Warhammer Fantasy Battles Universe Altered Melee by Nightmare. Updated 15/07/2016.
Feedback appreciated, contact email: WHEternalStrife(at)gmail.com
These are Warcraft 3 Altered Melee maps based on Warhammer Fantasy Battle universe. 2-, 4- and 8- player maps feature 11 unique, fully-developed playable races: Skaven, Lizardmen, High Elves, Empire, Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos, Orcs&Goblins, Dark Elves, Beastemen, Wood Elves and Vampire Counts. All 4 original Warcraft III races are intact and are also playable. If you are not familiar with WH universe - don't worry, just think of this map as another Fantasy, I'm sure you'll enjoy it nonetheless.
The custom races are analogous to Warcraft III original fractions: each race (normally) contains 4 unit-producing structures, 3-level townhall, item shop, 4 heroes, 10+ combat units, including spellcaters and siege units... all that good stuff! Type a command in chat to select a race.
There is also a Campaign, which as of summer 2016 consists of 5 chapters.
Key features:
It was of course challenging to implement Warhammer armies into Warcraft races, but overall I think I did well balancing the WH universe armies and War3 strategy mechanic. The most notable trade-off I had to undertake is a new system for flying units (the fly-hover mode). Also some races have considerably more than regular 10-11 units, but thats a good thing, right? :)
The main feature of this altered melee is the specialisation system. I must admit I feel quite proud about coming up with the idea and implementing it.
Each race [except for recently made Vampire Counts] has 4 specialisations (called "doctrines", "paths", "guilds"... depending on the race, the idea is the same); the player can choose only one. Specialisations might make custom races somewhat overpowered compared to original races, so for those who don't want to use this "advantage", they can be turned off (the instructions for that are given ingame). Specialisations give each hero a free item (a weak one), unlock new abilities and improve already existing ones, allow the training of new special units and upgrade the ordinary ones. All this is done through instant but pricey upgrades at townhalls: there are a total of 7 upgrades (1 at T1, 2 at T2 and 4 at T3).
The last thing I want to note here is that even without specialisations the races are still fun and interesting (and probably more balanced, lol), but I of course suggest you try them out as they allow great difference in playstyles within a single fraction, making the gameplay much more exciting.
Now that I've talked about the good stuff, I feel it's time to mention the downsides. Firstly, unfortunately, I've made no AI for the custom races yet (I plan to in the future, but not in the near future), so if you play alone vs PC, your opponents can only be original War3 races. Secondly, with all the custom resources, I could not fit into 8mb limit. So should you decide to play multiplayer you'll have to use the limited 7mb version or the attached crack to remove this annoying limit.
