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Topic: "Northmen" Tribe Page

GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 18:41

For inspiration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age_arms_and_armour

And how about peat as a ware? Could be used in the smokery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisians

Edited: 2017-06-22, 18:42

Busy indexing nil values

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 18:45

There were several remarks I find very interesting:

  • A Watt product would be great, but the question is what could possibly be obtained from Watt? Watt worms are not the most useful animals face-smile.png Perhaps a salt production site that obtains salt from the sea. Salt could be used for bread – or for improving meat and fish with salt instead of smoking them.

  • About sheep: Well, they provide wool and milk. Wool can only be used for clothing, but we already have reindeer fur for that. Milk would be more useful, but I think the food economy is complex enough already. The mines are very inefficient, yes – perhaps they could be compensated by getting a radius of 3 as well as very fast working and sleeping times.

  • The idea of the Mud Mine is this: The ground where the Northmen live is frozen and hard, so the clay burner can´t just dig it up to turn into clay. Instead there is a mud digger who uses a shovel to dig in the frozen earth to supply the clay burner. Placing such a building on a mountain wouldn´t make sense, and as earth isn´t such a finite resource, I thought of it as a building that produces for ever and ever without ever running out of anything (but only when the economy needs it so it doesn´t clog up the road network).

  • I suggested slow grain growth because plants that have to survive in harsh climate usually grow very slowly. This makes grain much more precious than for other tribes, which is why they don´t use much to bake bread.

  • According to the wiki page, the warriors are strong and robust. They seem to charge into battle regardless of their life and health, which is why I gave them no defence and no evade training. Perhaps they could get a quite high basic evade chance and defence percentage? Tribes that aren´t really civilised are stereotypically seen as using battle axes. That´s why I didn´t equip them with swords. I only suggested 1 trainingsite because the wiki has only 1, but yes, two would make more sense. Perhaps we could have one site where the soldier gets trained up to level 3 Attack and 2 Health, and one site that only takes soldiers with 3 Attack and 2 Health, and this site gives them the promotions to 6 Attack and 4 Health.

  • Reet is very similar to thatch reed. I always imagined thatch reed to be more like straw. But I won´t insist on having different wares here…


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 18:48

I have linked the discussion in the Northmen wiki article. Every one could edit the article to add descriptions, plans or images face-smile.png

The main reason why one associates a tribe with a specific culture is the name and the economy. So Barbarians with their wood based economy may associate with Vikings. The name 'Northmen' will do so too. But beside the name the economy makes the main difference. What about changing the name of that tribe to make abetter distinction?

  • Frisians
  • Mortars
  • Honeypots

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 19:01

Yes, when I hear "Northmen" I imagine something similar to Barbarians. Changing the name would make sense. I particularly like the name "Frisians" for obvious reasons face-wink.png

Peat or Turf is a great idea, I would prefer it to logs in the Tannery.


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JanO
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 19:21

Some small ideas for the food resources:

  • Out of water/mud: What about mussels?

  • The on-land food production site (corresponding to grain farm) could be something like a guy collecting something like plants (berries) or mushrooms. Nevertheless that would propably be a small building. Some bigger one for animals would fit into cold climate, maybe shift the complex part of food production to the production of food for the animals?

  • The stuff around honey / honey beer and honey bread seems a bit strange, if this tribe's origin should be considered permafrost...

Edited: 2017-06-22, 19:26

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 19:48

Actually, I´m no longer sure what exactly is their origin. They originate in Northern Friesland, but have moved to the North. Yet they retain the Frisian culture…

Mussels are great! I can´t believe I didn´t have that idea. But the hard part is getting to them; it would be best to fish for them from a boat. Fishing from the shore is not a good way of gathering them – unless you mean the shells, which could be turned into jewellery and used instead of iron to produce Silver Fur Cloth.

Gathering mushrooms and berries means adding some resources like that to the map. The tribe would then be unable to work properly unless all existing maps were revised, and I´m not sure if it is worth the trouble. I considered gathering turf from moors, but I don´t see how this could be implemented. Perhaps Turf could be mined by mining the resource Water, like a well does.

All existing tribes use lots of bread. They can´t work without grain and bread. So I think the new tribe should also have this concept. But we could give them a faster grain production and instead complicate the Fish/Aqua Farms. I´m not sure what these could be operated with…

I had a look at the link about the Viking weapons. Swords and spears might be better than more axes. I´ll think about it some more…

Also, I thought about the cost of soldier training. It is (of course) the weapon/helmet/armour plus food. The food could be:

  • Attack training up to level 3 and life training up to level 2: 1 bread AND 1 smoked/salted (whichever we choose…) fish OR meat AND 1 beer

  • Attack training from level 3 and higher and life training from level 2 and higher: 1 bread OR 1 sweet bread AND 2 smoked/salted fish OR meat AND 1 mead

Suggestion: Have a salt production site and a Salting building. The tannery uses turf to smoke the meat/fish for the soldiers while the Salting site uses salt to make salted meat/fish for miners.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 20:57

well, I generally support the idea of another tribe but I will try to sort out balance issues. we already have a tribe with a fast and strong early game that is weaker later, a tribe with a weak start but a strong late game, and an average tribe. what kind of tribe we want here?

as for soldiers lacking evade, I say it could be a nice way to characterize them, but they need to still stand up in a fight. we can't give them a high base evade, or their level 0 soldiers would be too strong. I suggest defence is the way to go, especially since it is only used by atlanteans and so it needs more love. If we picture them as fierce berserker without regard for safety (justifies the no evade) they could be padded in furs to cushion the blows. A high defence value could be mathematically equivalent to evade. and since they have reindeer, they could use reindeer furs for it.

As for their personality, they could be masters of bad terrain: they would have few buildings requiring a large plot, but require more space otherwise. on a flat land they would be weaker, but on a rough land they would not suffer.

I'm busy now, but I will try to expand later


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 21:34

The problem with mussels is that this would mean an additional resource which has to be implemented code wise. But the idea is good though face-smile.png


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 22:37

Nordfriese wrote:

There were several remarks I find very interesting:

  • A Watt product would be great, but the question is what could possibly be obtained from Watt?

Probably nothing, as far as I know

Perhaps a salt production site that obtains salt from the sea. Salt could be used for bread – or for improving meat and fish with salt instead of smoking them.

Well, you don't need so much salt for anything, so I think there is no point in introducing a ware called salt...

  • About sheep: Well, they provide wool and milk. Wool can only be used for clothing, but we already have reindeer fur for that. Milk would be more useful, but I think the food economy is complex enough already. The mines are very inefficient, yes – perhaps they could be compensated by getting a radius of 3 as well as very fast working and sleeping times.

If they are fast working, this only means that you don't need many mines. That cannot really compensate that they are very inefficient...

  • The idea of the Mud Mine is this: The ground where the Northmen live is frozen and hard, so the clay burner can´t just dig it up to turn into clay. Instead there is a mud digger who uses a shovel to dig in the frozen earth to supply the clay burner. Placing such a building on a mountain wouldn´t make sense, and as earth isn´t such a finite resource, I thought of it as a building that produces for ever and ever without ever running out of anything (but only when the economy needs it so it doesn´t clog up the road network).

It could still consume food, because it's a mine.

  • I suggested slow grain growth because plants that have to survive in harsh climate usually grow very slowly. This makes grain much more precious than for other tribes, which is why they don´t use much to bake bread.

Again, that the plant grows slowly doesn't mean that the farm works slower. It just means that the farm needs more space.

And watery bread doesn't make so much sense...

  • According to the wiki page, the warriors are strong and robust. They seem to charge into battle regardless of their life and health, which is why I gave them no defence and no evade training. Perhaps they could get a quite high basic evade chance and defence percentage?

A high basic evade could solve the problem, maybe. For compensating, their basic livepoints could be lower, and maybe also their basic attack. High basic defence is not really needed in my opinion.

Tribes that aren´t really civilised are stereotypically seen as using battle axes. That´s why I didn´t equip them with swords. I only suggested 1 trainingsite because the wiki has only 1, but yes, two would make more sense.

Actually, a tribe with only one trainingssite could be interesting. That would be a nice advantage.

Perhaps we could have one site where the soldier gets trained up to level 3 Attack and 2 Health, and one site that only takes soldiers with 3 Attack and 2 Health, and this site gives them the promotions to 6 Attack and 4 Health.

Yes, perhaps

JanO wrote:

Some small ideas for the food resources:

  • Out of water/mud: What about mussels?

Good idea

  • The on-land food production site (corresponding to grain farm) could be something like a guy collecting something like plants (berries) or mushrooms.

Also a good idea. If barbarian game keepers can produce animals out of nothing, why shouldn't it be possible to collect berries and mushrooms?

  • The stuff around honey / honey beer and honey bread seems a bit strange, if this tribe's origin should be considered permafrost...

I also think that some aspects of the tribe are strange face-smile.png

Nordfriese wrote:

Mussels are great! I can´t believe I didn´t have that idea. But the hard part is getting to them; it would be best to fish for them from a boat. Fishing from the shore is not a good way of gathering them

Well, the game doesn't have to be too accurate face-wink.png

Gathering mushrooms and berries means adding some resources like that to the map.

Not necessarily...

I considered gathering turf from moors, but I don´t see how this could be implemented.

Well, moors are only part of some maps, so this is not a good option

Perhaps Turf could be mined by mining the resource Water, like a well does.

Yes, or even easier: Independent from resources in the ground...

All existing tribes use lots of bread. They can´t work without grain and bread. So I think the new tribe should also have this concept. But we could give them a faster grain production

Yes, the farms could be very fast. If they need more space than other farms, this is just fair.

I had a look at the link about the Viking weapons. Swords and spears might be better than more axes. I´ll think about it some more…

Or only swords, because the empire already uses spears face-wink.png

Suggestion: Have a salt production site and a Salting building. The tannery uses turf to smoke the meat/fish for the soldiers while the Salting site uses salt to make salted meat/fish for miners.

See above... face-wink.png

king_of_nowhere wrote:

well, I generally support the idea of another tribe but I will try to sort out balance issues. we already have a tribe with a fast and strong early game that is weaker later, a tribe with a weak start but a strong late game,

Atlanteans? I think that they are very strong in the early game, probably the strongest tribe there.

and an average tribe. what kind of tribe we want here?

Maybe a tribe which is indeed weak at the beginning and strong in the end face-wink.png

as for soldiers lacking evade, I say it could be a nice way to characterize them, but they need to still stand up in a fight. we can't give them a high base evade, or their level 0 soldiers would be too strong.

As I said, it could be compensated... Well, see above

I suggest defence is the way to go, especially since it is only used by atlanteans and so it needs more love.

That's what I mean. Maybe one should make more than one new tribe face-tongue.png

If we picture them as fierce berserker without regard for safety (justifies the no evade) they could be padded in furs to cushion the blows. A high defence value could be mathematically equivalent to evade.

Well... Only evade is the reason for a random aspect in the fights...

Oh wait. There is a second possibility: The minimal attack could be much lower than the maximal attack. In comparison to other tribes. So there would not be even a necessity for a high basic evade value face-smile.png

kaputtnik wrote:

The problem with mussels is that this would mean an additional resource which has to be implemented code wise. But the idea is good though face-smile.png

Or the mussel collector is a breader at the same time and has to go only to a shore if he wants to work... That could solve the problem...


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-06-22, 23:27

ok, let's see.

farms could be barley farms. finland used barley in older times because it is better for cold climates. barley farms would be large buildings. barley fields would grow 50% slower than other fields; other farms require 4 spaces at the bare minimum, barley farms would need at least 6 to reach 100% production. Not many of them would be required for the economy. Only other large building, aside from the castle (which could be called dun) would be the training camp, where soldiers would train in attack and healt.

defence could be learned in a place called "toughtening center", or something like that. with a base evade of 25%, defence levels could be 5%/23%/51%, which would give a survivability roughly equal to that of the other tribes with evade. Or maybe it could be a bit lower but the healt promotions could be stronger. defence training could cost 1 fur, 1 beer and 1 meat/fish/bread for level 1, and an extra fur for level 2.

raindeer farms could be small houses, but require land around for the herds. maybe it could grow herds like a farm grow crops, with the deer herder putting up a fence and then small deers growing in it. that would certainly be easier to code than an herd freely moving around, though the latter would be cooler.

I'm thinking that the description given by nordfriese is a pretty complex economy; operating mines is very expensive, and the tribe would result weak. on theother hand, they may have stronger soldiers to compensate higher costs. in that case even their military buildings should hold less soldiers. but not sure how well that would work. it would be reallly hard to balance right. So, I would remove barley cost from most stuff. Maybe mines would not require barley to operate, but it would be required to promote soldiers.


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