Era of Magic (EoMa) 4.8.2 - now on Ko-fi!

[bvanevery]

Anthi is a religious leader, not a military leader,

She commands most of the friggin' troops at Gates of Kharos. She shows up on the battlefield at Sun Dome, at the back of the largest column of reinforcements, next to the war banners. If you look at her stats, she has Level 3 Leadership ability. It's really clear from the unit lines, Gates of Kharos, and Sun Dome that clerics are female and fight in battles. In fact if you look at the war banner unit artwork, you will see that a war banner is 1 woman + 1 man. Half the time the man is behind the banner, not in front of it. How much more wrong do you need to be?

Did you notice that the Tharis witches leading the troops in Mag-Magar are female? This is not a gender bound universe; clearly, a woman can be religious and also a military leader. Like typical "magic religious" people though, they don't wear any armor.

and her mission, as described by you, would be one of peace rather than war, with little fighting.

Peace??! She's going to destroy the Tharis leadership. Once she figures out how Tharis mind control works, she'll be Training The Oppressed Villagers.

You do have a point about making the map bigger, but how would we make a map so that the Tharis could reach the Summoners but the Kharos couldn't?

Previously I contemplated the geography, but I haven't arrived at a complete solution. More to come.

The organised military that the Kharos has is a remnant of their power before they were almost conquered: still organised, but not nearly as big now.

I suppose I could put in some exposition about the decline of the troops in recent centuries. After all, it happened to the Romans. So, the Kharosians used to fight each other. Make the map bigger and it works.

I just realized, there is a completely different way to do the 2nd half with Anthi. In all cases, she becomes the Mistress of Light by helping the Tharis POWs through their psychological traumas. She declines ascension, believing that she cannot be Truly Enlightened unless she stays in the world to break the power of the Tharis. Point of choice: does she rely on her people to fight the Tharis, or does she believe that such a war will corrupt them, leading them away from Enlightenment? This is where the pre-history of the Kharosians becomes relevant. All the wars of zealotry they fought in the distant past. Anthi could lead her people into straightforward battle despite her fears. War makes the Kharosians vile, and the story becomes a tragedy. Anthi wants to do Good and is trying to be heroic, but she spawns an entire nation of anti-heroes. The Tharis and the Kharos become Not So Different. In the beginning of the campaign, some Kharos faction murders all the Tharis POWs at Temple Asylum, and The Deserter is written out. The lack of a confidante makes Anthi very lonely on the campaign. Anthi tries to protect the subjugated Tharis from atrocities on the campaign, but she is unable to. Her campaign stalls about halfway to the Tharis capital, since the Tharis are hardly weak and have had time to regroup. More atrocities are committed in frustration due to the lack of battle progress. Anthi takes a stand about it, and is murdered. The End.

Done one way, Anthi's legacy is a not-all-that-good empire on the rise vs. a totally evil empire experiencing setbacks. Whereas done the other way - a clandestine mission, learning the Tharis occult, and training the villagers to resist - her legacy is a semi-Enlightened small kingdom sitting next to a totally evil empire that's thrown into chaos. Parts of it break up and re-form independent states, throwing off the yoke of the Tharis. One's a tragedy and the other is a happy ending, even if Anthi and The Deserter die in both. If I had all the development time in the world, it would be cool to implement both storylines, and have the player choose which way he goes. But I'd like to get one of these two branches done first. Also I'm not sure how later campaigns would handle the divergence of history.

[bvanevery]

I finally figured out why the Tharis might attack the Summoners, despite it being a logistically poor choice.

Previously, the Tharis are only dimly aware of the Kharosians and completely unaware of the Summoners. The Tharis empires is vast, the terrain leading from their empire to Kharos and The Great Desert is rugged and underpopulated, and the Tharis believe The Great Desert is a useless wasteland. Aerius appears in Tharis, pretends to be a Summoner, pisses some military leaders off, and "lets slip" that there's something of great value in The Great Desert. The Tharis send an elite vanguard to attack Mag-Magar. They do not send the whole conventional force with conscripts, because it's difficult to get conscripts across a large desert, and such a force requires a warlock of at least The Master of Darkness' level of ability to keep it obedient. The Tharis empire has many Masters of such-and-such - Woe, Pain, Dismay, Sorrow, Hate, etc. - for any negative aspect of the Abyss. They send the Master of Darkness with a conscript horde to crush Kharos. Although Kharos is physically far from The Great Desert (on my new map), they do not want the Kharosians to get ahold of whatever "it" is that Aerius alluded to. They decide it's time to make conquering Kharos a priority, and do their usual thorough job of executing everyone, until Mehir shows up.

What Aerius really wants, is for the Tharis to interfere with the completion of The Great Circle. Aerius doesn't want the Summoners to be destroyed by the Tharis. He wants the Summoners to remain in this world long enough that he can suck more secrets about the Abyss from them, and possibly learn to control Nomolas. Then, he plans to either subjugate or destroy the Summoners himself. That's why Aerius was poking about in Ka-Gatta. An attack by the Tharis is meant to distract the Summoners from Aerius' own poking around. Aerius assumed the Tharis would be strong enough to sack Mag-Magar, although he knows the Summoners would retake the city eventually, as the Tharis' ability to support their vanguard over great distances would be limited. The Tharis might also figure out that Aerius was lying, that there's nothing of value in The Great Desert, and leave of their own accord. Even if they learn the truth, there's no danger of the Tharis ever allying with the Summoners, as Tharis only subjugate people. The important point is to keep the Summoners busy for another year while Aerius hatches his plans.

Guru isn't in on it; in fact, Aerius doesn't like Guru and on his worst days thinks of supplanting him. Guru knows far more about the Abyss than most, but there are limits to his knowledge and curiosity. He's not sharing what he knows, and he's not authorizing anyone to figure out more than himself. It's important to remember that Guru fished Aerius out of the Abyss; Aerius had no understanding of his own to save himself. Aerius is a jerk, who thinks he "knows better" how to run the affairs of the Enlightened Ones, and how to deal with the threat of the Summoners. Because Aerius is not as smart as he thinks, he slips up in the game of Enlightened Ones politics. Guru becomes aware of the extent of Aerius' ambitions and decides it's time to gracefully eliminate him. Guru engineers a situation where he will clearly not be responsible for Aerius' death, all of the witnesses will be (temporarily) dead, and Rashti will administer the fatal blow. Rashti, being an immortal aspect of the Abyss, can kill anyone much more thoroughly than the Enlightened Ones' resurrection power can handle. All portrayals of Aerius in future campaigns are past tense; he is Killed Off For Real.

The "it" could be Nomolas' Lamp. It has no actual value, but Aerius could lie to the Tharis about it.

[wesfreak]

If the Tharis are so far from the Kharos, who were they fighting to get such a big and experienced army?

[bvanevery]

If the Tharis are so far from the Kharos, who were they fighting to get such a big and experienced army?

Everyone. Anyone. I would populate the Tharis conscripts with human, non-magical, land-based Wesnoth units and just change all their colors to black. A conscript would never rise higher than level 2, as they are not motivated to do that good a job for their masters. Elite-style units such as Lancers would never be featured. I don't think I'd introduce non-human Wesnoth races though, as that would make people ask too many questions like "when did they meet the orcs?? the elves?? why not the firedrakes??" It would be distracting to the story, and the Era of Magic is not about paying homage to Wesnoth canon. The people previously conquered by the Tharis do not need to be specified. It's enough that at the end of my proposed story, Tharis is thrown into rebellion and civil war. The farthest outlying regions reassert themselves as free and independent nations. If anyone ever gets around to writing a campaign about that, that's fine, but it's not important to the first 3 or 4 campaigns that we've been thinking about.

[wesfreak]

This just popped into my head: do you plan on introducing a new unit, a conscript, a lvl 0 to represent a drafted citizen fighting because they have no choice rather than a willing soldier?

[bvanevery]

This just popped into my head: do you plan on introducing a new unit, a conscript, a lvl 0 to represent a drafted citizen fighting because they have no choice rather than a willing soldier?

Not quite. Conscripts will be levels 0, 1, and 2, and will have many different kinds of non-magical human units. Conscripts will be cheap for the Tharis, but unreliable if there aren't enough Tharis to control them. The morale of a conscript is proportionate to how wounded it is and how many other conscripts have been killed nearby. Conscripts will rout if their morale breaks. At which point, the Tharis might activate some kind of "death mind" power to kill them. The morale of a conscript will depend on how close they are to a Tharis unit. Level 1 and 2 Tharis that are immediately nearby have some influence over morale and can enforce discipline. Level 3 witches have some control at a distance over the conscripts. Level 4 "Masters of such-and-such" have tremendous control at a distance.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Woah.
Do you have any idea of the amount of coding that all that would require?

[bigkahuna]

Do you have any idea of the amount of coding that all that would require?

Less than you think. It would just require a [store_unit] with a radius requirement for next to a Tharis unit for the control part, a [kill] tag for the "death mind" power, and just do a [switch/case] for the radius for higher-level / magical-type units. Completely doable.

What I'm worried about is that you [Bvanevery] have written about 20 pages worth of storyline on here (exaggeration of course), and campaigns usually only have a few paragraphs in them. Exceptions would be Under the Burning Suns or Invasion from the Unknown (two extremely awesome campaigns). This is all well and good, but you'll have to create a campaign and a world to the extent Invasion from the Unknown does to hold the player's attention and captivate them long enough for them to want to finish it.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Less than you think. It would just require a [store_unit] with a radius requirement for next to a Tharis unit for the control part, a [kill] tag for the "death mind" power, and just do a [switch/case] for the radius for higher-level / magical-type units. Completely doable.

You're only looking at part of it. He's suggesting a lot more than that:

Conscripts will be cheap for the Tharis, but unreliable if there aren't enough Tharis to control them.

You would have to track the number of conscripts versus the number of Tharis.

The morale of a conscript is proportionate to how wounded it is and how many other conscripts have been killed nearby.

Each unit would have to have its own variable tracking its morale; each time any random individual unit is wounded or healed, you would have to calculate and update its morale accordingly. You would also have to track when a conscript dies, and where it dies, and for all the conscripts around that area, adjust their morale.

Conscripts will rout if their morale breaks.

If the morale of a unit dips below a certain level, it would have to "rout", whatever that means. (Join the enemy? Turn to an AI-controlled side that takes them out of your control and makes them run away? Fight poorly?)

At which point, the Tharis might activate some kind of "death mind" power to kill them.

You would have to check if a Tharis with this "power" is close enough to the routed conscript to kill it, then kill it if so. (Don't forget to remember where it died and affect the other conscript's morale accordingly!)

The morale of a conscript will depend on how close they are to a Tharis unit.

As you said, this could be done by using radius to determine how close Tharis unit(s) are to a conscript, but don't forget that this has to be done for every conscript unit, and must be updated whenever a Tharis unit moves closer to a conscript, or away from it, or if the conscript moves.

Level 1 and 2 Tharis that are immediately nearby have some influence over morale and can enforce discipline. Level 3 witches have some control at a distance over the conscripts. Level 4 "Masters of such-and-such" have tremendous control at a distance.

Remember that you have to check the locations of all conscripts and Tharis, and check each one's unit level and power of influence.

Summary: this is going to take way more work than it is worth, IMO. Of course, my opinion has absolutely no bearing on whether bvanavery goes through with it or not, but I would advise against it.

[bigkahuna]

You're only looking at part of it. He's suggesting a lot more than that: ... blah blah...

... I didn't feel like reading 20 pages of that so I didn't bother reading behind...

If you can do that, bvan, that's fine. However, I don't think the players will be as appreciative as people who look at the code. They will just see that whenever a conscript gets wounded it runs away, dies, or gets killed. I would make it simpler.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

... I didn't feel like reading 20 pages of that so I didn't bother reading behind...

20 pages? ...all those quotes are from this post:

Not quite. Conscripts will be levels 0, 1, and 2, and will have many different kinds of non-magical human units. Conscripts will be cheap for the Tharis, but unreliable if there aren't enough Tharis to control them. The morale of a conscript is proportionate to how wounded it is and how many other conscripts have been killed nearby. Conscripts will rout if their morale breaks. At which point, the Tharis might activate some kind of "death mind" power to kill them. The morale of a conscript will depend on how close they are to a Tharis unit. Level 1 and 2 Tharis that are immediately nearby have some influence over morale and can enforce discipline. Level 3 witches have some control at a distance over the conscripts. Level 4 "Masters of such-and-such" have tremendous control at a distance.

I just dissected it piece by piece and described what would be necessary to make that work.

[bigkahuna]

20 pages? ...all those quotes are from this post:

My bad.

[bvanevery]

What I'm worried about is that you [Bvanevery] have written about 20 pages worth of storyline on here (exaggeration of course), and campaigns usually only have a few paragraphs in them.

The writing in most campaigns also sucks hard.

to the extent Invasion from the Unknown does

I don't even remember that one being particularly memorable. The only Wesnoth mainline story I've found to be memorable, is Descent into Darkness. It's not that long a campaign either. There's a (dramatic) reason for that.

Conscript game mechanics are child's play, like bigkahuna (sorta) said. I don't think you understand my coding capabilities, if I'm willing to spend the time. I could rewrite the entire Wesnoth AI if I wanted to. At present I don't; too much work for no money. For that kind of work I can ship my own commercial game and make my own money. I've played Wesnoth for years and have a pretty keen sense of what I do and don't like about the AI behavior. It doesn't matter what a newbie sees in the AI behavior, they don't know what's going on. What matters is if a person with actual skill sees what's going on. If you know how to draw the AI into its stupid predictable moves in a battle line to minimize your damage, spreading it across multiple units instead of one unit being focused on, then you know what I mean. Wouldn't you be shocked if the AI started fighting like actual Roman legions?

The other thing that matters, is that the conscripts tell the story of the Tharis Empire. Without conscripts they're not an evil empire, they're a rabble of barbarians with funny plants. A gratuitous attack because Era of Magic needed more factions, who cares.

That said... I did just come up with the "Aerius lied to the Tharis about Nomolas' Lamp" plotline. That part works with any enemy. It doesn't explain why the Tharis are able to nearly wipe out the Kharos though. My explanation is that the Tharis are a far more powerful empire.

[sur.nhm]

Yeah, pretty nice, put has anyone informed I8 about all of this... discussion? It's still his era, after all.

[StDrake]

and yours as well isn't it? but no, so far bvanevery is all around as if he was approved and in charge
before i checked a few things I even thought he was part of the team by the tone and volume of his posts xD

edit: i got word that inferno8 won't be back till february