User:Aquanim/UnitTaxonomy

Preface

See also Unit classes.

Often ZK players think about the unit roles in terms of the RPS triangle of raider > skirmisher > riot > raider, artillery beating porc, and assaults have several definitions including "also beating porc" or "being tanky". I think this schema misses some important stuff.

• Raiders semi-routinely beat riots for cost if they get a decent surround.
• Some skirmisher vs raider matchups are quite painful for the raiders (Scalpel jumps to mind).
• Skirmishers caught a little out of position will get chewed up by riots.
• Some artillery units (notably Firewalker) are pretty underwhelming against turrets.
• Assault units aren't always eager to push into defences. Ravager would much prefer to be doing runbys. Grizzly pokes from a distance.

Below I am going to lay out what I think are some reasonable definitions for each class, according to the following scheme:

Primary characteristic: The defining property of the unit class. If you don't have this, you don't belong in this class.

Secondary characteristic: A property which is shared (to some degree) by all units of the class, as a logical consequence of applying game design principles alongside the primary characteristic.

Tertiary characteristic: A property which is shared (to some degree) by most units of the class.

Unrelated characteristic: A property which you might think is characteristic of a unit class, but in fact is not.

These classes are not necessarily going to cover all units. Air is probably left out.

Raiders

Primary characteristic

• Raiders are effective primarily by virtue of their movement speed.

Secondary characteristic