Suggestion Box

[messenger]

I did read it and knew exactly what you were suggesting. Obviously I didn't make myself clear when I pointed out the side effect of public health - higher population growth so yeah, lots of mutant rat babies. That's going to give Skaven an advantage in both cash and getting more advanced units (if they plan such a thing) out the door quicker. Coupled with no disease outbreaks it is almost certainly too much of a strategic advantage.

While on the subject, how is population growth and technological advances planned in this mod? Will we see higher population cities already in existance or will we experience an emerging state? It doesn't really make sense to have emerging civs starting as small towns and building up, not considering how long some have been around. Then again, it probably won't be as much fun to skip this bit of TW or the mod may as well be played via the custom/quick game option. The campaign game is more than half the fun for me so I hope it's not the latter.

Is it possible to limit population growth and base advances on a timeline of events instead? Or maybe building dependancies can be changed so that rather than wall upgrades being dependant on population they are dependant on buildings x, y and z in the previous tech queue? Bleh, I dunno what's possible or when it is possible, what's doable, I'm just thinking out loud.

Can't you vary what causes buildings to become available, so in swarmy armies like Orcs and Skaven, it could take double the amount of population to get anywhere but they have high growth anyhow.
On the Skaven disease note, only Nurgle could be more resistant to disease...

[Revan-Shan]

-Technically there should be no technological advances, everything is already known.


-Perhaps make at a certain time the Empire and some other factions appear in the "warhammer america", that land ant the west.


-Not just make heroes stronger but with faster attack movements.

[messenger]

-Technically there should be no technological advances, everything is already known.


-Perhaps make at a certain time the Empire and some other factions appear in the "warhammer america", that land ant the west.


-Not just make heroes stronger but with faster attack movements.

Technically you just cancelled out points 1 and 2, if there is no Empire, they can't exist at all because if there is no technological advance and you want to Empire to appear, it won't happen.
Otherwise that means no blackpowder units, no Empire really.

I think it would be quite good to start off fairly near normal Warhammer times and make the years really long.

[Revan-Shan]

Technically you just cancelled out points 1 and 2, if there is no Empire, they can't exist at all because if there is no technological advance and you want to Empire to appear, it won't happen.
Otherwise that means no blackpowder units, no Empire really.

I think it would be quite good to start off fairly near normal Warhammer times and make the years really long.

I didn't meant to mean that. What I wanted to say is let them not discover more units. For example the Empire should start with steam tanks and canons of all type with no need to discover anything new.

[alexader]

yes,i think it's better to begin the game in what stage warhammer is today.if we have to discover everything from the start we lose the feeling of warhammer

[MangyElf]

yes,i think it's better to begin the game in what stage warhammer is today.if we have to discover everything from the start we lose the feeling of warhammer

It's a dilema. On the one hand an evolving WH world (as presented in a TW campaign) doesn't exist in the WH game.

On the other hand, the problem with starting off with everything prebuilt is unless they have something cool planned then the only campaign aspect is conquering territories. Boring. The strategic elements of 'base building' are part and parcel of this game so should not be ignored or it risks feeling bland.

If all you have to do is move armies around the map then how bored would you be after a game or two? Sure, we can fight on the battle map too but we can do that without a world map, just by starting a custom battle. I'd still play this mod, still look forward to it, but I doubt it'd hold my attention as long as it would with city building and unit development included, at least to some degree.

Besides, even with everything pre-built and static, it still will be a TW mod for WH, ie it won't ever feel exactly like WH unless they can prevent the Empire swarming across the Chaos Wastes, or whatever, just because that doesn't happen in WH. The opposite perhaps but Chaos hasn't taken over the Empire either. You think that won't happen in this mod, grabbing territories that go against the official WH canon? It happens in the vanilla game where it didn't historically cuz that's part and parcel of the game. If it doesn't then it'll definately be better served as a custom battle mod and not a campaign mod so no, we will lose some 'official' feel to it, by design.

For that reason, and because of preference, I have to disagree. It'd be better to build up a faction if the only other choice is being handed everything ready-made.

[Enthes]

yes,i think it's better to begin the game in what stage warhammer is today.if we have to discover everything from the start we lose the feeling of warhammer

i agree with this although only for the territories you start off with. it should take a long time to build units in newly captured territories this brings back all the excitements of city management as you need to have the right units in the right places.

[MangyElf]

i agree with this although only for the territories you start off with. it should take a long time to build units in newly captured territories this brings back all the excitements of city management as you need to have the right units in the right places.

That's a compromise but also has it's problems.

If you've got no choice on what to spend your cash (which is usually, infrastructure, 'research', build units or buy them) then it'd need some good balancing in the early game. With nothing but units to spend your money on your only options are offense or defence. Since you have access to every unit you will ever get with this proposal then it's like playing the end-game of a campaign, only with less territories. Those factions who start with more territories will be at an advantage as well, though a further compromise could be only allowing one or two cities to be fully built.

I'm not saying it couldn't work, just that it'd need to be well balanced. Still, I can't help but feel any move toward pre-building is going to add an element of blandness to the mod, at least to start with. Cheat in a game and you'll get the exact same effect because it amounts to basically the same thing.

[messenger]

I have to say, I would prefer it if most places had some upgrading still to do, otherwise it is pretty pointless having a campaign as it would essentially be a glorified custom battle.

[Faenaris]

Suggestion:

Do not overdo yourselves. While we all want to play the mod desperately (I'm gonna faint the day I see "Mod available!"), that doesn't mean you are our slaves. When you feel the need to slow down for a few weeks, take a break! Modding when you are "burned-out" isn't fun.

Now, don't take too long breaks! We don't want you running off on us, slav... erhm, modders! Yes, modders! That's it ...

*blinks before vanishing in the lurking shadows*

[messenger]

Suggestion:

Do not overdo yourselves. While we all want to play the mod desperately (I'm gonna faint the day I see "Mod available!"), that doesn't mean you are our slaves. When you feel the need to slow down for a few weeks, take a break! Modding when you are "burned-out" isn't fun.

Now, don't take too long breaks! We don't want you running off on us, slav... erhm, modders! Yes, modders! That's it ...

*blinks before vanishing in the lurking shadows*

Bwian seems wise enough to handle modding sensibly enough...

[Faenaris]

Bwian seems wise enough to handle modding sensibly enough...

I'm not doubting his sensibility nor the team's. But they have produced a lot of stuff already in quite a fast timeperiod. Just look at all the hours that went into creating the chariot animations. I was just saying that taking a break isn't considered heresy.

[Gnashfang]

I was just saying that taking a break isn't considered heresy.

Oh, I can change that.

[messenger]

I'm not doubting his sensibility nor the team's. But they have produced a lot of stuff already in quite a fast timeperiod. Just look at all the hours that went into creating the chariot animations. I was just saying that taking a break isn't considered heresy.

Well Bwian even posted he took a holiday from modding a couple of weeks or so again, so in theory he has a good idea of pacing himself.

I suggest making the Orcs and Goblins unit sizes quite different, perhaps with Orc units being only abit bigger than their Empire equivalent, with the Gobbos having a maximum unit size.

[Bwian]

My serious modding time is pretty much nil until after Christmas, but I still have time to think, plan and organise ... and these are tasks I can get out of the way.

Campaign wise, there needs to be axpansion and development of settlements. Without this, there is no variety to a campaign. How we do this is open to some debate, since I plan to have a mixture of 'faction dedicated' buildings and 'generic' buildings.

The construction conditionals will require both for certain units, and will vary according to race. Here's a few examples:

Tomb Kings.
Require a 'pyramid' for basic recruitment. This is a core type building, and will be something only that faction has. If they took over a sttlement, they could not build any units until they had one.

Once they have that, they can produce militia type units.

To make warriors, they would also need a metalworking building. IF the settlement they took hado ne, then as soon as they build there 'base' they have warriors available too. Same would apply for archers. A fletcher building would allow archers.

Certain key units will be more restricted, since they are more 'exotic'. These will be tied to hidden resources to ensure they are a tactical special, not a common unit. I do NOT want armies of Bone Giants all across the map. They are rare and precious objects.

Cavalry for this faction will require a cavalry building, not because of the actual units...they still need to come form the basic troop recruitment building, but more from the tack and gear side of things.

The build trees will not be overly complex this way, but will be 'jigsaws' that allow some re-use of a buildig, but not all.

If the Empire re-took the settlement after the Tomb Kings changed it, they would have to destroy the Pyramid to build their own 'core' building. Not sure if this would be a Temple to Sigmar, or just an Imperial Barracks... but that again would throw out the 'basic warrior' with the other units needed to make them special units. A higer level 'metalworking' building ( swordsmithy) would be needed for Great Swords for example, but a basic one would give you spearmen.

The remainder of the buildings will be about generation of wealth to support troops, and to fund further expansion of the settlement. Growth and development has to be a tactical option, weighed against your ability to recruit and train troops to hold what you have taken.

[fireblade]

maybe you could give some settlements some sort of specialisation, such as, in Nuln, most of the artillery buildings are already built, while at Altdorf, none of them exist. This will make sure every major city has a strategic importance, and thus should be defended well. Just an idea.

Fireblade

[messenger]

Generic buildings would include things like Taverns/Inns right?
I am sure even Necromancer's have to take a night off and drink a couple of pints of minced virgin or essence of beetles or whatever the hell they drink.

[Revan-Shan]

I've just had an idea for the mod.

What if, apart from the historical and custom battles, the mod had a special type of game: Inside Building Kirmish.

This would let you play with a little number of units but in cool places. Imagine:

A tavern where two groups of dwarves get drunk and fight each other.

It would look like a rol game, you could use heroes without guard (if they are created) and perhaps smaller number of soldiers per squad.
The outside of the building would be black and nobody could get out of the place.



This skirmish type of battle is sometimes given whith the White Dwarf, the Warhammer magazine.

There's even a whole book dedicated to warhammer skirmishes.

[messenger]

1: Total War is about massive battles. 2: Even on the smallest battle size you can't have 1 man units or the game crashes.
3: Can't say I like the idea anyway.

[Silaris]

I expect you know this already, but I might as well suggest it on the vague chance that you don't. Total War requires alot of neutral, or rather, rebel villages and towns to conquer at the beginning of the game. This allows expansion early on, and keeps you growing at a slower pace so you don't gain hold of the strongest units from the start (which is only a good thing in my mind).

Warhammer lends wonderfully to 'rebels' at the start, since the world is flexible enough on the tabletop to allow the same faction to fight each other. And since we rarely ever hear of such minor rebellions, or disputes, we can legitimately allow rebels by each of the lands. Empire, Brettonians, Chaos, Skaven, and Orcs can easily have numerous rebel states beside them or within the territories shown on the tabletop maps. Even High Elves and Dark Elves could have that.

So my suggestion is to have a good deal of rebels for you to conquer, especially in places that I mentioned. It would slow down the pace of the game, which people have already discussed, make it feel more like Total War, and lets you get to grips with conquering without having to be forced to start a conflict at the beginning with another faction.


But I'm sure you all thought that already.

[messenger]

The Rebels idea has kinda already been thought of, not so much in the Empire though but say for instance the Chaos factions will be knocking the snot out of each other as all but your race of Norse is rebel.

[Silly Knicket]

Even the Empire could be part rebel, making the player uniting the different counts and princes under his banner, before turning his attention towards the other factions.

[messenger]

Even the Empire could be part rebel, making the player uniting the different counts and princes under his banner, before turning his attention towards the other factions.

I am pretty sure only Sylvania had Counts crazy enough to go to war with the Empire.
Not to mention the whole point of the Empire is that it is meant to stand as one, against all the foes that your pretty sure to be attacked by pretty quickly into the game.

[Revan-Shan]

Marienburg is independent but it was before part of the Empire. That city and Mordheim are the only imperial rebel cities.

[messenger]

Marienburg is independent but it was before part of the Empire. That city and Mordheim are the only imperial rebel cities.

I am pretty sure I heard someone say on another topic that Mordhiem doesn't exist in the current Warhammer timeframe.

[fireblade]

It doesn't, it's ruins were completely destroyed by Magnus the Pious and his army after defeating the chaos incursion.

Under the reign of Karl Franz, the empire is a fairly stable realm, but nothing suggest the lords wouldn't rebel if they think they can get away with it. So maybe give a number of generals low loyalty, but that's it.

fireblade

[Enthes]

there will always be rebels and bandits in the empire the forest is full of them and the cities full of skaven so there is nothing to stop skaven and things taking a few settlements

[A Norseman]

Suggestion to overall campaign theme:

The one thing I really dislike about the campaign map of medieval: Total war 2. Is that Once you have gotten out of the internal stages, acquired some elite units and have a stable economy, it is really no challenge left, no enemy worthy to challenge you or threaten you in any way. From that point on, the game is all about invading smaller, weaker factions, witch can be fun, but lacks the thrill of fighting for your life.

The games have gotten more and more like this, From Medieval, where the campaign map AI where excellent. I remember well the campaign I had with the Danish, where I took all lands east of Denmark, (Russia, turkey, holy lands, Egypt, parts of HRE, Poland ect) But while I did this in the east, England took all of western Europe. There was 2 equal factions left on the campaign map! Boy what a campaign that was, and the best part was, I actually lost! I have never lost before of after. I was defeated when I first had about 40 provinces, because I was not the only one expanding my empire on the map.

In Rome, this was not the case, the only faction worth playing against were the Egyptians and the Romans, but mostly, when you had taken a few provinces, gotten the armoured hoplites or legionaries or war elephants, you were completely out of danger. No one could hope to kill you. In Barbarian invasion, the campaign map was much better, because it offered a challenge. I first won with the eastern empire, witch played a lot like the Romans had done in ROME. But it was not until I played the Franks, I understood the genius of the map, I was constantly fighting for my life, I actually had to retreat from Europe to Britain to avoid being crushed, and then fight for my life to Stay in Britain, but after that, with the powerhouse witch is Britain in my back, taking France was relatively easy, and the campaign got much less exiting.

In Medieval II, things have gotten to an all time low. Remembering my exceptional campaign as Denmark in medieval, I took my first campaign as them on VH/H. However I was disappointed to see that when I was building up my empire, no England or any other faction was there to challenge me, the other factions in the campaign was roughly on the spot they began in. What a boring campaign, I won with ease.

The reason why I am saying this is because I hope that Warhammer total war will not be like this. Not make the mod such that when you have established yourself as an empire, the challenge of the game is basically over, only hundreds of siege battles remain, as no faction have any hope of invading your lands.

I Think the best goal to do this in the Warhammer world, is to make Chaos a bit overpowered.
Have it like this, if the Player does not interferes, Chaos will take over the entire new and old world. It fits well with the overall theme of the Warhammer World, AND. It makes for an exiting campaign from the beginning to the end.

The upset will be like this: First you start as High Elfs/The Empire/Dwarfs/Brettonia or Orcs/VC/Tomb Kings or Dark Elfs/Lizardmen You fight with your neighbours and carve yourself an empire. While you do this, Chaos is invading the Strong rebel stacks of Norsca. So when You as The dwarfs have taken all the surrounding Orc lands, you will start to see Empire town after Empire town falling to Chaos. You as a Player must stop Chaos and help the Empire before there is only you left!

[Enthes]

i completly agree norsmen though it would mean it would be boring to be chaos hopefully this mod will get it just right with sevral super factions emerging to beat it out at end game

[MangyElf]

A major consideration is individual playing style. You or I might play more, or less, aggressively than the next guy so why force people to alter personal playing style with an overly aggressive AI? The answer is that the playstyle this mod is most aimed at should be the main consideration. Maybe that's you, maybe it's me, maybe neither of us or perhaps both of us. Who knows. Point being that not everyone will like every mod to the same extent so to quote the old adage, one man's drink is another man's poison. Why try to make it anything but what it is so we get to decide if it fits our style or not. Sure, I realise it's only a suggestion but it has to keep this in mind too.

What can be considered 'neutrally' is that part of the problem is due to variety in AI tactics. It'd be pretty boring to have every AI-controlled faction act in the same way but there is also a problem in having them too varied. That is to say, a faction which conentrates on turtling and economy is not going to be all that agressive. Not so the player, who will want control over a larger empire and therefore will act more aggresively than most or even all AI factions. I can't really see how it can change so while it's all well and good suggesting Chaos is the aggressor in every game, that lasts right up until we choose to play as Chaos and then it's back to square one.

There have been attempts to correct AI behavior by modders but while much better than vanilla they still won't cope with the aggressive player that manages to establish an empire early on, perhaps in a good defensive position and couple maybe with good diplomacy to control the number of threats at any one time. It;s not that hard to determine who hates who, even keeping a bordering province alive so your ally stays focused on someone else. It does buy time.

There may well be one but I have still to see a modded AI that sufficiently makes use of sea attack either so anything on an island (you illustrate nicely by quoting England as an example) has an advantage too. The Stainless Steel mod I play does force the AI to attack by sea, with various factions attempting to take over islands/attack via sea travel or even invade England but never early enough or with enough force in my experience. An established town or castle can easily repel the invaders and invariably they seige you, even if they have several siege engines along for the ride. That means even if you were suprised you usually have enough time to go relieve a siege or if worst comes to worst, take back a settlement.

Here's an example of supposedly improved AI at work, in which I hope to show up that while it's way better than vanilla it also has flaws. Anyways, in my most recent campaign game, playing HRE, England is the richest faction. It doesn't control all of the British Isles because it made Scotland it's vassel so doesn't have to. When that happened Scotland stopped 'playing'. Scotland had just landed an army of sufficient size to gain a foothold in Scandinavia but the moment England diplomacied them into submission they just stood there for about 30 turns, ignoring the rebel settlement they were presumably about to attack (they've took it in all my previous campaigns so no reason to suspect they would not this time, except for the vassel status).

Meanwhile, France, after allying itself with non-catholic factions, took Caen from England. Despite having the second largest army next to mine and being consistently the richest faction around, England ignored them. It parked an army in Bruges (my province now it no longer had any continental provinces of it's own) and waited, content to remain at war with France. France itself trickle fed units to come stand next to Genoa (also my province), presumably with an aim toward grouping enough of them to attack me. I kept bribing the stacks of 2 or 3 units it kept sending, to stop them being in a strong position to attack me, but other than that I ignored them while I destroyed the Byzantines. As soon as I had accomplished that, Turkey (who were my allies) and Russia (allied with France) attacked me. A couple of turns later France decided to try it's luck, at last. That's when England jumped in, taking one French province but even though it had numerical advantage at Caen and did siege it, it stopped and went away. The moment France lost two provinces (I took Caen since England wouldn't) they were excommunicated. They were only on 3 dots with the pope anyway but after reducing them down to 3 provinces and even calling a crusade on one of their towns they are still excommunicated. I don't think that would happen in Vanilla, where they'd have been redeemed in the eyes of the pope by now I reckon or maybe not even excommunicated to start with because they lost provinces. Their only 'crime' was to attack me and maybe have non-catholic allies *shrug*

Point being that even improved AI could use some work, if it's possible. For example:

The actions of a faction that can well afford to lose a battle need to follow through for starters. England could have taken Caen easily but refrained after sieging for a turn, and for no apparent reason (France had 4 units inside Caen and 4 more arrived at turn 1 of the siege, 'forcing' England's stack of 15 units to break off). Similarly, Scotland could have gained a foothold in Scandinavia but stopped as soon as England made a vassel of them, almost as if they got the English AI, one that wasn't interested in Scandinavia. Then again, it could simply be that they lost any ideas of expansion at all since they did not reinforce English troops either, they just stayed home. Actually, with the exception of the army they took back home after a couple of dozen turns they stayed exactly where they were (I play with FOW off btw, since I realised after a dozen games that I hate rebel-attracting watchtower building).

The AI needs to get it's act together when planning to attack as well. France could have built up a stack in one of it's own provinces, leaving me guessing as to where it was headed, and then come for me. Sending a small stack to stand next to my town was a dead giveaway when we had no alliance and especially no military access. Sending in more small stacks one at a time couldn't have made it any clearer as to their intentions. By doing that I was easily able to bribe them and prevent them from building up a siege force. I could not easily done that on a larger stack but I didn't have to find out if it was possible when they made it too convenient to spread the bribery costs over several turns.

Use of sea travel needs to be done more extensively and logically, especially since water will seperate more factions in this mod (I'm betting it's covered or at least considered). The AI shows it's hand by first blockading a port and doesn't send sufficient troops to take out a well defended island. What troops it does load on a ship are often just that, on one ship. Pretty easy to sink if you have even a small navy yourself, made easier by their attack being flagged by a port blockade, which if nothing else is going to make you at least scrutinize any of their ships you see headed your way.

Now I dare say better AIs could exist, I haven't played every mod and the one in my example does have some quirks that the AI could be accounting for to make it that bit dumber than necessary but the points still stand since vanilla is even worse.

One thing that I will point out is that war isn't just hell, it costs money too. AFAIK this game doesn't have a war status depletion of resources, general tightening of belts or heavy taxes to simulate the 'reality' of the situation. Basically, the only expense is more units to expand and defend your empire with and that is a constant whether you are at war with no one through to everyone. Free garrison units plus the addded income of a new settlement makes keeping sufficient forces to work with relatively easy. Perhaps that needs looking at, although the plans to make certain units uncommon will likely help a lot in this regard. Thing is, it'll also put brakes on the AI too, who will also be under the same constraints. If nothing else then by the time an army reaches it's 2nd or 3rd attack it's quite likely to have units depleted so much that they are all but useless and can't be replaced except way back there, in uniqueunitsville. We players could very well be at an advantage because of this. If we auto test battles we place the precious units in back, making them less likely to take casualties where we outnumber the enemy. If we go to the battle map we can be more reserved in our use of said units, letting the cannon fodder take the brunt. Not always but I'm betting it's not possible to make the AI use this trick so score one for us.