AoW 3 Races+

Do you ever tire of all races always having the same free-choice starting conditions? Are you intrigued by the idea of bringing more flavour back into the game and make elves feel slightly more like… elves?

I’ve (quite enthusiastically) poured about 200 hours into this effort to bring back the strengths and weaknesses of the AoW 3 Races, finding similar ideas for the new ones, as well as bringing back a few we haven’t seen in a while, from Highmen to Dark Elves. The basic concept is to give them both some disadvantages and some beneficial traits, but overall it will be at least a small boost to every race.

I’m eager to hear all your thoughts regarding balance, particularly for the new races. Just be aware that I’d prefer giving interesting penalties along with a heavy hitting trait, rather than nerf it. Extremes are fun. As we say in Sweden: Ingen mer mellanmjölk!

• Draconians: Fast Healing, +2 Fire Resistance, -2 Frost Resistance, Cities give +3 Mana
• Dwarves: +1 Defence, +1 Resistance, +10% Unit Cost, Mountaineering, Cave Crawling, Night Vision, +2 Blight Resistance, Cities gain rebated Workshop
• Frostlings: Fast Embark, Arctic Walking, +9 Frost Resistance, -5 Fire Resistance, Cities gain rebated Armory (not associated with a race as there is nothing really matching them)
• Goblins: -8 HP, -10% Unit Cost, Wetland Foraging, Cave Crawling, Wetland Walking, Night Vision, +5 Blight Resistance, Cities give +20% Food
• Halflings: -1 Melee damage, +10% Ranged Accuracy, Forestry, Lucky (13% dodge, increasing to +23% at High Morale and goes down to 0 at Low when facing other Racial Heritage races), 20% Physical weakness, Cities gain 7 Happiness.
• High Elves: +1 Resistance, +10% Ranged Accuracy, +1 Shock damage (magic attacks), Forestry, Night vision, -2 Blight Resistance, Cities lose 10% Food and gain 3 Knowledge
• Humans: Mariner, Cities gain 10 Production
• Orcs: +8 HP, -1 Resistance, +1 Melee damage, +1 Ranged damage, -20% Ranged Accuracy, Night Vision, Victory Rush, Cities gain rebated Blacksmith
• Tigrans: -1 Resistance, Combat Athletics, Predator, Barrens Running, Night Vision, +5 Spirit Resistance, -2 Frost Resistance, Cities give +5 Gold

• Azrac, Dark Elf, Highman, Lizardmen, Syron and Wood Elf Heritage are all based on traits of the races from these games, some of them incorporating city traits that I thought would fit as well. I was looking at Nomads but decided that their stats are actually very similar to humans and their only real thing was having monsters to recruit and being able to move their cities, so nothing much I could do from my end there.

• Avian, Goatkin, Insectoid, Molekin, Ogrekin, Ratkin, Simian, Toadkin, Wolfkin and Ancient Heritage have all been given individual strengths and weaknesses, some more complex than others. Elysians Form automatically gets the Highman Heritage as it seems to match, lore-wise.

Existing races/Leaders (and random units on the map) that have chosen to go with standard traits will automatically be assigned their form’s standard Heritage trait, along with those from this list.

• Ancient: *Poisonous, Resistant (lose Arcane Focus, Defensive Tactics, Weak Constitution)
• Avian: *Ceaseless Cacophony, Light Footed (lose Adaptable, Elusive, Sharp Eyes)
• Dwarfkin: Defensive Tactics, Tough (lose Hardy)
• Elfkin: Arcane Focus, Keen-Sighted (lose Sharp Eyes)
• Elysian: Inner Radiance, Tenacious (lose Adaptable, Defensive Tactics)
• Feline: Desert Adaptation, Elusive, *Sneaky (lose Athletics)
• Goatkin: Herbivore, Tough (lose Hardy)
• Goblin: Hideous Stench, *Swamp Adaptation (lose Sneaky)
• Halfling: Light Footed, Quick Reflexes (lose Elusive)
• Human: Adaptable, Defensive Tactics, Mount Masters (lose Fast Recuperation)
• Insectoid: Ceaseless Cacophony, Overwhelm Tactics (lose Cold-Blooded)
• Lizardfolk: Cold Blooded, Hardy, Strong (lose Poisonous, Tenacious)
• Lupine: *Arctic Adaptation, Pack Tactics, *Sharp Eyes (lose Athletics)
• Molekin: Bulwark, *Hardy, Underground Adaptation (lose Tenacious)
• Ogrekin: Fast Recuperation, Inner Fire (lose Hardy)
• Orcoid: Ferocious, Strong (lose Hardy)
• Ratkin: Overwhelm Tactics, Quick Reflexes (lose Adaptable)
• Simian: Athletics, Cheerful (lose Light Footed, Quick Reflexes)
• Syron: Empowered By Magic, Inner Lightning (lose Adaptable, Arcane Focus)
• Toadkin: Hardy, Resilient, Swamp Adaptation (lose Sharp Eyes)

*New skill for this form

See this google spreadsheet for a complete overview of all traits.[docs.google.com]

Changes to base and all expansion FormTraits_ .rpk files, implementing the standard traits picked for every race, so that Dwarves always get the Dwarven Heritage, etc. If you want spawning units on the map to have the standard traits, make sure this mod is lower in the mod order than any other that changes this. Flaws have also been modded, so mods changing them won’t work either, for now.

Modded all Culture_XXX.rpk files for the Faction Property Givers to contain all race tags.Some races have been assigned new standard traits that I thought were more interesting for them; Avians, for example, now start with ceaseless cacophony unless changed. They were rather similar to Halflings and Simians before.

• The Lizardmen Heritage Pedal Air Pockets gives a penalty to general movement in exchange for swimming. All races you are Keeper of can learn it, but they’ll have the same penalty. If you apply their Crocodile Riders transformation to other races who don’t ride crocodiles, their mounts will just walk on water as only crocs have swimming animations.
• Halfling Very Lucky/Unlucky trait will only work when facing other units with Racial Heritage traits, ie no animals.

I would like to give a warm shoutout to my friends at the AoW Official Modding Discord, especially:

• Visie Mago, for creating his modding videos and the extra help with adding texts
• ScienceFictionGuy, for tireless support and ideas
• Guilu, for giving me the recipe for Wetland Foraging
• Project, for his Russian Translation

☕ Ko-Fi[ko-fi.com]