~: Fantasma Units :~

2008-02-03 [Lite]: If we create a unit, how will it's attack/hp power and/or abilities be determined? And how will we keep track of a large mass of units attacking at once?

2008-02-03 [Aradon Templar]: Will post some more later. I'm taking a break from typing for now. I know so far they aren't so unique, but I'll do my creative thinking after I get rid of all my stereotype ideas :D

2008-02-03 [Adaman]: Very interesting ideas, the dwarves in particular. I'll add a few ideas I have of my own from the original Fantasma lore, but we have a good start here.
As for units in terms of attack/hp/power/abilities, they will be balanced based on the nature of the unit. Units like the footman will naturally be tougher than the adepts, but will lack the skills of an adept. And the large mass of units is the problem I am trying to find a solution for. As of yet, I think I might set it up with "battle grouping" all the same type of one unit, or I may try to use the 'symbols' to make available some hybrid groupings. Needless to say, it's a problem with solutions in development.

2008-02-03 [Aradon Templar]: I'd think that it would be easiest to group units by class, so you aren't looking at fifty dots, but instead ten dots of groups of five units each.

2008-02-03 [Adaman]: You get into the problem of unit death then, when one unit falls in a group of ten, you still have to think of them individually instead of as 10% less effective.

2008-02-03 [Aradon Templar]: What about if you were to make like a star symbol representing a group of footman, and show that there are ten of them by putting a small number ten inside? That way if one dies, you can just change the number to nine.

2008-02-04 [Duredhel]: Use the HoMM system and do unit stacks mate, not as realistic but it helps a lot with organization.

2008-02-04 [Aradon Templar]: Perhaps subdivide squares into nine spaces, so each square can hold nine units. Then, simply show a symbol for each type of unit in a square. It might be small and hard to see, but perhaps now. In any case, that would be somewhat more realistic, I think.

2008-02-04 [Adaman]: I prefer not to use the HOMM system, you know that Dur. I want to base the attack damage mostly on surface area of a battle group. Having 999 peasants in a single spot doesn't seem very realistic to me, nor would they have much effect on a battle hardened dragon.

2008-02-04 [Aradon Templar]: Are you hoping to use the world map grid as the battle grid as well?

2008-02-04 [Adaman]: Hell no, that world map is huge. I plan to use area maps for the battle grids.

2008-02-04 [Aradon Templar]: I thought the same, but had to check. Perhaps one solution would be to make units entire companies, so training a footman would technically be training 100 footmen, thus making large numbers of units less probable. I don't particularly like that idea, it seems to oversimplify the problem to me.

Perhaps subdividing each square into nine tiny boxes might work. It would permit limited stacking, and still leave formation a possibility. It'd be a bit more work on your part :S

2008-02-06 [Aradon Templar]: Been busy recently, I've put up pretty much the standard units plus a few original ideas. Time to get creative with races I'm not really familiar with, but I'm working on it, even if I don't post soon.

2008-02-06 [Adaman]: Well those "standard units" are probably going to shift around for the most part.

2008-02-08 [Anomynous]: Well, I added my idea of a professional army for the human race. I added the "Pred's army" subtitle to separate it from Aradon's units, as we have some unit types in common (though I renamed by Footmen to Footsoldiers... big improvement, yeah.)
Tell me if you need any more details.

2008-02-09 [Adaman]: It's come to the point that I should tell you my plans for some of the units that you're listing. Units with titles like "adepts", "halbardiers", "musketeers", any that have their basis on the equipment they are carrying or specific magical training they acquire will be a base unit which any race can have. The base units will all have racial differences, such as an orc halbardier having bloodlust, and elven halbardiers having the 'nature lover' bonus. Because those units have their basis on equipment, I don't see them being very racial specific because I like to point out that I'm planning for everyone to develop the armies they want. More specific units for the races would probably have their basis on a further prospective, more than likely a religious connection since religion is very dividing for different people. Paladins would likely be human, since the belief of one god often works for the racist beliefs of humans, and pagan (polythiest, multiple gods) would work for elves which have a more widely diverse set of beliefs and would allow elves to branch off depending on which god they worship most and giving variety into dark elves, enorids, and other types that Fantasma supports. Dwarves would probably have one god, but know of other gods. Since they live underground, other gods are not as important to them as the earth god is so it would take action on their lives as a monotheist god would. Units like "fire bringers" (probably not the acting title I'll use for them) will probably have a set discipline based more on lava/magma than fire. Fire from below, if you will. The list will go on, with athiests, heretics, and others applied where I've not listed for races.

If you have a continuing idea of equipment specific units, I won't reject them. In fact, I would love the list to continue as is because it would give me room to develop further into future technological branches of unit types where the merging of say firearms and cavalry allows the unlocking of dragoons or other advanced cavalry. I doubt it's going to be a focus for orcs, but should they put most of their research into firearms then I see warg riding, hand cannon toting orc dragoons as a possibility if an orc warlord really wants them.

2008-03-02 [Blood Raven]: How about you create a list of 'standard' units, which any race can have. And then list the racial base units and the 'unique' units per race. In simplified overview

Standard units:
Swordsmen
Archers
*list of standard units*

Humans
*list of human racial characteristics*
*list of human unique units*

Orcs
etc...

2008-03-02 [Blood Raven]: Also, I would love to see the different races Fantasma supported to be part of this unit thing, such as the goblins and trolls being aligned with the orcs. And I believe I recall humans and elves having a great variety of subraces as well. In practise, I think you don't need a whole list of units for each race. Combining standard unit types with racial abilities can make for very interesting units. You could try and have the racial abilities supplement the unit type, resulting in Troll Warriors or Dark Elf Scouts.

2008-03-02 [Anomynous]: Sounds like a good idea to me.
Works with the system I submitted, anyway.

2008-03-02 [Adaman]: You're actually close to what is going to happen [Blood Raven]. As for the variety of races supported by Fantasma, it might be something worth considering, at least for the Orcs and Undead. For humans, I don't see much racial diversity in their kingdoms, but you can always annex or peacefully assimilate with local tribes if you wish for racial diversity.

I'll have to change this page to what is current, it was just a page for everyone to submit ideas to begin with.