Tomb Kings

Ahriman · Sep 30, 2008

Tomb Kings (Nekehara)
This faction will need a lot of balance/playtesting!!

Theme: Undead ancient Egypt.

Traits:

Spoiler :

UB Palace: Bottomless Tomb.
Spawns Awakened as follows:

Spoiler :

Buildings:

Spoiler :

Units:

Spoiler :

There just aren't that many tabletop units to base things on. A few more units might make them a little more interesting.

orangelex44 · Sep 30, 2008

Give 'em the monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.

Psychic_Llamas · Oct 1, 2008

NO access to: Scout troop, Hedgewizard, Supply train. Crossbowmen. Longbowmen. Handgunner, Cavalry, Ironclad., beastmaster, Steamtank.

Khemri should get Archers of The Asp as Longbow replacement, give them some extra poison attack strength.

Icon Bearer. ?

replace supply train?

when we get around to actually implementing these guys ill put in a lot more ideas

mathurian · Jul 6, 2009

I'd want to try actually playing them as they are before making too many suggestions, but here's a couple ideas/questions:

1. Tomb Guard could have the promotion (I forget the name) that defends the stack against marksmen (seems a good representation of their bodyguard status?)

2. There should be some type of undead ship (if you don't want it to be able to carry troops, that's fine, but I pretty sure the TK have raiding barges at least), since without some way to project naval power they'll be easy raiding fodder.

3. Are Khemri incantation already implemented? What do they do?

Psychic_Llamas · Jul 6, 2009

1. good idea

2. Khemri had a massive fleet at one time in their history. they should have a moderately powerful navy

3. not yet, and i cant remember what they do off the top of my head, but suggestions are welcome

Ahriman · Jul 6, 2009

1. Is already implied; the unit is a replacement for the Royal Guard, which already has this promotion. In my design docs, the replacement unit is the same as the base unit except as otherwise specified.
Here, the guard has the Eternal Army promotion, and is partly death strength, and has I think 1 less defensive strength.

2. I haven't really done any design for the naval units at all. Mostly I'm going to leave that until later; I want to get the land combat in the mod working well before worrying too much about navies. Also, naval combat in civ is always pretty boring really, mostly because the benefits of naval domination are low, it takes forever for ships to get anywhere, and there is no terrain on the ocean, so stack combat becomes pretty nonstrategic.

3. Not implemented, but the idea is for them to mostly be stack buffs for other undead units, rather than offensive or damaging spells. things like; all undead in the stack get a promotion that gives double movement in shifting sands, or all undead get a strength bonus, etc.

mathurian · Jul 6, 2009

Well I don't know how it would port exactly, but I can tell you that in the tabletop game there are four incantations that do the following:

1. Relatively weak magic missile

2. Extra movement

3. Extra attack

4. Resurrect dead troops

I can also say that the "feel" of tomb kings is many, weaker (but reliable) spells, and that they depend on combined arms and their magic (especially the extra movement spell) to be competitve.

For the purpposes of the mod, I like the idea of desert-reliant bonuses (in particular their Chariots, Tomb Scorpions, and Tomb Swarms would seem much better in the desert than elsewhere)

Ahriman · Jul 6, 2009

Note by the way that many tomb kings units have the Eternal army promotion:

Eternal army.
-20% strength.
Any unit with the eternal army promotion has a 25% chance of being resurrected in its owners capital city upon death (as by immortality promotion).

They share this with many vampire counts units. The idea is for this to encourage weak swarms of units that are hard to kill permanently. This covers the ressurection pretty well I think, and will make the faction play quite differently; you're less worried about suicidal attacks with units because there's a chance you'll get them back again for free.

Combat strength boosts simulate extra attacks, and double move in shifting sands simulates extra movement. I have no problem with a weak magic missile (maybe a la doombolt).

I think the spells were also intended to have no fizzle chance.

Nelia Hawk · Jul 6, 2009

mathurian said:
Well I don't know how it would port exactly, but I can tell you that in the tabletop game there are four incantations that do the following:

1. Relatively weak magic missile

2. Extra movement

3. Extra attack

4. Resurrect dead troops

4. maybe a healing spell?
as they resurruct already in the capital... a little spell that gathers some bones from the ground to heal the stack... maybe something like:

Djedra´s incarnation of summoning:
heals 5%-25% hp of own units with Eternal army promotion.
maybe range 1 (so heals units in the 8 fields around too... like chillwind does damage) (but healing lower then, like 5-15%)

Ahriman said:
Icon bearer?

maybe....
some weaker cavalry unit...
units on the same field (or +1range) get the "battle standard" promotion...

"battle standard" promotion:
+5% strength
+5% healing each turn
+25% chance of being resurrected
100% chance to wear off (so the unit has to be on the icon bearer field to gain the promotion, and loses it the next turn.)

do the tomb kings get something to create deserts? or shifting sands?
i think the desert is the best terrain for the tomb kings or?

like the workers can create it...
or a building that spreads it in the culture borders...?

i remember some spells that can change terrain in the game "age of wonders 2".
these spells were permanent (had to pay some upkeep mana costs) and slowly changed the terrain to i.e. snow/grass/water/undead-land over several turns.

a building like:
Great Statue of Nekehara

replaces (maybe still has some boni of that building): governors manor (or instead of high walls... some sand dunes that create desert, or instead of the elders council...)
but i guess governors manor could be usefull... as Nekehara is the leader and that statue increases the "will of Nekehara" in that town (no idea if something like this exists fluff wise in the tomb king lore)

building could have:
+1exp for created units. (or some free basic promotion)
+1exp for created magical units. (or some free basic promotion)
+1

Allows 1 citizen to be converted to sage.
Allows 1 citizen to be converted to lord.
Allows 1 citizen to be converted to priest.
5% chance each turn to change a non desert/mountain/ocean/coast/lake tile inside the towns cultural borders to desert (90% chance) or shifting sands (10% chance). (25% chance that the created desert tile next to a river will be wetland (but maybe wetland give no additional boni to the undeads... so this wetland could be obsolete))

some similar building could be used with the chaos temples... createing chaos waste terrain slowly...

or vampires createing plain of bones?... maybe not...

-----------------------------------------------
but generally some effects and spells could change the terrain...
like:
if you cast 2 fire spells on the same field it has a 25% chance to create flames on that field...
if you cast 4+ fire spells (or some more devastateing ones) theres a 25% chance to change the field to scorched earth...

3+ chaos magic spells on the same field could have a 25% chance to create chaos waste...

this terrain could be handled as (what was is called in vanilla?) "pollution"? "radioactive waste"? something that cou can remove with workers.

Nelia Hawk · Jul 6, 2009

Ahriman said:
2. I haven't really done any design for the naval units at all. Mostly I'm going to leave that until later; I want to get the land combat in the mod working well before worrying too much about navies. Also, naval combat in civ is always pretty boring really, mostly because the benefits of naval domination are low, it takes forever for ships to get anywhere, and there is no terrain on the ocean, so stack combat becomes pretty nonstrategic.

why not createing some more different water fields then?

some that gives attackboni
or defense
or speed (good winds)
or line of sight (foggy area)
some that dammage a bit... (10%)

some riffs... stormy ocean...

some could be used like water rescources that give these boni...
or some could even move around? (no idea if its possible for i.e. a "good winds" terrain freature (+1 speed, or dont use 1 movement for moving in that field or 1 less movemant used...) to have a i.e. 10% chance each turn to move to a nearby ocean field...
so little weather effects could be simulated on the ocean.

Ahriman · Jul 6, 2009

Those are interesting ideas, but I think they might be beyond the scope of this more, or at least the forseeable future.

I'd love it if someone created an "Interesting Naval Combat" mod that added things like reefs, different wind conditions, storms, fog etc. That would be pretty cool.

But I think we'll focus on land wars, which is where most of the Warhammer action is at.

AI also tends to be pretty bad at naval expansion too.

mathurian · Jul 6, 2009

Ahriman said:
They share this with many vampire counts units. The idea is for this to encourage weak swarms of units that are hard to kill permanently. This covers the ressurection pretty well I think, and will make the faction play quite differently; you're less worried about suicidal attacks with units because there's a chance you'll get them back again for free.

When the unit is "rerborn" does it keep promotions or is it actually a new unit of the same type?

Ahriman said:
I think the spells were also intended to have no fizzle chance.

Makes sense

Ahriman · Jul 6, 2009

When the unit is "rerborn" does it keep promotions or is it actually a new unit of the same type?

It keeps everything; promotions, level, etc., but is on like 10% health, and back at your capital. So it has to heal up and then march to the front again.
The resurrection probability will need to be balance tweaked, but I still really like the mechanic.

The other one we were thinknig of was an undead only healing spell, or a spell like regeneration that allowed undead units in the stack to heal on the move, a la march promotion.

mathurian · Jul 6, 2009

That's good (the units actually keeping stats), you could give the liche priests a promotion that allows other undead units in the same stack to heal more each turn (whether on the move or not)

Another possibility (more for VC than TK really) would be for each kill to have a chance of generating a new zombie unit (or some such)

Ahriman · Jul 6, 2009

you could give the liche priests a promotion that allows other undead units in the same stack to heal more each turn (whether on the move or not)

Yes, maybe this too, but I thought the march was a bit more appropriate, representing tactical on-the-march reanimation of the fallen.

Another possibility (more for VC than TK really) would be for each kill to have a chance of generating a new zombie unit (or some such)

Check the vamp count thread for ideas there, but:

Liche priest. (National UU, limit 10)
Requires: Temple of Eternal Life building. Requires Priesthood tech.
Strength 5+1 death. 1 move. Channeling 1 (for the xp gain, can’t learn any magic spells).
Can cast Khemri incantations.
Any time it kills a living unit in combat, with 20% chance it creates a Reborn.
Hammer cost: 100

High Priest. (National UU, limit 5)
Requires: Temple of Eternal Life building. Requires Fanaticism tech.
Strength 6+2 death. 1 move. Cannot use metal weapons.
Upgrades only from level 4 Liche Priest.
Can cast Khemri incantations.
Any time it kills a living unit in combat, with 30% chance it creates a Reborn.
Hammer cost: 180.

Reborn are basically undead citizens; you use them to gain population points for your cities.

Khemri cities will eventually function like the Scions of Patria; very slow population growth, no use of food, new pop comes only from settling special units generated from your palace, constructed with hammers, or from deaths from your liche priests.

mathurian · Jul 6, 2009

Overall makes sense, and maybe once the civs themselves are implemented more the differentiation there will make more unit diversity unnecessary (though I still feel like one unit per civ that is truly unique, not just a version of something else would be something to consider)

Ahriman · Jul 6, 2009

I missed Nelia's post.

do the tomb kings get something to create deserts? or shifting sands?

Tomb Kings will slowly turn terrain within their borders into shifting sands, from which they will get higher tile yields (everyone else gets nothing), and potentially combat bonuses and movement bonuses.

Djedra´s incarnation of summoning:
heals 5%-25% hp of own units with Eternal army promotion.

"battle standard" promotion:
+5% strength
+5% healing each turn
+25% chance of being resurrected

Not sure how easy it would be to code effects tying in to the eternal army mechanic. I suspect this wouldn't be possible.

I should say though; Tomb Kings are going to be very complex codewise, they're going to be one of the last things we manage to get done.
We'll probably also get the units implemented before we get the economy/citizens/shifting sands mechanics.

(though I still feel like one unit per civ that is truly unique, not just a version of something else would be something to consider)

Well, we're definitely aiming for some unique units; sometimes they fill a "mental design slot" while still being fairly different.
Example: Brettonnia gets extra knights, and multiple levels of knights. So they have access to both secular and religious knights that can upgrade to higher level knights with enough xp.
Vampire counts vampires will be pretty different from anything other factions have; a limited number of units that are potentially very powerful; vampire counts military will really focus around its powerful vampires.
The chaos races will get access to chaos demons; bloodletters, plaguebearer, etc. that aren't really like anything in anyone else's armies.
I think the Eternal army mechanic makes undead armies play pretty differently to any others.
And the liche priest as a stack buffer is pretty different to any of the other mages.
We haven't implemented it yet, but
Araby has Dao and Genies and Efreeti use the monster slots of trolls and giants and such, but they are pretty different.
Empire gets Steam Tanks, and Kislev has War Wagons.
Dryads use the same slot as trolls but are pretty different.

The hardest to do are Tilea/Estalia/Ind/Cathay/Nippon. Thats where we really need the most help for suggestions. These things are just normal human civs with little detail from the fluff.

If you've got suggestions, post them there.

Psychic_Llamas · Jul 7, 2009

1. Relatively weak magic missile

i believe it was planned to have a fireball like missile summon

2. Extra movement

Similar to haste but only for non living (and thus undead and seige) units

3. Extra attack

either a % strength increase via temporary promotion (such as +20% attack damage) or first strikes (which are silly for slow undead)

4. Resurrect dead troops

we could make this spell in 2 parts, part 1 summons a new stack of generic skeletal warriors up to a natinal limit (say 5?) and the second part can be the low level area heal spell that Nelia Hawk suggested

do the tomb kings get something to create deserts? or shifting sands?
i think the desert is the best terrain for the tomb kings or?

i do have mechanics that already turns x% of desert within their borders into shifting sands, and also turns grassland into plains, and plains into desert, as well as remove forest and jungle and floodplains in favour of shifting sands. and because they will eventually not need food to grow pop this should be quite benefitial. (they also get necropolis cottage improvement replacements which are stronger and i might get to increase Reborn spawn chance)

deadliver · Aug 13, 2009

I know you guys have said that Khemri will have a Scions-style sort of gameplay. How about using elements from D'Tesh as well? In the fluff Khemri (if that is the place run by Settra) engages in a lot of slave trading and raiding, even teaming up with the Dark Elves from time to time for more slaves. The Legions of D'Tesh (good stuff btw) player relies on waging war to gain slaves they can add to population.

Ahriman · Aug 13, 2009

I know nothing about D'Tesh, I'd never heard of it. I'm far from a Warhammer canon expert. If you read the first post of this thread though, you'll see we're planning to use something like the Scions Reborn mechanic too; where some units can turn defeated enemies into units that can be settled for more population.

Do you think we'd need something more than that?

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