Faction thread 6: Empire

[Bwian]

Krazysigmarite .... this one is for you :clown:

[Eufarius]

YES! the Empire has its own thread



woo hooo!!!!:yes:

[Krazysigmarite]

First I'd like to say, THANK YOU to Bwain for giving us imperials a thread to discuss our magnificent Empire.

Okay, here's a subject that I've been wanting to bring up for a bit of time.
How do we incorporate the imperial city-states and provinces into WTW?

My idea is this: The Empire will have its standard army, but each imperial province will have a unit that can ONLY be recruited there, which will wear the colours of the state.

FOR Example:
MIDDENHEIM(In Middenland) - Knights of the White Wolf
HOCHLAND - Hochland Long-Rifles
STIRLAND - Stirland Patrol
NULN - Helblaster Volley Gun and Helstorm Rocket Battery
OSTERMARK - Ostermark Halberdiers


These are just suggestions - I'd love if other empire players threw in their ideas for province-specific units! I feel this would be the best way to incorporate all the provinces of the Empire without bogging the Empire down with too many units - and still give a great feel to the armies with that 'exotic' unit.

[uanime5]

What will happen when the Empire conquers provinces held by other factions; will the Empire be able to recruit special units there, or just standard units? If they can only recruit standard units then as the Empire grows it will be difficult to move the exotic units to distant lands.

It is possible to limit certain units to certain areas as the Long Road mod has a building that recruits different mercenaries in different areas. If the Empire has to hold specific provinces then perhaps each of these provinces should let the Empire recruit different units.

[McIwoo]

some ideas:

Averland
The Order of the Black Bear
Mountainguard (Bergjaege) excellent archers
Halflings bands
Hochland
Hochland long-rifles
Rangers
Middenland
Carroburg greatswords
Nordland
Nordland mariners
Imperial navy great cannons
Ostermark
Improved peasants?
Halberdiers
Ostland
Ogres mercenaries
Rangers
Reikland
Reiksguard
Handgunners
Halberdiers
Stirland
The Order of the Sacred Scythe (The Order of the Raven Knights?)
Stirland river patrol (Crossbow or Swordsman?)
Halflings bands
Talabecland
?
Wissenland
?
City State of Altdorf
The Knights Griffon
Reiksguard
City State of Middenheim
Knights of the White Wolf
City State of Nuln
The Knights Griffon
Artillery (Helblaster, Helstorm or great cannon)
City State of Talabheim
The Order of the Blazing Sun
The Knights Panther


On another note, are the witch hunter, war priests and flagellants programmed for the empire?

[Jubee]

On another note, are the witch hunter, war priests and flagellants programmed for the empire?

Flagellants could be recruited from church like norse clerics or whatever they are.

[DrZoidberg]

I think they should be able to recruit Stirland patrol for instance anywhere as long as the have the required building. Even if we limit where they can recruit them there's still no limit where the player wishes to walk away with them to which defeats the whole point of having city specific troops.

I think we should treat it just as a fun flavour thing and not take it so seriously. We won't be able to implement all the intricacies of every WH aspect anyway.

This said, there's no problem with limiting where guilds can be placed, White wolf guild in Middenheim for instance.

[McIwoo]

the problem with using guilds for that is that as far as I know there is only one guild allowed per settlement. In the case of the Knights of the White Wolf (and some other knights) why not using religious buildings?

Temple of Morr
The Order of the Sacred Scythe (might not be accurate though)

Temple of Sigmar
The Knights Griffon

Temple of Ulric
Knights of the White Wolf

[Casuir]

I think they should be able to recruit Stirland patrol for instance anywhere as long as the have the required building. Even if we limit where they can recruit them there's still no limit where the player wishes to walk away with them to which defeats the whole point of having city specific troops.

And allowing them to be recruited anywhere doesn't?

[Krazysigmarite]

They aren't garrisons who sit around inside the province. Their entire purpose is to represent the other provinces of the Empire while adding interesting twists to the player's army, so traveling away from the home province shouldn't matter.

[Dogman55]

Maybe its just my opinion, but special units should be limited to about 5-6 per faction. As well, someone meioned before needing to march around exotic unit because of a large empire, I think thats the way it should be, because it makes them more valuable on the fronteir.

[Bwian]

I would assume any unit of a special nature, be it a Bone Giant or a Slayer would not spring up in a recently conquered province, but would come from well established settlements. They are going to be a precious resource that should NOT be available for every battle, but should be hard to build, expensive to maintain, and something you would recruit for a specific campaign or invasion. If this wasn't the case, you would end up with players fielding armies made up only of special units, and the core units would be relegated to garrison troops.

That's not in the spirit of the tabletop game, and something we need to take care of.

If you could only recruit slayers in a specific territory, there would be good reason to defend it when playing Dwarf... and a good reason to storm and burn it if you were on the other side!

You could have a building 'Dwarf Temple' that would give certain units...say good standard melee troops... when built anywhere. When linked to special resource 'troll slayer' it also builds troll slayers. The special resources are placed in the map regions. This way, you get a generic building that provides certain units when built anywhere, and very special units when built in special places. Gives us maximum flexibility on the build tree without using special buildings for everything.

[McIwoo]

You could have a building 'Dwarf Temple' that would give certain units...say good standard melee troops... when built anywhere. When linked to special resource 'troll slayer' it also builds troll slayers. The special resources are placed in the map regions. This way, you get a generic building that provides certain units when built anywhere, and very special units when built in special places. Gives us maximum flexibility on the build tree without using special buildings for everything.

This sounds like a good compromise indeed. I believe the RTW mod the fourth age: http://www.thefourthage.org/ has something like that. It also takes into account the historical affinity of factions, for instance it is highly unlikely that orcs could be able to recruit dwarf slayers and so on...

[uanime5]

If you could only recruit slayers in a specific territory, there would be good reason to defend it when playing Dwarf... and a good reason to storm and burn it if you were on the other side!

You could have a building 'Dwarf Temple' that would give certain units...say good standard melee troops... when built anywhere. When linked to special resource 'troll slayer' it also builds troll slayers. The special resources are placed in the map regions. This way, you get a generic building that provides certain units when built anywhere, and very special units when built in special places. Gives us maximum flexibility on the build tree without using special buildings for everything.

This sounds like a good solution to our unit recruitment problem. We should have a thread discussing this further (such as which regions will provide what benefits to which factions). We could also add resources to the map to indicate which areas will allow special units to be built (in the same way that RTW had elephant symbols to show that elephant units could be recruited).

[Bwian]

Stopping a faction from building special units when they conquer a city is easy ... the special unit is simply not available to the faction. The Empire can only build Empire units.

Special resources can be shown on the map, or they can be hidden. This might be better for building special units... or you could have a picture of a special building on the map to indicate the 'resource' ... like a resource called 'Temple of Morr' with a little tiny temple icon on the map.

[McIwoo]

I think it should be possible for factions to train/hire friendly factions units (to a certain extend at least). This is what's been done in the fourth age or even in EB https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73928

In warhammer you could have some dwarf/kislevites/bretonians/... units in a empire army (there are dwarf living in imperial cities. Same goes for other factions.

For the special regional based resources it's a good idea. Just keep in mind that there are temples of Morr in every imperial towns. This could be better suited for the Imperial Gunnery School or School of Engineers in Nuln. Such one of a kind buildings/resources/...

This might be better left for release number 2 though.

[Bwian]

Some units will be available as mercenaries, but I can't see large numbers of Dwarves servince anywhere else but in their own armies.

Dogs of War will be available for purchase, but they will be limited to the sorts of riff-raff likely to be working as a sword-for-hire!

[McIwoo]

yes Bwian, I agree, having them as mercs would be a good compromise, at least in a first time. I think in m2tw you can retrain your mercs units. That's why I left the "train/hire" ambiguity.

[Enthes]

hmm i was wondering are you doing the whole empire as a single faction or splitting it up into smaller factions?

i personally would love to see middenland as a faction because it has lots of different units from the storm of chaos book

I was also wondering what is the empires general unit will it be greatswords or a knightly order?

[Bwian]

The Empire is planned as a single faction. IT does have some troop variety, and could be split up... but in terms of how it would be played, I think a single faction is more fitting.

Otherwise, you are effectively designing in an Empire break up and civil-war. Not something I really see as being desirable in terms of how the Warhammer world should work. I don;t see any way of ensuring a permanent alliance or vassel state kind of setup that would be sufficiently workable to feel right.

[Enthes]

actually there have been several civil wars throughout the empires history. Although the main reason to create them would be territory. The empire has the largest portion of land compared to anyone, it would be better if they were split up to stop them having a huge advantage over other factions.

btw in kingdoms the crusader campaign has set diplomacy maybe you could set it so that they wont declare war (unless the player does it) also you might be able to get it so that its Order vs Chaos

[Jubal_Barca]

actually there have been several civil wars throughout the empires history. Although the main reason to create them would be territory. The empire has the largest portion of land compared to anyone, it would be better if they were split up to stop them having a huge advantage over other factions.

btw in kingdoms the crusader campaign has set diplomacy maybe you could set it so that they wont declare war (unless the player does it) also you might be able to get it so that its Order vs Chaos
Anyone except CDwarfs, Lizardmen, Orcs, Chaos, Araby or TK...

[Enthes]

Anyone except CDwarfs, Lizardmen, Orcs, Chaos, Araby or TK...

Lizardmen have most of there land abandened and Orcs or Chaos land is divided and fights amonghst itsself. though im not sure how you are doing the campaign so i may be wrong :clown:

[Bwian]

There is not necessarily any advantage in a wargame of having the largest territory. Yes..you can raise a larger army... but if you are surrounded by hostile and aggressive enemies, you also have to defend the largest border.

The Empire would play out pretty much as a faction to be nibbled away at by all it's foes, and would be quite trickey to ensure that you had goiven enough thought to what happens at home when you start trying to amass a single army to go conquering.

[overkill1991]

Yeah, the Empire may have a lot of territory but it has a lot of enemies.

To name a few :

Orc Waaagh's attack the Empire frequently

Chaos Warhosts invade the Empire once in a while

Chaos warbands roam across the empire's borders

The forrests are being inhabited by herds of Beastmen

The Empire is also attacked from within, it has several chaos cults

There are Skaven living under cities of the Empire that can attack the Empire whenever they want

[Silly Knicket]

Their position seems pretty similar as the HRE position in vanilla MTW2, and fighting war at several fronts at the same time is not an enviable situation.
The idea with certain units only being recruitable locally is a great idea, and it works out really well in other mods. It's easily codable aswell.

[Enthes]

hmm thinking about it you are right they will probberbly play much like the romens in BI constantly under attack and never time to amass a real attack force. least it will be a challenge :2thumbsup:

[Ciaran]

The Empire is planned as a single faction. IT does have some troop variety, and could be split up... but in terms of how it would be played, I think a single faction is more fitting.

Otherwise, you are effectively designing in an Empire break up and civil-war. Not something I really see as being desirable in terms of how the Warhammer world should work. I don;t see any way of ensuring a permanent alliance or vassel state kind of setup that would be sufficiently workable to feel right.

Indeed. What might have been nice would be something like the RTW Senate system (the factions are initially united, but at some point one of them might make a grap for the supreme power and the others might either join together to fight the ursurper or make their own attempts, both of it could happen in RTW, or so I´ve ben told - I never experienced the former)) but that´s not possible in M2TW. So a unified Empire works best, I think.

[A Norseman]

A question: Do you need any voice actors for the empire at all? You can use the HRE ones, they always refer to "the empire" anyway.

[uanime5]

The HRE faction also refers to the Kaiser and the Reich (especially on the diplomocatic screen). So it may need replacing.

[A Norseman]

The kaiser is emperor in german, And The empire have a emperor. The reich is another description of the Empire as a country

[Revan-Shan]

-I've noticed that imperial lancers have been created. Even them having long lances I think it would be a good idea to make pikemen: the same units but without the shield (the pikemen don't appear in the table game but they do in the pictures and stuff, they appear in the intro video I made). Another thing that could be done is making the unit use the lance with two hands and take the shield as one of the armour upgrades, that way they could act as pikemen but with shields. It might be little more difficult but the product of that work would be amazing.

[alexader]

i have an idea for different units for the empire.firstly about the outriders,we can have them as an upgrade for the normal pistoliers with better skills and armour.and we can have pikemen,except the normal spearmen.lastly what do you think about the steam tank(is this possible)?:egypt:

[Enthes]

personally i would like it if you stuck with the fluff and only had the units for the armies which are in their army books. the pikemen could be made for mercenaries though.

[alexader]

ok Enthes,if you going that way, i will explain you,the empire have pikemen,just look more carefully in the paintings in the army books,you will notice that have pikemen,you have been confused because will call those imperial pikes <<half pikes>> it's the same thing,it is not spear,and not only tilea has pikes,the miniatures hold their pike with to hands(two handed weapon rule),and if you want more understanding,the shields that you have noticed upon the pikemen imperial model(i am talking about the miniatures)have no effect.if you want to use the shield in the combat face to gain more armour save,you have to use the swords to fight instead for the pike(or half pike if you like).how much simpler must be it.the empire regular unit except from the halberdiers is the pikemen(or the half pikemen)not the spearmen.i think i have explained you.

[Revan-Shan]

The Empire has arcabusiers, ok that's one unit which is used by the Imperial army. But in a typical warhammer skirmish the empire uses armoured arcabusiers, visually: warriors from the renaisance that have the M2TW european pistoler armour. NOTE, they may have pistoler appearance but they use an harquebus. And just to remind you, no renaisance pistols for this mod. Watch my intro or the Mark of Chaos Teaser to see the arcabusier I talk about.

[alexader]

yes i know about the video,but be careful. handgunners in warhammers are just soldiers with gunpowder weapons,be it arcebus or musketeers,they still can have armour upgrades.they call them like that just for short.and they don't use the handgun that is in M2TW.i think that they use a common arcebuse.so i don't think would be worth to include that name.simple handgunners is good enough(my opinion):egypt:

[alexader]

i think that a different unit with gunpowder weapon,would be good to inlude a unit of militia armed with blunderbrushes(common handguns of the vanillia
M2TW).because in the miniatures are too many militiamen armed with blunderbrushes.and i find it an intersted idea.:book:

[Jubal_Barca]

i think that a different unit with gunpowder weapon,would be good to inlude a unit of militia armed with blunderbrushes(common handguns of the vanillia
M2TW).because in the miniatures are too many militiamen armed with blunderbrushes.and i find it an intersted idea.:book:

Just to note, blunderBUSSES. I got this awesome picture of a large cannon firing flaming besom brooms and mops into massed orcish ranks... :laugh4:

[alexader]

ohh yes sorry,thank you for correcting me

[Krazysigmarite]

Empire handgunners don't wear armour, they rely on poofy hats and clothing to catch arrows and swords. Their weapons are probably closest to the early modern Arquebus (Or handgun, in English!).

I tend to agree with Alexader on the idea of adding fluff-units, partly because I LOVE the idea of a unit of free company fighters armed with crude blunderbuss carbines! :laugh4:

Empire Spearmen don't use typical spears, their weapons are half-pikes, which are significantly longer than standard thrusting spears. The new 7th edition models especially show this. Pikemen formations are most commonly found in Tilea, and are often hired out as mercenaries, so they would work best in that sense.

[alexader]

yeah,the militiamen will work great for suiside units,but i don't find it will worth to hire merceneries pikemen all the time.but if you want it like that,ok i will agree.keep up the good work.:egypt:

[tito]

witch hunter and zelots units for empire?

[alexader]

the zelots ae called flaggelants and i tnink that krazysigmarite will include them(it's no so difficult units,just a couple of additions).now witch hunters are characters and therefore i don't believe that bwian can include too much characters(maybe they can be like traits for general)or they can be represented in the free companies with long cloaks and torches.i think krazysgimarite will explain you better.

[overkill1991]

How about making witch hunters instead of those guys that hunt heretics, inquisitors or something ?

[Enthes]

whitch hunters are single people who hunt "whitches" not units voltan had an army of flagellents army is what WHTW is about :yes:

[tito]

what about sigmar priest?

[Enthes]

what about sigmar priest?

they would be good leaders of flagellant units i think

[Krazysigmarite]

Alletun built an awesome Warrior priest of Sigmar. Hopefully that'll be used as an officer.

[Alletun]

Yup it can be used. Just need to finish it up.

[A Norseman]

When you are done with it. Put it on screentread, it has been dead for too long.

[tito]

which knightly order for the empire?
The Order of the Blazing Sun - The Order of the Black Bear - The Knights Griffon
The Knights Panther - The Hunters of Sigmar - The Grand Order of the Reiksguard
The Templars of the Everlasting Light - The Order of the Broken Sword
The Order of the Sacred Scythe - The Knights of Sigmar's Blood - The Knights of Morr
The Order of the Gold Lion - The Knights Encarmine - The Order of the Hammers of Sigmar ?

[Enthes]

i think they should use the main ones but variety cant hurt :2thumbsup:

[Jubal_Barca]

which knightly order for the empire?
The Order of the Blazing Sun - The Order of the Black Bear - The Knights Griffon
The Knights Panther - The Hunters of Sigmar - The Grand Order of the Reiksguard
The Templars of the Everlasting Light - The Order of the Broken Sword
The Order of the Sacred Scythe - The Knights of Sigmar's Blood - The Knights of Morr
The Order of the Gold Lion - The Knights Encarmine - The Order of the Hammers of Sigmar ?

White Wolves/Panthers are the largest and most poweful orders, followed by Blazing Suns, then the Griffons and Knights of Morr.

The Reiksguard is obviously very powerful, but is separate from my list above as it's a state controlled order not a religiously controlled one.

So for Empire Knights;

Panther
WWs
Blazing Suns
Reiksguard

Are the only ones I'd inlcude.

[Caradrayan]

Witch Hunters and Warrior Priests should definitely be ancillaries.

On the Tabletop, Flagellants have no command, but a Warrior Priest to lead them would be cool.

I think Guilds for Regional Troops is a good idea. Maybe not for every region though.

White Wolf Knights, Hochland Long rifles, hellblaster volley guns would all be great regional troops.

How many units are you planning? I imagine this faction will have a pretty long list.

Spearmen, Halberdiers, swordsmen.

free company, flagellants

2, 3, 4, 5? orders of Knights?

crossbowmen, handgunnners, pistoliers, archers.

cannons, Mortars, hellblaster, rocket launcher

seems like more than the average, I suggest not too many types of knights, because they are identical on the tabletop and will be very similar in the mod.

[stommel]

The Empire is planned as a single faction. IT does have some troop variety, and could be split up... but in terms of how it would be played, I think a single faction is more fitting.

Otherwise, you are effectively designing in an Empire break up and civil-war. Not something I really see as being desirable in terms of how the Warhammer world should work. I don;t see any way of ensuring a permanent alliance or vassel state kind of setup that would be sufficiently workable to feel right.

you could hijack the catholic system and have one "papal faction" such as reikland which discourages the other states from fighting with each other. this "pope" would probably have to be more strict though. it depends whether modding it in is easier than modding it out.

[DrZoidberg]

you could hijack the catholic system and have one "papal faction" such as reikland which discourages the other states from fighting with each other. this "pope" would probably have to be more strict though. it depends whether modding it in is easier than modding it out.

This road has been travelled before. Check the religion thread out. It won't work. It's too hardcoded.

[Goncalou]

Caradrayan, like jubal barca i believe there should be 4 orders of knights and dr. zoidberg i have no idea what you're talking about.