Fantasy Friday XXII - Homelands of Gokkholm
 

Hello everyone! :) Welcome to Fantasy Friday XXII - that's 22 for all you non-Romans. Today, as promised, we'll finally be giving our orc players some love with 21 new screenshots of the three orc homeland regions. Each of these regions offers a distinct environment and advantages/disadvantages, so choose carefully! For more information on how homelands work or the human homelands, please check out Fantasy Friday 17.

Be sure to vote for your favorite and post any thoughts you have - we're always open to feedback and we love to hear what you liked.


In the far south of the Orcish Realm of Gokkhelm is a barren desert region called Brakental. According to legend, a disgraced orc warrior in the Older Times was exiled from Flattan Rol. But he was allowed to choose the uninhabited

As a tribalistic society, the Orcs engage in combat to evaluate worth. When trekking to your future homeland, the town's Advisor will challenge you to combat. If you can impress him, the town is yours.

land in which he would spend the rest of his life. Out of defiance, he chose the most brutal wasteland known to his people: Brakental. As he arrived there, a thunderstorm was forming overhead. There was a flash of lightning. And where it struck the earth, his mate emerged from the smoking sand. It is from these two ferocious souls that the Orcs of Brakental trace their lineage.

Desert Orcs are a melee fighting race. Those who live here pride themselves on their distance from inferior races like elves and humans, with whom they have little or no contact. Any other hardy souls who likewise wish to express their scorn at the inferior races of Mythador are always welcome to carve a lordship for themselves from these blazing deserts.

Desert players have to rely on Slayers, Berserkers, Ogres, Goblins, and Wargs, with very little ranged unit support. Easy access to gold and cheaper research allows them to upgrades easily. However, they are poor with sieges, and very bad at defending strongholds. With lots of Ogres and Wargs, their best defense is a good offense. Their economy is based on breeding Wargs and ravaging areas of all

Orc Homelands start with two Huts, a battalion of Marauders, and a battalion of Laborers. Overtime, the Huts will automatically train additional worker units.

resources.

Needless to say, there is very little forest in this desert region. However, there are a good number of gold mines and stone mines. There is plenty of open space for castle building, but with natural defenses and choke points are also plentiful. Hunting opportunities are limited, with very few deer.

Economic Bonus:
-Unlike other Orcs, the creatures of Brakental are skilled at mining. Gold and Stone Gathering Rates get a +25% boost.

Similar to the humans' healing wells, the orc homelands have two healing springs in their proximity. If you can fight off their defenders, their power is yours.

-Forced to use their own creatures for food, the Desert Orcs can harvest Wargs with great skill, food gathering rate boost of 50% higher.

Economic Penalty:
-Lack of experience with wood gathering and conventional hunting has left these rates reduced by 25%.

Research Adjustment:
-Innovative and quick-witted, Desert Orcs enjoy an Upgrades and Research bonus of 25% less cost.

Buildings Price Adjustment:
-Among their adjustments to desert life is the ability to get by with less wood. Consequently, walls require 30% less wood.

Unit Price Adjustments:
-Other adaptations to the harsh Brakental environment include more cheaply recruited Slayers and Berserkers, who require 25% less gold. Ogres and Wargs require no food at all to produce, only gold.

Military Bonus:
-Many years of melee combat experience has produced Melee Units with +25% armor rating, although this does not include pierce armor.
-Units trained in Brakental are unbelievably tough and can travel great distances much faster than any other Orc relatives. Ogres and Goblins have a speed bonus of 40% faster, and Orcs have a speed bonus of +20%.


According to Orcish Lore, an Orc is created every time lighting strikes the ground. This is how, in the Older Time, the first Orc ancestors were created here in Flattan Rol,

The Homeland Advisor, an NPC, will greet you and give you your initial quests and advice.

and from them were descended the Orcish Race. To this day, they live by the Ethos of Warriors who are born from lightning and earth. Flattan Rol is still considered to be the original Orc Homeland, and the great fortress here is named Makkada, which means the Mother Womb.

Swamp Orcs are massive in size, and have ready access to mounts. However, due to their limited opportunities to learn combat in a wide variety of settings, they are often not the best warriors.

During the War of the Lost Kings, Flattan Rol provided vast quantities of troops that surged in waves across the Human Realm of Teria.

Some early homeland-based quests to introduce you to the game mechanics and city-building.

As a result, the defeat of the Orcs in Rolling Plains left vast tracts of this region unpopulated, therefore there is now a great deal of open land now, ready to be settled by Orc Players.

This region is never short on food, and will provide a steady supply of gold and wood. Swamp Orcs are quite well balanced in all regards and can amass large numbers of cheaper, less upgraded units. But they also have the best Orcish mounted force, as well as having a horde of Wargs of great strength and great food value.

Economic Bonus:
-Hunting and Warg Gathering come naturally to the Orcs of Flattan Rol, they get a +25% gathering rate. The swamps are very well suited to Wargs, therefore Warg Growth Rate is 30% faster, with double maximum food values.

Economic Penalty:
-Although there are sufficient gold and stone mines here, this is not an activity swamp orcs are skilled at, incurring a gold and stone gathering rate penalty of 25% less.

Research Adjustment:

A gold mine, deep within the swamp and protected by a wild Ogre.

-Research does not come easily to the Swamp Orcs, thereby military upgrades incur a 25% cost increase.

Buildings Price Adjustment:
-Default Orc Building Costs.

Unit Price Adjustments:
-The Orcish Race in Flattan Rol is not particularly demanding of its military recruits, so they can be trained cheap and fast. All units receive a -25% build-time speed bonus, and cost 25% less gold.

Military Bonus:
-The Warg of Flattan Rol is definitely a creature to be reckoned with. They receive +50% Hit points and attack damage. Mounted units that are bred here are also formidable, receiving a 25% more hitpoints and attack damage.


In the Older Time, a small band of orcs pushed as far west from Makkada as they dared without being killed by the retched Humans and Dragons who dominate

A just-created homeland in the Winter, with some Marauders hunting the plentiful deer of this region.

Western Mythador. There, in the west, they found an uninhabited forest; or at least, if it was inhabited, they soon corrected the situation. They dubbed it Thikken Dal and settled here, and thus were born the Forest Orcs. It is said that some of their descendants ventured even further west, into the Dragon Realm, and formed an unnatural alliance there. Those stories have never been confirmed.

A Thikken Dal homeland, as seen from the MMORTS World Map.

Back in Thikken Dal, however, the Forest Orcs developed into great archers. Thus, the Thikken Dal player will rely on using a lot of ranged units and will have access to free tough Goblins. The Forest Orcs secretly studied the fortress building skills of the humans as well. They built a formidable city called Ral Nistro, and also became quite good at besieging strongholds. Consequently they are the best orcs for laying sieges, and are good with defence of their own strongholds as well. Although they perform poorly in open field combat.

Thikken Dal was never very densely populated to begin with, and during the War of the Lost Kings the Forest Orcs sent many divisions of soldiers to fight the Humans. As a result, wide tracts of land are now open for settlement.

Economic Bonus:
-Forest Orcs excel at woodland skills, therefore Wood Gathering and Food Gathering Rates get are 20% faster.
-Harvesting wood will be the primary resource here, supplemented by a few gold mines and abundant herds of deer.

Economic Penalty:
-Like most Orcs, mining does not come readily to them. Stone and Gold Gathering Rates suffer a -25% penalty.

Research Adjustment:

Some Marauder scout the surroundings and come across a pack of rogue orcs and several more herds of deer.

-Default Orcish Research Costs.

Buildings Price Adjustment:
-Building with wood is a skill the forest orcs have mastered nicely, thus wall construction requires 30% less wood.

Unit Price Adjustments:
-Forest Orcs excel at hit and run tactics, thus the Marauders can be recruited at 50% less cost, since Goblins thrive in the swamplands, they can be recruited for cheap.

Military Bonus:
-Expertise in defensive military skills gives +25% more Hitpoints and Armor boosts to every Goblin and Marauder.

Just seeing the pictures makes me think scorched earth policy all over. Ever consider penalizing a race playing vs the orcs for such a reason? I can't wait to get my home cities up and running. I like how the armor bonuses make up for weaker units in other areas.

Like the update. Would either pick Brakental or Thikken Dal. Brakendal cause they wield the better units, but their stronghold sucks, and Thikken Dal is really the opposite. Really a hard choice.:(

If I did decide to play the Orcs I think I would choose Brakental. For the stronger units.

These are AMAZING :) But the strongholds look a bit cluttered, I know thats the point of the orcs but still... :( :p

I dont know where I would go actually!!! :o They are all good!!! I may go with Brakental though!! :)

Thank you so much guys!!! :)

These is a really good showcase and I'm not sure which homeland I would choose, I really like the scenery of Flattan Rol but I like how the orcs of Thikken Dal seem to be. As orcs, I would most likely not do a whole lot of pvp, mostly only quests and skirmishes with other races. This really made me excited about orcs just a little bit more, but still excited. I think that orcs will be my most played race, other than elves of course. Humans don't really attract me in a fantasy game that much, they have to be really unique.

I'll probably choose one of the second two, just to get a feel for all races eventually. In any case, great screens. I really like some of the scenery, and the different strongholds look fairly balanced, in a basically similiar (but with obviously different bonuses) way to humans. Great job with it, keep up the great work on the game.

Thanks for the comments. :)

If they look cluttered, it's because I'm cluttered. ;) Remember that orc players can build buildings wherever they want so they have the most control. Mine look cluttered because I tried to get everything inside my walls and didn't send many of my units off to roam the world map.

To bad you don´t have a good screen of the brakental fort walls. Big deciding point for me to is how their stronghold will look.

Even though i think orc will be the last race to play im havent trouble on deciding what ones to go for, i like the forest region Thikken Dal because i think it would look awsome and seems ta good choice. But i look at Brakental and think they look awsome and excatly how i would picture orcs to be/play as. so its between them 2..