Information
Features
Importing Into Other Maps
Whats New?
Screenshots
Changelog
Credits
Authors Notes
Custom Maps I Recommend
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Mini AI States:
Vassals are mini independent players that spawn randomly around goldmines that have no players next to them at the start of the map. These vassals can be attacked and will switch their allegiance to their attacker once their life reaches 20%.
Vassals who are subjugated by players will automatically harvest from nearby gold mines, taking the majority for themselves but giving you some in the form of taxation. Vassals will slowly build up their resources and attack their enemies and the enemies of their liege. The units vassals build are not controllable by the player, and can only be commanded by the vassal.
Vassals generate mana as they harvest from gold mines, this mana represents how much gold the vassal has, while vassals can generate mana slowly without a goldmine, having access to a goldmine will allow them to generate mana much faster and send attacks out more often. A vassal will send out an attack once its mana reaches its maximum.
While harvesting from goldmines, vassals slowly build up experience points and level up, the higher the level of a vassal, the more max life their units will spawn with. When a vassal is captured however, their level is reset to 1 and must be built back up again.
Vassals fully supports single player as well as multiplayer, melee AI will attack and capture vassals and their vassals will attack you and others.
Vassals are fully designed to be easily imported into other maps Simply import the object data and then the trigger data over to any map you like. No further action required! vassals will auto spawn around the map next to empty goldmines without any further action needed on your end.
If you use vassals in your maps please leave a link so other people can make use of this resource.
How Vassals Interact With The World:
Vassals will attack players they consider their enemies as well as other mini vassal states. If a vassal successfully invades another vassal, they will form an alliance and will no longer attack each other. Vassals making alliances with each other can seem complicated as there isn't any direct way for you as the player to see these alliances, however in practice, you will see they attack each other less over time as they form alliances and start attacking players more. once a player subjugates a vassal all their alliances are broken and they become loyal to you and lose their existing allies. This is primarily to simplify their gameplay once owned by a player. Once a vassal state has been subjugated, they will become allies with their conqueror as well as their allies and other vassals. From here, the vassal will attack their lords enemies as well as subjugate other vassals for their lord.
Vassals will build basic defensive structures and will use their army to defend themselves should they be attacked. Over time Vassals will spawn patrol units, these units will patrol a vassals territory. Defending it from its enemies. Once subjugated, these patrols will defend an area of the map for their owner.
At the start of the game, vassals will act more independently from players and be busy attacking each other and forming alliances, becoming stronger, while later on as the game progresses and vassals are subjugated by different players they become more tools of control and a show of force for the bigger players. Be prepared to run into clashing armies around the map were active wars are taking place.
Having vassals on the map allow you to fight with as well as against factions you would normally not encounter while still enjoying the melee experience, fight alongside naga witches, draenei Sages, gnoll overseer's and launch your attacks alongside sneak attacks from your bandit vassals.
How Vassal Players Are Implemented:
Vassals are controlled by separate computer players, any slots not used by the setup screen will be put into a list of potential vassals for the vassal system to use. (This can be players that are not shown on the map setup screen, so don't worry about leaving player slots blank for vassals to appear.) These players will then spawn around free goldmines on the map. No action is required on the part of the player to make vassals appear.
Implementing Vassals into other maps:
Vassals are fully designed to be easily imported into other maps, simply import the object data and then import the trigger data over to any map you like. No further action required! vassals will auto spawn around the map next to empty goldmines without any further action needed on your end.
Video preview of version 0.4.3 from The Nightmare Book
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FEATURES:
- 10 Vassal types.
- Melee AI Support.
- Vassals Level up and gain experience, becoming stronger over time.
- Vassals Have Heroes who will patrol their territory and attack enemy bases.
- Embassy buildings give you access to unique abilities and commands for your vassals.
- Vassals will attack their enemies and use formations when creating a new army. (Newly formed armies will try and stay in a formation until they reach their attack target)
- Ping notifications of what vassals are sending attacks and vassal attack targets.
- Vassal diplomacy: Vassals will form alliances with each other when they are independent entities.
- Vassals will slowly build defensive structures to defend themselves over time.
- vassals will send out patrols to defend their territory.
- Vassals can use air transport to move their troops if setup within the map their on.
- Easily imported into other maps. Simply import the object data and then import the trigger data to any map you like, No further action required! vassals will auto spawn around the map next to empty goldmines.
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Importing:
There are 2 ways you can import vassals into other maps.
Custom Object Edition
1- open up one of the vassal maps from this page and export the object data and the trigger data. Then open the map you would like vassals to appear in and first import the object data, and then import the trigger data, its important you import the object data first so the triggers know what they are interacting with. No further action is needed on your part, vassals will spawn around empty goldmines that have no players next to them at the start of the map.
Easy Import Edition
2- Importing Vassals into maps that already uses custom object data, such as custom units or abilities can cause clashes when importing the object data for vassals. In this case i have created a separate version of vassals that uses no custom data. This version only requires the vassals trigger folder to be copied into any map you like with no further action needed on your part. Just be aware this version does not use embassies.
Download The Easy Import Edition: Here
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Whats New?:
Update 0.5.4
Almost 800 Downloads! Thank you everyone for trying out Vassals in your melee games! 
To celebrate I've implemented a new vassal type to the mix; Forest Trolls. These guys are powerful ranged fighters with a Warlord who's presence buffs the ranged attacks of other Forest trolls around him.
Update 0.4.9
Honor Guard
Honor Guard allows you to make use of unique elements of other factions within your own army. The Honor Guard ability will spawn 3 units from the vassal's faction to follow and support your chosen hero. Human vassals can lend you their healing ability through priests, undead the power to raise skeletons, Draenei their bloodlust and orcs their powerful Tauren.
This update also adds support for melee AI to use all vassal abilities through the embassies. Melee AI players will now send extra attacks using bandits and Gnoll vassals and will use the new Honor Guard ability of others.
Update 0.4.3
The Embassy
Each vassal has an embassy structure within its town. This structure is controlled by whoever owns the vassal.The embassy allows the owner of the vassal to interact with their vassal. By selecting the embassy you will see a description of what the vassal type can do, as well as an option to upgrade the vassal. In the next few updates vassals will be receiving unique abilities and actions that can be performed through this structure.
Currently, you can upgrade your vassals, upgrading the vassal will allow that vassal to contribute more gold in taxes to you as well as allow them to better protect themselves from future attacks by increasing their tower limit.
Embassies are fully supported by Melee AI players.
Update 0.4.0
Centaurs and Items
Centaurs function similar to draenei in that not only can they attack your enemies but they have the ability to send units to defend their owner. The units the centaurs send however are far fewer but much more powerful units. Having a few powerful Centaurs between you and your would be attackers can mean the difference between defeat and victory.
Items
When a vassal hero first spawns and every time it is revived after, the hero has a chance to find a piece of equipment as well as up to 2 consumable items. The first 4 slots of a heroes inventory is dedicated to their equipment, where as the last 2 slots is for their consumable items.
When a vassal hero dies, it has a chance to lose a random item it was carrying. Over time vassal heroes will slowly change their equipment as they lose items and find new ones.
New items can be added to the system with ease, any custom items you make can be found and used by the vassals provided you add them to the array above. Heroes have basic AI to make use of these items as described in the trigger image above.
Items make vassal heroes much more stronger and unpredictable, you could come up against an archmage with a book of the dead for instance. Or a bandmaster with an invulnerability potion. This also makes them much better and more interesting allies, fighting side by side with vassal heroes will now bring you a much greater advantage.
Update 0.3.7
Draenei
The draenei vassal type offers up a new gameplay mechanic, when they spawn their forces to attack their enemies, they will also spawn a secondary force of units, this secondary force is dedicated to protecting their owning player and will patrol their starting zone, attacking any enemies that come near. The number of units spawned to join this patrol force is based on the number of draenei huts the vassal has.
The Patrol force the draenei spawn will be transported to the owning players starting zone via zeppelins. Once they arrive they will begin their patrol, protecting your lands.
The draenei hero, is particularity powerful and has access to both bloodlust and raise dead spells. On top of this the hero is permanently invisible, revealing himself only when attacking or casting spells. You'll never know if hes part of an attack force or if hes patrolling his territory until you run into him.
to make up for all of this utility the draenei take slightly longer to attack than other vassals, requiring 70 mana.
Update 0.3.4
Bandits
Bandits much like Gnoll's, bandits don't have a hero. Instead they build up slowly by constructing more tents, allowing them to recruit more bandits to their cause. Bandits unlike other vassal types can choose to attack via zeppelins as well sending traditional ground armies towards their enemies. A high level bandit vassal can sneak a whole army of bandits into enemy bases. To make up for this versatility however, bandits will only offer their owners a meager +5 gold in taxes compared to other vassals and are fairly limited in their damage types.
Update 0.3.3
Naga
The next vassal type is here alongside a new map i will update alongside the others.
The Naga have fairly powerful forces and so usually send smaller more versatile attacks than other vassal types, once they reach level 9 however they will add the even more powerful myrmidon and siege turtle to their forces allowing them to take on even the main factions battling for the land. All Naga units can swim and so they can take much quicker routs through maps. This allows them to attack from directions you wouldn't normally worry about. If a naga state is present on the map, you may want to reinforce any shores along your base.
The Naga have the powerful Sea witch as a hero, the sea witch can cast Frost shield on herself and her allies providing massive buffs to Armour as well as slowing down their attackers. Her forces are then more than capable of picking them off from their protective barrier.
Riverrun is a great map to see how versatile the Naga can be, You can truly be attacked from any direction providing the Naga are present, no deep water is safe.
Update 0.3.2
Air Transport
Vassals can now use air transport to attack players and other vassals. For this feature to function in a map, map makers are required to add specific goldmines that they consider inaccessible from land to a specific group of goldmines (Easily done and explained within the comments at the top of the vassals trigger folder). Once setup, vassals who spawn next to these goldmines will use zeppelins to attack their enemies, and other vassals will send zeppelins to attack them.
The map "Booty Bay" makes use of this system and is a great example for vassals using air transportation. The goal with air transport is to allow vassals to function in any melee map regardless of how it is traversed. Other vassals in future may even use air transport as their default attacking method.
Update 0.2.8
Heroes
Vassals will now spawn a hero once they reach level 5. Heroes are persistent and will be revived over time if they are slain. Vassal heroes have unique spells to aid themselves and their lords. The death knight for example can raise skeletons to keep his front line full of troops. Where as the Archmage can cast various spells from buffing his own troops to hindering his opponents with curses and slow. Information on what each hero does has been added to the quest log.
In the image above you can see an undead DeathKnight hero attacking the territory of an orc vassal that has a BladeMaster hero, the deathknight has ran into the patrol of the orc vassal before he can reach his base. The DeathKnight has brought several raised skeletons with him from his previous skirmish and has started raising more corpses in this fight. On the other side, the defending BladeMaster has started casting Bloodlust on his troops as well as himself.
Heroes behave independently from other vassal units, they will patrol a vassals territory and will occasionally join a vassals attack group. If they decide to join an attack, the hero will notify their lord of their intentions.
Not all Vassal types have heroes, Gnoll's instead can build even more huts to expand their raiding parties and have a bigger patrol group size to make up for not having a hero.
The hero update has been a massive implementation and I'm happy with how heroes have turned out. Having allied heroes running around casting spells truly makes vassals feel like mini independent allies and having a vassal reach level 5 feels like an accomplishment. Having heroes use unique spells they normally would not have access to was a choice to make fighting alongside vassal heroes more interesting, fighting beside an Archmage for example who will actively buff your units as well as his own while de-buffing your enemies feels great. I also wanted them to feel different from normal heroes when it comes to ability power levels, they are the heroes of vassal states after all, not full blown faction heroes that the player possesses. That said, running into a bloodlusted BladeMaster can be a tough challenge.
Heroes currently do not make use of items, although this is a feature I'm currently looking at implementing with a lot of cool ideas in the works already.
Update 0.2.6
Vassals will now spawn patrol armies to patrol their territory. These patrol armies will attempt to lock down the portion of the map they consider their territory. If the vassal is attacked, these patrols as well as their attacking armies will be recalled to defend themselves. This not only makes vassal harder to subjugate, but also makes vassals much more useful once they are subjugated. As they will now defend a portion of the map for their owners.
Update 0.2.4
New Vassal Type:
Gnoll
Gnoll's attack very quickly (Roughly sending 2 attack waves for every 1 attack wave of other vassals) The downside is their attacks start off very weak. Their unique feature however allows them to slowly build up by constructing more gnoll huts over time. Every Hut the vassal builds and maintains adds another gnoll to their attack forces.
Although starting off as a little more than an inconvenience, they will over time slowly build up their forces into a horde if not stopped.
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SCREENSHOTS:
CHANGES:
[10-06-2024] CHANGES
-0.5.4
- Added: Forest Troll vassal type.
- Fixed: Corrected several spelling mistakes.
[16-04-2024] CHANGES
-0.5.3
- Added: vassal heroes can now use the scroll of protection item.
- Added: vassal heroes can now use the stone totem item.
- Added: vassal heroes can now use the scroll of restoration item.
- Improved: Units summoned by vassal units that are patrolling will now join their patrol.
- Improved: vassal heroes now have the opportunity to use items while casting spells.
- Changed: renamed "Launch Attack Early" command to "Launch Attack Now!".
- Fixed: Honor Guard ability now correctly resets its cooldown if the player doesnt have anough gold to cast the ability.
- Fixed: Corrected spelling mistake on the "Launch Attack Now!" Command when trying to launch an attack before vassals were militarily activated
[02-04-2024] CHANGES
-0.5.2
- Changed: Unified how vassals send out attacks.
- Fixed: Transfer Ownership ability is now correctly transferred to upgraded embassies.
- Fixed: Players are now properly prevented from using the “Attack Early” ability for vassals before vassals are militarily activated.
[01-02-2024] CHANGES
-0.5.1
- Added: Ability to transfer vassals to allied players using the embassy.
[29-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.5.0
- Added: More items for vassal heroes to use.
- Improved: Changed the color of the vassal upgrade description to make it easier to read.
[26-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.9
- Added: Honor guard ability for vassals.
- Added melee AI support for all embassy abilities.
[21-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.9
- Improved: Vassals will now use zeppelins when creating new attack groups if their attacking a location in close proximity to an enemy vassal that would require the use of zeppelins to get to. (This is explained in the description of the manual targeting ability).
- Improved: Separated off the part of the (Vassal Targeting AI) trigger to only be used when manual targeting is enabled.
[21-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.7
- Added: Added the abilities to tell vassals where to send their troops as well allow vassals to take control of their troops back to the embassy.
[21-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.6
- Fixed: Bug where embassies were not correctly transferring to new players once they have been upgraded by an AI player.
[20-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.5
- Fixed: Bug where embassies were not correctly transferring to new players once they have been upgraded.
-0.4.4
- Added Embassy ability; Launch Attack Early.
- Fixed: Player owned vassals now correctly take other vassal embassies for their liege.
[19-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.3
- Added: The embassy.
[18-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.2
- Improved: enabled more items for use with vassal heroes.
-0.4.1
- improved: Added basic line of site to all vassal main structures.
[17-01-2024] CHANGES
-0.4.0
- Added: Vassal heroes can now find and use items.
- Added: Centaur Vassal Type
- Improved: Re-wrote hero revival trigger.
[16-01-2024] CHANGES
0.38
- Improved: Bandit names revamped.
[15-01-2024] CHANGES
0.37
- Added: Draenei Vassal Type
- Improved: New patrol system for liege lords territory.
- Improved: Vassal buildings such as huts and tents now spawn at a random angle.
[14-01-2024] CHANGES
0.35
-Changed: Slightly increased the time it takes for vassals to militarily waken
-Fixed: Undead vassal now has the correct tax rate.
0.34
- Added: Bandit Vassal Type.
- Added Vassals now have a tax rate, different vassal types can give more or less gold in tax to their owners.
- Improved: Added and changed gnoll vassal names.
- Improved: Human vassal names.
- Changed: Lowered most vassals gold tax to +10 instead of +20. Night Elfs remain at +20.
- Fixed: Bug where vassal units did not have the correct level.
0.33
- Added: Naga vassal type.
- Added: Vassal heroes can now be given custom names.
- Improved: Attack forces will now fallback to defend their main structure if it comes under attack once again. They will not do this if they have been loaded into a transport beforehand however.
[10-01-2024] CHANGES
0.3.2
- Added: Vassals can now use air transport provided this is setup within the map editor(easy instructions to follow within the notes at the top of the vassals trigger folder)
- Improved: neutral hostile enemies are now cleared before vassal is created, this should prevent vassals from appearing inside goldmines rarely.
[07-01-2024] CHANGES
0.3.1
- Improved: Orc vassals now only gain access to siege at level9.
- Improved: Human vassals now only gain access to siege at level9.
- Improved: Undead vassals now only gain access to siege at level9.
[05-01-2024] CHANGES
0.3.0
- Added: Notes to top of trigger folders for quick information on transferring the system to new maps.
- Fixed: Vassals should no longer have issues with their alliances being set, when some are captured by a players vassal and the players themselves.
[05-01-2024] CHANGES
0.2.9
- Added: A timer for vassals to militarily awaken.
- Changed: Slightly reduced orc attack units.
- Improved: Made vassal ceacefire effect not use the stop command on all units in the battle area when changing sides. Instead a new system using localized invulnerability and vassal only stop commands.
- Improved Description of gnoll vassal to talk about huts self-destructing.
0.28
- Added: Vassals now have a hero, this hero can only spawn once the vassal reached level 5. Heroes spend their time patrolling their territory as well as occasionally joining attack groups. If a vassal has its level reset, it wont be able to revive its hero until level 5. Heroes will notify their owners if they decide to join an attack.
- Changed: Gnoll's can now construct an additional tent as well as having a larger patrol group to make up for not having a hero.
- Changed: Expanded range at which vassals will patrol.
- Changed Vassals will now create patrol groups to a size half the level of the vassal. (A level 10 vassal will have a patrol group of 5 units)
- Improved: Trees and destructible are no longer killed around Tavern structures.
[02-01-2024] CHANGES
0.2.6
- Added: Vassals now spawn units that patrol their territory.
- Changed: The default number of vassals created at the start of the map without taking into account the number of players is now 6 instead of 4.
- Improved: Vassal buildings now regenerate life.
- Improved: combined vassal naming triggers into 1 trigger.
- improved: organised triggers and variables to make things easier to read.
- Improved: Changed structure of triggers.
[31-12-2023] CHANGES
0.2.5
- Added: Vassals will now use their units to defend themselves if their base comes under attack.
-Fixed: Vassals now correctly target enemies when there is only 1 enemy available to them.
-Fixed: Memory leak's in trigger (Spawn Vassals).
-Fixed: Memory leak's in trigger (Vassal Targeting AI v3).
-Fixed: Memory leak's in trigger (Vassal Switch Owners).
-Fixed: Memory leak's in trigger (Vassal Harvest Resources).
-Fixed: Memory leak's in trigger (Vassal Building Logic - Vassal Building Logic Defense).
-Fixed: Memory leak's in trigger (Attack Wave triggers).
[30-12-2023] CHANGES
0.2.4
-Added: New Vassal type; Gnoll.
-Improved: Vassals can now be given structures to build.
-Changed: Removed all vasal name variables per faction. Names are now handled inside respective triggers.
-Changed: Removed all max units variables for vassal types and replaced it with an array.
-changed: Slightly less vassals will spawn if there are not enough gold mines for expansion on the map for all players (Taking into account number of players in game).
[30-12-2023] CHANGES
0.2.3
-Changed: Vassal gold mines now have extra gold added to them.
-Improved: Vassals now regenerate life again slowly.
-Fixed: Vassals now correctly remove trees around their spawn point.
[30-12-2023] CHANGES
0.2.2
Added: Vassals now slowly build defensive structures to defend themselves.
Changed: Vassals now clear Creeps around their spawn zone.
Improved: All custom objects have been removed, you now only have to copy and past the trigger folders to add vassals to any map you like.
Fixed: rare bug where vassals could spawn around neutral buildings.
[30-12-2023] CHANGES
0.2.0
Completely re-wrote most systems.
[27-12-2023] CHANGES
0.1.6
Improved: Re-wrote vassal targeting AI. Vassal armies should no longer stand around for a while on games with many players.
This should also fix vassals occasionally pinging the wrong attack locations.
0.1.5
Added: Vassals now have experience and levels.
Added: Units spawned by vassals have improved life based on the level of the vassal.
Improved: Vassal units will now reset their orders when a player attempts to order them
0.1.4
Improved: Vassals can now only harvest from 1 gold mine at a time.
0.1.3
Improved: Vassals now kill trees around their spawn points so AI can expand near them.
Improved: Units summoned by vassal's will now join that vassal's attack group.
Fixed: Removed backpack research from undead vassal.
0.1.2
Added: New vassal Type; Orc.
Added: New vassal Type; Undead
0.1.1 - Initial Release
Added: New vassal Type; Night elf.
Added: Vassals now notify their owners of their attack.
Improved: All vassals now belong to a unit group array. (Vassal_Group)(0).
Improved: Vassal harvesting now uses the vassal group unit array. (Vassal_Group)(0).
Improved: Vassal armies now use a unit type array instead of a string array.
Improved: Systems - Naming vassals, Army arrays.
Improved: floating text for vassals harvesting gold.
Improved: vassals now deplete gold mines slower.
0.1.0
Added: Ability to human vassals that explains what they do and how they function.
Changed: Updated map to latest melee data.
Changed: Added even more time for vassal armies until they despawn. (They should last until just before a new army can spawn)
Changed: decreased time it take for vassals to update their unit orders.
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- Rofus on the forums for this map description BBcode.
- cleavinghammer Map Feedback.
- deepstrasz - Map Feedback.
- The Nightmare Book - Map Feedback.
- Daratrix- Map Feedback.
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Thanks for taking the time to look at this system, the core idea behind vassals is making melee map environments feel more alive and active. You will run into clashes between vassal states as you explore , and much more fighting is now done out in the field as opposed to inside of people's bases. Vassals present dynamically generated points of interest on the map, you will want to explore and scout out goldmines to see what vassal types exist each match. Finding bandits or naga on a map might make you want to re-think your defense. Capturing them gives you access to mini players who will help you fight your enemies as well as fund your war.
Although its fully playable as intended on the maps i have uploaded, ultimately the goal is to create something players can easily place into their own maps or any map they want to play with vassals. All you are required to do, to add vassals to other maps is to import the object data and then import the trigger data to the map you want to add them to. Vassals will automatically be added to the map and function as intended no further action required.
I'll be adding more features and vassal types over time so be sure to check back.
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This section is dedicated to maps that either already use the vassals system or maps i have played that i have personally imported vassals into and played perfectly when used with this system.
Maps i recommend that require vassals to be imported:
You will need to export the object data as well as the triggers from one of the (vassals-mini-ai-states) maps and import them into these maps to play.
Maps i recommend that can be easily modded with vassals:
1 - Drake Nostrum
This wonderful 1v1 map by Btp|Lancer fits the vassals system perfectly due to the many goldmines present for a 1v1 and the fairly open environment around each goldmine.
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