Ley arrows

**Tomon Ris** · January 19, 2014, 12:25 AM

So I just tried the new Christmas battle and I have to ask. Why do the ley arrows of the swan king only have 4 strength I mean they are magic arrows right?

**Squeaks** · January 19, 2014, 06:21 AM

AH. Yes, magic is a little weak atm, just because it needs sorting....been warned that there will be a lot of complaints if it does too much. I think they're armour piercing and body piercing...if not, then

I'm more for increasing the actual projectile itself in damage terms than making deadly archers, but the 4 score is low.

Basically, there will be a huge range of tests for magic. There's been fiddling, and I tried one thing which meant the users trashed about 3 units in 4 attacks (they were close to each other, but it's a little much)

Of course, there's slowing attack rates and other stuff...30 foot tall artillery pieces make a mess of much larger units, which is good. Dying Suns are very very effective, but with a tiny amount of men they should be susceptible to enemy attacks. I suspect this won't be fully sorted out without a LOT of people having a look on release, and us then doing what's needed.

There are videos of other effects dotted around...try to find them and you may see what I mean more.

**Tomon Ris** · January 20, 2014, 11:18 AM

what about making them bounce? AP seems too powerful.

**Squeaks** · January 20, 2014, 12:13 PM

Well, there are magicy things that bounce. What can be done is bouncing, area effect (two ways), spinning (making some miss, and causing some to hit the caster in extremes), body piercing (can hit more than one person with the same missile), armour piercing, catch fire to stuff, knock stuff over/send it flying, damage buildings is seperate entirely from normal damage really, a couple of 'unused' abilities (stick is one) that I haven't tested at all....all of this can be highly visible or invisible. Making magic stuff is fairly easy, but the mechanics of damage are a little more difficult. Selediri Ley Artillery lights up a massive area in fire (a whole unit can literally disappear in flame - doesn't mean they die, of course)...there's a Rhysthari magic effect that can light up the sky, sending streaked colours everywhere. Sadly there's a few I seem to have lost along the way, which is damned annoying. There's also morale effect ones.

I guess it'll be a learning and fiddling process, but I'm not completely happy with what I have got yet.

**Kaiser Leonidas** · January 20, 2014, 01:32 PM

The thing is, the Ildiri archers were one of my best units when I played this battle, and I played it quite a few times. I know that 4 damage is a bit low, but considering they pretty much always got a load more kills than the Khezdruli crossbows who do 10 damage so I think it's reasonably balanced by the reload speed and such. That's not to say it's completely and perfectly balanced yet, but they are more powerful than you'd think from their low damage.

**Squeaks** · January 20, 2014, 04:50 PM

What he said....

**Kaiser Leonidas** · January 21, 2014, 08:19 AM

Glad to be of assistance

**k/t** · March 20, 2014, 02:43 AM

I feel like I've asked this before, but how will you be assigning unit stats? Or how have you done it until now?

**Squeaks** · March 20, 2014, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by k/t

I feel like I've asked this before, but how will you be assigning unit stats? Or how have you done it until now?

You may well have asked

We've had to go backwards on this, as the new building system is unique; we only use one barracks type building for all troops....it can be supported by other buildings to allow certain troops to be recruited, but the whole thing is different to normal....Temple Guard/Knights/others are recruited from Temple levels, not barracks, same with some mystical units. Our recruitment and replenishment is odd too; all units can replenish losses in friendly cities (above X% of friendly populace) or starting cities, and you can recruit your weird stuff in certain places around the whole world, should the above be right again, and hidden resources present.

The difference to the mod is that it's not feudal Europe (although several factions are in essence feudal-ish). There's normal foot, horse and bow, but we have approximately ten foot tall 'Mythic' units that hurt a lot, have magical attacks, the Ley arrows, several alternative metal types, and wood (not in the minimod)....then there's mounts...lots of weird ones like Hippogriffs, dragons, Cerberines and Ley Artillery too, amongst others. Much of these are simply new missile models that do weird effects, but it's a fair bit to take in.

I looked at your pricing and real feudalism thingy....it's very nicely done. I don't know if something like that would be possible with this. We have Aradan's Edumatic thingy, but it's one of my biggest headaches. I have a economic cost system in mind, but it's all a little difficult without huge experience.

ANother issue we have is that some units have to/will be intentionally 'over-powered'. It's fantasy, and they really need to be...the intended balance there is partially due to numbers and every faction having similarly nasty units.

So we have several things going on here, but a headache too....

**k/t** · March 20, 2014, 11:26 AM

I wasn't thinking of the cost. My pricing scheme was a rough outline.

RR/RC was adapted for TATW, so there's no reason why it couldn't be adapted for your mod. I am using it for Tsardoms now (which is not fantasy, but the point is that it can be adapted).

Here's a guide to the latest RC version. It's not my work, but I probably am the leading expert in RR/RC after its creator (Point Blank), so you can ask me any questions about it if you think it might help you.