Faction Thread 1: Tomb Kings

These are the outline plans for this faction in terms of units. Please feel free to comment, suggest and generally say what you think! Anything obvious mising or anything not worth adding...just say why!

One caveat though ... give thought to HOW the unit could be made. I can't include things i the mod that stretch beyond the reach of the core engine, and this will put limitations on what is possible. I am assuming we will be able to ( ultimately ) scale skeletons and re-set animations at least as far as RTW could. I hope for more, but won't count chickens until they hatch !

1) Basic Warrior ( axe or bronze sword )

2) Warrior ( spear and shield )

3) Elite Warrior ( spear primary plus sword and shield )

4) Archer

5) Skeleton Light Horse ( basic warrior mounted )

6) Skeleton heavy horse ( Warrior mounted )

Each of the above would have an 'upgraded' variant with armour remnants attached

5) Tomb Guard

6) Ushabti

7) Bone Giants

8) Skull catapult

9) Tomb Swarm

General units will be made to represent the Tomb King or Hierophant. Loss of these should result in massive morale loss to represent the disolution of the force that the loss of these cause.

Problem units:
Chariots ( none in MTW2 that I can find )
Tomb Scorpion ( don't know how much skeleton bending we will be able to do )
Carrion - they are supposed to fly, and we can't do flying units properly. At best they will hover just off the ground. May look shoddy!

Pity about the chariots, as they're a big part of the Tomb Kings. I can't think of any in M2TW either. Other than that though, it all looks pretty damn good. Only extra I can think of are ballista type weapons. They aren't in Warhammer Fantasy, but the Tomb Kings had them in Warmaster, and it would be good to have a bolt thrower type weapon as well as a catapult. I think they were called Bone Throwers (good pun, no?), but I'm not entirely sure.

It would be easy enough to build a ballista decorated light the Skull Catapults. Use bones in the construction and decorate with skulls. Bone Thrower ... if they DIDN'T have one called that, they should have! Can you post any relevant details you have from the sourceworks to flesh ( sorry ) that out

From http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/WATomb.pdf

"Bone Thrower: As with the larger artillery pieces the undead build smaller bolt throwing machines and for the same reasons their chief material is bone. These machines are based upon those once used by the living armies of the Kings and long since crumbled to dust."

Basically, they are literally a bolt version of a Skull Catapult. Also made of bone, also fire bone, also crewed by skeletons. Act as a normal bolt thrower/ballista in every way. Don't think they'd be able to use fire ammo though, for the obvious reason that bones don't burn too well.

Thanks Bob.

I will add that to the list. I think it gives them quite a nicely rounded unit list with that there. The Bone Thrower would be a light siege weapon with mainly anti-personnel effects. The Skull Catapult would then sit more like a heavy catapult/ Trebuchet kind of effectiveness.

I am still trying to figure out if a chariot can be built based on what we have, or if there is some way to mock one up based on what we have. If scaling is achieved for skeletons, we could probably butcher the elephant skeleton and make something...only the wheels would not move. Use the legs for horse part, and make the mesh extend back to carry the crew. Wheel turning would be a problem though..... Much pondering needed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bwian

1) Basic Warrior ( axe or bronze sword )
2) Warrior ( spear and shield )
3) Elite Warrior ( spear primary plus sword and shield )

---

In M2TW most basic units have spears because they're easy to use, while the more advanced warriors have swords and axes, which require more training. Though if these are the weapons they have in Warhammer its probably best to stick with the original.

Also the castle barrack can have up to 6 levels, while the town barracks can have 5 so there is room to add more units, eg skeletal warrior and armoured skeletal warrior. Also which units are going to be trained in a city and which in a castle.

Quote:

---

4) Archer

---

The archery range can have up to 4 levels, so you can have more types archers. Also will they have any long range archers?

Quote:

---

5) Skeleton Light Horse ( basic warrior mounted )
6) Skeleton heavy horse ( Warrior mounted )

---

You can have up to 5 levels of stables so you can have more horses. If you're not going to have a lot of archers you may want to add cavalry archers.


Unless you are going to reduce the number of tech tree levels you will need more units (especially since Tomb Kings are meant to have verstile armies, since they only have expensive, weak units). For example in M2TW Egypt has 9 infantry units (including militia 3), 7 archery units (including 2 gunpowder and 1 militia), and 8 cavalry units (including 1 horse archer and 1 camel archer).

If these are the units that are prodiced in castles then will skeletal militia be produced in cities?


Also when I made skeletal units for my Mythology mod I removed any penalties associated with temperature (the dead do not care about heat) and edited the units so they would not route (the dead have no fear of death). Incorporating this may be a good idea.

Quote:

---

5) Tomb Guard

---

They seem to function like the general's bodyguard, so they could act like this (it's possible to have the general look different from his soldiers). Though neither they, nor the Tomb Kings are shown riding a horse.

Quote:

---

6) Ushabti
7) Bone Giants

---

Their size makes them difficult to create. Though smaller versions are possible.

Quote:

---

8) Skull catapult

---

Several factions in M2TW have catapults, such as Denmark, so this is no problem.

Quote:

---

9) Tomb Swarm

---

This unit's shape and movement makes it hard to create (it looks and moves like a puddle of insects).

Quote:

---

General units will be made to represent the Tomb King or Hierophant. Loss of these should result in massive morale loss to represent the disolution of the force that the loss of these cause.

---

Both the Hierophant, Tomb King, and Tomb Princes are good units for generals. However their relationships to each other makes it difficult to determine who should do what. Tomb Kings rule a Tomb King Faction, Tomb Princes are the sons, and Hierophants (High Liche Priests) are needed to maintain the armies.

If there were several Tomb King factions, each could be lead by their own Tomb King with the 1st Tomb Prince (to distinguish him from the other Tomb Princes) acting as the Faction Heir. The Hierophants could be a recruitable general unit that does not belong to the Tomb King's family.

Thess websites are good for reference.
http://uk.games-workshop.com/tombkin...ature-gallery/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Kings

In my opinion the tomb kings shouldn’t have much of a tech tree. After all, none of their warriors are ‘trained’ as such. There could be workshops for the production of siege engines, and basic buildings, basically ‘armouries’, which allow progressive sets on units. For example, with the first the worst units can be made, to represent low production capability, working up until you can make fine armour and weapons for units like Tomb Guard and Ushabti.

After all, it isn’t as if they’re advancing. They died millennia ago!

As for the chariot idea of stretching an elephant… That made me laugh. Funny image of a stretched elephant running about.

Well, AFAIK, Tombs Kings draft their troops from fallen soldiers who were supposed to be buried with their lords.

If that's so, getting more advanced units would be simulated by excavating more part of Tombs king's burial complexes.

They could start out with a simple Pyramid, and find (ie. build) whole burried dead-cities.


As for the list itself, I think you should stay as fluffy as possible and get ride of units that aren't in the TT game (either Warhammer or Warmaster).
Tomb Kings have blank Warriors and Mounted Warriors, I see no need to add basic, normal and elite warrior (furthermore, they'll get tomb guards and things like that).
I'd rather see them with only Mounted warriors, warriors with spears, warriors with swords/axes, and warriors with bows.

All these guys were former veteran and hardened warriors, and as such, they were "elite". I don't see any reason* some would be more elite than other now.

*other than gameplay-wise, but even so, I'd prefer trully different armies than all factions with "Light Spearmen, Spearmen, Heavy Spearmen" as their basic units.

And yeah, the lack of chariots is quite a shame. The tomb kings' ones are great.

In that case perhaps the Tomb Kings should be able to recruit all almost all units from the start but in very small numbers, the numbers of each unit allowed would increase as the settlement grew. Weapon / armour upgrades could be upgraded when the barracks is upgraded.

MTW2 is an upgraded version of the rome engine, I dont see why chariots shouldnt be possible in it, theres other stuff in there left over from rome that isnt used.

I'm going to do some experimenting on the chariots this weekend, and I will see what I can come up with and make function.

Happily for me, the discussion on unit lists here is giving me a whole load of ideas that are very useful.

Units like Ushabti and Bone Giants would require special barracks and would come at higher levels of expansion. They were artificial constructs, rather than risen dead.

I also think that having a broad range of units available at the outset, just in limited numbers could work quite well. I will make variations of weapon and dequipment, which would represent upgrading of units from armouries etc. but there is no 'tech tree' as such for the undead. The differentiation between stock and elite units would be more to do with what was hung on the bones than innate skill or ability. The combat strength of these units comes from the fact that they will fight ot the end every time.

The idea behind having 'grades' of units is really just to provide a development tree for the player, and to make sure that the AI doesn't just fill it's entire army with top grade units right off. They would have to expand like a vanilla faction and build barracks to develop better troops and build blacksmiths etc. to improve armour.

I like the idea of excavating more tomb space to find more troops. I will use this one way or another!

Tomb Swarms are easy to do! All you have to do is to attach the model to the root bone of a skeleton mesh, and it will move around the floor like a swarm of insects. When new animations become possible, you attach certain sections of the mesh to certain bones, and you make the swarm move about a bit more. It's very easy to do. I did something similar for RTW tests, and all went well. The only thing you have to watch is the dying routine...you end up with a swarm on it's side unless you mod this :smash:

Finally...I would think that 'city' troops would be limited to certain types, and 'castle' troops would include Tomb Guards and the elite combat stuff like Bone Giants. City would provide more wealth and bodies.... castlesselect war troops. There needs to be a reason to build both.

I honestly dont think you should bother with cities and castles, they just dont fit most of the factions. I think we should be trying to make the mtw2 engine fit into the warhammer world, not the other way around.

It's no stretch of the imagination to assume that their raising dead skills become better. New spells or better ways of making them which leads to better troops. Even though their skills in fighting and equipment wont change, they skill can get more hitpoints or be in larger squads as their buildings reach higher levels.

bigger pentagram in the temple he he he:skull:

With the buildings issue; I like the excavation one. Basically, you start off with a pyramid type central structure. Walls… well I’ll discuss them later. Then, you have ‘barracks caves’ underground. Basically, you dig out the area in which some warriors were. You can then dig out bigger ones. In a similar way, you can have ‘archer caves’ and ‘cavalry caves’ to represent that different units were buried in different places. All units, be they elite or normal, will be available at all levels, but only in very limited numbers. Something like a max pool of two; the size of excavation simply reduces the turns to replenish this. This means their troops are valuable; they can’t afford to lose a load, or they can’t fight for a while.

Siege units will be built at siege weapon buildings, obviously. Armouries, I think, should be replaced with buildings that produce Ushabti and Bone Giants.

Right… The sphinx! These, I think, could use the elephant model, I should think, though they don’t have any riders. Either way, these are super tough units in Warmaster, akin in strength to dragons. The special thing is, they sit outside the temples of the tomb kings, unmoving, until the place is threatened, at which point they come to life. Although they can be used abroad in Warmaster, I’d like to take literally the approach above. The Tomb Kings, you see, don’t seem to have walls. Their old cities did, but their pyramids did not, or at least they don’t any more, because people go inside them without any trouble.

So! Instead of building ‘walls’, build ‘guardians’. Each upgrade will provide an extra sphinx. On the strategic map, these should have a movement of zero. I mean, like a siege weapon has less than an infantry, which has less than a cavalry, these have zero. They also, however, have zero upkeep. In return they are powerful defence units, with high defence and attack, and many hit points, and I should think immune to morale damage.

With the few in number units of the army, if you get massacred in a big battle you’ve got no army. This stops one decisive battle taking the faction out of the game, as the victorious enemy effortlessly takes their settlements. It also reflects both the sphinx, and the lack of walls, that the Tomb Kings have. Lastly, it’s just so damned awesome.

As a complete change of topic, I’m interested to know how the undead economy is planning to run. Any ideas? I mean, it’s not as if they’re hot on farming for food and all…

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bwian

The idea behind having 'grades' of units is really just to provide a development tree for the player, and to make sure that the AI doesn't just fill it's entire army with top grade units right off. They would have to expand like a vanilla faction and build barracks to develop better troops and build blacksmiths etc. to improve armour.

---

Bwian it is possible to give a barracks the effects of a blacksmith, so upgrading the barracks would also give the soldiers better armour and weapons. Also to prevent the AI training elite units from the start they could require a fortress or citadel.

Quote:

---

Finally...I would think that 'city' troops would be limited to certain types, and 'castle' troops would include Tomb Guards and the elite combat stuff like Bone Giants. City would provide more wealth and bodies.... castlesselect war troops. There needs to be a reason to build both.

---

City troops could be much weaker but available in larger numbers. If the number of castle units are limited this gives the player an incentive to train city units.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bob the Spork

With the buildings issue; I like the excavation one. Basically, you start off with a pyramid type central structure. Walls… well I’ll discuss them later. Then, you have ‘barracks caves’ underground. Basically, you dig out the area in which some warriors were. You can then dig out bigger ones. In a similar way, you can have ‘archer caves’ and ‘cavalry caves’ to represent that different units were buried in different places. All units, be they elite or normal, will be available at all levels, but only in very limited numbers. Something like a max pool of two; the size of excavation simply reduces the turns to replenish this. This means their troops are valuable; they can’t afford to lose a load, or they can’t fight for a while.

---

If the barracks will excavate soldiers how will they train soldiers outside of their homelands (I doubt most countries will have mumified dead waiting to be excavated). This is more a reality issue than a technical one.

[/QUOTE]Right… The sphinx! These, I think, could use the elephant model, I should think, though they don’t have any riders. Either way, these are super tough units in Warmaster, akin in strength to dragons. The special thing is, they sit outside the temples of the tomb kings, unmoving, until the place is threatened, at which point they come to life. Although they can be used abroad in Warmaster, I’d like to take literally the approach above. The Tomb Kings, you see, don’t seem to have walls. Their old cities did, but their pyramids did not, or at least they don’t any more, because people go inside them without any trouble.

So! Instead of building ‘walls’, build ‘guardians’. Each upgrade will provide an extra sphinx. On the strategic map, these should have a movement of zero. I mean, like a siege weapon has less than an infantry, which has less than a cavalry, these have zero. They also, however, have zero upkeep. In return they are powerful defence units, with high defence and attack, and many hit points, and I should think immune to morale damage. [/QUOTE]

If is possible to build cannon towers for a castle and city. These could be changed to look like Sphynxes. They wouldn't move, would have zero upkeep, would always be by a city / castle, and have very high defence (can be indestructable) and attack. However if there are no walls a unit can easily get behind the immobile Sphynx (by running between them), making it useless.

Quote:

---

With the few in number units of the army, if you get massacred in a big battle you’ve got no army. This stops one decisive battle taking the faction out of the game, as the victorious enemy effortlessly takes their settlements. It also reflects both the sphinx, and the lack of walls, that the Tomb Kings have. Lastly, it’s just so damned awesome.

---

Not having walls means that as soon as an enemy army gets a city or castle they can take it without siege equipment or spies. This would require the Tomb Kings to have a large standing army in all their cities / castles to counter rapid attacks.

Come to think of it would a siege have any effect on the Tomb Kings (the dead don't need to eat, so they won't die from starvation).

Quote:

---

As a complete change of topic, I’m interested to know how the undead economy is planning to run. Any ideas? I mean, it’s not as if they’re hot on farming for food and all…

---

The undead economy will be difficult, since taxes and farming don't occur. By default the undead economy would be based on trade (selling good they don't need, such as food, for gold and jewelry).

EDIT: I though more about this faction. Since they mainly use dead excavated soldiers then the cost of recruitment should be cheap because once you have the buildings to excavate the soldiers they can easily be brought to the surface. Likewise they don't require an upkeep (except the built units like Ushabti and Bone Giants) since they're dead. Therefore the Tomb Kings can have a very cheap army (it won't be large because there are only so many corpses they can use).

Since the cost of units and their upkeep is low it does not matter how bad the undead economy is, since they don't need a strong ecconomy to recruit soldiers. However to make this faction balanced I recommend that all the building should be expensive and take a long time to complete because mining equipment is not cheap, nor are giant pyramids and both take a long time to construct. This would act as a handicap because the Tomb Kings would have to save for several turns to afford to upgrade their settlement, due to their poor ecconomy, then wait years for everything to be built.

Economy wise, I would envisage most of the building work being done by slaves. War captives or bought in slaves. The Tomb Kings don't strike me as the labouring types.....

These sorts of things are the most challenging to accomplish for the mod, purely because we have to balance what the game engine would normally do ( and hence, what the AI will tend to do in a campaign where you are NOT playing this faction ) and with what would be realistic for a player to see when playing the Tomb Kings.

We need to come up with an overall approach to economy runing that will fit for a variety of factions, and which would overlay their unique cultures.

If it means dropping cities and castles, and having a single type of settlement with a limited cash driven economy, then we may go that route. Trade and mining, manufacture of goods and so on would provide the cash, and food would be a 'bought' commodity

It is possible to tell the AI how to run a faction regarding the economy, religion, trade, defence, and unit preference. How effective the AI does this is another matter. As far as I known it's not possible to change the AI's battle techniques.

On the chariot front, they have removed the chariot class from the list of allowed entries in descr_mount. Put anything other than horse, camel or elephant and it blows up when it parses the file.

The other parameters that went with a chariot have gone too. The easy way of making chariots has gone...which leaves a problem or two to solve if we are going to have them in the game.

This discussion is only about Nehekhara where Nagash killed off everybody, right? The lands conquered by the Khemri will be just normal, right? With farmers and living people. It's not like Settra has a beef about the living. And Nehekhara used to be a normal country, with walled cities, so I don't see any problem in keeping it just as all the others. Unless we can make Nehekhara specal and void of population. But that would take away any incentive to conquer it. We could make it extremly barren with low growth though.

Theres a map in the army book covering the tomb kings old kingdom which would serve as an aor guide. If they're raising dead soldiers than stands to reason areas like tilea and the borderlands would have some there, the tomb of one of there old leaders is in tilea for example. We could have a building that is required to be built before troops can be produced based on the excavations idea. I think it might also be possible to place a building allowing limited recruitment with a script if the player fights a battle and loses a lot of men in a region, to represent those who fell being raised again. Theres lots of stuff we can try out here, we'll have to test it out after we get the nuts and bolts in place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrZoidberg

This discussion is only about Nehekhara where Nagash killed off everybody, right? The lands conquered by the Khemri will be just normal, right? With farmers and living people. It's not like Settra has a beef about the living. And Nehekhara used to be a normal country, with walled cities, so I don't see any problem in keeping it just as all the others. Unless we can make Nehekhara specal and void of population. But that would take away any incentive to conquer it. We could make it extremly barren with low growth though.

---

Incorrect. The great spell that Nagash cast killed everyone in the region. That's all the city states, and everyone in them. There is nothing living in the area, at all. Whatsoever. Zilch. There aren't even any plants. The only things from the area that are even remotely alive are the very oldest vampires, like Abhorash and Neferata, and they don't live there any more.

Also, so you know, Khemri is a city within Nehekhara, as your post suggested it was elsewhere. Being the city once ruled by Nagash himself, it's pretty much the deadest of the lot.

If possible, a complete lack of people, but plenty of resources (so good to have), would be a good idea. Maybe the pyramids could cause a massive negative population growth or something, to keep it at zero? Then you just need a way to recruit still.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bob the Spork

Incorrect. The great spell that Nagash cast killed everyone in the region. That's all the city states, and everyone in them. There is nothing living in the area, at all. Whatsoever. Zilch. There aren't even any plants. The only things from the area that are even remotely alive are the very oldest vampires, like Abhorash and Neferata, and they don't live there any more.

Also, so you know, Khemri is a city within Nehekhara, as your post suggested it was elsewhere. Being the city once ruled by Nagash himself, it's pretty much the deadest of the lot.

If possible, a complete lack of people, but plenty of resources (so good to have), would be a good idea. Maybe the pyramids could cause a massive negative population growth or something, to keep it at zero? Then you just need a way to recruit still.

---

But about conquered lands? And what if it got better? Like nuclear fall out.

There will be conflicts here between canon events and the necessities of gameplay, which I cansee will lead to compromises. IF you want to raise troops in the city, you need to have 'population' and resources. If the city produces nothing, then you cannot have growth. No growth means no population...and no poulation means no troops can be raised.

We will need to come up with a rationale and story compatable concept of how recruitment will work with the Undead. They do not need to farm, so the only resources they would need would be gold and minerals. There is potential for trade, so there could be trade goods here to bring in gold. Population growth would need to happen for troops ( thats the way the game does it ) but how we manage that will need care. Troop upkeep should require gold, since the incanatations to raise the armies require exotic ingredients ( they always do....rule of fantasy :egypt: ) but nothing else.

I think we have to be careful not to over complicate what we have unless we can

a) Make the game engine do it reliably

b) Have the AI still raise proper armies to make an opposition worth playing against

c) Get a definite gameplay benefit from doing so.

We need to tailor the build trees and available buildings for these factions, and make sure that what is left will provide enough flexibility and variation to promote good gameplay. I see no point, for example, in having farms built by Tomb Kings. Roads...yes. Mines...yes. Barracks...yes. We can take out htings they would not build, and work with what we have left.

I don't know if we have limits to the cultures available in game, but if there are unlimited possible 'cultures' we may end up having to make unique cultures for factions like this to help clarify.

I am currently working to cut up and crystallise ht ebuildings text file, so we can start listing the buildings and levels of buildings we are going to make available for each faction. Then we can start assigning the units nad economic buildings available, and decide what ( if any ) the upgrade type buildings are. I think this will help to pin down what we can do ( and how it can be done ) and what is nice discussion about the Warhammer Universe, but not implementable in the game engine.

Time to start putting some of the ideas into a concrete MTW2 form :beam:

I think it will be time well spent...and then I can get back to putting the finished Chaos Marauder into game after I rig the skeleton!

Well, quite frankly, I do not see how the Tomb Kings would gather resources.

The IMHO most believable way would be to either give them huge mines (as most Tomb Kings units are wearing armor made of precious metal. Fluff wise, the Tomb Kings would likely have buried engineers, slaves and servants with them, and those would work in the mines), or an unique building called "Lost treasuries" or something like that, that would represent all the goods, finely crafted items and gold burried with the Tomb Kings, and grant the player a regular income.

Edit : This of course wouldn't work with the Vampire Counts. As of now, I can't see any realistic way to explain why would they need gold, but I'm sure someone will come up with a nice idea ;)

Vampire Counts aren't so hard. The Von Carsteins (who should be the vampires we're focusing on), ruled Sylvania as Lords, keeping all their peasents alive. They actually work as an economy and such, albeit a bad one.

Tomb Kings, I think, will have to rely on mines.

If the Tomb Kings won't have a working economy within the MTW2 engine we always have the option of making them a non-playable horde faction. Like the Mongols or Timurids. It's not like we can't play undead anyway. And if we really do want two playable undead factions, (besides the Von Carsteins) we've always got Lhamia we can throw in there. I know they where conquered by the pre-Tomb kings, priest kings of Nehekhara, but they're pretty much the same faction as the Tomb Kings, only that they've got living citizens. It's only the leading Lhamian elite that are/where vampires.

How about it? :egypt:

Perhaps the population of Tomb King settlement should refer to undead slaves. That way the population could increase as more people are captured, killed, and sent to run the city (though the population increase would be slow).

Money wise we could give the Tomb Kings the ability to create more profitable mines than other factions, so they can make more money. Also do the Tomb Kings trade with other factions? If they do then they could have extra buildings to increase trade.

Since the Tomb Kings would have so few buildings perhaps they should be based on the Mesoamerican culture, which has almost no buildings and recruits soldiers based on what level city they own (a city could get better units that a large town but worse units than a large city).

Lahmia's not on the map.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrZoidberg

we've always got Lhamia we can throw in there. I know they where conquered by the pre-Tomb kings, priest kings of Nehekhara, but they're pretty much the same faction as the Tomb Kings, only that they've got living citizens. It's only the leading Lhamian elite that are/where vampires.

---

Sorry, but incorrect. The city of Lahmia is as lifeless as Khemri. It was ruled by vampires, and so the other cities united and destroyed it. The vampires fled, or died, and shortly after the curse of Nagash wiped out Nehekhara. Neferata, the Vampire Master of the Lahmia line, and once queen of the city, fled North and took over a small dwarf hold, which she converted into her domain. Nothing alive is there.

I'm sorry, but they won't really work as a faction, because they don't own land, beside one small fortress, which is really more of a palace anyway. The Von Carsteins and Tomb Kings are the only real undead 'nations' there are, and to be honest the Von Carsteins are few and far between these days as well, and generally lie low, pretending to be humans.

We definately shouldn't scrap Tomb Kings for the Lahmian vampires.

We are definitely NOT scrapping the Tomb Kings.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Casuir

Lahmia's not on the map.

---

Both Lhamia and Khemri is south of it.

Lahmia is east of Khemri, on the far side of the worlds edge mnts and isnt covered on the map.

Correct, as I understand it, bearing in mind I don't really have a clue, Lahmia isn't likely to be on the map.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bwian

We are definitely NOT scrapping the Tomb Kings.

---

I like a man with clear motives. So this is all about you wanting to play the Tomb Kings? Cool. :egypt:

One of the benefits of being Mod Leader is that you always get to play your favourite faction ;)

But... on a serious note... you can no more leave out such a distinctive faction as you could leave out the Orcs or Elves. Doubly so now that KE and GOM have managed to verify that the animation files and underlying skeletons can be re-written, and that opens to door to ALL the wierd and wonderful creatures I always hoped. Ushabti, Bone Giants, Tomb Scorpions and such.

They are colourful, they are ...well...OK...they are my favourite.

Yo, thinking about the undead cities and castles, how about instead of castles the undead get their pyramids? The cities WOULD have walls, but the pyramids wouldnt.....and well according to what I read on the book....correct me if I'm wrong....the pyramids are where the major players for the tomb kings reside...settra and the others etc. Maybe give the pyramids the more unique units and the cities the normal skeleton warriors???

And about the big ol sphinxes....good idea...just that...place em on the entrances to the city center....thats the only way it will work....besides that....

Also an idea for the sphinxes would be to have them spawn every time there is a battle at the castles......instead of making them a big ol immovable unit.

The wall levels would just add a spawned sphinx at the castle.

What yall think?

Also, about the barracks and junk...instead of having a diverse amount of things....skeletal militia and junk like that :inquisitive:, make each barrack upgrade improve the armor/weapons OR the experience level....just like one of the other members posted earlier.

If I'm not mistaken warhammer is about making your armies strong and beefy, not a massive amount of troops eH? Correct me if im wrong, I dont play the game but I like to read the codexes :sweatdrop:

And about magic, have it be a trait for the generals, like things that would cause the tomb kings to do nasty morale damage to enemies...have the magic be a trait that increases the dread of the general....and since the undead are already supposed to be scary....that would make them a bit more formidable to face in the battlefield...

What yall think? Just my 2 cents :yes:

We do intend to use the generals traits to achieve exactly that. The Tomb King's will already be inducing fear, but the more advanced the general the more fearful they can become.

I dont understand how can you make them more fearful??? i guess:wall:

Well, yeah, apart giving them more dread, I see little way to make a general fearful

I just had a strange thought regarding the skeletons: are they going to have any special attributes making them harder to kill in certain ways? I mean, stabbing them with swords and pikes would look a bit strange with them just going through the ribs, and it would be strange seeing them get shot down by arrows too when arrows should logically just shoot right through them. Maybe give them a highish armour rating or something so they aren't as easily killed by thin pointy things, but more vulnerable against thick smashy things like hammers and axes?

It's probably irrelevant, but I thought I'd bring it up. I know nothing can be done about the death animations, which is a shame, as it would be weird seeing skellies killed by stabbing (at least weird when you're raised on Jason and the Argonauts :beam: ).

Fact of MTW2 life I am afraid ... If there is any way t make them more resistant to piercing weapons that would be nice ..but I think we will just have to do that through armour stats.

Yes, too bad the old pavise shield function of MTW isn´t around any more (if you recall, some units had shields that only protected them from missiles, but not in melee).

Quote:

---

I dont understand how can you make them more fearful??? i guess

---

If I recall correctly there is a unit attribute "scares infantry" and "scares mounted". I think the elephant units have it.

Well, if I remember right, Camels have the "scare mounted" ability. I also saw yesterday that Aztec warriors have the "scare infantry" attribute.

ooohhh ok thank you very much:idea2:

and also for the skeletons i think its better if you just raise their armor attributes.

ooohhh ok thank you very much:idea2:

Hooray :2thumbsup:

Small thing in the grand scheme of things, but something I had not done before. Just created a unique building for the Tomb kings, with a series of Pyramids to build, which produce Tomb King warriors. 3 'levels' of Pyramid, with varying warriors to recruit.

This faction will have a pretty simple build tree, with most of the other buildings providing bonus stats rather than actual troops. Will be a seperate archer and cavalry tree arrangement.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ciaran

Yes, too bad the old pavise shield function of MTW isn´t around any more (if you recall, some units had shields that only protected them from missiles, but not in melee).

---

Are you sure about this?
Pavise crossbowmen in vanilla are tough cookies when it comes to missile duels...

The "scare_Infantry" atribute is used much more in kingdoms, The Viking factions and teotonics use it alot. Its a realy good attribute too, if you time the charge right, the opposing army run whidout a fight. (even with better quality troops)

Scare Infantry is certainly something that should apply to Undead units!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bwian

Small thing in the grand scheme of things, but something I had not done before. Just created a unique building for the Tomb kings, with a series of Pyramids to build, which produce Tomb King warriors. 3 'levels' of Pyramid, with varying warriors to recruit.

---

Do you mean unique building model, or just a unique building in the coding? Either way, good stuff!

are guys going to be remoddeling all of the buildings? some of them? or none and just changing the text?

dosent bother me which way but evryone loves building covered in skulls :yes:

Right now, we can't create new buildings. KE has a script that reads the settlement files and dumps out some mesh.... but it doesn't read them all, and doesn't re-assemble the file. That will come later. IF we can mod it, then we will make new buildings.

What I did was to code a new building...unique to one faction... to build the tomb kings units. I wanted to re-do the build trees and use some unique new buldings, so I needed to get a fix on how to do it. This was my 'test' piece. Did all the icons and text too... Was easier than I expected!

Even if modding building models can't be done, you could always retexture them to make 'em a bit more warhammerish. Stick a bunch of skulls and eight-pointed star engravings on cathedrals or something.

Quote:

---

What I did was to code a new building...unique to one faction... to build the tomb kings units. I wanted to re-do the build trees and use some unique new buldings, so I needed to get a fix on how to do it. This was my 'test' piece. Did all the icons and text too... Was easier than I expected!

---

Groovy, so I guess this can be applied to all factions that have unique troop setups?

If u guys still havent figured out how the tomb kings will be able to get better units here's a suggestion: The tomb king player should need to build heirophant palaces, ya no since the heirophant summon and maintain the army. So they'll research new summoning spells there, allowing them to summon and maintain more soldiers. I think its a good idea tell me what u think.:feedback:

I like the idea of a simple tech tree, very cheap troops, very minimal economy. I suggest trade should be near zero, farms should be non-existant, and indeed, the main income should be mines. This has the advantage of making the faction very predictable. Your income will not vary depending on harvest or trade blockades. It will roll in so long as you have the mines.

I also like the idea of a simple tech tree. These troops are all already there, they died millenia ago.

Edit: Another thought has occurred to me.

How will Tomb King succession work? More importantly, what could possibly increase the Tomb King family tree? I think this might have to be fudged a bit for the mod. Maybe they recruit new Tomb Princes for the empire?

Maybe you could have it as new tomb princes are awakening from their long lumber.

Salnted good idea, for the coming of age type message it should be "One of the many Tomb Princes has at last awakened from his long rest, he may prove a worthy heir if our true lord ever dies." something like that. And nobody has yet commented on my suggestion please tell me if it's good or bad, PLEASE!!!