I had the idea, but the original artwork (Adventurer Blitz) is not mine (someone care to help out)



Save the Broken Lords...

054khj2911 wrote:
All of this and the everything in this thread

it needs to happen

it must

it's inevitable(?)

Amplitude Studs pls

I hope Amplitude followed this thread. This concept for a aquatic based major faction is so neat.

Thanks for your support!

It's gonna be a lot of work for them to code these additions, but it might also double their profits if included in a major expansion



EDIT: I recently found this pic. It can change the faction abilities slightly





We could make the Typhon cities mobile, but instead of moving long distance like the Roving Clans, the Typhons can move each district and city tile by itself (individual districts and city tiles ONLY). They can be relocated to another point that must be connected to another district or city tile. So their movement can be gradual and progressive instead of all at once like the Roving Clans.

I just want to add my vote to this concept, I would love to see a water based expansion to Endless Legend.



A faction with aquatic benefits that is food based, doesn't see industry and has bonuses to the extended naval game. Maybe with an ancient Greek aesthetic.



This would also take the unique faction count to 10. It would be good nice to see the map extend to have 10 players.

I apologize for my absence from this thread. I've been pre-occupied with Let's Plays and work... But now that I return, it's wonderful to see community feedback on this topic. I will try my best to reply to the points being raised so far.



It has been mentioned by several members that Ocean terrain is featureless and has no variety or anomalies. I anticipated this problem, so I created ANOTHER thread to discuss Ocean terrain in particular. Here is the link: /#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3518-ocean-terrain-for-water-faction-considerations

In that thread, I suggested some tiles and anomalies for the water. We also discussed the issue of equipment alternative to Iron (because Iron doesn't work underwater of course) and we even talked about other alternative resources. Check it out, it's a very important thread!



Concerning the issue of naval combat, I realize that there are so many variables to think about when designing a water faction in this game. Naval combat in particular is probably the biggest variable. I really don't know how naval combat will work. But just like other members mentioned, the Typhons faction will definitely require naval/water combat to be applied.

Perhaps every land faction has its own water type unit? Perhaps the land factions can acquire submarines in the late game in order to fight head-to-head against the water factions? I have no idea... It really depends on what the devs respond to the thread about Naval combat



Concerning the issue of Balance:

I think I agree with the concerns and solutions presented so far. A previous comment suggested having island platforms such as Atolls which allow land factions to build in an ocean province. I fully agreed with that idea. There are many ways to apply it, such as making it unlocked with an Era 3 or 4 technology, and the atolls will "appear" in the designated era just like Tower Foundations, allowing them to be exploited. This way, the ocean terrain is no longer "exclusive" to the water factions, so we don't need too many debuffs against the water faction cities on land. Now we mostly have to think about combat balance, more so than economy balance.



Last but not least, I have a feeling that the Typhon faction will be changed a SECOND time, based on how the devs decide to apply water mechanics. I might start a fresh new thread with the complete new faction characteristics, because this thread is crowded with too many discarded ideas.

I wrote and saw many suggestions on forum of other game. At least once i saw dat one topic with hero suggestion, where was a comment of 'community developer' (or someone who works around the game).



Few months later, there was a game mode with the freakin hero!

...

I guess you have a conclusion right now.

Oh dear my bad, I forgot to put it in. Saylawl however (thank you!) has kindly posted it above.

Hey!

pineappledan wrote:
where is link?

I've eaten it!

Here is the link that Adventurer_Blitz mentioned.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
Here is a link to a thread about the concept of Naval Warfare, feel free to input your opinion!

where is link?

Here is a link to a thread about the concept of Naval Warfare, feel free to input your opinion!

Just finished reading the thread, and here are my 2 cents



Any talk of an aquatic faction is first based on a couple assumptions about how all factions must be able to interact with them.

1. water combat would need to be implemented.



Simply using existing units would be clumsy, so you would either need to have a unit tech for sea combat, rely solely on aquatic minor factions, or beef up the mercenary market. Implementing Endless Space's combat system might give a new spin on combat, since the featurlessness of sea terrain would make the current battle system dull.



2. land factions would need to be able to interact with ocean tiles and ocean factions with land



Having a faction which can colonize specific tiles exclusively is fine, but barring factions from regions entirely would prevent any attempts at balance. Jamoecw suggested small 1-2 tile islands be present in each region. This is the only acceptable workaround I can see.

I would suggest Land-based faction city centers be restricted to land tiles, but alter the way boroughs function in regions designated as 'ocean'. Allow borough expansions to be built apart from the city in a manner similar to current extractors. You could have Fishing colonies on reefs or fish leks, geothermal platforms on undersea vents, derrick platforms on ancient wreckage, etc.



Based on those two assumptions you can build a suitable aquatic race which would not upset balance. Otherwise, having regions closed off from colonization while available to others opens up a huge can of worms which I just cannot see being fun in a game. Either those factions that CAN build there simply hole up, which is no fun, or they can strike at enemy factions without fear of reprisal, which destroys balance. Exclusive colonization rights would either make expansion victories impossible, or obfuscated in conditions and fine-print. Economic and science victories would be incredibly costly to stop, since you cannot keep/control anything you conquer.



On the other side of the coin, water factions should be able to colonize coastal land and rivers. The option of damming rivers to create artificial water tiles could be implemented as a faction-specific trait, but for the first ocean faction I would not include it.



Land regions have the benefit of diverse land types. Unless dotted with anomalies everywhere, Ocean tiles would likely be homogenous, providing almost no industry or science. For this reason, a faction which cannot see industry whose core competency is colonisation in regions with virtually no industry anyways is a head-scratcher. Giving them a malus against these resources is redundant, since they will have to generate them either through FIDSI conversion or city improvements to be competitive anyways. Also it makes Broken Lords less special .



Lastly, the issue of unique faction units for aquatics would have to be addressed. How do you make combat interesting when one faction has ocean-based units and the others all have land-based ones? Either you make land factions wholely dependent on minor factions to round out their navies and vice versa or you make all units amphibious. I'm of the opinion that amphibious units would be immersion-breaking, especially for things like the roving clans. If you give one faction sea monsters and the others horsemen on boats, it's hard to see that battle being resolved in the boats' favor, barring some absurd logic. I am of course ignoring other massive logic gaps such as how aquatic races smelt iron into weapons (underwater smithing, wtf), how all the techs currently revolve around land-based structures and concepts which would be meaningless to aquatics (canal system, irrigation, hothouses, sewers, foundries), and how two factions based in separate environments could interact to create meaningful, engaging play.



All-in-all I think it's a fun thought exercise, but there are too many difficulties to overcome in order to make aquatic factions viable.

Since I read the post on naval battles in the near future I've been excited by a possible water race.If they are expansionist like someone else here mentioned, lore-wise they could have always wanted to live on land when they finally do, the long winter sets in and they realize that eventually all the water will be completely frozen. Being coldblooded have to retreat back or create a wonder to ensure survival of their race and empire. Explanation for them missing from ES could be that they are isolationist or they devolved after years apart from dust/internal conflict over limited space. Maybe add in some coastal and river only anomalies. I'd also like to see aquatic minor factions. Possibly a pirate major faction or unique and hostile minor faction.

Fish can live under ice so if they had water based cities they could have some sort of advantage in the winter, maybe they are more productive?

Just my ideas. Love most of them hereXD

Hope it's not too late for post... though I read the whole thread, so there I am.



Dat major faction seems to be wild, crazy insane and... well, simply impossibru (get the tech, which allows your cities to naval trade - Vegeta, wat is teh production level?).



Though before this major faction could happen, there MUST be:

1. Naval battle (actually no ideas how these should look, for sure on diffrent rules than on land, not like in AoW3).

2. Possibility for old factions to use oceans' further than usual (structures similar to city's district?)

3. NAVAL MINOR FACTIONS! (at least 2, maybe 3) This is the thing i would like to see most. For them:

- assimilation grants bonuses only around any type of water (instead of granting x% to resource/unit stats)

- some of them can exists only in waters

- ... and others are amphibious, though they might loose health if they are too away from waters

- poison feature to one unit (somewat new for the minor f. unit, no?)

- appearance/style: whole heckload of them, slimes, water nymph, Krakenoids, mecha penguins, polar bears of annihilation and five o'clock, narwhal, ink-shooter octopus (which acts as the tower while in battle)... pretty possible to made something, just need to rest ;P



Waters ftw

Stalwarts will only be ever able to walk on the bottom of the sea... slowly



Some suggestions on the affinity:



In the description I would make an accent that it's an artifact based magic. Typhons mainly get their magic from the most powerful titans - Elder Thulians. These are very large and powerful, but very slow and can not normally leave the sea. To expand their influence they've learned to imbue items with their magic and give these items to their servants (these items need to be made from very rare minerals, hence high industry cost).



Expanding on the titan idea - all faction heroes are in fact Elder Titans. They have a number of differences from normal heroes:

• They can not leave the sea and can only govern aquatic cities. Thus they are mostly useless to non aquatic factions (maybe useful as admirals, or maybe not available at all in the marketplace). Lategame faction techs may change this.
• Because they are very large and slow they have only 2 speed. All speed bonuses they get are halved. They are about 2 times as strong as a normal hero though.
• No existing unit class suits them - they have "Titan" class and "Titan" skill tree.
• Their assignment cooldown is also doubled.
  
  

Some unit ideas:

• 1st one: Naga warrior, Giant hermit crab warrior (very defensive), Triton (with trident and net)
• 2nd one: Siren, Some mermaid-like support, human-squid mage (aka illithid)
• 3rd one: Lesser titan, Sea serpent (maybe a flying one), Giant turtle, Leviathan
  
  

Some Era 5 and 6 magic ideas:

• Tornado - nullifies any FIDSI production in 1 tile radius of the center, deals fortification damage to cities, if fortification reaches 0 starts reducing population. Armies caught in the tornado take some damage and are teleported randomly in certain radius (can be split as well). Only 1 tornado artifact can be produced at a time. Tornado should be cast over a water tile and then can be moved on land as a unit (x speed and x turn duration).
• Shrine of the Depth - placed in a city is for x turns. If city is attacked militia is replaced with Lesser Titans.
• Seal of vigor - in combat use, all units in the army gain regeneration 3.
• Siren's song - in combat use, takes control over an enemy unit for 1 turn. Can be used once per combat.
• Diver's blessing - +x luxury resource extraction in an ocean region
• Maelstorm - ship movement in the region is halved and they take damage every turn
  
  

Some more extended unit ideas:



Hermit crab warrior (too lazy to come up with a real name now):

This crab is actually not a single being but a symbiosis of a sentient polyp living on the crab's shell and the crab itself.

• Class: Infantry
• Stats: High health, defence, low attack, ini, average damage
• Abilities: Crab shell (take half damage if didn't act this turn or took defensive action), Slow, Combat pheromones (polyp aura, +ini and +damage to adjacent units, stacks)
• Weapons: Melee (claws)
  
  

Priest of the Deep (Deformed humanoid with polyps and tentacles all over him)

• Class: Support
• Stats: Low health, medium attack/defence/ini/damage
• Abilities: Range 3, Chain lightning, Tidal wave (AOE +1 speed buff).
• Weapons: Claws/wands/staves
  
  

Will add more stuff later...

I hope Amplitude followed this thread. This concept for a aquatic based major faction is so neat.

All of this and the everything in this thread

it needs to happen

it must

it's inevitable(?)

Amplitude Studs pls

goobt wrote:
as much as i like the idea of minor factions on the sea, this is very unbalanced. Suppose that you went in with one strong unit and a couple of weaker ones, but they all attacked the strong one first, they could potentially wipe out your army, or at least majorly damage it. Or when an enemy assimilates it, and you have more than just 2 that will potentially destroy you. Especially when it gets the highest equipment. You should at least make it where it has a set amount of health, so they can't become too overpowered.

The Protists will transform into a strong unit, but that does not mean that they will copy its stats exactly.

The Protists will still be limited with standard equipment and its current level. So if the other units have higher level and Titanium/Glassteel equipment (and therefore higher stats), the Protists will still be weaker.

Now when Roaming Army Protists morph, naturally they will gain lower equipment.



Also, the player can take precautions and make sure that they have a good unit composition to counter the morph. During battle, you can retreat your "strong" unit and only attack with your weaker units. Morphing requires you to think more strategically, both when used against you AND when you use it yourself. Can you please give me an example of a "strong unit and weak units" army?

this is having to do with the aomeba minor faction posted above

as much as i like the idea of minor factions on the sea, this is very unbalanced. Suppose that you went in with one strong unit and a couple of weaker ones, but they all attacked the strong one first, they could potentially wipe out your army, or at least majorly damage it. Or when an enemy assimilates it, and you have more than just 2 that will potentially destroy you. Especially when it gets the highest equipment. You should at least make it where it has a set amount of health, so they can't become too overpowered.

However, you are also correct that flooding land has been done in warcraft and EL should find a more unique way to do it. Hrrm.



I love basically every idea I've read in this thread, but it still feels like they need a slight simplification, knowing amplitude (Especially since coding the cultists was apparently a nightmare for them. :P). Being forced to build only where water is within reach could be considered too imbalanced. Unless

A. They made their own water.

B.They needed less cities.

C. They had a more unique less broken way to spread water. Creating more rivers? Icing land over instead of flooding it?



The aquatic faction could double as a winter faction. They believe that the gods are requiring them to adapt from one body of water, to the other, so they find ways to survive within ice as much as ocean. To them, it is all water, and if they pass their "test" the ice will melt and the planet flooded.



So- colonise oceans, have nearby regions freeze over into the ice biome, and colonise the ice biomes? Bonus in water and winter, weakness out of ice biomes and water during the summer because of the dry air and heat.



Changing the biome doesn't change what is in it, is still iseable by other factions, and just alters the fidsi of the land.

KrimsonVagus wrote:
I gave the Typhons the ability to convert land tiles into lakes and ocean tiles in a previous comment. It is an active ability like magic, but based on .



I think your idea is interesting, but I could not apply it earlier for 2 reasons:

1- The Naga in Warlock 2 already have the ability to flood the land with water every time they build a city. So I thought we could try something unique and different instead.

2- The regions in Endless Legend are limited in number, especially in small maps. So if we convert land region into water completely, it would break the game! cuz it will severely limit the expansion of Land factions.

However, your idea is still interesting and it all depends on the balancing aspect. So I really need to hear from the devs about this first.

Perhaps not- if their city is captured, the land could return at 100% ownership. If the water comes from a mechanism in the the city, capturing the city turns it off. Then, once you completely own the region, it evaporates away. Has the added benefit of making the cities harder to defend after capture, as water debuffs your units and buffs theirs. So, water faction has the defensive edge as long as they get the city back before the water is gone.



And the water isn't deep enough to warrent boats, so enemy armies can wade through it. Just slower.



This way, the water faction is useable even in an all land map. Otherwise, they would have a much harder time finding rivers/ice/lakes to build on. Not impossible mind you, just slightly more difficult. The faction would require lots of coding to insure they started on a body of water, and allways had more water to colonise on the map .. I think. Might be easy. I feel it would be more difficult than having land be flooded.