I finally got my apache PHP server up and running last night which is great news for me. On the other topic known as "Poll for new Units", I asked if it was okay for me to create a website for this mod. Now that my server is running correctly, may I create the official "4 Path Magitech" website. This will be a BIG mod and I think it deserves a website of it's own.
PS: I am a professional web designer (It is my current job), not some random guy who doesn't know anything about html.
Cool orion, I hadn't heard from you so I didn't know what your plans were. I'm also a professional web application developer. My specialty is J2EE applications. Haven't you seen my awesome web page
[url=http://glest.codemonger.org]http://glest.codemonger.org[/url]? But if you think you think that you can possibly improve upon
that, then you're quite welcome to do so on either my server or yours. I also have Tomcat 6 setup w/ apache2, but I think I broke mod_php on the last upgrade I did. I don't care either way, I think it would be cool.
As for the additional levels I'm not really convinced that so many levels is necessary. It doesn't mean I'm against it, but I think that beyond implementing "heros", where units that get killed can be recalled somehow, or even reused on subsequent levels of a campaign, going too far with unit levels isn't going to add much to the game because they like to die. I actually tweaked the skeletons a few times trying to get their leveling to matter. As it is, I reduced the max number of skeleton pets a necromancer can have from 4 to 3 and made them stronger (more HPs and more armor when they level) to bring them more in line with the power of a tech swordsman. They are actually sub-par un-upgraded and moderately superior after their two upgrades (preservation and corporeal theft). They make their 1st level at 2 kills, but I wasn't seeing them get there very often, unlike battle mages, that when managed carefully made expert more commonly than not (especially when used for early harassment raids). One thing I've noticed that commonly kills skeletons is on an aggressive push, they tend to get out of range of their creators and start deteriorating, whereas the ranged-attack necromancers and liches tend to stay back away from the action as much as possible. Of course, they are mostly designed to die and protect their creators, as well as the other ranged units on the magic faction.
@Duke@, I'm thinking that the undead organic is a good idea and would mean that we should create a "holy" attack as well. However, it is important that contests between various paths (subfactions) be balanced so that enlightenment is not underpowered against either nature or reason and that corruption is not nullified by enlightenment. So the holy attack couldn't be too powerful against undead or corruption wouldn't have a chance against them and the game becomes a contest of knowing what path the opponent chooses and choosing the path that nullifies theirs (not a good thing). One should be able to defeat an enemy of one path equally well using any other path. So in the end, I'm not actually sure if it
is a good idea unless the holy attack of the "enlightened" can be effective against the other paths, and I don't see a good story for that to be the case. Doesn't mean it wont work, but that's what we'll have to look at as we move forward.
On the other hand, allowing white knights, paladins, crusaders, holy warriors, etc. to have other special abilities due to their faith is completely appropriate and transports to contests against all subfactions. Now, allowing monks to have an attack that only works against the undead sounds cool and should be able to be worked in well with game balance, but that would require extra coding (perhaps lots of extra coding) to specify that they can attack, but only attack certain armor types. This is especially true of the AI, where monks normally just roam around and try to heal units (at the moment).
