Young ogre...

[Christophe33]

I noticed that th lvl2 ogre doesn't have a corresponding lvl1 unit. So I did a quick edit of the ogre picture scale it down, change the color and gave it a club. The putative new unit would be a young ogre.
Proposed STATS:
name=Young Ogre
race=ogre
image=young_ogre.png
hitpoints=52
movement_type=largefoot
movement=5
experience=30
level=1
alignment=neutral
advanceto=Ogre
cost=12
Damage 9-2
"Young Ogre usually live isolated in wilderness till they mature and are accepted into a clan. Queen Asheviere enticed many of them into her army. Huge club is the only weapon these strong but clumpsy young ogre can handle with efficiency."

[turin]

You realize firty-two hit points is a lot for a first level unit- some third level units don't have that much. (assasin, shyde)

the graphic does not look much different from the current ogre. i want to be able to tell the difference without the other ogre standing next to it.

[Eponymous-Archon]

name=Young Ogre

Ogret?

hitpoints=52

Better 32, no?

"Young Ogre usually live isolated in wilderness till they mature and are accepted into a clan. Queen Asheviere enticed many of them into her army. Huge club is the only weapon these strong but clumpsy young ogre can handle with efficiency."

"Until they mature and are accepted into a clan, Young Ogres usually live isolated lives in the wilderness, but Queen Asheviere enticed many of them into her army. A huge club is the only weapon the strong but clumsy Young Ogres can handle effectively."

the graphic does not look much different from the current ogre. i want to be able to tell the difference without the other ogre standing next to it.

Actually I thought so too, but the club is fairly distinctive (versus the big razor blade). Perhaps you could make his coloring lighter than the mature Ogre (all that time in the forest shade) and give him a different colored outfit (yellow? blue?), and shave a bit off the shoulders? Big heads tend to make things look younger. (See below for small-head version next to previous young ogre, both flanked by Ogre.)

[Ave]

The cost is a bit low too. Make it 15 or so.

[fmunoz]

IMHO if normal ogres use bladed attacks, young ogres should use it too.

[Christophe33]

IMHO if normal ogres use bladed attacks, young ogres should use it too.

I would normally agree with that but when I made this kind of objection (like spearman---> swordman) I was told i wasn't a problem to change weapon type
My rationalisation for young ogre to use clubs is that it is easy to get while living in wilderness and that they are too clumpsy to use a blade without cutting themself . And of course it was making them easier to distinguish from full grown ogre.
If thre is no opposition in getting a young ogre I can do it with a blade weapon too (meat cleaver). My idea of how queen Asheviere got the Ogre in her army was by letting them eating their fallen enemies, making the meat cleaver weapon even more appropriate.... might be a bit gross to mention human flesh eating ogre...but that what ogre are supposed to be.
For the STATs, Ogre do have 68 HP.: they are very robust even though they don't regenerate like troll. Usually a figthing type of unit gain around 10-16 HP when leveling. Its like that I arrived to 52HP for a young ogre. For comparison Troll Whelp have 42 HP and troll grunt 55 HP.
We can reduce a bit the HP of the young Ogre but certainly not to 32.
On the other hand they do less damage than many human units.
For the cost, I used the one for the Troll whelp. If the young ogre is going to be shared between Northerner and Loyalist, the cost should effectively be higher. Is it possible to set 2 different costs, like 12 for Northerner and 16 for Loyalist to reflect the difference in ease to get the young Ogre?
The cost of Ogre is way too high bythe way.

[fmunoz]

I edited the normal Ogre, changed his red pants stripes for green ones, make him 2-3 pixels smaller and thinner and changed its weapon.
IMHO 48 hp will be a good amount (normal level 2 ogres have 68) but it should be fairly expensive unit in the 16-20 gold range.
Damage is ok.

[Eponymous-Archon]

I would normally agree with that but when I made this kind of objection (like spearman---> swordman) I was told i wasn't a problem to change weapon type

I like the club too. Nice and brutish, easy to use. Just the thing for the kiddies.

Not so sure about the multi-colored outfit either.

[turin]

The ogre unit originally was not supposed to be able to be recruited, it was a specialty unit. that is why it is so good. if you are going to make a downgrade, you should make the current one worse.
also, it is nonsensical to make it more expensive for the loyalists to get ogres than the northerners. that would wreck the game, i think. why let northerners get ogres at all? the northerners all orcs and trolls, not ogres.

[Christophe33]

The ogre unit originally was not supposed to be able to be recruited, it was a specialty unit. that is why it is so good. if you are going to make a downgrade, you should make the current one worse.

Actually the ogres are not better than troll when you take in account the regeneration of troll.
Here is an average fight of troll vs ogre on a terrain were they have 50% chance to hit:
Average damage done per round: Troll 28/Ogre 30 (counting both attack)
Round1 Troll loose 30 HP out of 55---> 25+8 HP regeneration=33
Ogre loose 28 HP out of 68--->40
Round2 Troll loose 30 HP out of 33---> 3+8 HP regeneration=11 (the chance for the troll to die in that turn is 23.4%)
Ogre loose 28 HP out of 40----> 12 (the chance that the ogre die in that turn is 25%)
Round3 If the ogre is the first to attack, it has 16% chance to kill the troll before being killed while the troll has 56% chance killing the ogre.
If the troll is the first to attack, it has 75% to kill the ogre while the ogre has only 10% chance to kill the troll.
In other word the troll is slightly better in one to one fight. The longer the fight last, the best it is for the troll. The only cae the ogre is superior is when facing devastating attacks that would kill a troll in a single round. All in all, they are fairly balanced.

also, it is nonsensical to make it more expensive for the loyalists to get ogres than the northerners. that would wreck the game, i think. why let northerners get ogres at all? the northerners all orcs and trolls, not ogres.

Both the Loyalist and the Northerner use Ogre in the Heir of the Throne campaign. Haven't you seen a few Ogre recruited by the troll leader in the Sceptre of Fire for example?. The main reason the Northerner don't use much lvl2 ogre is that they cost 30 gold against 19 for a troll. This is why I think the cost of lvl2 ogre is over-rated.

[fmunoz]

Not all units in the campaign are designed to be part of the side that recruit them in given level (ie Orcs using bats in te Bay of perls)
IMHO Ogres should be keep off the multiplayer game.

[Christophe33]

Here is a combination of mine and fmunoz young ogre.
I don't think that young ogre/ogre would inbalance the multiplayer version more than troll whelp/troll would but I might be wrong. The best way to figure it out of course is to try . Maybe it would be usefull to make them more sensitive toward a type of attack like fire/magic.

[turin]

You ruined it!

The face is too indistinct, in my opinion. E-A's version was good.

[Eponymous-Archon]

You ruined it!

The face is too indistinct, in my opinion. E-A's version was good.

I just took his and removed a pixel around the head (really moved the outside pixels down by one).

[Christophe33]

Turin: Did you prefer the club?
After reflexion I think it is better to stick to the meat cleaver because it makes the unit more distinct from the troll/troll whelp in term of gameplay. Here is another version with a bit more contrast for the face. I'm glad the young ogre spark some interest... Now what about a lvl3 Ogre warrior/butcher using a really long and nasty blade