new units

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new units

Postby piranha » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:20 am

We got the graphics for some new units and thought I'd open a discussion for their stats and usage.

Eagle, this one is pretty much decided already.
Light 2 turn flyer specialized in anti air combat that the hero can ride (since heroes wont be able to ride crow any longer)
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Crusader
What could this guy be used for?
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Mammoth
Mammoth is a unit good in snow, since its quite similar to elephants perhaps it should be a bit similar.
It could have group move instead of stack bonus.
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Scorpion
Useful in desert, not sure what kind of stats. I'd like to see some more interesting diversification than the same as another unit but good in desert instead of another terrain.
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Yeti
Another snow based unit. I see him as a giant / heavy cav on snow but would be fun if he is not just the same.
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Sand worm
This unit will get the bonus that the demon have now, attacking cities without facing a wall. Move at cost 1 in desert seems logical. Question is if it should be a groupable move bonus? (Think the freemen in dune ;))
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Kraken
This is the heavy guy in water. Sea based units will pay cost 5 on land no matter if its a road or forest. Pay movecost 1 in water and 1 or 2 in swamp.
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Sea serpent
Light fast water based creature.
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Re: new units

Postby Pillager » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:33 pm

Whoop!

That's a lot of new units. :shock:

I would like the eagle to be quite specialized in its roll as an air superiority unit...perhaps strength 3 with +3 vs fliers? It would eat crows for breakfast and have a good chance vs more expensive fliers. I suppose you could stretch it to strength 4..but then it starts becoming a pretty effective city grabber, and that isn't really its role.

The crusader....looking at this unit gives me an idea. What about adding a new class of unit...the henchman. Basically the henchman would be a somewhat crappy unit (weak for its production time). The upside is that a henchman could enter ruins (alongside a hero) and help fight the undead horrors dwelling within. I realize that this is a different direction than you were going with the ruins...but it seems kinda interesting to me. Perhaps the wizard and this crusader could both become classified as henchmen.

Mammoth! Had no idea that this one was in the works. Snow movement (obviously) and very strong...8 strength? Maybe +2 stack movement? +4? That would make it very nice to have, and quite different than anything currently available.

Scorpion....desert movement and critical strike methinks...then more critical strike in desert or a straight up desert strength bonus.

Yeti...snow specialist, snow movement + strength in snow..or maybe -1 enemy stack in snow. Its hard to argue with him being a snow giant. Still, yetis are mountain dwellers..what about adding a 'mountaineering' movement ability. Allow creatures with that power to cross mountains at 5+ movement cost...and don't let them grant the power to other units. Then the yeti, dwarf, scout...and possibly giant could all slowly climb over mountains.

Sand worm...looks huge! Make it strong and slow (12 movement), but give it move cost 1 in desert and allow it to grant that to other units stacked with it.

Kraken...awesome, but I've talked too much about this guy already.

Serpent..nice. First map I make in beta 4 will be 95% water.

Well, it seems I've run out of beasts to rant about, thanks for listening. :D
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Re: new units

Postby joasoze » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:19 pm

Colour me mightily impressed!
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Re: new units

Postby KGB » Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:20 pm

LONG post coming :)

Eagle: 2 turns, 2 strength, 20 moves, view 4, Anti Air power, cost 200, upkeep 2.

The 20 moves and 4 view lets the Eagle catch bats and other fliers. It will be 5 strength against other fliers so 3 of them have a good chance to kill a single Dragon. At 2 strength vs ground units it won't be overly useful to capture cities but it can bless to 3 easily due to good move rate or grouped with a Pegasi for even better combat stats. The cheap cost reflects the fact it's a specialized unit so it might get used/bought by players.


Crusader:

Not sure what to do with this guy. Pillagers idea of having him help in ruins makes sense.

He really looks like a hero to me, not a unit. So he just needs a portrait and you have a 4th hero ready to go. As a crusader hero he would be perfect for quests or getting extra XP from quests (and yes, the Paladin would have to become a Ranger)

Otherwise until you add designations for good/evil units he has no obvious function.


Mammoth: 4 turns, 8 strength, 14 moves, view 3, siege +3 power, cost 1400, upkeep 4, Snow move bonus - 2, +1 combat in snow.

I know you wanted to give group move power to units. But group move is meant to stack so that if 2 units each have +4 group move you get +8 move. Otherwise group move on heroes/items isn't very valuable. That makes giving group move to units dangerous because 5-6 of these guys would have a stack moving 30+ a turn.

So instead how about making this a +3 siege unit that players have asked for against cities/towers with L8 walls. Elephants/Mammoths have long been used to batter down gates and with his high strength he will probably live through the attack and be useable again on another city.


Scorpion: 2 turns, 4 strength, 12 moves, view 1, poison +4 power, cost 400, upkeep 2, Desert move bonus - 2, +2 combat in desert.

The poison power works as follows: At the start of battle, the poison numbers from all units (so 1 scorpion is 4, 2 is 8, 3 is 12 etc) in the stack is totaled. This number is multiplied by 4 to give a percentage of poisoning ALL enemy units (so 3 scorpions in a stack have 12 poison which gives 12x4=48% chance poison enemy units). The poison percentage is rolled for each unit individually rather than one roll for all enemy units. Poison reduces enemy strength by 2 (limited to 1, so a 1 strength unit that is poisoned suffers no effect).

The poison effect lasts BEYOND the battle if the enemy units survive. It cures at a rate of 1 strength per turn. So enemy units remain at -2 strength until that player starts his turn. At that point the poison drops to -1. On his following turn the units are back at full strength. Units that are blessed (strength) are immune to poison. Blessing units with poison cures it immediately and grants the +1 strength.

Ideally you would put 2 * on a poisoned unit to indicate there are 2 turns left. Then 1 * when there is 1 turn left etc. Helps players know how much longer they will remain poisoned.

As you can guess this is an excellent way to weaken enemy cities before assaulting them if you send in 6-7 scorpions to get to roughly 100% poison chance for all enemy units because you'll get all that turn with enemy units at -2 and all next turn with them at -1 before they are healed.

Now all you need is an equivalent unit with disease (remove 1 hit, lasts 1 turn) :)


Yeti: 2 turns, 4 strength, 14 moves, view 2, banding/horde/swarm +3 power, cost 600, upkeep 2, Snow move bonus - 2, +2 combat in snow.

Hard to find a unique power for this guy. Ones that the game needs (disease) don't apply to him. So for the moment all I can think of is to give him the swarm/horde/banding bonus like the Demon is getting. That keeps him roughly equivalent to the Hv Calv/Giant but not exactly the same.


Sand Worm: 3 turns, 6 strength, 14 moves, view 1, ignore walls power, cost 1000, upkeep 4, Desert move bonus - 1, +2 combat in desert.

I would make the move bonus groupable since you are waiting 3 turns to get one of these units so the least it can do is help you move better in the desert.


Kraken: 3 turns, 5 strength, 20 moves (4 on land), view 4, attack coastal cities power, cost 1000, upkeep 4. water move 1 all water types, 2 in swamp, +3 strength in water.
Sea Serpent: 1 turn, 2 strength, 20 moves (4 on land), view 3, attack coastal cities power, cost 250, upkeep 1, water move 1 all water types, 2 in swamp, +2 strength in water.

What are you envisioning these units doing now with the new boat types? Once you announced those new boats these units make a lot less sense to me. That's because on the warship you can now have land units fight at 6 (or was it 7 strength) strength so they can fight off these units easily.

The only power that makes sense for these units now is the ability to attack coastal cities from the water since they can move on both terrains. That gives them some actual real value as they are no longer going to be able to sink the better boat types. Note that the attack coastal cities power only applies to these units, not the rest of the stack (unless it's flying in which case a flying hero + Sea Serpents/Kraken becomes deadly to coastal cities).


Note: If you want to do something a bit more radical you could add the Disease skill (exactly the same as poison except it removes 1 hit and only lasts 1 turn). Give the Medusa a +4 Disease skill, change her to a 2 turn 5 strength unit, give her a +1 combat bonus in ruin terrain and lower her cost/upkeep to the scorpion's numbers. Then make the Mammoth the unit with the -1 stack bonus (fits with the Elephant getting the +2 stack bonus in open), and change him to 3 turns, 7 strength and make him the ally instead of the Medusa.

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Re: new units

Postby Moonknight » Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:46 am

The Crusader's image is too epic to not be a hero...i like the idea of him getting extra XP from questing/raiding ruins. Guessing you'd have to lower his STR and movement, which he could quickly make up for.

I like KGB's thoughts on the Eagle, but I think it should cost at least 250. They'll still be used a lot b/c they're the cheapest unit to buy for a hero to fly around.

Can't wait to play these!
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Re: new units

Postby Pillager » Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:56 am

Yeah, 2 strength is about right for the eagle...lots of movement and view range, and the +3 bonus vs fliers. I agree with moonknight that 200 may be slightly too cheap.

We really don't need another paladin...and the current one really doesn't look like a ranger. Hopefully we will get a ranger one day..complete with a proper ranger picture with hooded cloak and a bow. Anyway, the crusader can't be a hero because the graphic isn't suitable to be blown up for the hero and offers windows.

If stack movement bonuses are additive..then the mammoth clearly can't have that ability. I think you could get around this easily by adopting the following simple rule: total movement bonus for a stack = best unit bonus + best hero bonus + best item bonus. So, if you had a couple of mammoths, it wouldn't much matter, as only one unit could add to the total bonus. You would then add the highest bonus from a hero, followed by the highest bonus from an item.
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Re: new units

Postby KGB » Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:19 pm

OK, you guys convinced me. 250 for the Eagle. Maybe even 275.

Personally I don't think the Paladin looks anything like a Paladin so it wouldn't be a big deal to me to turn him into something else. The Crusader looks a lot more like a Paladin.

I also can't ever see building a 3 turn Mammoth just to get +4 group move if there is no additive ability. That's a long time to wait for 4 extra moves on a unit that brings nothing else with it. You are *far* better off making regular elephants/pegasi/medusa or other bonus unit (if you want to give a group move skill to a unit, I'd suggest giving a +1 or +2 group move to Wizards in addition to their anti air skill. At 2 turns to make, getting 3-4 of these in a stack would have some value).

Plus not having movement being additive means that grouping heroes together isn't viable nor is having/finding multiple items with the same power (something I expect will happen due to being able to place 6 items on your hero). Incidentally, a hero = unit. So having a 'best of' rule means you end up with best item + best unit since there are no spells yet.

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Re: new units

Postby Pillager » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:08 pm

KGB wrote:I also can't ever see building a 3 turn Mammoth just to get +4 group move if there is no additive ability. That's a long time to wait for 4 extra moves on a unit that brings nothing else with it. You are *far* better off making regular elephants/pegasi/medusa or other bonus unit


I don't agree. +4 movement could be pretty handy, good company for slow movers like pikemen, spiders, dwarves (big hills move here)...and heroes (ride your mammoth to the nearest ruin). If the mammoth is 8 strength...it would add some combat punch too (just 1 point shy of the elemental). Plus they would have snow movement, which looks to be pretty rare (only yeti and mammoth have it). Maybe it wouldn't be as good as the elephant in the open..but it would be better on any other terrain.

KGB wrote:if you want to give a group move skill to a unit, I'd suggest giving a +1 or +2 group move to Wizards in addition to their anti air skill. At 2 turns to make, getting 3-4 of these in a stack would have some value

This sounds pretty good, actually.

KGB wrote:Plus not having movement being additive means that grouping heroes together isn't viable nor is having/finding multiple items with the same power (something I expect will happen due to being able to place 6 items on your hero). Incidentally, a hero = unit. So having a 'best of' rule means you end up with best item + best unit since there are no spells yet

I don't think two hero's bonuses should stack together. That doesn't mean that one hero can't add his command, while the other adds his stack movement bonus though..so having more than one hero in a stack could still work. Not too sure multiple items with the same bonus should stack either, don't think they need to..and it keeps items (somewhat) under control.

And, as far a hero being a unit...it is, and it isn't. A hero is clearly not just a basic unit..it is in its own category, so I don't really see a problem with allowing a hero to add bonuses on top of unit bonuses. I know DLR considered the hero to be a unit...but that was an arbitrary decision IMO.
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Re: new units

Postby Pillager » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:29 pm

Oh, and the current paladin looks way more like a paladin than a ranger. Golden plate armor and white toga aren't exactly a practical costume for ranging. ;)
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Re: new units

Postby joasoze » Tue Feb 15, 2011 8:04 am

The crusader could have strength 4 and +3 when defending or something like that.
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