Map Editor: Multiple empire factions or underlord AI without dungeon hearts?
Would it be possible to allow for multiple empire factions in the map editor? Or would it be possible to allow underlord factions being placed on the map without needing a dungeon heart?
I would like to have 3 empire factions on a custom map that have different colours. Two are allied and one is against everyone.
Furthermore, empire faction units behave differently than underlord faction units. Empire units don't need to maintain their happiness/food/sleep and their undead units (when placed via map editing) don't lose health. While an underlord ai faction has units that lose happiness / need sleep/food and map editor placed undead units lose health.
Furthermore-more, if you wanted to have an underlord that (gameplay wise) acts like the empire (non-moving target that the player can attack when they are ready) - you still need a dungeon heart for the map to be playable. While you can use mightyscript to place underlord units without a dungeon heart - I don't think this is a good solution/option.
I believe these two issues (only 1 empire faction and underlords needs a dungeon heart) restrict the creativity of players and limit the amount of interesting maps that we can make.
Solutions:
1. Allow the faction to be chosen (underlord or empire) in the map config screen.
2. Allow teams to be set in the map config screen (so you can ally factions/ai/players without mightyscript).
3. Allow the toggling of unit/faction game mechanics (ie. sleep, food, happiness; undead not losing hp) in the map config screen (preferred) or with the use of mightyscript. (so an underlord faction can be used like an empire faction and the units don't get mad if they don't have food/lair/etc)
4. Allow underlords (both players and ai) to work without underlords requiring dungeon hearts. (as in, the player or ai does everything they normally would do except they aren't required to defend a dungeon heart; and would only be considered "defeated" when they own no tiles.)
Thank you for the consideration of these suggestions.
Hi Journeywithin,
Sorry for the length of time since you suggested this and my response. We don't generally handle suggestions here but I found your suggestion quite interesting and I wanted to have a chat to the appropriate programmer before coming back to you.
Ultimately the suggestions which you've made aren't feasible due to limitations in how the WFTO Game logic works. We do think there's a possible way forward by exposing the option to make units belonging to a particular faction ignore their needs and remain happy which would give you Empire like units belonging to a player and offering an AI which behaves as though it were an Empire faction (Essentially dumb).
This would require further investigation and I can't confirm whether it'll make it in for a future patch. But we agree it could be quite valuable for certain custom maps. So the conclusion is that I will create an internal ticket for us to investigate further when we have the time and we're working on WFTO. There's no timeline for this and no confirmed outcome.
Cheers,
Lee