Blue Lotus: Total War

edit:This thread is the original thread started in october moved from the modding forum. It has a lot of the background info and early development stuff up til 8th Jan after which point we moved to this sub forum:
http://hoggy.metw.net/other/BLlogo.jpg

Blue Lotus: Total War
BLTW is a mod I’m planning on doing for Rome Total War. Set in a fictitious land of three continents the Mythology of China and Japan blend in an epic campaign with absolutely no grounds in historical reality. In the center of the world lie the fickle drunken gods in their impassable mountains reigning disasters upon the hapless humans. Below them the forces of evil are stirring, demons and evil beast of every kind who’s only plan is to destroy the world. Facing them are two squabbling human kingdoms beset by infighting and feuds. Only Total War will decide the fate of the world! ~:)

Essentially a bit of fun, I’m hoping to do most of the art myself (slowly) but could do with a hand with modding the campaign later on if anyone fancies it. I’ll just post progress up here and if anyone has any ideas for unit types (with visual reference that would be much appreciated) post it here. I’m going to be drawing on Chinese and Japanese mythology, cinema, fiction and random imagination etc as a source so there is no real constraint. A lot of the ideas for the mod will obviously change according to the future moddability of RTW including number of factions etc.

Here are my initial thoughts on the army lists:

edit: see Army List Thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41921

I'm going to try, if I get time, to do little concepts of all the units to get an idea of what they'll look like. Here are some for the japanese infantry and demon infantry (smaller units)

edit:see Arm List here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41921

I have to say mate i hope this mod goes weel as im well lookin forward to kickin some demon ass with some shaolin monks or even just looking at some snow monkeys lol. kepp up the good work lad .


Buy haggis. Keep Scotland out of poverty.

Love the concept work. The snow monkey infantry is classic. What's the inspiration for the basket ronin lol?

This popular Japanese fox charactor (kitsune?) might be something to look at.
http://www.coyotes.org/kitsune/media/TheFoxDance.jpg

Will the three continents be caricatures of say china, japan, and korea?

Great idea for a mod. Need magic abilities for the demons.

Though I am not all that into fantasy..this mod looks good so far..keep us updated please.

This thread will be certainly one to watch. Your concept art is once again fantastic!

There is one thing that you should think about. At the moment it is impossible to make a campaign without the Senate. The game will crash when pressing the faction detail button. Here is a wild idea to use the Senate:

The Monks (I'm sure you can figure out a better name)
There are 2 warring factions, but the Monks are somewhat inbetween in the beginning. But they want the Japanese and Chinese to forget their issues and start fighting back the Demons to whatever Hellhole they came from. Rome could be transformed to be their religious capital.

Alternatively you could go for something like this:

The Senate from Hell (I have no creativity whatsoever)
The Demons came into the world via a gigantic gate to another dimension. This gate is Rome. The other factions must capture that gate (it's the hardcoded goal of the game). The Senate from Hell commands 1-3 demon factions to destroy mankind. But there is nothing to stop these demon factions to grab power for themselves and overthrow the Senate from Hell.


...hmmm yeah...

Great art, Hoggy! :grin:

The monk idea sounds good. I might put them on their own mountainous island.

sounds fantastic hoggy, i wish you the very best of luck.

If theres anything i can do to help let me know, i have some experience in modding but none in the way of graphics.

This might provide some inspiration http://www.wizards.com/magic/display...set=chk&page=1

finally after much head bashing got my first Blue Lotus unit model in game using Vercingetorix' fantastic tool:

edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy
Doing some work onthe campmap now, cheers for all the positive feedback.

Excellent work hoggy! It's coming along nicely.

wow nice artwork mr hog, i'm also a big fan of the premise, let me know if you need a hand with anything i'm fairly useless but more than willing to help anyways:) this mod looks like it has muchos potential.

Here are concepts of some of the 'heavier' Demon faction units in the armylist:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

and the basket warriors in game:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Those Basket Warriors are wicked!

Are you going to include the Chinese Vampire? The ones that have that paper ward pasted in front of they're faces.

http://www.morsure.net/geographie/images/chinese.jpg
But this guy has had the ward removed

Any Shinto or Buddhist Priests? I seem to recall they use red chopsticks to exorcise demons, carry staff chimes and have big bamboo hats.

Your imagination is just incredible! Very nice work, but I think the basket warriors forgot they had a very large basket on their head when trying to hide in the open :wink:

I fooled around with the effects for the use of fire-arms and at one point I had a rolling jet of smoke that grew larger and larger went over the unit and disappeared. It would be pretty easy to transform that into fireballs, lightning, jets of ice, you name it. The effect itself doesn't affect units, but you can make an "underlying" invisible/very small projectile that hits the enemy.

Man that is very nice and is a really nice change of pace from historical mods (which are great too) - fruther on in the development process, perhaps the land or sky textures would changed to create a better feel?

Of course more units ! :D Love the Asian style.

glad you like them, I'll look into the vampires and magic effects, both sound good. I've only got a Gforce2 at home and an old computer some some of the shots aren't as nice as I'd like. Here are the standard samurai swords and yari samurai:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

I don't suppose you've ever played Onimusha hoggy? If so, that would be a very good resource for idea's for the demon samurai type units.

Sterling effort hoggy, your work is amazing and your idea's look very interesting, it will be very enjoyable to go stomping around with demonic elephant troops and the undead samurai running around at their feet.

Truly looks amazing, good luck!

You can edit the army banners very easily. They are all in one image: Data\models\textures\standard_Faction.tga.dds

For whatever it is worth :shifty:

This mod looks amazing, I cant wait to see more of it.

A faction suggestion I have is perhaps a Mongol type somewhat barbaric faction based mainly on horses and horse archers espescially, but with limited and fairly weak infantry.

Infantry
spearmen
swordsmen
bowmen
Shaman (hero)

Cavalry
Light lancers
Heavy lancers
Heavy sword cavalry
Horse archers
Heavy horse archers
Great Khan (hero)

Special Units
Siberian Tigers
Heavy War Wagon - this could be some kind of huge wagon drawn by 6-8 horses, it would have archer holes and perhaps also have a few ballistae firing out. As well as having huge blades on the wheels to run through enemy formations. Of course there could only be a few of these in each group.

top idea Mango, I'll look into it. I'll probably need more than just the three factions, was thinking of possibly Indian/Tibettan also?
Cheers DJ for the banner tip, I wondered where they were. first pass on the evil and japanese faction banners:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Here are 2 more units, heavy 2 handed Naginata troops vs the 'dead samurai' :
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

nive hoggy i am waiting for a release

Looks absolutely amazing. Very imaginative and very original. As I promised before release of Rome, I'll help in doing what ever you like in text.

Cheers Tombom, at the moment I'm going to plod through getting a head-start on the graphics as it's a pretty huge job but I could definitely use your help when stuff is a bit more together.

edit here are some Rokurokubi (long necked demons) :
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

I think you might want to think of a special unit for the japenese - right now they look slightly boring. Maybe dragon chariots? (I'm unimaginitive ~D

hoggy, I have linked this thread over in a thread about what mods exist at the com. If you don't want it, I'll delete the post.

Wow!I'm amazed at the speed and quality of which you create new units :)
I'm not usually into asian warfare,especially not the fantasy one,but this looks good.

does RTW currently support huge units such as Wang Liang or the copper dragon, which probably has to have a new animation?

This is my new most anticipated mod now, it simply looks incredible! Keep up the good work

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hoggy

top idea Mango, I'll look into it. I'll probably need more than just the three factions, was thinking of possibly Indian/Tibettan also?

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How about a Korean Kingdom also? They could get really good War Wagons and chariots, and generally loads of really high-tech stuff, maybe that could be their theme.

The link is fine Tombom, the more the merrier although it'll be a while before this mod is out. The idea with the japanese and chinese factions was that they should be mostly human infantry and cavalry (with a few heroes and special good units) facing hordes of strange demonic armies rather than having too many mythological units themselves. (bit like lord of the rings)

Mango, for the larger (and smaller) units like the Wang Liang I'm hoping to find a solution to the scaling problem I was looking at in a different thread. Jerome and Vercingetorix both mentioned it should be possible, in theory, to scale existing skeletons although I've come to a bit of a dead end. If anyone with good text modding can solve this I'd be most grateful! There is an oliphant test in the existing text files but I can't seem to apply the scaling values to anything else. If anyone is up for testing this let me know I'll point you to the thread. Eventually I'm hoping we can create and export new animations and skeletons for the strange units but if not work arounds are possible ie. using the elephant skeleton for the dragons.

I'll look into the Korean units Silver Rusher, they sound excellent.

Those are some great units you've turned out there hoggy! Any chance I can help? I know how to edit models and edit skins. Still having problems with UV maps though. But if you post the skins and models that you've already done, me and other people can help you tweak them and such!

you need noface from sprited away, he should go up and eat people.
thanks,
dessa

Swordsman- Jian Sheng (Literally- Sword Saint)
just my one bit.

heres a site with a whole heap of japanese myth, there is sure to be monsters in the stories.
Japanese Myth
i thought that the mythology might give it a bit more mythal feeling
heres an idea for the Demon boat

Quote:

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Awabi
Japanese sea demons who live near Nanao. They eat fishermen when they drown and are the guardians of large seashells containing shining jewels.

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thanks,
dessa

I think you should have a "wizard" unit (druids maybe???) to decrease the demons attack, and enhance your own troops.

top ideas folks, keep em coming. here are some zombie ashigaru:

edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Wow, this is amazing.

Crazed Rabbit

here are some concepts for the 'Japanese' cavalry:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Awesome hoggy!

Just one note: Japanese bows are NOT held like regluar bows!

The Japanese bow (yumi) is a very very long bow (2 meters in some cases) made of bamboo. It is thin, none composite and has little recurve. it is not held in the middle of the bow. The archer holds it about 2/3 of the way down the bow, so that most of the bow is above his hand. This was so that he could shoot it from a horse. Later when foot archers came into use the same practice was kept.

Also, with the armor, I would love it if you kept it in the older style boxy yoroi type rather than the later Sengoku type... Most people think yoroi style when they think samurai.

Anyways, looking forward to those models, hope you can release them right after you're done so we can play around with them before the full mod comes out... they've started that practice on a lot of the other mods!

When can we expect the Chinese units to be shown?

Great work on the development? I'm definately going to keep an eye on this mod in anticipation of the final release.

The concept art is really nice. I'm glad you're taking your time to sketch out a fleshed-out idea on paper before trying to translate it into graphics. Based on the units that you've created so far, the end result is superb!

Anyways, I can help out if it comes down to plot, backstory, or event-writing. Just let me know.


P.S.

I think if you're doing additional human cultures, a Tibetan/Indian one would be a good choice. Very few strategy games have represented Indian units, and there's a whole slew of cultures in that subcontinent to draw on.

If you want to stay focused on Chinese mythology, though, you might want to consider using a Southeast-Asian culture for an additional faction. Ancient units from Vietnam, Burma, etc. would be interesting.

Cheers guys.
Marshal Murat: sounds good I might have some magic user demons or monks in the army. seeing the excellent work the guys at the Wheel of Time mod have done.

Turin: I think I may just be short of the 2/3rds in the concept but I did have a shot at depicting the yumi correctly ~:) The samurai cavalry and Heavy cavalry (and heavy infantry) will be in the older 'boxier' style. - I'll definitely release the models if possible after the mod comes out.

DemonArchangel: I'm just working on the models for the japanese and demon armies at the moment to get some battles going but I'll be concepting the chinese next when i get a chance. I'll use Jian Sheng for the chinese sword saint.

Japes: I'm hoping to keep adding new factions to Blue Lotus once the initial three are done so the more ideas the merrier. I'll be calling out for help when I start on the campaign proper so any help will be appreciated. At the moment I'm focussing on the units and campmap artwork though to get the bulk of that sorted first.

Thanks for the support - hoggy

the Centipede
A terrifying, man-eating monster the size of a mountain. It lived in the mountains of Japan near Lake Biwa. The dragon king of that particular lake asked the famous hero Hidesato to kill it for him. The hero slew it by shooting an arrow, dipped in his own saliva, into the brain of the monster. The dragon king rewarded Hidesato by giving him a rice-bag; a bag of rice which could not be emptied and it fed his family for centuries.

a japanese Hero: Hidesato

Ittan-momen
A mysterious being from Japanese myth that looks like a long white cloth. It frightens people by appearing suddenly in the night. The cloth is wrapped around the mouth and nose of the victim, suffocating him. The word momen means "cotton".

that could be a special demon unit.

Jikininki
In Japanese myth, jikininki are demons, corpse-eaters, who eat dead human bodies. These demons are often the spirits of dead men or women whose greed prevented their souls from entering a more peaceful existence after death. They continue a half-life by devouring corpses. A particular myth tells of a strong-willed priest called Muso Kokushi who once kept watch near the body of a deceased person. Suddenly a jikininki arrived to devour it, but the priest's prayers liberated the demon's soul.

Kamaitachi
A Japanese monster that looks like a weasel, although it moves so fast no one has ever gotten a good look. They usually assault a victim as a team, where the first knocks down the victim, the second slashes him with its teeth, and the third heals the wound. The word kama means "sickle" and itachi means "weasel".

Kijo
An ogre living in the Japanese woods.

Kintaro
A Japanese hero, whose name means "Golden Boy". He is the son of Princess Yaegiri. Kintaro lived alone in the woods where he talked to the animals. He was so strong he could bend trees like twigs. In one of his adventures he confronted a demon in the form of a gigantic poisonous spider. He uprooted a tree and used it to crush the monster. Later he joined the suite of the hero Raiko (Minamoto Yorimitsu and became a famous warrior himself, called Sakata Kintoki.

Kitsune-Tsuki
A fox spirit, or a demon who appears in the shape of a fox, in Japanese mythology. Kitsune-Tsuki ("Fox-Lunacy") is possession by such a spirit. It occurs mostly in women. The fox spirit enters through the fingernails or the breast.

Kompera
A Japanese god, probably based on the image of the Indian Kubera, the Lord of the Demons, Master of Magic. Kompera is often identified with the storm god Susanowo who sometimes aids people in mischief. He taught the secret of changing oneself into a dragon to the waitress Kiyo.

Konaki Jiji
A Japanese monster that can change its size and weight, often appearing as a baby lying at the side of a road. When a traveler passes by and picks up the baby, the monster returns to its original size, thus crushing the victim. Konaki Jiji means "old man crying like a baby".

that'll do for now, ill be back with more later.
thanks,
dessa

A Chinese legend is a old lady who raised a dragon, four foot, all on the ground, lizard like, unable to fly.

Samurai cavalry usually had lesser armor on them, to help free up movement. The box like style should be kept to foot soldiers, the smoother, lighter, streamlined armor kept to horsemen.

Also, I'm going to guess your familiar with the sohei.
Although this translation isn't perfect, they are warrior monks from I think Shinto Temples across Japan (those at Mt. Hiei, famous)
You should add them as druid like warriors, to chant incantations, and carry a box, said to hold the kami, a spirit.
And very good warriors.

Here are some medium japanese cavalry:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Awe inspiring...!

And the great thing is since they're all mythical, the fact that the little flags do not go with the armor style is fine! Personally I love the little flags and as I've said before I do like the old boxy style more, so what can be better than yoroi with sashimoto?! ~:cheers:

Anyways, since I'm new to 3Ds max, my results with samurai are much more limited. I'll post a screenie soon...

Jiang Shi=Chinese Vampire
Chinese Lich=Ku Lo
Also Monkey King is a MUST

Awesome work Hoggy! I hope you won't be offended by my suggestion, but I really think the horses would look better without those red rings around the neck, and the red around the mouth and ears.

Wow, the quality of these units are unbelievable.

Seriously, i dont believe this, these are as good as anything from CA, and were made so quickly!

Hoggy, You sir, are the MAN!

Wow Hoggy, I love your units. I can't wait for your mod to come out. I can't wait to see Chinese Units Roll out (Cuz I'm chinese =P). But its a really imaginative and creative world your making. Basically, Asia Fantasy TW. I'm definietly keeping an eye on this mod. Keep up the good work!

Hehe go Monkeyking!

Anyway, it looks fantastic. Could you make some kind of strategic map concept? Im rather curious what you are planning on that.

Unbelievably cool. Too bad the R:TW MP experience is in so much disarray...hopefully the patch will fix it so we can play this killer mod.

Absolutely incredible.

random question, who does the concept art? looks really nice imo.
and good job on the mod, this is the only one im waiting for =). hope to see the campaign map when its done =P

Here's the campmap plan. I've got this layout working in game but I need to sort out heightmaps etc properly. Hope to have Junks plying the seas and sea beasts for the demon 'ships'. The top island will have large inaccessible mountains in the middle where the Gods live (you don't interact with them they just live there) Each of the other two main continents will have mountainous spines too. I'm hoping to scale the world down a bit so it's all more central but at the moment it crashes whenever I try. Hope you like.
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy
and some heavy infantry:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

i really like the look of it mate.
i think this could go down as a "GREAT" Total War Mod
thanks,
dessa

Here are the concepts for the 'Chinese' Infantry units:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Nice mace infantry! Looks great.

(note: Get rid of the "g" on the end of the jian)

great work hoggy!
thanks for doing that :bow:

how many factions are planning to add in the end? i think, it would be a good solution to split the existing factions into clans or something. you could add perhaps a hero and a special unit for each clan, so you dont have to work the rest of your life for having an acceptable amount of factions(cuz i think, it would be really annoying to fight everytime against the same 3 enemies...)
well, but thats only my opinion and a try to help you...

if you ever need a tester, i'd be lucky to help. or if you need ideas or facts or anythng else...

@murat: sohei were buddhist monks, but they were carrying shinto shrines ;)

cheers
Sephriel

Indian factions could be based on the books like the Ramyana. Like a Monkey Kingdom(Ramayana) with diffrent monkey warriors, the monkey kind and Hanuman(maybe even Rama and Lakshmana). A kingdom based on Ravana(diffrent demon kingdom) from the Ramayana. And a human kingdom with lots of elephant based units and possibly chariots

boy! does this sound (and look) good, or what?!?!? can't wait for the release!

AWESOME
Dude, you are God. Metaphorically Speaking.

Those Shaolin Monks are gonna be wicked.

Here are the Ghost Geisha units from the army list. Not sure if I'll be able to keep the transparency as it's playing havoc with my pc.
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

im guna create a new religion called hoggyism

Fantastic imagination Hoggy - its great to see someone coming up with a mod idea that is not only not historically accurate, but even goes beyond any standard fiction script. From what I've seen so far the units all seem to have a definite unique cultural feel to them - keep up the good work.

Just two questions:
- Have you looked into modifying the building models for the battle map? Hope we see more of the same (and yet different) there in terms of the semi-mythic cultures involved. If possible the ground should be more rice fields rather than grain.
- Have you been able to make any progress in the skeleton animations so far? I haven't been able to do much here myself and judging by the word on the forum it doesn't look like anyone else has either. I ask because I assume we will see dragons at some stage and the closest we've got at the moment is elephants.

Ta

i had to register just to say how cool this mod looks. the tattered banner for the ghost geisha is a great detail too.
I don't know if this fits into what your doing but i remember all of those cool saturday afternoon karate movies had some wild ideas.
there was one movie called the flying gillateen (cant spell) where the guys throw this frisbee thing that would land on a guys head, a basket drops down then chops of the head of the guy and is pulled back by a rope to the thrower where the head drops out. A classic! Archer unit type perhaps.
There was also some guys that where immune to weapons unless they got hit in a certain spot then there armour skin was no more. Would this be a good hero unit or general trait like hard to kill? just like the light skill may increase movement points?
Look forward to seeing more, wish i was talented enough to help.

Those are way too cool! Will you be including mythic heroes as well as monsters and such? Maybe they could be rebels to simulate ronin status and must be bribed (since they're one unit strong they'd be cheaper than an army and more effective!) I'm thinking of characters like Momotaro the peach boy or Isun Boshi the one inch samurai. Not to be kitchy or whatever but maybe for the Chinese there could be drunken masters or real live dragons?

cant wait to try this too, you rock!

Clare

Cheers guys, glad you like it so far. still just scratching the surface of the work that needs doing but I'm not in any hurry.

Sephriel - Depending on time constraints (ie how knackered i am after building all the units for three factions) i may well resort to a number of colour variant clans of each faction type to add variety. I'm hoping to use the three as a base campaign and add new factions in future releases.

Al Khalifah - Hoping to do new oriental castles etc and work on the terrain in general adding cherry blossom trees etc. Also I'm going to scale down the trees and grass if i get time (is it just me or are they strangely large?). All depends how long everything takes really. The skeleton issue is one we're working through at the moment. I'm confident a solution will be found but if not then some culling of the army lists and some imaginitive use of existing technology will have to suffice (ie. elephant skeleton for dragon model).

Plantman - Top ideas for units not sure they're all feasable in the RTW engine. One constraint when thinking of these fictional units is that they have to work in full scale battles and with the fight mechanics of the engine. I've put a couple of heroes in each faction but still not sure if they will work. keep the ideas coming though, top stuff.

I'm hoping to have a number of mercenary units that can be used by any faction dependant on location on the map. Wandering Ronin and heroes and occasionally demon units.

Quote:

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Al Khalifah - Hoping to do new oriental castles etc and work on the terrain in general adding cherry blossom trees etc. Also I'm going to scale down the trees and grass if i get time (is it just me or are they strangely large?). All depends how long everything takes really.

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Oriental castles - most excellent. I'm picturing Shogun-esque Japanese castles and Hero-style Chinese castles. The Chinese structures should allow for some fairly epic architecture considering their massive size.
If you need any assistance in this area I'd be glad to offer a hand - since I'm sure your hands will already be busy with units and camp maps.

The trees are pretty large - but since this is China and Japan that might be a good thing in the forest regions. The grass though does seem a bit OTT - I think CA just wanted it to look good and force you to notice it like in every other game I've played with grass in (look we've got grass bits - LOOK! - oh we'll have to make them bigger.)

For a basic Japanese 'town-guard' type unit you could use the machi yakko (servants of the town). These were a vigilante police group that arose to enforce order and protect the community, especially outside the capital cities, from intruders during the Edo period. Normally just labourers and tough men - no swords.
A more advanced form might be the kabukimono (raving ones). They tended to dress in outrageous manners, having unusual haircuts and would use vulgar language, but these groups could grow to be seen as heroes for fighting against bandits and included Ronin due to their ability to carry swords. It's suggested their mercenary protection antics and behaviour are a precusror to the Yakuza.

very cool geisha ghost hoggy :bow: :bow: :bow:

when will be a realeased m8.

will you put things of the legend of the 5 rings ???

Very good work indeed, i gotta say it would be very interesting to play that module. Take your time there no rush, most fans and developers have moved too fast and not being able to test/check all the possiblies of bugs. And yes it take alot of work and time.

Looking forward to see your module release hoggy, keep up the good work! ~:cool:

-Viking

just had to register to say how great this mod is looking.

everytime i heard anyone mention a fantasy TW mod/game, it always sounded stupid to me, it always made me think of some corny LOTR knock off or something, but this is very unique and seems really cool. and your art work is really very good, coming from someone whos entire family is artists, not that that makes my opinoin better than nayone elses ~:)

i was wondering if your planning on doing audio for the units and music etc? sorry if thats already been mentioned. i work with a few audio editing programs as im a musician, and i could possibly help or "loan" you some programs if need be, just drop me a pm and let me know.

anyway just wanted to say that this mod looks very promising, and i cant wait to see it in action, keep up the good work.

here are the Hanya. I'm hoping to make these guys around 10ft tall and in smaller units (not currently possible):
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

Oh those ugly mean looking HYENAS, btw can they make hyena's sound?

:fainting:

This MOD looks excellent! Keep up the good work!

Your units look amazing, Hoggy!
The concept is very cool as well.
I enjoy the historical settings, but a bit of fantasy is great for a change.
I just hope limitations in campaign moddability and AI won't stop you from delivering what looks like the most promising mod ever(IMHO).
:bow:

I wasn't into the whole fantasy thing until I found this thread. Absolutely brilliant!!

Just an idea for another faction: Indonesia. They had some pretty uniqe unit types.
Just a thought, I don't know if you can use it but another idea would be little people. Most south east asian and pacific cultures have tiny "hobbit" like people in their mythology. Could be interesting but maybe too Tolkien?

Oh oh for the chinese, I have some ideas:
A heavy swordsmen unit
and a unit that you get for doing somthing but cant be build, Guan Yus cavalry or somthing with Guan Yu, who Cao Cao declared a God of War, so that would be a cool mytholegy unit.
Just my ideas mate, do with them as you please.