Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 8th, 2019, 3:17 am Why can't the merfolk just make their own tridents? Do you think mineral resources like iron ore simply don't exist under the sea?
Well, do you think that mermen are capable of swimming deep enough and construct deep, underwater mines and also they are able to efficiently mine with a pickaxe and do it under water? Mermen miners?

Say, even if there were some shallow iron deposits close to the shore, since anywhere deeper would be too deep and too dark for mermen, even if we assume that there is any significant amount of iron there (I don’t know much about mining iron, but I think its not very likely), then mining with a pickaxe underwater would be way slower than on the surface and so not very practical.
There has to be ways of mining that don't require a pickaxe – otherwise how would the pickaxe have been made in the first place?

Minerals aren't only found locked up in hard rock formations. They can be found in sand and soil too. For example, merfolk could certainly use a giant clam shell as a shovel to scoop out hematite sands near the shore.
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am And then, even if they did get that iron ore, they would need to smelt it, its no easy task, they would need a lot of coal which they don’t have, and since mermen are clumsy on the surface, even if they had the resources it would still be very hard for them.
They don't need coal to smelt it. As far as I can tell, all you need is heat and a reducing agent (such as carbon monoxide), which would mean literally any organic fuel would work – wood, for example. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if there were a way to smelt iron underwater, though whether such a method can be made safe is another story.
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 8th, 2019, 3:17 am Or if you think the process of refining iron is too much for an aquatic race (which is a questionable view, but...) but still want them to have metal tridents, they could be using bronze.
Well, they would need to mine a lot of copper and tin for that, and so it runs into similar problems as mining iron.
Apart from the misconception of the problems of mining, you don't even need to mine for copper. You can literally find chunks of copper laying on the ground in places – I seem to recall reading that that's where the Inuit people got much of their copper.
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 8th, 2019, 3:17 am It's clearly been established that they trade for metal with other races. That said, there's literally no reason why a naga couldn't just pick up a pickaxe and go mining for ores. (They even have 40% defense on cave terrain, which while not great is also not terrible.) You seem to be treating nagas as equivalent to merfolk, as if they're aquatic creatures, but they aren't aquatic at all. They're amphibious. They function almost equally well on land and in water.
Maybe but in the one example in campaigns where they trade for metal they seem to value it really highly. If they hadunderground mines and forges to smelt iron producing tons of iron, then why should they care for one insignificant metal transport.
I agree on this one; I was merely saying they could mine it themselves if they wanted, not that they actually do.
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am Its true that they don’t need massive amounts of iron, butif they were capable of mining enough iron, then we shouldn’t see them only in water in campaigns, they would settle in caves and create a new faction of cave dwelling naga miners who would start fighting with dwarves and trolls.
This is an obvious logical fallacy. "Because they can do it, they will definitely do it."
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am That is if it was even feasible for them, I reckon that even though an intelligent snake-like naga can pick a pickaxe and mine a bit, they can’t do it as well as a human or a dwarf.
Actually, I think you could make an argument that a naga could mine better than humans or dwarves. I'm not going to make that argument, mind you.
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 8th, 2019, 3:17 am Uhh, what? I don't know where you get this idea from, since the only area where nagas perform worse than merfolk in movement costs is on castle (which is actually quite weird, I'd suggest reducing the naga's castle movecost if it doesn't impact balance too much),
No, I meant that their flat defense and movement for a level 1 naga are the same, on higher levels defense is increased. And while they do move better on hard terrain like forests or hills than mermen, it is still nowhere close to humans or other races.
Their performance on flat is of little relevance to the argument. As for their forest and hills performance, sure, it's not as good as humans, but the main point was that it's much better than merfolk.
Krogen wrote: April 9th, 2019, 8:52 am
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 8th, 2019, 3:17 am Well, the long and short of it is, I think your theories lack imagination. Worse, it feels like you're dead set on painting both races as somehow lesser because they spend a lot of time in the water.
I think a half-human half-fish creature would make a worse miner than a human.
This is your lack of imagination in a nutshell. You see how humans mine and say, "a merfolk probably wouldn't be able to do that very well". That's not how a merman would think. They would think, "I need to extract iron ore from the cave wall, how could that be done?" And then they would come up with a way to do it that they can do well.
Edwylm wrote: April 9th, 2019, 5:07 pm mining underwater isn't hard but there are health risks but there is always those. you don't need a pickaxe to mine. you have explosions, hammers, and water... water my friend is a merman's best friend yet, it is a rock's worst enemy. erosion caused by high water pressure focused on small area does a lot,
Hammers are even worse than a pickaxe underwater, so that option doesn't really help. (The rest are good points though. Maybe the mermaids do all the mining with their magic. :p )
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by The_Gnat »

This is your lack of imagination in a nutshell. You see how humans mine and say, "a merfolk probably wouldn't be able to do that very well". That's not how a merman would think. They would think, "I need to extract iron ore from the cave wall, how could that be done?" And then they would come up with a way to do it that they can do well.
Well said. Exactly what I was thinking!

... Though I do wonder how we got ourselves on a long side-argument about underwater mining. ^_^
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by ghype »

I too think this vibrant discussion was interesting, but we are still developing in the realm of a fantasy set up. So we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves wether Nagas/Merman can mine iron or not.

Generally, I think Edwylms explanation is quite compelling and maybe we should leave it at that.
Edwylm wrote: April 9th, 2019, 5:07 pm There are many ways for merman to make their tridents made of metals. one is mining, scavenging from shipwrecks, trading or raiding. easiest way would be though trading however there is a problem of having no trade so where they get the materials? UtBS has that part where the merman have no trade with landfolk that i remembered.

mining underwater isn't hard but there are health risks but there is always those. you don't need a pickaxe to mine. you have explosions, hammers, and water... water my friend is a merman's best friend yet, it is a rock's worst enemy. erosion caused by high water pressure focused on small area does a lot, have you heard of bog iron? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron Bog iron also has a added bonus of being harder to rust perfect for merfolk.

forging would might be an issue but thats because of merman biology if they be able to forge in air conditions. otherwise thermal vents would be a good source pf heat. fuel wise seaweed and algae can be their main fuel to burn.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Krogen »

Edwylm wrote: April 9th, 2019, 5:07 pm ...
Im not sure how I should respond to this, I mean I appreciate your effort and you make some good points but if you have no idea about some topic its good to do a bit of research on it before commenting.

“one is mining, scavenging from shipwrecks, trading or raiding.”

Yes, I agree with this, scavenging from shipwrecks is also a possibility but probably you can’t get a lot of tridents this way.


“easiest way would be though trading however there is a problem of having no trade so where they get the materials? UtBS has that part where the merman have no trade with landfolk that i remembered.”

Right, I thought they could have stockpiled the tridents, if they have had a large supply of tridents in the past it shouldn’t be a problem, especially if their population got smaller.


“mining underwater isn't hard”

Only if you have modern tech, otherwise swinging a pickaxe or any other tool is harder in water than on land, though I bet it should still be easier for a merman to mine underwater than on land.


“you don't need a pickaxe to mine. you have explosions, hammers, and water... water my friend is a merman's best friend yet, it is a rock's worst enemy. erosion caused by high water pressure focused on small area does a lot,”

Only modern explosives work under water, and how would mermen get a lot of explosives anyway?
And water? You are talking about hydraulic mining? That’s too advanced technologically for Wesnoth, and to do it under water you would need even higher pressures, I reckon you would need modern pumps for that.


“have you heard of bog iron? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron

Yes, bog iron is not a bad idea, but mermen would need access to a lot of swamps, gathering it should be easier than mining for a water creature like a merman, still though, it needs to me smelted.

“Bog iron also has a added bonus of being harder to rust perfect for merfolk.”

I don’t know what you could mean by this, except maybe that you think there is literal metallic iron lying in the bogs and that’s why it doesn’t rust and somebody comes, takes that iron out and its ready for forging. I will give you a benefit of the doubt though since that sounds too silly.


“forging would might be an issue but thats because of merman biology if they be able to forge in air conditions”

Yeah.


“otherwise thermal vents would be a good source pf heat.”

And how are you going to forge iron with a stream of hot water coming from a thermal vent?


“fuel wise seaweed and algae can be their main fuel to burn.”

That’s not how this works. You can’t smelt iron ore with algae, seaweed, or say leaves and branches for that matter, even if you put a ton of seaweed into a furnace you still wouldn’t smelt iron, you need a pure source of carbon to reduce the iron, wood or any plant wouldn’t give usable iron, its too impure.
Not to mention that you can’t even get temperature high enough with wood or especially seaweed or some plants, you could put a ton of it into the furnace and you still wouldn’t get the temperature high enough, it just doesn’t produce enough heat.




Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 10th, 2019, 12:39 am ...
“There has to be ways of mining that don't require a pickaxe – otherwise how would the pickaxe have been made in the first place?”

From Wikipedia:
In prehistoric times a large shed deer antler from a suitable species (e.g. red deer) was often cut down to its shaft and its lowest tine and used as a one-pointed pick,[1]

Well, I don’t think mermen can really hunt deer, or any big land animals for that matter.


“They don't need coal to smelt it.”

Well yes, historically people used charcoal to smelt iron ore. Charcoal is more feasible, but mermen would need a lot of wood for its production, and then they would still need to build furnances to smelt iron. How feasible are mermen lumberjacks? It seems too hard for mermen to make any significant iron production feasible, certainly if it would be much easier for them to trade for iron/buy weapons since they have access not only to fish and other seafood, but valuables like pearls or amber.


“As far as I can tell, all you need is heat and a reducing agent (such as carbon monoxide), which would mean literally any organic fuel would work – wood, for example.”

No, you can’t use wood, first wood has too many impurities and wouldn’t produce usable iron, second you can’t even get the temperature high enough using just wood.


“Apart from the misconception of the problems of mining, you don't even need to mine for copper. You can literally find chunks of copper laying on the ground in places – I seem to recall reading that that's where the Inuit people got much of their copper.”

There exists native copper, but its rare and can be found in mountains or in some sedimentary stones, nowhere close to the sea.


“Krogen wrote: ↑
Yesterday, 8:52 am
Its true that they don’t need massive amounts of iron, butif they were capable of mining enough iron, then we shouldn’t see them only in water in campaigns, they would settle in caves and create a new faction of cave dwelling naga miners who would start fighting with dwarves and trolls.

This is an obvious logical fallacy. "Because they can do it, they will definitely do it."”

No, its “If its beneficial for them to do it, they will do it”. For example during gold rush people founded cities just to have easier access to mining sites. If nagas do ok in caves as their defense would suggest, then it would make sense for them to settle in caves if they do mining, if we haven’t heard about naga cave cities/villages then you can infer that they don’t spend a lot of time in caves and don’t have much to do there.


“Actually, I think you could make an argument that a naga could mine better than humans or dwarves. I'm not going to make that argument, mind you.”

We do know a bit about naga biology, having a snake-like body almost the size of a human doesn’t help in moving through rocky caves and maintaining steady position when swinging a pickaxe.


“Their performance on flat is of little relevance to the argument. As for their forest and hills performance, sure, it's not as good as humans, but the main point was that it's much better than merfolk.”

You said: "Unlike the merfolk, nagas are amphibious. They could easily build a forge on land and craft their weapons there. Rather than living "close to shore", I would say they live "on the shore", both in the water and on land.”
So if they supposedly can build a forge on land then their flat movement is relevant. And while yes, they are better on land than mermen, my point was that they still aren’t that much better than them, and so probably not nearly as good at doing stuff on land (like building forges) as say humans.


„This is your lack of imagination in a nutshell. You see how humans mine and say, "a merfolk probably wouldn't be able to do that very well". That's not how a merman would think. They would think, "I need to extract iron ore from the cave wall, how could that be done?" And then they would come up with a way to do it that they can do well.”

A merman might think differently, but I think we humans in real life are rather smart and we created the mermen faction, and also we can assume that the mermen should act logically. So if somebody found reasons for why mermen are bad miners and nobody can think of a way how mermen could do it better and overcome their limitations, then maybe they just can’t.
And maybe, if they have a lot of stuff humans and dwarves value, then maybe they should focus on getting that stuff and trading for as much weapons as they can.


"Hammers are even worse than a pickaxe underwater, so that option doesn't really help. (The rest are good points though. Maybe the mermaids do all the mining with their magic. :p )"

Yeah hammers are worse. About magic, maybe its possible. But as somebody said earlier (it might have been you) there is no lore of magic that would help with this, and we better not use magic to give some races new overpowered abilities, especially if its against how the faction is commonly perceived. Naga and mermen miners and lumberjacks? Come on, its an interesting idea for a custom world, but doesn't seem to fit Wesnoth world AND make sense, trade is a thing.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Krogen wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:09 am “you don't need a pickaxe to mine. you have explosions, hammers, and water... water my friend is a merman's best friend yet, it is a rock's worst enemy. erosion caused by high water pressure focused on small area does a lot,”

Only modern explosives work under water, and how would mermen get a lot of explosives anyway?
And water? You are talking about hydraulic mining? That’s too advanced technologically for Wesnoth, and to do it under water you would need even higher pressures, I reckon you would need modern pumps for that.
Or advanced water magic.
Krogen wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:09 am “fuel wise seaweed and algae can be their main fuel to burn.”

That’s not how this works. You can’t smelt iron ore with algae, seaweed, or say leaves and branches for that matter, even if you put a ton of seaweed into a furnace you still wouldn’t smelt iron, you need a pure source of carbon to reduce the iron, wood or any plant wouldn’t give usable iron, its too impure.
Not to mention that you can’t even get temperature high enough with wood or especially seaweed or some plants, you could put a ton of it into the furnace and you still wouldn’t get the temperature high enough, it just doesn’t produce enough heat.
Even if it's true that you can't smelt iron with wood directly (which I'm not convinced of; a fire's temperature doesn't only depend on the fuel), wood can effectively be turned into coal. (You even covered this yourself in your responses to me.)
Krogen wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:09 am “There has to be ways of mining that don't require a pickaxe – otherwise how would the pickaxe have been made in the first place?”

From Wikipedia:
In prehistoric times a large shed deer antler from a suitable species (e.g. red deer) was often cut down to its shaft and its lowest tine and used as a one-pointed pick,[1]

Well, I don’t think mermen can really hunt deer, or any big land animals for that matter.
Swordfish. If you can do it with a deer antler, why not a swordfish tooth?
Krogen wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:09 am A merman might think differently, but I think we humans in real life are rather smart and we created the mermen faction, and also we can assume that the mermen should act logically. So if somebody found reasons for why mermen are bad miners and nobody can think of a way how mermen could do it better and overcome their limitations, then maybe they just can’t.
People have been thinking of ways, but you just can't accept any of them. Why not? Why is it so important for merfolk to be bad miners? Do you just hate merfolk?
Krogen wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:09 am "Hammers are even worse than a pickaxe underwater, so that option doesn't really help. (The rest are good points though. Maybe the mermaids do all the mining with their magic. :p )"

Yeah hammers are worse. About magic, maybe its possible. But as somebody said earlier (it might have been you) there is no lore of magic that would help with this,
Wrong. I did contradict your point about magic earlier, but that was regarding assistive magic to walk on land. Water magic is well-established in Wesnoth's merfolk lore.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Pentarctagon »

How are you guys even still arguing about this? Existing mer-units already have tridents. Exactly how they get them is flavor text, at best.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by The_Gnat »

Pentarctagon wrote: April 11th, 2019, 2:20 am How are you guys even still arguing about this? Existing mer-units already have tridents. Exactly how they get them is flavor text, at best.
:roll: +1

I personally find it quite amusing that of all the potential problems and issues with the Shield Breaker and Naga the only one that is apparently worth discussing is the issue of mining/trading of sea races.

@Krogen - Can we stop this argument already, or take it to a different topic in the writers forum? ^_^
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Lordlewis »

(wrong thread)
Last edited by Lordlewis on April 11th, 2019, 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Krogen »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 11th, 2019, 2:04 am ..

"Or advanced water magic."

Ah you mean water magic. Maybe, i guess? depends on how strong that magic is, would need to be really strong, im thinking if we do that then maybe we should also introduce locomotives powered by red mages' fireballs haha. idk about such an idea, but it would get crazy if we started talking about it!


"Swordfish. If you can do it with a deer antler, why not a swordfish tooth?"

idk if its possible, swordfish bones look to be much thinner and the whole fish is much smaller, we got from talking about nagas to talking about bones.


"People have been thinking of ways, but you just can't accept any of them. Why not? Why is it so important for merfolk to be bad miners? Do you just hate merfolk?"

Because I think all of them make much less sense than trading, and I like the trading idea.


"Wrong. I did contradict your point about magic earlier, but that was regarding assistive magic to walk on land. Water magic is well-established in Wesnoth's merfolk lore."

I didn't think about water magic, right.

@The_Gnat Yes, I guess we should stop, we got from talking about nagas to mermen lumberjacks, bones and water magic.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by ghype »



Also a short update on the extra units.



Shieldbreaker


Skirmisher Lv1:
  • hp from 28 to 29
  • xp from 45 to 34
Strider Lv2:
  • melee pierce from 7-3 to 6-4
  • ranged impact slow from 7-2 to 5-2
  • hp from 40 to 39
  • xp from 92 to 74
Harrier Lv3:
  • melee pierce from 10-3 to 8-4
  • ranged impact slow from 7-3 to 6-3
  • hp from 51 to 53
Naga


Naga Lv1
  • hp from 30 to 31
Naga Dual Blade Lv2:
  • hp from 44 to 46
Naga Chakram Lv2:
  • hp now 37
  • xp now 72
Naga Chakram Lv3:
  • hp now 53
Last edited by ghype on June 28th, 2019, 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Pentarctagon »

The Strider will have 39 hp, not 74 hp, I assume?
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Hejnewar »

Yes 39hp. 74xp.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by ghype »

fixed
  • hp from 40 to 39
  • xp from 92 to 74
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by MathBrush »

Is the current Dunefolk setup on github stable? I have a couple of campaigns with Dunefolk in them that I'd like to eventually update for 1.16 when it comes out. I love the changes you all have made, and am excited to include them.
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Re: Dunefolk Rework - Removed Units & Extra Units

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

It's likely to undergo some minor revisions, but I think you can consider the specific units to be stable – that is, no units would be added or removed.

(I'm referring to the Dunefolk in Wesnoth master, just in case we weren't on the same page.)
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