Anitarf's Altered Melee

Not the best of titles, but inspiration hasn't struck me yet to think of something better; so, AAM will have to do for now. Behind the unimaginative name resides a dramatic minimalistic reconceptualisation of the established interactive experience, reinventing the warcraft races through a radicaly reduced design language to expose their true essence.

It is an altered melee, obviously. :)

Seeing altered melees that only add more and more stuff on top of an already cluttered game, I got the urge to do something different. After some brainstorming, I ended up with the following simple scheme:

• One main building that you start with, trains all the untis, can be upgraded once
• Two support buildings that can be built by workers
• Four basic units, a worker, a melee unit and two more
• Two advanced units that you get when you upgrade, one mounted an one more

No heroes, no complicated techtree, no upgrades, no creeps. All four races follow this uniform minimal design, and yet are designed in such a way that they should play differently, much more differently than in the existing wc3 melee. A big influence for me has been Starcraft's gameplay. I wanted the racial identities to become as strong in my design as they were in that game.

• The Humans are here to build an empire. They can upgrade their farms to town halls, making them the most suited for fast expansions. Good defensive units and structures as well as peasant militia allow them to keep their bases well defended until they gather enough strength to defeat their foes with overwhelming force.
• The Orcs are known for their powerful, savage warriors. Supported by warlocks and shamans, they are ruthless on the offensive. They use their brutish force to overpower the enemy and force them into defence, where they compensate their lack of expansion ability by pillaging enemy structures, if not destroying them completely.
• The Undead rely greatly on their dark magic to win. Their ghouls are expandable, losses are acceptable. It all merely gives fuel to their necromancers and death knights to turn the tide against an unsuspecting enemy. Their attrition strategy is fueled by their ability to expand by haunting new gold mines, making them the second most expansionistic race.
• The Night Elves excel at mobility and are great for hit and run attacks. Their expert archers outrange all other units in the game and from that distance, they slowly bleed the enemy, avoiding a direct battle until their foe is sufficiently weakened. They cannot expand, but once they deplete their original gold mine they can move to another.

But how does all this work in practice? Can the game be balanced? I don't know, but I want to try. I've had a test map with most of the units done for a while now, but I've gotten bored of it and then forgotten about it. Now I feel like finishing it again (I need to get my wc3 computer fixed first though), since it's one of my projects that I got the most done of so far.

Edit: The map has now entered open beta testing. The beta test thread can be found here.

Here's a more detailed breakdown of each race's design.

Humans
Main building:
Keep, upgrades to Castle

Buildable structures:
Farm - provides food, upgrades to Town Hall, which then upgrades to Keep
Scout Tower - upgrades to Guard Tower or Siege Tower (needs Castle)

Basic units:
Peasant - basic worker unit, can be turned into militia at a Town Hall, Keep or Castle.
Footman - a melee warrior with a tough shield, has the defend ability which allows him to greatly reduce damage of frontal attacks made against him. When defending, footmen are tough to beat unless they are outflanked.
Rifleman - a ranged attacker that deals good damage, good at supplementing footmen who can be very tough, but don't deal that much damage. Can place land mines.
Battle Smith - a strong warrior and a good offensive and support caster. He can bless the armour and weapons of friendly units or deliver devastating blows to enemies.

Advanced units:
Knight - the heavy human calvarly is the most powerful melee unit in the game. It's heavily armoured and can trample smaller units, dealing damage to them just by being near. It can also deliver swift and devastating charges.
Siege engine - this mechanical unit is able to take a lot of punishment and can deliver devastating strikes against enemy bases, while also serving as a safe haven for other human units. Has the flare and smoke grenade abilities.

Orcs
Main building:
Stronghold, upgrades to Fortress

Buildable structures:
Burrow - provides food, also serves as a bunker for peons and a drop-off spot for harvested lumber.
Watch Tower - defensive structure with a good range, also needs peons to operate.

Basic units:
Peon - basic worker unit, can enter burrows and watch towers to remain safe and defend the base against attackers.
Grunt - a strong orc warrior with good hp and damage.
Warlock - a support caster, can cast frenzy which increases a friendly unit's attack speed, but delas damage over time to it. Can also place beholder runes which grant vision of an area and quake runes (needs fortress) which can destroy enemy structures.
Shaman - a support caster, can cast purge, which slows and dispels enemy untis. Can also place haste wards which grant a speed bonus to nearby orcs and healing wards (needs fortress) which heal nearby friendly units.

Advanced units:
Raider - the orc raiders are strong mounted units. They can ensnare enemies and their ferocious steeds can strike back at melee attackers, making the raiders strong in combat as well, second only to the human knights.
Kodo rider - a large support units, it bestows a damage increasing aura to nearby friendly units and can also devour enemies. It is also the only ranged unit for the orcs.

Race abilities:
Pillage: All melee orc units can pillage, gaining resources for their controling player.

Undead
Main building:
Bastion, upgrades to Citadel

Buildable structures:
Haunted Gold Mine - allows undead acolytes to mine gold
Ziggurat - provides food, upgrades to Spirit Tower or Cold Storage which generates corpses

Basic units:
Acolyte - basic worker unit, can sacrifice himself to regenerate the mana of a friendly undead unit.
Ghoul - basic expandable warrior, can also harvest lumber.
Necromancer - the main undead caster, he can use his necromantic magic to raise skeletal warriors or archers from corpses, he can also use corpses as a source of mana (needs Citadel).
Meat Wagon - this mechanical unit is a mobile corpse storage. It can also defile ground, causing an area of land to become blighted (needs Citadel).

Advanced units:
Death Knight - the undead clavarly may not be as strong in combat as human or orc, but it can wield powerful magic instead. Death Knights can instil dread in enemy units, lowering their combat effectiveness, deal damage with death coil and bring nearby fallen undead units back to li... undeath.
Obsidian Statue - this is a great mechanical support unit for the undead. It can regenerate the masses of ghouls and skeletons in combat so they last longer as well as regenerate the mana of the powerful undead casters.

Race abilities:
All undead units regenerate faster, but only while on blight. While not on blight, they slowly decompose.

Night Elves
Main building:
Ancient Custodian, upgrades to Ancient Guardian

Buildable structures:
Moon Well - provides food, can restore hp and mana of friendly units, can cast moon beacon (needs Ancient Guardian) which turns day into night and grants a damage bonus to nearby night elf ranged units.
Ancient Protector - defensive tower, can also be used as a siege unit.

Basic units:
Wisp - basic worker unit, can sacrifice itself to dispel buffs in an area.
Sentry - a weak melee warrior, can cast sentinel on trees which grants you vision of an area around them.
Archer - a unit with an outstanding attack range, it makes up for it's low hp with good damage. Also very mobile, it's great for hit and run attacks.
Cleric of the Moon - a support caster, she functions as a portable moon well. Can also cast Elune's Grace, a buff which reduces piercing and spell damage taken by the targeted unit, and Star Strike (needs Ancient Guardian) which prevents a targeted unit from attacking or casting spells.

Advanced units:
Huntress - not as powerful as other races' mounted units, the huntresses are still formidable warriors. They are very fast and their leap ability allows them to move up and down cliffs, outmaneuvering even the quickest of foes. Their Bird of the Hunt ability allows them to track enemy units and reduce their armour in combat.
Priestess of the Moon - another fast and powerful ranged unit. The priestess also provides a trueshot aura that makes nearby archers even more deadly and can summon an owl to scout her enemies.

Race abilities:
Shadowmeld: night elf units can turn invisible at night, they also have equal sight range at day and at night.

So are you gonna keep any of the existing units or are you redesigning everything?

((Night Elves can't expand? I think that's silly...

Farms upgrading to Town Halls? What?

Can orcs still expand? Because as you say, they have a poor expanding skill. Orcs seem the same from the original, otherwise... of yet...

And Ghouls shouldn't be expendable, because unless you're not having heroes* in the game, Ghouls = free xp in this case.

Just wondering, Anitarf, do you play a normal melee/Ladder game every now and then?))

((EDIT:

Yeah, I realized that pasting reasons without any defensive support for them is bad, but I'm kind of not having the time to do so. I'll back-up my statements if I need to.))

((*heroes: any unit that gets any growth whatsoever through kills; you said there weren't heroes, but if there's anything that gets any growth whatsoever from killing units...))

More should be clear about the map now that I have edited the second post with more details.

No unit is exactly the same as the original, since I think I'll also tweak the damage/hp ratio to make battles quicker, and range a bigger advantage. However, most if not all units are heavily based on what the unit with the same model (and in most cases same name) is like in wc3. It's a new kind of game, but with familiar units.

Well, I wanted to make the races more varied, more unique, so I implemented some differences in resource exploiting patterns as well. That's why I decided to try making two races unable to expand: orcs and night elves.

It makes the most sense for night elves: they're concerned about nature, so they're the last who would go into mass resource exploitation. Their high mobility, along with the healing moon wells, means they should have few casualties if played well, so they are best at managing with fewer resources. Also, since their ancients can relocate, they're not screwed when their gold mine runs out. Even if they can't expand, they can just move their main tree.

It's a bit trickier with the orcs, for them, I had the idea of making pillage a stronger ability, to the extent that lategame, they could use it as a viable source of income. Maybe this can't be balanced properly and won't work in the end, can't know until I try. There's still other stuff orcs can do to boost their lategame even if they can't expand. They can send more peons to gold mines further away, placing some burrows and towers to guard the route. They can also use their early and mid game strength to prevent their enemy from expanding.

If all this won't work and the inability to expand turns out too much of a problem for the orcs, I'll either give them some mechanics to deliver gold from farther gold mines with kodos, or boost their siege by replacing the watch tower with a catapult, making them better at denying expansions.
Why shouldn't that make sense? You build a farm for food and if it's also at an important location, it can be upgraded to be more than just a farm. I didn't want to add another building (because all races have 2, and humans need both farms and towers), so the only reasonable choice was to make it an upgrade. (it would be just silly if all farms could serve as a drop off point for gold and lumber; besides, that's too similar to the orcs who can drop off lumber at burrows)

Yes, there is something that grows when units die. It's called "amount of undead skeletons". :)

((That's understandable. What reason would orcs be unable to expand, though? They're a very industrial people.))


I disagree with this entirely, because that's just plain stereotypical. Take for instance Maiev Shadowsong. She's not concerned with nature; she'll do whatever it takes to reach her goal. Not even great leaders like Tyrande Whisperwind would do this. If their people were in danger, and they required more resources, they would do it without hesitation. Not all Night Elves are empathetic with nature (they all are, actually, just some more than others), so I don't see what's wrong with using the world resources. Elune put them there for a reason--I don't think Night Elves are just going to sit there and let it be useless. It's like saying "Let's not hunt for deer;" food is a resource.

I'm not sure about resource exploitation, either. I'm not sure what's bad about mining gold mines with WISPS. There are plenty of other gold mines in the world, I'm sure Night Elves know about that. And, even so, if Night Elves were disturbed enough by humans cutting wood, dwarves building iron monstrosities in mountains, and Draenei corrupting the land through their crashlanding... wouldn't Night Elves break-up with the Alliance?


Night Elves already had high mobility and such in the normal game, and healing Moon Wells. Yet, even then, they got many casualties still. From what I see, Night Elves are going to be stuck with earlygame units, and some mid-game units, and never be able to get plenty of midgame/endgame units, simply because they can't expand. Even then, you can't make Night Elves be able to be able to retreat superbly well, or there would be a major imbalance already right there.


Uh, I don't think so... in normal games, if you were to never expand, and you had to relocate your Ancients and main tree... that takes too much time. During this process of moving your base, you're way too open for attack. Just way too open.

Even if this relocation of the main base happens, what are you supposed to do with your Moon Wells? Just leave them there? Night Elves would have a lot of struggle trying to get more money to rebuild Moon Wells AND produce more units when they get their new expansion.


Again, as I said, why can't orcs expand? They're a very industrial people. The need to attack enemies is also rather silly in order to get resources. The whole point of resources was so you can develop your army more. How would orcs get money if they couldn't attack?


I don't think sending more peons to gold mines further away would do much good. Okay, and how would they place burrows & towers to guard the route if they have no money?

I understand for trying to starve their enemy from expanding. That I can agree with.


Peasants can't turn into Militia, right? I swear if they can...

I can understand your want for Humans to be able to have their power at being industrial through expanding their territory. If you can make this work, that's great, then.


Are Skeletons a button that means "victory?" I hope these skeletons are very weak...

You are assuming things too much, Ba1100n Drag0n. Do not talk about balance and say such things as "unit X is too slow, unit X is overpowered" before you have played the map. Also, do not throw Warcraft lore into the discussion, it has no relevance whatsoever.

What is the ETA on you getting your comp, Ani?

((Of course I'm assuming. And why not throw Warcraft lore into the discussion? Anitarf brought it up (in a partial way) as of through stereotyping Night Elves, so I defended it through a same way.

And maybe you're not fully understanding when you say this:


First of all, if unit stats were given, you can kinda assume certain things, even without playing. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, if Night Elves are SO good at escaping, that means they could hit & run too easily. They should be somewhere in the middle. If Night Elves could never be damaged, how are they defeatable? That's what I'm asking.))

((EDIT: You may notice how it's hard to critique things you don't know about very well. By trying to point out problems with the knowledge I have, Antiarf may grant me more information about units in order to create a more clear picture. Understand?))

Sounds like a nice idea anitarf, how you increase the difference between the races while keeping their original idea. I think wc3 lost that in the balance process; all races were made more and more similar untill there was almost no difference left.

I'll gladly help test it, just ask infrane if im online or something.

And Ba1100n Drag0n, please don't talk about things such as balance and stuff before having played the map. He's showing us the core game design of his game, not the specific unit balance and stuff.

Glad you posted this. Will give it an ignorant test before I read up all the info.

EDIT: No map? :P

Sounds verry interesting, and doable with a limited amount of custom graphics. Nice.

Well I can't tell much with only words on the paper unless I get to play the game myself. But intresting enough, I always thinks that the heroes has spoiled how a stratergy should look like. The current warcraft gives me a feel that *kill the hero to win* (don't you think so? whenever your hero got killed the rest of your unit gets slaughtered pretty easilly...)

sounds intresting, hope to be one of the beta testers :)

I might fix my computer until the end of the week, but then again, I said that to myself last week as well.

Ba1100n_Drag0n, you are assuming a bit too much. I'm reffering specificaly to your counter arguments to two of my arguments about why the NE can live without expansions: low fatality rate and base relocation. You always try to counter the argument by making a comparison with regular wc3 melee. This won't be regular wc3 melee.

To your other arguments, specificaly lore: I started with the design idea that I wanted my races to be more different. Thus I came to the idea that maybe not all races should be capable of expanding as we are used to in normal wc3. Partialy, this was influenced by the minimal techtree design that only allows very few buildable structures per race, it would be boring if one of them was a town-hall-type building for all four races. Only after I made the design decision that two races won't expand, I turned to lore and to gameplay style and race ideas I already had to figure out which two races this would be. If you had to choose two races that don't expand, which two would you choose?

Also, the orcs aren't that industrial. In regular wc3, they only have one mechanical unit, same as night elves. Undead and humans have two.

As for a peon-chain-to-a-far-off-goldmine not being feasible, well, it might not, but there are design elements that I think can make it so. Orc buildings will require more lumber and less gold, it's not such a high cost to build those defensive structures. Orcs will be good for harvesting lumber because their burrows can serve as a drop-off spot for it. Then there's also Shaman's haste ward that could speed up the harvest.

It still might not be as feasible, but then there are still pillage and of course expansion denial to even up the game. I believe it can be balanced, if the zerg could be balanced in Starcraft despite having twice the number of bases of their enemies in a typical game, then...

Edit: woah, lots of replies while I was typing this. Gotta run now, will reply more in the evening.

Just a comment about the main building, I think that one building for train all the units makes the game too slow, I tell you that because that was one idea that I had with my project, and as a result, form an assault group takes too much time. I suggest to add a third building with the training ability, so the game will have good speed and the funny part start quickly.

Or I could just make the units train a lot faster?

Edit: response to earlier posts:
Erwtenpeller: I was thinking doable with no custom graphics. :)
GaDDeN, zen87: Thanks for the beta testing offers.
Whitehorn: Yeah, sorry, no map yet. The stuff that I have made so far is all on the disk of my non-functional pc, and also it's not yet in a playable state, since I only worked on units so far and not buildings.