Designed by Bob Heeter; last modified 21-June-1997. In order to play a full four-player Tournament game in just 20 turns one must make the effective size of the map fairly small. If the actual map is small and has few cities, though, the game is less interesting. We decided to reduce the effective "scale" of the map by making the *armies* swift and numerous, so that they build quickly and reach enemy cities quickly, allowing more battles to be fought over a wider area in less time. This army set answers that need! Based on the familiar default Erythea army unit types and graphics, the Tournament Army Set provides a more balanced set of units with greater speed and shorter build time. The slow units have 16-18 movement points, and fast units have 22-28 movement points. Heroes start at speed 22, and move up to 28, that is, if they live long enough to achieve the highest experience level! Weaker units build in only one turn, while stronger units require two turns and the very strongest need three. Bonuses are plentiful, since heroes and allies will be scarce and our philosophy is that each unit should have a unique specialty, allowing players to mix and match stacks with maximum possible variety. Detailed information on the finer points of the design is given after the basic unit statistics, which are summarized in the table below. ================================================================================ Tournament Armies Version 2.0 (final) - Unit Data Table : ================================================================================ --- Bonuses --- --- Costs --- Unit Name Str. Time Speed Movement Combat Produce Retool ================================================================================ *** City Specialists *** Light Inf. 2 1 18 +1 City 3 160 Heavy Inf. 4 1 9 +1 City 6 300 Spiders 4 1 16 +2 City 14 700 Minotaurs 6 2 13 +2 Stack City 26 1300 Griffins 6 2 22 fly +2 City 34 1700 Pegasi 6 3 24 fly +2 Stack City 40 2000 *** Terrain Specialists *** Light Cav. 2 1 22 +1 Open 4 200 Orcish Mob 2 1 19 both +1 Woods 6 300 Pikemen 4 1 19 +2 Open 10 500 Wolfriders 4 1 18 woods +2 Woods 9 450 Dwarves 4 1 18 hills +2 Hills 9 450 Heavy Cav. 6 2 26 +2 Stack Open 24 1200 Unicorns 6 2 26 woods +2 Stack Woods 22 1100 Giants 6 2 26 hills +2 Stack Hills 22 1100 *** Tactical Specialists *** Giant Bats 1 1 20 fly 20 160 Archers 4 2 16 +1 Fortified 20 1000 Catapults 4 2 17 Cancel City 20 1000 Elephants 6 2 17 -1 Enemy Stack 30 1500 Scouts 1 4 6 50 350 Heroes 5 X 22 *** Land Allies *** Giant Worms 7 3 28 both +2 Stack 60 3000 Elementals 5 3 40 both +1 Stack 60 3000 Devils 7 3 28 both +1 Stack;Cancel Hero 60 3000 Demons 7 3 28 both +1 Stack;Cancel Non-Hero 60 3000 *** Flying Allies *** Wizards 7 3 22 fly +2 Stack 60 3000 Ghosts 5 3 28 fly +1 Stack 60 3000 Archons 7 3 22 fly +1 Stack;Cancel Hero 60 3000 Dragons 7 3 22 fly +1 Stack;Cancel Non-Hero 60 3000 ============================================================================== About the Tournament Army Set: ============================================================================== *** General Philosophy *** This army set has one useless unit, the scouts. The idea is that neutral cities can build them as basic defense, and players will then pillage them for gold that can then be used to buy more useful creatures. However, except for an initial supply, players will have limited gold, and at first they will mostly only be able to afford weak units, such as bats and light infantry. But as gold accumulates and is discovered in ruins, more and more powerful units may be purchased. (The Orcish Mobs have replaced Scouts as the peon unit of choice for guiding stacks swiftly through forest and hills.) The rest of the army set is designed to provide a generic set of units with generic functions that will be suitable for most Warlords scenarios. Units are classified in two distinct ways. First they have a specialty, as you see above: City Specialists, Terrain Specialists, Tactical Specialists, and Allies (Land and Flying). The City and Terrain specialists are further divided into Weak, Strong, and Leadership units. Weak units have only strength 2, with a +1 bonus in their home terrain, while strong units have strength 4 and are +2 at home. Both take only 1 turn to build, but of course stronger units are more expensive! Leadership units take longer to build, but they are stronger and, even better, they confer a mighty +2 stack bonus in their home terrain, making them more useful than most allies for boosting a stack in a critical location. Each of the different specialties is discussed below. In particular, the 8 allies are divided into four basic types, with one land ally and one flying ally for each type; this also is discussed in more detail below. *** The City Specialists *** These units exist primarily to attack and defend cities. Light infantry are your default unit, in the Weak group. They are easily purchased after pillaging a scout. They are not particularly fast or strong, and should probably be replaced with spiders or heavy infantry as soon as practical. Heavy Infantry are in the Strong group, and are relatively cheap, but they are too slow to be much use for anything but static defense, except in the water, where they are very efficient as city-raiding naval units. Spiders are the familiar scourge of cities and bane of would-be city attackers, and are the other Strong city unit. They are a bit sluggish, but have a strong bonus on their home turf. Minotaurs, though confined to the ground and not very swift, are the mighty leaders of the city defenses and of the naval raiding parties. Griffins are stronger than spiders and faster, but take longer to build and are much more costly because of the value of their flight capability. They often form the foundation of a killer hero stack. Pegasi are likewise stronger and faster than Minotaurs, and make virtually-unstoppable city attack stacks, but they are quite costly and even more difficult to build than Griffins. *** The Terrain Specialists *** The terrain specialists exist largely to move through hostile terrain and assist stacks in taking and holding strategic points. On average they are a bit cheaper and swifter than their city counterparts, but then they are not as good at defending cities, towers, ruins, and temples. The Weak units in this group are the Light Cav. and the Orcish Mob, which are reasonably swift for their terrains, cheap, and fast to build. The Strong units are Pikemen in the open, Wolfriders in the woods, and Dwarves in the hills. Heavy Cav., Unicorns, and Giants are the Leaders in the open, woods, and hills, respectively. These last three are particularly useful later in the game because they are the only non-ally units that can keep pace with an experienced hero. *** The Tactical Specialists *** These units are useful in fulfilling unique tactical roles. They generally take two turns to build and are not overwhelmingly strong or swift themselves, but they serve unique functions which make them highly prized additions to a well-assembled stack. Of these units the bats are weakest, but they are also cheap and can fly, so they are useful for carrying heroes or raiding undefended rear cities, especially after picking up a blessing or two. Archers are the only unit with the little-known but highly-coveted fortify bonus, which adds +1 to any stack, independent of all other bonuses, whenever it is present. (Despite the name, it even works on offense!) Catapults are the familiar siege unit, and elephants as usual strike terror into the hearts of their foes. Scouts are intentionally made useless, but provide a quick 175 gold when pillaged, so that new units can be built to replace them when a scout-building neutral city is captured and pillaged. Note that their strength of 1 means that even the weaker units can capture a neutral scout-building city singlehandedly, except for bats. Heroes have their usual strength, but they are now significantly faster than in the default set, in keeping with the speeds of the other units in this set. *** The Allies *** Allies are mighty warriors, providing strength, speed, leadership, and tactical bonuses that are unmatched by the other unit types, and indeed so rare that their skills cannot be easily reproduced. One class of ally conveys a potent +2 bonus to its stack in all terrain, while providing speed and strength to their stack. These are the Giant Worms and flying Wizards. Elementals and Ghosts are a second class of ally, which is extremely swift, but weaker, having only a +1 stack bonus. The third type of ally, including Devils and Angels, provides strength, speed, and enough metaphysical power to boost their own stack by +1, while confounding even the most powerful hero. And the most powerful allies of all are the fourth class, Demons and Dragons, who lend +1 to their own stack while cancelling the stack bonuses of all non-hero enemies! -- Bob Heeter