Advancing alternative

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Alks
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Advancing alternative

Post by Alks »

Something that came to my mind, and has potential. I called it alternate advancement.

Unit(lvl1) advances to two types of lvl2 and one type of lvl1 - considerably weak. With second option unit doesn't really advance, just changes it character. Let's say Elvish Fighter advances to Elvish Noble(with pretty similar stats). What pros of that situation would be?

Weakening army through changing one lvl1 unit into another lvl1 would give a player access to more powerful branches - lvl2 El-Noble advancements that would be more powerful than Captains or Heroes.

It's a loose concept, that would make some user-faction a quite nice to play with - and what beautiful sophisticated trees would we have? :)
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Post by Glowing Fish »

I'm sorry, but I really don't understand.
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Alks
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Post by Alks »

In other words -

Classic advancement

Code: Select all

Elvish Fighter/lvl1/ --> Elvish Hero/lvl2/
Alternate advancement
Elvish Fighter/lvl1/ can advance to other lvl1 unit. He gains no stats, but he can uncover more powerful branches of advancement

Code: Select all

Elvish Fighter/lvl1/ ---> Elvish Noble/lvl1/ -----> Elvish Kill-everything-what-has-HP/lvl2/
What can we gain, using this:
*more sophisticated unit tree
*more challenging campaign play - make one unit weaker for some time to make it considerably stronger at the further stage.

Indeed, my previous post was rubbish.
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appleide
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Post by appleide »

Do it in your era/campaign/factions then. ;) Nothing's stopping you! Its a neat idea though
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Cool idea. I think you'd have to make a longer campaign since you'd essentially have to level up more to do the same thing.
Fiach Dubh
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Post by Fiach Dubh »

You could use this to switch between existing branches as well:

Elvish Fighter > Elvish Captain
> Elvish Hero
> Elvish Archer
(Shaman would require a sex change in this case)

This would be handy if you spend all your money, and the nature of the scenario then changes and you need different troops - for example, if your twelve Dwarvish Warriors get suddenly ambushed by a large number of Drakes, you could advance them to Thunderers or Guards in order to get piercing weapons.

Units above level 1 shouldn't be able to do this, though. This actually reminds me of a (rather poorly-developed) idea that I once had, for a faction that has only level 1 units, all of which are highly specialized - but they can either advance to any other unit, or AMLA_NECROHEAL.
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Alks
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Post by Alks »

Fiach Dubh wrote:This would be handy if you spend all your money, and the nature of the scenario then changes and you need different troops - for example, if your twelve Dwarvish Warriors get suddenly ambushed by a large number of Drakes, you could advance them to Thunderers or Guards in order to get piercing weapons.
I don't think so.
That would be abuse. Alternate advancement shouldn't allow to scatter between unit types. It should only allow to uncover new branches, rather than swapping between branches.
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Post by Fiach Dubh »

Thinking about this now, I agree with you. While it wouldn't necessarily be 'abuse' if every unit could do it, it would change the fundamental nature of the game a lot, and if it were allowed at all it should be restricted to a few units in special circumstances (I wouldn't really have a problem witha Dwarvish Fighter swapping his axe for a thunderstick, since he loses almost all melee ability in the process - likewise, a Bowman could legitimately drop his bow and pick up a spear)

Certainly, no unit should ever be able to switch to a branch that is more versatile - and nobody should ever be able to switch to a healer or mage.

This would be interesting for a campaign where you have a limited number of troops (for example, if you are unable to recruit after the first scenario), but should never be generally implemented in the game as a whole.
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Maeglin Dubh
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Post by Maeglin Dubh »

This seems like an interesting idea. I'd like to see an in-game example of it first, though.... If you can fiddle with a few factions and throw them up on the campaign server, or on this thread as a download, so they could be tested against each other or the AI, that would make the idea a bit easier to support.
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Alks
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Post by Alks »

Maeglin Dubh wrote:the AI
That would be the first drawback. AI won't get it.
But I will test it in-game with elves. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I show an example tree using core units.
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Post by Fiach Dubh »

I've actually done something similar with the Kameha faction from my in-progress Talamh era. The Kameha have 4 recruitable units - Hunter, Initiate, Arctic Wolf and Savage.

The theory is that, as the Kameha are on the borderline between civilization and being simply animals, you can recruit units from both sides of that line. The Savage is less effective and likely to get killed (1-hit berserk attack), but if it survives it learns how to use tools and simple weapons, or else becomes more passive and gets 'in tune' with the spiritual side of its nature. Either way, the berserk ability is lost as the creature becomes more intelligent, since it can plan its attacks more carefully.

Since the Savage is already a mature adult, it won't get any bigger or stronger so the only way it can become more powerful is by learning to fight with weapons.
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Maeglin Dubh
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Post by Maeglin Dubh »

Alks wrote:
Maeglin Dubh wrote:the AI
That would be the first drawback. AI won't get it.
But I will test it in-game with elves. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I show an example tree using core units.
I know they won't get it. I doubt the AI will ever choose a level 1 option when a level 2 presents itself. I may be wrong, but we'll see. The important thing is, it's good to have a punching bag to practice on (In this case, the AI, for purely demonstrative purposes.)

I look forward to seeing this... it should be interesting.
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Post by joshudson »

If you do this, please make it so that these advancements won't be chosen at random in multiplayer.

Recall that levelling while defending and attacker is on a different client -> advancement box is answered at random.
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Alks
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Post by Alks »

joshudson wrote:If you do this, please make it so that these advancements won't be chosen at random in multiplayer.
Another thing that cannot be done, I guess.

I'll take some abandoned elves sprites and include them as an alternate advancement line, just for the case of testing.
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Post by Thrawn »

pssst: elvish herbalist...:) from shaman

just kidding, but just in case...here
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this goes for they're/their/there as well
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