Agents

[Jargon]

Should each faction have every agent type available to them, or should some be edited out? I think some changes would need to be made.

Firstly, remove princesses from the game. They only make sense for a handful of factions, and would be one less model you have to make. This would prevent the situation of a Dwarf Princess marrying a Skaven general…..

The need for priests would depend greatly on what direction the religion system takes, so no comment on that as yet.

Some suggestions for the races:

Skaven:
-They should start with lots of spys spread out all over the map, revealing much of the area between the Empire and Orc realms. They should also have an experienced assassin in each of their cities. Having Deathmaster Snitch with his weeping blades in-game would be awesome. I think these agents would play a key part of the Skaven campaign experience, especially if their starting army is weak.
-My first thought was they should have no diplomats, but I guess there’s no reason they couldn’t send an emissary to another faction when necessary. The Skaven are into political intrigue, but it is almost always internal, not external though.
-I think they should have merchants, but purely for a ‘Warpstone’ resource. I would highly suggest this resource, and make it highly valued to Skaven.

Chaos:
-No merchants, no diplomats. Chaos is about total war.
-Spy’s and assassin mostly make sense for chaos, although not for some Chaos God’s like Khorne. I think a Slaneesh based building would prove the most suitable explanation for the production for these agents, as it easier for this God to infiltrate other faction’s cities. Also, if there are no Slaneesh based combat units made for the game, then at least the perverted God will make a sort of cameo appearance this way.

Dwarf:
-Merchants and diplomats make sense.
-I’m a little hesitant to suggest spies, but there’s no reason why they wouldn’t have some.
- Dwarf Assassins? This agent doesn’t sit well with me for the Dwarf race, would anyone else be for them?

Vampire Count:
-Spy’s make sense, as do assassins.
-Since they have so many human slaves, you would imagine they could handle producing merchants and diplomats as well.

Empire + Bretonnia:
- All four agents.

High Elf:
-All four agents. I imagine a High Elf assassin would be deadly, and doubt it would be against their creed to send a shadow warrior in to take someone out.

Dark Elf:
-Similar to Skaven, they should have more experienced assassins to begin the game with. They should not have the same level of spy network as the rats though.
-Merchants, diplomats available to them as well.

Orcs:
-All four agents. The orcs should have every right to try to send a diplomat to another faction, I would just love to see the results of this attempt though. It would be amusing to make their diplomats purposefully incompetent when it came to negotiating.

Lizardmen:
-All four agents available.

I hope that many fo the faction are set to war with each other from the start, to make it hard for diplomats to be used to negotiate peace. They should only be a viable tool for the good factions to work between each other, but the evil faction should still have them available.

The attribute “Charm’ could be renamed to “Willpower” or something similar, I don’t think it fits well with the Warhammer world.

Another related topic would be to discuss which resources are to be included, which i think Warpstone should be one of.

[ellydog]

I think all factions should have diplomats as its a key feature of M2TW. And I look forward to the interesting resources put ingame.

[Jargon]

I agree with you, ellydog. Even if it doesnt make sense for the Empire to have an open dialogue with Skaven or Orcs in lore terms, it is still an integral element of MTW2.

However, I think Chaos should be an exception to this. There is literaly no feasible scenario in which Chaos would negotiate with their enemies. I somehow imagine that any chaos lord who attempted as such would be automaticaly smoted by their respective God for such imputence. Not having any diplomat is an easy way to translate this in-game. Other factions could try and negotiate with them, but hopefully this will almost never work for Chaos.

[Meneldil]

I agree with you, ellydog. Even if it doesnt make sense for the Empire to have an open dialogue with Skaven or Orcs in lore terms, it is still an integral element of MTW2.

However, I think Chaos should be an exception to this. There is literaly no feasible scenario in which Chaos would negotiate with their enemies. I somehow imagine that any chaos lord who attempted as such would be automaticaly smoted by their respective God for such imputence. Not having any diplomat is an easy way to translate this in-game. Other factions could try and negotiate with them, but hopefully this will almost never work for Chaos.

I disagree. Chaos isn't all about brainless destruction. I see little reason for Khorne and Nurgle to negotiate with anyone, but the same doesn't apply with Tzeentch and Slaanesh.
The first one is afterall the God of treachery, manipulation and all that. I see no reason he wouldn't ally with anyone as long as it serve his goals.
The same goes for Slaanesh. (S)He's the god of lust, pleasure, sex and whatelse, and as such, would easily lure his opponents.

[Jargon]

My sole Chaos experience as a Khorne player must be coming through :smash: Maybe Tzeentch themed buildings (chaos warp tower, twisted sanctury) produce diplomats and merchants, while Slaanesh ones (perverted house of pleasure, chaos brothel) produces spy's and assassins. If someone wanted to roleplay being Khorne, they could do so by not dabbiling in the other gods realms, and the descriptive God themed names for the buildings would explain where the diplomats and merchants are suddenly coming from.

On a side note, do you think it would it be more effort than its worth to only allow one Chaos God to have their special buildings in a city? Say when you have to make the decision in normal MTW2 between your city being a castle or a town, in Warhammer you have to make the same choice for the respective God (through the first type of God-themed building you make). I'm just trying to think of ways to represent their cosmic rivalry, such as their refusal to share a city, and is probably more effort than its worth to add.

[uanime5]

I done some work with agents and here is what I know.

1) It's easy to prevent a faction having princesses, or any other agent for that matter (alter data/descr_character.txt).

2) You can alter the buildings so that agents will start out with different levels of skill or appear at different building levels. For example a Brothel could recruit diplomats and assassins, while Pleasure Palace could recruit level 5 assassins and level 3 merchants.

3) You can change what a unit looks like (I made assassins look like witches).

Also the only agent with the attribute charm is the princess, though I don't know how to change the name of this attribute (it's probably in the text files).

Using this we could give the Skaven the ability to train higher level assassins than most factions.

[Jargon]

Does anyone here have the Skaven rulebook? We could start posting names and general info of notable agents for uanime5 and anyone else to insert in the game.

I know Deathmaster Snikch is a definite must for Skaven:


Deathmaster Snikch is the chief assassin and prime agent of Lord Sneek, Lord of Decay and Nightlord of Clan Eshin. Snikch's infamy is only exceeded by the mystery which surrounds his whereabouts at any particular time. Lord Sneek ensures that this is the case – as long as no one knows the location of his chief assassin no one can feel safe. Deathmaster Snikch has appeared all over the Old World at one time or another, seldom being seen but always leaving his distinctive symbol traced in blood beside the decapitated heads of his victims.

From:
http://oz.games-workshop.com/games/warhammer/skaven/gaming/specialcharacters/deathmastersnikch.htm

Agent Name: Deathmaster Snikch, Chief Assassin
Agent Type: Assassin
Starting Location: Skavenblight
Base Skill: 4

Ancillaries:
Cloak of Shadows (This is woven from the hair of murdered foes, and casts shadows of darkness around its wearer. +3 subterfuge)
Weeping Blades (These weapons weep corrosive venom than can burn through armour and slay with the merest touch. Improved assassinations)

Traits:
Chief Assassin (can assassins recieve titles?)
Clan Eshin (Only important if bloodlines/clans are made part of the game)
Scout (+10% Campaign Map movement, +2 line of sight)
Dodge (Deathmaster Snikch is preternaturally quick and agile to the point where he can pluck speeding arrows out of the air. Whether this speed is due to his extraordinary training or some controlled mutation is unknown. +1 subterfuge)

Grey Seer Thanquol could be used either as a general or an agent. Here he is in agent form:

Agent Name: Grey Seer Thanquol
Agent Type: Diplomat / Priest (Depending on how priests turn out)
Starting Location: Skavenblight
Base Skill: 3

Ancillaries:
Boneripper (Animated by Clan Skryre's dark sorcery, Boneripper has been reborn as a mindless, warpstone-powered killing machine, ready to obey Thanquol's order. +2 personal protection)

Traits:
Clan Skryre
Grey Seer (+1 skill points)
Paranoia (His ruthlessness and cunning are only matched by his paranoia, characteristics that are very useful for a successful career among Skaven. +1 skill points)


There is also a Skaven name generator, it could prove quite useful: http://uk.games-workshop.com/skaven/name-generator/1/

Some examples:
Pustess Puss, Compic Stain, Abscislik the Infected, Vomic the Infested, Sciad of Black Chasm, Blice of Darkness, Altake the Corrupted, Wizardtek the Crisp, Ratstone, Chargevolt the Insane, Warpemage of Skavenblight, Thriform, Modinrot, Transle of the Under-Empire. Scalpiform of Hell Pit, Obscikch.

[Bwian]

That name generator does throw out some beauties!

[uanime5]

The name generator will be useful for making the list of names for the Skaven, Ogres, and Lizardmen.

Regarding 'Deathmaster Snikch', it's possible to make an agent like this at the start of the game. I's also possible to change the name of the agent eg an 'Orc Priest' would be an 'Orc Shaman', though on the recruit scroll they will always be called a 'priest'.

[Jargon]

Great, more name generators! A pity they dont have them for every race.

I think the general consenus at the moment is against priests for the game. If the skaven character Grey Seer Thanquol is not used as a military general, I would place him as a diplomat due to the Warhammer site saying:

[QUOTE]"Thanquol's main field of expertise is humans, which of all the races in the Old World, he finds most interesting and easiest to corrupt. His schemes and the full-scale assaults he has led against the nations of the Old World have caused much death and destruction."[/QUOTE

That seems like perfect diplomat material to me, in a Skaven sort of way. He could be the sole starting diplomat in Skavenblight.

Skaven Agent Buildings

Skryre Warren: Diplomats
Eshin Gutter Hole: Assassins
Moulder Slave Pit: Merchants
Either a Eshin or Skyrye building for Spys, probably another Eshin building.

It seems to me that there will be a problem with protraits (if you are not using any pictures from outside this forum). Besides using the talents of an actual artist, I think one possiblity is to take photos of actual painted minitures (like they did for Civ 4 Warhammer) which requires someone with a lot of models and dedication. The other is to take close up screenshots of the actual in-game characters and units, although the variety of portraits here are limited.

[Dogman55]

While arguments can be made for all factions, I believe Lizardmen should not get Diplomats. Not only for the fact do I believe they speak a totally different language, the Lizardmen aren't necessarily enemies to everyone, but they can be safely put into the category of being friendly with no one. The only race even closely related, the elves (WHo were raised by the Lizardmen) recently lost favor because of Dark Elf raids to the temple cities (The Lizardmen don't discriminate from the 3 elf 'species'?

As to spies an assassins, you can make them as followed:

Building: Chameleon Spawning Pool: The chameleon skinks have long been famed for their ability to get close to their prey without the slightest notice. There blowpipes are silent killing weapons for their unfortunate target.

Chameleon Hunter: Assassin
Chameleon Gatherer: Spy

The priests can be classified as Skink Prophets, if religion is factored into the Lizardmen Race. If possible, having these different levels of temples can also factor into characters gaining traits/anciliaries of the old ones I put into the Traits/anciliaries thread.

Building:
Sanctuary
Shrine
----
----
Pantheon