Vore War V39

[Salanth]

I had just about enough time to finish one match from start to end in the last patch. Playing through it once (and just from having played it back in the day) I think I have figured things out in terms of strategy, and in what ways the game can be broken. I don't necessarily think that it is the right time to fix it right now, what with you being busy with making other content, but I either make this post now, or probably not at all.

First off, and this might be because I've played it a lot, but full strength ai is too easy for me. Although, yes, I've only played once, and that time I was mostly left alone as they fought each other, I don't think I'd be in any trouble unless I had bad luck and enemies choose to attack me in such a pattern that they'd be able to fight weakened armies or in a way which I can't defend properly etc. (Was i lucky to spawn in a corner, or is that something that is random by default? having a corner or even edge position is a huge advantage as compared to a center position I think.) It feels like I'd need to stack the odds against my favor to get a challenge, like giving enemies more villages than me, or put on self-imposed challenges. (Hm, maybe skipping out on weapons? That would be something!) Of course, this is to be expected; strategy games are infamously difficult to make smart AI for, and making them cheat might be the only way to get any sort of challenge out of them.

There is a lot of variance in the troops you can get, so a good strategy is to recruit them, dismiss the ones with poor stats, then recruit new ones and rinse and repeat until you get at least decent stats all around. The difference between an absolutely terrible troop and an awesome one could be something like 2 or even three levels. Early in the game it is important to get troops with high strength/dexterity, but other stats like high health, speed and defense is really useful as well (probably in that order). Of course, every stat has their uses, but in the early game vore isn't that useful I feel. Straight up damage is more effective. Getting the best equipment (improved bow/axe + gloves/shoes for archers or shoes/helmet for axe troops) and a good 16 unit army is also the way to go, and should beat any enemy level 1 army handily with a bit of personal piloting.

Also, I've seen the AI sometimes march their armies out towards my villages, then stop as I recruit some defenders in them, sometimes just having them sit there many turns in a row. Is that intentional? In a way, it might be a strategy in a way to have a "siege" in that way and have another army walk in and attack from another angle, but they usually just, well, sit there.

The main issue with the game as I see it is that with enemies not cheating, after a certain point, your enemies is simply not going to have any good armies. At that point, well, once your army is level 4 or 5 versus their more or less exclusively level 1 armies, any semblance of challenge is gone. They are not going to beat your army, and if you take care, they aren't even going to kill even 1 of your troops. I'd go as far as saying that an enemy is only as strong as their strongest army, so once their veterans are gone, they are really not going to be a threat any more, and it's just going to snowball from there. All their progress in getting stronger is gone. So at one point you as a player are more or less guaranteed success, but you haven't technically won just yet. (That reminds me, Extra Credits did a video on just this concept. Unfortunately don't remember what it's called though.)

That said, the game itself is enjoyable still, of course, both before and after that point. Another aspect I realized is that once you got a bunch of villages, and enough income to start training your troops, it is more or less your ticket to just go win by going hog wild training your strongest army to be completely and utterly unstoppable, more so than before, and then just turn off your brain send them out and spamming the "let ai finish your turn" button. That way you can still "win" the game without having to fear losing troops, when the second half of the match is more or less just a formality. So in a way it's a good feature? Just be aware, I'm quite sure training is really broken as long as you have the cash for it. It all depends on how much experience, how quickly, you can gather from just fighting. (I have a feeling that training gives more and more reliably than you could reasonably get from fighting.)

So yes, that are more or less the issues I see when it comes to why it becomes too easy. Shortly put, levels matter, and I'm not sure whether even sending more than one army attacking the same stronger army in succession would do all too much. As for how to fix it, well, I don't have any concrete answers, but a few more thoughts on the matter; the player is more or less always going to outplay the computer on an even ground, and outplaying the computer means the player gets stronger, and a snowball-effect occurs. Equipment is cheap enough that experience matters the most on armies, but experience is hard to come by; either you have a bunch of villages with trainers in them (but only up to a certain point), have your armies be trained (which costs a lot if you want results) or you have a veteran army which, by the way, is obliterated the first time it loses... You know what, yes, that might be it. Comparing it to a game in roughly the same genre, Heroes Of Might and Magic, your heroes can be saved by fleeing if necessary, and your heroes hold a lot of power and progress even if you lose your troops. So the key in reducing snowballing is to make the loss of armies matter less? I'm still not sure how to do it (it might be that with the goal of no AI cheating, you'd practically have to have an ai trained with a machine learning algorithm to be able to beat a good player), but I think it is all about making sure enemies can have some sort of strong armies in the late game.

Also, a couple of feature suggestions;
1. Have some way of displaying a given soldier's stats from the hire specific soldier menu. For me personally it don't matter much with that place being where all the bad soldiers I don't want going anyway, but I'm sure that others might appreciate it when they can't quite remember who they sent there.
2. A way of displaying approximate experience levels of an army. I would argue it is necessary to know to make good strategic decisions, especially when you have lost track of which army in particular that one happened to be.

So yes, that is my two cents, hah. Again, these are issues that can wait (or even be ignored, the game is fun regardless). You've done a great work on this all!

PS: For the heck of it, I decided to take a single one of my trained-to-oblivion troops and see if I could single-handedly defeat armies with her. I noticed that the enemy is hitting me quite often despite them being level one after she had eaten a few of the enemies. Also the fact that their movement went down. Does the more a soldier has eaten increase the chances of being hit and lower movement score? If so, neat!

[KuroTenko]

Can confirm that skintones bug works with lizards too (bikini and nude variants), so it's probably because of their non-standard skin tones.The leotard is also drawn over the belly for all the races.

With the new variable breast sizes i'm considering respriting the clothing (including the ones i haven't actually posted here yet) to have a top variant for each breast size instead of auto-resizing. Is that doable/okay? And since breasts are actually separate from the sprite itself now, I wanted to add squished together/cleavage ones for some outfits. Again, is that doable/okay?

Another thing, is it okay for me to tinker with races' sprites? I'm not sure who made the default ones, so I'm mainly asking Failbird105 and Turbotowns for permission. And if we're talking races, I could sprite up a shortstack race, Imps/Goblins (probably Imps, they have more potentially interesting things going on for them)(warning: definitions of "interesting things" may vary).

In any case, this saturday's gonna get really busy for me :D

If you are doing some work with non-standard races (races that don't use the base sprite), I could use a bit of help creating 6 different weight categories, since I won't have time to get around to it any time soon :l . Assuming of course, that Failbird105 and Turbotowns are ok with it.

Breasts should be reusable without any major changes, but I also created hip weights for the base sprite sheet, and the special races have completely different hip/leg styles...

[Turbotowns]

I'm perfectly fine with anyone making weight and male versions of my slimes, I just hope they still LOOK slimy.

[Turbotowns]

Aw man it would be great if breast size increased with number of Vores comitted by a unit.

I'm pretty sure it'll be packaged into weight gain.

[GramzonTheDragon]

-snip-
Also, a couple of feature suggestions;
1. Have some way of displaying a given soldier's stats from the hire specific soldier menu. For me personally it don't matter much with that place being where all the bad soldiers I don't want going anyway, but I'm sure that others might appreciate it when they can't quite remember who they sent there.
2. A way of displaying approximate experience levels of an army. I would argue it is necessary to know to make good strategic decisions, especially when you have lost track of which army in particular that one happened to be.

So yes, that is my two cents, hah. Again, these are issues that can wait (or even be ignored, the game is fun regardless). You've done a great work on this all!

PS: For the heck of it, I decided to take a single one of my trained-to-oblivion troops and see if I could single-handedly defeat armies with her. I noticed that the enemy is hitting me quite often despite them being level one after she had eaten a few of the enemies. Also the fact that their movement went down. Does the more a soldier has eaten increase the chances of being hit and lower movement score? If so, neat!

I'd say more difficulty options are best. For people who just want a casual game of vore, let them keep it how it is. If people want a challenge, they can stack the game against them. snowballing is kind of a feature in this game and getting the powerful armies and soldiers you start to grow mildly attached too as they eat more and more and can soak up more xp by themselves is great. however, a good idea would be an alternate hard more, or a scaling mode, where as the number of AI villages decreases (be them their own or other AI factions) then some or all of their armies have a greater chance to spawn with some xp and levels. so you still run across standard level 1 armies but sometimes you find a small army with some leveled soldier or some leveled ones mixed with the newbies.

Agree with soldier stats in rehire and displaying army experience level.

Also yes, somewhere it does state, i think in the vore help section, that the more stomach capacity is filled, the lower the defense value drops on a character. Character with low and medium MP will also be noticeably slowed down the more they eat, but investing in really high speed still lets high level champions run amok and devour everything.

[GreenSlime]

I'm not too sure we need six weight categories differing by, like, a pixel. It's a bit of a headache to accomodate (especially if pants are concerned) and in actual gameplay doesn't show much. Probably just thin-normal-thicc is fine, if they're distinct. So something like sizes 0-2-4-6 in existing sheet.

[LLEPAICG]

Well then I tried my best and finished my very first art for the scylla girls race. Now I just noticed that I don't know how to upload it so that it can actually be used.

And don't expect too much from someone with nonexistent art skills. XD

Everyone is free to improve this when I know how to upload that. I'll also try to improve that.

If you open the full page comment screen (quote someone or write something and click preview), down under the text window is an options tab / upload attachment tab. Use upload attachment, pick the file and upload it, and then you can just insert it into your message (though I think it's available as a download even if you don't insert it)

Thanks for the explanation! I hope it will work.

[Kligor]

So after doing the wings on the harpy sprites I came to realization. The weapons are sprited as if they are on top of the body layers but are underneath. So then I noticed.. my harpy's wings would be very awkward looking What do you think the ideal solution to that would be?
https://i.imgur.com/LxiGSvS.png

[Turbotowns]

Well then I tried my best and finished my very first art for the scylla girls race. Now I just noticed that I don't know how to upload it so that it can actually be used.

And don't expect too much from someone with nonexistent art skills. XD

Everyone is free to improve this when I know how to upload that. I'll also try to improve that.

If you open the full page comment screen (quote someone or write something and click preview), down under the text window is an options tab / upload attachment tab. Use upload attachment, pick the file and upload it, and then you can just insert it into your message (though I think it's available as a download even if you don't insert it)

Thanks for the explanation! I hope it will work.

Cute!

[Aurilika]

Aw man it would be great if breast size increased with number of Vores comitted by a unit.

Yeah, that will probably get mixed in to the weight gain option. If off you get to pick the size and it will be random as it is currently, if on, then it starts at the minimum and increases by vores.

Positioning is luck based, and the assigned points depend on how many empires you have playing. If 2 it uses special logic and makes the capitals the furthest away cities, 3 is a triangle, 4 is corners, and everything above that is basically a circle around the outside. Passive empires don't count as an outside empire and always start in the center. Personally I think it's debatable whether it is an advantage to be more exposed, you end up losing more units, but would gain a high level army faster.

I will continue improving the AI, but I will probably reinstate some cheating AIs for those that want more challenge without having to resort to offset city counts (which only helps somewhat).

I guess that means I should tighten up the starting stats a little, or make them start with a set amount of stat points that are semi-randomly distributed. At one point I was considering having all of the villagers in the village show up in the hire menu, but I felt like that might be a little bit too micromanagement intensive.

I've been thinking about a potential stat redesign occasionally. Giving the stats a little bit of overlap and some sub-stats. Like Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Speed, Vore. Strength influences damage, vore attack odds, dex influences accuracy, evasion, speed influences movement speed and evasion, etc. Not sure what people would think of that. That's an attempt to make all of the stats more useful. As it is now, will is not really that helpful of a stat, and speed becomes mostly useless after you have about 10 movement points. You don't really need a voracity stat above 20 in a lot of cases, because you can just injure units to eat them regardless of how high their will is.

The AI now will generally only sit still if they look for a target, and there is no target that they feel safe engaging, as in there's no village or army on the map that they feel they can take, so they end up just skipping their turn.

Yeah, the concept is called a number of things like slippery slope or positive feedback. The training facilities contribute to that with the bonus exp to recruited units. It's designed so if you own the majority of the villages, your units will be more powerful to help battle any strong armies, or just to push the game to its end.

I implemented training because I was trying to avoid the situation where the AI has a strong army that you can't possibly do anything about other than just running away from it, especially when you have a village advantage. It will probably need to be tweaked, or even possibly removed at some point.

At some point, other unit types / heroes / tribe chieftains / whatever will mix it up more, so I don't want to jump on balance too hard yet.

I thought about adding fleeing, but I wasn't quite sure how to balance it so that it would benefit weaker armies, without just making the stronger armies completely invincible. Also to avoid the frustration of just having the AI continuously fleeing.

I'll add a way to display stats in the hire specific window. As for experience levels, do you mean just for your own armies? If so that's certainly doable. In fact, I already have that in there as a mostly secret debug mode. If you press escape and hit Shift-F2 while in the menu, then the village, army and unit tooltips will display more information. It's basically an information cheat. It will display the exact unit counts for enemy armies/garrisons, and list the average experience and estimated power for armies. In tactical mode it lists how long until prey are digested, though at current it displays inaccurate numbers for prey of prey situations, which is actually the reason I didn't mention it sooner.

Plus I think I've basically got two different audiences here, some hardcore TBS players, and players who are just here for a different vore game. So I'm sort of trying to keep both of them in mind with options.

Does the more a soldier has eaten increase the chances of being hit and lower movement score? If so, neat!

Yeah, they get a speed and defense penalty the bigger they are. They are also harder to eat if they're bigger though.

I'd say more difficulty options are best. For people who just want a casual game of vore, let them keep it how it is. If people want a challenge, they can stack the game against them. snowballing is kind of a feature in this game and getting the powerful armies and soldiers you start to grow mildly attached too as they eat more and more and can soak up more xp by themselves is great. however, a good idea would be an alternate hard more, or a scaling mode, where as the number of AI villages decreases (be them their own or other AI factions) then some or all of their armies have a greater chance to spawn with some xp and levels. so you still run across standard level 1 armies but sometimes you find a small army with some leveled soldier or some leveled ones mixed with the newbies..

Yeah, I plan to implement some sort of scaling mode, as well as throw the legacy cheating mode back in there too, just for more variety.

Thanks for the explanation! I hope it will work.

Looks like it worked. I'll try sticking them in and see how they look, it might not be in this patch cycle though.

[Aurilika]

So after doing the wings on the harpy sprites I came to realization. The weapons are sprited as if they are on top of the body layers but are underneath. So then I noticed.. my harpy's wings would be very awkward looking What do you think the ideal solution to that would be?
https://i.imgur.com/LxiGSvS.png

Hmmm, I'm not sure. Putting the wings over the weapon and the weapon over the wings would probably both look a little odd in their own way. You could pretend the melee weapons are improved claws (and maybe even create sprites), but then what would be done with the ranged weapons for them is the question.

[Tretch]

I noticed earlier you mentioned a HOMM style hero system, which is an interesting idea, But I was thinking a Warsong/Der Langrisser-type hero system might fit into the game style better.
For example:
You would recruit a random hero in a village, and assign them to an army.
Then in the tactical battle, The hero would have a locus of control in which friendly units INSIDE the hero's aura would get a buff, whereas units OUTSIDE the aura would have to use base stats.
Different heroes could have different aura shapes, sizes and buffs that could be altered slightly with equipment.

As for the regular units:
You would recruit them as unit types(archer, soldier, etc) their equipment would'nt be editable, and stats remain static, but each unit could level up individually along a set path.
This way a player wouldn't have to micromanage every unit in the army, just the hereos.

AI would have to change, as the fighting is more focused around staying in a hereos control aura for the buffs, and may need to focus more on keeping troops fighting inside their heroes aura, and keeping the hero alive.

it also raises some interesting ideas, such as:
How many hereos in one army?
Instead of having one big hero with a big army, why not recruit them as "squad leaders", with each hero managing a small squad of units that only THEY can buff(e.g. if two friendly auras overlap the units only get buffs from THEIR squad leader not any others)?
Would diffent races/factions have different units, or varying hero auras?
How would an "agressive" AI differ from a "defensive" one?
Would some hereos have battlefield specific abilities?
Would some heroes have strategic(overworld) powers?

I think it makes the game more dynamic while still keeping the original idea.

[Turbotowns]

With heros mentioned, I figured I'd mention MY idea:
If race traits ever be implemented, I figured my slimes would be nearly invulnerable to physical damage(as their known to be), which is where a new unit/attack style/method/whatever comes in: Magic! A mage unit, and where my slimes would only ever take, like, 1 damage from any physical weapon, magic would obliterate them, doing far more to slimes than any other unit, for lore purposes it could be like the other races try to dabble in the mystic arts to counteract the slimes resilience(which means the slimes probably wouldn't ever try to learn it themselves except maybe to fight other slimes or the mages that are now their bane). I'm talk'n like, a... x4 multiplier! a single lvl1 mage could damn nearly solo an army of slimes of decent lvl(though that might be a broken). XD

[GramzonTheDragon]

For the stats problem, I have a couple ideas.

Vora/stom: combining voracity and stomach would make 1 universal voracity stat and easy to track

Will: only useful to resist getting eaten at high health by equal and lower level units. Instead of having a stat, just make it based on character level or tie it in alongside the suggested voracity combined stat.

Defense: I've found this almost as valuable as health, but if we want to reduce stats, you could make defense instead a combination of a character's strength and dexterity scores, maybe divided by a number like 2 if you're concerned about it getting too high in the current formula for defense and hit chances. This lets you make tanks regardless of what weapon they use. for example, if I make a 1 man army i usually put a bow on her so she can weaken units from range if she can't move fast enough yet. alternatively, make it tied to level.

Speed: i think speed is good how it it. If it's a problem you can level them up with it as it is an important stat is your melee fighters can only move 2 squares and attack, or you can let it slowly build as the unit eats and fights. Unlike will and defense, players can directly see and feel this stat affect gameplay even at low levels.

Health: Keep the same, putting a level here is a great way to ensure your unit takes 1-2 more hits to put down than before, and again lets you build tanks.

Str: fine as it for melee hit chance, see defense

Dex: fine as is for ranged hit chance, see defense. i recommend against using dex to determine defense/enemy hit chances but leaving str in the dust. This is a minor problem in say 5th edition D&D where dex affects your armor stat, but str has no effect on it, forcing str build to either put points into dex and buy moderately expensive armor that not every class can use, or go for heavy armor that has other disadvantages and is very expensive in early level play plus other reasons. this would force the already more stat heavy axe and mace units to spread their stats even thinner in an already archer biased game. they need str, speed, health and defense to go in head first, while an archer girl can easily get by on mostly some dex, with a little speed and some defense and health for a rainy day if she ever gets bull rushed, but mostly just dex.

[GramzonTheDragon]

With heros mentioned, I figured I'd mention MY idea:
If race traits ever be implemented, I figured my slimes would be nearly invulnerable to physical damage(as their known to be), which is where a new unit/attack style/method/whatever comes in: Magic! A mage unit, and where my slimes would only ever take, like, 1 damage from any physical weapon, magic would obliterate them, doing far more to slimes than any other unit, for lore purposes it could be like the other races try to dabble in the mystic arts to counteract the slimes resilience(which means the slimes probably wouldn't ever try to learn it themselves except maybe to fight other slimes or the mages that are now their bane). I'm talk'n like, a... x4 multiplier! a single lvl1 mage could damn nearly solo an army of slimes of decent lvl(though that might be a broken). XD

There's a lot of problems with that though, considering that's the primary method damage is dished out in is physical especially in a medieval setting. You shouldn't have to completely rework your entire strategy for 1 specific race. Maybe unique units like a slime tank would be more suitable, with a limit to 1-2 per army. counter units would need to be introduced like tank busters for soaking damage and pushing/stunning, scouts that can provide friendly units with bonuses to hit or eat a certain target they are tripping, a healer, etc.

bouncing off that idea, Alternate weapons could help instead of true alternate classes, for example a shield and spear combo for tank abilities with a shield bash, a bandage for a medic, a shortsword for a scout, staff/wand for mage etc. A medic would likely need another stat added though for healing.

spear and shield: offers small defense bonus to nearby allies which does not stack with other spears, can shove a unit back 1-5 tiles based on str/chance to stun. less damage than mace
shortsword/dagger: units hit by this have less defense until their next turn, wielder gets extra speed, less damage than mace
bandage/talisman: heals based off wisdom/int/whatever new stat. used in place of unbirth for people who aren't interested in it. must be next to the unit to heal.
mage: casts fireballs out to a medium range that deal low damage over a 3x3 area centered on the clicked tile, or casts a magic missile at 1 target for damage similar to the bows. uses wisdom/int/whatever.

[Kligor]

So after doing the wings on the harpy sprites I came to realization. The weapons are sprited as if they are on top of the body layers but are underneath. So then I noticed.. my harpy's wings would be very awkward looking What do you think the ideal solution to that would be?
https://i.imgur.com/LxiGSvS.png

Hmmm, I'm not sure. Putting the wings over the weapon and the weapon over the wings would probably both look a little odd in their own way. You could pretend the melee weapons are improved claws (and maybe even create sprites), but then what would be done with the ranged weapons for them is the question.

Maybe ranged would take a page from League of Legends or a few RPGs Ive seen. Razor sharp feathers being shot around? Not sure though. Kay so I re-looked at the sprite with the ax behind it... Not bad! I guess it works If you want to keep that as is.

[Aurilika]

I noticed earlier you mentioned a HOMM style hero system, which is an interesting idea, But I was thinking a Warsong/Der Langrisser-type hero system might fit into the game style better....

Definitely some interesting ideas in there, I'll certainly add them to the consideration list.

With heros mentioned, I figured I'd mention MY idea:
If race traits ever be implemented, I figured my slimes would be nearly invulnerable to physical damage(as their known to be), which is where a new unit/attack style/method/whatever comes in: Magic! A mage unit, and where my slimes would only ever take, like, 1 damage from any physical weapon, magic would obliterate them, doing far more to slimes than any other unit, for lore purposes it could be like the other races try to dabble in the mystic arts to counteract the slimes resilience(which means the slimes probably wouldn't ever try to learn it themselves except maybe to fight other slimes or the mages that are now their bane). I'm talk'n like, a... x4 multiplier! a single lvl1 mage could damn nearly solo an army of slimes of decent lvl(though that might be a broken). XD

I was definitely considering giving them some sort of damage resistance as a trait when I add the unique race abilities option. Seeing as how that's likely to come much sooner than magic, it would probably stay at the level of a low/moderate buff for quite a while.

By the way, I'm making good progress on the enhanced map editor. The harder parts are done, just need to add map resizing, and a way to connect the map with create strategic in an intuitive way.

For the stats problem, I have a couple ideas.

Vora/stom: combining voracity and stomach would make 1 universal voracity stat and easy to track

Will: only useful to resist getting eaten at high health by equal and lower level units. Instead of having a stat, just make it based on character level or tie it in alongside the suggested voracity combined stat.

Defense: I've found this almost as valuable as health, but if we want to reduce stats, you could make defense instead a combination of a character's strength and dexterity scores, maybe divided by a number like 2 if you're concerned about it getting too high in the current formula for defense and hit chances. This lets you make tanks regardless of what weapon they use. for example, if I make a 1 man army i usually put a bow on her so she can weaken units from range if she can't move fast enough yet. alternatively, make it tied to level.

Speed: i think speed is good how it it. If it's a problem you can level them up with it as it is an important stat is your melee fighters can only move 2 squares and attack, or you can let it slowly build as the unit eats and fights. Unlike will and defense, players can directly see and feel this stat affect gameplay even at low levels.

Health: Keep the same, putting a level here is a great way to ensure your unit takes 1-2 more hits to put down than before, and again lets you build tanks.

Str: fine as it for melee hit chance, see defense

Dex: fine as is for ranged hit chance, see defense. i recommend against using dex to determine defense/enemy hit chances but leaving str in the dust. This is a minor problem in say 5th edition D&D where dex affects your armor stat, but str has no effect on it, forcing str build to either put points into dex and buy moderately expensive armor that not every class can use, or go for heavy armor that has other disadvantages and is very expensive in early level play plus other reasons. this would force the already more stat heavy axe and mace units to spread their stats even thinner in an already archer biased game. they need str, speed, health and defense to go in head first, while an archer girl can easily get by on mostly some dex, with a little speed and some defense and health for a rainy day if she ever gets bull rushed, but mostly just dex.

Combining voracity / stomach is something I'll probably end up doing, and probably abstract out will as you say. That would enable me to set a soft cap on the amount of units that can be eaten at once instead of a hard cap. (I.e. a particular unit could have a tiny chance to squeeze the third unit in there). I might convert the invisible health stat (which is half of your max health) into endurance, and give it a minor boost to vore defense, or something. I feel like it might work out to have vore defense be a combination of endurance, strength and minorly dex. Making dex minor would make it so melee units have a better chance to not be eaten, which feels like it would make sense, as they should be better at fighting back against someone trying to eat them. Strength and dex are already used to determine their odds to fight their way out, so it seems natural they should be able to fight back before they are eaten as well.

bouncing off that idea, Alternate weapons could help instead of true alternate classes, for example a shield and spear combo for tank abilities with a shield bash, a bandage for a medic, a shortsword for a scout, staff/wand for mage etc. A medic would likely need another stat added though for healing.

spear and shield: offers small defense bonus to nearby allies which does not stack with other spears, can shove a unit back 1-5 tiles based on str/chance to stun. less damage than mace
shortsword/dagger: units hit by this have less defense until their next turn, wielder gets extra speed, less damage than mace
bandage/talisman: heals based off wisdom/int/whatever new stat. used in place of unbirth for people who aren't interested in it. must be next to the unit to heal.
mage: casts fireballs out to a medium range that deal low damage over a 3x3 area centered on the clicked tile, or casts a magic missile at 1 target for damage similar to the bows. uses wisdom/int/whatever.

Some interesting ideas in there as well. I'll definitely consider them.

Maybe ranged would take a page from League of Legends or a few RPGs Ive seen. Razor sharp feathers being shot around? Not sure though. Kay so I re-looked at the sprite with the ax behind it... Not bad! I guess it works If you want to keep that as is.

If you're done I can certainly add them in. Would it be better if I make the wings are a different color than the skin?

[GramzonTheDragon]

I would also say i kinda like the eating 16 units with one, instead of the old set of 4

[Aurilika]

I would also say i kinda like the eating 16 units with one, instead of the old set of 4

Ah, I didn't know anyone had pushed past the 8 when the sprite stops updating. Good to know, perhaps I'll take a peek to see if I can stretch it any more without looking too silly.

[GramzonTheDragon]

I would also say i kinda like the eating 16 units with one, instead of the old set of 4

Ah, I didn't know anyone had pushed past the 8 when the sprite stops updating. Good to know, perhaps I'll take a peek to see if I can stretch it any more without looking too silly.

even if it doesn't display it, the xp, the thought/concept, and the viability of 1 woman armies is fun for me in late game.