Steampunk Era

timberwolf16739 · Post by **timberwolf16739** » November 28th, 2010, 9:45 pm

Alright, so here's the idea for the era I'm working on. 7 factions, consisting of about 30 units each. The basis is, of course, a steampunk-themed world, with magic and crazy technology all at the same time. Couple of things to keep in mind before I start:

1) there's at least four ranges: melee, short, long, and bombard. Stole those from 18th Century Warfare, by PapaSmurfReloaded (bombard was originally called indirect, but whatever).
2) a lot of attacks are set as air-only or land-only. For example, a zeppelin's bombs don't do anything against the fighter that's attacking it, nor does a pickpocket's dagger do anything against the zeppelin. And yes, the code already works.
3) haven't made up my mind about custom damage types yet; I'll have to see if they're needed.
4) The Empire's the most thought-out faction so far, so the other descriptions are going to be a little weak.

This makes for a lot of units that can't do much against certain other units, requiring a very mixed approach to recruitment. We'll have to see how it works out.

Without futher adieu, the factions (hidden because they're so ridiculously long):

The Empire

Spoiler:

The Sky Pirates

Spoiler:

The Thieves' Guild

Spoiler:

The Traders' Guild

Spoiler:

The Elves

Spoiler:

The Orcs

Spoiler:

The Utopian Legion

Spoiler:

Post by **Mountain_King** » December 1st, 2010, 5:46 pm

Do you s'pose you'll have any steam locomotives?
I like the idea, if you do it well. This is something that can be really cool.

Sincerely,
Mountain_King

timberwolf16739 · Post by **timberwolf16739** » December 1st, 2010, 10:51 pm

I'm working with 1.8.something right now, but once I get around to downloading 1.9, I don't see why I couldn't have something with special movement on the railroad tracks... Not sure what use it would be as transporting other units isn't implemented or even really possible, that I'm aware of.... Although I wonder if you could have a unit with a macro to store a nearby unit (naming it "unit1", "unit2", etc), and then unstore it at a later time. The WML wizards might be able to help with that. It's an interesting concept and I'll look into it.

As far as doing it well, the main issue with be the balancing and unit art. The former will be an issue simply because of the size of the mod, and the latter is because I'm not an artist and thus I have to scavenge everything. But anyways. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the kudos.

Drakefriend · Post by **Drakefriend** » December 5th, 2010, 12:30 pm

I am waiting for the release (especially the mad scientists

)!

TheDreamer · Post by **TheDreamer** » December 5th, 2010, 4:54 pm

Sounds ambitious, but possible. Can't wait to see the results.

fstltna · Post by **fstltna** » December 6th, 2010, 12:28 am

Someone beat me to it! LOL Mine is going to be a total conversion as I don't want elves & orcs & etc but I may want to see how you are doing the zeplins etc. as I had not planned on adding that myself... I have the music & some of the graphics done (I am paying for them) so I klnow what that is like to find them...

Best of luck to you!

Marisa

TheEmptyLord · Post by **TheEmptyLord** » December 8th, 2010, 4:35 pm

Sounds nice right now, if you can get a good artist to great sprites and animations this could become great. My one concern, as you mentioned is the fact that i one unit is mainly air and another land, or one with mainly long and the other with melee, it greats odd game-play and perhaps a large advantage to one side. As long as you balance each faction to each other, however, it should be fine. As part of that concern, if implemented into ageless, new dmg types, long, bombard, etc would create some problem. Nevertheless, good idea and gl!

Post by **Mountain_King** » December 8th, 2010, 7:22 pm

Say, there's a group in Era of Two Suns (not sure which era he borrowed from though) called the clockwork dwarves. Quite a few of them have a steampunk look to them. They could make good placeholders for now.

EDIT: Era of Magic has some dwarves in balloons too. The parachutist and mechanic in that era also look a little steampunk-ish.

timberwolf16739 · Post by **timberwolf16739** » December 15th, 2010, 3:59 pm

@ TheEmptyLord: That's why I've got at least one aerial unit and one naval unit for each faction, so at least even if the other guys go all one way, you still have something to fight back with. Plus I'm pretty sure every faction will have one ground-to-air capable unit. But I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for imbalances as the game progresses.

@ Mountain_King: Factions like the Clockwork Dwarves and the Ancient Dwarves (now Runemasters) are part of what inspired me to make this era -- and yeah, I've already got their artwork marked down for use as placeholders.

Drakefriend · Post by **Drakefriend** » December 31st, 2010, 12:06 pm

Well, I think a word like "Magess" does not exist and to me it sounds ...well...

stupid (although I am no Native Speaker of English and do not have it in school anymore). What about Enchantress, Witch ór other such words for units of this line?

Technomancer sounds quite odd, especially as this "-mancer" is derived from "Manteia", Ancient Greek for "Soothsayer"

. Why do you not call the level 2 unt "Engineer" or "Technician" and the level 3 Technologist?

If I understood the Thief Guild's concept correctly, they are organized crime, so actually Chaotic would not fit here, although Lawful is not really fitting either (although to me, it seems closer).

Maybe they could become Neutral, which additionlally would mean that there are as many chaotic factions as lawful ones.

However, I hope the era will come soon, with great want for the Utopian Legion!

PS: Plague spawning a level 1 sounds overpowered to me.

You could however create a level 0 (maybe called "Zombie") leveling to Living Dead, or apply the Plague on a very weak secondary melee attack.

timberwolf16739 · Post by **timberwolf16739** » January 14th, 2011, 3:50 pm

Hmm... Hadn't anticipated on dealing with that one. Magess is actually the female form of Mage -- the -ess ending controls the gender, rather like the female form of steward is stewardess. The -mancer suffix is used in a lot of fantasy work to mean any sort of magic user (such as necromancer); while you are correct in its derivation (major kudos for that), the word Technomancer in fantasy fiction (especially cyberpunk or steampunk) is taken to mean anyone who blends magic and technology.

While the Thieves' Guild is technically organized, I can't bring myself to make a bunch of sneaks NOT be able to fight better at night.

Oh, and the Walking Dead was supposed to be Level 0. Oops. My bad. Nice catch.

Drakefriend · Post by **Drakefriend** » February 20th, 2011, 10:48 am

If the Thieves' Guild is chaotic so they can fight better at night, shouldn't the Utopian Legion be neutral? I mean, why would they get a bonus at night? Neutral could be justified by saying that they have lightbulbs and electrical torches allowing them to see as good at night as at day. However, maybe the Beastmen (at least in the Wolfman line) could stay chaotic.
On the Beastman: Why not call them Inhuman, Mutant or Augmented (Augman?) and rename the Wolfman to Beastman and the Loup-Garou to Wolfman? First, the Beastman levels into some units that don't fit to it (at least, I thnk so) and secondly, Loup-Garou does not mean anything but Werewolf.

shinobi · Post by **shinobi** » February 20th, 2011, 6:50 pm

hey, I'm new on this forum, yet I have some ideas...

1st: elves: >>how about stylizing them to indians?

2nd: orcs: >>possibly stylizing them to look japan? mixing up orcs with japanese culture would be original, and actually it is done a little in mainline.
It would justify them being lawful, also.

3rd: thieves: >>Their name... second faction with "guild" in it? Oh, my. Renaming them to "outlaws" "scums" or smth?
>>Also, how about giving them some cowboy-like-badass-gunslingers? it would give them both some firepower, and it is not really steampunk w/o
hero with twin colts and stetson hat...
>>Gutter Mages - How about, instead of having Shadow Mages like every other, have some different aproach? I mean, ...
(drum roll...)
MASKED GENTLEMAN!
The point, being, it is just regular bored gentleman, meddling in occultism and secret clubs out of boredom in their too organized lives;
inspired by the fact occult was pretty popular in 19th century in higher spheres, (at least in books and comics set in London at that time), and of course it
would be cool to have gentleman, doing in melee with his staff (actually, elegant walking stick), in robe, mask and magical attacks?

4rth: merchants:>>I wonder... how about giving some units "trade" ability? That means, when these units begin turn in village, it generates +1 gold.
would possibly work well with prospector, trader ship (far-see trading in docks), also SkyPirates Sidecar could have this (as "hauling loot to the base")
>>also, i think, how about changing Diver (or branching Diver) into engineer, throwing explosives (into ships in shallow water,
and into units in castles) and repairing machine? I mean, Traders got lot of ships and all, but they have no repair unit, and dwarf
is most obvious choice.

5th: empire:> >Hmm... how about making them... more... german? I mean, there are already Panther and Landzknecht, but how about
giving them even more german names?
>>multi-race recruits. I don't know if it's possible, but Empire would possibly be colonial superpower, and as such, it's recruits should come
from all over the world. So, elven recruits should be better with gun, orcish stronger in melee, dwarven tougher etc.
I don't know if it's possible, maybe this can be done like random genders? Or like walking corpse variations... (I don't have lot of experience
with WML...)

Drakefriend: they are used to night, cause this is the time they dig up the corpses from cemeteries and so on (like in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein...) But they're machines should be neutral, I agree.

Drakefriend · Post by **Drakefriend** » February 22nd, 2011, 6:49 pm

timberwolf16739 wrote: Musketman (0)
Basic level 0 unit, one of two level 0 in the game, helping to slow the Empire down at the beginning. Short range musket fire, melee bayonet charge attack.
(Musketman) > Medic > Field Hospital
Some recruits gain skill in treating fallen comrades and retire from the front lines. Don't know what attacks it'd have (if any), but it's a basic healer unit that becomes near-stationary at level 3 -- again, stole the idea from 18th Century Warfare.
(Musketman) > Field Mechanic > Field Workshop
Others gain skill in repairing the machines of war. Basically same deal as the Medic, but with Repair rather than Heal.

´

First, "becoming near-stationary" sounds RIPLIB. Secondly, ´where is this third level- they level twice from a level 0, which makes 0+1+1=2. Third, maybe the Medic is the most powerful fighter, considering 19th century medicine...

In general, the Empire would might on melee, as up to the beginning of what would become trench warfare, gunpower combat was "shoot a volley at them and than charge and kill them with our bajonett!"

shinobi · Post by **shinobi** » February 27th, 2011, 5:54 pm

Drakefriend wrote:In general, the Empire would might on melee, as up to the beginning of what would become trench warfare, gunpower combat was "shoot a volley at them and than charge and kill them with our bajonett!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riflemen - according to Wikipedia, this is not like that. In late XIX century, it was like more "modern" warfare, and because there are machine guns (...and even steam tanks!), we can assume more modern style. Yes, I know that WINR , but hey, if we need "ranged" <rifle and cannons> faction, then what's the difference? We need technology, so we get technology. More advanced than it SHOULD be? It's steampunk. "(because it's steampunk, and everything's a little overdone)", like timberwolf wrote.

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