Legend Promotions Development

[phungus420]

OK, so following the advice before, it's time to begin working on this project. Basically will be using some of unique promotions from History of the Three Kingdoms, and apply them to Legends. Each Legend will only have a single unique promotion, and it will still total 3 free promotions when built. Not every legend needs a unique promotion, but it would be nice. Also no repeates, no two legends may have the same unique promotion.

Here is a list of promotions I consider viable to use:

Commander:
When Combat Odds over 95%, the unit will always withdraw if killed

Conqueror:
Scaling increased strength based off of the R value disparity (ratio of strengths). The worse the units strength ratio, the better the bonus. The number it gives here is that if a unit has a 45% chance to win, it gets a bonus of 55% strength, which would push the combat odds into the high 80s

Demagogue:
Pillaging can cause destruction of improvements on adjacent tiles

Do-or-Die:
Enemy cannot withdraw from combat from unit (except siege units, which must withdraw to win)

Dread:
Enemy troops on adjacent tiles loose 1-10% strength each turn, until a max of -30% strength.

Flying Wedge:
Gains +20% strength for each movement point the unit has left

Honor:
Tile the Unit is on gains 50% defensive bonus

Iron Wall:
Each hit triggers a 20% dodge roll, if the roll is made, the hit misses. (this is actually insanely powerfull if you think about the Civ Combat mechanics)

Nine Terrain:
Ignores Enemy terrain based defensive bonus

Persuasion:
Small chance of converting defeated enemy units

Poet Persona:
+10% Withdrawl
+25% XP (actually could set this up right now in the default XML, but I like the concept)

Quelling:
+50% vs Barbarians

Reconditioning:
Regains 30HP after winning combat

Regeneration (will rename berzerker) :
Gains 25% strength bonus after winning combat

Rogue:
+300% from pillaging

Silk Sail:
Gains when winning naval combat

Snipe:
Targets weakest unit in stack

Stealth:
Invisible when in Forest, Jungle, Hill (does not apply to forts/cities)

Supression:
Captures Defeated Barbarian Units

Water Dog:
+25% strength when adjacent to Rivers/Coast

Wave Attack:
40% Chance of pushing a random enemy unit in a stack off the tile when attacking a stack

Yellow Turbin:
Spawns barbarian units when winning combat in enemy territory.

 

[phungus420]

All the #s here can be tweaked, so things can be adjusted the main thing is the concept behind the promotion.

Which promotions should be incorporated, and which Legends should get them? Remember only one unique Promotion per legend, and only one legend per unique promotion.

Discuss.

 

[Alsark]

Being one to have extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY bad luck, I'd kind of like to see Commander on all of the legendary units. The only thing worse than losing a 95%+ battle is losing a 95%+ battle with your legendary unit (except then I'd start losing all of the 94.9% battles...).

I think a lot of these could work well with the 300 Spartans. Honor would seem thematic, given they defended Thermopylae so well.

Do or Die would make sense for Sacred Band since they'll likely be countering a lot of mounted units (who tend to have withdraw chances).

Dread makes sense on the Barbary Corsairs since they're... well, pirates (though it would obviously limit the ability to aiding in coastal attacks). Silk Sail would also work well with Barbary Corsairs. I'd just rename it... maybe to Plunder or something.

Flying Wedge would work with Legio X due to their speed of 3.

Nine Terrain would possibly work with Hungarian Cannon?

King's Yeomannry could gain Snipe (but I'd probably save it for one of the more modern unique units).

Water Dog could also work for one of the more modern units.


Not a huge fan of any of the barbarian ones, mostly because they'd have to be applied to the first three or so legendaries (after that barbarians aren't really around), and I'm not sure any of them are necessarily thematic. Legends aren't legends because they fought barbarians - they're legends because they fought other nations against the odds.

I'm worried that Reconditioning and Regeneration would be too powerful, but maybe not.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Being one to have extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY bad luck, I'd kind of like to see Commander on all of the legendary units. The only thing worse than losing a 95%+ battle is losing a 95%+ battle with your legendary unit (except then I'd start losing all of the 94.9% battles...).

Hmm... Would change the base combat idea a bit - but 95% is a little "weak", so it could work - or change it to ~90%ish, if only a single unit gets it. Don't forget, legends in LoR are mostly "just" very special units, but not - like Heroes in FfH - irreplaceable ones - so I don't see a lot of need to implement a "last-ditch save" for them on a general basis.

I'm worried that Reconditioning and Regeneration would be too powerful, but maybe not.

Reconditioning - perhaps with a different name - would fit the 300 pretty well, I think, as it means the unit can survive waves of attackers longer - as singular unit.

Cheers, LT.

 

[phungus420]

Nip this in the bud now. Only one unit is going to get the Commander promotion. If any, I may just reject it entirely. If it goes in at all, it'll be a unique promotion for one, and only one legend unit. Period, no sense in discussing this further, or the crappyness of Civ4 combat mechanics, except if your only goal is to irritate me. To repeat, I will not even be considering makeing this a default ability for more then a single unit, at all, ever.

 

[achilleszero]

So only one per legend. Alright then, here is list of which promos i could see which Legends having. In descending order of what best describes them.

*LegioX: 1)Commander 2) Conqueror 3) Flying Wedge 4) Suppresion 5) Quelling 6)Demagogue (Romans hated those 'barbs')
*Sacred Band: 1)Honor 2) Yellow Turbin(maybe with different name)
*300: 1)Iron Wall 2) Reconditioning 2) Do or Die 4) Commander 5) Berserker/Regeneration
*Yeomanry: 1) Snipe 2) Reconditioning 3) Iron Wall
*Hungarian Cannon: 1)Nine Terrain 2) Dread
*Barbary Corsair: 1)Silk Sail 2)Rogue
*54th Infantry: 1)Wave Attack 2)Honor
*Red Baron: 1)Poet Persona 2) Dread
*Bismarck: 1)Dread 2)Rogue 3)Do or Die 4)Conqueror
*101stAirborne: 1)Stealth 2)Berserker/Regen 3)Reconditioning 4)Wave Attack 5)Honor 6)Nine Terrain
*SAS: 1)Snipe 2) Nine Terrain 3)Persuasion 4)Reconditioning

These are just possibles for each legend. Probably just made it harder to decide which ones should go to who. That worked out better than I though as the only one where my top choice clashes are the SAS and Yeomanry. But thats what my alternatives are for. And I did theses matchings 1st off of ability of promo and then by name of promo.

Were there more promos in the 3 kingdoms? Just wondering, I think this is a pretty big list as is.

 

[Roland Johansen]

In general, I do think that Legends may get promotions that make them very special, unique and powerful. So almost nothing is too much for these unique units in my opinion. It's very hard for a single unit to break game balance and you should get some value for the large investment. Still, there are a few of the options mentioned below that go a bit too far in my opinion or are just not that interesting compared to other promotions.

Conqueror:
Scaling increased strength based off of the R value disparity (ratio of strengths). The worse the units strength ratio, the better the bonus. The number it gives here is that if a unit has a 45% chance to win, it gets a bonus of 55% strength, which would push the combat odds into the high 80s

Most promotions increase the odds to win a fight. This one just does it a bit more variably than others. It especially increases strength when odds are low. But most players will use the legend in fights where odds are low for the other units in their army but not for the legend. They won't use the legend in low odds fights. Likely most players won't even use the legend in fights where odds are below 95%. To make this promotion better than the normal combat promotion, you'd need to use the legend in below 90% odds fights.

It could be useful for legends with extremely high retreat odds (85+% or something like that) as you might want to use those in low odd fights.

Dread:
Enemy troops on adjacent tiles loose 1-10% strength each turn, until a max of -30% strength.

This one is just a bit too weird for me: losing strength over time because a unit is near. It might work in a fantasy setting for some kind of strength draining entity.

Honor:
Tile the Unit is on gains 50% defensive bonus

The problem with this one for me is that it affects an entire stack of units instead of only the legendary unit. Something that affects a single unit is hard to unbalance a game, something that affects an entire stack of units can easily unbalance a game. +50% for an entire stack of units is huge.

Iron Wall:
Each hit triggers a 20% dodge roll, if the roll is made, the hit misses. (this is actually insanely powerfull if you think about the Civ Combat mechanics)

Are you sure it's that powerful? If I understand it correctly: in case the unit is hit, there is a 20% chance it is actually not hit at all. So in fights that the legendary unit wins, it will get on average only 80% of normal damage.
The standard combat I promotion has approximately the following effects for your unit:
+5% damage inflicted to the enemy per combat round
-5% damage inflicted to your unit per combat round
+10% odds to win a combat round (odds that your unit wins round/odds that enemy unit wins round is multiplied with 1.1)

All in all, the combined effects of the combat I promotion on battle are quite comparable with this promotion.

Persuasion:
Small chance of converting defeated enemy units

How small?

Poet Persona:
+10% Withdrawl
+25% XP (actually could set this up right now in the default XML, but I like the concept)

How does the rounding with XP work. If a unit would normally get 3 XP for a fight, then how many XP would it get with this promotion. Note that most players will use their legends in fights with very high odds and thus very low XP gain. Is the +25% applied before or after rounding the XP gain?

]Reconditioning:
Regains 30HP after winning combat

This one I think is too powerful except when it only works once per turn.
The problem is that most legends will win their battles against contemporary units easily and thus will not get a lot of damage in a single battle. The most likely scenario of killing them is by weakening them in several fights and then killing them once they're weakened. But a legend with this promotion will likely be fully healed after each battle. This means that the unit becomes virtually unbeatable.

Regeneration (will rename berzerker) :
Gains 25% strength bonus after winning combat

For how long will the unit get a 25% strength bonus? 1 round?

Silk Sail:
Gains when winning naval combat

Hmm, nice for pirates in general. As long as it is not too much gold.

Supression:
Captures Defeated Barbarian Units

Hmm, this allows the legend to milk barbarian cities out of units. I'm not sure how powerful that is. It would suit a somehow charismatic unit where the enemy would be impressed with its strength and like to follow this unit. I'm not sure if one of the legends in the game applies. They were feared but I'm not sure if the enemy would want to follow them after being crushed. And why would only barbarian units follow them. From a role-playing perspective, this is a bit weird.

Wave Attack:
40% Chance of pushing a random enemy unit in a stack off the tile when attacking a stack

How does this work if the unit has nowhere to go?

Yellow Turbin:
Spawns barbarian units when winning combat in enemy territory.

A bit weird.


A separate note that applies to various of the above mentioned promotions: the odds calculator in the game will likely give wrong victory odds when these promotions are applied. It is likely not programmed to calculate the odds for units with these promotions.

No further comments on these promotions for now. The ones that I didn't comment on were ok in my book.

Are you considering other fun promotions that people design?

 

[achilleszero]

This one is just a bit too weird for me: losing strength over time because a unit is near. It might work in a fantasy setting for some kind of strength draining entity.

I suggested it for the Bismark or Red Baron to sort of symbolizing the impact on morale they must have had against the enemy. Definately apparent in the fear the Bismark put into the royal navy home fleet. And Im sure lots of french and british pilots got a little jumpy thinking about the red baron showing up in one of their sorties.

Are you sure it's that powerful? If I understand it correctly: in case the unit is hit, there is a 20% chance it is actually not hit at all. So in fights that the legendary unit wins, it will get on average only 80% of normal damage.
The standard combat I promotion has approximately the following effects for your unit:
+5% damage inflicted to the enemy per combat round
-5% damage inflicted to your unit per combat round
+10% odds to win a combat round (odds that your unit wins round/odds that enemy unit wins round is multiplied with 1.1)

All in all, the combined effects of the combat I promotion on battle are quite comparable with this promotion.

Wouldnt the effect be closer to a first strike though, but I guess that doesnt put it into any better company. One thing this would do would make any fight the legend got into at 50% odds or better almost a sure thing. Those fights would be long drawn out ones.(barring freak episodes where the enemy somehow wins everyone in a row) So they would make full use of the free round every five turns, possibly getting two. And those losing at 90%+ odds fights would be cut dramatically as those are all freak occurances where the enemy wins a whole slew of unlikely rounds. Hmm. if this does turn out to be the way you said maybe it could be pumped?

Im interested in seeing what else phungus has to say about this one.

Hmm, this allows the legend to milk barbarian cities out of units. I'm not sure how powerful that is. It would suit a somehow charismatic unit where the enemy would be impressed with its strength and like to follow this unit. I'm not sure if one of the legends in the game applies. They were feared but I'm not sure if the enemy would want to follow them after being crushed. And why would only barbarian units follow them. From a role-playing perspective, this is a bit weird.

Lots of people subjagated other peoples and made them fight in their armies. The romans did it. Alexander did it. England did it. For gameplay purposes, I really dont think he player needs to be capturing anything besides just barbs, as that would be way too powerful.

How does this work if the unit has nowhere to go?

I imagine the same worm hole that opens up and teleports units when they get bumped by border pops. So you may very well get to hit them so hard they wind up on the other side of the world, wondering what happened.

A bit weird.

Yellow Turbin is a bit strange. Maybe it symbolizes you liberating indiginous peoples in the enemy empire and theyre rising up to help fight. Although it would suck if they attacked you.

Phungus: Regardless of which ones you match up with who, will you be coding them into the game so mod/modders have ready access to them?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I suggested it for the Bismark or Red Baron to sort of symbolizing the impact on morale they must have had against the enemy. Definately apparent in the fear the Bismark put into the royal navy home fleet. And Im sure lots of french and british pilots got a little jumpy thinking about the red baron showing up in one of their sorties.

If it was like a morale effect, then it wouldn't be that bad. But it's an effect over time which is not like a morale effect. A fear effect is something that happens in an instant: Help, help, the bismarck is in the North Sea, oh god help us. However, if the Bismarck is still moving through the North Sea a year later, then the fear effect isn't increased. The thing with fear is that fear for something is often worse than the thing itself so time usually lessens it instead of increasing it.

However, a discussion about semantics of the effect is likely less important than the gameplay effect. It's comparable in effect to removing half a combat promotion per turn to all surrounding units which is huge. As said before, it's hard to create promotions that effect a single unit that will overpower that unit. Once a promotion effects a whole stack of units, it can however very easily become overpowered.

Wouldnt the effect be closer to a first strike though, but I guess that doesnt put it into any better company.

I do understand your comparison with first strikes. First strikes can be seen as immunity rounds and this promotion also allows immunity rounds with a chance of 20% per combat round.

The strength of the promotion is however more related to the combat promotion as both this promotion and the combat promotion improve things each combat round.
The first strike bonus adds one immunity round which is huge when combat only lasts a few rounds due to the fact that the unit with the first strike is a lot stronger. The first strike bonus is however very weak when the unit is likely to lose and needs many unlikely combat rounds to win. In that case, one immunity round won't do a lot.
So first strikes help more in uneven combat situations and this new promotion will like the combat promotion also improve things in even combat situations. In uneven combat situations, it's clearly weaker than a single first strike which shows how weak it is for legendary units.

One thing this would do would make any fight the legend got into at 50% odds or better almost a sure thing. Those fights would be long drawn out ones.(barring freak episodes where the enemy somehow wins everyone in a row) So they would make full use of the free round every five turns, possibly getting two. And those losing at 90%+ odds fights would be cut dramatically as those are all freak occurances where the enemy wins a whole slew of unlikely rounds. Hmm. if this does turn out to be the way you said maybe it could be pumped?

You're right that it will cut back those freak occurrences. In those battles, it should on average count as 2 first strikes which still isn't a lot.

However, I'm wondering what is the justification for this promotion:
-It's effects on combat aren't really different than combat and drill promotions
-It will likely mess up the in game combat odds calculator which can't accurately calculate the real combat odds with this promotion as it is not programmed to do so.
-Players will have a hard time estimating the value of this promotion. You need to have really understood Arathorn's article on combat in Civ4 and probably a good understanding of mathematics to understand what this promotion does and how powerful or weak it actually is.

Lots of people subjagated other peoples and made them fight in their armies. The romans did it. Alexander did it. England did it.

I find that better represented by the ability to build units in captured cities than this unit ability which revives a unit from the dead so that it can fight for you.

For gameplay purposes, I really dont think he player needs to be capturing anything besides just barbs, as that would be way too powerful.

Of course, for game balance it's a lot more powerful if you can use the ability on all civilisations. It then depends on the odds of the subjugating effect happening. In the end, it is just one unit that can subjugate other units so if the odds of it occurring aren't too high, then it isn't overpowered.

However, I still find it a very weird promotion. It would for instance be more realistic if there would be a chance that other units in that stack that you're fighting convert to your side.

I imagine the same worm hole that opens up and teleports units when they get bumped by border pops. So you may very well get to hit them so hard they wind up on the other side of the world, wondering what happened.

That could very well be. I'm just asking.

Yellow Turbin is a bit strange. Maybe it symbolizes you liberating indiginous peoples in the enemy empire and theyre rising up to help fight. Although it would suck if they attacked you.

Yes, you can rationalise it. I can rationalise about any rule that I could think of to add to this game. However, that doesn't mean that the average player will find those rules rational.
I'm just saying that we shouldn't try too hard to make these promotions work if they don't seem rational at first sight. We can come up with better ideas for promotions. We don't have to take these promotions.

For instance: The LegioX legend could get a promotion that gives it a huge reduction in the rebellion sentiment in a city to represent the ability of the Romans to control a large empire for 1000 years.

 

[achilleszero]

Roland, which ones do you find the most imbalanced at this point? I dont imagine Phungus would want to rework alot of them, so as not to create more work than he already.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Overpowered: Dread and Honor because they affect whole stacks of units, Reconditioning because it might make it impossible to destroy a strong unit by attacking it with a stack of weaker units as it heals to full strength after each battle. The rest could maybe use some tweaking here and there but aren't fundamentally imbalanced from a gameplay point of view.

As I said, there are also some promotions in the list which do similar things to normal combat and first strike promotions but in a slightly different way. I can't really see what such promotions add to the mix of promotions. Tactically, they work either as first strikes or as combat promotions or a mix of those two. These promotions are hard to value for people who don't really deeply understand the mathematics behind the combat system while they don't add a thing. The in game combat odds calculator also can't calculate the odds of victory for both units when these promotions are involved.
I can make up dozens of those:
-A promotion that kills an enemy unit whenever it is below 10 hitpoints in a fight
-A promotion that regenerates 10 hitpoints to your unit whenever it goes below 50 hitpoints (once per fight)
-A promotion that reduces damage with 20% per combat round from the enemy when your unit goes below 50 hitpoints during a fight.
-A promotion that reduces the strength of an enemy unit by 10%
-A promotion that increases damage to the enemy by 20% per combat round when the enemy unit goes below 50 hitpoints during combat
-A promotion that multiplies the damage per combat round by 1 + (100-current hitpoints)/100, reevaluated each combat round (based on enemy hitpoints and only effects the damage done to the enemy)
-etc.

Endless variations of effects on the combat mechanism can be thought of, but that doesn't add to the game. They all don't do fundamentally different things than the combat and first strike promotions. They just generally manipulate the combat formula a little so that your unit has better odds to win or loses less hitpoints during a battle.

Flying Wedge, Nine Terrain, Quelling, Snipe and Water Dog which are in the list above also change combat odds but they do so based on outside conditions and thus are tactical and really different from combat and first strike promotions. These add to the game.

Other promotions in the list offer other things like gold or stealth which is in a really different class and has nothing to do with the combat mechanics itself. These can also be very interesting.

Can we think of other effects that might be interesting or does it take relatively too much time and effort to add such new promotions?

 

[phungus420]

Not being a programmer, it's very hard for me to add completely new concepts. I've done it, but it takes alot of time (and googling, and asking questions and getting advice from Xienwolf and Emperor Fool on these forums), so I'd much prefer to just rip code out of other mods, and HotTK is probably the best for this, which is why we are looking at unique promotions from that mod.

Also remember that most of the # values there will be integer tags in the XML, so they can be tweaked. It's the concept that's important. For instance if Honor is too overpowered by the numbers, we could reduce it to a 10% bonus, but you seem to flatly be against the concept.

The main thing I'm looking for is suggestions (with #tweaks if apropriate), of which promotion should go on Which Legends.

@achilleszero, all this is SDK stuff and softcoded. So it'll all be pullable from the XML once incorporated, so mod modders can easily access these effects for their own promotions/units.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Not being a programmer, it's very hard for me to add completely new concepts. I've done it, but it takes alot of time (and googling, and asking questions and getting advice from Xienwolf and Emperor Fool on these forums), so I'd much prefer to just rip code out of other mods, and HotTK is probably the best for this, which is why we are looking at unique promotions from that mod.

Understood.

If someone were to find a very interesting promotion in another mod, could that then apply? I've heard a lot of good things about Fall From Heaven and I know it has lots of promotions (I haven't played it yet, but I'm planning to for a while). Many wouldn't apply, but even if it has only three useful ones, then why not look at those? Total realism also has lots of promotions but it's a mod for Warlords and I don't know how much has changed between versions which could make converting promotions to BTS more difficult. Maybe there are no real changes in those areas, maybe there are.

Also remember that most of the # values there will be integer tags in the XML, so they can be tweaked. It's the concept that's important. For instance if Honor is too overpowered by the numbers, we could reduce it to a 10% bonus, but you seem to flatly be against the concept.

I had understood that tweaking the promotions a little isn't such a problem.

The problem (in my mind) with promotions that affect a whole stack is that it will affect combat for your entire civilisation (as usually victory or death in civ-war depends on one big stack). It's not a local one unit phenomenon any more. It's comparable to using several great generals to give your entire stack enough experience for one additional promotion (a predetermined one). And if units die and other units are added to the stack, the will also get the free promotion.

Of course that is a lot more powerful than what one unit can do. You could try to weaken the bonus for the stack to insignificance (2% defence bonus anyone). But I guess that that also won't be that interesting for gameplay.

On the other hand, world wonders also affect your entire civilisation so a bonus that affects every major battle that you will fight from that moment until the legend dies isn't out of the question for a unit which should be comparable to a world wonder. But it does divide the legends into two groups: those that get these promotions that affect a whole stack and those that don't. You could compare it to the world wonders that affect an entire civilisation and the national wonders that affect a single city.

But yes, in the end, I'm pretty much against the concept unless every legend gets such a stack affecting promotion, sorry. Ignore me if you wish.

The main thing I'm looking for is suggestions (with #tweaks if apropriate), of which promotion should go on Which Legends.

I'll leave the choice of which promotion should go with which legend up to others. It's really interesting, but I have no doubt that this will lead to good matchings if left in the capable and imaginative minds of others. There's no lack of creativity on this forum and for instance achilleszero has already created a matching.

I will keep meddling in the balance of promotions. What kind of power are you looking for in these promotions. Say comparable to 2 combat promotions?

@achilleszero, all this is SDK stuff and softcoded. So it'll all be pullable from the XML once incorporated, so mod modders can easily access these effects for their own promotions/units.

Great!

 

[phungus420]

If someone were to find a very interesting promotion in another mod, could that then apply? I've heard a lot of good things about Fall From Heaven and I know it has lots of promotions (I haven't played it yet, but I'm planning to for a while). Many wouldn't apply, but even if it has only three useful ones, then why not look at those? Total realism also has lots of promotions but it's a mod for Warlords and I don't know how much has changed between versions which could make converting promotions to BTS more difficult. Maybe there are no real changes in those areas, maybe there are.

I do plan on also checking out FFH2. The thing is though that FFH2 is very top heavy, there are something like 4 proffessional programmers that have developed that mod, so it might be harder to pull things from. Also I know FFH2 relies alot on python, which I'd rather avoid, as this generally means the atributes will be hardcoded, and therefor less tweakable. It's kind of odd how that whole SDK/Python thing works out. Many mod-modders prefer python based mods, as it makes merging much easier. But it also makes tweaking the effects much more complex, as often you have to actually alter code, rather then just adjust numbers in the XML. This is why I have moved alot of the original Python code in LoR/WolfRevolution over to the SDK.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I do plan on also checking out FFH2. The thing is though that FFH2 is very top heavy, there are something like 4 proffessional programmers that have developed that mod, so it might be harder to pull things from. Also I know FFH2 relies alot on python, which I'd rather avoid, as this generally means the atributes will be hardcoded, and therefor less tweakable. It's kind of odd how that whole SDK/Python thing works out. Many mod-modders prefer python based mods, as it makes merging much easier. But it also makes tweaking the effects much more complex, as often you have to actually alter code, rather then just adjust numbers in the XML. This is why I have moved alot of the original Python code in LoR/WolfRevolution over to the SDK.

Ok, those are very sensible considerations. I hope you'll find some interesting promotions.

By the way, I don't really dislike the current setup of Legends. They're already pretty special. But I also understand the desire to make them stand out like World Wonders being able to do some things that cannot be done by normal units.

 

[achilleszero]

I do plan on also checking out FFH2. The thing is though that FFH2 is very top heavy, there are something like 4 proffessional programmers that have developed that mod, so it might be harder to pull things from. Also I know FFH2 relies alot on python, which I'd rather avoid, as this generally means the atributes will be hardcoded, and therefor less tweakable. It's kind of odd how that whole SDK/Python thing works out. Many mod-modders prefer python based mods, as it makes merging much easier. But it also makes tweaking the effects much more complex, as often you have to actually alter code, rather then just adjust numbers in the XML. This is why I have moved alot of the original Python code in LoR/WolfRevolution over to the SDK.

Thats too bad FFH is so complicated. I am rather impressed with the basic premise of each of these LOTK promotions, but I was actually half thinking of somehting different. When this discussion of attaching extra legend abilities first arose, I got the idea that FFH had some sort of activated abilities amongst the units. By activated I mean one where you actually pick where or when to do something by actually pressing a button or something. As opposed to more passive effects of promotions. Some thing to really make the player feel in control. Not really griping, as I really like some of these promotions you posted.

 

[phungus420]

Yeah, the spell system is pretty complex, I don't want to go there.

 

[achilleszero]

Almost forgot about the Wayfinder. Phungus, were there any non combat promotions in LoTK's that it could use??

Was it ever decided if the SAS was staying a legend or switching to a UU? If not maybe we should decide now, and worry later what should replace it?

 

[bestbrian]

Any of these ideas still in play for the later versions? I always thought it was a nice "off the rack" way to make the Legends units extra special.