Eastern Europe at War (EEaW) - now on GitHub!

It's not easy creating an entire faction or era. Post your work and collaborate in this forum.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
PapaSmurfReloaded
Posts: 820
Joined: November 17th, 2007, 1:10 pm
Location: Argentina

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by PapaSmurfReloaded »

I downloaded the era for 1.8 but something seems to be wrong with the maps included, wesnoth displays "Error" when I select them.

Also, aren't ships supposed to have the no-counter special?
Sagez
Posts: 124
Joined: December 23rd, 2010, 8:19 pm
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Sagez »

Those maps certainly work on 1.9. As for 1.8, we will check it and try to solve the problem.
Ships are not supposed to have ''no counter''. This is intentional.
Eastern Europe at War Co-Creator viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34418
"Neptune has finally wed Venus - even Gods can't screw around forever." L-F Céline
User avatar
Temuchin Khan
Posts: 1790
Joined: September 3rd, 2004, 6:35 pm
Location: Player 6 on the original Agaia map

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Temuchin Khan »

Good job! I think this is one of the best recent eras for Wesnoth. Of course, being half Austrian, I have to play as the Hapsburgs!
Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Velensk »

I'll admit that thematically this is pretty cool but it didn't feel very balanced when I played around with it. Being a FFA would help with this but only if all the players you manage to gather are very good and understand the situation. As it's a seven player minimum that seems like it would be rather hard to gather.

I think you said it yourselves when you mentioned polish cavalry that when used properly should be able to win any battle. Charges that can kill almost anything in one blow with no retaliation, pikemen without first strike (even if they could retaliate) many of whom would in fact probably die to the cavalries first strike if they tried to attack it. Maybe a bit to proud of your country, eh?

That isn't the only thing that bugged me just the biggest.

EDIT: one other thing that I find a bit worth saying. I find it a bit odd that neither Prussia or France are represented. Prussia is very close to the other powers represented and AFAIK (admittedly I'm no scholar of this time period) was a more notable power than a few of the ones shown.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Sagez
Posts: 124
Joined: December 23rd, 2010, 8:19 pm
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Sagez »

@ Temuchin Khan - thank you very much. I feel so glad! Long live
Polnisch - Österreichische Freundschaft! :P And have fun with EEaW! :)

@ Velensk

Believe me, we have done a lot of playtesting during the two years of development. Your balancing suggestions are welcome but I don't feel too convinced about them.

It is not the matter of pride (I'm not feeling proud just because I'm Polish - I find such kind of pride stupid) ; it is the matter of historical fairness. We are absolutely not nationalists or right-wing activists. Polish winged hussars (please, read about them) were truly overpowered in these times and we wanted to show it! Formerly, they were able to pwn almost every foe! :shock: Okay, okay... just kidding. My advice : buy more pikemans and shooters - this tactic should always work because winged hussars have -20 resistance on pierce - and start hoping that winged hussars will miss. If they miss (omfg, those crazy polish 30 gold-expensive noobs :lol2: ) you can start celebrating victory. Recruting hussars is like going to a gambling house - after that there are great chances to win everything or to lose everything. It's pretty cool. But, the players do not have to recruit hussars. It's only up to them.

Could you please point out the other things which you found unbalanced?

As for the absence of Prussia and France... I must admit that having them in EEaW would be great, but Prussia was a relatively weak country in the XVII century (till the reign of Frederick William I). France is not represented because it is located in the western Europe, not in the eastern part of it...
And, the more factions you have, the harder balancing gets... you know it :D . Unfortunately, we can't rely forever on our artists - they are actually busy or fed up.
If somebody wants to have more nations - then feel free to make them. We can always make something unbalanced (and entertaining) called ''EEaW +'' or just ''The Whole Europe at War''...

Thank you too!
Last edited by Sagez on July 28th, 2011, 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
Eastern Europe at War Co-Creator viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34418
"Neptune has finally wed Venus - even Gods can't screw around forever." L-F Céline
Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Velensk »

I cannot talk you down in terms of pure experiance and I am aware of it. If you say you've got a team of very good wesnoth players who've tested it extensively and found it balanced I can say nothing that will convince you otherwise. I will however say that based off my experiements and experiance, assuming you have proper support for them the enemy should not be able to take them down easilly and they should have a good chance to take down one enemy per turn and I think that even for 30 gold that should be near impossible to counteract once nations start being eliminated and empires grow. Even if you miss it should be more than possible to arrange your formation so that you are not risking much in retaliation. Also, I will say that regardless of how 'historically overpowered' they are, I am more interested in fun than historic accuracy and those don't look like they'd be fun to fight after the early stages of the game if your opponent both knows how to use them.

And again as for other issues, I don't care to commit to any comments until I've played it more and large FFAs of this style are not my kind of thing so it is unlikely that I will play enough to feel comfortable pointing things out for pure balance. A few notes though:
-I question the wisdom of having an artillery peice that can destroy keeps (btw, does it also destroy castle hexes?) I doubt that it is too unbalanced given the situation but it still seems like something that would turn out to be more cool than fun.
-Navel warfare felt very random to me (except for the arrows ships).
-It felt odd to have the Austrians clunking around hills having as much trouble with them as anyone else.
-This isn't a problem (AFAIK) but I'm curious why the ottomans have high defense in the open.
-I'm curious how good the late game balance would be when you throw in the fact that castles larger than 3 hexes are rare. Of course, at one gold per village 3 hexes would be enough as long as you have expensive recruits but it seemed to me like this could very well compel you to recruit your more power dense/expensive units lategame as if you have the income that you can get 1 very expensive unit and two ordinary ones you're better off doing so than recruiting purely ordinary ones even if the ordinary ones are much more gold efficent as you only have the castle hexes to get 3 units either way (this is one of the contributers to my concern with the polish cavalry).
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
User avatar
Faello
Posts: 441
Joined: June 7th, 2005, 9:01 am
Location: Holy Office

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Faello »

This add-on looks promising.

I like the unit art (they're nice even without animations) and setting is interesting, altough I can't say anything about the balance yet. This add on demands some serious amount of time to spend on it to get to know it well.

Mam nadzieje, ze nie przekozaczyliscie z ta husaria

:wink:
The yellow jester does not play
but gently pulls the strings
and smiles as the puppets dance
in the court of the Crimson King.
User avatar
Shinobody
Posts: 391
Joined: March 9th, 2011, 5:46 pm
Location: somewhere in Poland

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Shinobody »

Actually, I think hussars are OP too. Sersly.
Their charge is STRONGER THAN BALL FROM SIEGE CANNON.
Bad point is, that their lances WERE longer than pikes, so they WERE striking before pikemen (but why pikemen don't strike back that is a mystery).
But IMO, at least "Young Hussar" is OP.
Polish advancement tree is something completely different (Chosen Infantry levelling up into Lisowczyk?!) and I won't be talking 'bout that here.
Artist, writer, game designer for hire.
Art portfolio: https://shino1.artstation.com
Writing dump: https://shino1portfolio.wordpress.com/
My itchio for video games and TTRPG stuff: https://shino1.itch.io/
Sagez
Posts: 124
Joined: December 23rd, 2010, 8:19 pm
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Sagez »

@ Velensk
Your opponent indeed may know how to use winged hussars but he can still miss/get unlucky/ ran out of gold (so he won't produce more expensive hussars :o ). Every war will not treat you fairly ; BfW is like Mud and Blood 2 - ''unfair random brutality''.
If you are not convinced yet, I advice you to play against Tatars. Human player will likely slaughter your overpowered hussars during the nightime with his overpowered Tatar shooters (first level unit which is able to strike at least for 12-3 thanks to marksman).
Or let's kill some expensive Polish hussars (30gold) with cheap ukrainian peasants (7 gold)!... We will see four wild guys with forks struggling against one dreadful, pride-driven-neo-medieval-knight from Poland!... :evil: Who will win? Every unit equipped with a bow (pierce damage) can harm those poor hussars badly.

Destroying castle keeps is very fun and dangerously absorbing, so it will stay. Apart from that, cannons are really slow and easy targets. It is almost impossible in most cases to reach enemy keep and destroy it. If you can crush enemy's keep, the game is already over for him... Also, If you feel that 3 hexes for castle is too few, you can make a ''map pack for EEaW'' containing maps with 4,5, 6 or even more castle hexes! Awesomeness 8)

Naval Warfare is the part of the game which is hard to balance, because of it's uniqe nature, but we are working on it.

@ Shinobody
Well, if hussars charge is stronger than a ball from the siege cannon... then it means that we need to make the siege cannon attack stronger than hussars charge.
As for Polish advancement tree, you're right. We are planning to make a new, alternative branch for ''Chosen Infantryman''. But do not expect it soon, it will take some time.

Thank you guys!
Eastern Europe at War Co-Creator viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34418
"Neptune has finally wed Venus - even Gods can't screw around forever." L-F Céline
Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Velensk »

I'm afraid you cannot convince me like that. It's not enough that there are counters to them out there, every faction must be able to deal with them effectively for it to be balanced. The Tabor would work as a counter for that unit but they are also just about as expensive and only available to one faction but the biggest thing is that if sufficent support can be mustered it is irrelevant how vulnerable they are to attack as long as they can survive one hexside at least. Even without attacking they are a strong positional inhibitor (enemies cannot safely position leader on the front or in a place where one unit killed will expose them, enemy cannot safely isolate any unit on the 'if he attacks me I can run away'). EDIT: Also I havn't experimented with this but it should be incredibly easy to keep feeding these units experiance points while keeping them alive. Even at 60xp to level they should not be at all hard to advance which would not really change their offensive capabilities but it would enhance their defense considerably.

Also, the charge is indeed more powerful than a cannonball by more than twice as much (64 base damage on offense with no retaliation vs 25) and you do not want to make cannons that strong too, even if you removed the accuracy they get on hills. Wesnoth just insn't fun when the results of battles become all about single shots that either kill or do nothing.

Btw, by my calculation a Hussar on a hill if attacked by four peasnants would likely survive long enough to run away next turn and there would not be a lot the peasants could do to prevent it seeing as how they lack ZoC. With the right trait combinations or at the right ToD the hussar would likely have a chance to kill some them when they attack him essentially being a waste for the ukrainian player.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
User avatar
Faello
Posts: 441
Joined: June 7th, 2005, 9:01 am
Location: Holy Office

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Faello »

I could participate in some serious balance tests (and perhaps even recruit some veterans for this purpose) if anybody would be interested :)

Btw. Velensk is usually very good in various wesnoth analysis thus it would be good to take his opinion under consideration even if you've playtested the add on extensively before launching it :)

Pozdrawiam!
The yellow jester does not play
but gently pulls the strings
and smiles as the puppets dance
in the court of the Crimson King.
Sagez
Posts: 124
Joined: December 23rd, 2010, 8:19 pm
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Sagez »

I suggest you play EEaW for longer than just one or two days.

Every nation can defeat winged hussars. I have made a special list of units which are able to kill them (mini-guide).

Cossacks : peasants, spearmans, tabors, zaporozhian walkers
Swedes: pikemans, cannons, reiters, shooters
Tatars: tatar shooters, crimean tatars, tatar scouts
Turks: janissaries, sipahis, slaves
Russians: don cossacs, peasants, recruits, shooters
Austrians: hussars, recruits, shooters

You can overwhelm hussars or try to force them into fight while they are on unfavorable terrain. I repeat : recruting hussars is very risky, trying to spam hussars is lethally risky.
We DO want to make the SIEGE cannons that strong (the siege cannons, not ''normal'' cannons). What would you suggest?

You think that single, powerful shots are not fun. Okay, some people will share this position, but the rest will keep having fun while killing enemies with one sole strike or one sole shot (headshot like :twisted: ). EEaW gives you an exceptional, priceless chance to feel like a true 1337 8) .
Besides, you are terribly generalizing ; it's not true that EEaW is based on exclusively on ''one hit-one kill'' rules... there are also a lot of other units, not only cannons and hussars.
Your calculations are based on luck, so I'm not impressed by them. It's almost certain to me that four ukrainian peasants (0 level, deadly at day) will kill a hussar (which can miss... If he hits, he will kill one peasant, so there are still 3 more enemies to go).

We are not fanatics of balance. As I have already written - ''Generally, we tried to get as much "realism" as possible''. I know that it's impossible to have realism in wesnoth, I know that it's a little bit utopian statement... but this is our idea. The EEaW mechanics are strongly different from default BfW mechanics ; this is trying to simulate ''XVII century battles'' not ''default BfW battles''. We have made an alternative. Feel free to reject it as ''swindle'' or ''deception'', but it is just another point of view. We are not stupid conservatists thinking like ''everything is ok, so we won't change anything'', we are just aware of losing originality generated in hours of hard work. To summarise, playtesters may hate, players gonna play.
Last edited by Sagez on July 26th, 2011, 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Eastern Europe at War Co-Creator viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34418
"Neptune has finally wed Venus - even Gods can't screw around forever." L-F Céline
Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Velensk »

I already told you that I could not possibly convince you of a problem however I am not at all impressed with your rebuke.

I never said or implied spamming hussars. A unit does not need to be spammed, spam-able, or good on it's own to be overpowered. I'm not talking about making an army consisting entirely of them or fighting one I am talking about attempting to plan against an enemy who even under unfavorable conditions will have a unit who will always have a decent chance to one short certain critical units combined with the flexibility of mobility and the lack of risk to attempting to use it under many circumstances. If you miss with a hussar charge you will not take any retaliation from that attack which means that you must merely prepare so that even if you miss on the next turn you will not lose the unit which can be done by proper unit positioning. How is this reasoning dependent on luck?

If you boost cannons up to 68-1 or whatever amount you deem suitably more damaging than the hussar charge that in and of itself would not make the era based entirely on 1-shot kills however even ignoring those you still have plenty of units that have one strike weapons which tend to make battles very dependent on individual strikes. This is as you point out a stylistic decision but I will still claim that it makes it far easier for the dice to dominate the battlefield over superior playing.

4 peasants each dealing 7-2 damage (5-2 base+20%) against a hussar on a hill will on average luck do 28 damage which is not enough to kill him on one turn. If they cannot kill him in one turn he can retreat as they have no ZoC and he is much faster than them. In order to kill him they would have to get 6/8 (or 7/8 if resilient) which would be fairly lucky against a 50% defense unit if they're strong then they can kill quick-non intelligent ones in only 5 which wouldn't be too bad but it's hardly a guaranteed win. If this reasoning is somehow faulty let me know.

EDIT: Apparently I was thinking of the wrong unit, however I believe the same thing applies. 5-3 damage 6-3 for strong against a unit which averages 42 hitpoints with traits still does not equal a kill in one turn from 4 units against 50% defense (I may be wrong but I don't think it even kills it on 40% defense but I haven't run the numbers).

I am trying to figure out what the last paragraph has to do with anything I've said, so far I have come up with nothing.

EDIT2: On a completely unrelated note, you should get inactive names and descriptions for some of the special abilities so that they appear even when they are not in effect. This way players will know cannons gain accuracy bonuses on hills even if it isn't on one and other such things.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Sagez
Posts: 124
Joined: December 23rd, 2010, 8:19 pm
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Sagez »

Now I understood you better and I admit that you're pretty much right. We are going to raise hussars price from 30 to 35 gold in the next era release. If 35 gold will prove its insufficiency, we'll keep raising hussars price further - to 40, 50 or even 100 gold. Yeah, seriously. Until then maybe somebody will find more overpowered units and leave out controversial hussars. I don't like nerfing units, I like balacing them by pushing up or decreasing their price - it's so easy and so effective.

There will be also other balancing changes - I hope you will like them and post your opinions of them.

Please don't care about that one last paragraph ; it was just stylistic gimmick, crypto-advert. I respect you as experienced player (and 3 k posts, nice :D ) and I'm glad that you don't bother while I'm joking (I'm a very contrary type of person, lol :wink: ).

Thank you for EDIT2, you posted a good idea. Please, keep discussing with me (the rest of EEaW team is quiet, argh...) and quickly you will be in EEaW credits in thanks for your efforts!

Expect the new EEaW version soon! :)
Eastern Europe at War Co-Creator viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34418
"Neptune has finally wed Venus - even Gods can't screw around forever." L-F Céline
User avatar
Boldek
Posts: 576
Joined: April 14th, 2011, 6:37 pm

Re: XVII Century Project : Eastern Europe at War (EEaW)

Post by Boldek »

finally! someone has made the polish hussar! oh please, oh please don't crank the cost to a hundred gold, I would say keep it at 40, the price of a knight. maybe 45, because hussars rule, but 100 is just Ukrainian sympathy.

can't wait to trample some cossacks! :twisted:
Guys I never thought I'd come back to this forum after 8 years this is wild
Post Reply