Tribes of the North era

[Chtomorc]

Hi !

I searched in all the add-ons for a faction of human, brutal, and with big muscles barbarians, but found nothing that suits me. So I start making stats for fun and as a result I made some units, using frankensteining and recoulouring.

I also try to develop the context and culture of this tribes of barbarian, and it became a project for a whole era. I need some advice in balancing the factions. I plan to have at least 5 factions : Barbarians (made from scratch), Loyalists settlers (modifications in order to mix Loyalists and Outlaws, adapting them to the north), Knalgan alliance, Northerners and Undead, this 3 with minor modifications.

Context.

This era take place after Northern Rebirth. The Northlands start there organisation, with the formation of the Knalgan alliance. Some wesnothian nobles claim this regions, rich in natural ressources as construction wood, fantastic fur and ore, as part of the kingdom. But the tribes who live there want to stay free, and are worried about the orcs, pushed to the north after the defeat of Rakshas. In addition, an ancient lich rise and his necrotic power awake the dead warriors through the battlefields.

Barbarians

They're fearless warriors, slow, but they hit hard. They run trough the battlefield half naked, only wearing fur, screaming some unintelligible warshout. The tribe's shamans master the ice, and they use roots and leaves to cure poison and wounds. The most valiant warriors ride the mighty wooly rhinoceros encountered in this region. Some shamans can communicate with sea serpent, wich help the tribes to protect their coast.
They fight for their lands, made of snowy fjords, forests and moutains, and their freedom.
They need to trade some goods, mainly fur, meat and smoked fish, with the dwarves for metal, and weapons because they're unskilled in blacksmithing and mining. They also sell magnificient ice jewels, which are enchanted to never melt. It's rumored that an eccentric ice mage has try to master blood and sell some blood jewels of his human preys...

Loyalists settlers

They have been sent to the north by some rich noble who want to make great profit. It is a bunch of adventurers, soldier and outlaws, lead by rejected nobles, who wants to take a fresh start in life.
They don't care about the natives of the north, even if they're human, and burn all the village they find to build their towns.

Other factions

They just stay the same, orcs and undeads rampaging whatever they encounter just for fun.

I think you get the main idea. Every advice / comments about the story is welcome, it will be usefull when I start to make a campaign (it will not come to soon, I haven't got any look to scenario making).

Now, the great piece, here come the units for the Barbarians :

They're all chaotic. But I plan to make them a different race than the normal human, with 4 random traits: Strong, Resilient, Quick and Fearless Healthy. Keep that in mind with balancing the units. The Fearless traits will make statisticly half of them with only the chaotic's bonus. Without the Intelligent trait, level up the units will be less random, and it have to be kept in mind too when balancing.

They're designed to have few lvl 1 units, but with lots of lvl 2 choices. All of them have a strong melee attack. They mainly use impact damages, due to the rarity of metal weapon.They have no healer. Their profiles are mainly picked form mainline units, with adjustement to the faction.

In this spoiler, you'll find the faction unit tree :

Spoiler:

Some of the lvl 1 are cheap polyvalent fighters, who can level up quickly. Fighter and Hunter evolve from the lvl 0 Fisherman :

Leader line are all given the Fearless trait in supplement of basic traits. The Barbarian lord evolve in a lvl 4 Barbarian king. Maybe you can suggest another lvl 4 evolution, but I only want one, like most of the others factions.

Others units are specialists who are very expensive, and slow to lvl up :

Lurker and Leviathan are just here to give variety and for multiplayer balance. They attack in a constrictive way to give them impact damages :p
Mage's melee attack drain heat from his victim, and regenerate him.
Rhino's charge attack is a stomp, that's why it is impact.

In the spoiler below are the resistances and movetypes:

Spoiler:

Resistancetype / Infantry / Rhino
blade / - 10% / 20%
pierce / 0% / - 20%
impact / 20% / 40%
fire / - 20% / - 20%
cold / 30% / 30%
arcane / 0% / 0%

I want them to have a great contrast in their resist, with the rhinos being real tanks !

Movetype :
Terrain / Infantry Cost / Infantry Defense / Rhino Cost / Rhino Defense
None / - / 0% / - / 0%
Castle / 1 / 50% / 1 / 30%
Cave / 2 / 30% / 3 / 20%
Coastal Reef / 2 / 30% / 3 / 20%
Deep Water / - / 0% / - / 0%
Flat / 1 / 40% / 1 / 40%
Forest / 2 / 50% / 3 / 40%
Frozen / 1 / 60% / 1 / 50%
Hills / 2 / 50% / 2 / 40%
Impassable / - / 0% / - / 0%
Mountains / 3 / 60% / - / 0%
Mushroom Grove / 2 / 40% / 3 / 20%
Sand / 2 / 30% / 3 / 20%
Shallow Water / 2 / 20% / 4 / 20%
Swamp / 3 / 20% / - / 0%
Unwalkable / - / 0% / - / 0%
Village / 1 / 70% / 1 / 50%

As you can see, they're not good in defense, until they're in a frozen terrain or a village.

Thank you for reading (it such a long post for a first one !).

Every comments and advices about balancing the barbarians units type are welcome. Just pick one of them (or a branch) to start a discussion :p
The names of the units are not definitives (due to lack of understanding english, i'm french).
I will add in a near future the tree for Loyalists settlers.

Please do comment the sprites in this thread.

[alluton]

This looks good faction for campaigns. I like this era(mostly because im dwarf fun)

[Colouredbox]

Rhinos have 30% cold resistance. cool.
Good job and got some story.
Thumbs up.

You must make Mountain Kings avatar stronger. ; )

[Finrod]

The Rhino Shaman looks a little out of place. You could have him upgrade from both a Rhino Charger and a Blue Mage.
I like your Barbarian Leader.
I also think you should make the Barbarian Lord stronger. In barbarian societies, the leader is the leader because he is the toughest and strongest. Although, you would change the Battle Master's attack (or have him go to lvl 4) a little to make it different from the Lord, so that people wouldn't pick the Lord all the time.

All in all, it looks pretty good, can't wait to see it all finished.

[Chtomorc]

Thanks for encouragements !

@ Finrod : I had the same thougt about rhino and lord, I want the lord to be really tough, but I don't want him to be overpowered. So I give him more HP and a ranged attack. Battlemaster are also slower by 1 MP.

I think they're 2 way to fix it :
- Do as you say and make a lvl 4 battlemaster, but it may lead to the same issue, lvl 4 being more powerful than the leader.
- Make a lvl 4 leader, with attack power as strong as the the lvl 3 battlemaster, and polyvalent (Impact and blade melee + ranged pierce), but it may be the reference choice (The lvl 4 leader ship may balance itself, maknig all the lvl 3 units of the faction 25 % more attractive :p).

The rhino branch is based on the loyalist horseman. I wanted to give chaman branch a rhino, but it may lead to balancing issues. Maybe adding a lvl 2 mounted chaman in both branch that make transition ? Maybe he will be redoundant whit the dancer.

In overall consideration, I need help for the name (they're mainly placeholder for developement), are the resistances and defense balanced in an era where 50% of the tiles while be frozen.

On particular, what about the steadfast capacity of the rhino knight ?

And the Ranger attacks are missing. Here they come:
11 - 2 melee (pierce)
13 - 3 ranged (pierce)
6 - 2 ranged (impact, slows)

[Colouredbox]

Thanks for encouragements !

In overall consideration, I need help for the name (they're mainly placeholder for developement), are the resistances and defense balanced in an era where 50% of the tiles while be frozen.

Depends of your opponent :P

[Chtomorc]

I have finally made the first step for the era ! The barbarians have all the unit playable, Just need to make the sprites :p

If you are interested in trying them against default factions, here they come !

Tribes_of_the_North.zip

Here come the first faction !

(84.89 KiB) Downloaded 316 times

They will need a lot of tuning I think, and i will fix thr sprites witch TC coulour are bugging :p

[Finrod]

The rhino knight having a large attack and steadfast might be unbalanced, but the 130 xp to upgrade a rhino charger might balance that.

The Ice Dancer should either have a larger attack since he stops at lvl2, or go on to lvl3.

The Ice Master is a little weak for a lvl3.

Just my 2 cents.

[Chtomorc]

The Rhinos are design to be overpowered ! They are barbarians who ride rhinos !

I have tuned them a lot, with playtesting against AI (but it was not very conclusive. They has no punch before and seem a bit overpowered now...)

After 3 days of rough battle with WML, add-ons server and a lot of errors (witch end by a large cut in sound, ranged anim and homemade ability), hte North Men are now available to download !

You'll find the era Tribes of the North on the 1.8 add-ons server if I have made no mistakes.

Hum maybe it's not an era yet, cause you can only play with default and north men.

Every comment and balancing suggestion is more than welcome. I'll try to have this first faction balance with default as a reference. (mainly loyalists and UD, who will be the main opponents for the campaign I had plan).

All the units got sprite, but they're not animated... yet. Some of them are not definitive too, but it has been a lot of job for a first time, and I'll start working on the others factions. They'll take less job, they will mainly be dispatching mainline units in different trees and modifying them.

I need some help for creating new abilities. I'tried copying some from other add-ons but it seems that I always make a mistake ... Even juste a 10 % leadership witch affect enemies (seem to be very simple at the first look) don't work in game or made a crash of the add on

I mainly want's abilities that modify the defense value.

* Mystic protection : give all adjacent allies + 10 % defense.
* Smell of blood : give all units (allies and enemies) +25 % damages and - 10% defense.

Those to are meant to have the same ID and not be cumulative. I also want the units with the ability to never be affected by it.
If someone can give me hint...

And to tease you :

[Colouredbox]

Lookin' awesome.

Are you sure those topless barbarians won't catch a cold with all that arctic terrain?

[Chtomorc]

No, barbarians run and fight to keep them warm. And they always leave in that condition, their inner metabolism make more heat than normal human, that's why they got less energy for brain and can't be intelligent.

Also, did'nt you notice that the higher the lvl is, the more fur they wear ? The ones without fur die from cold !

[Dixie]

Have you considered maybe giving them (or some of them) the healthy trait? It would probably fit barbarians.

[Chtomorc]

Yes, I have... but they look a lot like dwarves with it

If fearless is to overpowered as a random trait, I'll exchange it with healthy, and give a unit fearless. If I do this, i maybe also modify the cure ability of the shaman...
I had a clear idea at the beginning, but I has modified them a lot after balance consideration...

If some player can test them and give their thoughs, it will be grat for me !

[Finrod]

downloaded Tribes of the North, looks good. I like your sasha mages

Your lvl 0 is a fisherman. Are you going to have a boat/sailor line? (like The Imperial Era's Marauder Boatman)

[Chtomorc]

Thanks, Finrod ! I haev quickly made a faction of loyalists settlers, but it have only placeholders for the sprites and it's just a mix beetween loyalists and outlaws. It can give you an idea of what I plan for this faction.

For the campaing I have plan, the fisherman will evolve to hunter or fighter (base lvl 1).

I'll like the sailors of imperial era's to Maybe i'll make an alternate barbarian faction more turn to plunder and piracy, to avenge from the wesnothian settling to their homeland... It would be a great idea ! Less magic, more light and mobile fighters...

Sacha mages also have a special place in my heart But without the special ability I have planed to give them, they lack a bit of flavour