Hello everyone!

Several months ago I teased the version 2
The Big Update™ in the feature roadmap.

And... Its time is finally on the horizon!

Version 2 will now be referred to by the name of its new primary feature:


Since I'm a fan of showing rather than just telling, I have already released this feature for Reporting For Duty: Kislev! (link)


Summoner Heroes makes certain buildings unlock a summon ability that is attached to the garrison commander. In Kislev's case, the Boyar unit (Empire's Captain equivalent). And yes, the AI will use it.

The inspiration for Summoner Heroes came from two design objectives:
1. Be cool.
2. Achieve fitting more than 20 units inside a garrison.

And I'm proud to say:

Mission Accomplished


HOWEVER! The update isn't done yet, and that's where you come in:

You all have the opportunity to influence how this update works.

I am going to offer a list of options and I want you to give your thoughts. But before I do I want to explain:*



We want more than 20 units in garrisons! Yeah! So how do you get around that cap? Summons! Wooh!

Players like summoning units. They're pretty much always cool - like getting extra stuff for free!

The easiest implementation of this would be what the game calls an "Army Ability". If you've ever played as Tomb Kings or attacked a Skaven settlement, you've seen the summon for an Ushabti appear out of thin air or Clanrats dig out of the ground. These are examples of army abilities that summon units in the vanilla game.

Giving that to the player creates a pretty big issue, though: Army Abilities can be pretty much used anywhere. You can add certain targeting limitations to them (e.g. Valid target: Friendly units or Invalid Target: Climbing units) but distance isn't one of them. Because that would mean... distance from what, exactly? Your camera can go anywhere!

Being able to wait for the charging masses to be halfway to your walls before summoning units on top of the enemy trebuchets feels very cheap, to me. I don't want to ask players to keep themselves honest. Let's be honest: we'd all do it, right? And the enemy AI would, too! Ugh. Annoying. Not to mention that it's a bit immersion-breaking for some foot soldiers to just put up out of the snow like daisies.

By tying it to the settlement's hero, I can place a distance limit on it (currently set to 45 meters). That prevents you from summoning units clear across the map and beyond walls. and it feels like your hero is rallying the guard. Sweet.

But this isn't without its own problems, too:

Neither of these abilities can be weighed by the autoresolver. This means I want to pick units that are likely to be getting cut from the 20+ units surplus so as not to tank the autoresolver score by shifting the best units to summons.
Which brings up the next problem: I don't want to swap garrison slots for summons if there aren't even 20 units. Because again, that messes with the autoresolver.
This means I'm trying to pick lower-end units that are found in garrisons with reliably over 20 units.
So... units that come from Tier 4 or Tier 5 buildings.
And these units, preferably, aren't ranged units that need to be on the walls at the start of the fight. Preferably they move quickly as well, since heroes can start some distance from the walls.
So to recap, the eligible cast for summons are:
- Come from Tier 4 or Tier 5 buildings
- Are also lower-spawn-priority units
- Preferably move quickly
- Preferably aren't ranged infantry

...That's not a big list.

In the case of Kislev, I was able to fill the need without making compromises.
Bears are fast mid-level units but can't defend walls or have the defense, HP, or leadership to hold a line. Cavalry units as a whole are reduced compared to their infantry peers in the Reporting For Duty spawn priorities because they're more valuable on an open field than when defending a walled settlement, where they also have to sit back and wait.
Similarly, Ungol Horse Masters are an effective ranged unit, but still not as valuable for walled defense as a unit of Kossars.
Chekists and Kvassnics are lower-tier infantry. Although ranged.
Ungol Horse Masters and Kvassics also make excellent candidates because if they were to be cut short by the 20-unit limit, then their spawning buildings wouldn't be contributing *anything* to the garrison. This makes them participate in the fight.

Hey. I like attention to detail. That's why you're here. (Nothing but quality from me, baby!)

Anyway!

There is one bigger drawback to the Summoner Hero system. One that I'm hesitant to even bring up, but I know it will be discovered sooner or later so I want to get ahead of it and get y'alls thoughts... The summon abilities awarded to the Kislev Boyar... ...they get awarded to *all* the Boyars you control in that settlement and near it. This could be problematic if facing multiples. That's not a common thing, but it does happen. And you the defending player could find a way to abuse it if needed. So for all these reasons, I'm definitely not going to go willy-nilly and just add summon abilities to all the buildings.

Remember I said earlier about giving you choices and wanting your input? Well, now we're here:

Do you want to see army abilities used for summons, knowing that they could summon units anywhere?
OR
Do you want to see range-limited summon abilities coming from the heroes despite possible abuse?
OR
Do you think both have drawbacks that are too great, and would prefer I ditch the idea in the interest of balance and carry on with the rest of the roadmap?

I eagerly await your thoughts.

Yours,
Pierce