War Wind

Yavaun has been under the oppressive control of the Empire—a merciless regime founded and led by the Tha' Roon—for a millennium, known by all as the Thousand Years. The Tha' Roon were once feared for their cruel and ruthless combat prowess,[11]^: 2 which they used to establish the very creation of the Empire; however, over the centuries, they have relied almost exclusively on the Obblinox as their force of arms. The Eaggra, their enslavement by will of the Tha' Roon and enforced by the muscle of the Obblinox, were obliged to construct and forge the original foundation of the Empire from the ground up, and have since been forced to maintain and expand it further throughout Yavaun. This reliance on the Obblinox for military power and the Eaggra for virtually all labor has progressively deteriorated the Tha' Roon's once unequaled self-sufficiency.

This oppression and slavery faced by the Eaggra over the age of the Thousand Years ignited the idea of revolution inside their hearts, and with the encouragement and inspiration from two Eaggra known as Colonel Khorn and Tywald Chainbreaker, they finally struck the first, powerful blow against the Obblinox. This started what was known as the First War of Yavaun.[12]^: 1 An Eaggra labor camp, of which its slaves formed a clan known as Faction E19, turned their picks against its stationed overseers and constructed their own base in the wake of its overtaking. From there, Faction E19 expanded and branched out to liberate other labor camps and spread word of their cause throughout Yavaun. The initial successes of their insurgency further inspired and reignited hope in other Eaggra.

Once word of the violent uprising of Eaggra slaves reached the Tha' Roon, the Tha' Roon immediately ordered a violent suppression of all rebellion, sending an onslaught of Obblinox forces to slay every last revolting Eaggra. The Obblinox, priding themselves as an honorable and noble race,[11]^: 25 found an utter absence of honor in the merciless culling of Eaggra innocents, of whom put up little challenge. With this feeling of dishonor came the Obblinox's first doubts after a millennium of the legitimacy of Tha' Roon rule and the Empire. With the continuation of rebel suppression, some Obblinox began to separate themselves from the Empire and align themselves with the Eaggra cause.

Tha' Roon viewed any and all mutiny, regardless of reason, as inexcusable and punishable only by death—even renegades who wished to realign with the Empire. This led to Tha' Roon commanding Obblinox to kill rebel Eaggra and Obblinox alike, which only further radicalized Obblinox to rebellion. Tha' Roon believed the ideation of revolution to have been planted by the Shama' Li, and so they sought to eliminate the Shama' Li entirely.

A unique aspect of War Wind is its stealth mechanics. Many units possess the ability to conceal themselves from the opponent in different ways, both inherently and through stealth bio-upgrades. "Masked" units do not appear on an opponent's minimap. "Disguised" units appear as friendly units to an opponent but appear as normal on their minimap. "Hidden" units do not appear on the minimap at all and look translucent on the main map. "Invisible" units appear on neither an opponent's minimap nor their main map. Stealth is progressive in nature, meaning that upgrading a masked unit's stealth would make it a disguised unit and upgrading a hidden unit's stealth would make it an invisible unit. Scouts can easily achieve the highest forms of stealth for a race, with scouts being inherently disguised and able to become hidden, and advanced scouts being inherently hidden and able to become invisible.

A unit's stealth is always broken when it attacks or is attacked but will be restored when out of combat for a period of time. Additionally, clan leaders and non-leader units with vision bio-upgrades can see through stealth. Certain spells can also temporarily grant stealth to your units or remove stealth from your opponents' units.

As with most real-time strategy games, War Wind features a fog of war mechanic. The player can only see within a certain range of their units. Fog of war will conceal any unit completely and mask any structures built, unless that structure has been previously discovered by your units, in which case it will remain visible but darkened by the fog of war. The fog of war does not conceal natural land formations, even those that have not been seen yet. Trees also prevent units from seeing into or through them; however, once a unit enters a tree, it can see just as far as it would normally be able to. Certain spells can also reveal portions of the map as if the player had actually discovered them by foot.

Each race has exclusive spells that its mage units can research, learn, and cast with a slowly regenerative pool of mana. Worker units can train to be mages, and mages can train to become advanced mages. Both mage types have the ability to research and learn new spells, although only advanced mages have access to researching and learning higher-level spells. Tha' Roon spells manifest as a form of psionic mental magic that is used to both mentally cripple their opponents and even control them entirely and indefinitely. Obblinox spells, considered to be one of the rarest and most elusive manifestations of magical power, revolve around the destruction of organic life and artificial structures. Eaggra spells embody the forces of nature and restoration, and are used to influence both the earth of Yavaun and its fauna to Eaggra will. Lastly, Shama' Li spells center around the concepts of omniscience, rejuvenation, and evocation, allowing them to dispel illusions, heal injuries of themselves and others, and conjure indigenous wildlife.

Each race has several rankings of units. Each of these rankings have unique titles based on the unit's race. Additionally, each race has several hero units that can appear in the wild during scenario-specific missions or randomly at an inn after meeting specific conditions. Hero units are special in that they can possess stronger stats than other units and even affect gameplay in a unique way, such as affecting the player's race's influence or allowing unique interactions, such as using player's race's battle cry outside of clan leader.

Clan leaders are the head of group, upon which the players lose the game immediately if they die; workers are used to gather resources and build structures, vehicles, and other machinery; mercenaries are mounted infantry units who can generally traverse Yavaun very quickly; warriors are battle-hardened units that generally deal more damage than any other unit; scouts have the main benefit of stealth and powerful long-ranged combat; mages, though generally weak, have the ability to cast powerful and game-altering spells; and war machines are incredibly resilient and mighty units that have been biomechanically augmented to the point of militant excellency.

In addition to unique units, each race also has several types of structures they are able to build for resources. Like the unit rankings, these structures have generic names that are applicable to all structures, but each structure has a unique name based on that unit's race. Units can also build other minor structures and machinery, such as walls, roads, land mines, and attack drones.

Courthouses are used to store resources gathered by workers; inns are large buildings that house randomly appearing workers, mercenaries, and heroes who can typically be hired in exchange for resources; homes are used to increase the amount of maximum units you are able to have; technical facilities are generally used to research bio-upgrades, vehicles, advanced structures, and complex machinery; war colleges are generally used to train warriors and scouts; and arcaneries are generally used to train mages and research spells.