Gaining Xp for use of leadership

[sargy]

I think it would be fair, that when a bosses leadership skill is used in a frontline battle, he should gain 1 xp for each charachter that uses his ability in attacks. I dont think it should apply to all abilities, such as white mages, as they could just sit at the back healing guys in a safe position and get close to levelling. The case of leadership in a front line battle is different, because if troops die you are exposing him to combat, and run the risk of dying.
It would also encourage players who play conservatively, to be more adventerous, and make more daring moves, as bringing out your leader to battle could result in him helping to push forward with his troops, or face being slaughtered.
Let me know what you thinkg

[appleide]

hmm... but if everytime a unit fights next to the leader and he gains 1 xp, that means he levels up pretty fast!

maybe only gain 1 xp (per level of the unit killed) if leadership was used AND the unit led had scored a kill...

[Tux2B]

No because leading does not improve your fighting abilities and that it would make, as appleide said, those units level up too quickly.

[scott]

Check the FPI.

[sargy]

leading does improve your fighting abilities, and a leader needs, nearly 50 xp points to level so 1 or 2 for him being used in fights wont make that much difference to him levelling that much quicker.
It rewards players who are skilled enough to make the most of that ability, also it would be nice to see and undead unit have some kind of ability like that[/i]

[unsung]

leading others doesn't raise your ability at personal combat.

[telly]

Leadership is one of the best or even the best (in certain circumstances) special ability in the game already. For the factions that have one, the leader with leadership is already normally the best choice and improving it even more would make all those other units irrelevant.

[Cuyo Quiz]

leading others doesn't raise your ability at personal combat.

Here, above my post, is a realistic explanation.

Now, if leaders gains xp for leading, then it would gain as much xp as he, himself, fought in the battle. I do think this is too much and not appropiate, as leaders are pretty useful/powerful as they are right now.

[Disto]

Possibly him not leading higher level units should give him xp but i don't like this idea.

[wisdomless]

This is like an older post about shamans gaining Xp when they heal. The dev's said no to that. Plus I think it better that to get Xp, you must put yourself at risk.

[sargy]

Wisdomless, do you not think that by having your leader on a frontline battle is not risk enough, if the guys infront of him die, he has a good chance of dying too.
I still think it should be rewarded for frontline battles, i also said about healers not getting it because they could stand at the back of the map and level.
This involves a risk and stratergy, so 1 xp per time used i think is fair rewards, and at 48xp to level it's a lot of times to be used. I just find the whole argument contradictory about him having any risk

[Thrawn]

Wisdomless, do you not think that by having your leader on a frontline battle is not risk enough, if the guys in front of him die, he has a good chance of dying too.
I still think it should be rewarded for frontline battles, i also said about healers not getting it because they could stand at the back of the map and level.
This involves a risk and stratergy, so 1 xp per time used i think is fair rewards, and at 48xp to level it's a lot of times to be used. I just find the whole argument contradictory about him having any risk

1. Thats true of any unit, and thats why he has leadership anyways, thats giving the leader two good things in order to balance out the same weakness.

2. If the healer has nothing to heal, can't gain xp that way--would also have to be near front line.

3.If you had a circle of troops, with leader and healer inside, both could possibaly get 48xp really quickly.

That was a rather pointless argument, IMO

[wisdomless]

I meant direct risk, not, "they might kill this guy then get a few attacks off and hurt me." True, your leader on the front is a risk, but it's less risk than the guy he's behind of. Besides, I didn't shoot down the healer gains Xp by healing idea, it was the Developers, who, by the way, seem to be ignoring this topic. I'm fairly sure they consider this case closed.

[Casual User]

Good morning!

Unsung wrote : "leading others doesn't raise your ability at personal combat."

Personal combat doesn't raise your ability at strategic deployment either.

The original idea was overpowered. A leader surrounded by lower-level unit could make up to 18xp in one turn of combat (6 from unit's attacks, 12 from units being attacked), more than 2 kills of a lvl 1 unit. That being said, I would like some way of getting xp without fighting.

The first idea I ever proposed was of a 'support' ability, which would mean the 'support' unit would receive 1xp for every level of ennemy unit killed by an adjacent unit, to be given to healers and commanders to reflect that they are supporting units. I still think it was a good idea.

The idea was rejected, though none of the arguments against it made any sense.

It doesn't make sense, but it's one of Wesnoth's sacred cows that xp can only come out of personal combat. You just live with it. On the other hand, if you feel like ~40 hours of C++ to implement a new feature...

[Darth Fool]

Well, as someone who actually coded up a patch to do this sort of thing a long time ago, I can say that it is not too hard. I may reintroduce the "wise" trait/ability after my current wesnoth project is done, as I have a bunch of abilities and traits that I think would be good to have available for special campaign units. These include (but are not limited to):

Wisdom{trait}: a unit gets experience when adjacent to both units involved in a fight in which one of them is killed.

Mercenary(X){trait}; a unit costs an additional X upkeep (default=0). If the player runs out of money, the mercenary becomes an independent unit.

Cowardice{trait}: A unit that is damaged in combat will immediatly attempt to move away from the attacker by 1 hex, using movement points from its next turn. If it can not flee, combat continues as usual.

Gaurdian{attack special}: When adjacent to a friendly unit and an enemy unit attacking that unit, the guardian uses this attack on the enemy before combat continues as usual. If the guardian attack is short range, then enemy attacks that are not short are unaffected. If the gaurdian attack is long range, all enemy attacks are effected.

Cover{attack special}: similar to gaurdian except that the guardian unit does not need to be adjacent to the attacking unit.

Modify Terrain{effect from which a variety of abilities/traits can be made in WML}. A unit that ends its turn with all of its movement points and possibly matching other criteria (eg must be on a village) temporarily modifies the adjacent hexes (possibly only adjacent hexes matching certain criteria). Typically the modification would be to add a new alias to the terrain as well as some custom artwork. A couple example of how this could be used is with an elvish grove-mistress who when on a village adds forests to the adjacent hexes, or an engineer who adds fortifications to adjacent hexes (aliased to castle). Could also be a basis for other effects like pathfinder (units take 1 less MV to move through adjacent hexes) It might also provide a more general mechanism for the miner types introduced by Dave as well.

A bunch of more generic aura effects that can be used in WML to adjust the stats of adjacent units.

These and a few others are on my to-do list, however, I have decided not to add them until I have an AI that can be told how to use them effectively, by which I mean that the AI does not ignore there existance. I still expect that a good human player will use them more effectively than the AI. That is still a ways off (especially as my laptop is back in the shop again. ;( urgh!!!) I also don't expect these to be used in generic units, but, as I said earlier, they could be quite helpful for custom campaign units.