SpellForce III – Humans, Orcs and Elves
The Humans are highly organized city builders who win their battles from a position of strength once they have assembled their full army. Their unique Territory Buff gives their troops highly increased out-of-combat health regeneration when in friendly sectors. This means that they can more easily shake off harassment and heal damage from smaller skirmishes. Their unit production speed is low, taking longer to build up their full army strength. Their buildings require more stone than the other races – but for that, they are the only race that can fully upgrade their defensive towers. And at tier three, they unlock a unique defensive structure, the Stone Tower, which protects their units and knocks down enemy attacks.
The Orcs are a roaming horde of diverse raiders who lust for battle and carry their conflicts into the enemy territory. Their Territory Buff gives all of their units increased attack speed when in enemy sectors, making raids into enemy territory easier. They have a very high unit production speed, but their units also cost a lot of food and iron to create. Iron is very keen on, so keen that they can already gather it from tier one on. Orcs gain many workers and population cap even from very low-level expansions, but they do not profit much from upgrading their capital or expansions. Together with the small number of workers they can employ in their buildings, this means that their playstyle has to be very expansive, taking over sector after sector. Their draw-back is that they cannot build defensive towers at all, and so they are open to retaliation at all times. In the late game, the Orcs have one last ace up their sleeves: Their Tribal Totem allows them to hurl massive projectiles through the whole game map, reducing both enemy buildings and armies to ashes.
The Elves are a very centralist faction. They build elaborate structures that can each employ many workers. And since they gain a lot of workers from upgrading their capital and expansions to the highest level, they often focus on a small number of highly upgraded sectors. Their unique outpost upgrade mechanic also supports this: Instead of building only normal, economy-focused outposts, they can also build defensive outposts. These do not provide any workers, but they are venerable defensive structures that can turn away small armies independently. They also provide many army supplies, so they are indispensable for building up a massive army. The Elves’ unique Territory Buff gives them highly increased run speed both in their own and neutral sectors, allowing them to pick fights when they want to engage and evade their enemies when they don’t. Elves are the only faction currently starting to gather their tier three resource, Lenya at tier two.
