Techtree Contest #20 - Results

GhostThruster · 2026-07-26T12:51:42+0100

Artwork by Mikael Yusifov

Turn one or more race(s) of neutral Creeps into a cohesive and fleshed-out faction - anything that would exist as a Melee (as opposed to Campaign) Neutral Hostile unit in the World Editor is fair game! Here are a couple of good links for valid Creep options: Link 1 and Link 2

Your design should reflect the aesthetic of your chosen Creep, and the faction’s gameplay should feel true to their identity.

@Wazzz - Stormreavers - First Place Winner
@SgtWinter - Forest Trolls - Second Place Winner
@FlameofChange - Golems - Third Place Winner

1st place: 2250 experience points
2nd place: 1800 experience points
3rd place: 1350 experience points
Entry: 250 experience points
Judge: 50 experience points per entrant

The three winners will receive an Award Icon representing the winning entry.
Winning a contest also unlocks Demon Rank icons (at least two wins is required).

Good:

You successfully portrayed the Stormreavers well, embodying elements of skeletons, demonology and a couple of extra synergistic creeps (turtles and revenants).
Gameplay aside, many of the mechanics felt appropriate for a Stormreavers faction. Examples include the ample methods of mana regen, the prevalence of ever-returning skeletons, and the Titan's Eye is thematically great.
This faction felt thematically cohesive. Side-by-side, every unit and hero felt like they belonged to the same group, with two exceptions (Soul Tower and Mausoleum).
Individually, all units and abilities were very well-represented by their names, icons and models.
This faction has an aesthetic that easily blends into the standard 4 Wc3 factions. I could nitpick a couple of icons and buildings that don't, but overall you've captured the Blizzard feeling very well.
The summoning animation for buildings is awesome.
Greater Summoning is visual perfection.

Lacking:

As aforementioned, a minor point but the Soul Tower and Mausoleum stuck out due to their colour and geometry.
The Goliath could use a more appropriate name, and perhaps one that better indicates it is a mobile shop. It also overlaps in naming and apperance quite a bit with the Leviathan.
"Warlock" is a tad underwhelming for a hero name. Champion carries sufficiently heroic connotations, but I feel probably needs to connotate the skeletal nature more.
The Stormcaller's Tempest feels very weak, partly due to its weak gameplay impact, but also on its lackluster audiovisuals. A weak point in an otherwise very strong lineup of effects.
Minor presentation flaws. For example, the Daemon's tooltip is unchanged from the Doom Guard's. The Goliath's portrait is broken. The Stormcaller needs a channelling animation for Monsoon.

Summary:
This is a cohesive, audiovisually pleasing faction that represented the Stormreavers well and aligns to Blizzard's aesthetics. Aside from minor areas of polish, you've done a great job with the faction's theming.

Good:

Mechanically, this faction felt very complete. You had a great spread of unit roles, arranged novelly. For example, a T1.5 caster that summons ranged units and also doubles as a detector.
This faction's central mechanics felt very intuitive. For example, I was able to easily understand how Hermits gather gold/lumber and I could figure out how Titan's Eye worked based on its visuals alone.
Units have a good array of abilities that align with their functional roles. Each ability for the most part is also intuitive, owing both to their thematic & functional alignment and the fact that you've kept their effects appreciably simple.
Items cover a great array of utilities, from healing and mana regen to unit protection and the ever-essential Orb.
There is some (potentially unintended) depth with the Goliath. He is awesome for early-game creeping, and is great to hang in the back line of your army lategame.

Lacking:

While they look cool and thematically fit, Drudges can crowd the screen a lot in your base while adding no actual gameplay depth. Maybe this is a visuals issue moreso than gameplay, but I felt you could've (a) toned down their visual salience, e.g. by making them translucent (b) designed the mechanic such that lumber gathering meaningfully differs from Humans / Orcs / Undead.
There are minor UX issues throughout your faction. For example, I'd prefer the Goliath function like the Ancient of Wonders (unselectable when rooted). Respawned Grunts should follow the unit your Summonings' rally points are set to. The Leviathan's Hatchling [H] has the same hotkey as Hold Position.
Mana is a bit too abundant across the function. For example, I was struggling to run out of mana with my Warlock, when considering Soul Steal + Soul Towers' aura + Spirit Tonic.
I found this faction's complexity ever so slightly too high, primarily due to the dazzling array of summons and the Titan's Eye being novel. While each mechanic was intuitive, learning their intricacies took a bit of time.
In contrast to the thematic cohesion, I found the faction's gameplay cohesion lacking. I think this is a function of it doing too much; you have strong & fast units that regenerate well through multiple means. You have weak but numerous units, supported by casters that amplify them. You have solid base defense, a highly mobile shop, a highly mobile worker, and unrestricted structure summoning. I find it difficult to summarize this faction's playstyle in one sentence, whereas I could for the standard 4 races.

Summary:
The coverage of unit and ability roles is fantastic, but arguably too fantastic. Even though every individual mechanic was intuitive and easy to understand, the sum of the parts felt a tad too overwhelming. Nevertheless, a mechanically sound faction.

Good:

The Titan's Eye is a very creative spin on classic RTS tropes. You've essentially taken God Powers and placed them within your techtree as a tier 3 ultimate unit.
Across the rest of your faction, there exists many familiar elements, but with a novel spin. For example, reassembling skeletons are a common element, but I've never seen them executed as you have with the respawning Grunts. I also like the Daemonic Sceptar as a counterpart to the Staff of Preservation / Sanctuary.
Greater Summoning balances novelty and creativity perfectly. It's designed in an easy-to-understand manner, and offers an entirely new mechanic to Wc3, even though its underlying effect (summoning a unit) is ostensibly familiar.
You get partial credit for the visual design of the Drudge mechanic, but I would've commended your ingenuity more if you managed to have it meaningfully add a dimension to gameplay as well.

Lacking:

Aside from the Titan's Eye, I found the race lacking a central unique mechanic. Even though the Titan's Eye is awesome, it is a tier-3 locked unit with limited interactivity to the rest of the game. Compare that to a mechanic like Call-to-Arms for example, which is available immediately and core to how Human is played, there felt like a lack of truly novel core aspects. In short, your creativity appeared in pockets of great visual and mechanical design, rather than in wide-reaching mechanics.
Despite great visuals, I felt that the race's base management (summoning and resource gathering) was uninspired in actual gameplay.
I was slightly disappointed that you had 2 of the same items as Undead. It's not a big deal, but in combination with the prevalence of skeletal units, summoning, enchanting mines, and a touch of blight, I think this is a tad too close to occupying the Lich King's territory.

Summary:
I found the faction lacking in a central identity, due to the absence of a wide-reaching unique mechanic in addition to borrowing slightly too much from Undead. However, there are a good amount of creative individual elements in this faction, with the highlight being the Titan's Eye.

Final Score: 80.5/100

Good:

You portrayed the Forest Trolls perfectly, through excellent asset choices as well as compelling mechanics that embody the Troll's savage yet crafy nature. Your unit roster feels very fitting of the faction too.
Every asset felt completely cohesive against one another. The building models are a thing of beauty, and the unit and hero models stand out against the standard 4 factions' while blending together wonderfully.
Despite the unit roster's visual cohesion, each unit had great silhouettes that were easy to digest in the thick of battle. If I had to nitpick, the only two units that were a bit on the nose were Ravagers and Hexdrinkers. But really, fantastic lineup.
The heroes are wonderfully distinct and well-named, with kits that match their visual persona amazingly.
Individually, all units and abilities were very well-represented by their names, icons and models.
This faction has an aesthetic that wonderfully blends into standard Wc3.

Lacking:

There are minor UX / UI aspects you could've polished (e.g. the Conscription mechanism was presented a bit confusingly, Dragonhawk Hunters seem to lack certain attachment points for effects, Shadow Ward doesn't apply a translucent effect to affected units)
When playing on Classic graphics, a few units do not have appropriate shadows e.g. Arbalest and Bear Rider

Summary:
Future contest entries should look to this as an example of excellent audiovisuals, strong thematic cohesion, and fantastic representation of the intended faction.

Good:

You have nailed the mechanical cohesion of this faction. This does not feel like a collection of novel gimmicks, but a unified army that excels at guerrilla tactics. Everything works in tandem, down to even the enhanced Regeneration synergizing really well with Conscription (pull back hurt Axethrowers in the same way Undead return Ghouls to base).
Mechanically, this faction felt adequately complete. From healers to scouts to detectors to great siege variety (as advertised), this faction covers its bases well.
I don't think Conscription or the bonus Food mechanisms were executed perfectly, but I can see potential for great depth and a real differentiator in playstyle to the other races. I imagine with perfect implementation, your Forest Trolls can utilize a tactic that's a hybrid of Militia rushes and 50-food Destroyer timing attacks.
Loot, while not overly complex, was well-implemented and intuitive.
Unit abilities are fantastically spread, and each are intuitive to their unit roles. Some favourites of mine include the Venomancer's entire kit, Perch and Wreck.
This is an underrated aspect of custom techtrees, but you've nailed the tier 1 items. A consumeable Ensnare, a sacrifical spin on a Clarity Potion, and a consumable Liquid Fire offer great utility that gels perfectly with the faction's identity.
Despite the plethora of racial mechanics, this faction did not feel overwhelming to play. While certain abilities are clunky, all were intuitive and there was a great balance of active-cast and passive abilities.

Lacking:

There a couple of mechanical roles that I found wanting, or wanting adequate compensation for the absence of: (1) AoE dispel was missing, and I found the Hexdrinker lackluster at dealing with summons en mass (2) Detection is relegated to purchaseable Sentry Wards and Pyres, which is serviceable, but not very dynamic.
To some extent, I felt the Bear Rider overshadowed the Dire Troll, being tankier on an effective-HP-per-food basis, faster, and available at T2.
While this faction's central mechanics are mechanically cohesive, I found them lacking in user-friendliness. Conscription is front-of-mind, with a point-target system instead of something akin to Call-to-Arms, and Whittler-specific Throwing Axes. Making Conscription instant-cast (like Call-to-Arms or Battle Stations) and having your supply of Throwing Axes be universal would go a long way in streamlining playability. The various Ambush skills also felt clunky. For example, I felt the camouflage radius was a bit unforgiving, and skills like Dart Trap and Bear Trap feel cumbersome in actual gameplay. For the latter, a great comparison is the Witch Doctor, which feels much less clunky because they are far more spammable (2 food and cheap) and have a large AoE.
The Butcher mechanic has great potential, but is not implemented in a way that offers much depth. At the moment, it's sort of something cool to try, but I never felt compelled to use it as opposed to just building another Shack.
Feast seems to be broken, as it is does not require or consume bonus food. Craft Throwing Axe also is broken.
Maul was a bit confusing initially; it's unclear it's a channeling spell, and the lack of discerning animation or audio does not help. It's also quite busted, and doesn't affect magic immune units.

Summary:
Mechanically, the faction was very cohesive and individual units/abilities were very well designed. Some user friendliness issues and missed potential on deepening existing mechanics slightly hinder an otherwise stellar gameplay experience.

Good:

In my eyes, this faction's racial mechanics nails the precise amount of innovation necessary for a "5th race" feel. I've touched on implementation being better, but the ideas behind Ambush tactics, Conscription, Butchering and Scavenging are fantastic.
Despite a plethora of distinct mechanics, everything felt very easy to understand in concept. It takes great ingenuity to implement something like Conscription, in a way that (a) makes thematic sense (b) is novel in spite of similarities to existing mechanics (in this case Militia) (c) is easy to conceptually grasp.
Certain hero abilities echo this ingenuity, for example Challenge and Empower are perfect admixtures of familiarity, creativity and intuitiveness.

Lacking:

While race-wide mechanics were innovative, and I found most hero abilities novel (War Banner was the sole exception), I didn't find any single unit particularly inventive in their gameplay. That is, in part, credit to your factions' intuitiveness. Basically, everything in your roster made sense, but none of them made sense in a surprising manner.
I think the one area lacking in distinction is the faction's economic management, which plays very similarly to Orcs. I feel there could've been room to tweak your current mechanics to further expand on this area.
I did also notice the similarities to the Orc techtree, but I take it more as deliberate homage/inspiration than laziness - a T1 barracks with a catapult, a T2 spellcaster building + beastiary with 2 ground and 2 aerial units, a T3 ultimate unit being a beefy ground unit rather than a flying magic beast.

Summary:
To paraphrase Spellbound's judging from the last TC:

we are treated to a faction that looks like it could have been a Blizzard-made faction, but it does enough different things as to have its own identity.

This entry cleverly balanced innovation, intuitiveness, and thematic cohesion.

Final Score: 90/100

Good:

I can't say that your intended theme aligns to my version of an ideal 5th race, but I believe you did a good job of achieving the Coalition that you set out to. With the inclusion of Quilboars, I found it appropriately diverse for a Coalition.
The Contact Indigenous Tribes mechanic is very fitting for a Coalition of Creeps. It also looks nifty. That said, I'm not sure lizards and dragons organize themselves in a tribal manner...
For the most part, the units surprisingly blended in quite well. I enjoyed the weird mishmash of different creeps across different levels of technology. As a white collar professional, the Quilboars also gave me a laugh.
Special effects across abilities were serviceable, but with lots of room for polish. For example, the Orb's attachment doesn't align with the other factions'.
Unit concepts like Furbolg Aces and Lizartillery are equal parts funny, silly and charming.

Lacking:

The building models were a mess, not looking like they belonged to the same faction.
There are one too many very similar icons across different Furbolgs and Quilboars. Their unit models also could do with some more variation in animation and silhouette.
I am not a fan of overly-descriptive tooltips.
The Thunder Conjuress's model is ... not great. Honestly at first, I thought you had mistakenly kept Jaina as her model and only replaced the portrait.
Your shop's items were not very thematically consistent. It could've been another avenue for you to hammer home the rustic wood-dweller -> renaissance -> industrial advancement you were going for.
Summon Spec-Ops tooltip is unchanged from Dark Portal.

Summary:
Is this faction's core idea my cup of tea? No. Is this weird? Yes. Does this likely align with your intended vision? Yes. Was it overall charming, fun and cohesive? Yes.

Good:

I overall liked the implementation of Diplomatic Points as a third resource. I think, similar to your entry last TC, you have issues with (a) having points be always on-display (b) integrating it broadly across your faction in the endgame. Diplomatic Immunity and Essence of Life don't feel like enough to warrant the existance of this resource after the 10 minute mark.
There is a unique and interesting playstyle that the Diplomat unlocks, where you essentially can use him to steal creeps off the enemy player's side of the map. But thank your lucky stars balance is no longer a criteria.
Looking at individual units and heroes, each one has abilities and characteristics befitting of their intended role. The Furbolg Ronin is a silly, yet cool and well-executed idea.

Lacking:

The overall techtree shape for this faction is very messy. You have several research buildings, disconnected hero training and revival, and a separate building for T1 / 2 / 3 (with T1 being an add-on). You have new heroes unlocked at T2, but only for Thunder Lizards and not Bronze Dragons. For a brand new RTS, maybe this works. But this is unnecessarily unintuitive for someone familiar with the standard 4 Wc3 factions.
You do an OK job of covering core functional roles, such as siege, detection, anti-air, but you're missing some flavour from spells and spellcasters. A defensive tower (or a compensating mechanic) would help as well.
Aside from the central Diplomacy mechanic, I don't find much mechanical synergy across other units. It feels to me that you've focused on hammering home the visual theming of Furbolgs + thunder creeps + technological advancement, but you've not answered what that means in terms of gameplay identity. The most recurrent mechanical theme I found was an abundance of CC abilities, but that seems more like a happy accident given it doesn't gel with your coalition theme.
Learning the abilities of units, aside from your T1 units, is a bit of a headache. For one, their long tooltips and complex effects don't help. But I also don't find them necessarily intuitive from the unit's visuals or role. For example, Embryonic Pain is just a silly ability to make sense of, especially given if the baby deals AoE damage, the Matriarch takes multiples of 60 damage.
As much as I find the Quilboars' theme funny, the Minister and Manager are borderline unusable due to their lack of attack and incredibly niche abilities. Even the Clerk's Paperwork ability forces him to remain idle at base to be of any use... hardly compelling design.
Losing Diplomatic Points from killing Creeps fits really poorly in Wc3, even if it makes sense with your faction's theme. Wc3 is founded on a rhythm of players contesting Creep camps; this faction actively encourages you to not go out to do that and gain experience. It also means the Diplomat is absolutely a necessity for 1st hero pick, robbing the player of choice.
I don't know how you've done it, but no creeps drop items on the map. This could've been an interesting trade-off to using Persuade on a creep, where doing so prevents item drops. Instead, it seems this is just a universal rule even affecting enemies.
Some techtree bugs: 3 heroes are available at T1, some hero abilities unlock new levels at weird intervals.
I can't think of a good reason for the Thunder Conjuress to start with 200HP.

Summary:
A coherent gameplay identity could really help to sell a wacky faction theme, but I found this entry lacking in that area. Diplomacy is a cool idea, albeit with room to broaden and deepen how it integrates with your techtree. There are some fun-to-use units and heroes, but it's lacking clarity, intuitiveness and mechanical cohesion.

Good:

The core idea itself - Furbolgs + Thunder Lizards + Bronze Dragons + Quilboars + random modern technology - is as nonsensical as it is creative.
You interwove thunder and Furbolgs ingeniously, visually and with gameplay elements. For example, the Furbolg Ronin's lightning orb effect and the Dragon Berserkers' design.
Diplomatic Points are a fun idea and novel to Wc3, as well as how the Diplomat plays. As I touched on in Gameplay though, I wish it touched on more areas of the faction and unlocked greater strategic diversity.

Lacking:

Unfortunately, where you lose me in this criteria is the "clever implementation" of it all. It's great to think of out-of-the-box ideas, but I don't feel you've put in enough thought or ingenuity into implementing them in a seamless and interesting manner. For example, the Monoliths are a fascinating idea. But how does it mesh with your faction's overall theme? And how does it meaningfully affect players' decision to build them as a food source? Does it introduce an innovative layer of strategy, as opposed to standard hero altars? These are questions I'd ask myself as I implement such novel mechanics.
Your shop's T1 items are a mishmash from across the standard 4 factions, except for the Acid Bomb, which I found to be incongruent with your T1 rustic Furbolgs.

Summary:
An unorthodox faction idea, combined with an inventive Diplomacy system. However, it's held back by implementations that feel unconcerned with introducing meaningfully innovative gameplay experiences.

Final Score: 64.5/100

Good:

You portray the Ogres adequately through a mixture of serviceable asset choices and well-chosen mechanics.
The core mechanics tie in nicely with your faction - big, chonky units that can Fatten themselves up. I don't necessarily buy a singe upgradeable Lair that pops out a Gronn meshing well with the Ogres, but it's intuitive enough to understand at least.
Visually, this faction was very cohesive, with the lineup of units and buildings looking like they belonged to the same faction.
Unit and ability icons represented what they needed to for the most part, though clarity and alignment to Wc3's art style is an area of improvement.
I liked most of your unit concepts. The one unit that I wasn't sold on was the Brave; not only is it a strange name (especially for a hero), but the concept of a wind-powered ogre warrior is a tough sell that your model + ability choices did not sufficiently achieve.

Lacking:

Some buildings were slightly mismatching, due to varying levels of fidelity / polies and art style.
While models were visually cohesive, icons tended not to be. For example, the Brave's abilities are a weird mix of green, red and yellow colours. None of them represent the hero's theme of a savage warrior well.
There's a missed opportunity to somehow have a visual indicator for the level of Lair a player had.
This faction's visual assets stands out against the standard 4 factions, owing to typically higher poly counts. Some effects, notably the Firestarter and Brave's abilities, were often more ostentatious than typical Wc3 hero abilities as well as their actual gameplay impact.
There are minor polish issues spread throughout the entry. For example, the Drummer's tooltip and the Thunder Magi's selection box being way too big.

Summary:
This is undoubtedly an Ogre faction, though one which would greatly benefit from polishing the rough edges. Nevertheless, this faction is overall cohesive and most assets represent what they intend to well.

Good:

Your faction has the seeds of a great gameplay identity. I see that typically, units are higher food yet beefier, with abilities that emphasise a slow, lumbering, and unstoppable wave of siege, aided by high-impact magic.
While I'm not sold on the theming of Lair, it aligns with the aforementioned playstyle of slowly amassing and concentrating hard-to-break power.
Mechanically, this faction adequately covered the basic roles, with sufficient regenerative healing, anti-air, and a couple siege options. An extra detection wouldn't have hurt though.
The Pack Kodo is an interesting concept; I don't know if its ability to use items is intentional, but err on it being so given it has mana to use Stone of Vitality plus the two Hoard upgrades for it. Equipping it with a Stone of Vitality and Arcane Stone is a fun tactic, though I feel the potential of this unit is held back by relatively lackluster item design.
Spellcaster abilities ranged from genuinely useful (e.g. Stone Shield) to puzzling (e.g. Blood Frenzy massively nerfing your heroes).

Lacking:

Based on your tooltips, the intended effects of certain abilities seemed cool and interesting. However, they were often riddled with bugs. For example, Fatten didn't work on anything other than Garrons; I did not notice any movement speed increase on my Gronn as I upgraded my Lair; Thunder Magi attack only air until their upgrade is researched.
Lair upgrades felt a bit too slow compared to other races' Food supply buildings. Perhaps a slightly shorter build and upgrade time could alleviate this.
There was some confusing user-unfriendly design choices. For example, the Friendship Rock is very confusing to use; its effect is unclear and borderline useless. The Cannon Lugger's attack mechanism also doesn't seem to function without the player manually casting Load Big Banger; there doesn't seem to be any payoff to this drawback, because he just has a normal attack that is not even so high given his expensive cost. There is no good reason for the Eye of Kilrogg to have decaying HP.
I felt there were too many direct damage abilities across your heroes. Is it fitting for your faction to have a slew of high-impact spells? Sure. But there could be more clever ways to achieve that than giving each hero a nuke of some sort.
You have left the player settings fixed, so that one can ony play against Computer Normal Night Elf.

Summary:
There are elements of great design and potential for interesting tactics throughout the faction, but it is held back by a lack of polish and some obtuse / anti-fun mechanical choices. Execution aside, I see the vision behind some of your ideas and would love to see them refined in the future.

Good:

There are some great, novel mechanics here. Chief among them is the Lair system, but I see touches of ingenuity amongst individual unit designs. Notable examples include the Savant, Smasher and Cannon Lugger - not necessarily the most obvious Ogre unit roster, but they all work with the theming.
Flatulence is funny, but also works great as a novel worker defense mechanic.
Alongside the fun factor, the Pack Kodo is decently creative. We have seen mobile shops before, but I've never seen a mobile item-user as a unit. As mentioned in Gameplay, I feel more thought could have been put into synergy with other items, but overall I like the idea.
I think the Firestarter and Big Hammer are a good balance of creativity and intuitiveness. Standout abilities include Enchant Hammer and Fire Shield.

Lacking:

The Warlord didn't offer anything new or exciting, and the Brave, while creative in concept, did not convince me that this is a hero that belongs in an Ogre faction.
The T1 items, while easy to use, were a bit of a let-down; both were stones, and essentially just Permanent versions of Healing Slave and Clarity Potion. The Friendship Rock is... unique... but unintuitive and lacks usefulness.
Both Magi and Savants started with a dispel, which is rather uninteresting.
Noting that Balance is no longer a critera... there are some serious ramifications with (a) Garrons at 2 food, harvesting 1.7x the amount of Gold per normally (b) the Lair concentrating all food supply in one place. These are inventive ideas, but I don't think you've cleverly implemented them in a way to circumvent large structural issues. I'm not penalising you for this, just minimizing the amount of credit you'd otherwise receive for making this work well.

Summary:
The Ogres boast a good offering of creative unit designs and abilities, combined with novel (albeit imperfectly implemented) core racial mechanics.

Final Score: 75/100

Good:

Overall, I felt you did a great job representing your chosen creeps (sea Giants, Murlocs and other sea creatures).
Despite the diversity of creeps within your faction, and the abundance of varying colours, they all looked and felt cohesive. Even the icons you chose felt very fitting beside each other.
The mechanics you bestowed upon units and buildings were very fitting of the faction's aesthetic. Some standouts include Water Tentacles and the Hero Effigy's themselves. The only drawback is that they often gave off powerful eldritch vibes, rather belonging to a coalition of refugees.
You did a good job representing each unit, while keeping them distinct. Somehow, despite sharing the same base model and animations, your 3 Sea Giants were easy to tell apart and visually comprehend their role. The only letdown in this area were your Makruras, which blended in with each other especially in the heat of battle.
The heroes look appropriately awesome and powerful, and feel distinct yet coheisve. I felt a bit of disconnect with the Clawlord and his abilities, but otherwise they were thematically on point.

Lacking:

The biggest visual flaw I found was that every building blended in far too much, due to sharing similar meshes and the same Naga birth base. It was even difficult telling buildings apart by their icons.
The Heroic Effigies' bubbles made readability poor when present in battles. I think the opacity of the effect is way too high across all 4 Effigies.
There were plenty of UI mistakes. For example, many of the upgrades at the Bay Rest have unchanged default tooltips.
I felt most hero abilities had fitting effects, except Water Explosion was overkill.
The Coldwing looked silly, and stood out against a backdrop of otherwise good unit models.

Summary:
A well-represented faction of various sea creatures, with some truly awesome assets and effects interspersed with areas in dire of need of polishing. Overall, a visually pleasing entry.

Good:

The Hero Effigies presented an array of interesting effects. I felt the Clawlord's portal effigy could be (ab)used to great effect, and offers a lot of diverse tactics.
The Mur'gul Tideshifter's lifeswap abilities were also interesting to me; they introduce a new layer of decision-making I've yet to come across in Wc3 factions.
Hero abilities were a good level of novelty and complexity. For example, Cascading Calamity was fun to use. Tidal Surge was cool, although you might want to done down the knockback. However, I'm not a fan of the Warlock and Coastal Defender having lower-impact autocast abilities as their Q. The Clawlord's ultimate being a mid passive was also a bit underwhelming.
Molting is great ability design. Not only does it thematically fit, it's visually intuitive, synergises with Hardened Shell, and introduces a great dynamic. I can see great micro potential in using Makruras to tank, then retreating to the backline to molt and regenerate, akin to a less-powerful Druid of the Claw playstyle.

Lacking:

Unfortunately, your coverage of mechanical roles felt very limited. For example, your faction lacks long-range artillery and doesn't have anything to compensate for it. This means that fighting into heavily-towered bases is a death sentence. I also don't believe your faction has detection at all. This is not helped by your faction's lower unit and structure count.
There is a dearth of healing options across the faction, with only Molting and Regen Scrolls being (very gradual) options.
There is a lack of attack and armour upgrades, which means the faction scales fairly poorly into the lategame.
I'm not a fan of Cannibals and Ignobles both having Heavy armour, especially when the former has a ranged Piercing attack with comparable DPS. In Wc3, ranged units typically have a natural advantage due to the poor pathing. This is why most ranged units will have less HP and medium armour compared to a melee unit of equivalent strength. Current state, Cannibals are almost always a better unit choice than Ignobles.
There seemed to be an abundance of bugs that hampered playability. Off the top of my head, the Voidswarm lacks an attack and loses its mana when Molting, and the Coldwing has a 2-2 attack; the Fighter doesn't seem to get Bubble Crash at all; the Tideshifter initially lacks any abilities, until research is complete and a second Tideshifter is trained.
Some design choices seemed very anti-fun. For example, Drowned Covenant is like Big Bad Voodoo, but worse. Using it absolutely decimates your forces. Bone Chippers are needlessly fragile in an unintuitive way... I mean, if you're giving it -5 armour, why not just give it 0 armor and reduced HP?
I don't feel a unified gameplay identity arising from your faction's mechanics. You have many individual units and abilities that are cool and fun to use, but they don't tie into a coherent faction-wide playstyle. The closest theme I could pick up on was life manipulation (e.g. Tideshifters, Structural Leeching, Molting, Draine Essence), but the lack of healing really dampens (excuse the pun) this throughline.

Summary:
Standout unit and ability concepts exist throughout, and the faction is fun to play. However, the techtree felt very limited and bug-ridden, unable to meet the great potential that some of its mechanics promises.

Good:

Setting aside execution, a lot of the ideas on paper seem like the perfect level of creativity I'd want out of a "5th race" faction. Water Tentacles, Hero Effigies, and a slew of novel takes on familiar unit mechanics make for a good amount of differentation vs the standard 4 Wc3 factions.
In terms of pure mechanics, I found many of your abilities were easy counterparts to existing elements. For example, Drown is something akin to an Aerial Shackles. Molting is a spin on Rejuvenation or Burrow. Cannibalism is... cannibalize. But, I respect the ingenuity in tying them together cohesively within a relatively non-standard faction choice.
I already praised the Tideshifter for adding gameplay depth, but I should also praise it because it's an innovative and cool unit concept. Bonus points for giving it a fitting name.
Hero abilities are well-designed conceptually, introducing enough novelty without hampering understandability. Except Drowned Covenant.

Lacking:

The faction's upgrades were bland and limited, essentially being purely ability unlocks + an attack upgrade + Improved Lumber Harvesting.
The shop is a carbon copy of the Arcane Vault.
There was room to explore differentiation in terms of resource gathering or base building.
Drowned Covenant and Tempered Nephropidae had effects which fell short of the awesomeness of their names, the former being a spin on Big Bad Vadoo and the latter being a barebones stat boost.

Summary:
The Unshackled are a creatively assembled faction, introducing new ideas as well as remixing familiar concepts in a cool manner. A more fleshed out techtree, including a unique shop, would've brought this closer to creative perfection.

Final Score: 72/100

Good:

You've represented a disparate band of critters well, with plenty of charm across your unit roster.
Mechanics and abilities aligned to the theming of the faction and individual units. For example, the nocturnal and diurnal system is cool and fitting for critters. Roaches, Beavers and really every unit have abilities that make sense thematically.
You have a good lineup of buildings, with only the Council of Heroes and Pig Farms standing out egregiously. The building names are cute and charming, though run into the area of being a bit unintuitive. For example, Preserved Ice doesn't sound like a unit production ability, especially when beside your tower (just named "Ice").

Lacking:

This faction's readability is very poor. Pretty much every insect, except Moths, are hard to see and click, including the Annoying Fly hero. More often than not, units lacked team colour.
There was minimal visual cohesion across units and heroes. Yes, this is a diverse array of critters. But it's also a techtree faction that is meant to represent a unified force. There was too large an array of silhouettes, colours, creatures and polygon counts.
Many assets felt very unpolished. The Small World units were the most egregious, with issues like missing portraits, poor animations, and mismatched shadows across them. But other glaring issues exist, like the Snowy Owl's broken icon.
While I appreciate the cuteness and charm, your heroes really didn't feel particularly heroic. Only the Penguin King had a fitting name, and none of them had great models that indicated that they were leaders of your critters.
Icons ranged from OK to poor quality.
Special effects were adequate, but sometimes either too overpowering (e.g. Putrid Smell) or non-existant where they'd be visually helpful (e.g. Solid Ice).

Summary:
Ample cuteness and charm is not enough to make up for a messy and uncohesive lineup of critters. Heroes desperately need more heroicism injected in them. On the upside, the Critters' buildings were generally good.

Good:

The Nocturnal / Diurnal mechanic is nice design, being easy to understand, thematically fitting, and having potential to shape strategy. Ice Guards are probably the best example, changing radically to tanky units at night. Beavers' Crepuscular is another great ability.
Your units' coverage of roles is good, with room to improvement. There were limited ranged options, and detection being locked to a single unit at night-time only was a bit much. More healing options would be nice too. Otherwise, you had a good roster of melee units with minimal overlap, cool spellcasters, and a slew of flying units that offered different tactics.
In general, individual units' kits complemented their roles well. Shoutout to your spellcasters, who had great kits that not only exemplified their respective offensive and defensive support roles, but aligned with their visuals.
The Great Boar Calling is an interesting defense mechanism, functioning something like a single-unit Call-to-Arms. It could be more clear how it works, but I think it introduces a cool element of deciding to build Pig Farms together (for a strong single summon) or apart (for numerous weaker ones).

Lacking:

While individual unit roles and abilities were fun and intuitive, the sum of the parts felt uncohesive. Though a random assortment of critters is on-theme, it has resulted in a murky gameplay identity.
Even your stated strength of being offensive at day and defensive at night falls apart in the actual faction's playstyle, where due to the bonuses being spread across different units (and even though nocturnal bonuses are "defensive", they actually still function as combat bonuses that encourage aggression) there is no meaningful thought to whether I attack at day or night.
The Roach (mistakenly?) deals only 1 damage, which severely cripples early game momentum.
The Annoying Fly being flying is a huge problem. Wc3 factions are not designed to deal with air units at T1, and there was little thought put in to compensate for this.
Sheep could be a fun concept, but are implemented very clunkily. Firstly, the taunt range is tiny. Secondly, you are unable to kill your own sheep, which makes healing only possible in combat or creeping. Lastly, they don't have a training hotkey.

Summary:
There's plenty of fun abilities and unit combos, but they did not form a cohesive mechanical identity. What's more pressing is there are some critical design flaws that render the gameplay experience to be rather bumpy, instead of intuitive and rewarding.

Good:

Kudos, going with this faction theme is a brave choice. Conceptually, your techtree was creative and fitting, even if implementation was lacking at times.
The nocturnal and diurnal system is a great spin on the Night Elves' night-time reliance. Again, I wish it was implemented in a deeper fashion, where time of day truly impacted what you did with your army, but credit to you for the idea anyway.
It takes some inventiveness to take everyday critters and turn them into RTS combat units with fitting abilities, but for the most part you've done a great job.

Lacking:

While the shop being a Gold drop-off point is a novel idea, I don't feel enough thought has been put in place to justify it. Similarly, the Skink is crazy fast for a worker, but there doesn't seem to be ingenuity in implementing this in a fair manner.
The shop items were slightly lackluster; you had the Moonstone and sun counterpart, which is OK. I was not a fan of the other unique items' designs, which felt uninspired and not fitting for your faction of rustic woodland critters (and ice penguins).
I complemented the Wizarding Lizard's kit mechanically, but creatively speaking, the spells were fairly unchanged vanilla spells.

Summary:
This faction, while not revolutionary in all its systems, boasted plenty of creativity that's apparent from the overall theme down to individual units.

Final Score: 64.5/100

Good:

It's clear you were intending for some sort of folkloric, rustic golem civilization. Your units and mechanics successfully convey this theme.
There are some cool visuals, albeit unpolished. For example, the Muddling's Fusion and the Spire hexagons are executed well.
Your building roster is fairly cohesive in my eyes, with maybe only the Mineral Vein slightly standing out.
You did a decent job with upgrade and item icons.

Lacking:

The major thing is that your Golems do not resemble the creep Golems in the slightest. Clearly, this is your intention, but this goes against the theme of the contest. Your entry is akin to making a Tuskarr faction, where the Tuskarr are in fact Carribean pirates instead of Inuit-inspired tribal warriors.
Your unit lineup is very messy; they do not look like a cohesive army, but a bunch of random assets of varying quality levels + an invisible flying turtle. Obviously, your rather creative interpretation of Golems does not help you in picking solid asset choices.
There are a lot of unpolished aspects relating to presentation, e.g. War Aspect's Shell Shock is missing an effect, Keeper's icon doesn't match his model, building icons generally are not faithful to the model.
A lot of unit, hero names and ability names are odd in English. I understand you are not a native speaker, but I will point to a great positive example: "Muddling" is perfect, pairing well with his visuals as well as having the right dimunitive connotation befitting a T1 unit. Now bad examples: "Dowser" is the antithesis of the aforementioned; "Runic" is an adjective, not a noun.
The voicesets were very... unorthodox. It was jarring hearing the War Aspect, a towering metal golem, pathetically lament "I don't want to die".

Summary:
Unpolished presentation, mixed with a theme that's equal parts unique and unintuitive, rob the Golems of an outstanding score. Of course, brave faction interpretations are allowed, but that bravado requires even greater attention to detail to nail the immersion.

Good:

The Spire system is fairly intuitive and implemented well.
Complexity aside, Phreatic Surge is a cool summon whose death effect offers some micro potential.
Mechanically speaking, the Whisperer is seriously cool. An invisible caster that can possess enemy structures is such a great role to have, being nifty and supportive in combat but also being able to harass the enemy.
I frankly find the connection to visuals and theme jarring, but in terms of gameplay identity, I can pick out a few recurring elements that give the faction a unique playstyle. Firstly, the Spire hex system really embodies a slowly accumulating force, much like the formation of mountains over time. Secondly, there are a slew of abilities that hinder and control foes. These include Mud Shot, Attract and Animate. Thirdly, you have a unique focus on mechanical units and countering enemy mechanical units.
In terms of role coverage, you do an OK job but are missing dedicated anti-air. On the first 2 playthroughs, I missed that you have a minor detection method via Rune Carving.

Lacking:

The starting rhythm is very off compared to the standard 4 Wc3 factions, since the Spirit Mother can only harvest gold or lumber (materially) at the same time. It means your altar and barracks are way more delayed than other factions'.
While the Spirit Mothers were functional and easy to use, they robbed the faction of tactical depth revolving around worker management and harassment. Similarly, even though your role coverage was fine, you had a really limited set of structures that makes teching up and tech-switching very simplistic.
There are a LOT of bugs and UX issues, e.g. I found fused Muddlings to be unkillable after a certain point; you can't cancel units that are being summoned; Temporal Reaction doesn't work; Cycle of Hatred is absolutely stupid in spawning hostile ghosts on slain foes; Heathen Titans don't get tp'd.
I feel that there is often needless complexity, e.g. Glow Moss is an absolute headache to understand, even though its concept might be mechanically sound (having an innate anti-magic shield that recharges when inert). Phreatic Elementals simply have too many effects; the complexity is not worth the depth. I actually am not sure if Violent Mimic is functional or not, and lack the brainpower and willpower to decipher its tooltip.
Each hero having a unique passive is a bit overkill. Not to mention the Leprachaun, Runic and Meteor's.

Summary:
This faction has a better gameplay identity than most, involving rocky automatons that slowly accrue strength and encumber foes with great resilience. However, it introduces a ton of complexity and unfamiliarity that renders gameplay more confusing than it should be. Despite this, there are seeds of great mechanics sewn throughout.

Good:

I cannot dispute that your Golem interpretation is creative.
A few of your gameplay mechanics are quite novel. I already mentioned that the Whisperer is well-designed, but it's also conceptually very inventive. Then there's Fusion, and even Glow Moss is cool despite being overcomplicated.
Visually speaking, there are some creative unit designs. The Runic is probably the best example, although I feel the asset quality and naming does not do the concept justice.
I felt a couple of your items were nice and unique e.g. the Stone Fetish's main attribute bonus + the Earthquake staff.
I felt that the Spire hex system was both very novel and fairly intuitive. On my first playtest, I immediately grasped how it worked after just trying out the ability 1-2 times. It's an inventive spin that harkens to Zerg Queens spreading Creep.

Lacking:

I do not believe in rewarding creativity that's been implemented haphazardly. In the Golems' case, the Spirit Mother is incredibly unique, but has a litany of gameplay and balance issues for which I don't believe adequate thought has been put into. Simple playtests reveal just how cumbersome it is to start the game with regular unit, hero and creep timings. Teching up to tier 2/3 completely cripples you without a second Mother.
Part of innovation is also ensuring that groundbreaking ideas are still intuitive. Obviously, it's possible to come up with infinite combinations by recycling existing elements, but putting all of it in a faction is not creative; it's taxing to the player's attention span and immersion. The Mind Embryo item, among many abilities and items, is a good example; why does this item need to grant bonus HP and mana? How is that congruent with its charged effect of being a mini-Great Hall?

Summary:
The Golems boast a creative interpretation that transcends Wc3 lore, alongside some novel mechanics. Haphazard, overly complex and user-unfriendly implementation prevent me from recognizing your faction as truly ingenious design, but rather as throwing phreatic concepts at a board and seeing what sticks.

Final Score: 60/100

Good:

Overall, this felt like a well-represented air elemental faction, albeit one which takes a good amount of liberty with the lore and the contest theme.
Abilities were designed fantastically to intuitively represent elementals which harness wind and storm to annihilate enemies.
Visually speaking, your unit roster was cohesive and awesome. My one complaint is that there were a few too many units with a similar standard elemental silhouette (big upper body with huge arms, small lower body that's a tail of wispy air), The worst culprits would be the Gale and Hurricane Elemental.
Special effects were executed very well. Highlights include Kugelblitz and the artillery attack of Storm Elementals. Thermals could do with a more persistent effect, however.
As the Lord of Naming himself, you've done a standout job with the naming of units, abilities, heroes and buildings. Some of the lexicon is not particularly Blizzard-like, but all sound appropriately epic, fitting for the unit, and overall evocative of a powerful yet enigmatic elemental host.

Lacking:

Building models were a weak point, being rather uncohesive. I was not a fan of the three production structures being recolours of the same model.
Icons were hit-and-miss. For example, heroes and Steeple units are pretty good, but it felt you ran out of time or energy to polish up the rest. There was also a lot of reuse of existing Wc3 icons, some fitting and some not.
Passive ability icons lacked the proper border.

Summary:
The Air Elementals are an evocative faction that is well-themed, with building models and icon polish being the main areas of improvement. Otherwise, they are well-executed audiovisually.

Good:

Ability design was fantastic. Firstly, everything felt intuitive in terms of the complexity of effects and the goodness-of-fit to the unit and their role. Secondly, everything felt easy to use with a good mix of not-overly-taxing actives, passives and one autocast (where my only gripe is Electrify should probably be default-auto).
Skysight is a great spin on Detonate, offering a fair amount of worker protection while producing a novel benefit (better vision).
Mechanically speaking, your faction felt like it adequately covered a lot of bases, despite the reduced unit roster. The only areas I felt which were lacking were some more options against light air and more healing, especially in the early game.
I picked out a couple of recurring gameplay motifs. For example, alternate unit forms via the Storm Elemental, Skysight and Maelstrom. There were a few movement-manipulation mechanics too, such as Blitzkrieg, Trade Winds, Swoop and of course Sky Passages. These made the faction feel mechanically cohesive.

Lacking:

The pacing of your techtree unlocking felt off. You can very quickly access a bunch of capabilities typically locked behind T2 e.g. Djinn as a caster, Wind Serpent as air. The Djinn is not too problematic, but the Wind Serpent is ripe for abuse, as anti-air from other factions are typically not great at T1.
There was a dearth of upgrades, meaning your army scaled up to its maximum potential much quicker than the standard 4 factions did.
Whilst there were common elements across abilities, what'd take the Elementals' mechanical cohesion over to the realm of "perfect" is perhaps one more core racial mechanic. I'm spitballing, but an example off the top of my head is a T3 upgrade that makes Sylphs move much faster, which would also synergize really well with letting them build Sky Passages offensively across the map.
The array of items left wanting for more. No Orb for example means the Son of the Storm never can attack air units. A T1 healing item could also have helped cover a missing mechanical area of yours.

Summary:
Units were designed and spread fantastically, despite a limited roster. The biggest drawback is the techtree's pacing, with players accessing units and technologies way too easily, robbing the techtree of depth. Regardless, it is undeniable that this faction plays smoothly and adequately cohesively.

Good:

When normalizing for the size of your techtree, I think you show the perfect amount of creativity across your unit and ability designs. You've fantastically juggled familiarity and intuitiveness with novelty and complexity. One emblematic example is Static Plating, which combines familiar elements (reduced damage vs a particular attack type and Lightning Shield) into something I've never seen before. I only wish you expanded on the techtree, as compared to a full race, I felt it lacking in creative effort in terms of techtree complexity, upgrades and items.
Hero abilities are wonderful creative, yet not complex. I conceptually love all of them, yet perhaps my favourite creativity-wise is Trade Winds - a sort of bizzaro Staff of Preservation that somehow takes an existing element, and flips the script in a useful and intuitive manner.
It'd be wrong to say Sky Passages aren't purely derivative of Nydus Worms, but in terms of fitting in Wc3 and within an Air Elemental faction, it is acceptably novel. The way you've implemented them is fairly intuitive and easy to use.

Lacking:

The same reason (limited techtree) that robs you of Gameplay also will rob you of points in Creativity. I'm not sure which was cause and which was effect, but your mini-techtree schema meant your upgrades, items and even your structures were rather uninspired.
Similarly, I think it's only fair to call out that even though your 2 Heroes were very well designed, other contestants have designed 3-4, which demanded more creative effort.
Also mentioned in Gameplay was that I would have liked to see one more core mechanic. It would also help round out the distinctiveness of the faction. For example, the Pylon right now is just a Farm that inexplicably provides only half the food. This is a building that's begging for a cool ability.

Summary:
Much like in Gameplay, the total creativity within your faction was held back by its reduced size and complexity. I did not feel there was enough inventiveness to compensate for this. I would love to see this techtree fully fleshed, because it contains several nuggets of creative awexomeness.

Final Score: 71/100

Theme - 21/25

I won't lie, I wasn't expecting to find an orc clan in a contest related to creeps. However, when you look at the creep list, this is a perfectly valid faction, even though it's not the Stormreaver Clan from the Old Horde. These Stormreavers are actually the remnants of a clan doomed by the ambitions of Gul’dan, the few warlocks who survived the battle at the Tomb of Sargeras. With this in mind, the faction manages to seamlessly integrate most of its design and aesthetic within that theme, where their few evil Orc spellcasters summon various undead and demons to do the dirty work while they manipulate the battle from a distance, very good job in general.

The core concept is clear and solid, but my major criticism would be of the decision to create a hero based on a sea turtle. While I understand the idea and intention behind it, I feel it would have been much better as an unit, and the hero slot left over could have been used for the Harbinger (a classic Warcraft 2 Death Knight) instead. The Soul Tower (both aesthetically and functionally) does not entirely convince me of its suitability for the Stormreavers theme either, but probably with some tweaks to the model and its function it's something that could be improved. A few names here and there are a little too basic maybe, but they serve their purpose.

Gameplay - 21/30

This is a strong faction in the early game, and I mean very strong. Their true power does not come from tankiness, which they clearly lack, but from an overwhelming potential to catch you off guard with mass summons, buffs to their own troops, and debuffs to yours. Your basic melee unit is the Skeletal Grunt, which refuses to die as long as you have enough Summoning Pits available to keep reviving them (That's certainly not a pleasant mechanic for the enemy to see, but very fun for the Stormreaver player), but despite that, the mechanic is self-regulating since the Skeletal Grunt is not a very resistant unit. What I would do is add some method to toggle this reincarnation, to help the player get rid of them when they are no longer needed. A little more worrying for me, however, is that for 3 food you get the Necrolyte, a semi-spellcaster who can summon up to 2 permanent Skeletal Archers from corpses (the actual basic ranged unit of this faction). That is 3 ranged units for a low price (with the skeletons being able to be summoned again when they die), plus the Necrolyte has a healing ward. On top of that, the Skeletal Archers can be upgraded to Burning Archers, thus unlocking a semi-siege method that allows them to deal damage per second to structures.

The spellcasters are strong and solid. The Bonecaster is a skeletal mage that is your primary source of healing starting tier 2 onwards, while the Demonologist is an offensive support with a powerful channeling ability that empowers nearby spell damage and summoned units. More importantly, Demonologists are the source of your tier 3 heavy melee, using a joint ritual where 2 of them sacrifice themselves to summon a mighty Daemon (great reference to Protoss Archons). All other units fit their role without problems. Imps are fragile but effective anti-spellcasters, Scourges are solid air-air combatants, Harbingers are glass cannon units effective as supports in sieges by disabling structures and defenses, and Maulers are melee siege units and also the immediate replacement for your starting Skeletal Grunts (however, their role might overlap a bit with Daemon’s). Finally, we have the Lightning Revenant, a powerful magic-damage unit that cuts through heavy defenses like butter, and is technically the ranged siege unit too. This unit may probably need a nerf to its stats, because right now it is too powerful and, contrary to siege machines from other races, its projectile travels too fast and cannot be evaded/mitigated by simply moving.

The Soul Tower not only possesses an aura that restores mana and increases movement speed, but it can also lift off from the ground and be relocated. This is incredibly powerful, as it substantially increases the faction's rush potential given its relatively fast movement speed (Night Elf ancients can also uproot, but their movement speed is too slow to be truly useful in a rush). The heroes, on the other hand, are balanced and each one brings its own synergy when paired with units. Even the Leviathan (the sea turtle) feels like a Hero especially made to support sieges.

Finally, the Titan’s Eye is a fairly unique structure, although it has a couple of details that you could fix later. First of all, I don't know if it's intentional, but I don't think the Hermits should be allowed to start channeling around it without its construction being finished first. The abilities available in it are interesting and very useful, although Forbidden Knowledge seems to have problems when used with level 5 heroes, because the mana cost is subtracted, but the hero does not receive the intended experience. Also, I believe that having only one structure of this type per player would be ideal to prevent exploits.

Creativity - 34/45

There are a lot of unique ideas in this faction that really make the gameplay stand out. Having the Hermits summon skeletons to gather wood is very clever, and the Skeletal Grunts reincarnating at Summoning Pits is a perfect reference to Maiev’s campaign adapted as a mechanic for a custom race. There are some areas that could still be improved, especially regarding user-friendliness of mechanics and abilities, but what you have here is pretty well done. The Titan’s Eye, despite a few flaws, is an excellent example of a late-game unique structure.

I really commend your faction for intentionally feeling chaotic and survivor-like, trying to make do and improvise with whatever they find, as that puts them in their theme of last remnants from a dying clan rather than the ones who served the Old Horde under Doomhammer's command. This is not a group of warlocks serving an organized orc army in the Second War, but the last vestiges of a clan of power-hungry sorcerers and necrolytes who are now paying for the madness of their leader.

Total - 76/100

Theme - 25/25

We have a great faction here that fits with the theme of the contest perfectly. From units and heroes to structures and abilities, everything screams “Forest Trolls”: savage, opportunistic, and experts in improvised strategies and guerrilla tactics. Nothing here is out of place; everything fits together coherently, making effective use of aesthetic elements where it should. The implementation of camouflage is brilliant, it provides a distinct tactical advantage without feeling oppressive or excessive to play against. This stealth element pairs beautifully with their toolkit of poisons and curses, capturing the malicious and debilitating nature of troll warfare.

The unique looting mechanic is a fantastic addition. Having slain enemies drop collectible gold, lumber, or temporary food perfectly showcases an opportunistic, scavenging warband that lives off the land (and from its enemies). Also, the inclusion of a dedicated regeneration upgrade is a must for any Troll faction, and here it successfully represents their famous racial trait without throwing early-game skirmishes out of balance. There isn't really much else to add, except that the faction absolutely nails the theme, boasts a highly cohesive identity, and feels great to play. Excellent work.

Gameplay - 20/30

I’m going to be a bit meticulous here, though. Unfortunately, there are a couple of bugs and issues, as well as a few notable imbalances that have cost you a few points in this section, but we’ll go over them as I move through the review. Overall, these Trolls feel balanced, neither too strong nor too weak. They are not particularly resilient; rather, they rely heavily on their ranged units, which are quite varied, and on their regeneration and healing, quite varied too. Your initial combat unit, the Axe-thrower, is pretty good in its role as basic ranged damage-dealer and even if they aren’t too strong on their own, they can bring down groups of enemies if left unchecked. The mechanic to conscript your Dreg workers into Axe-throwers would be a fantastic addition, were it not for the fact that it seems to be broken right now. I won't lie, I made multiple attempts to get it working but without any success, because unfortunately, the Whittlers aren't crafting the axes when you click the button (simply nothing happens). I tried reviewing your initial videos to make sure I wasn't the one getting it wrong and I checked the videos from the other users in your entry post, but even though it works for them I couldn't find a way to replicate it. So, I concluded that the mechanic likely broke after your v0.2 update, that you apparently released after those videos published in your entry post, which is why it still works there. The problem only occurs when attempting to craft new axes; if you order an Axe-thrower to return his axes to a Whittler, they are stored without issues and can be retrieved later. Other than that, I like the Axe-throwers and their upgrades are very good too. Then you have the Ravager, a tier 1 melee unit which, unlike the Axe-throwers, feels weak because it is an unarmored unit. I understand that its role likely isn't to soak up damage like other melee units, but being unarmored makes them quite vulnerable to ranged attacks, which tend to hit pretty hard. Even their lifesteal attacks aren’t enough to keep them at close range for long if they start taking damage, forcing you to micromanage them meticulously.

Shadow Priest, Venomancer and Hexdrinker are cool spellcaster units with nice abilities, most of them offensive. Shadow Mend, in particular, is a strong autocast healing ability that helps keep units alive during big battles. The Arbalest is a classic long-range siege machine, though with a twist: it can be upgraded with Aerial Bolts, allowing it to directly attack air units, which are usually a direct counter to them. This anti-air attack hits pretty hard, allowing a group of Arbalests to obliterate flying units easily, something that worries me a bit, as it significantly reduces the number of effective counters against this unit.

In the Arena, we encounter 4 specialist units. The first of these, the Trapper, is a melee boar rider that provides anti-air support by bringing down flying units with a trap, while also exerting area control through the placement of traps. The Bear Rider (although the training description refers to it as War Bear) is a powerful and resistant melee unit with a siege attack, but also fits the role of melee tank for the faction. Their Maul ability is a nice unit-denial tool, but honestly I prefer having them at the front lines soaking up as much damage as possible, since that is undoubtedly their best role. Bear Riders dps against structures might be a little too excessive considering their multiple roles, but tweaking their attack speed a little should solve that. The Dragonhawk Hunter is a versatile and effective air unit for "hit-and-run" attacks, perhaps too effective as its attacks can slow down enemies and can also be upgraded to set structures on fire for a few seconds. In fact, this second ability appears to be bugged too, as they can deal the fire damage to the structures they attack even before the upgrade has been researched. Finally, the War Hawk is your go-to unit for air superiority, although the fact that several units can effectively attack air units (including the Arbalests) puts its role in a difficult position. Your ultimate unit, the Dire Troll, functions as both a melee combat unit and a long-range siege unit, as it features two attack modes depending on the distance to the target. It is a good siege unit, I don’t deny that, but its role in this regard is currently overlapping a lot with Arbalests. Something the faction lacks is a reliable source of heavy magic damage. The heroes feel cohesive and fun to play. My favorites were the Juggernaut (very tanky) and the High Priest (has a very good healing ability and Empower is incredibly good on Bear Riders and Dire Trolls).

I like the Shacks and their ability to spawn and kill boars to get temporary bonus food and also use that same food to heal your units. The towers, however, feel really weak even with the upgrade. Their damage output is just too low to be really useful during an enemy raid. Also, the Camouflage near trees appears to be bugged on Axe-throwers under a specific condition. When an Axe-thrower returns axes to a Whittler without having previously triggered the camouflage and then they retrieve the axes again without triggering the camouflage on Dreg form either, their camouflage will break afterwards and will never work.

Creativity - 39/45

You’ve done a great job making these Trolls feel sufficiently unique while keeping them simple and user-friendly. That’s exactly what you want to aim for when creating custom factions intended to feel like they belong in the game itself. You managed to capture a distinct racial identity without overcomplicating the player. The looting mechanic is easily one of the most innovative features of the faction and I liked it a lot. Turning standard food farms into interactive tactical decisions by killing boars and using their food to heal units is clever and a really wonderful feature. While currently hindered by a technical bug, the conceptual design of having workers store and retrieve crafted axes to transition into combat units is a brilliant reimagination of the Human Militia mechanic.

There are a few areas where the innovation could have been a little better. While units like the Shadow Priest, Venomancer, and Bear Rider are incredibly well-themed and well-integrated, their actual mechanical kits rely heavily on (or the ideas behind them are heavily inspired by) existing vanilla abilities. Despite that, it is a simple yet brilliant design.

Total - 84/100

Theme - 14/25

A pretty interesting and creative entry that feels more in line for a mini-game style map, like Monolith. Thematically speaking, this is a faction composed primarily of Furbolgs who can, through diplomacy and alliance treaties, convince other factions to join them. In a way, it reminds me of the embassy mechanic from Age of Empires 3, albeit with several changes. Where the faction falls short is in its aesthetics. While it is indeed a coalition of distinct factions united by a common purpose, the lack of a clear visual design pattern across the structures makes them feel disjointed; this is compounded by the fact that several of the structures look too similar, creating visual confusion.

While the faction can seem strange at times, I have to admit it’s also incredibly fun and hilarious to watch in action. And that theme song it’s so catchy I cannot get it out of my head now.

Gameplay - 14/30

The faction starts off a little weak at first but quickly escalates in power, with tier 2 and tier 3 units skyrocketing into overpowered levels, even to the point where their roles overlap with those of other units because they do more than they should. Not only that, but user-friendliness is extremely low due to the large amount of active abilities, or those that are extremely complex for a new player to learn. The arrangement of the buildings on the construction panel makes it difficult to distinguish which is which at first glance too. Starting with your units, the Furbolg Basher, your Tier 1 melee unit, is quite weak compared to its counterparts from the other factions. Not even its Bash passive makes it a viable unit beyond the early game, due to its lack of hit points or abilities that would allow it to hold the front line. Furbolg Thrusters, despite dealing high damage, also have a very low chance (only 30% initially) of actually landing their attacks, dealing no damage on those attacks they fail, which happens the majority of the time. They can become quite frustrating to use for the player, as their effectiveness relies heavily on luck, so researching the upgrade that improves their accuracy as soon as available is a must. The Embassy of Azerothian Creatures is technically your way to reach tier 2. It unlocks a new set of structures and allows you to make your first diplomatic decision about which race you want to recruit to your cause: Thunder Lizards or Quillboars.

Selecting the Quillboars allows you to unlock the Furbolg Peacekeeper, an actual melee tank and far more powerful than a tier 2 unit should be, the Quillboar Manager, which is a disruptive spellcaster without an attack, and the Clerk, a support spellcaster, also without an attack. To be completely honest, of those three options, only the Peacekeeper has any real utility, whereas the two Quillboars are practically useless in late-game battles. Their spells are too underpowered, situation-specific and require too much micromanaging and coordination to get even the slightest bit of value out of them. If you pick the Thunder Lizards, you unlock the Furbolg Ronin, a glass-cannon melee unit with purging attacks, the Lizartillery, a flying Thunder Lizard which deals either pierce or magic damage according to targets, and the Lizard Brood Matriarch, the long-ranged siege unit which deals damage to itself per attack but has a high amount of hit points and a massive regeneration. If Quillboars were underpowered, the Thunder Lizards are the opposite. The Brood Matriarch, especially, is extremely strong considering the current stats and not even the self-inflicted damage is enough to keep them balanced.

The tier 3 is unlocked after building the High Embassy of Azerothian Creatures (which, surprisingly, is not an upgrade for the first embassy but a completely new structure) and picking your second diplomatic choice, the Storm Dragons (the only choice). With this completed you unlock 4 new units (or 3 actually, because the other one is a combination of 2 units): the Furbolg Ace, the Elder Storm Dragon, the Dragon Berserker and the Draconic Battlecruiser. The Furbolg Ace is a medium flying unit with no attack, but it constantly releases a barrage of rockets against nearby enemies. The Elder Storm Dragon (really overpowered) deals massive amounts of damage, due to having two passives that trigger during his attacks. The first passive ability releases a thunderstorm that constantly strikes enemies with spell damage for up to 5 seconds, while the second passive summons a tornado that roams the battlefield, slowing enemies and damaging buildings. If that was not enough, you can combine this bad guy with one of your Furbolg Thrusters and now you have the Dragon Berserker, the absolutely broken version of the Hippogryph Rider. But wait, because there is another unit yet, the Draconic Battlecruiser, if you are willing to spend 30 food on it, that’s it. A massive, flying, mutant-dragon vessel that deals massive siege damage and has large amounts of armor. If you want to win easily, the only thing you will need are Dragon Berserkers and the Battlecruiser, because the destruction caused by those units is unparalleled, and the vanilla races have no way to counter them effectively. Curiously, there isn’t a source of heavy magic damage among your unit roster. Among the heroes, I think the Furbolg Elder Shaman was my favorite, but they all suffer from the same problem as the units: too many complex, active abilities that require micromanagement or specific situations to get the most out of them.

Diplomacy points work well as a tertiary resource for unlocking diplomatic treaties with your other sub-factions, but I really feel there is still a lot of room for development. The fact that you lose points simply by clearing neutral camps is hugely limiting, forcing you to choose between farming and leveling up your heroes or advancing your techtree. Another problem is that you don't have towers or available defensive mechanisms.

Creativity - 31/45

The concepts behind are undeniably inventive, and the core creative pillar is a faction that uses diplomacy options rather than force to unite the minor races against a common enemy. The Age of Empires-style embassy mechanic captures the flavor of a small tribe trying to consolidate power through alliances and I applaud the risk taken in attempting to do such a complex, narrative-driven progression system. However, while the foundation is brilliant, the execution struggles to bridge the gap between a fun custom map idea and a balanced, cohesive competitive faction. Much of the creativity seems to lack a clear direction, because by opting for an approach based on mix-and-match you have created a faction that feels like a collection of distinct ideas rather than a unified entity.

A significant portion of the score was weighed down by the heavy reliance on pre-existing vanilla elements (particularly regarding the units, abilities and icons) but also the lack of a distinct architectural identity that really fits the theme. While the diplomatic system is a clever twist, it feels like a missed opportunity to truly innovate on the way the faction interacts with the game world. You have built something incredibly imaginative and fun to experience, but it currently occupies a space closer to a fun mini-map than a fully realized, polished faction. If you had focused more on creating a coherent visual and mechanical identity, I’m sure you would achieve much higher scores across all three criteria.

Oh, and... I don't know if the other judges found the circle of power in the center and unlocked the secret cutscene and the boss fight

Total - 59/100

Theme - 18/25

The Ogres make an appearance in this contest, and what a way to do it. The faction in general fits in a good way with our contest theme and you explored their race in an interesting setting with really creative mechanics. The faction's core creative basis consists of large, slow, hard-hitting units, and for the most part you’ve executed that concept well. However, some of the icons you chose don't quite connect, or simply don't feel like they belong to an Ogre faction.

While the concepts are individually strong and cohesive, what I think the faction is really missing is some kind of creative glue to finally tie them all together into a single, solid piece of work. I love it, but I feel the final result comes across as a bit rushed and could have used a little more work to really solidify it. And God, another faction with another theme song so catchy that now I won't be able to sleep after reviewing it, playing it over and over in my head.

Gameplay - 15/30

These Ogres have a very powerful early game, featuring units that are expensive but pack a heavy punch. However, they lose momentum over time, eventually reaching a point where they cannot win an open-field battle on equal terms. I tried six times with different combinations of troops and heroes, but if you don't manage to finish off your enemy quickly, that early-game strength fades. One of the biggest problems is the lack of reliable healing to keep your army standing. For most of the game, your primary source of healing is an item available in the shop; although it has infinite charges, using it costs your hero mana. Another major problem is that, while your strategy relies heavily on taking advantage of the early strength and weakening your enemy, your efforts are constantly thwarted by the high costs of your units, the lack of initial food and the low movement speed of some of them (the Gronn mainly). Your worker, the Garron, is much more efficient than normal workers while costing twice as much gold and food. This leaves you with a bit of a problem right from the start: you can't train many of them because they quickly deplete the gold needed for construction and the food required to start training troops quickly, slowing you down for several seconds while you finish your Lair. It’s not a huge issue, though; perhaps giving your main building a small food production boost would easily solve it. Also, the Lair costing 60 lumber will cripple you down too because you are forced to put one of your Garrons to gather lumber right from the start to get the three initial buildings (Barracks, Altar and Food). The combined lumber cost of those three buildings should never exceed the player's initial 150 wood. The Gronn that emerges from this Lair serves as one of your starting units (though you can only have one at a time) or as a basic defense for your base, since it is quite slow to move over long distances. I like that it gains more resistance according to the current level of your Lair, and the empowered basic attack may be strong but is also very useful. The Clubber, your basic melee warrior, is good but pretty weak for its general costs. The Rock Chucker is one of the main reasons why this race is so strong at the beginning, providing you with a source of ranged siege damage at tier 1. The Drummer is a pretty interesting support unit, I like the idea you implemented for his attacks and his Booming Drums ability is good for boosting your army's survivability a little.

The Eye of Kilrogg, well, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of spending resources on a unit that's just going to die on its own. It has True Sight, sure, but beyond that, it has little overall utility. Your spellcasters are a little more varied in their abilities and fit their support roles pretty well. Blood Frenzy on enemies and Stone Shield, especially, are very good and useful abilities for most situations. Cannon Lugger is very strong but fortunately it is limited by the ammo of its gun (is very similar to a Protoss Reaver). The autocast of the ammo gets bugged once it reaches 0, and does not seem to trigger again if you don’t activate it manually. Cannon Lugger attacks also cause a bug to air units, where they lose their fly height. The Smasher is a good mechanical melee siege unit, very powerful and perfect for sieges, but in my opinion it should benefit from damage (and probably armor) upgrades too. At tier 3, your Beast Rider takes the role of main melee tank. This Beast Rider is very versatile thanks to his toggleable ability to change his attack type between Normal and Magic. Your final unit, the Thunder Magi, in theory should be very powerful but its attacks seem to be bugged and don't deal the indicated damage. The Heroes, despite a few bugs, are suitable and provide good synergies with the rest of your units. What I felt really disappointed about is that the Fatten mechanic only works with your workers and is locked for other units. That was probably your most interesting mechanic and the one I wanted to try out the most, the ability to make your Ogres even bigger and fearsome. Other than that, there are a few incorrect or missing descriptions and tooltips. There are also technical bugs like being unable to pick the race of your enemies before the match.

Creativity - 30/45

This faction has several fantastic concepts that really try to push some of the usual boundaries seen on the creation of custom factions. You genuinely attempted to design a slow-moving, heavy-hitting race. Tying the resistance of one of your main units (the Gronn) to the food building's current upgrade level is a clever implementation that gives the faction a unique defensive identity, well done. Adapting a Protoss Reaver-like ammunition mechanic into Warcraft 3 is exactly the kind of outside-the-box ideas I like seeing on custom races. However, the score takes a hit because the creativity feels somewhat unevenly distributed, and some massive opportunities were left on the table.

But the biggest creative disappointment has to be the Fatten mechanic. Conceptually, this was absolutely your best feature and this one should have been the signature mechanic that could have served as that "creative glue" I mentioned in the Theme section. I would definitely love to see this faction fully developed, incorporating all (or most) of the changes and suggestions I’ve offered, because the potential here is far too immense to let go to waste.

Total - 63/100

Theme - 16/25

This is another solid entry in the Theme category. Composed of Murlocs, Makruras and Sea Giants (and a few Crabs too), you are effectively fulfilling the Creeps theme by focusing on the Sunken Ruins. The choice of models for the units is consistent and appropriate, and despite there being multiple units of the same type, they are all recognizable and distinguishable from one another. I couldn't say the same about the buildings, unfortunately. Most of them look too much alike, making it confusing to distinguish between them at a glance.

Where the faction loses the most ground here is in the lack of a real connection with their spellcasters, the difficulty of getting the most out of the Effigies (despite it being an interesting mechanic), the absence of certain key units (such as ranged siege, detectors and/or heavy magic damage), the role overlap and similarity between Tier 1 and Tier 3 units in the Bay Rest, the lack of a shop with faction-exclusive items and several errors in the tooltips. Even so, you've done a good job overall.

Gameplay - 14/30

Your faction possesses strong early-game harassment capabilities thanks to the speed and regenerative abilities of your basic units, the initial strength of all your heroes, and the Effigies which, if used correctly, allow you to get the most out of Primordial Wave enhanced abilities. However, your advantage rapidly evaporates from the mid-game onwards, largely because your spellcasters lack the ability to effectively support your troops or disrupt the enemy's. The excessive number of active abilities also contributes significantly to the problem, forcing you to micromanage each and every one of your troops and heroes, a fatal issue when the time comes to face the rival army. The lack of dedicated armor research further hinders the overall progression of your units into the mid and late game, putting you at an immediate disadvantage. Although powerful at first, the Effigies soon lose most of their potential, as you have to summon them constantly to gain their benefits within a specified range. Personally, I would have handled it so that the Effigies' auras had global range, thereby easing the burden on the user. Aside from the initial regenerative capabilities of your basic units, I don't see any other way to heal your army other than spending gold to buy healing items, or using your Tideshifters’ abilities as an intermediary to heal your wounded units by draining hit points from your Makrura units (while they are healing via Molting) and then transfer it to the others but this means, as I said before, extensive micromanagement for the player and a very low intuitiveness. Both of your initial units, the Makrura Ignoble and the Murloc Cannibal, have somewhat low stats but are very good for their costs and are easily spammable, making them useful for early attacks where your bigger quantity will make the difference. The Cannibal being a ranged unit, however, should have medium armor for balance and gameplay reasons.

It is with the Unshackled’s spellcasters where things start getting bad for them. The Makrura Voidswarm is a spellcaster with no attack that gives your army a nice aura that reduces ranged damage taken and after an upgrade can start debuffing enemy units too. But they also have a bug, because when they use Melting and then revert to their normal form, they completely lose their mana regeneration. This is a very serious issue, because it leaves the Voidswarm unable to continue applying its debuff to enemies. We also have the Makrura Coldwings, an additional flying unit that evolves from a Voidswarm when it uses Molting. The Coldwings requires mana to cast a Frost Shield buff on allies and to enhance its own attacks with a powerful effect, but their mana regeneration only exists when under the effect of Primordial Wave, so they are rendered useless otherwise. The Mur’gul Tideshifter is your other spellcaster, and this one can attack but only at melee, which makes them very vulnerable targets. Its main ability is to summon skeletal fish to attack enemies and after being upgraded, it gains 2 abilities to swap its current life with either allies or enemies. These two are very interesting abilities for manipulating the battlefield to your advantage, but it demands an excessive level of situational control, making it difficult to utilize effectively, except maybe on the intervals between fights by siphoning healing from your Makruras to your other units. The Makrura Fighter and your Murloc Drowner are basically the improved versions of your tier 1 units. While both perform their roles very well, they remain improved versions of the Ignobles and Cannibals, meaning they do not add much functionality beyond what is already provided by their lesser cousins.

The Crotalus is a good unit, nothing much to say about this one because it fills its role pretty well. The Sea Giant Liberator is a good siege unit too, with a large amount of hit points to tank enemy attacks. The problem is that you don’t have a ranged siege unit, so sieging enemy positions with a large amount of defenses will be extremely difficult. The Liberators, although strong, will be easily sniped out in those situations. The Heroes are very good and interesting. My favorite composition here was using the Seabreaker and the Warlock. The Seabreaker especially is extremely useful due to its chain, which helps isolate enemies. Your tower is exceptionally weak, and it falls too quickly during enemy assaults. Aside from these points, there are a few other issues like wrong requirements and also several tooltip errors that make it difficult to tell what certain upgrades actually do. I think adding some information directly to each unit regarding the effects of Primordial Wave on them would be a huge help.

Creativity - 30/45

Your faction displays a commendable amount of ambition, introducing some nice concepts. The fundamental core of the faction, built around the interaction between Primordial Wave and the Effigies, is a deeply creative mechanic and shows an attempt to create a unique operational identity for a Sunken Ruins faction, because you tried to design a dynamic battlefield mechanic that rewards positioning and synergy. There are flashes of outside-the-box design in individual units. The life-swapping mechanics of the Tideshifter and the evolutionary mechanic of the Voidswarm morphing into the Coldwings via Molting are fantastic concepts in my opinion. The Seabreaker’s chain ability is another excellent highlight, providing an uncommon take on battlefield crowd control by allowing you to pull a priority target directly into the center of your army. And your buildings helping out in defense by summoning tentacles against enemies is a nice touch.

However, where the entry loses points in Creativity is not in the ideas themselves, but in how their implementation diminishes their innovative potential. In an effort to make the faction feel unique, you made an over-reliance on a massive amount of active abilities and it hurts the creativity of the design, turning potentially elegant solutions into a burden of exhausting micromanagement for the player. By forcing the player to constantly re-summon the Effigies within a strict, short range, the creative spark of the mechanic suddenly forces you to adapt to the Effigy range of effect instead in order to get the benefits. The absence of faction-specific items is another omission that holds the faction back from achieving a distinctive and unique flavor. Ultimately, you have laid down a highly original faction concept with some truly clever ideas. If the implementation was streamlined to feel more intuitive this could easily score much higher. It is a very creative effort that just needed a bit more refinement to truly shine.

Total - 60/100

Theme - 17/25

In a contest with a Creeps theme, you were the (good) exception by bringing a faction of Critters. As one might expect, the faction does not follow an unified aesthetic theme. Rather, it can be described as a pack of rebellious, irascible, and ravenous beasts, united in revolt against the intelligent races, a great touch. The faction feels fun and amusing to play, and the choice of structures seems mostly right, at least to me. The day/night cycle system involving the different creatures is a truly unique concept that enriches the creative foundation you have established.

On the downside, however, several of the aforementioned positive points also entail negative aspects. Having a faction that is so aesthetically mismatched can confuse the player if at least some sort of pattern is not followed. The day/night cycle suffers from the same conceptual issue: it confuses the players regarding which units will actually be most useful to train for the majority of the time, forcing them to adapt more than necessary as their units constantly gain or lose advantages. There are a few other aesthetic issues, such as mismatched icons or effects, that also hinder visual recognition.

Gameplay - 17/30

This faction suffers from the opposite problem compared to others in the contest: it is humbly weak at the start and grows stronger as the match progresses, though without reaching truly excessive levels of power. While the day/night cycle mechanic is truly creative (and I applaud the ambition behind it) it is partly to blame for the weak start. Since Cockroaches are so weak at both tanking and dealing damage, you are forced to creeping at night to capitalize on their passive bonuses for being a nocturnal unit. Even so, they are really really weak and will make your early game a headache, and you will constantly be forced to rotate them so they share the incoming damage. The damage from their passive is not enough either. The Beaver was not exactly what I expected as a second unit either. While they are good early-game melee units for sieges, you are left without a ranged unit to provide support from afar for your fragile Cockroaches. Not only that, but the excess of melee units makes it difficult to do the creep camps by preventing your Cockroaches from getting close enough to utilize their passive.

The Wizarding Lizard, despite having very basic vanilla-like abilities, is very useful and offers significant offensive support. As for the Sheep, I really don't like paying gold for units that are going to die without providing a truly significant benefit. The healing is simply too weak and too situational, requiring the Sheep to die in order to trigger and heal nearby allies. The Nightmare Sheep is more useful, but being locked behind an upgrade and a 20% chance to spawn makes it unreliable. The Ice Guard is a defensive penguin that performs its role very well, especially after the Solid Ice upgrade. The Bee is a little weak at first but after the upgrade that allows them to attack air units they become very useful at stopping air raids. The Moth is your supporting spellcaster with a good healing ability. Sadly, the Mana Cocoon spell seems to be bugged because it does not provide the armor buff. The Raven can steal gold from enemy structures and carry it back to your base, provided it doesn't die along the way, in which case it drops the gold allowing it to be collected. There is some overlap between the Bee and the Raven regarding the air superiority unit role. The Snowy Owl (which I believe should be a tier 3 unit) is quite strong. With its Moon Rays ability, it deals devastating damage to groups of enemies and buildings. This Owl lacks an icon, and having its True Sight function only at night is very limiting because you don’t have another source of detection.

On tier 3 you unlock three powerful units. The Bunny Reaper is a melee glass cannon, deals large amounts of damage and has a cleaving attack. The Penguin Cannon is your ranged siege unit, which can freeze enemy structures with its attacks, making it very powerful against defenses. And the Giant Sand Worm, a large powerful melee unit that has a massive amount of hit points. The Sand Worm can execute underground attacks that damage and stun groups of units, making it perfect for countering units or heroes that need to channel abilities. Ice Ramps have good damage but are otherwise weak defensive structures unless you quickly research Solid Ice. Not having a building to return lumber can be a problem, but at least the Skinks' movement speed makes up for it. The Great Boar mechanic is a nice touch for defense, being stronger the more farms you have together. As for heroes, they are okay, mostly. The main issue is the Annoying Fly, being a flying unit (a hero, in this case), that can be trained from tier 1.

Creativity - 33/45

The conceptual ambition here is highly commendable. You discarded a standard unified aesthetic in favor of a chaotic “critter rebellion”, which gives the faction a unique charm. The absolute main mechanic of your design is the day/night cycle mechanic affecting unit strengths. Other creative highlights include the Raven’s gold-stealing mechanic and the summoning of the Great Boar as an unique defensive system.

Where the creativity falters slightly, however, is in the execution and individual unit design. While the overarching mechanics are novel, many of the units themselves lean heavily on traditional, vanilla-like abilities. Furthermore, the creative choice to have no cohesive visual theme backfires, resulting in a lack of clarity and visual recognition for the player. A bit more innovation on the individual unit spells, alongside a more structured implementation of your day/night mechanic and some refinement related to balance would have raised this score even further.

Total - 67/100

Theme - 17/25

This faction looks a bit strange at first, but it takes only a couple of seconds to recognize the race behind it: Rock Golems. The aesthetic elements are fitting, the choices for buildings and units feel mostly right (with a few exceptions that are not entirely convincing to me), and the icons are generally suitable as well (with exceptions too, like unfitting icons for certain things or active icons used on passive abilities). What concerns me, however, is that while the faction clearly represents Rock Golems, I feel the overall identity has not quite coalesced. There is a persistent sense that something is missing to transform the currently disjointed theme into a cohesive whole.

The whole Spires and "hex areas" mechanic, for example, is fantastic and a great example of experimental ideas that seek to step outside the usual comfort zone in an attempt to lay the groundwork for something new. However, the more I play it, the less convinced I am that it is truly appropriate and fitting in general terms for a Rock Golem faction, or indeed for any other faction of Warcraft 3 Creeps.

Gameplay - 16/30

I’m surprised that, despite how intimidating the hex area mechanic might look at first, it’s relatively easy to adapt to after just a couple of minutes of play. Overall, it is quite intuitive and user-friendly, so I applaud the great work in this regard. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for other mechanics that rely on it; these have inevitably detracted from an otherwise solid design and cost you a couple of points here. Food generation is simply very low per hex area controlled and constantly hinders your attempts at trying a fast start. The gathering method is quite problematic for players, even though it tries not to be. The issue is not only that production pauses while your Spirit Mother is not static, but also that having to manually switch between gathering wood and gold is rather unintuitive. If you don't manage to create a second Spirit Mother quickly, your economy ends up being mediocre because a single one is not enough for your mid-game needs onwards. The other problem is that they are expensive and take a very long time to create, both resources and time you also need to upgrade your initial Spirit Mother to tier 2. While it might not be immediately obvious, the location you choose for your first Spires matters (and matters a lot). Choosing the wrong hex area to claim will hurt when you realize you should have expanded toward a nearby mine instead, as claiming a hex area that is not adjacent to your existing ones incurs a significant cost penalty. Several units suffer from bugs on their abilities. Muddling as a basic ranged unit is pretty good and balanced, and its ability to merge with other Muddlings to create stronger versions is cool, but is very bugged and unpolished. In the case of Lesser Muddlings, the ability can be cast on the Muddling itself rather than on a nearby one; in this instance, they begin the merging animation but vanish completely without creating a greater version or dropping the same Muddling, and worse yet, still occupying the food cost permanently with no way to refund it. For the "level 2 Muddlings" (let's call them that, since I'm not sure how many merging levels you were supposed to have planned for them), the ability bugs even worse than with the lesser ones: the Muddling sometimes disappears and sometimes leaves a remnant that cannot attack and has a bugged movement (and cannot be killed because it comes back to 100% hp after taking a last hit), still locks the food cost permanently, and, on top of that, leaves the merge animation stuck in the area. The Defuse ability does not seem to work either. The Walker, for 4 food, seems to be mostly balanced except maybe for the Glow Moss passive which, in general, might be too strong. Roll is a very cool ability, but Rest is bugged. A Walker in resting state should not be able to move (or so I think), but it actually does if you order it to, though it returns to the resting state almost immediately. That causes some weird behaviors when moving with other troops.

The Leprechaun is a powerful support unit and essential for your Rock Golems’ armies. Rune Carving is too good for its low cost. The Whisperer is an interesting concept (though I’m not sure about the chosen model), featuring a solid set of offensive spells that are effective for harassing the enemy; it is somewhat complex, but the fact that the abilities are autocast gives it a few points in its favor. The Runic is either a semi-support unit with the Temporal Reaction ability while on land (sadly, the ability is bugged and is not giving any effect), or a magic-immune flying combatant when in air mode. It has its uses, but I find the 5 food cost is quite limiting for them. Meteors are cool units but they definitely need a more clearly defined role. The Hematine Golem is very good, I like this unit. Attract is good against siege machines to help isolate them for your other units to destroy them, while Static Charge is a very powerful addition for heavy magic damage. The Heathen Titan is very costly but also a powerful and very resilient long-ranged siege unit. Mineral Devour seems to be bugged, sometimes it does not work at all and when it works the damage per second is extremely high. Its movement is also very clumsy, and I often found it spinning in circles when I ordered it to move. I cannot believe that Heathen Titans can actually be devoured by Kodos. And finally, the Keepers are a tier 3 tanky melee unit, which seems to be pretty okay and balanced. The heroes are fun, creative, and unique each in their own way, but the innate passives are far more than necessary. In short, a rather unique, experimental and risky faction that has unfortunately lost momentum due to bugs, various errors, and the over-complication of its core concepts.

Creativity - 35/45

It is undeniable that this entry places a strong emphasis on innovation. You clearly wanted to steer far away from the usual faction concepts and that deserves great recognition. The mechanic of the hex areas using the Spires is a bold, experimental concept that completely re-imagine map control and spatial awareness. Furthermore, ideas like the Muddlings and Meteors merging systems introduce unique unit dynamics that I rarely see in other factions. The creativity is weakened in its execution and conceptual approach.

While the willingness to innovate is undeniable and earns your entry a solid score, the execution falters where these innovative concepts collide with practical gameplay flow and technical stability. The hex system is a brilliant piece of design, but its connection to Rock Golems feels somewhat abstract. Golems are traditionally entities of brute force, earth magic or ancient guardianship, so a geometric, node-based territorial expansion mechanic feels weird for them. It is an incredibly imaginative entry, but one that needed a bit more restraint and work to truly let its best concepts shine.

Total - 68/100

Theme - 17/25

Lightning and thunder accompany this entry as you explore a very rare and unexpected choice: Air Elementals. The choice feels strange at first; there are no Air Elementals as such in Warcraft 3… or so it seems. The reality is that Revenants (yes, those armored undead creeps commonly seen in tilesets like Northrend, Dungeons or Underground) are, in fact, considered elementals in Blizzard’s lore. Your choices regarding unit models and effects are spot-on. Most of the icons, despite being mostly vanilla, are correctly used with the exception of those that should be autocasts or passives but use active icons instead.

My issue is with the choice of most of the building models you decided to pick; I wish you had made equally great choices there, just as you did with the units (That said, the models for the Altar and the Main building are excellent). Another issue that cost you a couple of points is that, although the faction visually conveys the concept of Air Elementals, in terms of gameplay, you lack innate racial mechanics that complements that concept in the same way.

Gameplay - 18/30

First things first: this entry is essentially a mini-faction instead of a standard one. That means you opted for being limited to up to tier 2, with only two heroes and eight units, along with everything that entails. That said, I respect your decision, and despite everything, you have done a pretty good job in this area. The unit roles are clear, there is little to no overlap of functions between them, and the faction appears to be balanced (mostly). One problem I have encountered is that you have so many active abilities, making it very difficult to keep track of everything during large battles. Also, your food production is too low, and having to build so many Pylons constantly makes the game tedious. Healing is heavily lacking too during the early game. Starting with your units, we have the Spark Revenant, your land melee unit for the entire game. It is pretty standard and very useful, with the Galvanize ability which increases attack damage at the cost of some hit points, and Static Plating which passively gives some defensive bonuses. The Djinn, a cool offensive spellcaster, focuses on debilitating the enemies with disruptive abilities. The Storm Elemental is a short-range siege unit that can later be upgraded to allow it to transform into a static long-range artillery unit that deals high damage against structures (and anything else, as the attack hits instantly and therefore cannot be dodged or mitigated through movement). The Gale Elemental is your usual ranged unit with pierce damage and medium armor, useful against air enemies. And the Wind Serpent is a solid air superiority unit, though it suffers from the major drawback of being available right from the start. As you know, having air units at tier 1 is a delicate matter that can easily ruin the game's overall balance.

Once you reach tier 2 you unlock two more additional units. The Caladrius is a flying support unit, providing healing, AOE dispels and true sight; an essential unit for your army. And finally, you have the Hurricane Elemental. This unit is wonderful and with the Tempest passive they are able to do massive amounts of damage to groups of enemies. The heroes, despite having simple designs, are very good. I especially liked the Son of the Storm. The Sky Passages are a nice touch and allow for backdoor strategies that can be fun (though perhaps not so much for the enemy player). The towers are pretty solid and can stand on their own during defenses, which is good. I wish there were some mechanic related to their Pylons, since they serve no other purpose than providing food. Nor do they possess any additional defensive mechanics to help them against enemy harassment, and also they really need an unique shop structure with their own racial items.

Creativity - 30/45

For a mini-faction, you have managed to incorporate remarkably fresh ideas. Leveraging the underutilized lore of Revenants as Air Elementals is a stroke of genius; I’m certain that anyone else (myself included) who had chosen Revenants as a faction would have opted to explore their undead incarnation instead. Even so, building a distinct visual identity around that choice is highly commendable. While the individual unit designs are cool, the broader faction mechanics rely heavily on standard, predictable tropes. The Pylons, for instance, are a missed opportunity because they function merely as standard food providers without any unique elemental interactions or clever ideas behind them.

Furthermore, while the abilities are fitting and good, many of them are slight variations of existing vanilla spells rather than custom ones. You have laid an excellent, highly creative foundation with the theme and unit concepts, but I would have loved to see that same level of innovation used into unique racial mechanics and infrastructure.

Total - 65/100

67/100

Theme: 22/25
I absolutely love the lumber harvesting design, it's exactly what a Warlock would do to keep their hands clean. Titan's Eye provides an engaging way to provide extra support to the player when they need it most - almost like top-bar abilities in more modern RTS games. The Soul Tower and Mausoleum don't match at all visually but otherwise buildings are all what I might expect to see. While the connection Gul'dan and the gruesome fate of his clan is clear the overall design relies far too much on skeletal abilities.

Gameplay: 25/30
Burning Archers use no food and have no expiration which is a fairly strong snowball affect. Similarly Gravebound is extremely strong and will allow more skilled players to attack, lose a fight, and then still fight off what may have been fatal retaliation. 12 active abilities is also a bit much to manage in combat. In practice fights became buff heavy and visually messy. Again I find Titan's Eye engaging but it's simply far too powerful to have global encounterable weapons. Despite that the actual army units seem underpowered against vanilla races.

Creativity: 20/45
Upgrades are fairly typical. The Summoning Pit is a bit overcomplicated just to provide a Burning Archer. Abilities are generally light edits on vanilla abilities. Hero abilities are fairly simple as well across the board. It would have been better to develop one hero and showcase the most advanced ideas of the race. Generally there simply isn't a lot of new unique content here to plat with.

50/100

Theme: 20/25
You absolutely killed it on the art here - buildings, icons, and unit models. Where it falls flat is more in the abilities which overall just seem uninspired. Many of them could be part of any race from a design perspective.

Gameplay: 18/30
If you count transformation you have 16 active abilities which is too much to manage in the heat of combat, and may prove too much for newer players to even get into. The Venomancer is an example here. The Butcher ability is quite interesting but I'm not sure it's worth the added complexity and "4th" resource to manage. Maybe that could be developed more broadly to support more unit types.

Creativity: 12/45
Abilities are generally fairly vanilla. Dart Trap is interesting but even the heroes just aren't showing what I would think of when distilling Troll down to an ability set. As far as heroes go it would be better to design one hero to meet that bar.

Bugs:
- Craft Throwing Axes seems to be broken

68/100

Theme: 13/25
The art here is a mess which is somewhat understandable given the races reliance on creeps but there still needed to be a unifying set of visual design elements. Units like the Lizartillery and Draconic Battlecruiser are a riot though.

Gameplay: 15/30
Having to build the Embassy overlapping the Hut is not intuitive, it would work better both in placement and regular use if it was an "add-on" similar to Terran buildings in SC2. Esc needs to exit all the way out of the Diplomatic menu. There's nowhere to see my Diplomatic Points unless I enter the menu, and the generation of those points is too slow and requires too many Consulates of Azeroth. Units I tried to convert with Persuade would run back to the base and then disappear never to be seen again but I presume I'm misunderstanding the intent. Similarly there were never any new entries added to the Diplomatic menu but I saw your note on the entry regarding that. The Furbolg Diplomat not having any attack is a beyond inconvenient especially when it is your first hero.

Creativity: 40/45
This is one of the most unique races I've seen in War3. You've developed custom abilities for all of the units and heroes well and even included flavor text for some. The Diplomatic menu needs work all around but this race has tremendous potential. I wanted to see it more filled out with recruitment options.

48/100

Theme: 18/25
Flatulence and the Friendship Token are 10/10 on point. The art and music you chose is also appropriate. I appreciated the flavor text. There wasn't any component that took me out of the race mentality which is rare, there was simply a lack of development.

Gameplay: 20/30
Units like the Smasher, Gronn, and Thunder Magi feel underpowered which is carried more broadly across the whole race when compared to vanilla races. I expected units to be more on par with the campaign Naga - fewer in number, heavier in impact.

Creativity: 10/45
The race overall is fairly standard in terms of overall design, upgrades, and feel. The Lair provided a refreshing take on Food that doesn’t require many structures while providing a a "super" unit. Hero design was a bit bland unfortunately.

Bugs:
- Winged Eye of Killrogg model has a broken sound at birth

42/100

Theme: 17/25
Buildings all basically look the same which created silhouette recognitions issues when looking for a particular unit or upgrade. Units have a solid visual presentation but their ability sets fall a bit flat in development.

Gameplay: 15/30
The range bonus for Heroic Effigy needs to be larger and units should have a disabled ability on their UI so I know what abilities exist without needing to read unit descriptions. Units feel underpowered which was surprising for a race that visually presents as strong.

Creativity: 10/45
Shore Stall contains standard Human items. The Heroic Effigy/Primordial Wave Bonus system provides a compelling reason to consider hero choice and army composition. Overall unit abilities aren't too different from vanilla with some exceptions such as Swap Life.

Bug:

Coastal Harvestor Expert requires a Keep
Bay Rest upgrades have incorrect descriptions

67/100

Theme: 15/25
What a blast from the past on some of these models! Visually this race is a mess. Buildings have unique silhouettes but lack any real unifying design. Units felt more cohesive but again lack common design queues - overall the race feels like many random units visually.

Gameplay: 22/30
The day/night dependency simply doesn't work in practice. There is an inherent anxiety that leaves a question about what damage potential is being missed out on. Kaleidoscope is massively overpowered providing the debuff it does over an area that may contain an entire army. Conversely Medicinal Pollen is far too mana-intensive for the buff. Carrot Juice not having a mana cost means the enemy player has no way to disrupt the potential usage through drains, etc. Permanent Hex is crazy to give to a unit. Overall there are some serious balance issues here that let me cheese the vanilla races. However it was fun to play. The spells have interesting effects.

Creativity: 30/45
Treasure Spotting is a neat idea but 30 gold is not enough to justify the long trip to an enemy base, and I do wonder if it's stealing gold or just creating it out of nothing - the latter is supremely overpowered for a unit ability. You have a number of interesting abilities though. Emergency Hideout allowed me to win a base race which was an exciting moment. You have a strong start here but there needs to be more of a feeling that these units are meant to work together. A specific example is the Sand Worm which really stands out from the lineup. You did take a more experimental approach with hero abilities and some of them were enjoyable - having a deer army for example.

Bugs:

At night the UI changes but it has the sidebar filled
At least one missing icon
Debug text appears when using the Esc key
Diurnal does not have the Day requirement

82/100

Theme: 22/25
Buildings, units, upgrades, and abilities are all dead-on - well done! I'm not exactly sure how the Spire concept fits in with Golems which is my only real question about your race. It creates a number of complications both for gameplay and as a mechanic to manage. The Pylon concept in SC2 works so well because it is so simple to manage as an example.

Gameplay: 20/30
Having to research after building to train units feels terrible. In early game base management is also a hurdle as if you make one bad placement decision you're stuck waiting to be able to raise another Spire, and if you happen to place that poorly you have a similar issue. Spires also provide too little food which again snowballs if you have bad placement resulting in a huge base to generate enough food. Absorb should be on by default as well. The summoning mechanic is intuitive - why is the Leprechaun different though? Crash, Roll, and Animate were just fun to use.

Creativity: 40/45
Everything feels right here. Even your items were thoughtfully designed and Tectonic Staff was quite enjoyable. The basic unit upgrades were bland and with this race and I don't think they are even needed. Heroes are no different with unique passive 5th abilities and strong theme representation - the Burning One was a gas.

40/100

Theme: 12/25
Building models are weakness here, they don't communicate their purpose well. The unit models you chose though are all right on par. Unit abilities felt surface level unfortunately.

Gameplay: 13/30
Why are most of the buildings huge, do you think land free? Every unit but one have active abilities which is simply too overwhelming in combat. Units felt good with the Hurricane Elemental taking the cake in that department. You do need simpler units to fill out an army. I had to build so many Pylons as well which was hell for base management.

Creativity: 15/45
Items, abilities, and upgrades are fairly vanilla. The Sky Passage is interesting but being so large and so weak makes it an easy target. Heroes are much more thought out and Trade Winds in particular was fun to use.

Final Score = (30*Reached_Votes/POSSIBLE_VOTES) + (70*Average_Judge_Score/POSSIBLE_SCORE)

A special thanks and congratulations to all participants! Techtrees are no easy feat to complete, and everyone did an awesome job

CONTESTANT	ENTRY
@Wazzz	Stormreavers
@SgtWinter	Forest Trolls
@MyPad	Furbolgs / Coalition of Creeps
@WinterSnow	Ogres
@Althavis	Unshackled (Sea Giants/Murlocs/etc)
@Marchombre	Critter Revolution
@Kyrbi0	Air Elementals
@FlameofChange	Golems

Contest | Poll

Kyrbi0 · 2026-07-26T14:21:24+0100

Woo! What a turnaround; thanks for all the hard work GT, Riki & Kam! I'll dig into it more later but I'm thankful to have been able to compete for the first time in a decade. Congrats to Wazzz, Winter & FlameofChange!

Wazzz · 2026-07-26T14:22:17+0100

Wow, that was really close! I wasn't sure which way this one was going to go, so I am very humbled to have managed to snag the final victory (only just!) from @SgtWinter's Forest Trolls! And based on the judging, I was right to be nervous - his entry was very good

Speaking of the judging, wow! There are so many great points being made, thank you guys for taking the time to put this together! Some of the stuff I missed in my entry, little bugs here and there, those flew right under my radar and it's so good to have the extra sets of eyes to point it out to me - I think I'll give these guys an update in the future!

Thank you for hosting the contest, @GhostThruster!

Congratulations to everyone who participated, you all made some pretty amazing entries

Congratulations to @FlameofChange for achieving a podium place, even with the malus, that is a bloody good effort!

And, of course, congratulations to @SgtWinter for second place, I will send you my laundry bill for the pants I soiled when seeing your Forest Trolls!

SgtWinter · 2026-07-26T14:29:37+0100

Congratulations to everyone!

This contest was a good experience for all of us to improve our work and overall techtree design skills, and all the participants really came out with some cool and interesting faction design concepts.

I appreciate the judges for reviewing the entries and pointing out the positives and the negatives in our faction designs. It definitely helps me knowing what to keep and avoid in future contests, and I'll try not to break a core mechanic of my faction next time so I can score better, lol.

@Wazzz you will rue the day you have bested me. I will soon come back with your laundry fully paid complete with underwear, and then I will claim my revenge... somehow.

BaiyuGalan · 2026-07-26T17:29:16+0100

Wow. It was a fantastic match; all participants performed really well.

Riki · 2026-07-26T18:00:33+0100

Congratulations to everyone!

It was a great experience judging these amazing entries alongside GhostThruster and Kam. Looking forward to more wonderful factions from all of you!

FlameofChange · 2026-07-26T18:50:32+0100

Oh noice, while I do agree with most of the judging, I think some elements weren't understood enough.

GhostThruster said:
The major thing is that your Golems do not resemble the creep Golems in the slightest. Clearly, this is your intention, but this goes against the theme of the contest. Your entry is akin to making a Tuskarr faction, where the Tuskarr are in fact Carribean pirates instead of Inuit-inspired tribal warriors.

How would have I done with only mud golems, rock golems, granite golems and war golems ? I was completely obliged to diversify the roster to avoid either copy-pasted units and itsy tiny factions making original naga as super complete ?

GhostThruster said:
Now bad examples: "Dowser" is the antithesis of the aforementioned

Because... a dowser finds water sources..? And the Stone Folk Dowser is a rock-water golem creating natural sources from phreatic pockets ? What is the problem ?

GhostThruster said:
The voicesets were very... unorthodox. It was jarring hearing the War Aspect, a towering metal golem, pathetically lament "I don't want to die".

Because the War aspect is a reflect of War and its horror - inspired from Fiddle Sticks in League of Legends where it is parroting the last words of victims.
On the other hand I had to rush the custom soundsets so it surely needs more love in the future.

GhostThruster said:
The starting rhythm is very off compared to the standard 4 Wc3 factions, since the Spirit Mother can only harvest gold or lumber (materially) at the same time. It means your altar and barracks are way more delayed than other factions'.

This is not true. While the early harvest is a bit more odd indeed, when you get the second spirit mother your wood income becomes assured. With 12 food you get 10 gold and 7 wood per second, compared to other factions that's a much better rate-for-food.
You have enough resources to get altar + barracks and their build time are identical to their counterparts (unless I forgot to put the right values...).

GhostThruster said:
While the Spirit Mothers were functional and easy to use, they robbed the faction of tactical depth revolving around worker management and harassment. Similarly, even though your role coverage was fine, you had a really limited set of structures that makes teching up and tech-switching very simplistic.

Worker management is indeed simpler because I had no interests to making it more complex. I considered detecting nearby trees from spires but was technically not worth it. Next Spires are actually level 1, so you can demolish them for XP and the spirit mother attack is terrible. While it is true you can't harass workers you can destroy units being created and the ones waiting their turn. Getting more structures was also considered, but what structures ? Just separate tech centers ?

GhostThruster said:
Each hero having a unique passive is a bit overkill. Not to mention the Leprachaun, Runic and Meteor's.

The intent is to have slightly reduced ability impact to compensate the natural ability. That could be indeed a bit too overboard compared to their intended place in the strategy. Leprechauns are frail, Runic aren't great combat units for the food cost, and Meteors would be punished from running away when facing magic damage dealers

GhostThruster said:
The Mind Embryo item, among many abilities and items, is a good example; why does this item need to grant bonus HP and mana? How is that congruent with its charged effect of being a mini-Great Hall?

Stone Folk quirks is to have passive and active ability stacked on consumables. To make it more interesting I put bonus HP and mana since the embryo empowers the hero wielding it ; remember it has close ties with life and mineral nature. Not my best trick indeed.

[Start of Riki's part but the reply function still wants to put GhostThruster instead]

GhostThruster said:
Food generation is simply very low per hex area controlled and constantly hinders your attempts at trying a fast start.

Spire creation is almost instant and the player is encouraged to spread them especially in inaccessible terrain.

GhostThruster said:
The issue is not only that production pauses while your Spirit Mother is not static

This is a minor issue ; walking workers to another build location is also a thing is Warcraft 3.
And the mother doesn't move much during the gameplay.

GhostThruster said:
Rune Carving is too good for its low cost

In terms of healing or bonuses ? Because in terms of healing it is a bit faster than Priest Heal (25 per second VS 25 every 1.1 seconds) while costing more mana and needing time to be cast. The bonus can be walled by dispel.

GhostThruster said:
he hex system is a brilliant piece of design, but its connection to Rock Golems feels somewhat abstract. Golems are traditionally entities of brute force, earth magic or ancient guardianship, so a geometric, node-based territorial expansion mechanic feels weird for them.

Circular dolmens ? Hexagons are bestagons ? Enchanted runes ?

[Kam's part]

GhostThruster said:
Having to research after building to train units feels terrible

What happened is Spirit Mother can create all (except Leprechauns) units ; so when you unlock the unit and you have spirit mother around, you can spam these aggressively. It is expecialy harsh in the early game once you finish to build your Shaper : you have the equivalent of two barracks for the price of one while the enemy might only have one. Rushing was a concern so I put an upgrade to slow that down a bit.

GhostThruster said:
The summoning mechanic is intuitive - why is the Leprechaun different though?

Because it's not a golem and doesn't need to be summoned ? I also wanted some kind of coherent sidekick taking care of the "big ones", with mysterious abilities and most importantly having a spammable healer & support unit. It enhances the size difference within the roster.

Techtree Contest #20 - Results

GhostThruster

GhostThruster

Resources

Attachments

Kyrbi0

Kyrbi0

Resources

Wazzz

Wazzz

Resources

SgtWinter

SgtWinter

Resources

BaiyuGalan

BaiyuGalan

Resources

Riki

Riki

Resources

FlameofChange

FlameofChange

Resources

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