Thief & assassin faction

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Mu
Posts: 60
Joined: February 10th, 2005, 6:01 pm

Thief & assassin faction

Post by Mu »

The idea is a thief themed faction with distinctive and maybe challenging gameplay. Most units would be light and weak, relying in terrain use and unit grouping.

I would do mixing mainline and addon units that can be appropriate.

For the moments:

* Thief: the main melee unit, meant to act in groups.
* Orcish assassin: the role of ranged units, also the responsibility of damaging heavy armored units.
* South-seas' swimmer (Archaic era): aquatic unit.

I discarded Rasy Era's elf assassins because seems to overpower the Thief in almost all areas.

Missing things I'm looking for:
* Scouts, that is, some unit with high movement.
* I think some skirmisher would be fun, to help the Thiefs backstabbing.
* Since the strength lies in high defense, I think the faction can be easily overcome with Mages, any idea to counter that?

---

For the moment I'm doing this for fun (with Custom Campaing), let me know if someone would like to have this published somehow.
Last edited by Mu on September 25th, 2021, 9:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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lhybrideur
Posts: 357
Joined: July 9th, 2019, 1:46 pm

Re: Thief & assasin faction

Post by lhybrideur »

Mu wrote: September 24th, 2021, 2:28 pm
Missing things I'm looking for:
* Scouts, that is, some unit with high movement.
What about the bats ? Light and high defense.
* I think some skirmisher would be fun, to help the Thiefs backstabbing.
Both fencer and saurian skirmisher are light and have a good defense. There is also the Tracker that can distract enemies to nullify their ZOC.
You could also go with the Shadows that have both backstab and skirmisher,but they have high physical resistance, which is not what you want if I understood well.
* Since the strength lies in high defense, I think the faction can be easily overcome with Mages, any idea to counter that?
All those units, except the Shadow, have a 20% arcane resistance.

You could also add the Fledgeling from the vampire faction
Mu
Posts: 60
Joined: February 10th, 2005, 6:01 pm

Re: Thief & assasin faction

Post by Mu »

Thanks for your ideas.
lhybrideur wrote: September 24th, 2021, 3:08 pm What about the bats ? Light and high defense.
Maybe I forgot to specify that I want to have some background consistency. The topic would be something like a Thieves Guild or criminal group. But more "thieves" than "bandits", that is, more urban than the classic outlaws.

The bats does not make sense for me. Maybe I could have rats (trained rats), quick enough to expand, although quite weak to hold a position.

Another option is the footpad. That is more countryside than I was looking for, but could cover another weakness I realized: the lack of impact damage.

lhybrideur wrote: September 24th, 2021, 3:08 pm Both fencer and saurian skirmisher are light and have a good defense. There is also the Tracker that can distract enemies to nullify their ZOC.
You could also go with the Shadows that have both backstab and skirmisher,but they have high physical resistance, which is not what you want if I understood well.
I was reticent to take the fencer because it is lawful, while the rest are chaotic.

On the other hand, even if the guild is open to other races (like the orc assassin), the saurian looks more like a warrior or a hunter.

I think I will go for the fencer for the moment.

Another option is not adding a skirmisher and rely in level 2+ rogues. But I was thinking in a tactic that required risking the skirmisher into dangerous positions. I will try the gameplay and see how it works.
lhybrideur wrote: September 24th, 2021, 3:08 pm All those units, except the Shadow, have a 20% arcane resistance.
But they are vulnerable to fire and cold. I am afraid that an enemy could easily ignore the terrain advantage (probably the only strength of the faction) with mages/marksmen, but maybe surrounding and backstabbing them would be enough?

Another idea I was thinking was to have something like a tank, a unit which strength would be just hitpoints/resistances. Should be slow to avoid becoming generally useful, thus breaking the main strategy theme. But I'm not sure what could make sense in the faction background (something like a dwarven scavenger?).
lhybrideur wrote: September 24th, 2021, 3:08 pm You could also add the Fledgeling from the vampire faction
Why? I see it is like a normal warrior, but more resistant to some things and weak to other things (like fire and piercing).
shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

Re: Thief & assassin faction

Post by shevegen »

What about poison? Is that a desired component?

As for:

> The topic would be something like a Thieves Guild or criminal group.

May be nice if villages/cities could be used to extort money from. :D
That would make it more appealing to snatch as many villages as possible to plunder the riches!

Robin Hood 2.0 for the win! \o/

PS: Fledgling reminds me a lot about Baldur's Gate. :P

Adding skirmishers from the get go would be important IMO. Being less resilient should mean you
get some other benefits, be it backstab or mobility (and skirmish kind of falls into mobility IMO,
even though I in general prefer units with high base speed movement - I hate slow units like
heavy infantry even though they are quite powerful. They annoy me when they lag behind the
rest of the army so I only ever use them for fodder really ... perhaps excluding level 3, then they
can be tanks ... but still the lack of mobility is very annoying.)
Mu
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Joined: February 10th, 2005, 6:01 pm

Re: Thief & assassin faction

Post by Mu »

shevegen wrote: September 25th, 2021, 6:52 pm What about poison? Is that a desired component?
This is provided by the orc assassins. I think this is an important tactic feature, because just with thieves and fencers it's difficult to take down heavy armored units. This is an interesting way of damaging these kind of units without having very powerful attacks.

---

I tried with the fencer, and for the moment I have to say it's too much fun.

High mobility + few hitpoints mean that you need to do bold and aggressive tactics, at least when hit and run fails.

In the first test, 1 vs 1, I was atacking with two groups, and one of them got wiped. That made me in numerical disadvantage, and worst of all, I could not come back to the castle without meeting dangerous horsemen, so I took the few units I had to the enemy castle and assassinated their leader, even when surronded by many units.

Second test, 2 vs 2, I had bad luck and I was between two enemies, and in the south flank I had just plains without much terrain to defend, so I had to recruit as many men as I could and go north to assassinate their leader and defend myself in their terrain.

Just the kind of dirty tactics I was looking for.
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lhybrideur
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Re: Thief & assassin faction

Post by lhybrideur »

Bats are urban but OK. What about the falcon then?
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IPS
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Re: Thief & assassin faction

Post by IPS »

Here I have some recommendations:


GROUP A very likely to be recommended for the concept
group A.png
All these are swift foots.

Gobling Slinger would replace footpads, giving some stronger ranged but even more fragible and skirmisher special, useful to synergy backstab specials, therefore, no zone of control at all.

Bandit Fighter provides of some decent damage from retaliation, but is also swift foot as well ! Meaning that for rounds that you want to deal more damage in retaliation you have this unit.

Marashy Thief More cost efficient and slightly better than default's thieves, they gain pierce ranged on lv2 and lv3, suitting better than Rogues or even assasins considering there will be orcish assasins in faction.

Raven is a very cheap scouting unit that is useful just to rob villages and making easier possible backstabs.


GROUP B, somewhat viable to consider
Group B.png
Hunter is the only swift foot in the list, expensive archers that gives all the pierce damage the rogues guild needs.

Bloodmaiden / Nightmaden ARE NOT SWIFT FOOT, could say, they're more drakish like, very few defensive capacities BUT huge movility and somewhat strong output of damage. Suits somewhat well if dark elf hunters are in the list, so more dark elves would be seen in the faction.

GROUP C, still viable but kinda different.
group C.png
Ninjas / Shuriken Throwers: They're most likely swift foot, but not at all, they're for example 50% flat terrain defense and in some places 70% defense, BUT, they have stronger resistances than average swift foot.

Subversive Mage: They're more elusive than almost any mage, being 50% in flat terrains and 60% in some terrains and also 70% def in moutnains, give some source of magical attack and chance to slow enemies.



Other viable units: Explorer Puck (BEEM)
Only issue of this , is that these are lawful, but gives some fire melee/ranged and +skirmish too.


Units taken from:
- RE - Marashy (Marashy Thief)
- EoC - WildHumans (Bandit Fighters)
- RE - Dardo (for goblins)
- EE - Dark Elves (Hunters)
- EFM - Dalefolk (Raven)
- MERCS - Emperors Guard (Both ninjas)
- EoMa - Sky Kingdom (Subversive Mage)
- AE - Deep Elves (Blood Maiden & Night Maiden
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shevegen
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Re: Thief & assassin faction

Post by shevegen »

Shuriken users would be quite funny, like a fast, light ranged unit. Perhaps not
as strong as bow/crossbow but more attacks or so. I love tons of attacks ever
since that Inky quest (the squid ... squids are hilarious, I forgot how many attack
strikes per hit they had, but like 12 or so?)

I'd not give them better resistance but instead just being very fast and many
(weak-ish) attacks. A bit like a modified scout unit.

Ninjas - I think everyone likes ninjas but it may be better to fit them into some
theme. "Snipe Mages" aka subversive mages may be fun too - like a more
rogue-centric mage, right? So perhaps some variant of invisibility that works
more like a better cover bonus or so or a variant of stealth.

Careful with slow, though. Slow is VERY useful. Take the elven shaman - they
are super weak but have slow. I use them a LOT to slow down enemy strong
units that I want to kill. Slow is really one of the better abilities to have IMO.
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