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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?

This is a mod 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 and Wolfkin Heritage have all been given individual strengths and weaknesses, some more complex than others.

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.

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.

• To make the Goblin Heritage Wetland Foraging work, you'll have to cast a World Map spell given to you at start, only available for Goblin players. This counts as a Minor Race Transformation and can consequently be cast on other absorbed races, giving them the -8 HP penalty but also Wetland Foraging. The downside is that non-goblin players absorbing a Goblin do not have a way to get Wetland Foraging for their cute gobbos, but they also won't suffer their health penalty. The same goes for Lizardmen Heritage Pedal Air Pockets, which is why I've assigned a penalty to both these spells as to not make it a definite choice to activate them.
  
• Halfling Very Lucky/Unlucky 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

☕ Ko-Fi[ko-fi.com]