Orc Units Overhaul?

[Observer1]

When I look at the Orc faction, I feel like a lot of the units seem to branch strangely. These are just some ideas. It occured to me that you could rearrange some of the units to make them seem more rational (?).

Turn ORC ASSASSINs into GOBLIN ARCHERS
Goblin Archers would become the main ranged unit (cost 16?)
Melee attack: blade (weak)
Ranged attack: pierce (poison), and fire arrows

Turn ORC ARCHERS into ORC PILLAGERS / RAIDER / MARAUDER
These guys are like orc hunters. They slow enemies for the main force to beat up, and use fire (vs undead). (cost 16?)
Melee attack: Fire
Ranged attack: net (slow)
maybe skirmish?

Bring OGREs into orc group
Graphically maybe make them a little greyer, like cave trolls in LOTR
move 4, defense of 20% in most terrain (easy to hit)
many hitpoints (55?), maybe cost 26?
Melee blade (chopper)
Range impact (rock lobber)

Eliminate pillager from wolfrider advancement tree
Eliminate rocklobber from Troll advancement tree

I think this makes the orcs army more cohesive thematically. Why are Orcish assassins so weak? I think it makes sense to turn them into goblins, which are smaller and more specialized. And it helps to differentiate the factions -- it's not just another human bowman / elf archer / skeleton archer clone -- it's a poison and fire archer (that does less direct damage). And the pillager unit is interesting, but it shouldn't be a 2nd level dead-end advancement for the wolfrider. I think making them a full branch of "hunters" works. Likewise with the Ogre. A slow damage sucking unit to make up for the loss of straight damage output with the archers (and to stop the second level dead-end troll lobber).

Oh well, just an idea.

[Cuyo Quiz]

I don't know what to think. Not many complaints about Northeners or serious flaws.

However, it is true that due to their basic unit having only 2 attacks, luck affects their performance more than in the other factions.

[Nicolas]

the new versions of wesnoth are for adding things,not for removing

Eliminate pillager from wolfrider advancement tree
Eliminate rocklobber from Troll advancement tree

to change orc assassin and orc archer is a bad idea:these units are used in campaigns and campaigns need to make BIG modifiments,and I think you can only use it inyour campaigns and scenarios and eras.

[Observer1]

I agree this any change to existing units would cause rebalancing issues in the campaigns. Nevertheless, sometimes it's still worth looking at big changes in the game if it may makes the overall game better.

On the comment that new versions are only for adding things -- I disagree. Sometimes editing and cutting is better. To quote from Dave's own signature:
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Writers and designers all know this to be the case. More isn't always better.


What I was trying to get at is some of the units are dead-ends for no good reason. The pillager is cool and necessary, but it is only a level 2 unit. I think there's a fair case to be made that it should be a full branch to itself. It also gives the orcs an interesting ranged "slow" unit. The goblin archer also becomes a more unique ranged unit by shooting fire and poison.

I thought the troll rocklobber was a rarely chosen branch. I think many people have a personal bias against dead-end level 2 units (unless in multiplayer). However, the rocklobber (range impact) is a fine idea -- I just never understood why Ogres were in the human army...


My thoughts were that the amount of work to implement the changes may not be that large. Graphically, you could fairly easily modify the existing graphics to be the "new" units. The Orc archer could just be relabeled a Goblin archer -- no need to change things there. The Pillager unit could simply have normal legs, rather than the wolf mount (same as crossbowman legs). Add a purple scarf (or whatever) like the Goblin knight, and you have different levels of units.

In terms of the AI, I imagine the goblin archer would not have such a major difference from the Orc Slayer logic. The only difference would be the addition of fire -- which would be self-explanatory for use on undead etc. The Orc Pillager AI would be almost the same as the goblin pillager -- melee/fire and ranged/net.

[turin]

Most of your changes seem, quite honestly, nonsensical. Why should Orcish Assassins have their names changed to Goblin Archers, and become the primary archer on the faction? And primary archer with poison is very likely to be overpowered. Your deletion of the Rocklobber and Pillager lines are just stupid. Removing diversity from a unit tree is almost never a good thing. You're changes to the Orcish Archer are, IMHO, not very well thought out. A faction that has a cheap source of both poison, fire and slow would be overpowered unless a lot of work was put into making sure they're not.

The worst part is, I see no reason for almost any of these changes. The only one that makes sense is the changing of the NAME of the Assassin from Orcish to Goblin. But, if you're going to do that, why not change the name of the Orcish Archer too, to Goblin Archer? Then we'd have 1 orcish unit remaining, the Grunt. And the Northerners are already pretty well balanced, so why would you want to muck that up?