Character Overview
What are the different units in Age of Penguins, and what are their abilities?
First, the Melee units, from weakest to strongest:
WORKER
In a way, these penguins are the most important -- they do the stuff that keeps your city alive and expanding. They gather valuable resources (Stone, Ice, and Fish) and build your buildings. They can also repair buildings -- just select a few and right-click on any damaged building. In a pinch, they can even fight -- though that isn't their strong suit.
SOLDIER
These are your average grunts -- good at fighting, and not much else. Besides fighting, they can also Guard an area. Here is how Guarding works: You select Guard, and then any spot on the board. He will head for that spot, fighting any enemy units he encounters on the way. When he gets there, he will keep a lookout for enemies, and move to intercept them if they come within his range. This is a handy feature for defending the outskirts of a city.
BOMBER
These guys are prepared to go to ANY LENGTHS, even the ultimate sacrifice, to defend your city. In fact, they will even make that sacrifice when they're in an offensive attack. They can Fight, Guard, and also Detonate. Select Detonate, then any location (or unit), and he will attempt to make it there to blow up himself and everything within a 1 square radius. It is a very devastating explosion! It doesn't distinguish between friend and foe -- it even vaporizes resources, so keep that in mind. The explosion takes out most buildings, at least severely damaging even the strongest of them. Also, if the Bomber is attacked and gets too close do death, he might go the rest of the way crazy and decide to go out with a bang...
CAPTAIN
A Captain is a stronger, more experienced version of a Soldier. This is one of the fastest units, certainly the strongest Melee fighter, and the living unit with the most HPs. It is also the most expensive.
GHOST
This is a unique unit in many ways. Besides its special ability Takeover, it can also move. Usually being able to move isn't that exciting, but the Ghost can walk THROUGH all other buildings and units! It can't move over water, resources, or forests, however. Also, it is the only unit that can't Fight. It's special ability Takeover allows the Ghost to take over any building or enemy unit. Simply select Takeover, and click on any enemy unit. If the Ghost makes it to the unit, he will move over it and absorb it, changing the enemy unit into one of yours! Nothing about the unit changes, except its ownership. If the Computer had upgraded it to the max, you would get those upgrades. If it was almost dead, that would now be your problem!
Then, the Ranged units (can attack further away than 1 square):
SNOWMAN
The ranged equivalent of a basic Soldier, these guys are cheap and really come in handy. They can "guard" an area, just like most other fighting units. Keep them in the rear of your army to inflict damage on those enemies who dare to attack your front lines! It will give your front-line Melee fighters that much of an edge.
MAGE
These Penguins can also fight (with a Ranged attack) but they don't do much damage that way. They are also one of the slowest units. However, they are quite handy when their MP bar has something in it. They have 3 magic spells:
- Bombard (50 MP) - This spell takes the longest (about four seconds) to cast. It causes a 5 block X 5 block explosion. The explosion does NOT leave a permanent scar on the landscape, nor does it destroy resources. That is because it is MUCH WEAKER than the Bomber's suicide explosion. It does kill most living units, however.
- Heal (25 MP) - This spell restores any unit to full HP. It only takes a couple of seconds to cast.
- Ice Missile (8 MP) - This will likely be your favorite spell. For 8 MP, you can send off a heat-seeking Ice Missile that will keep flying until it hits an obstacle, or it swerves into an enemy unit, causing serious damage. Most living units die after only one hit!
CANNON
Not as durable as the Tower (a building), and the explosions aren't as powerful. However, Cannon can Move, whereas Towers are stuck in one place until they are destroyed. Cannon have the special ability "Cannon Attack" which allows them to bombard any enemy they find within range. It is like telling them "Fire at will!" However, you can also target individual enemies with the normal Fight command, for a normal ranged attack. Cannon can move during a battle, but they can only fire when they're not in the process of moving. To have your Cannon fire at will, select it (them) and click the 4th Command Icon, "Cannon Attack". The icon will become bright, so you can tell at a glance which Cannon are set to this mode. To cease firing (or go to normal attack mode), click the "Cannon Attack" Icon again. Notice the icon becomes dark. You can do the same thing by clicking "Stop". (And of course, there are shortcut keys for all of this, which allow you maximum response time)
Now for the Buildings:
BASE
This is the center of your city -- it is where your Workers come from, and is one of the places they can return to deposit the various resources they gather (Stone, Ice, and Fish). The first player to have all his Bases and Workers destroyed, loses. Without a Base OR a Worker to build a base, you cannot build more Workers, who you need to create ANY building. Plus you can't fend off the enemy for long if you run out of Stone, Ice or Fish to create more fighter units!
BARRACKS
This building produces most of your fighting units. You may want to build several (as soon as you can afford it) so you can produce an army faster than the computer. The computer isn't stupid, and he will certainly build more than one of them. It's an arms race!
TOWER
These give you that warm feeling of security -- an army has a harder time waltzing in and destroying your main base if it contains several Towers, especially close together. They are not invincible, however. They CAN be destroyed, especially by Bombers, Cannon, or Captains. But combined with a decent army (to destroy enemy Cannon, for instance) they are important part of a balanced breakfast...er, defense.
IGLOO
The penguin Workers store their gathered treasures here -- there is plenty of room for harvested Ice, Stone, and Fish. They also provide living quarters for your orange-beaked citizens. You need one Igloo for every 12 citizens (Incidentally, Bases provide support for 7 citizens). When you click on an Igloo, it tells you your current population (living things only, not buildings), and the maximum population you can support given the current number of Igloos/Bases.
GYM
This is where the penguins get faster, stronger, and hardier by upgrading speed, strength, and health. NOTE: All upgrades affect FUTURE units only. For example, say you have 4 soldiers. You spend the next 10 minutes doing ALL the upgrades, after which time you create 20 more. You would then have 4 weak soldiers and a bunch of mega soldiers. It makes the game much more interesting, and it was done on purpose. It would have taken only 5 minutes of programming to have the upgrades behave just like...a certain Blizzard game. But a copycat game was certainly NOT the goal!
SCHOOL
This is where the penguins go to fill their bird brains with knowledge of chemistry, physics, and how to mine Ice more efficiently. For a small investment of stone, you can teach all future Workers how to maximize their mining efforts -- for an increase of 25% per load! The school is also where Philosophy is taught -- which enables the penguins to build an Academy to further their studies.
HOSPITAL
When your citizens are visited with the horrors of battle, they need to have a way to recover their health and vigor. There are only 2 ways to do this -- the Hospital, which can heal any unit with its lone ability, "Hospital Stay", and the Mage, who has a healing spell. And since all hospitals lose patients from time to time, this is also the place where your penguins can "Learn about Death", which allows them to start building Graveyards...and Ghosts!
ACADEMY
As soon as the Penguins learn Philosophy at the School, they will be able to build Academies -- which teach Penguins how to use magic! Yes, this is the building that produces the Mages.
GRAVEYARD
This is where the dead warriors and civilians rest in peace. But this is more than just a resting place for dead bodies -- it allows you to create Ghosts, which can take over an enemy unit or building -- permanently!
