SXRPG Version 7.0.8b -- 1.18 Server

[Mabuse]

SXRPG now on 1.18. server

----------------------
Current Version:7.0.8b
ESSENTIAL GAMEPLAY UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------


(HOW TO PLAY SXRPG in SECOND POST of this Thread)

(TIPS AND STRATEGIES SXRPG in THIRD POST of this Thread)

(REPLAYS and more Tips in FOURTH POST of this Thread)


SXRPG plays like an Adventure Game.
-----------------------------------

SXRPG is a game for 1-5 Players. Group Play is Fun, but Solo-Play is also Fun. The less Players the more starting Gold.
But also less income from kills to compensate for the initial advantage. Due to this Solo Play may by bit more dynamic initially.
Group play may be more defensive and team-dependent initially. Later a strong team has more options and more possibilities.

The heroes must progress, explore, find items, slay their way through the level and finally beat the last enemy leader.

Over Time, the strengh of the enemies will increase. Enemies will spawn 'creeps' and 'bosses', the latter are stonger than regular 'creeps' to crush players resistance.

In order to stand a chance the heroes must gather gold and spend it in SHOPS to improve their heroes.

Gold is earned by killing monsters and by finding chests that contain gold.
Gold is given to ALL Players.


SXRPG ADDON:
--------------------------------

SXRPG features adventure and dungeon-exploring gameplay.
Combat is basically basic wesnoth-style depending on terrain-defense, resistances, day/night-cycle, known specials and variations of it.
So key to success is understanding the core-mechanics of the game.

On Top of the already existing differences among the different units,
SXRPG adds 6 classes of Warriors, Clerics, Rangers, Mages,
Rogues and Roguemages with different strenghs and weaknesses.

It contains so far 7 Maps/Scenarios which need 80 to 120 turn to finish in average.
Each scenerio in this ADD ON is an adventure for 1 - 5 players. Any number of Players is welcome.

Less players means more Gold for each player to get started with. While less players get more gold at start,
it is obvious that more players means more total income, since all players get the gold for killing creeps.

As a Feature you can define the -Starting Level- in -advanced Options- in Game-Creation-Menu,
default is 0, but for more elaborated starting-Heroes you can chose higher Starting Levels.
The higher the starting Level, the higher the starting gold, but all enemies also rise accordingly
to the Level.

Starting at different Levels may change the Gaming Expierience and Gameplay.

This Map-Pack also features new units, new terrain, theres an additional soundfile.
The stuff included was mostly done by parts of the wesnoth-community and hopefully put to good use here.

Credits goes out to all who find their work here implemented. Thx to all contributors.

Big thx to all playtesters and people who gave suggestions. Many things implemented were suggested by
players and without these ideas SXRPG would be a lot different.



----------------------
Current Version:7.0.00
ESSENTIAL GAMEPLAY UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------

7.0.0.0
------------

content:
----------------

- new map "Mountains of Ulthar"
- new Units
- new Terrains (embellishments)


balance+compatability:
-----------------------

- marksman-special (weapon special) gets converted to magical at start of game.
(for players)

- armor-shop now has access to dauntless, steadfast, hvy armor abilty and cuirass

- updated gameinfo at start of game to give better advice for newcomers

- Tome-of-Forbidden knowledge increase Mana from Kills by +33%
- Tome-of-Forbidden knowledge increase Mana from magic circle and sanctification by +20%
(every 5 successful hits +1 mana)

- attack-spell minimum cost reduced to 30, so its viable in early game and allows more build-variety
(however, minimum cost is also kinda "hardcoded" by formula so even a basic 1-1 weapon would require without
any attack-damage-boni 65 mana to be casted, with attack+spell boni this can be reduced)
so realistically it still for most units no early game spell

- Combat-Stances are available via Iventory Menu, Aggressive/Defensive can be chosen for Mana to give +25% or -25% damage dealt and recieved
(in fact good way to boost damage, stances will keep themselves up and cost every turn the cast cost, going NEUTRAL is always free,
shops can only entered in NEUTRAL stance. Upkeep is calculated AFTER manaregenaration and BEFORE excess mana is capped, so its also good for
reduce manawaste. testing here is low, so if it turns out to be too powerful it may get nerfed a bit, however i think its great option to have.)

- Terrain Training grant now +5% Defense if Defense would be higher than 40% or 50% for flat Terrain.
(This will allow more Combinations of USE with AGILITY Ability - therefore its usually better now to get Agility BEFORE Terrain Training, except all Terrains with 20% or less Defense)
will also enable more diverse terrain defense among hero units.

- Agility Ability restricted to Units with low flat defense.

- Teleport Ability will now work in combination with non-Leaders (e.g. MERCS, HEROES) which makes it useable in solo play.
- Spirit-Link cost reduced by 25% (Bug-Fix: was to cheap for non-magic-heroes)

- Regeneration-Ability will provide +5 temp HP for each Kill
- Ankh-of-Life Item will provide +2 temp HP for each Kill

- rebalanced Map-Gold (Chests) for Maps: CastleOfCantar, EvilDead, IsleOfDread, SanctumOfShadows
(Gold was added to keep the Maps in flow, especially the early maps were massive short on gold, map-gold calculation depending on level of final enemy
(also maybe reacting to unit rebalance), so more gold in chests for the smaller maps. you still got to find them.

- slightly more gold for AI6 (also higher bonus if early kill)
- ai6 always trains Lvl 1 creeps, until lvl2 creeps get unlocked at turn 10 (and turn 20 lvl 1 get disabled)

- more gold for creeps of lvl3+4 (base level) (+1 each)

- orcish-sovereign(sx) ability change

- all units got reworked and rebalanced, will make the game potencially more difficult but this will break all old recorded games unfortuanately.

- to encourage exploration, on player-defeat the map and remaining ai units get hidden.


bug-fixes:
-----------

- various and tons of them (animation bugs, etc etc)

- ring-of-darkness cannot be picked up if bow-of-hunter has already been taken (should have not been possible)

- "killbonus" (gold for killing creeps) cannot be negative
(was possible if solo play on solo uncontested difficulty for lvl 0 enemies)

- minimum killbonus is 0 (on solo-uncontested lvl 1 creeps grant no gold)

- yellow-potion will now disappear if collected via ALCHEMY



Conclusion: Beside new Map and Content, all (enemy)Units got reworked so there may be gameplay differences to former versions,
Gamplaywise most important is that
basic COMBAT Stances were added
Tome got a Buff
Regeneration-Ability got a buff that it grants +5HP on kill
Ankh of Life +2HP on Kill
Teleport can be used with non-leaders (summons, heroes, mercs)
terrain defense can be slightly improved via terrain training,
Shop got some conveniences so less hopping between Sub-menues
also some old maps got a slight refresh, but almost all got more gold except Wizard+Temple



----------------------
Current Version:7.0.1
ESSENTIAL GAMEPLAY UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------

7.0.1
------------

- slight changes in ulthar map (bosses, boss placement)
(one new unit was "added", so its essential update)

- combat stances taken out as they favor some classes more than others
so they are for now suspended until a better solution is found

- ankh of life (shop) will no longer provide +2HP on kill.
(the dropable Item will still provide +5 HP on Kill)

- fixed problem with ID of some spawned bosses on new map

- map/start version-info wasnt updated



conclusion: some of the proposed things were not good for balance. and made the game too easy.
it will be checked IF STANCES may reappear as SPELLS or ABILITIES for example.
so there will be most likely some new ability for every class that comes with more unique buff
(e.g. for mages some FOCUS stance (+25% damage both) for warriors something like an intimidation stance (damage reduction))

But for now the game only gets harder



----------------------
Current Version:7.0.2
ESSENTIAL GAMEPLAY UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------


7.0.2
------------

- new spell: "Chain Attack Spell", will provide +25% damage both for Attacker and Defender for 1 Round.
Spell ends at start of new (side)Turn. Cost same as Attack Spell. Firepower for Mana-Builds.

- Charge can be activated/deactivated for specific purposes to make it more useful. Is available as soon one weapon has Charge.
(basically only Warrior- and Rogue-Warrior-Class can have it). Make Onrush/Charge build viaable.

- ranger: lose +1 killmove bonus
but can buy lightfoot-ability again (which provides +1 killmove).
that Bonus made ranger quite a bit OP, as it has already top damage-ratios with precision and blessing specials - combined with HUGE damage multipliers
so this movement bonus was quite unfair since it is basically a free ability point. overlooked that.

bug fix:
- one map tile on new map was not accessible when it in fact should be accessible.






----------------------
Current Version:7.0.4
ESSENTIAL GAMEPLAY UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------


7.0.3
------------
- bug with ranger class fixed

7.0.4
------------
- ranger gets back its +1killmove and lose his +20% movement bonus
to preserve class-identify


----------------------
Current Version:7.0.5a
ESSENTIAL GAMEPLAY UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------

7.0.5a
------------
- some polish for the new Map, Mountains of Ulthar
- new units were added, so this update is essential

- Ankh of Life +1 temporary HP after Kill


- disable charge will not cost stamina

- fixed Typo that prevented iceball+araneball gfx from being displayed
(player abilities)


----------------------
Current Version:7.0.7
BUGFIX UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------

7.0.6
------------

- description of regeneration ability says it gives +3 temp HP, but obviously its 5, and it should be 5.
(fixed, now it displays correct info)

- removed an accidentally placed shop (was inaccessible though, so no harm to gameplay in earlier version (ulthar map)

- description of chain-attack-spell a bit more organized


7.0.7
------------

- yellow pots will now appear in right-click drop down menu
(no need to go into inventory)


----------------------
Current Version:7.0.8
ESSENTIAL UPDATE
Not compatible with 6.X.X Version
----------------------

7.0.8
------------

- added two new units to ulthar map

- inventory shows mana per level of killed unit

- fixed some desscriptions (e.g. Ranger still stated +20movement bonus, but that was scrapped for +1movekill)

- fixed bug in shop that did not show correct defense for shallow-water and swamp-water
(also like ages old bug)



----------------------
Current Version:7.0.8b
ESSENTIAL UPDATE
----------------------

7.0.8b
------------

- added elvish sharpshooter to SXRPG era

[Mabuse]

----------------------
HOW TO PLAY
----------------------



----------------------------------------GENERAL GOALS in SXRPG-------------------------------------------------

Simple as is: Defeat all enemy Leaders (before the time run out)
SXRPG plays like an Adventure Game. The heroes must progress, explore, find items, slay their way through the level and finally beat the last enemy leader.

Over Time, the strengh of the enemies will increase. Enemies will spawn 'creeps' and 'bosses', the latter are stonger than regular 'creeps' to crush players resistance.

In order to stand a chance the heroes must gather gold and spend it in SHOPS to improve their heroes.
Gold is earned by killing monsters and by finding chests that contain gold. Gold is given to ALL Players.

Killing AI 6+7 leaders early also provides income-bonus over time and will also give gold to AI 8+9. Killing AI 6+7 as early as possible may be an important Strategy on higher difficulties.
Killing leaders may also trigger events though. Beside spawned creeps, bosses and leaders, there are also already placed enemies on the map which are basically obstacles for the player that have to be overcome. Their strengh will be higher the further the players progress into the map.

In general killing leaders early is always beneficial. For AI 6+7 because killing them early will grant huge income boni and gold for other AI which are converted into 'creeps' and thus provide more gold for the player. For AI 8 it is beneficial because it will slow down the rate at which enemies become stronger, for AI 9 because it wins the game for the player.

---------------------------------------GAMEPLAY-------------------------------------------------

Gold can be spend in shops, which act due to that as bases for retreat, recovery, development and further progress.

Gameplay:
As an important game mechanic, after killing an enemy unit, the hero gets another attack and recovers 4 or more movement.
This allows for massive killing streaks, in combination with careful planning, potions and spells, you may advance into far areas early, or escape dangerous situations.

RightClick on your Hero, adjacent hexes or enemies opens a menu,
which gives you access to various options, e.g. get additional movement, inventory, spells or abilities.
E.g. to cast a movement-spell you right click on own hero, to attack an enemy with a fire-ball-spell you right-click on an enemy within range.
A basic description is also provided in the shop when buying a new Ability or Spell.

Mana + Stamina:
Spells and Abilities will be powered by Mana/Stamina. Both are basically the same, depending wether you have a 'magic' or 'non-magic' Hero.
These will automatically increase when you spend gold in Shop. So when your Hero becomes stronger, so will your capabilities regarding mana/stamina.


-------------------------------------------------THE SHOP---------------------------------------------------------
In order to be sucessfull you must build a capable hero. Some tips for your FIRST shop visit:

Terrain Training:
---------------
IMPORTANT. Drastically increases the effectiveness of movement. Being mobile in difficult terrain is very useful.
You want to get as much terrains to 1 movement cost as possible. Your success depends on it.
A must have is CAVE, HILL, FOREST, FLAT set to 1, MOUNTAINS + FUNGUS also important.
Others are Map Dependent, but in general: the more mobile, the better your chances for success.
Also very important is aspect of terrain defense, Heroes with weak defense (e.g. Drake, Wose) need to get AGILITY to push their Defense up to 50%.

Armory:
---------------
Negative resistances should be nullified early. If you have negative resistances, spend some gold here. This increases effect of Health Points.
As the Game progresses your goal is to get at least 50% on offense on every category.
This will effectively double your HP and is cheaper than buying health.
DAUNTLESS Ability is very important in that regard as it will double your resistances up to 50%.

Weapon-Shop:
---------------
Depending on which hero you have, you want to get some weapons.
Take the following advice with a grain of salt, these can help you get started with the first, low-tiered Maps.
As it ALL depends finally on the map you play.

Weapons that come along with the Hero will be usually fine at max level (or get sold), but until then you may want to have at least 1 extra weapon.
As a base choice Fire OR Arcane Weapons are usually useful to be able to deal with Ghosts or other supernatural enemies.
Buy your weapons BEFORE you get extra damage and strikes. Since the price of the weapons will increase with additional strikes/damage.
You only want to buy about 1 to 3 weapons, since you need the remaining gold for enhancements.
A SHIELD weapon for ranged heroes is recommended, else your unit is easy prey for berserkers.
A NET for melee heroes is useful for reducing damage from ranged attackers.

So in conclusion the choice is:
- Fire OR Arcane as primary
(if one approach wont work well then try the other here, often some maps work better with Arcane other better with Fire)
- Add Mundane Weapon (pierce, impact, blade) as secondary
(better have it than need it. you can keep a good weapon that comes along with the unit or sell a weak for 30 gold and buy a shop weapon for 30 gold)
- Add Cold or other Weapons as tertiary or more if useful.
(add cold or other weapons if your basic weapon choices dont cover your needs)
- add a side weapon like NET or SHIELD to reduce damage on defense for your non-preferred range.

If you dont know the Map or are an inexpierienced player go Arcane + Impact as these are most likely always somewhat useful, but that approach may not be always the best and not always lead to success on higher tiered maps or difficulties.
The reason for keeping your weapons count as low as NESSESSARY, is due to the fact that weapons will start to become so much more effective once you buy SPECIALS for it, and these specials are costly.
Weapons without specials are basically useless. So the less weapons you have to buy specials for, the more money you have to increase raw stats like damage + strikes.
So you want only so much Weapons as really needed with all possible upgrades and as much strikes/damage as possible.
It may be that ONE Weapon with all specials + maxed stats may brute force through even unfavorable resistances, than splitting Money on 5 but all weak Weapons.
It is recommended to buy e.g. 2 Weapons and then focus on one Weapon to max out its Specials than next one.
However, everybody has a plan until the unexspected happens, and it may be better having two half upgraded weapons, than having one maxed out, but useless weapon.
Beside all that there is always the possibility to buy additional weapons or find new weapons to be able to deal with whatever the map throws at you.
If you realize that your current weapons/spells cannot deal with certain enemies, you may retreat and avoid these until you are prepared.


The Item Shop:
---------------
contains very useful stuff, specifically the class related items can and will be very likely part of an early build, but they are expensive.
Almost everything is useful here, but not at any moment.
Getting ANKH early is a good idea as it will also boost your basic regeneration.
Items that increase maximum mana, may be worth getting early if your gold allows it.


Weapon Specials:
---------------
Here are all the fine Specials that define basically who you are.
For warriors, clerics, melee in general, a RAGE build is recommended.
For Rangers HAIL OF ARROWS, for Mages either FOCUS or MAGIC CIRCLE.
These abilities will multiply the damage you deal and are the backbone of your upgrades.

Also getting MAGICAL or other CTH enhancing Special are the FIRST things you want to get, SLOW is a must have before you ever think about buying HP because it is so much more effective.

The task here is to find the most effective order to buy things. IF you have the gold getting some specials early will be very beneficial.
If you want to be more versatile and have 2 or 3 Weapons running at the same time, because of versatile enemies, which may occur on higher tiered maps, use stuff first that affects the player globally, e.g. instead of buying SLOW for all 2-3 weapons, which may cost a fortune, better buy up to 20% armor for all resistances and double them with DAUNTLESS to 40%. And then buy SLOW specials later in the order you need them.



Enhancements:
---------------
Here you spend most of your money the throughout the whole game.
Upon creation get about 8 or 9 moves TOTAL. Maybe even more, if you have the gold e.g. on solo play.

Next you want to have at least 5 strikes TOTAL for your main weapons. E.g., at start you may want to get +2 strikes.
This is to be able to deal with bad luck, less strikes are more likely to be luck dependent.

A big mistake is to buy HP too early. Before buying HP you want to get SLOW Weapon special and boost your Armor, as HP are very expensive and having SLOW on a weapon will effectively double your HP.
Same for Armor (50% treshhold).

But you also want to get the damage + strike numbers up to be able to deal with Enemy Creeps+Bosses.



Abilities:
---------------
There is no need to get all abilities early on.
Gold-Giving abilities like Bounty-Hunter could be bought early.

There are many very useful abilites, mobility is important, armor is important, regeneration is important, but only few ability points.

Spend them wisely as they will define your way of playing.

DAUNTLESS Ability is quite mandatory sooner or later, in oder to bring all armor up to 50% on offense.



More Tips see 3rd post of this thread.




Maps currently included in the Pack:
-----------------------------------

MAPS DISPLAYED HERE MAY BE OUTDATED DUE TO MAP_OVERHAULS FROM LATER VERSIONS
MAPS IN MOST ACTUAL VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE MAP DISPLAYED HERE


Episode I: Castle of Cantar
--------------------------

Episode II: Evil Dead
--------------------

Episode III: Wizard of War II
----------------------------

Episode IV: The Temple of Bones
--------------------------------

Interlude I: The Isle of Dread
--------------------------------

Episode V: Sanctum of Shadows
--------------------------------

Episode VI: Mountains of Ulthar
--------------------------------

[Mabuse]

--------------------------------------
USEFUL STRATEGIES AND TIPS:
(WIP)
-------------------------------------


HEALTH:
----------

In general, dont buy HP until you havent upgraded your Armor to 50% on offense and got SLOW for the weappons you use. Exceptions make the rules, e.g. if you have an unusual low-hp-hero. Ghost may be something like that.

HP can be increased until then by AMLA-Leveling, by consuming Yellow Potions and by finding plants and "scorpion-tail-like-things", which increase HP by 1 or 2.

In late-game however, you want to be able to attack normal bosses without HP-Boost, and final boss with yellow Potions
High Class Bosses can deal up to 1500 to 2000 Damage per Round, so we have to prepare for that.
OFC not all Damage will apply. Half of it get absorbed by SLOW (x0.5), if Magical 30% will miss (x0.7), Armor absorbes another 50% (x0.5)
So only about 17,5% of the damage will apply.

Lets assume you want to be able to attack a strong Boss (1200 Damage/Round) with no Yellow Potion, having 50% Armor, then you'd need to aim for

Warrior (Onrush+Charge): 840 HP
Warrior/Cleric (Rage): 630 HP
Ranger (Hail+Focus): 630 HP
Warrior/Cleric (Onrush): 420 HP
Ranger (Hail):420 HP
Ranger/Mage (Focus): 315 HP
Mage (Circle+Chain Attack Spell): 263 HP
Mage (Circle): 210 HP

Higher Armor will reduce the damage drastically, e.g.
Warrior/Cleric (Rage): 630 HP for 50% Armor
Warrior/Cleric (Rage): 504 HP for 60% Armor
Warrior/Cleric (Rage): 378 HP for 70% Armor
Warrior/Cleric (Rage): 252 HP for 80% Armor

so at 80% Armor a warrior can even take a 2000 Damage/round boss (currently there is no stronger unit ingame)
with 420 HP, assuming some bad luck, at 600 HP he can take it without support of yellow potions and will survive 100%

so for the highest tiered maps, late Game:

Mages: 200 to 300 HP
Rangers: 300 to 600 HP
Clerics: 400 to 600 HP
Warrior: 400 to 800 HP

Recommended. This includes then the occasional use of Yellow/Blue Potions and/or Divine-Health-Spells.
The higher the HP and Armor the more independent from Potions and Spells.



POTION HANDLING:
----------

Potions are in general very useful and the total capacity of potions your hero can carry will also greatly enhance its power.
Potions grant additional Strikes, Health beyond maximum HP, additional Moves etc

However, potions should not be bought, especially in early game without purpose. If you spend too much gold on potions in early game
your hero will be weaker. Better use the potions that can be collected on Map.

So in general in early game you want to avoid buying potions, unless you want a accomplish a certain purpose, like using day-light to kill a leader and you need to heal up and get some cyan potions to reach out for a killing streak. the next cycle will be in 4 or 5 turn, until then everything could be swarmed and blocked by bosses.

Using alchemy ability will cut the costs of potions by 50%, filling up moves in shop will then only cost 5 Gold, which is affordable.
As said to every rule there is an exeception and while all is true for the highest difficulties, in lower difficulties you can afford potions as
backup also in early game due to having more gold in general.

Just be aware if you buy potions in early game, it is always a trade, and if you buy potions avoid buying the expensive ones.
On many Maps there will be quite a good number of potions on the map already, and your problems may be that you cannot carry all of them.

In late game filling up potions may be mandatory, and, epecially with herbal-knowledge-items and alchemy, potions will become cheap and afforable.
Even yellow ones can become very cheap. However same thing applies: Avoid buying the expensive consumeables, unless you are sure you can finish the game.


Tanking:
----------

Tanking is a Strategy to deal with enemies that cannot be killed on your turn, so the plan is to weaken them while they attack you.
in SX enemies will USUALLY try to deal the most damage, and unless they can deal the same amount of damage with a Weapon of a different range, you can predict in most cases the attacking range. exception could be that they would die so fast, that using their non-preferred weapon would do better damage. (however, no one really knows it, there may be an exception for every rule)

so to make this strategy work,

- melee heroes tank melee enemies, and ranged heroes tank ranged enemies
(rogues can tank both)

- key here is to have good terrain defense, and SLOW. (in early stage very high terrain defense CAN compensate missing slow, however, its more risky)

- the AI enemy will often use his CHARGE or AGGRESSION weapon to deal most damage, often these are not supported by slow.
- dreadful sight only works on defense so when AI is attacking it recieves automatically 33% more damage than on defense in many cases

- so the main purpose of tanking is to avoid the 33% damage reduction from "dreadful sight", and use their own attack multipliers like charge (2x damage) or aggression (2x rounds of attack) against them as you will also deal double damage.

- to make it work place yourself onto a high defensive terrain near an enemy, preferrably on a hex which can be only reached by weak-terrain-defense hexes by the enemies and lure his units into death (or kill the weakened units on your next turn)

- it works best on units that are obviously melee/ranged unit (they use the attacks with high attack multipliers).
- mixed units my use their other attack
- make sure to kill all other weak stuff they may additionally weaken you or block hexes
- make sure that only the desired number of units can attack you. (and they may die during attack, and another one will attack)
- heal up before tanking

- as a nice effect, if you have regen-ability you heal up (if you survive the attacks) at the start on your turn.



Resistances and DAUNTLESS:
----------

in SX almost every unit can get 50% defense ON Offense. so this is the goal.

- in order to maximize the effect of dauntless, (almost) NEVER grade your resistances above 20%. thats all. if you are stuck at 40% then you are stuck at 40%

- the other 5% to 25%(which double up to 50% then) come from a ring-of-resistance, which is great if youo can grab one early, or at least partially every non-magic hero has CUIRASS item, which will give you +5% for blade, pierce, impact

- only touch resistances again until you reach late or final stage of the game, and almost all the basic armor items (arcane armor, fire armor, ice armor) have been found. some maps dont have them tough, or you can take them into account (each give +15% on their arcane, fire, ice resists)


- in many cases even spending all your armor point will not really bring many resistances higher than 50%. to get really good armor values you need a basic unit with strong resistances, a non-magic hero and probably hvy armor ability.

- if you find out that buying additional armor would have no big effect you may as well delay it or renounce and buy something else instead.

- finalizing armor in "no big effect cases" may only be buy up to 30% (will double to 50%) if there are resistances left at 20%





more tips will follow.

[Mabuse]

-----------------------------------
REPLAYS and EXPLANATIONS:
-----------------------------------


Still no idea, how to play?
Look at this example.



FIRST MAP: CASTLE OF CANTAR
Here is an example Gameplay of the first Map, Castle of Cantar as WARRIOR

SXRPG Chapter ICastle Of Cantar Example Warrior Uncontested Turn 51.gz

(503.91 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

The following explain the Build-Up and parts of the Strategy.



THE WARRIOR

Type: Marshall
(Marshall is very solid Choice for Warrior, dont has the highest default resistances, but they are very well distributed,
also it provides free Fearless (its leadership gets converted to fearless in SX), which makes it a bit more versatile)

Class: Warrior
(easy to play, powerful class)
Aligment: Lawful
(basically the default choice, it provides +25% when most enemies are weak, gameplay would be retreat/recover on night, attack at day, other alignments are for special builds)
Trait: Strong
(also overall the default choice, the +3 damage is hard to top, heroes with 4 default moves may do better with scout trait, all other traits are for special/advanced cases)

Shop:
-------
1.)Terrain Training:
-----------------

Forest
Hill
Mountain
Cave
Fungus

Movement: +4 (10 total)

(Train all important Terrains, keep remaining for special cases, 10 total moves for solo is good)
(also: all trained terrains get +5% defense)


2.)Armory:
--------

- Fire: +20%
- Cold +20%
- Arcane +10%
(= all resistances at 20%)

- Dauntless: double all to 40% on offense


3.)Item-Store:
-----------

- Ring of Defense: All Terrain-Defense +5%


4.)Weapon-Store:
------------------

- Sell Sword
- Sell Crossbow

- Buy enchanted Blade (Arcane)
(you see this setup use Arcane only for the majority of the map, in end-game i will buy Cold Weapon
and in this Case i decided to accept the penalty (weapon cost more in late game) to have more gold for
build up. Usually i would have kept default-blade or buy a mace or cold weapon)

- you also notice i didnt buy a net yet, this will be immediatly bought on the next shop visit, it is very important !!!!
(alternatively buy NET right away and renounce on Ring-of-defense, save remaining gold and buy ring on second shop visit)


5.)Abilities:
----------------

- Regeneration
(cantar is a map with not so much healing-potions, so you will run around more, regeneration helps to use the time between turn to recover health, which is needed by Warrior)

- Alchemy
(very useful choice for all non-magic classes, gives healing-spell and cheap recover Moves/HP in Shop)

- Lightfoot
- Swiftfoot
(gives +2 Moves after KIll, also give Bonus for Hit-And-Run)

(so in this Run all Ability Points were spend at start, regeneration will cover the missing potions, Alchemy+Lightfoot+Swiftfood provide QoL (Quality of Life))

(there is another AbilityPoint in Item Shop which could be unlocked in late Game to buy HvyArmor or AdvancedAlchemy)
(however is not needed on Cantar Map)


6.)Weapon Specials:
---------------------
- rage for enchanted blade
(rage is pretty much the default choice for warrior, and get this ASAP)
(next one would be SLOW after you get 5 or 6 strikes ASAP)


7.) Enhancements:
-------------------
- +2 Strike
(get 5 strikes total its 100% important and reduce damage due to bad luck)



Explanation:
-----------------

For the example Game Warrior Class was chosen. Warrior is an easy-too-play class, which can stomp basically everything.
Important for Warriors is good HP supply. So everything that PRESERVES HP is imporant.


Unusual things:
-------------------

- The build-up that was used was very simple, it uses just ONE weapon at start, later in game i bought a cold weapon to deal with final boss and have an easier time against the drakes. usually you would want to get the 2nd weapon at start, but in this case (it sn uncontested game, so it assumed we know the map) i traded a penalty (at the moment i bought the cold weapon, it costed 200 gold, instead of the default 95 gold) for a more smooth start. so i bought REGENERATION ability right away for its +5HP on kill and because CANTAR MAP is quite big, and being able to recover is a HUGE difference for warrior.

- on 1st turn i also renounced on NET andbought that after i grabed the first 2 gold-chests (because i wasnt defending anyways, and the +5% terrain defense from the ring was better preserving more HP), however you cannot really renounce on NET or other defense side-weapon, as you see in the replay it saved me



After the Start:
-------------------

- after the start on my first shop visit i bought NET
- also i very quickly also got SLOW for my weapon, since warrior cannot renounce on SLOW to fully utilize the RAGE special, else warrior would take too much damage
- after getting SLOW basically everything went into strikes and damage, until i bought the cold weapon+upgrades.
- i also bought cyan potions, since they are cheap with alchemy to be able to pull off some things in time.
- i didnt buy more armor than the initial 20% everywhere, i collected a ring-of-resistance which brought me to 50% on offense total, which
is ok for cantar map, on higher tiered maps it may not be enough

so for warrior getting the +5% terrain defense fom ring and early regeneration ability and SLOW as early as it makes sense

the marshall is good choice because of free fearless ability, as long you dont need a better unit with a more fittting default weapon.
some units have devastating default weapons which can be game-changers, the marshall on the other hand is a peak-example of an easy-to-maintain unit.


---------------------------------------

-----------------------------------
REPLAYS and EXPLANATIONS:
-----------------------------------


FIRST MAP: CASTLE OF CANTAR
Here is an example Gameplay of the first Map, Castle of Cantar as MAGE

SXRPG Chapter ICastle Of Cantar Example Mage Uncontested Turn 48.gz

(490.19 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

The following explain the Build-Up and parts of the Strategy.


THE MAGE
MANA BUILD

Type: Mage of Light
(Mage of Lights strengh is its Illumination Aura, which grants lawful +25% attack-bonus for 4 Turns per Cycle,
and also basically provides free Fearless, its not nessessarily the strongest Mage Unit, but a classic.)
Other good Mages would be Silver Mage, Grant Mage and Sylph for example)

Class: Mage
(fun to play, versatile)
Aligment: Lawful
(basically the default choice, it provides +25% when most enemies are weak, gameplay would be retreat/recover on night, attack at day, other alignments are for special builds)
Trait: Dextrous
(also overall the default choice, the +3 damage is hard to top, heroes with 4 default moves may do better with scout trait, all other traits are for special/advanced cases)

Shop:
-------
1.)Terrain Training:
-----------------

Forest
Hill
Mountain
Cave
Fungus

Movement: +5 (10 total)

(Train all important Terrains, keep remaining for special cases, 10 total moves for solo is good)


2.)Armory:
--------

none initially


3.)Item-Store:
-----------

- Ankh for +1HP on Kill and basic Regen boost
- Magestaff for +25% max mana (boost max mana, boost attack spells, reduces chain-attack spell cost)


4.)Weapon-Store:
------------------

- Sell Flail
- Buy Shield


5.)Abilities:
----------------

- Tome of Forbidden Knowledge (max mana Boost, mana supply)
- Magic Healing
- Chain Attack Spell (general Damage Boost)
- Energyball (overall best thing to use, since we also have arcane only as weapon)


- Lightfoot
- Swiftfoot
(gives +2 Moves after KIll, also give Bonus for Hit-And-Run)



6.)Weapon Specials:
---------------------
- magic circle for lightbeam
- blessing for lightbeam

(mana supply, high CTH, blessing is +1 strike for 100 bucks)


7.) Enhancements:
-------------------
- +2 Strikes
- +2 Damage (alternatively get magering in item store)

(get 5 strikes total its 100% important and reduce damage due to bad luck)
(mage need more damage)



Strategy:
----------

The Mage-Build is quite contrary to the Warrior build, as you see we dont buy REGENERATION ability at all (for soloplay, on group play it may be more useful though, and you may renounce on swiftfoot then), armor is initially not that important, however, later in game, mage also needs some protection.

- First Shop Visit: add MageRing (even more mana)
- We max out our Mana Capacity, so when we max profit from aining more and more mana form killing creeps.
- magic circle and tome-of-knowlegde for max mana inflow
- We chose EnergyBall since our ONLY Weapon is also Arcane and direct Damage-Spell is probably more versatile than attack-spell
(but attack spell is also valid choice, especially if you want to have 2-3 weapons, but harder to pull off)

- the remaining abilty point is for Dauntless
- no regen ability, as we heal via spells and mana

- for this map we add later ice-ball-spell via ability point in Item-shop, however,we found an extra ability-point as item-drop, so we saved 150 bucks.


- the mage is very powerful and can temporarily do much more damage than warrior as long he does not run out of mana
- later he also neeeds to protect its low Health with SLOW and Armor.
- its strengh is also his weakness, without mana he is weak.
- mages have also access to teleport which can be used actively (mage teleport to other unit) or passively (other unit teleport to mage)
- in team-play mages (and other magic classes) should be placed on the front slots (p1, p2 p3 ...) since they profit a lot from killing creep, and they can also be used as teleport stations by other units so other units can follow up and contionue where mage stopped.

[Mabuse]

5.2.4a is also on development branch 1.15 and thus will be ASAP available on 1.16,

a fully cleaned up package, not producing any wml-noise.
(a clean copy will be also attached to 1.14 server.)

from now on everything will be check against development version, 1.14 will get exact same version

[Mabuse]

next steps of development are:

- adding nightmare difficulty (less gold from creeps)

- changing REVIVE-mode: revive will cost gold instead of making creeps stronger, suggestions about the penalty-value are welcome
so its a good online and genral option. you dont want to die, since it weakens yourself and others will not be punished.

- bit balance change of isle of death

- new map

[Mabuse]

the next version wil be an essential update, changing already existing units in the game:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- fungus get more attack types, mainly fire (acid) damage
- sxrpg era no more "random faction" (as suggested in old SXthread 5 years ago ..)

- other units/factions may change as well

- while im happy with the creep balance (they grow faster in strengh as the game progresses) i realized that EVERYHING else, starting from stationary units to stationary bosses, to mobile bosses isnt in relation, so i had to do this ofc.

- On Rivive Mode you lose 150 Gold per Death, no other Penalties (as long you dont have positive Revives for whatever reason).
(if we assume that you get 75gold per turn, you would lose two turns of income per death), so its a good thing for casual players. maybe this will be aditonally set in relation to turn number, so on higher turns the penalty may be higher, ulimited extra lifes on revive-mode

- ON every Game Mode it is possible to be Revived if the Revive-Amount is positive (may find Revives via special Items)
(that means that i may implement spells, items and specal items that are somewhat related to revive, they wil work that they simply add full extra lifes or fractions of extra life, while upon death, once you have a spare life, you get revived)

- arcade mode gives you 1-3 extra lifes, depending on difficulty, higher difficulties come with less revives

- GRANDMASTER difficulty enabled, no bonus gold, -12% income from creeps
(on top of the harder creep adjustment this is the way to go for the number crunching people)



more changes to come, ofc im also working on the new map, but the balance has to be done

[Mabuse]

----------------------
Current Version:5.2.5
ESSENTIAL BALANCE UPGRADE
----------------------

5.2.5: ESSENTIAL UPGRADE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OLDER VERSIONS
-------------------------------------------------------------
Bugs:
--------

- fixed "random side" in sx rpg era, cannot be selected anymore
- 2 units in SXRPG era (from former "Kalifa") got removed, since they were not displayed anymore consistently


GAME BALANCE:
--------------
- rebalance of several unit types (mainly damage types)

- rebalanced BOSS Stats for LATE Game
- rebalanced stationary Creeps on all Maps for late Game
(Bosses and stationary Creeps increase in strengh according in relation to the increased Creep strengh in later game)

- solo players get 1600 gold at start (former 1800) so they recieve a -200 gold nerf.


GAMEPLAY:
-----------

- At Rivive Mode you lose (150+TurnNumber) Gold per Death, no other Penalties (as long you dont have positive Revives for whatever reason).
- At every Game Mode it is possible to be Revived if the Revive-Amount is positive (may find Revives via special Items)
- Arcade mode give 1-3 extra lifes depending of difficulty (former flat 3)

- new difficulty GRANDMASTER (no bonus gold, -12% income from killing enemies, +1% creep progression)

- you can buy 1x revive in shop for 200 Gold

- inventory menu got a new setup





Summary:
------------
rebalance of solo play, new difficulty, adaptions for stationary units and bosses for late game, game mode change



the next update: MORE CONTENT
new units, new terrain, new map

until then report your games in GRANDMASTER mode for evaluation, hope this version can give a little bit of challenge for experts

[Mabuse]

----------------------
Current Version:5.2.5a
ESSENTIAL BALANCE UPGRADE
----------------------


5.2.5a: ESSENTIAL UPGRADE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OLDER VERSIONS

Bugfix:

- Highlevelitems could not be picked up due to a typo (fixed)




After some testing i think the difficulty is ok. its not that it is something completely different.
Took a while to get into it though, but then it was kinda fun. like the solo runs now.
(Never played solo runs before too much). tested on Grandmaster

Tested a lot with Warriors and Mages. For Warriors/nonMages i think skirmisher (=neutral or chaotic) is quite important to be more mobile. Mages and Magic Classes can compensate that with their much better extra Movement. Also non-mages have stronger base attack, so they may renounce on TOD bonus so they can chose neutral.


unfortuanately, there was a bug with HIGHLEVELITEMS, that could not be picked up. FIXED in 5.2.5a.


Feel free to tell me what you think -

[Spirit_of_Currents]

Fearless doesn't work.

[Mabuse]

Fearless doesn't work.

ok, thank you for reporting
update is on its way


keep on reporting bugs, suggestions or (probably sujective) balance issues, they will be addressed and taken into consideration.

[Mabuse]

----------------------
Current Version:5.2.5c
ESSENTIAL BALANCE UPGRADE + BUGFIX
----------------------

5.2.5b: ESSENTIAL UPGRADE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OLDER VERSIONS

Bugfix:
-------------

- Highlevelitems again fixed
- High Gold Chests WML compatibility bug fixed
- Fearless-Ability fixed
- Fixed all Fearless related Items
- Book of the Dead Item fixed

GAME BALANCE:
--------------
- removed melee poison from basic fungus units
(favors ranged and undead too much)


5.2.5c:

- fixed bug with ability replacement

[Spirit_of_Currents]

I suppose items that should give you more HP regen don't do it.

Blessed gives +10% strikes instead of +20%. (The base is 10 and 11 with blessed.)

[Mabuse]

I suppose items that should give you more HP regen don't do it.

Blessed gives +10% strikes instead of +20%. (The base is 10 and 11 with blessed.)

1) Regen Bonus:
- the regen-ability will be updated after shopping, so after picking up such an item the change will apply AFTER visiting a shop
(i will change this so that the change apply immediatly, but be assured that the items works well after visiting a shop (you dont have to buy anything))
so thx for mentioning i guess this leads sometimes to misunderstandings, in the next version it will update ability after taking the item immediatly, meanwhile be assured that the regen-bonus applies after visiting/leaving a shop. This is basically an old routine because BEFORE items got added the only possibility to get more HP (and thus more regen) was via shopping (or leveling). (well also from plants and yellow pots etc )

but i think you are right: regen-bonus from items should apply immediatly
it will be fixed in the next update


2) Blessing
- i just quick tested blessing, i gave a slyph additional 5 strikes to a total of 10 then added blessing = 12 strikes.
so it works fine, the value in code is anyways set to 20%, so IF there would be problems it would be due to some strange rounding issues.
but it works fine as far as i can tell atm.

maybe you tested
FAST REALOD (+15% strikes) instead? non-magic ranged units dont get blessing-ability, instead they can upgrade with fast-reload which provides a 15% bonus on strikes


thx for reporting

[Spirit_of_Currents]

I tried to attach a game save where the blessed bug is but I got an error message "Invalid file extension."

You can move over campfires without taking damage if you don't stop over them. However, if you see a new enemy, you'll stop. So it's luck-based whether you take damage or not. Therefore I suggest you always stop over campfires but take less damage.

I've got an item that makes me undead, and another item that makes adjacent enemies' some resistances worse, but I can't see the effects in my unit description below the ToD. I suggest you can see somewhere the list of every item you've got. It would also make it easier to find item-related bugs.

I've had some situations where I want to defend with a slowing melee attack and a high damage ranged attack. It's sad I can't choose both unless the ranged attack also slows or I don't have a non-slowing melee attack.

The description of precision says "will delete current magical, magical circle and marksman specials". What about focus?