What was once a verdant forest around Cyndrum has been transformed into the Asag, a diseased land with rivers of dead fish and deep, oozing scars. Though it may initially seem empty, the Asag is full of diseased, hateful and hungry creatures. It is home to some of the new creatures players will face in Fallen Enchantress.
In this creature feature, we will introduce some of those monsters and give some hints on how to fight them.
These great snakes are known for their inhuman reflexes and deadly poison. They are unlikely to miss when they attack, but players are best to use champions and experienced units if they hope to hit the Naja. Less accurate units will find themselves whittled down by the Naja's venom while Naja deftly dodges their attacks.
Plaguestlker's already considerable speed is augmented during their first action in combat, where they get an increase to movement and attack that allows them to quickly cross the battlefield and close with your units. Your archers won't be safe to sit back and pick plaguestalkers off. You are best to use heavily defended units whose armor will keep the plaguestalkers poisoned teeth and claws from finding flesh.
Said to have once been priests in Cyndrum these men are able to use life and death magic. They can heal their allies by siphoning away their injuries and inflict that pain on their enemies. Though they are cursed by the suffering of the world around them, the creatures of the Asag won't attack them and often come to their defense. When fighting a Haunter players should be careful, a nearly dead Haunter is more dangerous than one that isn't injured at all. If players are going to attack a Haunter, they are best to kill him.
Ritualist's don't want to fight you. They want to summon a Death Demon that will kill you instead. It doesn't matter what else is happening on the battlefield, if plaguestalkers are chewing on your legs, if a Dark Wizard is replacing your peasants with bonfires, if Abeix himself is eating your champions. Your first task should be to kill any Ritualist's on the battlefield or you risk making a bad situation much worse. This is what archer divisions and swarms of fireballs were made for.
At Red Spring 10,000 victims were sacrificed in a ritual to appease Curgen. A spell bound these men to the titan but he ignored the offering. Now they roam the world, trapped between death and eternal service to a titan that no longer exists. They seek to pass on their curse by killing others, in the hope that doing so will end their suffering.
Scrap Golems are relics of ancient battles. They attempt to repair themselves with makeshift parts and continue fighting a war that only they remember and where everyone else is an enemy. Scrap Golems can be dangerous enemies to starting units, but their injuries don't allow them to stand up to stronger attacks. They are also a good source of metal, and players looking to scrape some extra metal together would do well to hunt down rogue Scrap Golems for their parts.
Ignys are less powerful than fire elementals, but still pack a powerful attack. Their fire damage won't be blocked by most armor, and they are immune to fire spells. It is best to outfit your champions with items that protect from fire and weapons that do cold damage. Banishing weapons provide bonuses against elementals and make quick work of minor elementals like the Ignys.
Magic was never evenly distributed across Elemental. In some places it lay thin and worn, and in others it was deep and thick. In these most magical, most sacred, places elementals formed as guardians and grew larger than any elementals summoned by men. These elemental lords are so powerful that they survived the cataclysm and having magic bound into the shards. But their sacred homes are now empty, and the power that fed them for so long has been stripped away. Some have been driven mad by it, others continue to act as guardians, but they all hate the titans that imprisoned the magic of Elemental and the channelers that would make use of it.
Abeix is one of these elemental lords. All but the most powerful should avoid the Bhinadmi Fissure, but if you go to challenge Abeix, bring armies and your highest level champions. Bring weapons that weaken armor to get through Abeix's rocky hide and powerful damage spells. Abeix is unlikely to fall victim to spells he can resist, you cannot blind him or freeze him. But lightning and fire may cause some damage if you bring enough of it.
That's some gorgeous art work.
Amazing artwork
I don't think Abeix is something you're going to be able to deal with in the early game...
peasant attacks with gnarled club... *miss*.
The only thing that I am really leery about is how it seems we're going back to the cliche of big-thing-is-bad in regards to the Elemental Lords. It seems to me that if our only option is to fight and kill Abeix (or fight and die, whichever) then it'll be taking an utterly fabulous and fairly pretty concept and turning it into a basic boss fight.
I think that Abeix deserves to be more than just a creature with phat purples. Perhaps he would be a viable mini-faction: he has his one place, the Fissure, as his 'city' and can periodically create and send out small bands of units. Yet instead of just killing him, there would be the option of trying, through a great deal of diplomacy, to make Abeix an ally or, at the very least, not set on your destruction. Perhaps a large quest line to befriend him or render him neutral, followed by a long, painful series of diplomatic encounters.
Friendship with Abeix or any other Elemental Lord would give a substantial boost, but this would be offset by the lack of items and the fact that Abeix will pretty much tell you, "stay out of THIS area or bad things happen". It would be an ultimately fragile alliance, but beneficial. Perhaps open up new spell options, new construction options...maybe build a temple to Abeix and gain a god to worship?
At the same time, two or more factions might be able to compete for Abeix's affections, creating tension and ultimately war.
I don't know. Probably a bit much, I admit, but it just seems like such a waste to take an awesome, sentient creature of such vast power and limit him to being a boss fight. The world is ruined, and since creatures of magic hate the Channellers, it would open up a new, difficult path. I'm a more diplomatically minded person, and the thought of being able to take dozens of game years to befriend a being like Abeix would add another facet to the game that would be really cool. I can't imagine getting Abeix as a -unit- but just making someone understand that your intentions are really good (or you're just really good at deceit) would add very nice depth that was missing in War of Magic.
Other than that, I am really looking forward to some of these units. Ignys is probably my favorite - the concept art for these guys are really well done. FE will be...an experience, certainly.
I think, in line with what Nathikal said, that it would be much more interesting if Abeix (or other similar creatures) could be interacted with in a manner other than fighting. This could go along the lines of Nathikal's Temple of Abeix, and I might further suggest that these temples serve to increase the power of Abeix, who in exchange lends your spellcasters (I'll call them Preists, for now) its strength - granting access to special spells, but possibly removing access to some of the 'traditional' channeler spells. It might also be interesting if you could start breaking shards to increase the power of Abeix, thereby furhter strengthening the preists and weakening the traditional channelers. Eventually, you could have a scenario where the only magic in your kingdom/empire comes from Abeix, and it gives you access to a much different set of spells than the 'normal' path grants. For this alternate path, I would personally prefer individual mana pools with mana regeneration governed by the strength of Abeix and how friendly Abeix is towards your faction (i.e., you could royally screw yourself if you follow this path and then tick Abeix off - more or less losing all your access to magic except that which your sovereign's family can provide, and losing any enchantments which would have come from the Abeix magic). Also, for this I think any permanent or semipermanent enchantments would be done as part of a given set of enchantment slots from Abeix.
As for the way in which the spells themselves are different, it could simply be tied to quests for Abeix, number of Temples of Abeix, and overall strength of Abeix granting access for spell research, rather than researching spell levels, and since Abeix appears to be some kind of Earth elemental, these spells should have a strong focus on earth magic - so instead of a fireball you might call up stone spikes or open a fissure instead of calling down a hailstorm.
Looking good.
We can already see your touch Kael. I hope the team doesn't take offense to me saying that a revision of story elements, like creatures, was much needed to spice up a rather bland world. Remarkable work, I'm sure a lot of people deserve credit for this but for me at least it seems like your fantasy touch is fitting like glove to EWM.
You are far from alone. Or at least it looked like that back in the long-ago days of thread's like ckessel's Independent Kingdoms? Abeix probably wasn't even a gleam in an artist's eye back then, but another pre-beta poster, Jonny5446, made up Geoff the Super Slug as a prototype for this sort of more-than-a-boss game object. His idea for Geoff popped up in several other threads and it seemed like most forum folks (except the devs?) liked it.
Haunters, Butcher-man and Scrapgolems sound good and could be even nicer if they got a bit randomized in appereance. Especially the Scrapgolems (and minor elemntals) could benefit from a design that is done proceduaraly by the computer to support theyr uniquness that comes with theyr history.
edit: I just dont like it that the wild beings are so cookycutterish clone-armys. Its justified for the Factions with proper Military training and equipment but these guys should atleast look a bit different from each other.
Only Abeix art is satisfactory. Other guys looks weird.
I have found one very confounding feature missing in WOM. You can't change equipment during a tactical battle!! Bah humbug!!!! I should be able to open fire on an opponent with a rain of arrows while he closes, but switch to a mace or sword to finish him off when he gets close.
Now, with a greater need to match weapon to target vulnerability, I certainly hope the ability to change weapons (and shields too), as the battle opposition thins, is a coming feature. When a cloud of skeletons (very vulnerable to hammers and maces) advances as a screen for heavy armor, I want to be able to start beating their brains out with my lord's hammer of doom, then switch to a rapier to dispatch the quick, lightly armed skirmishers, before I switch to a shield and long sword to finish off the heavily armoured knights.
Just my 2 cents. Maybe there is another way to address what I see as a missing feature/necessity.
Sweet stuff Derek, this game's finally gonna thrive under your care.
Derek, ... please have my babies.
Great ideas for monsters there. My personal favorite is the haunter because what makes it unique and strong is not it's stats, but the actions it can do on the battelfield. I also enojyed reading your replies to this thread with your thoughts on the game. You have a grand vision for this game that will enrich the world of Elemental.
If I may pry from you an asnwer or two, I'd like to hear your thoughts on a pet peeve of mind: linking access to higher level quests and monsters to technologies. It just seems so ... unnatural. (It's OK if you don't answer. I won't hate you.)
It is good to see Elemental is in good hands.
I agree that it doesn't make much sense for monsters to be coupled with techs. We will talk abotu what is happening there later.
My instinct about quests was the same as yours initially. But the problem isn't that quests are unlocked by techs, but that they such a weak part of the tech structure. It's not that choosing to focus your empire on quests is a bad idea (in fact its one of the most elegant ways to marry the RPG and 4x game in WoM), but that quests are so weak that it's never a reasonable decision.
In my mind the core game asks the play, "How do you want to to to conquer the world?" And there are 5 possible high level responces:
1. With armies (focus on military techs)
2. With magic (focus on sorcery techs)
3. With cities (focus on civilization techs)
4. With champions (focus on adventure techs)
5. With diplomacy (focus on diplomacy techs)
And of course players can mix their options as they desire as they tech.
We just need to make the adventure tech tree really enforce the fact that it is the best way to level up and strengthen your champions, and that is an effective and balanced strategy.
So I dont have a concept issue with techs unlocking quests, I have an implementation issue with it. And that's what we have to fix.
What if the adventure tech was replaced by a contextual "lore" tech - players can find ancient scrolls / tablets / whatever from dungeons and quests and then bring them back to the city. The lore screen would then display all collected items, and the research progress on each item - each item (or perhaps a collection of items) would reveal possible hidding locations for ancient relics once fully researched.
Ancient relics would be objects of great power (think The One Ring, powerful unique magics, etc) that could greatly shift the balance of power and as a result be a legitimit point of focus for any player.
This may very well be the best suggestions that I've read on the boards to date. Just the thought of having this in the game makes me salivate a little bit.
From a flavor perspective its a really interesting idea. From a function perspecitve its much more complex than it needs to be. Integrating quests into the tech tree keeps the existing known mechanics (design consistency), doesnt require new ui, cause player confusion and effectively accomplishes the same goal (allows the player access to greater quests based on how much time he spends researching quests instead of other techs).
I like that idea too, of course if it is too complex, nevermind. Still I would be careful not to fall into simplifying things too much. For example in the actual system as soon as one reserches "gold hunting" a bunch of boxes full of gold start to appear on the map.
To be quite frank that's one of the things I can't really stand, because takes a very interesting game system with a real potential for realism and brings it down to the level of a common arcade game: Mario bros jumping on a mushroom and getting somehow gold!
I wouldn't go as far as saying that it bothers me as much as teleport (another element that kills the realism for me), but it gets close.
Research should be something that is achieved through study, all the other disciplines are: magic, military, city development and diplomacy... what really makes little sense is adventure, unless as that suggestion you are discussing brings up, it is intended as a form of archeology.
At least an effort should be put into rationalizing things that way, and maybe instead than peppering the map with undefended treasures (absurd), it would be better just to have heroes gain the power to spot a hidden treasure occasionally, if they walk next to it, and in a more advance tech maybe learning the location of a very rich and far away treasure (possibly defended by a tough monster). That way a real expedition should be put together, in order to get there (maybe the location could be an island, so that boats would finally get a reason to exist). That would be much better than just moving the Mario Bros around and collect coins from the ground (in front of bandits that didn't see them?), as it is now.
IMO realism is the key to most problems in this game: if you want to have the sense of creating and ruling an empire, you can't just have your emperor walking around alone in a desert, collecting coins, that just doesn't work.
You know, with all the pretty, new pictures, you could toss out some more wallpaper.
You're right that the end result can be achieved in a simpler manner. I just personally dislike how locations / quests / creatures / etc magically pop into existance around your cities based on research.
I think the quest / location system could be greatly improved by just spawning all revelant objects from the start, and then giving the player the ability to interact with them once they reach the required tech level (I still dislike how one must research how to quest).
It is kind of annoying how there's suddently some super bad, terrible structure appears in the middle of a city area that's been populated from day one. It didn't appear because of some magic rift or illusion canceled. I am surprised that instead of Adventure, SD didn't call it like, "Legends and Lore," and base research on opening rune the doors, or an excavation, or even researching some complex lock/magic trap. I mean if I have to research to reveal the location of some thing, I don't exactly expect that Morrigan's secret lab was in always in George's field next door. The evil reeking from it along with the occasional nasty creature, missing field hands, etc., didn't tip some one off. As a matter of fact, I'd rather have most things appear on the map, but lock out the ability to build next to them, and spawn nasties based off their level requirement. Could they even just tie the research to an ability or skill an adventurer must pick up? Some ancient lore researched up and given to some hardy souls? You could make some of the data evil traps and not real locations or ways into a structure. As fun as doodads are on the map to go poke at, the way they appear just doesn't work for me. It doesn't feel consistent with the genre or nature of the resource.
So plaguestalkers will get lots of initial movement points due to a special ability, interesting. Two questions please.
In FE will movement points be counted separately from attacks per round or will they be fully integrated together like some previous games?
In FE will all attacks per round be manually executed one at a time or will they be delivered onto one target in a combined bundle?
Depending on the answer I'll start a discussion topic.
Attacks are a separate stat than movement (ie: moving doesn't consume attacks).
There aren't rounds, it's a rolling initiative system*. Typically units get a move and attack on each action, but special abilities can do all sorts of crazy things.
*For my fellow grognards: Every unit has a combat speed (at the moment the base is 12). Each tick the units init is increased by their combat speed. When their init reaches 100 they get an action. An action is a move and a attack/cast/ability.
So the higher a units combat speed, the quicker it raises each tick, the more actions it gets. If a unit had a 50 combat speed it would be getting an action every 2 ticks and flying around attacking things, getting 4 attacks before your typical unit with 12 combat speed would be able to take an action. (nothing currently has that high of a combat speed).
This is a much more granular implementation of combat speed. In WoM its a god stat, but here we can play with it and have slower and faster creatures without making them overpowered or useless. Its also fun to see the action queue and know who is attacking next and plan out your attacks to try to minimize your opponents actions.
Here's a random question... who is the snake lover on the design team? I count three variations on that list. Not that that's necessarily bad, just... a bit repetitive, maybe?
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