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Arnor as a standalone faction

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kmogon:
Arnor as a standalone faction conceptHello my fellow edainers !
I would like to share with you my thoughts on Arnor as a separate faction. This is not too much. due to my limited time, I am not able to think about everything yet, but I will gladly present what I have so far.
So...
The core concept:
The once proud kingdom of Arnor, now divided into three smaller principalities. It is up to the player whether he wants to revive the former kingdom or accept its fall and fight the evil forces with even more stubbornness.
The mechanics of Arnor are as follows. The player begins with the option of building Arthedain barracks. By building Cardolan’s and Rhundaur’s settlements player receives access to build their barracks. Each new barracks increases it’s level and level of all other barracks. After building all three barracks, the player gets the opportunity to build one of two special buildings. Each of them provides significant upgrades and heroic units that are important in the late game.
All Arnor units, except Rangers form the Barrows, are basic units. However, upgrading them with Numerian armor or dunedain craftmaship improves them much more than in the case of upgrades from other factions.
An alternative are the elves from Lindon outpost which at the start are equipped with heavy armor and deal more damage to buildings.

Buildings:

Arthedain barracks:
Level 1
- Arthedain men-at-arms – basic infantry equiped with swords. They are lightly armored – you can see only some parts of real armor like shoulders or rusty chestplate.
-Arthedain guards – pikemen unit equpied with spears and large shields. Similar in look with men-at-arms.
Level 2
- Arthedain riders – basic cavalry equiped with lances and shields. Good at trampling, not so good at hand-to-hand combat.
- banner carrier – allows you to upgrade your units with banner carrier.
Level 3
- Fornost defenders – basic infantry but with better stats than men-at-arms. Equiped with swords and shields. Gain additional armor when near buildings.

Rhundaur outpost:
Level 1
-Rhundaur partisans – units equiped with spears, can stealth near trees. Have slightly better stats than Arthedain guards. Deal additional damage to buildings.
Level 2
-Rhudaur archers – basic archer unit with ability to be stealth near trees and to temporary change their weapon for swords.
Level 3
-forged blades – allows your units to be equiped with foged blades.

Cardolan ebassy :
Level 1
- Cardolan knights – slow moving, heavy hitting cavalry. Equiped with swords and shields.
Level 2
- Rangers form the Barrows – the only elite unit you can buy from inside the castle. Rangers similar to one from current Arnor dunedain’s camp.
Level 3
- fire arrows  - allows your units to be equiped with fire arrows.

After building all three structures you gain access to two new buildings. You have to choose which one will you build as you can have only one at a time.

Palantir’s keep:

Three kingdoms unites under one banner. Arnor become kingdom again.

Numenorean armor – allows you to equip your units with special heavy armor which grants much better protection than normal heavy armor. In addition it also icreases armor of nearby Arnor heroes and elven units.

Annuminas Knights – heoric sword unit limited to 3. Has ability to mount horses.

Palantir – player gains ability to reveal choosen part of the map. It can be also used on military buildings to temporaty increase production speed or on economic buildings to temporary increase their income.

Dunedain headquarters:
Three realms accept the fate and hide in the woods to prepare for enemy.

Dunedain craftmanship – allows player to upgrade his units with dunedain craftmanship. It increases their damage and attack speed . Allows all units to hide near trees.

Arannath’s Company – heroic unit limited to 3. Has abiility to change their weapons between bows and spears.

Ambush – choosen units become stealth when standing still. If the enemy enters ambush area several duneain rangers will appear. They will slown down units with every hit.  In addition stealthed units will gain small bonus to attack speed and armor.
 
Well

Workshop
TBD

Statue of Elendil

Settlements:

Rhundaur camp  - expensive resource structure. Decrease cost of rhundaur units. Is guarded by several rhundaur partisans. Grants damage buff to all nearby units. Unlocks Rhundaur outpost.

Cardolan barrow - expensive resource structure. Decrease cost of cardolan units. Is guarded by several stealthed barrow guardians. Grants armor buff to all nearby units. Unlocks Cardolan ebassy

Outposts
Arthedain outpost - normal outpost with three building plots

Lindon outpost - Grants you access to elite elven and gondor units as well as powerfull heroes.
 - Lindon glavesmen - elite elven pike unit with additional damage against swords and buildings. Comes with heavy armor equiped for the start.
- Lindon Borderguards - elite cavalry archer units , equiped with bows. Comes with heavy armor equiped for the start
- Gondorian allies - elite sword infantry. Equiped with heavy armor form the start. Grants small armor and damage boost to all Arnor units


This is all for now, sorry for this but I just wanted to share what was in my mind for so long that I was afraid  I will forget it. I will continue it whenever I will have some free time.
And I will gladly hear all your opinions, suggestions ideas and feedback.

FG15:
I count four fortress buildings already. If we add the workshop as another necessary building that gives the faction 5 different must have buildings inside the fortress, which is quite much.
Comparing that to Gondor, the faction with the largest amount of buildplots in the game: Gondor has 6 necessary buildings, of which 1 is a resource building, another is the Workshop, which isn't necessary until really late in the game, and furthermore Gondor can skip either Archer Range or Stables (or even Barracks). To sum this up, Gondor effectively has only 3 necessary non-resource buildings inside the fortress, while your Arnor would have 5.

Moreover, limiting the number of buildings of the same type doesn't work with the buildplot system.


--- Zitat ---- Fornost defenders – basic infantry but with better stats than men-at-arms. Equiped with swords and shields. Gain additional armor when near buildings.
--- Ende Zitat ---
Also, aren't those basically Elite units?

kmogon:
I was thinking about to many building too. And if that's the big problem I think that workshop can be deleted and siege engines can be distributed among three realms buildings. About Palantir's keep and Dunedain headquaters if there is no possibility to make build limit restrictions I would move whole system to the citadel. It would be an upgrade which would change base apperance and unlock new features inside it.
And by duing those changes Arnor has 3 mandatory biildings now while it gets fully roster with 2 of them.

About Fornost soldiers I was thinking about them as dwarven soldiers compared to lake town ones. Or better as uruk hai equals - so tanky infantry but not elite one. That's because I wanted to make numenorean armor or dunedain craftmanship significant upgrade in late game. Due to that Arnor has nearly no access to elite units inside the base.

FG15:
Then there would nonetheless be a building that could do the economy upgrades, if they weren't in the workshop.


Build Limit restrictions are impossible, but both could be combined into a single building and the player had to choose once which one of them he wanted. (So basically the same, but a different implementation)


Isengard has 3 kinds of basic swordsmen: Uruks, Scouts and Wildmen. Of those the latter two are really specialized, therefore it works. For a faction with regular basic infantry it wouldn't really work out that well. Those units would be too similar, if none of those had some heavy specialization.
The dwarves on the other hand suffer already from the problem. Laketown infantry is far too similar to the normal one and therefore is hardly used at all.


Also, I believe being able to either buy heavy armor or forged blades, but having those upgrades enhanced is already enough of a downside. That is a similar system to Loriens were the double forged blade upgrade is balanced, too.

Another different question. What makes the faction unique in your opinion?

kmogon:

--- Zitat ---Then there would nonetheless be a building that could do the economy upgrades, if they weren't in the workshop.


Build Limit restrictions are impossible, but both could be combined into a single building and the player had to choose once which one of them he wanted. (So basically the same, but a different implementation)
--- Ende Zitat ---

So if that wouldn't be a problem I would implement "fate of Arnor" system and eco upgrades into one building. On the other hand I will think about it how it could be implemented in a different way.


--- Zitat ---Isengard has 3 kinds of basic swordsmen: Uruks, Scouts and Wildmen. Of those the latter two are really specialized, therefore it works. For a faction with regular basic infantry it wouldn't really work out that well. Those units would be too similar, if none of those had some heavy specialization.
The dwarves on the other hand suffer already from the problem. Laketown infantry is far too similar to the normal one and therefore is hardly used at all.
--- Ende Zitat ---

Then there would be need to differentiate those units more. I have noted that and will think about what can be done.



--- Zitat ---Also, I believe being able to either buy heavy armor or forged blades, but having those upgrades enhanced is already enough of a downside. That is a similar system to Loriens were the double forged blade upgrade is balanced, too.
--- Ende Zitat ---

I don't know if I understand correctly. Numenorian armor is suppose to be enough upgrade to match other factions' late game armies. On the other hand there will be Dunedain craftmanship which would allow for more tactical thinking. Forged blades and fire arrows would be normaly obtainable. If player would need support of some heavier units there would always be lindon warriors.



--- Zitat ---Another different question. What makes the faction unique in your opinion?
--- Ende Zitat ---
I think that this faction uniqness lies in the fact that player has more variety in how his late game will be looking.  Most of the factions has one way of entering the late game. Here you can either go for heavy equiped army supported by charismatic heores or for guerilla tactic with more damage output.
Also I can say that barracks system is pretty unique because you can choose which of two kingdoms you would start the medium game with ,each giving different opportuinities.

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