Era of Courage [name subject to change]

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 4th, 2011, 7:06 am

So. Lalindo's my name, and lurking's my game - at least until now. I've decided to actually start to try to contribute things to the community here, whose posts I've been reading for.. a bit of time (player since 1.2.8!). Anyway. I've an idea for an era, right now (as well as ideas for music in general and a campaign to go along with below expounded era… which will come with time.).

As a show of good faith (to show that I am actually willing to do the work myself) I've attempted the sprite art for some units, which, while certainly not as good as the work that's generally done here.. I don't think is horrible for a first attempt. [Though I can't express how much I'd LOVE some feedback, telling me what I'm doing wrong. Especially as I don't know how to do this, and these are my first attempt.. but that's no excuse not to try, at any rate.] Anyway. I figured I'd pitch the idea for the era here (as one is supposed to do) rather than put a ridiculous amount of effort into it.. only to discover that it's not good (or, at least, that no one would use it). There's at least plenty of thought with back story/background information. Which is a start.

Incidentally, several of the faction names here are from a (quite incomplete) language that I made myself a while ago… is that too confusing? I was considering naming units and such in that format as well [in the spirit of the Khalifate faction being worked on presently, what with the Arabic names].

It'd be set in it's own 'world,' so to speak (thus the language), with a heavy link with a faerie world, much inspired by Celt/Pict mythology (with random bits from the Dresden Files and 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell' [excellently written book]).

Kingdom of Falath (hidden darkness)

Basically, I want to make this faction sort of Medievally-inspired, with focus on knights and the like. The catch is that they're a 'faded' human kingdom. They've fallen morally from what they were before (though not economically or anything like that; the fading is not known to the public at large) - this will be exemplified with a gradient of shades of grey that will be used for coloring. The ones whose armor (etc) is darker are farther fallen, and the ones whose armour is a lighter shade of grey are not as much. The idea is that they started with white armour - though at this point, that's just a far-distant legend. I'm trying to think of a way to make the armour actually have a reason to fade (rather than just doing so randomly). Perhaps it was passed down through generations, but I'm not quite sure at this point…

This faction also (and this is getting into campaign realm) has no desire for anything fae to exist, and they're quite willing to make that so: though the army has to fight it, they keep its existence a secret from the public at large. It will be a generally melee based faction, I think - and I'm not sure if it can have a magic-using unit, due to their public shunning of the fae realm. If they did, anyway, it'd have to be some sort of king's secret… because he's dabbling with forces beyond his ken, which is why they are fading, and why he wants to destroy anything related to faerie… stuff. So. Low defense, high resistances (fae armour), strong, generally slowish. Chaotic/Neutral.

Romlin (hope)

These people are more sort of poor, vagrants, etc. They have many hunters, and are (at least at this point), peasants and the remnants of a conquered society. So. They have good archers, etc (because of the necessary hunting). They're also closer to pure faerie beings on the scale - they half believe in elves, at least, and have legends of other sorts of things.. but it's been an age since they've seen anything like it. There are people among them who seem to maybe have elven blood in them, too [which will be a sort of mixed-fighter unit, at least]. They're familiar with herbs and things, as well, and forest dwellers. Lawful/neutral.

Among them as well are remnants of a race I'm presently calling the 'Utoth.' They have units in several of these factions, and are inspired by a combination of several things (the Dark People of Celtic legend, Tolkien's Woses [very different from ours] and Dwarves [and leprechauns and their relatives. Not the Lucky Charms kind, the regular kind.]). At the very least, they're small. Hobbit-sized. There are some of them that are mountain based, some of them that live in forests, etc. They've learned to live where they can, through hiding. I was thinking of putting an ambush-type unit, maybe a nightstalker.. maybe something with backstab.. maybe a combination.. just think generally small. It's a work in progress.

Anlaith (star followers)

This is a sort of weird faction, that's morphed into a lot of different things… originally, they were inspired by gypsies. See, my idea (partly inspired from the Swan Wars' Trilogy) is that there's one faerie realm, and there's the regular.. human realm. Domain. Something. Anyway. They were made separate by a deity (or maybe the faeries themselves), though they were once whole. However. They're loopholes in any situation. These people have figured out (among other things) how to traverse these 'hidden paths.' And (because the faerie realm is connected to our in a weird way) you're able to go quite far distances without going quite so.. far. So. I want to have a unit or two (Gatefinder?) with an ability to sort of.. jump spaces. I'm not sure how far, and I'm not sure how overpowered this would be, and I have ZERO idea how to code it… but I'm willing to learn, and I'm willing to try to figure stuff out. And if it's too hard.. I'll figure something else out. This is a learning experience. Another unit I'm thinking of is something called a 'story finder.' They're very oral-tradition folks, the Anlathim. Maybe a ranged unit? With a 'Bard' level up?

Anyway. They're now mainly inspired by Picts. I like the whole 'woad' look for them. And the whole druidic thing. They're still definitely nomadic, and definitely 'tribal' (though very intelligent, and non-standard). They're mysterious (not even the fae know much about them). Size.. I'm thinking slightly smaller than humans in some cases, but not quite sure about it.. they have definite ties to the fae. I want one of the units to be reminiscent of the famous 'Pictish Beast' (which is going to be faerie). They're neutral, I'm thinking, and generally good on a variety of terrain.. I'm thinking both forest and dessert. Generally a weak faction, good defences, though. And a couple of weird abilities (assuming that I can get them to work). Another one that I was trying to formulate in my head (and I think is actually possible) is a variation on the summon ability in the Era of Magic… except rather than being summon, it would be called animate? And the sort of thing 'animated' would be based on the terrain that you're animating? I'm not sure on this one, though. Or if I even want it in this faction.

Shadow

This is a generally more dark faction (clearly). Also, unfortunately, not a terribly original concept. They result of the dark forces the ruler of the Falath. They're not fae, anyway, and they're not from this world. They're not made out of normal things.. sentient, mostly. They kind of want to take of the world. Both realms. And the ruler of the other faction's willing to let them do that (power issue). Anyway. Lots of cold attacks. And claws. I'm wanting one unit to be (I think) a sort of 'hand of death.' The actual Shadow unit would fit in well here. Definitely chaotic. And they're some of the darker elements of the fae on their side as well - things such as Kelpies and Fomor. They're unpleasant fellows. Probably decent defense, lousy magical resistances, good physical resistances. Large variety of speeds and strengths; some use of poison, I'm thinking. Shape… changeable. I'm not sure on their appearance at present, I've just got this general image of black. Dark. Malleable. Malevolent.

Sentinel

The Sentinels are ancient. They're guardians of the world (which is yet to be named). Slightly like Tolkien's Maiar.. but not really. I'm thinking that a few of them at least are going to be winged, humanesque beings. (similar to Claimants from the Celestials) Lawful, certainly. They were sent by the 'deities' of the world, for two reasons. One was that once the existence of the Shadow was known, things were going to have to defend against it. The second reason was to keep together the framework of whatever spell is holding the two different realms apart. Their task was to keep the world safe, basically.

They've got different guises, too.. there are definitely a few human-shapes with wings. I'm seeing that. Then there are some of the fae, I think. Ancient fae that are tied to the spirit of the world. Then I'm thinking that there are going to be some remnants of the races from the first age of that world. There's going to be a race of giants, anyway (not fat ones). Some things I want to call 'Avatars'. Like.. elementals, basically. There's going to be something called a 'Walker,' which I'm seeing presently as a sort of taller, vaguely humanoid race. I'm also thinking something that's more of an underground race, being driven out by the shadow, maybe centaurs, maybe an utoth, etc. There are a lot of possibilities here. Anywho. The actual sentinels will be lawful, and fairly mobile.. with a variety of different damages. The fae beings are probably going to be neutral, large, strong and slow. The other ones.. will vary accordingly. Generally expensive, but there's a lot of variety here. This whole faction, though, through the different races, I want to have a feeling of ancient. Not like.. old, but a sense that these things have been around for a long, long, time; they've seen the world change before.. and they're worried about what's happening now (the Shadow). Whole races are being uprooted. I'm thinking that this will be a more mountain-focused faction (at least the Sentinels themselves).

Olontorians (wood's end)

This is (of course there has to be one) an elf faction. But, like many other factions in this era, it's not just one race. There aren't very many elves left, due to the shadow. The elves have always been allied closely with the Fae - there's going to be, I think, a fae counterpart. One race left here, the other into the other realm (when the spell was made). They differentiated accordingly over the years, until they figured out how to bridge the gap (and the spell weakened)… but there were definitely differences in each race's development. So. There are elves, and their fae counterpart, at least (as well as some half-bloods mixed in). There are also other fae in this faction. I'm thinking maybe a shapeshifting sort of thing? There also might be another sort of Utoth. I'm also considering having tree-spirits be allied with these forest-dwellers. There's also going to be some sort of in-game benefit to using both faerie and elven warriors.. maybe a bonus to attacks when one is standing next to another? Just a thought.

Shil-bar Alliance (fire-mountain)

Okay. So. These next two factions I'm planning on making last.. because I do think that the era can work without them. However, I like them both as factions. They're sort of.. separate from the rest of this, but still definitely connected. They are (again) composed of different races who have banded together because of the times that are lived in. The two main races of each of the factions, however, have been in a feud that's gone on for as long as anyone can remember. They're both partially inspired by drakes/dragonesque things. This faction is lawful, and it contains several different races. The main one is a very drake-like race (which I'm not sure what to call - maybe even just a ). They're humanoid dragons, anyway, but I'm thinking more… lithe than your run of the mill drake. Quicker, slimmer, etc. They're a work in progress, though, even more so than a lot of these ideas. Might call them the 'Shalsoth.' Anyway. The other members of this alliance are as follows: A hardier form of Utoth (closer to a Dwarf, but not quite), a flying serpent called a 'Lai,' a Salamander (the type from Celtic Mythology, all firey and such), and I was considering some sort of Were-person. Maybe a whereat or a werewolf.. even a were dragon could be interesting. That would also require tricky WML, because I'd want to try to make it so that they actually.. turned into something at dusk. Maybe not tricky.. just odd? I don't know much about coding, though. [Though I'm quite willing to learn.]

Brumen (the wild)

Alright. The last faction. This one is going to contain some of your general baddies, anyway. So.. chaotic. The idea for this faction is that the main race (like I said) is feuding with the main race of the Shil-bar Alliance. This race, too, is serpentine - even drake-shaped. But they're not winged, first of all. They're generally hardier, larger, slower, better physical resistances.. and they have cold magic sorts of things. So. Their antithesis. I'm not quite sure to call them yet - I'm thinking something like 'Nilsoth' or something like that. They're chaotic, anyway. There are going to be some of the darker fae in this faction, maybe a troll-like thing or some orcs. I'm seeing a bird or something, maybe, too (working with faerie things does give me a lot of artistic liberty, anyway.)

Okay.

So. Congratulations if you got this far. (You have many thanks from me). I'd love to hear any thoughts/opinions… I plan on working on this, by the way. Not commanding/requesting that others do work for me. I'd love to hear opinions on said work, however (this is going to be kind of a large project)… and I'll probably end up asking specific questions when I get to something I don't know how to do. Anyway. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. (Though I do have unfinished unit trees for most of the factions already, if people would like to see them) What does the community think of the ideas/factions, etc? And my (few) ideas for sprites so far?

Post by **Crendgrim** » June 4th, 2011, 7:33 am

Actually, I didn't read through the description yet. Just for your sprites: I think a separate topic in Art Workshop to get critics on them from art people who are lurking there more will prove useful. They're (esp. the Potent's) heading south, not south-east as Wesnoth sprites do generally.

Crend

Post by **Velensk** » June 4th, 2011, 12:21 pm

I cannot really give you feedback on the art but as far as the concept it certainly is workable but I cannot say much about balance without having a look at more of the specifics for the factions.

Before we start though, I'd like to call your attention to project purpose:

Are you trying to:
1:Create this because you think it would be a cool thing to have around/show to friends/play around with,
2:Create this simply to increase the variety of your wesnoth experiance?
3:Create this because you want to play (or see how wesnoth plays) with certain concepts/rules/abilities.
4:Create this because you are trying to create an alternative to compeditive mainline for those who are tired with it.
5:Create this to improve your various skills (coding, spriting, ect).
6:Create this because you want to make campaigns for it.
7:Create this because you think your factions fill some thematic gap which has not been covered yet.
-Something else I'm not thinking of?

If 1 or 2 is your objective it really dons't matter too much what you do as long as you enjoy it. Though do keep in mind that if nobody else enjoys it, you'll have a hard time convincing people to play it with you. Lots of factions/units helps #2 a lot but it can be rough if you also want 3 or 4.
If 3 or 4 is your objective then it is important that you balance it tightly both so that it makes for decent alternative and so that whatever concepts you're testing show in proper light. Be prepared to do lots of testing mostly against people who've never played it before and attempt to make decisions based on that. It will help you a lot if you are already very familiar/skilled and standard wesnoth.
If 5 is your objective then be ambitious and try to make all kinds of crazy.
If 6 is your objective then be sure to have interesting advancement trees.
If 7 is your objective then be sure you've tried pleny of other eras to make sure you know. Of course you might find something similar to what you're doing but if you think you can do it better then go ahead anyway.

The reason I ask is because many people go into this without seeming to know what they're really trying to do and as a result I find that they suffer from lack of direction/incentive to continue after they get to a certain point.

If I were to use myself as an example, when I took over Era of Myth, it was supposed to be a short term thing where I'd do it until the origional creator finished with his finals(I'd been playtesting it before mostly for number 1/2/3). Then as I got into it it was definately a case of number 5. When the origional creator did not come back and I began doing serious testing (the balance was horrible) I thought I saw some potential for number 4 and I took great pains to balance it (being tightly balanced only really matters for 3/4 though it helps everywhere). I was having a hard time getting enough testers so I created a campaign out of it for 5, but I found I kind of enjoyed it and so now 6 is a constant for me. Later on the creator came back reverted a ton of my changes then vanished again and I felt a little too annoyed to pick it up again but I had found the things I liked most in making eras and I came back to it eventually.

I made the Gunpowder Age because wesnoths combat mechanics always felt napoleoic to me, at the moment there was none (I got the art from some adbandoned eras and the 18th centry warfare era came after with its own take on it). While I was at it I played very heavily on 3/7 and solved the issue of balance by making it so that there was one faction with many recruits but the interaction between them was complex. The way I've been making it has also allowed me to experiment heavily with maps which has been nice. However, because of what I was trying to do with this era I've never seriously considered adding more factions (which is very important if variety is what you're looking for), nor ensuring that the units are all that thematically different (for the most part they're guys with guns, guys on horses with swords, cannons, or ships with cannons), just that they all play distinctly from each other. The insentive to play this era rather than mainline comes from how complex the individual units are, the wide veriety of viable playstyles, what it allows you to do with maps, and finally the napoleonic theme appeals to a number of history buffs.

This was cool but I wanted a more traditional era that catered more to 4 with a dose of 3 (in addition to the consistant 1/6). Because 4 was the focus, I did not want an immense number of factions for this era (the more factions the harder it is to balance), however I wanted enough for there to be variety. Later I found a theme which appealed to me which was a certain authors books (which also gave me a bargaining chip for the art) which could give me factions based on cultures not heavilly covered (though the vaugely roman one has a number of similar factions and the Sea States bear a very slight connection to the khalifa). I started with four factions and a fifth that was very experimental and mainly balanced the first four. Later I felt like making factions again (mostly for 1,3,and 7) but not wanting to dump a ton more trouble into the balance I included them only in an extended era so as to not distrupt the origional point of the era (nor lower the % of unique art in core I had to steal art to make the extended factions). I did however, ensure that all the new factions were based off nations in the same world so that they were connected and already had a bit of history and would (once the art was finished) feel like they fit.

EDIT: To offer another example, the Ageless Era is practically tailored to 2 (probably with shades of 1 and maybe 5 but I don't know the creators mind). It offers a mindboggling array of factions by stealing them from every other era (some of which might have qualified for 3 or 7). It does try to balance them but I think if you play it extensively I think you'll find that it simply cannot. Despite this, it is still easilly the most popular era on the servers because many people want what it offers. You would have a hard time competing with it if you're looking just for 2 but there are plenty of other reasons to make this project.

EDITED extensively in an attempt to be more coherant after the night I've had.

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 4th, 2011, 6:29 pm

@Crendgrim: Hmhm. Probably wise. The Potent's just an idea, for now.. hardly anything finished. hmhmhm. I figured that I'd put them here for general signs that I'm not another person with an idea and no initiative.

. I'll start another thread in that forum, as you suggest.

@Velensk: That's perfectly okay. I like the concept, myself, and think it's workable.. I just wanted to see if people agreed. And I'll be sure to post the unit trees that I have done so far later today (if you'd want to take a look at them, anyway).

Well. Let's see. Partially, I want to experiment for myself. Push my boundaries, see what I can do, etc. So that would seem to be.. 2 and 5, sort of. Finding out if I CAN do some of these things, and improving what I can do in others. Of course I'd like that I'd made something, too, etc. But I don't know that that's the most important thing.

It's definitely partially 6, too. I have a campaign in mind that I'd like to write for it. Actually, that's probably a lot of it - one of the reasons I want to do this is to stimulate thinking in another way for something I'm writing in real life. I think that thinking about things in different ways.. is going to help both of these activities be better. That being said, I'll put my best efforts into both of these things.

With that being my goal (writing and learning), I still would like to try to make something for competitive mainline. New things are fun for everyone (if done well), and I'm going to do my best to do this well. I'd like to play it myself, anyway, when all is said and done.. and I certainly have no problem with other people enjoying it, if it's enjoyable. So. I'd like to improve myself, and write a good story.. and have it be enjoyable for other people.

So. The reason I have so many factions is for the purpose of writing (they're all related to the outline I have)… revealing that 6, at this point, is my primary goal; though creating something for multiplayer is still certainly a goal in general - at the very least, if I end up with something halfway decent, it might end up getting included in the Ageless Era (if the creator's still adding things, anyway) - I believe that the original point was to include factions/eras that people liked.

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 7th, 2011, 7:32 am

So "later today" ended up being "several days later," mainly because I wanted to try to complete them before submitting.. but it's harder than I thought. I've got almost complete unit trees for almost all of the factions, but only concrete stats for one faction. There're more general ideas for everything else... Is it a better idea to post what I've got, or to wait and try to post something more complete? And is this enough information, or should I post more?

At any rate, here's the tree for the Anlaith(im?).

Spoiler:

There are a couple of weird abilities I want to try to make here.. and some new weapon specials.

Abilities:

Animates: Basically, this is going to work like 'summon' in the Era of Magic... except the unit that you can 'summon' is determined by the hex you're trying to use the ability on - thus 'animate.' It's supposed to be a way to 'animate' the terrain, etc. It might cost xp or gold.. I haven't decided yet. I'm tempted to have it cost xp, and to maybe be able to 'animate' something else with an AMLA. To make it a choice and all.

Shifts: This is one that I was trying to explain before. I want to be able to teleport or "shift" between hexes. I'm not sure how far that that can be (I'm thinking that that will be determined by map size? And as far as you can see, as per Fog of War, etc.) and I'm also maybe thinking of allowing the unit (in higher levels - at least the Wanderer) to take other units (adjacent?) with it; with more per level.

Storyfinds: This is the odd one. I'm not sure if I can do it, either.. I want to have this ability take away from the 'Fog of War' or 'Shroud' whatever the number is [three or five, in this tree] past the number or moves the unit has. Essentially, as the 'Storyfinder' has 7 moves, and 'storyfinds +5', the Fog of War and shroud would behave as if the unit had 12 moves, but it would still only be able to *move* seven. I'm also thinking of maybe counting it as a minor sort of leadership. Maybe. (for places when just the first effect is non-useful).

Weapon Specials:

Stuns: If this is already a specialy, I'm unaware.. but I basically, I want the unit to behave as if it were petrified, but only for a turn. Or, perhaps, it would be able to move, but not attack? Something like that, anyway. I'm fairly sure that this is doable...

New Marksman: This is an ability that I saw being discussed on the forums here. I think it's kind of neat, and I'd like to try to do it.. if it's too hard, I'll probably just use regular marksman, though.

So. These are my ideas for the Anlaith. Thoughts? Ideas for what to do with the Pictish Beast? I'll have things for the other factions coming soon; expect a unit tree for at least the Kingdom of Falath (if not the Romlin and the Shal-bar Alliance as well). Slowly but surely. I'm gettin' there.

EDIT: I've had a devil of a time trying to get that unit tree to display in a somewhat intelligible manner. Apparently this doesn't like 'tab.' Does anyone know a better way of doing this?!

Post by **Velensk** » June 7th, 2011, 4:32 pm

Use the code tags, that'll let you use tabs I think.

You forgot to list prices, prices determine a lot about how a faction is played. You also have told me nothing about the alignment movetype which is also very important. (covers terrain defenses, movement costs, and resistances).

If you were balancing primarily for multiplayer I'd tell you to focus on the level 1s/2s and show me what they'd be up against but that isn't as applicable for a campaign.

You appear to be lacking an 8mp unit. Assuming you want to be able to balance your era for mainline multiplayer maps you will need one. Lacking one makes you have to get into things like guaranteed village steals, natural loss of initiative, slower start up, and other map specific problems you just don't want to have to deal with.

Your xp costs are pretty low. I know that this is a tempting thing to mess with as you want the higher level units to see play but in reality the mainline standards are set to where they are for a very good reason and unless you want fast leveling to be a specific quality avoid general lowering of them.

I find the idea of a slinger unit with marksman a bit hard to swallow when currently only the sharpest of archers get it but it's your call.

The beast unit seems like it'll deaden the variety of match-ups some but I'd need to know what they are fighting. I have no idea what it is supposed to be.

Axeman suffers a bad case of RIPWLIB (Reduction in power when leveling is bad) which is the principle that says that anytime a unit levels up it should have an advancement option that does not lose any qualities it had before. In this case if your axeman levels up and wants to keep it's axe and not lose a movement point it must become a berserker (which is frequently a disadvantage).

What is your poets ranged attack supposed to be? I personally dislike the storyfinds ability not only because it doesn't make sense to me but because it makes it even harder to do interesting things with the fog. Generally in wesnoth each player will have pretty good vision of what they're up against and it takes planning to pull anything sneaky and this ability would make that kind of thing even more implausible. Your poet is mobile and strong at both melee and ranged, this kind of versatility is hard to balance.

Gatewatcher deals incredible melee retaliation for a ranged unit in general and a magician in specific. Can still be balanced but must be careful with it.

Grogotch need to be expensive. Skirmisher on a backstabber is bad enough without nightstalk (which forces your enemy to work on incomplete information and thus can lead to guessing games that frequently add little fun to the experience). I like the AMLA ideas.

I feel that you're trying to do too much with this faction. You have two magicians including a healer, skirmishing capabilities, stealth capabilities, two archers (which are far to similar at level 1) three melee units one of whom has access to all three magical damage types, one of whom is tough enough that if he isn't expensive he can cover the factions fragile nature, and one of whom is very versatile. That is a ton of power and versatility and on top of it this faction is roughly as mobile as the drakes maybe moreso depending on the prices. The only consistent weakness in this faction is low hitpoints (and maybe high cost) but for all I know that could be countered out by the ability to make a wall of axemen or the special characteristics of their movetype. My advice would be to simply their capabilities and spread the love out, you have plenty of other factions to make. Remember, not every unit has to be awesome, and they should not step on each others roles too much.

EDIT: Stuns is a special that currently exists, it removes ZoC until that units next turn. A nice tactical ability.

The shifting ability can be done with events/right click menus but it will be messy.

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 7th, 2011, 8:48 pm

Use the code tags, that'll let you use tabs I think.

That will be quite useful in the future, thank you.

You forgot to list prices, prices determine a lot about how a faction is played. You also have told me nothing about the alignment movetype which is also very important. (covers terrain defenses, movement costs, and resistances).

I can do that as well.. I just wasn't sure what sort of information would be required/useful. (Do I need prices for higher than level 2 unit for the present? I could come up with those later, when I'm writing the campaign.) Anyway, I'll list the movetype, as well as the prices.

If you were balancing primarily for multiplayer I'd tell you to focus on the level 1s/2s and show me what they'd be up against but that isn't as applicable for a campaign.

True.. and I'd like to do both, anyway. So. I'll just try to be as complete as I can.

You appear to be lacking an 8mp unit. Assuming you want to be able to balance your era for mainline multiplayer maps you will need one. Lacking one makes you have to get into things like guaranteed village steals, natural loss of initiative, slower start up, and other map specific problems you just don't want to have to deal with.

Fixed. The 'Pictish Beast' now functions as a scout.

Your xp costs are pretty low. I know that this is a tempting thing to mess with as you want the higher level units to see play but in reality the mainline standards are set to where they are for a very good reason and unless you want fast leveling to be a specific quality avoid general lowering of them.

I was thinking faster leveling because of the lower hp.. but you're right, that doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice. I'll raise them accordingly. Is this high enough? (I generally based it off of the loyalist/rebel lines, comparatively.)

I find the idea of a slinger unit with marksman a bit hard to swallow when currently only the sharpest of archers get it but it's your call.

Well.. the idea is more that a more experienced slinger is going to be more practiced (and thus more accurate), which is why I was thinking that it should be that new ability discussed in the forums, which adds 10% to it's accuracy (making it depend more on what it's attacking/defending). I could go ahead and call it 'practiced,' (I kind of want to rename it anyway - less confusion - and I'll probably want to talk to the person who came up with the idea), but that's kind of a lame name. I'm sure it won't be called 'new marksman' in the end - if I decide to keep it.

I had two ideas of what to do with this unit. I could lower this unit's capabilities quite a bit - no more skirmisher, quite lessened hp, etc, trying to model it more after the Orcish Archer, so it could be cheaper… or I could just nix it completely, partially combining it with the Poet. That's what I ended up doing in the tree (we can always bring him back if we like him).

The beast unit seems like it'll deaden the variety of match-ups some but I'd need to know what they are fighting. I have no idea what it is supposed to be.

I can take out 1 (2?) of the damage types. I made changes.. which might help with this, anyway. I took out the cold and fire damage completely, and added an impact range instead. (Which I'm thinking could be some sort of shockwave). The idea is that it's some random Pictish carving that happens to appear most places we *see* Pictish carvings, but nobody knows what it is - I decided to make it one of the fae, which makes giving it magical damage types make sense (as well as the shockwave). This is the unit that I was the least sure about, anyway. I want it to be more of a scout than a fighter, and hopefully it shows that now.

Axeman suffers a bad case of RIPWLIB (Reduction in power when leveling is bad) which is the principle that says that anytime a unit levels up it should have an advancement option that does not lose any qualities it had before. In this case if your axeman levels up and wants to keep it's axe and not lose a movement point it must become a berserker (which is frequently a disadvantage).

What if I lose the berserk on the other unit? Will that solve the problem? The beserk was only a random thought as I was typing this up, anyway. Certainly not something I need it to have. That's done, anyway. Should I give it a level 3? I was thinking not... I do already have several level three fighter units.

What is your poets ranged attack supposed to be? I personally dislike the storyfinds ability not only because it doesn't make sense to me but because it makes it even harder to do interesting things with the fog. Generally in wesnoth each player will have pretty good vision of what they're up against and it takes planning to pull anything sneaky and this ability would make that kind of thing even more implausible. Your poet is mobile and strong at both melee and ranged, this kind of versatility is hard to balance.

It was going to be a bow… Hm. I do see your point here. The short version of the logic behind it is that these 'storyfinders' can sense stories that happened in at the place in the past. Things that have left behind their mark. Thus, it seemed to me that an ability that would allow them to "see" farther than they're actually supposed to be able to "see" made some sort of sense. What if I lessen the effect a bit? I see two options here. Either I keep the mobile/versatile characteristics and lose the ability (keeping the bow, sword and movement, and taking away the ability), or taking away some of the characteristics (lose the sword [maybe up the ranged a little], give it less movement) and lessening the ability (maybe +5 is a bit much), leaving us with a slightly slower archer/slinger (because it's combined for now), greatly weakened melee, and (in one of the advancement options) the ability to see farther than it should. I went with the second option in my revised tree… is that better at all?

Gatewatcher deals incredible melee retaliation for a ranged unit in general and a magician in specific. Can still be balanced but must be careful with it.

Lessened - I figured it'd be less of a hassle.

Grogotch need to be expensive. Skirmisher on a backstabber is bad enough without nightstalk (which forces your enemy to work on incomplete information and thus can lead to guessing games that frequently add little fun to the experience). I like the AMLA ideas.

I agree. [Incidentally, the logic behind this one is that this is an actual being from Celtic mythology, it's supposed to be able to turn invisible at will - I thought this might be the best way to implement that]. And thank you.

I feel that you're trying to do too much with this faction. You have two magicians including a healer, skirmishing capabilities, stealth capabilities, two archers (which are far to similar at level 1) three melee units one of whom has access to all three magical damage types, one of whom is tough enough that if he isn't expensive he can cover the factions fragile nature, and one of whom is very versatile. That is a ton of power and versatility and on top of it this faction is roughly as mobile as the drakes maybe moreso depending on the prices. The only consistent weakness in this faction is low hitpoints (and maybe high cost) but for all I know that could be countered out by the ability to make a wall of axemen or the special characteristics of their movetype. My advice would be to simply their capabilities and spread the love out, you have plenty of other factions to make. Remember, not every unit has to be awesome, and they should not step on each others roles too much.

I think you're probably right -this is one of my favourite factions, so it would make sense that I'd give them more things subconsciously (and partially consciously, I'm sure). I've tried to fix some of that.. making more differences between units, and taking away access to cold damage entirely, as well as only giving access to fire damage to level 3 units. I've also tried to give less hp in general, keeping this a weaker faction, because (as you can see) I like the idea of them all having better than normal defences (keeping with the speed/weakness), and higher than normal magical resistances and lower than normal physical resistances (with exceptions).

EDIT: Stuns is a special that currently exists, it removes ZoC until that units next turn. A nice tactical ability.

Thank you. That will do nicely.

The shifting ability can be done with events/right click menus but it will be messy.

That's what I was thinking.. I think it would be interesting as an ability, anyway. If it's too messy, I'll try to think of something else, but I like the idea of it, for now.

Anlaith Tree: version 2. I've organized this a bit better, too. By function, rather than at random.

Spoiler:

And the movetypes:

Spoiler:

I'm going to work on the Kingdom of Falath unit tree later; it should be done tonight, or at least by tomorrow morning. I appreciate your looking at these a lot, by the way. =]. Thank you.

Post by **Velensk** » June 7th, 2011, 10:16 pm

I can do that as well.. I just wasn't sure what sort of information would be required/useful. (Do I need prices for higher than level 2 unit for the present? I could come up with those later, when I'm writing the campaign.) Anyway, I'll list the movetype, as well as the prices.

Don't worry about prices for level 2 right now. What I am mostly trying to figure out is how this faction will play in a standard compeditive multiplayer environment. So what they do and how well, how much they cost, ect. You forgot to tell me what alignment these units are.

The movetype is very important but the most efficient way to get the point across is to describe the differences between it and a similar movetype quickly. In your case there are no really similar movetypes so I guess you'd have to resort to that anyway. I have to wonder how/why your units are so good at defending water and sand hexes though.

As a note: I find a few things about your movetype inexplicable. This isn't too much of a problem in small quantities but remember that things are easier to learn/follow if they make sense and the harder you make your era to learn the more difficult it will be to build a playerbase. Your call as to how important individual details/aspects are though. It's generally easier to learn things like, this movetype is like the smallfoot except that it's slightly more mobile through the trees and gets better defense on rough ground (especially if the unit thematics support it) than this movetype might once have been smallfoot but has been tweaked in a couple dozen ways.

What if I lose the berserk on the other unit? Will that solve the problem? The beserk was only a random thought as I was typing this up, anyway. Certainly not something I need it to have. That's done, anyway. Should I give it a level 3? I was thinking not... I do already have several level three fighter units.

Berserk is not a special you want to hand out just because of a random thought, it will define the way the unit is played. You might notice that none of the mainline campaigns even those where you play dwarves give you ulfserkers and there's a good reason for that. It would still be a slight problem in that if you level up you must either lose your impact or your axe attack but that is much less or a a problem and can be solved if you choose.

Anlaith Tree: version 2. I've organized this a bit better, too. By function, rather than at random.

Right moving on with new information:

I wouldn't consider Grogotch a fighter type. It will almost certainly end up being used as a line breaker/subverse unit but not the sort of unit you compose your line out of.

The Spearman will be made out of paper even with the increased defenses but is mobile enough that they could skirmish easily. These would be what I'd consider light infantry. If they are lawful or chaotic the difference between to offensive capabilities of strong ones and non-strong will be substantial. I suspect it might be overpriced a hair but I'd need to know what it's up against.

The axeman is incredibly overpriced. He'd be overpriced even if his physical resistances weren't negative. If you're going to cast him in the role of elite lineholder, at least allow him more damage than the spearman and enough hitpoints/resistance to do so.

Your poet is as powerful a ranged attacker as the drake burner. This is not a statement of implied unbalance it's just hard to picture.

You might want to give the beast it's own movetype if it is very non-human.

I get the overall impression that this faction is going to live on die on the results of first strike if you actually put them on the field. With that movetype they are so ridiculously frail that most factions would have no problem killing them even at the wrong time of day. Their damage capabilities are decent but if they don't crippple their enemy and or allow for an escape (which their mobility allows) the attrician will be brutal (especially considering their high prices). More I cannot say until I see what they're up against.

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 8th, 2011, 7:42 am

Don't worry about prices for level 2 right now. What I am mostly trying to figure out is how this faction will play in a standard compeditive multiplayer environment. So what they do and how well, how much they cost, ect. You forgot to tell me what alignment these units are.

Alright. Understandable. Sorry about that… they're different alignments. The Axeman and the Spearman are lawful; the Poet, the Gatewatcher, the Soothsayer and the Pictish Beast are neutral and I'm undecided on the Grogotch: either chaotic or neutral.

The movetype is very important but the most efficient way to get the point across is to describe the differences between it and a similar movetype quickly. In your case there are no really similar movetypes so I guess you'd have to resort to that anyway. I have to wonder how/why your units are so good at defending water and sand hexes though.

As a note: I find a few things about your movetype inexplicable. This isn't too much of a problem in small quantities but remember that things are easier to learn/follow if they make sense and the harder you make your era to learn the more difficult it will be to build a playerbase. Your call as to how important individual details/aspects are though. It's generally easier to learn things like, this movetype is like the smallfoot except that it's slightly more mobile through the trees and gets better defense on rough ground (especially if the unit thematics support it) than this movetype might once have been smallfoot but has been tweaked in a couple dozen ways.

There's no particular reason for the water.. but sand is intentional. It's an odd concept, but the people are nomadic/tribal and familiar with both dessert and wooded settings. I'm realizing now that there really should be reasons for everything. Heh.

I wasn't quite sure what to change/what not to change. I have ideas about several things.. but a movetype wasn't one of them. Partially, I wanted to make sure that it was something different than already there. What I think I'll do is make it what you said - smallfoot with better woodland movement and better rough ground defense.. and I think still (slightly) better defenses.

Okay. I changed some of it, and I think I can justify all of it: I kept the higher fire and cold resistances; why? Because this race isn't completely human. (I'd said that even the fae didn't know where they came from). They've just been they're.. and they're generally associated with magic. They see it; etc.. and not just the mage-types. Other reason: as nomadic peoples, they're less sensitive to temperature (is that one harder or easier to swallow?)

However, the arcane is 0%. Why? Well. I'd read an explanation at some point for the loyalists 20% arcane defense, and it was that the less magical a race was, the higher arcane resistance it had, and vice versa. If these people have been exposed to magic for millennia, they're clearly more 'magical' than your average joe.

I have pierce as slightly less, partially because some of them are shirtless (see: Pictish Spearman), and partially because I want them in general to be more fragile, etc.. thinner skin? That's kind of stretching it for a reason (and I don't know if I need to go into that much detail), but I think it justifies why, at least.

The higher defenses are there because (like elves) they're more dextrous than run-of-the-mill humans, and the better moves in some of the different terrains is simply because, as nomads, they're more familiar with the terrains.

Is that a better way to do things?

Berserk is not a special you want to hand out just because of a random thought, it will define the way the unit is played. You might notice that none of the mainline campaigns even those where you play dwarves give you ulfserkers and there's a good reason for that. It would still be a slight problem in that if you level up you must either lose your impact or your axe attack but that is much less or a a problem and can be solved if you choose.

True. Again - I'm realizing that I should think things completely through, rather than just having a myriad of ideas. I could, perhaps, keep the shield and make the damage less? My idea was that one goes without a shield (and has two axes), and the other one gets a large shield.. but I could forgo a second axe in favor of a small shield, if you think that that would be better. (this version reflects the second option.)

I wouldn't consider Grogotch a fighter type. It will almost certainly end up being used as a line breaker/subverse unit but not the sort of unit you compose your line out of.

Right. Those were my ideas on the matter anyway. I just didn't know quite what you'd call it, and that was the only one that seemed to fit.

The Spearman will be made out of paper even with the increased defenses but is mobile enough that they could skirmish easily. These would be what I'd consider light infantry. If they are lawful or chaotic the difference between to offensive capabilities of strong ones and non-strong will be substantial. I suspect it might be overpriced a hair but I'd need to know what it's up against.

I gave him a couple extra hp (having as many, now, as an Elvish Fighter) and he now costs 14g instead of 15 - and I'm posting the Kingdom of Falath here, so that's part of it at least.

The axeman is incredibly overpriced. He'd be overpriced even if his physical resistances weren't negative. If you're going to cast him in the role of elite lineholder, at least allow him more damage than the spearman and enough hitpoints/resistance to do so.

Well. After some of your last comments, I mainly wanted to make sure that I wasn't making them *over*powered. That's why a lot of the choices were made.. apparently I went too far in the other direction. Damage has gone up, and he's got the 'tough' movetype now (with physical resistances - the movetypes have been tweaked; see below).

Your poet is as powerful a ranged attacker as the drake burner. This is not a statement of implied unbalance it's just hard to picture.

My general idea is that these people are dextrous (much like the elves - Elvish archer doing 5-4 damage); and if the attention was focused solely on the muscles needed for shooting a bow (i.e. no melee training at all), those muscles would then be stronger and the unit would do more damage than the Elvish Archer.

You might want to give the beast it's own movetype if it is very non-human.

Well.. the Grogotch isn't human either (that's why I gave it the fae movetype). Do you mean humanoid? And are you suggesting different numbers, or just a different movetype for clarification?

I get the overall impression that this faction is going to live on die on the results of first strike if you actually put them on the field. With that movetype they are so ridiculously frail that most factions would have no problem killing them even at the wrong time of day. Their damage capabilities are decent but if they don't crippple their enemy and or allow for an escape (which their mobility allows) the attrition will be brutal (especially considering their high prices). More I cannot say until I see what they're up against.

Well I've tweaked it a bit.. I think that the movetype could be that, as you said.

What if I did something like this:

Spoiler:

Anlaith Unit Tree - version 3

Spoiler:

Simpler version, listing just recruit list:

Spoiler:

I don't want it to thrive quite on first strike, anyway. My main ideas were to make something that wasn't the same as something done before… but that's not always the best idea; things have been done that way before for a reason. I'm new at this, at least. That'll account for some of it.

Question: Will the Anlaith suffer from having no water-controlling unit (i.e. am I going to want the Pictish Beast to do a bit better in water)? Of course.. I'm sure that that depends on the other factions - most of which, at this point, have a water-controlling unit (though there's few stats in any of the other factions yet). So would that be a good idea?

Alright. Well. Moving on to new things.

Kingdom of Falath unit tree:

Spoiler:

Kingdom of Falath unit tree (just recruitable units):

Spoiler:

Kingdom of Falath movetypes:

Spoiler:

We're moving forward, anyway. Progress is good. Once again, thank you for helping me out here.

Post by **Velensk** » June 8th, 2011, 11:11 am

This is my take on water control in eras. If you have flight or water control on one faction, you will need an answer on every other which will likely need to take the form of a flying or water control unit.

Some maps are designed with an inherant water battle aspect to them and will not play properly without it but these are few and far between. Even then in most of them players can improvise and that's sometimes interesting (if not balanced).

Your explanation of your movetype sounds better at the very least. The thing I'm worried about here now are the effects. Having a faction that universally resists magic is merely going to make magiciaians an unappealing recruit for enemies (in multiplayer, though in your case it might work out fine due to the factions generally high defenses but on the theory here). This is a rather dull dynamic by itself. If for example, the pictish beast was an excelent counter for this enemy or that, but it had magical vulnerabilities then they would have a reason to still recruit their magicians and the resistance woud be present as a true battlefield effect rather than just a limiting factor in enemy recruits.

I like your proposed alternate faction movetype for a simple reason: resistances warps perspective. Consider when you say 'I'm giving this unit hp equal to the elvish fighter) well that's all well and good, the elvish fighter fills its role very well, but what it's forgetting is that this unit takes 20% more damage from most attacks than the elvish fighter (who isn't the most durable of units outside his homeland anyway). Now he makes up for this by having slightly higher defenses elsewhere but you cannot really say that 'I've given him the hp of an elvish fighter so he's about as tough as one'. You might be able to say that he's about as tough as an elvish fighter as long as he sticks to <insert list of terrains>. Can be compenstaed for/balanced but you always have to keep it in mind.

As a (long) note: damage types are an abstraction that generally represent more about an attack than just the type of wound. You don't have to get too tied up on the details as long as it isn't hard to learn but as an example. It's not truely all that much harder/easier to kill a horse with a spear than a sword (if anything it might be the other way around) and the armor the cavalry wear isn't really all that much more vulnerable to spears than blades; a cavalries weakness to pierce is as much a weakness to the tactics associated with pierce weapons as anything else. It is near impossible to manuver a horse through a spearwall, something a foot soldier could theoretically manage (though if its layered properly it shouldn't be easier for him either), and although infantry can effectively protect themselves from arrows with shields it's very hard from the back a horse to protect yourself and the horse you are riding on. This effect is why a number of mainline units use damage types that don't really make sense (consider thieves backstab with thin knife for blade damage, various units biting with long teeth do blade damage, ect) on the other hand if gameplay demands it you could have attack like this damage types shifted without people batting their eyes too much (in one of my eras a unit has a normal sword attack and a backstabbing attack with a stiletto, I made the second one pierce for gameplay reasons even if by mainline reasoning it should be another blade attack).

As for the axeman, it's all your call. I'm just pointing out what seems to me to be obvious problems. It's your decision on how to solve them (or if they don't need to be solved).

For the poet. Remember, damage like so many other things is an abstraction so you can justify anything but no matter what you can justify to yourself some things will still look strange to others. Are your poets so warbound that they spend more time training in archery than an elf dedicated to it? Are their arrow storms so fierce that they rival the destructive power of drakes firebreath? You can say (as creator) that they do and it is so but it'll still come off strange. (as a demonstration of abstraction reflect on the effect that a level 2 poacher deals pretty much the exact same damage as a level 1 drake burner with knife vs claws, and a bow vs firebreath)

On makeing something that hasn't been done before: Going the completely wrong way I'm afraid. I've seen far too many people do roughly what you were doing just with different details/thematics. It runs on the lines of "This group of whatever is awesome so I'll make a faction based on them that is awesome, and because they are awesome they will be able to do <huge list of capabilities> and I think you'll find that when you get down to comparing the abilities they arn't all that incomprable. Elf-alikes are particuarly common though.

In any case though, you do want to give an insentive to play your faction rather than just sticking to the ones that already exist and novelty can help however I think you'll find that about nothing you have in this faction (with the possible exception of whatever the pictish beast is) that has not been done before. It is better generally to attempt to put it together better(more cohesive, better art, better balanced, as part of a more thematically fitting era, or in your case used in an awesome campaign).

On the Kingdome of Falth, I don't have the time right now to look at the upper level stuff so just looking at the recruitables:

Those movetypes arn't bad it's pretty easy to remember, like normal except really resistant to this magic type which the unit's name indicates. I will note that rather than making a movetype that one or two units will have which is very similar to all your others you can just include a [resistances] tag in the unit file and override the values you need to.

Magekiller dosn't really justify it's cost. Sure it resists mages very well but if the enemy has mages why would they be using them to attack him as opposed to something else? Even backstabbing he dosn't do enough damage to kill most mage units in a single blow and he'd be just as fine backstabbing something else but it's a highly unrelable attack which leaves you with a generally fast and very fragile (to non magic) archer with a sharp but unreliable backstab attack. This would be fine if it weren't so easy to lose that 21 gold to two standard fighters.

Potent seem like they'll be a very efficent unit. Not outside the realms of balanceable but the combination of healing and poison for 17 gold is something to keep an eye on.

Not sure why the crossbowman has 6 movement but whatever.

EDITED: Missed the fact that the rider is neutral, the following paragraph has been modified to take this in.
Run a quick comparison of the mainline horseman and your rider. Yours is substancially cheaper and has two more damage on a charging attack at the cost of one hitpoint. Not really all that fair when the horsemans shtick is that they can easilly kill before taking any damage. I will put a warning on the charge special and that is that used in the way of the mainline horseman (and even worse on your case), it violates one of wesnoths general principles and that is roughly how much damage per hexside a unit ought to be able to do. A strong horseman charging at day will do 25-2 damage or 50 in total. With a bit of luck, a lone horseman can break almost any factions formation reguardless of how well it's constructed (and in mainline every faction sans drakes has a unit that can actually survive that through combinations of high hitpoints and pierce resistance). Your unit is not quite as bad because it is neutral but it is still a terrifyingly powerful counter attack unit. A strong horseman can reach 25-2 at day, a strong rider will be doing 24-2 at any time of day. This is a very potent threat and unless you want this to be a decent portion of the factions shtick you'll have a hard time balancing it.

The squire and the infantry seem a bit too similar to me. Sure they have slight differences in stats and damage type but usage will be roughly the same. What you want to do is give a solid incentive so that the player has reason to choose to recruit one or the other or the other over the one, that is hopefully better than this enemy is weaker to blade than pierce or vice versa. An example would be that the mainline grunt and troll look at least superficially to be very similar but trolls are a defensive unit (higher hp, better resistances, regenerates) whereas grunts are a more aggressive unit (faster, cheaper, more damage, has a more general movetype particuarly village defense) You might mix them together so you have a regenerating meatwall and units that can do damage but the choice between the two is a choice betten roles rather than a choice between chaotic pierce(+weak ranged attack)/neutral blade(+slightly more damage). Being chaotic might make the squire more aggressively minded were it not for the fact that even at night the infantry would still do roughly the same damage as it and the ranged attack is generally a defensive quality.

When I'm less busy, I'll take a look at the higher level things.

EDIT: Turns out I didn't have much to say.

Your lines are inconsistant between your full tree and your low level tree, the full tree lists infantry a s 6-4 (very strong for their cost) and the partial lists them as 5-4 (about par). I'm going to assume you mean the later.

The infantry line has a level two with 10-4 attack, this is very high for a level 2 without any particularly good reason for it that I am aware of.

I will remind you that steadfast does nothing for a unit if that unit has no resistances (which AFAIK the squire line does not).

The Knights and it’s leveled up forms are as ridicules as the rider.

I feel that you throw around marksman to readily. Keep in mind that it is only intended for attacks of exceptional accuracy. General competence/accuracy is better represented by more damage or possibly more strikes. The reason you don't want an excess of marksmanship is because it removes the terrain advantage and terrain interaction is one of the primary tactical concerns which helps make wesnoth interesting. Now, it's also interesting if there are a select few that can ignore it who come with their own disadvantages but it's not something you want to hand our without a good reason.

That is all I really have for now.

Post by **Mountain_King** » June 8th, 2011, 6:03 pm

Um...hi.

I couldn't help but notice the "Grogotch," inspired as you said by the creature of ancient Irish folklore. This is just a minor quibble, but the old spelling of the word was Grogoch (no "t"); its modern Irish equivalent is Gruagach (big and hairy creature, in fact the word I'm using for yeti). The pronunciation was/is something like Grew-uh-gakh (the kh is a sound made in the back of the throat, resembling a k and an h but not either). The spelling you have suggests a pronunciation ending on a "ch" sound like the Spanish letter, or like in the word "church."

On much more of a side note, the "pictish beast" carvings I saw from your art thread resemble some dragon carvings I've seen on Anglo-Saxon dagger-sheaths. The first set of limbs are folded up wings, with a sort of crest on the head and legs in the back.

Just my $0.02

Best Regards,
Mountain_King

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 12th, 2011, 3:48 am

Velensk:

This is my take on water control in eras. If you have flight or water control on one faction, you will need an answer on every other which will likely need to take the form of a flying or water control unit.

I'll come up with something simple, then, I think. That seems the best choice.

Your explanation of your movetype sounds better at the very least. The thing I'm worried about here now are the effects. Having a faction that universally resists magic is merely going to make magiciaians an unappealing recruit for enemies (in multiplayer, though in your case it might work out fine due to the factions generally high defenses but on the theory here). This is a rather dull dynamic by itself. If for example, the pictish beast was an excelent counter for this enemy or that, but it had magical vulnerabilities then they would have a reason to still recruit their magicians and the resistance woud be present as a true battlefield effect rather than just a limiting factor in enemy recruits.

That's something, anyway. And.. it doesn't resist arcane, at least. P'raps I could have fire and cold res down to 10% instead of 20%. It's an idea, anyway. And that's something I could do.. I like it. I think that what I'll do is to give the Pictish Beast (and maybe the Grogoch - who I think I will make chaotic) resistances like this:

Spoiler:

There are going to be some fire/cold non-mage units, so I'd like to keep fire/cold resistances at zero (as opposed to negative). but this might be a little more of an incentive to recruit mages, etc.

Note about the Grogoch: I found a link here that talks about them (in myth) being impervious to heat and cold.. so I'm tempted to change the Grogoch's resistances to reflect that; I was thinking of maybe 20% or 30% resistance to fire and cold, but -50% or -60% to arcane.

I like your proposed alternate faction movetype for a simple reason: resistances warps perspective. Consider when you say 'I'm giving this unit hp equal to the elvish fighter) well that's all well and good, the elvish fighter fills its role very well, but what it's forgetting is that this unit takes 20% more damage from most attacks than the elvish fighter (who isn't the most durable of units outside his homeland anyway). Now he makes up for this by having slightly higher defenses elsewhere but you cannot really say that 'I've given him the hp of an elvish fighter so he's about as tough as one'. You might be able to say that he's about as tough as an elvish fighter as long as he sticks to <insert list of terrains>. Can be compenstaed for/balanced but you always have to keep it in mind.

I like it too.. I do generally tend to overcomplicate things, and I think that having it like this is (at least) more intuitive. And probably more functional. And I'll try to remember to keep that in mind.. that there are other factors, etc.

As a (long) note: damage types are an abstraction that generally represent more about an attack than just the type of wound. You don't have to get too tied up on the details as long as it isn't hard to learn but as an example. It's not truely all that much harder/easier to kill a horse with a spear than a sword (if anything it might be the other way around) and the armor the cavalry wear isn't really all that much more vulnerable to spears than blades; a cavalries weakness to pierce is as much a weakness to the tactics associated with pierce weapons as anything else. It is near impossible to manuver a horse through a spearwall, something a foot soldier could theoretically manage (though if its layered properly it shouldn't be easier for him either), and although infantry can effectively protect themselves from arrows with shields it's very hard from the back a horse to protect yourself and the horse you are riding on. This effect is why a number of mainline units use damage types that don't really make sense (consider thieves backstab with thin knife for blade damage, various units biting with long teeth do blade damage, ect) on the other hand if gameplay demands it you could have attack like this damage types shifted without people batting their eyes too much (in one of my eras a unit has a normal sword attack and a backstabbing attack with a stiletto, I made the second one pierce for gameplay reasons even if by mainline reasoning it should be another blade attack).

That is interesting. I'd never thought of it quite like that, but it makes sense. I'll try to keep those sorts of things in mind. Damage types are more abstract than I'd thought.

As for the axeman, it's all your call. I'm just pointing out what seems to me to be obvious problems. It's your decision on how to solve them (or if they don't need to be solved).

And I appreciate that. I think that what I ended up doing (upping the damage and the resistances) should work for justifying that price.. and for balancing out the faction's general... frailty.

For the poet. Remember, damage like so many other things is an abstraction so you can justify anything but no matter what you can justify to yourself some things will still look strange to others. Are your poets so warbound that they spend more time training in archery than an elf dedicated to it? Are their arrow storms so fierce that they rival the destructive power of drakes firebreath? You can say (as creator) that they do and it is so but it'll still come off strange. (as a demonstration of abstraction reflect on the effect that a level 2 poacher deals pretty much the exact same damage as a level 1 drake burner with knife vs claws, and a bow vs firebreath)

What if (and this is just bouncing ideas) I was to say that some archers hone their skill through solely practice (i.e. marksman, elves, etc), others have physical capabilities (drakes, etc). While some other methods of ranged fighting improves *accuracy* through magical means (magical ranged attacks), these archers have chosen to focus solely on strength. So. Rather than improve accuracy through magical means, they choose to improve the power behind the shot, and the speed at which is goes through the air (thus doing more damage through sheer force). I see two problems with that explanation: the first is that I don't know if that's quite how it would work physically (though it makes sense in my mind), and… it sounds mostly like a cop-out (because it is). "How are they that strong?" "Magic." If that explanation doesn't make a ton of sense either, I think I'll just lower the damage and be done with it.

On makeing something that hasn't been done before: Going the completely wrong way I'm afraid. I've seen far too many people do roughly what you were doing just with differe nt details/thematics. It runs on the lines of "This group of whatever is awesome so I'll make a faction based on them that is awesome, and because they are awesome they will be able to do <huge list of capabilities> and I think you'll find that when you get down to comparing the abilities they arn't all that incomprable. Elf-alikes are particuarly common though.

Oh dear. That is kind of unfortunate. And I *did* kind of want them to play differently than elves (though I certainly see where I'm putting in similarities)… I wonder if there's anything I can do to fix that. There are at least some minor differences. And I suppose things will play differently when they're played against other things.

In any case though, you do want to give an insentive to play your faction rather than just sticking to the ones that already exist and novelty can help however I think you'll find that about nothing you have in this faction (with the possible exception of whatever the pictish beast is) that has not been done before. It is better generally to attempt to put it together better(more cohesive, better art, better balanced, as part of a more thematically fitting era, or in your case used in an awesome campaign).

That was the plan, anyway. Giving an incentive… I'll have to think more on how to actually do that *well*. Understood. And.. I can see that, yeah. And I have the campaign to write, at least. That'll be something. And the art to draw.

On the Kingdome of Falth, I don't have the time right now to look at the upper level stuff so just looking at the recruitables:

Those movetypes arn't bad it's pretty easy to remember, like normal except really resistant to this magic type which the unit's name indicates. I will note that rather than making a movetype that one or two units will have which is very similar to all your others you can just include a [resistances] tag in the unit file and override the values you need to.

That's good to know.. it'll make things a little simpler for me, anyway. Incedentally, will I need to put all of the movetypes I use into my units.cfg file, or will the game recognize ones that are already existing? (And is this still the case for adding a [resistances] tag?)

Magekiller dosn't really justify it's cost. Sure it resists mages very well but if the enemy has mages why would they be using them to attack him as opposed to something else? Even backstabbing he dosn't do enough damage to kill most mage units in a single blow and he'd be just as fine backstabbing something else but it's a highly unrelable attack which leaves you with a generally fast and very fragile (to non magic) archer with a sharp but unreliable backstab attack. This would be fine if it weren't so easy to lose that 21 gold to two standard fighters.

What if I lower the faction's general resistance to fire and cold? I want to keep the arcane resistance (because of my general explanation of how that works - the farther from being magical, the higher the resistance]. Is that making movetypes too complicated? That, at least, would add something to gameplay (I think). Having a mage to counter the other units, and a Magekiller to counter the mage.. it would seem to require more thought, at any rate.

Potent seem like they'll be a very efficent unit. Not outside the realms of balanceable but the combination of healing and poison for 17 gold is something to keep an eye on.

Depending on how the rest of the faction turns out, I might want to raise the cost, then. I'll keep it in mind.

Not sure why the crossbowman has 6 movement but whatever.

I'm not sure either. It's 5 now.

Run a quick comparison of the mainline horseman and your rider. Yours is substancially cheaper and has two more damage on a charging attack at the cost of one hitpoint. Not really all that fair when the horsemans shtick is that they can easilly kill before taking any damage. I will put a warning on the charge special and that is that used in the way of the mainline horseman (and even worse on your case), it violates one of wesnoths general principles and that is roughly how much damage per hexside a unit ought to be able to do. A strong horseman charging at day will do 25-2 damage or 50 in total. With a bit of luck, a lone horseman can break almost any factions formation reguardless of how well it's constructed (and in mainline every faction sans drakes has a unit that can actually survive that through combinations of high hitpoints and pierce resistance). Now this comes at the price of high risk but that is a dynamic you want to be very careful with. Your unit manages to deal even more while costing less widening the kill margine considerably (for the record a strong rider charging at night would do 30-2) while costing less and thus both being more accessable and less of a risk.

It is indeed... I thought that I'd had a reason for this, but I don't really recall what it was. That being the case, your reasoning seems far stronger than anything I can come up with. I weakened the rider (rather than upping the cost). It does less damage, and has a few less hp now than the mainline horseman.

The squire and the infantry seem a bit too similar to me. Sure they have slight differences in stats and damage type but usage will be roughly the same. What you want to do is give a solid incentive so that the player has reason to choose to recruit one or the other or the other over the one, that is hopefully better than this enemy is weaker to blade than pierce or vice versa. An example would be that the mainline grunt and troll look at least superficially to be very similar but trolls are a defensive unit (higher hp, better resistances, regenerates) whereas grunts are a more aggressive unit (faster, cheaper, more damage, has a more general movetype particuarly village defense) You might mix them together so you have a regenerating meatwall and units that can do damage but the choice between the two is a choice betten roles rather than a choice between pierce(+weak ranged attack)/blade(+slightly more damage)

True. Part of their differences happen when they level (wider damage types, movement, etc), but I think you're right here. They should be more different from the get-go. What I'm going to do, then, is to make the infantryman more of a light fighter (quicker, a tad less damage and hp, a tad higher defenses), and the squire a tad more bulky (more hp, more damage, less movement and defenses). That should widen the gap between usage, I think.

So. Edited recruit list:

Spoiler:

Anyway. I plan on having the tree for either the Romlin or the Shal-bar Alliance tomorrow night.

Mountain_King:

I couldn't help but notice the "Grogotch," inspired as you said by the creature of ancient Irish folklore. This is just a minor quibble, but the old spelling of the word was Grogoch (no "t"); its modern Irish equivalent is Gruagach (big and hairy creature, in fact the word I'm using for yeti). The pronunciation was/is something like Grew-uh-gakh (the kh is a sound made in the back of the throat, resembling a k and an h but not either). The spelling you have suggests a pronunciation ending on a "ch" sound like the Spanish letter, or like in the word "church."

Yeah.. I'm not really sure how that happened. I know that I have it written down right somewhere (I saw my original note), I must have just misspelled it somewhere, and went with that one (not noticing). I appreciate you pointing it out.. and it will be referred to as a 'Grogoch' from now on. I had actually noticed that just when you posted this.. I was researching how, exactly to draw one (I ended up going with this rendition, if you're interested). That is interesting.. (I do quite enjoy entomology). (And, oddly, I think I know what that sound.. sounds like. I took a semester of Hebrew in high school, and that seems like the same sort of sound as one of the Hebrew letters.)

On much more of a side note, the "pictish beast" carvings I saw from your art thread resemble some dragon carvings I've seen on Anglo-Saxon dagger-sheaths. The first set of limbs are folded up wings, with a sort of crest on the head and legs in the back.

Hmhmhm. I wonder if that's what it could be.. I ended up drawing them as legs (in one rendition of the drawing) and, in another, just tracing one of those carvings - a living picture sort of idea. Which is kind of growing on me.

Post by **Velensk** » June 12th, 2011, 4:10 pm

Before I begin, I would strongly suggest that sometime in the near future, you create a working prototype with placeholder art. You can probably find an image for almost everything you need if you borrow from existing eras. This will give you something fun and concrete for your work even if you are not ready to publish it.

My advice to procedure (if you attempt to do it all in one sitting you'll burn yourself out) is that you start by getting just the recruitables and a single level 2 to be the leader playable, take a break, polish them up (give them animations even if it's just sounds, make custom races, write descriptions, ect), take another break, make all the leveled up forms and polish them up.

Lalindo wrote:
Note about the Grogoch: I found a link here that talks about them (in myth) being impervious to heat and cold.. so I'm tempted to change the Grogoch's resistances to reflect that; I was thinking of maybe 20% or 30% resistance to fire and cold, but -50% or -60% to arcane.

considering how frail (hp wise) and expensive they are I don't think it will be necessary to give them such an extreme weakness, even to compensate for the resistance to other things.

What if (and this is just bouncing ideas) I was to say that some archers hone their skill through solely practice (i.e. marksman, elves, etc), others have physical capabilities (drakes, etc). While some other methods of ranged fighting improves *accuracy* through magical means (magical ranged attacks), these archers have chosen to focus solely on strength. So. Rather than improve accuracy through magical means, they choose to improve the power behind the shot, and the speed at which is goes through the air (thus doing more damage through sheer force). I see two problems with that explanation: the first is that I don't know if that's quite how it would work physically (though it makes sense in my mind), and… it sounds mostly like a cop-out (because it is). "How are they that strong?" "Magic." If that explanation doesn't make a ton of sense either, I think I'll just lower the damage and be done with it.

You as the creator can 'justify' just about anything you want. You could justify axes being a impact attack by saying they're so ill maintained and blunt they don't cut, you could justify your small mouse warriors doing more damage than human spearmen by saying that one unit of them represents about a thousand times as many mice as the spearmen represents humans and they all swarm them to strike at once is their standard tactic, you could justify a guy in heavy armor being a skirmisher by saying the armor has been enchanted to be light. The problem isn't that you cannot come up with a reason, (and the problem isn't even balance though that can come in), the problem is that it will grate on the sensibilities of the people playing (especially those who don't read the descriptions that explain your justification.

Oh dear. That is kind of unfortunate. And I *did* kind of want them to play differently than elves (though I certainly see where I'm putting in similarities)… I wonder if there's anything I can do to fix that. There are at least some minor differences. And I suppose things will play differently when they're played against other things.

There are always (except in particularly bad examples like the 'castle elves') slight differences. Yours are more different than most but the connection is still visible. I wouldn't worry too much, your faction will not play all that similarly to the mainline rebels if I'm reading it right. Comparing the two I am a bit worried that yours seems to me to have much greater flexibility which could be a problem even with the vulnerabilities you've slowly been introducing.

That's good to know.. it'll make things a little simpler for me, anyway. Incedentally, will I need to put all of the movetypes I use into my units.cfg file, or will the game recognize ones that are already existing? (And is this still the case for adding a [resistances] tag?)

What I would suggest is that you download some user made era (or maybe multiple so that you can compare organisation styles) and looking at how its done. None of my eras have a "units.cfg" file. The game will recognise all of the mainline movetypes as they are preloaded. Each unit has a key which says what movetype it uses but the [resistances] tag overrides it (similarly you can override movement costs and defenses.

What if I lower the faction's general resistance to fire and cold? I want to keep the arcane resistance (because of my general explanation of how that works - the farther from being magical, the higher the resistance]. Is that making movetypes too complicated? That, at least, would add something to gameplay (I think). Having a mage to counter the other units, and a Magekiller to counter the mage.. it would seem to require more thought, at any rate.

You're missing the point.

To counter a unit offensively, you must be good at killing that type of unit (or to a lesser extent be able to attack it without taking much retalation). To counter a unit defensively, you must be good at surviving that type of units attacks and/or retaliate very well against it. Countering a unit offensively is almost always more important, because if a unit counters mages (for example) defensively but other units on that units side do not (which would especially be the case if you lower their resistances to fire or cold) the mage isn't commonly going to be wasting its attacks on your mage killers it's going to be frying all the other stuff that's suceptable to it and when it comes to it, your mage killer isn't all that much better at killing mages than any of your other units unless the mage's spell is melee range. It can attack a mage with a ranged attack and resist a good deal of the damage it will take in return but it'll still take more retaliation from the average mage than a melee unit attacking with a melee attack. It can backstab the mage with its dagger, but in the end that isn't really all that much more effective than backstabbing anyone else and it needs to backstab to even compare to a standard infantry.

In short, your mage killer counters the enemy mages defensively and your generic infantry counter mages offensively and are a whole lot cheaper. Making mages fry the generic infantry even faster won't change that dynamic at all.

The squire and the infantry seem a bit too similar to me. Sure they have slight differences in stats and damage type but usage will be roughly the same. What you want to do is give a solid incentive so that the player has reason to choose to recruit one or the other or the other over the one, that is hopefully better than this enemy is weaker to blade than pierce or vice versa. An example would be that the mainline grunt and troll look at least superficially to be very similar but trolls are a defensive unit (higher hp, better resistances, regenerates) whereas grunts are a more aggressive unit (faster, cheaper, more damage, has a more general movetype particuarly village defense) You might mix them together so you have a regenerating meatwall and units that can do damage but the choice between the two is a choice betten roles rather than a choice between pierce(+weak ranged attack)/blade(+slightly more damage)

True. Part of their differences happen when they level (wider damage types, movement, etc), but I think you're right here. They should be more different from the get-go. What I'm going to do, then, is to make the infantryman more of a light fighter (quicker, a tad less damage and hp, a tad higher defenses), and the squire a tad more bulky (more hp, more damage, less movement and defenses). That should widen the gap between usage, I think.

Crossbows seem a bit expensive for their strength. Incidentally, as crossbows were slow to reload but generally harder striking than bows you might want to differentiate them from mainline archer by making them 9-2 instead of 6-3.

You have a lot of 6 mp standard infantry in this era (or so it seems from this and the other faction). If you want the Infantry to be faster than the squires then simply slowing down the squires ought to be enough to differentiate them quite a bit. Even with the low hp, a 6 mp, 14 gold infantry with a standard attack will translate into a general mobility that I do not believe you want for this faction. I might toss the squire line a few boosted resistances to represent their armor on top of it. 39 hitpoints is decent but not really enough to justify their cost if they're going to be that slow IMO.

I think you are underestimating the devastation of the charging attack you gave the rafters and it also seems a bit strange. Rafts are generally designed without a proscribed facing and tend to be easily rotated by the water but can be steered with any facing. This design is not exactly ideal for gaining the speed to deliver deliberate charges, I would think that arming the man in the raft with some kind of projectile would be more likely.

Lalindo · Post by **Lalindo** » June 20th, 2011, 2:04 am

It has been a few days.. certainly longer than I said. I've been working on a show, anyway (not that I have to explain myself, but I figured it'd be polite). Moving on:

Before I begin, I would strongly suggest that sometime in the near future, you create a working prototype with placeholder art. You can probably find an image for almost everything you need if you borrow from existing eras. This will give you something fun and concrete for your work even if you are not ready to publish it.

My advice to procedure (if you attempt to do it all in one sitting you'll burn yourself out) is that you start by getting just the recruitables and a single level 2 to be the leader playable, take a break, polish them up (give them animations even if it's just sounds, make custom races, write descriptions, ect), take another break, make all the leveled up forms and polish them up.

That sounds like a good idea to me. Should I wait until I've posted all of the unit trees here? Or should I just try to make the unit files (etc) as I'm going along? Also: if I'm using placeholder art, do the files need to be in with my own era folder (that would seem to make sense, placeholder meaning what it does and all)? And that also seems like a good order to do things in. I've got several files made as of now (and the general structure of the thing laid out). [On a side note, I much prefer how you lay out races in a {race}.cfg file (at least in the Era of Myths), rather than a units.cfg file. It's much neater that way. And easier to read.] Presently (within that aspect of things) I'm trying to figure out the AMLAs I'd laid out for the Grogoch.

considering how frail (hp wise) and expensive they are I don't think it will be necessary to give them such an extreme weakness, even to compensate for the resistance to other things.

Alright. I'm just still trying to not overpower units, basically. But I agree. The resistances are higher to fire and cold, and the same to arcane.

You as the creator can 'justify' just about anything you want. You could justify axes being a impact attack by saying they're so ill maintained and blunt they don't cut, you could justify your small mouse warriors doing more damage than human spearmen by saying that one unit of them represents about a thousand times as many mice as the spearmen represents humans and they all swarm them to strike at once is their standard tactic, you could justify a guy in heavy armor being a skirmisher by saying the armor has been enchanted to be light. The problem isn't that you cannot come up with a reason, (and the problem isn't even balance though that can come in), the problem is that it will grate on the sensibilities of the people playing (especially those who don't read the descriptions that explain your justification.

Fair enough. And justifications are not quite the same thing as reasons, I agree. I'll lower the damage on the unit as a whole... and allow them the dextrous trait, I think. That would make more sense.

There are always (except in particularly bad examples like the 'castle elves') slight differences. Yours are more different than most but the connection is still visible. I wouldn't worry too much, your faction will not play all that similarly to the mainline rebels if I'm reading it right. Comparing the two I am a bit worried that yours seems to me to have much greater flexibility which could be a problem even with the vulnerabilities you've slowly been introducing.

True enough. And I'm doing my best, anyway.. but I suppose with inspiration, there's going to be a visible connection. And that's good, at least. And that is indeed something to keep in mind: more vulnerabilities can (and will) be introduced, should balance (and gameplay variety) need it.

What I would suggest is that you download some user made era (or maybe multiple so that you can compare organisation styles) and looking at how its done. None of my eras have a "units.cfg" file. The game will recognise all of the mainline movetypes as they are preloaded. Each unit has a key which says what movetype it uses but the [resistances] tag overrides it (similarly you can override movement costs and defenses.

And I did just that (though I had several downloaded already). And different organization styles are interesting, I have to admit. I'm going to end up borrowing from several eras, I think (for my work presently, I've been using your Era of Myths and the Era of Magic). And that makes sense. It simplifies things, I think.

You're missing the point.

To counter a unit offensively, you must be good at killing that type of unit (or to a lesser extent be able to attack it without taking much retalation). To counter a unit defensively, you must be good at surviving that type of units attacks and/or retaliate very well against it. Countering a unit offensively is almost always more important, because if a unit counters mages (for example) defensively but other units on that units side do not (which would especially be the case if you lower their resistances to fire or cold) the mage isn't commonly going to be wasting its attacks on your mage killers it's going to be frying all the other stuff that's suceptable to it and when it comes to it, your mage killer isn't all that much better at killing mages than any of your other units unless the mage's spell is melee range. It can attack a mage with a ranged attack and resist a good deal of the damage it will take in return but it'll still take more retaliation from the average mage than a melee unit attacking with a melee attack. It can backstab the mage with its dagger, but in the end that isn't really all that much more effective than backstabbing anyone else and it needs to backstab to even compare to a standard infantry.

In short, your mage killer counters the enemy mages defensively and your generic infantry counter mages offensively and are a whole lot cheaper. Making mages fry the generic infantry even faster won't change that dynamic at all.

I was indeed missing the point. Heh. Alright. I do think that I understand, now. What if… what if I give them a (rather) better backstab attack, to counter the mage, and then lousy physical resistances, to discourage the attack from being used offensively against other (physical) units. That way, they'd counter the mage both offensively and defensively… but you'd have to protect them from melee units. Like a mage. And, because I was trying to have this be an 'anti-mage' unit in the sense that they are a 'replacement for,' not just 'against,' that would make sense. I think. The problem there is that I'd still have a hard time creating an incentive to actually GET one, if they have to be protected, etc, and they're not THAT much better at countering a mage than a regular melee unit attacking with a melee attack. I *do* want to save the concept, somehow. The only other solution that I see is to basically take away the concept of them being 'anti-mage,' and make them just a knife-throwing unit that happens to have magical resistances (which, I think, would involve making them cheaper - which I think might have to happen anyway).

Crossbows seem a bit expensive for their strength. Incidentally, as crossbows were slow to reload but generally harder striking than bows you might want to differentiate them from mainline archer by making them 9-2 instead of 6-3.

They're 14 gold now. And 9-2 would be more realistic. I like it. Done.

You have a lot of 6 mp standard infantry in this era (or so it seems from this and the other faction). If you want the Infantry to be faster than the squires then simply slowing down the squires ought to be enough to differentiate them quite a bit. Even with the low hp, a 6 mp, 14 gold infantry with a standard attack will translate into a general mobility that I do not believe you want for this faction. I might toss the squire line a few boosted resistances to represent their armor on top of it. 39 hitpoints is decent but not really enough to justify their cost if they're going to be that slow IMO.

That wasn't my plan, anyway… and alright. The infantry is back to 5mp. And you're right - I wasn't looking for that kind of mobility for this faction. And I was planning on that for the resistances, anyway. I boosted the hp to 45, upped the damage a tad and gave the unit higher resistances.. and made it cost 17g? A fair trade? Should it be 18g?

The one thing that ends up looking a little odd (to me) now is that I've got the squire advancing to a light horseman.. when it's clearly slower, etc. What I did (at least for now) is to change the unit tree so that the rider advances to the light cavalry and the knight, and that the squire advances to the heavy cavalry (and the commander and the pikeman). Does that work, do you think?

I think you are underestimating the devastation of the charging attack you gave the rafters and it also seems a bit strange. Rafts are generally designed without a proscribed facing and tend to be easily rotated by the water but can be steered with any facing. This design is not exactly ideal for gaining the speed to deliver deliberate charges, I would think that arming the man in the raft with some kind of projectile would be more likely.

Yeah. I was thinking like.. rafting with a pole. Or something like that. I've never actually been on a raft. And (after looking at it later) I did think it sort of silly. And it's not quite ideal for that, no. Projectile it is. I have it as a fire type.. either a fire bow, or just some sort of explosive.

And as for new things (and tweaked old things, so that we have them all in one place):

Romlin Unit Tree:

Spoiler:

Anlaith Unit Tree:

Spoiler:

Kingdom of Falath Unit Tree:

Spoiler:

And just the recruitables:

Romlin:

Spoiler:

Anlaith:

Spoiler:

Kingdom of Falath

Spoiler:

I haven't quite figured out all of the movetypes for the Romlin yet, but I'm thinking (in general) something like these:

For most of the units, smallfoot, with lower movement costs in forests (and swamps for some of the hunter line), 10% res to pierce, probably 60% defense for the Half-Blood and Hunter lines in forests, and slightly higher defenses for the Quarterstaff and Bowstaff (levels 2 and 3) ; smallfly for the Hawk; dwarvishfoot for the Utoth Guard (except with 60% defense in mountains, and 50% in hills and forests); dwarvishfoot movement costs for the Utoth Spy, but with lower resistances and different defenses (higher in forest and flat, lower in mountains]. Those are my present thoughts, anyway.

Incidentally, I'm not sure how I feel about the Utoth Spy as a unit. I'm considering maybe scrapping it in favour of something else.. but I don't know what.

Also, the Shal-bar unit tree is nearly done. I should have it up by tomorrow (really, this time).

Post by **Mountain_King** » June 20th, 2011, 2:37 am

Oh, you took Hebrew? Awesome!

I know a couple phrases in Hebrew too, but not much beyond "how are you" (Ma Shalom kha phonetically). So many languages, so little attention span.

I think the letter is called cheth or cheit. That's exactly the sound I was referring to. That very throaty, guttural sound.

And glancing over your unit tree again, I should probably say that the bow can be used to some extent as a melee weapon. I don't know about being used as a staff, but I've seen a couple units in UMC with a "bow bash" attack. IMO the crossbow would make a better melee weapon, as it's kinda big and clunky typically.

Best Regards and Shalom,
Mountain_King

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