Race changes: Units

[Catwalk]

a. Basic unit availability, cost, stats and abilities - availability mostly unchanged, cost structure changed considerably, big stat changes, many abilities added across the board

Cost structure will change to function in increments of 20%, and the abilities Thrown 1 and Fire Breath 2 will give a fixed cost increase of +10. So Barbarians might have unit costs of 100% + 10, meaning that all their normal units will cost an extra 10 hammers. Exceptions will be made where basic units don't benefit, such as ranged barbarian units.

Unit availability will change very little, although some basic units may be converted into racial units. Like, turning gnoll bowmen into something a lot more interesting.

Code:

fig   off   def   rng   amm   hrt   res   cst   special
Barbarians     -     -     -     1     t     -     4    70+10  cold immunity
Beastmen       -    +1     -     -     -    +1     5   190     first strike for all foot units
Dark Elves     -     -     -    1m     4     -     8   140+10  -
Draconians     -     -     -     2     f     -     6   150+10  flying
Dwarves       -1     -     -     -     -    +3     7   180     poison immunity
Gnolls         -    +1     -     -     -     -     3    90     +1 move for all foot units, armour piercing
Halflings     +2    -1    +1     -     -    -1     5    50     lucky
High Elves     -     -    +1     -     -     -     6   120     +1 to hit, forester, illusion immunity
High Men       -    +1    +1     -     -     -     4   110     -
Klackons       -     -    +5     -     -     -     4   100     large shield for all units, missile immunity for swordsmen
Lizardmen      -     -    +3     -     -    +2     3    60     stoning immunity
Nomads         -     -     -    1b     2     -     4   100+5    fire immunity
Orcs          +1    +1     -     -     -     -     4   100     poison 1, -1 to hit
Trolls        -2    +4    -2     -     -    +4     4   200     regeneration, death immunity

[b0rsuk]

Gnoll bowmen are already curious: bowmen with 3 Melee. If this is taken further, they could become interesting even once they run out of ammo. I tried to do that using city walls, but bowmen are not mobile enough and die too easily from direct damage.

[Catwalk]

Bunch of controversial suggestions here, have away at them These are very much up in the air still. I was also thinking about giving armour piercing to a race, maybe halflings. But combined with +2 figures it'd make them the booster monsters from hell.

[luddite]

It's really hard for me to get any feeling of these changes work from just seeing them in a table like that. I have no idea what effect they'll have.

Are those the same changes that you put into the mod that was on dragonsword before? I tried that and the races seemed OK for the most part. I remember the beastmen being extremely strong. Especially the beastmen halberdiers, which had first strike, armour piercing, and a strong attack.

[Catwalk]

I'm redoing them, but this is pretty close to what I had.

Yeah, I was also a little concerned about beastmen. At least their bonuses don't combo too much in that extra hearts doesn't help quite as much when you have first strike. I think I had beastmen at +2 swords, they're +1 here.

Hmm, I'm still keen on armour piercing for halflings. Give their bowmen -1 ranged strength to balance, and make sure slingers won't be overpowered with it. They will definitely be good candidates for boosting, but they'll also be starting out weak. And we could up their costs a little instead of lowering it as planned.

[b0rsuk]

The primary thing wrong with Beastmen are Centaurs. They're like Horsebowmen, but worse, and they both come from Stables.

[Catwalk]

Yeah, centaurs are just horrible. I'll be addressing them in the Racial Units thread as soon as possible, will be discussing all racially unique units there. I'm also thinking about turning pikemen into halberdiers.

[luddite]

Hmm, I'm still keen on armour piercing for halflings. Give their bowmen -1 ranged strength to balance, and make sure slingers won't be overpowered with it. They will definitely be good candidates for boosting, but they'll also be starting out weak. And we could up their costs a little instead of lowering it as planned.

Hmm I always thought halflings were a race that was supposed to have weak normal units. Their high growth rate, super farmers, and low unrest makes up for it.

[Catwalk]

Halflings already have strong normal units, though. +2 figures for swordsmen is a big bonus, and so is luck. In this version they have -1 hearts, combine that with -1 swords and -1 ranged for bowmen and they're unimpressive but quite unique. I don't really want any race to have weak and boring normal units. There should definitely be strength variations, but the weaker units should have some interesting points.

Actually, how about this:
1) Slingers will have 6 figures, strength 1 ranged attack and armour piercing
1) Remove bowmen, replace with half giants who have 6 figures, 5 offense, 4 defense, 2 hearts and first strike

[I like Serena]

With the Basic Units table and the Racial table, most stuff has been addressed to get a playable mod, except one: the various special units.

It will look weird if Spearmen have the same movement rate as Night Mares!

I propose to double the movement rate of all unmentioned units.

Btw, I found the place in the code where the Large Shield bonus is set .
For later reference, it is a hardcoded number in wizards.exe at offset 09A651h.
Signature is '74 03 83 C6 02 8B C7'.