Ransom mechanic

[cleavinghammer]

Ideas for a ransom mechanic (Player 1 captures Player 2's unit; P2 can pay to get their unit back or P1 can free the unit and get less money for it), would like feedback on it.

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Ransom: Active melee-range ability based on Ensnare. Can target ground and grounded air units, not heroes or summons. 15 second duration, 60 second cooldown.

Player 1 uses the Ransom ability on Player 2's unit, starting a 15-second timer:

• If the timer ends and there are no P2-allied units within 600 range of the target unit, the unit is captured.
• If the timer runs out and there are still allies in 600 range, the captured unit is freed.

A captured unit is removed from the game (any items carried are moved to P1's base), creating a replacement generic invulnerable Prisoner unit (e.g. Prisoner [Knight], Prisoner [Grunt], Prisoner [Gargoyle], etc.) in a blocked-off area of P1's base.

The Prisoner unit belongs to a computer player that shares control with P1 and P2. The captured unit's food cost is added to P1's via dummy unit.

The Prisoner unit has a Ransom Prisoner ability usable by P1 or P2. Using the ability frees the unit and grants resources to P1: equal to its cost if used by P1, twice its cost if used by P2.

The freed unit is created at P2's base, the Prisoner unit removed and the food cost removed from P1.

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Thoughts?

 

[noob]

So it allows to transmute an unit if you manage to make your opponent flee.
The 15 second disable is strong I guess but balanced by the fact it does not works on heroes.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Not quite Transmute, since the unit is returned to the owner afterwards instead of being killed.

For the duration I just put something that didn't seem too long or too short.

 

[noob]

It is exactly transmute because the unit is literally in the middle of your base and guaranteed to die when given back.

 

[cleavinghammer]

No, once the ransom is paid the unit reappears in the owning player's base.

 

[noob]

Player 1 uses the Ransom ability on Player 2's unit, starting a 15-second timer:
...
The freed unit is created at P1's base, the Prisoner unit removed and the food cost removed from P1.
...

No, once the ransom is paid the unit reappears in the owning player's base.

P1 is the ransomer so there was a typo in the first post which made me believe the unit was made in the ransomer base, you can fix your first post to make the intent clear about the fact it was not supposed to be a variant of transmute.

 

[cleavinghammer]

So it was, my bad.