Lets update the Warhammer Fantasy Mod: Preview and Unit Request thread

[Yoda Power]

For years I have been somewhat private in my modding, keeping new creations to myself. But sometime since January I've begun updating the Warhammer mod orginally made by Embryodead and later taken over by Mrtn. I think it's fair to say that I've always been involved in the mod in some way or another and Embryodead gave me his blessing in making an update so here I go.

The Warhammer mod has been my fall back mod for years. I've probably played it more than any other mod, my own ones included.

My updating concentrates on two main aspects:
1) Fixing gameplay stuff and unfortunate unbalances (some unbalances in the Wh mod are intended, but not all of them).

2) Updating units graphics and adding new units from the Warhammer universe. This is where this thread comes in. I could need some help from our fellow unit makers

I've also added a few new improvements and wonders from the Warhammer universe. Soon I will preview a couple of new building icons I made (don't have them on this computer).

Anyway here's a bunch of requests/pictures.

Spoiler :

Warpsphinx

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat570035a&prodId=prod1190053a


Vampire Lord

These guys should have a both a magic and a sword attack.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720003a&prodId=prod1160066a


Squigs

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440080a&prodId=prod1600122a


Rat Ogre

Right now the mod uses a cut and paste graphics. It could be better.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440085a&prodId=prod1040496


Chaos Warriors

Embryodead made an animated Chaos Warrior for the mod, but it was one of his first units and the animations aren't so good.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440109a&prodId=prod1040519


River Troll

Tom is working on a conversion that I can use. Of course an original is almost always better.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440081a&prodId=prod750003a


Fimir Warrior an Albionese unit.


Blood Knights a red vampire Knight


Wood Elf Wild Riders


Crypt Horrors an upgrade to the Ghoul


Plague Drones we already have the Plaguebearer, this is the mounted version.


Amazons in mesoamerican dress.


High Elf White Lions



Empire Demigryph Knight

Honestly there are a ton more cool units at the website and pretty much any new unit is appreciated.

 

[Yoda Power]

I almost forgot. Games Workshop released a naval game called Dreadfleet. Apparently the game is not very good, but the models are! If any ship makers sees this check out these models:

Link

 

[Supa]

 

[Yoda Power]

Here's a small preview of two wonders. The Blood Keep that produces Blood Knights and the Cauldron of Blood, whihc I haven't thought of a use of yet. CoB is still a WIP.

The Blood Keep is actually an adaption of one of RedAlerts cities.

 

[wuhjah]

I don't mean to sign him up for work or anything, but I'm pretty sure Quinzy was into Warhammer. An effort (beyond the original post and me mentioning his name) should be made to get him involved.

 

[Supa]

The 2 new pedia icons are very good. I wouldn't use the classic grassland background, though. I've come to dislike it after so many years. Perhaps some alternatives could be found ?

 

[Yoda Power]

I don't mean to sign him up for work or anything, but I'm pretty sure Quinzy was into Warhammer. An effort (beyond the original post and me mentioning his name) should be made to get him involved.

I pm'ed him and themanuneed (he also made some warhammer units). Guess I should try and catch Lizardmenrules too. edit: done.

The 2 new pedia icons are very good. I wouldn't use the classic grassland background, though. I've come to dislike it after so many years. Perhaps some alternatives could be found ?

Thanks.

I'm keeping the grass though. 1) I like the consistency of all buildings sharing the same background. 2) I'm conservative and actually like the original art.

 

[tom2050]

@Yoda: I'll have several hundred units to release eventually, all fantasy.. maybe some could work for you. And if any are 'close' I may be able to quickly modify them for a new unit; like the river troll, and the sphinx thingy.

 

[Yoda Power]

Hey Tom. That was my hope too. I think the River Troll is already quite close, so I'm definetely going to use that. If you could make a Warpsphinx that would be awesome too!

I only want to use units that are pretty similar to their GW models, keeping it a bit conservative. The mod already has a ton of units, so the new ones should fit well before I add them.

 

[Blue Monkey]

There are already some units that may be adaptable to your needs.

tom2050's lizardmen are different enough from the Slann to work as Fimir.

A few that look similar to the ships in the naval preview: There is a whole fleet of ghost ships available - Orthanc's Flying Dutchman for one. More by Aaglo. Aaglo's Empire Steam Tank looks like one of the pictured so maybe it could be reflagged as a naval vessel. Granted that it doesn't have the waves/sinking effect. But not every ship sinks when scuttled. Its death is usable - especially if some enterprising person added a few ripples. One of them looks a bit like Colonel Kraken's Galleas Warship. Seems like other "fantasy" ships by Orthanc & Aaglo would cover a few others.

I second the request for Mesoamerican Amazons.

Almost all the WH maps available are either only compatible with earlier versions or their biqs have customized rules, resources, etc. Hopefully someone will eventually undertake the task of updating and standardizing them once the new improved version of this mod is available.

 

[Yoda Power]

Aaglos Empire Steam Tank is a warhammer unit - but a land uint that is already in the mod. Keep in mind that the majority of Aaglos units were made specifically for the Warhammer mod in the first place, so there are not many new ones to get there.

Good call on the Flying Dutchman by Orthanc though, it looks exactly like the Shadewraith!

Fimirs are cyclops, so preferably the unit gfx should reflect that. I don't know how far Tom is able to tingle with his conversions??

It should be easy to convert the maps, you just have to import the rules. I'm not adding new ressources or changing the terrain. Though I did make some very minor changes to the terrain bonusses of some ressources.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Aaglos Empire Steam Tank is a warhammer unit - but a land uint that is already in the mod. Keep in mind that the majority of Aaglos units were made specifically for the Warhammer mod in the first place, so there are not many new ones to get there.

Knew that about Aaglo's tank. Was thinking of it as a temporary placeholder since it looks so much like the miniature. AFAIK there are no animations used by a naval unit not used by a land. Also knew about Aaglo's units in general. There are some not made for Warhammer that deserve a second look.

It should be easy to convert the maps, you just have to import the rules.

Problem is - because their makers customized the rules some of those biqs will then have resources etc. on the map not found in the new version of the mod. Will those items just disappear or will they cause problems when playing the scenario? If it's just a matter of importing rules, randomly distributing resources, & double-checking starting locations/units then that's something I would happily do. Gathering all of their updated versions in a single post would make it easy for those who want to play on them.

 

[Yoda Power]

Knew that about Aaglo's tank. Was thinking of it as a temporary placeholder since it looks so much like the miniature. AFAIK there are no animations used by a naval unit not used by a land. Also knew about Aaglo's units in general. There are some not made for Warhammer that deserve a second look.

As it is not so much a unit missing from the gameplay, but just some nice flavor I want to add, a placeholder doesn't really make much sense. What other Aaglo units are you considering? I actually added his Wildboy ork form Wh40k, since it works just as well as a WhFB Savage Orc.

Problem is - because their makers customized the rules some of those biqs will then have resources etc. on the map not found in the new version of the mod. Will those items just disappear or will they cause problems when playing the scenario? If it's just a matter of importing rules, randomly distributing resources, & double-checking starting locations/units then that's something I would happily do. Gathering all of their updated versions in a single post would make it easy for those who want to play on them.

I can only think of one that changes the rules off my head, but I guess there could be more.

 

[Blue Monkey]

I can only think of one that changes the rules off my head, but I guess there could be more.

These are typical comments by the map makers:

Spoiler :

The ONLY changes I have made to the core rules have been banning cities being built on Forrests, Hills and Jungle, as well as stopping the Wood Elves and Marienburg from building Settlers.

The map includes some edited features that serve gameplay (notably railroads which I added in simply because of the relatively enormous size of the map, as well as resource appearance modification).

There are two new resources in the map which you will not find in the WH mod: dragons and oasis. The first is a strategic resource (very rare) and can be used to build dragon units, while the latter is used as a bonus resource for the desert terrain (I don't have to explain the reason ).

... but I could only include 6 civilisations (Tileans, Estalians, Bretonnians, Imperials, Kislevites and the Border Princes) and it didn't work too well on a large map. The version I have uploaded has 10 start locations, which should work better. ...

In some cases the only post rules-import affect might be the need to add starting locations. In others resources are an issue. Randomized resource placement would solve that part of the issue. OTOH if resources need to be preplaced ... Same goes for civ start locations.

I wouldn't mind doing the work to pull together a collective map pack. The limiting factor is that I only know WH through playing this mod so might need advice for placement.

All that's further down the road anyway. Just wanted to mention it now so others could be thinking about it.

 

[tom2050]

Fimirs are cyclops, so preferably the unit gfx should reflect that. I don't know how far Tom is able to tingle with his conversions??

I looked em up, Fimirs look like a lizard with cyclops head. It would be pretty easy to replace the lizards done with a cyclops head, or just alter the texture and rearrange some vertices, etc.

But it might be a while.

 

[Grandraem]

Happy to see this thread! I hope it produces some excellent results!

 

[Yoda Power]

I looked em up, Fimirs look like a lizard with cyclops head. It would be pretty easy to replace the lizards done with a cyclops head, or just alter the texture and rearrange some vertices, etc.

But it might be a while.

That sounds great. Take your time.

 

[iPwn]

Not being able to clear marsh or jungle tiles ruins gameplay at higher difficulty. You cannot play deity or sid when half of towns are close to useless. Rails would be nice, too, just with other name.
Those civs that can mobilize early are OP in human hands. Specialist citizens need to be more useful, otherwise Chaos with its communal corruption is the only good government. Super slow amazon workers just suck. Who cares that they are cheaper, they still take 1 pop point and cannot get job done fast enaugh. Expansionist civs don`t have a scout for some reason.

 

[Yoda Power]

A lot of points there iPwn, luckily I already corrected some of them.

Not being able to clear marsh or jungle tiles ruins gameplay at higher difficulty. You cannot play deity or sid when half of towns are close to useless. Rails would be nice, too, just with other name.

I agree about the essence of the jungle problem, but my sollution is another one. ED disabled clearing of jungles and marsh and disabled railroads because it wouldn't be in the spirit of the Warhammer world. I don't want to undo these past decisions.

In my experience most jungle cities will be able to have at least one or two 'Fruit' or 'Yams' in its city radius. For a non-agricultural city that would mean it could get to a size between 3 (one Fruits) and 6 (two Yams) => not so great cities. So I added +1 food to these two bonus ressources and also added +1 food to the luxury 'Spices' which also appears in jungles. The same constellation of ressources now results in cities between 4 (one fruit) and 8 (two yams) plus if you're lucky enough to be in a spice area then you get an extra bonus. Couple this with the possiblity of building cities near water, in terrain that's only part jungle, etc. and the number of very small cities are vastly reduced. There will still be some, but that will always be the case as long as you can build cities in hills too.

Those civs that can mobilize early are OP in human hands.

That's probably true. Can anyone think of a sollution to this without moving mobilization? It's a pretty cool feature afterall.

Specialist citizens need to be more useful, otherwise Chaos with its communal corruption is the only good government.

I added a new citizen for Khemri called "Necrotect". It gives them +1 shield and +1 science with Collossal Constructs (now only available to Khemri, since the other two undead civs didn't get any wonder with that tech).

I agree on the governments to some extent.

• Despotism is actually not that bad considering they get a very strong production boosting improvement, but I upped their military police limit to 3 (the other two goverments have a MPL of 1) and gave them a new wonder that acts as FP.

• I changed Monarchy to suffer less from corruption. I think with all their extra improvements and wonders it is just as good as Chaos now. Their only letdown is the war wearness, but that should definitely be kept.

Super slow amazon workers just suck. Who cares that they are cheaper, they still take 1 pop point and cannot get job done fast enaugh.

I agree, it's really annoying when playing as the Amazons. I think I'm going to use Plotinus' Amazon Worker unit instead and just let it be like all other workers.

Expansionist civs don`t have a scout for some reason.

That's because it would look weird to play Orcs and have a human unit. Kislev actually can build scouts though. But I'm afraid we are somewhat limited by the editor here.

 

[Virote_Considon]

That's because it would look weird to play Orcs and have a human unit. Kislev actually can build scouts though. But I'm afraid we are somewhat limited by the editor here.

Give the Orks their own scout unit, make the regular human scout upgrade to it. It should automatically be the Ork unit when the game starts.

EDIT: And as for a unit which the Orks could use as a scout, this could work as a filler: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=51737