Warlords II World Championship Tournament Army Set, Version 2.0b3
PRELIMINARY BETA-TESTING VERSION ONLY!

Designed by Bob Heeter; last modified 14-Dec-1996.

In order to play a full four-player game quickly, as called for in the
Warlords II World Championship Tournament plans, one must effectively
reduce the size of the map, by making the map small, by making the armies 
swift and numerous, or both.  This army set helps answer that need!  
Based on the familiar default Erythea army unit types and graphics, 
the Tournament Army Set has been modified to provide a more balanced set of 
units with greater speed and shorter build time.  The slow units have 
16-18 movement points, and fast units have 22-28 movement points.  
Heroes start at speed 22, and move up to 28 - if they live long enough to 
achieve the highest experience level!  Weaker units build in only
one turn, while stronger units require two turns and the very strongest 
need three.  Bonuses are plentiful since heroes and allies will be scarce 
and the philosophy is that each unit should have a unique specialty.  
Detailed information on the finer points of the design is given after 
the basic unit statistics, which are summarized in the table below.
We recommend that you copy this table and print it out for easy reference.
We are still fine-tuning the army set (especially movements and costs), 
so comments are welcome!

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Tournament Armies Version 2.0 (beta 3) - Unit Data Table :
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                              --- Bonuses ---                    --- Costs ---
Unit Name    Str. Time Speed  Movement Combat                    Produce Retool
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*** City Specialists ***
Light Inf.    2     1    18           +1 City                       3     160
Heavy Inf.    4     1     9           +1 City                       6     300
Spiders       4     1    16           +2 City                      14     700
Minotaurs     6     2    13           +2 Stack City                26    1300
Griffins      6     2    22    fly    +2 City                      34    1700
Pegasi        6     3    24    fly    +2 Stack City                40    2000

*** Terrain Specialists ***
Light Cav.    2     1    22           +1 Open                       4     200
Orcish Mob    2     1    19     both  +1 Woods                      6     300
Pikemen       4     1    19           +2 Open                      10     500
Wolfriders    4     1    18    woods  +2 Woods                      9     450
Dwarves       4     1    18    hills  +2 Hills                      9     450
Heavy Cav.    6     2    26           +2 Stack Open                24    1200
Unicorns      6     2    26    woods  +2 Stack Woods               22    1100
Giants        6     2    26    hills  +2 Stack Hills               22    1100
              
*** Tactical Specialists ***
Giant Bats    1     1    20     fly                                20     160
Archers       4     2    16           +1 Fortified                 20    1000
Catapults     4     2    17           Cancel City                  20    1000
Elephants     6     2    17           -1 Enemy Stack               30    1500
Scouts        1     4     6                                        50     350
Heroes        5     X    22

*** Land Allies *** 
Giant Worms   7     3    28     both  +2 Stack                     60    3000
Elementals    5     3    40     both  +1 Stack                     60    3000
Devils        7     3    28     both  +1 Stack;Cancel Hero         60    3000
Demons        7     3    28     both  +1 Stack;Cancel Non-Hero     60    3000
              
*** Flying Allies ***
Wizards       7     3    22     fly   +2 Stack                     60    3000
Ghosts        5     3    28     fly   +1 Stack                     60    3000
Archons       7     3    22     fly   +1 Stack;Cancel Hero         60    3000
Dragons       7     3    22     fly   +1 Stack;Cancel Non-Hero     60    3000


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About the Tournament Army Set:
==============================================================================

*** General Philosophy ***

This army set was designed to have one useless unit, the scouts, which neutral 
cities are set to build as basic defense, but which players will want to 
pillage for gold that can then be used to buy more useful creatures.  The cash
value of the scout unit is set so that pillaging scouts in a city provides enough
cash to purchase a light infantry for production.  However, the supply of gold 
will generally be limited, so players will often only be able
to afford weak units, such as bats and light infantry.  But as gold accumulates,
more and more powerful units may be purchased.  (Note that the Orcish Mobs have
replaced Scouts as the peon unit of choice for guiding stacks swiftly through
forest and hills.) 

Units are classified in two distinct ways.  First I have assigned units
to the groups you see above:  City Specialists, Terrain Specialists, Tactical
Specialists, and Allies (Land and Flying).  The City and Terrain specialists
are further divided into Weak, Strong, and Leadership units.  Weak units
have only strength 2 (but +1 in their home terrain), while strong units have
strength 4 and are +2 at home.  Both take only 1 turn to build, but
of course stronger units are more expensive, both to purchase and to maintain!
Leadership units take longer to build, but they are stronger and, even better, 
they confer a mighty +2 stack bonus in their home terrain, making them more 
useful than most allies for boosting a stack in a critical location.  The 
tactical specialists will be discussed below.  The 8 allies are divided 
into four basic types, with one land ally and one flying ally for each type;
this also is discussed in more detail below.  Be forewarned that the build
and maintenance costs for this army set are higher than average for Warlords,
while city income is often a bit lower - you will (finally) need to worry about
economics a little!  An 8-high stack of griffins will be a rare sight in the
tournament...  And with quests off, allies will be even scarcer still.  But
with solid units building in just one turn, there will still be plenty of
dragon fodder to slaughter!


*** The City Specialists ***

These units exist primarily to attack and defend cities.  Light infantry
are your default unit, in the Weak group.  They are easily purchased after 
pillaging a scout.  They are not particularly fast or strong, and should 
be replaced with spiders or heavy infantry as soon as practical.  
Heavy Infantry are in the Strong group, and are relatively cheap, but they 
are too slow to be much use for anything but static defense, except in the 
water, where they are very efficient as city-raiding naval units.  
Spiders are the familiar scourge of cities and bane of would-be city attackers, 
and are the other Strong city unit.  They are a bit sluggish, but have a 
strong bonus on their home turf.  Minotaurs, though confined to the ground
and not very swift, are the mighty leaders of the city defenses and of the
naval raiding parties.  Griffins are stronger than spiders and faster, but
take longer to build and are much more costly because of the value of their
flight capability.  Pegasi are likewise stronger and faster than Minotaurs,
but are even more difficult to build than Griffins.  But woe to the person
who must defend against a pegasus-griffin combination!


*** The Terrain Specialists ***

The terrain specialists exist largely to move through hostile terrain
and assist stacks in taking and holding strategic points.  On average
they are a bit cheaper and swifter than their city counterparts, but
of course they are not as good at defending cities, towers, ruins, and temples.
The Weak units in this group are the Light Cav. and the Orcish Mob, which
are reasonably swift for their terrains, cheap, and fast to build.
The Strong units are Pikemen in the open, Wolfriders in the woods, and
Dwarves in the hills.  Heavy Cav., Unicorns, and Giants are the Leaders
in the open, woods, and hills, respectively.  These last three units are
also valuable because they have a high base strength and are the only
non-ally units swift enough to keep pace with a champion hero.


*** The Tactical Specialists ***

These units are useful in fulfilling unique tactical roles.  They
generally take two turns to build and are not overwhelmingly strong 
or swift themselves, but they serve unique functions which make them 
highly prized additions to a well-assembled stack.  Of these units the 
bats are weakest, but they are also cheap and can fly, so they
are useful for carrying heroes or raiding undefended rear cities.
Archers are the only unit with the little-known but highly-coveted
fortify bonus, which adds +1 to any stack, independent of all other 
bonuses, whenever it is present.  Catapults are the familiar siege unit, 
and elephants as usual strike terror in the hearts of their foes.  
Scouts are intentionally made useless, but provide a quick 175 gold when 
pillaged, so that new units can be built to replace them when a 
scout-building neutral city is captured and pillaged.  Note that 
their strength of 1 means that even the weaker units can capture a 
neutral scout-building city singlehandedly.  Note also that the
maintenance cost of a scout is 25, so there is little point in keeping
any around.  Heroes have their usual strength but are now significantly 
faster than in the default set, in keeping with the speeds of the other 
units in this set.  This also allows them to visit ruins and gain experience
more quickly than one might expect.


*** The Allies ***

Allies are the fiercest units, providing strength, speed, leadership,
and tactical bonuses that are unmatched by the other unit types, and
indeed so rare that their skills cannot be easily reproduced.
One class of ally conveys a potent +2 bonus to its stack in all 
terrain, while providing speed and strength to their stack.  These
are the Giant Worms and flying Wizards.  Elementals and Ghosts are
a second class of ally which is extremely swift, but weaker, having 
only a +1 stack bonus.  The third type of ally, including 
Devils and Angels, provides strength, speed, and enough metaphysical 
power to boost their own stack by +1, while confounding even the most 
powerful hero.  And the most powerful allies of all are the fourth
class, Demons and Dragons, who lend +1 to their own stack while
cancelling the stack bonuses of all non-hero enemies!

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