Curator Force

The Curator Force, or Curators, is one of the four playable races in Night of Oblivion.

## **Storyline**

 The Curators were once Night Elves who were willed into transforming into their animal forms by the World Tree. After practicing the Forest Form, an ancient magic, the Night Elves gained sufficient strength to combat the Human Alliance. In doing so, they have lost their bloodlust and now seek to bring peace to the world.

## **Race Attributes**

* Treants cost biomass instead of minerals.
* Treants are consumed when creating structures.
* Curator units are tanky and slow in general.

## **Units**

Worker: Treant

Forest Lodge units: Furbolg Warrior, Furbolg Tracker, Quillbeast, Jungle Stalker, Wildkin Oracle.

Forest Shelter units: Troll Trapper, Troll Priest, Gnoll Enchanter, Dryad, Green Lizard.

Forest Roost units: Harpy Scout, Hippogryph, Chimaera, Celestial Faerie, Harpy Queen, Green Dragon.

## **Structures**

Town Hall: Ancient of Guardians, Ancient of Watchers, Ancient of Curators.

Core Structure: Celestial Core

Farm: Obelisk

Production Structures: Forest Lodge, Forest Shelter, Forest Roost.

Tech Structures/Research Facilities: Enchanting Ancient, Enlightened Ancient, Wildkin Nest, Horn of Cenarius, Green Dragon Roost.

Defensive Structure: Ancient Protector.

Celestial Core: Can cast Force of Nature, Sentinel Owl, Call of the Wild.

* Force of Nature: Creates 1/2/3 Treants above 0/50/100 supply.
* Sentinel Owl: Creates a Sentinel Owl for 120 seconds. Sentinel Owls are scouting units with True Sight.
* Call of the Wild: Creates a Furbolg Warrior or a Troll Trapper, or both while cast above 100 supply.

## **Curator Opening Theory**

* The first thing to do when starting a game is to send at least three Treants to mine Biomass. This is because Treants cost biomass unlike other workers. Three Treants provide enough to support constant 1 base Treant production and basic tech.
* One of the next two priorities is to activate the Celestial Core. The low cost makes it attractive to research early, and in addition, the abilities provided by the Core are especially crucial for the race, alleviating the slow start from the Curator's unique opening.
* The other priority is to create an Obelisk. The Obelisk timing is stricter than other races as the low supply provided by the Ancient of Guardians quickly limits future Treant production.
* Curator can use the standard economic opening of Obelisk - Forest Lodge - Ancient of Guardians whilst producing workers the whole time.
* The Ancient of Guardians (and its upgrades) is the only Town Hall which can attack, and is important in the Curator's early defense.

## **Curator Unit/Composition Theory**

The composition for a Curator army up until the mid game is primarily decided by which Forest Lodge unit (which are all melee) is being built around. While Forest Lodge units are strong, they cannot be purely massed as they quickly have issues with forming/breaking concaves due to their overall low movement speed. The units from other production structures often provide the support needed by the Forest Lodge unit.

### Combat units:

Furbolg Warrior:

Furbolg Warriors are the basic meat shield for Curator armies. In the early stages of the game, simply massing Furbolg Warriors and Troll Trappers make a solid composition, being able to take early fights, have anti air, and notably low biomass consumption, which lends well to economic and tech transitions.

Furbolg Warriors are an effective mineral dump up until the midgame, but in the late game they become supply inefficient. The spare biomass from having a Warrior front line can be invested into more spellcasters or air units in the composition, which can be valuable against specific enemy compositions.

Furbolg Trackers:

Trackers are an early source of Hero damage. Trackers are best paired with support units to better utilize the Tracker's damage bonus against Heavy units. The Troll Priest and Gnoll Enchanter come to mind, both providing healing and utility for the Tracker.

Harpy Scouts offer synergy with the Tracker in their ability to quickly move in and out of fights with the Tracker's Pursuit, which grants the Tracker movement speed, and the Scout's high base movement speed. In addition, Harpy Scouts having Pierce damage complements the Tracker's Hero damage well, making it possible to hit everything with empowered damage.

Quillbeast:

Quillbeasts are a utility front line unit; they primarily enter games when the Curator needs a Heavy unit in the front line, since both Furbolgs are Light units. Its ability Disruptive Quills, which provides a slow on attack, further cements its role as a utility unit. Its damage is lower to compensate for its utility.

Thus, Quillbeasts pair well with damage units, such as Troll Trappers, Dryads, or Green Lizards. Further developing on this, it is common for Quillbeast compositions to be Forest Shelter focused, as the ranged units are the ones dealing damage.

Jungle Stalker:

Jungle Stalkers also have Heavy armour, but more notably a Pierce attack, which becomes the primary reason for training it. Because Jungle Stalkers can be fielded very early in the game, Jungle Stalker rushes are a viable cheese strategy. Its Pierce attack is effective against workers, and Hero damage sources are rare in the early game.

In the late game, Jungle Stalkers are slightly supply intensive, but remain powerful front line units. When having proper enchanter support, they can still be formidable units. Stalkers also retain their threat against workers; sending a few Stalkers to ravage an undefended expansion is an easy way to damage the enemy's economy.

Troll Trapper/Troll Priest:

The choice of Troll tech is a key focus in the mid game. Dual Wield is a ranged damage option which boosts Trappers' dps, while Religious Rites is a utility counterpart which boosts Priests' healing. Both upgrades are cheap, yet take fairly long to research. As a result, oftentimes only one of them can be researched, and this choice reflects the Forest Lodge unit accompanying it.

If Dual Wield is researched, a default follow up is to research +1 ranged attack, and the composition leans towards ranged damage units and melee utility units. On the other hand, if Religious Rites is researched, a a default follow up is to have melee +1 attack and have ranged units provide the support and utility.

Dryad:

Dryads are a ranged dps source. They offer a Magic attack and Manabreak, which make them powerful at focusing down spellcasters.

Green Lizard:

Green Lizards are the ground artillery unit of the Curator Force. Their greatest strength is their innate tankiness, which makes it difficult for the enemies to snipe it. This effectively forces the opponent to fight front to back, which allows the Green Lizard's splash damage to shine.

Harpy Scout:

Harpy Scouts are good scouting units (clue's in the name) owing to their high base movement speed. They are good at harassing workers with their Pierce attack, and apply indirect pressure to the opponent by forcing them to build some anti air. However, they fall off towards the late game due to their low health pool and relatively high cost.

Hippogryph:

Hippogryphs are the Curator's air to air unit, and deal extra damage to Ancients. Hippogryphs can absolutely demolish enemy air armies due to their high dps, but cannot attack non-Ancient ground units. A balance must therefore be observed in the composition.

Chimaera:

Chimaerae take on a similar role as the Jungle Stalker, being another strong unit which can be fielded early. A Chimaera rush opening can make quick work of unwary opponents who do not have early anti air. Chimaerae also scale well into the late game, being a respectable damage source while being relatively mineral heavy for an air unit.

Chimaerae however have a crippling weakness in their inability to attack air units. With their low movement speed, they can quickly fall prey to a flock of enemy air units.

Harpy Queen:

The Harpy Queen is an exceptionally important unit to have in the mid to late game. This is because of the auras which the Harpy Queen has, which provide the army with so much raw stats which allow them to simply overpower the opponent. For this reason, a key moment for the Curator is the transition to introduce the Harpy Queen into the army, which can be difficult based on the opening and current composition.

Harpy Queens are horrible combat units in their own right, since most of their cost is in its auras. Thus, having multiple Harpy Queens is unlikely to be a good idea.

Green Dragon:

The Curator's ultimate unit, the Green Dragon comes with Spell Immunity and immense bulk. Because of its empowered splash Hero attack, it is strong when dealing with clumped up Heavy units. Its bulk also enables it to dive a back line units if the need arises.

The Curator tech tree allows the Green Dragon to be rushed as a cheese unit in a similar fashion as a Chimaera rush, albeit hitting later.

### Spellcasters:

The Curator's spellcasters have a focus on enchanting, control, and healing. which can heavily benefit the composition when added appropriately.

Gnoll Enchanter: Can cast Natural Energy, Rejuvenation, and Elderwood Summoning.

* Natural Energy is an enchant which increases the attack speed and movement speed of the target ally.
* Rejuvenation is a single target heal over time spell.
* Elderwood Summoning summons an Elderwood Treant to fight.

Since Natural Energy scales with the target's stats, and Rejuvenation tends to overheal the target, these spells are much more optimized when cast on higher tier units, making the Enchanter pair well with the likes of Jungle Stalkers, Dryads, Green Lizards, and Chimaerae.

On the other hand, Elderwood Summoning allows the Curator to create or replenish the front line at a reasonable cost. This allows the Enchanter to excel in situations where the Curator army has a lack of front line, which can be the result of a skirmish, or alternatively a consciously manufactured composition with low Forest Lodge units.

Celestial Faerie: Can cast Faerie Blessing, Nature's Grasp, and Celestial Serenity.

* Faerie Blessing is an enchant which increases the armour and HP regen of the target ally.
* Banish is a single target semi-disable which prevents a target enemy unit from attacking.
* Celestial Blessing is an aoe disarm.

As Faerie Blessing provides defensive stats, they are best used on melee units to make front to back fights easier. Banish provides a cheap disarm, which makes it effective against priority dps targets, such as artillery units.

Celestial Serenity scales better into the late game due to its aoe nature, and is best used for breaking concaves due to its short duration. It also provides effective health to the Curator army by limiting the enemy's dps even for a while. It has a high manacost, so is best used when the Faerie's other spells are not as required.

Wildkin Oracle: Can Boulder Toss, Wildkin Slam, and Oracle Cyclone.

* Boulder Toss is a targeted damage and stun.
* Wildkin Slam is an aoe damage and stun.
* Oracle Cyclone dispels a target area of buffs, then tosses up to 5 enemy units into the air, putting them in stasis temporarily.

The Wildkin has Spell Immunity and brings a lot of control to the battlefield. Each ability is a hard disable, and flexibility of the Wildkin contributes a lot to its strength. Wildkin Slam is always a solid option if the Wildkin is surrounded by many enemy units. Naturally, this occurs often when the enemy composition relies on melee units more.

On the other hand, the Wildkin can also expend its mana on a single unit by simply spamming Boulder Toss on it. This can be effective at reaching priority backline targets which would otherwise be impossible to reach for a slow Curator army, or to simply nuke an air threat if the Curator army is lacking anti air.

Oracle Cyclone is a more complex ability which has a rather low floor, but much higher ceiling. It is best used when it is possible to artificially select the 5 targets to toss. For example, in a fight where only 5 enemy high priority units are in the aoe, Oracle Cyclone would have to toss those units specifically, making it a very efficient spell that way.

## **Curator Strategy**

* It is important to understand that the Curators will naturally be in an economic disadvantage since Treants are consumed when building structures, and their biomass cost makes them unfavourable units to produce in the midgame. Fortunately, the Curators are capable of operating on the least workers out of the 4 races. This is due to the bulky and powerful units which Curators can train, coupled with healing spells which encourages saving units as opposed to trading them.
* The powerful units also means that the Curators do not need a lot of production structures as they focus on quality of units as opposed to quantity. While this would normally be a weakness in the race's inability to transition easily, this is not the case as Curator units do not rely on critical mass of specific units, which means a composition can function with low numbers of many types of units.
* Research facility timings are a heavily optimizable aspect of the race. Because each research facility also doubles as a tech structure researching unit specific upgrades, the responsibility undertaken by a research facility is rather front heavy. For example, when playing a Furbolg Warrior centric composition, 3 upgrades appeal to the unit: +1 melee attack, +1 melee armour, and Bear Force. As all 3 upgrades are researched from the Enchanting Ancient, there can be a variety of choices on the timing and number of Enchanting Ancients built. One Enchanting Ancient makes the upgrades come very slowly, but is a small investment which allows the Curator to transition out. On the other end of the spectrum, 3 Enchanting Ancients allows for a very sharp power spike, but the investment becomes obsolete after a while as one of the Enchanting Ancients will be idle. A viable middle ground is to build 1 Enchanting Ancient to research Bear Force, and timing its completion with the second Enchanting Ancient, which would allow the Curator to continue with 1/1 melee upgrades. This interaction exists for a majority of Curator unit and upgrade pairs.
* Abusing the Curator techtree is an important facet of the Curator early game. Curators are capable of fielding powerful units early as their units are not locked behind Town Hall tiers unlike in other races. However, Curator upgrades are, which means that the Town Hall upgrade can only be delayed for so long.
* Because of the slow and bulky nature of Curator units, they are prone to getting kited and cannot break concaves easily. Thus, an all out engagement should be preceded with the Curator setting up flanks for their units to enter the fight without taking too much damage.
* If the game goes extremely late for whatever reason, remember that Ancient Turret spam is an option since they have good combat stats whilst not costing any food. This also helps to offset the high food cost of Curator late game units, in particular the Green Dragon.

## **Trivia**

* Curator's Dryad is the only unit with Manabreak in the game.
* Curator's Green Dragon is the most food costly air unit in the game (and second most among all units, second to Fallen's Forgotten One at 13 food).
* Curator is the only race to feature a sight range upgrade.