Era of High Sorcery

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Elvish_Pillager
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Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

UPDATE:
I've created a website for Era of High Sorcery, and you can support the project on Patreon.
Original post is preserved below.

---

(This is a new era that uses only units from mainline Wesnoth, so I think it goes here rather than in the Faction & Era forum.)

The Era of High Sorcery is an era with a fancy spellcasting system. It is also an era in which - instead of picking a faction - you choose a selection of magical skills, a la Master of Magic, which may include the ability to recruit units from most of the factions of the Default era.

And - it is awesome. Okay, I do say so myself, but I'm really proud of how it's rolled together in just a few days. The three realms of magic each have their distinct feel (nature magic is a little weak, but we're working on it); the battles neatly integrate the flashy spellcasting with old-fashioned unit combat. People are having fun casting spells and summoning creatures over the familiar battlefield, and the "pick your recruits"-esque skill system is a plus too.

It's still under active revision, mainly adding and tweaking spells, and is currently pretty unbalanced - but again, working on it!

You can get it on the add-on server as "Era of High Sorcery". Here's the thread for it: If you have comments, suggestions, spell ideas, criticism, demands, praise, diatribes, denunciation, burnt offerings, etc., feel free to post them here. :wink:
Last edited by Elvish_Pillager on August 16th, 2014, 10:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Des
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Des »

This is definitely worth trying out. I played it five times already. Great work, Pillager.

During our play, we did come across some of the unbalances; namely, that Ulfs are huge threats to heroes (which is always a Red Mage). Assassination of the hero in general can end games quickly, but Ulfs currently do this to an extreme degree (Pillager is fixing this as we speak).

One change I suggested is giving each Red Mage an additional attack (from 7-2 to 7-3 impact). But this still leaves him quite vulnerable to Ulfs. Then we said to bump up his defenses so that it's always 50% or higher. Looking forward to see how that plays out.

I would also recommend getting the rules/point allocation/spell descriptions online--maybe even in this forum. As it currently is, you must read everything in the in-game menus, but only when it's your turn. This slows up gameplay a bit, especially for new players. A way to read this information outside of your turn without blocking the chat text would definitely help.

I also had an idea for how nature mages can be more survivable (to ufls as well) by giving them a Thorn Shield. It would be similar to Mage shield (a castable spell around your hero that stays on until it blocks one attack for a small amount of gold) except that instead of blocking damage, it increases resistances by 20% and deals a portion of that damage back to the attacker. This would give each school a survivability shield (Evocation has Mage shield, Necromancy has wraith form). As it stands, I think nature is lacking in that department.
Redrock Gulch (Winter 2009 Map Contest Submission)

To rely on rustics and not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of Virtues. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Increasing defenses is too big a change to be justified just for fixing the Ulf problem, and I didn't want it for other reasons - I've simply made the Berserk special not work against leaders. Crude, but it gets the job done (and it's easy to make an excuse that the wizards can stop it magically somehow.) I've increased the leaders' melee to 6-3 in any case. These changes are effective in the next version, which I'll probably release after figuring out something for Nature.

Actually, Nature's Mud Touch spell functions as a defense, although it's really not that intuitive that it would. Thorn-shield isn't in the style I'm going for for that realm. If any fitting spell to help defense comes to mind, though, I'll probably use it...

The trouble with making online documentation is that it'll be a third thing to update with I make a gameplay change - right now, I just have to change both the effect code and the in-game descriptions, and I forget to do that often enough. :oops: It would also be tedious to convert the spell list from a format the game can use to one that can be displayed online. :| I'll see what I can do. EDIT: UPDATE: I figured out a way to output the spell list. I'll put the next version's rules desc and spell list online somewhere when I release it.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Des »

Sounds good. And I like the Ulf change. If the main idea of the game is that the hero is a great caster, (and it seems like that's what you're going for) he shouldn't be killed off easily by 1 or 2 units.

I'm still not clear on how nature is supposed to be played. The other two schools seem to have a distinct playstyle while nature is a bit hazy. Do we lay down forests for Elven troops with summoned Woses? I'm not sure how that can match up to an Archmage with Mages and Fireballs.

Also, do you plan to have maps associated with the era? I think it would be great to have at least one "default" map desiged for specifically for the Era of High Sorcery.
Redrock Gulch (Winter 2009 Map Contest Submission)

To rely on rustics and not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of Virtues. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

I have just uploaded a new version (0.1.5). It changes some balance/game-mechanics details, and implements several new spells, including two powerful ones for Nature, and improves some of the lower level Nature spells.

I have also uploaded the rules and spell list to here.
Des wrote:Also, do you plan to have maps associated with the era? I think it would be great to have at least one "default" map desiged for specifically for the Era of High Sorcery.
I don't have plans to do that, although I wouldn't object if someone offered me a good map for the purpose :)
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Araja »

It sounds like an interesting addition to most things, like RPGs or multiworld survivals, but I always encounter problems.

So much potential, but I can't quite pin it down...
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

New version released - many little bugfixes - some balance changes - extra picks for killing enemy leaders and for levelling up.

Online rules updated - here as before - now including a list of all skill picks.

Araja, yeah, the internals of EoHS probably interfere with those maps. Sometime when I'm not actively developing it for normal maps, I'll try it with a few of those and clean up what I can.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Huston »

problem: i was playing survival games and we had enemies spawning on voids we had made. also when mudtouch turned a flying creature that was over the void into a mudglob, the mudglob did not die but instead was standing there as if there were flatland below it.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

The first problem is an unavoidable result of the interaction between eras and maps (they can't take each other's effects into account very easily.)

The second is a good example of something awesome that I've missed :)

New release out! This one contains many, many fixes, including dropping mudcrawlers down chasms. :D Mainly the fixes are oriented around making the era compatible with heavily scripted maps - most importantly, it prevents any spell effect from bypassing void tiles. Blizzard's effect is now temporary. Stoned units can't be damaged or poisoned by spells. It's possible for maps looking to be compatible with EoHS to specify a few settings via WML variables, too.

As usual, I've updated the online help (although not to many changes this time, aside from adding Enchanter to the picks list which I'd forgotten to do last time.) (Also, I've been making more smaller releases in between these posts, mostly to fix bugs and balance.)
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Huston »

you said you wanted someone to remind you to stop the show picks feature fromn being observable to a player's enemies.

consider yourself reminded.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

It turned out not to be necessary, but thank you :)

Just released a quick update that fixes that, and makes multiple units killed at the same time (e.g. with Fireball) run their death animations at the same time, which looks freakin' awesome. Also, more features for compatibility with certain maps.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Another compatibility release. You can now play Survival Xtreme with it. Not that it's balanced for that. 8)
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Huston »

here is my screenie EP
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

New release, EoHS 0.3.0 0.3.1.

The most major change is to make the leaders less vulnerable. Now, if a leader is attacked, the combat ends as soon as the leader has taken more than 12 (1/4 of their max HP) damage. (I've also removed the no-berserking-leaders rule, since this one serves the same purpose.) Now it should be at least a little harder to execute a crazy gryphon-rampage or chocobone kill, or even just to cripple the leader by getting a lucky few hits in a row.

New L9 Evocation spell: Circle of Protection. Protects a hex against magic, and makes any unit attacking against that hex deal and receive 1/3 the normal damage. The circle goes away if an enemy unit enters the hex.
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.
ALX23
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by ALX23 »

:idea: Consider adding to leaders XP for casting spells or summoning units (depending on spell level ofcourse and units' level) it may balance XP gained for different magic directions - it is very hard to level up if you play with nature.
for example:
you may give double units' level to your xp when summoning (1 or 0 xp for 0 level units)
or\and give 0 xp for 1-3 lvl spells, 1 xp for 4-6 lvl spells, 2 xp for 7-9 lvl spells, 3 xp for 10+ lvl spells.
or it may depend on basic spell price.

P.S. consider removing damage limiter when the leader attacks
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