WARLORDS V

CONSTRUCTING A SIDE

REQUIREMENTS:

New sides must be able to be modified/created by players
There must be a high level “depth” in the side-creation process.
The side must allow for new armies & heroes to be added to the database
The side structure must contain some mechanism for defining allies & enemies, even within custom sides (i.e. a better system than the Race Wheel)
Sides must now include boats
Heroes must be separated out from regular armies.

DESCRIPTION:

A side comprises the following 5 things, shown in the diagram:

A Name
A list of 3 Attributes (1 Primary Attribute & 2 Secondary ones – see the Attribute system below)
A list of 6 Regular Armies that comprise its core fighting force, each one able to have its stats modified in a minor way. And space for 2 more Army Types that can be added as an individual battle progresses.
A list of 2 Heroes who will represent most of the heroes that side receives
A boat type.

ATTRIBUTES:

The game will have a list of 10 pairs of attributes… each pair of attributes will be polar opposites, for example:

Bravery – Cowardice
Virtue – Depravity
Wisdom - Madness

Each side is required to pick 3 of these attributes… one main (the Primary Attribute) and two minor (the Secondary Attributes). Because each attribute has an opposite, each side then also gains 3 “Opposed Attributes”

Note that each army and hero in the game will ALSO have one of these attributes.

The attributes chosen by a side will have a large effect on the way that it plays and the way that it interacts with other sides in the battle, for example:

The Primary Attribute:

Determines what your cities look like (e.g. a “Depraved” side gets the city made of skulls)
Gives a large global bonus to that side (e.g. a “Wise” side gives +4 XP to troops)
Affects the cost of armies you add to a custom side (Armies that match your primary attribute are cheapest)
Affects cities that will swear fealty – cities of matching primary attributes will always offer Fealty for a reasonable price.

The Secondary Attribute:

Determines what other sides’ cities you may use to produce troops (see the section on Capturing Cities for details on this)
Gives a small global bonus to that side (e.g. a “Wise” side gives +2 XP to troops)
Determines what mercenaries, allies and heroes you receive during play that are not in your regular lists.
Affects the cost of armies you add to a custom side (Armies that match your secondary attribute are cheap – but not as cheap as primaries)
Affects cities that will swear fealty – cities of matching secondary attributes will always offer Fealty but it will be more expensive.

The Opposed Attributes:

Determine what cities you can only raze/sack on the map (see the section on Capturing Cities for details on this)
Affect the cost of armies you add to a custom side (Armies that match your opposed attributes are extremely expensive)

The exact list of Attributes and their effects will be in a separate document.

ARMY MODIFICATIONS (RUNESTONES):

Each army-type can have “Mods” attached to it. These can be both positive and negative, and will affect the cost of that army for its side accordingly (some stones being more expensive than others)

They will be handled by a series of available Runestones.

Examples of some stones would be:

Rune of Strength: +1 Combat Skill
Rune of Weakness: -1 Combat Skill
Rune of Skill: +1 to Army’s Primary Special Ability
Rune of Life: +1 to Army’s Life score
Rune of Death: -1 to Army’s Life score
Rune of Vigor: +1 to Army’s Speed
Rune of Sloth: -1 to Army’s Speed

(the exact list will be written into the Army design document).

Up to 5 Rune Stones can be added to any single army

We will also make these stones an available item in-game, probably to be found in ruins. When they are found, the player can place them on an army-type of his choice, and they will stay in effect until the end of the battle. Only positive-effect Runestones will be able to be found in-game.

CITY CAPTURE:

When a side captures a city it will have a list of the following actions:

If the City…	OPTION #1	OPTION #2	OPTION #3
…Matches a Primary Attribute	Fortify	Occupy	Pillage
…Matches a Secondary Attribute	Occupy	Convert/Rebuild	Pillage
…Matches No Attributes	Convert/Rebuild	Sack	Raze (temp)
…Matches an Opposed Attribute	Sack	Raze (temp)	Raze (perm)

Each of these has the following effects:

ACTION	DESCRIPTION
Fortify	City improves 1 level, minor gold cost. Only available on cities level 3 and lower.
Occupy	City remains the same, no gold cost. City retains its current production
Convert	No Gold generated. City drops one level and is replaced with your primary city type (producing your troops). If city is already level 1, this option is replaced by Rebuild
Rebuild	Minor gold cost. City remains level 1 and is replaced with your primary city type (producing your troops). Only available if City is level 1
Pillage	Small gold income. Drops city one level. Only available if city is level 2 or higher.
Sack	Medium gold income. Drops city to level 1. Only available if city is level 2 or higher.
Raze (temp)	Large gold income. City is destroyed but can be rebuilt
Raze (perm)	Large gold income. City is destroyed and cannot be rebuilt This option will only be available to groups containing a unit with a certain skill + level (e.g. Scavenging +5) … to be decided in the skills design document.

N.B.: Cities have 4 levels.

CREATING A CUSTOM SIDE:

When a player creates a custom side, he must do the following things, while tallying up points associated with his choices and trying to keep them below a certain limit:

a) Choose a Name for his side (no cost)

b) Choose his three attributes (again, no cost). Note: he may not select opposed attributes during this step…e.g. he may not choose both “Good” and “Evil”.

c) Choose the regular armies. Each Army has a basic cost associated with it. This cost is modified as follows:

a. How it matches the chosen attributes of the side

b. The “slot” it is put into. “Lower” slots have a multiplier associated with them, costing more because the army in them is available more often during play (in lower-level cities).

d) Add any Runestones to his armies. Each stone has a cost, with some being far more expensive than others.

e) Select his heroes (each one having a cost once again)

f) Select a boats (each one having a cost once again)

g) Players CAN leave army/hero slots empty as in W3.

DESIGNER’S NOTES:

This design removes the Race Wheel from W4.

The Race Wheel was easy for new players to understand, but it made things too difficult to add new armies, add custom sides, etc…

The new design is infinitely expandable because it relies on chosen attributes, to determine compatibility.

Extra depth has been added to side creation via the Rune Stones. This just gives an extra layer of customization for players.

With 10 pairs of Attributes, there will be 20 attributes total. The game will ship with 20 standard pre-defined races, one for each attribute (that means we will also need 20 standard city types).

The universal “Movement Rating” for a side (as in W4) has been removed and replaced with the W3 system of having troops with individual movement scores.

Unit #7 & Unit #8 have been added to the side definition, although the players do not choose these units during custom side creation. Instead, they will be able to be customized during play (probably as either quest-rewards or ruin-rewards). A player will also have access to any of the regular 6-slots of troops produced in cities previously owned by sides associated with a player’s Secondary attributes.