Archaic Era (BfW 1.18)

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fog_of_gold
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.13 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by fog_of_gold »

Don't forget that the horse is that much cheap: only 2 gold coins more than a WC. The horse is even twince stronger than the WC, in my opinion. I think, setting the cost to 16 gold would be OK.
A turtle with only 30% defense in water ? that's not very turtle like.
Well, the turtle is very slowly, even in water. It is very turtly-like. Maybe we can set the defence to 40%. But then, it'll be really turtle-like.
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doofus-01
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.13 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

0.9.14 just went to the server. I adjusted the Khthon so that the vector attack is arcane and uses swarm. That was an attempt to balance them against the ghostly and primeval factions, who cannot be possessed but are weaker to arcane damage. The swarm is to make dying units less effective, I'm not sure if I'll keep that.

I also adjusted Northerners to remove the Naga and replace it with another type of orc. That may piss some people off, but I didn't like that the Naga was there. I'll try to get a better replacement. I also don't like that the merman is with the Loyalists, so that one will get removed at some point.
adm wrote:A turtle with only 30% defense in water ? that's not very turtle like.
I got a little sloppy, I think it's fixed now.
fog_of_gold wrote:Don't forget that the horse is that much cheap: only 2 gold coins more than a WC. The horse is even twince stronger than the WC, in my opinion. I think, setting the cost to 16 gold would be OK.
The horse may seem overpowered compared to WC, but it appears less overpowered when compared to an orc grunt. And for what it is worth, I have never seen the AI recruit a horse, it usually recruits wolves and woodsmen or sometimes a yak. Finding a unit with overpowered stats would be the one thing the AI would be good at, I'd think.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.13 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by fog_of_gold »

doofus-01 wrote:[...]
fog_of_gold wrote:Don't forget that the horse is that much cheap: only 2 gold coins more than a WC. The horse is even twince stronger than the WC, in my opinion. I think, setting the cost to 16 gold would be OK.
The horse may seem overpowered compared to WC, but it appears less overpowered when compared to an orc grunt.
OK. If you think so, let's compare:
+two gold less
+vector
+3 more movement (makes you able to reach more than twince hexes)
-more than 20% less hitpoints
-one damage less=12.5% less damage
So if we multiply 80% with 87.5%, we'll get 70%, so the disadvantage of the horse is just 30% but it's got the powerful vector, unbelieveable 8 moves and is even cheaper.
And for what it is worth, I have never seen the AI recruit a horse, it usually recruits wolves and woodsmen or sometimes a yak. Finding a unit with overpowered stats would be the one thing the AI would be good at, I'd think.
The ai mostly uses recruitment_pattern, defense and movecost to get the next unit to recruit. It's got nothing to do with 'too weak' or 'too strong' (how should the ai get it?!) I really wonder why the ai won't recruit them.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

fog_of_gold wrote:OK. If you think so, let's compare:
OK, but a few things:
- I don't see an accounting of the defenses & resistances, so I don't think that calculation is quite right.
- I don't think two gold cheaper than the orc tells the whole story. The cost of ownership over a few turns is very similar. It would capture more villages, but it would also die more easily. Not so easy as 12 - 10 = 2.
- Vector... Still working on that, so maybe it is too strong for now. But I don't see why the horse gets singled out.
fog_of_gold wrote:The ai mostly uses recruitment_pattern, defense and movecost to get the next unit to recruit. It's got nothing to do with 'too weak' or 'too strong' (how should the ai get it?!) I really wonder why the ai won't recruit them.
I did not set a recruit_pattern for them, so it should just recruit whatever it calculates as most appropriate. So yes, it should be influenced by too weak or too strong. The AI would "get it" a similar way you were just going about it, it adds and subtracts some numbers.
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adm
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by adm »

A few thoughts

- Now that the vector attack is swarm based it should no longer be possible to possess enemy units. I played orcs and ended up loosing 4 fully healed units to the enemy within 1 turn.

- I'm not sure if the petrifying ability of the statue is a good idea. In one match me and my ally petrified a total of 20 enemy units including one of the enemy leaders. What about an approach similar to what you did with the turtle ?

- I agree with doofus. I also don't see why the horse gets singled out.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

adm wrote:In one match me and my ally petrified a total of 20 enemy units including one of the enemy leaders.
(emph. mine) I forgot a filter, that's easy to fix. I'll nerf it down a bit also.
adm wrote:- Now that the vector attack is swarm based it should no longer be possible to possess enemy units. I played orcs and ended up loosing 4 fully healed units to the enemy within 1 turn.
Sounds unlucky... But there is still some room to tone it down further without eliminating it. It'll be more unlikely for that to happen next time. I don't really want swarm, lowering the damage of a small number of strikes would be better I think. I'm still working out how to do that though.
--------
As for the horse, I didn't remember the stats in my previous post, but now I've checked them and see the HP are 38 orc vs 20 horse. I'm not sure where 20% comes from. The horse, like most of the others, will get adjusted some, but it will stay a cheap unit roughly like it is.

Thanks.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by mnewton1 »

Ageless Era will have no problems with your era or campaigns :D
Creator of Ageless Era
Check out Frogatto & Friends, it's made by the same people who created The Battle for Wesnoth!
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doofus-01
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

0.9.15 just went to the server. Changes that I remember:
- Vector attack is no longer swarm, but just gets weaker as the unit loses HP. I think there are rounding errors sometimes, but it mostly works.
- Statues can't stone leaders anymore, and they take a certain amount of damage every turn for every victim they have stoned. You can release victims with right-click menu. The AI is totally unaware of this right now.
- The orcs have some new units. I think they may be overpowered now because they could beat the primevals (AI vs AI).
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fog_of_gold
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by fog_of_gold »

About the horse, I can remeber they had 32 hitpoints. With 20 hitpoints, they are balanced.
adm
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by adm »

I played a 2on2 and one of the units of my ally was petrified. However, killing the statue didn't release the unit.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

I'll look into it. If you have a save with the petrified unit, could you post that?
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by adm »

Sorry, i don't have it anymore. But i played another match.

This time it was me who petrified the enemy. I had 2 statues. When the first statue was killed the petrified units were released, when the second statue was killed nothing happened. The first unit was killed while being in the water, the second unit was killed on land. Not sure if that makes a difference.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

It's that damn thing again...

In Archaic_Era/utils/Archaic_abilities.cfg, add first_time_only=no below line 436:

Code: Select all

    
...
[event]
    name=die
    first_time_only=no   <---------- add this at line 437
	[filter]
	ability=aa_stone
	[/filter]
	[store_unit]
	    [filter]
...
The default value for that switch is really unfortunate, I don't think I ever use first_time_only=yes for something that isn't trivial and wouldn't be trivial to catch.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by adm »

I was looking for a value that is wrong but not for a value that is missing. Thanks for the quick fix.

Do you plan to add anymore units to the Ukians and the South-Sea Humans ? 4 units for each of them isn't much.

Not that it matters but it still says Archaic Era 0.9.14.
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Re: Archaic Era 0.9.14 (for BfW 1.8)

Post by doofus-01 »

adm wrote:Do you plan to add anymore units to the Ukians and the South-Sea Humans ? 4 units for each of them isn't much.
As campaign factions, I think they work. But for MP, I guess it is a bit thin... I could mash them together, like outlaws and dwarves.

More likely though, is that I'll add one more line to south-seas and make some unit line that is part of the tyrant's forces in BMR-II, but won't look too out of place in the MP Ukians.
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