Idea for Far East Faction

[hagabaka]

Which part of "this" and do you have suggestions? If it's about defenses I don't think they'll offer that much of an advantage over other flying units (out of 10 strikes, this unit will receive 1 fewer hit on average), but the HP could probably be toned down to compensate it.

[BloodIssyl]

this is what we call overpowered

Nah, its not that bad.

If you removed the 60 percent air defense and switched it to the normal 40, it would be pretty balanced, IMO

Also, i dont think the horsehair whip would slow; any confusion by the movement wouldnt do enough to be substantial.

[hagabaka]

If you removed the 60 percent air defense and switched it to the normal 40, it would be pretty balanced, IMO

The normal among flying units is 50%. I wanted the raised defense to be a specialty of the unit, since it is otherwise mediocre for an "immortal" entity.

I think I'll change it to a level 3 unit, renamed to Ascended, and advance from Disciple -> Taoist. Maybe a vaguer name instead of Taoist, due to "no religion in wesnoth". Taoists were known to train with the intention to achieve immortality and ascend to the "celestial bureaucracy". This should justify its stats, and at the same time make it easier to include it in the faction. (It should be acceptable for a unit to advance to become "immortal"--e.g. dark adept -> lich line.) The whole line would be expensive to recruit.

Maybe the line can also have male version sprites (the above names are designed for that case), but I would have trouble with drawing them because it seems that these "maidens" are abundant in the Chinese celestial world, but men who achieve immortality are usually hundreds of years old, and look almost so too. On the other hand, I see male Taoist trainers more often than females on TV.

This article seems helpful with understanding the Taoist ideal of immortals.

[Truper]

this is what we call overpowered

This is what we call an unhelpful post. You might try justifying your opinion in some way, or offering a constructive suggestion. Did you even note that the proposed unit was level 2?

[Edward V Riley]

First of all, it's impossible to go through the entire text of this and see what's been posted already, so if I repeat something..forgive me

One thing I noticed was that there was a lot of combining of Chinese and Japanese into one faction... THat would only offend the respective countries.

I didn't see anything on the Mongols at all. This point in history practically begs for an addition to Wesnoth.

Did anyone suggest that the leader type units for Japanese factions should be Daimyo, Regent, then perhaps Shogun?

Japanese peasants were often the lifeblood of their armies throughout history. These ran the gamut of melee, ranged, even mobile units. One peasant, Nakamura, gained the title of Kwampaku, or High Advisor(pretty much he ruled like a Shogun, but not being noble couldn't garner that title) so perhaps these could be the footsoldiers needed, eh?

Ronin, lordless samurai, could also be used of course. Most often became bandits or Wako( Pirates). Perhaps a campaign could be to restore a ronin back to his nobility or something.

As far as I know, there were no Chinese samurai. I don't know where whoever came up with that idea in this thread came up with that.

Indian units could be fun to make, especially if you use war elephants.

For east meets west, perhaps the Crusades would be an appropriate backdrop..yes, I know that technically the middle east isn't FAR east, but it IS in Asia.

I've read so many books on Chinese and Japanese history that I could bore you with the material...but I won't. Instead, feel free to ask me what you want to know, ok? email me at ShadowlCranston@aol.com.

[hagabaka]

I am Chinese, and I wouldn't be offended if Wesnoth's "Far East" faction included both Chinese and Japanese-inspired units. I'm learning Japanese and interested in Japanese culture so I might be more accepting than some others in this matter, but I learned WW2 history too, and I'm aware that Chinese and Japanese people didn't fight alongside each other in any significant historical event. I just don't think that's a big deal when it comes to a game.

One way to make this less of a problem could be to make the units less "historically accurate" and add more imagination and fantasy to them so they no longer "belong" to the respective countries. Also, campaigns using the faction can select units, just like how most campaigns using dwarves don't usually include gryphons, and most using drakes don't include saurians, etc. I also think it would be a better idea to work on one faction, instead of 3 or more at once. It would also make it easier to make the faction more diverse.

However, it seems that a lot of discussion was done based on the idea of separating the factions, and some work seem to have been done. If most of you think splitting is a better direction then go ahead. But just consider that merging might not be so offensive as you'd think (and some people would always be offended anyway, "why are Chinese monks weaker than Japanese samurai?!!"), if that plan comes into discussion in the future.

[Seiryu]

I leave this project to someone else... To someone who wants to continue it...

[hagabaka]

but I can try to do some edits but you could help me if you give me a kind of Unit tree like this.
So I can see what is Lv1 and what advances from what.

This is a unit tree based on the images and tree text posted by Seiryu. In the leftmost column are level 0 units. The images are in

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/download.php?id=15564
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/download.php?id=15562

And Seiryu's posts containing them is on
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... &start=390
(why doesn't the forum display post links?)

[irrevenant]

Maybe a vaguer name instead of Taoist, due to "no religion in wesnoth". Taoists were known to train with the intention to achieve immortality and ascend to the "celestial bureaucracy".

Perhaps you could go with a translated name "Follower of the Path" or "Seer of the Way", for example?

P.S. Taoism isn't a religion, or at least not always...

[Cuyo Quiz]

I really should psuh for Temuchin's brainstorming with all my might someday, when the skies are cloudy, the winds dance and the light is free to roam over the soil along the fog.

[hagabaka]

Maybe a vaguer name instead of Taoist, due to "no religion in wesnoth". Taoists were known to train with the intention to achieve immortality and ascend to the "celestial bureaucracy".

Perhaps you could go with a translated name "Follower of the Path" or "Seer of the Way", for example?

P.S. Taoism isn't a religion, or at least not always...

Thanks. I thought of something like "Follower of the Way" too, but I thought it would be anticlimatic for it to advanced to "Ascended", but maybe that's ok. "Ascended" is kind of a weird name anyway, and I really want to find a better substitute.

The shape of the unit tree in my mind is (with alternative names grouped in parentheses, and more ideas are appreciated)

Code: Select all

1 (Initiate, Student) - 2 (Disciple, Follower of the Way) - 3 (Ascended, Celestial)
                                                                                           - 3 (Hermit, Mystic)
                                 - 2 (Exorcist, Dispeller, Demon Hunter)

Hermit: neutral, the most straightforward development in the tree similar to the Archmage for the human magi, except it will use cold magic.
Exorcist: chaotic (adapted to fighting at night, and a dark image due to being associated with the entities they combat), with an arcane but non-magical ranged attack (paper pieces with spells written on them, I don't know what they are called), and be relatively adept at melee combat, using a ceremonial wooden sword.
Ascended: lawful, a ghost-like unit as I talked about before.

Of course that's just a bunch of ideas now.

[Shadow]

@hagabaka
Sorry guys I am already overloaded with work and it is not like I can be pulled out of hat like a rabbit.
At the time I made the post I wasn't that busy but basicly Seiryu wasn't interested. So don't count on me for now.

[hagabaka]

@hagabaka
Sorry guys I am already overloaded with work and it is not like I can be pulled out of hat like a rabbit.
At the time I made the post I wasn't that busy but basicly Seiryu wasn't interested. So don't count on me for now.

That's all right, it was for anyone who is interested and available to help, although I quoted you.

[appleide]

I am interested in doing all the WML for this. Anyone here still 'interested' in this project? If not, then I would just pull some art from this and make yet_another shabby asia faction.

hagabaka: IMO it'd be nice if Japanese and Chinese be in different factions. I mean... They have been fighting AGAINST each other in EVERY MAJOR event in Asia.

i.e, an era with 4 factions: Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Mongolians. Then it would be possible to make, I dunno, at least a dozen campaigns out of these 4 factions based on historic events. (Which would be a bit boring, though.)

[Weeksy]

Like my original proposal with alignments and factions, I said we should have 4 (you could add the Koreans and make it 5, but I don't know a lot about them other than their cool boats) and have the Japanese be our lawful faction, the Chinese be lawful+chaotic or neutral+chaotic, so we have a mixed alignment faction, the Mongols be chaotic, and the Indians be neutral.