Undead civ: one more crazy idea

[it-ogo]

Why

I don't afraid Infernals. IMO real horror comes not from lore or dark terrain art but from gameplay feeling. After long-long plaing FFH2 In my feelings all disasters we have now provide some disturbance but not much horror. The very Infernals looks like some strange guys with odd metabolism and estetics and that is all. Now I tried to construct something more destructive and horrific.

Let us assume that Barbatos found divine patron, got divine spells and is going to necrotize the Erebus...

Description:

Name: Soulless (?)
Leader: Barbatos (bar, cre)

Starts with unit Barbatos and fixed capital Broken Sepulcher.

Barbatos starts with Divine instead of Summoning, Dimensional I, Death I, movement=3, Commando, Water walking, Immortal, can not attack, can explore rival territory. (all other is the same)

New spells

Divine Death II: "Convert undead": converts all undead units in stack to your cause.
Divine Death III:"Claim body": grants all living units in stack "Body claimed" promo. Not concidered as an act of war. Can be resisted, promo can be cured by "destroy undead" spell. Whenever unit with this promo is destroyed its body raises as an exact copy of a destroyed unit but with undead promo and as a unit of Soulless at full health.
"Raise necropolis": turn city ruins into Soulless city.

World spell: "Bone swarming": All living units in the world gain "Body claimed" promo. All undead units are converted to the cause of Soulless. All city ruins are turned into necropoli.

Soulless Palace:In all cities no production, no food, no science, no commerce, no population. No fee for military units. Provides 1 death mana.

Whenever Soulless capture a city they gain number of skeletons equal to the city population. Population city goes to 0, but city remains.

Only victory possible: Conquest.

Effects: You can imagine. Soulless do nothing but harvesting bodies and crashing everybody with mixed hordes of the bodies of all races and times. E.g. imagine the battle for the control of the burned world between Hyborem and Barbatos: between evil souls and their bodies. %)

Contras: can not regulate diffficulty level: no effect of science, income etc. penalties.

 

[westamastaflash]

I like the concept, but I think you're severely limiting the undead. I'd rather just have 3 distinct barbarain civs - "orcs" "demons" and "undead".

I'd be nice to see undead barrows become more powerful as the game goes on (generates more units, better units, etc).

 

[it-ogo]

I like the concept, but I think you're severely limiting the undead.

I feel them like something totally destructive. They can not create, research or build anything. "Creative" trait is just to give them some control of territories, otherwise there will be too many barbarian orcs spawned..

I'd rather just have 3 distinct barbarain civs - "orcs" "demons" and "undead".

Yeah, demons are also strongly different from orcs. I did write about it somewhere. And also we have animals...

 

[reveler]

It would be a shame to loose Barbatos as he is now as it is always fun to have an area void of cities where he rules.

Would they be at peace with orcs and demons?

 

[it-ogo]

It would be a shame to loose Barbatos as he is now as it is always fun to have an area void of cities where he rules.

Yes, that is nice. Well... it is not so big problem to make something similar. At least in comparison with efforts needed to code a new civ.

Would they be at peace with orcs and demons?

I put barbarian trait for Barbatos as I want him to wander around claiming bodies, not just sit on his butt collecting orc warriors and goblins who try to kill him. But I do not like him to be untouchable in mid- and late-game by demon horsemen. Maybe there is a reason to make him invisible, or break his peace with barbs after some AC.

 

[Shog-goth]

Interesting suggestion, I like it...

 

[Kjaaly]

I know it's an old debate, but why don't we split up the barbarians? As said earlier, it would solve a lot of problems concerning the horde of Orthus allying with the Avartar of Wrath and the Four Horsemen, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

 

[Black Whole]

I like the concept, but I think you're severely limiting the undead. I'd rather just have 3 distinct barbarain civs - "orcs" "demons" and "undead".

I'd be nice to see undead barrows become more powerful as the game goes on (generates more units, better units, etc).

Actually, barrows become stronger with time. When the barbs have the right technology, the barrows spawn diseased corpses and later wraiths. The same goes for ruins: they spawn lizardman ranger and beastmaster later on. The problem is, that they don't survive that long to spawn them.

Anyways, I like the concept especially if it would be given to the barbarians. A threat more to overcome...

 

[it-ogo]

I know it's an old debate, but why don't we split up the barbarians?

Because the Team is overburdened. And that probably will slow down the PC processing. And before BTS there was a severe limit on the number of civs, as I understand... etc.

Let us calculate fractions:
1. Orcs, goblins and lizardmen. They are very tolerant as were able to form a civ.
2. Undeads. Basically simple undeads have no personal will and either obey some necromancer or attack any living unit in site.
3. Chaotic Demons: personalized destruction. Just some completely crazy creatures who are considered barbarians even in Hell .
4. Animals.
5. Beasts. OK, Acheron is enough charismatic to subdue orcs, but there are hill giants and those new event-creatures.
6. Regular units who became crazy because of enraged, AoW and spell.

Too much to program their separate behavior for flavor only. But I propose an idea for novel strategy in gameplay at least for one of them.

 

[Aradiel]

Splitting up the barbarians would be nice,

orcs, undead, demons and humans as well.
How about a % chance of ruins in neutral territory to become a necropolis, with an increasing chance equal to the ac?

 

[it-ogo]

Hmm... BTW I would like to have them playable, not only splitted barbarians. That may be interesting.

Ruins - OK.

 

[kenken244]

It would be nice to let barbatos build barrows so that his convert undead thing is more usefull late game, and necropoli don't seem to do anything as their cities do not produce, at the very least they sohould spawn undead

 

[Kjaaly]

Because the Team is overburdened. And that probably will slow down the PC processing. And before BTS there was a severe limit on the number of civs, as I understand... etc.

I said why don't WE Why don't some of us in the community do it? And, as a modmod, the strain on the PC's wouldn't be as big a problem, since you could just chose not to download it. And now that BTS is out, we haven't got that stupid civ limit.
I'd like to help with the development of said modmod, but my skills are limited to some of the most basic python, though I may be able to scan the finished code for errors.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I like the idea of an undead civ, but more along the lines of a zombie horde.

all zombies are identical with the same strength. whenever a zombie deafeats a living unit, it has a 95% chance of cominb back as a zombie, identical to all the others. if a zombie is defeated by a living unit, that unit has a 5% chance of being turned into a zombie (all under the undead civ's control)

should zombies take over a city, the population will gradually drop, all the while randomly spawning zombies that roam in the wild. whn the city reaches a population of zero, the zombie production rate should drop but not diseaper.

also, if my idea is implemented, zombies could weaken over time, slowly loosing thier strength until they rot away...

i can imagine vast hordes of zombies romaing the world...

just my 2cents.

 

[Saien]

Actually, barrows become stronger with time.

Problem is, they're just gone by that time.

Perhaps some method of new ones to come into the game. A percentage chance of any combat outside of any culture area to turn into a barrow. However, it would have to be after some delay (5-10 turns) or would be immediately destroyed.

 

[it-ogo]

It would be nice to let barbatos build barrows so that his convert undead thing is more usefull late game, and necropoli don't seem to do anything as their cities do not produce, at the very least they sohould spawn undead

Disagree. I came from the nature of undead. They do not breed and they are not build. To have an undead you need a dead corpse of a living creature. That is destruction only: no building, no breeding, no spawning. Necropoli do nothing, they only occupy a territory which is dead. You can survive in hell terrain, have some food, resources etc. In undead territory is nothing for nobody. That is why it should be horrible.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

On different factions for barbarians:

Having undead vbarbarians on their own is not very interesting. Undead are small in the game, and the most you see of them is a barrow which is quickly dispatched.

Rather they should be:
Orc Kin: The barbarian cities, orcs, goblins, ogres, lizardmen (The CoE would be at peace with them)
Humans: Doviello like people. Also includes barbarian ships (Pirates) (The Doviello would be at peace with them)
Demonic: These would be the undead, and units spawned in hell flame, Armaggedon units (The infernal would be at peace with them.
Beasts: Hill Giants, Acheron, Sea Serpents, the random event units.

When a leader is at peace with a barbarian faction, they can contact them, trade techs, give cities, trade gold, etc. They can also ask them to attack a certaon civilization for money.

 

[it-ogo]

I said why don't WE Why don't some of us in the community do it?

I never dealt with python, though I am more-less skilled programmer. But my second name is Sloth.

I like the idea of an undead civ, but more along the lines of a zombie horde.

It is nice system in flavor but I do not see how it can be balanced according to neighbours' level.

Problem is, they're just gone by that time.
Perhaps some method of new ones to come into the game. A percentage chance of any combat outside of any culture area to turn into a barrow. However, it would have to be after some delay (5-10 turns) or would be immediately destroyed.

Starting balance still is a problem. It is clear that, for example, with raging barbs/epic my undead system is overpowered. So this civ maybe good for scenarios but not so good in random game.

 

[it-ogo]

On different factions for barbarians:

Having undead vbarbarians on their own is not very interesting. Undead are small in the game, and the most you see of them is a barrow which is quickly dispatched.

One problem is a strategy interest, another is logic and flavor. I hardly believe that mindless skeletons can found common language with anybody. They have their own agenda and behavior. And when bear leave his den relying on skeleton guard i feel that something is wrong.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

It is nice system in flavor but I do not see how it can be balanced according to neighbours' level.

Make all the zombies pretty weak but have a huge number of them? (though that would slow the game down alot... )