Cities and settlements.

[SteamPunk]

I haven't been into the whole games workshop stuff since I was a kid(I'm now 39). And while I know what an orc or an elf looks like, I know nothing of what their cities or settlements look like? Are there famous buildings, temples or similar which might make it into the game? Any unique settlements such as on an island or half way up a mountain? We're going to be seiging or defending a lot of settlements of various sizes, within the different races available, so if anyone has any info please post here. Hopefully we can get an idea of what might be possible.

Ps. If there are bloodbowl stadiums in some of the cities that would be awesome

[HigoChumbo]

While we wait for the serious, knowledgeable posters, here, an orcish den:

[Himster]

Ok,
The Dwarfs have these Karaks, which are like: think of Khazad Dum from the Fellowship of the Ring, but often with significant castles outside, so imagine castle sieges in Med 2, but with another layer the size of another massive city that is all underground.

The Empire (the protagonists of the Warhammer World) have many different kinds of cities. One city (that is partly independent) is a port city, called Marienburg, it's built on a marsh, a lot of it's buildings are actually made of wrecked ships, some are turned on their sides, some stacked on top of eachother, or patterned, mis-matched, even the battlements are sometimes made from massive ships of the line, so the cannons of the ship actually make the defense of the city, because it's on a marshy kind of swamp, like Venice, it's sinking all of the time, stuff needs rebuilding all of the time, the most readily available material is old boats so, it's interesting, the architecture, the worldview of the people etc.
Another interesting city is Middenheim, the city of a winter and war God called Ulric. His temple was built on a mountain given to him by his brother God, to make the mountain more pleasing he punched the top off to make a plateau for his temple and eventually a city. This is the strongest city in the Empire, it is a castle surrounded by cliffs and huge walls: depictions vary, after the Lord of the Rings movies it looks a lot like Minas Tirith, but hopefully that will change. It shouldn't be so elegant, it should be rougher than other cities, hewn from raw rock, festooned with wolf symbolism.
Nuln is the city of engineers, it's clockwork gates and defenses should be interesting, hopefully, it's also where the main cannon foundries of the Empire are, so epic cannon defenses will be there, it used to be the capital, it's architecture is very gothic, it sits on a forked river, with an island in the middle.
Altdorf is the capital, the biggest city, it also sits on a forked river, it's architecture might be even more gothic than Nuln, more palaces, more cathedrals, this is also the seat of the pope like figure the Grand Theogonist.
Mordheim is another interesting city, it was destroyed by an asteroid of what is basically magical crack-cocaine, so that's pretty baddass, it will probably feature because it's close to the Vampire Counts who use the dust from that asteroid to help raise the dead, it will be interested to see how this city is used, imagine Hiroshima but with mutants and magical-crack addicts.

Now the vampires, they have villages, which they view more like live-stock pens which they cull from time to time, but they also have castles, like Drakenhof, think of Notre-Damme, but bigger, thicker walls, taller towers, more gargoyle sculptures, constantly cast in shadow. Like Dracula's castle on steroids.

Orcs don't really have cities, they'll take cities and cover them in their pooh and hammer together idols (also often made of pooh) and pile stolen shields and debris to make kind-of-walls, they use yurts, sometimes made of human skin, or if they're particularly awesome orcs: Dwarf beards, massive palace tents made of beards and probably jaw bones, orcs aren't known for being careful when they take their trophies. The rest of the Old World is pretty typically medieval Europe, some minor twists obviously, but not much. Those I've listed are the main twists I think anyway.

[Musteline]

*dies* put some spaces so i don't die of a heart attack

[Påsan]

Basically Empire: German gothic. Undead: Scary German Gothic/Transylvania from Dracula stories. Orcs: Camps, possibly nomadic. Dwarves: Well they are basically LotR rippoffs (With gunz) so yeah Erebor/Moria.

[Collateral_dmg]

I'll just leave this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqVNJVtM6y0

[frenchyvinnie]

Here are some artworks I found, maybe it can help:

Generic Imperial town:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

An Ork settlement built on top of a Dwarven fortress (something the orks are fond of doing):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Vampire castle (I believe it is meant to be Drakenhof, the Vampire Capital):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And finally the entrance of dwarf hold (imagine what it's like inside...):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Garensterz]

Got a question for the fans. What happens when a certain faction stumbles an enemy settlement and wins it? For example, the empire faction captured an orcish settlement, what does the empire faction does to the enemy settlement? Do they usually raze it? Can they make the settlement as a puppet ally? It's kinda weird if an empire faction can peacefully capture an orcish settlement though . Imagine real people making love with the female orcs to make a new breed army lol.

So how does invasions work in the warhammer world? What do they to to the enemy settlements, especially if it's a different race?

[HigoChumbo]

Well, I dont think the Warhammer world is designed with conquest in mind. More like total destruction and chaos. It's just lore for the tabletop game, it was never created with games like Total War in mind (although that is indeed an interesting question, I am really intrigued about how CA will deal with a lot of such crossroads the adaptation of Warhammer to Total War implies)

Oh, by the way, apparently there is no such thing as female orcs. Orks breed via spores. I believe the species itself is some kind of space fungus, so you go figure.

[frenchyvinnie]

I support Higochumbo on this.

If the Empire capture another human town (from Bretonnia, Tilea, etc), then I assume the standard TW rules for captured settlements apply. However, Orks, Skaven, Beastmen, Ogres, Chaos cultists, Vampires and all the evil factions are mostly interested in looting coffers, slaughtering/enslaving the population, burning homes, sacrificing young virgins to their Dark Gods or drinking mortals' blood (depending on the relevant ethnic minority ) . There are some exceptions of course, Skaven and Goblins generally like living underground, so when they capture a dwarf hold they keep it (although they make some changes to the place's furnishing...).

On the other hand, I've never heard of a dwarf army capturing a human settlement and vice-versa. I guess If the Empire captures a dwarf hold it could occupy it, since some dwarves are known to live peacefully in the Empire. But I don't really see the dwarves being interested in building an empire above ground, so I don't know what would happen if a Dwarf faction captures a human settlement.

I guess the objective of the game will have to change in Warhammer Total War. The player won't have (or even be able to) conquer a bunch of settlements to win. When playing the Empire, you might have to eradicate Chaos and Orks and colonize uncivilized places. For the dwarves, the endgame would be to restore the ancient Dwarven empire of the World's Edge Mountains. For the Orks and Chaos, it would be to burn everything down to the ground. For the vampires, it would be to drink everyone's blood and turn the human nations into an empire of undeath.


EDIT: And yes, Orks reproduce with spores like mushrooms. It's a bit weird... don't ask.

[Garensterz]

Well, I guess the game will actually be a real "Total War" this time huh. The campaign's going to be a bit repetitive if that's the case. Maybe this game is going for multiplayer focus just like what they did to Rome 2.

We'll see...

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Similar query, I wonder how they will do the regions this time.

I hope it is closer to Shogun 2 or Empire than Rome I or II. I want to be able to target farms specifically to attack, or destroy ports without taking over the actual town.

[frenchyvinnie]

I think the R2TW province system would fit quite nicely to the Warhammer setting.

For example, the Empire, while large, is not truly continuous or unified. Inside its borders, there are many stretches of unclaimed forests and wild places which are teeming with orks, goblins and beastmen. In this case, in every province in the Empire, there could be an ork or beastmen tribe holding a settlement, which has to be eradicated.

But I agree that it was nice to raid farms and resources in ETW. And it fits the idea of Orks and beastmen pillaging the countryside but avoiding walled cities. Maybe a mix of the two systems then?

[IrishBlood]

If human's or dwarves capture a settlement owned by Orks, beastmen, undead, etc then they CLEANSE the place of any and all trace of the inhabitants and then resettle some of their own people there by offering free land, loot etc.

The problem is when your dealing with the Orks or skaven, you cant wipe them out. You might take a mountain fortress, but underneath that fortress there are literally thousands of miles of tunnels and vaults that connect innumerable lairs, so they can never be wiped out. If a dwarf army capture a former city of theirs, they usually only capture the top 5-10 levels of it and then seal off anything below that. But they are still always always under constant threat of attack from below and dwarfs have the lowest numbers of any other race, so they are basically being ground to dust over the centuries, thats why it is not uncommon to have hundreds of humans living in some dwarf cities, or at least in the parts of those cities that are above ground.

Also a big problem for the dwarfs is their retarded honor codes that they strictly adhere too. This often causes them to constantly try and retake fortresses that were lost to orks or skavan generations before, so instead of concentrating themselves into a handful of extremely powerful holds, they are quiet thinly spread.

[SinerAthin]

I think it'd be cool if they used the horde mechanic from Attila.

I imagine the Orks could for instance consist of randomly spawned armies that grew in size over time, and, if left unchecked, could become really strong, produce armies of their own, and band together with other roaming ork armies to form massive waaaghs.

That way, if you did not cull their numbers, you might suddenly wake up one day and find 10-20stacks of them spilling in over the far side of the Empire!

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Similar query, I wonder how they will do the regions this time.

I hope it is closer to Shogun 2 or Empire than Rome I or II. I want to be able to target farms specifically to attack, or destroy ports without taking over the actual town.

I think the R2TW province system would fit quite nicely to the Warhammer setting.

For example, the Empire, while large, is not truly continuous or unified. Inside its borders, there are many stretches of unclaimed forests and wild places which are teeming with orks, goblins and beastmen. In this case, in every province in the Empire, there could be an ork or beastmen tribe holding a settlement, which has to be eradicated.

But I agree that it was nice to raid farms and resources in ETW. And it fits the idea of Orks and beastmen pillaging the countryside but avoiding walled cities. Maybe a mix of the two systems then?

I hope we don't see the return to the Empire system of managing territory. That was literally the thing I hated most in a game that I barely enjoyed.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Shogun 2 did it better, obviously. It was a pain to click through every single building, a search each province one by one for the floating build marker.

[frenchyvinnie]

I hope we don't see the return to the Empire system of managing territory. That was literally the thing I hated most in a game that I barely enjoyed.

Not the micromanaging fest that was ETW, I was thinking more of a mix between R2TW and ETW provinces. For example, the management of your buildings would be centralized like in R2TW, allowing for easy access and management. But at the same time, if you build a farm in a settlement, this farm appears on the map and can be raided individually.

This way, we keep the advantages of both systems while getting rid of the annoying bits Wouldn't it be perfect?


... I'm naive, right?

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Well, that's almost exactly how it was in Shogun 2. The only difference would be that, in Shogun 2, you had a farm building inherently in a province, and could upgrade it along multiple paths. Preferably, in Warhammer, you'd have a blank settlement slot on the campaign map, outside the main town, and then you could build from a large selection of buildings, like R2TW.

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Not the micromanaging fest that was ETW, I was thinking more of a mix between R2TW and ETW provinces. For example, the management of your buildings would be centralized like in R2TW, allowing for easy access and management. But at the same time, if you build a farm in a settlement, this farm appears on the map and can be raided individually.

This way, we keep the advantages of both systems while getting rid of the annoying bits Wouldn't it be perfect?


... I'm naive, right?

I suppose that would be tolerable. I'm not thrilled by the idea, but I suppose it's one of those things I'd really have to test out to have an opinion of.

Granted, my "grandest" strategies usually rely on baiting multiple enemy stacks to attack one of my cities and smashing them there to pave the way for a counter attack, so I'm a bit biased against having to tramp around my territory any more than is necessary.