Imperial Multiplayer Era - version 0.17 released

[turin]

My understanding is that Djinns are like devils. So, having them in an Islam faction would make about as much sense as having the Castle and Inferno towns be allies in HoMM3...

[Temuchin Khan]

My understanding is that Djinns are like devils. So, having them in an Islam faction would make about as much sense as having the Castle and Inferno towns be allies in HoMM3... ;)

As far as I can tell, it's not so clear in the Qur'an whether the "Djinni" is a word for demons, a generic word for spirits, or a word for a disctinct intelligent race. Hence, the ambiguity in my description of them.

[Chris Byler]

Well, I've been working on revised stats and descriptions for the two split factions over the weekend, and I cut most of the religion-related stuff from the descriptions - it was my understanding that there's no religion in Wesnoth (both the game world, and the game itself). So those units are now a bit more "generic" - the Ifrit is still a mysterious creature, but not demonic, just different. (Arbitrarily resolving the ambiguity in the way that gives us the least trouble.) The Salik line is a spiritual leader without specifically being a religious leader or referring to any particular god.

Anyway, it makes way more sense than holy men (whatever "holy" means in Wesnoth - other than "a damage type that undead are very weak to") and assassins being not only in the same faction, but branches of the same unit!

The main problem I see with the faction (as of 0.7) is that it has both desert nomads/barbarians (e.g. the Quraysh at or around the time of Mohammed), and more civilized/urban units apparently modeled after the Abbasids or even Ottomans, centuries later.

That's what I view as the primary axis for splitting them: is this a unit that comes from a city-dwelling culture with advanced arts and crafts, or a nomadic tribe that keeps no more possessions than they can carry?

I'll want to copy your code for desert ambush, since it wasn't documented in the WML wiki yet (although not for the Footman, I think it fits better on one of the new units; and also that it shouldn't be available from L1).

The problem I ran into is, although the old Kedari had too much stuff for one faction, they didn't have quite enough for two, so I've created one new line and two new branches (plus the L1 Eunuch Sentinel, which is not exactly a branch). I dropped the Ragel for reasons previously stated, but wouldn't be averse to reinstating it if there's good reason. There's a total of 8 new units; I'll have to see what I can whip up for art in the next couple days. Maybe both (post-split) factions can make it into 0.9.

Code: Select all

Kedari (desert nomads):

Camel Rider  +-> Faris (was Cameleer) --> Sheikh (was Camel Warrior)
             \-> Sinan (new branch, charge) --> Uday (charge, skirmish)

Muawiyah (new camel-mounted archer) --> Fahad --> Najid (desert-ambush)

Ifrit --> Genie --> Djinn

Salik (heal) --> Dervish (now lead,heal) --> Murshid (lead,cure)

Code: Select all

Mazurid (city-dwelling caliphate):

Azemi (was Lt. Foot) +-> Janissary (was Des. Foot) --> Beylik (was E.Des.Foot)
                     \-> Suhaim (new archer branch) --> Rami

Eunuch Sentinel (new L1) --> Eunuch Guardian --> Eunuch Warder

Mamluk (was D.Raider) +-> Spahi --> Ghazi
                      \-> Bey (was Sheik) --> Emir (was Sultan)

Fidai --> Hashishan --> Imam of Alamut

Most of the new names come from Arabic or Turkish words. I suppose you could argue that this makes it harder to remember which unit is which compared to something like "Master Bowman", but on the other hand, that's true for Signifer and Propugnator, too, if you don't know Latin. Anyway, the alternative would be Camel Knight and Camel Lancer and Camel Archer... ugh.

Oh, and many "sword" attacks were changed to "scimitar", I guess that means I'll need to make a scimitar icon too, but that shouldn't take long. Combined with the fact that the "default" number of strikes for them is 3, not 4 like normal swords, I think it will make them feel more distinctive.

[Temuchin Khan]

The Salik line is a spiritual leader without specifically being a religious leader or referring to any particular god.

That is more in line with standard Wesnoth. To keep the flavor of the faction, all we really need to do is stress how important spirituality is to them. At the same time, when I wrote the Kedari descriptions what I had in mind was that we could specify that they worship one God without specifying which God it was, somewhat like what how Under the Burning Suns has the goddess appear in dreams to the main character -- and if that doesn't fudge Wesnoth's indeterminacy about religion, I don't know what does.

Code: Select all

Kedari (desert nomads):

Camel Rider  +-> Faris (was Cameleer) --> Sheikh (was Camel Warrior)
             \-> Sinan (new branch, charge) --> Uday (charge, skirmish)

Muawiyah (new camel-mounted archer) --> Fahad --> Najid (desert-ambush)

Ifrit --> Genie --> Djinn

Salik (heal) --> Dervish (now lead,heal) --> Murshid (lead,cure)

Code: Select all

Mazurid (city-dwelling caliphate):

Azemi (was Lt. Foot) +-> Janissary (was Des. Foot) --> Beylik (was E.Des.Foot)
                     \-> Suhaim (new archer branch) --> Rami

Eunuch Sentinel (new L1) --> Eunuch Guardian --> Eunuch Warder

Mamluk (was D.Raider) +-> Spahi --> Ghazi
                      \-> Bey (was Sheik) --> Emir (was Sultan)

Fidai --> Hashishan --> Imam of Alamut

Most of the new names come from Arabic or Turkish words. I suppose you could argue that this makes it harder to remember which unit is which compared to something like "Master Bowman", but on the other hand, that's true for Signifer and Propugnator, too, if you don't know Latin. :) Anyway, the alternative would be Camel Knight and Camel Lancer and Camel Archer... ugh.

Oh, and many "sword" attacks were changed to "scimitar", I guess that means I'll need to make a scimitar icon too, but that shouldn't take long. Combined with the fact that the "default" number of strikes for them is 3, not 4 like normal swords, I think it will make them feel more distinctive.

I like the new ideas, and the new names. These factions will have lots of flavor, which I think is particularly important in the Imperial Era.

[Thrawn]

My understanding is that Djinns are like devils. So, having them in an Islam faction would make about as much sense as having the Castle and Inferno towns be allies in HoMM3...

Djinn are according to Arab folktales at least (and if you can't trust those, what can you trust) are the terms for spirits in general, and there is a sort of chain from helpful to neutral to chaotic, based on power of the being, so "genies" are the weaker, enslaved djinn, there are many other forms, and then efreet at the lowest of the low! So as long as that's the case, its more of Tower and Castle, (genies)--just make sure to specify in unit desciption)

[Chris Byler]

Split is finished, including a rest image for all the new units. (No animations yet.) Preliminary playtesting shows that at least they're not *too* out of whack - I had 4 AIs playing each other, one each of Kedari, Mazurid, Lavinian and Aragwaith, and everyone was still alive after 60 turns.

The AI seems overly fond of the Salik and Fidai and neglects the Muawiyah and Azemi, I'm not quite sure how to fix that. Clearly its behavior isn't strictly following recruitment_pattern to begin with. I'll look into this more when I have time, but for now, I thought it was worthwhile to get what I have out there.

I also fixed a couple graphics bugs with the Aragwaith - some of their .cfg files didn't specify the paths to images, which caused the game not to find them.

The bad news is, I don't have a proper diff utility, so if you've already started on 0.8, you'll probably have to hand-merge various.cfg (added, renamed, modified and rearranged the order of movetypes) and Imperial_Era.cfg (added and modified side info in both Imperial and Imperial Champions).

Other than that, you can just delete all the old Kedari .cfgs and images and replace them with the ones in the zip (and the Aragwaith .cfgs in the zip, to fix the image bugs). I kept the Ragel art even though it's no longer used, in case we want it for later modifications.

This zip is not the complete era, only files related to the Kedari, Mazurids, or that I changed from 0.7.2 as otherwise discussed above.

Looked again for documentation on how to do desert-ambush, but no luck; if you know how, please add it to the Kedari Najid.

Unit trees are as stated in the previous post.

[JW]

Feel free to tweak the Complete Faction List when all is said and done. When the Arendians are added they will need to be moved to the appropriate section of that page.

Side note: I have linked the downloads for play-ready factions/eras (including the Imperial Era) from that main page as well.

[turin]

Feel free to tweak the Complete Faction List when all is said and done.

I have been.

When the Arendians are added they will need to be moved to the appropriate section of that page.

Since the arendians are already included, I went ahead and made that change.

BTW, I also did an edit to remove misinformation. The Taki faction is NOT in the Imperial Era. It is in a mod of the IE. So, I changed that part of the page.


@Chris Byler: I'll review and make a decision on your changes tomorrow. Putting together a unit tree a la the ones I did in the Kedari thread would help a lot, though... I find it hard to visualize the unit progressions in my head. And your new graphics will need to be improved.

[JW]

BTW, I also did an edit to remove misinformation. The Taki faction is NOT in the Imperial Era. It is in a mod of the IE. So, I changed that part of the page.

Yes, I suppose I worded it a little improperly. Good pickup. Also nice edits.

[appleide]

The Taki faction is NOT in the Imperial Era.

Sounds like you really dislike the faction... I think the only thing keeping it from being included is its lack of animations, is it?

[Jetrel]

My understanding is that Djinns are like devils. So, having them in an Islam faction would make about as much sense as having the Castle and Inferno towns be allies in HoMM3...

And remember that Devils and Angels are the same order of creature, defined into groups by whether they are good, or evil. Like people, they can switch between the two (see Lucifer).

[turin]

My understanding is that Djinns are like devils. So, having them in an Islam faction would make about as much sense as having the Castle and Inferno towns be allies in HoMM3...

And remember that Devils and Angels are the same order of creature, defined into groups by whether they are good, or evil. Like people, they can switch between the two (see Lucifer).

Aye, but you don't havethe outlaws and loyalists in the same fation, do you?

The Taki faction is NOT in the Imperial Era.

Sounds like you really dislike the faction... I think the only thing keeping it from being included is its lack of animations, is it?

Nothing against the faction, but I have a strong dislike of misinformation.

The main thing keeping it from getting in the Era is my understanding their place in the World of Wesnoth.

[Thrawn]

My understanding is that Djinns are like devils. So, having them in an Islam faction would make about as much sense as having the Castle and Inferno towns be allies in HoMM3...

And remember that Devils and Angels are the same order of creature, defined into groups by whether they are good, or evil. Like people, they can switch between the two (see Lucifer).

Djinn=spirit
Efreet~Devil

Afreet A demon or Spirit from the Djinn World, or great strength and cunning; often a snatcher of women

Djinn Invisible creatures created by God out of smokeless fire. They can be good or evil, and appear to humans in many guises

[Garion]

So, I just read this entire thread last night and then went and read the History of Wesnoth.

This is both a remarkable game and a remarkable setting you've put together.

I'm posting because I feel I may have a way to resolve this.

That post by Turin, from a couple months ago, asserts that the Imperial Era should probably not include the Aragwaithi, if only because everything else in it is based on some historic civilization.

I agree, but as a faction they have such unique attributes - and great art - that dropping them altogether would be a shame. So what if they were the force that the lich-lords originally battled and lost against?

We know that something drove the Wesfolk to flee to the Green Isle, and that even their command of the undead was not enough to defend them. But we know very little about what actually occured in that ancient land.

I guess what I'm proposing here is nothing less than an "Ancient Era," which would include the Aragwaithi, a faction composed of both outlaw humans and undead (the original unified Wesfolk), some variation on Orcs (whose home we know to be in the West), and a "force of nature" faction that would be highly active in an ancient world, comprised of woses and merfolk(?) and some units I've got floating around in my head.

I post before doing any work on this because I have a couple questions. Firstly, is this an age of the History of Wesnoth that the developers want to explore in that way? Or was it intended to remain lost in the mists of time?

Second, is it still the case that the Aragwaithi are not intended to be in the finalized Imperial Era? It seems like Turin said they shouldn't be a few months ago and that it hasn't been resolved - or discussed - since. If they've become too much a part of this set over the course of playtesting and balancing, maybe we should go looking in history for something they correspond to and write descriptions accordingly.

And last, does the designer of the Aragwaith race like the idea I just proposed at all? I certainly don't want to just blatantly take someone else's work and turn it to uses he never intended.

If anybody thinks this is worth doing, I can draw up some WML reflecting it and start a new thread.

This is only my second post, I know, but I've been lurking and gathering information for some time. Hi. I'm Garion. I'll be around.

[Elvish_Pillager]

And last, does the designer of the Aragwaith race like the idea I just proposed at all? I certainly don't want to just blatantly take someone else's work and turn it to uses he never intended.

The original development was by me and Shadow/Wayfarer; he made the graphics and had only vague ideas what they would be used for, while I developed the stats. Neither of us considered their history much.