posted 07-25-06 01:31 PM EDT (US)
So when you start your character creation, the first thing you are asked is what civilization you want to be. You have the choice of Greek, Norse, Egyptian, and Atlantian. Depending on what civilization you pick, you can be different classes.
The Greek classes could be Hoplite, Hypaspist, Toxotes, and Peltast. The Hoplite would be a heavy armored, slow, and powerful melee class. They attack slow, but make up for it in terms of damage. A Hypastpist is the exact opposite. They are lightly armored, move fast, and can attack quickly. They would deal less damage per hit, but would deal about the same amount as a Hoplite over time. Toxotes are quite powerful, they attack slowly but deal lots of damage. They have a minimum range, and when the enemy is to close they will use a small sword or dagger. Peltast have more armor then a Toxotes, but deal less damage and have less range. When an opponent get to close to a Peltast, they will use one of their javalins instead of sword or daggers. They are more powerful in melee then a Toxotes. Of course you probably just noticed, I'm missing the Hippikon and the Prodomos. Now this is how it works out. If you chose one of the melee based classes, when you get to a certain level your given a chance you buy a warhorse. While on a warhorse you are technicly still a Hoplite/Hypastpist, but you can move faster. While on a horse you gain a small attack bonus vs archers, but melee will be more effective against you. If a Toxotes or Peltast buys a warhorse, they are considered a Prodomos. They become better vs cavalry, but they become worse vs other units.
Atlantean classes would be Murmillo, Arcus, and Kalapelts. When a Murmillo mounts a horse, the effects are similar to when a Hoplite or Hypastpist mounts a horse. As an Arcus mounts a horse, it would be similar to a Toxotes mounting a horse. Kalapelts may never mount a horse, but have a huge advantage to mounted people, and have high attacks in general. Kalapelts would be heavily armored, making them slow and attack slow. They would have a huge attack though. Murmillo is sort of like a Hypastpist, except his attack is slightly stronger, has a bit more armor,and attacks a bit slower. Arcus would be an elite archer, have large attacks and attack faster then most archers, but have very little health.
Egyptians would have Slingers, Archers, AxeMen, SpearMen, and the Mercenary. The first thing you'll notice is I added Archers. First of all, they have lower attack then any other archer, and a lot less armor. The reason for this is once they gain a certain level they are given a horse and chariote for free. When one the chariote they are extremely hard to hit, but still have their weak stats. Slingers have moderate stats and the best rate of fire and accuracy in they game. They may not buy a horse. AxeMen are heavy infantry, so lots of armor and attack but slow. They too can not buy horses. Spearmen are quick, weak and lightly armored. They are the only infantry that can buy camals. Camals are a lot faster then other cavalry in the game. Mercenaries are like Spearmen except they are more powerful and have slightly better defence and are faster, but they may not use any type of cavalry, and half their gold goes to their "homeland". Meaning, only half the gold they loot is theirs to keep.
Finally, the Norse. They have Huskrals, Axe Throwers and Ulfsarks. Huskrals are slow in attacking and have low attack, but have the best defence in the game. Ulfsarks are fast attackers, and are very powerful. Their problem is they have low health and low defence. Axe Throwers are close ranged "archers". They have the second fastest rate of fire for archers, and are above average in melee in archer standards and even stronger in range, but they have the worse armor of any unit, and are quickly killed when multiple enemies focus on them. When an Ulfsark mounts a horse, he become a "raider". His attack is given a boost, but his health and defence are further decreased. A Huskral becomes a Jarl when mounted. He gains even more armor, but his attack is slightly lowered. Axe Throwers may not mount cavalry.
Now that thats done, I'll get on to gameplay. In this game, the focus is on group warfare and saiges. That's not to say that Player vs Enviroment is not included, but I'll talk about that later. Anyway, the objective of this isto find other players of your "race" and to build a city. This will be your "guild". This process is similar to all Age games. You place down military buildings, economic buildings, ect. The twist is you still need resources to build. When a group of players decide to build a city they are given a town center, and they must chose a God to worship. From there you must make workers to gather the required resources to build more things. It is important to guard your workers, as an enemy may come in and kill them. Anyway, you get a moderatly sized city after about an hours after it's birth. Now it's time to train military units. These act as "guards". You can task them to go defend your villagers gathering resources. Of course they are weaker then players of the same level, but they can give your villagers enough time to go back to where it's safe.
So now you've had your town for about two weeks days, and it is nice a big. You have a big "army" that you made, and you decide to expand. Lot's of people want to join your city, but you can only have fifty people in your city. So what do you decide to do? Well, the most obvious choice is take another town. You can only build Town Centers on settlements, and each town center allows 50 more players to join your city. You amy only attack towns belonging to different civilizations. So you get your computer army, and all of your fellow "citizens", aka. the other players in your town, and you get ready for war. But how are you going to get through their walls? Well with seige units of course. You can build a limited number of seige engines. These can destroy gates, allow you to get on top of the walls, or cause massive damage to the enemies cpu army. Since the enemy will probably be prepared for wars, they too will have seige engines and defencive structures. This will probably cause a lot of casualties to your army.
So now you've finally destroyed the enemies town. And they have nothing left. You can now task your seige engines to destory the enemies Town Center. If you succeed in doing this, then the town is up for grabs. It is important to build the Town Center right away, as some players might have been lurking outside waiting for this. They can then come in and attack you, taking the city. This makes it important to be well prepared for any attacks. To make it fair for new towns, you are not allowed to attack a town till it is atleast 5 days old.
Now as mentioned, their is a lot of player vs enviroment in this. This is were "myth" comes into play. Most of the enviroments units involve myth units. By killing these you will be able to loot their bodies and get gold and other things of importance. Another thing that is important is that these myth units may attack your town. You may have the occasional Anubite Raid. Myth units are far more powerful then guards, so attacks like this can lose you lots of villagers and if the attack is powerful enough, they can leave in a state that would be disatorious if your enemies were to attack you. But, if you are to kill enough of a certain myth unit with your city, they may reconise you as important and if they see you going to war, they may bring some of their own people to come and help you. But, if the war seems to be going bad, and you are losing they may grow angry and attack you. This is why it is important to go out and focus on player vs enviroment too.
Now, I'm going to talk about "Aging" in this game. If your town becomes big enough, the gods will be pleased, and allow you to go to the next "Age". Thisis similar to how it works in other Age games, except it takes roughly 24 hours to age up. When you age up you can gain things like new technologies that will make you soldiers stronger and your villagers better at gathering. One thing is you don't get new myth units, as they are not in anyway under your control, even if they side with you.
God Powers also make a return. These powers are far better then in the other game. They may destroy over half of the enemy's army, or break all his buildings. These are gained in different ways. Not through aging, but through favor. Favor generation is the same as in other games. Greek gain is through praying, Norse get it through war, ect. This is why it is important to choose carefully when "Aging". Also, instead of just getting to use a power once, you get to use it depending on how often the God gives it to you. Like in large scale battles, a Norse city may notice that they are gaining their powers qickly. At the end of the battle they may have 7 uses of "Fumble Winter".
As the Greeks age up, they gain a temple to the god they chose while aging. Like if they chose Hera for their final age, they will have a temple of Hera. By putting your villager on that temple, Hera will slowly gain favor for you and then give you a god power. Then if you keep praying she will gain more favor then give you the power a second time, giving you two uses of it. So the Greeks would have Four temples, one for each of the gods they worship.
Egyptians still build monuments, except they get one for each god they aged up with. So they'll have a monument to Osiris, Anubis, Isis, and Nyphtys for example. The gods will be happy you have a monument to them and slowly give you favor, till you gain a god power.
Atlateans have the most trouble with favor. As they start they will have very little favor, and slowly they will get more. If they get another town, favor will come in quicker. So depending on how many cities that guild own's, the more favor they gain.
So that's all I have right now, what do you think?
EDIT: I thought of three new classes.
Priest: Egyptian, heals and buffs other players, has a weak ranged attack.
Oracle: Very Fast, has powers to let him teleport in to towns and turn invisible, good for scouting and spying, has minimal healing abilities. Atlatean only.
Hersir: Norse only, very strong against buildings, his attacks can hit multiple people, moderate damage, terrible defence. Good for when you are out numbered or when seiging an enmies town. Can not mount horses.
Also, thought of naval war fare, probly a bit too much though.
[This message has been edited by ClownFoot (edited 07-25-2006 @ 01:39 PM).]
