Lately I’ve been working 60 hours a week and nearly completely unable to touch Bravely Bear, but in the time that I do get time off I’ve been squeezing in some Master of Magic (one of my all time favorite games).
The game certainly has its flaws, but there’s something about MoM that all the clones (such as Age of Wonders III) has never been able to reproduce.
Anyway, it’s got me working on a GDD during my lunch breaks and I was wanting to share it here and get some feedback. Please tell me what you think.
Elevator Pitch:
More or less a modern version of the classic game Master of Magic. If you haven’t played it you should. It’s made by the same people that did Master of Orion and Xcom.
For those who have not played it, Master of Magic is a 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate) game in which you conquer a fantasy world with a similar interface as Civilization. Unlike civilization, rather than researching technology, you research spells and all city buildings are available from the start.
And also unlike Civ, combat is handled separately from the map screen in turn based combat.
During combat you are able to cast spells, move units about, and leverage troop advantages against one another. Meanwhile it has unique mechanics based around how many units there are in a tile, hero units that have god-like stats and equip magic items, and units that may cast their own spells.
The game is won when all other wizards are eliminated or if you cast the “Master of Magic” spell. Think of it as the tech victory in Civ.
Oh, and there’s two different realms to conquer. The over world and a magic world.
Okay, a Modern MoM. But what would be different?
For one, the original is one of the most broken and buggy games ever made. It’s so buggy Peter Molyneux himself would say “Daaaaaamn!” So, that would be the first major improvements.
But I would also consider the following (This is where I could really use some feedback).
Diversity is Key:
To start, I really want the game to hinge on the idea of building diversity. You need to have all the races enter your fold if you want all the unit options. And you need to get horses, griffins, worgs, or whatever before you can make mounts of them. Or, you may need to conquer a dragon before you can snag an egg to raise and breed.
Actually, it’s best to be feared AND loved:
I would want to implement a Loved and Feared mechanic to all diplomacy that would play a huge part in ruling and in diplomacy. Basically every city, every rival mage, and every race of people would have a stat for how much they love you and how much they fear you. And, yes, you can be loved and feared.
The values will go up and down depending on actions you take, decisions made during random events, and buildings made in town.
So let’s say you make a big army, fear goes up across the board. You move that army towards a rival city, fear goes up in that city, and in the owner, and in the race of the inhabitants. You attack the city and before combat even starts you enter diplomacy with the city. If they’re more afraid (and/or love) of you more than they are of their leader they may just surrender. After you conquer them you can choose what to do with the inhabitants. If you free them, the race loves you. If you enslave them, they hate you and you loose love. If you kill them off they fear you and hate you. If you occupy the city they remain fairly unchanged.
Meanwhile you’re making taverns that increase love, but decrease fear. Or an arena that increases love and fear. Or a dungeon that increases fear.
And of course on occasion you may have a prompt that says something like “A group of defecting dwarfs from (rival)'s kingdom have come looking for asylum in (your city). What will you have us do?” a) Send them away. b) March them back. c) Kill them. d) Enslave them. e) Allow them to join your side.
Definitely a “Hands on” sort of leadership:
One major change I would also do is have you, the actual mage in charge of stuff, out in the fields doing stuff. The capital city would still be the capital city, and corruption would go up as you get away from the capital. But, where you are would also effect corruption. So you can position yourself strategically to increase the effectiveness of the cities.
Or, you could sit in a city and help it get built up fast to become a super power.
Or, you know, you could also gallivant around and slaughter foes as powerhouse.
Or, maybe go dungeon diving for improved gear for you and your heroes.
Or, maybe you could position yourself near a battlefield so that you can cast spells cheaper without putting yourself at risk.
Duke it out:
And while we’re at it, let’s throw dukes into the mix to run your cities. Dukes will increase various stats in the city they oversee. Ah, but dukes also have a trade off that, well, they can be real ass hats and defect to other rivals or independent. But that’s cool, because you can leverage what to do with them to manipulate who loves and/or fears you.
Let me see your war face!:
Skip to Edit.
While I REALLY like the MoM format as is, I’m definitely open to different ways of doing it. For one, I could see doing combat in real time Myth or Total War style. Or maybe switch from squares to hexes like the Fantasy General series.
One thing is for sure, I want the game to focus more on troop positioning.
So a unit gets a buff for every adjacent ally. While loosing a buff for every adjacent enemy. Meanwhile the enemy’s stats are going up and down by who is around them. And, I want there to be a “To Hit” stat that is depleted as they are attacked, so multiple attacks will deplete that defense making them more and more vulnerable. Then it is reset at the end of the turn.
Lastly, if I WAS to keep combat TBS, I’m kicking around the ideas of either a) switching to two actions in which you can move and/or attack (so move twice, move and attack, attack and move, or attack twice) OR b) move at the same time as the opponent and have the armies react to each other’s actions.
EDIT: Upon further consideration I have decided that the best solution is to keep the square tiles to keep in the spirit of MoM, but lean heavily on the “to hit” mechanic. That way positioning will have a natural use.
“To Hit” is a resource that all troops have. When attacking or being attacked they roll a D2 for every “To Hit” point. Each one that is a success eliminates one of the enemy’s strikes and uses up that “To Hit”. So if a unit is attacked multiple times they will become more and more vulnrable as the "To Hit"s are used up. They are then refilled at the end of the turn.
Finally fix 4X multiplayer!!:
So if you’ve ever played a 4x multiplayer you know the single biggest issue. Waiting. How people play a game where they need to wait up to 10 minutes for the other player to do their thing is beyond me.
So here’s my solution. One action per turn.
Think about it. Not only is that great to keep turns reasonable, but it also gives a nerf to players who are over expanding.
Of course I would include options to set up a series of commands, such as a build queue or instructions for a stack of troops like “explore” or go to this spot on the map.
Winter is coming:
In addition, I’d like to make the map actually go through seasons with ice growing on the bottom of the map, then shifting to the top. During this time cities will rise and dip in food production accordingly making granaries vital to store food in to support larger population.
Additionally, various races will suffer penalties and buffs if they are in a climate they are accustom to. So beastmen would want to avoid tropical climates and prefer winter, while snakemen would prefer deserts. Speaking of which…
Biome-dome:
I would definitely have races prefer different biomes to live in and naturally migrate to cities that support the type of climate prefer. Snakemen like the tropical, Beastmen prefer tundra, halflings prefer grasslands, elfs prefer forests, dwarfs like mountains, goblins like swamps, orcs like deserts, Ribilicous need to be next to water, and humans like mild climates.
Here comes the heat. No saving. Hardcore only:
Yep. I can hear the groans now. Sure, I may make a “practice mode” that limits the difficulty to easy. But as far as the real game, when it comes to posting scores, you can not creep and save. You just need to take your mistakes and live with them.
That said, if I did so I would absolutely have a “save and quit” feature. And I would have a turn by turn quick save in case of crashes. And I would save at the start of combat, but it would assume a total loss if you restart to prevent cheating.
Also, I would have a time spell that lets you jump back in a point of time for a casting cost and maintenance cost per turn to keep up on that point in time. But, maybe not for multiplayer.
Testy-Testy:
Given the nature of the fear/love mechanic, another big part of the game would be strategically positioning troops to create fear. So you take an army and park them outside of a city and that would cause the citizens to lose their minds, making conquering them that much easier.
And of course the AI would do so to test to see what you will do about it. Maybe if you do nothing they get to thinking that there isn’t anything you can do about it.
Under Siege:
Capturing a city is WAY more involved to stop war from becoming a snowball. For starters, city walls are WAY more effective than in MoM, which for the most part were completely useless.
But on the offense side, invaders may siege a city by moving onto the tile but declining to engage. This would cause the city to be forced to use their granary reserves of food as well as increase corruption in the city.
In turn the sieged city can chose to attack, leaving the walls behind. Or, they can use this opportunity to move in the core army.
Note: from here on in all content that is explicitly different or new to MoM will be proceeded by a “*”
Resources
The game will obviously have a variety of resources. Just a run down on them, they will be:
Mana Reserve - Amount of mana you have in reserve for use in spells.
Mana Production - Amount of mana generated each turn.
Magic Research - Amount of research done each turn to learn new spells.
Magic Skill - Amount of mana you may use in a single turn. All skill points not used in combat will go towards spells that you are casting on the map screen over multiple turns.
Gold Reserve - Amount of gold you have that can go towards speeding up production.
Gold Production - Amount of god you make each turn.
Food Production - Amount of food made per turn. Any excess food would be sold off.
*Food Storage - Food stored in granaries on a city by city basis. If a city is under siege (has a enemy unit adjacent to it) then they would need to rely on stored food.
Labor Production - How much production a city makes towards creating units and buildings.
Fame - How likely you are to be approached by merchants, mercenaries, and champions.
*Infamy - How likely you are to be approached by evil merchants, mercenaries, and champions.
Map Screen
Maps will consist of basic tiles on three different climates. In addition, there will be special resources, rival cities, unaffiliated cities, ruins, lairs, dungeons, magic nodes, and portals.
Basic Tiles (tropical, temperate, arctic):
Forests (Jungle, Woods, Forests) - Gives slight production bonus to sawmills.
Thick Forests (Thick Jungle, Woods, Forests) - Gives small production bonus to sawmills.
Mountain (tropical, temperate, arctic) - Gives large production bonus to smiths.
Hill (tropical, temperate, arctic) - Gives medium production bonus to smiths.
Plain (savanna, grassland, tundra) - Produces food.
Wastes (desert, swamp, glacier) - Produces nothing.
Water and Rivers (tropical, temperate, arctic) - Gives bonuses to food and fishing markets.
Reef (tropical only) gives large fishing bonus, but can not be crossed with ship.
Beaches - can be landed.
Coastal cliff - can not be landed.
Resources:
Gems - Large gold bonus for a limited amount.
Gold vein - Medium gold bonus.
Silver - Small gold bonus.
Mithril - Troops made in city (or connected cities) have +1 melee damage.
*Elder Wood - Troops made in city (or connected cities) have +1 ranged damage.
Game - Static bonus to food production.
*Mounts - Allows for troops with that mount in the city (or connected cities).
*Relics - Creates more research.
Combat Zones:
Rival City - A city owned by a rival player.
Unaffiliated City - A city that is not owned by a rival, but may spread to additional cities.
*Lairs - Home of a giant creature. Once defeated you may find items and/or a baby version of the creature which allows you to breed them in beastaries.
Ruins - Ruins which house life or death magic creatures. Inside are random rewards.
*Nature/Sorcery/Chaos Node - A grove inhabited by magic creatures of the affiliated type. Spells of the node type may only be cast. Once cleared you gain power in that type of magic and receive magic production from the tile.
Planar Tower - A tower with all sorts of monster types. Once cleared, it may be used to travel to the other plain through that tile.
*Portals - A portal with all monster types. Once cleared, it may be used to travel to a small, self contained, world. No cities may be built there, but there are various combat zones with rewards.
*Heart of a Portal - A combat zone in a portal with a demi-god creature with the largest rewards in the game.
*Dungeons - A tight area that only allows for single hero units to go into. Inside there are several traps and monsters that may harm your hero. But on there are also chests with items in them and potentially a boss who may drop a large reward.
City Screen
The city screen allows you to view citizens, current structures, resources being generated, and building queues.
*Citizens
As mentioned earlier diversity will play a major key in leveraging your victory. All citizens are not the same. Halflings produce more food. Elfs produce more food with woods. Dwarfs create more labor when mining. Humans are good at keeping the peace. Goblins take up extremely little living space. Orcs make superior troops. And all the while, races are migrating on their own to different cities that best soot them.
Because of this, I’m far more keen to use a citizen allocation similar to Master of Orion 2 than like MoM.
This way you would be able to pick up and move citizens around as you saw fit.
Then you would have people protesting who produce nothing. But they can be controlled with temples, stationing troops in the city, changing their love/fear of them, or if all else fails start killing them off and hang the corpses in the streets to trade off love for fear until they comply. Oh, or you can throw them in shackles. That works too.
Speaking of which, much like MoO2 there will also be slaves. Slaves may not migrate but can be moved where ever you please.
One major downside of slaves is that they do not produce any research, and will only produce the base amount of labor and food, completely ignoring all building benefits, and races tend to REALLY hate being enslaved. Like a lot.
You have a medium love penalty for enslaving protesters. A large one for if you enslave content citizens. And every turn incurs a love penalty. So if you do this you are really shooting yourself in the foot with that entire race.
So you may decide to alternatively release them which will give you some love, but not nearly as much as you lost enslaving them. Freed slaves will roll for who will stay with you and who will leave the kingdom based on the race’s love for you. Fear does not play in effect at all.
On the other hand, you can move slaves to new cities to build the infrastructure since there’s no buildings there to give benefits anyway. And, slave don’t protest. But they will however riot.
Rioters. Oh-boy, you done messed up. Rioters are what happens when protesting goes unnoticed. They are no longer content to not work, now they are actively doing damage to the city. You have three options. Let them burn themselves out and go back to protesting. Increase happiness to help them calm down faster. Or kill them trading off love for fear until they stop.
*Building Buildings
Due to all buildings being immediately available and not requiring research, I’d really like to be able to have a queue that can be filled all the way out so that you don’t need to keep going back to the city again and again.
And, of course, building buildings can be accelerated with gold. I’m not entirely certain how this will be handled yet, though.
*Building Troops
Well for starters, building troops and building buildings are two entirely seperate things. No more will you need to stop production of your town so that you can make more troops to keep it safe.
This has never made sense to me why all 4x games expect you to stop making buildings so that you can make troops.
In terms of logic, why would laborers in the city have any impact what so ever on making troops?!
In terms of gameplay, why would you force the player to shift between these two constantly? What a major pain in the ass! This is a quality of life issue, plain and simple.
*Labor Resource
Labor will be a be made in 3 ways. Every citizen and every military unit will produce at least one point of labor, period. Then citizens placed as laborers will create additional labor. And finally buildings will also increase labor.
There will be 5 main buildings that will increase production.
Sawmills will increase production by a static value for forests in range (plus allow archers). Foresty Guilds will incease production by a percentage for every forest in range (plus food).
Smiths will increase production by a static vlaue for hills and mountains in range. Miners Guilds will increase production by a percentage for every hill or moutain in range (plus gold).
Finally, the Machinists’ Guild will increase all production by a flat percentage.
All excess labor can be converted to building housing for population increase, or trading goods for gold.
*Food (Glorious Food!)
To start, all excess food is halved before it goes to other cities. This will assure that specializing a city takes proper planning.
Also, since there are winters granaries would actually work more like granaries. Rather than increase food production, they would store excess food so that you don’t loose any shipping food there in the winter. And when your city is under siege, you can dip into the granary so your people don’t starve.
Food will come from citizens farming and from grasslands that increase food production by one per farmer. Or water that will do the same. Or food may come from forests given the right buildings or race working.
Starvation is handled by placing the population in a negative growth, as well as making the city and the races in the city hate you.
Lastly, making more food than what is needed does not magically make the population growth go up. No one is having babies because there is more it eat. That’s just stupid. Instead extra food will be sold for gold at a ratio of 4:1. That’s a lousy trade off, but it is better than nothing.
*Research
Just like in MoO2, research will be carried out by assigning citizens to do the research, rather than have a building produce a flat value. And relics and ruins in the area will also increase research done by citizens.
I’m also thinking that I want each city to research its own spells individually, rather than having all research lumped into one thing. The reason why is because doing it city by city means that it will limit the effects of having a larger kingdom and stop expansion from having a cascading effect.
So a mage with twice as many cities will have twice as many spell options, but not necessarily twice as powerful spells.
Mana Generation
I think MoM nailed mana generation. I would do it exactly the same. You can build a shrine and up grade it to a temple, then a Parthenon, and finally a cathedral. Each time it goes up a level it gains 1 mana generation and calms 1 citizen.
Races
As I mentioned earlier, diversity is key and the races all have their own niches that they fill. I’m currently looking at 12 races in all with the potential of breaking them into two groups of 6 (one reserved for an expansion along with other content that pushes the scope too far).
The features that all races have that distinguish them is that they all have different climates they prefer, they all have different land types they prefer, they all have at least one special unit, they all have a special building, have different growth rates, and they all occupy different amounts of living space.
Primary Races
Halfling - Halflings are the second smallest race that excel at spying, farming, and love/fear. They are lousy at combat, but units often have more figures packed in them than most. This means they can take on most multifigure units, but get slaughtered by large single enemies with high armor.
Climate: Temprate
Preferred Tile: Grassland
Temperament: Happy and Fearful
Size: 2 out of 5
Growth: 4 out of 5
Special Unit: Assassin - Invisible on screen and does massive one time damage.
Special Building: Brew House - Better tavern.
Elf - Elfs are extremely nimble and have a significant boost to their “to hit” stat on all units. They get bonus food from all forest tiles.
Climate: Temperate
Preferred Tile: Forest
Temperament: Stoic. Slow shifts in any direction in love or fear
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 2 out of 5
Special Unit: Elven Lord - Best archer in the game.
Special Building: Sacred Tree - Better sawmill.
Dwarf - Dwarves are extremely hardy and have a large amount of hit points, but lacks some “to hit”. They get bonus gold from mountain tiles.
Climate: Temperate and Cold
Preferred Tile: Mountain
Temperament: Grudge holders. Extra love given for taverns and brew houses.
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 3 out of 5
Special Unit: Steam Cannon - Best artillery in the game.
Special Building: Master Forge - Better forge.
Human - Humans are the mild middle race. They are fairly average across the board. They have a bonus towards love and fear in cities they inhabit due to their diplomatic nature.
Climate: Temperate.
Preferred Tile: None.
Temperament: Average up and down for love and fear.
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 3 out of 5
Special Unit: High Priests - Better cleric
Special Building: Cathedral - Better chapel.
Orc - Orcs are very hardy with bonuses to their health and armor, but are also extremely strong giving them even more bonuses to their melee attacks. Other than their military prowess, the race is a struggle to manage and all research done by orcs are halved. But they do farm on wastelands, which is nice.
Climate: Tropical to Temperate.
Preferred Tile: Wasteland
Temperament: Quick to anger, slow to calm. Absolutely fearless. Military increases love.
Size: 4 out of 5
Growth: 4 out of 5
Special Unit: Berserker - Best melee unit in the game that has a throwing bonus.
Special Building: Proving grounds - better training grounds.
Goblin - Goblins are the tiniest race in the game which means that they take up the least amount of space and can pack in cities quickly. Due to their sheer numbers they hold their own in combat, but get destroyed by area effect spells. Larger units, however, are cut down to size with the goblin’s Boom Brigade. Goblins may also farm on swamps.
Climate: Temperate
Preferred Tile: Swamp
Temperament: Slow to love, quick to hate, and always fearful.
Size: 1 out of 5
Growth: 5 out of 5
Special Unit: Boom brigade (explosives on the backs of a handful of goblins)
Special Building: Tinkerer’s shop - better Machinists’ Guild.
Beast Men Expansion
Ribilicous (Name needed) - Ribilicous are an aquatic frog like race that may only move and settle on tiles adjacent to water. This obviously severely limits where they can go, but the pay off is that they are able to move about the map right from the start as all units can cross all water tiles. In addition, Ribilicous receive big bonuses from all water tiles for food making them a good alternative to Halflings to feed your populations. Also, water counts towards living space for Ribilicous.
Climate: Temperate.
Preferred Tile: Water
Temperament: Average love and hate?
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 3 out of 5
Special Unit: Trident Men- Best Spear Men.
Special Building: Fishing Emporium - Better fish market.
Snakemen (Name needed) - Snakemen live in hot desert areas. They have a penalty to “to hit” during combat in cold climates, are generally hateful of other races, and the grow slower than most. However, they are able to travel across shallow water, get food from the desert, eats less than other races, and have a built in poison damage on all troops.
Climate: Tropical
Preferred Tile: Jungle
Temperament: Hateful of other races.
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 2 out of 5
Special Unit: Strikers - Melee unit with a high “to hit” and a high first strike.
Special Building: Pit of Horrors - Better dungeon.
Gnolls - Gnolls are fairly mild across the board. But due to their slightly faster growth rate and the fact they have little competition for land in colder areas, the race succeeds well.
Climate: Cold
Preferred Tile: Tundra
Temperament: Normal love, quick to fear.
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 4 out of 5
Special Unit: Master Ranger - Best ranger.
Special Building: Fur trader - Forests and hunting grounds make gold.
Bugrum - Bugrum are the one race that completely ignores all effects of love and fear. They do not protest or riot. This is because the race is essentially hive minded, and all civilians count as slaves. This drastically limits the usefulness of temples and production buildings for them. However, they they reproduce extremely fast. Have double the living space in all tiles due to being subterranean. And have a natural armor bonus to all units.
Climate: Tropical and Temperate
Preferred Tile: Desert
Temperament: N/A
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 5 out of 5
Special Unit: Queen - A settler who is also a military unit and is present in all settlements.
Special Building: Hive - Increases living space for everyone.
Draken - Draken winged lizard men that live in total isolation. They are always tucked away in far remote locations and do not expand. They are by far the best military units in the game with their large size, ability to fly, and fire breath that does a combat roll on all figures in the enemy stack before the melee phase. However, the are also the slowest growing race in the game and live in locations that are not always suited for great cities. Draken units fly but still move one space per turn.
Climate: All
Preferred Tile: Remote mountain peaks.
Temperament: Extremely stoic
Size: 5 out of 5
Growth: 1 out of 5
Special Unit: Great Drake - A large ferocious single figure unit.
Special Building: Great Walls - Better city walls.
Birdmen - Birdmen are light and so their units have low health and armor in exchange for gaining flight and a bump to “to hit”. Birdmen are also their own mount and may not use one, however all mount resources on the map serve as hunting grounds for them. In addition Birdment move 2 spots per turn making them the fastest units.
Climate: Cold
Preferred Tile: Forest
Temperament: Quick to Love, slow to fear.
Size: 3 out of 5
Growth: 3 out of 5
Special Unit: Wind Dervish - Melee unit with potential to do devastating damage to enemies without any "to hit"s left.
Special Building: Sun stone - A defensive tower that generates mana.
Combat Screen
Coming soon
Units
Units are the collective troops that occupy a single tile. A unit may have one or more figures. Generally speaking units with more figures will have more hits, but they will generally be weaker. This means that units with more figures are better at taking down the opponent’s “to hit” points, while larger units with less figures will be better at taking out units with large amounts of armor and health.
Generally speaking though, it is better to be larger with fewer figures because “to hit” can eventually be overcome with perseverance, but armor can not. Also, lots of figures in one unit are very vulnerable to area damage, such as a fireball or fire breath.
Basic Units
Spearmen - Spearmen are immediately available in every city without any buildings at all. And while they are first available, they can hold their own and prove worth while as new buildings will scale their stats. Spearmen do not have as much armor as other melee units due to lacking a shield. This is made up for by the use of “first strike”, meaning that spearmen will resolve their attack before the enemy. Often this may result in less figures during the retaliation or eliminating the unit all together without taking damage.
Warriors - Warriors are available upon completing the smith. They may have all type of weapons, in all sizes, and with all sizes of shields. Each weapon type has its own specific benefits:
Blades - Allows for up to 2 additional strikes.
Swords - Allows for up to 1 additional strike and is twice as effective against armor.
Spear (made through spearmen) - Is three times as effective against armor.
Mace - Hits remove one “to hit” from the enemy and is twice as effective against armor.
Hammer - Hits remove two "to hit"s from the enemy.
Ax - Hits remove one “to hit” from the enemy and allows for up to one additional strike.
Meanwhile, Weapon sizes may go up in size to increase damage or down to increase the number of attacks. And shields may go up in size to increase armor, or down to increase the "to hit"s.
Bowmen - Bowmen are made available when the sawmill is made. They have a limited amount of shots, but can lower enemy numbers dramatically before the fight even starts.
Halberd - Halberd units are available upon creating the Machinists’ Guild. They are similar to the spearmen in that they use first strike rather than heavy armor. However, unlike spearmen they get a more diverse spectrum of benefits. They receive up to on additional strike when successful, double effective against armor, and the remove one “to hit” upon a successful strike.
Catapult - Available when Machinists’ Guild is built.
Scout - A tiny ship that is fast, but may not enter the open sea without other ships present.
Trireme - A small ship capible of open sea travel. Can carry a small number of Units.
Galley - A large ship made for troop transport.
Warship - A massive ship made explicitly for warfare.
Clerics - Available when a temple is made, clerics have weak ranged attacks but can heal ally units.
Mages - Are available when a library is made, and do a devastating area ranged attack that can wipe out whole units with multiple figures.
Duel Class Units
Duel classes are a unit that have the best benefits of both classes at the cost of the 50% more time than the most expensive unit. They are available after building the War College.
Druid - Druids are a combination of mages and clerics. They require Temple and Magic School.
Battle Mage - Battle Mages are Mages that have the melee capabilities of Warriors. They require Smith and the Library.
Paladin - Paladins are Warriors with healing capabilities and ranged magic attacks. They require Smith and the Shrine.
Ranger - Rangers are Warriors with Archery capabilities. They require Smith and Sawmill.
Mounts
Once a mount resource is available a stable can be made and the mount may be made. All mounts have the same base stat as a warrior, but have the added benefit of the mount they are given.
Horse
Worg
Totally not a Chocobo
Mamoth
Unicorn
Pegasis
Griffin
Wyvern
Specialty Units
Assassin (Halfling) - Assassins are invisible on the world map and are initially invisible on combat screen. Upon their first attack they do double damage with that ignores “to hit”. After the initial attack they are no longer invisible.
Elven Lord (Elf) - Elven Lords are the best archers in the game. They fire three shots per attack.
Steam Cannon (Dwarf) - Steam Cannons are superior versions of catapults. They explode on contact and do area damage.
High Priest (Human) - High Priests are clerics that heal for twice as much as a cleric.
Berserker (Orc) - Beserkers are the best melee unit in the game. Hits remove two “to hit” from the enemy and allows for up to two additional strike. In addition they have Throw ability which is a single roll of damage before Fire Breath and First Strike, while still able to hit flying targets.
Boom Brigade (Goblin) - Boom Brigade are ballistic units that explode when they attack an enemy doing massive area effect damage.
Master Ranger (Gnoll) - Master Rangers are available with only a Smith or a Sawmill and have a bonus to movement.
Striker (Snakemen) - Strikers replace Halberds and have a high “to hit” bonus and Poison.
Trident (Ribilicous) - Tridents are available right from the start of every city. They have bonus “to hit”.
Queen (Bugrum) - Queens replace the Settler Unit. They are extremely large with high health and armor. When they settle a new city they are available for combat when defending. If they are lost in combat the city is unable to do anything until a new one is built.
Great Drake (Draken) - Great Drakes are a large single figure unit with high health, armor, and damage.
Wind Dervish (Birdmen) - Wind Dervishes are duel bladed warriors that are capable of doing four consecutive attacks. They have potential to do extremely high damage to units without an “to hit” points.
Beasts
(Wild)
Centaurs
Titan
Colossus
Cyclops
Minotaur
Behemoth
Basilisk
War Bears
Giant Spiders
Great Spider
Wyrm
Gorgon
Manticore
Doom Drake
Storm Drake
Ice Drake
Fire Drake
(Wind)
Storm Elemental
Rok
Djinn
(Chaos / Fire)
Fire Elemental
Hell Hounds
Minions
Hellfire Bat
Efreet
Demon
Demon Lord
(Sorcery / Water)
Water Elemental
Hydra
Dragon Turtle
Kraken
Phantom Warriors
Phantom Beast
(Nature / Earth)
Earth Elemental
Werewolf
Deadly Swarm
Pixies
Ent
Sprigan
Man Eater
(Holy / Light)
Spirit
Cherub
Angel
Arch Angel
Holy Knight
(Death / Dark)
Skeleton
Zombie
Ghouls
Wraith
Lich
Vampire
Death Knight
(Arcane)
Wisp
Mana Beast
(Tech)
Mech
Airship
Champions
Buildings
Sawmill - All forests give +1 production. Allows Archers and Rangers (with forge).
Sacred Tree (Elf only) - Replaces sawmill. +1 production and +1 food per forest. All ranged attacks gain +1 damage. Allows Archers, Rangers (with forge), and Elven Lords.
Forestry Guild - All forests add +5% production and +1 food. All ranged attacks gain +1 damage.
Smith - All mountains give +1 production. All units gain +1 melee and +1 Armor.Allows for Warriors, Rangers (with Sawmill or Sacred Tree), Paladins (with Chapel), and Battle Mage (with Wizards’ Guild).
Master Smith (Dwarf only) - Replaces forge. All mountains give +2 production. Allows for Warriors, Rangers (with Sawmill or Sacred Tree), and Steam Cannon (with Machinists’ Guild).
Miners’ Guild - All mountains add +5% production and +1 gold.
Machinists’ Guild - Increases all production by 50%. Allows construction of catapults, engineers, and halberds.
Tinkerer’s Shop (Goblin only) - Adds a flat 10 production. Allows for Boom Brigade (Goblin only) and all catapults are now throw bombs.
Market - Each citizen add +1 gold (per living space occupied).
Bank - All gold production is increased by 50%.
Farmer’s Market - All farm tiles now produce +1 gold.
Fish Market - All water tiles now produce +1 gold.
Fishing Emporium (Ribilicous only) - All water tiles produce +2 gold.
Fur Trader (Gnoll only) - All forests, mount resources, and game resources produce gold.
Granary - Food production does not drop during winter and sieges.
Mill - All grasslands produce +1 food.
Port - Generates +5 gold a turn, increases migration, and increases appearances of merchants and mercenaries.
Light House - Generates +5 gold a turn, increases migration, and increases appearances of merchants and mercenaries.
City Walls - Defensive barrier for the city. Can be improved 3 times.
Great Walls (Draken only) - A forth level wall that can not be passed by flying units.
Moat - A water barrier around the city that prevents ground units from crossing on foot.
Sun Stone (Birdmen only) - A defensive tower that generates +3 mana a turn and shoot a beam at enemy units in combat. Allows for Wind Dervishes (Birdmen only).
Barracks - Increases unit production speed by 50%. Increases the effects of units in the city.
Training Grounds - Increases unit production by 50%. Units in the city receive XP every turn, capping off at 2 levels below max.
Proving Grounds (Orc Only) - Replaces Training Grounds. Increases unit production by 50%. Units in the city receive more XP every turn, capping off at 1 levels below max. Allows Berserkers (Orc only).
War College - All units start as veterans. Allows commanders.
Stables - Allows production of mounted units.
Beastiary - Allows production of Beasts. Allows for great drakes (Draken only).
Shrine - Produces +1 mana and calms 10% of the citizens. Allows production of clerics.
Temple - Requires and replaces Shrine. Produces +2 mana and calms 20% of the citizens. Clerics start as veterans. Allows for druids (with magic school).
Chapel - Requires and replaces Temple. Produces +3 mana and calms 30% of the citizens. Clerics start as Elite. Allows Paladins (with smith).
Cathedral (Humans only) - Requires and replaces Chapel. Produces +4 mana and calms 40% of the citizens. Allows production of High Priests.
Library - Research is doubled. Allows Mages.
Magic School - Research is tripled. Mages start as Veterans. Allows Druids (with Temple).
Wizard’s Guild - Research is quadrupled. Allows battle mages (with Smith).
Inn - Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Tavern - Increases love, but decreases fear. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Theater - Increases love. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Brew House (Halflings only) - Replaces tavern. Significantly increases love and does not decrease fear. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Arena - Increases love and fear. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Gallows - Increases fear, but decreases love. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Dungeon - Increases fear. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Pit of Horrors (Snakemen only) - Replaces dungeon. Significantly increases fear. Increases the migration to the city and increases merchant and mercenaries appearance.
Hive (Bugrum only) - Increases the living space of a city by a flat amount.
*Magic
Magic spells are largely unchanged from MoM. HOWEVER, the methods in which they are researched are DRASTICALLY different.
To start, the books on the character creation screen no longer decide what spells can be researched and rather all spells can be researched. They will now have other effects that will be further discussed in the Mages section.
Also, there is not one single spell being researched with all research being accumulated. Instead, it is done per city. This will allow players to keep in the game with fewer cities, while player who do have more cities will be allowed more variety.
And spells will no longer be randomly pulled from a list thrown in as an option. Instead once again I will be pulling a page from Master of Orion and have a research MOSTLY similar to MoO2.
So there will be different categories, in this case schools of magic, and each category has 10 tiers, and each tier has ~3 spells each. So 6 magics * 10 tiers * 3 spells giving a total of 180 spells.
Now here’s how it differs from MoO2. You can research any spell at any time on any tier. The difference is that you get a discount on the cost for everything researched before that tier.
So let’s say that tier 10 spells cost 10,000 research points. But you do a level 1 Tier spell for 100 research, 25% of the cost goes towards the spells above it and Tier 10 now costs 9,975 research.
EDIT: Okay, I think I have the math now. For the first pick of a tier 5% of the cost go towards tiers above it and in the current tier, and 1% goes towards all other schools.
The cost of spells on each tier are:
100 RP
250 RP
450 RP
700 RP
1,000 RP
1,350 RP
1,750 RP
2,200 RP
2,700 RP
3,250 RP
And the Master Spell costs 10,000 RP.
Arcane Spells
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
Tier 9
Tier 10
Node Mastery (Global) - Gain control of every node, giving you all the mana you could ever want AND take away mana from all enemy nodes. This is locked in to the first player to cast it.
Life Spells
Tier 1
Guardian Spirit (Summon) - Summons a flying spirit that can capture nodes.
Prayer (Effect) - Grants one armor, one resistance, and one “To Hit” to every unit on the field.
Bless (Buff) - Increases accuracy and allows Unit to hit physically immune creatures.
Tier 2
Heal (Effect) - Restore health to a unit.
Smite (Attack) - Sends down a single bolt of holy lightning doing high damage. Effective against single figure units, not very effective against multi-figure units.
True Sight (Buff) - Can see invisible creatures.
Tier 3
Cherubs (Summon) - Summons tiny angels with ranged attacks that may also charm.
Divine Light (City) - Inhabitants of the city have increased love of you. This can apply to any city, yours, a neutral, or a rival.
Just Cause (Global) - Twice as likely to have merchants, mercenaries, refugees, and heroes come to you.
Tier 4
Holy Armor (Buff) - Adds 3 resistance and armor.
Holy Weapon (Buff) - Adds 3 magic damage to each strike. This damage is separate from the physical damage and rolls against resistance.
Convert (Effect) - Attempt to capture a rival unit based on their love of you.
Tier 5
The Prophet (Summon) - Summons The Prophet, a hero unit that scales exponentially in power with experience. If the Prophet dies they my be summoned again, retaining all of their experience, but the cost goes up each revive. The Prophet may not be summoned if The Anti-Prophet is in your command.
Regeneration (Buff) - Unit heals a portion of health every combat turn and completely heals at the end of combat.
Crusade (Global) - All Units are trained faster.
Tier 6
Tier 7
Angel (Summon) - Summons a strong flying melee unit that may also heal.
Harmony (Global) - All races love one another in your cities.
Tier 8
Mass Healing (Effect) - Heals all units on the field.
Resurrect (Effect) - Return unit to combat with 25% hit points.
Omnipresence (Global) - See all cities locations and examine them.
Tier 9
Arch Angel (Summon) - Summons a fierce flying melee unit that also buffs all other units on the field. Arch Angels are stronger than the prophet at first, but the prophet will pass them about 1/2 up their levels.
Omnipotent (Global) - All castings act as though you are present. Casting skill is refilled for each battle.
Invulnerable (Buff) - All strikes subtract 5 damage before doing defense rolls.
Tier 10
Rapture (Global) - All citizens are taken out of all cities and placed in the capital city. Additional citizens are taken from rival cities based on the city and their race’s love for you. The capital is now only reachable by flying creatures, has no limit to population, and has large bonuses to production, research, unit production, and farming is completely eliminated. Oh, and all units now fly.
Death Spells
Tier 1
Ritual (Effect) - Takes away one armor, one resistance, and one “To Hit” to every enemy unit on the field.
Curse (DeBuff) - Decreases the Unit’s accuracy and makes them twice as susceptible to other Debuffs.
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
The Anti-Prophet (summon)- Summons The Anti-Prophet, a hero unit that scales exponentially in power with experience. If the Anti-Prophet dies they my be summoned again, retaining all of their experience, but the cost goes up each revive. The Anti-Prophet may not be summoned if The Prophet is in your command.
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
Tier 9
Tier 10
Apocalypse (global) - Every single unit that dies becomes a wild undead unit. All undead units who you encounter become yours. All undead units also cost nothing to maintain. If another player has this on they can also take undead units.
Sorcery Spells
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
Tier 9
Tier 10
Attrition (Global) - All spells cost half as much to cast and to maintain, and all enemies pay double. If another player has this on they will also only pay half costs.
Chaos Spells
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
Tier 9
Mark of the Phoenix (Buff) - At the end of combat unit is brought back to life if battle is won.
Tier 10
Arch Mage (Global) - All attack spells are double damage, cost half as much, and can be cast twice per turn.
Nature Spells
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
Tier 9
Tier 10
Gaia’s Wrath (Global) - Wild creatures are generated across the entire map and attack every other player. Also natural disasters ravage all rivals. If another player has this on they will not be attacked or receive natural disasters as well.
Mages
Coming Soon
Random Events
Coming soon
Moreover, you would also “draw” them like in card game and can put them board? That would turn this game into really interesting skill and intellect based game, where no randomness is involved in “combat” mechanic itself, but the game is still unpredictable and different from battle to battle. That’s what I meant by elimination of randomness. But since you can’t just “draw” units during combat or do some other stuff like that, you may still randomize stats of units a little bit and make them train/improve randomly after combat. So the same human footman may differ from other human footman, thus making battles different, because sometimes he may have a little more HP, or better armor or more damage, thus changing the way you act in combat for max efficiency. As you can see, it’s still randomness and luck in “leveling up”, but it’s controlled luck, because you know what stats he increased and you’ll later use it in combat. Something like that.
