[Miscellanous / Other] Alchemy Tower

[ArchDuke]

@cleavinghammer This is already the case in wc3 & tft; the longest tower range is 800 or 850 (i'm not 100% which one) but siege units like the mortar team, demolishers, etc. have a range of 1150

 

[cleavinghammer]

Precisely.

So if there's some custom building that encourages turtling such as walls, towers with boosted range, etc. (having a large source of gold in the base helps but isn't necessarily the main reason to bunker down, see previous discussion), just have siege units with longer range than anything the turtler can build.

 

[DingoT]

@cleavinghammer This is already the case in wc3 & tft; the longest tower range is 800 or 850 (i'm not 100% which one) but siege units like the mortar team, demolishers, etc. have a range of 1150

Just looked at battle.net and its 800, and only the human cannon tower and orc watchtower have this great range, every other tower has a range of 700

If I accurately recall a range advantage of as little as 50 can make a huge difference in a battle...in this case the attacker has a range advantage of 350

 

[ArchDuke]

So what are some other ideas for superweapons?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Weather control (one at a time):

Windstorm pushes flyers in the chosen direction, Rainstorm reduces sight and attack range, Snowstorm reduces accuracy, and weakened versions of Blizzard, Monsoon, and Tornado.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Best one against a turtling player would be earthquake.
Things like rain of fire, are also good.

For spells that a player can just can cast from afar I would suggest rain of chaos, as I've already mentioned 3 or more infernals inside your base is no laughing matter.
Force of nature can be used if there's a nearby forest.

You can get creative and throw one of those poison wards or whatever the meat wagon uses in your enemy's base. There are tons of ideas you can use, I just haven't really put too much thought into this.

Also I believe it was mission 1 of WOS book 4 that had the cannon I mentioned, in a later mission of the same book you get to use this cannon against your enemies.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Leafeater Curse: Destroys all trees in the target area.

Sheeportal: Produces 1 neutral sheep every 30 seconds at the target point.

Fester: Creates a Disease Cloud on every corpse in the target area.

Napalm Lobber: Casts X Flame Strikes at random locations in the target area with a 5-second delay.

Force Wall/Cage: Creates an ethereal wall with Mana Shield at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

Fire Wall/Cage: Creates an ethereal wall of fire with Permanent Immolation at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

Thorn Wall/Cage: Creates a wall of thorns with Spiked Barricades or Spiked Carapace at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

Earth Wall/Cage: Creates a stone wall with Hardened Skin and Resistant Skin at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

Wind Wall/Cage: Creates an ethereal wall of tornadoes with Cyclone and automatic short-range cycloning at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

Ice Wall/Cage: Creates a wall of ice with permanent Frost Armor at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

Iron Wall/Cage: Creates a wall of iron with Divine Shield at the target point/walls centered on the target point.

 

[Lord Aiden]

I wish I was better at writing triggers...

 

[noob]

I wish I was better at writing triggers...

By reading a bunch of tutorials and making some triggers you will progress fast.
I advise you if you want to get in triggering to read the tutorial about unit indexing(and do a spell using unit indexing for mui and ideally that spell involves moving units periodically) so that you can wrap around your head around complex structures then read a hash table tutorial and complete all that with some training in creating geometric structures(such as making a trigger that assemble units to create an instant castle with multiple buildings).
(all that without forgetting memory leaks) then you will probably have enough experience to make triggers correctly.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Arcane Tempest: Gives every enemy in the target area a random debuff.

Shroud: Makes every unit (ally and enemy) in the target area invisible for the duration of the effect.

Blessing of Cenarius: Grows a tree at a random point in the target area every X seconds. Trees that grow out of buildings cause damage to the building.

 

[noob]

Arcane Tempest: Gives every enemy in the target area a random debuff.

Shroud: Makes every unit (ally and enemy) in the target area invisible for the duration of the effect.

Blessing of Cenarius: Grows a tree at a random point in the target area every X seconds. Trees that grow out of buildings cause damage to the building.

Maybe we should start a new thread for stuff like that?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Could be fired from the alchemy tower, providing both an incentive to turtle and an incentive to spread out.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Leafeater Curse: Destroys all trees in the target area.

Taking all the trees away from a certain region will basically destroy ability to produce units and structures, it's not a good ability to give somebody.


Anyway regarding these superweapon ideas:

I don't know what you wanna call this but it basically disables all enemy spellcasting in a circle; use statis trap or sentry ward ability to create a unit and then have the unit cast a highly modified cloud on itself, this cloud ability would be modified to prevent all spell-casting in a region. You can also make this abilty prevent all units from attacking, range attacks as well as miss attacks I believe.

Summon a stationary unit at a particular location, the unit needs to have a strong attack; this is basically like the Wrath of Taor from the forgotten war campaign, only with a bigger range.


Bombing run. - Ok this one is basically modifying flying machines to have pheonix's pheonix fire ability and target only ground structures, and have these fly over the area. This wouldn't fit some map theme, but it's creative.

Modify Archmonde's dark portal ability and summon whatever you like into your enemy's base.

Shock orb - summons an uncontrollable orb that casts fan of knives modified with the far seer's electric projectile.

 

[cleavinghammer]

That's the idea, the enemy is forced to either hide away in their quasi-infinite-gold base but can only produce basic units, or expand in order to keep their economy running, leaving their main base less defended.

 

[Lord Aiden]

i keep trying to focus on modding wc3. but then i get really busy irl,

anyway some good ideas everyone

Also that shock orb or whatever spell was mentioned, wouldnt it be better if instead you had a flame orb that shoots flames at everything, and that has liquid fire, which severely damages structures and affects their rof

 

[Lord Alyx]

That's the idea, the enemy is forced to either hide away in their quasi-infinite-gold base but can only produce basic units, or expand in order to keep their economy running, leaving their main base less defended.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; Turtling rarely happens.

You cannot win a mission where you have to destroy the enemies' base by turtling.

As I've said earlier turtling is only bound to happen in 3 instances:

a) A mission where you have to survive for x minutes (like twilight of the gods for example)

b) A mission where lots of reinforcements arrive after some time has lapsed

c) A mission where you can attack your enemies from afar using "superweapon" spells


What I've seen people do is turtle in order to max out their upgrades, but that lasts for a very short time.

If you want to absolutely prevent turtling (at least in a campaign type mission) set up a trigger which basically bars the enemies furthest from the player from attacking the player for the first 10 or so minutes, after which they will attack him head on, in doing so the player will have to face both the enemies closest to him as well as waves of enemies further away at a particular time, if he turtles it will make things only harder for him.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Hey I agree with you man, I just thought turtling was a lot more pervasive than it actually is

 

[Lord Alyx]

It's common sense; you can't win a game where your goal is to destroy the enemy's HQ by hiding in your base.

If a n00b mapmaker made a map and forgot to give the enemy AI enough gold and lumber then it's theoretically possible, but not under any other conditions.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Hey this is off the current topics, but isn't it possible to make a spell to create a gold mine at a particular location? It could be an item ability with 1 charge.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yes, it's possible, I've used this to give a player a gold mine as a reward for completing a side quest.

However what you mentioned isn't a good idea, not because this wouldn't help the player, but because of how it can be abused by someone creative;

A gold mine is invincible so the player can use this to his advantage in at least 3 ways; place the gold mine in a location which blocks one of the entrances to his base, making it more defensible, place the gold mine at an entrance of an enemy base, preventing enemy forces from coming out, or lastly place the gold mine at a strategic location other than bases creating a choke point or other circumstances advantages for him.

An alternative to your idea that has no real potential for abuse is to create an item that adds extra gold to an already existing gold mine, or just an item that gives a player x amount of gold every time he uses it, it can cost him some mana to use it if you like

 

[cleavinghammer]

Oh, I know turtling rarely happens, but an anti-tree spell could be useful for a campaign mission (take story missions where Flame Strike or Force of Nature are explicitly recommended to reveal secrets, or against an entrenched AI as an alternative victory condition) or if a tree-growing spell is also available.

The gold mine creation could be useful, Northrend Bound has one as part of gameplay (where you can only have one at a time).

 

[Lord Alyx]

Oh, I know turtling rarely happens, but an anti-tree spell could be useful for a campaign mission (take story missions where Flame Strike or Force of Nature are explicitly recommended to reveal secrets, or against an entrenched AI as an alternative victory condition) or if a tree-growing spell is also available.

This just never crossed my mind.

 

[noob]

Yes, it's possible, I've used this to give a player a gold mine as a reward for completing a side quest.

However what you mentioned isn't a good idea, not because this wouldn't help the player, but because of how it can be abused by someone creative;

A gold mine is invincible so the player can use this to his advantage in at least 3 ways; place the gold mine in a location which blocks one of the entrances to his base, making it more defensible, place the gold mine at an entrance of an enemy base, preventing enemy forces from coming out, or lastly place the gold mine at a strategic location other than bases creating a choke point or other circumstances advantages for him.

An alternative to your idea that has no real potential for abuse is to create an item that adds extra gold to an already existing gold mine, or just an item that gives a player x amount of gold every time he uses it, it can cost him some mana to use it if you like

You can create a new unit that is killable and the gold mine ability.
heck you can have a gold mine that disappears in itself to mine itself
Also you can win by turtling if you build towers closer and closer to the opponent base and then siege the opponent.(happens in all the "insane ai" SC1 maps)

 

[DingoT]

After having a chat with a buddy of mine I thought of a new idea; idk if its workable within the framework of wc3 though: have a cloud or a similar object design ated with the gold mine ability, and create an airship or balloon or something that is able to use it like a goldmine but have it fly to the cloud and then make a return trip to the town hall, and have it bring like 30 gold per trip, I think this will prevent the player from running out if gold, especially if the cloud contains a very big amount. Make the player believe that the airship is harvesting some sort of energy into gold.. @noob is this idea possible in wc3 ?

 

[noob]

After having a chat with a buddy of mine I thought of a new idea; idk if its workable within the framework of wc3 though: have a cloud or a similar object design ated with the gold mine ability, and create an airship or balloon or something that is able to use it like a goldmine but have it fly to the cloud and then make a return trip to the town hall, and have it bring like 30 gold per trip, I think this will prevent the player from running out if gold, especially if the cloud contains a very big amount. Make the player believe that the airship is harvesting some sort of energy into gold.. @noob is this idea possible in wc3 ?

Yes: at worst you have to recreate a gold mine system with triggers.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Yes: at worst you have to recreate a gold mine system with triggers.

How would you even set this up???

you seem like the most editor proficient here so help us out

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe just base the cloud off the goldmine, mess around with flying heights and pathing textures, and give a ship the harvesting ability?

Seems to me the biggest hurdle would be a convincing explanation for how clouds can be mined for gold.

 

[Pyrogasm]

convincing explanation for how clouds can be mined for gold

People on Bespin (Cloud City) in the Star Wars universe mine their atmosphere for a valuable gas everyone needs because it's what blasters use to fire. I think it's less that the clouds need to 'give' gold and more that they provide a resource that your town hall can sell for gold, hence why it needs to return to you to get the gold in the first place. Thematically maybe something that can be sold to your citizens, like CNG. Obviously nobody in medieval times had CNG but something like that.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe have it return gold to the spellcaster building then. Or even make a specialized building to harvest the cloudstuff.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Ok regarding the cloud thing; its workable but the unit that is chosen to be the goldmine has to be something else other than a cloud. It wont work if the gold mine unit's model is a buff, which is what cloud is. So you would have to get some flying unit, decrease it in size, have lots of units with the cloud model around it to make it LOOK LIKE the airship is flying into the cloud then return gold to the town hall building.

This is a decent idea actually, considering it cannot be abused if you set a build limit on the airship, have it deliver like 100 - 200 gold per trip and have the flying unit designated as a mine a good distance from the town hall (have either water or cliffs stand between the closest point where the creation of a town hall is possible and the designated mine unit ).

The airship unit will need to have the gather ability, but no triggers are needed in this instance.

 

[Pyrogasm]

So you would have to get some flying unit, decrease it in size, have lots of units with the cloud model around it to make it LOOK LIKE the airship is flying into the cloud then return gold to the town hall building.

How about giving the cloud a modified Locust Swarm with near-infinite duration and targets set to none so the drones just mill about without attacking anything? Give the drones the appropriate cloud model and it might look like a series of smaller clouds flying around near the central cloud. You'd have to order each mine to cast locust once on map init.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe have the gold mine ability have an in-game effect using the cloud model?

 

[Lord Alyx]

How about giving the cloud a modified Locust Swarm with near-infinite duration and targets set to none so the drones just mill about without attacking anything? Give the drones the appropriate cloud model and it might look like a series of smaller clouds flying around near the central cloud. You'd have to order each mine to cast locust once on map init.

Thats a nice idea, not sure if you can do that with the locus ability though.

Maybe have the gold mine ability have an in-game effect using the cloud model?

Gold mine ability is basically an ability that allows a unit to have an x amount of gold and for worker units to retrieve that gold from it, what I meant was that you cannot have anything thats a buff as a model for a gold mine, it just doesn't work; units cannot "enter" it.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Thats a nice idea, not sure if you can do that with the locus ability though.

It works just fine and it looks really cool. Open my testmap and cast locust swarm on the spellbreakers. It has no targets so you can run around not damaging anything.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Looks good.

You could give the unit with the gold mine ability locust and have it recast it every minute or so, modifying the cooldown of locust if necessary.

 

[Lord Aiden]

@DingoT @-Phoenix-

ok why a cloud? is it because you want the unit holding the gold to be a flying entity?

 

[Lord Alyx]

It needs to either be a flying unit or a water unit that no land based worker unit can reach, if it's a water unit the airship will look weird going into it, so a flying unit will likely be the best option.

If there is another unit you would prefer over a cloud do tell, because the only other thing I can think of is a flying structure..., offcourse the gold mine unit could be an airship or something of that nature, but it would look weird when the airship goes into it to gather gold, just my thoughts

 

[Lord Aiden]

You're right, what about a some form of flying glowing orb like this?

 

[Lord Alyx]

will it make sense story and theme wise?

Why do you have a giant crystal floating and why can you harvest it ?

 

[Lord Aiden]

ye it definitely needs a good, established back story

 

[noob]

Why not make something simple and have a flying lump of gold?
It is flying because it is the house of a rich noble who paid for it to be enchanted because that noble valued its safety.
He did not think of a way to get out of the house and then died of starvation in it because this noble was absent minded.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Why not make something simple and have a flying lump of gold?
It is flying because it is the house of a rich noble who paid for it to be enchanted because that noble valued its safety.
He did not think of a way to get out of the house and then died of starvation in it because this noble was absent minded.

thats too cheesy

 

[Lord Aiden]

this is ot but @-Phoenix- how did you say you modified those rifleman to be super effective against dragons?

 

[Lord Alyx]

More hp ( I think they had ~750 each) plus I gave them a modified critical strike ability which did 2x damage to dragons 100% of the time. Basically I gave the dragons a suicidal classification and made the ability only able to target units that are flying and suicidal, so since peircing does 2x to light armor, and this ability increases the damage by 2x, this set up increased the rifleman's damage against dragons fourfold, makes them much more effective, also I believe I increased their range, but I can't recall by how much

 

[Lord Aiden]

@-Phoenix-

I see you're online, what would you recommend the flying mine to be?

 

[Lord Alyx]

It's not what I recommend, rather what looks appropriate in-game, think about you: you're gonna have an airship disappear into something and then re-appear again, with clouds this makes sense, with other objects it doesn't

 

[Lord Aiden]

Floating structure maybe?

 

[Lord Alyx]

You could try, maybe get some sort of a mountain or something. idk I never created anything like this before and I've worked with tons of things in WC3

 

[Lord Aiden]

So do you have any intention of finishing your campaign? I mean some of the things you mentioned sound awesome, I would love to be able to play it one day

 

[Lord Alyx]

Maybe someday, I don't have that much free time at the moment. . . plus there are other complications (lost maps, incompatible versions, etc)