you add, there should be at least one option which can be applied infinitely.

I've recently had an idea as to how this can be bypassed.
After a unit has collected all 4 of its Feats, its 5th level promotion will remove its XP cap and allow the player to choose a special unit-specific power. This power can be activated though a right-click menu and will drain a certain amount of XP to use.

A few example powers that we might have:
Purify Land: Transforms hostile terrain such as snow and desert into grasslands and grassland into forests. This power effects all tiles adjacent to the caster and its effects are permanent.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Unit that have this power: elves, mages of light, paladins
Unholy Desecration: All surrounding tiles are permanently frozen. Land turns to snow and water turns into ice.
-Cost: 32 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: undead
Warcry: Increases the damage of all surrounding units by 25% for a single turn. This bonus stacks with all other combat bonuses and penalties.
-Cost: 16 XP
-Unit that have this power: orcs, dwarves
Call of Darkness: For the remainder of this turn all slain enemies will transform into zombies.
-Cost: 24 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: lich, necromancer, ghosts
Pillage and Burn: Destroys and occupied town and bestows the player with 20 gold.
-Cost: 16 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: orcs, undead, outlaws
Burst of Speed: Doubles the units movement for the turn.
-Cost: 16 XP
-Units that have this power: cavalry, fliers, elusive units
Flawless Defense: The unit that uses this power will take only 1/10 damage for the remainder of the turn.
-Cost: 24 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: dwarves, defensive units
Dragon Form: Transforms the unit into a fire dragon for a single turn.
-Cost: 16 XP
-Units that have this power: drakes, great mage
Rightful Might: Unit receives +50% to damage for a single turn
-Cost: 24 XP
-Units that have this power: loyalists
Tremor Call: All surrounding tiles increase in their level of elevation. water becomes land, land becomes hills and hills become mountains.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: dwarves
Tidal Call: All surrounding tiles decrease in their level of elevation. mountains become hills, hills become land and land becomes water.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: merman
Gate of Ethereal Travel: The caster and all surrounding units are teleported to any other location on the map.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points for both the mage and the teleported troops.
-Units that have this power: silver mage

[KingdomAmericaCMG]

Unholy Desecration: All surrounding tiles are permanently frozen. Land turns to snow and water turns into ice.
-Cost: 32 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: undead

I think that this should turn tiles into cave like tiles, not sure about this one kinda iffy

Dragon Form: Transforms the unit into a fire dragon for a single turn.
-Cost: 16 XP
-Units that have this power: drakes, great mage

this mean Saurians are included or just the race drakes?

Tidal Call: All surrounding tiles decrease in their level of elevation. mountains become hills, hills become land and land becomes water.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: merman

I think Naga should get this as well, and maybe the Saurian auger advancements.

Tremor Call: All surrounding tiles increase in their level of elevation. water becomes land, land becomes hills and hills become mountains.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: dwarves

Trolls should get this as well.

[Melon]

It's just a guideline for what sorts of effects the ability might have and the units that might get it, nothing too concrete. I'm just testing the waters to see if that idea gets accepted in the first place.

The xp requirement should probably be a lot higher since the abilities shouldn't be something that the player gets a chance to use every single turn. I'd say about 3 or 4 times higher then what I originally proposed.

Unholy Desecration: All surrounding tiles are permanently frozen. Land turns to snow and water turns into ice.
-Cost: 32 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: undead

I think that this should turn tiles into cave like tiles, not sure about this one kinda iffy

It probably needs a better name instead. Something along the lines of "Unholy Chill", "Fimbulwinter" or "Summon Storm". The Yetti's going to get it as well.

Dragon Form: Transforms the unit into a fire dragon for a single turn.
-Cost: 16 XP
-Units that have this power: drakes, great mage

this mean Saurians are included or just the race drakes?

Probably just the drakes. Transforming a level 2 saurian into a level 5 fire dragon will end up getting out of hand fairly quick. The undead might have a similar power, where they transform into an undead dragon instead.

Tidal Call: All surrounding tiles decrease in their level of elevation. mountains become hills, hills become land and land becomes water.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: merman

I think Naga should get this as well, and maybe the Saurian auger advancements.

Tremor Call: All surrounding tiles increase in their level of elevation. water becomes land, land becomes hills and hills become mountains.
-Cost: 48 XP, may only be used prior to moving the unit and will drain all movement points
-Units that have this power: dwarves

Trolls should get this as well.

Agreed.

[Lorbi]

[...]
The xp requirement should probably be a lot higher since the abilities shouldn't be something that the player gets a chance to use every single turn. I'd say about 3 or 4 times higher then what I originally proposed.
[...]

3 or 4 times more than 48? ... 48 already means u have to kill 6 lvl1 guys .. so thats something u won't manage in a single turn ^^
4 times more would be killing 24 guys of lvl1 ... say i di lvl2s only and manage to kill one of them every turn ... which is very unlikely
i still could us that feature just every 12th turn .. thats not quite often since most games do not last much longer than 40 turns ...

[cretin]

this is probably not for the use in every scenario, but over several scenario's. you only use it once in a while. like long campaigns. probably not intended for multiplayer

[Wesnothian Citizen]

Melon,
I am excited on your idea, and feel like it can to be polished for better execution
Here is my additional suggestion for you to emphasize 3 elements

1) Race specialization (really nice to further emphasize on)
2) Player option (more strategy depth and increase fun)
3) Simplicity ( Wesnoth philosophy - Critical for maintanance / balancing)

For that, may be we can make only 2 AMLA choices each races
option A - a 1 time skill upgrade + repeating HP increase
option B - a 1 time skill upgrade + repeating speed (example)

With that we have less than 10 races to think with great race similarity concept
and maintain wesnothian simple "dual option upgrade decision"

something like orc always more HP or attack, elves always good jungle tracking etc

[Septim]

I dont like this idea.
I think the current AMLA is fine and it is (most likely) exactly that what it should be. Melons ideas are very complicated and I dont recognize what they bring to pure playebility. They make sence maybe in case of main characters or leaders.

P.S.: I appreciate Melons thinking laxation. Really.

[Simons Mith]

I was going to start another thread about this, but it fits here too. The point I wanted to raise was that Delfador is a bit wimpy for a fifth level character. A 4th level archmage is more powerful. This is a disadvantage, because it means units fighting Delfador get more XPs than a unit of Delfador's power would necessarily warrant. From which the following suggestion follows: perhaps, after every fifth or tenth AMLA, a unit's level is increased, making it a juicier target for enemy attacks, because they get more XPs. This is another slight counterbalance to the incremental improvements the unit is slowly collecting.

[Turuk]

I dont like this idea.
I think the current AMLA is fine and it is (most likely) exactly that what it should be. Melons ideas are very complicated and I dont recognize what they bring to pure playebility. They make sence maybe in case of main characters or leaders.

P.S.: I appreciate Melons thinking laxation. Really.

While I am sure Melon appreciates your subtle opinion on his work, just note that it's not going to suddenly replace mainline AMLA. Melon is doing all the work and coding himself, and therefore why can he not make the mod he desires?

The ideas are not terribly complicated, they just require a great deal of work and will require even more balancing, but it would make a great addition to campaign play at some point. A few developers have posted in here pointing out that this idea is a decent one, and has just never been tackled before given the amount of work.

Anyways there is plenty of effort required to do all this, and I think that's what's holding it up more than people not thinking it's a good idea. If someone wanted to make, perhaps, a modification that adds this, I think there's a very high chance it would be eventually accepted into mainline if it was done well.

The system as Melon proposes it would only work for chars once they have reached max level, it's race specific for certain abilities, and how often do higher level chars hit AMLAs? Melon already covered the experience requirements, so it is not as if there is a danger of these abilities becoming the main focus of gameplay, and taking away from the playability of the level 1s and 2s. It is more a step towards providing a viable reason to have your level 3's hit AMLA.

[Skizzaltix]

Very neat idea--I really ought to check this forum more often, I keep missing stuff like this.
I also think that Villiam's idea for the random options is a good one. I know that I, personally, would feel rather intimidated by a long list of things that I must choose only one of, and the anticipation of maybe seeing a trait you haven't seen before is always nice.

...I'd offer to help out, but you don't seem to need it, and I really ought to be doing my homework

[Thrawn]

Yeah, the xp being turned into a kinda mp after awhile is an excellent idea .

You've taken on a lot of work, Melon. I hope you get it done, and tons of people find it enjoyable.

[KingdomAmericaCMG]

Yeah, the xp being turned into a kinda mp after awhile is an excellent idea .

You've taken on a lot of work, Melon. I hope you get it done, and tons of people find it enjoyable.

I had a neat idea that would work with using the mp idea. well basically make all the units times 10 on level (lvl 10 for lvl 1, lvl 20 for lvl 2 etc.) giving lots of xp for fighting, could be interesting to build something out of this.

my idea basically was to kinda have a cinematic combat that you used your xp to do specials. SX kinda does it but its only additive in nature, adding attacks, adding damage, adding strikes. This could give variance as you do a heroic strike that does ton of damage but drains your xp.

it will be very cool to see what comes out.

a few questions about your code. Will it be unit specific and/or race dependent? I'm just wondering how would it treat a custom race/faction/unit. Default era only? just wondering.

[Skizzaltix]

I imagine it will be done via macros, like the mainline AMLAs--So, the code doesn't "choose" which units get which advancements, you decide it in the unit .cfg file.