Dune Wars Unique Units

[Slvynn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXD36ljblz0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUghdJfgEEk&feature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=281393UYz-k&feature=related

as mentioned in Art thread, this can be good example for model for Atreides UU

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Are you guys taking much inspiration from the Emperor: Battle for Dune game? there are a lot of potential UUs there:

Ix: Infiltrator and Projector tank
Tleilaxu: Contaminator and Leech
Ordos: Cobra, Deviator, Chemical Trooper etc etc

(sorry if this already came up. i havent read the whole thread)

 

[Deliverator]

I don't think all the units in Emperor:Battle for Dune fit well with the Dune universe but some are OK.

I thought about a Chemical Trooper UU for Ordos - something with Collateral Damage? It should be possible to make a gas attack effect.

Also a Heavy Trooper UU for Harkonnen would be good - a throw back to Dune 2. The current Infantry graphic could work well for that.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

having no knowledge of the Dune books, i just assumed the things in Emperor:Battle for Dune were drawn from the novels. personally i love the idea of Projector tanks for Ix, a late game tank UU for Ix utilising some of the 'Hall of Mirrors' code from FfH (where any unit that attacks the city produces an illusory clone of itself under the control of the city owner, illusory clones were weaker and couldnt kill units outright)

I also think the Ixian Infiltrator would make a cool Spy UU, and you could give it greater stealth and give it a unique Espionage ability where it detonates itself to possibly wound/kill garrisoned units with a chance of declaring war, and/or destroy a building(s).

The chemical trooper with collateral damage is a good idea, and possibly even have it transfer a 'poisoned' promotion to enemies in the stack (or just those affected by the collateral damage) which reduces their strength or heal rate.

I also really like the Deviator as a late game Tank UU for Ordos, possibly give it a high withdrawl chance and the ability to have a chance to cause enemy tanks to join your team, (either temporarily or permanently)

The Contaminstor and Leech are interesting for Tleilaxu but i have no idea if they are appropriate for them. possibly have Contaminators spawn more contaminators after they kill as guardsman or melee unit, and have leeches spawn more leeches when they kill suspensors and tanks.

I also really like the Sonic Tank for Atreidies, give it large collateral damage and city attack strength and make it a late game tank UU.

Similarly the Fremen Fedayakin could get collateral and good city attack (at least thats what i gather from Emperor:Battle for Dune) and i also think most Fremen Units should be invisible when in the desert tiles.

EDIT: id also like to offer my assistance with making 3D art and textures for you guys, but i cant animate (i actually have a few units i need animated but cant find anyone willing to animate them for me )

 

[Deliverator]

i just assumed the things in Emperor:Battle for Dune were drawn from the novels

Westwood made up a lot of stuff that is not in the books, and generally the atmosphere of their games is quite different to the books in my opinion. If you read Dune you'll see what I mean.

EDIT: id also like to offer my assistance with making 3D art and textures for you guys, but i cant animate (i actually have a few units i need animated but cant find anyone willing to animate them for me )

I can animate from scratch (e.g. the Sandworm), rig units to existing animations and make simple adjustments to existing animations. Art contributions are appreciated (although there can be a lot of bitc*ing and moaning at times). I'm thinking of putting together a unit art plan this weekend so that we can work towards some kind of consistency.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I can animate from scratch (e.g. the Sandworm), rig units to existing animations and make simple adjustments to existing animations. Art contributions are appreciated (although there can be a lot of bitc*ing and moaning at times). I'm thinking of putting together a unit art plan this weekend so that we can work towards some kind of consistency.

awesome and its ok, im used to critiques . heres an example of my first unit i made (see below im really proud of how he turned out, just needs animations) id really love to help out with units and buildings when i get the time (i have 3 months holidays soon much modding time yay!) so yeh id be more than happy to help out

Westwood made up a lot of stuff that is not in the books, and generally the atmosphere of their games is quite different to the books in my opinion. If you read Dune you'll see what I mean.

fair enough now i really wanna read the book!

 

[Ahriman]

and its ok, im used to critiques

It's true, I've been working on Warhammer for a while now

heres an example of my first unit i made

You forgot your link.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

It's true, I've been working on Warhammer for a while now

yeh, i know how Ahri rolls

You forgot your link.

oops, here:

Spoiler :

 

[Ahriman]

Nice Slann, very cool.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i thought id shown you before ahri? maybe not ah well thanks anyway

 

[davidlallen]

Bump. One of our top needs right now is to improve the differentiation between the civs. We would like to get it up to the level of FFH, where the game really plays differently for each civ. The civilizations thread already has a lot of ground to cover, so I would like to use this thread for the specific topic of UU/UB. I have updated the list of effects in this post. Here is a summary.

(Reminder: UR = Unique Resource, a contract from the landing stage which no other civ may pick. URU = a unit which requires a UR. UA = unique ability.)

* Atreides: 2 UU, 1 UB, 1 UR, no URU, no UA. Thopter is new, may be too powerful; need feedback.

* Bene Gesserit: no UU, no UB, 1 UR, 1 URU, no UA. The URU could not be built till recently, no feedback.

* Bene Tleilax: no UU, 1 UB, no UR, no URU, 2 UA (gholas and plagues). Plague is pretty powerful and could use tuning; no feedback on gholas (too late game?)

* Corrino: 2 UU, no UB, 1 UR, 2 URU, no UA. No positive or negative feedback, perhaps the UU are too boring and should be removed.

* Ecaz: 2 UU, no UB, 2 UR, no URU, no UA. Both UU are new; smuggler seems a little weak.

* Fremen: no UU, no UB, 1 UR, 3 URU, one UA (desert movement). UA seems powerful but AI cannot use it.

* Harkonnen: 1 UU, 1 UB, no UR, no URU, one UA (generates slaves). UA needs a little debugging/tuning.

* Ix: no UU, 3 UB, one UR, 4 URU, no UA. Disagreement about whether the UB should be limited by civilization or religion or both.

* Ordos: no UU, no UB, no UR, no URU, one UA (spy experience). Not much feedback on spies; 1.6.3 makes them more useful by enabling suspensor movement but it is not clear if the AI uses it.

It is easy to throw up "names" for UU. But, we need details: which unit does it replace? What are the stats? Separately we will need artwork but for now it is sufficient to just copy the base unit art, and maybe give it a slightly different paint job.

Many people have suggested the Ordos Trike, replaces Quad, +1 movement, +25% withdraw chance.

I plan a Smuggler's Haven UB for Ecaz, which gives them 1-2 additional Landing Stages, plus it has a slightly higher trade yield bonus.

Deliverator has recently suggested the Sculptor's Garden UB for Ecaz, replaces Mushtamel with additional gold.

Please help out with some specific suggestions for UU/UB.

 

[Slvynn]

I want to add an suggestion that differentiation should be different from ffh.
FFH like difference is subject to major AI issues as well as some of game concepts that remain unused by aI. More htan that civs are not balanced in MP, the max balance gain is paper-scissors-stone relationship, but that relationship should be between features and not between complete civs as game entities. Such relationship between civs is absence of balance. That is the thing that ruins (my ) fun to play FFH.
I think some middle point between BTS and FFH can be good. Also, we have another, different from FFH difference - URU, which also may provide special buildings/features. We just need to keep some restrain / awareness to go so far as FFH goes, because 1 - its different mod 2 - that will be awesome if some pvp MP balance will be preserved.

There still need of much more determination and differentiation being added, simply its still possible to do it in unique way, and more balanced way . URU / offworld mechanic is unique and thats good direction. Its balance is can be controlled easilly, and adjusted, AI understands it, and it have big potentials for differentiation. Addin more mechanics on different layers of game (exceeding UU/UB/URU/Civic/Synergy mechanics) can be can of worms. Simply i warning about "worms" of this matter.

Spoiler :

(Lets say FFH ai almost never uses 20% of his starting mana potentials.. Amurites is vaaaay too potent in human player, because well built fire magic is still..... kills all, for long time, and still, ffh mod have problems with balance, and MP of FFH is not sport-like, fair play with equal starting odds/conditions/chances to win, and thing why i play BTS still - because i can take it to more one social level - tactic discussions and PVP MP, but tactic dicussions are no good if there no balance, check FFH forums, and they have very little of it. They have alot of RP, Storytelling, Epic stuf, Imagination, which are partially questionable features for mod like DW, which based on pretty complete world of book series, is about war and less RP related, much less open (it have "canon" ) , but more tactic/strategic game with deep insight into books lore and complete feel of Dune and chance to take your part and to be a ruler of one of powerhouses of Book Series).

 

[Deliverator]

For a Ordos UU: Chemical Trooper, replaces Grenade Trooper, does some appropriate amount of collateral damage, perhaps raise the strength to seven as well.

I think Harkonnens need a heavy infantry UU, perhaps a stronger replacement for Heavy Infantry, with a 10% bonus versus melee?

I think in general as Ahriman said we shouldn't think of UUs in isolation, but they need to be part of the overall civ design. Ahriman posted a lot of good ideas in the civ thread that we should look to turn in concrete UU designs.

 

[davidlallen]

I want to add an suggestion that differentiation should be different from ffh

That is an interesting point. Let me make sure I understand. You observe that there is little multi-player activity for FFH. This is because certain civs have unique abilities which are too powerful. So if there were an MP game, everybody would want to play that civ. For FFH single player, it is still fun to try out the unique abilities of the less powerful civs, so there is still a lot of single player activity.

In this case I think the design goal is still the same. We would like to create balanced sets of UU/UB/UR/URU/UA so that each civ is equally powerful. But, FFH has not quite reached that goal itself, so the goal is even harder than we realized.

Is that a correct summary of your comment?

 

[davidlallen]

For a Ordos UU: Chemical Trooper, replaces Grenade Trooper, does some appropriate amount of collateral damage, perhaps raise the strength to seven as well.

From the theme standpoint, Ordos focus on espionage. Would it make sense to call this Plague Trooper and make it a UU for Tleilaxu?

I think Harkonnens need a heavy infantry UU, perhaps a stronger replacement for Heavy Infantry, with a 10% bonus versus melee?

Good idea. Do you have a name in mind?

 

[Slvynn]

That is an interesting point. Let me make sure I understand. You observe that there is little multi-player activity for FFH. This is because certain civs have unique abilities which are too powerful. So if there were an MP game, everybody would want to play that civ. For FFH single player, it is still fun to try out the unique abilities of the less powerful civs, so there is still a lot of single player activity.

In this case I think the design goal is still the same. We would like to create balanced sets of UU/UB/UR/URU/UA so that each civ is equally powerful. But, FFH has not quite reached that goal itself, so the goal is even harder than we realized.

Is that a correct summary of your comment?

Quite close.
1. Lets take example some really sucesfull strategic game. Starcraft. Yeah its RTS, but its good example. The differentiation there is done well on this level you said about. Civs there have UUs, on mechanics, and their super powers. but they build units, there is no special mechanics to generate units you just build them. Powers have counters within rival civ. There always way within 1 civ to counter other method of rival civ just by performing your task better than other player. That mean if human and zerg meeting - all what is matter is their skill, and not civ differentiation.
Another good example is old rusty HoM&M series, and Homeworld 2 which is perfect in this regard .
They all have some restrain in what "plane" of game civs can be different. They take the plane one you mentioned above in your post (UU/UB/UR/URU/UA) and sucess to create great difference, but keep balance.
In FFH thats not quite that way - its often matter what civ you are and what civ is your rival, heroes, magic, all open-ended. DW is not open-ended so much.
In FFH not every civ have counters against some certain others. Thats not good (for DW i think)
FFH is FFH, and DW is not FFH. It will be great if DW will provide something that FFH can not, due its so wide variety and RolePlaying totally imaginative favor.
BTS is much better in that matter, its much more Strategic/Tactic game. Yes, there are some picks (Phalanx against Keshik) that can be worse, but they have alot of equality , and much less tech specialisation need, so you still have a chances. By being so specialised and so different civ can be very weak in certain circumstances. The things that should be that one performance/way of playing should win other one, weaker. In FFH its not . Even if you can perform well as player, there are alot of "No luck" cases.
3. There are few mechanics in FFH that make it may be more fun in SP, but AI cant use them, (and that lowers challenge and dificulty level), and they are not good in MP.
Example - Bannor getting Free units, Amurites use powerful mechanics of magic, which hardly counterable , and more and more. Those things add flavour, but they add alot of worms and problems, and they are bit too much for mod/game that want to keep being relevant in matter of fair MP games, Deep strategical decisions , and tight challenge and balance between civs and quite strict resemblance of world described in originating novel series.
Also FFH isnt preserved this goal as major one. FFH is about deeps flavour/specialisation/ open-ended things / wide choices/ storytelling / Roleplaying . Its less about world that have own "canon". Its less about balance/ strategy / tactics / equal terms between civs. FFH mod team have just own, RP aligned focus. And the truth is , you can't chase and catch 2 rabbits (you can hit 2nd one, may be kill it, but to catch alive them both that will be ultimate goal). They chase their own, fantasy Roleplaying roleplaying, and have great, awesome success with that . I just think DW should have bit different focus.

I hope that what i say is clear enough.

 

[Deliverator]

From the theme standpoint, Ordos focus on espionage. Would it make sense to call this Plague Trooper and make it a UU for Tleilaxu?

The Chemical Trooper was a unit from the Westwood games and I think it quite suits Ordos. They are amoral, sneaky and will do anything at all to maximise profit. Chemical warfare is something distinct from biological warfare too. If we makes Ordos just espionage they'll be a bit thin, some players don't really use espionage, and for others espionage is their least favourite feature of BTS. So I think looking at some of the other Westwood inventions such as the quicker-Quad Trike, Chemical Trooper. Also, perhaps give them an Infiltrator replacing UU, called Saboteur (another Westwood name) that has a increased chance at destructive missions (if this is possible).

I also think we need to avoid getting stuck in a rut with the Tleilaxu. We already have the plague virus, which I think is enough biological warfare. I'm not sure the current Axlotl tanks quite capture their use of Face Dancers/Gholas, just selecting a promotion from your best unit seems a bit too abstract to really be flavourful. I think we should really be looking at some UUs with special abilities for them. If we can figure out how FFH does it's Marksman thing, then that would be a good ability for a Facedancer unit as Ahriman has suggested. Also, perhaps some Tleilaxu units could uses the J's unit regeneration code (from his simple Python things) to represent them coming back as Gholas.

Good idea. Do you have a name in mind?

Inkvine Regiment perhaps. Someone might have a better one.

Edit: Also, if it's possible to create an area effect Death Hand missile for the Harkonnen that would be good fun. It would damage/destroy units in a 3x3 squares centred on the target. It would have to be pretty expensive to build.

 

[Slvynn]

The Chemical Trooper was a unit from the Westwood games and I think it quite suits Ordos. They are amoral, sneaky and will do anything at all to maximise profit. Chemical warfare is something distinct from biological warfare too. If we makes Ordos just espionage they'll be a bit thin, some players don't really use espionage, and for others espionage is their least favourite feature of BTS. So I think looking at some of the other Westwood inventions such as the quicker-Quad Trike, Chemical Trooper. Also, perhaps give them an Infiltrator replacing UU, called Saboteur (another Westwood name) that has a increased chance at destructive missions (if this is possible).

Nice, i like.

I also think we need to avoid getting stuck in a rut with the Tleilaxu. We already have the plague virus, which I think is enough biological warfare. I'm not sure the current Axlotl tanks quite capture their use of Face Dancers/Gholas, just selecting a promotion from your best unit seems a bit too abstract to really be flavourful. I think we should really be looking at some UUs with special abilities for them.

Here, Deliverator keeps restrain and i totally agree with him, he keeps being focused on real and easy-to-control plane of difference, and avoiding too abstract things . I agree 200%

If we can figure out how FFH does it's Marksman thing, then that would be a good ability for a Facedancer unit as Ahriman has suggested. Also, perhaps some Tleilaxu units could uses the J's unit regeneration code (from his simple Python things) to represent them coming back as Gholas.

Suggestion - what about adding some promo to BTl units, limit units that can have it, and when they killed they come back as gholas exactly as Do Immortals in FFH.
They need to advance level again to get that promo again to being ressurected as ghola once more. Seems nice, balanced and easy to implement.

Inkvine Regiment perhaps. Someone might have a better one.

Sounds interesting to me.

 

[davidlallen]

I'm not sure the current Axlotl tanks quite capture their use of Face Dancers/Gholas, just selecting a promotion from your best unit seems a bit too abstract to really be flavourful. I think we should really be looking at some UUs with special abilities for them. If we can figure out how FFH does it's Marksman thing, then that would be a good ability for a Facedancer unit as Ahriman has suggested. Also, perhaps some Tleilaxu units could uses the J's unit regeneration code (from his simple Python things) to represent them coming back as Gholas.

Perhaps this should branch back to the tleilaxu mechanics thread.

a. The axlotl tank gives *all* the promotions of the best living unit, possibly with one level degradation; this is a lot more powerful than just selecting one promotion. I have proposed to make this use the best *dead* unit, but storing that information is more work, and there isn't much feedback on this unit yet to encourage me.

b. I think Facedancers were proposed to use FFH "Mimic", not "Marksman", to steal promotions. I can probably do that. Marksman, I am not so sure about it. If we are aiming at an assassin ability, suppose I have a stack where the weakest unit is a damaged devastator heavy tank. Does it make sense for a Face Dancer to target this unit?

EDIT: i have occasionally thought of making a unit flag like "IsSinglePerson". In this case it would make sense for an assassin to target them. So the Atreides Heir and possibly Ginaz Swordsman would have this flag, and assassins could target them as well as Great People.

c. Remind me, what does the unit regeneration thingie do? Is it just healing?

 

[Ahriman]

The axlotl tank gives *all* the promotions of the best living unit, possibly with one level degradation; this is a lot more powerful than just selecting one promotion. I have proposed to make this use the best *dead* unit, but storing that information is more work, and there isn't much feedback on this unit yet to encourage me.

I will try to test at some stage and get some feedback. Part of the problem is that the tech is so very late game. My fault, I guess. Maybe we can tweak the tech-tree?
I made some other suggestions:

I thought of an alternative mechanic for Tleilaxu gholas; use the FFH-style immortality mechanic; immortality fits well, but balancing it was tricky.
It would take some complex coding though.

When an axolotl tank is built in a city, the *next* unit (and only the next) built in that city gains the Ghola promotion, which functions the same as the FFH immortailty trait (when killed, the unit is ressurected in the capital city, and retains the ghola promotion - must be killed twice in one turn to die permanently).

Thus, you can get 1 immortal ghola per city with an axolotl tank.

Alternative implementation: when you build an axolotl tank, give the ghola promotion to the unit the player has with the highest level of experience who does not already have the ghola promotion.

b. I think Facedancers were proposed to use FFH "Mimic", not "Marksman", to steal promotions. I can probably do that. Marksman, I am not so sure about it. If we are aiming at an assassin ability, suppose I have a stack where the weakest unit is a damaged devastator heavy tank. Does it make sense for a Face Dancer to target this unit?

I like mimic better than marksmen, but either could work I guess. Mimic has nice synergies with the gholas though.

c. Remind me, what does the unit regeneration thingie do? Is it just healing?

Regeneration is faster healing and heal while moving (march). I don't think it fits gholas well.