Good day, Ellarians!
We are back again to our weekly dev blog about Legends of Ellaria. After two weeks of answering your questions (you can check our Q&As here and here), we’re back to our regular schedule of dev blogs. Today, we want to explore another key feature of our game with you: the real-time strategy battles! As you may already know, Legends of Ellaria is a one-of-a-kind type of game. It’s neither an action RPG or an RTS, but a unique blend of all these genres and mechanics. We want to discuss a little bit more about what managing your units in combat in real-time really means.
First of all, remember that Legends of Ellaria is all about choice. Once you are about to enter a battle you’ll have to decide if you want to fight alongside your soldiers in the battlefield or if you prefer to take a strategic view, so you can guide your troops from distance. Either in first person or in RTS mode, you won’t be able to position your troops before battle; instead you will have some time until you clash with the enemy’s army that can be used to issue orders to your troops. When the blades start to crash, keep in mind that you may also command your troops to attack, defend or to follow another thanks to a shortcut. The target of those orders will be the center of your screen so be careful where to position the camera before shouting an order!
But while fighting on the battlefield may be more epic, doing it in the RTS mode might help you to save more of your soldiers’ lives! At any point during combat you can switch to the RTS menu with a classic overview cam. The UI will remind you some of the genre’s classics, like StarCraft: you will be able to select individual units or multiple one by clicking and dragging on the screen and, then, issue the same three orders that we explained before.
Keep in mind that, while in RTS mode, you can command your troops in some different ways . You can use filters to select specific units (i.e. archers) or you can select individuals or groups and command them to follow orders. Picture yourself in battle: after weakening your enemies with your archers, you order your infantry forward into close combat, locking the enemy in its position. You are ready for the final blow: you send a platoon you had reserver to flank the enemy troops and attack it in their most vulnerable point, outnumbering them in the battlefield.
Legends of Ellaria offers you a wide variety of troops with different strengths and weaknesses, so you will have to choose wisely how to approach every combat. First, we would like to emphasize that units can be upgraded through research (hunters, militias, swordsmen, royal guard) or the academy (mages, golems) but you may also get some mercenaries, unlocked through quests. Mercenaries will cost twice as much as training a soldier and their upkeep is three times higher… but they don’t consume any manpower, meaning you can hire as many as you want.
Going back to our regular troops, militias are the cheaper (and weaker) units: useful for reducing crime in your kingdom, but not as good in the battlefield.Archers are good piercing armors but lousy in melée combat. Swordsmen are one of the most important units, able to hold their ground against most opponents. And if you want to push for the best of the best, the Royal Guard is the highest level knight with and exceptional armor and melée weapons.
You will also need to add some variety to your army to ensure that you cover every possible situation. And here’s where the Academy comes to your rescue. This building will allow you to train golems (basically walking tanks), mages and other specialized units will come in handy. You will be able to upgrade the academy through quests, discovering ancients or investing in magic.
Just a few more quick notes about units. First, unlike your heroes, they are supposed to be expendable troops, and thus they do not gain XP or level up during the game: the only way to upgrade them is through research upgrades for your army. And second, be aware of the economy side of building and maintaining an army. A strong soldier may cost as much as 10 weaker soldiers, but won't necessarily win a fight against 10 weaker soldiers. The point is you'll have to balance your army between few elite soldiers, or a horde of weaklings that will lose soldiers in each battle. If you do have the manpower and plan on winning battles through numbers, you should take care about the upkeep costs; because you will need to pay wages and feed your soldiers, and may go bankrupt before you win the war.
See you next week, Ellarians!