Warhammer Week Review

[Grakl]

Alright, I haven't played the Warhammer Mod in quite some time but I decided to see where ya'll were at after having my love of Warhammer rekindled by Warhammer Online (I even busted out my miniatures and painting table). I listed the subject as "Week Review" as it took that long with many many restarts and finishes before I figured I'd had enough feel for the game to give honest opinions.

I play on Prince in FfH2 so I kept the same difficulty and the same custom game settings. I started off on Standard size map but eventually dropped it to Small with 10 civilizations. I like close quartered games where each city counts.

I'm a greenskin lover at heart so I started off with the Gobbos. The early game progressed easy enough and I expanded at a decent rate. After attempting to take the first barbarian city I noticed my units were being affected by Animosity. Interesting, I dig the flavor from tabletop but the issue I was running into was that my cities were becoming depopulated of units. My goblins couldn't defend. In a few short turns I could lose 3-4 units. I swallowed the losses and since I don't know the exact mechanics I decide to spread out my units (thinking maybe it was unit on unit in the same stack issue). Unfortunately, that didn't seem to make a difference. I eventually just stopped making goblins and orks altogether and went with your basic Axeman. I never actually got any further, the incessant loss of city defenders + "barbarian invasions" meant I was basically powerless to keep my country together. I restarted with the both the goblin and the ork tribe multiple times with the same effect, just after getting axemen my country fell to pieces from squabbling / invasion. I'm sure that's very Warhammery but from a gameplay perspective it's downright frustrating.

The goblin leader trait "arcane" is also misleading as I couldn't find an arcane unit in their list anywhere. I just chalked that up to unfinished civilization though, fair enough.

My suggestion would be to lower or cancel animosity in the cities. Let me add a caveat though. I played my first few games with "Double Events" and "Barbarian World (not raging barbs though)".

Next I moved on to Bretonnians. I dig them in tabletop as their a stark contrast to a horde army. They're horse lords so going down the cavalry tech tree seems obvious. My first game I made it to Ancient Cavalry before I gave up. The amount of necromancers and ork tribes spawning was overwhelming. Also, note that the AI is devious in their unit placement. Almost always in a forest or hill + forest. Thus the cavalry gets -% for attacking almost all non-plains/grassland terrain (true to history I'm sure). Which is a majority of the map. AI when spawning an invasion has pre-emptive strike capabilities against its adjacent city. Cavalry with no defense bonus and lower defensive value is a sitting duck. I replayed the Bretonnians a few times with all this in mind (axemen for defense, cavalry for cleanup) and got a tad further. The higher level Bretonnian cavalry is pretty far up the tree so much that I was bored by the time Knights Errants showed up.

Bretonnians is also the first time I ran into arcane units. It took me awhile to figure out how the magic worked (I couldn't figure out how to learn other types beyond Hedgemagic). The mages seemed useless early on regardless (spells had disadvantages ><).

Knights aren't nearly as powerful as I was hoping. They are heavily penalized on terrains. Their mobility is pointless on an invasion as siege engines are a must (1 space a turn stack). I eventually stopped using them in favor of mostly militia with a token knight to kill workers and flee back into the invasion stack.

The third civilization I played was Kurgan. It took me a few games to figure out where the chaos had gone. Honestly, I was expecting "Chaos" civ, which I suppose is a bit cliche. The first time I played them I was still under the FfH2 ideology of attack early and often for warfare civilizations. Oh how wrong I was. Sure, I eventually destroyed the Amazons, but then I was so far behind in tech and expansion. I decided to restart after reading a bit on the boards that Warhammer Mod is NOT meant to be early warfare oriented.

I had written off Warhammer as too frustrating before I finally sat down with a fresh look. The potential to have a Nurgle marked Chaos Warrior Warband was just too enticing. I finally turned off all campaign settings and turned off barbarians (though it will still spawn invasions) as they were getting just too damn obnoxious. I teched up and expanded as fast as possible to gain the most amount of ground. I then lay dormant til I reached Trolls. My first target was Von Carstein. After awhile I had captured 2 cities. My previous invasions in all Warhammer Mod games shows that extended invasions usually meet in frustration. Since I can only seem to support 1 healthy stack at a time, if my stack is out of country and a barb invasion spawns, I can kiss years of internal development goodbye.

So on it went, I made close friends with a fellow Chaos faction Norsca and we'd invade any upstarts their cities we fancied. This round was the first time I'd used arcane units to any effect. Started with warlocks and eventually made them to triple marked magus. I quit a few years after trying out the Chaos dragon. I had won, it was just a matter of time. No new units to play with, time to try a new civilization.

The marks of chaos I'm guessing aren't entirely finished. It seemed both Nurgle and Tzeentch had roughly the same spells just different namings (10-30% damage to surrounding units). Not like you really "need" to choose between the 2. You'll eventually get both within a couple lvls if you have the techs researched. I never did figure out the effect of Mark of Khorne as I never noticed that on any units. Nor did I notice Mark of Slaanesh offer anything to my magus.

My next go was the Dark Elves. Pretty much the same setup as Kurgan. Expand as fast as possible and focus on internal development before you build a stack of UUs and then avoid prolonged warfare in favor of quick siege + peace. I pretty much had the game in the bag by the time I upgraded a couple nasty Corsairs to Blackguards. I had a few sorcerers with a bunch of school upgrades but again, each magic tree seemed to offer the same thing (AE damage, 1 unique spell, summon). So leveling them up eventually became redundant. I mainly just used their initial Chillwind ability as the others either had missing text descriptions or they weren't as powerful.

In conclusion, I really dig how far the Mod has come and while the learning curve is pretty damn stiff even for a FfH2 veteran it was a riot once I learned the ebb and flow of the game. I think the mod does a very very good job of bringing the Warhammer world to Civ4. The ability to give marks of chaos was honestly a big surprise. Adds a really nice mechanic to the chaos tribes. The influence from combat mechanic is awesome (is it unique to Warhammer Mod?). Seems to fit well with the territory/influence system in Civ4.

Here's my novice suggestions, I left out obvious ones like "text values are missing" and "x civ isn't finished".

Overview and suggestions:
1) Animosity is more frustrating than it is fun, hard to be a horde when your stack won't move or it kills itself off while defending a city or leading an invasion.

2) Knights need a look or else I just don't use them right. Bretonnia seems penalized for having them be their UUs.

3) A lot of spells seem redundant.

4) Goblins are arcane for no apparent reason. No Night Goblin shaman..*sniff* Though I'm sure I can guess the answer: "We don't have Waaagh magic fully implemented yet. I'm looking forward to it when it is in though

5) Destruction and/or Chaos religion/temple sound clip is off the chart in volume compared to everything else.

6) Kurgan strikes me as a much more Khorne oriented tribe (Crom the Conqueror, not Crom the Magus). Yet he's listed as Summoner. Seems like something more warfare oriented would fit flavor wise.

7) Some civs seem alien to me. Ind, Hung, Cathay, Nippon, Tilea, Estalia, etc. These just seem like minor players in the Warhammer world. I don't know how much time was spent on them, but I'm fairly certain it could have been better spent on a more well known and flushed out civilization. Ogre Kingdoms is a recent addition and I quit following fantasy about the time they showed up so they seem silly on and off the table. Hopefully none of ya'll are fans of the civs I mentioned, if so, I apologize ><.

8) World Map, 10-15 seconds between turns at start (I have a pretty nice rig). Need I say more. Even a smaller map with the previous civs I mentioned absent would be nice. I tried it once then went on to custom game. Not too worried about it really.

9) Spawning invasions as immobile their first turn would help for cavalry civs (assuming they spawn in grasslands/plains). Also, I don't know if it's the AI or plain bad luck, but even invasions spawned in opposite sides of the continent would make their way to my cities ><.

10) Big congratulations for the team for some really good work. The progress from the previous version I played is obscene. Some obviously dedicated people on the staff.

Hopefully my review isn't too terribly hard to follow and yes I'm aware 50% of it can be sloughed off as "in development, just wait your arse". Just wanted to give ya'll an honest first hand impression from a FfH2 player. Played that mod to bits, time to see what else there is. I'd really look forward to playing Skaven if they had UUs to match. Same with Beastmen (I have a fledgeling Beastmen tabletop army. I read they might get the axe ><). I'm not quite sure who to replay next. Might take another stab at Bretonnia now that I have some experience with the mod. Also Empire looks promising though their UU list was not as flavorful as I was hoping.

Edit: Good lord this is long...sorry!

 

[frenzyslave]

Animosity is a big problem unfortunately. It makes it a little easier if you get a great general asap by slapping a few civs around early. Attach it to 1 unit and give it the Disciplined promotion (only available with great gens) which allows it to suppress animosity in the stack its in. Unfortunately animosity is something you have to live with (im hoping that the chances for "get em" and "show em" are less in the future. In tabletop these results arent as deadly as they are in civ4). Waaagh magic hasnt been implemented yet

Atm the events are set at a high occurance for playtesting appearances to see if their are any bugs in the events. But the events are cool, just happen too much atm.

Destruction and Chaos music spread is awesome. They are obviously supposed to be the better religions but thats just um er bias.

The Old World civs are being worked on atm with the elves. The only magic atm implemented are the elves, chaos, and the colleges i believe.

 

[Ahriman]

Thanks for the detailed review. Always good to get feedback. There is so much more to do, of course.

I noticed my units were being affected by Animosity

I strongly dislike the way the animosity mechanic currently works; losing entire units is too much. I wish it just damaged units and left them unable to move for a turn or two.

I just chalked that up to unfinished civilization though

Right, the Greenskins are pretty undeveloped, no WAAAGH! magic yet.

The amount of necromancers and ork tribes spawning was overwhelming

Living World (double events) game option will have that effect. the number of Uprising events will also decline as we add more events into the mod.

Cavalry with no defense bonus and lower defensive value is a sitting duck

This is by design. Cavalry have great mobility and offense in open terrain, and withdrawal chance on both offense AND defense, but are vulnerable to coutnerattacks. So you can't just send off cavalry stacks by themself; you have to use them in conjunction with the rest of an army. So use melee and missile units as stack guards, and use the mounted units to move, attack, and move back to safety. This is particularly easy to do with the 3-4 movement Brettonnian cavalry units.

Knights aren't nearly as powerful as I was hoping. They are heavily penalized on terrains. Their mobility is pointless on an invasion as siege engines are a must (1 space a turn stack). I eventually stopped using them in favor of mostly militia with a token knight to kill workers and flee back into the invasion stack.

Several points;
First, on the very low difficulty level you're using, basically all combat becomes you sending big stacks into enemy territory to take cities; you have such an advantage that you never really have to worry about enemy invasions, or their army in the field. At higher difficulty levels, the mobility of mounted units to a) respond quicker to invasions or b) use against field armies during an invasion (knights can attack an enemy unit and retreat back to the safety of your stack).
Second, knights still have one of the highest attack values of any unit in the game - 12, vs 7 on a militia swordsmen (with iron weapons). So how you're not finding these useful is something of a mystery.
But, yeah, you can't just use them to take heavily fortified cities by themselves; the mod is designed to encourage combined arms (and even more so once we make the units slightly more rock/paper/scissors)

The third civilization I played was Kurgan. It took me a few games to figure out where the chaos had gone. Honestly, I was expecting "Chaos" civ, which I suppose is a bit cliche

These are Warriors of chaos, not chaos demons, so their base units are always human.
But nearly all of the demon units have yet to be implemented - you'll probably see another half dozen demon units available to these factions.

I teched up and expanded as fast as possible to gain the most amount of ground. I then lay dormant til I reached Trolls. My first target was Von Carstein. After awhile I had captured 2 cities. My previous invasions in all Warhammer Mod games shows that extended invasions usually meet in frustration. Since I can only seem to support 1 healthy stack at a time

This may be because you are expanding too fast. City maintenance costs are a killer, by design; you suffer from expanding too much too fast. We might introduce a city maintenance building in the early mid-game (before courthouses), but its much easier to support an economy and army if you don't try spreading out all over the place.

It seemed both Nurgle and Tzeentch had roughly the same spells just different namings (10-30% damage to surrounding units). Not like you really "need" to choose between the 2.

Yeah, there needs to be a little more differentiation between Tzeentch and Nurgle spells. They'll matter a bit more once damage resistances are working properly; many units will be immune or resistant to death or poison or fire damage, so some spells won't effect them much.
Slaanesh I think also only gives level 3 mage spells atm, which is sad.

The influence from combat mechanic is awesome (is it unique to Warhammer Mod?).

I *think* this is just someone's mod that was integrated into the Warhammer mod. But I agree, I love it.

1) Animosity is more frustrating than it is fun, hard to be a horde when your stack won't move or it kills itself off while defending a city or leading an invasion.

Completely agree.

2) Knights need a look or else I just don't use them right. Bretonnia seems penalized for having them be their UUs.

I think you aren't using them right. They're incredibly powerful, as long as you aren't trying to attack units in forests and such, or use them unsupported. With a bit of magic or siege support, they can beat almost anything.

3) A lot of spells seem redundant.

Yeah, true. There's a certain element of tabletop purists though, who want to include as much as possible of the details of the tabletop game.
I think reducing the number of spells was a dealbreaker for many team-members.
The spells are certainly still in flux though, there are many that are boring or too powerful, and rebalancing will continue.

Some civs seem alien to me. Ind, Hung, Cathay, Nippon, Tilea, Estalia, etc.

Ind, Cathay and Nippon are not fleshed out at all yet. We'll finish off the old world civs, then move on to those, and then finally to chaos dwarves, lizardmen, ogres, beastment and amazonians.
Tilea and Estalia have some stuff now implemented, though they're pretty similar to other human civs like the Empire.

World Map, 10-15 seconds between turns at start (I have a pretty nice rig).

We're creating some smaller maps, particularly of the Old World. But a huge world map is still nice for those whose systems can handle it (and the end-goal is for a Rhyes-style scenario on the world map, with empires rising and falling, historic events occurring and faction-specific win-conditions).

) Spawning invasions as immobile their first turn would help for cavalry civs (assuming they spawn in grasslands/plains). Also, I don't know if it's the AI or plain bad luck, but even invasions spawned in opposite sides of the continent would make their way to my cities

We're currently implementing spawns as being unable to move on the turn they arrive, this will be in the next patch. In terms of the others, I think there may be some AI prefernece for attacking you, but much of this may also be the penalty of what happens when a civ other than you builds the great bastion - all their uprisings get dumped outside their borders when the events trigger. We're working on having the Bastion just stop the events from triggering at all.
But I've definitely seen AI civs get totally wasted by Uprising events, so don't think that they aren't hurting badly - particularly if you have Living world option on!

The most "playable" factions at the moment are High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, EMpire, Brettonnia, and Tilea, Estalia, Norsca, Hung and Kurgan are at least reasonably playable. For the rest, you'll just have to wait. Kislev and Dwarves in the not too decent future, probably followed by Vampire counts.

Thanks again for feedback, I hope you'll continue to get more.

PS: Did you try installing the patch a yet? We currently are having big problems with it, it would be great to know whether installing it did/did not work on someone else's system (particularly if you're using Vista).

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

First of all id like to say Welcome back to Warhammer! and secondly thanks for the brilliant reveiw, this kind of constructive critisism is exactly what we need to make the mod more userfreindly, and to erradicate un-fun mechanics.

1) Animosity is more frustrating than it is fun, hard to be a horde when your stack won't move or it kills itself off while defending a city or leading an invasion.

Yes i tend to agree with you as well. Im wondering if a limit should be placed on the number of units in a stack before Animosity affects start to occur, such as "if a tile has more than 3 units on it, apply Animosity effects" AND/OR reduce the severity of the animosity effects from death, to damage, but keep the EXP bonuses. AND/OR Make a 'Greenskin Population' Building that adds the 'disciplined' promotion to all units when they are in cities, but removes it when they leave cancelling the effects of animosity in their cities. (we could show animosity in different ways to represent city animosity, perhasp through events such as bar fights and such, where the outcome can somewhat be controlled.)

2) Knights need a look or else I just don't use them right. Bretonnia seems penalized for having them be their UUs.

Im partially of the same mind, i think the terrain penalties can be reduced, currently they are quite intense. also, Bretonian UU knights DO need to appear a bit earlyer, and they need to have a distinct advantage over other civs Cavalry. they need a reason to build them.

3) A lot of spells seem redundant.

Due to the shear number of spells there are (8 per wind) there is inevitable doubling up of spell effects. but because not all factions have all the spells avaliable they shouldnt be accessed too frequently. you are right though i do definately need to differeniate them more. particularly Nurgle and Tzeentch magic, and later slaanesh (which currently does nothing) we also need to think up some reason to go Khorne, im contemplating a series of combat promotions that can be acquired with the Mark of Khorne.

4) Goblins are arcane for no apparent reason. No Night Goblin shaman..*sniff* Though I'm sure I can guess the answer: "We don't have Waaagh magic fully implemented yet. I'm looking forward to it when it is in though

I want to add another non-magicy leader for the Goblins. any particular suggestions on that front? Skarsnic will eventualyl get use from his trait when WAAAGH! magic is implemented though

5) Destruction and/or Chaos religion/temple sound clip is off the chart in volume compared to everything else.

it can be pretty loud...

6) Kurgan strikes me as a much more Khorne oriented tribe (Crom the Conqueror, not Crom the Magus). Yet he's listed as Summoner. Seems like something more warfare oriented would fit flavor wise.

Summoner is a very useless trait all together in this mod, im tempted to make it only avaliable to Sylvania and Lhamia when we finally implement necromancy magic.

7) Some civs seem alien to me. Ind, Hung, Cathay, Nippon, Tilea, Estalia, etc. These just seem like minor players in the Warhammer world. I don't know how much time was spent on them, but I'm fairly certain it could have been better spent on a more well known and flushed out civilization. Ogre Kingdoms is a recent addition and I quit following fantasy about the time they showed up so they seem silly on and off the table. Hopefully none of ya'll are fans of the civs I mentioned, if so, I apologize ><.

These civs are not very well known unless you have read a LOT of fluff about warhammer. though they arnt major players in the tabletop game, i really like the flavour for some of them (Particularly Cathay) and hope to make them stand out more in the game.

8) World Map, 10-15 seconds between turns at start (I have a pretty nice rig). Need I say more. Even a smaller map with the previous civs I mentioned absent would be nice. I tried it once then went on to custom game. Not too worried about it really.

yeh, im making a few smaller ones. if you have any suggestions for new maps feel free to ask and ill see what i can whip up

9) Spawning invasions as immobile their first turn would help for cavalry civs (assuming they spawn in grasslands/plains). Also, I don't know if it's the AI or plain bad luck, but even invasions spawned in opposite sides of the continent would make their way to my cities ><.

Spawning events are currently insane and i cant generally survive unless i rush for the Great Bastion wonder (im a pretty poor Civ Player ). these events will slow down in the future as more events are added though.

Just wanted to give ya'll an honest first hand impression from a FfH2 player.

Thank you! this is truly appreciated

I'd really look forward to playing Skaven if they had UUs to match. Same with Beastmen (I have a fledgeling Beastmen tabletop army. I read they might get the axe ><).

Skaven should actually be implemented fairly soon, there is a lot of discussion floating around for them, unfortunately i cant say the same for beastmen, though i can promise that they will stay in the mod. the main argument agaisnt them was "Where do they start in the world map?" they seem to have no true point of origin. but seeing as we're looking more at random maps now than set scenarios, that isnt an issue

I'm not quite sure who to replay next. Might take another stab at Bretonnia now that I have some experience with the mod. Also Empire looks promising though their UU list was not as flavorful as I was hoping.

I agree Empire is a bit of an anticlimax with regards to uniquness, but thats the Empire for ya i would like them to be a little more exciting.

Id reccomend the same as Ahriman, and just say that the Dwarves are quite fun to play even though they lack their UUs, and the Lizardmen have their cool terrain mechanics which can make them a real powerhouse if used right (though they also have no UUs yet).

Edit: Good lord this is long...sorry!

Long reviews are good revies thanks again!!

 

[Grakl]

I appreciate the prompt and thought out replies.

I honestly don't know AS much about Fantasy as I do about 40k. I started to collect Fantasy when I was a wee lad but my brother and friends were into 40k so I ended up switching. The Fantasy box set I started with was the one with HE and Goblins...maybe 4th edition? So, really all I have to work with is memory and convention games.

I havn't played a game of Warhammer either Fantasy or 40k in 5 years I bet, though that hasn't stopped me from collecting and painting. There isn't a whole lot of gaming from where I live. As you can see from my location, I don't live in the thriving populated cultural areas of the US. If you're not a Yank....I'm from the center where all the corn comes from

On the subject of Goblin leaders, yeah, I'm at a loss. My green skin comes from collecting and modding a 40k Ork army (http://noobschoolbus.com/40k/20070416/daboyz.jpg). I really don't have any authority to come up with names.

Beastmen from what I can remember of the old bestiary listed them as being from the deep dark forests in the Empire. How you would fit that into Civ4 is a bit of a mystery. Ya'll are probably right, as much as I hate to admit it the lore even suggests they should be NPCs. But hey, I collected a few boxes of them back when they had 2 wounds, so I won't complain too loudly as those days are gone.

The Old World map that I remember was in the 4th edition rulebook: (3rd image - http://www.warhammer.rs/maps/Old-World/4.html). This is all from memory so, hopefully I'm not wrong. This would be why armies from outside the Old World seem so "meh" to me I suppose.

Idealy I think a scenario I'm looking to play would based on 4th edition: Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, Dark Elves, Kurgan (Chaos), Nagash, Orks/Goblins, Dwarves, Skaven. 4th edition hadn't added Vampire Counts yet so the undead baddy was Nagash IIRC.

Hmm, the more I think of all this I'm starting to see your plight. The map I posted lists Estalia and Tilea as at least a good 20% of the land mass. Best you could do is put Skaven at Skavenblight and then you have all that room for them to expand. Definitely hard to stay true to dogma and yet produce a lore based playable map.

I'll take everyone's suggestions and retry Bretonnia, then probably move on to Dwarves (The day I meet a non-Scottish Dwarf, I will rejoice). The Wood Elves and Sylvania aren't listed in the custom game civ selection that I'm aware of. I did see them in the Scenario list for the World game though.

On the subject of scenarios, beyond the world map a couple that I can think of off the top of my head:
1) Nagash vs. Skaven (Both attempting to mine warpstone at a site I can't remember ><)
2) Orks / Goblins vs. Border Princes (mainly based on Shadow of the Horned Rat)
3) Von Carstein vs. Empire

I do my best thinking when I'm playing so hopefully after trying some of the other civilizations I'll have some suggestions beyond BSing for ya'll. So far Chaos tribes and Dark Elves seemed like they have a lot going for them.

 

[Ahriman]

The map I posted lists Estalia and Tilea as at least a good 20% of the land mass.

Well, Tilea and Estalia are pretty flavorful IMO; Estalia is crusader Reconquista Spain and Tilea is Machiavellian Renaissance Italy, so there's plenty of Earth history to draw stuff from.
Skaven are particularly annoying because they really live *under* the land, but we only have a single layer map. If only we could combine the game with Heroes of Might and Magic.

My understanding is that beastmen are in deep/dark forests everywhere (supposedly there are a bunch of the jungles of Ind), not just in the Empire. And they're also not really much of a civilisation; there are no beastmen cities or towns, they're just monsters in the wilderness. Personally I'd be fine with dropping them entirely or making them NPC (many of their just are just, well.... stupid), but I'm less attached to the canon than pretty much everyone else on the team, so I'll let others make those decisions.

The Wood Elves and Sylvania aren't listed in the custom game civ selection that I'm aware of.

Wood Elves are Asrai. You should fine them playable in custom scenarios.

On the subject of scenarios, beyond the world map a couple that I can think of off the top of my head:
1) Nagash vs. Skaven (Both attempting to mine warpstone at a site I can't remember ><)
2) Orks / Goblins vs. Border Princes (mainly based on Shadow of the Horned Rat)
3) Von Carstein vs. Empire

Duel scenarios (ie 1 human, 1 AI) tend to fail pretty badly, because a single AI can never really come close to performance of a human player.
I think the best map is likely to be an extended Old World:
Norsca, Kurgan, Kislev, Empire, Brettonnia, Orcs, Wood Elves, Sylvania, Dwarves, Goblins, Tilea, Estalia, Araby, Khemri - and maybe try to fit Skaven in somewhere. And maybe even stretch it to fit chaos dwarves in.
Part of the problem is that the canon map doesn't fit conflict particularly well; civs have a tendency to be next to their allies, rather than their enemies; there tends to be a lawful/civilized core, with enemies on the fringes. Hopefully we can try to give each civ a nearby enemy; norsca/brettonnia, kurgan/kislev, empire/orcs/sylvania, goblins/dwarves, woodelves/skaven, tilea/khemri, estalia/araby.

The World map works particularly poorly for some factions, because Nippon, High Elves and Dark elves are likely to spend their entire game without interacting with anyone.

Another thought for Skaven on the World map is to stick them in Africa, rather than trying to fit them in Europe somewhere.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Idealy I think a scenario I'm looking to play would based on 4th edition: Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, Dark Elves, Kurgan (Chaos), Nagash, Orks/Goblins, Dwarves, Skaven. 4th edition hadn't added Vampire Counts yet so the undead baddy was Nagash IIRC.

That would be a very difficult map to make on a *SMALL* scale, including Ulthuan (Highelves) and Naggaroth (Dark Elves) means there will be tonnes of ocean in the middle, naggaroth would be completely isolated, the Old world would be cramped on the one side with very little space to expand... its all pretty hard...

on the note of beastmen, i have been toying with the idea of making them 'Anti-Woodelf' in the woodelf lore books the Beastmen and Asrai are ALWAYS at each others throats, they are arch enemies. the WE would side with Nagash if it meant the beastmen would be erradicated. they would even side with the Orcs if the Orcs swore to kill off all the beastmen. So giving the beast men a lot of forest bonuses to make them and Woodelves compete for the same terrain, allow beast men to create anceitn forets homes as well, and then in world maps we could put the Beast men in the forest in between Bretonnia and Athel Loren, this would fill up a gap that woodelves always tend to expand to and have them as arch enemies from the get-go.

On the note of Nagash, in this mod we are treating Nagash as a Barbarian hero (like barbatos in FfH) not a leader of the vampires. Vampire are led by Manfred and Vlad Von Carstein.

2) Orks / Goblins vs. Border Princes (mainly based on Shadow of the Horned Rat)

i can see this one being extremely fun because the Border princes is composed of settlements of all the oldworld human (and dwarf) civs, it would be mroe than just 2 civs, the Orcs and Goblins could start with massive settlements and be unplayable and the old world civs would have to expand to take control of the Border Princes. for the map we could also lower the attitude adjusters between civs that might get too friendly with each other can cause wars between them.

 

[frenzyslave]

I want to add another non-magicy leader for the Goblins. any particular suggestions on that front? Skarsnic will eventualyl get use from his trait when WAAAGH! magic is implemented though

Waaagh!
Grom the Paunch of Misty Mountain stands out after Skarsnik.

"Grom is a hugely obese and extremely fierce goblin warlord. According to legend he once ate a plate of raw troll meat which is regenerating within him all the time. As a result he is very fat and suffers from constant agony due to chronic indigestion, which may explain why he is so fierce. He rides a massive chariot pulled by three wolves, and swings his mighty axe Elf-Biter. He is accompanied by his assistant Niblit the goblin who carries the army's battle standard. As a result of eating the troll flesh he has developed several troll-like traits and has an almost trollish resistance to injury" - (Orcs & Goblins armybook, 1993, pg. 97; also in 2006 army book).

Grom regenerates, and carries the Axe of Grom (killing blow special ability, especially vs elves). Eats Elves for Breakfast command ability. Niblit carries the Lucky Banner (5+ ward save to Grom in tabletop).

Imperial Year 2420-2424 (taken from Orcs & Goblins armybook, 2006, pg. 14): "Grom the Paunch of Misty Mountain leads a coalition of unwilling Orc and Goblin tribes into the Worlds Edge Mountains. After defeating the Dwarfs at the Battle of Iron Gate, the Waaagh! moves into the Empire, burning Nuln to the ground. Grom leads his army to the sea where he builds a huge fleet and sails into the west, landing on the shores of Ulthuan. His rampage continues in the elf realm until he is finally defeated by an Elven host led by Eltharion the Grim."

Other Gobbo warbosses of note:

Boggrub Legbiter (of the Broken Nose tribe), 2470. Beat up some dwarves, stole their warmachines, carved through the Worlds Edge Mtns, and invaded the Empire.

Night Gobbo Spinny Backstab, 2510, rampaged around Middenheim. Burned hundreds of farms and villages, then a steam tank arrived.

Gorblum Yellowstreak (aka Gorblum the Magnificent), 2510, achieves notoriety of slaughtering a dwarven throng under King Thorgrim and rampages over half the Worlds Edge Mtns.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Grom the Paunch and Gorblum the Magnificent are the most appealing of those i think i might add grom though due to his fame (and his difference to skarsnik )

 

[frenzyslave]

Grom! Grom! Grom!
*Gorb!* Grom! Gorb! Gorb!
*Blum!* Blum! Blum!
*Gorblum!* Gorblum! Gorblum!
*erk!* Erk! Erk! Erk!
*aieee!* Aieee! Aieee!
*Noooo me jus kiddin!* No Me Jus Kiddin!
*Eat my ax!* Eatmiax! Etmiax!
*Uck!* Uck! Uck!
*Grom!* Grom! Grom! Grom!

 

[Arexack_heretic]

beastmen could start in most wilderness lands, but I think the tribe the armies book is based on are located in Nagaroth.
other possibility is the 'siberian plains'. but that might get too crouded there, and in fluff these are usually herded into the ever growing chaos hordes as free fodder.
The beastmen in the Empire's Great Forest and badlands don't sound like a coherent enough tribe to be a civ. barbarians sure, but that is what the invasion-events are for.

 

[Ahriman]

I'd be on board with putting Beastment in Naggaroth if it fits fluff; it would give the Dark Elves someone to fight.

 

[Grakl]

Well, Tilea and Estalia are pretty flavorful IMO; Estalia is crusader Reconquista Spain and Tilea is Machiavellian Renaissance Italy, so there's plenty of Earth history to draw stuff from.

Where do ya'll find your sources for Estalia and Tilea fluff? Best I can do is imagine their real world counterparts and bits I've read from Dogs of War fluff, WDs, and games that gave info on them only tangentially.

My understanding is that beastmen are in deep/dark forests everywhere (supposedly there are a bunch of the jungles of Ind), not just in the Empire. And they're also not really much of a civilisation; there are no beastmen cities or towns, they're just monsters in the wilderness. Personally I'd be fine with dropping them entirely or making them NPC (many of their just are just, well.... stupid), but I'm less attached to the canon than pretty much everyone else on the team, so I'll let others make those decisions.

Another thought for Skaven on the World map is to stick them in Africa, rather than trying to fit them in Europe somewhere.

Hmm, quite the balancing act ya'll have to do, particularly in regards to the tough choices on who to include and where to put them. I hadn't really thought to much about map placement in regards to Warhammer Lore in conjuction with a playable civilization. I don't envy who has to make the cuts.

Wood Elves are Asrai. You should fine them playable in custom scenarios.

I'll have to take a second look. I noticed them in the world map but not the custom game.

That would be a very difficult map to make on a *SMALL* scale, including Ulthuan (Highelves) and Naggaroth (Dark Elves) means there will be tonnes of ocean in the middle, naggaroth would be completely isolated, the Old world would be cramped on the one side with very little space to expand... its all pretty hard...

Again, hadn't thought of that. This is why I haven't ever delved into map design and mainly just fiddle with code. You could potentially pick a point in time when a Dark Elven invasion had landed on the Old World (I assume fluff has some bit of that somewhere) and place a token city for them to start there. High Elves are a bit harder since they're traditionally allied with the Old World Human powers. You have to bastardize to make any headway sometimes it seems.

On the note of Nagash, in this mod we are treating Nagash as a Barbarian hero (like barbatos in FfH) not a leader of the vampires. Vampire are led by Manfred and Vlad Von Carstein.

Sounds good, would have been sad to not see him in game. I turned Barbarians off in some testing so though I've seen his tower, there was no Nagash present. Well, I assume it's his tower, it's very "Nagash's Tower" looking.

-- Thoughts --

It's unfortunate there's not enough resources to fill out playable civs regardless of their viability on a grand scenario scale. Just how it goes I guess. Making each civ have a unique mechanic is doubly hard I'm sure. I usually play custom games (I prefer the randomness of each game) so for example if I'm playing High Elves on Pangea and I am the arch enemy of the Empire and allied with Von Carstein, it would make no difference to me. Next game could be different and so on and so forth. I understand sticking to lore and sometimes a guy is in a mood to play a traditional game, but not always. Yes, I know I might get burned at the stake as a heretic for saying that.

I've spent plenty of time playing Medieval 2 Total War and fiddling with the faction code so that if I wanted to start the French in the Middle East to square off against a different opponent (France vs. England gets old after awhile).

-- Suggestions --

Also, I do have a few new suggestions. I noticed the "pips" for displaying the number of units in a stack graphically is a full model height above the actual unit. It can get rather confusing when you have units in surrounding tiles in a cluster. Is there any reason they're not immediately on top of the unit's banner?

I have some issues with clicking on the unit in a city and it opens to the city menu. I don't know why, but it seems like it's only related to the Warhammer Mod. I generally have to click on the unit's head or higher. Not overly obnoxious but enough that I have to remember to click higher from now on.

Some of the unique plots on the map are enormous. It works great to make them center points but they can completely cover surrounding tiles (Celestial Palace, indeed). Also, some of the generic resources seem to be enlarged or altered so much to the point that sometimes I have to hover over the squares and check the tooltip to see where exactly the resource is on the grid. Ore comes to mind as being the biggest culprit. Do ya'll implement Blue Marble or whatever it's called and would it be a possible reason this is happening. I don't recall if it is listed as a choice and if I have it checked.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I usually play custom games (I prefer the randomness of each game) so for example if I'm playing High Elves on Pangea and I am the arch enemy of the Empire and allied with Von Carstein, it would make no difference to me. Next game could be different and so on and so forth. I understand sticking to lore and sometimes a guy is in a mood to play a traditional game, but not always. Yes, I know I might get burned at the stake as a heretic for saying that.

this is precisely hos i play my games so i agree with you

Also, I do have a few new suggestions. I noticed the "pips" for displaying the number of units in a stack graphically is a full model height above the actual unit. It can get rather confusing when you have units in surrounding tiles in a cluster. Is there any reason they're not immediately on top of the unit's banner?

im afraid i dont understand what you mean here

I have some issues with clicking on the unit in a city and it opens to the city menu. I don't know why, but it seems like it's only related to the Warhammer Mod. I generally have to click on the unit's head or higher. Not overly obnoxious but enough that I have to remember to click higher from now on.

ive never noticed this...

Some of the unique plots on the map are enormous. It works great to make them center points but they can completely cover surrounding tiles (Celestial Palace, indeed). Also, some of the generic resources seem to be enlarged or altered so much to the point that sometimes I have to hover over the squares and check the tooltip to see where exactly the resource is on the grid. Ore comes to mind as being the biggest culprit. Do ya'll implement Blue Marble or whatever it's called and would it be a possible reason this is happening. I don't recall if it is listed as a choice and if I have it checked.

yesssssssss..... the improvemets are pretty large... there is a ctually a reasn that i made the celestial palce the size it is, and that is because if it is any smaller, if it starts over a forest the trees poke up through the clouds and it looks very daft. the others like the moot and nagashizzar could do with some shrinking though.

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Heh. randomness rules! I like the exploration bit. development of home is nice too and protecting it, but I dislike the having to deal with foreigners demanding my research bit.
grr... eat rocks filthy humnans!

yeah, the Moot could do with shrinkning ande multiplication.

And why does the Celestial Palace always show up next to my doorstep when I use a random mapscript?

To be fair I had the Oak of ages on my doorstep last time, the palace was 8 tiles westwards.
could we disalble these civ specific bonuses in random maps or at least place the corresponding civs next to them?

I'd like to link resources/boni such as the moot to civ-sopecific unit options.
halflings, forest gobos, savage orcs, etc

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

or at least place the corresponding civs next to them?

i would love this, but i dont know how to go about coding it.

 

[Arexack_heretic]

hmm.

Haven't you done something similar with the 'formEmpire' method?
If I read it correctly it creates a player, a city and a bunch of archer units on a clear plot, then sets the alignment of that player.

In stead of it looking for a clear plot, set it to look for a specific resource and have it locate a good site nearby.

It might be better to turn this around though and add the civ-specific resources just after game-setup, near the civ placement location
or upon their first city placement.
and use events again:
"Sir, we have settled near a wondrous feature! Our scout has decided to call it [civopediatext]" -> Ok, good to know. Carry on.

using events would
+allow, for example, the orcs to cut down the oak of ages if there are no woodelves to claim it.
+works on any map script, making sure the civ-specific resources are near their corresponding civs.
+can be timed to coincide with techs/civ-size etc to follow cannon history.
+thus also avoid too high bonusses to be available too early from these things.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

using events would
+allow, for example, the orcs to cut down the oak of ages if there are no woodelves to claim it.
+works on any map script, making sure the civ-specific resources are near their corresponding civs.
+can be timed to coincide with techs/civ-size etc to follow cannon history.
+thus also avoid too high bonusses to be available too early from these things.

This... is a very useful idea. particualrly for things like the oak of ages, great Maw, Celestial palace and possibly Nagashizzar.

Oak of ages spawned by woodelf capital being builts. spawns Oak of ages in its fat cross and forest on all its 8 neighbouring squares.

 

[Grakl]

- Warhammer Mod with floating pips (I call them pips).


-FfH2 with more friendly pips


The red paint should be the point of interest.

Maybe it's a setting UI setting I'm not aware of that controls pip height?

On the subject of the Celestial Palace. Couldn't there be a way perhaps in the map scripts to just make sure it doesn't spawn on forest and jungle tiles? Same way that cows spawn on plains/grasslands?

 

[Ahriman]

What the...

Never seen those before. Some weird graphics/interface option, clearly.