"Your dwindling, nomadic tribe of trolls has just one goal: survival. Plagued by vicious poachers for your precious tusks and weakened by disease, hope is almost lost - until an enigmatic Elven stranger offers you, the young chieftain Akrog, a path to salvation: you must resurrect a fallen god.”
In SpellForce 3: Fallen God, the destiny of the Trolls is in your hands during the 20+ hour campaign. You will discover that their intimidating appearance is not the only unique trait they have in the world of Eo.
During the campaign, you will learn more about the history of the Trolls and their struggle to survive in a hostile world. Today, we are focusing on how they function as a playable faction in SpellForce 3: Fallen God.
Their way of fighting
Even the basic Smasher is a mighty force against Elven combat units.
Fighter Trolls are more powerful than any other military unit and despite being their basic combat unit, a couple of Smashers are able to take down a sizable amount of enemy units. While they focus on simple weaponry, such as clubs and rocks, they deal devastating damage with their sheer strength. Most Trolls know little about actually utilizing magic, but the smartest among them have learned to cast spells, known to them as hexes. While other cultures such as the Elves would look down on these 'hexes', in the hands of a Troll they become quite powerful.
-<Through training, Trolls evolve into more sophisticated fighters.
In contrast to other factions, Trolls do not directly produce combat units out of different military buildings. Instead, they start out with a “Fight Hut” that is able to produce two basic combat units: the “Smasher”, a smaller Troll equipped with only a big piece of wood, and an Ironbeak, a carrion bird the Trolls tame to assist them in hunting and battle.
These basic combat units can then be trained into more advanced fighters. The “Throwing Camp” turns Smashers into Throwers, a pestering Troll equipped with a slingshot to attack from a distance. If you send your Smasher into the “Hitting Camp”, it will become a Skull Crusher and just like the name suggests, become incredibly effective in direct combat. The “Hex Camp” is the most advanced training camp, turning your Smasher into a Flesh Eater, granting it magical abilities.
In the Throwing, Hitting and Hex camps trolls are transformed into advanced fighters.
Ironbeaks can be trained the same way. The Ironbeak Boomdropper, Ironbeak Fighter and Ironbeak Corpse Seeker have been trained for combat and can assist in various ways, such as consuming corpses to assist their allies in battle or disturb their enemies.
While Ironbeaks can only be trained once, normal Trolls can be trained multiple times. Sending a Troll into a camp of the same type again will result in an even stronger combat unit. The Spike Flinger is a long-range Troll that deals devastating damage, the Wall Breaker is a siege specialist that can tear down buildings fast and the Bone Hexer has mastered mystical arts that even other magicians could respect.
All three combat aspects of the Trolls are brought together in the War Bringer, a powerful unit supporting a whole army.
Additionally, units can also be re-trained. Investing resources in a different camp will result in the respective Troll of the same upgrade level.
Overall, the Trolls are a very flexible faction, but the nature of their combat units also requires you to think ahead and make sure that your elite squad of units will survive the next battle – which is true to the nature of Troll life.
A typical Troll base.
Just like every other faction, Trolls harvest wood, stone and food from their surrounding environment. What their buildings lack in technological advancement they make up for with hard work and dedication. Every Troll worker is stronger and faster than workers from other factions, generally resulting in fewer active workers and also fewer sectors Trolls have to conquer to get a thriving economy.
In addition to the basic resources, Trolls utilize Scrap, a resource that can be collected actively or passively.
A Scrap Hoard produces Scrappers, controllable workers that can be set up to passively collect Scrap over time. Scrappers then try to find any usable shiny thing that they can find and bring it back to their Scrap Hoard to convert it into usable Scrap. Piles of Scrap are also lying around and you can command your Scrappers to actively search in these piles. While this increases the amount of Scrap you get, most piles of Scrap are very exposed, leaving your Scrappers vulnerable to attacks!
Scrappers collect anything shiny - so that their tribe can use it for something else.
The most advanced Troll units and technologies require Offerings, produced at Shrines to Mugwa. These powerful symbols enable you to train Trolls with limited magical abilities, thanks to the gifts bestowed on them by their goddess, Mugwa. These Offerings are then presented to produce powerful units, or at the Moon Temple. The Moon Temple provides additional boosts for the Troll economy or their combat ability, such as improving specific resource buildings or regenerating the health of the wounded.
A Troll worker produces Offerings at the Shrine to Mugwa, while the Stone Breaker is being boosted by a nearby Moon Temple.
This is not all we have to say about the Trolls - in Fallen God, you will be able to experience the mighty Mugwa's Cub, diverse and exciting hero abilities as well as two very distinctive skirmish heroes, and much more!
Trolls are a very diverse faction, and just like their need to adapt to the harsh reality on Urgath, Trolls need to adapt during a battle and make the right strategic decisions when training their fighters.
