Fantasy Friday III - Economies & Resources

[Alex Walz]

Fantasy Friday III – Economies & Resources

Economies in Dawn of Fantasy revolve around four primary resources: food, wood, stone, and gold. Each race features a unique economy, each catering to a different playstyle. Food is typically used in training new soldiers, wood goes toward new buildings, stone goes toward walls, towers, and siege, and gold is used for toward select units and upgrades.

The humans have a traditional RTS economy with the peasant as the standard villager unit. They gather food from farms or livestock, mine stone and gold, and chop down trees for wood. Peasants require drop-off points, such as horse carts, mills, or the townhall, for all resources. Unlike the elves or orcs, the humans can build farms on specified plots to provide a constant, but slow, source of food.

Primary Villager Units From Left to Right: Marauder, Peasant, Male Warden, Female Warden, Labourer

The orcs have Labourers and Marauders as their villager units. These units serve as the foundation for not only the orc economy, but the military as well. You can task your huts to train either labourers or marauders, at which point battalions of these worker units will be in constant, automatic production at no cost to you. The marauders are fierce archer huntsmen capable of hunting wildlife; while the labourer units are capable of chopping wood, mining stone and gold and building buildings anywhere on the map in an open space – not restricted in building placement like the other two races. Players can send labourers and or marauders into orc military buildings to train them, resulting in them coming out as a new warrior units.

The elven economy is largely automated, especially in late-game, and features the Warden as their standard economic unit. Wardens can be trained as either male or female. Both units are identical in abilities, except the females wield a bow and arrow while the males are melee units. The wardens can gather fruit and mine stone and gold. Being one with their majestic forests, the elves do not chop down trees for wood or hunt the forests’ animals, although they can breed deer to release into the forest in exchange for food. To supplement this, the elves construct their buildings on great trees which provide a constant trickle of wood. Each elven residencies also provide a trickle of a resource of the players’ choice, and, through the Alchemy Lab building, players can trickle some resources into another resource (ie: drain food, wood, and stone, to get a generous trickle of gold). And at the Symbiosis Shrine, players can summon forest spirits, to provide an increased trickle of wood, or spend resources to summon another resource – spend wood and food to summon an enchanted gold mine.

[Darathor]

Nice looking economies! I like how they are all different and interesting in there own way. I particularly like the orcs' economy, with the two different orc worker types and the ability to train them into warriors. 'Tis nifty.

Also, are the wardens and marauders good for fighting at all?

[Jean=A=Luc]

DoF's economy sounds like fun.

Imma trickle me a phat good chain foo!

[Josh Warner]

Originally Posted by Darathor

Nice looking economies! I like how they are all different and interesting in there own way. I particularly like the orcs' economy, with the two different orc worker types and the ability to train them into warriors. 'Tis nifty.

Also, are the wardens and marauders good for fighting at all?

Marauders are an excellent ranged unit of the Orcs in fact. Which makes them a very unique unit. In times of peace they're very productive at what they do, but outside of that they're also an important part of the orc war machine. This will lead to the orc army, which most thought was lacking heavily in the ranged department to having a rather large contingent of archers in their city. Which lends itself quite nicely to defensive situations where archers gain a bonus to range and damage from the walls.

So unless you don't like food for some reason, the orcs will indeed have a strong defense in the form of the hunter-gatherer marauder.

As for wardens, I haven't actually come to a situation where I've needed them to do anything but gather while playing. The elven rangers patrolling the walls keep my city quite safe. I imagine in a pinch the archer-workers would certainly contribute, as a ranged unit their low health wouldn't be that much of a problem, stick them on a tower not directly in the line of fire. The male wardens however, I doubt they'd be standing up in a fight very long. A militia if anything, certainly not a mainstay like the marauder is to the orcs.

[nickson104]

I have been reinforced in the idea that i am never going to play elves, however you have swayed me more towards orcs than human... They really do sound fun to play...

So Orcs build up troops the fastest at the start of the game? Considering they are costless and basic units...

[Andy Joslin]

Yes, but the more units the orcs have the slower they are to automatically get more from their huts.

Also, marauders alone wouldn't really make a good rushing army; they are pretty flimsy health-wise.

[zach12wqasxz]

so the human economy is the slowest, and weakest?
and also, if the orcs use muaraders for hunting and defense, what happens if they have to leave the city to find food?, and if the player sends all his muaraders in a castle siege? will the player have no income of food? or are maurders THAT easily trained?
very nice pictures and information

[doom132]

So the elves have the slowest economy, the orcs can ether choose army or recourses, and the humans seem to be able to grow there recourses

[Durken]

To give each race its own flavor