Development Update and Return of Journals

right now my biggest wishes (aside from new content) are mod support and a much improved AI. glad to read there s lots of stuff going on – but a bit worried AI and mods werent mentioned. hopefully steam workshop isnt just for mapsharing but also a first step on the road to proper modding.

cant wait for more development journals.

Clearly, it’s time for the debut of the dreaded Kharaghlings! For centuries, they’ve been driving the mostly less-intelligent members of the species with gigantism to the surface, but now increased volcanism in the lower crust where they’ve traditionally dwelled has forced this race of of hyper-fast supergeniuses (their ‘dumb rejects’ are quantum physicists, after all, just ask Meandor) to the surface!

Seriously, though,

iHunterKiller wrote:

I say the frostlings are more likely since the arctic terrain is going mostly unused atm without them

I keep seeing this idea come up, but dwarfs and elves both like arctic terrain as much as any climate is liked (which is to say, they have no penalty. NO race gets a ‘liked’ bonus from a climate). I think at this stage it is probably more likely to be the frostlings than the halflings for both story AND mechanical reasons, but arctic terrain is currently favoured by two races, which in climate terms puts it on par with everything except temperate (which all current races dwell in without penalties) and blighted (which only goblins favour).

Sounds awesome!, any other hints, new specializations? helmets and hoods? 🙂

Wonderful news guys, and good to see the (frost)lings are back! 🙂

Ummm, Humans like Temperate ? And Goblins like Blighted Wetlands ?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  President.

With others in development means were likely to get both Frostlings and Halflings and probably others.

Nope. (EDIT: In response to humans liking Temperate. Seems I got ninja’d a bit while typing this)

Humans like Fertile Plains (a feature), dislike Arctic and Subterranean (climates, technically) and hate Blighted and Volcanic (also technically climates). The common thread is that the first part of the description for a terrain tile (the ‘climate’ part) is always indifferent, disliked or hated, never liked, while the second part (the ‘feature’ part) is always liked or indifferent, never disliked or hated.

(I do have to make an apology here, as I’d forgotten that humans were made to no longer dislike Tropical, which means we currently have three races that enjoy tropical climates – humans, orcs and draconians. Underground is also a lot less unpopular than it was at an earlier stage in development.)

Now, looking at other races:

Dwarfs:
Likes: Mountains, Coastal Mountains
Dislikes: Tropical
Hates: Blighted

No dislike or hatred towards arctic.

Draconians:
Likes: Barrens, Lava Pools
Dislikes: Arctic
Hates: Blighted

High Elves:
Likes: Dense Vegetation
Dislikes: Tropical, Subterranean
Hates: Blighted, Volcanic

Again, no dislike or hatred towards arctic.

Orcs:
Likes: Barrens
Dislikes: Arctic, Blighted
Hates: Volcanic

Goblins:
Likes: Wetlands
Dislikes: Arctic, Tropical
Hates: Volcanic

As you can see, no race likes the ‘climate’ part of a feature. Instead, the ideal climate(s) for a race is determined by which climates they do not have a penalty for. By this metric, we get the following climates enjoyed by race:

Draconians enjoy Temperate, Tropical, Volcanic and Subterranean
Dwarfs enjoy Temperate, Arctic, Volcanic and Subterranean
Goblins enjoy Temperate, Blighted and Subterranean
High Elves enjoy Temperate and Arctic
Humans enjoy Temperate and Tropical
Orcs enjoy Temperate, Tropical and Subterranean

Total:
Temp: 6
Sub: 4
Trop: 3
Arc: 2
Vol: 2
Bli: 1

So arctic is relatively disfavoured, but there are two races that enjoy it – dwarfs and high elves. The reader will also note that elves and humans tend to be ‘pickier’ about climate – this probably balances having relatively common features (dense vegetation and fertile plains) that they get bonuses from, that can offset climate-based penalties. Otherwise, we have a couple of trends: everyone likes Temperate, most climates are only ever disliked (subterranean, tropical, and arctic) while volcanic and blighted terrains are hated by most races.

With these considerations in mind, I’d expect the frostling terrain modifiers to be something like:

Likes: Fertile Plains
Dislikes: Tropical, Subterranean
Hates: Blighted, Volcanic

This might be mixed up depending on how much Triumph decides to focus on certain aspects. Playing up the goblin relationship might result in frostlings that only dislike Blighted and are neutral towards Subterranean. Playing up their preference for cold environments by breaking some of the rules mentioned above could result in disliking Temperate and hating Tropical (both of which would make them unique among the races until another race is introduced that dislikes temperate and/or hates tropical). If they end up with the second and not the first, then the really harsh climate requirements that result might lead to them having a second ‘liked’ terrain feature to compensate – possibly mountains, as one could easily imagine mountains providing locations in warmer climates where frostlings can still be comfortable.

What I think we’re not going to see, without Air Magic intervention, is the line Likes: Arctic. Any more than we ever see Likes: Temperate or Likes: Blighted. Even draconians had to settle for Lava Pools to reflect that they like living near volcanoes.

Draxynnic wrote:

With these considerations in mind, I’d expect the frostling terrain modifiers to be something like:

Likes: Fertile Plains<br>
Dislikes: Tropical, Subterranean<br>
Hates: Blighted, Volcanic

I don’t think they will like fertile plains. This is the thing of humans. In previous installments they all had forestry, so I’d say frostlings would more likely like forests or barrens which both fit more artic climates IMO.

My bet would be this :
Likes: forest
Dislikes: Blighted, Subterranean
Hates: Tropical, Volcanic

I think breaking with the rules would be odd, as it would be the only race with this feature. It’s usualy not a good idea to make new things special regarding rules.

The ‘feature’ part was the part I was least sure of, to be honest. I can think of arguments for fertile plains, barrens, dense vegetation (aka forests), and mountains, and between them that covers more than half of the possibilities (the remainder being wetlands, water, and lava, and maybe a few others that don’t come to mind). At this stage, I don’t think having an existing race that likes a terrain feature is a barrier, since barrens are already shared between two races and every common feature except water has some race that likes it.

From a gameplay perspective, we already have races that like arctic forests (high elves) and arctic mountains (dwarfs), but we do not have races that naturally really like arctic fertile plains or barrens (humans, orcs, and draconians all suffer penalties for arctic that partially offset the bonus). Meanwhile, relatively uncommon liked terrain like barrens is usually combined with forgiving climate preferences (draconians only have two climates they don’t like, orcs have three but have blighted as only disliked, and while this isn’t as strong as goblins any tolerance of blight seems to come at a premium) – so if frostlings have relatively unforgiving climate preferences, it’s likely that they’ll have a relatively common feature preference like fertile plains or dense vegetation to compensate. Fertile plains thus fulfill both requirements – you avoid having frostlings preferring exactly the same things that High Elves do, and you avoid combining harsh climate preferences with an uncommon terrain preference.

From a thematic point of view – well, fertile plains seem like something that should be liked by more than one race, and in fact sound like the sort of terrain that every race should prefer unless they have a reason to prefer something else (which, to be fair, the current races except humans do). Frostlings are experts at surviving in arctic environments, but the impression I get is that they do have agriculture and would probably prefer land that they can, well, agriculture with. Plus, the tundra environment I associate with the frostlings seems most likely to be represented by either arctic fertile plains or arctic barrens.

On the other hand, if they end up with reasonably forgiving climate preferences, then the same thinking as above would push them towards liking barrens instead, although that would have three races liking barrens. Furthermore, there’s also the consideration that the other type of ‘lings are certainly going to have a preference for fertile plains*.

Either way, the feature is something I’m less sure of, but there’s my thinking.

*Unless, of course, we’re talking about our new Kharaghling overlords.

EDIT: @charlatan: No, actually, at this point I don’t.

Do you mean a race with a cold focus? In which case, I agree, but this is not the same thing as a race with an arctic focus (although the two do often go hand-in-hand).

Do you mean a race that enjoys arctic terrain? Then as I’ve pointed out, high elves and dwarfs already do. That’s not so say that more shouldn’t be added, but it means there’s no gaping hole in the lineup and arctic terrain isn’t being underutilised.

Or do you mean a race that is so specialised towards arctic terrain that it eschews temperate terrain? In which case, yes, there is definitely a lack there. But if there is such a hole in the lineup, there’s also the opposite hole – a race that is so specialised towards tropical terrain that it also dislikes temperate.

Or do you mean something else that I’ve missed entirely?

Why do people say they said they’d never add halflings, I believe they said they didn’t see a reason for them to participate in this main campaign’s story(which is over). Considering shadow cults and whatnot it would not be unusual for them to take up arms. Personally though halflings and frostlings are my two favorites so i hope both get added at some point.

Yea i guess i did say from a gameplay perspective which is wrong, thematically however no race in game likes arctic terrain. We already have a race that calls its home to most types of terrain and after frostlings and the necromancer class, i think we will have all terrain types covered?

Drax, from a lore perspective, have any other races other than frostlings and dwarves been known to live in artic terrain?

To be honest in the back of my head i always expected the preferences to be rebalanced once some other races were released… but now that i actually think about it i guess they probably wont…

Gyor wrote:

What does racial TC stand for?

Tactical combat.

Hype!!!! True Undead minions at last!!!!

Great news guys, I’m enjoying the game and it’s good to know more content is underway, can’t wait.

So in practical terms, how do you think Frostlings will play ?
– like Arctic
– Dislike Tropical or even Temperate
– Frost Witch as a support unit, with Trail of Frost ability permanently converting ground to Arctic. Is it inherent like in AoW2: SM, or on medal (like AoW3 yeti) ? What else does Frost Witch do, what’s her support ability ?
– what’s the T3 unit ? Yeti ? That would be a bit boring. I mean, it’s a cold ogre. But it’s certain witches will fire frost bolts, and there will be other units with cold damage.
– 20% fire weakness, 20% cold resistance