[WIP] Crooked Moon Goblins

[Cyclone Jack]

Play as the Crooked Moon Goblins!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=705666975

This mod now REQUIRES The King and the Warlord DLC.

This mod has NOT been optimized to work with other mods yet. I'm starting that project tomorrow. Any and all feedback is welcome here or on Steam.

This is my first Total War mod, and my first mod in a really, really long time; my last mod was for Diablo 2. There are still numerous balance passes to be made, and I still have a ton of work to do on the Campaign side of things. However, the Custom Battles are working, and I figured I'd start getting some feedback on that.

While you can choose the Crooked Moon Goblins from the Campaign screen, I've only played a few turns in, so I can't say how stable it is beyond that. I have added quite a few units (below), as well as a new Poison type. These changes should only be for the Crooked Moon Goblins, and I have been careful to not modify any of the Greenskins units.

I've added new characters, both Lords and Heroes. The Big Boss and Warboss characters play the same and only have some minor stat differences for now. The same goes for the Shaman and Great Shaman. The variety is mostly for flavor, but I'm wanting to add a new skill path for each goblin type (common, forest, night) on the campaign side.

There are two new named Heroes: Gitilla da Hunter and Snagla Grobspit. Gitilla is mounted and has a mount upgrade which has a speed boost, and he uses a multi-shot bow with 360 shoot radius. Snagla uses the Forest Poison, can be on foot, on a Giant Spider, or on a Huge Spider.

I added a few other units as well:
* Black Goblins: Shock infantry made up of (what appears to be) Goblin Big Bosses (though stat wise is less that Black Orcs); unique (can only have 1)
* Fire Kobolds: Short-range fire-spitting (bow) Goblins.
* Forest Goblins: Sword and Shield Goblins, stat-wise should be close to Night Goblins, but they use Forest Spider Poison.
* Forest Goblin Archers: Sword and Bow Goblins, stat-wise should be close to Night Goblin Archers, but they use Forest Spider Poison.
* Hill Goblin Spearmen: Hill Goblins are bigger and meaner than their smaller Common cousins, Spear and Shield Goblins, with large (orc) shields.
* Hill Goblin Swords: Dual Sword (sword and staff animations) high damage infantry.
* Hill Goblin Warg Riders: Heavy shock cavalry, probably still need to be toned down a bit more.
* Snotlings: Unbreakable little guys.
* Spider Swarms: Swarm of spiders (scaled down, riderless). These may be moved into a bound item for a summon spell in the Campaign.
* Troglagobs: Sword and Shield unit with medium range, minor armor-piercing Javelins (same as Chaos Javelins). I would prefer these to be spear, shield and bow, but there are no animations to support it.

* Goblin Spearmen: Added anti-large damage to their spears (rest of their spear stats are unchanged).
* Spider Riders: Replaced Poison with Forest Spider Poison.
* Spider Rider Archers: Replaced Poison with Forest Spider Poison.


That should give you a pretty good overview of the units. Like I said, I still have a ton of work to do on the campaign side, but there is a loose road map on the Workshop page for those curious.

Like I said above, any and all feedback is welcome. Especially on the balancing side of things.

[Memories of the Time]

Very interesting, good luck boss!

[Cyclone Jack]

Thanks!

Compatibility pass one is complete, and I knocked 6MB off. It should be mostly compatible with other mods. This didn't take as long as I had expected it to take. (I'd edit the OP, but the edit button is eluding me)

[McCarronXLD]

Very interesting! I've been thinking on how to experience Goblins more in depth, since there is no reason to take them as Greenskins unless you're hurting for money. Seems like a Goblin tribe would be just the trick!

[PaulH]

I really love the sound of this mod so far, especially the fact that you've used some of the rare goblinoids that many players don't know about such as Fire Kobolds. I've got a unit list that might be of some use to you, feel free to use anything you want from it. I would recommend a name change for the Black Goblins though, I'm not sure if you got the idea from the Black Goblin hero for the Black Gobbo magazine or just made a goblin version of Black Orcs, but there are goblins called Little Big'uns who are essentially the goblinoid version of Orc Big'uns. They'd be more accurate to the lore.

Also, I'd recommend expanding the Night Goblin portion of the mod, as the Crooked Moon are a night gobbo faction at heart.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Goblins-Units

[Cyclone Jack]

Hey, thanks. Yeah, I read a White Dwarf way back in the day that had the Fire Kobolds, Troglagobs, Hill Goblins and Dust Goblins, so I wanted to get them into the game. Sadly, the Dust Goblins didn't work out, at least not yet, and the Troglagobs didn't turn out exactly as I would have liked due to animation limitations. As for the Black Goblins, I basically made them a unit of Big Bosses by appearances, and gave them stats beneath the Black Orcs. They are meant to be a unique unit, something to give the army a tiny bit of shock troops.

I thought about adding in some Little Big'Uns, and I may still, but I felt they replaced the earlier units, and I'd rather try and keep a role for the early, Tier 1 units. At the same time, the Hill Goblins almost fill a similar role. It is something I'm still contemplating, though. I just don't want to flood the roster.

And Night Goblins really do need to be expanded. I'm hoping CA releases Skarsnik and the Squigs as a DLC, because the Goblins are truly lacking their flavor without them. I'm wanting to add Netters and Clubbers to the Night Goblins, similar to the Fanatics, but I'm not entirely sure how I want them to work, and if I can get them to work. I might add some NG Spears in the meantime.

Right now I'm trying to all of the buildings replaced, and its kicking my butt.

[Blastoise Groudon]

Good luck man! If you needed any help with concept art for advertising it let me know!

[MrCrisps]

Is the Crooked Moon the trike of Skarsnik? I have a doubt here since they hold Karak Height Peaks in the game...

[Cyclone Jack]

Skarsnik is the leader of the Crooked Moon Goblins, but I'm not adding him in just yet. I'm hoping CA adds him in officially.

In the progress department, I've got nearly all of the buildings in and working, except the Settlement chain itself, so you can't upgrade your settlements. The main starting settlements look correct (name, description, garrison, etc), they're just missing the settlement chain. I did find out this morning that I cannot rebuild a settlement, so I might look there next. In the meantime, I've also started working on the Heroes (Agents) for the campaign.

[Cyclone Jack]

I figured out the Settlement issues and will be testing the mod tonight and tomorrow, then I'll clean up the mod and push it to the Workshop this weekend. There is still a good amount of work to be done, but this release should get the basics covered.


Two things I have been pondering, but I'm not sure how well they would be received.

The first is to separate the Common Goblin and Night Goblin units into separate building chains. I already do this with the Forest Goblins, so doing this would give them 3 different military chains (4 if you count Trolls and Giants, but those are listed under Military Support). If I were to do this, I would need to create add'l Night Goblin units, probably some kind of Cavalry units, to make that chain a worthwhile investment (at least until we get some Squigs added to the game). Hill Goblins and Warg Riders would probably stay in the Common chain. One thing to note is that the Forest Goblin chain is the only chain that goes to Tier 4, due to the Arachnarok. I could move the Arachnarok to being a Tier 3 unit, but then require a special Tier 4 building to unlock it, similar to the Doom Divers. This would allow the military recruitment chains to be built in any settlement, not just major settlements, and still gain access to all of the troops.


Additionally, I was also thinking of requiring the appropriate military recruitment chain to recruit that type of Big Boss or Shaman. So, you'd need the Forest Goblin chain to hire the Forest Goblin Big Boss. This is an interesting, thematic mechanic, but I'm not sure if it would be too annoying.

[Cyclone Jack]

First pass on the Campaign has been uploaded. This should let you play as the Crooked Moon throughout the campaign, with a few caveats. Special settlements cannot be occupied yet, Technology Tree doesn't work, and there are a few minor graphical bugs here and there.

Just so happy I finally got this phase done!

[dodge33cymru]

Can't thank you enough for your work on this. I will have more feedback later as I don't have much chance to play at the moment, but I am an interested follower.

Put me down as a 'yes' for splitting night goblins and common goblins, although this would make more sense once squigs are added.

In particular, thanks for the new generic Lords and heroes, I wasn't sure they were even possible to do.

My dream is to split all the orc and goblin tribes on the original map into their own unique rosters and building chains, so I appreciate that you've already done a huge part of this!

Come on CA, Skarsnik and the squigs please.

[Cyclone Jack]

Should be releasing a new update this week with the Tech Tree, ability to settle special settlements and Savage Orc settlements, changed Karak Eight Peaks and Misty Mountain into a special settlement with special buildings, and a few other minor changes.

I'm pondering changing a few of the cities near Misty Mountain, the SW volcanic region, into a special settlement type and limiting the recruitment of Fire Kobolds to that area. Technically they are from the Red Cloud Mountains, but that is beyond the Southern edge of the current map edge. Of course, doing so requires a decent amount of work, which may or may nor be worth it for a single unit type that may not be heavily utilized; though I'd like for the fire Kobolds to be a very solid ranged troop type so that the building investment was worth it. But since this changes the slot types of these settlements, it can break save game compatibility with previous versions of the mod. So it's best to do all of these changes at the same time.

[Cyclone Jack]

Update released:

* Fire Kobolds set to 1 max, +2 per Red Cloud Recruitment building
* Crooked Moon Goblins are able to occupy Dwarf and Orc and Savage Orc Settlements.
* Add 4th Tier to Territory Marker to further boost Growth and Replenishment, as well as boost Leadership in that region.
* Modified Karak Eight Peaks resource from Pastures to Beer.
* Made Karak Eight Peaks a special settlement (usable by Crooked Moon, Orc, Savage Orc, and Dwarf).
* Added unique building to Karak Eight Peaks: Night Goblin Shrine (+XP/-Cost Night Goblins).
* Added unique building to Black Crag: Black Crag Training (recruit Black Goblins).
* Added unique building to Volcanic Settlements: Red Cloud Recruitment (recruit Fire Kobolds).
* Added new Volcanic Settlement type to Misty Mountain, Deff Gorge, Kradtommen, Spitepeak, and Dringorackas; usable by Dwarf, Goblin, Greenskin, Savage Orc.
* Added a new Crooked Moon Tech Tree with 38 nodes (35 usable).

[Cyclone Jack]

Due to The King and the Warlord DLC, I've had to redo most of this mod, and there is still a decent amount of work to bring it back up to what it was, but I also took this time to expand the scope a bit. I've added a slew of new settlement types that allow the Crooked Moon Goblins to grow as they expand their territory. You start as the Night Goblins, but can expand into territories that allow the recruitment of Common Goblins, Forest Goblins, Hill Goblins, Troglagobs, and Fire Kobolds. Each settlement type has their own garrisons, towers and walls, as well as their own military recruitment chains. New Big Boss and Shaman chains will be coming soon, and the plan is to expand the variety of Monsters as well (assuming I can delve into texture modding).

The "under the hood" for all of this has been quite extensive, as I have added 10 new superchains just for settlements (5 major and 5 minor). Of course, this means that all of the settlements for Dwarfs, Greenskins, Savage Orcs, and Wurrzag needed to be recreated for these new superchains as well, and all of the additional work involved therein. It ended up being much more work than I had anticipated.

All of the above units are available in the campaign, with the exception of Heroes. Sour, Snagla and Gitilla are recruitable Lords, but Snagla and Gitilla don't have skill trees yet, so I wouldn't recruit them. Special Settlements have not yet been modified, and I'm sure there are balance issues.

If you choose to play, any and all feedback is welcome!

Thanks!