Warlords II World Championship Tournament Army Set, Version 2.0b3 PRELIMINARY BETA-TESTING VERSION ONLY! Designed by Bob Heeter; last modified 14-Dec-1996. In order to play a full four-player game quickly, as called for in the Warlords II World Championship Tournament plans, one must effectively reduce the size of the map, by making the map small, by making the armies swift and numerous, or both. This army set helps answer that need! Based on the familiar default Erythea army unit types and graphics, the Tournament Army Set has been modified to provide a more balanced set of units with greater speed and shorter build time. The slow units have 16-18 movement points, and fast units have 22-28 movement points. Heroes start at speed 22, and move up to 28 - if they live long enough to achieve the highest experience level! Weaker units build in only one turn, while stronger units require two turns and the very strongest need three. Bonuses are plentiful since heroes and allies will be scarce and the philosophy is that each unit should have a unique specialty. Detailed information on the finer points of the design is given after the basic unit statistics, which are summarized in the table below. We recommend that you copy this table and print it out for easy reference. We are still fine-tuning the army set (especially movements and costs), so comments are welcome! ================================================================================ Tournament Armies Version 2.0 (beta 3) - Unit Data Table : ================================================================================ --- Bonuses --- --- Costs --- Unit Name Str. Time Speed Movement Combat Produce Retool ================================================================================ *** City Specialists *** Light Inf. 2 1 18 +1 City 3 160 Heavy Inf. 4 1 9 +1 City 6 300 Spiders 4 1 16 +2 City 14 700 Minotaurs 6 2 13 +2 Stack City 26 1300 Griffins 6 2 22 fly +2 City 34 1700 Pegasi 6 3 24 fly +2 Stack City 40 2000 *** Terrain Specialists *** Light Cav. 2 1 22 +1 Open 4 200 Orcish Mob 2 1 19 both +1 Woods 6 300 Pikemen 4 1 19 +2 Open 10 500 Wolfriders 4 1 18 woods +2 Woods 9 450 Dwarves 4 1 18 hills +2 Hills 9 450 Heavy Cav. 6 2 26 +2 Stack Open 24 1200 Unicorns 6 2 26 woods +2 Stack Woods 22 1100 Giants 6 2 26 hills +2 Stack Hills 22 1100 *** Tactical Specialists *** Giant Bats 1 1 20 fly 20 160 Archers 4 2 16 +1 Fortified 20 1000 Catapults 4 2 17 Cancel City 20 1000 Elephants 6 2 17 -1 Enemy Stack 30 1500 Scouts 1 4 6 50 350 Heroes 5 X 22 *** Land Allies *** Giant Worms 7 3 28 both +2 Stack 60 3000 Elementals 5 3 40 both +1 Stack 60 3000 Devils 7 3 28 both +1 Stack;Cancel Hero 60 3000 Demons 7 3 28 both +1 Stack;Cancel Non-Hero 60 3000 *** Flying Allies *** Wizards 7 3 22 fly +2 Stack 60 3000 Ghosts 5 3 28 fly +1 Stack 60 3000 Archons 7 3 22 fly +1 Stack;Cancel Hero 60 3000 Dragons 7 3 22 fly +1 Stack;Cancel Non-Hero 60 3000 ============================================================================== About the Tournament Army Set: ============================================================================== *** General Philosophy *** This army set was designed to have one useless unit, the scouts, which neutral cities are set to build as basic defense, but which players will want to pillage for gold that can then be used to buy more useful creatures. The cash value of the scout unit is set so that pillaging scouts in a city provides enough cash to purchase a light infantry for production. However, the supply of gold will generally be limited, so players will often only be able to afford weak units, such as bats and light infantry. But as gold accumulates, more and more powerful units may be purchased. (Note that the Orcish Mobs have replaced Scouts as the peon unit of choice for guiding stacks swiftly through forest and hills.) Units are classified in two distinct ways. First I have assigned units to the groups you see above: City Specialists, Terrain Specialists, Tactical Specialists, and Allies (Land and Flying). The City and Terrain specialists are further divided into Weak, Strong, and Leadership units. Weak units have only strength 2 (but +1 in their home terrain), while strong units have strength 4 and are +2 at home. Both take only 1 turn to build, but of course stronger units are more expensive, both to purchase and to maintain! Leadership units take longer to build, but they are stronger and, even better, they confer a mighty +2 stack bonus in their home terrain, making them more useful than most allies for boosting a stack in a critical location. The tactical specialists will be discussed below. The 8 allies are divided into four basic types, with one land ally and one flying ally for each type; this also is discussed in more detail below. Be forewarned that the build and maintenance costs for this army set are higher than average for Warlords, while city income is often a bit lower - you will (finally) need to worry about economics a little! An 8-high stack of griffins will be a rare sight in the tournament... And with quests off, allies will be even scarcer still. But with solid units building in just one turn, there will still be plenty of dragon fodder to slaughter! *** The City Specialists *** These units exist primarily to attack and defend cities. Light infantry are your default unit, in the Weak group. They are easily purchased after pillaging a scout. They are not particularly fast or strong, and should be replaced with spiders or heavy infantry as soon as practical. Heavy Infantry are in the Strong group, and are relatively cheap, but they are too slow to be much use for anything but static defense, except in the water, where they are very efficient as city-raiding naval units. Spiders are the familiar scourge of cities and bane of would-be city attackers, and are the other Strong city unit. They are a bit sluggish, but have a strong bonus on their home turf. Minotaurs, though confined to the ground and not very swift, are the mighty leaders of the city defenses and of the naval raiding parties. Griffins are stronger than spiders and faster, but take longer to build and are much more costly because of the value of their flight capability. Pegasi are likewise stronger and faster than Minotaurs, but are even more difficult to build than Griffins. But woe to the person who must defend against a pegasus-griffin combination! *** The Terrain Specialists *** The terrain specialists exist largely to move through hostile terrain and assist stacks in taking and holding strategic points. On average they are a bit cheaper and swifter than their city counterparts, but of course they are not as good at defending cities, towers, ruins, and temples. The Weak units in this group are the Light Cav. and the Orcish Mob, which are reasonably swift for their terrains, cheap, and fast to build. The Strong units are Pikemen in the open, Wolfriders in the woods, and Dwarves in the hills. Heavy Cav., Unicorns, and Giants are the Leaders in the open, woods, and hills, respectively. These last three units are also valuable because they have a high base strength and are the only non-ally units swift enough to keep pace with a champion hero. *** The Tactical Specialists *** These units are useful in fulfilling unique tactical roles. They generally take two turns to build and are not overwhelmingly strong or swift themselves, but they serve unique functions which make them highly prized additions to a well-assembled stack. Of these units the bats are weakest, but they are also cheap and can fly, so they are useful for carrying heroes or raiding undefended rear cities. Archers are the only unit with the little-known but highly-coveted fortify bonus, which adds +1 to any stack, independent of all other bonuses, whenever it is present. Catapults are the familiar siege unit, and elephants as usual strike terror in the hearts of their foes. Scouts are intentionally made useless, but provide a quick 175 gold when pillaged, so that new units can be built to replace them when a scout-building neutral city is captured and pillaged. Note that their strength of 1 means that even the weaker units can capture a neutral scout-building city singlehandedly. Note also that the maintenance cost of a scout is 25, so there is little point in keeping any around. Heroes have their usual strength but are now significantly faster than in the default set, in keeping with the speeds of the other units in this set. This also allows them to visit ruins and gain experience more quickly than one might expect. *** The Allies *** Allies are the fiercest units, providing strength, speed, leadership, and tactical bonuses that are unmatched by the other unit types, and indeed so rare that their skills cannot be easily reproduced. One class of ally conveys a potent +2 bonus to its stack in all terrain, while providing speed and strength to their stack. These are the Giant Worms and flying Wizards. Elementals and Ghosts are a second class of ally which is extremely swift, but weaker, having only a +1 stack bonus. The third type of ally, including Devils and Angels, provides strength, speed, and enough metaphysical power to boost their own stack by +1, while confounding even the most powerful hero. And the most powerful allies of all are the fourth class, Demons and Dragons, who lend +1 to their own stack while cancelling the stack bonuses of all non-hero enemies! --