Warhammer Fantasy Battles Mod Brainstorm Thread

[Psychic_Llamas]

About the 40K: maybe (this is a very broad MAYBE ) once both mods are complete the 40K team and fantasy team coulddiscuss combining the mods...
i doubt it though

i still dissagree with the terraforming for all races. too mauch to do, and it removes the individuality of the few civs that SHOULD have it.
by the way, wasnt it you masada who said there was no clear definition of 'good' and 'evil' so how would good and evil terrain work? (this is a rhetorical question )

darkelves do indeede live in a deadly place, but its a naturally deadly place. those terrain fatures you mentioned are named because of how they appear to the races of the world, not because there is evil emanating from it .

 

[Masada]

@PH it isnt terraforming for all races far from it... its grouping lets say the good races in the old world... the Empire, Tilea, Estalia, Kislev etc into a terrain group... the evil races into a group etc you should only end up with 5 sets of terrain or so (but it was only a thought, and i dont think it detracts only certain teams would be able to terraform it.. im talking about terrain that spawns at the start of the game so you have "good" terrain spawn on the map as well as "evil" terrain)

Yes i said there is no good and evil and that everything is relative.. however notice i used "good" and "evil" (i just got lazy later on) really its only a way of grouping different civs.

Naggaroth is indeed a natraully dangerous place however i can assure you by the normal definition of evil (not mine) the place is evil... Darkelves are about the only race i will say are evil because they would be about the only race who describe themselves as evil...

Naggaroth has intelligent predators *doesnt look at Cold ones*, plants that try to kill you, chaos warped abominations, various other nasty things... i think that could be called evil.. or at the very least incliment (and it isnt entirely natrually evil... chaos has warped the place a bit beyond the pale and the Dark Elves make it even more unpleasant.. by feeding harpies... etc)

 

[Arexack_heretic]

I thought about dessert and that no army can survive there unless they bring their own water.

I propose instead of healers as in FFH, rather use baggage trains to heal armies on the foot.
Armies would take 5-20% damage (fixed maximum) from dangerous or deadly terrain every turn, a baggage train could replenish this damage.
Baggagetrains would also boost morale or damage morale in surrounding squares if captured.
Special artefacts, such as altars could be carried by trains.
Trains have no defensive capability unless a detachment is allocated to protect it. The army pennymaster and clerics commonly travel in the train as well as campfollowers.
The train is a wheeled unit and suffers double terrainmovement modifiers unless a road is present.
movement is 2.
requirements are horsebackriding and pottery.

in addition terrain-skills could nullify the damage from specific terrain-types or make units immune to deadly terrain.

Deadly (natural) terrains:
dessert (req water), ice (req fire fuel), (tundra/permafrost ?)
Special dessertrat/icewalker survival skills.?

unnatural terrain: polution/fallout, chaos waste, undead waste.
Units may need spiritual protection in the form of a priest to protect them from incubi and things that go bonk in the night on these tiles.

 

[Masada]

i agree healers dont fit into warhammer... baggage trains are a great idea... however what about all the civs who dont use wheeled transport for there baggage or for that matter use a baggage train...?

Darkelves for instance are a raiding people who dont tend to stray to far from the coast... and i very much doubt they carry large amounts of wagons on there arcs, more likely they carry enough provisions on there backs and on there cold ones and dark steeds

Lizardmen are much the same they have large dinosaur carryalls which relagate the usefullness of wagons to nil

Chaos doesnt use baggage trains they are a raiding people who travel light and steal what they need

The empire tends to shy away from baggage trains with most imperial armies defending a set area (they seldom move away from them) the only thing they need to take on wagons are some of the heavier artillery pieces the rest is mounted on gun carriages or carried by mules, horses, donkeys etc...

Norsca are in much the same position as the dark elves...

Ogres can carry alot.. and can eat pretty much whatever they come across so that mitagates the need for a baggage train

The Undead dont eat...

But i agree with some ummm changes baggage wagons, black arcs, dinosaur carriers, orgres etc could umm be treated as baggage wagons

Otherwise great idea ignore my quibbling

Would it be possible to have units build fortresses? in enemy territory? if you build a fortress/encampment/whateverthehellyouwanttocallit.... you suffer no damage from terrain.. but it also adds a nice tacital edge to the game (after all Europe in the middle ages was a mess of castles.. have a look at how many Oliver Cromwell knocked down during the Glourious Revolution to get an idea of how many there were in England alone... oh and have a look at how quickly he was knocking them down with the cannons his model army were using 4 days or so to reduce royalist fortress to the ground :O) that way you could have defended positions to put your guns in to attack enemy cities and you could have real sieges OO!!! \

and you could have some units build roads too allow your baggage train to catch up with your army? Sappers? etc

WOW this opens a big can of worms !!!

Special note

Tommorow or tonight after work, i will attempt to write up the results of my exaustive study of how the hell to do national limits... using a varity of means of divination i have come up with a rough working method

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Just dropping in with a question. I intended to open a public forum for the WH-Mod as soon we release the warlordversion but the release will have to wait a bit since me and Olleus currently have to attend to other matters. Anyway as the discussion is right now it seems to me you guys could already use more space than a single thread. Do you want me to ask Thunderfall to open us a public developement forum or do you think the brainstormthread is enough until we can release the first version of WH-Warlords?
Note: that release won't yet include most of the concepts that were discussed here since there is still a lot on the todolist before we really can get to the funstuff. Once the remaining modcomps we intend to merge are in, techs are revamped and bugs are extinguished I'm really looking forward to work on the realization of concepts discussed here.
So want to have more space already or wanna wait?

btw: building fortresses outside cultural borders is partially realized already in the warlordsversion - the poor AI performance with this feature is still a problem though.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

well, the idea of baggage train units which negate negative terrain modifieres or add possitive modifiers to the stack is a great idea
i tagree that they would have to vary slightly civ to civ, giving each one a unique modle or advantage etc (dark Elves Raiding Party, Lizardmen Carnosaur Trains, Ogres Knoblar supply, etc etc)
this could make some very interesting gmae play and strategies

I see what you mean by good and evil terrains not Masada
it would be difficult to group it all though, eg, having Orcs gobblins, Ogres, Dark Elves, Chaos, Norsca etc in one group, they dont live on terrain remotely alike yet they are all 'evil'

Ooh! infiltrator improvements castles and fortresses in enemy boarders would be VERY interesting

i think a new public forum would be good Ploe, even though it is mostly AH, Masada and i on here, we have come up with a lot of different ideas, and we should have a way of cattegorising them
if you could get one it would be great, but no need to rush yet

 

[Arexack_heretic]

A seperate brainstorm forums?
Why not?
But then we'd need to storm on two places at once. I don't think I got the wind.


I like it you like it. Last time I mentioned supplytrains, they were met with the opposite response. But that was with a totally no-fun logistics concept.
I'd love to have baggage trains in, as they were a major part of early WH versions.
(And campaingns/special defend the train objective scenarios)

I agree with the points you mentioned, still the concept should not be too complex.
Any army has a train. stationary armies just have a HQ in some village. It is frankly the logistics centre, including whores, foodstores, pay, priests, commander, fledgers, mobile smithy, etc.
That said, some units are independent and live of the land or don't need supplies. Such as woodelf waywatchers etc. I would say scouts too, but then I thought about halflings...they and baggagetrains are inseperable.
These units should have a survivalist-skill.

Terrain damage would only be incurred in some types of terrain and each type may have a skill/ability to negate the effect. (Chaos units shouldnt go mad on chaotic wastes, they are already mad.)
...Hmm a nice Chaoswaste effect could be sapping unit morale, then when too low instead of fleeing, they turn Chaos.

A carnisaur transport would replace the train as a special unit and would not have the neg.terrain-modifiers.
Undead still need arrows made and a spare femur to replace the broken one.
But I agree, they should be free from terrain damage or train-healing. However the train could be used to transport vampirecounts and other large artifacts. Nah, better to assume they travel in style while they move about.
Undead armies not always consist of only the dead, so a national ability is no option.
Vampirecounts have living underlings and even Ghouls are a living unit.

So...undead special promotion/ability to give certain properties?
-no healing.
-no damage from disease or naturalterrain or undead terrain.
-cause fear.
-immune to psychology.
-magical instability + -controlled automaton
(seperate ability to distinguish from vampires and liches, can also be used for summoned units)

---
Sappers.

Great! Always loved sapping, never much used in standard games though.
The upgradable fortifications (mentioned earlier in terrain-upgrades section) would come in nicely here.
The fist level would be a wooden lookout tower or defensive camp (Roman style)
This camp could provide some small defensive bonus, but more importantly units would not flee away and rather huddle in the camp than run away.
sapers don't build roads. But can build tunnels, fortifications in enemy territory and give a city assault bonus to other units in same stack.

Tower and camp could be upgraded later.
wooden lookout, -> stone-tower, -> small castle or wizard tower.
Entrenched camp, -> wooden pallisades, -> small castle, -> Fortress.
I would assume potholes, wooden pikes, sandbags are covered by the standard fortify bonus of fortified units.
The towers increase sightrange of occupying units, but can only offer defensive bonus to a small number of troops. Maybe towers could be assumed to be always manned and give LoS.
So either a small bonus only for all or only for the first unit in the stack. (could units be 'loaded'into terrain improvements?)
The camp-series of fortifications should prevent troops fleeing and give some addional artillery abilities. As well as negating any deadly terrain effects in that tile.
However camps do tend to be a magnet for filth and diseases. So a negative health if within a cities footprint. Small chance of units contracting an ailment, that should be temporary. Once a unit is diseased, next turn either healed or a tiny chance of a plague taking hold. A plagued unit remains sick and contageous untill healed by a unit able to heal.
(The diseased ability in FFH was too pervasive, one battle with a diseased unit and virtually all unit in both piles were sick.)

 

[Masada]

A seperate brainstorm forum would be good... just for the multiple different threads.. i tend to like to go off on tangents as is that wouldnt help but having a scenario thread, a balance thread etc would help

Logistics

Is about the only thing that 99% of all strategy games fail in. Civilization perfect in almost everyway at least compared to the competition (nothing can ever be perfect.. there is one person i know who comes close.. close i said *casts a dirty look*) fails in this department as well.. though in vanilla civilization it is probably a benifit its an empire building game not a game built around silly micro changes.

However in this mod having a fairly simple system would benifit the mod.

Any army should have a train, even stationary armies need to have supplies flowing into the area in which it is guarding/occupying/whatever. It is depending on situation in addition to a food and supplies center everything else that an army needs... as AH said so nicely... (im not going to dirty my lips with all that )

However to nitpick... its seldom contains the pays or for that matter priests...

What we need to do is list units into nice catagories...scouts etc (im allready doing that so leave that to me... there are exceptions.. but lets not worry about that... thats part of my national limit excersise)

The oddities im not quite interested in... atm (what lizardmen use to transport goods on i dont care about atm, only that it isnt going to be a carnisaur)

Undead armies bar the Vampire counts are only undead... Khemeri, Undead of the Vampire coast..

Ghouls do live.. but they feed on corpses.. they may live but there is never a shortage of bodies if your near a Von Carstien... some other things are alive... but they would be in the minimun...

Sappers

I was just talking about encampments... but more sophisticated structures could be built... i think it might be better if its tied into techs.. like Mathematics etc..

Perhaps with options to add some additions to it like Civ3.. or if possible having a galatic civilization 2 approach and having the option to have an outer wall or a gun position etc?

Towers... like radar posts in civ3? i think would be good... assume they are manned and use them to increase LOS (would be very good in a scenario on a giant map.. this mod tends to kill large empires with the nice 0% science and -100 gold a turn, its to expensive to build alot of units and station them on the border anyway Towers would deal with that...)

Troops should not be able to flee from them... that makes sense

Disease, i would agree with and yes in FFH2 it was way to powerful

Terrain

Maybe have terrain like Greenskin terrain... Nasty terrain (Chaos, Dark Elves, Norsca etc)... Old World (Empire, Tilea etc) or maybe extend it to semi-Civilized Terrain? (Empire, Tilea, Cathay, Nippon, Ind, Arabia all that terrain is similar to the real worlds terrain) ... Undead Terrain... Elven terrain (or maybe just lump them in with the Civilized Terrain..), Dwarves well lump them into the Civilized terrain, Chaos Dwarves in Nasty terrain... Ogres with Greenskins... etc Lizardmen with Amazons

The difference between Human terrain all over the world is minimal a forest is still a forest similar to a forest on our world... generally.. a nasty terrain is a gothic parody of what our world forests are like... Elven forests are creepy, trees that can speak (what happened to the Elven lumber trade? ).. Orcs tend to Orcify there terrain its still recognizable to our terrain just full of Orcs... Undead terrain is dead, Khemri deserts would be similar to Sylvanian deserts if Sylvania was a desert country all the better to keep skeletons together... The Southlands and Lustria are a fair bit nastier than our Rainforests but there still similar

National limits on Units

This a complex task ahead of me... for a number of reasons.. there are a number of parameters im working on

Known Limits::

These are limits that are known from the fluff

e.g Steam tanks only 14(?) of which were struck so logically there can only be 14... however that would be to many in a game... so it should be on a sliding scale... 14 should be allowed on giant maps but only 1 on a tiny map for instance

Logical Limits

These are limits that can be deduced from both the fluff (but not exactly) which are corroborated by the game

e.g Chaos Knights are not the only part of a Chaos army... but they are a strong unit... however there limit should be in line with the limits imposed on similar strength cavalry units... yet again they should be on a sliding scale 3 for instance on a tiny map

Game Limits

These are limits that can be deduceded from the only with only passing mentions in fluff

e.g Ogres Kingdoms units... using the limited amounts of fluff it is possible to deduce that Ogres only make up a small proportion of the numbers in an Ogre Kingdoms army... they are however far superior in ability to a Gnoblar and more than the equal of any armoured Knights which means that at the lowest denominator for a basic Ogre unit it is plausible for them to be better than most civs Knights but due to the small numbers present in an army

Fluff Limits

Much the same as the above but using fluff limits instead of game based limits

e.g Chaos Warriors... while common in Chaos armies in the fluff they are far from common to what degree depends but in fighting power etc they are superior

Historical or Common Sense Limits

Just using common sense

e.g Imperial Cannons... there are not going to a 100,000 of them full stop.

The Aim... is to get a balanced force by using limits to make for a better playing experience.. in Vannila civ for instance how many people just build Swordsmen, then Knights, then Cavalary, then Tanks? (most people i would imagine...) there should not be a single "good unit" in fact all units should be equal with drawbacks and bonuses equally spread (in my eyes a good way of doing this is national limits... how far im going to go with this is your choice... i was just thinking to start with doing some basic limiting of units, Steam tanks to 1 for tiny maps (i love sliding scales) etc nothing drastic)

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Good. I'm just going to react to the terrain-idea thread for now.

How about:

                       wild lands     
                            |
Enchanted lands - nonmagical/natural - Cursed lands (Chaos/Undead)
                            |
                       Civilized lands

This is similar to the evil-neutral-good terrain idea, but in a matrix, also including magical infusion of the lands. Neutral magic confirms the statis quo of 'normal' terrain, while Good or Evil magic (and culture for civ specific terrains) influence the land. (Form the viewpoint of a neutral human, that is. An elf would probably postulate that human magics make the land bleak and sad.) While Good magic tends to enhance what is there, Evil magics exploit the lands, drain their vitality and pollute them. This may increase their production, but increases the likelyhood of monster spawnings etc.

Civilizations choosing an Evil civic or being evil, would have odds of randomly terraforming a normal desert into blazing desert.

Wild / spider forrest (unclaimed or unworked, unimproved lands) could transform into Haunted forrest if exposed to magic,
Dread forrest if exposed to evil AND magic,
Enchanted glade if exposed to Good AND magic.

dead-lands...they would be cursedlands but generated by undead-civs.

Not quite sure.... culture infuence could determine good/evil content.
Magic-economy the magic-factor or presence of scripted 'magic hot-spots'.

Any terrain without improvements that is not worked has a possibility of turning into wildlands. Only a small one, (and only if unworked for 100years if possible).
Exposure to either evil or good culture would influence the type of wild. If outside borders, either closest or random type.
Expansion: Wilds increase the odds in neighbouring lands to generate a similar wild.
Civ specific terrains (undead/chaos) would be generated inside cultural borders independent of the wilds.

BTW
How are Chaotic/magical concentrations created in our game?
As chaos incursions are a major part of the WH fluff, but never fully explained. Which is first, the excess raw magic or the Chaos hordes?
ie. Do we randomly distribute it (warpstone), or leave it dependent on the success of (randomly distributed) Chaos civs?
Or both: Script it to be concentrated automatically at the poles, but have chaos worship create pockets of Chaos corruption anywhere.

I'm really confusing things now.
Could a spiderforrest be a resource for gobbos?
I think all resources are placed at mapgeneration.
Or can they be added/removed ingame by python too?

 

[Masada]

Terrain

I was thinking of a simpler system not based around magic as such mine would have been built around the idea that Old world humans living in a region would change the land to be more old world human friendly, whereas high elves might change it to a high friendly enviroment, whereas orcs would change it simply by being there and active

As far as i can see the difference between the productivity of different groups would be minimal... Old World Humans may damage the land, but at a rate slower than Orcs would but at a rate faster than High Elves, however human production techniques in mining, smelting, farming and the raising of livestock would be better than Orcs but worse than High Elves. High Elves would not damage the land much however in doing so they sacrifice the ability to strip mine, use large dirty ore extractors, clear vast amounts of land for farming and livestock however this would be mitagated by there superior means of production larger amounts of food per acre, larger yields of ore from the smelter minimizing the amount of ore they need to extract. Orcs however have poor production techniques and utilize strip mining, large scale land clearing and generally speaking lay waste to the land. Orc manafacturing would be poor with much of the Ore wasted in the extraction process etc

I dont think magic plays a large part in how the land looks, certainly it is present but the winds of magic do not stay in the ground it is not latent...

Winds Of Magic

The Light Order- Wind of Hysh

The magic of Hysh is the most effusive of all magic, it penertrates solid objects and soaks away into the rocks. For this reason light magic is especially elaborate and ritualistic and reckoned to be the most difficult to master

Golden Magic- Wind of Chamon

The magic oof Chamon is heavy and very dense. It is attracted to metal as metal is itself attracted to a magnet it is most attracted to gold. It is said that this is the reason gold exerts such a powera

The Jade Order- Wind of Ghyran

Precipate the earth like rain forming pools and eddies which flow into natrual watercourses it is bound closely with living things and water

The Grey Order- Wind of Ulgu

Boils across the ground like a mist evoking a sense of mistrust and concealment to ordinary folk. It is the most effected by ordinary wind. Yet it is chill and dank and hides everything in shadow.

The Celestial Order- wind of Azyr

Is light and insubstantial and quickly dissapate into the upper portion of the heavens. As the winds of chaos blow from immaterial realms where time has no meaning, it is possible to predict important evens by the manner in which celestial bodies show up.

The Amethyst Order- Wind of Shyish

Are the most difficult of the winds to see they blow through past, present and future weaving through the time stream. It blows strongly wherre death lies most heavily. Its follows doom and death and hangs heavy over battlefields and mortuaries.

The Bright Order- Wind of Aqshy

Is like a hot dry wind it collects over hot surfaces and rushes around volcanoes in a frenzy of energy.

The Amber Order- Wind of Ghur

Hangs around beasts and places where man has little gone. It is not a pleasant magic and revolves aroundd the minds of wild animals.

As to the different names of the terrain doesnt matter to me much... those ideas you have are good

Chaos

The winds of magic come rushing out of the gates for a fair while before the Hordes of Chaos attack, the normal winds in the far north around Kislev and the Empire are disrupted and begin to move south... while the Winds of the Chaos gods begin to move south slowly encroaching into Kislev then the Empire... The Light Order made numerous attempts to stem the flow of Chaos magic and succeded a number of times in denying demons the Chaos gods magic they need to exist (pulling them back into the Wastes ) and for a time they managed to stall the encroachment of the magic...

Warpstone can corrupt but only over a small area if it isnt turned into dust and spread, if it comes down in a solid hunk it can effect the surronding area.. but in civ that would only be a couple of tiles...

Chaos corruption is 99% at the poles only 1% or so is anywhere else and that 1% is scary enough...

 

[Ploeperpengel]

A seperate brainstorm forums?
Why not?
But then we'd need to storm on two places at once. I don't think I got the wind.

I'd like to have the public forum for the brainstorming and the private one just for picking the jewels and coordinate the codingstuff and gfx. That means brainstorming in public, details of realization in private.

 

[Masada]

yay Ploeperpengel would i be in invited to the private forum *smiles hopefully* wait maybe i shouldnt laugh at that... umm wait that might be a bit to over the top !!!

 

[Ploeperpengel]

We'll see. I sent you a pm about it.

Anyway time to celebrate. The forum's open now. A bit empty yet but I'm sure you guys will change that
But before you brainstorm on I'd recommend to summarize what's been discussed so far.

cheers

Ploep

 

[Masada]

So far we have gone through the following..

Religions- which has devolped into a rather complex system that probably needs a thread of its own, intially there was a fair discussion about the nature of the different religions general rants about different religions and there natures (and the elven incident i still stand by my mark on that, even Psychic_Llamas agrees @ masada: ELVES ARE NOT EVIL!! *ehem* (notice the sarcasm in that?) we havent heard from Arathlan for a while.. i might have driven him away...) i forgot how much there was about how the system would work...

One of the most important parts of that was Psychic_Llamas point about the spread of faiths "if every now and again, SR buildings can spawn barbarian acolytes etc of their SRs (which dont attack) but only move to different cities and spread their religions, or inqisition others. that would make the SR a little out of the players control and add an element of chance like with the CRs." that i think is important that every now and then a priest you cannot control spawns and starts converting (the ability to assisinate that unit would be interesting?) it would make religions just that bit more unpredictable

Just after that i suggested that a cult of the dragon style factor could be added to units that were created in a city with a Chaos religion that is not a chaos city which would be a simple way of showing the insidious nature of chaos, that coupled with hidden chaos priests to convert cities would be nice

Traits- we havent had a great look at this for a while, however i think it was felt that we wanted to deepen the traits

Some of my suggestions were as follows

Estalia: Um ere thinking of Spain... ships?... mercanaries?... terico spearmen?...

Ind: Free units for each temple? more culture (this is a mod about war...) ere uummm ere

Kislev:The Pulk and Rota system which is the kislevite way of calling together there armies in the face of chaos mass draft of units that have no upkeep but are tied to national borders or have some other sort of cap?

Nippon: Maybe ban peasants and other things from there selection and substiute it by giving them more expensive but very good units?...

Norsca: More money from pillaging and all there units have chance of enslaving..

Tilea: Great militia units but no heavy knights etc..?

Chaos: Lower upkeep cost and chance to enslave units

Darkelves: Enslaving and maybe commando and the ability to heal quicker in enemy territory.. Darkelves are cunning people...

Dwarfs: Extra defenses in cities and maybe +25% extra on the defense for all dwarf units?

Orcs: WAAAGGGGG upkeep what upkeep? there Orcs they dont need much to keep going.. they are scary even when unarmed.. and only need a hunk of slag iron to do damage...

Highelves: .... not even going to bother.. wouldnt be able to control myself..

Tombkings: Umm there dead immune to phycology? aand the ability to raise new units when they kill yours..

Lizardmen: Sacred Spawnings... build buildings that build units... you dont create units the building does.. maybe not skinks who breed i think and units are born with XP cause Lizardmen are born/created knowing how to kill..

Sylvanians: was just a province of the empire... and in a scenario should appear a V day (vampire day if you will) skeletons and other undead units create new units of skeletons when they kill stuff..

Woodelves: Tree Singing they can create woods with mages... and they have Guerilla 1 and 2? or some such... i can just see it the woodelf player creating forests all over the world and overunning everything.. wit

Civics- We had a go on education (the coven question...)

Undead- this is going to be hard call, to make the undead feel well undead... we have some ideas but that is going to need someone to oversee its devolpment to make sure it is possible to act on those suggestions we want

A silly gem from me... on Sylvania and the Von Carsiens and the peasants who live there "Sylvania is like that we those still living in the province considering Manfred Von Carstien as there Elector and Count. Slightly screwed i know but he is still there rightful lord even if he is no longer alive. He still does his duty protecting the peasants in Sylvania are meant to be the worst bunch in the whole of the Empire. The taxes i would imagine would be collected in other ways, Manfred doesnt really need money. And this is where it gets really bizzare Sylvanian peasants still serve in Manfreds army alongside the undead. I dont know though its a choice between paying taxes (which are high for peasants) or occasionally having a daughter/son go missing for a bit and come back in the morning with a sore neck and looking a bit faint (and with only one Von Carstien that would very very rare...) and having the graves of you loved ones messed around every now and then. But then the Von Carstiens tend to raise most of there minions from there dead enemies..."

From Arexack_heretic

"So...undead special promotion/ability to give certain properties?
-no healing.
-no damage from disease or naturalterrain or undead terrain.
-cause fear.
-immune to psychology.
-magical instability + -controlled automaton
(seperate ability to distinguish from vampires and liches, can also be used for summoned units)"

Skaven- These guys are going to be buggers... however we did come up with some stuff

From Arexack_heretic

"And for the special weapons: in the unit_class lists a maximum number can be entered for each type.
However: when I was trying to make a skaven unit list, I considdered some things:
-1- Other armies can have an unlimited number of archers, catapults, cannon.

-2- Skaven need some way to counter this.
(Throwing ten units of skavenslaves against one unit of archers is not going to help the skaven much and will give the archer too much experience.)

-3- the skaven special weapons are for softening up opponents and make THEM run away in terror for a change.
Hence support units. this will give the core-unit of clanrats support fire in defence and attack.
-poison wind will ignore do X collateral damage 75% enemy, 25% self.
-warpfire will negate defencebonusses and cause firedamage.
-assasin will try to attack the most powerfull unit or hero and kill him or damage the unit. (firststrike)

-Jezzails will have a powerfull ranged sniper ability. not really carried as supportunits, rather deployed behind the lines.
-plaguecencers...not sure but cause mayhem all round. can only be carried by plaguemonks.

-ScreamingBell...should be carried like a supportweapon, gives the whole stack frenzy can destroy walls and has +300% vs siegeweapons. (the riding GreySeer will function as leader and also give leadership bonus.)"

Terrain- i pulled this rabbit out of the hat, which i shouldnt have... however this is going to be one of the most complex of changes if it implimented and its going to need a hell of alot of thinking as well as a hell of alot of advice on viability...

There was the Skaven Marsh terrain debate... which got in

And we now have the utterly complex chaos terrain of now... that is starting to get really really complex

as well as the idea of having multiple different terrain types.. the evil terrain according to Psychic_Llamas

"Grasslands-> Dark Lands
Plains-> Ash Plains
Desert-> Forsaken Desert
Tundra-> Frozen Lands
Ice-> Black Ice
Forest-> Petrified Forest
Jungle-> Forsaken Jungle
Mountains-> Black Mountains
Hills ->Barrows/Broken Hills"

From Arexack_heretic

wild lands
|
Enchanted lands - nonmagical/natural - Cursed lands (Chaos/Undead)
|
Civilized lands

Magic- hasnt been mentioned but i think it its going to play a much larger role if we impliment these changes, but we need to discuss its impact and if we can actually impliment it... it is has been tied to some many things..

Racial traits- well i think this has sort of died.. however there was a push a while back to have it included...

From Arexack

"Dwarven racial trait:
-stubborn :will not forget any slight (might be better coded hidden in the diplomatic memory stats.... )
-magically inert. : 0% magicpoints generation multiplier, +2 general dispells/turn.
-tunnelling:
-units in cities count as being in a walled city. building a citywall increases defence (fortified entrances).
-specialised worker units can build tunnels, when mining is researched.
-long lived / superior constitution: +1 health in cities"

Logistics, Sappers and the like-this i would imagine is going to get even more complex as we discuss it...

Baggage trains and there invisioned use to start with from Arexack_heretic

"I propose instead of healers as in FFH, rather use baggage trains to heal armies on the foot.
Armies would take 5-20% damage (fixed maximum) from dangerous or deadly terrain every turn, a baggage train could replenish this damage.
Baggagetrains would also boost morale or damage morale in surrounding squares if captured.
Special artefacts, such as altars could be carried by trains.
Trains have no defensive capability unless a detachment is allocated to protect it. The army pennymaster and clerics commonly travel in the train as well as campfollowers.
The train is a wheeled unit and suffers double terrainmovement modifiers unless a road is present.
movement is 2.
requirements are horsebackriding and pottery."

then we had some stuff on Fortresses built in enemy territory which Ploeperpengel confirmed was in the Warlords version


"btw: building fortresses outside cultural borders is partially realized already in the warlordsversion - the poor AI performance with this feature is still a problem though."

From Arexack_heretic we had some added thoughts

"Tower and camp could be upgraded later.
wooden lookout, -> stone-tower, -> small castle or wizard tower.
Entrenched camp, -> wooden pallisades, -> small castle, -> Fortress.
I would assume potholes, wooden pikes, sandbags are covered by the standard fortify bonus of fortified units.
The towers increase sightrange of occupying units, but can only offer defensive bonus to a small number of troops. Maybe towers could be assumed to be always manned and give LoS.
So either a small bonus only for all or only for the first unit in the stack. (could units be 'loaded'into terrain improvements?)
The camp-series of fortifications should prevent troops fleeing and give some addional artillery abilities. As well as negating any deadly terrain effects in that tile.
However camps do tend to be a magnet for filth and diseases. So a negative health if within a cities footprint. Small chance of units contracting an ailment, that should be temporary. Once a unit is diseased, next turn either healed or a tiny chance of a plague taking hold. A plagued unit remains sick and contageous untill healed by a unit able to heal.
(The diseased ability in FFH was too pervasive, one battle with a diseased unit and virtually all unit in both piles were sick.)"

Chaos- While we havent really discussed it in any real detail.. we keep touching on it and needs a bit of disscusion how we can make Chaos chaosy

From me...

"The winds of magic come rushing out of the gates for a fair while before the Hordes of Chaos attack, the normal winds in the far north around Kislev and the Empire are disrupted and begin to move south... while the Winds of the Chaos gods begin to move south slowly encroaching into Kislev then the Empire... The Light Order made numerous attempts to stem the flow of Chaos magic and succeded a number of times in denying demons the Chaos gods magic they need to exist (pulling them back into the Wastes ) and for a time they managed to stall the encroachment of the magic...
Warpstone can corrupt but only over a small area if it isnt turned into dust and spread, if it comes down in a solid hunk it can effect the surronding area.. but in civ that would only be a couple of tiles...
Chaos corruption is 99% at the poles only 1% or so is anywhere else and that 1% is scary enough...
"

Which lead to this... by Arexack_heretic (the order is messed up but it makes more sense if its in this order)

"How are Chaotic/magical concentrations created in our game?
As chaos incursions are a major part of the WH fluff, but never fully explained. Which is first, the excess raw magic or the Chaos hordes?
ie. Do we randomly distribute it (warpstone), or leave it dependent on the success of (randomly distributed) Chaos civs?
Or both: Script it to be concentrated automatically at the poles, but have chaos worship create pockets of Chaos corruption anywhere."

Unit stuff- Not much was done on this apart from religous units but there were a couple of suggestions

Lord_Olleus style mini upgrades for units was a suggestion made by me (met with silence but oh well)

Note- Im attempting to do some skinning atm.. and i dont mind testing the mod..

 

[Melian]

Hey Guys!
thanks for starting such a great mod! Been playing both Warhammer and civ since they started and to see them come together like this has been quite extraordinary
Had a few ideas for the mod, but haven't read all the postings on this forum so if I've repeated what's been discussed already I apologise in advance,

1. Skaven, (dwarves?)
how about having similar tunnel system as discussed for dwarves in previous post... can't remember exactly where... Basically could allow them to tunnel under other civ's to reach unprotected areas, (could they build cities and improvements under peaks?) enemies couldn't see them (or use them), could it be used as a form of sneak attack?? I think Skaven managed to take at least one city by this method'(have to check my army books to be sure), workers (or Skaven slaves) could be used (sacrificed?)
maybe it could be a Skaven wonder?? The great Rift?? probably about advanced machinery era??
the tunnel thing (but not city attack thing) could even be a trait for a few different civs, namely dwarves and gobbos but possibly others... if they come into contact could be combat as usual... especially since a tunnel loving civ is never going to want a rival never mind the hatred between dwarves and gobbos!

a few units for skaven (and again apologise if you've beenm through this already!)
Beastmasters, the core of a lot of old skaven armies, give bonuses to the creatures they control depending on their own experience... some become mutated... guzzling all that warpstone while making their pets

Rat Ogres... Monster Bonding... stupid if not controlled by beastmasters... but if they are str 9, move 2, promotions that depend on beastmaster? cause fear, and frenzied?

Giant Rats str 4/5 but could give infected wounds (slow heal time even with medics)

Rat swarm, str 3/4 cause collateral damage (maybe as high as 30%?), could damage buildings in enemy city? aqueducts, harbors and infected wounds maybe a bit too powerful but I love the rat guys

2. Early buildings,

had a couple of ideas,
human specific: guild system of buildings, from WFRP recollections altdorf, middenheim and the other cities of the empire used to thrive on a system of guilds, although guilds itself is researched later could it be possible for early early masonry guilds (for example) to have formed once the technology was available... something along the lines of 80 hammers, plus 10% production for buildings (with some restrictions), could allow an engineer??

other guild possiblities 1. jewellers, 2. cloth merchants, 3. brewers guild,

most could add 5/10% production/ commerce... or even 10% of total happines already in city (thinking of all those happy people buying jewels for their loved ones )

nother possiblity would be a demagogue platform... often came across them in WFRP, source of new ideas (+10% science but also easier for other religions to spread?)

Anyhow that's all for now, thanks again for the mod and if ýou still want playtesters let me know cos i'd be happy to help,
ciao!

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Welcome, nice to see another Lord for the Grey Counsil.

Yes.
Many of those things are being discussed in the team-forum.

Beastmasters were discussed in the Skaven thread, then moved to a separate one.
It has been decided to have the handlers and beasts combined into one unit.
At first I thought it would be more flexible to have seperate beasts that could be 'loaded' unto the handlers, but that would only be unneccesarilly complex.


And yes, we would love to see them building cities in mountain peaks. This will take some trouble to make it work, because of the way buildings are placed AND because underground cities are not much to look at from the stratosphere.

Don't forget black grain resource, Skaven Wonders causing the mountains to tremble or changing the land into swamplands.


The tunneling started as an idea for skaven.
As all their traderoutes AND majoir victories have been through tunnelling. (to varying degrees)
We agreed to try to make it depend on a learned(mining) skill, that gives workers/miners/slavegangs of certain bottomdweller civilisations the ability to build tunnels.
Tunnels will be (if we can) a transport feature/improvement, replacing rails.
They will be invisible to all but tunneler/sappers/'underground' units.
(maybe inquisitors too?)
They can be built outside city borders and even in enemy territory.

Additional tunnelling ideas:
Maybe additional level of improvement would be a 'tunnel mouth', so that troops inside will need to exit.
(free ability: exit tunnels / enter tunnels costs one movement flat)

Units in tunnel-mode,
will be invisible to units not tunnelled.
have LOS of 1.
can attack only other tunnelled units in a connected tunnel (Unless on a tunnelmouth)
Units that can BUILD tunnel, can move one square from an existing tunnel when underground unto non-tunneled land.
sappers can collapse a tunnel or tunnelmouth, without dying. Other units pillaging when inside a tunnel will die horribly.
...maybe collapsing a tunnel can be done within one tile of the sapper, so that they can collapse a tunnel on the enemy within.

Ok..need to copy-paste that into the skaven thread...

ratswarms.
I figured they would be a cheap or even free unit that skaven generate.
They might move autonomously.
Have morale 100. (as opposed to overall skaven morale of 40-ish, without stack/leadership boni)
Do collateral damage.
Have a flat movement rate.
Um movement of 2..
...Maybe elephants are afraid of them.

I tried to put them in, using small wolf-models as rats. (howling rats).
But they would not move.

 

[Melian]

hey axerack_heretic,

thanks for the feedback!

thinking about the mountain peak cities, could it possible for small differences to be seen from the air but then when you open the main city screen to see your warren in all it's evil glory

if beasts are loaded onto beastmasters would they still be liable to random damage between units? if your beastmasters are killed then you run the risk of wild giant rats/stupid rat ogres?

Warpstone...
the nucleus of all Skaven magic powers, mutations (love mutations ), beasties and general wickedness...
should Skaven get additional bonuses for controlling extra warpstone resources? as their seers munch through it their armies gain the mutating (benefits ) effects quicker?

ciao for now...

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Hey thank you, for lobbying for skaven inclusion.


As I said, handlers and their animals will most likely be single units.

But you bring up a good point about the stupidity. You guessed the original reason for wanting the beasts seperate from the masters.

Maybe there will be a 1/3 chance of a free animal created if a beastpack is defeated.

The same thing could be said about heros riding monsters.
When the hero dies, why would the wyvern keep fighting for the good side?
Again for simplicity's sake, a mosterridinghero will be a single unit upgrade from a normal hero. (available to heros with monstertaming/bondingTECH and monster resource)

And mutations offcourse
I don't know how this will be handled in future, maybe they will be randomly chosen promotions. But they will be fairly generic probably, as they will need to be applicable to all chaotic units.

---

Archers attacking
It is annoying to attack with archers.
I know they are meant to be defenders.
How about a 1tile bombard (0% improvement damage, unless firearrows) if archers are on a tile containing a fortification/walled city?

That way, an archer can attack a city without getting beat up, and they can proactively annoy units besieging a city.

Common archers were used in ME times more to bombard than to sharpshoot, creating a pin-cushion terrain, which is difficult for foot troops to progress over.
Fire arrow archers could bombard a tile and set it ablaze
(if featured/improved) damaging all units even more. a forest could burn for one turn only, then replaced by deadforrest (not UNdead-woods).
A small chance of fire spreading would be cool, but not essential to gameplay.

Inherent ability for archers only,
not longbowmen, crossbows, nor slingers, pistoleros, etc.
Those could get a marksmen-promotion, enabling them to attack a unit of choice.
(except the slingers...well...no they are not going to hurl hot coals.
Anyway, we have no sling-units planned. Other small thrown weapons are more assasion/hero equipment and will be assumed to be included in their gear as standard.)

---

A personal note:
I recently got a new trio of ratties from my GF for christmas. AND mice have found their way into our gardenshed/larder recently.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Welcome to the forums Melian

Were definately needing play testers. contac ploeperpengel
about it . but just keep in mind that were going through a total revamping of the mod to warlords, so there will probably be heaps of bugs but, then again, that would be what play testers were expecting

those are some good ideas about skaven ive never been a skaven fan, but thay do add the missing bit of humour to WH (along with snotlings )

About mountain cities, it would be interesting to see if we could replace the mountain terrain with another one, with all sorts of tunnel entrances sticking out of it. and then have 1/4 of the mountain cut out like a cross section, and then show the warren of tunnels... just a thought

About archers: werent we already going to give arechers a defensive bombarding ability ?


EDIT: oh, by the way, did you know there is a new public forum for WH? click here

 

[Ronin 42]

Just a quick message, have been playtesting the mod for a little while now. Going well although many CTD's which i should post.

Anyway, I have noticed that there is really no way of ambushing anyone unless you have a large movement range and know where the enemy is but thats not exactly ambushing. I was wondering, whats the possibility of having an ambush option for units, that can only be used in friendly or neutral territory. something like unit becomes cloaked and if an enemy unit comes in a surrounding square then there is an automatic attack and the enemy unit gets no defense bonus from the terrain and the attacker gets a bonus, say between 20-40%. Or, the same thing without the automatic attack - as the player with the ambush should really decide if he wants to spring it, may not be the best option at the time.

Any opinions on that?

Also just a quick opinion on diplomatic relationships, dont know if this has been said previously. Basically starting off with civ's having positive, negative or neutral attitudes towards other races, sort of similar to that in FFH i guess. For example, high elves would have say +2 with wood elves, have a neutral relationship with Empire and -4 with orcs (as probs all human and elf races will) and probably -10 or something even more extream against dark elves as obviously they are despised and the only diplomacy that will take place will be to wage war or make peace (therefore no trading ever).

In addition to this i think the dwarfs should be unique, obviously because they are the best at holding a grudge, maybe they can have a seperate grudge rating against other races. If this was the case, dwarfs against elves would be probs -4 and against goblins/orcs -8 or higher since they are always fighting goblins around their fortressess and being contantly seiged so, again, probs only diplomacy with goblins is waging war/making peace. Also, anyone who waged war against the dwarfs would feel the diplomatic effects long long long afterwards.

Just read a bit about traits - i could see chaos and all elves 'enslaving' barbarian animals. I use enslave cautiously as obviously woodelves/highelves would not so much 'enslave' but convert the animals to their side. In terms of chaos and darkelves it would be straight forward enslaving or some sort of evil mind twisting, but none the less - then these animals could either be a recognised unit for the respective race, or, still appear neutral, allowing the animal to wonder into other civs territories at will, but will be in danger of being attacked and killed without the need to declare war or anything (because obviously considered by other civs to be still a barbarian animal).