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The only races who have mechanics so far are trolls, elves and humans. So... everything else.
DEV DIARY 1: OVERVIEW
TIDES OF WARCRAFT
DEV DIARY 1: OVERVIEW
DEV DIARY 1: OVERVIEW
Hello and welcome to our very first Dev Diary for the newly-renamed Tides of Warcraft mod for Crusader Kings II. Some may remember our old name, Azerothian Kings, but circumstances required a renaming. I am the main event modder and otherwise general scripter of the team, though with the recent influx of event modders I am no longer alone in my task. As a final note before we continue, keep in mind that some of this is work in progress and everything is prone to change.
This first dev diary is more of an overview of our mod and its features, and I'll also take the opportunity to explain various design decisions we've made.
Tides of Warcraft currently spans a great deal of time in the history of Azeroth, going from the Troll Wars, 2800 years before the Dark Portal opens, all the way to the time period in which the original, expansion-less World of Warcraft game takes place, 25 years after the opening of the Dark Portal. However, since the game does not support negative years, we are basing the start of our calendar at the end of the War of the Ancients, placing the events of the Troll Wars at 7200 and the First War (covered in Warcraft 1) at 10000.
The current bookmarks, then, are the Troll Wars, at year 7200, where the first true Human nation, Arathor, came to the aid of the High Elves of Quel'Thalas when these were attacked by the mighty Forest Troll empire of the Amani; Next is the War of the Three Hammers, year 9770, where the stout Dwarves, once united, broke apart as their three greatest clans vied for control of Khaz Modan in a brutal civil war; Then we arrive on more familiar ground: The First War, year 10000, represented in the very first Warcraft game. In it, the newly-arrived Orcish Horde will face off against the kingdom of Stormwind; The Second War happens a scant five years later, 10005, when the Horde turns north, and the Alliance is formed in response; The Third War, when the Scourge destroyed Lordaeron and the Burning Legion made its second invasion, happens on 10020; Finally, the Age of Adventurers, based of off the events of World of Warcraft happens at 10025, as tension between Alliance and Horde begin to arise once more.
Some may already know, but the mod currently only features the continent of the Eastern Kingdoms. Don't worry, for we will add other continents and lands in the future, but the reason for this is so we can polish and detail each area as much as possible in a focused effort before moving on to the next.
Keeping in mind that the certain areas are being revamped (Some island are being added, Twilight Highlands is being expanded and the Cauldron, Searing Gorge, Deadwind Pass and Blasted Lands areas are getting at the very least retextured), you may also have noticed that the terrain doesn't exactly match the map seen in World of Warcraft. The reason is because the WoW map is filled with hard transitions between biomes, and mountains are absolutely everywhere. While perfectly acceptable for a game, especially one where space needs to be compressed to make travel not be a chore, it would look very strange seen from the perspective of CK2. Thus we opted for a more organic, natural feeling to the map.
We have been asked in the past about why we even chose to cover the rather obscure period of the Troll Wars, rather than focusing only on the far better known period covered by the games. The reason being that we think it would make for an interesting change of pace, without the convoluted politics of Horde and Alliance, or the world-ending forces like the Scourge or the Legion bearing down on you. But worry not, for we will strive for as much quality in these starts as we will on the more popular ones.
You will, of course, be able to play as quite a few races, and we are striving to make at least some unique mechanics for most, if not all, of them. We feel, after all, that playing as a human should be different from playing as a troll, and very different from playing as a murloc.
We, and I in particular, are big fans of customization. After all, just because we may have a vision for this mod doesn't mean you agree with it. So through game rules you will be allowed to alter how the mod behaves. While this dev diary is an overview, the rules are simple and brief enough that I can explain what each does without taking much space.
Interbreeding, as you can see in the screenshot, controls what pairings result in offsprings. The default option allows for a few select pairings like humans and elves. You can also either completely remove the restrictions, or restrict them even further so that no cross-breeding is possible.
Story event rules control whether or not they will appear in your game. They were split for each bookmark so you can have the story events of the First and Second Wars, for example, but not those of the Third. They can also be set to an "Alternate History" mode, where the weights on decisions and random factors are relaxed so they are not skewed towards the canon.
Certain religions, governments, cultures and character classes have certain restrictions scripted into them, preventing things like, say, a feudal Gnoll or a Blood Elf witch doctor. If you feel any of those are too restrictive, you can change that.
Finally, we have a few more specific rules. First is the one about the Infinite Dragonflight, who appear, very rarely, from time to time to derail story events and in other circumstances. You can either have them not do that at all, or have it happen more often. Certain races and religions have specific opinions towards certain character classes. Through the Class Opinions rule, you can choose if that is the case or not. And we have Corruption Speed, which governs the spread of Fel Corruption trought both provinces and characters. Due to corruption being such an important mechanic, you can't turn it off, but you can slow it down to half the default speed... or make it happen twice as fast.
And that's it for this one. In future Dev Diaries we'll go into more detail on specific features. If you have any questions, just ask and either I or another member of the team will try to answer them.
Are you gonna relax (or, alternatively, toughen) the marriage rules for undead? I'm assuming since they don't breed, then having an undead human marry a gnoll or something wouldn't be a huge issue. Alternatively, what kind of Elf or Gnoll is gonna wanna shack up with a rotting corpse, unless they are also undead? (Are you gonna have undead versions of the different races or is it just "Undead Human" like in WoW?)
There is no way to restrict marriages. At most you can make a trait block them entirely. I haven't made anything about breaking up marriages via event, but if it proves problematic I'll consider doing so.
Undead is not so much of a race trait as something that goes together with them. So you can have undead humans, undead elves, undead orcs, undead murlocs, etc.
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You last bookmark is in the vanilla wow start, but, you guys are doing draenei portrait and (maybe) outland, fact is, draenei only came to azeroth after kael seize tempest keep month before TBC expansion.
I wish WOLK expansion bookmark @_@.
I wish WOLK expansion bookmark @_@.
If we keep up with what we plan on doing, adding a WotLK bookmark is most likely in the cards. Mind you it'll probably happen when we actually get to Northrend, but if and when that does happen a Wrath BM is incredibly likely, which would not only have history for Northrend but also the knock-on effects of the quests that were done in both EK and Kali.
I think taking the timeline as far back as the Troll Wars is risky; to be perfectly honest, the earliest date I'd offer is the War of the Three Hammers.
You are not forced to start there but the possiblity existing is better than not having it no?
Not really.
Very little is known about that period of history beyond the basic summary given in Chronicles I. In comparison, we know a great deal about the War of the Three Hammers, who was involved, where the centres of power were, etc. It'd also serve as a means of encouraging players to give the dwarves a try; otherwise, it's just several repeated bookmarks of humans vs. orcs which, whilst comprising a significant chunk of the setting, doesn't really seem all that great in a grand strategy game.
It's also the better part of a few-thousand years before the rest of the game; as far as I remember, the game doesn't handle expansive time-periods particularly well.
Indeed, and it allows one to experience the forest trolls at their peak.
Actually, about the same is known about the troll wars an the war of the three hammers, you know the leaders of the factions involved, the races, borders, reasons and how they concluded.
There is the same lack of "and what did the rest of the world do during this time?" infomration and the "are there only those five main racial leaders involved and everyone else just sat by the sideline?" lack of names issue.
Im sorry but im not hearing how this was an argument against having the bookmark.
The human-orc wars will rush through very quickly if you think about it in CK2 terms, ist a few major battles and then the orcs occupy stuff repeated over and over.
It doesnt like them.
But it works.
The same could be said about year 2010 in Warhammer universe, but that didn´t stop Geheimnisnacht, did it?
They could always create ton of fun characters to fill the world, for example gnoll of House Hogger, so players could conquer the world with them. Or creating ancestors of Greymanes, Menethils and other families as counts and allow players to bring them into greatness and all kind of weird stuff.
Are there plans for post vanilla bookmarks? You mentioned a WotLK bookmark might be possible, but will you also include a BC bookmark? I think I remember you were thinking of using the new Chinese Empire mechanics for Outland/Draenor, but maybe the bookmark could just start with the Exodar crash and the Blood Elves joining the horde? Also will there be any plans for a Cataclysm bookmark and anything past that date?
You are misremembering. I said we wouldn't use the chinese mechanics for outland/draenor, but rather for something else. BC doesn't make too much sense, to be honest. I think top candidates are WotLK, Cataclysm, MoP (maybe), and Legion. Cataclysm and Legion involve by far the biggest changes to the world.
Ah sorry, thought it was the other way around with Outland and the Chinese mechanics. I was mostly just asking about a BC bookmark because it of having the idea of playing Draenei a little bit early than WotLK, but that's alright if you don't add one. But do you mind if I ask the reasons against a BC bookmark?