Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars - Official Thread

Zaroph

@Zaroph To me it seems like that some territories are maybe a bit to small, taking into consideration that two armies consisting of several unit types and allies might stack up and go into a single territory, containing yet another big army. Maybe you should consider 50-75% larger map? Or 50% larger map and 25% smaller units?

Although I agree that their are territories that are small in size which is why I was thinking of decreasing the unit size by some %, I think part of the problem is that in WoW, their are areas of interest that are typically a questing hub or some sort of camp of monsters, and between these are passing by areas with generic area appropriate monsters. So when drawing borders on the map, the territories are centred on the areas of interest and so the size of the tripleA territories ive done is limited by the size of the area of interest and whats around it. I think a good example of this is Shadowfang Keep and Pyrewood Village in Silverpine forest. Theyre both right next to each other, take up a small amount of room, bordered by the sea and mountain, but theyre very distinct areas that I wouldnt like to merge unless gameplay necessitates it.

Before making the copy of the map i posted, I tried merging similar territories together. E.g. their are 4 farms in north Silverpine Forest, 2 of them have undead and 2 of them have Wolves/Worgan in them so I merged the 2 similar ones together.

I looked for the largest conjoined map of vanillia or TBC available and this was the map I found, which included Kalimdor on the other side which I have cropped out. The size of the in-game map at the moment is 5058x4500. Since only the right half is used its more like 2500x4500. The thought of increasing the map size hasnt occured to me, but I imagine doing a large increase like 25%-75% would stretch it and make it not look nice? But I guess the only thing to do is try it in combination with a unit decrease to find a good solution.

Also, the units look good besides jagged edges of the circles. I hope you have kept all the original unit pictures without the circles. I guess that they are much larger. Then you can make much larger circles and with a graphical program scale them down to the wanted size, before or after adding unit avatars. If you need help with unit work. I will gladly help if/when I got time

After looking at other maps and considering the size of the map, I decided to make the units 50x50 pixels in size. So I set the options in the properties folder to be 50 height/50 width, and then I made the final images to be a 50 pixel diameter circle. The two sets of black edges on the circles are a single pixel in size. Would it look less jaggered if I say, made the coloured border circle 500x500 pixels and then made them 10% smaller?

PS: Map work is much more important at this stage of the creation process, as you can always return to the detail of unit pictures.

Yeah changing anything on the map leads to having to start up gimp and do editing, run the map creator in tripleA to generate the center and polygon files, whereas for the code I just pop it in easily.

Frostion

If you really want to be true to the small areas of WoW (I like the idea ) and make them their own territories in TripleA, then you should really make the map like 100% bigger. You could make a map like 9000x9000 if you cut the water (if this is the intention?). I don't really think that the less sharp map image is huge problem, actually the bit blurred background might make the details less eye-catching and help the players keep focus on the units and borders. I get the impression that quite a few players actually don't like detail and sometimes turn details off all together. (you should also prepare the map to look at least decent without details turned on)

50x50 is ok unit size, but you can go as large as 54x54 without units becoming too big to show in menus and windows (larger than 54x54 will get pixels cut during various displays)

It would be much better if the units were like 500×500 and then scaled down to what you want. Gimp should do a fine job. You can also scale you original unit avatars up/down to fit the large circles and then scale it all down at ounce. When I made my Dragon War images, I added the small unit type symbols (like L and H) afterwards. Sadly I did not use Gimp when I made my units, but I used an inferior program and I am not that satisfied with he sharpness of my units and circle edges. So I actually think your units could be made to look better.

I know it is tedious work redoing stuff, but I am sure you will find the end result all worth it

Zaroph

Its been a couple months since I posted an update and truthfully I havent done any more work on the map, mostly due to being disheartened after finding the initial graphic work I did was too small.

However due to the recent world events I find myself with lots more free time and more spirit to continue so their will be more updates.

Hepps

@Zaroph said in Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars - Official Thread:

Its been a couple months since I posted an update and truthfully I havent done any more work on the map, mostly due to being disheartened after finding the initial graphic work I did was too small.

Don't get disheartened. My first two projects had to be essentially taken back to the drawing board after my initial attempts were fraught with issues. Persisting on and seeing it to the end will more than compensate for whatever frustrations you might be feeling right now.

Cernel

@Zaroph Melius abundare quam deficere.:smiling_face_with_halo:

Zaroph

After finding motivation over the past 2/3 weeks Ive been resuming this project by doing bits of work every now and then.
Now, the first version is almost complete. The only remaining major thing to do is finishing the notes section so that a player is clear about everything in the map.

And also minor things like:

Removing the PU values of mountains that I've missed.
Unit placements in Gilneas, Hinterlands and East Plaguelands.
Custom placements for a few territories so that they dont start overstacking after the first placement. (This can be seen in the top right of my second screenshot)
Making some units for future factions that are in Lordaeron, such as Dwarves which control Dun Garok and Aerie Peak so that those territories have unit presences.

After releasing a initial 0.1a version, there are other short term goals I have in mind before hopefully proceeding to do my long term goal of doing the entire Eastern Kingdoms area:

Look at the base line stats of units + support/targeted attacks once again since this was a depriotised thing for me since its much simpler and easy to change. My suspicion from initial testing is that after the early land grabs and fights, its difficult to relocate units to other fronts so I was thinking of having a timed event on turn 10/15 that increases the movement of units by 1.
Probably look at sea zones again since I did them rather arbitrary and I have a feeling that some of them have poor sizes and connections.
Add in 2 (3 if spawned by another) unique units for each faction. This is tricky in some cases, but one that I am sure on is the "Scourge" faction having a "Necromancer" unit that either creates free weak "Skeletons" per turn or interacts in some manner with the # of TUV or PU destroyed in a battle containing it.
Add in some sort of unique mechanic for each faction. In this case, I am relatively sure on one of them: The "TrollTribes" faction will be able to select which major and minor tribes they start the game with, with an option to have them all (if a player wants to and probably for the ai) and a option that limits the numbers they can pick.
After this, write some random events such as "Faction gains/loses X/Y/Z PU", neutral faction related events such as bandit raids spawning bandit units or murloc raids spawning murloc units on a coast territory etc.

2 Latest screenshots.

ff03k64

Is this downloadable yet? Thanks!

Zaroph

I finally got motivation to finish off the first version of this map for download. The thing that I really didnt want to do was writing the game notes out since after I did it, I didnt save it on notepad+ but for some reason it disappeared the next time I opened it so I had to do it all again.

Ill follow Frostions guide to upload it to the repository.

TheDog

Personally I would write the Game notes in a word-processer with images if needed and save it as a png
here is the xml code
<property name="notes">
<value>
<![CDATA[
<html>
<body bgcolor="050505" align="left">
<div style="padding:10px;"text-align:justify;">
<br>
<center><img src="Game_Notes.png"/></center>
</body>
</html>
]]>
</value>
</property>

and put the Game_Notes.png file here
\your_map_name-here\doc\images

Greg Anderson

@Zaroph Great map!
The game was initially unplayable due to unit name mistakes, though they can easily be corrected. I also modified certain units from each main faction to give each of them a more unique feel.

Here are the unit changes I made for each faction. Most factions have two units with major (two) modifications and two units with minor (one) modifications.

Scourge
Caster (2/10 AA Att) (-1 Power to 3)
Battleship (+1 Att) (+1 Def)
(Production) +1 Air Unit (Each Turn)
Tower (2x5 Def)

Scarlet Crusade
Cavalry (+1 Def) (4/10 Charge Att)
Siege (5/10 AA Att) (+1 Att)
Light Infantry (-1 PU)
Battleship (+1 Transport)

Trolls
Heavy Infantry (+1 Att) (+1 Leadership to 2)
(Production) +2 Light Infantry Units (Each Turn)
Frigate (+1 Def)
Caster (+1 Att)

Dalaran
Light Infantry (2/10 AA Def) (+1 Def)
Tower (3x4 Def) (Produce 2 Units)
Ranged (3/10 AA Def)
Cavalry (+1 Att)

Forsaken
Air (+1 Att) (+1 Def)
Transport (+1 Def) (+1 Transport)
Heavy Infantry (+1 Def)
Siege (-1 PU)

Blood Elves
Ranged (+1 Def) (-1 PU)
Frigate (+1 Att) (-1 PU)
Air (4/10 AA Att)
Transport (+1 Att)

I’m looking forward to playing the map some more.

Zaroph

@Greg-Anderson
The game was initially unplayable due to unit name mistakes, though they can easily be corrected. I also modified certain units from each main faction to give each of them a more unique feel.

Which unit names had mistakes? My own folder works but it might be slightly different to the one on github.

Here are the unit changes I made for each faction. Most factions have two units with major (two) modifications and two units with minor (one) modifications.

Scourge
Caster (2/10 AA Att) (-1 Power to 3)
Battleship (+1 Att) (+1 Def)
(Production) +1 Air Unit (Each Turn)
Tower (2x5 Def)

Scarlet Crusade
Cavalry (+1 Def) (4/10 Charge Att)
Siege (5/10 AA Att) (+1 Att)
Light Infantry (-1 PU)
Battleship (+1 Transport)

Trolls
Heavy Infantry (+1 Att) (+1 Leadership to 2)
(Production) +2 Light Infantry Units (Each Turn)
Frigate (+1 Def)
Caster (+1 Att)

Dalaran
Light Infantry (2/10 AA Def) (+1 Def)
Tower (3x4 Def) (Produce 2 Units)
Ranged (3/10 AA Def)
Cavalry (+1 Att)

Forsaken
Air (+1 Att) (+1 Def)
Transport (+1 Def) (+1 Transport)
Heavy Infantry (+1 Def)
Siege (-1 PU)

Blood Elves
Ranged (+1 Def) (-1 PU)
Frigate (+1 Att) (-1 PU)
Air (4/10 AA Att)
Transport (+1 Att)

I’m looking forward to playing the map some more.

I was wanting to differeniate factions but I wasnt sure as to what degree to do it to. Ill probably differeniate the base units similarly to this when I get around to it.

Greg Anderson

@Zaroph I don't remember the exact unit names that had mistakes, but there were around a dozen of them. The only problem was that some unit names had their first letter capitalized, which caused an error.

Anyway, it isn't a big deal. I'm looking forward to playing the entire Eastern Kingdoms.

Zaroph

Over the past week I added the rest of the map and the first version is a beautiful mess.

Unfortunately my 4gb memory computer struggles to run it in any meaningful time so I will probably wait awhile before working on it again since I am looking for a new graphics card for a new pc that isnt overpriced.

TheDog

If you feel like disabling some services and freeing up some valuable RAM download as an Excel file and Disable all the "Safe" for DESKTOP services go here
http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/

This might tide you over till the graphics card arrives.

Greg Anderson

@Zaroph Looks great! Is the new version available yet?

Zaroph

If you feel like disabling some services and freeing up some valuable RAM download as an Excel file and Disable all the "Safe" for DESKTOP services go here
http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/

This might tide you over till the graphics card arrives.

Thanks Ill look into this though I use windows 8.1 but I imagine theres some overlap in the services.

@Zaroph Looks great! Is the new version available yet?

I rushed the map out so its missing some things like sea zones, proper transparacy, tweaks to map zones Ive come up with etc but I can link it here for you tho its incomplete.

TheDog

@Zaroph
Just in case you did not find your version.
http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-8-1-service-configurations/

gr8gamerguy

I don't know if there is a more recent thread, this is the only one I found.
First of all, love the map and all the detail; a real labor of love.
Playing to victory seems difficult due to the sheer magnitude of opponents and map size, but I like this map for the long game. Earlier post mentioned increasing movement mid-game, but I wouldn't worry about that. Just leave movement the way it is. In fact, a few of your tunnel solutions to help with this I think should be removed. Even though they help to move armies into conflict, some of them don't seem natural to the terrain. Also, some tunnels are not marked and other territory adjacencies are not connected. Here is what I've noted so far:

Unmarked tunnels to Remove - Grom'Gol Base Camp to Brill, Silvermoon City to Undercity, Stormwind to Ironforge, Wetland Road to Mosshide Wetland & The Green Belt & Direforge Hill, and Stonewatch Keep to Shalewind Canyon & Render's Valley.

Unmarked tunnels to Edit - Firewatch Ridge to Frostmane Hold (should be Firewatch Ridge to Frostmane Hovel), Westbrook Garrison to Goldshire & Stonefield Farm (should only be Westbrook Garrison to Stonefield Farm), and Dun Algaz to Algaz Station (should be Dun Algaz to Algaz Gate).

Marked tunnels to Edit - Revantusk Village to Shaol'Watha (Revantusk Village is connecting to Hinterland High Road by mistake).

Unmarked tunnels to Mark - Sea of Cinders to Blackrock Path, Whelping Downs to Thunder Falls, Render's Camp to Draco'Dar, Galardell Valley to Blackrock Pass, Grimeilt Dig site to Apocryphan's Rest, Western Dun Morogh to Newman's Landing, Coldridge Pass to Anvilmar, Dun Morogh Airfield to Amberstill Ranch, Valley of Kings to Stonewrought Pass, South Gate Outpost to Valley of Kings, North Gate Outpost to Algaz Station, and Wetlands Farm to Whelgar's Excavation Site.

Tunnel Suggestion - Flame Crest to Camp Cagg

Terrain adjacency missing Connections - Deadwind Pass to Kyross (this is most critical since it is the only way to reach The Burning Legion army HQ), Lordamere River to Lordamere Lake, North Darrowmere River to South Darrowmere River, Twilight Camp to Loch Isles & Twilight Camp to Silver Stream Mine (AI can move from Lock Isles to Twilight Camp, but I cannot duplicate), Twilight Grove to Tanglefoot Junction (acquiring dragon egg or aspect shard impossible; Grove Mountain and Twilight Grove seem to be two territories, but function as if only one territory: Grove Mountain), and Mosshide Fen to Mosshide Wetland.

Terrain with no connection except by sea - Dwarf Farm
Terrain with no connection except by sea & sea not complete - Fuselight by the sea, Yojamba Isle, Jaguero Isle.

Non-coast terrain AI can unload troops from transport, but player cannot duplicate - Darrowmere Lake to The Writhing Haunt, Overlook River to Seradane, SZ19or SZ20 to Stormglen Village, SZ8 or SZ9 to East Darrowmere Range (mountain terrain. In fact, it seems all Hero Units can move into mountains when they shouldn't be able to. And Burning Legion Dimensional Portals can only move limited production units or summoned units across mountains, not unlimited production units; thus keeping the Burning Legion trapped in the Dark Portal/Temple of Atal'Hakkar region).

gr8gamerguy

Other problems:
Burning Legion - 1) Nathrezim and unique hero air units(all stealth units) cannot attack other air units, but can be attacked in return. 2) Any capturable buildings captured by Burning Legion become MISSING UNIT IMAGE. If later captured by other army, become captured by them. 3) Dimensional Portals can be captured by other armies, but become MISSING UNIT IMAGE and cannot transport; though they can be moved. 4) Eye of Sargeras artifact not found on map to be captured and complete a goal. 5) Goal to summon the burning legion nearly impossible to complete with all artifacts scattered so far from Burning Legion forces. 6) Kil'Jaeden god hero unit no better than a Man'ari limited caster unit; should have improved stats. 7) Tol Barad territory starts with Burning Legion as original owner, but terrain is in conflict without enemy unit present. Annihilan unit cannot move nor capture the the neutral Eye of Dalaran artifact until another army sends a unit to attack. Unclear what occurs that make the hero unit 'Doom Lord Kazzak' or 'Supreme Lord Kazzak' available for purchase; they just appeared for purchase and don't know why. 9) Can purchase Doom Lord Kazzak while Lord Kazzak is still in play. If Doom Lord Kazzak is purchased, Supreme Lord Kazzak is still available for purchase (but not vice versa); can have all three versions of Kazzak in play at the same time. 10) Goal to open the dark portal also difficult to complete by controlling three of the four aspect shards, but doing so does not ever prompt to pay the 100PU and complete the mission. (Controlled 3 shards for 22 turns; no prompt) 11) cannot place a Demon Gate where a Nathrezim unit or unique hero air unit resides. 12) figured out the Nathrezim and unique hero air units can only place infernal_summoned units, not other types of units; need to add this detail somewhere. (The Scarlet Crusade unique units Balnazzar and Mal'Ganis can place any units up to territory base unit production). 13) Infernal_summoned units seem to be the same as regular infernal units, but they are not. Sometimes they seem to not be affected by terrain modifiers, sometimes not affected by leadership bonuses from Hero or Demi-Hero units. Not clear what is happening, but they are not treated the same as regular Infernal units. 14) Hero and Demi-Hero units provide leadership bonuses to regular units, but not to other hero units. 15) Burning Legion attacked Dark Horde in terrain Grim Batol; barracks was selected as a casualty. 16) suggestion: elaborate more on text for Goal. example; need to possess required artifacts for two turns, then Kil'Jaeden (caster hero), Man'ari (caster demon), Nathrezim (air unit & summoner), 3 archers and 3 air units will appear in the Sunwell Plateau territory.

Scarlet Crusade - 1) After Bridgette Abbendis enters play, error message 'MISSING UNIT IMAGE ScarletCrusadeBridgitteAbbendisSwitch in empty' constantly pops up, even after she is killed and no longer in play.

Scourge - 1) beginning of turn, Scourge check for Dragon Egg seems to check Seradane territory for ownership; if captured by other army, appears to no longer check. 2) only three of the four territories with dragon eggs can be captured (Scourge cannot capture Twilight Grove since it acts like it is Grove Mountain territory instead); Temple of Atal'Hakkar cannot be accessed except by hero units moving through mountains (or adding Scourge units in region). 3) Temple of Atal'Hakkar and dragon egg acts weird; if Troll player selects Gurubashi Tribe and controls Temple of Atal'Hakkar, dragon egg and shard disappear. Later, 22 dragon eggs will appear (one per army in game). If Scourge capture after this, can end up converting all 22 eggs into Frost Wyrms. 4) Sindragosa icon has an A and H for air unit and hero, but Sindragosa is a land unit. should be H and H. 5) Goal expelling the scarlet crusade has opportunity to provide six additional demi-hero Death Knights. If four already purchased, this ends up being a huge advantage for Scourge; especially since no PU purchase to acquire goal reward. 6) Goal elaborations: A) Arthas becomes the Lich King - Arthas is removed, Lich King (God Hero), Marwyn (Demi-hero), 3 heavy infantry, and 3 light infantry will appear in Stratholme Harbour, and 1 Battleship, 2 Destroyers, and 3 Transports will appear in SZ40. B) Raise Sindragosa - appears in Stratholme Harbour. C) Deploy Acherus the Ebon Hold - appears in The Noxious Glade

Other - 1) Why check for air battle when no units have stats for air battle. 2) Why do some battles allow retreats and others do not; could not figure out pattern or relationship. 3) Why does capture of Ogre capital in Ruins of Alterac transfer Ogre PU to capturing army, but other minor race capitals do not (Gnoll Pack in Fenris Keep, Murloc Tribes in South Tide's Run, Bandit Syndicates in Stromgarde Keep, Spider Broods in Venomweb Vale, Worgen Packs in Shadowfang Keep, Ghost Haunts in Darrowshire, Kobold Nests in Drywhisker Gorge, Elemental Thrones in Circle of East Binding, and Wretched Outcasts in Ruins of Silvermoon). 4) Wretched Outcast production buildings are not captured, instead become MISSING UNIT IMAGE. Seems to also affect Gnoll Pack; maybe others. 5) Many 2hp units do not have a damaged image. 6) Place a Tower in a port or shipyard, and land units can be produced up to territory production value.

Zaroph

@gr8gamerguy

I don't know if there is a more recent thread, this is the only one I found.
First of all, love the map and all the detail; a real labor of love.
Playing to victory seems difficult due to the sheer magnitude of opponents and map size, but I like this map for the long game. Earlier post mentioned increasing movement mid-game, but I wouldn't worry about that. Just leave movement the way it is. In fact, a few of your tunnel solutions to help with this I think should be removed. Even though they help to move armies into conflict, some of them don't seem natural to the terrain. Also, some tunnels are not marked and other territory adjacencies are not connected. Here is what I've noted so far:

Yeah this is the most recent thread. I dont post much because when I work on this I do it in small chunks when an idea comes to me, though it leads to some stuff being done only partially as I stop working on that segment to do something else and more important feature creep as I went from adding elite units to hero units to event chains. Im really glad you enjoy the map and I can see you do by the amount of issues youve noticed LOL. Also thank you for writing so much in response.

On the topic of victory, for most strategy games there just comes a point against a AI that you can confidently say "Ive won" so for this sort of fun silly game, I would intend for someone to play til: they get bored, they reach the stage that they believe theyve won or they aim for the faction objectives and events.

On the topic about connections, because I just decided to randomly upload the version I previously had it was still massively incomplete and is missing lots of things like the graphics that I use for tunnels/bridges in certain areas. This also extends to most other things like Kil'Jaedan having the same stats as man'ari... because I just copy pasted them and hadnt yet at the time thought what the standard statline of hero/god units would be. Another example would be I hadnt updated the variable list to include all the faction units added after the original 6 so e.g. they can walk over mountains.

If Ive left something out in my response then its because I agree and I've removed it or it was related to being incomplete like infernal_summon not being in the variable list so it doesnt get terrain bonus.

I will explain the reasoning for some of the connections:

Grom'Gol Base Camp to Brill

This one and some others represent the Horde Zeppelins. Ive since added an intermediate Zeppelin territory that the Horde factions only can move thru to the other locations.

Silvermoon City to Undercity

This one represents the orb of translocation but I dont have anything that graphically shows it other then in the game notes.

Stormwind to Ironforge

This one represents the Deeprun Tram and ive sinced added a intermediate territory that links them.

Unmarked tunnels to Edit - Firewatch Ridge to Frostmane Hold (should be Firewatch Ridge to Frostmane Hovel)

This really makes me laugh because they have such similar names, just reading this I now remember getting confused over them several months ago as well.

Tunnel Suggestion - Flame Crest to Camp Cagg

This is a good idea and I like it more then removing the nearby mountains so theres another passageway thru.

Terrain with no connection except by sea - Dwarf Farm

I made this one intentional and I think its the only "land island" on the map, mostly because the actual secret area is so out of the way and isolated.

Non-coast terrain AI can unload troops from transport, but player cannot duplicate - Darrowmere Lake to The Writhing Haunt, Overlook River to Seradane, SZ19or SZ20 to Stormglen Village, SZ8 or SZ9 to East Darrowmere Range

Terrain adjacency missing Connections - Twilight Camp to Loch Isles & Twilight Camp to Silver Stream Mine (AI can move from Lock Isles to Twilight Camp, but I cannot duplicate), ),

Ive also noticed this and im not completely sure what causes it. I think it might be something to do with the canals and an option not being set for AI to conform to it.

And Burning Legion Dimensional Portals can only move limited production units or summoned units across mountains, not unlimited production units; thus keeping the Burning Legion trapped in the Dark Portal/Temple of Atal'Hakkar region).

I didnt want to give the legion ships but they obviously need a way of transporting over water so I thought a portal would be a thematic air transportation. I need to have a relook at it since it didnt work to my initial satsifaction.

Nathrezim and unique hero air units(all stealth units) cannot attack other air units, but can be attacked in return.

These units are a pain to do because I wanted to keep there thematic stealth, but if I remember correctly the isSub option makes it so they cant move thru units, so I made them air so they could move thru and it leads to more problems. Ill have a relook at them.

Goal to summon the burning legion nearly impossible to complete with all artifacts scattered so far from Burning Legion forces.

The very first things I started doing was for Burning Legion so since Ive changed course in regards to the scope I will change this as well since it was originally meant to be the big bad hard accomplishment that you had to do but its changed now.

Can purchase Doom Lord Kazzak while Lord Kazzak is still in play. If Doom Lord Kazzak is purchased, Supreme Lord Kazzak is still available for purchase (but not vice versa); can have all three versions of Kazzak in play at the same time.

This is kinda funny since he was the first bit of event coding I did so I assumed it would have some jank to it.

Temple of Atal'Hakkar and dragon egg acts weird; if Troll player selects Gurubashi Tribe and controls Temple of Atal'Hakkar, dragon egg and shard disappear. Later, 22 dragon eggs will appear (one per army in game). If Scourge capture after this, can end up converting all 22 eggs into Frost Wyrms.

This sounds really funny I have no idea why one for each faction would spawn lol. Though its an easy thing to make it belong to the trolls if they start there.

Goal expelling the scarlet crusade has opportunity to provide six additional demi-hero Death Knights. If four already purchased, this ends up being a huge advantage for Scourge; especially since no PU purchase to acquire goal reward.

The faction differeniation that I did for Scourge was making there units cheaper but weaker and I also wanted to add the thematic part of them rising dead paladins back to unlife. And now that I think about it, it is basically a reward that lets you win harder when youre already winning so yeah I will remove it.

Other - 1) Why check for air battle when no units have stats for air battle. 2) Why do some battles allow retreats and others do not; could not figure out pattern or relationship.

I am not 100% certain on how battle phases are used in tripleA so if I remember correctly I copied another xml setting and havent tinkered with the battle phases in case they broke something.

This is what the map currently looks like:
Along with the map Ive fixed lots of things and tried do alot more differenitation between factions. I 99% completed Twilights Hammer, Dark Iron Clan and Dark Horde factions. Yay 3/15 done. Easier for me to do evil factions since they follow the same pattern of working towards summoning the big bad that they obey. Although I havent really touched Burning Legion since they have 2 really troublesome units to redo and I also decided to add a small outland since when I was brain storming dark portal events for different factions, it seemed much easier to just put them on outland instead.
Theres also things that require writing like the game notes or notifications or user actions that arnt done at all. Theres also wrong/outdated/future information in the game notes which makes it a mess.

I would love to share it with you but I know since 2 factions are missing units right now there will be missing image spam errors amongst other things so I will upload it to github it a week or two when its ready.