Imperial Era

[Temuchin Khan]

OK, here's my latest round of proposed changes to the Imperial Era.

1. I made some further changes to the proposed Arendian swimmer line. It now starts off as a water unit armed with dagger and harpoon and then gains submerge as it advances. The previous most recent version lacked submerge, but I decided I prefer it with that feature. I also improved the unit descriptions for this line.

2. The changes I was making to the Cavernei involved replacing the Eagle Rider with a new unit to differentiate them more from mainline Knalgans, so I changed "eaglefly" to "falconfly" in various.cfg. I also included my revised seals with submerege, jsut for good measure.

3. The Cavernei are where the biggest changes have been made. It struck me a few weeks ago that while the original version of the Cavernei was too much like mainline Knalgans, except for the Watcher line, the Dev Cavernei were too different and had lost some of their flavor and no longer felt like a Dwarf faction. So, I decided to split the difference. This version of the Cavernei is a cross between the original and dev versions, with a new flyer. First, I made them similar in some ways to theForest Dwarves from Vyncyn Rashy Era--most of their units have 5 base movement, cannot get quick, but may get slow. The exception is the Watcher line, which has 5 base movement and always gets quick. The new air unit is the biggest change. Part of what makes the Imperial Era interesting is its mix of Tolkienesque fantasy with Classical culture. Well, building on that, I decided to draw on Greek mythology and give the Cavernei a unit based on one of its more obscure beings--the Thriai or Melissai. They are Nymphs associated with caves and springs and divination. And bees. They have the upper bodies of human females and the lower bodies and wings of bees. Now, I am no artist, so I could not make art for them myself, but I'm using some images from the Hive faction in Ageless Era as placeholders.

Here are some links about the Thriai:

https://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NymphaiThriai.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriae

And here are the files:

TK 6-10-24 IE new ideas.zip

A word of explanation. This was achieved by revising some normal Cavernei files and some dev Cavernei files, so for now, it only works if some files go in the dev units folder and others in the normal units folder. I have put those files in distinct folders indicating which units folder they should be placed in.

Btw, did you realize that changing the dwarve's aligment from neutral to chaotic even if keeping default like stats is also another significant difference, considering the quick/slow trait replacement, aligment change can alos make cavernai dwarves be way more different. Fine enough to define the units to be different enough to be considered as something different even if their base damage are the same. It's just another idea I post at here.

As I'm viewing that the main focus is that Cavernei are darker version of dwarves, might be interesting concept to explore. Also adding more chaotic faction game mechanics as poison/slow or debuffes or ust more relied in mobility and less in heavy armor, as well giving a lore of why they are like that (existing cavernei in Ageless have more HP but 10% fire/arcane res decrease in compensation)... but with other slight changes Cavernei could become into something somewhat promising.

I like the idea. I'll give it a thought. Thanks for the suggestions!

[holypaladin]

Also, let's not forget that several months ago Unwise Owl said this:

If there's someone who really wants to become the maintainer for the IE drop me a PM. I've had a good run of doing nearly nothing for more than a decade now, so if someone wants to take it in another direction, I'm not opposed to taking my hands off the wheel entirely.

I don't have the time or the skill to be the maintainer, but is anyone interested?

I know that Imperial Era campaigns are left without care at the moment, I think I will manage to take care on them step by step.

Sounds good to me! What do you think of the changes I've proposed to the Arendians, Cavernei, and Issaelfr?

I am mostly positive towards it and I think Cavernei may need serious changes as for me they don't differs much from default dwarves. Making them chaotic may have it's justify as they're underground race, trolls are already chaotic being cave creatures. I would gladly replace human outlaws in first scenario of Gali's contract with some Imperial Era faction, Marauders sounds most natural for me but they rather won't be good choice beacuse Alfhelm the Wise who's Marauder was the one who given Gali a task. I thought a bit as well about portraits for campaign and I think Gali would can get old Thursagan's portrait, the guard from Baglur. Worse in Tale of Vaniyera where dark adept totally don't fit main character and spearman's portrait don't fit Marauder leader. Arendian swimmer sounds nice, don't know the sprite is ready at the moment. And if I may suggest old Aragwaith sprites could be given back to Feudal Era, I know they're considered as outdated but still has no bad quality and would look more oryginal comparing to other eras with Aragwaith.

[IPS]

Sounds good to me! What do you think of the changes I've proposed to the Arendians, Cavernei, and Issaelfr?

I'm not sure about the hcanges regards Arendians and Issaelfr, but a resume of them?

[Temuchin Khan]

Sounds good to me! What do you think of the changes I've proposed to the Arendians, Cavernei, and Issaelfr?

I'm not sure about the hcanges regards Arendians and Issaelfr, but a resume of them?

With the Arendians, I never liked how Unwise Owl made the horse archer capable of swimming in deep water. That always grated on me and was what pushed me to start proposing new units for the IE in the first place. So, I removed that ability from the horse archer and added an Arendian swimmer/diver.

With the Issaelfr, Unwise Owl had previously given them a Falcon, with my blessing. My latest proposed change to that faction is just adding submerge to the seals.

The biggest changes are to the Cavernei.

[Temuchin Khan]

OK, I made the Cavernei chaotic and the Bee Maiden line neutral. Try it out and let me know what you think! Personally, I like the change.

Imperial Era new unit ideas.zip

(182.23 KiB) Downloaded 98 times

[holypaladin]

Ages ago, the Cavernei encountered a strange group of nymphs who resemble human females from the waist up but bees from the waist down.

Would be rather okay but right now the sprites don't match the describtion. The up could look more humanoid. I think.

[Temuchin Khan]

Ages ago, the Cavernei encountered a strange group of nymphs who resemble human females from the waist up but bees from the waist down.

Would be rather okay but right now the sprites don't match the describtion. The up could look more humanoid. I think.

Yes, I know.

I can write and come up with ideas and do a very little bit of coding, but I absolutely cannot draw for the life of me.

We would need someone to come up with better sprites. In the meantime, I reused some sprites from AE as placeholders.

[holypaladin]

I found a high quality portraits that could be used for Lavinians

[Temuchin Khan]

I found a high quality portraits that could be used for Lavinians

Those look really nice!

[holypaladin]

Maybe shall find usage somewhere in orcei gladiators, some abandoned portrait of orcish grunt

[holypaladin]

To consider for Cavernei
viewtopic.php?t=19945

[Kingstar74]

I would like to try the Imperial Era games, but the Imperial Era is not available on the add-ons server and the games Up from Slavery and Gali's Contract won't work without it.
I'm probably missing something trivial, but where can I find this era?

[gnombat]

I would like to try the Imperial Era games, but the Imperial Era is not available on the add-ons server and the games Up from Slavery and Gali's Contract won't work without it.

I was able to install it from the add-ons server without any problems.

What version of Wesnoth are you running?

[Kingstar74]

I would like to try the Imperial Era games, but the Imperial Era is not available on the add-ons server and the games Up from Slavery and Gali's Contract won't work without it.

I was able to install it from the add-ons server without any problems.

imperial-era.png

What version of Wesnoth are you running?

I'm playing 1.19... so it is not supported yet.

[gnombat]

What version of Wesnoth are you running?

I'm playing 1.19... so it is not supported yet.

You might want to install version 1.18, which is the stable version; version 1.19 is the development version which is likely to have bugs.

If you really want to try playing Imperial Era on 1.19, you could download the Imperial_Era.tar.bz2 file from https://addons.wesnoth.org/1.18/ and then unpack it in your add-ons folder. It will likely work (but again, it may have bugs).