Poisoned Watchtowers?
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Duke Guillermo
- Posts: 127
- Joined: October 25th, 2005, 9:32 pm
Poisoned Watchtowers?
I know that Watchtowers are rarely seen in Wesnoth as they are unrecruitable in multiplayer, but I have seen them in a few campaigns and the fact that you can poison them irked me. This wouldn't have been so annoying if it weren't for the fact that this is one of the best strategies to use against them because they can't retreat to a nearby village to heal because they can't move.
That made me think of another point, watchtowers have no way of healing other than someone else assisting them. And personally I think that having a shaman say an incantation that heals a watchtower doesn't ring true. So, how should it heal? I suggest the regeneration ability to represent any repairs that those operating the tower perform.
I also think that watchtowers should have some form of melee attack. There pure purpose is defense, yet they can't defend against an entire form of attack. I suggest boiling oil, a true tactic that those defending castles would use. The slippery effect of the oil coupled with the fact that you could light the oil on fire and ignite all those below the tower might have even made the oil a more powerful weapon than the ballista atop the tower. I added this attack:
name=boiling oil
type=fire
special=slow
range=melee
damage=6
# of attacks=2
So I have 7 corrected and tested .cfg files. 3 have only one of these suggested changes, 3 have two, and one has all of the suggested changes. These have been zipped into one pack as well as the original in case you ever want the original back. When you the file you can use your cfg file of choice.
For those of you who don't know how to use these files simply copy one file and paste it into the folder wesnoth\data\units. If it asks you to replace say yes. Beware though this will change the unit altogether and any campaign or map with the watchtower will be changed. If this is what you want...good.
There is one problem with these files: on the melee attack the watchtower physically moves when the game is played looking rather ridiculous, is there any way of changing this?
I hope that any campaign designers find these useful.
Post your ideas, comments, questions, appraisals, criticisms, and marriage proposals here.
That made me think of another point, watchtowers have no way of healing other than someone else assisting them. And personally I think that having a shaman say an incantation that heals a watchtower doesn't ring true. So, how should it heal? I suggest the regeneration ability to represent any repairs that those operating the tower perform.
I also think that watchtowers should have some form of melee attack. There pure purpose is defense, yet they can't defend against an entire form of attack. I suggest boiling oil, a true tactic that those defending castles would use. The slippery effect of the oil coupled with the fact that you could light the oil on fire and ignite all those below the tower might have even made the oil a more powerful weapon than the ballista atop the tower. I added this attack:
name=boiling oil
type=fire
special=slow
range=melee
damage=6
# of attacks=2
So I have 7 corrected and tested .cfg files. 3 have only one of these suggested changes, 3 have two, and one has all of the suggested changes. These have been zipped into one pack as well as the original in case you ever want the original back. When you the file you can use your cfg file of choice.
For those of you who don't know how to use these files simply copy one file and paste it into the folder wesnoth\data\units. If it asks you to replace say yes. Beware though this will change the unit altogether and any campaign or map with the watchtower will be changed. If this is what you want...good.
There is one problem with these files: on the melee attack the watchtower physically moves when the game is played looking rather ridiculous, is there any way of changing this?
I hope that any campaign designers find these useful.
Post your ideas, comments, questions, appraisals, criticisms, and marriage proposals here.
- Attachments
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Watch Tower.zip- (6.2 KiB) Downloaded 311 times
In summation, you're wrong.
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WildPenguin
- Posts: 161
- Joined: September 6th, 2005, 10:41 pm
- Location: Australia
The idea behind the modified Watchtowers is good.
Watchtowers can be healed by villages (which I guess makes sense, I'm sure there must be a builder somewhere in the village
). However, a watchtower is of course unable to move and therefore must be placed atop a village by the scenario author for this to be possible.
With the poisoning, I guess anything non-(un)dead can be poisoned, trees get Weed Killer, and I suppose watch towers get termites. (I can see the assassins termite-tipped darts already)
However, I find the watchtowers more frequent than you have suggested. Firstly, watchtowers can be recruited in the superheroes era. Also, various MP scenarios (CTF's and "The War" for example) make use of watchtowers. This use of watchtowers in Multiplayer may cause problems (OOS) during games if a player has replaced the original file as per your suggestion and more frequent again due to the 7 different versions of you modification.
Perhaps, as with most unit modifications, it is best performed on a global scale (i.e. wesnoth release). Although as far as I am aware, some OOS problems caused by differing unit stats were fixed as of 1.0.1, and I am unsure as to how this will affect your proposal.
Personally, I am against custom modifications to the included units, but good modifications in which the MP community *all* possess, I can see no problem with.
Watchtowers can be healed by villages (which I guess makes sense, I'm sure there must be a builder somewhere in the village
). However, a watchtower is of course unable to move and therefore must be placed atop a village by the scenario author for this to be possible.With the poisoning, I guess anything non-(un)dead can be poisoned, trees get Weed Killer, and I suppose watch towers get termites. (I can see the assassins termite-tipped darts already)
However, I find the watchtowers more frequent than you have suggested. Firstly, watchtowers can be recruited in the superheroes era. Also, various MP scenarios (CTF's and "The War" for example) make use of watchtowers. This use of watchtowers in Multiplayer may cause problems (OOS) during games if a player has replaced the original file as per your suggestion and more frequent again due to the 7 different versions of you modification.
Perhaps, as with most unit modifications, it is best performed on a global scale (i.e. wesnoth release). Although as far as I am aware, some OOS problems caused by differing unit stats were fixed as of 1.0.1, and I am unsure as to how this will affect your proposal.
Personally, I am against custom modifications to the included units, but good modifications in which the MP community *all* possess, I can see no problem with.
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Neoriceisgood
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Because they are good in campaigsns. But they are no use in superheroes era, that's true.Neoriceisgood wrote:Why don't you get rid of the Watchtower's ZoC while you're at it? an inanimate object can't prevent people from slipping by without shooting at em.
"There are two kind of campaign strategies : the good and the bad ones. The good ones almost always fail because of unforeseen consequences that make the bad ones succeed." -- Napoleon
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Neoriceisgood
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Duke Guillermo
- Posts: 127
- Joined: October 25th, 2005, 9:32 pm
It is true that players need to have the same units in multiplayer or else the game won't work. I made these changes to the watchtower so that the community could decide which changes they liked and which ones they didn't and hopefully in a future version of the game the watchtower would have these changes.
I don't think that I agree with your suggestion Neorice because a watchtowers only purpose is defence. If it doesn't have a Zone of Control then it can't defend an area and thus has little to no purpose. Besides operators of watchtowers would attempt to make it as difficult as possible to reach the watchtower. One example of this idea is the moat which severely limited the movement of intruders. There were other techniques as well which were employed such as covering the landscape in caltrops a sort of medieval mine which had 4 spikes in a tetrahedron shape (think pyramid w/ triangular base) one spike would always be pointing up and any hapless passerby's movement would be impeded by a metal spike jutting out of his foot. This was extremely effective against cavalry who were less careful over the placement of their hooves. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop)
In conclusion I agree that only one watchtower should exist so as to standardize the game. I suggested these ideas so that in a future version of the game these ideas might be implemented. As for having watchtowers control a zone it makes a world of sense as measures were taken to curb the movement of attackers by those controlling the watchtower.
I don't think that I agree with your suggestion Neorice because a watchtowers only purpose is defence. If it doesn't have a Zone of Control then it can't defend an area and thus has little to no purpose. Besides operators of watchtowers would attempt to make it as difficult as possible to reach the watchtower. One example of this idea is the moat which severely limited the movement of intruders. There were other techniques as well which were employed such as covering the landscape in caltrops a sort of medieval mine which had 4 spikes in a tetrahedron shape (think pyramid w/ triangular base) one spike would always be pointing up and any hapless passerby's movement would be impeded by a metal spike jutting out of his foot. This was extremely effective against cavalry who were less careful over the placement of their hooves. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop)
In conclusion I agree that only one watchtower should exist so as to standardize the game. I suggested these ideas so that in a future version of the game these ideas might be implemented. As for having watchtowers control a zone it makes a world of sense as measures were taken to curb the movement of attackers by those controlling the watchtower.
Last edited by Duke Guillermo on November 15th, 2005, 3:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
In summation, you're wrong.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Misinterpretable sentence of the month.Duke Guillermo wrote:Well, I agree with you guys that it is better for multiplayer when everyone has the same units.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
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gryphonlord
- Posts: 43
- Joined: May 10th, 2005, 1:17 am
- Location: Infierno
Why not just make "Object" a race that is immune to poison and specify the watch tower as an "Object"? That would get rid of the poisoning issue without leading to quickly healing towers that seem rather ridiculous IMO.
An "Object" race would also allow future possible units to be created without the same issue arising.
I like the idea of a close range attack and keeping the ZoC for the tower as well. The unit is for defensive purposes only, so let the thing do its job.
An "Object" race would also allow future possible units to be created without the same issue arising.
I like the idea of a close range attack and keeping the ZoC for the tower as well. The unit is for defensive purposes only, so let the thing do its job.
Maybe change the "undead" into an other name so you can apply it to buildings.
Concerning boats, you could poison water in a boat, but I hardly know how a unit could do that.
Concerning boats, you could poison water in a boat, but I hardly know how a unit could do that.
"There are two kind of campaign strategies : the good and the bad ones. The good ones almost always fail because of unforeseen consequences that make the bad ones succeed." -- Napoleon
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Emmanovi
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Re: Poisoned Watchtowers?
Hmm... There might be a way of doing this with WML... Maybe adding stationary attack frames?Duke Guillermo wrote: There is one problem with these files: on the melee attack the watchtower physically moves when the game is played looking rather ridiculous, is there any way of changing this?
If white was black and black was white, what would happen to zebra crossings?
AFAIK "undead" trait do exactly nothing, it's only to better show the unpoisonableness(uhh... long word) of undeads.(if you dont belive advance necromancer to lich, he dont will have "undead" trait, but he will be unpoisonable)Tux2B wrote:Maybe change the "undead" into an other name so you can apply it to buildings.