Just a comment for the OP.
What you may want to consider is doing something completely different.
Would a WoW mod be fun to play? What about the WoW milieu contributes towards an interesting game in CivIV?
Now, if you take WoW and simply port it over to CivIV, does it bring anything with it that is "special?" Not really. So, you have to bring in some more concepts. I see you are doing that. But, do those really bring anything "unique" to the gameplay experience?
That's one reason why FFH2 is so successful - It is unique in the realm of CivIV mods. There are all sorts of game mechanics that are "different" in FFH2. FFH2 saturates CivIV with its flavor for ultimate fantasy gaming goodness.
So, how does one go about doing that with a WoW mod?
I have a suggestion, of course..
First of all, remove yourself from CivIV GroupThink. Wipe the CivIV Mod Developer's Rules of Conduct and Mod Construction off the table. Start with a blank slate which is only dictated by the engine you have to work with. The engine is your canvas and your imagination is your brush.
I would start off by focusing on the same things that WoW focuses on - Character development. It is a game driven by unique fictional characters weaving a story and is played by people looking to develop their own characters and stories as well. So, I would stay away from the Civ-Driven aspect and try to recreate more of a roleplaying feel of characters in a fairly dynamic but also very stable setting.
Copy/Paste the Azeroth map.
Basically, start off with all the major cities in their normal Azerothian locations. Affiliate them with their normal civs. Develop them as "factions."
The "player" starts as a settler of a specific race. But, within the civ engine, he actually only starts with an alliance with the civilization/race he chooses. The civs are not really playable and his choice only truly selects his unit graphics and start conditions/location. The player founds an Adventurer's Guildhall instead of a "city." There's enough room on an Azeroth Map for the player to have a good selection of terrain and room to grow. But, the player is primarily interested in furthering his own adventuring career and advancing the status of his chosen faction. Guildhalls "act" like cities but, for flavor, their improvements are focused on maintaining the illusion they are small keeps. "workers" become fieldhands, scullery maids, whatever.. For military units, the player is focused early in the game on building various henchmen types which should be fairly weak compared to non-playable civs standard guard units. But, they're strong enough to protect the keep from barbarians and very weak NPC units. The player's true intent is to develop a well flushed out raiding party, complete with all classes of necessary units that have good "synergies" which allow them to take on increasingly difficult tasks, eventually assaulting capitals of opposing factions and killing their "anchored" Hero/Leader units within. The Player Characters are reached by tech advances and there's a broad selection of classes to choose from, each with their own tweaks and promotion lines. These are similar to "heroes" as they exist in FFH2. "Out of the box" they're much stronger than most NPC units they'd be attacked by but, significantly weaker than NPC City Guardsman and Epic Dungeon guardians. Their goal is to gain promotions, attain other classes to provide synergies and obtain gear and equipment from dungeons, barbs, lower level NPCs maybe even trading/markets or.. tradeskills..
The Unplayable Civs exist to provide backstory and focus for the game. Essentially, they play their own game of standard Civilization IV. The exception is that they have strong "anchored" static defensive units but, fairly week mobile units comparable to midstrength player "henchmen." This gives the player something to fear early on and allows for wars but doesn't promote one civ conquering another without player assistance. It also doesn't present a significant "aggravation" problem later in the game as those formerly feared units become exp opportunities. Give Civs some "hero" types to wander within their own borders and present a challenge to any of the player's units that find themselves in borders where they are "KoS."
The goal is to "roleplay" a Guild. There are "dungeons" which use the dungeon mechanic. Epic dungeons, random encounters, etc.. It should also be possible to respawn dungeons or have a small, random, dungeon tile improvement pop up from time to time to keep the player interested. Epic dungeons pop their primary guardian according to game lore with a random assortment of magic drops. Types of victories would have to be re-written from standard FFH2 settings but, I don't see a problem with that. "Collection" victories would be achieving a "set" of magic drops that allowed a godlike hero promotion. Domination would be one of the more difficult but, it would consist of conquering all the cities of a non-player civ. The player's diplomacy is not focused on matters of State but, instead, focused on raising their faction far enough to gain special "perks" or access to specific dungeons. Perhaps when their reputation is high enough, they can go to a capital city and enter a "trade" screen where they can buy potions, promotions(spells/proficiencies), equipment or even tradeskills for their units?
There's a lot more to this idea then I'm writing. But, you get the gist of it, I hope. The idea is to "port" WoW to CivIV, not stamp CivIV with just a bit of WoW flavor. Sure, creating something like what I describe would be very involving and time-consuming. But, nothing that is really worth doing is always easy, is it?
Thanks for reading.
