Faction design: Estalia, Tilea, Araby, Cathay, Nippon, UnderEmpire

[Ahriman]

maybe so but i think the warrens mechanic as it stands duplicated national units anyway. simply raise the cost of skaven national units to accomodate the fact they get 2 of them. its a coding thing.

The problem with this is; what if the AI doesn't build the national units because it thinks they're too expensive? Is it not possible to modify the warrens code so it only affects particular units? The warrens doesn't double heroes or naval units or siege units I think - does it work on unit class? So it doubles melee, mounted, recon and adept units, but not siege, naval or heroes?

the automatic way could simply be as a 'labling' thing, which automatically builds a placeholder building with minor benefits (or no benefits other than unlocking the production of upgrades to that HQ) ie 'Skyre HQ' which can progressivly be upgraded to gain extra benefits over time.

That seems feasible, but what is the advantage of that over just straight national wonder hqs? Do you think this is an easier-to-code way of restricting the hqs to one per city? I would have thought that creating a "skaven hq" building class and limiting that to one per city would handle that issue.

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Wow. alot of discussion going on... 'll reply first to the first thing:

Really? These seem to be a separate unit in the Skaven things I've seen, including the latest catalogs.

On weaponteams.
(including warpfirethrowers, globadiers, but not jezzails or artillery)
These can be tacked onto skaven rank&file units and skirmish within something like 4".
they can also be fielded on their own in small units, then they still skirmish and have more freedom of movement, but don't get the advantages of being part of a large unit.
The large unit gets the bonus of dealing damage before getting into combat.

Virtually all warp-technology is produced by Skryre, the others just don't have the knowledge or talent.
It can be assumed that once the relevant techs are researched, Skryre has the ability to produce these teams 'somewhere' even without an HQ, any warlord or city can then hire the weapons plus trained operators. HQ just makes production faster and better.
(So, you have convinced me on HQ dependability. )

fanatics/cencerbearers
hidden not in character? you are joking right?
These are like boobytraps inside a unit. a unit is charged -> charge is halted at several inches distance and out come the whirling fanatics of doom (or plague) at first they travel a random distance in the right direction (the foe) then they scatter randomly untill they get killed or kill themselves.
in the case of fanatics; these deal a terrible damage if they manage to contact and they are cheap, cencerbearers are not so cheap, but the effect of their bubonic fumes on a foe is pure horror. the important part is that the first charge on a unit containing them is halted. Of secondary nature is the fun part of having chaotic singularities of destruction on the battlefield.
Maybe these flavourfull troops can be represented as a general ability of troops that has a small chance of being triggered. (Or a promotion.)
they ARE never found outside a unit afterall....
how about a random result on a fanatics-chart when a unit enters combat on 100%health? Such result can be displayed in a popup text.

Spoiler :

such as:
1==fanatic tripped and choked with his chain wound around his neck.
2==fanatics plow into the enemy unit: enemy unit damaged 25%.
3==first strikes are negated because our fantics break their charge.
4==fanatics scatter and do no damage to anything.
5==Disaster! fanatics backfire into own unit. 25%damage.
6==fanatics charge ahead in a derwish of death. unit gains 2 first strikes.

Drawback is that this takes place outside unitcombat...don't know if feasable or fun.
I feel loading them into a unit as special_cargo (keeping them invisible) and having them intercept any attack on the unit('s stack) is more intuitive, fun and less difficult to code.
...then again, loading specialunits may be AI-fail... then spawning a fanatic unit on intercept when a unit with a 'fanatics' promotion is attacked might solve it.

promotion: "hidden assasin" +25% vs heroes. maybe small strength bonus too. (As assasins included in units can also be exposed and fight like heroes with the unit.)
applicable to any races that employ assasins...DE, skaven, nippon...dunno who else.

 

[Arexack_heretic]

I like the idea of a skaven slaves workgang mining out a warpstone deposit in enemy territory and transforming into a loot-wagon to be taken home.

In combination with renewing deposits (meteors) this may be a nice bussiness for the skaven.
What does the mined warpstone do?
...deposit it anywhere to create a new deposit. (enables non-ws using nations to dump it outside influence too)
or inside a city to gain a bonus depending on HQs (or civ).
-Temple of the Horned Rat: Ritual of the horned one: summons a Horned One Demon.
-Warpstone Refinery: refine warpstone- all mages in city gain 'warptoken' promotion
-consume warptoken: can double cast(50%) or +5EXP(5%) or mutation(15%) or poisoned(25%) or death(5%).
-Moulder HQ: foul experiments, all creatures and monsters in city are mutated. Chance of creating a chaos spawn.
-Eshin: No good ideas
-Skryre: most units require WS as resource, so maybe best dumped outside. could be used for a big magical mechanism wonder. I like PL's upgrading idea: maybe 'buy' skryreunit reqTECHs?

Spoiler :

I guess the national limit of troops is not pliable, otherwise I'd suggest having low number for skryre weapons and increasing allowed number by upgrading SkryreHQ with WS.

-Pestilens: Big Ritual of Decay and Corruption, attempt to brew a new desease in the cauldron of Putrecence. Spawns a pestilens carrier (gutterrunner) this unit can be used to spread a random virulent desease to an enemy city. (plagues should spread to other towns)

Spoiler :

a number of plagues need be defined, pox, black death, snuffles etc. with differing properties.
lethality(x%pop death/turn),
infectiousness (y% units in plagued cities becoming deseased and of cities in range becoming plagued),
virulence (z tiles). cities connected by traderoute are automatically in range.
effluvia(-r cityhealth)

I have forgotten our earlier discussions on the plagues topic and how vanilla did it. :/

In FfH several items can be taken to a city and deployed, so I assume the AI can deal with it just fine.

edit
Doomwheels are large hamster wheels filled with rats, providing the motion, on top sits a skryre engineer driver, from the sides and pointed to the front are large warplightning casters powered by a warp-generator.
The warplightning strikes erratically. The wheels are used to good effect by rolling off a hill and careening into enemy units crushing many and skything some more. It is equivalent to goblin pumpwagon / deathrollers / chaos dwarf centaur pulverizers and other heavy chariot vehicles.
IIRC the warpgenerator could be detonated as well. (by accident!)

I'd say it has high attack and speed, some collateral damage, but relatively (to steam tank) easy to destroy, can withdraw, wheeled.
image:http://www.box.net/shared/u4xk8nh0ni

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

The problem with this is; what if the AI doesn't build the national units because it thinks they're too expensive? Is it not possible to modify the warrens code so it only affects particular units? The warrens doesn't double heroes or naval units or siege units I think - does it work on unit class? So it doubles melee, mounted, recon and adept units, but not siege, naval or heroes?

ill have to check it out when we get to it.

That seems feasible, but what is the advantage of that over just straight national wonder hqs? Do you think this is an easier-to-code way of restricting the hqs to one per city? I would have thought that creating a "skaven hq" building class and limiting that to one per city would handle that issue.

yeh the national wonder thing would work, but the reason for the auto founding of HQs is to force the skaven player (and ai) to get the HQs. im not even sure how difficult it would be to code somehting like the auto-found mechanic so when i look at the code ill have a better idea of what is feasable. the National wonders are definately a backup plan.

On weaponteams.
(including warpfirethrowers, globadiers, but not jezzails or artillery)
These can be tacked onto skaven rank&file units and skirmish within something like 4".
they can also be fielded on their own in small units, then they still skirmish and have more freedom of movement, but don't get the advantages of being part of a large unit.
The large unit gets the bonus of dealing damage before getting into combat.

Virtually all warp-technology is produced by Skryre, the others just don't have the knowledge or talent.
It can be assumed that once the relevant techs are researched, Skryre has the ability to produce these teams 'somewhere' even without an HQ, any warlord or city can then hire the weapons plus trained operators. HQ just makes production faster and better.
(So, you have convinced me on HQ dependability. )

fanatics/cencerbearers
hidden not in character? you are joking right?
These are like boobytraps inside a unit. a unit is charged -> charge is halted at several inches distance and out come the whirling fanatics of doom (or plague) at first they travel a random distance in the right direction (the foe) then they scatter randomly untill they get killed or kill themselves.
in the case of fanatics; these deal a terrible damage if they manage to contact and they are cheap, cencerbearers are not so cheap, but the effect of their bubonic fumes on a foe is pure horror. the important part is that the first charge on a unit containing them is halted. Of secondary nature is the fun part of having chaotic singularities of destruction on the battlefield.
Maybe these flavourfull troops can be represented as a general ability of troops that has a small chance of being triggered. (Or a promotion.)
they ARE never found outside a unit afterall....
how about a random result on a fanatics-chart when a unit enters combat on 100%health? Such result can be displayed in a popup text.

well what if we just made these units as regular troops, but with less strength than would be expected, and the ability to merge them with another troop (like the goblin wolf riders in FfH) when they are merged it would change the unit graphic somewhat (add in a couple of censer bearers avatars) and add a promotion that represents the censer bearers with the propper effect (+x first strikes, +x poison strength) etc etc.

this would allow for some customisation af the army and the ai knows how to handle such code (it works in FfH already). also when the weapon teams are not joined to a unit they should have some special ability, like cencerbeares could have stealth and/or an aura of pestilence which poisons neighbouring enemys etc etc etc.

I like the idea of a skaven slaves workgang mining out a warpstone deposit in enemy territory and transforming into a loot-wagon to be taken home.

In combination with renewing deposits (meteors) this may be a nice bussiness for the skaven.
What does the mined warpstone do?
...deposit it anywhere to create a new deposit. (enables non-ws using nations to dump it outside influence too)
or inside a city to gain a bonus depending on HQs (or civ).
-Temple of the Horned Rat: Ritual of the horned one: summons a Horned One Demon.
-Warpstone Refinery: refine warpstone- all mages in city gain 'warptoken' promotion
-consume warptoken: can double cast(50%) or +5EXP(5%) or mutation(15%) or poisoned(25%) or death(5%).
-Moulder HQ: foul experiments, all creatures and monsters in city are mutated. Chance of creating a chaos spawn.
-Eshin: No good ideas
-Skryre: most units require WS as resource, so maybe best dumped outside. could be used for a big magical mechanism wonder. I like PL's upgrading idea: maybe 'buy' skryreunit reqTECHs?
-Pestilens: Big Ritual of Decay and Corruption, attempt to brew a new desease in the cauldron of Putrecence. Spawns a pestilens carrier (gutterrunner) this unit can be used to spread a random virulent desease to an enemy city. (plagues should spread to other towns)

good ideas. but we wouldnt want too many special abilities for the mined warpstone, would get too complicated. rather restrict it to a few. i particularly like the Warpstone refinary granting newly build casters a warp token (i would make it act like a free spellstaff i think, much simpler), the moulder HQ of increasing the mutation %chance is also cool, id say the Skyre one could allow the player to make x free potion units (with random effects like frenzied, healing etc). the Pestilens one is cool i want plagues!

also: Muhuhahahahaha @ Doom Wheels, such funny contraptions of pain and suffering *snicker*

 

[Ahriman]

On weaponteams.
(including warpfirethrowers, globadiers, but not jezzails or artillery)
These can be tacked onto skaven rank&file units and skirmish within something like 4".
they can also be fielded on their own in small units, then they still skirmish and have more freedom of movement, but don't get the advantages of being part of a large unit.
The large unit gets the bonus of dealing damage before getting into combat.

Hmm. I can see that they could be implemented as promotions or abiltiies somehow, but I think we'd be better off just leaving them as units. Its simpler, and the AI will understand how to use them better.

fanatics/cencerbearers
hidden not in character? you are joking right?
These are like boobytraps inside a unit. a unit is charged -> charge is halted at several inches distance and out come the whirling fanatics of doom (or plague) at first they travel a random distance in the right direction (the foe) then they scatter randomly untill they get killed or kill themselves.
in the case of fanatics; these deal a terrible damage if they manage to contact and they are cheap, cencerbearers are not so cheap, but the effect of their bubonic fumes on a foe is pure horror. the important part is that the first charge on a unit containing them is halted. Of secondary nature is the fun part of having chaotic singularities of destruction on the battlefield.
Maybe these flavourfull troops can be represented as a general ability of troops that has a small chance of being triggered. (Or a promotion.)
they ARE never found outside a unit afterall....
how about a random result on a fanatics-chart when a unit enters combat on 100%health?

So you're saying that censor-bearers are actually members of standard clanrats squads?
I hadn't realised these were hidden within existing units, I thought they were separate squads. Nonetheless, hidden/invisibility traits still don't quite suit them. In the tabletop, you can still see whatever unit they were hiding in, even if you can't see the unit inside them. In the mod, with the invisibility or hidden trait, this would give strategic invisibility, not tactical invisibility. I dislike the idea of you being able to wander around in enemy territory with an invisibile unit alone. And I think they will work much better as a separate unit than a promotion.

How about something like this then as an alternative:

Censor bearers. Requires Fanaticism tech.
National UU (limit 5) Disciple unit.
Death does not cause war weariness.
Strength 6/1+1 poison+1death (for a total of 8/3). Causes fear. Cannot use metal weapons. Collateral damage. Dies at the end of combat.
Hammer cost: 108 hammers.

An alternative would be to make Summon Censor Bearers a creature (weaker than this troop) summoned by a skaven magic spell.

I don't really like the random result (the player won't observe it) or making it somethnig to be carted around (the AI won't observe it).

promotion: "hidden assasin" +25% vs heroes. maybe small strength bonus too. (As assasins included in units can also be exposed and fight like heroes with the unit.)
applicable to any races that employ assasins...DE, skaven, nippon...dunno who else.

This definitely has potential! As a general promotion available to any melee or ranged unit for the selected factions. I like it.
Maybe not Nippon - my design for them has a Kensai (= "swordsaint") duelist unit, that is a mediocre melee unit with a huge bonus vs heroes.

I like the idea of a skaven slaves workgang mining out a warpstone deposit in enemy territory and transforming into a loot-wagon to be taken home.

This seems like too much micromanagement. I'd rather just create an some events available only to Skaven. Eg:
Requires: Skaven civ, warpstone refinery present in city.
"Your slave parties have found a new deposit of warpstone. Do you you wish to:
a) Use it to fuel our industry (warpstone refinery gains +3 hammers).
b) Research its properties to enhance our understanding of the stone. (warpstone refinery gains +3 beakers).
c) Use the stone to build more powerful weaponry (warpstone refinery gives +1xp to all new units created in the city).

I strongly dislike the idea of the warpstone resource depleting. Having one of your strategic resources disappear (especially one with such a high tile bonus) is not fun.
I'd recommend implementing warptokens much like the enchanted staff for enchantment magic. Maybe make this one of the skaven magic spells.

The Doomwheel looks interesting. How about a warchariot replacement?
Doomwheel (replaces war chariot).
Strength 8/2, chariot class, can use metal weapons, 1 move, does collateral damage, +10% withdraw chance.

yeh the national wonder thing would work, but the reason for the auto founding of HQs is to force the skaven player (and ai) to get the HQs. im not even sure how difficult it would be to code somehting like the auto-found mechanic so when i look at the code ill have a better idea of what is feasable. the National wonders are definately a backup plan.

But setting which hq to build at founding still won't force them to build the hq. Unless your intention is: when founding city, they must pick one of the clans (and no doubling up). This creates a clan hq, which does nothing except act as a build requirement for the clan-specific units, and as a build requirement for the Clan Citadel, each which is a world wonder, and has effects like the current Clan Hqs (some xp bonuses, specialist slots, GP production and other flavorful flavorful beaker/hammer/influence bonuses).
This sounds plausible.

and the ability to merge them with another troop (like the goblin wolf riders in FfH) when they are merged it would change the unit graphic somewhat (add in a couple of censer bearers avatars) and add a promotion that represents the censer bearers with the propper effect (+x first strikes, +x poison strength) etc etc.

Merging units sounds weird.....
But if you did want to go this way, a better code guide might be the pegasus for the Austrin faction in the Fall Further FFH modmod. You build the pegasai, and they are weak combat units, and then any units in the stack get an "mount pegasus" promotion which sacrifices the pegasus and gives the target unit flying and +1 moves, and changes their graphic to one mounted on a pegasus. And sacrificing the pegasus doesn't reduce the national limit on these units; you can still only ever build 4 and use them.

So we could create the censor bearer as a weak unit, and other units able to "add censor bearers" which sacrifices the bearer and gives the unit casting the spell +1 first strike and +1 poison strength.

(i would make it act like a free spellstaff i think, much simpler)

Great minds....

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

But setting which hq to build at founding still won't force them to build the hq. Unless your intention is: when founding city, they must pick one of the clans (and no doubling up). This creates a clan hq, which does nothing except act as a build requirement for the clan-specific units, and as a build requirement for the Clan Citadel, each which is a world wonder, and has effects like the current Clan Hqs (some xp bonuses, specialist slots, GP production and other flavorful flavorful beaker/hammer/influence bonuses).
This sounds plausible.

you got it

Merging units sounds weird.....
But if you did want to go this way, a better code guide might be the pegasus for the Austrin faction in the Fall Further FFH modmod. You build the pegasai, and they are weak combat units, and then any units in the stack get an "mount pegasus" promotion which sacrifices the pegasus and gives the target unit flying and +1 moves, and changes their graphic to one mounted on a pegasus. And sacrificing the pegasus doesn't reduce the national limit on these units; you can still only ever build 4 and use them.

its exactly the same mechanic just with a national limit.

i think a combination of that (the mount pegasus like spell) and this:

Censor bearers. Requires Fanaticism tech.
National UU (limit 5) Disciple unit.
Death does not cause war weariness.
Strength 6/1+1 poison+1death (for a total of 8/3). Causes fear. Cannot use metal weapons. Collateral damage. Dies at the end of combat.
Hammer cost: 108 hammers.

would be good. perhaps increase the bonus from the 'Censor bearers' promo to reflect the actual unit. (its also a lot more costly putting 2 units in onw, because if it dies, they both die.)

This seems like too much micromanagement. I'd rather just create an some events available only to Skaven. Eg:
Requires: Skaven civ, warpstone refinery present in city.
"Your slave parties have found a new deposit of warpstone. Do you you wish to:
a) Use it to fuel our industry (warpstone refinery gains +3 hammers).
b) Research its properties to enhance our understanding of the stone. (warpstone refinery gains +3 beakers).
c) Use the stone to build more powerful weaponry (warpstone refinery gives +1xp to all new units created in the city).

excelent compromise. events like this would be very cool

however, i would still like to give (maybe all workers?) the ability to move warpstone resources... if you have warpstone in your borders and you're good, you are gonna get negative diplo penalties. so simply get a big team of workers (shifting that warpstone takes a lot of work) and move it out of your borders, or gift it to the skaven for a big fat diplo bonus "You gave us warptone +4 " alow skaven workers to move warpstone at a faster rate perhaps...

 

[Ahriman]

perhaps increase the bonus from the 'Censor bearers' promo to reflect the actual unit. (its also a lot more costly putting 2 units in onw, because if it dies, they both die.)

Well.... don't make it too strong; remember that potentially you could add this to an already powerful unit to make it even stronger. Maybe +1 strength, +1 poison strength. Thats quite strong.

however, i would still like to give (maybe all workers?) the ability to move warpstone resources... if you have warpstone in your borders and you're good, you are gonna get negative diplo penalties. so simply get a big team of workers (shifting that warpstone takes a lot of work) and move it out of your borders, or gift it to the skaven for a big fat diplo bonus "You gave us warptone +4 " alow skaven workers to move warpstone at a faster rate perhaps...

Eh.... seems like a lot of work for something the AI won't understand and fixing a minor problem. Remember, you can always join the Alliance if good and pass the Outlaw Warpstone motion, which removes the diplo penalty. Or (if its not on a river) you can just pillage/not put a road on the tile.
So its not really a problem, and thats a clumsy solution.

Or we could just remove the diplopenalty altogether.

Also, given the very nice tile bonus, even the human player would probably be willing to suffer the diplo penalty in exchange for the resource bonus.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Well.... don't make it too strong; remember that potentially you could add this to an already powerful unit to make it even stronger. Maybe +1 strength, +1 poison strength. Thats quite strong

yeh balancing this seems like the biggest problem. also limiting the units they can join should be considered

Eh.... seems like a lot of work for something the AI won't understand and fixing a minor problem. Remember, you can always join the Alliance if good and pass the Outlaw Warpstone motion, which removes the diplo penalty. Or (if its not on a river) you can just pillage/not put a road on the tile.
So its not really a problem, and thats a clumsy solution.

Or we could just remove the diplopenalty altogether.

Also, given the very nice tile bonus, even the human player would probably be willing to suffer the diplo penalty in exchange for the resource bonus.

true. (i know i sould like a stuck record but i can still see skaven wishing they could steal other peoples warpstone)

 

[Ahriman]

(i know i sould like a stuck record but i can still see skaven wishing they could steal other peoples warpstone)

They might wish they could, but that doesn't mean they should be able to. How do you steal a coal mine? Pick up the entire mountain and carry it away?

 

[Arexack_heretic]

how about:

worker can stripmine the resource, this takes fairly long so that the unit can be interrupted and larger groups of workers are promoted.

When completed,
50%successful creation of lootwagon,
50% mining takes longer: mission timer reset.
Each time there is a 25% chance of depleting the resource.

This way, the resource can be pirated, but it takes longer to completely mine out a deposit.

...question: are workers able to build improvements etc. in enemy territory?
...anyhow, this would rather be an ability/spell than building an improvement.

Ultimately Skaven can mine warpstone manually in enemy territory, by being sneaky.
If we can get the tunneling idea to work, entire workgangs of skaven could be working that damned pit near your blighted town without you seening anything of them.
reference: how skaven mined much of Nagash's warpstone from under his mountain.
question: How would you steal a coalmine? answer: work it from below.


---
warpstone abuse:
Actually I tried to make the ways in which the warpstone treasure can be utilised as diverse as possible.
An underpowered HQ could be made more interesting by giving it a good warpstone utility.
The refinery giving each NEWly produced mage a token, makes the HQ indefinately more powerfull.
The idea was rather to use up the glut of WS and create a small number of tokens. (tokens are one-shot.) This way, skaven will consume the WS and crave more. (only works if WS is relatively transient and spawns often)

Skryre making potions is lame. Let them use the ws in dangerous contraptions and deadly inventions.
potions and warpstone charms (unit is immortal, one-shot.)

maybe warpstone can be obtained in two ways: find a small deposit: carry it home. find a large warpstone deposit: functions like resource. (can be mined manually or with a refinery: can build "pure warpstone crystal" in city if in WS in radius.
The large crystal can then be used for creating magical items, performing large rituals, etc.

Using WS as a consumable in this manner can only work if it is not eternal: here must be a risk of losing the resource if it is mined manually.

 

[Ahriman]

The AI will never understand consumable resources, so its not a great idea to make this a key part of the faction.
I don't understand why you feel that Skaven need to be able to to steal or move resource tiles in enemy territory. Its not really core to their identity as a faction and would require a ton of code work for very little gain.
Flavorful things like this are much better handled with events than in-game worker missions or spells.
Eg you could create an event:
Warpstone raiding party.
Requires: Skaven race, warpstone resource not in Skaven territory.
"We have located a warpstone resource in enemy territory.
a) We should fund a mining party to liberate the stone for our own purposes.
-100 gold, -1 diplomacy penalty with the civ whose territory the resourc is in. 50% chance, tunnel collapse, no other effect. 50% chance, remove the warpstone resource, add warpstone resource to a random hill tile within skaven territory.
b) Its too risky, and we dare not anger our rivals. No effect.

A building that gives newly created mage units a warptoken (=spellstaff) sounds very reasonable.

 

[Arexack_heretic]

okay, that makes sense.

Skaven leaders WILL do and risk everything (except their own lifes) to gain (control over) more warpstone.

I'm not set on relocating resources or making warpstone into goodyhut treasures.
Just describing one system that might work gameplay-wise...if the AI could make sense of it though. Going overboard with it obviously.
Stealing would be required if warpstone is used up quickly by skaven. And I made sure it would be with all the wonderfull bonusses to be had.

That is a nice event. (if a bit cheap at 100gp)
MAybe, instead of moving the resource, it could generate a skaven outpost town on top of the resource with a fixed culture radius of 1(3x3tiles).
(would req TECH_TUNNELING and has an 'underempire network connection' building providing trade-connection to empire prebuilt.)

Alternatively move it to same tile as the closest skaven city.
It makes no sense to mine valuable stuff and then dump it in a pile only to mine it again.

I don't see why the AI would not understand losing a resource: it would just try to get a new source.
I do see how an AI might not try to aqcuire more than one source though.
Though with the tile-bonuses associated with warpstone I think settling near a second WS resource could still be preferred by AI.

 

[Ahriman]

MAybe, instead of moving the resource, it could generate a skaven outpost town on top of the resource with a fixed culture radius of 1(3x3tiles).

I don't really like the idea of Skaven culture suddenly popping up just by event in the middle of enemy territory; certainly not without starting a war.
Moving to a Skaven city tile would be fine; that way it gives an extra warpstone source, without giving the benefits of the tile bonus.

I don't see why the AI would not understand losing a resource: it would just try to get a new source.
I do see how an AI might not try to aqcuire more than one source though.

Yeah, but how? The only ways to get more are by trade or conquest. And it definitely wouldn't understand that it could get more warpstone by somehow using workers inside another civ's territory.
Warpstone is also pretty rare, at least at the moment.

An event system works best; its easiest to code and implement, you can hardcode the AI to choose particular options with a high proability, and it adds some flavor without distracting from the main features.

Another thought; warpstone affinity is one way to encourage getting more. IIRC Vehem (Fall Further mod) was looking at fractional affinity as well; if we could get affinity at 1/2 or 1/4, we could consider adding warpstone affinity to more than just a tiny handful of units without risking balance too much. Or possibly we could create a promotion that would give +5% strength per warpstone you have access to?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Its not really core to their identity as a faction and would require a ton of code work for very little gain.

actually it is flavourful, as AH said the skaven pretty much mined most of the Cursed Pit (the Unique feature) out from under Nagash's nose before he realised. and it will be very simple to implement it as AH suggested. but your right that the AI will never understand it.

Flavorful things like this are much better handled with events than in-game worker missions or spells.

good point

heres an event chain for skaven that could be interesting:

Light Magic Experiments: Requres, be skaven, a source of mined warpstone in the players border, be later than turn x.

"Your Skyre Council has approached you and suggested they have discovered a way to manipulate warpstone to produce massive ammounts of energy as the Wind of Hysh. They say the Warpstone deposit near [city name] is the perfect site of such an experiment what shall we do?"

a) this sounds intreguing, allow them to conduct their experiments.
b) massive ammounts of energy you say? perhaps that will help us mine more warpstone! help fund the studies! (-x gold)
c) That sounds dangerous, tell them to go ahead but make sure they dont do anything that could damage our empire (-y gold)
d) Why would you want to tamper with our perfect warpstone!? dont let them near it! (no effect)

if chose option a) triggers "Light Explosion a" event
if chose option b) triggers "Light Explosion b" event
if Chose option c) triggers "Light Extractor" event

Light Explosion a Requires: chose option a) in "Light Magic Experiments" event.

Sire the experiments that the Skyre Council were conducting on our warpstone mine have backfired! An enormous explosion of blinding light has flooded our tunnels and all the mines have collapsed and new fissures have appeared! what should we do?

a) Damn those no-good Tinkerers! Have Clan Eshin assassinate them for their idiocy, well have to rebuild our mines. (remove Clan Skyre HQ, Lose all mines on the map including non skaven mines.)
b) Curses! sned out all workers and slaves to the collapsed mines, have them rebuild them. (Production in all cities is stopped for x turns, no mines are lost in your empire, all other mines are lost.)
c) New Fissures ay? send out excavation teams to search them. (-y gold, lose all mines on the map, spawn z random sources of Warpstone, copper, iron, gold and silver)
d) Fund an exploration and rebuilding effort. round up every slave and worker and whip them to rebuild the mines, search the new tunnels. (-y (times 3), no mines are lost in your empire, all other mines on the map are lost, spawn z random sources of Warpstone, copper, iron, gold and silver)

Light Explosion b Requires: chose option b) in "Light Magic Experiments" event.

Sire the experiments that the Skyre Council were conducting on our warpstone mine have backfired! An enormous explosion of blinding light has flooded our tunnels and all the mines have collapsed and new fissures have appeared! Clan Skyre say that though the experiment backfired they discovered a way to speed the extraction of Warpstone from the ground using Warp power... what should we do?

a) Damn those no-good Tinkerers! Have Clan Eshin assassinate them for their idiocy, well have to rebuild our mines. (remove Clan Skyre HQ, Lose all mines on the map including non skaven mines.)
b) Curses! send out all workers and slaves to the collapsed mines, have them rebuild them. (Production in all cities is stopped for x turns, no mines are lost in your empire, all other mines are lost.)
c) New Fissures ay? send out excavation teams to search them. (-y gold, lose all mines on the map, spawn z random sources of Warpstone, copper, iron, gold and silver)
d) Fund an exploration and rebuilding effort. round up every slave and worker and whip them to rebuild the mines, search the new tunnels. (-y (times 3), Production in all cities is stopped for x turns, no mines are lost in your empire, all other mines on the map are lost, spawn z random sources of Warpstone, copper, iron, gold and silver)
e) faster warpstone extraction you say? excelent. have all the workers and slaves rebuild the mines and have Clan Skyre install this new technology. (Production in all cities is stopped for x turns, no mines are lost in your empire, all other mines are lost, all Warpstone deposites in your empire provide +1 hammer)

Light Extractor Requires: chose option c) in "Light Magic Experiments" event.

Sire the experiments that the Skyre Council were conducting on our warpstone mine were a great success! They say they have created a new device called a "Hysh Extractor" they say it uses the power of Hysh to disintegrate rock and extract warpstone much faster than normal! what shall we do?

a) Excelent news! have Clan Skyre rewarded and have them install these contraptions in all our warpstone mines! (- x gold, +2 beakers from Skyre headquarters, all Warpstone Mines provide +1 hammer)
b) Excelent news! have Clan Skyre install these contraptions in all our warpstone mines! (- y gold, all Warpstone Mines provide +1 hammer)
c) Desintegrates the rock you say? That sounds dangerous, perhaps fund Clan Skyre to conduct further tests to make sure its safe. (- z gold)
d) Really? (no effect...yet)

if Chose option c) triggers "More experiments" event
if Chose option d) triggers "Upgrade the mine a" event

More Experiments Requires: chose option c) in "Light Extractor" event.

Sire the further studies by Skyre Council on our warpstone mine were a great success! They say they have refined the technology and installed safty mechanics which contain the magic while boosting production! what shall we do?

a) Wonderfull!! have Clan Skyre rewarded and have them install these contraptions in all our warpstone mines! (- x gold, +2 beakers from Skyre headquarters, all Warpstone Mines provide +2 hammers)
b) Excelent news! have Clan Skyre install these contraptions in all our warpstone mines! (- y gold, all Warpstone Mines provide +2 hammer)
c) Really? (no effect...yet)

Upgrade the Mine a Requires: chose option d) in "Light Extractor" event, have x gold, have a warpstone mine.

Sire remember the discoveries by Skyre Council on our warpstone mine? they have offered to install the technology in the warpstone mine near [city name].

a) Really? thats awfull nice of them, i wonder what they want... better give them some cash just in case (-x gold Warpstone Mine near [City Name] provide +1 hammers)
b) we dont need it yet. (no effect, choosing this option alows this event to trigger again later)

Upgrade the Mine b Requires: chose option d) in "Light Extractor" event, have x gold, have a warpstone mine.

Sire remember the discoveries by Skyre Council on the Hysh Extractors? they have offered to install the technology in the warpstone mine near [city name].

a) Really? thats awfull nice of them, i wonder what they want... better give them some cash just in case (-x gold Warpstone Mine near [City Name] provide +2 hammers)
b) we dont need it yet. (no effect, choosing this option alows this event to trigger again later)

 

[Ahriman]

Some interesting ideas. I don't know enough about the fluff to have any comments on that, but gamewise:

Losing all mines in the world is massively too much.
Events should have relatively minor effects, not earth-shaking things of huge balance consequence. I don't think any experiment in the world could destroy mining infrastructure on all continents.
If you want a nasty negative effect, consider:
Destroying all mines in an 2-tile radius, and converting some nearby tiles to chaos waste (forget the exact name), permanently or for a fixed duration (20 turns or so).
Or create Warpdust in the tile.
Tying up production (or putting city into revolt) should also probably happen only for the
Maybe the event should require: Warpstone + tech requirement + Skyre HQ built, and the affected city is whichever has the skyre hq.
So a bad result could cause 5 turns of revolt in the Skyre hq city, and a really bad outcome could destroy the skyre hq national wonder (making you rebuild it).

But by no means should any event have massive game-changing consequecnes, particularly for factions that didn't even get the event!

Also, rather than making these deterministic, I would have random chances from each event. (Otherwise, why on earth would you choose a) rather than d) ?)
So choosing a, b or c can all lead to all the outcomes, but with different probabilities.
So choosing a could still lead to something good, but is more likely to lead to something bad. Whereas c could still lead to something bad, but is more likely to lead to something good.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Losing all mines in the world is massively too much.
Events should have relatively minor effects, not earth-shaking things of huge balance consequence. I don't think any experiment in the world could destroy mining infrastructure on all continents.

the fluff surrounding this was the Skaven conducted extensive experiments refining warpstone and getting pure energy from the wind of Hysh. unfortunately they failed (Epically) and resulted in massive earthquakes shattering the under empire and Dwarven empire tunnels. i figured it would be an EPIC event which would only trigger once, and only have a chance.

Maybe the event should require: Warpstone + tech requirement + Skyre HQ built, and the affected city is whichever has the skyre hq.

yeh more requirements would be good.

perhaps rather than losing every mine 100% give a smaller % chance to lose a mine the further from the event tile it is?. (make a notice when a mine is destroyed in this way that roumers of Skaven experiments going horribly wrong resulted in global earthquakes)

But by no means should any event have massive game-changing consequecnes, particularly for factions that didn't even get the event!

true... though an idea just occured to me. what if we reintroduced 'world spells' for some civs, and make the skaven 'world spell' trigger this event chain. that way all players would get the notice of why they are losing mines.

Also, rather than making these deterministic, I would have random chances from each event. (Otherwise, why on earth would you choose a) rather than d) ?)
So choosing a, b or c can all lead to all the outcomes, but with different probabilities.
So choosing a could still lead to something good, but is more likely to lead to something bad. Whereas c could still lead to something bad, but is more likely to lead to something good.

good point, that hadnt occured to me.

-----------------

my main points i think though are that if we do a light experiment event chain it needs to be relatively global effects and a 1 time only occurance (because thats what the skaven did in the fluff, and to me it seems pretty cool, as a skaven player id love this event chain, and as others it would make skaven that more of a threat)

 

[Ahriman]

Its not really fun to have all your stuff destroyed by an event that occurs from a race that exists on the other side of the world from you. Regional effects I can buy, but not really global. A lessening effect from further distance seems sensible, but cap the range.
A % chance seems good too; within 5 tiles, 50% chance of mines, workshops, waterwheels and cottages being destroyed (destroyed cottage = town reduced to village, village to hamlet etc.). 6-15 tiles, 10% chance of destruction. 16-25 tiles, 5% chance of destruction. And maybe create warpdust on the tile itself.

I don't think world spells really fit . The magic of most factions just isn't that powerful.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Its not really fun to have all your stuff destroyed by an event that occurs from a race that exists on the other side of the world from you. Regional effects I can buy, but not really global. A lessening effect from further distance seems sensible, but cap the range.

true, regional effects with an eppicenter i agree would be best.

A % chance seems good too; within 5 tiles, 50% chance of mines, workshops, waterwheels and cottages being destroyed (destroyed cottage = town reduced to village, village to hamlet etc.). 6-15 tiles, 10% chance of destruction. 16-25 tiles, 5% chance of destruction. And maybe create warpdust on the tile itself.

thats perfect except dont affect any improvement except mines i think... could be far too devastating otherwise. wardust is also a good idea, must remember to add in ability to clear warpdust to workers then, not sure if its already in...

I don't think world spells really fit . The magic of most factions just isn't that powerful.

good point. how about as a ritual then? requires the Skyre HQ to build? triggers the event chain when complete?

 

[Ahriman]

good point. how about as a ritual then? requires the Skyre HQ to build? triggers the event chain when complete?

That sounds good.