Buddy/Ignore List
08-04-2022, 12:53 PM
Ok, let's take a breather here and read the release notes. It mentions that the former fly order #727 has been removed from the game (see attachment or the release notes under Uncle Mike's Corner).
The reason why is that Rick wanted the Flight kingdom trait to be removed and replaced with a general flyer rule (which is why you don't see Flight listed as a trait for BL/RD anymore). This change actually ended up being quite a bit of work on my end to resolve all of the issues associated with flying in the game.
I believe the justification for this change was that there were plans of adding non-flying troops to BL/RD which won't work if the entire BL/RD kingdom was considered to be flyers. For the Fairy Folk kingdom, I was going to make them all flyers as well by only consisting of pixies, sprites, mephits, etc. to avoid such a conflict, but the new layout for flying resolved the issue and I was able to add mythical forest creatures like Ents and Centaurs for them.
So, the issue was how to have a mixture of flying and ground-based troops together in the same kingdom? How to go about that without conflicting the rules of flying?
One issue to resolve was the terrain movement rate. One of the biggest advantages of a flying group is that they have great movement rates like 2.5 per square to travel across the map. Those rates were determined by the Flight kingdom trait which no longer exists in the game. I couldn't allow ground-based troops like Ents to suddenly acquire a flyer's movement rate which would have caused an irregularity in the game.
Then I considered allowing a kingdom like the Fairy Folk to have two movement rates, one for ground-based troops and another for a flying group. After testing this scenario, it became confusing which group was traveling at which movement rate and if I was getting confused, it would have confused the players as well. Also, we have gotten complaints that Alamaze is too complex, if a kingdom showed that they had two movement rates for groups on their setup, that would only worsen that situation for everyone. It really became confusing to play.
So, the decision was made to simplify everything and to have a single movement rate for all groups of that given kingdom regardless if they were all flyers or a combination of flyers/ground-based troops. Even though doing this may cause some complaints that their flyers are not benefiting from having great movement rates like a flyer should. This also applies for Giants on Rocs or Elves on Giant Eagles. Achieving simplicity on the rules of flying would be better for everyone in the long run.
However, doing this would cause another issue of what to do with artifacts like Red Bats or Winged Stallions which aren't really flyers because they specify a single map area like a teleport but are written as being a group that flies. So, for the sake of simplicity in these already overly complex rules of flying of when a group becomes a flyer or not, was to remove the artifact's single "fly-like" teleport from the game and change the status of such groups to be flying at all times.
Which means that such groups that were bestowed the "flying" attribute through Red Bats, Winged Stallions, Rocs, or Eagles, that they should be considered to be flying at all times and benefit as such as noted in every kingdom setup (or see attachment).
So, the confusing aspect of the "fly" order #727 which isn't really flying at all was removed from the game for the sake of simplicity and to normalize all of the conditions for flying which may change at any time throughout a turn.
I was going to add a new flying section in the official rulebook but I figured no one would read that these days, so I added a brand new section on the implications of flying on every kingdom setup for everyone to read and not misunderstand the subject. That worked out well :>
Anyhoo, the former order #727 which really is a teleport, not a flyer, was removed and now groups are constantly checked throughout the turn if their condition changes from being a flyer or not. Like I said, this whole effort became to be much more complicated in the code than Rick's request of to just remove the Flight kingdom trait and everything will be fine.
So, read the flying section on your new kingdom setup to be aware of the fact that your group may become a flyer or lose its flying status at any time. This is important when regarding battles (flying groups get +20% attack vs. pc's due to flying over the battlements), as well as moving the group (to be able to fly over water without requiring fleets but do so at your kingdom's movement rate, not the awesome BL/RD rate). There are a bunch of other advantages for a flying group so read about them in the new release notes or on your kingdom setups for the bonuses that flyers get in the game.
Hope that clears things up. BTW, the Gem of the Planes artifact still operates like a teleport with order #729 as before...
The reason why is that Rick wanted the Flight kingdom trait to be removed and replaced with a general flyer rule (which is why you don't see Flight listed as a trait for BL/RD anymore). This change actually ended up being quite a bit of work on my end to resolve all of the issues associated with flying in the game.
I believe the justification for this change was that there were plans of adding non-flying troops to BL/RD which won't work if the entire BL/RD kingdom was considered to be flyers. For the Fairy Folk kingdom, I was going to make them all flyers as well by only consisting of pixies, sprites, mephits, etc. to avoid such a conflict, but the new layout for flying resolved the issue and I was able to add mythical forest creatures like Ents and Centaurs for them.
So, the issue was how to have a mixture of flying and ground-based troops together in the same kingdom? How to go about that without conflicting the rules of flying?
One issue to resolve was the terrain movement rate. One of the biggest advantages of a flying group is that they have great movement rates like 2.5 per square to travel across the map. Those rates were determined by the Flight kingdom trait which no longer exists in the game. I couldn't allow ground-based troops like Ents to suddenly acquire a flyer's movement rate which would have caused an irregularity in the game.
Then I considered allowing a kingdom like the Fairy Folk to have two movement rates, one for ground-based troops and another for a flying group. After testing this scenario, it became confusing which group was traveling at which movement rate and if I was getting confused, it would have confused the players as well. Also, we have gotten complaints that Alamaze is too complex, if a kingdom showed that they had two movement rates for groups on their setup, that would only worsen that situation for everyone. It really became confusing to play.
So, the decision was made to simplify everything and to have a single movement rate for all groups of that given kingdom regardless if they were all flyers or a combination of flyers/ground-based troops. Even though doing this may cause some complaints that their flyers are not benefiting from having great movement rates like a flyer should. This also applies for Giants on Rocs or Elves on Giant Eagles. Achieving simplicity on the rules of flying would be better for everyone in the long run.
However, doing this would cause another issue of what to do with artifacts like Red Bats or Winged Stallions which aren't really flyers because they specify a single map area like a teleport but are written as being a group that flies. So, for the sake of simplicity in these already overly complex rules of flying of when a group becomes a flyer or not, was to remove the artifact's single "fly-like" teleport from the game and change the status of such groups to be flying at all times.
Which means that such groups that were bestowed the "flying" attribute through Red Bats, Winged Stallions, Rocs, or Eagles, that they should be considered to be flying at all times and benefit as such as noted in every kingdom setup (or see attachment).
So, the confusing aspect of the "fly" order #727 which isn't really flying at all was removed from the game for the sake of simplicity and to normalize all of the conditions for flying which may change at any time throughout a turn.
I was going to add a new flying section in the official rulebook but I figured no one would read that these days, so I added a brand new section on the implications of flying on every kingdom setup for everyone to read and not misunderstand the subject. That worked out well :>
Anyhoo, the former order #727 which really is a teleport, not a flyer, was removed and now groups are constantly checked throughout the turn if their condition changes from being a flyer or not. Like I said, this whole effort became to be much more complicated in the code than Rick's request of to just remove the Flight kingdom trait and everything will be fine.
So, read the flying section on your new kingdom setup to be aware of the fact that your group may become a flyer or lose its flying status at any time. This is important when regarding battles (flying groups get +20% attack vs. pc's due to flying over the battlements), as well as moving the group (to be able to fly over water without requiring fleets but do so at your kingdom's movement rate, not the awesome BL/RD rate). There are a bunch of other advantages for a flying group so read about them in the new release notes or on your kingdom setups for the bonuses that flyers get in the game.
Hope that clears things up. BTW, the Gem of the Planes artifact still operates like a teleport with order #729 as before...