alternative upgrade speculation

[Zamolxis]

I thought the Elves were evil already. I was actually hoping for alternate Treants & Dragons with more friendly faces. :p

[ThunderTitan]

They're not evil, they just have sticks up in the wrong place...

[Zamolxis]

And those demonic eyes...?

[ThunderTitan]

What part of "sticks up in the wrong place" do you not get?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Nival has a track record of making changes that weaken the already weak academy so here is what I see coming:

Academy
1. Masterless Gremlin-- gremlin has -1 attack, +1 defense, no shooting ability and a 95% chance of deserting the heroe. His attack is a scratch attack with his long fingernails. A successful attack will tear away his fingernails, thus rendering him unable to attack again.

2. Chiped Obsidian Gargoyle - lower defense and an attack of one. 5% chance of an obsidian chip striking an ememy unit and 95% chance of 95 obsidian chips striking adjacent friendly units.

3. Rusted Golem - lowered defense and attack, 1% chance of lowering the attack and defense of enemy units by 1(due to a slight rusting of the units armor and weapon), 95% chance of lowering the attack and defense of adjacent friendly units by 14.

4. Forgetful Archmage - The archmage gets more spells but casts random spells on random units. He cannot be controled by the player and is equally likely to cast beneficial spells on enemy units and destructive spells on allies.

5. Dethroned Djiin Sultan - You can only have one DDS in your army. He lowers morale of friendly creatures by 5, has a lower attack and a defense of 0. He has a 75% chance of his random spells backfiring, causing damage to each friendly unit on the battlefield.

6. Handless Rakhassa - He has all his arms, but his hands have been amputated. Attack 1 (he kicks), defense 1. He can attempt a bludgeon attack for no damage that has a 5% chance of stunning ememy units for a 1% loss of current initiative.

7. Decrepid Titan -- this titan is ancient beyond years. He sits in a huge wheelchair that can be repaired 1 time by Masterless Gremlins (a stack of at least 5000 is required.) He has a movement of 1 (unless the wheelchair is damaged.) He has no ability to attack but can verbally taunt adjacent enemy units. The taunt has a 3% chance of success against living units and results in that unit having a drop in morale of 1. He has a 50% chance of droping dead from old age every round. If he drops dead he automatically crushes all adjacent friendly units when he falls out of his wheelchair on them.

GOW

[gaspi2]

I think it would be very different if chaos hydras would have unlimited retalations

what about:
bone dragon -> spectral dragon -> etheral dragon?:-/

[Starbatron]

You kill me GOW!!

[PhoenixReborn]

I think GOW's units would be overpowered with artifacts.

[Omega_Destroyer]

7. Decrepid Titan -- this titan is ancient beyond years. He sits in a huge wheelchair that can be repaired 1 time by Masterless Gremlins (a stack of at least 5000 is required.) He has a movement of 1 (unless the wheelchair is damaged.) He has no ability to attack but can verbally taunt adjacent enemy units. The taunt has a 3% chance of success against living units and results in that unit having a drop in morale of 1. He has a 50% chance of droping dead from old age every round. If he drops dead he automatically crushes all adjacent friendly units when he falls out of his wheelchair on them.

[BoardGuest808888]

I don't understand the usefulness of alternative upgrade other than populate the game with more meaningless creatures ? Why don't make a better upgrade instead ? Consider this :

1. If the new alternative is better than old one, then the old one become meaningless, might as well make a better upgrade instead.

2. Same also if the new alternative is worse than old one, then it is meaningless.

3. If the upgrade increase the usefulness of one tier, then one other tier would be sacrificed unless there'd be no enough fund to buy all the creatures, thus it is also meaningless since it make other upgrade unbuyable.

4. If one alternative change the tactical consideration, then all creature tiers should be made to adapt, but this also eliminate the need to build the old set of upgrade.

So, why make the alternatives ?

[Jolly Joker]

I don't think it's that easy.
You may get, for example Blood Furies with a little less Initiative, but amoured, giving them more HPs. Out of hand and without much thought, lets say 6 HPs for 2 init. Now what? Or you may be able to get Longbowmen instead of Archers with less damage, say 3-5, instead of 2-8, but without Range Penalty OR 3-6 with better initiative.
It's not that clear what is better and what not, since there are abilities and artifacts and so on that may influence things as well.
Secondly, a lot depends on the abilities of said creatures, which are not easily comparable on one hand and in itself both useful. On the other hand the shield ability of the Squires for example which halves shooting damage for the surrounding friendly troops. Now, we don't know whether it would be possible to use BOTH upgrades which would mean you'd take a dozen or so Squires as living shields while taking Executioners or whatever as fighting troops as well because THEIR special makes them better fighters, leaving peasants or militias - or even their alternative upgrade at home.
So until there aren't any details known we can't say anything for sure, I'd say.

[Akul]

To BoardGuest808888:

So that there are more strategy variations? Not everyone plays the game in same way and what one think is a great strategy, the another may see like a waste of time.
What more diversies that better.

[Apocalypse]

I also prefer the alternative upgrades over the 2nd upgrade due to increase in strategic choices (like JJ explained in his last post)

[Adicto]

If both upgrades will be available building a single structure, then we can start to cry, because a lot of skills don't take stack size into account: Energy Channel, Shield Allies, Lay Hands, Fright Aura, Vorpal Sword, Weakening Strike, Harm Touch, Aura of Magic Resistance, Entangling Roots, Crippling Wound, Mark of Fire, or even Dark & Light magic casters...

The owners of those abilities would be condemned to be recruited in extremely low numbers.

Oh god... the more I think about it, the more I fear it will be that way.

[lisqr]

How does this sound?
Flaming devil: immune to fire magic and cast armageddon once per battle, but much weaker stats.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

How does this sound?
Flaming devil: immune to fire magic and cast armageddon once per battle, but much weaker stats.

IMHO we don't need another faction to have an armageddon bomb, much less armegeddon from a creature. . Dwarven Runemages are the best spell casters in the game and get the armegeddon bomb too.

GOW

[Jolly Joker]

If both upgrades will be available building a single structure, then we can start to cry, because a lot of skills don't take stack size into account: Energy Channel, Shield Allies, Lay Hands, Fright Aura, Vorpal Sword, Weakening Strike, Harm Touch, Aura of Magic Resistance, Entangling Roots, Crippling Wound, Mark of Fire, or even Dark & Light magic casters...

The owners of those abilities would be condemned to be recruited in extremely low numbers.

Oh god... the more I think about it, the more I fear it will be that way.

It doesn't matter. It would be not in any way different as splitting stacks now. I mean it doesn't matter much whether you leave your Pixies at home and split your (Elder) Druids in two stacks or whether you split into one Elder Druid stack and one Ancient Druid stack, right?

Anyway, simply having BOTH upgrades there to buy with ONE building would obviously be the most economic way to do it AND there wouldn't be any problems when conquering another town, so I think this is a distinct possibility.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

It doesn't matter. It would be not in any way different as splitting stacks now. I mean it doesn't matter much whether you leave your Pixies at home and split your (Elder) Druids in two stacks or whether you split into one Elder Druid stack and one Ancient Druid stack, right?

Anyway, simply having BOTH upgrades there to buy with ONE building would obviously be the most economic way to do it AND there wouldn't be any problems when conquering another town, so I think this is a distinct possibility.

It matters if the AI hires one kind one week and another kind the next week. Plus I think the player should have to make a choice between different buildings. It is more strategic that way.

The mapmaker really, really needs the ability to script the building of whatever building he wants to build in towns with the advent of alternate upgrades both to help with the above problem and to ensure effective combination of troops for the AI.

GOW

[Adicto]

It doesn't matter. It would be not in any way different as splitting stacks now

Yes, it would be. For example, when you split a stack of wraiths you get multiple stacks of the same creature, but if alternative wraiths have an ability which gets better the larger the stack size is, then you will recruit 2 or 3 wraiths and a lot of alternative ones, ever, leading to a new no-brainer recruiting instead of a more strategic one.

In addition, I hope you see the problem in things like leaving peasants at home (if you have angels) just to get a dozen or 2 of squires and later a lot of vindicators

[Jolly Joker]

I don't. It's still not different from the way the game plays now, it just gives you more tactical options not to make use of all of your town's tiers - which has its downsides when you have the money to buy out. Remember, you can't have more than 7 stacks and including one rather small one just for making use of a certain ability may have some drawbacks in the course of one battle. Of course, simply grading 20 peasants up to level 3, leaving the rest of the Peasants at home to make money, hiring two dozen Squires as shield mainly for your marksmen and hiring another 60 or so Vindicators seems good - but the other towns will have the same option, of course.
It would be like having 14 units for 7 slots which sounds interesting. Sure, it would have to be tested, but it sounds interesting.

@ GOW
No, I disagree. People are complaining about the map editor anyway and we won't see an abundance of maps, it seems; it makes no sense to waste effort there. If the balance with the new upgrades is sound it will work. If not, it will be a nightmare anyway.
You don't really expect different BUILDINGS for them , do you? 56 additional graphic Elements which have to be included in the town view and stuff? Never. They'll have work enough to do with all those cinematics for the new units.