Contest: Design a Unit!

[Kael]

For a little fun we are going to have a design a unit contest.

The Rules:

1.[tab]Each participant can submit 1 and only 1 unit. We mean it, we don't want "either of these are fine", "here are a handful of ideas", or "here is my very favorite, filtered down, cream of the crop 347 pages of unit ideas".

2.[tab]This contest isn't for heroes, we may have one of those later. This is only for a non-unique unit.

3.[tab]The unit can be recommended for a specific civ or not, either way is fine.

4.[tab]Be sure to read the first post of the unit, promotion, spell and heroes threads to make sure your ideas are unique before submitting it (your idea may be excellent, but if it is already done somewhere else you won't win). You may want to read the entire unit thread to get an idea of what we look for.

5.[tab]Bonus points given to non-uber units. We already have the top of the power curve detailed out (I know those units are the most fun to make) what is more difficult to design is making the early and mid-game units interesting.

6.[tab]Backgrounds or writeups aren't nessesary but a good name is.

7.[tab]Please keep your responses to this thread down to 1 post for each entry (and therefor 1 post for each person). Create a new thread if you want to chat about the contest.

8.[tab]While we are accepting sumissions you are free to change your entry if you have a new idea.

9.[tab]FfH team members can't enter. (this means you Woodelf!)

The contest starts right now and we will be accepting submissions until May 28th at 9pm EST (Eastern Standard Time).


Judging:

After 9pm each member of the FfH team will have 24 hours to pick their favorite unit. I will add all of the selected units to a poll for public voting for 3 days. At the end of those 3 days the unit with the highest votes wins!


The Reward:

Your unit will appear in FfH2! Thats right, we have taken stealing ideas to a whole new level by asking you to compete for the right to have your ideas stolen! You can supply the pedia entry for the unit if you like or we will write it based on your description and your unit will have custom art done by one of the art team members or me (and if it's me I'll apologize now).

 

[woodelf]

I had such a good idea until I read #9!

 

[puck11b]

Unit Name: Skirmisher
The basic idea of the unit is an early to mid game hit and run combatant, used to harass powerful units that you don't have the power to kill outright.
Pursuant to this the unit should have a slightly lower attack score than average for combat units of that tier, however they start with 1 first strike and a fairly high withdraw chance (40%).

Promotions available to the skirmishers are the combat I-V, mobility I-III, drill I-IV, flanking I-III, anti-$race, anti-$unit, commando, sentry I-III, and march. No defensive or city attack promotions, they don't fight their best in the confines of cities.
If there is a way to give them the bonus move from woodsman II and guerilla II without the defensive bonuses attached, perhaps a promotion called 'skirmish', that would be good for them as well.

I see these as tier 2-3 units, with a strength of 3 if tier 2, and a strength of 6 if tier 3. Requires hunting and warfare for tier 2, mobile combat for tier 3, but no special buildings or materials.

Civ entry forthcoming

 

[kevjm]

Local Militia; Town Guard (it's one unit, just can't decide on the name )

Immobile city defence unit, only one can be built for every city. Cannot use Obsidian Gateways.

The unit *does not* gain experience.

The unit *does not* receive conventional promotions (such as quality weapons).
Can still receive negative promotions (ie plague).

If the unit is lost, the city will go into revolution for one or two turns. One turn if you have no militia units working in the city, two turns if you do have any working in the city.

The presence of this unit in a city allows access to the city militia specialist, the number of which are available depending on improvements such as palisades, stone walls and castles.

For every militia specialist, the base power of this unit increases by 1.4 (given that there are not a great deal of defencive buildings, although I haven't played into the late game recently). This is probably best done through promotions.

The unit is cheap, you will have to build walls and castles to make it powerful. If the unit is lost, the city will go into revolution for a couple of turns, so you can't continually build cheap militia units when under siege to defend the city.

If possible, it's power will also go up slightly with city size, something like 0.05 power.

Base strength of 2.

Can be upgraded from a town guard after researching one of the later techs, requires palace, maximum of 1 allowed at any time. Called the Palace Guard / Royal Guard.

Hope you like it!

I know there's a civ specific or religious specific unit a lot like this, can't recall or find this unit (it's dwarven, I think Rune Guard?) but that unit could replace the Palace Guard for that civilization / religion and possibly have different requirements / limits. But expanding on UU variants is infringing on your first rule, I feel

The unit has zero maintanence cost.

*Cannot be feasted on, sacrificed or disbanded; does not receice the cultist promotion. Dies if the city is destroyed by culture implosion. Immune to charm; is always aligned to the owner of the city (if traded, converted by culture or converted by the wrathe unleashed).

*Defensive civs get a free militia specialist in every city (if and when they are included )

 

[Alter Ego]

”Shaman” – yes, I know this is already the name of a Doviello UU. I’m using it as a sort of concept name to convey the overall idea for the unit until I can come up with a better one. I can always edit this post later, right?

Other names: Spiritist, Druid (with the current Druid renamed Archdruid).

The Shaman can form a bond with an animal – one animal – thereby gaining a promotion depending on the particular animal: strength of the bear, spirit of the lion, fury of the tiger, swiftness of the panther, vigilance of the wolf. As such it is a very custumizable unit. The animal the Shaman forms a bond with is not ‘consumed’ by the action; I wouldn’t want to force the player to choose between enhancing his units and enhancing his cities (by using the animals for pens). The Shaman can bond with the animal when in the same tile, such as after having captured it (the Shaman, though worshipful of nature, is not naive about it), or perhaps when in an adjacent tile, or perhaps when ‘spirit-walking’ (see below); simply having the Shaman bond with an animal caged in a pen would probably help the AI utilizing the mechanism properly, but would trivialize it at the same time, gameplay-wise and lore-wise.

Besides gaining xp when defeating other units, the Shaman generates xp much like Adept/Disciple units when outside cultural borders (achieves greater wisdom by communing with nature). In fact, the further away from cultural borders, the greater the xp generation.

It is intended to be a multipurpose recon unit customizable to whatever threats one may encounter in uncivilized territory, and will especially come into it’s own when Wilderness is introduced in one of the later phases, I think. It is not intended to drastically redefine gameplay. The Shaman can be anything from tier 2 to 4, I haven’t decided yet; it completely depends on the remaining uncolonized lands and animals when it enters the game. +100% vs. animals, starts with subdue animal, medic 1 – perhaps channeling 1 or 2 and nature and/or life/creation magic sphere. Ultimately it upgrades to Druid/Beastmaster, is contemporary with them (as a UU) or is ‘merged’ with (one of) them to provide them extra flavor. I imagine it requires nature mana to produce if it isn’t a UU.

I know I’m not being very specific here, but I don’t have nearly the same experience with game balancing that you (the modders) have; as such, I feel I should simply supply you with a couple of ideas, whereas you should supply the specific strength, movement and so on in accordance with your broad perspective on the game (I hope I’m making sense – not a native English speaker).

---

I don’t think the AI could handle it, but otherwise a nice addition would be if the Shaman could perform some sort of astral projection; perhaps while in a hibernation-like dream-state with increased xp generation. The projected self would be invisible and could explore the land (perhaps searching for an animal to bond with?), ignoring movement costs. It would have to return to the Shaman’s physical body for the Shaman to awaken and move again. To ensure this mechanism wouldn’t be exploited the projected self would be unable to enter cultural domains. Alternatively, a more AI-friendly approach would be to simply have the projected self autospawn whenever the Shaman has used all movement points, to represent an awake-asleep cycle every turn (however this could be to similar to recon/hawk exploration).

 

[Whitefire]

Name: Kael
Ability: Can steal technology from foreign civs.

I'lledithis post when I have a real entry ;D.

 

[abman]

Giant Spider
Animal unit, Strength 5 or 6, movement 1
Starts with sentry, web ability.
When spawned, spider stays within a 3x3 area of where it spawned. Sentry allows spider to spot anyone within its 3x3 territory. If a (non-barbarian) unit is in that area at the start of the spider's turn, it uses its web ability to ensare it. This works like a ranged spell (up to 2 tiles away), so that the spider can trap units anywhere within that 3x3 area. The effect is that the ensnared unit is rooted for 3 turns (enough time for the spider to come attack it). Also might be good to have the attack poison the unit.
If a giant spider is defeated, it provides +1 silk in the capitol city of that civ. Also, if subdued it still has the abilities but web ensare only works on adjacent tiles (too powerful if the spider can move about). And maybe there could be some special use for a subdued giant spider if you are Veil religion.

 

[TheCowSaysMoooo]

I liked the recent addition of a religion that can negatively influence most nations' cities, and thought a slight change in some of it's spread mechanics might be interesting.


Word of the Wyrm (Disciple unit)

Stats:
Cost: 75
Strength: 2
Movement: 2
Upgrades Allowed: Movement, Combat, Racial, no terrain bonuses

Build Requirements:
Kuriotate and Sheaim only
Can be built only in cities with the Cult of the Dragon
Limited to 3 per nation

Abilities:
Has a worker-like ability to spread the Cult of the Dragon to a city. (As opposed to the normal disciple-types sacrifice to attempt to spread religion)
Can travel in rival territory.
Hidden unit. (Like a spy)


I'd come up with a couple alternate names (Apostle of the Dragon, Serpent's Shepherd, The Wyrm's Witness), but I think I prefer my initial name.

 

[Zherak_Khan]

Hollowcloak (Disciple unit): The unit's graphics should depict a single, mysteriously hooded and cloaked traveller. No actual body should be visible, such as face, hair or hands. He could have glowing eyes.

Prereqs: Knowledge of the Ether (early game tech)
Cost: 4x Axeman (Hollowcloaks could very well be produced by something which is not hammers.)
National unit (maximum three allowed)

Promotions: Combat I-V, Mobility, Drill (All), Flanking (All), March, Dimension I. (Should preferably have access to more Strength/First strike/Withdrawal promotions).
Starts with -25% Strength when defending.
Move: 3
Cannot be upgrades to or from.

Special:

A Hollowcloak has no strength value; it always equals the opponent's strength.
A Hollowcloak recieves no defensive bonuses.
A Hollowcloak negates all defenders terrain-based bonuses.
A Hollowcloak may never enter an enemy's cultural borders.
A Hollowcloak recieves +25% on defense with the discovery of three appropriate Ether-related techs.
A Hollowcloak recieves +50% Strength when within no cultural borders.
A Hollowcloak recieves -100% Strength when sharing tile with any other unit.
A Hollowcloak may not attack Avathar units, such as Dragons.

Design philosophy: Hollowcloaks are elite units that never obselete. They are extremely strong in single combat, for instance versus Heroes, but expensive to build and easily overtaken by multiple units. They particularly shine in the wilderness by themselves and cannot be used efficiently in stacks or on offense. They are particularly handy for civilizations lacking military techs. While not all the details are equally important or designed for ease of implentation, the general idea should be implentable.


Flavour text:

Mysterious loners, little is known about the nature of the Hollowcloaks. They are rumored to be manifestations of primal energy, their clothes animated by nothing but force of will. What ulterior goals they serve is beyound mere mortals, but they dislike civilization and their powers wane in power in its prescense. Swords and shields are of little use against the Hollowcloaks psychic prowess, but the confidence of experience and numbers is invaluable.

 

[Xanikk999]

Rebellion: (An unwanted unit)

Description: A barbarian unit not under your control and always hostile even to barbarian leadersthat has a 1 in 100 chance of being made outside the city whenever one of your cities is unhappy.

Depending on the technology level and race you are there are many different types of rebellions But they all have the same stats and tendencies but look different.

Rebel stats:

Before you get iron working:

4 Str 2 movement (Is very strong to represent numbers, and movement is for pillaging and avoiding armies, see bolded text later).

After you get iron working

6 str 3 movement

After you get liberalism:

10 Str 3 movement (Even stronger!)

All rebellion units have the following characteristics regardless of techs.

cost: N/A spawns as a barbarian unit!

Makes nearby cities unhappy. And raises the chance of a new rebellion to occur.

This unit should be coded to pillage countryside and avoid your armies to make it challenging!!.

This is very important. They are supposed to be a nuisance that is not easily quelled.

If you make the home city that the rebellion is from happy again the rebellion disappears!!

 

[Olliff]

Pious Partisan
(maybe use a blend of the crusader and christian missionary for the image)
Unit type: Disciple
Techs Needed: Religous Law (can be changed if needed)

Resources: Require Incense.

Strength: 6 (5 if you think it is a bit too strong for this tech)
Starting Promotions: Enraged
Movement: 1

Cost: 125 shields
Doesn't recieve defensive abiilities.

Can recieve all of the same promotions as a priest unit.

Power can be adjusted if needed!


The idea behind this unit is to make a unit that repsesent a miliatant religous unit(zealot or a fanatic thats not tied to a specific relgion) that is present regardless of religion. These units rerpesnt hardened religous zealot of the civ's religon. If the civ has no religon they fight for paganism. The key difference to this unit when you compare it to other disciple units is that it not tied to a specific religions because it represent the generic hardcore miltiant group of any religion. This diffrentiates itself from the paladin or any other religion specific unit.

If a civ doesnt have iron they are severely weakened. This unit is suppose to mitgiate this weakness by providing an alternate unit if the civ has access to incense.



Hope you like my idea.

 

[jimi12]

Unit Name
Doppleganger

Unit Type
Demon

starts off with strength 1 and movement 2. only has the spell 'mirror'. this is cast onto an enemy unit and they then become that unit. they mirror that enemy unit's stats and promotions. they cannot gain any more promotions past the ones that they copied initially. ashen veil and/or OO unique unit. maybe can only copy living units, kael can decide that part. if the unit the doppleganger copied happens to perish, the doppleganger receives the ability to remain as the unit or return back to its original form and copy somebody else.

Unit Lore
Spirits of men sentenced to eternal damnation, they lost all memories of their past lives as mortals. They yearn to have an identity of their own. Their methods, however, are less conventional then one might assume...
(So I know the lore sucks but it kinda gives you the direction I was going)

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

The Trebuchet:

- ok i post this idea even though i don't know how the planned new bombard system will work, and if this is already in (if this is the case i will submit something differnent )

The Trebutchet is a siege weapon somewhere between the catapult and the cannon (or maybe the same time as catapults, for those civs that have acces to stones.)

The main idea: The Trebuchet hurls stones the same way a mages use fireballs.

The Trebuchet never gets exp. from fighting - it's just a machine and therefore is as good as it was constructed.

Strenght should be 1, so it is easiely destroyed when unprotected. Movement should also be 1, maybe make it unable to enter tiles without roads (then you need better planning for sieges...)

The Trebuchet should not be allowed to move and "cast" their ball of stone in the same turn. It takes time to get the thing to shoot.

Promotions of the Trebuchet should effect strenght and movement rate of the stones (same as fireballs). The stones should have low collateral damage, but high destruction of city defensens, maybe even give them a chance of completly missing when shot at lone units.


edit: changed cannons to catapults because i wanted them to be mid game / early sieges not late game units... just typed the wrong unit in the first place

 

[Gileyal]

--- the idea below is an old idea - please skip it ----

The Champion of Elohim

This idea is not original... I took it from a game I used to play online about 10 years ago called "darkness falls". It was a dial in bbs...

There can only be one of these. It is basically a golem type character which is dedicated to ending all war. How? by destroying any unit which attacks another unit in its territory. (Except if it is of the Elohim).

High movement, very powerful. Has a set territory in the game and doesn't leave it. This territory can serve as a safe haven for any traveling unit. The Champion lets anyone in, so long as they don't attack someone in the territory. If they do, they're his target now...

Another option - the Champion is at war with any other civ that is at war.

--- will be revised due to comments ---

 

[Psychorg]

Soul Eater

This is a demonic unit, strength 3 or 4. It has the ability to 'consume soul'. The targeted unit will become undead, and get the 'soulless' promotion. This promotion could give a negative healing rate (like the disease) or give the unit a risk of going barbarien every turn. It could also be used with some entirely new mechanic (this is design a unit after all)
The Soul Eater will have a chance to gain some XP for using this ability, but there is also a risk that a barbarian strength 4 unit, Lost Soul, is spawned. As I'm limited to one unit, I will not elaborate further on what this unit does

 

[Black Whole]

Dreamer

Strength: 1
Movement:1
Requires: Ancient Chants
Costs: like a warrior, don't know how much this is
Adept or Disciple

can't get any promotions

Special abilities: +10% defense bonus in the tile he stands for every unit (dream of future promotion?)
'dream of the past': summons a soul of the ancestors
str. 4; +50% city defence; lasts until there is no enemy within a
radius of 2 tiles, but at least 5 turns; can't move
has a great chance to consume the dreamer because the soul will be taking his place
+50% city defence because there live most of their descendants

a special unit for the Elohim, perhaps?

This unit should help in the beginning of the game by boosting your defence. Especially when Orthus is near or when there are early wars. Even in the late game this unit still gives a decent defense boost, which would it make a perfect Elohim unit.

Short description
Before they knew, that there are gods, the Elohim believed in the spirits of their ancestors. They asked the spirits for help and support. Some of the Elohim gained the trust of them and received the gift of dreaming. These blessed sometimes dreamed what will happen in the future, so they can warn their folk. But even the ancestors can't see everything. If their descendants were threatened, they would go into the body of a dreamer and try to defend them. This is very dangerous and most of the dreamers don't survive this supernatural power.
(I know this doesn't sound good, the text can be changed.)

 

[loki1232]

Well teh voting has started so whitefire might want to revise his entry. Coruse the way it is now i might vote for it. JK.

Note--Don't respond in this thread please.

 

[Zurai]

In my most recent game I noticed how bad a deal Ashen Veil gets with their unique tech compared to the other religions; so, here's an entry for Necromancy.


Cold Wraith
Strength: 5
Movement: 1
Requires: Necromancy, Ashen Veil state religion

Promotions: Combat line, anti-race line, sentry. Definitly no defensive promotions and probably no city attack promotions.

Special:
Undead.
Ignores city defense. (It's ethereal and can go through walls)
May move into impassible terrain.
Whenever it kills a living unit, it creates a Tortured Soul for its owner; Tortured Souls are strength 2, movement 1, Undead, ignore city defense, move into impassible terrain, no upkeep costs (mini-wraiths without the soul stealing, basically).


Cold Wraiths should look like a bunch of mist. Tortured Souls would look like ghostly people.

I'd write background for them, but I'm not familiar enough with the AV story to make it fit right. I may come back and edit this later when I've read more on it.

 

[Sisonpyh]

Orc Warboss: UU for the Clan of Embers and Barbarian State (replaces Mace Man)

Strength 6
Move 2
Blitz
Fear Immunity
Commando
-80% Plain, Grassland, Hill, forest defense
Bloody Rage promotion: 75% to become Enraged and 10% to become frenzied (becoming a Barbarian with Enraged) for 1 turn after each sucessful kill. Meaning, if unit has 2 kills on his turn, he then gets the Bloody Rage promotion for 2 turns instead of 1. And so on.

Comedy Passive Option: 5% chance to give his fellow Orcs Bloody Rage if his turn ends on their tile after a kill.

Much bigger than the average Orc; the so called 'Alpha Male' of his peer group. Other Orcs would dare not challenge him or speak wrong of him if he was near. Has no fear, impulse fighter, not afraid to die. Wears little to no armor deeming such an act as weak. Weilds a huge two-handed spikey flail of death.

 

[DarthCycle]

General

First tier unit
Strength: 3
Movement: 1
Unit type: melee

Requires barrack
Requires warfare technology
Limited to 3 per civ
Cannot be build. Only available as an upgrade to any (first tier) living melee unit of level 3 or more. For upgrade cost calculation, assume the cost to upgrade from warrior to axemen.

Available Promotions: combat I-V, amphibious, blitz, commando, drill I-II, guerilla I, mobility I-II, sentry I-II, woodsman I. This limited list aims to improve the odds that the AI will choose the combat promotions first.

Special abilities
1) Conduct offensive operation (must be activated, like a spell): gains +40% combat bonus for each level in combat until end of turn
2) Organize city defense (always active): provides +25% city defense bonus to other units in the same square for each level in combat

These abilities makes this unit a dual purpose unit. You can use it as an offensive unit with its offensive operation ability or you can use it to boost the defense in a city with its organize city defense ability.

Civilopedia: coming soon!