Race/UU and Elven Werewolves

[Sarisin]

I wanted to bring this topic into a new thread that came up in several other non-related threads...

First, I am still a little confused with upgrading units that are not the race of my civ. For example, I am playing as the Elves/Arendel Phaedra and I get lucky with a dungeon and get the event that gives me two Lizardmen. They survive the Axemen attack and go on to pile up the XP as very powerful explorers/attackers in the early game.

I research Animal Handling and pay the Gold to upgrade the Lizardmen. They upgrade to a Ranger model that resembles the model of a human race civ - Elohim, for example. However, they retain their Lizard skills.

I can build Elven Rangers so now I have two Ranger models in my army (actually 3 as I have a Ranger Adventurer Hero as well). I get the UU bit and suppose it would not make sense to upgrade a Lizardman to an Elven Ranger. However, shouldn't the upgraded unit either (a) Lose the Lizard ability if it is going to be a Human Ranger or (b) Become a Lizard Ranger?

I think it is pretty neat that the unit keeps the Lizard skills, however it just doesn't make any sense when you see the unit itself.

To take this one step further, consider the following:

Same game, I built the Baron. All fine so far. However, all the Werewolves generated (Ravenous, Blooded, Great) had the Elven Skills! Don't get me wrong, it was fun having them with those additional skills especially in my FOL civ with plenty of Ancient Forests around. However, and I realize this is a fantasy mod, when was the last time you saw any Elven Werewolves? I suppose you could also have Dwarven, Orc, Demon Werewolves, etc.

I think this also in a way goes back also to the old Vampire argument on which units can and cannot become Vampires.

In this case should certain units be exempt from the players' race's special skills? Should Werewolves not be Elven Werewolves? Again, it is strange that the Baron himself doesn't get the skills while his 'offspring' do.

OK, I'm anxious to hear your opinions on this as I am damn well confused myself on it all.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

It's not racial skills, it's the units' actual race. So your Lizardmen (race=Lizard unit=Hunter) upgrade to a Ranger unit, but retain their Lizard race. This is as it should be. I believe your confusion is because (AFAIK) there is no Lizard Ranger unit model. So your Lizard Ranger is properly keeping his race when he upgrades, but the graphics aren't there to show it.

As for the Werewolves, I mentioned the same thing in another post and I am sure it is a bug. The Werewolves are being created from another unit, and so they should keep that unit's race. I would assume the problem lies in how the Werewolf unit is actually created in the code.

The Werewolf thing (getting your race) also happens to any unit you get for free (event/dungeon) and I believe that should be changed as well.

Vampires are not a different race, so it really has nothing to do with this topic. Like some other abilites (Heal, Bless, etc) Vampirism is not passable to non-living units like Angels and Demons.

 

[the343danny]

IIRC, the lizard ranger is a unique unit with the same name, its not just graphically different. Or maybe that was another unit. So even if your unit is a lizard, since you couldnt upgrade into that UU because your not barb or clan, you have to upgrade it into the normal ranger, which doesnt have a different graphic for Lizards.

Race does affect graphics on other units however. I was playing as the hippus one time, and my best horseman turned into a demon via an event. He got a different graphic then everybody else, although he looked like a skeleton on a horse, not a demon on a horse.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

There is a lizardman ranger model. I'm facing quite a few of them in my current game, in a war vs. the clan.

 

[KillerClowns]

Even though the Clan builds a semi-unique ranger (same name, same stats, but starts with Lizardman so it isn't made orcish), shouldn't the other races' rangers have special graphics for Lizardmen for just this sort of occasion?
I would have figured they would have...

 

[MaxAstro]

There is a "Civilization Upgrade" option that can be to used, for example, to force captured Lizardmen to upgrade to Lizard Rangers instead of your civilization's normal equivalent.

However, this option seems to be heavily under-used; a huge number of units that really should have it, don't. There are even worse oddities possible; for example, captured goblins can be upgraded to Horsemen.

 

[Kael]

There is a "Civilization Upgrade" option that can be to used, for example, to force captured Lizardmen to upgrade to Lizard Rangers instead of your civilization's normal equivalent.

That isnt required for lizardmen. All thats missing is that the lizardman art be applied which I'll fix in 0.40.

However, this option seems to be heavily under-used; a huge number of units that really should have it, don't. There are even worse oddities possible; for example, captured goblins can be upgraded to Horsemen.

That is an excellent example of a place where civ specific upgrades should be used, ill switch that too.

 

[Fenboy]

I was playing as the hippus one time, and my best horseman turned into a demon via an event. He got a different graphic then everybody else, although he looked like a skeleton on a horse, not a demon on a horse.

Sounds to me like that event changes your unit to using the Infernal graphic.

 

[Caradoc]

Rangers are masters of disguise.

 

[Sarisin]

Thanks for the discussion replies.

Just to see what would happen I dropped a Dwarven Axeman (the other choice you can get from the Dungeon event) in my game via the World Builder. I wanted to see what he would upgrade to. By using the Lizardman example (there are Lizardman Rangers and I am getting plenty of barb ones in my game now) you would expect I would get a normal/human Champion with Dwarven skills - I shouldn't get an Elven Champion.

Well, fooled again. This time I got a Dwarven Champion? Is there such a thing? I don't play the Dwarves often, but I thought they had a unique unit (Hammerfist) that replaced the Champion. It was a Dwarven Champion with Dwarven skills.

Again, I'm thinking why not a Hammerfist or Lizard Ranger?

It would certainly add some flavor to the game - think Lord of the Rings when an Elf and a Dwarf join the party - their artwork wasn't changed was it?

It just makes sense to me to have units from other races, even UU, join your army. Isn't that what happens occasionally with the Guild of Nine when Mercenaries can be purchased?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Dwarven Hammerfist hasn't existed since about 0.22, and I believe it was an Axeman UU, not a champion. I believe they were removed when it was discovered that the AI has trouble understanding how to use combat units with build orders, or at least those who can build improvements but not routes.


Units never change their racial promotions when upgraded. Racial promotions often change a unit's art style, but not every unit has graphics in every art style.


Defaut racial promotions are applied to any non-world unit that does not already have another racial promotion. Duin is a world unit, so he gets no racial promotions. The Werewolf promotion doesn't have <bRacial>1, so it does not block default racial promotions from being applied. I think that vanilla FfH units converted from combat may have actually been converted, but not it just creates a unit from scratch and so gives out the civ's default race. If you want the werewolves created to keep the racial promotions of the victims rather than the civ's default race (which could be appropriate, as the cyclopedia clearly shows that elves that became werewolves were different than werewolves that presumably started out human) you'd have to use python instead of xml tags to create the units.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I'm quite sure all of this is very normal. Check the code and you'll see I'm right.

 

[KillerClowns]

Units never change their racial promotions when upgraded...

Very minor clarification: unless the upgrade involves becoming demonic or undead. An elf upgrading into an Eidolon would no longer be an elf, but a demon.
Unless I'm recalling incorrectly.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I recall people pointing out Elven Eidola and Undead Stygian Guards in the bug thread a several times. I don't recall this being addressed, although it might have been.

 

[Sarisin]

The Dwarven Hammerfist hasn't existed since about 0.22, and I believe it was an Axeman UU, not a champion. I believe they were removed when it was discovered that the AI has trouble understanding how to use combat units with build orders, or at least those who can build improvements but not routes.


Units never change their racial promotions when upgraded. Racial promotions often change a unit's art style, but not every unit has graphics in every art style.


Defaut racial promotions are applied to any non-world unit that does not already have another racial promotion. Duin is a world unit, so he gets no racial promotions. The Werewolf promotion doesn't have <bRacial>1, so it does not block default racial promotions from being applied. I think that vanilla FfH units converted from combat may have actually been converted, but not it just creates a unit from scratch and so gives out the civ's default race. If you want the werewolves created to keep the racial promotions of the victims rather than the civ's default race (which could be appropriate, as the cyclopedia clearly shows that elves that became werewolves were different than werewolves that presumably started out human) you'd have to use python instead of xml tags to create the units.

Thanks for the clarification, MC.

The Dwarven unit that upgraded from an Axeman was definitely a Dwarven Champion (see the attached screen shot). The artwork was very close to the artwork of the Axeman, but not the same. I wasn't sure the Hammerfist was still around - as I said, I don't often play the Dwarven civs.

I understand about the race being carried over when the unit is upgraded. However, with Lizardman Ranger artwork available I still don't see what that Lizardman wouldn't get that artwork instead of a 'human Ranger.' It's not a big deal - just cosmetic, I guess.

On the Werewolves, I'm sure this is something new in .34. The new Werewolves never had an assigned race based on a civ. They had only the Werewolf icon. Again, maybe not a big deal, but I will bring back my question in the OP: do Elven Werewolves make sense to anyone? I haven't seen Dwarven, Orc, etc. Werewolves, but I am assuming they are possible. Why not just have it the way it used to be with the Ravenous, Blooded, and Great Werewolves not having a race?

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Kael said he's going to fix the Lizard ranger issue.

For now, if you want to see Dwarven werewolves, play a Dwarven civ.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It is a regular Champion unit, that happens to have the dwarven promotion that changes the graphics.


The Lizardman Ranger became a UU when Lizardman became a seperate racial promotion, instead of being a normal ranger with Ork specific graphics. Kael just forgot to set it up so that other rangers would have promotion specific graphics for the Lizardman race, and didn't think that correcting this one cosmetic issue was worth releasing a patch instead of focusing on getting 0.4 ready for release.



Werewolves with default races are not new in 0.34. It has been that way since the move to BtS. Before BtS I believe (but am not certain, and it might not have been the same in all pre-BtS versions) that werewolves had the race of the unit that was killed to create the werewolf. In some vanilla versions they even had the unique names of the killed units, in cases where the units had been given unique names.

Imho, Elven werewolves would make sense if the race came from the unit killed instead of the civ's default race. I would much rather have Werewolf count as a racial promotion than have all my werewolves be elves though, especially right after the Illians complete The Deepening. Currently the werewolf promotion doesn't do anything (creating werewolves is now a unit specific thing, while I believe it depended on the promotion back in vanilla FfH), so blocking racial promotions would at least give it some purpose.

 

[Sarisin]

It is a regular Champion unit, that happens to have the dwarven promotion that changes the graphics.


The Lizardman Ranger became a UU when Lizardman became a seperate racial promotion, instead of being a normal ranger with Ork specific graphics. Kael just forgot to set it up so that other rangers would have promotion specific graphics for the Lizardman race, and didn't think that correcting this one cosmetic issue was worth releasing a patch instead of focusing on getting 0.4 ready for release.



Werewolves with default races are not new in 0.34. It has been that way since the move to BtS. Before BtS I believe (but am not certain, and it might not have been the same in all pre-BtS versions) that werewolves had the race of the unit that was killed to create the werewolf. In some vanilla versions they even had the unique names of the killed units, in cases where the units had been given unique names.

Imho, Elven werewolves would make sense if the race came from the unit killed instead of the civ's default race. I would much rather have Werewolf count as a racial promotion than have all my werewolves be elves though, especially right after the Illians complete The Deepening. Currently the werewolf promotion doesn't do anything (creating werewolves is now a unit specific thing, while I believe it depended on the promotion back in vanilla FfH), so blocking racial promotions would at least give it some purpose.

MC, I've built the Baron many times in previous versions of FFH2, including playing as the elves. I don't ever recall my Ravenous, Blooded or Great Werewolves getting a default race. The only thing they had was that Werewolf icon, which as you said, didn't do much. In .34 this was the first time I saw this.

I didn't get far enough along in this game (Altar Victory), but do the Command kills or Dominion spells also give the race of the player to the captured unit? I realize it is a different mechanism and I would think the captured unit retains its race - if it has one.

If you capture say a Lizardman with one of these ways, and upgrade it, I'm assuming you would also get the human Ranger with Lizard skills until it is fixed by Kael.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Command leaves the unit with it's original race.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

I didn't get far enough along in this game (Altar Victory), but do the Command kills or Dominion spells also give the race of the player to the captured unit? I realize it is a different mechanism and I would think the captured unit retains its race - if it has one.

No, if you command or dominate a unit, they just become yours as is. I think the difference here between dominate and Werewolves is that you're not generating a new unit under your control you're just switching owners.