Warhammer Heart of Chaos: Design Discussion

rocklikeafool · Jan 28, 2010

Ahriman said:
And we need to work on religious units for other religions more.

I take it you're referring to Spirituality here?

Ahriman said:
Maybe slightly cheaper spearman/swordsman warband units, to help field an ancient horde?

I would advocate some kind of balance then, say a -5% or -10% strength bonus.

Ahriman said:
How about "Levy swordsmen" and "levy spearmen" units that are swordsmen and spearman warband units with no upkeep cost and national limit 10?

Would these cost the same as regular Swordsmen/Spearmen?

Ahriman said:
So its not superior military strength, but it helps preserve the Empire player economy to push them faster into their later era stuff?

It's kinda superior strength in terms of how big their army is though also, as I understand it. I mean, the Empire is heavily populated for the amount of land mass it contains. Otoh, I'm unsure how to reflect that without giving the Empire a HUGE advantage.

Ahriman said:
Estalia
Sacred Band (replaces spearman warband)
Same as spearman warband, except +1 holy strength, -1 strength, +20% city defense.

Instead of "Estalian hunters" have "Cabosian slingers", who are a "skirmisher" type recon unit with an extra withdraw chance.
Strength 4. No metal weapons. Can use wartats. 2 moves. Better results from tribal villages. +50% vs beasts. +30% withdraw chance. -20% city attack. Hammer cost: 50.
(from Los Cabos, like earth Balearic slingers)

Change name "Estalian Jinetes" to just "Jinetes".
Change "Estalian knights" to "Magrittan knights".

Tilea
Tilean Legion (replaces Swordsmen warband)
Same as swordsmen warband, but +1 first strike chance. (Infantry throw pilums)

Equites (replaces ancient cavalry)
Same as ancient cavalry, but +10% vs melee units, no gold upkeep cost, and national limit 5. (limited patrician cavalry who provide their own superior equipment)

Brettonnia
Peasant spearmen, swordsmen and bowmen build with food as well as hammers.
Mounted yeomen are a lancer replacement but with an extra +10% grassland attack.

These all are, honestly, quite neutral in my book. Meaning, I'll go either way. Just tell me what stats they have and I'll code em soon basically, lol.

Nelia Hawk · Jan 29, 2010

• Unit Name: Demon Prince of Chaos.
• Requirements: Corruption of Chaos state religion. Chaos incursion tech (or End Times tech). World unit; only one may exist.
• Background:
• Unit Class: Beast.
Race: demon
• Statistics:
Strength 12+6 unholy, 2 movement.
• Unique items:
None
• Other Bonuses:
Cause fear
Terror.
Aura of flame (as for Meshabbar of Dis from FFH).
Raider (auto-pillages any enemy tile he moves into)
Sentry (+1 visibility).
• Art: Hyborem.
Hammer cost: 320

Greater demons:
personally i would still like to see all 4 greater demons, but i guess for this early stage one is enough (i mean the other can be added later and its nothing that important. i guess unit art is missing too?).

if i remember it right you have all 4 demon "ways/marks/techs" (nurgle/tzench/khorne/slanesh) in the mod or? and temples for each of the 4. and demons are spawned and not builded or i think there was something with a "chaos armageddon counter" too or?
(or are they builded too as they seem to have hammer costs. maybe both.. builded and spawned.)

so why not make it thats its a higher chance to spawn a greater demon of the temples "demon way" then the others?
(i.e. nurgle temple in town -> you get a greater demon in that town -> 50% change that its a nurgle greater demon and 16/16/16% chance that it is a khorne/slannesh/tzench greater demon)

maybe greater demons could have something like "changes land to chaos waste". (i think you had some mechanic planed to turn the whole planet into some chaos land (i think it was linked with the armageddon counter and some win game condition?, similar to the FFH hell terrain spreading. i think khemri has something similar too or (atleast for their area)? something shifting sands?))
so maybe a chance to turn one of the 9 fields around the demon into chaos waste? maybe chance increasing with "higher armageddon counter"?

but i think even without its ok... i mean that greater demons dont spread that and are more for combat. (compared to some khemri priest who might be more intrested into "more sand" then combat...)

Raider promotion sounds a bit weird... i mean demons+plundering for money. but yeah its ok for the game mechanics hehe. (or maybe just "destroys improvements" with no gold plunder?)

hmm just see you planed it as world unit (1), so you want to use it "like a dragon"/"some awsome strong creature but just one avaiable".
i guess that would eliminate 4 greater demons again... exept you plan (i guess you dont atm) to create one greater demon but it can be a khorne/tzench/slanesh/nurgle one, depending on what temples the down has or maybe what temples are build most in your cities (i.e. 4 khorne temples and 5 nurgle = the one greater demon would be a nurgle one as that is the strongest "affinity").

i think even multiple greater demons could be possible... its a whole world afterall and
not some "little" warhammer tabletop battle.
but yeah, it might be too overpowered if you have 10 greater demons on one field and attacking enemys. (i mean how to defend against 10 demons?)

maybe limit it to number of towns and the armageddon counter somehow... that you maybe can have just one greater demon for 4 or 5 of your towns and not more then "armageddon counter%/10" demons.
(i.e. when you have 50 towns you could have 10 demons... but when the armageddon counter is at 20% you can just have 2.... on the other hand: you have 15 towns and armageddon counter is on 50% then you can build 3 demons.)

maybe also something like "just one greater demon per terrain field" or even "not 2 demons of different demon lores next to eachother" (as i think they dont like each other... but i guess these limits would get troubblesome with the AI.)

so afterall... i guess for now it will stay at one khorne demon... i guess i need to play around and see if its ok, (i hope i can get one of the next more stable mod version started)

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Ideas for improving old world human factions.

do you have thought about the britonia lady´s blessing some units can get? (atlast i didnt found anything for that atm. but maybe i searched at the wrong area)
something like:
-must be "devoted?/knightly?" unit (atleast "peasants" dont get the blessing).
-if in town (with maybe a temple) unit gets blessing promotion.
-mages grant blessing to one random unblessed unit in their stack per turn.
-if unit is standing still for 5 turns and has not fought for 5 turns = unit gets blessing.
-if blessed unit defends = loses blessing. (as retreat is not possible without withdraw chance).
-blessing would give some attack boni? +1 attack holy? +20% against demons? no idea (dont have that AB)

Particularly focusing on improving their "ancient" counterparts to feel more like roman-era Europe, and adding more flavorful names.

somehow i dont like this much.
must every unit have some unique name?
somehow it might feels "out of warhammer lore/fluff/flavor" if every unit has some "normal" reallife unitname.
i mean, "swordmen" are swordmen... do they realy have to be callled "xyz legion" instead?
i dont know the empire armybook stories but i think "swordmen" are most of the time "swordmen", maybe they are "<xx townname> swordmen" i.e. altdorf swordmen, but i think they are not realy called "<xyz reallife-ish name> swordmen"

hmm that brings me some idea:
unitnames linked to townnames.
maybe its more in flavor if units are named by default after the towns they were build in?
i.e. all units build in Altdorf are called "Altdorf Swordsmen" "Altdorf Archers" "Alrdorf Knights" "Altdorf sigma priest". and units build in an other town are called after that town. instead of every swordmen unit called "levy legion" or "levy swordsmen".
i think this would be "more fitting" somehow, it might look nicer if "the altdorf army units group up with the army of another town to fight the evil chaos tribes to the west"... or something like that.

(atleast you cant distinguish units with their cloths color (each empire town has its own cloth color army sheme) in civ4 (it would require a horsehockeyload of unitart, if not some randomizer/automatic is there (i.e. on town creation the game adds a random first and second color to that town that are not used in that combination yet. and then units have "placeholder colors" that then use the town colors... to all units created from one town have the same color sheme.) so why not make it with names instead?)

so when you look at the empire design quote a bit below not all same units would be named "Averland Swordsmen Regiment", "Hochman Archer Regiment", "Ostermark Spearmen Regiment" i doubt all spearmen are from "ostermark".

ofcourse i have no idea IF civ4 allows somehow unitnames with some townname placeholder so each unit is "renamed on creation" into "<townname> <unittype>".
if this doesnt work the names are fine ofcourse. (i.e. "Ostermark Spearmen Regiment")

this might even be nice for some nonhuman races i.e.:
there was once a goblin discussion in here somewhere if xy or zz goblin tribes should be in the mod (forestgoblins and something else i think).
so why not name all goblin towns like:
"Forest goblin tribe"
"Stone goblin tribe"
....
so instead of townnames they are more the gathering of tribes.
so with the mechanic above with the town names you can have "Forest tribe goblin archers" or "Stone tribe goblin archers"...
etc.

it might even work for orks. (townnames are tribe names)
or lizardmen something like "generation" or "breeding pool xyz" or "blue skin breeding pool" (but i guess they have more town names as town names then breedingpool or generation names.)
it could might work fine for nearly all civilizations... i mean a "har ganeth hydra" and a "naggarond hydra" doesnt sound that bad either... or "hag graef executioners" or "ghrond witchelves"

ok maybe it should be used mostly for these "lower unimportent units" like the current "warbands/hordes".
atleast not all units would be "the same simple swordmen warband unit", i think this is what you try to change.

but it might be worth a try? (if its possible to rename units like this on creation) so maybe try it out with one civ (i.e. empire) and if its ok then keep it and maybe add it to other civs where it fits (i.e. the goblin example above) or remove it again and go on with your "ancient reallife unitnames".

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

more empire:

How about "Levy swordsmen" and "levy spearmen" units that are swordsmen and spearman warband units with no upkeep cost and national limit 10?

So its not superior military strength, but it helps preserve the Empire player economy to push them faster into their later era stuff?
Fits in with ancient feudal levies.

why do you want to create a new "minor fighting unit" when empire has detachments?

this might fit with "ancient feudal levies" but might not "fit" with "empire warhammer lore"? (dont know it exactly, but i guess trying to get reallive stuff into the warhammer armies when you dont even have similar warhammer units from that army in the mod is a bit weird.)

currently in the design thread:

Leaders:
Karl Franz: (Hero = Magnus) (Traits = Organised, Imperialist, Philosophical)
Magnus: (Hero = Karl Franz) (Traits = Charismatic, Imperialist, Spiritual)

Heroes:
Spoiler for Empire Heroes:
Karl Franz
On foot model. Requires Warfare tech.
1 movement point. Strength 4, can use metal weapons. Melee class. Footman. Hero promotion. Heroic resilience promotion.
Has a spell "Presence of the Emperor".
Functions like FFH Inspiration spell; creates an "Imperial Residence" building that gives +15% beakers, +25% GPP income. Building removed if he is not present at end of turn.

Starts with equipment item "the Silver Seal". Gives +25% magic resistance, +20% withdraw chance.

Gains for free:
Mounted. (Warhorse model)
Champion.
Lord.
Aerial mount. (Griffon model)

Magnus the Pious
Requires Words of Salvation tech]: On foot model, 1 movement, 3 strength + 1 holy strength, no metal weapons. Disciple class. Inquisitor promotion. Hero promotion. Heroic resilience promotion.

Starts with equipment: "Shroud of Magnus". Gives immune to disease, 100% death resistance, 100% unholy resistance, +25% vs undead. Disciple class.

Can learn:
High priest.
Archpriest.
Mounted. (warhorse model)
Priest of sigmar (warrior priest model)

Unique Buildings:
Imperial War college. National Wonder: Requires: Military tradition, unit of level 5+. All units built in this city gain the standard-bearer promotion for free. Cost: 200 hammers, double speed with marble.

Unique Units: NOTE: more than half the table top units werent even mentioned in your design Ahri. @ Deadliver, what units have you done for the Empire? just these below?
Averland Swordsmen Regiment (replaces Militia swordsmen) Same stats as Militia Swordsmen, but starts with 'senior captain' promotion.
Ostermark Spearmen Regiment (replaces Militia spearmen). Same stats as militia spearman, but starts with 'senior captain' promotion.
Hochman Archer Regiment (replaces Militia archer regiment). Same stats as militia archer, but starts with 'senior captain' promotion.
Skirmisher warband Strength 4. No metal weapons. Can use wartats. 2 moves. Better results from tribal villages. +50% vs beasts. +20% withdraw chance. -20% city attack. Hammer cost: 50.
Ranger warband. Strength 6. No metal weapons. Can use wartats. 2 moves. Can see invisible units Can build camp and corral. Better results from tribal villages. +50% vs beasts. +30% withdraw chance. -10% city attack. Hammer cost: 140.
Outriders (replaces cavalry). Same stats as cavalry, except starts with sentry 1, and has +10% withdraw chance.
Imperial War Wagon (replaces War chariot). Strength 8/6, can use metal weapons, 2 moves, can carry 1 cargo. 10% cheaper. Otherwise identical to war chariot.
Steam tank 16 strength, 2 moves. armored unit. Requires steam power tech.
Mastiff Warhounds (replaces troll): strength 6, 2 moves, 20% withdraw chance. 120 hammers. Builds 50% faster with breeding grounds.
Griffon (replaces giant). Strength 9, 1-2 first strikes, 3 moves, flying, requires aerie.

Blocked Units:
No Longbowmen
No horsearcher warband

Blocked Techs:
Flight, Monster Bonding.

Unique Promotions:
Human no special effect.
senior captain randomly applies the 'Moral' promotion to units in the stack.

so why not use detachments as this?
i.e. you could make each "with your current tech buildable infantry type" a possible detachment.
maybe they can build a "detachments building" that spawns one free detachment per town and maybe a town garrison detachment.

the first would be a free unit that gets created after 10 turns and when it dies after 10 turns a new one will be trained.
the detachment would be a random unittype of what you can currently build as infantry. (so maybe its first an archer detechment and when it dies the next might be a halberdier detechment.)
detechments would have the detachment promotion: no upkeep and have maybe -10% strength.

the garrison would be a free detachment that has the garrison promotion (+10% town defence, cant leave the town square (but can attack nearby enemys)... hmmm wasnt there a promotion in FFH that makes a unit always as "first defender" in a stack? maybe use that too for the garrison.)

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maybe i should make a list of all armybook empire units (armybuilder):

Spoiler :

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one thing i noticed while makeing that list above was the core unit "free company".
just use this instead of some levy unit.

so you could give one "free company" after 10 turns when you build a barracks. and when this unit dies you get a new free unit after 10 turns.
so one free unit per barracks.

maybe later you could give a free garrison unit too like i wrote above.

-------------------------------------
and detachments could be something else again... not sure what through...some unit promotion? some unit that can be bought as upgrade in towns and attached to a unit like great commanders?

Ahriman · Jan 29, 2010

I take it you're referring to Spirituality here?

Yes, mostly. Plus any Destruction units for greenskins, make sure we have decent religious units for Old Ones factions.
Maybe necromancers should be the Vampire Counts religious units?
This is probably a good way of merging together some of the different ideas for VCs.

I would advocate some kind of balance then, say a -5% or -10% strength bonus.

Well, that woudl be problematic.
The whole problem is that most of the "newer" factions we have designed have units that are "superior" to the standard core scattered throughout their tech tree, including at tier 1.
This is tough for the older "standard" factions, who just had core units at this stage.
So the whole point of this exercise balancewise is to try to slightly strengthen the Empire early game (as well as adding a bit more flavor).

Which do you prefer though flavorwise for the early Empire: Roman-era Germanic barbarian hordes, or Charlemagne-era Frankish feudal levies? I'm more inclined towards the latter.

Would these cost the same as regular Swordsmen/Spearmen?

Yes. The idea is we would *either* have swarmy cheaper standard infantry (Germanic hordes style) OR limited but upkeep-free levy infantry.
We'd need to pick one design or the other, not both.

It's kinda superior strength in terms of how big their army is though also, as I understand it. I mean, the Empire is heavily populated for the amount of land mass it contains. Otoh, I'm unsure how to reflect that without giving the Empire a HUGE advantage.

In the modern era (eg HRE Germany), yes, this is true. But we're not trying to model "modern" Empire here, we're trying to get a model for the "ancient" Empire. Think Roman-era or Dark Ages Europe.

Estalia
Sacred Band (replaces spearman warband)
Same as spearman warband, except +1 holy strength, -1 strength, +20% city defense.

I had an alternate thought here; rather than city defense, how about *plains* defense?
This helps encourage a feel of the arid plains of Spain, and also makes logical sense; a phalanx style unit is much better in flat-open ground, where it can use its formation sensibly. Much weaker on hills or forests where you can't bring a mass of spears to bear.

These all are, honestly, quite neutral in my book.

They're not supposed to be game-changing, just to give mild flavor boosts and mild strength boosts in the early game. I really like the idea of Tilea feeling like it evolves from ancient Rome into Renaissance Italy, and having Brettonnia evolve from ancient Gaul/Celts into Chivalric France/Arthurian England.

Ahriman · Jan 29, 2010

Wow, ok, huge horde of stuff from Nelia.

Thanks for what must have clearly taken ages.

Let me start crunching through it all.

personally i would still like to see all 4 greater demons

Most factions only have a single uber-unit, like a dragon, so I think 1 greater demon is sufficient.
The Hyborem art is fine for now (that certainly looks like a Bloodthirster to me!).

if i remember it right you have all 4 demon "ways/marks/techs" (nurgle/tzench/khorne/slanesh) in the mod or? and temples for each of the 4. and demons are spawned and not builded or i think there was something with a "chaos armageddon counter" too or? (or are they builded too as they seem to have hammer costs. maybe both.. builded and spawned.)

The Marks are there, but we're unsure what impact they'll actually have.
There are 4 temples, and then 4 greater "gate" wonders.
Demons will be built as normal; we *may* have them spawnable too, but only in the extremely late-game.

We're unsure about havnig a chaos counter; certainly if we implement that it will be a long time away. But it certainly shouldn't work the same way as spreading hell terrain in FFH.
That's been done already.
Its a low priority mechanic.

Raider promotion sounds a bit weird... i mean demons+plundering for money

The point is in destroying improvements. Don't much care if they get money or not, but it doesn't really hurt, and there is already a raider promotion that does this, so it saves extra coding time. Simpler is better.
Its a minor flavor effect anyway; I'd rather remove it than have to create yet another promotion and python code that was the same as Raider but didn't give gold.

i think even multiple greater demons could be possible... its a whole world afterall and
not some "little" warhammer tabletop battle.
but yeah, it might be too overpowered if you have 10 greater demons on one field and attacking enemys. (i mean how to defend against 10 demons?)

maybe limit it to number of towns and the armageddon counter somehow... that you maybe can have just one greater demon for 4 or 5 of your towns and not more then "armageddon counter%/10" demons.
(i.e. when you have 50 towns you could have 10 demons... but when the armageddon counter is at 20% you can just have 2.... on the other hand: you have 15 towns and armageddon counter is on 50% then you can build 3 demons.)
maybe also something like "just one greater demon per terrain field" or even "not 2 demons of different demon lores next to eachother" (as i think they dont like each other... but i guess these limits would get troubblesome with the AI.)

Some neat ideas, but this really sounds way too complicated (and confusing for the human player).
If we do have a chaos counter, it will effect the strength of demons (stability/instability issues) and their spawn chance.

And yeah, the 1 greater demon is mostly a balance issue.
But you can still have plenty of lesser demons, bloodletters are still pretty bad-ass.
Besides, is there really more than one greater demon per faction on the planet at a time?
Keep in mind there are like 5 chaos factions too.

hmm that brings me some idea:
unitnames linked to townnames.

We alreadfy have this a little for some flavor; look at the tier2 units for the Empire. Averland Swordsmen, Ostermark Spearman, Hochland archers. Or something like that.
These are the "state troops".
But literally changing the name of every unit depending on what city it was built in is technically infeasible.
The unit name is part of the XML code for the unit.

Your proposal could also be confusing. If you built one swordsmen in Altdorf and another in Nuln, you'd have Altdorf Swordsmen and Nuln swordsmen - but these would both be identical units.

The "levy swordsmen" we are considering are for the tier1 units (swordsmen warband replacement), not the tier2 unit Averland swordsmen (militia swordsmen replacement).

i doubt all spearmen are from "ostermark".

True, but we have to work within the limits of the XML.
This mod is already going to have more UUs than any other mod on the planet; 28 factions with at least 10 UUs each? Its pretty crazy.

this might even be nice for some nonhuman races i.e.:
there was once a goblin discussion in here somewhere if xy or zz goblin tribes should be in the mod (forestgoblins and something else i think).
so why not name all goblin towns like:
"Forest goblin tribe"
"Stone goblin tribe"

Because it creates a lot of extra clutter, codeworkd and confusion for no design goal and only very minor flavor improvements.

We certainly can't change the names of the units, but even havnig different racial promotions makes it very difficult any time we want to have something that effects all goblins at once - because we no longer have a goblin promotion.

but it might be worth a try? (if its possible to rename units like this on creation)

Its a neat idea, but I don't think it would be easy, and I think even it it were possible and easy that it would create more confusion than it was worth.
Civ players are plenty used to their units having the same name no matter where it was produced.
And, strategically, they don't *care* what city their unit was produced in.

why do you want to create a new "minor fighting unit" when empire has detachments?

I'm not creating a "new minor fighting unit".
I'm trynig to give them a UU replacement for "spearman warban" and "swordsman warband" units, the basic core tier1 infantry.

I haven't seen any simple elegant way of including detachments into the design, or even a good description of what that would achieve.

this might fit with "ancient feudal levies" but might not "fit" with "empire warhammer lore"? (dont know it exactly, but i guess trying to get reallive stuff into the warhammer armies when you dont even have similar warhammer units from that army in the mod is a bit weird.)

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you're saying here.
The idea was generally for old world factions to give them some historical evolution. So the tabletop Empire army is the "modern" Empire; the tier2 and tier3 units.
But the tier1 units could still represent an older more ancient historical past.

so why not use detachments as this?
i.e. you could make each "with your current tech buildable infantry type" a possible detachment.
maybe they can build a "detachments building" that spawns one free detachment per town and maybe a town garrison detachment.

the first would be a free unit that gets created after 10 turns and when it dies after 10 turns a new one will be trained.
the detachment would be a random unittype of what you can currently build as infantry. (so maybe its first an archer detechment and when it dies the next might be a halberdier detechment.)
detechments would have the detachment promotion: no upkeep and have maybe -10% strength.

the garrison would be a free detachment that has the garrison promotion (+10% town defence, cant leave the town square (but can attack nearby enemys)... hmmm wasnt there a promotion in FFH that makes a unit always as "first defender" in a stack? maybe use that too for the garrison.)

A free garrison unit.
Hmm, worth thinking about.
This isnt' what I had thought people meant by detachments, but its an interesting idea.

I would imagine it would work like this:
Town militia UB, requires ?? tech. (Feudalism?)
When constructed, creates a free swordsmen or spearman unit, that starts with the "town watch" promotion.
Town watch promotion gives -5 movement points (so the unit can never leave the city), but +10% city defense.
If there is no unit in the city with town watch promotion, then in 10 turns spawn another one.
(Or, just spawn one at 10% probability per turn if there is no unit with town watch promotion in the city.)

Is free city defenders an Empire-flavor thing? I can see an argument that it would be.

one thing i noticed while makeing that list above was the core unit "free company".
just use this instead of some levy unit.

so you could give one "free company" after 10 turns when you build a barracks. and when this unit dies you get a new free unit after 10 turns.
so one free unit per barracks.

In some sense, a free company is the opposite of free.
Free company means a company of soldiers who owe no feudal fealty or duty - and hence are available for hire. So, mercenaries, basically.

I think I'd prefer not to give the Empire extra mercenaries; I'd rather leave this as a distinguishing feature for Tilea.

We're really not missing very many of the units from the list at all.
I don't want to give more siege units (detracts from dwarven speciality) and special characters don't really fit.

* * *

As always, thanks for the brainstorming ideas.

Ahriman · Jan 29, 2010

PL and RLAF: again going through the design thread, proofreading for XML coding.

Sylvania.
Remove the "all units have Eternal army unless otherwise specified".
Only the following units should have Eternal Army:
Zombie Horde, Skeletal Warriors, Skeletal horsemen, Grave Guard, Skeletal Archers.
How hard will it be to adapt the Immortality code to get the Eternal Army mechanic working?

Lets talk about Necromancers. The intention was for Necrarchs to be the main Vampire Count spellcasters. Having normal necromancers tends to weaken this somewhat.
Maybe we can make these the Sylvanian and Lahmian religious units?

Lets also, for the moment, just set the vampires at national limit 3 each.
Having a limit of 10 that goes across all types is probably harder to get working.

Khemri buildings and economy design will need a lot of work.
Remove "construct" from ushbati. They will be too weak if they can't gain XP, whereas they should be strong. I'd just have them be normal units.
I'd remove "desert warrior" promotion entirely (its only on liche priests). Its unnecesary, and liche priests aren't really combat units anyway.

Lhamia looks fine, with same caveats as for sylvania.

Beastmen
The purpose of the Shaman's lodge providing dyes (locally in the city, not as a global resource) is to guarantee availability of wartatoos in that city.
Remove troll vomit; its silly, illogical and overpowered.
Otherwise seem fine for now.

Skaven seem ok for now.

Chaos dwarves seem ok for now.

I'm a bit worried about the no upkeep cost for Ind troops, but lets leave it for now.

Araby seem ok for now, though again if we can spice up their tier1 a little it would be nice.

Cathay seem fine.
Make sure to adjust the hammer costs of the units with "lowborn".

Nippon will need some eventual adjustment, but seem good for now.

I dunno about the Slann, but lizards seem fine for now.
This is going to take a lot of balancing and AI work to get the rituals to work. But its a neat idea.

Amazons look ok, but pretty weak in the lategame.
Can we think of a knight or warchariot UU or something?

Greenskins seem decent for now.

So, lots of XML work just waiting there for you RLAF :-)

Dig in!

Nelia Hawk · Jan 29, 2010

Demons:
yeah its fine.

Raider promotion:
dont worry keep it if you want.

town unitnames:
yeah true. it was just an idea when its possible to link townnames to unitnames. so everything fine with the current names.
Free company:
ahhhh, that makes sense, didnt know that are mercenarys.

Garrison unit:

Is free city defenders an Empire-flavor thing?

not realy... i think infantry/detachments/knights/gunpowder/cannons are more empire flavor then garrison units.

This isnt' what I had thought people meant by detachments,

yeah a garrison has not much to do with detachments hehe.

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hehe, so as usual just keep going on your designplan. it will be a great mod already (again) if everything works as planed "soon". :yup:

rocklikeafool · Jan 29, 2010

Ahriman said:
Well, that woudl be problematic.
The whole problem is that most of the "newer" factions we have designed have units that are "superior" to the standard core scattered throughout their tech tree, including at tier 1.
This is tough for the older "standard" factions, who just had core units at this stage.
So the whole point of this exercise balancewise is to try to slightly strengthen the Empire early game (as well as adding a bit more flavor).

Ah, ok. That I agree with.

Ahriman said:
I'm more inclined towards the latter.

Same. It fits their flavour better imho.

Ahriman said:
Yes. The idea is we would *either* have swarmy cheaper standard infantry (Germanic hordes style) OR limited but upkeep-free levy infantry.
We'd need to pick one design or the other, not both.

I'd go with levies. It fits more with the Imperial Army as I understand it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Ahriman said:
In the modern era (eg HRE Germany), yes, this is true. But we're not trying to model "modern" Empire here, we're trying to get a model for the "ancient" Empire. Think Roman-era or Dark Ages Europe.

I was more thinking Mid-to-Late Middle Ages. However, I see your point. Yeah, that'd make more sense actually.

Ahriman said:
I had an alternate thought here; rather than city defense, how about *plains* defense?

Hmm...that's an idea...
I like it!

Ahriman said:
They're not supposed to be game-changing, just to give mild flavor boosts and mild strength boosts in the early game. I really like the idea of Tilea feeling like it evolves from ancient Rome into Renaissance Italy, and having Brettonnia evolve from ancient Gaul/Celts into Chivalric France/Arthurian England.

Yeah. I agree. That's definitely good.

rocklikeafool · Jan 29, 2010

Ahriman said:
So, lots of XML work just waiting there for you RLAF
Dig in!

Will do. I pretty agree with everything you really. It all makes sense. Granted, we'd need to do some testing when we have a more stable version, to see how these mechanics like the Slann rituals and Eternal Army might need to be tweaked (or emphasized for the sake of the idiot AI, :lol:

). However, for now, I think we're good.

And, while we're sorta on the subject, as far as eternal army goes, I think I'll just do a dummy promo that P_L or Orlanth can eventually link some python code to.

Ahriman · Jan 29, 2010

I pretty agree with everything you really.

Cool!
PL, if you like the sound of these, then please edit into the design thread.

Granted, we'd need to do some testing when we have a more stable version

We'll need a ton of testing and balance tweaking I'm sure. But that's the way it goes.
I think we're going to need to significantly increase tech costs too.

Eternal army is easy for the AI at least, because its entirely passive. I think this mechanic is going to be pretty cool though, especially in AI hands.
Slann Rituals might be more difficult (since the intention is that many of those units will actually be unbuildable except through the rituals), but we can just start with them as buildable units for now.

I think I'll just do a dummy promo

Oh, absolutely. Yes, get the core worknig for now with placeholders, then add content to populate all the promotions and things.

Thanks for all the work btw; it makes a huge difference having a dedicated XML coder. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the design in action.

Psychic_Llamas · Jan 29, 2010

holy crap thats a lot of stuff to read...

personally i would still like to see all 4 greater demons

Click to expand...

Most factions only have a single uber-unit, like a dragon, so I think 1 greater demon is sufficient.

I actualyl agree with Nelia that 4 demon lord variants would be wicked. i like his idea of the type of demon lord being affect by the number of temples of each god. ie Khorne has 6 temples and slaanesh has 4, then a Bloodthirster demon spawns.

There are 4 temples, and then 4 greater "gate" wonders.

there are also 4 cathedral level buildings.

Demons will be built as normal; we *may* have them spawnable too, but only in the extremely late-game.

i disagree, i prefer the idea of the number of temples and winds of magic counter affecting the demon spawn rate from the early game, using the sheim spawn mechanics. i dont think demons should be buildable units at all. they are gifts from the chaos gods.

Besides, is there really more than one greater demon per faction on the planet at a time?
Keep in mind there are like 5 chaos factions too.

you should also be able to replace the greater demons if they die (from fresh spawnings)

A free garrison unit.
Hmm, worth thinking about.
This isnt' what I had thought people meant by detachments, but its an interesting idea.

I would imagine it would work like this:
Town militia UB, requires ?? tech. (Feudalism?)
When constructed, creates a free swordsmen or spearman unit, that starts with the "town watch" promotion.
Town watch promotion gives -5 movement points (so the unit can never leave the city), but +10% city defense.
If there is no unit in the city with town watch promotion, then in 10 turns spawn another one.
(Or, just spawn one at 10% probability per turn if there is no unit with town watch promotion in the city.)

Is free city defenders an Empire-flavor thing? I can see an argument that it would be.

i really like this idea. it seems in flavour with the empire to me and would be a simple and very unique mechanic. it also looks like it could be fun both being the empire and attacking the empire.

In some sense, a free company is the opposite of free.
Free company means a company of soldiers who owe no feudal fealty or duty - and hence are available for hire. So, mercenaries, basically.

Nelia raises an interesting idea regarding the free companies.

we could simply make Free Companies a buildable unit with no upkeep that when it is built gets to choose a free promotion to specialize it in one form of combat. ie Archers promotion would give them a reduced archer bonus, Spearmen promotion would give them a reduced spearman bonus, swordsman promotion would give them a reduced swordsman bonus etc etc. this seems in flavour of the empire (being highly adaptive) and could be fun.

Psychic_Llamas · Jan 29, 2010

How hard will it be to adapt the Immortality code to get the Eternal Army mechanic working?

i dont think it would be that difficult.

Lets talk about Necromancers. The intention was for Necrarchs to be the main Vampire Count spellcasters. Having normal necromancers tends to weaken this somewhat.
Maybe we can make these the Sylvanian and Lahmian religious units?

i like the idea of basic necromancers being their religious units. and i dont think it will weaken the Necrarchs if they are.

Amazons look ok, but pretty weak in the lategame.
Can we think of a knight or warchariot UU or something?

hmm how about Valkyrie Knights? The Valkyries appear to be relatively important to the amazons and i can see the Valkyrie riding some kind of giant cat into battle, they would be pretty devastating.

Valkyrie Knights(replaces Knight)Strength 8/5 +2 Holy. 2 moves. Can use Obsidian weapons. Can withdraw from combat 15%. +25% vs chariots, +25% vs missile units, +25% vs missile cavalry. no penalties from jungle and swamp.

PL, if you like the sound of these, then please edit into the design thread.

i made the changes suggested in post 545

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

i REALLY need to get back into coding soon, ive got no excuse other than im lazy

Ahriman · Jan 30, 2010

I actualyl agree with Nelia that 4 demon lord variants would be wicked.

Yes, it would be *cool*, but it wouldn't really be balanced relative to the other factions, or worth the extra graphical and code design work.
We can keep it on board as a long term goal, but very low priority.

there are also 4 cathedral level buildings.

I'm increasingly leaning away from the cathedral buildings. no other religions have cathedrals (though maybe we should add them), and Chaos also have the gates.

If feels wrong for Chaos religion to be all about physical infrastructure, as compared to those of the civilized factions.

i disagree, i prefer the idea of the number of temples and winds of magic counter affecting the demon spawn rate from the early game, using the sheim spawn mechanics. i dont think demons should be buildable units at all. they are gifts from the chaos gods.

I'm open to this in the long-term, but for now (without a functional chaos counter mechanic), I think we should just make the demon units buildable with hammers.

We can't have demons spawning in the early game; they are late-midgame units, far too powerful to be showing up in the early game.

you should also be able to replace the greater demons if they die (from fresh spawnings)

Agreed, "hence at a time". They're national limit 1, not world units.

i really like this idea. it seems in flavour with the empire to me and would be a simple and very unique mechanic. it also looks like it could be fun both being the empire and attacking the empire.

It seems feasible to me. I'd have no problem with this.

we could simply make Free Companies a buildable unit with no upkeep that when it is built gets to choose a free promotion to specialize it in one form of combat. ie Archers promotion would give them a reduced archer bonus, Spearmen promotion would give them a reduced spearman bonus, swordsman promotion would give them a reduced swordsman bonus etc etc. this seems in flavour of the empire (being highly adaptive) and could be fun.

This doesn't seem very useful to me - isn't this really what is accomplished by normal unit specialization and promotions? I don't feel strongly though.
And, as above, free company means someone that the government has to pay to fight (ie doesnt' rely on feudal levy), no upkeep cost seems just wrong. If anything, they'd be the opposite.

If you did have something like this, here's how I'd see it work.
Have this as as UU *replacement* for the basic mercenary (ie at mercenary contracts).
Have it not be hidden nationality.
And then give it FFH-naval unit type "spells" that let it shift specialization.

i like the idea of basic necromancers being their religious units. and i dont think it will weaken the Necrarchs if they are.

Ok. So, base necromancer requiring necromancy tech and priesthood tech. Advanced necromancer needing necromancy tech + fanaticism.

hmm how about Valkyrie Knights? The Valkyries appear to be relatively important to the amazons and i can see the Valkyrie riding some kind of giant cat into battle, they would be pretty devastating.

Valkyrie Knights(replaces Knight)Strength 8/5 +2 Holy. 2 moves. Can use Obsidian weapons. Can withdraw from combat 15%. +25% vs chariots, +25% vs missile units, +25% vs missile cavalry. no penalties from jungle and swamp.

Sounds good to me.

ive got no excuse other than im lazy

I wasn't going to say anything :-)

Psychic_Llamas · Jan 31, 2010

I'm increasingly leaning away from the cathedral buildings. no other religions have cathedrals (though maybe we should add them),

i think we should add cathedrals to the other religions anyway. also, cathedrals can only be built in 1/3rd of the cities you own (they require 3 regular temples before they can be built) so its not a huge infrastructural investment.

I'm open to this in the long-term, but for now (without a functional chaos counter mechanic), I think we should just make the demon units buildable with hammers.

We can't have demons spawning in the early game; they are late-midgame units, far too powerful to be showing up in the early game.

i agree

If you did have something like this, here's how I'd see it work.
Have this as as UU *replacement* for the basic mercenary (ie at mercenary contracts).
Have it not be hidden nationality.
And then give it FFH-naval unit type "spells" that let it shift specialization.

i like this better. though im not bothered whether we have them or not.

I wasn't going to say anything

damn i thought no one noticed!

Ahriman · Feb 1, 2010

Lets think about Spirituality religious UUs a bit more.

We have a starting point from before, but they're a bit boring and still missing a few slots.

Araby
Priest: Imam
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>., requires Priesthood tech.
Strength 4+1 holy.
Can cast "call to prayer". Creates a building that gives +2 happy.
Starts with medic 1. Can cast cure disease.
[Lame I know, but I'm uninspired here. Alternative: remove the ghazi fanatic, and have the Imam have a "call to arms" spell that summons a permanent fanatic unit, like FFH FoL priests summoning a tiger]

Crusader: Hashshashin
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>. Requires fanaticism tech. Requires spirituality state religion. National limit 3.
Strength: 5/3+2 holy. Starts with Marksmen promotion. 2 moves.
Immune to fear.

Ghazi fanatics. (National UU, limit 5, requires fanaticism).
Strength 6/3, no metal weapons, moves 1, death doesn’t cause war weariness, immune to fear, cost 40 hammers. Very cheap throwaways.

Ind
Priest: Fakir
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>.
Strength 4 + 1 holy.
75% resistance to: fire, poison, death, holy, unholy, lightning, cold.
Immune to fear, immune to disease.
Starts with Medic 1, Medic 2.
Can cast cure disease.

Crusader: Shakti
A 4-armed woman with swords mounted on a tiger with a bonus vs demons probably works.
Strength 5+1 holy, can use metal weapons, 2 moves, +25% vs demons

Cathay
Priest unit: Shaolin Monk
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>.
Strength 4+1 holy, 1 move, +50% vs melee units. Starts with medic 1. Starts with march promotion.
Can cast cure disease.

Crusader:
Shaolin Master
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>. Requires fanaticism tech. Requires spirituality state religion. National limit 3.
Strength 5+2 holy, 1 move, +40% strength vs melee units. Starts with medic 1, march.

Nippon
Priest unit: Sohei
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>. Requires priesthood tech.
Strength: 4+2 holy, 1 move, 1 first strike.
Can cast cure disease.

Crusader: Omioji
Requires <temple of spirituality UB>. Requires fanaticism tech. Requires spirituality state religion. National limit 3.
3+2 holy+1death, 1 move, 1 first strike.
Can case cure disease.
Can use metal weapons.

rocklikeafool · Feb 1, 2010

Just some more in-depth thoughts on this.

Ahriman said:
Yes, mostly. Plus any Destruction units for greenskins, make sure we have decent religious units for Old Ones factions.

Yeah, definitely. Maybe you and/or P_L could work that up. I’ll try and code em up as soon as you do. Atm, of course, we have the Greenskins magic line but no religious line. I’m sure you could find something on the religious structure of Gork and Mork.
Maybe we should steal a basic idea from the D&D stuff and edit it to fit WH if you guys can’t find anything. Worth consideration I think. ::shrug:: Cuz IIRC Gork & Mork don’t have that well defined religious structure, whereas the D&D Orcs definitely do. Just a thought. Of course, I hesitate to suggest that as too serious a suggestion, but we may have to actually make up the religious units for the Greenskins, since the Shamans are sort of tied in as both magic & religious people in the Greenskin hierarchy.

Ahriman said:
Maybe necromancers should be the Vampire Counts religious units?
This is probably a good way of merging together some of the different ideas for VCs.

Ahriman said:
Lets talk about Necromancers. The intention was for Necrarchs to be the main Vampire Count spellcasters. Having normal necromancers tends to weaken this somewhat.
Maybe we can make these the Sylvanian and Lahmian religious units?

I like that idea. Makes Necromancers separate from Necrarchs. Cuz before they were kinda both implied to be on the same line, namely magic. But this causes some definite distinction.

Ahriman said:
PL and RLAF: again going through the design thread, proofreading for XML coding.

::nod:: Thanks, btw.

Ahriman said:
Sylvania.
Remove the "all units have Eternal army unless otherwise specified".
Only the following units should have Eternal Army:
Zombie Horde, Skeletal Warriors, Skeletal horsemen, Grave Guard, Skeletal Archers.
How hard will it be to adapt the Immortality code to get the Eternal Army mechanic working?

I will write up a little design doc, copying it from the design thread basically, to remind myself which units should have Eternal Army. Like I mentioned before, I intend to make a dummy promotion (I think I call it “Eternal Army [Dummy]&#8221

so that P_L or Orlanth can make up the python for it. But I’ll mark next to that design doc which units will have the Eternal Army dummy promo so I don’t forget. :lol:

Otherwise, I will.

Ahriman said:
Lets also, for the moment, just set the vampires at national limit 3 each.
Having a limit of 10 that goes across all types is probably harder to get working.

That I agree with, on the stipulation that we would reset the values later based on balance. If, once we get Sylvania working (and later Lahmia), we could ask some of those people who have downloaded the game to playtest Sylvanin (and Lahmia), I think we could really get a feel for how to balance it. Maybe we should send out a request for a few people to sign up to do it now, so we don’t have to do it later. In fact, I’ll take of that in a sec.

Ahriman said:
Khemri buildings and economy design will need a lot of work.

Could you please lay out the very basics of how it is now? Thanks.

Ahriman said:
Remove "construct" from ushbati. They will be too weak if they can't gain XP, whereas they should be strong. I'd just have them be normal units.

I agree 100%. Cuz there’s no way they should be working like the Golems from FfH, since there’s no Ushbati hero to give the whole promotion thing to all Golems in the Empire, as it works for those Golem-building Dwarves in FfH. I really don’t think we should implement such a thing either. It just doesn’t fit for us, not unless we seriously reworked it, which I don’t see the point of.

Ahriman said:
I'd remove "desert warrior" promotion entirely (its only on liche priests). Its unnecesary, and liche priests aren't really combat units anyway.

Ahriman said:
Lhamia looks fine, with same caveats as for sylvania.

Agreed.

Ahriman said:
Beastmen
The purpose of the Shaman's lodge providing dyes (locally in the city, not as a global resource) is to guarantee availability of wartatoos in that city.

K. That’s fine. Since the Beastmen rely on wartatoos as their only real way to get a combat bonus, I’d definitely say keep that as you suggest.

Ahriman said:
Remove troll vomit; its silly, illogical and overpowered.

It’s also a b*tch to code. IIRC it still isn’t coded correctly. So, honestly, from my lazy viewpoint, it’d be easier just to remove it.

Ahriman said:
Araby seem ok for now, though again if we can spice up their tier1 a little it would be nice.

How exactly would you suggest we do that? In what way specifically? Name change? Bonuses? What?

Ahriman said:
Nippon will need some eventual adjustment, but seem good for now.

I would stipulate we worry about Nippon later, preferably as one of the last civs to be worked on, simply cuz there are other civs that are more important to the WH gameplay right now.

Ahriman said:
I dunno about the Slann, but lizards seem fine for now.
This is going to take a lot of balancing and AI work to get the rituals to work. But its a neat idea.

I think that’s gonna involve a lot of python work. :lol:

Ahriman said:
Amazons look ok, but pretty weak in the lategame.
Can we think of a knight or warchariot UU or something?

Ahriman said:
So, lots of XML work just waiting there for you RLAF
Dig in!

Only after my homework is done! :lol:

Nah, I’ll prolly start mapping this stuff out tomorrow night for myself and then get to coding it Thursday night and continue on through the weekend.

Psychic_Llamas said:
i think we should add cathedrals to the other religions anyway. also, cathedrals can only be built in 1/3rd of the cities you own (they require 3 regular temples before they can be built) so its not a huge infrastructural investment.

Yeah, we definitely should look at Cathedrals for other religions. I’d suggest UBs for some civs. I’ll give a list soon.

Psychic_Llamas said:
i agree

2nded

Makes it easier. We’ll change it later. Besides, it’s simpler to code it the way it is now. :lol:

Psychic_Llamas said:
i like this better. though im not bothered whether we have them or not.

Idc myself. Just if they are in, make interesting enough that people buy/build (however we work that) them.

Ahriman said:
Lets think about Spirituality religious UUs a bit more.

Those all seem fine.

Ahriman said:
Crusader:
?

There are lots of various Indian religious terms (swami, ashram, etc.) but most are pacifist and/or ascetic. Which doesnt' help for a military unit much.
Maybe Thugee? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thugee
But thats more criminal than religious. Hinduism doesn't have much of a formal military history.

Hmm...this might work...cast em as sorta thieves/assassins? Um...I guess I'd have to know a little more about them? It seems a good tentative idea. Thuggee. Decent name too.

Psychic_Llamas said:
damn i thought no one noticed!

You too?

Naw, I also got homework as an excuse. Plus, I play MMORPGs sometimes. ::shrug::

Ahriman · Feb 1, 2010

since the Shamans are sort of tied in as both magic & religious people in the Greenskin hierarchy.

I'm tempted to just make the shamans Disciple class units and tie them into Fanaticism and priesthood techs and remove Arcane units (and the arcane trait from one of the greenskin leaders) entirely.

That I agree with, on the stipulation that we would reset the values later based on balance.

Absolutely.

Maybe we should send out a request for a few people to sign up to do it now, so we don’t have to do it later. In fact, I’ll take of that in a sec.

I don't think that is necessary now. Its not a good idea to put out playtest requests for balance until we have a version we can actually test.
So please hold off on this.
It could be a while before we see a lot of this stuff in-game.

Could you please lay out the very basics of how it is now? Thanks.

Initial ideas here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293441
To start with, we will just be building them on top of the Scions, and using mostly similar mechanics.
But the main idea: they don't use food or health or happy, but they can still trade various goods. So we give them some reason to get resources: boosting hammer or gold yields of buildings.

K. That’s fine. Since the Beastmen rely on wartatoos as their only real way to get a combat bonus, I’d definitely say keep that as you suggest.

Do we know how to get a building to provide a resource only for that city?
Can we do that in our engine?
I know I've seen it in other mods. In Rise of Mankind (I think?) for example there are glassware factories that provide glass locally (if you had stone), or similar things thtt provide a copy of the resource only in the target city.
If we can't do this, we'll need to rework the concept a little; maybe just maek it a national wonder.

How exactly would you suggest we do that? In what way specifically? Name change? Bonuses? What?

Not sure. Its not a short-term priority.
Maybe they'll have enough, once we add in religious units. I'm looknig forward to the various genies.

rocklikeafool · Feb 1, 2010

Ahriman said:
I'm tempted to just make the shamans Disciple class units and tie them into Fanaticism and priesthood techs and remove Arcane units (and the arcane trait from one of the greenskin leaders) entirely.

No, I wouldnt do that. The Greenskins are very much about magic. Before you do that, Id actually suggest the opposite, removing any intended Greenskin religious line. The problem is that Greenskin magic and Greenskin religion are pretty much the same. Their magic comes from Gork and Mork. However, its definitely called magic, not divine. Though I spose it could be argued both ways. My main argument against this is that Id like that Arcane trait to stay on Skarsnik cuz that way the Goblin Shamans get a good boost. However, we could attach such a boost to Spiritual. Idk, I cant keep all the Traits straight. :lol:

Sorry.
Lemme look at that quick and then get back to you on this.

Ahriman said:
I don't think that is necessary now. Its not a good idea to put out playtest requests for balance until we have a version we can actually test.

So please hold off on this.
It could be a while before we see a lot of this stuff in-game.
K. Will do. I was just thinking of getting it out of the way now. ::shrug:: But Ill hold off on it, cuz youre right that itll be awhile before we see it in-game.
Although, once I get the Units currently in all edited correctly, I did intend to start on Sylvania next and then Lahmia and the Tomb Kings (since they all would use at least some aspect of the Eternal Army mechanic). Spose I shouldve mentioned that. That was another reason I was considering asking now. But Ill hold off nonetheless.

Ahriman said:
Initial ideas here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293441
To start with, we will just be building them on top of the Scions, and using mostly similar mechanics.
But the main idea: they don't use food or health or happy, but they can still trade various goods. So we give them some reason to get resources: boosting hammer or gold yields of buildings.

It mainly looks like we need some buildings that give GPPs or maybe more specialists. Maybe we should think about making UBs for the following buildings:

Granary
Smokehouse
Slaughterhouse
Harbor
Tanner
Herbalist
Coven
Tavern

That way we can change the emphasis of those buildings from food (which is the base buildings emphasis) to hammers/gold (with the UBs). Itd definitely give them more buildings. As it is now, I could see the AI just building those buildings, maybe some wonders, and then constantly buildings expendable, cheap tier1 units. That would pretty much stifle their economy & research, since they still would need gold as support and for research.

Ahriman said:
Do we know how to get a building to provide a resource only for that city?
Can we do that in our engine?
I know I've seen it in other mods. In Rise of Mankind (I think?) for example there are glassware factories that provide glass locally (if you had stone), or similar things thtt provide a copy of the resource only in the target city.
If we can't do this, we'll need to rework the concept a little; maybe just maek it a national wonder.

Im pretty sure we can. Id have to doublecheck the code, but Im pretty sure theres a line in the FF code that allows this right now. Otherwise, like you said, doing it with a National Wonder would work.

Ahriman said:
Not sure. Its not a short-term priority.
Maybe they'll have enough, once we add in religious units. I'm looknig forward to the various genies.

Well, maybe we should see how they work balanacewise first.

Edit:
On this:

Spoiler :

I just looked at the Arcane Trait, which gives this:

Spoiler :

And then the Spiritual Trait:

Spoiler :

I think that actually, having looked at the 2 traits, I'd have no objections to switching the Greenskin arcane line to a divine line & changing out Skarsnik's Arcane trait to the Spiritual Trait. I think those two are an equal balance to each other in this instance. So, I'd say, why not? Go for it! If there's any issues, we'll see them in testing/balance.

rocklikeafool · Feb 1, 2010

This is all carried over from the Tech thread. Just putting it here as a reference/response cuz it goes here, not in the Tech Thread. :lol:

And this way I know where to find it. You can read the spoiler if you want.

Spoiler :

Pulled from that spoiler:

Ahriman said:
Though: I would call the Longbow UU just "Handmaidens" or "Everqueen Handmaidens", or similar. "Handmaidens of the Everqueen" is just too long to display.

I will code them as "Handmaidens", then we can put "Handmaidens of the Everqueen" as part of their pedia entry. Or rather I'll edit them to be coded as "Handmaidens".

Ahriman said:
Also, shock cavalry bonus on longbowmen!? I presume this is something lore-related?

IIRC that's due to the fact that, although they are Longbow(wo)men, they also carry a Handweapon & a spear, as well as wearing heavy armour. See the following link please: http://warvault.net/warhammer_realm/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6369&start=0. (That's pulled from an old forum on the WH tabletop game, as the Handmaidens are no longer sold by games-workshop.) Also, here's a pic: http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war...6_2008/he_armor_NPC_HandmaidenofEverqueen.jpg. (This pic is from the WH Online game. Notice how the Handmaidens are depicted with a spear.) However, since we already have pikemen unit & the Handmaidens use longbows, I'm sure that's why P_L put them forward as mainly longbow units but with a bonus against shock cavalry.

Ahriman said:
I can't help think that we should rethink the horselord promotion; maybe attack strength and withdraw bonus, instead of extra movement? Brettonnia are about heavy knights, not fast knights. And we can't load their bonuses onto just the knights, those are only late-game.

I would agree. Maybe you could lay out what exactly you'd change it to? Just kinda so we can see it?

Ahriman said:
Maybe their peasant units should be slightly cheaper in hammers? Easy to raise.

By how much? What exactly should it be reduced for all of them? If you could lay that out as well?
Thanks.

Ahriman · Feb 1, 2010

No, I wouldn’t do that. The Greenskins are very much about magic.

Lets be clear what we're really talking about here: what benefit should various different techs give. Or equivalently, which techs should be required for the 2 shaman units.

At issue, we have the Priesthood tech (default unit slot: priest), Fanaticism tech (default unit slot: crusader), WAAAGH!!! tech (equivalent to High Magic or Necromancy: default unit slot Adept) and Arcane Mastery (default unit slot: archmage).

We have 2 caster units in mind for greenskins.
An Ork shaman with Little WAAAGH! spells, and a Goblin Shaman with Big WAAAGH! spells.

The idea of both of these is that they will be fairly "disposable" spellcasters (relative to the wizards from other races). They'll come with all their spells built-in, so they won't have to wait for channeling to level them up, but some of their spells will have backfire effects that can end up killing the caster.

The units are clearly both magical and religious in nature.
The question is: which techs/unit slots do they belong in?

We really don't want to leave priesthood and fanaticism techs empty for greenskin factions.

So the best options IMO are EITHER:
a) Have the ork shaman require priesthood tech, and be an adept-level caster in terms of power. Have the WAAAGH! tech be moderately expensive, like one of the Elemental magic techs for example (Master of Fire etc) .
Have the goblin shaman require both WAAAGH! tech and Fanaticism tech, and be a slightly weak archmage-level in terms of power.
Remove access to Arcane Mastery from Greenskins.
OR
b) Have the WAAAGH! tech be cheap, and have the ork shaman require WAAAGH! tech, and the goblin shaman require Arcane mastery tech, and be archmage quality in terms of power.
Then, think of other separate units that ork/goblin/hobgoblin factions can get at the priesthood tech and fanaticism tech.
We can't really leave these techs empty.

It doesn't really matter whether the shaman units are disciple class or arcane class.

It mainly looks like we need some buildings that give GPPs or maybe more specialists. Maybe we should think about making UBs for the following

Some free GPP points don't seem unreasonable, since they probably won't have the population to be able to actually afford specialists.

I'm not sure that think its best to start building UBs for every single normal-faction building.
I think it might be better to just create a banned list (anythnig food/health related - that list might need updatnig since it was from the old design) and then re-create a new list of buildings from scratch, and then assign them to some appropriate techs (mostly religious and engineering techs).

I like the idea of a few Super-buildings that are expensive but powerful. A Pyramid or Necropolis should have major effects.
Brainstorming ancient Egyptian buildnig names or tomb names will help.
We have Obelisk, Cenotaph, Mastaba, Pyramid, Necropolis.
What else can we think of?
I guess we could have some generic ones, a Mausoleum, Sepulcher, Vault, Catacomb, Funerary Grounds, Mortuary, Ossuary.
Some of these could be Barracks type replacements too.

maybe we should see how they work balanacewise first.

Absolutely.

Ahriman · Feb 1, 2010

I will code them as "Handmaidens", then we can put "Handmaidens of the Everqueen" as part of their pedia entry. Or rather I'll edit them to be coded as "Handmaidens".

Actually, be careful about that: I think there is an Amazonian "Handmaiden" unit.

I'm sure that's why P_L put them forward as mainly longbow units but with a bonus against shock cavalry.

I guess I worry that it weakens the spearman role too much - and spearmen are very canon for HE. But I have no particular objections.

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