[era]Beyond Southern Hells - new empire faction ready

[StDrake]

It's been a while but it's finally here - the first, skinny version of Beyond Southern Hells era. Availible for both 1.8.5 and 1.9.4..though may not work as well at 1.8 in case I miss fixing some coding differences. yes I'm an idiot and I do that manually, problem?

Far south beyond the wesnothian gaze thrive civilisations unheard of. Will you seek allies among them..or throw them a challenge of your own?

The main idea of this era so far was to gather up some lonely factions and unite them into one sensible whole under a common storyline - whereas the lores of default Wesnoth end south at Heartwood and the Great Desert Shah'ldar (translated from "the desert of death", precise pronounciation may vary) these tell the tale of what's beyond that dreadful "borderline"..or sometimes within it

At the time being there are two factions coupled by the default ones for comparison
-Felinians (precise name may change) - a race of cat-people, mostly tending to the foreboding dark forests of the area, but also venturing the vast steppes beyond
[author: StDrake]
-A.N.O. - a mysterious and secretive organisation dabbling in research of the most dangerous of magical arts, naturally keeping hidden in the vicinity of human habitats from where they originate, but quite eager to outpost wherever they can find good field for their pursuit of knowledge and power..often of course sending them into trouble
[author: Rozard]

There are also visions of what factions might add to the story:

-ThE DarK EmpirE - there was mention of an evil population of humans living in the area, and this would be the most visible part of it. Despite calling itself an empire this country is far from the power its rulers would wish to have, so they make up for their weakness by cruelty and brutality - just to pretend being strong

-dragservion - remnants of the great dragons of the past and the lesser races in service to them, a faction that may have big problems with balancing - rather below the average units, bolstered up with vastly overpowered leaders and rarely some unique personnae

But wait, there's more! As i mentionned other lonely factions that are unique enough may find their place alongside those. The only requirement is that their storyline can be somehow fitted into the fluff of the rest.and that they're unique enough..so to say - "nontrivial"




Of course feedback is also welcome and encouraged. I'm aware there may still be many things lacking, not working as it should, or simply needing balance reworks, but I'm not necessarily aware what those things are.

[Yelik]

I like the era. Maybe split it into 2 eras, with and without default.
I might make a faction for this. Maybe an ogre/hill folk faction?

[Reepurr]

Cool. I like the sound of Dragservion - maybe you could have a dragon hatchling unit that's underpowered, and grows up to a slightly overpowered young dragon, eventually reaching Fire, Ice, Earth or Wind dragons!
(Fire could be the mainline one, Ice could have slow breath, Earth could have massive impact damage in melee and ranged, Wind could be superfast)

[StDrake]

Different elemental dragons? That's a worthy idea.

[bigkahuna]

Different elemental dragons? That's a worthy idea.

You'd have to be careful about balancing. Suggestions:

Advancement Path 1: Hatchling (UP) --> Young Dragon (Normal) --> Adult Dragon (Normal, a bit OP) --> Ancient Dragon (kind of OP) --> Elemental Dragon (OP)

Pros: logical and steady line of advancement, fire dragon doesn't need any altering to present stats (level 5)
Cons: LOTS of leveling and XP involved.

Advancement Path 2: Hatchling (Kind of UP) --> Dragon (Normal) --> Ancient Dragon (Kind of OP) --> Elemental Dragon (OP)

Pros: Rewards player for leveling more than #1, less XP, more incentive to level dragons.
Cons: Less balanced, will need to revamp/rebalance fire dragon and such.

Cons about fire dragon: there is NO WAY that you guys can produce art for the other three elements with the same quality Jetryl did (no offense).

[Reepurr]

Cons about fire dragon: there is NO WAY that you guys can produce art for the other three elements with the same quality Jetryl did (no offense).

Eternal did the body, Jetryl just did tweakment on the head, neck and a few other bits.

No, there isn't any way we can do dragons to the same quality as people who're very good at pixel art, but we can get something that looks slightly like a dragon...

Advancement Path 1: Hatchling (UP) --> Young Dragon (Normal) --> Adult Dragon (Normal, a bit OP) --> Ancient Dragon (kind of OP) --> Elemental Dragon (OP)

Pros: logical and steady line of advancement, fire dragon doesn't need any altering to present stats (level 5)
Cons: LOTS of leveling and XP involved.

Advancement Path 2: Hatchling (Kind of UP) --> Dragon (Normal) --> Ancient Dragon (Kind of OP) --> Elemental Dragon (OP)

Pros: Rewards player for leveling more than #1, less XP, more incentive to level dragons.
Cons: Less balanced, will need to revamp/rebalance fire dragon and such.

Advancement Paths 1 and 2 are a bit off of what I was thinking after some tweaks of my original idea.

Hatchling (UP) --> Young Dragon (Slightly OP) --> Elemental Dragon (OP) --> Ancient Elemental Dragon (SuperOP)

This way, you don't suddenly jump to Elemental at the very top of the levels. It has a more gradual change. Obviously, it would be great if there could be a {DISABLE_SUPER_DRAGON} macro, like with the Marshal, so you could get a level 5 in there still, but oh well...

Possible L4 dragon stats:

Fire Ancient

74HP.
6 MP.
Chaotic
Costs 79 gold.
Resistances: Arcane -50% Cold - 40% Fire 100% Impact 10% Pierce 0% Blade 10%
Attacks: Bite 15-2 Blade | Tail 19-1 Impact | Breath 10-4 Fire Marksman

Ice Ancient

81HP.
6 MP.
Chaotic
Costs 79 gold.
Resistances: Arcane -50% Cold 100% Fire -40% Impact 20% Pierce 0% Blade 10%
Attacks: Bite 14-2 Blade | Tail 17-1 Impact | Breath 9-4 Cold Marksman

Earth Ancient

90HP.
5 MP.
Chaotic
Costs 79 gold.
Resistances: Arcane -50% Cold - 10% Fire -10% Impact 40% Pierce 20% Blade 40%
Attacks: Bite 19-2 Blade | Tail 28-1 Impact | Breath 13-2 Impact Marksman

Air Ancient

66HP.
8 MP.
Chaotic
Costs 79 gold.
Resistances: Arcane -50% Cold 0% Fire 0% Impact -10% Pierce -20% Blade -10%
Attacks: Bite 12-2 Blade | Tail 16-1 Impact | Breath 7-5 Impact Marksman

They haven't been tested yet, but I think they're okay. Ish.

[StDrake]

disable what? I don't recall marshal being disablable
and erh, wind and earth will be a little more complicated
I'm planning on dynamic cold/fire resistances for earth (though that's silly since hardly any factions have both fire and cold using units) and a knockback wing buffet attack for the air

I wouldn't forgive myself if all dragons were just stats and standard macros

as for ogre/whatever hill faction - I won't ask you "what", I'll ask "how". You have to agree that just stat variations on default units would not make an interesting faction. In fact even unique ideas don't have to be liked, but that I'll leave for the community to validate.

[Reepurr]

disable what? I don't recall marshal being disablable

It is.

Code: Select all

#ifdef DISABLE_GRAND_MARSHAL
    advances_to=null
    {AMLA_DEFAULT}
#else
    advances_to=Grand Marshal
#endif

Knockback wind attack? Sounds...interesting. It would be a little weird though.
And if Earth had dynamic resistances, you'd practically only be able to kill it with Arcane. It has exceptionally high non-elemental resistances, with a small weakness to pierce like with standard dragons, so to balance it out mine really hates fire and cold. This is so that Northerners (assuming it'll be Southern Hells + Default) can kill it with only blade, pierce and fire.

By the way - just realised: in the title, availible should be spelt "available".

[StDrake]

i meant dynamic the other way - dislikes changing temperatures a lot..but that still leaves orcs out in the cold..hmm how about if fire damage lowered slash resistance not just cold? and cold would hurt impact and fire..hmm no stil doesn't make sense, I guess he just wouldn't have much slashing nor impact res

playtested felines vs ano...hoodies do need more hp for their leaders, one commader-assisted panther was enough to kill him
28hp for a leader? *shrugs* but that's Rozards field there

..thought I've lowered the rats movement over villages, but it looks as if base terrain is shining through
need to think how to help them get to anything before they burn out, but not become such a village grab boost with their current Rush! skill

[Reepurr]

My first ever go at a game with Beyond Southern Hells! A few funny things / bugs though.

All the way through Weldyn Channels, I recruited only Burning Rats, Dark Woses and L1 Flykits (I forget the name).

On turn 1, I spammed Burning Rats until I ran out of keep space. Then I spammed more Burning Rats because I could move them all.

Eventually, my rats got a bit confused and their health fell past 0. Looks like someone forgot to add [kill] events.
They could also burn ANO enemies past 0hp, which was annoying, and they anihilated fire/cold ANO recruits, which was quite funny.

Upon facing a lot of arcane units, I simply switched to Dark Woses to try and kill the leader. Berserk is highly effective when most of your enemies have no melee. While they were making their way there, I used flykit L1s to poison the leader on suicide sprees.

I notice that there are "Cryptlogists" and "Curselogists" and stuff - this should be -ologist.
There are also a few units with no capital letters in their unit type names.

2p_—_Weldyn_Channel_replay.gz

I think this is the right one anyway

(20.34 KiB) Downloaded 847 times

[bigkahuna]

Hatchling (UP) --> Young Dragon (Slightly OP) --> Elemental Dragon (OP) --> Ancient Elemental Dragon (SuperOP)

It sounds like you're trying to get overpowered units. Factions are normally *supposed* to be balanced... I just don't see how this is going to work.

[StDrake]

Eventually, my rats got a bit confused and their health fell past 0. Looks like someone forgot to add [kill] events.

oh geepz! I thought i had that fixed already
thanks ill get right on it

as for BigKahunas worries - yes, factions are supposed to be balanced as factions, not necessarily as units
if you read that factions idea the point is that the leader will be forced to act with his troops because he is OP..but still not OP enough to act alone, while his troops are generally UP..so they won't do very well without him either

[StDrake]

0.2 up
-fixed (hopefully) burning special not causing deaths
-fixed some issues with the harm macro and artillery using it
-added Eregath faction by Repurr for..ergh..not very long if it continues to be like that. Have mercy on my soul for that

[blasphymer]

I come bearing.... animations.... I have no clue if they'll be of any use, but I did a melee animation of plaincat1... because I could not sleep and was bored.

EDIT: I suck at sprites, and this is my second attempt at animation, so please, don't shoot me....

[Reepurr]

so please, don't shoot me....

Darn, and I got out my shotgun just for you.

In an animation, you can't just have the arm move. The ENTIRE BODY has to move for the animation to be noticeable. For example, instead of rotating his sword, have him step forward and swing his sword in front of him, turning his torso as he does so. See this tutorial.

(OK, StDrake deals with any and all commits, but that animation will hardly be noticeable when the plainscat is sliding across the map to get to the opponent. You need to remember they do that.)