ok, so Solwen came up with a great idea that, instead of having leader traits to distinguish civs we repalce it with civilization bonuses, ie benefits and maluses unique to that civ only.

in addition to this we can distinguis leaders by getting different leaders to spawn a unique world unit that is the 'king unit' for that leader. (ie for woodelvesAriel spawns an Ariel unit, Orion spawns an orion unit)

so thought i would make a thread specially for the development of this idea. i will post the finalized ideas in this and the next few posts :)

Empire: (by Solwen)



*A new palace is build randomly each X turn in one of the 5 Bigest cities.
+The new capital gots a +10% bonus to prod and gold (+ the bonus of the palace)
-The old capital gots a +2 malus to happyness (this malus end when a new capital is again chosen)

*Cities with 4 or more population can be given independance (this city becomes a colony)
+you gain 200 golds/population point of this city.
- All the other cities got a +2 malus to happyness for x turns

*The 6 first cities created spawn an "elector count" GP
+The elector counts GP can be allocated to a unit (like gg) and give them some free xp.
+Lot of free upkeep units
-If the elector count dies the city who spawned him riots and a new elector count is spawned x turn later by this city.
-More upkeep for cities.

*Tribunals are built 50% faster for empire

Lizardmen: (bySolwen)

The Power of the Great Plan

*Each city spawn a Slaan mage-priest as it's fondation
+They are very powerful spell caster who can remove the FOW of any place of the map for 1 turn each turn and their spells have greater range.
-When a slaan dies his whole civ is considering doing a revolution and all the LM units within 5 square radius can do nothing exept trenching. All this for 1 turn.
- when a slaan is killed, a new mage slaan less powerful than the one before is spawned x turn later (4th times then their stats don't go lower)
-A slaan can not leave a city without joining a "temple guard" unit and you can not train more temple guards unit than your number of slaan.

*Jungle and environment
+Jungles act as forest with +1 hammer and food, swamps act as oases.
+jungle give health bonus as forest and swamps as oases
+LM units have forester III in jungles and swamps and skinks and kroxigors have amphibious assaults and can move on coastal tiles.
+LM can build "Lore temples" land improvments that gives bonus to research.1 lore temple per 4 population point.
-Lm get malus on forests, plains and grassland not in their borders and get huge malus on tundra and snow tiles
-The enemy unit pillaging "Lore temples" gain LOT of $ and gain a "Old one tablet" item that gives him a small bonus research each turn and a malus research to the LM. The pillaged lore temple is not destroyed and the LM player can't raze it. If the LM manage to kill the enemy unit and bring back the "tablet" to the pillaged lore temple, then all goes as it was before the plunder.
-LM can only build improvment to exploit ressources (and road of course) and lore temples


*Cities
+4 first LM cities have a gold ressource near them at their foundation
+Each pop points give the LM player 5 golds
+Corporations can not settle in LM cities
+Other religions don't spread in LM cities
+No unhappyness
-No trade routes
-No ressource trade agreement
-malus 25% to building and unit production.
-Can not change his civics

*Only skinks unit can be produced (and terradons riders/salamanders)
+No unit upkeep at all
+ units can "create" slaves to be sacrified when defeating another unit.
-Other units (including chameleon skinks) spawn each x turn when their according building is created.

(0% corruption if used)


Woodelves:

The Bond of Nature
*Elves (standard template for elves)
+Bonus research in the first 2 ages.
+Bonus +2 to health for every city
+all elves move a base 2 squares
+overall stronger units
-malus 25% to unit production
-High upkeep for units
-Units heal at a slower rate
-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

*Progress of the Seasons:
it would be good if we could change the time scale to seasons. ie turn 1 is Spring Year 1, Turn 2 is Summer year 1, Turn 3 is Autumn year 1, turn 4 is Winter year 1, turn 5 in Spring year 2 etc etc.
if we did this we could give woodelf units befits and penalties according to the seasons.
+Woodelf Units built in Spring or Summer get Combat 1 promotion
+Woodelf units have increase chance of success when fighting in Spring or Summer
+Woodelf Cities produe units faster in Spring and Summer
-Woodelf Cities experience unhappyness in Winter and Autumn
-unit production decreased in Winter andd Autumn
-Woodelf units have decreased chance of success when fighting in Winter or Autumn

*the Oak of ages:
+the woodelf capital should always start with the Oak Of Ages Unique Feature in its boarders. if Ariel or orion die at any point in the game they will be reborn at the Oak of ages as with the immortality promotion but with 50% less EXP.
+Oak of Ages should provide +3 food and +3 hammers
-units moral decreases the further they are away from the Oak of ages. this penalty can be reduced by having Ariel or orion near by.
-Ariel and orion can do nothing during Winter (ie idle)

*Archery:
+Woodelf Archer Units start with the citygarrison 1 promotion and Drill 1
+cities get happyness from Archery range
-Woodelf melee units have less strength than other units of their type

*Friends of the Forest:
+All woodelf 'Elf' and 'Forest Spirit' units get the 'Woodland Defender' promotion (double movement in forest, bonus strength attacking into and defending on forest squares, chance to retreat)
+forest has increase chance of spreading in Woodelf boaders
+Forest provides +1 happiness
+woodelf workers able to build 'Orchard' improvement, only buildable in forests and give +1 food. chance of discovering silk or fruit. 'treetop Cottage' improvement, acts the same as normal cotage but buildable in forests.
+woodelf spell casters can build 'Singing Glade' improvement in forests, +1
hammer. chance of discovering fur or game.
-Desert, tundra, ice, mountain provide serious unhappyness.
-workers cannot clear forests
-units get defencive penaly outside of forests (ie -20% strength no forest protection)
-Workers cannot build mines
-Forest spirit units can do nothing duriing winter (dormant)

*Spites:
+all woodelf units can also choose 1 of 9 new 'Spite' promotions at level 4:
A Blight of terrors (unit causes Terror)
A befuddlement of Mischiefs (can cast "Mischiefs" spell which causes stupidity in target unit.)
A Murder of Spites (+1 poison attack bonus and 1 first strike)
A Muster of malevolents (can cast "Melevolents" spell which causes 1 magic and 1 poison damage)
An Annoyance of Netlings (counters opponents first strike bonuses)
A Resplendence of Luminescents (+2 magical attack damage)
A Lamentation of Despairs (one use only, cannot chose despaires promotion again, can cast "Despairs" spell. target unit takes leadership test, or lose 75% strength)
A Cluster of Radiants (unit is more resistant to magic)
A Pageant of Shrikes (unit can cast "shrikes' on target unit (selected from stack) which deals 3 damage.)



Khemri: (By Solwen)

The power of the Afterlife

*Faith in after death ascension
+ A "Priest-king" unit spawn each x turn (act as a great general but gives less xp) and automatically dies x turn later (of old age).
+ Workers can build "Necropolis" land improvment (give bonus happyness). A Necropolis being pillaged gives a LOT of $ but is not destroyed
+ When an unit with 5xp or more dies, he has a 50% chance of being "teleported" back to a "Necropolis" land improvment. When a priest-king dies, he is teleported back into a Necropolis.
+ Khemri can "sacrifice" any of her unit on a necropolis.This unit is added to the necropolis "dead". A necropolis can hold 10 units max + 1 priest king. Dead units inside a necropolis can't be moved, used etc...they are dead and should not even be shown on the map (maybe remplaced by "sarcophago" units whose sole purpose is knowing how much dead you have in your necropolis).
+Khemri cities can build a "Pyramids" building that acts as a small necropolis (5 dead units + 1 dead priest king max).
+ When khemri is blasted by the great Nagash spell, all the "necropilized" dead units come back to life in their undead form. (catapult become skull catapult, dead wizards become tomb scorpions etc...). All these units are "immortal"
+ Dead priest-king become tomb-kings and are immortal too.
+ 50% of the not necropolized units dying by nagash spell transform into lowly skelleton warriors.
+ 3 lowly skeletton warriors are created for each pop point killed by nagash spell
- When Khemri is blasted by the great nagash spell all his cities are reduced to 1/3 of their original population, his lands become nefarious, all his land improvments (exept roads and necropolis) are destroyed, all his units dies and he lost all his diplomatic contacts.

*The nehekhara kingdom (before Nagash spell)
+ +25% units production
+ bonus research
+ Can levy troops at the begining
+ Land improvment are built 25% faster
+ Can enslave units
+ "desert warrior" free promotion
- High upkeep for cities
- +2 unhappyness (petty quarreling against priests kings city states)
-If a necropolis is pillaged, the nearest city riots.

*The khemri kindom (After Nagash spell)
+ Can enslave unit
+ Can recruit mercenaries (+50% cost)
+ can sacrifice slaves to create new units( according to the type of units sacrified)
+ Khemri troops don't crumble is they are not with a necromancer
+ liche priests and tomb kings never suffer drawback from failed spells.
+ desert warrior free promotion
+ 0 upkeep for units.
+ Immune to corporations and other religions spreading.
+ No health, no unhappyness and no starvation for cities.
- City don't grow exept if a slave is sacrified into it or if an ennemy unit is killed inside the khemri borders (nearest city take "food" from this)
- can not produce units exept liche priest
- undead khemri troops can do nothing (can only fight back) if a liche priests or tomb king unit is not on their stack.
- If a necropolis is pillaged, the nearest city riots.
-if a tomb king is killed, 1/2 of the army in a 10 square radius is killed (brought back to the necropolis as they are immortal)
- can not build land improvment (exept mines on iron, gold etc...)
- No trades route at all
- No trade agreement
- No "free passage" (don't know the english term srry) exept with alliances.
- No map trading


There it is, complicated again but khemri is really complicated as there are 2 civs in 1 (before and after)

GNERIC CULTURAL TRAITS:

Different cultural groups could be (names are examples):

Elven Lore (High elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf)
--- +Bonus research in the first age.
--- +Bonus +2 to health for every city
--- +all elves move a base 2 squares and have +1 attack strength.
--- -50% to unit production
--- -High upkeep for units
--- -Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

Dwarven Lore (Dwarf, Chaos Dwarf)
--- +Bonus research in the first age.
--- +all mineral resources provide +1 extra happyness (Gems, gold, iron, copper, gromril, ithilmar etc)
--- +Dwarf workes can build improvements on Peaks (but not roads) and get the 'dwarven mine' and 'dwarven quarry' improvements (+1 hammer each)
--- +all units magic resistant, +1 defensive strength
--- -25% attack and defend penalty when in forest or jungle
--- -High upkeep for units
--- -25% to unit production
--- -Cities also grow slower (+75% time, again their major drawback and weakness is population)

Oriental Tradition(Ind, Cathay, Nippon)
--- + 25% city population growth and 10% less sickness from population
--- + 3 free units per city in empire.
--- +workers work +25% faster (due to there being more of them, (also increse the number of modles in worker modles))
--- -Early units all quite weak (-1 strength?), becasue they are based mainly on pesants

Old World Customs(Empire, Kislev, Tilea, Estalia, Bretonnia)
--- +1 happiness from military units stationed in cities (max 3?)
--- ???
--- - Corruption religion acts as a culture draining force (same as cult of the Dragon) in Old World empires, but spreads 15% faster than normal.
--- ???

Greenskin Animosity(Orcs, Gobblins, Hobgblin heg.)
--- + special, early building (replace training ground) Battle Arena, enables units stationed in city to duel to death in order to gain EXP (as with bloodboul stadium)
--- + very cheap units (25% less cost and build time)
--- +33% gold from pillaging. (captured citys spawn x slaves (x = half city population) and the city pop drops by half, civil unrest in captured cities last twice as long.
--- + can levy troops without causing unhappiness.
--- + no war wearyness
--- - suffers from peace wearyness over time
--- - Animosity mechanism applies (if we get it working again) (this is a major setback)

Undead Curse (Khemri, Vampire Counts, Lhamia)
--- +all units unaffected by moral, fear, terror or any kind of psychology effect.
--- +living units killed in civ's boarders have chance of being raised as undead (20%?)
--- +workers can build 'grave yard' improvement to replace cottage, upgradeable improvement (Grave -> Grave Yard -> Cemetary -> Crypt (or such, perhaps renamed for khemri and Lhamia)) which has increasing chance of spawing skelleton warriors when enemies are near by. can also be razed by magic users to build more units.
--- -units have a range of movment. cannot move more than 3 squares from civ's boarders, or from the line of sight of a spell caster otherwise they get a negative healing promotion which end up killing them.
--- -enemy cities captured are reduced to 1 population and some units are spawned.
--- -cities only gain population through the sacrificing of units in cities.

New World Customs (Lizardmen, Amazon)
--- + cities get no unhealthyness from jungle, swamp or floodplain.
--- + Jungle provides +1 food and +1 hammer, workers can build cottages in jungle without having to clear them. Swamps act as oases.
--- +all units get double movement and +25% attack and defence when in jungle.
--- +jungle provides +1 happiness.
--- -workers cannot build improvemetns other than on strategic or bonus resources, roads and jungle cottages.
--- -units get negative healing promotion when on tundra, ice, or desert (not flood plains or oases, they are fine on those) (not adapted to such harsh climates)
--- -no external trade routes or resource agreements.

Chaos Taint (Hung, Kurgan, Norsaca, Beasts of Chaos)

--- +Chaos terrain provides +1 happiness (plain of bones etc)
--- + no war wearyness
--- + 50% gold from pillaging.
--- - ????

*Only skinks unit can be produced (and terradons riders/salamanders)
+No unit upkeep at all
+ units can "create" slaves to be sacrified when defeating another unit.
-Other units (including chameleon skinks) spawn each x turn when their according building is created.

what about sauruses? they are an important part of lizardman society no?

not sure about the no unhappyness though, that could be a bit too powerful.

how would the first 4 cities be ensured to start next to a gold resource? (it would be better with first 3 cities, or only the capital, otherwise 4 is too powerful) perhaps they could actually start with a building that provides 1 gold, like a 'Gold Vault' or something

-LM can only build improvment to exploit ressources (and road of course) and lore temples i thought this was the case for all civs?

everything else looks cool, except that the number of slann should be limited (world unit? limited to first 6 cities?)
i especially like the lore temples

Woodelves:

The Bond of Nature
*Elves (standard template for elves)
+Bonus research in the first 2 ages.
+Bonus +2 to health for every city
+all elves move a base 2 squares
+overall stronger units
-malus 25% to unit production
-High upkeep for units
-Units heal at a slower rate
-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

*Progress of the Seasons:
it would be good if we could change the time scale to seasons. ie turn 1 is Spring Year 1, Turn 2 is Summer year 1, Turn 3 is Autumn year 1, turn 4 is Winter year 1, turn 5 in Spring year 2 etc etc.
if we did this we could give woodelf units befits and penalties according to the seasons.
+Woodelf Units built in Spring or Summer get Combat 1 promotion
+Woodelf units have increase chance of success when fighting in Spring or Summer
+Woodelf Cities produe units faster in Spring and Summer
-Woodelf Cities experience unhappyness in Winter and Autumn
-unit production decreased in Winter andd Autumn
-Woodelf units have decreased chance of success when fighting in Winter or Autumn

*the Oak of ages:
+the woodelf capital should always start with the Oak Of Ages Unique Feature in its boarders. if Ariel or orion die at any point in the game they will be reborn at the Oak of ages as with the immortality promotion but with 50% less EXP.
+Oak of Ages should provide +3 food and +3 hammers
-units moral decreases the further they are away from the Oak of ages. this penalty can be reduced by having Ariel or orion near by.
-Ariel and orion can do nothing during Winter (ie idle)

*Archery:
+Woodelf Archer Units start with the citygarrison 1 promotion and Drill 1
+cities get happyness from Archery range
-Woodelf melee units have less strength than other units of their type

*Friends of the Forest:
+All woodelf 'Elf' and 'Forest Spirit' units get the 'Woodland Defender' promotion (double movement in forest, bonus strength attacking into and defending on forest squares, chance to retreat)
+forest has increase chance of spreading in Woodelf boaders
+Forest provides +1 happiness
+woodelf workers able to build 'Orchard' improvement, only buildable in forests and give +1 food. chance of discovering silk or fruit. 'treetop Cottage' improvement, acts the same as normal cotage but buildable in forests.
+woodelf spell casters can build 'Singing Glade' improvement in forests, +1
hammer. chance of discovering fur or game.
-Desert, tundra, ice, mountain provide serious unhappyness.
-workers cannot clear forests
-units get defencive penaly outside of forests (ie -20% strength no forest protection)
-Workers cannot build mines
-Forest spirit units can do nothing duriing winter (dormant)

*Spites:
+all woodelf units can also choose 1 of 9 new 'Spite' promotions at level 4:
A Blight of terrors (unit causes Terror)
A befuddlement of Mischiefs (can cast "Mischiefs" spell which causes stupidity in target unit.)
A Murder of Spites (+1 poison attack bonus and 1 first strike)
A Muster of malevolents (can cast "Melevolents" spell which causes 1 magic and 1 poison damage)
An Annoyance of Netlings (counters opponents first strike bonuses)
A Resplendence of Luminescents (+2 magical attack damage)
A Lamentation of Despairs (one use only, cannot chose despaires promotion again, can cast "Despairs" spell. target unit takes leadership test, or lose 75% strength)
A Cluster of Radiants (unit is more resistant to magic)
A Pageant of Shrikes (unit can cast "shrikes' on target unit (selected from stack) which deals 3 damage.)

yes 4 golds was an example , it may be 3 ,2 or 1. I'm not a programmer so i don't know how to make a specific ressource spawn near a city but the main concern of making the ressource spawning near the city and not a building giving the ressource is to make the lizardmen rich by exploiting the ressource. They can not trade ressources and don't have trades route ... and on the other hand they are very wealthy so i thought it was a good idea.

About the land improvment, they can not build cottages, mines, windmill etc... They can only build improvment who give access to ressources on this ressource (ex: mine on a gold or iron source, plantation on spice etc...). For the farms i don't know. On a second thought it seems logical that they are able to make some farms.

They got several major drawbacks so i thought giving them no unhappyness would balance this (but i'm not a master balancer ). Moreover, LM nver complain, they just follow the orders of their gods, incarnated by slaans.

For the units:
"Spawning pool": Can train skinks warriors, terradons riders and salamandaers (if a swamp is in borders) and skinks chameleons spawn at irregular rate.
"Underground spawning pool": automatically spawn a "saurus" unit each 10 turns and a "kroxigor"s unit each 40 turns and a "temple guards" unit one time per Slaan
"Temple-pyramid of Itzl": automatically spawn a "saurus cold one riders" unit each 20 turns
"Holy pens of Quetzl": automatically spawn a stegadons unit each 40 turns


The turns number are just example but it represent well the way lizardmen army are built. If they loose a lot of saurus they will be in danger for a time. (as it was the case when the skavens decimated them with plague)Moreover, this way we will not see stegadons, krox and cold ones as rank and files. Moreover, the units spawning could be limitted by a max number (for each units). Something like 10 saurus, 2 krox, 1 steg for a 10 pop cities.

All the number are just examples to be balanced.

Other ideas that may be cool:
_Environment near a Lm city slowly change to jungle and swamps (building or spell ?) as they did on Albion.
_a small % that spawn appear with a random promotions (to represent the saurus blessed at their birth by some Old ones)

About the wood elves here are my suggestions

*Elves (standard template for elves)
+Bonus research in the first 2 ages.
+Bonus +3 to health
+Mobility free promotions for all units
+overall stronger units
-malus 25% to unit production
-High upkeep for units
-Units heal at a slower rate
-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)
-can't change some of their civics (i don't know)


*the Oak of ages: Make orion and ariel not available during winter (can only "idle" during winter)

*Progress of the Seasons: Instead of making 4 turns=1 year (will be too long for the time scale i think) why don't we just say that turn 1 is the spring of year 1000, turn 2 is the summer of year 1001, turn 3 is the autumn of year 1002 and so on ?

*Archery
Archer get the drill II promotion at creation + city garrison

*Friends of the Forest
all wood elves units get the woodsman II and flanking I free promotions
"wood spirit" (dryads etc...) units spawn randomly on forest inside the wood elves borders (and can do nothing in winter)
Why the wood elves have problems with mountains ? the falcon riders live there :)

*Spite
I don't think there is a need to be malus for that as they have already some strong drawbacks as elves.


Good job, we are getting some very interresting civs who will be truely uniques (not only their units). This is very good for the warhammer atmosphere and last not least, greatly raise the replayability (and the attractivness of the "minor races" like ind, nippon etc...)

small change to the lizardmen:

they get woodsman II in jungle instead of woodsman III ( wich is reserved to chameleon skinks)
They have only interrior trades routes instead of no trade routes (as with "mercantilism")

Khemri: The power of the Afterworld

*Faith in after death ascension
+ A "Priest-king" unit spawn each x turn (act as a gg but gives less xp) and automatically dies x turn later (of old age).
+ Workers can build "Necropolis" land improvment (give bonus happyness). A Necropolis being pillaged gives a LOT of $ but is not destroyed
+ When an unit with 5xp or more dies, she has a 50% chance of being "teleported" back to a "Necropolis" land improvment. When a priest-king dies, he is teleported back into a Necropolis.
+ Khemri can "sacrifice" any of her unit on a necropolis.This unit is added to the necropolis "dead". A necropolis can hold 10 units max + 1 priest king. Dead units inside a necropolis can't be moved, used etc...they are dead and should not even be shown on the map (maybe remplaced by "sarcophago" units whose sole purpose is knowing how much dead you have in your necropolis).
+Khemri cities can build a "Pyramids" building that acts as a small necropolis (5 dead units + 1 dead priest king max).
+ When khemri is blasted by the great Nagash spell, all the "necropilized" dead units come back to life in their undead form. (catapult become skull catapult, dead wizards become tomb scorpions etc...). All these units are "immortal"
+ Dead priest-king become tomb-kings and are immortal too.
+ 50% of the not necropolized units dying by nagash spell transform into lowly skelleton warriors.
+ 3 lowly skeletton warriors are created for each pop point killed by nagash spell
- When Khemri is blasted by the great nagash spell all his cities are reduced to 1/3 of their original population, his lands become nefarious, all his land improvments (exept roads and necropolis) are destroyed, all his units dies and he lost all his diplomatic contacts.

*The nehekhara kingdom (before Nagash spell)
+ +25% units production
+ bonus research
+ Can levy troops at the begining
+ Land improvment are built 25% faster
+ Can enslave units
+ "desert warrior" free promotion
- High upkeep for cities
- +2 unhappyness (petty quarreling against priests kings city states)
-If a necropolis is pillaged, the nearest city riots.

*The khemri kindom (After Nagash spell)
+ Can enslave unit
+ Can recruit mercenaries (+50% cost)
+ can sacrifice slaves to create new units( according to the type of units sacrified)
+ Khemri troops don't crumble is they are not with a necromancer
+ liche priests and tomb kings never suffer drawback from failed spells.
+ desert warrior free promotion
+ 0 upkeep for units.
+ Immune to corporations and other religions spreading.
+ No health, no unhappyness and no starvation for cities.
- City don't grow exept if a slave is sacrified into it or if an ennemy unit is killed inside the khemri borders (nearest city take "food" from this)
- can not produce units exept liche priest
- undead khemri troops can do nothing (can only fight back) if a liche priests or tomb king unit is not on their stack.
- If a necropolis is pillaged, the nearest city riots.
-if a tomb king is killed, 1/2 of the army in a 10 square radius is killed (brought back to the necropolis as they are immortal)
- can not build land improvment (exept mines on iron, gold etc...)
- No trades route at all
- No trade agreement
- No "free passage" (don't know the english term srry) exept with alliances.
- No map trading


There it is, complicated again but khemri is really complicated as there are 2 civs in 1 (before and after)

here are a couple of the things that masada posted in the brainstorming thread:

Bretonnia: Something involving crusades.. actually just a call to arms for the Bretonnian armies normally there is only a small standing army defending Bretonnia the rest of the army is dotted around the country in small groups split between various lords and dukes... calling something like that together would take ages, in reality it used to take ages to call together a medieval army anyway... so something to allow a Bretonnia player to call together a large army or at least assemble one over time... so either a power to draft Knights every X turns from cities or a wonder that constructs new knights every X turns (with no upkeep?) and perhaps a castle type tile improvement cuts the amount of food available.. castles take up a fair amount of room increases shield production and increases defense.. just an improved version of the current fort in vannila civ which is next to useless... (there is a alot of commerce and industry generated by building a military base..)

Cathay: Well Cathay has a massive army simple, they need one Cathay is the size of the Old World and constantly fights with the various goblinoid empires and other darker things combine that with a massive population of rural peasants and that allows a massive army to be drawn together in times of need (they treat it like a type of defered tax) draft effect X3 along with a high upkeep (it costs alot to equip and feed such a large host even if you dont pay them...

Khemri could be extremely fun to develop :D heres what i think:


*Faith in after death ascension
+ A "Priest-king" unit spawn each x turn (act as a gg but gives less xp) and automatically dies x turn later (of old age).
+ Workers can build "Necropolis" land improvment (give bonus happyness). A Necropolis being pillaged gives a LOT of $ but is not destroyed (can only be pillaged once)
+ Workers can upgrade necropolii to have an 'ushabti promonade", a street lined with ushabti statues... should require a very long time to build ushabti promonades and necropolii
+ When an unit with 5xp or more dies, he has a 50% chance of being "teleported" back to the nearest vacant a "Necropolis" land improvment. When a priest-king dies, he is teleported back into the nearest vacant Necropolis.
+ Khemri can "sacrifice" any of her unit on a necropolis.This unit is added to the necropolis "dead". A necropolis can hold 5 units max + 1 priest king. Dead units inside a necropolis can't be moved, used etc...they are dead and should not even be shown on the map (maybe remplaced by "sarcophagus" unit whose sole purpose is knowing how much dead you have in your necropolis) (perhaps it could be possible to make this step automatic? it would be cool if we could. +Khemri cities can build a "Pyramids" building that acts as a small necropolis (10 dead units + 1 dead priest king max).
+ When khemri is blasted by the great Nagash spell, all the "necropilized" dead units come back to life in their undead form. (catapult become skull catapult, dead wizards become tomb scorpions etc...). All these units are "immortal" --- i dont think all untis should be 'immortal' Liche priests should just be able to resurrect them with their one incantation 9i forget the name)(living khemri Wizards should all be converted into liche priests directly as they are technically not dead. also how would Khemri replenish its forces or rare units like tomb scorpions and bone giants? just build them like normal or require sacrifices at necropolii? because theyre constructs i think just building them is best)
+ Dead priest-king become tomb-kings and have the immortality promotion.
+ 50% of the live units dying by nagash spell transform into lowly skelleton warriors.
+ 3 lowly skeletton warriors are created for each pop point killed by nagash spell
- When Khemri is blasted by the great nagash spell all his cities are reduced to 1/3 of their original population, his lands plains become desert, grassland become plains. floodplains cause extra unhealthyness, oases become 'mirages' (casue madness in living units nearby?) , all his land improvments (exept roads and necropolis) are destroyed, all his units die and he lost all his diplomatic contacts.


This is all very good except where i noted in blue or red :)

*The nehekhara kingdom (before Nagash spell)
+ +25% units production -good
+ bonus research -good
+ Can levy troops at the begining -good
+ Land improvment are built 25% faster -good
+ Can enslave units -good
+ "desert warrior" free promotiongood, perhaps we could make deserts do some negative 'healing' thing to normal units but the 'desert warrior' promotion negates this, also extra strength on desert squares
- High upkeep for cities -good
- +2 unhappyness (petty quarreling against priests kings city states) -good
-If a necropolis is pillaged, the nearest city riots. -good also give a chance for any entombed units to be 'destryed' by the raiders mayby 10% per unit?

At what point will this great Nagash spell occur? who casts it? and why will it only be on Khemri? as it stands now Nagash is a barbarian unit spawned at nagashizzar, should he be his own computer controlled civ sepparate from barbarians who is always at war with khemri and can only cast his great blight on the Khemri civilization? in the fluff Nagash poisoned all the rivers in Khemri first, plague spread throughout the land and pestilence reigned. death was every where. should the cross over to unded be one turn or a few turns? or should this great spell be a special event that occurs around turn x (like orthos appearing around turn 75)

*The khemri kindom (After Nagash spell)
+ Can enslave unit -good
+ Can recruit mercenaries (+50% cost) -why would mercinaried join an undead legion????
+ can sacrifice slaves to create new units( according to the type of units sacrified) -good sacrificed in cities or necropolii? perhaps give all enemy units killed in Khemri lands a chance to be reised as an undead varient under khemri control, so waging war on undead khemri is extra frightening
+ Khemri troops don't crumble is they are not with a necromancer -actually Khemri troops do crumble if theyre not near a heirophant. liche priests should upgrade to heirophants at level 6 or so, make them a world unit (3-4) and say that no khemri unit cas survive more than x turns out of the khemri boarders if they are not in the line of sight of a heirphant. (giving them a negative helaing promotion that is cancelled by a moral based system could work)
+ liche priests and tomb kings never suffer drawback from failed spells.-good, all liche priests start out knowing all 4 of their incantations
+ desert warrior free promotion -good, to all units
+ 0 upkeep for units. -good
+ Immune to corporations and other religions spreading. -good
+ No health, no unhappyness and no starvation for cities. -good, also no happyness
- City don't grow exept if a slave is sacrified into it or if an ennemy unit is killed inside the khemri borders (nearest city take "food" from this) -good also make it so skellies can be joined to cities to boost population
- can not produce units exept liche priest -good, and constructs, Ushabti, bone giants, screaming scull catapult, Tomb Scorpion (requires a Liche priest?)
- undead khemri troops can do nothing (can only fight back) if a liche priests or tomb king unit is not on their stack. -good id prefer line of sight effect to this, and also give them a chance to die if not near a heirophant as described before
- If a necropolis is pillaged, the nearest city riots. -good
-if a tomb king is killed, 1/2 of the army in a 10 square radius is killed (brought back to the necropolis as they are immortal) -good, tomb kings should lose some EXP upon resurection, 50%, heirophants should also result in expolsion of units
- can not build land improvment (exept mines on iron, gold etc...) -good, and quarries
- No trades route at all
- No trade agreement
- No "free passage" (don't know the english term srry) exept with alliances. -good but id be inclined to change alliances to friendly relationships.
- No map trading -Why not?



overall very good ideas solwen, the conversion from living to dead i think will be the trickies part of the whole thing. perhaps a leader change is in order after the spell, (as in the hyborium swapping in FfH)

High Elves:



Of Order and Dicipline

*Elves (standard template for elves)
+Bonus research in the first 2 ages.
+Bonus +2 to health for every city
+all elves move a base 2 squares
+overall stronger units
-malus 25% to unit production
-High upkeep for units
-Units heal at a slower rate
-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

*militia
+Cottage and village improvements have a chance of spawning a highelf militia unit (random melee, spear or archer) the same as how treemen are spawned in ancient forests in FfH
+ Can levy troops at the begining and dosnt cause unhappyness
+ spawned militia units start with 'homeland' promotion as per FfH
-high upkeep of levied troops
-levying reduces population

*diciplined
+all Highelf units built normally (ie not levied) start with a 'Diciplined' Promotion giving them Commando, and drill one benefits, as well as making them loyal to their homeland (loyalty benefits as per FfH)
+ highels cities can build Training yards which can get 2 units stationed in a city to 'fight' each other, (like the belseraph arena in FfH) where they both have a chance of dying (50%?) and both get EXP.
-Highelf units are very expensive to produce (unless they are levied)
-????

*Early culture / magic
+highelf cities shoul be able to build a few extra cultural buildings early on which become obsolete later on. or have unique variants of old buildings like theatres and obliscs which provide more culture.
+Highelf libraries should provide extra culture and/or magical bonus to units, ie +2 EXP to magical units built in the city
+magical units gain EXP faster than normal
-cultural buildings require more hammers
-mages have less strength due to more studying of magic
-????

*seafaring
+all Ships get +1 movement, retreat chance, bonus to strength and +1 cargo space.
+the capital is always built next to coastal square
+Coastal cities get +1 food for each square already with 1 food
+Can use the pearls resource from FfH (highelf Only resource)
+fishing boats can build coastal cottages like the lanun in FfH
-inland cities get unhappiness
-????

there needs to be more maluses, not only extra cost. i dontwant them to be unplayable becauseyou go bankrupt in the first 10 turns :p

For the Khemri change you made all seems good to me.

Tomb kings do pay mercenaries some times where they are in dire need. Especially Tutankhanut. These mercenaries are almost always arabyan as these 2 people have a somewhat understanding of each other

I'v got a national project that would be cool for Khemri:

Make it only buildable in Numas (or maybe not). "Bonds of the past" that gives:
_the city grows with living peoples
Desert gives +1 food.
Can build: Numas milicia (cheap low archers and spearmens)
undead production: -25%
2 Farms are built near the city

The city of Numas lead by Tuthankhanut has a LIVING human population that live with the undead in symbiosis. They are not slaves and they consider their tomb king to be a god reincarnate. When Numas goes to war, the undead legions are accompagnied by the humans of the city
This is real fluf from last tomb king army book and it shows ,accuratly, that Khemri and the tomb kings are not evil, as the vampires are. Khemri is bellicist but not evil...The tomb kings continue to abide as they did in their "living lives". The undeath is also considered to be a great curse for them, not a gift

The tomb kings are very isolationists (even more after the differents waves of tomb plunderers on their land) so: No map trading ^^.

And give tomb king +50% damage from fire.

The Power Of Order and Dicipline or the power of Sarathai (the world-dragon aka Ulthuan)

*Elves (standard template for elves)
+Bonus research in the first 2 ages.
+Bonus +2 to health for every city
+all elves move a base 2 squares
+overall stronger units
-malus 25% to unit production
-High upkeep for units
-Units heal at a slower rate
-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

*militia
+Cottage and village improvements have a chance of spawning a highelf militia unit (random melee, spear or archer) the same as how treemen are spawned in ancient forests in FfH good idea but wouldn't it be cooler for brettonians ?
+ Can levy troops at the begining and dosnt cause unhappyness
+ spawned militia units start with 'homeland' promotion as per FfH and combat I ?
-high upkeep of levied troops
-levying reduces population
- levying troops are always bowmen and x turn or X xp later they become spearmen.

*diciplined
+all Highelf units built normally (ie not levied) start with a 'Diciplined' Promotion giving them Commando, and drill one benefits, as well as making them loyal to their homeland (loyalty benefits as per FfH)
+ highels cities can build Training yards which can get 2 units stationed in a city to 'fight' each other, (like the belseraph arena in FfH) where they both have a chance of dying (50%?) and both get EXP.
I don't think high elves who are short on population would fight to death. But this idea is uber for orcs and ogres ! :)
-Highelf units are very expensive to produce (unless they are levied)
-More war waryness exept when fighting Druchii (war is bad for HE as it moves them closer to instinction)
-If the HE loose the "Altar of Khaine" landmark :+1 unhappyness in all cities and +2 if it is the druuchi player who gots it"
-x3 revolutions time when changing civic

*Early culture / magic
+highelf cities shoul be able to build a few extra cultural buildings early on which become obsolete later on. or have unique variants of old buildings like theatres and obliscs which provide more culture.
+Highelf libraries should provide extra culture and/or magical bonus to units, ie +2 EXP to magical units built in the city
+magical units gain EXP faster than normal
-cultural buildings require more hammers
-mages have less strength due to more studying of magic I think mages strenght doesn't represent their combat skill but the magical destruction they inflict. Moreover, on the tabletop game, HE mage have fairly decent stats (better than humans wiz for ex) +Mages are powerful and do not suffer from failing a spell.
-If the "Isle of the dead" landmark is destructed, demons hordes are unleashed in the Ulthuan borders and all the HE mages die.


*seafaring
+all Ships get +1 movement, retreat chance, bonus to strength and +1 cargo space.
+the capital is always built next to coastal square
+Coastal cities get +1 food for each square already with 1 food
+Can use the pearls resource from FfH (highelf Only resource)
+ HE "Corsairs" have double range of blockade
+fishing boats can build coastal cottages like the lanun in FfH
+ Can give independance to 3 colonies and still control them
-inland cities get unhappiness hmm why ?
-If the He player don't have a city on each continent + 2 unhappyness

there needs to be more maluses, not only extra cost. i dontwant them to be unplayable becauseyou go bankrupt in the first 10 turns


Nice idea, we are productive that's nice and don't forget to put "Druchii hatred" to the HE promotion

Ok, on the khemri,

i read up about tutankahnut, and your idea of the "bonds of the past" national wonder is great. maybe make it buildable in any city not in the capital?

The tomb kings actually want to try regain their former glory and are very expansionist arnt they?, i suppose map trading dosnt really help with that though...

Tomb kings nad liche priests have the 'Embalmed' promotion giving them regenreration (minor), but +50% damage from fire attacks)


On Highelves, your changes are good :)

The cottages spawning militia: in the old highelf army book there is a section called "call to arms" which says "All elvels able to bear arms are honour bound to spend time serving as warriors in the levies of thir cities, towns and villages.... in times of great danger, a general raising of the citizen levy will swell the forces of each relm many times over." so i figured, "how best can we show this willing levieing of troops without overpowering HE?" and that was my conclusion :)
Also make the randomly appeared militia dissapear after x turns (going home)

maybe combat 1 could be too much, we would need to play test.

why always bowmen> wodelves are the archers here, HE are good all rounders.

Trainig: the short populations are dissinsentives to train, but the EXp is an insentive, so players need to decide what more important.

id rather make the alter of khain a wonder that can be raced for between DE and HE, and whoever gets it is hated extra fiercly by the losing team.

more later, Uni calls :(

EDIT: thats true about mages but i couldnt think of any maluses, the isle of dead thing is a bit over the top too. i wasthinking something a little less devasting :p

i was running out of ideas with the inland cities are unhappy thing. the theory was that HE like water, and if theres no ocean they get sad ;)

OK solwen, i think this is enough to keep us going for a bit. now that these rough sketches are done for each civ can we start thinking about how each idea could be implemented? (im no programmer, but it shouldnt be too hard, that way Leffer and SidArthur have a better idea of what we want)

also can we start talking about the king units individual benefits? we can move completed designs to the digestion thread for Ploe to look over and any one else to balance and look over.

shall we start with Empire (ive don a bit of thought on how king units could work, ill post them later today after Uni)

hmmm been doing some thinking, and i have come to the conclusion that Warhammer armies are problematic to represent in a real sense, this ties into whole national power idea

There are very few armies in warhammer that are solely profesional soldiers...

High Elves: Spearmen and Archers are levied during wartime
Dark Elves: Warriors are levied during wartime
The Empire: freecompany, archers and realitstically the Electors own militaries are levied in the service of the Empire
Ogre Kingdoms: no real soldiers
Tilea: militia and mercenaries
Brettionia: the kings personal forces then his dukes forces (same position as the electors)
Chaos: most of the horde would be volunteer warriors

So that brings an interesting question to light... we cant hope to represent all the complexities of warhammer... and from memory Rhye's reason for his powers was rather simple...

Germany has Blitzkrieg not because that is representitive of Germanys history as a whole but because it suited his unique victory conditions

most of the nations have that same filter applied to them

For example i would choose these qualities for the High Elves:

-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)
+starts game with more techs (i.e another age ahead or so)
-units cost more (50% more would be acceptable and a population point?)
+High Elven units are quite a bit better... (lets say +3 strength on average and a faster stronger navy (by faster im talking about Galleons speed or destroyer speed)
+can levy militia with a cost of only one population (could be like a worker in the sense it can remerge with the city)

So what does this mean for the High Elf player? in a warhammer map they would not be stuck on Ulthuan at the start (Civ3 mod i remember that...) with a small population and a small strong military so what does a nation with a small strong military and a small population do? expand to places where they cannot be attacked easily Islands would be the natrual places (Rhye hardcoded a preference for civilizations to settle in places)

Dark Elves
-Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)
+starts game with more techs (i.e another age ahead or so)
-units cost more (50% more would be acceptable and a population point?)
+Dark Elven units are good but lets give them only +2 strength on average and a stronger navy but not faster
+all Dark Elven units have a chance to enslave, enslaved units can produce a large shield bonus and pillage more (this would offset the weakness of Dark Elven units compared to high elven units, better represents the Dark Elves willingness to throw away lives, human wave tactics anyone?)

So what does this mean for a Dark Elf player? that the only real target for a Dark elf player apart from raiding would be the high elves... similar low build rates similar weaknesses...and not with the large amount of troops needing to be cleared from the Old World cities or the Lizardmen in thier jungles

The Empire:The Power of the Electors: States Rights
+Reduced corruption (the Electors rule themselves most of the time, the office of Emperor exists only from convention rather than any devotion to the throne, i get the feeling that the capitol tends to be only where the Electors decide to meet) this would represent the regional nature of the Empire corruption and inefficency tends to be easy to stamp out in smaller regional divisions
-normal imperial armies (since the player assumes the role of the holder of the title of Emperor) are ruinously expensive (the Emperor normally only has access to his state army and the Reiksguard Knights and only as much money to run "the imperial army" as the Electors decide to give them) these would represent the armies of the Emperor himself
+the Empire can levy a mass of troops for a limited time or for their upkeep they could be even more expensive and cost absolutely massive amounts a turn to leave the borders of the Empire
-cities other than the capital get large -happiness modifiers for each unit garrisoning it
+cities can automatically spawn troops in advent of attack... based on the size? or amount of shields?

So what does this mean for a Empire player? That like the empire you would be crippled with a small army under your direct control and a bunch of fractious feuding cities that have no interest in helping you and only bother to answer you call to arms on the condition that they remain in your borders... probably severely limiting the size of the Empire to its natrual borders (in a civ version of Warhammer, the Empire would steamroll everything in the Old World fairly quickly you just need to look at the map, its twice as large as Bretonnia and and three times as large as Estalia, Kilsev and Tilea with more cities than all of them combined almost... so it needs some fairly strict limits placed on it.



Pretty much every nation in this mod should have difficulty fighting for long periods in grand wars of conquest most of the wars should be small and with limited gains... ie trading a city back and forth between you and your enenmy for quite a long time... (or find out how Rhye uses terrain to restrict nations, which tends to be rather unwarhammerly)

im tending to agree with you masada, we wont be able to represent EVERY side of EVERY race with unique bonuses and penalties. what we should do is set a limited number of bonuses that we can allot to each civ, and an equal, balancing ammount of penalties. (about those civs that like levying, it wound be too hard to diversify the method of levying)
for example let each civ have 4 bonuses, and thus 4 penalties, or 1 major bonus, and 3 minor bonuses, along with a magor penalty and 3 minor penalties.
eg: woodelves ;)

Bonus 1:
+Wood Elven units are a bit better: start with 'Woodland Defender' promotion (double movement in forest, bonus strength attacking into and defending on forest squares, extra chance to retreat and extra first strike?)
Bonus 2:-the Oak of ages:
---the woodelf capital should always start with the Oak Of Ages Unique Feature in its boarders. if Ariel or orion die at any point in the game they will be reborn at the Oak of ages (as with the immortality promotion, which is restored each time they are reborn) but with 50% less EXP.
---Oak of Ages should provide +3 food and +3 hammers
Bonus 3:---forest has increase chance of spreading in Woodelf boaders, and Forests provides +1 happiness
---woodelf workers able to build 'Orchard' improvement, only buildable in forests and give +1 food. chance of discovering silk or fruit. 'treetop Cottage' improvement, acts the same as normal cotage but buildable in forests. woodelf spell casters can build 'Singing Glade' improvement in forests, +1
hammer. chance of discovering fur or game.
Bonus 4:
+Woodelf Archer Units start with the citygarrison 1 promotion and Drill 1


Malus 1:---Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)
---all units are quite expensive, and get defensive penaly outside of forests (ie -20% strength no forest protection)
Malus 2:-the Oak of Ages (OoA):
---moral for each unit decreases the furthur from the oak of ages they are. (perhaps a national wonder, 'Oak of Ages Sapling' could be build to act as a secondary OoA (later in the game allows expanded empire)
---Orion and Ariel cant enter Tundra or ice.
Malus 3:
---Desert, tundra, ice, mountain provide serious unhappyness.
---workers cannot clear forests or build mines
Malus 4:
---Woodelf melee units have less strength than other units of their type

For the woodelves this means that they have quite a restricted home range, as the Oak of ages effectively limits the range of militray control (poor moral = poor fighters) but later in the game they can expand this by building the OoA sapling wonder. it also means they have small populations, and small armies, (due to pop penalty and unit prices), however they are very speciallised armies that stick to forested areas and fight from the shadows and defend more than attack (less strength, better archers) it also means that Woodelves stick to the kind of terrain that they love, lush forested regions, they stear away from ice and desert, and tailor their territory with enchanted forests ,tree villages and orchards.
all this pretty much suits the WE character. any less and i would feel done out of a cool feature (but if not all of these are implementable i will understand ;), (im not too sure about moral unless Leffer or SidArthur can work on a merge of lord Olleus' moral mechanics)) any more and it would be complicating things a tad.

everything bar the moral is doable with promotions, buildings, unit alterations, and already implemented mechanics like Unique features, nothing new, so it should all work reasonably smoothly.

Wood Elves
+Woodland Defender (we shall see what it actually entails when we have the map and can balance it but probably extra movement in forests and i would prefer +50% str when attacking or defending into or out of forest but costs population?)
+Oak of ages always spawns in the capital city etc
+gets better forest stuff
-no mines no clearing etc
-population grows 100% slower

Actually lets for ease have a look at Elves in general:
The 100% slower population growth should be standard to all elves
Elven units should all be more expensive but better and cost population
And they should all start with a tech advantage

Then we tweak the rest to suit the various elven teams :P

Humans: Would work like normal civ teams with only team negatives and bonuses.... (ie growth etc would remain the same)

Undead: Would have similar limitations... ie Khermi and Von Carstiens are fairly similar with regards to being undead (controlling units, citiy growth shouldnt matter and units should be created in another way...)

Chaos: Would be completely different from normal humans... ie Chaos should be able to levy massive hordes with no upkeep but have limited siege weapons and extra pillaging bonuses and slaving

That would save us a huge amount of time and make the coding for the individual teams much simplier... only having a few changes from the core "racial" identifier

remember we discussed racial bonuses before? didnt we decide that that was just to limited? i cant remember.
anyway what i really want is to wait for the bts beta, see whats what and then design ONE CIV AT A TIME. finisgh one civ completely and then move to the next, and then the next

what im trying to say is... every elven civ we have decided on so far (well drafted) has features in common these three features

The three traits that Elves would hold in common are:

The 100% slower population growth should be standard to all elves
Elven units should all be more expensive but better and cost population
And they should all start with a tech advantage

If we standardize a portion of the Elven traits (ie High, Wood and Dark Elves have a 100% slower population growth instead of 120-130 and 140 respectively) all we need to do is impliment it into one civ... then copy and paste the code into the others...

making eleven units more expensive and costing population wouldnt be all that hard to do (High Elves and Dark Elves are light and dark opposites... realistically there are few differences between the armies, dragons vs dark dragons, mages vs sorceresses, archers vs repeating crossbowmen etc... the notable differences ie Witch Elves etc can be done indipendatly...) but the basic shield changes, population cost and strength costs can be copied pasted the little differences then only need to be balanced...

the tech advantage would be a simple cut paste once you code it in once...

but simply speaking they are not racial traits... they are traits in common... the raiding bonus and slaving bonus of Dark Elves can be cannabalized for Chaos...

Standardization would reduce the work load... leaving probably only one or two completely indipendant traits per civilization leaving every civ a new experience to play but still holding similar traits for ease of programming and implimentation and for the sake of the players sanity (nothing like being forced into a massive learning curve)

Then once we have each civilzation sorted out we can then go as wild as we want with little fixes and whatnot (but think about it this way Rhye the genuis that he is... is still balancing things after how long?, and with a similar shaped world and similar civilizations... so what can we learn from his great mod... an absolute ton... but look at what he has done and its perfect because it perfect.. simple easy and just so well polished)

fair enough.

So the question now is, how many civ traits whould there be per trait, and should generic simialritys (the elven traits you mentioned) be classed as one?

PS i dont like the units costing population though, the pops are going to be tiny as it is.

Righty oh then, well i think we can start this again :D

i think we should employ lets call them cultural traits... when we need to ie Elves would share some broad traits, population costs (which im not going to defend here but i will) and population growth etc. These are broad elven traits and really only apply to elves, if there are differences we can just change them. But this gives us 3 races with similar abilities, reducing the learning curve, simplifying the amount of work in terms of code that we have to do and keeps within Warhammer canon. Basically unless there are major differences, like for instance if Dark Elves breed faster then we can just change that (that was a hypothetical example btw).

In essence we codify what we can and what we cant we dont try to force into line we just work with it. To answer the amount of traits per civ, i would say as many as gives a different playing style and as few. Elves will have minor differences in the core mechanics, ie their cultural traits, and the specialisation stuff weve talked about

For woodelves this would be
+Woodland Defender (
+Oak of ages always spawns in the capital city etc
+gets better forest stuff
-no mines no clearing etc

This would be three, but they are broadly Woodelven and since i dont see us reusing Woodland Defender on any other team (although Beastmen might have an evil version) and no mines or clearing, or better forest improvements (beastmen yet again might have some similarity in regards to this trait) so we could just for the sake of simplicity call it "Wood Elven Lore" or something

This would effectively give us two traits, "Wood Elven Lore" and "Elven Culture " (or whatever we call it) one would be unique, one would be exactly the same as the other "Elven Culture" is to the other Elven civs...

So any High Elven and Dark Elven civ would share "Elven Culture" with the wood elves, exactly the same traits which we will use to save us time and their own indipendant ones (which will be whatever we balance them to).

Humans wouldnt need to follow the same traits for instance i dont see there being any "Human culture" trait that would be to wide. But i do see the possibility of having broad human similarities, ie humans would grow at the normal civ growth rate, recruit units (except for Chaos) from hammers etc

I do see Ind, Cathay and Nippon holding at least some similar traits, ie reduced unit maintanence (all 3 of them have massive armies), they might all build units from food not shields but each of them having widely different abilities. Nippon would not be able to build peasants or cheap units only "good" units but there buildable units would be better through promotions or something (like Japan in Rhyes), Ind would probably concentrate on peasant type units or units that move well in Jungle and fight well in it, but no where else (like India in Rhyes which is cut of from most of the rest of the world, in ours though it should be beset by barbs from out of our worlds Thailand and Laos as well as from the north and the wastes). Cathay should be fighting off constant barbarian invasions and it's abilities should reflect that. But broadly there should be some traits in common, might only be reduced maintance costs and units built from food but this will tie them into together.

The undead would have some traits in common. Control of units and no marches etc. These would be the same regardless, so they can broadly be incorperated into both, the indipendant traits would reflect the differences, Khermi use walking statues and dont mind living people, the Von Carstiens are bloody thirsty insane monsters with vampiric leaders... etc

i agree with all that Masada.

Different cultural groups could be (names are examples):

Elven Lore (High elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf)
--- +Bonus research in the first age.
--- +Bonus +2 to health for every city
--- +all elves move a base 2 squares
--- -25% to unit production
--- -High upkeep for units
--- -Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

Dwarven Lore (Dwarf, Chaos Dwarf)
--- +Bonus research in the first age.
--- +all mineral resources provide +1 extra happyness (Gems, gold, iron, copper, gromril, ithilmar etc)
--- +Dwarf workes can build improvements on Peaks (but not roads) and get the 'dwarven mine' and 'dwarven quarry' improvements (+1 hammer each)
--- +all units magic resistant
--- -50% attack and defend penalty when in forest or jungle
--- -High upkeep for units
--- -Cities also grow slower (+80% time, again their major drawback and weakness is population)

Oriental Tradition(Ind, Cathay, Nippon)
--- + -20% unit upkeep
--- 10% less sickness from population?
--- +workers work +25% faster (due to there being more of them, (also increse the number of modles in worker modles))
--- -???

Old World Customs(Empire, Kislev, Tilea, Estalia, Bretonnia)
--- +2 better relations with all other Old World civs.
--- +1 happiness from military units stationed in cities (max 3?)
--- + 25% less build time for granery, court house?
--- -2 worse relations with greenskin civs
--- - 2 extra unhappiness if no units stationed in city

Greenskin Animosity(Orcs, Gobblins, Hobgblin heg.)
--- + special, early building (replace training ground) Battle Arena, enables units stationed in city to duel to death in order to gain EXP (as with bloodboul stadium)
--- + very cheap units (25% less cost and build time)
--- + x free units according to number of cities.
--- +2 better relations with all other greenskin civs
--- - Animosity mechanism applies (if we get it working again) (this is a major setback)
--- -2 worse relations with Old World civs.

Undead Curse (Khemri, Vampire Counts, Lhamia)
--- +all units unaffected by moral, fear, terror or any kind of psychology effect.
--- +living units killed in civ's boarders have chance of being raised as undead (20%?)
--- +workers can build 'grave yard' improvement to replace cottage, upgradeable improvement (Grave -> Grave Yard -> Cemetary -> Crypt (or such, perhaps renamed for khemri and Lhamia)) which has increasing chance of spawing skelleton warriors when enemies are near by. can also be razed by magic users to build more units.
--- -units have a range of movment. cannot move more than 3 squares from civ's boarders, or from the line of sight of a spell caster otherwise they get a negative healing promotion which end up killing them.
--- -enemy cities captured are reduced to 1 population and some units are spawned.
--- -cities only gain population through the sacrificing of units in cities.

New World Customs (Lizardmen, Amazon)
--- + cities get no unhealthyness from jungle, swamp or floodplain.
--- + Jungle provides +1 food and +1 hammer, workers can build cottages in jungle without having to clear them.
--- +all units get double movement and +25% attack and defence when in jungle.
--- +jungle provides +1 happiness.
--- -workers cannot build improvemetns other than on strategic or bonus resources, roads and jungle cottages.
--- -units get negative healing promotion when on tundra, ice, or desert (not flood plains or oases, they are fine on those) (not adapted to such harsh climates)
--- -no external trade routes.

Chaos Taint (Hung, Kurgan, Norsaca, Beasts of Chaos)
--- +4 better relations with all other Chaos Tainted civs.
--- +Chaos terrain provides +1 happiness (plain of bones etc)
--- + ????
--- -4 worse relations with all civs that are not Chaos Tainted civs.
--- -cannot trade with non Chaos taint civs
--- - ????


which leaves the oddball Ogres, Skaven, and Araby... they could all have theri own trait, but it would be good if they could be grouped into other groups. perhaps we can plonk Ogres into a mountain dwelling trait with Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs? but CD dont really live in Mountains anymore (plains of Zharr Nagrund).... we could group Araby into the old world group, but their culture is too different i think. and skaven could go in Chaos Taint...

hmmm the traits are abit complex... but they tend to broadly fit which is a good thing

Ill raise my concerns:

Elves: This is going to be a balancing issue and one we cannot possibily resolve now.. but i have a sneaking suspiscion that

--- +all elves move a base 2 squares
and -25% unit construction speed

Will still make Elven units overbalanced... now dont beat me to death here... but that is giving elves tanks in the first age, 2 speed you can run circles around everything... and only having -25% build speed...

Situation: You have a city near 2 enemy ciites with reasonable garrisons (larger than yours) you have cats and swords and a few archers for defence... what do you do? declare war... wait for your opponent to move out and attack (comps will do that) then charge your cats and swords forwards and knock both of those cities out quickly... blitzkrieg in Warhammer :P (although that might balance out hte other problems)

hmmm but im led to believe tha -25% will be inadequete and that population cost is a more elegant way of limiting elven capabilities easier to measure if you will... population will almost regardless of food intake limit the ability of Elven cities to spew out units quickly.. (which combined with the extra tech and better units a scary proposition)

But ill leave that to the balancing Gremlins

Agree with Dwarves (although giving them food from peaks would make sense, ie Inca in Rhyes)

The Orential tradition should be unit spam simply because Barbs will be a problem, with Choas spewing into Cathay from the North and South from khuresh, Ind will be attacked from Khuresh and from whatever is in the Dark Lands and Nippon will need to be sidelined somehow... probably due to attacks from the North (think the Ainu in Japan equivalent in Nippon) and probably from Elithis... whatever's there.. (Dragons since they can fly?)

Old World Civs: Drop the +25% build time on those buildings (we can think of something better), extra relations is kind of silly (and not in the spirit of Warhammer) and worse relations with the Greenskins... seems kinda tacked on

We need to think up on those three but otherwise perfect

Greenskins should other than other Greenskins suffer like -4 penalty or more... but otherwise good =D

Undead is good

The New World Stuff is good

Chaos will take a bit of thought but otherwise good

Leave the oddballs dont get tempted to lump them, leave them be... they will be the most difficult to incorperate but so be it... however:

Araby and Kislev can share a summoning style thing
Ogres can borrow some Greenskin traits and have the rest as thier own
Skaven are always going to be oddball lets leave them for the moment.. but they would share some of Dwarven traits, ie ability to get food from mountains (well from anywhere really) etc

i think you may have missunderstood me, by -25% unit production i mean that to be a penalty, ie it would take 25% longer to build units (what i should have said was 25% extra build time for elven units, that was my mistake :p)

i agree that they are a bit complex, but if we can get them to work i dont think it matters if they are little complex, it would add flavour (although if its too complex it will be overkill.)

food from peaks for dwarves is a good idea. im thinking terraces and mushroom farms :)

true about the old world...

Greenskins should other than other Greenskins suffer like -4 penalty or more... but otherwise good =D

sorry, i dont understand this ;)

true about Kislev and Araby, they are kinda polar opposites in what they summon, but the style is the same (ice vs Fire)

I know its a penalty what im stressing is that even at -25% build speed the 2 movement would more than make up for it. That combined with the extra tech speed in the first two ages would make an elven juggernaught. Think about it this with a tech advantage your shield production would be well above that of your computers, (having had more time for your workers to optimize) the -25% would be redundant before it even came into being. Now with an army that would concievable be numerically equal to an opponent (and with a player in control, the common sense to mass up) you have the equivalent of a Civ4BTS tank stack... two movement you can outrun and destory most enemy units and take cities ridicously quickly (and combine that with Commando and bleh the game is over).

Dwarves are difficult in a way because we are not exaclty sure how they feed themselves, in Warhammer they tend to have pasturres in the lowlands which they tend every now and then and caves with fish and mushrooms in thier holds... i think terraces which provide extra shields and food would be a way to counter this... i also think Dwarven units should be able to traverse mountains (as should Ogres and Skaven)

As to the Greenskin comment... Greenskins should get negative modifiers to everyone else other than Greenskins...

ok, i see what you mean bout the elves. so what if we increase the build time by 33%, or even 50% (i think 50% is overkill, but anyway).
but for the sake of argument, the base 2 movement is really not that big a bonus, its like giving units mobility 1, that dosnt make them an undefeatalbe force, just a really annoying fast force.

If you like a different penalty (or additional penalty) could be less strength than usual, ie -1 strength to all units but Plus 1 first strike.
(ie normal warriror is 3 strength, 1 movment; elven warrior is 2 strength, 2 movements +1 first strike.
the first strike gives them a little edge, and fits the role of speedy tricksy elves, the less strength shows their fragile nature, and the 2 speed shows, again their speed.

But, i think the only way we will know what is balanced in reality is to test it for real.

Elven Lore (High elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf)
--- +Bonus research in the first age.
--- +Bonus +2 to health for every city
--- + overall stronger units (they are elves nothing more to say :) )
--- +all elves move a base 2 squares
--- malus 50% to unit production
--- -High upkeep for units
--- -Cities grow slower (+100% time... their major drawback and weakness...population)

Dwarven Lore (Dwarf, Chaos Dwarf)
--- +Bonus research in the first age.
--- +all mineral resources provide +1 extra happyness (Gems, gold, iron, copper, gromril, ithilmar etc)
--- +Dwarf workes can build improvements on Peaks (but not roads) and get the 'dwarven mine' and 'dwarven quarry' improvements (+1 hammer each)
--- overall stronger units (da stunties be tough)
--- +all units magic resistant
--- 25% attack malus when in forest or jungle
--- -High upkeep for units
--- malus 25% to unit production
--- -Cities also grow slower (+75% time, again their major drawback and weakness is population)

Oriental Tradition(Ind, Cathay, Nippon)
--- + -20% unit upkeep
--- 10% less sickness from population
--- +workers work +25% faster (due to there being more of them, (also increse the number of modles in worker modles))
--- + can levy more troops
--- - overall weaker late units (their technology suck compared to the other human civs ... number is the key for them)

Old World Customs(Empire, Kislev, Tilea, Estalia, Bretonnia)
--- +2 better relations with all other Old World civs.
--- +1 happiness from military units stationed in cities (max 3?)
--- + 25% less build time for granery, court house?
--- -5 worse relations with greenskin civs, skavens and chaos civs
--- -2 worse relations with elves and ogre civs
--- - 2 extra unhappiness if no units stationed in city
--- - chaos religion has higher chance of spreading in their cities


Greenskin Animosity(Orcs, Gobblins, Hobgblin heg.)
--- + special, early building (replace training ground) Battle Arena, enables units stationed in city to duel to death in order to gain EXP (as with bloodboul stadium)
--- + very cheap units (25% less cost and build time)
--- + x free units according to number of cities.
--- +2 better relations with all other greenskin civs
--- + can levy more troops
--- + no war wearyness
--- + bonus to pillaging
--- - Animosity mechanism applies (if we get it working again) (this is a major setback)
--- -4 worse relations with all civs.
--- - peace wearyness grows overtime (as for war wearyness of the other civs)

Undead Curse (Khemri, Vampire Counts, Lhamia)
--- +all units unaffected by moral, fear, terror or any kind of psychology effect.
--- +living units killed in civ's boarders have chance of being raised as undead (20%?)
--- +workers can build 'grave yard' improvement to replace cottage, upgradeable improvement (Grave -> Grave Yard -> Cemetary -> Crypt (or such, perhaps renamed for khemri and Lhamia)) which has increasing chance of spawing skelleton warriors when enemies are near by. can also be razed by magic users to build more units.
--- -units have a range of movment. cannot move more than 3 squares from civ's boarders, or from the line of sight of a spell caster otherwise they get a negative healing promotion which end up killing them.
--- -enemy cities captured are reduced to 1 population and some units are spawned.
--- -cities only gain population through the sacrificing of units in cities.

New World Customs (Lizardmen, Amazon)
--- + cities get no unhealthyness from jungle, swamp or floodplain.
--- + Jungle provides +1 food and +1 hammer, workers can build cottages in jungle without having to clear them.
--- +all units get double movement and +25% attack and defence when in jungle.
--- +jungle provides +1 happiness.
--- + swamps act as oases
--- -workers cannot build improvemetns other than on strategic or bonus resources, roads and jungle cottages.
--- -units get negative healing promotion when on tundra, ice, or desert (not flood plains or oases, they are fine on those) (not adapted to such harsh climates)
--- -no external trade routes and ressources trade agreement

Chaos Taint (Hung, Kurgan, Norsaca, Beasts of Chaos)
--- +2 better relations with all other Chaos Tainted civs.
--- +Chaos terrain provides +1 happiness (plain of bones etc)
--- + no war wearyness
--- + bonus to pillaging
--- -4 worse relations with all civs that are not Chaos Tainted civs.
--- - cannot trade with non Chaos taint civs
--- - peace wearyness

most of those changes are good Solwen but others dont seem to fit.

firstly i dont see elves as tough, they are fast and dextrous but not strong. instead of extra strength i say 1 less strength, 1 extra first strike, +5% chance to retreat, and 2 base movement.

the oriental weaker late units thing is good for Ind, and nippon but not for Cathay. Cathay should have peasant based military in the first few eras, and in later eras i should shipt to advanced weaponry and seige. they would probably have some very advanced rocket based cannons (like big firework guns because china invented fireworks). they also invented the crossbow (well real life china did) and in Warhammer the crossbow is a fairly sophisticated piece of weaponry.
so maybe the different unit strengths should be diversified in the civ specific bonuses not generic.

Perhaps we should steer away from relations modifyers in civ bonus design. like masada said, we can come up with better ideas than that.

the faster spread of chaos religion in Old world cities beats me :confused: is it because they are more susceptable to chaos cults? id prefer to say that the chaos religion provide severe unhappiness and unhealthyness (+2 unhappiness and +2 unhealthyness) if it is not the state religion, but not increased spread rate, becasue then we would always end up with chaos driven AI Reikland :crazyeye: and that dosnt really fit with the fluff ;)

greenskins peace wearyness is good, another huge problem for them along with animosity.

IDEAperhaps we can also have captured cities being destroying to provide extra EXP to victorious units, or a lot of extra cash? or a 'Loot' unit that can be moved to a greensking city to act as a minor great merchant??.

IDEA: perhaps levying should be left to other civs. maybe Greenskins should get lots of units from new 'events' that could make barbs join their cause?


other than that they all look pretty good :thumbsup:

Yes about cathay i was not sure too. Perhaps we will tune them better in their own uniques features (like the reikland one).

For elves, yes they are not resiliant and especially tough but strenght is not the only statistic in an army power (apart from the greenskins of course :) ).
Skills are as much ,if not more, important than physical strenght. Indeed what is the use of pure strenght against an enemy you can't even touch or see ?

An unit strenght also represent his discipline and tactical brilliance of his officers. Elves soldiers train for centuries in their fields of activity and they have an intuitive understanding (+ their high intelligence) of the art of warfare. Not even speaking of their top quality equipment.

For example, a "basic" young elf spearmen may only be a levy but he has been levied maybe 10 or 15 times in his life and has seen perhaps more battles than an old grizzled human veteran knight.
Another example: A swordmaster of hoeth is frail and weak compared to a norse raider. But as the norse gots his body cut from the head to the groin by the razor sharp sword of the weakling elf, did his physical toughness helped him block (and even see) the incoming attack ?

That's why i think elves units should be overall better (and to balance the fact that they produce units very slowly).

But again it's just IMHO.

For the orcs destroying cities they take why just not doing it simple ? They get more cash and some slaves units(and the enemy city loose 2 or 3 pop points)?

For the chaos religion spreading thing, yes humans are the one more prone to chaos worship (humans fomr the bulk of the mortal chaos armies). Perhaps make the chaos religion like the "dragon cult" of FFh for non chaotic civs (give malus etc etc...)

well, i wouldnt mind increasing the strength of elven units (i love elves so anything to make the better :evil: )but i dont want to overpower them. the only way we will know what will fit is to test it in game and balance from there.

extra cash and slaves from captured cities for greenskins is good.

chaos as dragon cult would be great, i like that idea :) that should probably go in the religion design thread though.

A New Outline for the Older Races

I agree with Solowen... Elven and Dwarven armies havent really changed in 2,000 years (okay Elves are not using Dragons as much... and Dwarves are using cannons and handguns) but the bulk of the army remains the same... i.e Grudgebearers etc

With that in mind i dont see why we dont make Elven and Dwarven units stay the at the same strength throughout the game.... no unit upgrades once they are built and no new upgrades to reasearch.... so you end up with an army which has remianed the same from the start of the game...

putting these changes into the mod

Silver Helms should be able to be built right at the start and still be good... like str 10 (or whatever they are) but Elves should have to hold onto them for the whole game... so the empire player starting with str 3 units should next get str 5 etc as he advances down the tech tree... but you Silver helms will remain str 10 for the whole game (except for promotions) as your younger enemy races steadily advance and grow in unit strength...

Here's an interesting propostion... proper Dragon riders of Calendor (with the dragon) could be created through a wonder which after X amount of Dragon riders were produced stopped making them... leaving you with X amount of Dragons but never able to produce new ones...

This would show the steady decline of the Elves and Dwarves at the start with better armed and armoured units you would dominate the younger races... (mind you... you would more likely be fighting the other older races...we could figure out a way to leverage that result) so you watch your strength begin to collapse steadily in the later game... as the younger races begin to get cannons and other weapons to rival yours... and because of a diminising number of troops (caused by having more expensive units, which through techs could get steadily more expensive to build and maintain)

CivIV Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire has an elegant way of making stuff more expensive btw: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=183804&page=10

How this would play

This i feel would have a much more cinematic way of playing... and turn the game on its head... by allowing a player to create a massive empire... ie Dwarven Empire of Old and the High Elven Empire of Old.. then begin to start to decline as you stop being able to make certain units and as dedidance and age begin to show and limit your ability to fight back... and as your people grow less warlike and more civilized you begin to lose the ability to make masses of good units... steadily they get more expensive and national limits (could) be placed on them... so you start to lose territory and begin to fall back towards Ulthulan and the Worlds Edge Mountains... as the younger races begin to overrun your old territory and begin to force you back... :)

Lizardmen

Lizardmen could be made more interesting by having Spawning Pools only in their starting cities.... and being unable to build new ones... (maybe random events might allow it) but otherwise as you begin to have to fight masses of barbs and the younger races (Amazons, Norse etc) you begin to see you Empire collapse as you begin to move away from all Saurus armies with masses of Slann mage priests... and begin to head towards weaker Skinks and weaker Slann Mages and more Skink Priests... as a random chance of having a pool dry up and Slann based natrual attrition (i.e you get Slann through a wonmder which begins to decline... it stops producing Gen 1 Slann... then goes to Gen 2 Slann and then Gen 3 then Gen 4 (all the while the Slann are getting weaker as they spawn) and eventually it stops making them... so Slann become a scarce resource one you do not want to waste because you cannot replace them)...

How This Fits Into The Scenario and the Mod

So you end up with the 3 largest Empires (including for this mod... Dark Elves, High Elves and Wood Elves, Chaos Dwarves, Dwarves, Southlands Lizardmen and Lustrian Lizardmen) all begin to fall apart steadily as wonders which automatically spawn at the start of the game (and im seeing this mod going increasingly towards a scenario which is partially in the new mod) begin to fall into disrepair and eventually stop producing your best units... and as new techs which increase shield rates in the new races dinishes the amount of shields you get... and as units begin to age as the young races begin to build even more deadly weapons

How this might actually play out in a scenario situation

So you end up with an inverse growth pattern for the Old Races... as you advance up the tech tree you steadily begin to lose sheild production (somehow) as as attrition begins to sap your strength as the turns progress... so while your declining as your Empire is being eaten away... i.e Brettionians retake Brettionia as the Elven colonies thier are left undefended because of the Dark Elf and High Elf Conflict.. the Brettionians just beat the few superior defenders with a horde and re-conquer Brettionia... the Empire never had many Elven Cities... (and because its quite distant from the coast and Ulthualuan for the most part it probably wont be conquered... of course having barb pirates in Marienburgs region would limit Elven expansion.... The Great Forest as well as constant war with the Orcs in the bad lands will drain the Dwarves and keep them distant from most of the old world... and the Lizardmen will be constantly attacked by monsters and barbs... so they cant expand all that much (not that, that will help since they cant build new spawning pools) Dark Elves are limited by masses of barbs, chaos and monsters... and Wood Elves are limited by themselves... they could offcourse have some far flung settlements (but this could be limited by only allowing their cities to be built in forests)

well, i might have missunderstood you, but personally i dont think thats a terrebly fun mechanic. i dont want to play as elves only to watch them decay the more i play. i want to get an empire through sweat blood and tears, not just starting with strength 10 silver helms and rampaging across half the world only have my forces die because of regressive production.

i just dont think its a mechanic that will work. firstly it will wack game baance right out, and seconly it wont be fun (for me any way;) )

we should keep elves just a little ahead of the times at the start and then they fall back slightly as you progress (ie other civs units just become steadily stronger as your unit strength level off. something like in the pic i did below. perhaps have humans also plateau out after a bit, but so that most of their later units are still tougher than the elven units.

I see it as fun... but thats me... i still think elves should platue right at the start...

but then elves will be unstoppable right at the start, they will send out their strength 10 silver helms and wipe everyone from the face of the map in the first 50 turns at least. they dont even need to build moret than 1 or 2 to be able to do that. it will be like the elves are playing the game backwards, starting in the future and 'forgetting tchs and units becoming weaker, whilst the rest are playing forwards.

i want all civs to prgress, but some faster than others at different times.

perhaps we will need some other people's oppions on the matter. (ploe, Solwen?)

btw this an idea for a scenario... (i tend to think primarily in scenarios... because random maps dont hold the same feel for me :( )

I dont think that would be the case... Silver Helms would be the equivalent of mini-wonders to build at the start... 90 shields would be a fair number to talk about...

Think about it this way... for every Silver Helm built... a young race can build 10 warriors... X amount of Spearman... while defending in a city... add in a hill and a river and your silver helm will kill 2 before the counter attack kills it...

Now on the scale of buidling these things... 90 shields is hard to get at the start of the game... combine that with a slow population growth... and you will probably crank one out in the first 20-40 turns depending on the terrain... but consider this a city growth on a 2 food tile will take 20 turns? and probably wont get any better... so at the start you might have a flying army of 3-4 units... but not many more... because lets not forget those things would have a high maintance cost at the start... 3-4 would be the most you could have for the first age or two... they are far from efficent super weapons...

I honestly think a computer would have trouble knocking out players all that quickly... and even a player might be hardpressed because elven cities would have a minimun garrison as would dwarves...

You can have a single str 10 unit in the city... but given half a chance a comp will suicide a stack of 10 warriors into it and probably kill it... combine that with a few cats and you knock out pretty much anything... elves, dwarves and lizardmen would be suited towards small surgical strikes and not a tide of doom and destruction...

*smiles and nods* :yup:

(i still think it isnt a great idea, but you could do it for a scenario, i would rather have it so it can be random (but thats just me))

Simply speaking... the Elven, Dwarven and Lizardmen (now reffered to as "Elven" armies because i cant be bothered to type out all three civs) armies will surge past everyon in strength at least in the start... but never in numbers...

This is effectively limited by the shield cost of the units... lets call it 90 shields.. that seems fair enough (at least for this example) but lets run through a hypothetical game for a few turns

Turn 1. Starting defence unit YAY! Str 10 (seems to be a well rounded number) and a settler, settles in a fairly mediocre place... not to bad and not to good
Turn 2. This is where PL has a problem. I can choose to build a 90 shield super unit of death... but given that i can only get 2 shields a turn (with no pop growth) i can build one in.... 45 turns (practically a wonder) or i can choose to build a conservative way and grab some growth in the long run hope of getting some super units of death.
Turn 20. Population 2 puts a civilian in the city to getting 2 sheilds a turn (low growth) sets to build super unit of death... still 45 turns... with only mediocre terrian to exploit... (all the while im teching like mad... grabbing low level techs)
Turn 40. Still building super unit of death... with a massive technology backlog and no way to improve my tiles... so im wasting 3 shields a turn from unworked squares... and quite a bit of food... : So i have slow population growth.. a super unit on the way
Turn 45. Super unit of death builds... YAY! but im in trouble... i have no worked tiles and no ability to expand... by this time im in trouble im way ahead of everyone tech wise... but i cant use it...

You get the picture... you cannot spam Silver Helms if you have a size 1 city with only minimal resources and if you have a slower pop growth.. (and its even worse if you have to pay a population point for each unit...)

However this would be to some extent remidied by having the ability to build relatively cheap wonders... that allow you to have Dragons Knights of Caledor.. at the cost of high maintance... so your capable of destorying players... but move your expensive units into your enemies territory... and if they kill a unit you might have trouble fending off the next attack because your military buildup has cost your population and you've "borrowed" some defenders for offensive duties... and the extra costs from units being in enemy territory is going to cripple you... pulling you into negative figures on your treasury... disbanding anyone?

This means that your going to be limited by the mechanics... and this will apply to all the old races.. its in line with the canon... they dont attack all that often and its because of inbuilt problems that they dont bother fighting the young races if they can possibily avoid it...

BTW i do belive that this is much better suited for a scenario... but even so watered down it keeps with the canon and makes alot more sense... instead of having non-canonical units in the mod.... maybe we should have Silver Helms 1 which upgrade to Silver Helms 2 :P str 6-8-10? etc but still at the final level weaker than the better special units of the young races... would give you that nice linear line as well

I only skimmed this but the Oriental Tradition caught my eye. It should increase growth rate as oriental nations have had high family values that resulted in large and controlled population growth, just look at India and China.

Additionally I think bonus free units based on empire size works better constructively with other civics. A -20% maint isn't important when your running Horde and have a huge army and only a few units getting that bonus, it really isn't helping you and taking yourself off Horde may very well just drop you way too low in income that the -20% isn't doing an effective job comparatively.

@DeaExMachina

Im not sure but i think the intention would to be to change those civics one we have figured out the exact structure of the civilization traits

To stop double ups and easily exploitable situations and i do agree with the increased population growth

No i think we should do the generic traits first and individual ones later. the empire thread is only there to show basically what i want to be able to do, those characteristics are still up in the air ;)

@DeaExMachina: i agree with both your points, updated second post with that and Solwens changes :)

@ Ploe:
i found a bunch of python snippets by Zebra that will enable a lot of what i would like Civ bonuses to do. (leadeer specific units and buildings ets.)
i just though id post the LINK (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=224038#C4) here so i dont forget about it (for later reference, when we start implementing this thing ;) )

there are also a bunch of other good things in there that you might fnd useful :)

Here's my critique of all the ideas in the first post. I picked out parts that particularly stuck out to me cuz I, obviously, have questions or comments bout em. I hope no one else said this stuff before, but I'm too lazy to read 3 pages of posts. Sorry.

The Empire:
-The old capital gets a +2 malus to happiness. (This malus ends when a new capital is again chosen.)

Do you have build a new capital then? Or does it automatically spawn in one the 6 cities? How is it determined where the new capital is placed?

Lizzies:
Skinks and kroxigors have amphibious assaults and can move on coastal tiles.

Does this work like the water walking spell/promotion in FfH?

WEs:
It would be good if we could change the time scale to seasons. i.e. turn 1 is Spring Year 1, Turn 2 is Summer year 1, Turn 3 is Autumn year 1, turn 4 is Winter year 1, turn 5 in Spring year 2, etc.
If we did this we could give woodelf units befits and penalties according to the seasons.
+Woodelf Units built in spring or summer get Combat 1 promotion.
+Woodelf units have increase chance of success when fighting in spring or summer.
+Woodelf Cities produce units faster in spring and summer.
-Woodelf Cities experience unhappiness in winter and autumn.
-Unit production decreased in winter and autumn.
-Woodelf units have decreased chance of success when fighting in winter or autumn.

I agree with this concept. It would better the flavor of the mod. It would also make it so the techs are researched in real time. (Consider the light bulb or any other invention in our world. It takes at most like 10 years to come up with and finish an invention. I see the techs as essentially making an invention or sometimes several inventions. i.e. Machinery allows Crossbowman, Watermills, and Wood mills.)
For the sake of practical application, we should have the year thing in the upper right corner say, “Spring, Year 1” or whatever the season and year are.
For the unhappiness and decreased chance of success for WE units in Winter and Autumn, how much are we talking? 30%? 10%?

+the woodelf capital should always start with the Oak of Ages Unique Feature in its boarders. If Ariel or Orion die at any point in the game they will be reborn at the Oak of ages as with the immortality promotion but with 50% less EXP.

So, what happens if you change capitals? Does the Oak of Ages move or stay at your old capital?

-'Treetop Cottage' improvement, acts the same as normal cottage but buildable in forests.

I assume that this means this improvement doesn’t destroy forests, same as Elven improvements in FfH.

-Desert, tundra, ice, mountain provide serious unhappiness.

How much unhappiness are we talking?

-Workers cannot build mines.

So, how would the Wes get resources like copper and iron? I know they don’t have any in the Forest of Athel Loren, but it would be useful for even the WEs to have those.

-A Pageant of Shrikes (unit can cast "shrikes' on target unit (selected from stack) which deals 3 damage.)

Would this spell/promotion allow the killing of enemy units then?

Khemri:
+ Workers can build "Necropolis" land improvement (give bonus happiness). A Necropolis being pillaged gives a LOT of $ but is not destroyed.

Does this replace the cottage to town progression then?

+ When Khemri is blasted by the great Nagash spell, all the "necropilized" dead units come back to life in their undead form. (Catapult become skull catapult, dead wizards become tomb scorpions, etc...). All these units are "immortal".
+ Dead priest-king become tomb-kings and are immortal too.

By immortal, do you mean they cannot be killed or you kill them once and they resurrect in a Khemri necropolis?

-When Khemri is blasted by the great Nagash spell all his cities are reduced to 1/3 of their original population, his lands become nefarious, all his land improvements (except roads and necropolis) are destroyed, all his units die, and he lost all his diplomatic contacts.

Why lose all diplomatic contact?

Do you have build a new capital then? Or does it automatically spawn in one the 6 cities? How is it determined where the new capital is placed?

iirc, from almost a year ago (yikes, what thread necromancy :p) the capital would automatically be moved, such as through events. so you wouldnt need to build a palace manually. the new capital should probably be the next biggest city.

Does this work like the water walking spell/promotion in FfH?

yeah, but without the need to cast the spell, they would start with water walking (or a suitable named promo with the same effect)

For the unhappiness and decreased chance of success for WE units in Winter and Autumn, how much are we talking? 30%? 10%?

i had actually completely forgotten about this idea. i still think it has some merits, but im not sure what ploep wants to do with the time scale. with regards the the unhappyness, id say 0.5 :( for every desert, tundra, ice being worked. and as for unhappyness, probably just 1 :( from autumn and 2:( from winter. id expect about 10-15% strength loss in winter/autumn and 10-15% strength gain in summer/spring.

in the time that i posted that idea and now, i now think it will be too difficult to implement, and would be too confusing for people :p

So, what happens if you change capitals? Does the Oak of Ages move or stay at your old capital?

Nah, the Oak would stay where it is.

I assume that this means this improvement doesn’t destroy forests, same as Elven improvements in FfH.

yep

So, how would the Wes get resources like copper and iron? I know they don’t have any in the Forest of Athel Loren, but it would be useful for even the WEs to have those.

WE wouldnt use metals, they would have to trade for them, or invade somewhere that has already got a copper linked up to a mine. could have a new WE resource called Hardwood, which could be a requirement for later unit weapons.

Would this spell/promotion allow the killing of enemy units then?

unfortunately i couldnt get that to work, so i doubt we will see this spell any time soon :(

Does this replace the cottage to town progression then?

yep

By immortal, do you mean they cannot be killed or you kill them once and they resurrect in a Khemri necropolis?

either that or in the capital, yes.

Why lose all diplomatic contact?


well i expect being dead for a couple of hundred years would cause your old friends to forget about you, or die themselves dont you think? ;) theres quite a time delay between their death and their ressurection as undead.

*Rubs his hands together*

Roight then!

Ahem...


The Great Plan

*Each city spawn a Slaan mage-priest as it's fondation
+They are very powerful spell caster who can remove the FOW of any place of the map for 1 turn each turn and their spells have greater range.
-When a slaan dies his whole civ is considering doing a revolution and all the LM units within 5 square radius can do nothing exept trenching. All this for 1 turn.
- when a slaan is killed, a new mage slaan less powerful than the one before is spawned x turn later (4th times then their stats don't go lower)
-A slaan can not leave a city without joining a "temple guard" unit and you can not train more temple guards unit than your number of slaan.

Can't find much fault with this section, though if it is possible I suggest that the power of the Slann spawned depends on the number of Lizardmen cities, so that say... The first lizardman city has a Slann of the First Generation, the next three spawn with a Slann of the Second Generation the 6 get Third. The next 10 get Fourth. Every after (Maybe up to a max of 15 or 20) gets Fifth. And if a Slann dies, that's it. You don't get a re-roll, though on the death of your First Slann you might get the chance to turn him into a Relic Mage-Priest which would be less powerfull than his original form, but slightly more powerfull than a Second Gen Slann. If he dies again, though luck. Temple Gaurd seems like a good idea, though I would suggest making it so that they are -not- ideal for actual attacking (The Slann does the damage with ze magicz) and spawn a few turns after city founding.

*Jungle and environment
+Jungles act as forest with +1 hammer and food, swamps act as oases.
+jungle give health bonus as forest and swamps as oases
+LM units have forester III in jungles and swamps and skinks and kroxigors have amphibious assaults and can move on coastal tiles.
+LM can build "Lore temples" land improvments that gives bonus to research.1 lore temple per 4 population point.
-Lm get malus on forests, plains and grassland not in their borders and get huge malus on tundra and snow tiles
-The enemy unit pillaging "Lore temples" gain LOT of $ and gain a "Old one tablet" item that gives him a small bonus research each turn and a malus research to the LM. The pillaged lore temple is not destroyed and the LM player can't raze it. If the LM manage to kill the enemy unit and bring back the "tablet" to the pillaged lore temple, then all goes as it was before the plunder.
-LM can only build improvment to exploit ressources (and road of course) and lore temples


Good ideas. Though I expect that Lizard's would still be able to build farms and plantations on resources within the fat cross and get the bonus for it, yes? After all, all those skinks and saurus still need food.

*Cities
+4 first LM cities have a gold ressource near them at their foundation
+Each pop points give the LM player 5 golds
+Corporations can not settle in LM cities
+Other religions don't spread in LM cities
+No unhappyness
-No trade routes
-No ressource trade agreement
-malus 25% to building and unit production.
-Can not change his civics

First off. I feel that the extra 5 gold per population might be a bit... Overpowered, especially when combined with the no unit upkeep listed below. No foreign religions in Lizard cities is something I can support and no corporations I can see the logic behind, though I feel you might be able to stretch it a bit to allow for them. No trade-routes... Can't get behind that. The Lizardmen -do- trade with others, Marco Columbo brought back a wealth of treasure that was -given- to him by the Lizardmen because they considered the pearls and precious stones to be mere baubles. And when they are nor razing the various Norse and pirate settlements along the Lustrian coast the Temple cities do indulge in a little light trade.

No unhappiness is also I no go I feel, as, while they -do- follow the Great Plan, the Lizardmen (and in particular the bulk of their population, the Skinks) are not mindlessly obedient. The Skinks were none to happy when the Slann refused to do anything about the Skaven plague killing them off, and even went so far as to go "F the Slann, we're going to follow Tehenhauin!"

Also a decrease in building production doesn't make sense, when the Lizardmen have access to worker that can pull one tone block of stone around in teams of maybe five at the most. Kroxigors were actually bred for building big temples and building them fast. It just so happened they could be used to bash skulls in as well/

*Only skinks unit can be produced (and terradons riders/salamanders)
+No unit upkeep at all
+ units can "create" slaves to be sacrified when defeating another unit.
-Other units (including chameleon skinks) spawn each x turn when their according building is created.

No upkeep, no. Reduced upkeep, maybe. And personally I feel that apart from workers and settlers Lizards should not be able to build any units at -all-. Instead each city would start with a Skink spawning pool which would, you guessed it, spawn Skinks every so often. As an added dynamic to the spawning mechanic, you might perhaps have various promotions apply to freshly spawned units depending to which Old One/s a particular city is dedicated to. For instance a city dedicated to Tlazcotl would occasionally spawn units with the Courage promotion.

As an after thought. Temples to the Old Ones could perhaps have levels akin to Temples and Cathedrals in vanilla Civ. So every n Lesser Temples of (Insert Old One name here) allows you to build a Great Temple of (Insert Old One name here). The Greater Temple would have better bonuses than the Lesser Temple as well as increasing the chances(or perhaps granting a stronger version) of a Blessing being bestowed upon a Spawning.

First off. I feel that the extra 5 gold per population might be a bit... Overpowered, especially when combined with the no unit upkeep listed below. No foreign religions in Lizard cities is something I can support and no corporations I can see the logic behind, though I feel you might be able to stretch it a bit to allow for them. No trade-routes... Can't get behind that. The Lizardmen -do- trade with others, Marco Columbo brought back a wealth of treasure that was -given- to him by the Lizardmen because they considered the pearls and precious stones to be mere baubles. And when they are nor razing the various Norse and pirate settlements along the Lustrian coast the Temple cities do indulge in a little light trade.

No unhappiness is also I no go I feel, as, while they -do- follow the Great Plan, the Lizardmen (and in particular the bulk of their population, the Skinks) are not mindlessly obedient. The Skinks were none to happy when the Slann refused to do anything about the Skaven plague killing them off, and even went so far as to go "F the Slann, we're going to follow Tehenhauin!"

Also a decrease in building production doesn't make sense, when the Lizardmen have access to worker that can pull one tone block of stone around in teams of maybe five at the most. Kroxigors were actually bred for building big temples and building them fast. It just so happened they could be used to bash skulls in as well/

you raise some good points there, especially on the gold issues. the trade routes does make sense, but i think id still like to severely restrict them, so that they dont act as a major source of income. i also agree with you on the no unhappyness and building production points.

No upkeep, no. Reduced upkeep, maybe. And personally I feel that apart from workers and settlers Lizards should not be able to build any units at -all-. Instead each city would start with a Skink spawning pool which would, you guessed it, spawn Skinks every so often. As an added dynamic to the spawning mechanic, you might perhaps have various promotions apply to freshly spawned units depending to which Old One/s a particular city is dedicated to. For instance a city dedicated to Tlazcotl would occasionally spawn units with the Courage promotion.

again, good points. im actually thinking that lizardmen cannot build settleres either, we could give Slann a 'raise city' spell to rebuild cities, and then have lustria dotted with ruins, that must be rebuilt by the slann magics. or, even have the slann start with all their cities built. the problem here is would the AI handle it?

i like the idea of lizzies getting multiple kinds of temples with different effects. very flavourful.

The idea of the Slann raising cities is a good one as well, but then the issue would be if the AI could handle it, like you stated. Though I have to admit that I would go with allowing settlers over that idea though, even if the AI could be taught how to handle it. Why? Because I feel that it would start to take -too- much control away from the player. The spawning concept is interesting and with the concept of temples (and perhaps upgraded spawning pools, which would allow increased spawning rate for a city) there is still and element of player -control-. Sure you can't decree -what- unit you get -when-, but careful planning should still allow you to get the balance of forces and skills you want.

Whereas the raise city idea, while cool and flavourful, essentially tells the player "You can build your city here. Don't like? Well though luck to you!".

the main reason for the slan city raising ability over settlers is because the lizardmen have never built a new city. they had all their cities since the old ones, and most of those are ruins now.

perhaps make lizzie specific settlers that can only build on ruins and give slann a move city spell, so the play can migrate the city to where they want. maybe make that spell destroy all buildings to prevent players taking advantage of that.

Hmmm... Valid points... But... I now have another idea...

Have the Lizards start with all/most of their cities in Lustrai/Southlands built... But then implement a feature that makes several of the cities fall into ruin over a period of time. Of course the Lizardmen player should have options to slow or stop to "ruining" process to perhaps save key cities...

And then, later he may choose to resettle the ruined cities... Or just strike north and kill off those damned Dark Elves <_<.

I think perhaps we can control the decay and collapse of the Lizardmen reasonably simply and without having them just collapse for reason X (i always hate things like that happening).

You've basically answered the question yourself, Dark Elves, then add another race of imfamy Skaven and then multiple that by what other nasty things we can throw at them.

Slann mage priests can probably just "make" a city back into inhabbitance... Lizardmen are spawned from pools restart them and the city is back :)

Its the trouble of getting slann to restart them

Also no upkeep is reasonable as is no trade... they considered the pearls baubles etc worthless so it wasnt trade per-say it was a gift :) and i doubt there trade counts for much at all in gross terms or in value terms as a % of lizardman growth (or decline :))

Good ideas keep them coming :)

Or just strike north and kill off those damned Dark Elves <_<.

I resent that comment. :mad:

Wat'd the DEs ever do to you, man?

You mean apart from steal our stuff and attack our cities?


And... The rise of the Skaven could see a plague sweep across Lizard cities causing several of them to fall into ruin... Ya know, seeing as that's kinda what happened.

Fair enough we have therefore removed the WTFish factor of why did my cities die... it can now be tied to canon and common sense... plauge=dead cities... not dues ex machina problem = dead cities *huh*

So that solves that problem :)

LOL, ok, we have been real jerks to you HEs. Would it help if we apologize? We're sorry. *Shakes Celeborn's hand and then stabs him in the back as Celeborn begins to walk off*

Ok, nough spammin.

[Quote=Masada]Also no upkeep is reasonable as is no trade...they considered the pearls, baubles, etc. worthless. So it wasn't trade per-say it was a gift and i doubt there trade counts for much at all in gross terms or in value terms as a % of lizardman growth (or decline).[Quote]

I think the Lizzies should have very minimal trade and very minimal upkeep. But there still should be some. For example, let's say the DE or the Empire have 3 cities and so do the Lizzies. (These numbers aren't viable with only 3 cities, but jus go with it for the sake of my point.) Let's assume the upkeep for the DE or the Empire is 6 gold. Then the Lizzies would have an upkeep of 1 gold. Then assume DE or Empire trade revenue is 6 gold; the Lizzies would have 1 gold. That's how I think it should work, by use of a 6-1 ratio.

Plague, Skaven, Chaos Hords, Darkelf raid, Amazonian uprisings... the possibile causes of city degredation are vast. the event system could be put to good (bad?) use here by causing events to occur when something goes wrong (ie, if skaven meet lizardmen, a massive plague erupts and kills off lots of their population. if lizzies meet Darkelves, continuos raids can affront their cities through events. regualr chaos incursions should batter on the Lizards doorstep.

so basically, the lizardmens main goal is to stay alive, keep their citys flourishing and if they are destroyed, rebuild them.

I resent that comment.

Wat'd the DEs ever do to you, man?LOL, ok, we have been real jerks to you HEs. Would it help if we apologize? We're sorry. *Shakes Celeborn's hand and then stabs him in the back as Celeborn begins to walk off*

:spam::spam::spam: NO MORE SPAM< PLEASE IVE HAD ENOUGH! :spam::spam::spam:

So, how would that transfer into a specific victory for the Lizzies?

hmmm lets see... DONT DIE.

LOL, ok, we have been real jerks to you HEs. Would it help if we apologize? We're sorry. *Shakes Celeborn's hand and then stabs him in the back as Celeborn begins to walk off*

Do not let the name fool you... I'm no High Elf...



Victory for the Lizardmen would essentially be a Time Victory. Stay alive as long as possible. Though you could perhaps have a Great Plan related victory for them. Say taking control of certain areas of the world, re-establishing the ley-lines, much like what was done with Albion. Kill Choas and bring about the perfect world of the Old Ones...

Of course that would leave -us- with a bit of creative license as to what it was the Old Ones planned <_<

MY ideal goal for the lizardmen is something along these lines:


For the unique victories of the Lizardmen Kai and myself had the idea of sending the Lizardmen civ on a quest to seal the Warp Gates and bring the Oldones Back to complete their Plan. this involes a lot of creative licence. The idea is that the Old Ones knew of their departure and left messages to the Great Slann in the 3 major Temple cities across the world. however with the entrance of Chaos into the world the cities were desroyed and now the tablets are lost in the Ruins of the Old Ones. one abides in Lustria, one in the jungles of the Southlands, and one in the far off Siam (peninsula south of Cathay also known as the hinterlands of Khuresh).
These tables contain the instructions for the construction of a machine of great power, the Engine of the Gods. It is with this machine that the Warp Gates opened by chaos can be closed. the lizardmen would then think that their actions would bring back the Old Ones from their excile, whether it works... we dont know

They must also eliminate the unwanted races from the world, as they believe this will bring the Old Ones Back

1a. Seek and collect the Tablets of the Old Ones (3 quests event chains, sends lizards to Ruins of the Old Ones in Lustria, Southlands and Siam to collect 3 tablets, implement through events ands quests and the new equipment mechaincs)
1b. bring tablets to capital and construct the 'Engine of the Gods' unit.
1c Destroy the Warp Gates (new Unique Feature) with the Machine of the Old Ones.

2. Destroy Norsca, Kurgan, Hung, Skaven, Sylvania and Lhamia civilisations

3. stay alive.



i do like the idea of restablishing the ley-lines. perhaps a wonder that allows any slann in a city to cast spells from any other slann in a city. in effect making all slann everywhere at once. i dont think this would be a major victory condition, just a lizardman unique building/wonder. this may be quite difficult to implement though...

Sounds cool. But as ya said, be hard to implement, man. I don't know.