Waaaaagh
I lost all my rep and my title being a jerk
- Reaction score
- 70
I am designing an altered melee. My current thoughts (almost completely finished):
The issue here is that I cannot come up with a way to make the undead (I am going for leaving nightelves out, as they are actually kind of sucky) follow the pattern I want; right now, this is what I want the races to do:
I hate spoiler abuse as much as the next guy, but without them, this wouldn't be readable.
So, if you have any ideas on the undead race, or what to do for the second two warlock abilities, post them. If you have any other ideas, post them. I am trying to keep as few units as possible, with as much strategy as possible. If you couldn't manage to read through this post, then I understand.
Alliance
UNITS:
- Peasant: basic worker unit; can harvest gold and lumber, and has the call to arms ability, which converts the peasant to militia for a short period of time.
- Swordsman: strong tank, but low attack; has the defend ability, which fully blocks 80% of attacks from in front of the swordsman, and makes him resistant to knockdowns, but slows him down.
- Spearman: fairly weak, ranged unit, but high attack speed; can learn the burning spears ability, which adds 2 base damage per attack, and an additional 2 damage per point of armor on the target.
- Priest: fairly weak, ranged unit; primary caster; initially has the inspiration ability, which adds extra armor and attack damage to a friendly unit; can learn negation, a buff which nullifies the next negative spell cast on the target friendly unit, and contradiction, a buff which is destroyed when the target friendly unit takes damage, causing a healing wave to move through nearby allied units, healing them for the damage taken.
BUILDINGS:
- Town Hall: primary building; peasants can return gold and lumber here, and can be converted to militia; upgrades to keep [national unit (3 allowed per player); can train peasants, riflemen and knights].
- Farm: primary food production building; provides 10 food; can use the summon militia ability, which summons 3 militia to the farm; can convert peasants to militia.
- Barracks: primary military production building; national unit (1 allowed per keep); provides 10 food; can convert peasants to militia; can train the following units: swordsman, spearman, priest; contains the following upgrades: platemail [gives all swordsman, spearmen and knights an additional 2 armour], burning spears [gives all spearmen the burning spears ability], priest adept training [gives all priests additional mana capacity and additional mana regeneration, and gives them the ability to cast negation], priest master training [gives all priests additional mana capacity and additional mana regeneration, and gives them the ability to cast contradiction].
Racial Ability: Redemption; gives all alliance units a 2% chance to be revived on death.
Horde
UNITS:
- Peon: basic worker unit; can harvest gold and lumber; can garrison inside of burrows and watch towers to give them an attack.
- Grunt: strong melee attacker; can learn the cleave ability, which causes a percent of all damage done to be dealt to nearby enemies as well.
- Shaman: powerful runic caster; initially has the storm totem ability, which creates a totem at the target point, causing all enemy units which enter within range of the totem to be purged; can learn the earth totem ability, which creates a totem at the target point, which receives 50% of all damage taken by friendly units within range; can also learn the fire totem ability, which creates a totem at the target point, which has a powerful fire attack that burns for DoT, and explodes on death, dealing area damage to nearby enemies.
- Warlock: powerful support caster; initially has the bloodlust ability, which, when cast on a friendly unit, causes any attacks it makes to increase its attack and move speed; can learn the X & Y abilities.
- Raider: fast moving, powerful unit; has the back breaker ability, which gives an 80% chance for the raider to knock down any enemies he attacks, if they are facing away from him; also has the ravage ability, which gives the raider a 20% chance to attack his target multiple times (100% if the unit is mechanical).
BUILDINGS:
- Great Hall: primary building; unbuildable; peons can return gold and lumber here; contains the spiked barricades [all buildings return 50% of damage done by melee attackers] and reinforced defenses [all burrows and watch towers receive bonus armor] upgrades; can train peons; upgrades to stronghold.
- Burrow: primary food production building; provides 10 food; peons can return lumber here; can garrison up to 4 peons, to give the burrow an attack/attacks (when fully garrisoned, the burrow also receives a bonus to regeneration).
- Watch Tower: primary defensive building; can garrison up to 3 peons, to give the tower an attack/attacks (when fully garrisoned, the burrow also receives the critical strike ability, which gives a 21% chance to deal 3 times normal damage.
- Barracks: primary military production building; national unit (3 allowed per player); provides 10 food; can train the following units; grunts, shamans, warlocks, and raiders; contains the following upgrades: cleave [gives all grunts the cleave ability], shaman adept training [gives all shamans additional mana capacity and allows them to cast earth totem], shaman grandmaster training [gives all shamans additional mana capacity and allows them to cast fire totem], warlock adept training [gives all warlocks additional mana regeneration and allows them to cast X], warlock grandmaster training [gives all warlocks additional mana regeneration and allows them to cast Y].
Racial Ability: Pillage; causes all orc attacks made against buildings to steal resources.
UNITS:
- Peasant: basic worker unit; can harvest gold and lumber, and has the call to arms ability, which converts the peasant to militia for a short period of time.
- Swordsman: strong tank, but low attack; has the defend ability, which fully blocks 80% of attacks from in front of the swordsman, and makes him resistant to knockdowns, but slows him down.
- Spearman: fairly weak, ranged unit, but high attack speed; can learn the burning spears ability, which adds 2 base damage per attack, and an additional 2 damage per point of armor on the target.
- Priest: fairly weak, ranged unit; primary caster; initially has the inspiration ability, which adds extra armor and attack damage to a friendly unit; can learn negation, a buff which nullifies the next negative spell cast on the target friendly unit, and contradiction, a buff which is destroyed when the target friendly unit takes damage, causing a healing wave to move through nearby allied units, healing them for the damage taken.
BUILDINGS:
- Town Hall: primary building; peasants can return gold and lumber here, and can be converted to militia; upgrades to keep [national unit (3 allowed per player); can train peasants, riflemen and knights].
- Farm: primary food production building; provides 10 food; can use the summon militia ability, which summons 3 militia to the farm; can convert peasants to militia.
- Barracks: primary military production building; national unit (1 allowed per keep); provides 10 food; can convert peasants to militia; can train the following units: swordsman, spearman, priest; contains the following upgrades: platemail [gives all swordsman, spearmen and knights an additional 2 armour], burning spears [gives all spearmen the burning spears ability], priest adept training [gives all priests additional mana capacity and additional mana regeneration, and gives them the ability to cast negation], priest master training [gives all priests additional mana capacity and additional mana regeneration, and gives them the ability to cast contradiction].
Racial Ability: Redemption; gives all alliance units a 2% chance to be revived on death.
Horde
UNITS:
- Peon: basic worker unit; can harvest gold and lumber; can garrison inside of burrows and watch towers to give them an attack.
- Grunt: strong melee attacker; can learn the cleave ability, which causes a percent of all damage done to be dealt to nearby enemies as well.
- Shaman: powerful runic caster; initially has the storm totem ability, which creates a totem at the target point, causing all enemy units which enter within range of the totem to be purged; can learn the earth totem ability, which creates a totem at the target point, which receives 50% of all damage taken by friendly units within range; can also learn the fire totem ability, which creates a totem at the target point, which has a powerful fire attack that burns for DoT, and explodes on death, dealing area damage to nearby enemies.
- Warlock: powerful support caster; initially has the bloodlust ability, which, when cast on a friendly unit, causes any attacks it makes to increase its attack and move speed; can learn the X & Y abilities.
- Raider: fast moving, powerful unit; has the back breaker ability, which gives an 80% chance for the raider to knock down any enemies he attacks, if they are facing away from him; also has the ravage ability, which gives the raider a 20% chance to attack his target multiple times (100% if the unit is mechanical).
BUILDINGS:
- Great Hall: primary building; unbuildable; peons can return gold and lumber here; contains the spiked barricades [all buildings return 50% of damage done by melee attackers] and reinforced defenses [all burrows and watch towers receive bonus armor] upgrades; can train peons; upgrades to stronghold.
- Burrow: primary food production building; provides 10 food; peons can return lumber here; can garrison up to 4 peons, to give the burrow an attack/attacks (when fully garrisoned, the burrow also receives a bonus to regeneration).
- Watch Tower: primary defensive building; can garrison up to 3 peons, to give the tower an attack/attacks (when fully garrisoned, the burrow also receives the critical strike ability, which gives a 21% chance to deal 3 times normal damage.
- Barracks: primary military production building; national unit (3 allowed per player); provides 10 food; can train the following units; grunts, shamans, warlocks, and raiders; contains the following upgrades: cleave [gives all grunts the cleave ability], shaman adept training [gives all shamans additional mana capacity and allows them to cast earth totem], shaman grandmaster training [gives all shamans additional mana capacity and allows them to cast fire totem], warlock adept training [gives all warlocks additional mana regeneration and allows them to cast X], warlock grandmaster training [gives all warlocks additional mana regeneration and allows them to cast Y].
Racial Ability: Pillage; causes all orc attacks made against buildings to steal resources.
The issue here is that I cannot come up with a way to make the undead (I am going for leaving nightelves out, as they are actually kind of sucky) follow the pattern I want; right now, this is what I want the races to do:
Alliance: Industrious peoples, the alliance is constantly expanding, gathering exponentially more resources as they go, until they are large enough and powerful enough to destroy their enemies with sheer overwhelming numbers. Militarily, the alliance seeks order, unstoppable, once lined up from one side of a clearing to the other.
Expansion - fairly simple; build new town halls near gold mines, train up a bunch of peasants, use the militia ability to defend it.
Military - keep formation; footmen should be at front, defending (thus, blocking most damage), spearmen lobbing away, and priest buffing the foots so that they are healed whenever they actually DO take damage. Basically, as a human, you want to meet your enemy in a bottleneck, and beat the shit out of them. Undeads trying to get you down? Advance your footmen slowly, and use your spearmen to pick off the necromancer(s). The rest of the army won't stand a chance. Just a necromancer? Break formation - your slow moving ass can't catch him, but your hustling butt can. If you don't allow any kills, that necromancer won't stand a chance. In general, your enemies won't stand a chance.
Economy - driven mostly by expansion; humans can harvest gold and lumber quickly, but are rather destructive about it, which means that they need lots of land to cover to keep their war machine marching.
Expansion - fairly simple; build new town halls near gold mines, train up a bunch of peasants, use the militia ability to defend it.
Military - keep formation; footmen should be at front, defending (thus, blocking most damage), spearmen lobbing away, and priest buffing the foots so that they are healed whenever they actually DO take damage. Basically, as a human, you want to meet your enemy in a bottleneck, and beat the shit out of them. Undeads trying to get you down? Advance your footmen slowly, and use your spearmen to pick off the necromancer(s). The rest of the army won't stand a chance. Just a necromancer? Break formation - your slow moving ass can't catch him, but your hustling butt can. If you don't allow any kills, that necromancer won't stand a chance. In general, your enemies won't stand a chance.
Economy - driven mostly by expansion; humans can harvest gold and lumber quickly, but are rather destructive about it, which means that they need lots of land to cover to keep their war machine marching.
Horde: A murderous bunch, the orcs win battles by crippling their opponents until they cannot fight back. They win wars in much the same way - by denying expansion and resource collection, and slowly bleeding the enemies' main bases (gathering resources as they go). Not much for expanding, harvesting gold is rather difficult - either you need a peon chain to a goldmine miles away, protected by towers and burrows, or you need the mobility to find undefended structures and pillage them.
Expansion - a bit more complex; if you want to harvest lumber (which orcs are great at, even if it's only use is to aid in collecting gold...), just slap up a burrow and bring a couple peons. When in danger, hide in the burrow and wait for reinforcements (you can also build towers for extra defense/more peons).
Military - magical; grunts and raiders are both strong attackers, ready to be buffed by the shamans and warlocks. If your enemy tries to flee, your raiders can hunt them down (back breaker), and your shaman can drop a storm totem to slow them (purge). If, say, you are in a bottleneck, and some footmen are kicking your ass, you can use the warlocks to buff up your front lines, while your shaman place storm and fire totems behind the footman wall (since all totem abilities are ranged). If you have room to maneuver, the footmen can be outflanked with your raiders and have their backs broken, making them easy targets. Fighting the undead? Use your raiders to get to their necromancers, and own them in the face. Once you do that, the rest of the army will crumble into dust.
Economy - driven by war; as the orcs, you should be able to keep most battles away from your base, and (preferably) at your enemies'. With pillage buffed, it should become a viable source of income (especially since the humans are expanding all over the place). The raider, an excellent structure destroyer, can use ravage to do incredible amounts of damage and steal large amounts of resources from enemy buildings. Totems are good, because they allow you to set up temporary bases within your enemies' camps (the earth totem is especially useful for this).
Expansion - a bit more complex; if you want to harvest lumber (which orcs are great at, even if it's only use is to aid in collecting gold...), just slap up a burrow and bring a couple peons. When in danger, hide in the burrow and wait for reinforcements (you can also build towers for extra defense/more peons).
Military - magical; grunts and raiders are both strong attackers, ready to be buffed by the shamans and warlocks. If your enemy tries to flee, your raiders can hunt them down (back breaker), and your shaman can drop a storm totem to slow them (purge). If, say, you are in a bottleneck, and some footmen are kicking your ass, you can use the warlocks to buff up your front lines, while your shaman place storm and fire totems behind the footman wall (since all totem abilities are ranged). If you have room to maneuver, the footmen can be outflanked with your raiders and have their backs broken, making them easy targets. Fighting the undead? Use your raiders to get to their necromancers, and own them in the face. Once you do that, the rest of the army will crumble into dust.
Economy - driven by war; as the orcs, you should be able to keep most battles away from your base, and (preferably) at your enemies'. With pillage buffed, it should become a viable source of income (especially since the humans are expanding all over the place). The raider, an excellent structure destroyer, can use ravage to do incredible amounts of damage and steal large amounts of resources from enemy buildings. Totems are good, because they allow you to set up temporary bases within your enemies' camps (the earth totem is especially useful for this).
Undead: Relying mostly on their magics, the undead march across the land at a slow pace, systematically destroying everything, and converting their fallen enemies into an army of their own. Built on a caste system, the undead war machine is fueled by infrastructure - a vast network of cold storages, gold mines, and spirit towers define the borders of undead territory, while on the battlefield, a single necromancer can raise an army of epic proportions, fueled only by the service of two or three initial corpses.
Expansion: difficult; for the undead player, planning is key - what land do I need to take over? How do I get there? If I push too far, will I be isolated from my base? The undead must keep a steady expansion to stay alive, but it must expand in all directions at once, slowly pushing the enemy into a small area, before they can be exterminated.
Military: infrastructural; ghouls are expendable and cheap, leaving behind fresh corpses for the necromancers, but there is one problem - undead units degenerate at a surprising rate when away from their necromancer masters, which means that they must stay either on blight or near a necromancer (which I am thinking of making a national unit). Other than that, a single kill is often enough to win a battle for the undead: Humans got ya down? Throw your ghouls at the wall of footmen, generating some corpses. Then, use the raise swordsman and raise archer abilities to keep them at bay, while using the archers to pick off a spearman or priest. Once that one kill is out, you just need a swordsman in their to start picking apart the priests, and you can slowly surround the line of footmen, out flanking them. The orcs in your way? Keep your distance, sending in a few ghouls to keep the grunts and raiders happy, while you move some stronger units (undecided yet) around to the casters. Once they're dead, the melee units, unbuffed, won't stand a chance.
Economy - Expansionist; just build outward at a steady pace, and everything within your territory will become harvestable.
Expansion: difficult; for the undead player, planning is key - what land do I need to take over? How do I get there? If I push too far, will I be isolated from my base? The undead must keep a steady expansion to stay alive, but it must expand in all directions at once, slowly pushing the enemy into a small area, before they can be exterminated.
Military: infrastructural; ghouls are expendable and cheap, leaving behind fresh corpses for the necromancers, but there is one problem - undead units degenerate at a surprising rate when away from their necromancer masters, which means that they must stay either on blight or near a necromancer (which I am thinking of making a national unit). Other than that, a single kill is often enough to win a battle for the undead: Humans got ya down? Throw your ghouls at the wall of footmen, generating some corpses. Then, use the raise swordsman and raise archer abilities to keep them at bay, while using the archers to pick off a spearman or priest. Once that one kill is out, you just need a swordsman in their to start picking apart the priests, and you can slowly surround the line of footmen, out flanking them. The orcs in your way? Keep your distance, sending in a few ghouls to keep the grunts and raiders happy, while you move some stronger units (undecided yet) around to the casters. Once they're dead, the melee units, unbuffed, won't stand a chance.
Economy - Expansionist; just build outward at a steady pace, and everything within your territory will become harvestable.
I hate spoiler abuse as much as the next guy, but without them, this wouldn't be readable.
So, if you have any ideas on the undead race, or what to do for the second two warlock abilities, post them. If you have any other ideas, post them. I am trying to keep as few units as possible, with as much strategy as possible. If you couldn't manage to read through this post, then I understand.
