The Battle for Meridia: Startng balancing: alpha 0.1.7

[Velensk]

Comments

The Neophlyte line seems like it should work fine (I like the idea of arcane damage the best). A magic/ranged specialized line of advancement seems like it would be a good thing for campaign purposes.

The brute line seems like a bit of a mess. It deals very high melee damage, has lots of hitpoints (though the negative resistances may cancel it out some) and is fast even without the slowing ranged attack for the cost of 15. Slow is a major weapon special and including it on the basic melee unit must be a major feature of the faction. I see no reason to believe that this isn't the case though I do think that this unit needs to cost more or be less powerful. Even without the capability to slow offensively it will slow down ranged attackers and deliver crippling retaliation to melee attackers. The IE Imperialists have a similar thing going for their legionnaire except that their melee attack was relatively weak and they played the role of a mainly defensive unit and they were expensive. Another big thing that bothers me is the inclusion of the paralysis special on a multiplayer unit. This can/will cause major problems in all sorts of UMC and in MP. Also, at least in theory the brute line should have a line that neither loses slow nor melee power to avoid RIPWLIB.

I would think that the serpent line should be swifter but more expensive but that is really your call.

I dislike the idea of doing a damage per turn ability for the flying creature for thematic reasons and the fact that it's implementation would have to be a little clunky compared to poison. If you decide that that is what you want then I'd suggest that you increase the price some.

This faction feels a little limited. It has all of three land unit lines and although each of those lines is very interesting I can't help but feel that something is missing.

On the quick cadets/conscripts: I wouldn't worry about it. What you want to avoid is them recruiting them quick mostly. I don't think having the possibility of getting 1/2 by advancing others will be too much of a problem. Same faction different concern: I think that it would be best if you swallow your desire to avoid 8mp scouts for the dwarves.

On the whole: I can get you the unit cfgs for most of this stuff without too much trouble/time, however I'd prefer if you finalized exactly what you want before I start.

[thespaceinvader]

Sure sure. I might just work them up myself.

I'll let this stew overnight and see what happens in the morning, I think.

The reason I put the paralysis special only on the level 3 is for precisely that reason - I wanted it as a strong (potential) campaign device, but l3s come up so rarely in MP that it makes little difference there. I might switch the slows and poisons round, maybe, but I did like the idea of making the brutes more effective using slows. The other option might be to add in another level one below the Warden (initial ideas for the faction did include such) to have the slowing attack, and leave the brute just with a stub ranged without any special.

Aura raised the point in the art thread of possible using more animals - the tusker line might fit, but I don't really know quite what's missing right now. Some sort of cavalry and/or defensive unit might be good, and I always like the idea of a melee magic user, but who knows.

[Velensk]

Level 3s may be rare in multiplayer, but most eras I see are rarely used for mp anyway (even if that is what they are made for), they are mostly used for various survivals/scenarios and in these things level 3s/4s are not at all uncommon. The paralysis special leaves impassable indestroyable units. This will cause problems in all sorts of UMC. If you want to give the ability to remove an enemy in a single shot then it would cause much less problems to do it just via damage or some other special. If you want it to be a campaign effect then it would be best to include it strictly in the campaign.

You could probably balance brutes with the slowing ranged attack however it will require some changing to what is there. I dislike the idea of giving them poison instead because on a basic melee unit it would make it incredibly hard to balance this faction against both enemy factions with healers and enemies without healers. To be honest, even with negitive resistances (assumeing -10 or -20% physical) a unit with 6 move and a 6-4 attack for 15 gold would be decent even without a ranged attack at all.

I think a blocking unit of sorts would definately find a place in this faction.

[thespaceinvader]

I don't means stones. Paralysis is a homebrew - it renders units unable to attack, defend or move, but they remain perfectly damageable by the player. It's a powerful ability, but no game-breaking like stones.

NB: none of the stats thus far are final - costs in particular.

[thespaceinvader]

Rework of Aracaya, hopefully taking into account critiques:

Mixed chaotic/neutral faction (unless otherwise stated, chaotic). Very generalist, with no particularly strong terrains in terms of movement or defence (probably using the mainline orcish movetypes), though probably weaker in forests than the orcs in mainline. No major gimmicks or tricksy bits to speak of, save for a scout with a single-hit slowing attack.

Recruitable units: Spirit, Novice Shaman, Plainswalker, Hideshield, Tracker. Leaders: Shaman, Runnerhide, Hunter.

Shaman line: Magic using unit, useful for winkling tough enemies out of high defence terrain. Cheap, not the most powerful attacks. Has a plague-like ability allowing the raising of a single Spirit on enemy death. Possibly this ability improves with levelling - fluff-wise I like the idea that the Elder has a better ability than the others - maybe he always raises an Ancestor.

Novice shaman: l1: cost 14, HP 30, MP 5. Impact melee 5-2, cold or arcane ranged 7-2
Shaman: l2: just gets stronger
Elder Shaman: l3: stronger, possibly plague ability always gets an Ancestor.

Plainswalker line: Scout unit/support - has slows, but no other tricks. Gains charge on levelling. Wolf-like movetype, but slowed by forests. Probably neutral, as the riding beast would be lawful on its own.

Plainswalker: l1: cost 20, HP 25, MP 8. Blade melee 4-3, impact slows ranged, 5-1
Plainstrider: l2: gets stronger, gains single hit charge attack - 9-1 blade
Plainstriker: l3: just gets stronger.

Spirit line: Scout/water unit. Quite weak, particularly over water and to cold, but with good evasion to physical attacks as mianline ghosts. Moves freely across all terrains.

Spirit: l0: Cost 12, HP 16, MP 6. Arcane melee 3-3, fire ranged 4-3
Ancestor: l1: Cold melee, 4-4, fire ranged 5-3.
Honoured Ancestor: l2: Just gets stronger.
Twisted Remnant: alternate l1: Arcane melee only, with nightstalk and feeding.

Tracker line: primary ranged unit. Low strikes, high power. Tracker ability is there for campaign flavour more than anything - one of the fauna in the planning has a powerful ambush on any flat terrain. The ability would not be that useful in MP, so maybe something else might be useful. I'd like to keep it to something related to hunting or tracking however. Low resists, high defences. Neutral.

Tracker: l1: Cost 13, HP 32, MP 5. 5-2 impact melee, 6-3 pierce ranged.
Hunter: l2: Just gets stronger.
Skinner: l3: Gains 6-4 blade melee attack.

Hideshield line: primary melee fighter. Best resistances of the faction, worst defences. Pierce melee. Probably a powerful single hit with firststrike and a weaker multiple hit without.

Hideshield: l1: Cost 16, HP 42, MP 5. Pierce melee 8-1 firststrike, 7-3.
Runnerhide: l2: gains 1 MP
Gorerhide: Just stronger
Shriekerhide: Just stronger, better resists.

Meridian League rework:

A mixed neutral/lawful faction (all lawful unless otherwise stated). Slow (the highest available MP will be 7, with Quick), but tough, with strong attacking units and very tough units to remove from defensive positions. Attempting to balance difficulty in village gathering with level 0 units recruitable during MP, and able to level into all the other lines.

Recruitable units: Conscript, Cadet, Swimmer, Speaker, Soldier, Miner, Scout, Cutthroat, Incendius. Leaders: Leader, Apothecary, Legionary, Buccaneer.

Level 0 units:

Conscript: l0: Cost 9, HP 18, XP 18, MP 4. Blade 4-3 melee
A basic light melee unit. Cheap and chippy. Levels to Soldier, Miner, Scout, Cutthroat, Incendius.

Cadet: l0: Cost 10, HP 19, XP 20, MP 4. Blade 3-3 melee, pierce 3-2 ranged. Better defences than Conscript.
A mixed fighter. More expensive, but better defended. Levels to Soldier, Leader, Incendius.

Swimmer: l0: Cost 8, HP 16, XP 17, MP 5. Blade 4-2 melee. Moves in water and on land.
Water unit. Cheapest of the level 0s, but most poorly defended. Levels to Cutthroat, Harpooner.

Speaker line:
Expensive leadership units, little or no ranged attack. Impact melee attack. Expensive as leadership will prove very valuable with level 0 units available.

Speaker: l1: Cost 20, HP 32, XP 35, MP 5. Impact 5-3 melee, leadership. Maybe single shot pierce ranged.
Leader: l2: just stronger.
Polis: l3: Gains blade melee.
Legate: l4: just stronger
Apothecary: l2: alternate upgrade. Healer/exotic weapons. Fire ranged, blade melee, heals +8.
Alchemist: l3: gains poison ranged, cures.

Soldier line:
Expensive, slow defensive unit, primarily ranged attacks with melee stub. Can't get Quick. ?Neutral.

Soldier: l1: Cost 18, HP 44, XP 50, MP 4. Blade melee 3-3, pierce ranged 3-5, ability entrench as described.
Legionary: l2: Just stronger.
Phalanx: l3: Just stronger.

Miner line:
Reasonably cheap, mainly melee, but with abilities for upgrades - l2 gets something like Illuminates, but less useful. L3 gets Illuminates. Alternatively (or additionally) could possibly gain teleports-like ability to move through tunnels between villages, or some sort of income-generation ability balanced to avoid too much money coming in late-game.

Miner: l1: Cost 15, HP 35, XP 38, MP 4. Pierce melee 5-2
Candler: l2: stronger, fire ranged, gains Illuminates-lite ability (maybe only affects night, making it dusk, not dusk>day)
Laterna: l3: gains illuminates.

This line still needs its descriptions writing.

Scout line: as mainline, but with 6MP throughout. Possibly with traits changed to make Quick more likely to appear. Possibly put it up as far as 7MP, and edit descriptions to say that over long distances they could chase down a fleeing rider, or something.

Cutthroat line: poorly defended melee attacking unit. Retains ability to move through water from Swimmer, but not as quickly. Neutral.

Cutthroat: l1: cost 14, HP 30, XP 35, MP 4. Blade melee 5-4, pierce melee 8-2.
Buccaneer: l2: Just stronger.

Harpooner: level up of Swimmer. Non-recruitable. Neutral. Gains pierce ranged attack.

Incendius line:
Expensive, powerful ranged offensive unit. Poor defences and resists. Some kind of accuracy-improving special - marksman woudl make sense, perhaps. Or alternatively, maybe an ability where the unit's minimum accuracy increases by 10% for each turn it attacks the same enemy, or attacks without moving, or something - symbolising the gunner getting the range of the enemy. Or one of the grenade/explosive specials from UmC, depending on what they do. MIght also add an impact or pierce (or both) shot, for cannonballs/grapeshot.

Incendius: l1: cost 19, HP 45, XP 52, MP 5. Blade melee 6-2, fire ranged 20-1.
Infernus: l2: gains fire melee 16-1.
Dual Infernus: l3: gains extra strike to fire attacks, and optional double-strength single hit strike.

The Untamed:

All chaotic, all the time. A faction of lightly-armoured elves and animals, so manoeuvrable and quick, high terrain defences, low resists. High power but fragile, with support units to provide status effects and increase the effectiveness of the primary attack power from the Brute line. I'm least sure of what to do with this faction, to be honest, of all of them. Any of the magic users can level into the next level of the Brute > Feral > Savage > Abomination line.

Neophyte line:
Not entirely sure what to do with this line. The faction needs a magic user/fortified enemy remover, so she could be that. Definitely blade melee, and adding a pierce melee at level 2, but I'm thinking of giving them a magical ranged, either cold or arcane (DEFINITELY not fire, this faction won't have any of that. Fire and tress no es bueno), maybe blade, though fluff-wise I'm not sure how that would work. Good attack number for sure damage. Possibly also has cures.

Neophyte: l1: Cost 14, HP 28, MP 6. Blade melee 4-4. Arcane ranged 4-4.
Acolyte: l2: gets stronger, adds 14-1 pierce melee attack
High Priestess: l3: gets stronger.

Brute line:
Primary melee damage dealer, with a ranged stub which slows. Loses ranged attack on levelling, or loses melee power.

Brute: l1: Cost 17, HP 34, MP 5. 5-4 melee blade, 2-2 ranged pierce slows.
Savage: l2: Stronger, loses ranged attack.
Feral: l3: Gains 10-2 impact melee slows, gets stronger.
Abomination: Gets stronger.
Warden: alternate l2: 5-4 melee blade, 2-4 ranged pierce slows, 2-4 ranged pierce poisons
Guardian: l3: gets stronger, gains additional ranged attack with paralyses special.

Swarmcaller line:
Ranged unit. High strike number, low damage, with swarms for added interest. Drain/heal ability when attacking, draining 1/2 the damage to the attacking unit, and one third or 1/4 to any adjacent allies. Dronecaller fills the role of a traditional healer as well, so keeps healing intact.

Swarmcaller: l1: Cost 15, HP 34, MP 6. Melee impact 4-2, pierce ranged 3-6 swarm/drain/heal.
Swarmcaster: l2: Gets stronger
Swarmlord: l3: gets stronger, gains heal +4
Dronecaller: alternate l2: gains blade melee 6-2, loses impact. Pierce ranged 7-3 drain/heal, regenerates, heals +8.

Serpent line:
Water unit. poisons. melee only.

Serpent: l1: cost 12, HP 30, MP 5. Melee 6-2 pierce.
Water Serpent : l2: as mainline.

Dracoatl line:
Flying/scout unit. melee only.

Dracoatl: l0: cost 11, HP 15, MP 8. 5-3 blade melee.
Elder Dracoatl: l1: just gets stronger.

--------

Possibly needs an extra line or two -I've been wondering from the start about a slightly unusual unit, using magic in melee, with a berserk- or inverse-swarm-like special, allowing extra damage or strikes as the unit becomes more injured. Probably called RRRAAAAGGGE. Or Hulk-out. I could also comfortably slip in the Tusker line I made ages ago and have redeveloped for the ML Incendius anyway, and the Racayanti riding beast used by the Aracaya, but that might start becoming too many units.

[Velensk]

This is good enough for me to get started. I should have most of the era done by this afternoon. I would appreciate if you send me the files for the Khalifa (and any other files you have completed) and the art files.

I will note that I will likely edit any file you send me to conform to the way I like to organize me eras.

[thespaceinvader]

sweet

The Khalifate will be added later, I'm waiting for noy on that one, so for now I'm going with rough balancing based on just the three factions. I'll PM you base frames.

Do you have commit access to wesnoth UMC dev SVN?

[Velensk]

My experiences trying to use SVN have been nothing but frustration so even if I do (and I might) I'd prefer not to use it.

[thespaceinvader]

ah OK.

I might put stuff up there simply for a backup, but i'll keep a zip distribution as well as I go.

Thanks very much for your help. Coding frustrates me, and I tend to be horribly clumsy at it at the best of times.

I'm going to get in touch with Noy and ask him what progress there is on the Khalifate - I think something was due to be play tested at some point in the near future.

[Velensk]

Most of the way done with the Aracya and I have a question, what exactly is the trackers melee weapon? You first description says spearthrower however spears generally were thrown by hand, as for a missile weapon smaller projectiles would be more practical (for a handheld device). Is this just a ridiculously large crossbow, something you made up, or is it something I'm not familiar with?

Also, what icon should I represent whatever it is with?

EDIT: As a stylistic note, I generally find it best to keep movetypes as consistent through a faction as possible while still being fitting. You say 'I want this dwarf or this orc to have better/worse defenses/resistances than the rest to differentiate them however unless there is a solid reason to do so this merely forces the players to remember more IMO. I can still do this for you however if you grant me leave to discretion I will do as I think best.

[thespaceinvader]

The tracker uses a spear thrower like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woomera as used by many indegenous cultures to increase the range of their thrown spears. Ranged attack is the spear. Melee attack is hitting with the thrower. For now, just use the ruffian club, and i'll make a proper icon later.

Feel free to use your discretion regarding move types. For the most part, the appropriate species movetypes are fine. As you say, we can always fiddle afterwards.

[Velensk]

Question: What exactly is the neophytes pierce ranged attack supposed to be/do? 15-1 is even less powerful than the ranged attack on the level 1 (and nowhere close to the level 2s). I have no idea how I'm supposed to represent it or why anyone would use it.

[thespaceinvader]

Ah, the pierce attack is melee, not ranged. It may need to be a little more powerful, but it's intended to be equivalent to that thing that Mola Ram (the bald big bad) does in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - tearing someone's heart out with their bare hand. The zombie touch or undead claws icons would probably do until I can make a working one.

That's the reason, by the way, that it should ideally work only on living units. Not that there are many otherwise in this era, but meh.

[Velensk]

Uh, getting it so that it is only useable on living units seems like more trouble than it's worth and yeah it'd need to be more powerful. For the moment I'm going to leave it out as it sounds like something that would really only work visually if there is an animation for it. It is possible to make it so that it only works against living.

I'm most of the way through the untamed though I haven't made the special abilities. I'm going to finish up the units take a break. Do enough debugging to make it playable send it to you then work on the abilities/specials another day.

[thespaceinvader]

Ok, that sounds like an excellent plan. Thanks very much for your help =)