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

[Yoda Power]

Excellent. Some things I find interesting, some things I disagree with and a few of the modifications have already been made. I won't have time to respond fully to the post now, but I'll come back to it.

 

[lethaltoto]

Great, I'm restless to ear your opinion

I also have to say that it's only changes I made on the "main" mod. I have a "baby", a scenario based on the old world map that inclued many more changes. But I don't want to talk about it for the moment to keep the surprise. Working on it for months (years, really?), I have just to find time to do a correct readme file and I will publish it.

 

[Yoda Power]

I was lazy and just added my comments in red.

Here are the list of everything I changed in my game:

ERRORS CORRECTIONS:

-cold one chariots unit: checked "upgrade unit" to effectively activate upgrade to cold one knight according to the pedia
-corrected a few errors in boats upgrade path: boat upgrade to elven boat instead of war galley, galley in war galley instead of canoe
-skull chucker: checked "upgrade unit" to effectively activate upgrade to screaming skull catapult
-trebuchet: checked "upgrade unit" to effectively activate upgrade to screaming skull catapult:
-screaming skull catapult: upgrade in "none" instead of flame canon
Just like you I've been fixing bugs like this over the years. I'll check to see if I missed any of these.

CHANGES THAT SEEMED ME BETTER:

UNITS
- all assassin sort of units (assassin, clan eshin assassin, chameleon, hassassin, ninja, sneaky gitz): review the list of available targets. I don't have the exact list, but mainly: removed spells (killing a spell? ), all dragons (yes, you can backstab a dragon, but killing him this way ...), a few siege engin that were forgotted, and a few dinosaur (see .dragons) Removing spells is probably a good idea. I don't see a reason to remove dragons. Most often you don't want to attack the dragon anyway. If you want it's most likely because the dragon is injured, in which case I think stabbing it makes sense actually.
- chaos cultists are no more accessible to beastmen but only to horde of chaos (according to the pedia, and I couldn't imaging savage beastmen convincing humans to work for them) I'll probably do this also. Beastmen have plenty units anyway.
- corsair: gave them hidden nationality and enslave (slave) abilities, unit cost +20 Yeah it's a pirate, but in a way Naggaroth is a pirate civ, and it seems to me that it would add some annoying gameplay with HN. Enslave to Slaves? That would boost an already cultural strong civ. It just seems unbalancing to me.
- army: gave them basic transport capacity of 2 instead of 1 (but the more I play the game I think I will perhaps undo it) I have it at 2, isn't that how it is normally?
- spy: invisible instead of hidden natioanlity (they were always detected by sorcerers and killed before having any chance to walk a few in other countries) You mean all spy units I assume. They already have invisible, so basicly you removed HN. It sort of defeats the purpose of having doesn't it?
- gutter runner: no more upgradable to storm vermin warrior (it was damage that skavens loose their ability to build "paratroopers" as soon they have access to better foot warriors) I agree on this. What I did was having them in different upgrade chains and shifting their places, so Gutter Runners come later and are more advanced in terms of unit abilities, while Storm Vermin Warriors come earlier and are basic infantry.

CIVS:
- Dolgans: changed shunned gvt from chaos to monarchy, to reflect the chaos' influence But aren't the Dolgans known for fighting Chaos? I think they were the tribe that resisted the Chaos influence, but I may be wrong.
- Norsca: changed favorite gvt from monarchy to despotism Actually why not Chaos? Following your argument for Dolgans, Norsca should reflect the CHaos influence.
- 3 undead nations: put their own starting gvts (despotism or monarchy) as shunned one, to be sure that they will move to undead state as soon as possible and that they will not eventually reverse after. I've actually disabled Undead State right now (but kept it in so it can optionally be added), because it seems way too unbalancing and the transition period is weird with the modified anarchy. Is this something you find completely stupid? The wonders can still be build.

IMPROVEMENTS:
- engineer's guild: requested gvt monarchy instead of none Maybe not a bad idea, but where to stop? All wonder could be connected to a specific government, and then Despotic civs are even worse off. Maybe just make EG obsolete with Chaos, so Despotic civs can still build it?
- windmill: prereq granary instead of none I did the same!
- no more barracks
- castles act as barracks, their maintenance cost is 4 instead of 3
(for the 2 previous points the idea to have really a few way to have veterans units everywhere to take more care of them) I actually had an almost completely similar idea, but decided against it.

WONDERS:
- the 4 knights orders: improvement prereq castle for all of them Seems to me this would give an advantedge to the strongest civ. As it is now I all too often already see one civilization getting all of the KO's.

VARIOUS:
- no more railroad ability for workers (fantaisy MEDIEVAL world) Railroads were never part of this mod???
- no more possibility to build cities on tundra or jungle But Slann and Amazons live in the Jungle? There's also so many good resources in Jungle you might miss out on. Tundra has to be settleable, or else you would have to take plant forest away, and that would really be a shame in a world with so much forest imo.

CIVS TRAITS MODIFICATIONS:

According to what I said previously, in this game the only interest of the expansionist trait is the frindler attitide of barbarians. Expansionist also give a big advantedge when popping goody huts, often an extra settler, not something I think fits the undead civs very well to be honest. Also the undeads always fought each other anyway, why shouldn't they fight barbarians? Those barbarians being undeads, I thought it was logical that undead civs should have this trait, and not the others so:
-trait reikland expansionist -> scientific (see above)
-trait bretonnia militaristic -> industrious Bretonnia is a culture founded on militarism and agriculture. If there is anything they are it's Militaristic and not Industrious.
-trait kislev expansionist -> militaristic (see above, but an argument could be made that Kislev fits Militaristic though)
-trait sylvania scientific -> expansionist (see above)
-trait araby expansionist -> commercial (see above)
-trait cathay industrious -> scientific It's a matter of taste, both traits fits.
-trait nippon militaristic -> industrious Basicly the same argument as Bretonnia.
-trait ungols expansionist -> religious (See Above)
-trait dolgans expansionist -> religious (SA)
-trait loren militaristic -> agricultural But they live in the woods without any concept of agriculture??
-trait orcs expansionist -> industrious (SA)
-trait khemri agricultural -> expansionist (SA)
-trait lahmia scientific -> expansionist (SA)
-trait beasts of chaos expansionist -> militaristic (SA)

I also thought that there was too many various free techs between civs, so it was too easy to rapidly bargain a lot of basic techs. I agree this is a bit of a problem.
In this way, I modified general free techs (no civ specific one of course) to only have farming, domestication, mining and stone working available, and also only one of those general free techs per civ so:
-suppressed free tech naggaroth - warrior code
-suppressed free tech ulthuan - mysticism
-suppressed free tech loren - mysticism
-suppressed free tech slann - mysticism
-suppressed free tech beasts of chaos - mysticism
-modified free tech khemri mysticism -> farming
-modified free tech ulthuan mysticism -> stone working
-modified free tech naggaroth mysticism -> stone working
-modified free tech loren warrior code -> farming
-modified free tech horde of chaos mysticism -> mining
-modifiedfree tech slann warrior code -> stone working
-modified free tech amazons warrior code -> domestication
-modified free tech lahmia mysticism -> stone working
-gave free tech beast of chaos -> domestication
I always liked the elves and Slann having a slight advantedge, but otherwise I might follow you on this one.

Here you can find a copy of my improved mod:

Thanks

 

[Lotr_Gimli]

I have now played through several games of the Civ III Warhammer mod and have some small input. If we consider how good it already is, it'll be purely wonderful once the mod has been updated anew. In some respects I miss Civ V, but Civ III is great on its own and have some advantages over its successor. The creators of the mod have exploited the game to its full advantage, so there are not many warts at all.

I think you should keep armies as they are. If you would change them in any way, armies starting size should be increased. This is Warhammer after all, and it's always a joy to see some realistic sides to warfare (such as organised armies capable of forced marches, led by skilled generals) in a fantasy setting. In fact I wouldn't mind armies to occur more often, if at all possible. The enemy factions' armies added a hazardous risk element, since they often were able to wreak havoc even in my best defenses (if not break through) with some backup.

Chaos Dwarfs are decent in their current incarnation, but they'd benefit greatly from an update including all the new Forgeworld releases. It would be especially good for the aesthetics. Both Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs could have a late-game discovery which enables them to build railroads (though this action should take many turns in order to limit the rail network). This would make sense since Dwarfs once had a subterranean rail network with steam trains in Undgrin Ankor, before the tunnels collapsed and their empire with it. Chaos Dwarfs on the other hand are well-known industrialists and occupy the top tier of technology in Warhammer. They already have land trains, and they're bound to have some rails in their slave mines.

If you're able to find people for the graphics, can Hammerers then be included for Dwarfs? I never saw them during the play-through. Can Dwarf Airships be given a bombardment attack? Dwarf zeppelins and balloons have always been scouts and bombers in WHFB.

Is it possible to include an option to switch off Firestorms? When playing Dwarfs I progressed far enough to be able to build the wonder which unlocked Firestorms for everyone, but since I dislike nukes in Civ I never built it. Granted, they appear in late game and seldom have an impact on the experience, so it might be superfluous to include an option to switch them off.

I've played as Orcs and never noticed a Giant amongst the available units. Is this available to the Goblins instead, or do the Greenskins miss the Giants completely?

 

[Yoda Power]

I have now played through several games of the Civ III Warhammer mod and have some small input. If we consider how good it already is, it'll be purely wonderful once the mod has been updated anew. In some respects I miss Civ V, but Civ III is great on its own and have some advantages over its successor. The creators of the mod have exploited the game to its full advantage, so there are not many warts at all.

I think you should keep armies as they are. If you would change them in any way, armies starting size should be increased. This is Warhammer after all, and it's always a joy to see some realistic sides to warfare (such as organised armies capable of forced marches, led by skilled generals) in a fantasy setting. In fact I wouldn't mind armies to occur more often, if at all possible. The enemy factions' armies added a hazardous risk element, since they often were able to wreak havoc even in my best defenses (if not break through) with some backup.

Chaos Dwarfs are decent in their current incarnation, but they'd benefit greatly from an update including all the new Forgeworld releases. It would be especially good for the aesthetics. Both Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs could have a late-game discovery which enables them to build railroads (though this action should take many turns in order to limit the rail network). This would make sense since Dwarfs once had a subterranean rail network with steam trains in Undgrin Ankor, before the tunnels collapsed and their empire with it. Chaos Dwarfs on the other hand are well-known industrialists and occupy the top tier of technology in Warhammer. They already have land trains, and they're bound to have some rails in their slave mines.

If you're able to find people for the graphics, can Hammerers then be included for Dwarfs? I never saw them during the play-through. Can Dwarf Airships be given a bombardment attack? Dwarf zeppelins and balloons have always been scouts and bombers in WHFB.

Is it possible to include an option to switch off Firestorms? When playing Dwarfs I progressed far enough to be able to build the wonder which unlocked Firestorms for everyone, but since I dislike nukes in Civ I never built it. Granted, they appear in late game and seldom have an impact on the experience, so it might be superfluous to include an option to switch them off.

I've played as Orcs and never noticed a Giant amongst the available units. Is this available to the Goblins instead, or do the Greenskins miss the Giants completely?

1) The problem about increasing the army size is the AI. They won't ever attack an army if it is too strong (the concept of kamikazing some units to lower the HP is not programmed into the AI), so the size will stay were it is. But maybe they could occur a bit more often?

2) No railroads. It would be way too unbalancing in gameplay terms. There is no way to limit a railroad to a few tiles. If they get rails, their whole empire will be covered and then they will win, because it overpowers them so much.

3) The Dwarfs do have Hammeres, you were just unlucky I guess. BTW I made some few changes to the Dwarfs upgrade paths to give the units a bit more longevity.

4) Bombard for Airships? Hmm, maybe let me come back to it.

5) Well not really. I could make an alternative biq file where they are not in, but by that logic I would end up making 10 different biq files to meet everybody's preferences. My best advice is that you disable them yourself. In the editor change the required tech for the wonder to the one called "Trashcan", then it will never be constructed.

6) The Greenskins can't build Giants. I'm not sure why actually. Probably because there isn't much room for them in their unit line. Norsca and Albion can build Giants at about the same time that the Orcs and Goblins get Trolls.

 

[Lotr_Gimli]

Thanks for the reply and good call about the trashcan. I've long wondered if it would be possible to introduce an intermediate type between roads and railroads to Civilization, akin to Roman highways. Admittedly almost all other historical roads were poor by comparison.

Just a wacky idea, if at all possible: A late game paved road (or "imperial road") improvement which adds one or two extra tiles to movement. I found no need at all for this on the small maps I played through, but perhaps people playing on bigger maps would find it handy?

 

[Yoda Power]

It's a good idea, but not possible to do in Civ3. The modding options are somewhat more limited than in Civ4 and 5.

 

[Erebras]

I clicked one of Yoda Power's links to Games Workshop's site, and some of the new releases are quite inspiring. I got fired up enough to do something I've been wanting to do for a long time: see about converting those dinosaur flcs in PTW's Extras folder into something usable for something else. My first crude attempt -- and this is just for show-and-tell, mind you -- was to make the Lizardman Stegadon by giving the torasaur a spiked tail. If I wasn't just playing around, I'd have added an elephant howdah and some Mesoamerican elements cut-and-pasted from (I don't know) Montezuma or something.

This is not a created unit. I was just showing that someone -- and by someone, I mean someone other than me, until I get other projects completed -- with no experience with Photoshop, but with time on their hands and attention to detail could make some of the new Warhammer scenario's units without having to start from scratch. (I used FLICster, Windows Paint, and Irfanview.)

I think the Lizardman Bastiladon could be made from the ankylosaurus with a simple palette adjustment, and the ankylosaurus could also become a Razordon if its head were replaced with a carnosaur's and a ranged attack added. If it works out, I'll actually upload these in the Units forum. Right now, I'm just thinking out loud, as it were.

(Creating a preview with an online GIF creator took some doing, too. Thought it would be easier than that.)

 

[Yoda Power]

Oh, Erebras. There was a very specific reason I did not request a Stegadon Rider. You see Kinboat actually made one already. It's in the mod. But thanks for trying.



edit: But if you're up for it, you could give it a go with the Bastiladon? I don't remember if there is a Dinosaur corresponding to that one?

 

[Erebras]

Nah, Yoda Power, I'm just throwing out concepts. I didn't actually create a stegadon (that zip file's just a partially-finished run flc). And Kinboat's creations are some of my favorites, so I wouldn't think to step on his stegadon unit (which I kind of already knew was in the WH2 mod, but had forgotten), but I would point out that just as there are different kinds of knights, it's no stretch to have an array of dino-riders for the Slaan.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=509932

 

[Yoda Power]

but I would point out that just as there are different kinds of knights, it's no stretch to have an array of dino-riders for the Slaan.

You are of course right. But there's only one Slaan civilization, which sort of puts a natural limit to the flavor posibilities.

Currently in terms of dinos, they get a Cold One Rider, the Stegadon and the Carnosaur, but no Bastiladon!

 

[Erebras]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=509932

I wanted to post something useful from all my playing around on the computer these past two days. Cutting and pasting is not straightforward! One pixel off is enough to give a unit the jitters, and one color edit on a palette is enough to turn a dinosaur into a Christmas tree. But a simple color swap? Not too difficult at all.

 

[Yoda Power]

Awesome stuff.

 

[Erebras]

In response to the earlier post about railroads and intermediate roads, I have this to say.

When I was designing my Dark Emperor/Loslon scenario, I changed the road to "route", akin to using dotted lines to mark trade routes or secondary roads on a typical (real-life) map. Then I transformed the railroad into stone roads (using stone road graphics someone had posted). It provided a stark contrast between muddy paths and ruined ways versus a well-maintained high-quality network such as the Romans constructed and used. I didn't quite like that a unit on a route could move thrice its movement, but on a stone road in friendly or neutral territory it became virtually unlimited, but it's hardcoded into the game.

In the General Settings you can set road movement to whatever you want it to be, but keep in mind it impacts "Treats all terrain as roads" unit ability. (Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken.) Railroad movement is unalterable.

In one of the Viking scenario request forums, it was suggested that a terrain could be given a movement of 0 to reflect the trade routes of the Varangians/Varyags/Norse coming from Scandinavia into the Black Sea, and then other units not belonging to the Vikings would "ignore movement cost" so they would pay movement points to enter the squares that the Vikings otherwise skim through. Perhaps this idea can be adapted to what the dwarves and chaos dwarves were capable of. If terraforming a given terrain to a special movement 0 terrain only the stunties could take advantage of, requiring a civ advance only the stunties receive or research, then all of the other civs would be "none the wiser" that there were railroads running beneath their feet. If the terraforming could only be performed on mountain and hill terrain, I think the tactical advantage is not much different from the Inca Chasqui or the Mongol Keshik able to move more quickly in rough terrain in .

There is another workaround involving upping the movement costs for all terrain, then increasing each unit's movement points, and then having certain units ignore movement points. It impacts a unit's Blitz ability. Further development of this idea is needed, since I've not considered all the other factors of game movement.

In my CivSpecific scenario, I eliminated railroads, and turned them into Superhighways with the Motorized Transportation advance and requiring Rubber and Oil instead of Coal and Iron. I felt it more accurately depicted the idea that all that increased production and movement was due to reliable transportation and prevalent infrastructure (19th century railroads were neither). I didn't reduce the impact of Industrialization, though. I made an improvement called the Railway Station requiring Iron and Coal that increases productivity in a manner similar to if you railroaded the city squares in whichever way CivEdit allows (I don't recall the precise details). Perhaps a similar concept could be adapted for the dwarves and chaos dwarves (not having any Games Workshop sourcebooks in front of me, I wouldn't know exactly how).

If you go the terraforming route, then pillaging a railroad improvement -- collapsing rail tunnels, I suppose -- would not be possible. If you go the Railway Station route, you don't get increased mobility and pillaging a railroad improvement is still not possible. If you go the railroad square improvement route, then anyone with Right of Passage agreements can use them, and anyone can see and pillage the improvements, and you end up with the imbalancing mentioned earlier, unless decreasing mountain and hills shield production ameliorates this somehow.

Any thoughts on this, YodaPower?

 

[Yoda Power]

Honestly? As I already commented it would be unbalancing. Also what would the point be? I'm not adding something without a good reason. Just because it could be done is not a good reason.

It would cause a major change in gameplay which is not really the point with an update. We're not making a whole new mod here.

 

[Erebras]

What would the point be? I don't know. That's up to whoever wanted them in the first place! I'm just being conversational. I think the chaos dwarves are the most ridiculous-looking units Games Workshop ever came up with! (Well, except the skeleton cheerleaders for Blood Bowl, I guess.)

I think the ultimate point concerning rails is whether or not they're essential to the dwarven identity or strategy, and if so, how they can be incorporated into the game without giving a hopelessly unfair advantage. Leave it up to the chaos dwarf enthusiasts to figure out and introduce as a Warhammer Mod 3.0 sub-scenario called Railroad Tycoon.

 

[Erebras]

I was speaking with my brother the other day, and he mentioned that the scenario ain't really designed for multiplayer because you kind of need all 31 civs to give it an authentic feel for the Old World. Is this true? I've played Battle March and Shadow of the Horned Rat to its completion and the other similar one Dark Omen until I gave up due to lack of interest, and I can say you get a very nice campaign with just a handful of opponents and allies. I can see myself making multiplayer scenarios of the new mod with specific dynamics in mind: an Estalian Reconquista, an invasion from Naggaroth, a Chaos invasion into the Empire, an underground scenario for Skaven vs Orks vs Dwarves, Ottoman-Habsburg wars...

 

[Yoda Power]

I'm pretty sure that it's been made possible to play in multiplayer with more than eight civs. I don't remember how though, since I never do it.

 

[nick0515]

Man I hope you're right about that. I've always hated that silly 8 player limit.

Wait was that with some kind of hacked version of the game? Someone was messing around with that if I remember rightly. Was it finished?

 

[Erebras]

I tend to tailor my scenarios to an eight-player limit (if it's intended for multiplayer) or fourteen-civilization limit (since a huge map only handles that many in single player) unless it's desirable to have a randomness to who your opponents are. I recall a scenario allowing all 31 civs appearing on the forum years ago, but my impression (without playing it) was that it slowed way, way down as time went on (although I wonder if newer processors mitigate this). I'm not aware that it needed a hacked version of civ.