So, uh... rats.

[Flametrooper]

Original idea. I like.

Just a thought: Ever heard of Ratkings? That could be an interesting unit idea. Probably a leader/magic-doer.

[Qes]

Hey TL, longtime no see. You're still up to your general awesomeness I see.

Some thoughts for ya:

Ratfolk Goon lv 1: Chaotic, 13 gold, 33 HP, 5 moves. Has an 8-2 melee sword attack and a 5-2 sling. Basic grunt, low melee/HP compared to most grunts but inexpensive and a relatively good ranged backup. No concealment ability. Should hopefully be an effective staple vs. undead (like the footpad) without being too unbalancing in that matchup.

Rats with swords is a neat idea, but another might be Rats with knives (machete's/bowie) and have the unique ability to attack and finish moving. You were able to do this (if I recall correctly) with heroes arena. So a move-->attack-->move would be possible for the basic rat warrior. This'd give them distinct flavor. Naturally the damage they can do would be mitigated a bit for balance - hence the knives suggestion.

The WML I think could work - though I'm admittedly rusty.

Ratfolk Archer lv 1: Chaotic, 16 gold, 28 HP, 6 moves. Has concealment, 3-2 melee dagger and a 7-3 ranged bow attack. One of the faction's higher-end damage dealers.

Maybe knock down the damage a bit and give them poison? I only suggest this because I see other 'classic' archers, such as the skeletal or the elven, being the standard. And a rat approaching the same damage levels seems odd to me. Otherwise great.

Ratfolk Sneak lv 1: Chaotic, 16 gold, 26 HP, 6 moves. Hides (ambush in all terrains except grassland), 5-2 backstabbing dagger attack. Crazy stealth powers, but even with backstab its damage is very low for its cost (to say nothing of its HP). Spamming these should be pretty worthless, but recruiting a couple for their hiding ability should be an effective way of keeping the enemy on their toes.

Great unit. The only thing I can think of is to perhaps give the Sneak a 10-1 attack instead. This way if it 'backstabs' it could potentially kill a target in a hit. Making it useful for that 'final blow' tactic.

Ratfolk Apothecary lv 1: Chaotic, 15 gold, 25 HP, 5 moves. Has concealment and heals +4, 4-2 staff attack and a 2-3 pierce blowgun with poison. I figure for being a poison-oriented faction it ought to have some minor healing ability; considering ditching heals altogether and giving it only the cures ability instead, though.

Apothecary in my mind sounds a bit frou-frou. Rats are dirty. Rat Alchemist? Rat Muckmaker? Rat Pusher! (Like a pusher/dealer of drugs) I dont know. I think the 'cures' ability instead of healing sounds good too.

Street Urchin lv 0: Chaotic, 10 gold, 14 HP, 7 moves. No concealment, but gets skirmishing. Elusivefoot evasion/resists. 3-2 melee dagger and a 4-1 thrown rock attack. These are human orphans who have fallen in with the ratfolk. Terribly weak, but good expendable scouts for village grabbing and setting up backstabs.

Great idea.

Giant Rat lv 1: Neutral, 11 gold, 28 HP, 5 moves. 5-2 bite attack with poison. Expendable poisoning unit.

Nice and straight forward.

Rat Swarm lv 1: Neutral, 12 gold, 38 HP, 4 moves. 4-6 melee blade attack with the swarm special. 20% pierce resist (skewering rats one at a time out of a horde of dozens or hundreds is not an effective way to thin their ranks), 10% blade resist (ditto, although slashing attacks cover a wider area), but -20% fire resist (fire can easily spread and cover a wider area of the swarm). Low evasion though (perhaps around -10% across the board, although maybe full 50% in forest/mushroom grove as there's plenty of cover). Very inexpensive damage sponges with an excellent starting attack, but slow and suffering under the liability of the swarm special.

Ok, so this may sound simplistic. But, instead of investing a ton of stuff in WML, wouldnt it be easier just to give the Rat Swarm 100% resistance to ALL damage types (or 99%, what have you), and then give it minimal HP?
As I understand it, the swarm-damage type is % based, so if you have 6 attacks, have 6 hit points - each lost hp would be a lost attack.

All attacks do a minimum of 1 damage, if im not mistaken. So if resistances are so high, the unit will only ever be taking one damage per hit.
If you want fire to still be an issue, lower the resistance to 70%: a 10 damage fire attack would do 3 damage to the swarm (killing half of it).
Plus the low HP would be comfortable to think about when thinking of tiny rats vs their ratfolk kin.

Also - you could let the thing level. Either through actual new units, or just increasing HP. Thus the size of the swarm would get "larger". I'd avoid implementing MORE attacks, and instead increase damage and HP, if you choose to let it be levelable.

Ok, this last one is kind of tentative. I was thinking, hey, the faction could use a cavalry unit. But ratfolk live in caves and sewers, which are not good places for horses. Also there's no water-capable unit in the faction yet. So I asked myself, what kind of large amphibious riding animal lives in sewers as its natural habitat? The answer, of course, is obvious:
Crocodile Rider lv 1: Chaotic, 18 gold, 42 HP, 4 moves. 5-4 melee spear, 7-3 bite and 11-2 impact tail slam. Fully amphibious (1 move on grassland and water/swamp) but low evasion (40% and under for all terrains except swamp, where it would get 50%). 10% blade/pierce and 30% impact resistance, but -20% cold. Well-rounded melee tank, slow, but too expensive to be effectively spammable.

I have in my head the fun idea that Ratfolk are hybrids, and that these giant rats are domesticated by the more intelligent breed. Could it be possible to have a giant-rat-riding-rat? Rat on rat cavalry sounds awesome. Though admittedly I could see some complaining about the potential silliness of it. In this you could make it a simple improvement on the Giant Rat. Just more expensive as it's got a rider with a spear. More HP/resistances too could work with it.


Hope this spawns ideas,
-Qes

EDIT/Nostalgia: Also - I miss Heroes Arena. It was a great way to kill some time. Any chance of it being resurrected?

[AI]

Code: Select all

    [advancement]
        description=_"Increase mob size by 1 peasant"
        max_times=99 #or something
        [effect]
            apply_to=attack #all of them, that is
            increase_attacks=1
        [/effect]
        [effect]
            apply_to=hitpoints
            increase_total=15
            increase=15
        [/effect]
    [/advancement]

I got this on a unit, it works pretty well.

Another note: rats can swim, quite well even.

So you could solve the water issue by letting all of them move over water (though slowly and with low defence) and make the Rat cavalry an all-round heavy hitter.

[Appleman1234]

If you need more animal related ideas, you can see my outdated, abandoned thread on a similar mouse / rat / animal ideas.

[Boucman]

couple of thoughts

the "sneak" special power is way too effective. It can pretty easily go behind the ennemy line without being spotted and grab all the villages thus allowing an easy economic victory.

the only parade would be to keep units on evey village, but that's way too expensive for all factions (except maybe undeads with zombies)

how about giving it nightstalk instead. it would still be very sneaky half of the time, but oponents would have parades and hunting it would be more effective

as for your cheap flavor power, how about a village only invisibility. Most of the time it's useless since your oponent knows which villages are occupied, and in some rare time it might give a suprise...

[Qes]

I just thought of a better name for your Ratfolk Apothecary.

ScRATman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpHLEm9-0bg


I'm a Scratman! Bee ba dada do...bada da da do.

Ok I'm done.
-Qes

EDIT: Or mabye let this be the name of the level 2. That way you could pick it as a leader.

EDIT2: And the level 3 could be the Master Scratman. That just sounds like something you wanna be/see.

[TL]

the "sneak" special power is way too effective. It can pretty easily go behind the ennemy line without being spotted and grab all the villages thus allowing an easy economic victory.

At present, this is only possible if there is a contiguous line of non-grassland terrain leading from your side of the map straight to the opponent's villages; otherwise the sneak will be exposed when moving from hiding spot to hiding spot.

Even if your opponent isn't watching closely enough to see the sneak when he moves through grassland terrain, unless a player is completely asleep then as soon as you capture one of their villages they'll see that they've lost control of it and know you've got a sneak in that village. Your sneak gets swarmed and killed, you lose a 15 or 16g unit just to swipe a village for 1 turn. Not a good trade.

how about giving it nightstalk instead. it would still be very sneaky half of the time, but oponents would have parades and hunting it would be more effective

The problem is that nightstalk is of very limited utility for a chaotic faction. You can't hide and fight at the same time, and nighttime is your time to fight.

as for your cheap flavor power, how about a village only invisibility. Most of the time it's useless since your oponent knows which villages are occupied, and in some rare time it might give a suprise...

This is already present in mainline as the "concealment" ability, and yes, that's what I was planning on giving to a couple of units other than the sneak.