Orc racial trait

[Eagle_11]

Have had some ideas for this.
- Hardened: +10% pierce,impact,fire resist and +2 Hp. Orcs normally dont have any resist.
- Self-sufficient: Half-upkeep value of normal but -1 damage on all. what this means is that only 2 lvl1 units with this trait would cost you 1 upkeep(if im not mistaken).
- Instabile: On melee attack gains +1 dam on half-health and +2 dam on below 25% health, -5% Hp total.
- Nightworshipper: Increased chaotic bonus damage gain from ToD.
The names are generic and can be changed but just as an idea.

Incase you have got ideas, please share.
But do keep in mind it is supposed to be randomly given to all units of this race, just like Dextrous can possibly gotten by any elvish unit.

[Velensk]

Just some experience from my time balancing EoM, any trait which lowers the upkeep cost on units is really difficult to balance. The obedient trait that the vampires had made them significantly weaker but in any game that went longer you could palpably feel the difference in forces of a vampire who had been lucky enough to roll many obedient vampires and keep them alive vs one who didn't.

The other ones maybe might be balanced though I think anything as complicated as insatiable is not ideal for a trait.

I don't think orcs need a trait but if we're just throwing out ideas here are a couple.

Savage: +1 movement, -10% defense in villages.

Savage: +1 melee damage, Forest movement ->1

Savage: +1 melee damage, hill defense ->60%

And if we just aren't caring about balance or simplicity here's a few more.

Savage: +1 melee damage, +1 movement, +1 village movement cost, -10% village defense.

Follower: -2 hp, -1 melee damage, +1 melee damage per adjacent ally

Alpha: +3 melee damage, +1 movement, +1 upkeep

Brutish: +2 melee damage, +2 hp, no ZoC

[Bitron]

Savage: +1 melee damage, Forest movement ->1

Love this one.

[Aldarisvet]

I really think that it would be intresting for orcs to have some racial trait.
I would prefer this:

Savage: Forest movement ->1, forest defense -> 60%, hill defense ->60% (and probly -10% defense in villages if it is too much)

[Dugi]

Some time ago, I was thinking about this and came to these trait ideas:
atrocious (melee/whatever)
savage (melee/whatever)
sly (similar to intelligent)
vicious (melee/whatever)
tenacious (similar to resilient)
ravenous, ferocious, relentless, reckless, ...
I did not come to conclusive ideas about the specific effects of these traits. Mentioning it just to give you some inspiration for the case if you needed any.

[Aldarisvet]

I think that trait duplicating already existing is not a good idea. We already have strong trait, so adding another one with melee would be double strong in case a unit get that new trait and strong at the same time. Same about movement\xp modification traits. Terrain defence/movement cost modification traits , conversely, is something unexplored.

[Dugi]

There may be also something like 3% reduced chance to get hit in melee combat.

[Bitron]

It would be quite weird to see something like >57% Chance to Hit< in Wesnoth. Maybe a bigger advantage, but under certain circumstanses e.g. +3 Dmg or +10% CtH but only when the unit has less than 20% of its HP?

[Velensk]

I actually have little problem with the idea of effect duplication in traits so long as you are going to use it intentionally.

Consider the healthy trait that dwarves have, although it has it's own quirks that make it slightly different, in effect it mostly just has a similar effect to resilient (gives more hp).

On the other hand, having an extra trait with a similar effect effectively increases the odds of the race getting that effect and gives them the chance to stack that effect. It can also be a thematic enhancement.

It's not something to be overused (and when it comes to it, given the chance I probably wouldn't put any of my suggestions into the game) but I don't think it's a bad thing.

[Samonella]

What about a trait that gives them +2 melee while attacking, and nothing while defending? This gives the same net gain as strong, unless you play cleverly to attack with these units more often than defend. Leaving off the extra HP that strong has, and maybe taking one away, would balance the possible strategic advantage.

Possible trait names are certainly up for debate, but maybe "aggressive"?

I don't know what to think about this trait stacking with "strong" though.

[Aldarisvet]

What about a trait that gives them +2 melee while attacking, and nothing while defending? This gives the same net gain as strong, unless you play cleverly to attack with these units more often than defend. Leaving off the extra HP that strong has, and maybe taking one away, would balance the possible strategic advantage.

Possible trait names are certainly up for debate, but maybe "aggressive"?

I don't know what to think about this trait stacking with "strong" though.

I like this idea. Would bring some tactical diversity. Minus 1 HP for the level indeed can be good to balance.
This opens an idea for the opposite troll racial trait that can be called 'tough'. That would provide plus 3 melee defending without HP penalties. Much less use for melee defending because defending unit can be attacked by ranged attacks.

[Gyra_Solune]

Well, let's look at the effect this aggressive trait would have on these units!

The obvious one is its impact on the Orcish Grunt - since that's the only one in the faction that really uses its melee attack. Its 9-2 is actually one of the weaker infantry melee attacks - most factions have the standard reliable 7-3, the elves have a rather versatile 5-4, and only the Khalifate's Jundi is lower with a 5-3 (but that unit's deal is that it's mixed-range and has a 6-3 bow on top of it). Time of day makes that into +/- 2: 11-2 at night (compared to a 7-3's drastic bump to 9-3), and a poor 7-2 during the day...which, amusingly, means that during the day, a Goblin Spearman, which is lowered to 5-3, will actually do more retaliation damage than an Orcish Grunt. Because it's a 9-2 it also only gets a +2 boost from the strong trait compared to the +3 for the 7-3s and a nifty +4 on the Elvish Fighter. So a strong Grunt at night is doing 12-2: exactly as much as a strong Elvish Fighter is getting at all times of day, and exactly as much as a strong Spearman or Drake or Dwarvish Fighter have at neutral times - on the ones that have time of day bonus that jumps up to a far superior 10-3.

But melee superiority is not what you're buying the Grunt for! No, the main strength of Grunts is them being the cheapest level 1 unit in the game at just 12 gold, and having a beefy 38 HP to back that up, along with the modestly zippy 1MP hill movement that lets it get around well. The Northerners aren't carried by their strength in a melee, they're carried by their incredibly potent Assassins who excel at forcing bulky melee units to retreat so you can move your stuff in to hold it, and the Grunts are usually what you send in to put up a quick roadblock in front of your advancing reserve forces. Adding a +2 melee on offense does interesting things! It turns the base into 11-2: and that means the ToD bonus is now giving it +/- 3 per strike, making it just +1 stronger than the 7-3s at all modifiers. That's rather significant actually! It very much adds a new dimension to how you use the unit - before, two orcs had to hit all 4 times to defeat some key units in the 34-38 range in one round like the Spearman, Merman Fighter, and other Orcish Grunts, and usually that doesn't happen, and so you need three Grunts to take them out, and a unit that can be hit from three sides is vulnerable in all situations. A 14-2 makes it drastically more likely for two Grunts in a line to dispatch these units - and if these Grunts are strong, that jumps them up to the magical 15-2, which opens up a number of even more critical targets they have a much greater shot at line-killing presuming one of their four attacks misses - Cavalrymen, Ramis, and even Dwarvish Thunderers and Drake Fighters. And if none of them have a miss (usually not the case) they can basically kill any level 1 unit in the game with two attacks. The ability to do that while holding ground afterwards is meant to be the core strategy behind the Loyalists and their Spearmen - since the Drake Fighters are highly vulnerable to counterattacks due to their low evasion and as such can't hold a line very well, Skeletons have unusual resists and as such an opponent is not going to keep a line of their usual melee units to defend from them and instead will put forward typically impact-melee units that counter them, and the Dwarvish Fighters don't get that time of day bonus.

The effect is obviously much less significant on the weaker Archers and Assassins. The Orcish Archer is on the lower end of the overlooked rankings of melee attacks on primary ranged units with its 3-2 melee dagger sidearm - far behind the Burner's surprising 7-2 and the Thunderer's useful 6-2, the Rami and Elvish Archer's 5-2s, and the default-ish 4-2 you see on the Bowman, Merman Hunter, and curiously Saurian Augur (also the Mermaid Initiate has a 7-1 but that's not mainline). As such it matches the Skeleton Archer and Elvish Shaman, and outdoes the frail 5-1 on Mages and obviously is superior to the nothing possessed by Dark Adepts. Obviously you're not really supposed to use the sidearms unless a nearby enemy ranged unit is on the brink of death and you don't want to risk them doing a lot of damage if you miss. So the Archer is only doing a 4-2 at night, 5-2 if it's strong. Not nothing but you're only buying Archers to hit enemy melee units hard. Buuuut...with this Aggressive bonus, that pushes it up to 7-2, which is something to consider. That's almost in the territory of a mixed-range unit since the Archer would be doing 7-3 at night. More disparate than the Jundi, but close-ish - that's reasonably safe to put them in a melee strike should you be up against an entrenched ranged unit and nothing else good is in the area. It is also wise to consider the effect this has on the Orcish Crossbowman, since it's rather easy to level up the Archer (for obvious reasons - the Crossbowman and Slurbow are relatively poor and weak for a level 2 ranged offense with their only highlight being the fire arrows). Their 4-3 remains on the low side of level 2 ranged sidearms. It's now better than the Bone Shooter, Soothsayer, and level 2 Shamans, is on par with the Merman Spearman, Red/White Mage, Dark Sorcerer, Saurian Oracle, and Elvish Marksman, and remains lower than all the others. Aggressive would push that to 6-3, strong puts that at 7-3, when its ranged attack is 8-3, so at night that's 9-3 melee and 10-3 (and 12-2 fire) ranged. That's more of a mixed attacker than the level 1 and this could have a significant effect, but it's not as critical as on the Grunt, especially since you're not as likely to have a great number of level 2 aggressive crossbowmen.

The Assassin isn't as affected either because it's basically a support unit and I can't recall actually having ever seen anyone use its melee attack offensively. It's supposed to go in, poison, run out, to support the rest of the army. The 7-1 dagger is actually better than the Archer's! Aggressive would make that 9-1, strong would make that 10-1, that's 12-1 at night, exactly as much damage as the ranged knives will do, but not only are they marksman, you're not using an Assassin for its direct combat damage, you're using it for poison damage. In the rare case where you see an exposed ranged unit that has 2 more HP than the amount a normal Assassin would have at that time of day, sure, maybe that's significant, but if the trait only applied to the Assassin there'd be basically no change to overall balance. You don't need to consider the Slayer either since Assassins don't get kills as often precisely due to their low actual damage and their need to run around all over the place, and getting one isn't especially urgent since its attack remains having 3 strikes, giving it the exact same chance to poison as the level 1, so it's a low priority to level up and also it has the exact same 9-2 blade as the Grunt so all the math is the same there (this is pretty high for a level 2 ranged unit sidearm but it's not really a ranged unit so). Even though the Nightblade is cool as heck and I want it to be implemented, its increase in number of poison strikes only changes the Assassin's odds from 94% to 97% so it remains unlikely that it's actually a high priority to level up and will probably still be a rarity to see in MP, and the 12-2 is why would game balance hinge on a 12-2 attack being buffed on a level 3 unit.

tl;dr Aggressive would give two Orcish Grunts with the trait much better chances to kill a wide variety of important units in one round while being able to keep their ground, when previously they would need three Grunts, something which is carefully manipulated to only occur with Spearmen as a core facet of Loyalist strategy and a lot of testing would be needed to see if that's okay or if it would change too much of Northerner strategy to work (especially since needing one less unit to do a task is a very big thing when talking about the strength-through-numbers faction). It'd also make Orcish Archers and Crossbowmen nudging into the realm of a mixed attacker, which is probably minor but is worth noting, but is probably not of any interest applied to the Assassin.

An Aggressive Strong Orcish Leader by the by would be bumped up to 10-3 base and 12-3 at night, meaning it matches the roof set by a Strong Clasher's 9-4 at day, when it is faster, has a ranged sidearm, much better evasion, slightly more HP, and leadership to boot, all for just one more gold than the Clasher. But that's neither here nor there!

[Samonella]

I was thinking about this conversation a little more and I thought I'd try making a mod for it. The details and a bit more analysis are on this thread, so if you thought"aggressive" is an interesting idea feel free to check it out.