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Issue # 58: SENSORY ORGANS OF MONSTERS
I decided to dedicate today's issue to the problem of perception, or more specifically, the sensory organs of monsters. To start, I want to ask: do you like the very possibility that some units might not see others at point-blank range, with all the ensuing consequences (inability to attack + blind retaliation)?
Just imagine: a vampire has only just begun to desecrate his dinner, when suddenly a cold-blooded reptile sneaks up and delivers a powerful blow to the back (or to the forehead - it doesn't matter). The poor guy instantly loses his appetite, transforms, and begins to look around frantically for the offender. He'll be lucky if he manages to detect the enemy in the ultrasonic range. Otherwise, all hope lies with less advanced partners (like zombies or skeletons)!
In this example, I jumped ahead a bit so that you could understand the point — not everything in the world is arranged so simply, and being in the skin of one monster or another is not all sunshine and rainbows! But let's return to our conversation.
The sensation of the world depends on perception:
Human - sees everything in colors.
Dogs - only black and white.
Snakes - infrared imaging.
Bats - reflected ultrasound.
Owls, Eagles - react instantly to movement.
Boars - rely on smell.
In battle, it would look like this: when passing the turn to the next unit, those units that are outside its perception zone disappear from the battlefield. That is, only visible targets remain for attack.
It's worth adding a hint possibility here. Suppose an enemy's malicious archer skipped a turn and hid. Your keen-eyed eagles have stopped discerning the desired target and are circling above in confusion. But then an ordinary peasant, who joined the army for some unknown reason, whistles instead of moving and points the eagles to the correct cell. The enemy suddenly appears, and the aviation is already diving on him in a deadly spin... But what if this peasant had been shot at the very beginning!..
To avoid confusion, I suggest keeping the ratio of various sensory organs in monsters within the following limits (the numbers are approximate for now):
80% of all units - normal vision. Transforming factors such as light and darkness; Blindness, Invisibility, and Illusion magic affect this.
7% - thermal vision: they see warm-blooded and hot creatures (fire elementals, demons of the Inferno race), but not cold-blooded reptiles and not Death. Moreover, light and darkness do not play a big role, but fire magic, in theory, should mislead them — let's put up a Wall of Fire, and then what???
5% - react to movement (or hearing)??? Perhaps the ability of Wood Elves to move silently should be categorized here.
4% - see life forces inside the body, or how living blood flows. The dead sense the living! Undeniably, this is half of Necros' soldiers. But shouldn't this ability be attributed to smell or thermal vision? What do you think?
3% - magical perception. These see only heroes and units with a mana reserve, as well as any spells cast upon them (sometimes it's better to modestly refrain from casting, and here mana-drinking ghosts will be very useful — they themselves are invisible)! Let's give this skill to the Mage race, and perhaps to summonable mythical neutrals.
1% - clairvoyance. Out of 256 types of units, one percent is exactly 2 units across all races. One of them is the Thief (Wayfarer race). They know the truth by themselves. The second remains in reserve: we will think of one later for some other race.
Magic is assigned a very important role in transforming perception. The first thing that comes to mind are Illusions. Then all sorts of Flashes, Blindness, Eclipses, Mists, Thunders (by the way, the Thunder Bird), i.e., things that mislead individual units. We will have to work on the spells so that every race has something "up its sleeve."
When creating a unit, its type of perception should be specified. I think we should also allow the existence of creatures with several types of sensory organs: he was blinded, but he went to fight by sound. This will increase their resilience and, again, bring new elements into the game!
I decided to dedicate today's issue to the problem of perception, or more specifically, the sensory organs of monsters. To start, I want to ask: do you like the very possibility that some units might not see others at point-blank range, with all the ensuing consequences (inability to attack + blind retaliation)?
Just imagine: a vampire has only just begun to desecrate his dinner, when suddenly a cold-blooded reptile sneaks up and delivers a powerful blow to the back (or to the forehead - it doesn't matter). The poor guy instantly loses his appetite, transforms, and begins to look around frantically for the offender. He'll be lucky if he manages to detect the enemy in the ultrasonic range. Otherwise, all hope lies with less advanced partners (like zombies or skeletons)!
In this example, I jumped ahead a bit so that you could understand the point — not everything in the world is arranged so simply, and being in the skin of one monster or another is not all sunshine and rainbows! But let's return to our conversation.
The sensation of the world depends on perception:
Human - sees everything in colors.
Dogs - only black and white.
Snakes - infrared imaging.
Bats - reflected ultrasound.
Owls, Eagles - react instantly to movement.
Boars - rely on smell.
In battle, it would look like this: when passing the turn to the next unit, those units that are outside its perception zone disappear from the battlefield. That is, only visible targets remain for attack.
It's worth adding a hint possibility here. Suppose an enemy's malicious archer skipped a turn and hid. Your keen-eyed eagles have stopped discerning the desired target and are circling above in confusion. But then an ordinary peasant, who joined the army for some unknown reason, whistles instead of moving and points the eagles to the correct cell. The enemy suddenly appears, and the aviation is already diving on him in a deadly spin... But what if this peasant had been shot at the very beginning!..
To avoid confusion, I suggest keeping the ratio of various sensory organs in monsters within the following limits (the numbers are approximate for now):
80% of all units - normal vision. Transforming factors such as light and darkness; Blindness, Invisibility, and Illusion magic affect this.
7% - thermal vision: they see warm-blooded and hot creatures (fire elementals, demons of the Inferno race), but not cold-blooded reptiles and not Death. Moreover, light and darkness do not play a big role, but fire magic, in theory, should mislead them — let's put up a Wall of Fire, and then what???
5% - react to movement (or hearing)??? Perhaps the ability of Wood Elves to move silently should be categorized here.
4% - see life forces inside the body, or how living blood flows. The dead sense the living! Undeniably, this is half of Necros' soldiers. But shouldn't this ability be attributed to smell or thermal vision? What do you think?
3% - magical perception. These see only heroes and units with a mana reserve, as well as any spells cast upon them (sometimes it's better to modestly refrain from casting, and here mana-drinking ghosts will be very useful — they themselves are invisible)! Let's give this skill to the Mage race, and perhaps to summonable mythical neutrals.
1% - clairvoyance. Out of 256 types of units, one percent is exactly 2 units across all races. One of them is the Thief (Wayfarer race). They know the truth by themselves. The second remains in reserve: we will think of one later for some other race.
Magic is assigned a very important role in transforming perception. The first thing that comes to mind are Illusions. Then all sorts of Flashes, Blindness, Eclipses, Mists, Thunders (by the way, the Thunder Bird), i.e., things that mislead individual units. We will have to work on the spells so that every race has something "up its sleeve."
When creating a unit, its type of perception should be specified. I think we should also allow the existence of creatures with several types of sensory organs: he was blinded, but he went to fight by sound. This will increase their resilience and, again, bring new elements into the game!
