King`s Bounty: Warriors of the North announced

[Rah]

More on unit specialization:

Siege units have the Guard ability - this means they could be assigned to guard an adjacent friendly stack - this could happen before the battle (via special menu), in the tactics mode, or changed in every round - activated ability when Siege units do not move.

Siege unit guarding a stack of spellcasters:

Enemy moves and tries to attack directly the spellcasters - what happens is that the Siege guards attack the enemy, enemy unit retaliates and its attack is wasted on the Guards, it does not attack the spellcasters. This gives the possibility to cover weak units with stronger ones. Siege guards could do this once per round and only if the enemy moves to the guarded stack, if enemy unit is already adjacent to it (from the previous round), guarding does not happen.

Archers: defensive fire, activated ability for ALL ranged units, when activated it lasts until end of battle or when the defended stack moves and it uses all AP for that round of archers.
In this example archers are defending an adjancent stack, when enemy comes and attacks the guarded stack, archers shot at enemy, enemy attacks the guarded stack and than its attack is retaliated - enemy suffers double damage. Only one defensive fire per round per stack of archers is allowed and only if the archers could normally shoot - i.e. no enemies around them - some archers could have the point blank shot ability, which enables them to shoot even if enemies are around.

Siege units could defend Archers and Archers could defend Siege units - this is just an example for synergy.

Spellcasters attacked:
All spellcasters that have magic bolt attack (or ranged magical attack) when enemy rushes on them, and the spellcasters could retaliate, spellcasters have first strike ability - this comes from their training in the magical arts. If the enemy is attacking them without moving prior that, this does not happen - retaliation is normal.

Flyers attacked:
When Flyers are not covered (no enemies adjacent to them), they float in air and take only half damage, than retaliate normally.

Cavalry could have the Trample ability - when attacking in a straight line and 3 or more hexes between them and their target - they could damage adjacent enemy units that are near that line - for 1/5 of their damage. Cavalry has the Charge bonus +10% more damage per hex.

[Rah]

On resistances:

By now we have physical, magical, poison, fire and astral resistance.

I propose a new resistance system with 3 might and 3 magical attacks/resistances:

Pierce - i.e. archers and cavalry (Skeletons/Liches/Bone Dragons with higher pierce resistance)
Slash - i.e. Infantry
Crush - i.e. Siege

Ice - water/ice/poison attacks
Fire - obvious
Lightning - thunder, lightning and magic attacks

Astral attack is very rare and there is NO astral resistance.

Some units could have special mixed attacks, for example a Spellcaster with Dark Bolt attack which takes the lowest from Ice/Fire/Lightning value and the attack is calculated against it. Or mixed phisical attack which is calculated against the lowest phisical resistance (the lowest from pierce, slash, crush armor) - maybe for Bone Dragons which are attacking with claws and theets - pierce and slashing, with their weight trampling the target - which is a crushing attack.

Or just any combination:
I.E. Ice Guards that have Ice Spears and do 10 pierce damage and 5 ice damage - calculated against the pierce and ice resistance - as in the old system. Or Valkyries with flaming swords - that do 15 slashing and 10 fire damage.

All efects are calculating against the resistances, vs. full resistance value or half of it - the last means 50% ice resistance gives you 25% chance to avoid a freezing effect, but you still take 50% less ice damage.

Chance for phisical stun is calculated vs. Crush resistance.
Bleeding vs. slash resistance
Cripple/slow vs. pierce resistance.
The chance for freezing/poisoning is calculated against the ice resistance.
Burning and Blind against the fire resistance.
Magic Stun/Deaf/Confusion against lightning resistance.

Or another way to do this:
At the moment the system works like this:
Snakes i.e. have 30% chance to poison you and you are rolling d100 vs 30, if you roll low number you are poisoned.

The idea is:
Snakes with 30% poison chance - first the system rolls d100 vs 30 - the attack will be poisoning, than 50% ice resistance means 25% chance to avoid poisin, d100 vs. 25 and than it is decided if the unit is poisoned or not. The first roll could be defended for lower/higher probability like this: if the first two rolls are negative, the third is always positive, if the first two rolls are positive, the third is always negative - in the past I have had battles with my snakes where 90% of their attacks cause poison, which is just too much. This will enable units with very high fire resistances like demons to be saved most of the time from burning, not like at the moment - or undead from poison.

Furthermore poison/burning effects could be modified by the units - beasts suffer only one round of poisin, demons suffer only one round of burning, instead of 3, ice creatures - only one round of freeze etc.

[Rah]

And finally some unit ideas:

Humans:
Guard - Siege
Halberdier - Infantry
Archer - Ranged

Priest - Spellcaster
Silver Knight - Flyer (lady knight in silver armor riding a winged Pegasi)
Witch Hunter - Siege with large anti-mages damage bonus

Paladin - Siege
Mystic - Spellcaster
Knight - Infantry
Cavalier - Cavalry

Angel of Light
Angel of Mercy - resurrecting ability
Angel of Judgment - bane ability (The last idea I proposed to a friend of mine that works for Ubisoft for Heroes V and on the heroescommunity forum, they took it, twisted it and gave birth to an Angel with two blades in Heroes 6 which I do not like)

Elves:

Pixie - water attack
Sprite - lightning attack
Nixie - fire attack

Sentry - the good old double shooting Elf
Fire Beetle - cavalry
Spriggan - Infantry
Arcane Archer - advanced Ranged unit with magic arrows like Fire Ball, Ice Gust and Thunder strike
Druid - among other abilities +1 luck to all beasts
Hypogriff - flying deer
Unicorn - cavalry
Sun Pegasus - not-mounted Pegasus
Moon Priestess - Spellcaster
Mantis - flyer
Phoenix

Northern race with dwarves:

Axe Master - ranged
Stone Crusher - Siege hammer dwarf
Winter Wolf - infantry

Frost Troll - two headed troll, which regenerates when shooting with ice balls
Valkyrie - spellcaster
Battle Boar - another Northern mythical unit, Battle Boars are made from metal according to some northern legends
Rune Lord - Siege
Griffon - flyer - I think the griffon suits much more the northern theme, than forests/humans.
Rock/Frost/Storm Giant as champion

Night breed:
Gnome
Hag
Warg

Moon Stalker - werewolf archer
Impaler - werewolf siege
Witcher - werewolf spellcaster

Banshee - if we tweak the myths a little bit, this could be the soul of a evel sorceress that intentionally left her body to gain more control over magic - they are not undead, because their bodies still live somewhere hidden but in a deep sleep state and the spirit wanders around.

Blackguard - black ogre Siege unit
Nightmare - monstrous giant spider unit that was soaked with so much dark magic that it now projects it around - Cavalry with many special abilities.

Witch King - Giant Nazgul like unit - Spellcaster

Gorgon - Medusa like spellcaster
Chimera - changeling unit - can assume the form of a Drake, dark winged lion or a giant black cobra each form with different abilities.
Mind Tyrant - mind overlord unit

Reaver - champion unit of ancient times, could be the main villian of an expansion

Lizards:
Hissing One - cobra man Infantry
Dragon Fly - flying unit
Lizard Sniper - ranged unit with poison dart firing pipe.

Blackscale Assasin - Infantry
Greenscale Hunter - Infantry
Basilisk - cavalry

Yuan Ti - male naga unit
Sky Serpent - chinese dragon unit
Wyvern - flyer

Hydra that shoots either ice (Cryo Hydra) or fire (Pyro Hydra)

Infernal units:
Imp
Magog - giant fire shooting worm
Cambion - demonic human offspring with wings - like redskinned living gargoyle and a fire sword

Succubus - spellcaster
Cerberus - cavalry
Unitaur - single horned demon
Crucitaur - upgraded horned demon

Abyss Fiend - four winged demon
Infernal Exarch - twisted centaur like demon with 6 legs and a halberdier
Gate Keeper - demon summoner

Archdemon/Balor

[johnancient]

@Rah

Luck, Specialization, more resistances..
I thought you said more statistics are bad?

[Totoro]

Agree with johnancient.

Crit chance and minimum-maximum damage already works as a luck factor.

Also I wouldn't like units that use some existing unit as a base and just adds an adjective in front of a name. Imo every unit should be an unique monster.

[langtu87]

I think the game should add more requirement for using units. Example: add skill system, if you use thorn or defeat enemy has thorn, you gain some using thorn skill exp; if you use archer class unit or defeat enemy has them, you gain some using archery skill exp; if you want have thorn royal in your army, you need get 100k using thorn skill exp, 50k archery skills exp. The requirement
will make player using more unit than using some unit for all combat.\
I think requirement should random (ex: Black Dragon at agame require 100k giant slayer exp, another game require 50k using dragon exp, other require 200k master fire exp ) when start new game so player alway think new strategy for each game.
The achiement system should has more achievement and more level, replace the using quantity requirement by quality requirement (example instead of cast 50 fire arrow spell, the requirement should be do 100k dmg for enemy)

[Fatt_Shade]

@langtu87 I`m sorry man, i cant agree with you on using units exp system This game works on static exp system, because when you start new game all enemy creeps/items/castle-shop inventory/quest rewards ... all this is already determined, so it can happen that some things aren`t at disposal so some of you`re ideas couldn`t be achieved

if you want have thorn royal in your army, you need get 100k using thorn skill exp, 50k archery skills exp. The requirement will make player using more unit than using some unit for all combat

On difference from HoMM series where you could got to wandering monsters, new enemy come every new week/month in King`s bounty all enemy are on positon from game start, until you kill them.
As for unit exp system/ individual skills if you played Red sands mod for CW that is already done, and it`s really good balanced. And it`s rewarding for using same unit choice throughout game

Black Dragon at a game require 100k giant slayer exp, another game require 50k using dragon exp

How will you get all that exp for using certain unit type before almost end of game ?
Medals/achievement are nicely balanced in my opinion, if you want some of them make effort if not dont strive for them

instead of cast 50 fire arrow spell, the requirement should be do 100k dmg for enemy

This is OK for mage, but what about warrior/paladin, their spell related medals aren`t connected with dmg. Also if trap medal get connected with dmg only mage will be possible to lvl it. If you saw Adventure mod, for AP there is 5lvls of medals, with you`re idea no1 would be able to get 4/5 lvl.