post-0 AD idea: mythology

[Aldandil]

While not every culture has necessarily left historical or archaeological evidence of it, I think it's fair to assume that every Homo sapiens society has had medicine and medical practitioners of some kind. And realistically, a soldier who has been shot in the stomach, or had a bone broken, or lost a limb, won't be put back together and ready to re-enter the fray on the same day. So unless you assume a flavor that injured but surviving soldiers only have minor injuries like bruises, you'll either have to give unrealistic (magical?) abilities to mortal healers, or replace them with actual magical effects, to make the game playable.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

you raise a good point. yknow, one of the things that i both liked and disliked about AOM was that not all civilizations got a healer unit; only the egyptians were guaranteed to get one while the greeks could worship apollo to get a special technology that turns their temples into hospitals and the norse could worship freyja to get a valkyrie to heal

maybe ill take out the healer unit after all. that also simplifies things for the aztecs

[SMST]

Sorry, but what problem is there with the aztecs?

[oshron]

it was the inclusion of a Healer as a regular unit in one of the mod's expansions; there are Healers as regular units in 0ad, but i decided a long time ago to cut them out of the mythology mod because i wanted to include alot of heroes and sometimes myth units that were capable of healing their allies in the same way a healer would. but i was planning to give a unique Healer unit to the aztec major god Chalchiuhtlicue as her unique super unit, which would be a mass-production healer that serves as a field medic. if Healers were included as regular units, they would defeat the purpose of chalchiuhtlicue's healer unit

[oshron]

ive done a bit more work recently. here's some recent developments:

LEARNING CAMPAIGN!

i decided that the only way to be fair and original was to give six scenarios in the learning campaign, each covering the basic elements of the game plus one cinematic-only scenario that gives a basic overview of the game

a la

AOM. the first scenario is Unit Movement, focusing on Gilgamesh and Enkidu as they scour the Cedar Forest for teh monster Humbaba; the second is Buildings and Economy, where the Egyptians reestablish their presence as a significant power in the region, and advance to the Town Phase; then Arthur and the Celts must establish Camelot in Military; the fourth scenario is Trading and Navy, in which the Vikings must establish trade routes overland and overseas with other Scandinavians and people in Vinland while defending themselves from rival Vikings with a warships; the fifth and final playable scenario is Siege and Mythology, and focuses on the Athenians, who are being attacked by Atlantis and must destroy a forward base with siege weapons and myth units, and then destroy the Atlantean navy with the help of Zeus. the fifth scenario would also cover other elements of the game that werent covered before, like heroes and demigods.

NEW DEMIGODS!

Assault Ladder: WIP, Set's unique unit, a "ram" that cant attack but instead drops soldiers on the other side of walls during attacks

Fennid: the all-celtic demigod, an irish outlaw who can be trained for almost nothing (only 50 food!) and steals resources from gatherers, but he only stays in your service for 3 minutes and then leaves your ranks, and takes 500 of your gold with him! he's not a thief for nothing!

Scythed Chariot: in light of a lack of mesopotamian demigods, i decided to give the scythed chariot (actually persian) to the mesopotamians

Assyrian Archer: WIP, a strong archer available only to Tiamat

Flint Archer: unique cro-magnon archer available only to Prometheus

Tlacalhuazcuahuitl: blowgun warrior of the Aztecs

War Rhinoceros: an armored indian rhino used by the followers of Brahma

Kaskian: WIP, the all-hittite demigod

Amazon Archer: revised Amazon Warrior available only to Arinna, now fires an arrow with 100% accuracy on occasion

Zealot: WIP, all-christian demigod

NEW MAJOR GOD BONUSES!

Living Gods: Osiris' bonus gives the strength and abilities of pharaohs to viziers

Genocide: Tiamat's bonus lets you utterly destroy enemies in a territory if you have maximum favor

Adaptation: Prometheus' bonus lets you steal technology from enemies

Vengeance: Izanami's bonus lets your soldiers return from the dead

Resurrection: Jesus' bonus lets your soldiers sometimes return from the dead with maximum health, and NOT as ghosts

Deceivers: Lucifer's bonus replaces the Crusader with the Deceiver

NEW GOD POWERS!

Gate: Ereshkigal's god power turns one of your gates into an Underworld Gate, which strips enemies of all their improvements when they approach it

Doppelganger: Loki's god power allows you to summon a spectral copy of one enemy unit that you can control (but if its a unit with a regular unit class, it only works if the player using it has that unit available as well)

Fucanglong: Long Mu's god power compels underworld dragons to emerge from teh ground and defend an area

Reanimation: this Chinese god power allows you to summon the dead of ages past to fight again

Restoration: this Chinese god power calls upon the power of the heavens to heal your soldiers and buildings

Snapdragon: this Aztec god power creates a carnivorous plant to defend a small area by lashing out at enemies with thorny vines and occasionally snatch them and eat them alive

Yamabito: Izanami's god power causes wicked mountain people to emerge from a forest and fight for you

Rain: Indra's god power creates nourishing rainclouds that invigorate your workers

Madness: Bacchus' god power inebriates enemy soldiers and makes them attack anyone they see

Sacred Grove: Hi'iaka's god power creates a small stand of hawaiian trees that can then be chopped down for wood or, if used properly, to seal up a gap in defenses

NEW FALSE FACTION IDEAS!

Jackal-men

Mummies

Nubians

Picts (Scots)

Sprites (nymphs, faeries, elves, and the like)

Lithuanians (medieval pagans, the last to resist conversion in europe)

Khmer (the peoples of cambodia)

Sukhothai (the peoples of thailand)

Yokai (various japanese demons in roughly human form)

Majapahit (a medieval kingdom of indonesia)

Naga (snake-men of india)

Vanaras (ape-men of india)

Byzantines (medieval eastern romans)

Papacy (medieval papal states)

Hellspawn (generic demons of christianity)

Mamelukes (medieval egyptian muslims)

Warlocks (witches and dark wizards)

Aborigines (tribal australian natives)

Lizardmen (reptiloids of a lost continent, or possibly lost aliens)

aaaand i am too sleepy to list anything else. see ya!

[Aldandil]

Flint Archer: unique cro-magnon archer available only to Prometheus

Maybe I'm missing something, but what do the other Lithic Peoples tip their arrows with? I thought chipped flint was the thing to use before people get metal...

[oshron]

i decided a long time ago that the cro-magnons (i decided to simplify their names, too, btw) would get minimal units because they are so primitive: the Tribesman(spearman), Mammoth-hunter(javelinist), and Wolfdog(cavalry), filling their minimum unit requirements and by this reasoning dont get a barracks (but can use barracks that they capture; they just cant build their own). they dont get an archer as a regular unit and instead get him as a unique unit available only to prometheus because of the ingenuity it would require to first develop a bow. alternatively, they could have a generic Horseman unit and the archer would go to a different cro-magnon god

[Aldandil]

But... bows and arrows and javelins and atlatls were all invented in the Upper Paleolithic, during the Ice Age... and your Lithic Peoples are supposed to go all the way to Neolithic... and they're supposed to be able to fight a battle against other civilizations... giving them only 3 regular units, in the whole game will make them unplayable and boring.

If by 'primitive' you mean "no technology at all" then they shouldn't even be Homo sapiens. You can't call them stone age people and then... not give them stone age technology.

Please look again at the list I gave you of when various technologies were invented.

Here's that list again: mya = million years ago, kya = thousand years ago. This is a list of inventions and hominin species.

7 mya Sahelanthropus tchadensis

6 mya Orrorin tugenensis

5.8 mya Ardipithecus ramidus kaddaba

4.4 mya Ardipithecus ramidus ramidus

4.2 mya first Australopithecus

3.5 mya Kenyanthropus platyops

3 mya first Australopithecus africanus

2.5 mya Australopithecus garhi

2.5 mya stone tools (crude flake tools)

2.5 mya certain meat eating

2.33 mya first Homo?

2.3 mya first Homo rudolfensis

2.3 mya first Paranthropus

2 mya first Homo habilis

1.9 mya Australopithecus sediba

1.7 mya first Homo ergaster and Homo erectus

1.7 mya maybe use of fire?

1.65 mya crude hand axes

1.6 mya certain use of built shelters (my have been earlier)

1.37 mya sophisticated, artistic hand axes

840 kya boats

800 kya Homo antecessor

700 kya maybe use of fire?

600 kya first Homo heidelbergensis

500 kya certain use of fire (may have been earlier)

375 kya certain wooden spears (may have been earlier)

300 kya creation of fire, cooking

300-200 kya first Homo neandertalensis

250 kya burial of the dead, eating shellfish, certain hafted tools and weapons, certain wooden tools, paving floors with stones, Levallois flakes

250 kya certain hide scrapers (may have been earlier)

200-150 kya first Homo sapiens

130-115 kya quern/metate, eating fish

116 kya ochre crayons, certain core tools

100 kya carved ochre crayons

90-75 kya beads

75 kya bone and antler tools

70 kya bone awl

70 kya maybe ceramics?

70-60 kya microliths

32 kya atlatl, sewing needle, cave painting, carvings, trade networks, prismatic blades, certain basket weaving

28 kya textiles, ceramic figurines, fertile woman figures, nets, elaborate funerals, semi-sedentism

18 kya Homo floresiensis

15 kya built permanent shelters, frozen food storage underground in permafrost cellars

14 kya certain domesticated dog (may have been earlier)

14 kya ceramic pottery in e Asia and Japan (may have been earlier)

before 9700 bc: herbal medicine, bows and arrows, barbed points, harpoons, pressure-flaking

9000 bc domesticated wheat in Mesopotamia

8000 bc pepo squash and bottle gourd cultivation in Mesoamerica

8000-7000 bc domesticated goats in Iran

8000-7000 bc domesticated hairy sheep in the Levant

8000-7000 bc domesticated cattle in Anatolia

7000 bc Asian rice and foxtail millet cultivation in China

7000-6000 bc domesticated cattle in the Sahara

6500 bc domesticated cattle in s Asia

6000 bc irrigation

5500-5000 bc banana and taro cultivation in New Guinea

5000-4000 bc plow

4300 bc domesticated maize in highland Mexico

4000-3000 bc domesticated llama and alpaca in Andes

What are the starting and ending dates for your Lithic Peoples?

Edited July 18, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

lemme check my old documents (i havent yet established a new timeline document for the more recent versions)

accordng to the old timeline document, ive got them starting in 7000bc and ending in 3300bc, during the european copper age and just short of written history (cuneiform, which is when the mesopotamians start). as noted in the timeline document, this period covers the early days of copper smelting, obsidian trade, cattle and horse domestication, early towns, irrigation, corn in the americas, the plow, and the earliest city states

i understand im cutting off alot of units for the cro-magnons, but im doing this in an attempt to make them a bit more unique; no other civilization lacks the barracks. they get a good number of other units, too, like the mantlet ram and a war canoe (still only one ship and one siege, though). i figured archers and horsemen would be good for unique units because of their requirements of a more complex society and skill to use. the primary balance for this would be that the cro-magnons have more availlable myth units or more potent godpowers

theyll be getting a fair amount of technology, dont you worry about that, but there will also be a fair amount of it limited (mostly in the departments of armor, shields, ships, siege, and possibly buildings as well). and all cro-magnons also get the firestarter demigod, a guy with a torch that helps make up for siege. and theres still the possibility of giving them an elephant type unit

i DO see your point with the archer, but what do you want me to do about it? id like to keep their unique lack of a barracks

oh! here's an idea: maybe the archer could be the all-lithic demigod and the firestarter is prometheus' unique one, since he stole fire and all?

[Aldandil]

i figured archers and horsemen would be good for unique units because of their requirements of a more complex society and skill to use.

I don't understand. Archery was invented before 9,700 BC. That's archaeology. What is their starting date? What is their ending date? If either one of those occurs at or after 10,000 BC, then they should have archery. If you stick with 7,000-3,000 BC, then there's no reason they wouldn't have archery units from the very start. Even societies like the Greeks and Aztecs who didn't like archery and didn't use it much in warfare still knew how to make bows and shoot them.

I think you're getting hung up on the word "primitive" and guessing what that must mean. Instead I would pick a time period and research what real world technology existed at that time.

Archery was invented before agriculture, before copper. So was mining (for flint). So were javelins, atlatls, and barbed harpoons.

Military barracks separate from the community center/ritual grounds, probably were not invented before agriculture -- though they would be appropriate for at least some neolithic cultures, perhaps the Maori during the pa era (I'm not an expert on that). Stone age people did engage (and still do engage) in warfare, usually in skirmishing fashion in small groups targeting individuals or small groups instead of engaging in large organized armies.

You might have to give the Lithic Peoples large companies to make them playable versus other civilizations (or use quality of troops over quantity -- this is where mammoths and other tough, impressive myth units would be good, and make for a unique play style), but playability should be the first consideration. IMO if the Lithic Peoples are too crippled, they'll be boring and hardly anybody will want to find out whether they can successfully take on the Roman Empire.

Regarding horse domestication and riding, let me look at that website I had up earlier...here it is:

http://www.livescience.com/animals/091127-...rses-botai.html

They found strong evidence of domesticated horses and horse-riding from a 3,500 BC copper age site in Kazakhstan. I should actually add that to my technologies list.

I don't expect huge war canoes existed before 3,000 BC, and IMO warships probably wouldn't fit for Lithic Peoples. But I haven't researched this. I know people had boats quite early.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

okay, okay, you win. again, perhaps i should make archers their all-lithic unique unit instead, because, tbph, i personally just want to keep them as having only 3 citizen soldiers. then they get their archers in the city phase. in fact, perhaps the lithic archers could be godstorms equivalent of the plumed archer from AOK.

[Aldandil]

I'm worried my previous post may have come across as somewhat hostile, and if so I apologize.

Archers depend on the time-period you want Cro-Magnons to start at and how much they're supposed to be based on real human groups vs. be a fantasy concept. But their stone-age technology, by itself, isn't a reason to say they have no archers. There might be other reasons (economic? cultural?) for them to use very few archers in battle, though I think they should still have some, and in that case they'd be more of a super unit instead of a myth unit. What does "demigod" signify?

Does your design require that all regular/mortal/mundane soldier units are citizen-soldiers? I think in 0 A.D. there are some that don't double as economic units, like super units, or something. I know that there have to be support units (like women and merchants) that are only economic.

I just thought of something. Your Wolfdog, functioning as a cavalry unit, was intended as one of your citizen-soldiers, right? Dogs are certainly useful hunting animals, but presumably only when directed by a human, who for simplicity could just be a citizen-soldier with the dog(s) abstracted away during the hunt. They can't build buildings or gather wood/ore/stone. Maybe the Wolfdog could be a non-economic soldier and then you'd have room for a third Cro-Magnon citizen-soldier of whichever kind you want. I can't tell from the 0 A.D. design document whether Celtic Coun have regular citizen-soldier economic abilities.

I don't know what the plumed archer is, since I've never played AOK, AOE, or AOM. If the city phase is supposed to represent the copper age, I'd put archery earlier -- if you keep 7000 BC as the start date I still think that archers can be available from the start. Agriculture, to me, is the biggest technology that can separate their phases. That starts around 9000 BC in Mesopotamia, and later elsewhere.

Does "all-lithic demigod" refer to a myth unit that the whole faction can get regardless of major god? I don't know what your firestarter unit is meant to do in-game; but if regular archers can't do it, what about giving Prometheus archers with arrows on fire? Then they can shoot flammable buildings and ships from a distance (chance to hit; if they hit successfully, separate chance to set target on fire). But I admit I can't justify why other civilizations couldn't pull that off just as easily... hmm. I don't think fire arrows are planned for 0 A.D. I like the stealing/acquiring/copying technologies from other factions bonus.

Though barracks may have existed in the Neolithic, I don't know anything about the subject myself, and can't think of any objection to removing that building for Cro-Magnons/Lithic People. It's function will have to be fulfilled by some other building, presumably. In fact, if it wasn't too much work, each civilization could have a unique set of buildings; that is, distribute the essential functions of buildings in a slightly different way for each faction.

If you do decide to let Lithic Peoples tame horses, that would definitely be one tech to restrict to the city phase or later, since the date estimated in that archaeology blog article is 3500 BC, very close to the start of the bronze age. It would be weird to have them tame mammoths before horses, but adding cool mythological or fantastical abilities is kind of the whole point of your mod -- and necessary for game balance with factions like Lithic Peoples/Cro-Magnons

I really want to see a Chinese god who can blow stuff up (instead of setting things on fire or hitting them with lightning bolts) because it's cool, but I have no clue at all whether that can be backed up by any myth. For that matter, I don't know if they had invented rockets by the end of the time span you chose for them.

Edited July 21, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

I'm worried my previous post may have come across as somewhat hostile, and if so I apologize.

no problem at all

Archers depend on the time-period you want Cro-Magnons to start at and how much they're supposed to be based on real human groups vs. be a fantasy concept. But their stone-age technology, by itself, isn't a reason to say they have no archers. There might be other reasons (economic? cultural?) for them to use very few archers in battle, though I think they should still have some, and in that case they'd be more of a super unit instead of a myth unit. What does "demigod" signify?

i just decided to call the mythology mod's version of super units "demigods" to go with the mythology theme the only real difference is that all civilizations get one in the city phase, and one in the empire phase (i added on two phases for the mod, in case you didnt remember, so there could be a broader scope of mythology and history for each civ), and the empire phase demigod/super unit is unique to each major god (ex: Zeus gets a Myrmidon in the empire phase while Poseidon gets a Hetairoi [Companion Cavalry])

Does your design require that all regular/mortal/mundane soldier units are citizen-soldiers? I think in 0 A.D. there are some that don't double as economic units, like super units, or something. I know that there have to be support units (like women and merchants) that are only economic.

yes, the general functions of the mythology mod will be virtually the same to 0ad's, with some other differences, so theres citizen-soldiers as regular units (all units except for Heroes and myth units fall into the collective category of "mortal" units; theres a basic AOM-style rock-paper-scissors function where mortals beat heroes [en masse], heroes beat myth units, and myth units beat mortals. numbers still play a huge role, of course, and many myth units can beat heroes easily, etc)

I just thought of something. Your Wolfdog, functioning as a cavalry unit, was intended as one of your citizen-soldiers, right? Dogs are certainly useful hunting animals, but presumably only when directed by a human, who for simplicity could just be a citizen-soldier with the dog(s) abstracted away during the hunt. They can't build buildings or gather wood/ore/stone. Maybe the Wolfdog could be a non-economic soldier and then you'd have room for a third Cro-Magnon citizen-soldier of whichever kind you want. I can't tell from the 0 A.D. design document whether Celtic Coun have regular citizen-soldier economic abilities.

according to the 0ad designs ive seen thus far, every civ can train three citizen-soldiers from the very beginning at the civic center: one melee infantry, one ranged infantry, and one cavalry soldier. the wolfdog was kind of inspired by a unit planned for 0ad's celts, which is basically just a mastiff used for combat. the wolfdog is virtually the same to the celtic war dog. the aztecs and one or two other civilizations will also have dogs if the civilization calls for it (basically, cultures that didnt use horses or camels, or at least not to a great extent, ie the aztecs, cro-magnons, and polynesians). the all dog citizen-soldiers will still be hunting and herding units like regular cavalry (iirc, cavalry wont be able to build structures, which makes sense, but the dogs wont be able to regardless)

I don't know what the plumed archer is, since I've never played AOK, AOE, or AOM. If the city phase is supposed to represent the copper age, I'd put archery earlier -- if you keep 7000 BC as the start date I still think that archers can be available from the start. Agriculture, to me, is the biggest technology that can separate their phases. That starts around 9000 BC in Mesopotamia, and later elsewhere.

generally, the phases arent really supposed to represent a period of time (though in some cases i do make it out like that, like the japanese and chinese will almost certainly have something like this), and instead represent the development of a nation, as the name suggests. the first three stages are already in 0ad, and, as i said before, i extended it two more phases: Empire (continuing from City, when your civilization is a city state comparable to athens, to go on to controlling many territories, like rome), and then Legend (when your nation becomes so powerful that it is remembered for all time, like rome is). archery is still more complex than just throwing a spear, but i agree, im gonna rewrite the cro-magnons so that all of them get their archers later at their fortress building.

ill also clarify on the plumed archer. Age of Kings is the second Age of Empires game, and 0ad was originally planned to be a modification of that like Rise of Rome was, so theres a lot of borrowed elements (in fact, iirc, the hellenic ekdromos super unit for 0ad is apparently 0ad's equivalent of AOK's eagle warrior, which was unique to their two mesoamerican factions). each civ in AOK had one (sometimes two) unique units, like the britons has a longbowman and the japanese had a samurai. the mayan unique unit was the Plumed Archer, a foot archer who ran very quickly because of his lack of armor (or something like that) and was in fact almost as fast as the cavalry archer from that same game. so the cro-magnon archer could be the mod's equivalent of the mayan plumed archer

Does "all-lithic demigod" refer to a myth unit that the whole faction can get regardless of major god? I don't know what your firestarter unit is meant to do in-game; but if regular archers can't do it, what about giving Prometheus archers with arrows on fire? Then they can shoot flammable buildings and ships from a distance (chance to hit; if they hit successfully, separate chance to set target on fire). But I admit I can't justify why other civilizations couldn't pull that off just as easily... hmm. I don't think fire arrows are planned for 0 A.D. I like the stealing/acquiring/copying technologies from other factions bonus.

i must apologize to you several times over; my mind goes a mile a minute most of the time and im almost always trying to come up with new ideas for my dozen or so personal projects, all of which im working on at the same time (well, not LITERALLY the same time, but you get my meaning).

in this case, im just using the term "all-lithic demigod" to refer to the city phase demigod that will go to the cro-magnons (because lithic is SOO much easier to type than cro-magnon). and yes, it means a demigod that will go to all players of that civilization. the firestarter unit is kind of based on the game spore (where you make your own creature and progress from microbial life to a space-faring empire), and one of the stages in that is a tribal stage where you can either befriend or destroy neighboring tribes. one of the weapons there is a flaming torch, and when one of your villagers picks up one, they become known as "firestarters". the main idea with the cro-magnon firestarter is that he's kind of an infantry siege unit, a man carrying flaming torches that runs in to set fire to enemy buildings and occasionally throws a torch at range, kind of like the javelin-attack that some other units will have (if you remember, the planned cro-magnon chieftain will have that ability). i had planned to give the firestarter to all the cro-magnons so that they all have an additional siege unit (which they would otherwise lack) and to go with the caveman theme, but when you persisted in the matter of the archers, i decided that the firestarter was more fitting of prometheus, who, if you remember, stole fire from olympus and gave it to mankind.

fire archers as unique units would be a good idea though. maybe they could go to the chinese, in reference to sun tzu?

Though barracks may have existed in the Neolithic, I don't know anything about the subject myself, and can't think of any objection to removing that building for Cro-Magnons/Lithic People. It's function will have to be fulfilled by some other building, presumably. In fact, if it wasn't too much work, each civilization could have a unique set of buildings; that is, distribute the essential functions of buildings in a slightly different way for each faction.

exactly. when i decided to give them only three citizen-soldiers, i thought "wait, why should they need a barracks, then?" and decided that that would be a good way of making them a bit more unique.

a unique setup of buildings was implemented in AOM: for instance, the greeks got the Academy, which only trained greek infantry, while the norse got the Longhouse, which only trained norse infantry and cavalry. but one of the main focuses of 0ad, and presumably all mods therein, is to attempt to simplify the buildings and such that were comparatively complicated in previous games, so instead of having a seperate Barracks, Archery Range, Armory, and Stables building, all four of those are brought together in a single Barracks building that trains all of them. its in-game programming that will be making buildings and unique appear unique when they are really all the same (except for demigods, heroes, and myth units, which will all have their own unique unit classes as opposed to being, say, "Infantry Swordsman Hero" and then be different for each civilization, because alot of the planned non-mortal units will be having special abilities and other traits)

If you do decide to let Lithic Peoples tame horses, that would definitely be one tech to restrict to the city phase or later, since the date estimated in that archaeology blog article is 3500 BC, very close to the start of the bronze age. It would be weird to have them tame mammoths before horses, but adding cool mythological or fantastical abilities is kind of the whole point of your mod -- and necessary for game balance with factions like Lithic Peoples/Cro-Magnons

im debating which major god to give the cro-magnon horseman unit to; he'd be an empire phase unit and would have to go to either Rheia or Kronos (the other two cro-magnon gods). and yeah, having a war mammoth type unit is just so that theyre @#$%ing cool. it would also help narrow the gap between them and other civs by giving them another siege AND cavalry unit (ive always thought of elephants in RTS games as being siege cavalry, and clearly the guys making 0ad do, too)

I really want to see a Chinese god who can blow stuff up (instead of setting things on fire or hitting them with lightning bolts) because it's cool, but I have no clue at all whether that can be backed up by any myth. For that matter, I don't know if they had invented rockets by the end of the time span you chose for them.

im not sure if any chinese gods were capable of that. for the game, i DO plan to give the chinese a number of advanced weapons, even if theyre a bit anachronistic. thus far, i have their demigods as the Chu-ke nu (repeating crossbow), Pen Huo Qi (an early flamethrower), and the Dragon Rocket (basically the ancient/medieval equivalent of a trench mortar. think of the rockets used in disney's mulan to get a general idea of what they would look like and how they would function, but to compensate they have relatively bad aim and recoil damage)

[Aldandil]

i just decided to call the mythology mod's version of super units "demigods" to go with the mythology theme the only real difference is that all civilizations get one in the city phase, and one in the empire phase

I've been confused by the Godstorm terminology for a while now. There are mortals/mundanes, heroes, super units, and myth units. When you say demigods do you mean myths and supers, or just supers, or just myths? Or do demigods include heroes, or are there no heroes? And will you make all mundane units citizen-soldiers or support units, or will there be some mundane soldier-only units?

yes, the general functions of the mythology mod will be virtually the same to 0ad's, with some other differences, so theres citizen-soldiers as regular units (all units except for Heroes and myth units fall into the collective category of "mortal" units; theres a basic AOM-style rock-paper-scissors function where mortals beat heroes [en masse], heroes beat myth units, and myth units beat mortals. numbers still play a huge role, of course, and many myth units can beat heroes easily, etc)

And do supers count as myth units or as mortals?

according to the 0ad designs ive seen thus far, every civ can train three citizen-soldiers from the very beginning at the civic center: one melee infantry, one ranged infantry, and one cavalry soldier. the wolfdog was kind of inspired by a unit planned for 0ad's celts, which is basically just a mastiff used for combat. the wolfdog is virtually the same to the celtic war dog. the aztecs and one or two other civilizations will also have dogs if the civilization calls for it (basically, cultures that didnt use horses or camels, or at least not to a great extent, ie the aztecs, cro-magnons, and polynesians). the all dog citizen-soldiers will still be hunting and herding units like regular cavalry (iirc, cavalry wont be able to build structures, which makes sense, but the dogs wont be able to regardless)

All civs get only 3 citizen-soldier units? I'm confused... the design document lists more than that. Is it a matter of tech trees before you can unlike the 4th, 5th, and so on? Even for technologies that existed for the civilization at the start of the relevant time period? It certainly makes more sense to give the Lithics just 3 to start, then, now that I know that. I feel silly, having missed that important info.

This also explains why the Coun are cavalry. But do the Lithics get to research more units on tech trees, or whatever the usual way is of unlocking more units, or is 3 mortals all they ever get?

archery is still more complex than just throwing a spear, but i agree, im gonna rewrite the cro-magnons so that all of them get their archers later at their fortress building.

Man, I don't know what fortress building refers to.... that's a phase after the starting phase, right? So archery would be like a tech they research and then add?

Regarding the plumed archer: are the Lithics going to have any armor at all? Non-metal armor isn't something that would normally show up in archaeology so it could have existed and leave no record, but I'd still think no Lithic guys could have more than leather, so they'd be practically unarmored by default.

i must apologize to you several times over; my mind goes a mile a minute most of the time and im almost always trying to come up with new ideas for my dozen or so personal projects, all of which im working on at the same time (well, not LITERALLY the same time, but you get my meaning).

No need, but I am getting lost.

in this case, im just using the term "all-lithic demigod" to refer to the city phase demigod that will go to the cro-magnons (because lithic is SOO much easier to type than cro-magnon). and yes, it means a demigod that will go to all players of that civilization. the firestarter unit is kind of based on the game spore (where you make your own creature and progress from microbial life to a space-faring empire), and one of the stages in that is a tribal stage where you can either befriend or destroy neighboring tribes. one of the weapons there is a flaming torch, and when one of your villagers picks up one, they become known as "firestarters". the main idea with the cro-magnon firestarter is that he's kind of an infantry siege unit, a man carrying flaming torches that runs in to set fire to enemy buildings and occasionally throws a torch at range, kind of like the javelin-attack that some other units will have (if you remember, the planned cro-magnon chieftain will have that ability). i had planned to give the firestarter to all the cro-magnons so that they all have an additional siege unit (which they would otherwise lack) and to go with the caveman theme, but when you persisted in the matter of the archers, i decided that the firestarter was more fitting of prometheus, who, if you remember, stole fire from olympus and gave it to mankind.

fire archers as unique units would be a good idea though. maybe they could go to the chinese, in reference to sun tzu?

I'm still not following why the archer can't be a super unit instead of a mythical unit, but torch-wielding siege guy sounds great and fitting. Well, burning down buildings is more Vulcanus' thing, but this is war. I don't know anything about Sun Tzu, though.

exactly. when i decided to give them only three citizen-soldiers, i thought "wait, why should they need a barracks, then?" and decided that that would be a good way of making them a bit more unique.

Makes sense.

and yeah, having a war mammoth type unit is just so that theyre @#$%ing cool. it would also help narrow the gap between them and other civs by giving them another siege AND cavalry unit (ive always thought of elephants in RTS games as being siege cavalry, and clearly the guys making 0ad do, too)

Yeah, and I only suggested explosions because I think fireworks are cool.

[oshron]

I've been confused by the Godstorm terminology for a while now. There are mortals/mundanes, heroes, super units, and myth units. When you say demigods do you mean myths and supers, or just supers, or just myths? Or do demigods include heroes, or are there no heroes? And will you make all mundane units citizen-soldiers or support units, or will there be some mundane soldier-only units?

like i said, my mind goes a mile a minute and its usually hard for others to keep up; im often found talking too fast for people to understand

ill try to list them out

citizen-soldiers = mortals (though they are still usually referred to as citizen-soldiers; when mortal is used, it refers to everything within that group, and not just soldiers. this also includes female citizens, ships, and siege)

heroes = heroes (functionally the same as heroes in 0ad, but, borrowing from AOM, heroes have extra strength vs. myth units and often have special abilities and powers)

super units = demigods (again, this is just to go with the mythology theme. there ARE a large number of named demigods that serve as hero units depending on the civilization, and there will be even more that can only be accessed in the scenario editor, like a planned Gilgamesh unit)

myth units are the only units that don't have an equivalent in 0ad. myth units are, as the name suggests, mythological or legendary creatures relating to the mythology and/or religion of the faction that they are available to. for instance, the greeks can acquire such creatures centaurs, minotaurs, and cyclopes, while the norse can acquire valkyries, trolls, and frost giants (all of which are from the myths and legends of their respective peoples)

sometimes, the unit types overlap. for instance, two of the greek hero units planned are Chiron (a centaur) and Polyphemus (a cyclops), and some demigods are similar to heroes, or some heroes are similar to demigods (in this case, there is the greek hero Hippolyta, an amazon, while the later hittite faction can get an Amazon Archer as a unique demigod unit). in other cases, some demigods, heroes, and myth units can function like mortals, gathering resources and such (examples: the semitic Sacred Band demigod doubles as a citizen-soldier even though he is a super unit, and several shapeshifting myth units, such as the celtic Selkie, can transform into human beings and then be used to gather resources but transform into animals or monsters while fighting or on command by the player)

And do supers count as myth units or as mortals?

they technically count as mortals, but are generally just a lot stronger and a fair number of them are more powerful vs. myth units, similar to heroes. they often have special abilities or other bonuses that allow them to stand out from regular mortals (for example, the aforementioned "Lithic Archer" will be much faster than regular archers, while the celtic demigod "Lambton Knight" has spiked armor that hurts enemies that are right next to him as a special ability). other times, super units are used to fill in gaps in a civilization's unit lineup to even the odds with other civilizations. for instance, all aztec players can train Eagle Warrior super units in the city phase, which, though they are infantry soldiers, are very fast and fill the same role that cavalry do for other civilizations, since the aztecs dont have any real cavalry (theyre also a civ that gets dog cavalry)

All civs get only 3 citizen-soldier units? I'm confused... the design document lists more than that. Is it a matter of tech trees before you can unlike the 4th, 5th, and so on? Even for technologies that existed for the civilization at the start of the relevant time period? It certainly makes more sense to give the Lithics just 3 to start, then, now that I know that. I feel silly, having missed that important info.

yes, theres far more units than are available to the cro-magnons as well many other civilizations. but, going along with what is to be presented in 0ad, ideally, no civilization is supposed to get every unit type. even in 0ad, no civilization gets every unit, but the carthaginians come the closest (i cant remember all the ones they get at the moment, but for regular citizen-soldiers, they are only lacking a cavalry archer and have all the other ones). denying units to a civilization is mostly for historical accuracy (for example, not all civilizations utilized a horse archery, though a cavalry archer is readily available in that case), but i admit that ive kind of cheated with more than one civilization, such as the aztecs: as far as i know, theres no evidence that they used any form of siege weaponry or warhounds, yet i gave them a ballista, a ram, and a war dog as mortal units to help even the odds.

in general, the units themselves ARE accurate to each civilizations presented timeline, for the most part. i wouldnt get to bent outta shape over it, though

This also explains why the Coun are cavalry. But do the Lithics get to research more units on tech trees, or whatever the usual way is of unlocking more units, or is 3 mortals all they ever get?

im not sure it works that way. as i understand it, each civilization always gets their initial melee, ranged, and cavalry units right off the bat and then, in the town phase when military buildings become available, they can build a barracks and then train the rest of the citizen-soldiers available to them, and then in the city phase they can build a fortress and get their super units and siege weapons, as well as their heroes. its pretty much the same in Godstorm, except that heroes are instead trained at the civic center as well as the fortress, and the temple is used to train some types of heroes as well as mythological units and, iirc, demigods (i cant remember at the moment if i wrote demigods down as trainable at the temple).

lets go over the basic unit types:

Infantry Swordsman, Spearman, Archer, Javelinist, and Slinger

Cavalry Swordsman, Spearman, Archer, and Javelinist

Female Citizen, Merchant

Merchant Ship, Light, Medium, and Heavy Warships

Ballista, Onager, Ram

iirc, those are all the unit types that will be present in 0ad. theyll all come in in the initial release of Godstorm. as well as these, theres also:

Sovereign-type heroes, which are "ruler" heroes as i detailed not too long ago

Sovereign Support heroes, which assist the otherwise lone sovereign in his duties

Chivalric heroes, which can be created en masse

Heroic heroes, which never die but instead get knocked out and can be revived, they are always named characters

one super unit unique to each civilization available in the City Phase

three super units available in the Empire Phase, each one unique to a different major god

various mythological units, at least one of which is available to each minor god in the game

keep in mind that these ones here have their own unique unit classes, as opposed to being "Infantry Swordsman" or "Cavalry Archer", but are still usually classified as these to give the player a general idea about how the unit functions

later on, these units are added as well:

Magician and Mounted Magician

Standard Bearer

Fishing Ship

possibly Healer

so any given civilization can have a combination of these unit types, and no more. demigods are often used to either add a powerful or legendary soldier from that civilization's history to augment their armies or, as i mentioned before, to help even out their civilization if they are lacking in a certain department (so a civilization lacking in siege weapons, like the cro-magnons or egyptians, maybe receive an "siege infantry" unit that has extra power vs. buildings), or it is used to represent something truly unique to a civilization, like the japanese as a whole have the Samurai, Yamabushi (mountain hermit), Shinobi (ninga), and Kanabo (mace man) super units, while the chinese get the aforementioned early gunpowder weapons

Man, I don't know what fortress building refers to.... that's a phase after the starting phase, right? So archery would be like a tech they research and then add?

perhaps you should go to a store nearby and get age of kings. itll REALLY simplify things here and help you understand alot of the game mechanics im referring to here. its rather old by now so you should be able to get it for, like, five american dollars (not sure what country you live in, lol )

the fortress is just what its name suggests: a fortress. a castle, a stronghold, a fortified encampment, a large building used to augment defenses and provide protection to the area around it. the equivalent in AOK is the castle. its a defensive building that doubles as a production building, letting you train powerful siege weapons and super units

Regarding the plumed archer: are the Lithics going to have any armor at all? Non-metal armor isn't something that would normally show up in archaeology so it could have existed and leave no record, but I'd still think no Lithic guys could have more than leather, so they'd be practically unarmored by default.

this is actually an interesting bit that i came up with. i figured a long time ago that the lithics wouldnt be able to research armor technologies but instead automatically receive those upgrades when they advance to the next phase of their civilization, which is graphically represented as them acquiring more clothing, starting off as soldiers with loincloths and other appropriate censoring clothes and, by the empire phase, becoming fully dressed tribal members with lots of fur and hide clothes. they would be able to research weapons technology on their own, perhaps going from stone through two more developments until they can upgrade to copper weapons at the dawn of metallurgy. however, they cant research shield technologies. but even if they could, they would graphically lack shields (meaning that, even though they had that upgrade, the unit as it appears in the game wouldnt have it)

I'm still not following why the archer can't be a super unit instead of a mythical unit, but torch-wielding siege guy sounds great and fitting. Well, burning down buildings is more Vulcanus' thing, but this is war. I don't know anything about Sun Tzu, though.

the "Lithic Archer" IS a demigod. sorry if i wasnt clear on that while fiery destruction IS vulcan's thing, of the lithic major gods, prometheus is the most fitting.

as for sun tzu, apparently a strategy of his was to soak an area in flammable liquids and then lure enemies into the area, after which he would have archers with flaming arrows fire their arrows at the ground and pretty much completely engulf everyone in the area

Yeah, and I only suggested explosions because I think fireworks are cool.

yup. dont worry, there WILL be god-fueled explosions

[Aldandil]

OK, that clears things up a great deal... I thought demigod referred to myth units. Making Lithic archers into super units similar to unarmored plumed archers, and making them universally available at city phase, makes sense.

Regarding shields and armor: Stone age people can and have used shields of wood and/or hide, but wooden armor is really awkward and leather armor isn't that great compared to metal armor. I don't know how armor and shields differ in game mechanics in an RTS, but I would actually consider switching these two, giving Lithics shield upgrades but essentially no armor. Basic citizen-soldiers would have no shield, Advanced ones would have a small hide shield or none at all, and Elite citizen-soldiers could have a less-small wood or hide shield.

yes, theres far more units than are available to the cro-magnons as well many other civilizations. but, going along with what is to be presented in 0ad, ideally, no civilization is supposed to get every unit type. even in 0ad, no civilization gets every unit, but the carthaginians come the closest (i cant remember all the ones they get at the moment, but for regular citizen-soldiers, they are only lacking a cavalry archer and have all the other ones). denying units to a civilization is mostly for historical accuracy (for example, not all civilizations utilized a horse archery, though a cavalry archer is readily available in that case), but i admit that ive kind of cheated with more than one civilization, such as the aztecs: as far as i know, theres no evidence that they used any form of siege weaponry or warhounds, yet i gave them a ballista, a ram, and a war dog as mortal units to help even the odds.

in general, the units themselves ARE accurate to each civilizations presented timeline, for the most part. i wouldnt get to bent outta shape over it, though

im not sure it works that way. as i understand it, each civilization always gets their initial melee, ranged, and cavalry units right off the bat and then, in the town phase when military buildings become available, they can build a barracks and then train the rest of the citizen-soldiers available to them, and then in the city phase they can build a fortress and get their super units and siege weapons, as well as their heroes.

I think I'm getting a better understanding of why some civilizations don't have certain units. Thanks for explaining all this!

Aaaannd... now is when I mention that I have never played an RTS, except for one single-player game of WCIII on somebody else's computer. I also have no income, and a graphics card too weak to handle such games so... I can't just go out and buy AoK. Besides, if/when I could/can afford a better graphics card, why would I bother when 0 A.D. will be free and more historically accurate?

I can see why fire archers would be more a Sun Tzu thing... is he a planned Chinese hero? And would fire archers be anti-building units, or would they go after other units?

Edited July 21, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

Regarding shields and armor: Stone age people can and have used shields of wood and/or hide, but wooden armor is really awkward and leather armor isn't that great compared to metal armor. I don't know how armor and shields differ in game mechanics in an RTS, but I would actually consider switching these two, giving Lithics shield upgrades but essentially no armor. Basic citizen-soldiers would have no shield, Advanced ones would have a small hide shield or none at all, and Elite citizen-soldiers could have a less-small wood or hide shield.

generally, armor is supposed to protect from melee attacks while shields protect from ranged attacks (this meaning it absorbs some of teh damage and the soldier doesnt get as hurt as they would without it). ill reconsider the shields; im actually not too clear on how technology is set up in 0ad just yet--i havent seen anything about it in the design document aside from a section in each civilization article mentioning how many of which technology types they would get, which suggests there will be one universal tech tree for all civilizations just like there are with units and buildings.

Aaaannd... now is when I mention that I have never played an RTS, except for one single-player game of WCIII on somebody else's computer. I also have no income, and a graphics card too weak to handle such games so... I can't just go out and buy AoK. Besides, if/when I could/can afford a better graphics card, why would I bother when 0 A.D. will be free and more historically accurate?

I can see why fire archers would be more a Sun Tzu thing... is he a planned Chinese hero? And would fire archers be anti-building units, or would they go after other units?

actually, sun tzu falls out of the chinese timeframe, so he can't be a regular chinese hero unit (besides, i already decided to make them a chivalric culture was a General as their hero, actually in reference to sun tzu), but you can bet that sun tzu will be available in the scenario editor just like gilgamesh and who knows how many others

and, actually, AOK doesnt really required a graphics card. it doesnt utilize 3D graphics (that was introduced to RTS's with AOM, right AFTER AOK. instead, it has sprites (2D graphics)

[oshron]

here's a list of mythological units that i have down so far and a basic description of them where applicable:

EGYPTIAN

Ammit: loses health constantly but recovers more health than is lost with each kill

Apep-spawn

El Naddahah

Giant Scarab: living siege unit

Inpu Warrior: leaps over obstacles

Mummy: lays curses on mortals, turning them into his minions

Shezmu

Sphinx

Uraeus

Wepwawet

CELTIC

Aughisky

Banshee

Bogeyman

Dullahan: forces all gates to open for him, regardless of alignment, and occasionally lifts his severed head up and spits fire from it

Green Knight: can instantly kill enemies by using magical roots to drag them underground

Grindylow

Jack-in-Irons

Knucker: can poison enemies by biting them

Lake Maiden

Lambton Worm: can instantly kill enemies by dragging them into water and drowning them, and also regenerates from wounds

Niseag: can dive underwater and ram naval units from below, or charge onto land a short distance in pursuit of land enemies, but becomes vulnerable to attack in the process

Pendragon: "flies" over terrain, cliffs,and water, but not over obstacles like trees and buildings, occasionaly breathes fire

Questing Beast

Ram-headed Snake {i may decide to replace this one if i can find a good candidate}

Selkie: naval unit, trains at the dock as a seal, but can move onto land and willingly transform into a human to double as an economic unit, and can change back on command or automatically when entering battle

Water Giant: amphibious

MESOPOTAMIAN

Abgal

Alu

Asag

Bahamut

Gallu

Humbaba: can cause miniature earthquakes that stun mortals and severely damage buildings

Pazuzu

Rabisu

Revenant

Sandwalker: can bury itself to hide for up to five minutes at a time, after which it automatically emerges. while hidden, it disappears from the minimap but can still be selected by the controlling player, and automatically emerges from the ground when enemies approach (think Scorponok from the Transformers movie)

Scorpion-man

Shedu

Sirrush

GREEK

Centaur

Cetus

Chimera

Colossus: special metal construct that can wade into water up to his waist (the actual depth would need to be specified) and can be repaired by mortals as if he were a building

Cyclops: picks up and throws enemies at other enemies

Erymanthian Boar: occasionally barrels through enemy lines and sends them flying

Hamadryad: turns into a tree while idle and disappears, and can turn enemies into trees permanently

Harpy

Hydra: starts with one head, but acquires another one for every five kills it makes until it has nine, which adds to its attack power

Ichthyocentaur

Karkinos

Medusa: can turn enemies to stone

Minotaur: can gore enemies to send them flying

Nemean Lion: can roar to hurt and demoralize enemies

Stymphalian Bird

NORSE

Dragonet

Draug

Einherjar

Firedrak

Fire Giant

Frost Giant

Garmr

Gullinbursti

Kraken: can sink enemy ships by cracking them in two, or it can pick up and throw mortals if it can reach them from the shoreline

Lindorm: occasionally sheds skin to heal itself while idle, wraps its coils around infantry to crush them while in battle

Mountain Giant: occasionally performs and especially powerful attack vs. buildings, and can kick infantry as a regular attack to send them flying

Nokken

Sea Worm: occasionnally coils itself around ships to crush them

Skin-walker

Troll

Valkyrie

CHINESE

Bashe

Death Worm: uses an electrical charge at range, occasiionally spits acid for an instant kill

Jiang Shi (aka chinese vampire)

Jingwei: counter-naval flying myth unit

Longma

Nian

Qilin

Shen

Shenlong

Shishi

Zhenniao: has a toxic aura that poisons adjacent enemies

JAPANESE

Ayakashi: sea snake that drips burning oil on ships as a special attack

Basan: siege myth unit, can eat forage patches, like berry bushes and fruit trees, to regain health

Daidarabotchi

Gashadokuro: devours enemies to regain health

Harionago: attacks with barbed hair at range, occasionally attacks everything around her

Ikiryo: a man or women who projects their spirit out of the body in order to perform melee infantry and economic functions at a distance (so you could wall off an area and it turns out theres, say, a gold deposit right on the other side of your wall. instead of sending out vulnerable villagers, have an ikiryo gather THROUGH the wall). the downside is that the body loses health as long as teh spirit is outside, but the spirit itself cant be hurt

Isonade

Kamaitachi

Kappa: amphibious, but trains at the dock and becomes very weak on land, is best used against economic units like fishing and merchant ships

Kitsune: can possess a single enemy at a time to permanently convert them to your side, but only if you can train taht unit class (ex: if a greek player was given a kitsune in the scenario editor, they wouldnt be able to convert cavalry archers, but demigods/superunits are fair game, and heroes are immune

Namazu

Oni

Raiju

Samebito

Tengu: initially uses a fan to create a whirlwind, but has a leaping attack when upgraded

Umibozu

Ushi-oni

HINDU

Airavata

Bandar-log (again, these become Vanaras when upgraded)

Daitya

Dawon

Garuda

Gold-digging Ant

Jalebha

Kaliya

Makara

Rakshasa

Red Dog

Rock Python

Sahi

Vritra

ROMAN

Arachne

Automaton

Cacus

Charybdis

Faun

Gigantes

Khalkotaur

Ladon

Laistrygonian

Polyphontid

Python

Scylla

Siren

Teumessian Fox: can "leap" by teleporting. unlike the leap attacks of other units, the fox teleports even when its not in battle and is just moving around, allowing it to pass through obstacles (suppose its being chased by cavalry, and comes across a wall that doesnt have a gate in it. instead of going around, the fox just teleports past the wall, leaving the cavalry behind. the maximum distance is its line of sight)

Vrykolakas

CHRISTIAN

Antaeus

Archangel

Basilisk

Cherub

Cockatrice

Furies

Gargouille (not to be confused with gargoyle; this guy here is a naval unit)

Hellhound

Leopard

Peluda

Quinotaur

Salamander

Tarasque

Unicorn

SEMITIC

Behemoth

Golem

Leviathan

Ziz

[oshron]

hey, what does everyone think should be the limits on each individual myth unit? my plan here is to limit myth units so that they are more likely to be used to AUGMENT an army rather than be the sole element of it. preferrably, theyll be limited to a nice even number with one being the lowest and thirty being the highest. i also had an idea LITERALLY just now: perhaps all myth units have a minor morale decrease to nearby allied mortals because theyre nervous being around them--what mortal wouldnt?--so that youre less inclined to leave five cyclopes with an army of hoplites because the morale decrease would stack and therefore leave your hoplites "too scared to think straight" and therefore fight worse than they would if there was only ONE cyclops near them. the same would go for other smaller myth units: intimidating centaurs, soulless metal automatons, surprisingly fearsome cherubs, and wickedly beautiful harionago, and because you would get more of those kinds, they would be the ones youd see more commonly among the ranks of your soldiers

now id also like to make it clear that im taking SOME liberties on the legendary creatures here. perhaps most prominent is the presence of more than one of a given mythical creature that there is supposed to be only one of (ie, greek chimera, erymanthian boar, hydra, karkinos, medusa, minotaur, nemean lion, etc). in some of these cases, the limit will be based on their myth, while in other cases it will be based on their strength or when they are available to the player. for instance, you would probably be able to get the maximum number of centaurs as 30 while you could get up to 5 minotaurs (even though there was only one in the legend), while the limit on medusae would be either 3 or 1, either to go along with the myth that there were three gorgons (medusa and her sisters) or because of medusa's strength (a late game myth unit that can turn enemies to stone), whereas the earlier hydra has a limit of three because, even though it is available from the midpoint of the game (the city phase) and is very weak at first, it gets more powerful as it acquires NINE heads, making it absolutely deadly. at the other end of the spectrum, as an example, it the japanese kitsune. theres no way of knowing how many of these fox spirits would have ever existed, theyd be as common as regular foxes. even so, the limit on them is 5 because of how powerful they are

[Aldandil]

I like the Hamadryad and Teumessian Fox. I am confused why you gave Antaeus to the Christians, though. He's an ancient Greek myth.

It makes sense to make multiples of mythical monsters that supposedly were unique, since it gives you far more options, but I would not use Shezmu and Wepwawet. They're gods, not monsters.

[oshron]

well, really, the egyptians kind of lack a bit in that department, and id rather use less-powerful gods as myth units than outright invent some in more cases than i already have (the scarab and inpu warrior, even though they DO both have basis). though, i must admit, im kind of cheating because im intending for Shezmu to basically be a rehash of the Avenger myth unit from AOM, which was based on horus' role as the one who avenged osiris by defeating set. same goes for the Inpu Warrior (in AOM, its called an Anubite). and ammit is a goddess, too, but i honestly think she's too good of a myth unit idea to pass up, especially since she, surprisingly, WASNT used in AOM

antaeus is a christian myth unit because of his mention in The Divine Comedy as one of teh giants who guarded the lowest circle of hell. notice that the furies are also a christian myth unit even though they, too, were greek

btw, i also have these new myth units:

Mare of Diomedes (Town Phase Hittite myth unit, this carnivorous horse is best used against infantry and has the ability to steal health from enemies while fighting them in reference to their carnivorous traits)

Lamia (City Phase Hittite myth unit, the quintessential snake-woman; i havent come up with anything for her yet)

Hecatonchire (Legend Phase Hittite myth unit, the hundred-handed giants of greek mythology, though theyll probably have only ten arms in the game or less for simplicity's sake)

Kampe (Legend Phase Hittite myth unit, one of the guards of Tartarus, iirc)

Wyvern (Empire Phase Christian myth unit, a flying dragon with two legs and two wings; im debating whether or not i should give this to a different faction for balance, either the semitic or mandinkan faction)

Nephilim (Empire Phase Semitic myth unit, a kind of giant from Jewish folklore)

Shahbaz (Town Phase Persian myth unit; i cant quite remember what this one was or what it did at the moment)

Gryphon (City Phase Persian myth unit, aka griffin; the only definitive ability thus far is a leap attack, but its also possible that itll have the same terrain-crossing ability as the pendragon and the cherub, where it can cross water and cliffs but not obstacles, except for when it performs its leap attack)

Manticore (Empire Phase Persian myth unit; even though this monster is from Greek mythology, its legend originated in Persia and i knew that the persians would need it more than the greeks)

Roc (Legend Phase Persian flying myth unit; serves as the game's only aerial transport. there would also be editor-only rocs that would serve as enemies, but these ones here have a purely movement-based purpose. like the manticore, rocs are present in many different legends but originated in persia, iirc. they can carry A LOT of people because of their size, hence their late availability, and youd probably only be able to get one of them)

Aziza (Town Phase Mandinkan myth unit; i cant remember exactly what this one did, but im pretty sure its african in origin)

Qareen (Town Phase Mandinkan myth unit; this is a genie that comes from islam itself, and is something of a guardian spirit. my idea is that you can train as many as you want and then have them attach themselves to your soldiers or citizens and it will follow them around wherever they go, defending them when they are attacked or fighting when they attack, but it would only be a minor help)

Asanbosam (City Phase Mandinkan myth unit; this is something of a tree vampire native to west africa with iron teeth and claws, but i havent devised anything else for it)

Ghoul (City Phase Mandinkan, an earth genie whose abilities i havent yet devised)

Catoblepas (City Phase Mandinkan, a scaly wildebeest whose abilities i havent yet devised)

Inkanyamba (City Phase naval Mandinkan, looks like a hippocampus with a snake head and neck that can spit lightning; long before i began planning the mandinkan faction, i had intended to make this a cro-magnon unit, so im already a little acquainted with it)

Ninki Nanka (Empire Phase amphibious Mandinkan, some kind of water dragon)

Ifrit (Legend Phase Mandinkan, a fire genie)

im also planning such myth units as vampires and werewolves for the slavic faction, which i recently went over again and replaced some of their minor gods. that reminds me, i still need to go over aztec mythology again and get them back their myth units

that reminds me, i also have four ideas for two more potential civs: shamanic Koreans (the native korean religion), Buddhist Vietnamese (or just generic Buddhists with myth units from all ancient Buddhist regions; the reason i propose the vietnamese is kind of in tribute to my friend kiefer, who suggested a vietnamese faction oh so long ago when i asked him what he thought my designs were missing and is vietnamese himself), Copper Culture or some sort of Pacific Northwest (so that there can be a north american amerindian faction that the game seems to be lacking, and even though it would preferrably take from one region, it would need myth units from all over the US and canada and have such myth units as bigfoot, the jersey devil, and the piasa)

EDIT: oh, and i also made a general decision on the limits of myth units for each civilization. myth units from thee town phase have an automatic limit of 30, and ones in the city phase are limited to 20, empire phase is 10, and legend phase is 5. this will change with each individual unit type depending on their fame and power, for the purposes of balance. there won't be many units that have their limit as 30, and a fair amount where you can only have one at a time, and almost all of them will take up a lot of population to further limit how many one can have at a time

Edited July 31, 2010 by oshron

[Aldandil]

I like the Qareen idea, that's unique.

Asanbosan is spelled wrong. The correct name is Sasabonsam.

For Egyptian myth units, there are some mythical creatures you have not included that would be more appropriate than using Shezmu and Wepwawet:

Setja: (aka Serpopard) has the body and head of a lion or leopard, but the neck of a snake, so it can attack at longer range, like a spearman. You could make it poisonous, too, since it is part snake.

Serpent of the Duat: these are dragons and since they vary so much in appearance, you could give them anywhere from 0 to 8 legs, make them winged or wingless, give them humanoid arms or not, and could give them up to 4 heads at the front end and up to 4 heads at the back end as well. They could also spit fire if you like. There's a lot of potential to customize these guys however you want, and/or to make them upgradeable.

Sha: the Set-animal, which I always thought looks like an aardvark-headed dog, but it could have some minor magical abilities related to deserts or storms. Or it could be like a very tough dog-like unit, but with higher hit points and a stronger bite attack.

River Man: a muddy, plant-covered amphibious unit that can come up out of of water and/or drag people into it. Technically these guys are probably deities, but unlike Shezmu and Wepwawet they aren't a unique, singular deity. Like the minor guardian deities in the Duat, they are very minor and exist in large numbers. They're more comparable to Greek satyrs or nymphs than to major deities like Shezmu and Wepwawet.

I also recommend renaming the Inpu warriors: if they are meant to be very minor underworld deities, then naming them Khatyu (plural) and Khaty (singular) would work well. Khatyu are very minor deities (in the same way that Greek nymphs are minor deities) who are sent out by major gods to punish those who offend them, and when not going on such missions Khatyu can be found in the Duat punishing the wicked dead and protecting the righteous dead. Several of the knife-wielding "demons" in the Duat are probably Khatyu. As far as I can tell, your concept for Inpu warriors would fit the Khatyu well, and in fact you could switch it up and give them human, ram, baboon, shrew, or catfish heads, or make them female (Khatyut plural, Khatyt singular) with snake or lioness heads, if you prefer that instead of jackal heads (but jackal heads work too). Yeah, I know, shrew-headed and catfish-headed Khatyu sound odd, but I'm just mentioning your options.

Edited August 1, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

I like the Qareen idea, that's unique.

Asanbosan is spelled wrong. The correct name is Sasabonsam.

yeah, i saw that mentioned in the wikipedia article, but had decided to go with the title of the page. ill change that some other time

For Egyptian myth units, there are some mythical creatures you have not included that would be more appropriate than using Shezmu and Wepwawet:

Setja: (aka Serpopard) has the body and head of a lion or leopard, but the neck of a snake, so it can attack at longer range, like a spearman. You could make it poisonous, too, since it is part snake.

Serpent of the Duat: these are dragons and since they vary so much in appearance, you could give them anywhere from 0 to 8 legs, make them winged or wingless, give them humanoid arms or not, and could give them up to 4 heads at the front end and up to 4 heads at the back end as well. They could also spit fire if you like. There's a lot of potential to customize these guys however you want, and/or to make them upgradeable.

Sha: the Set-animal, which I always thought looks like an aardvark-headed dog, but it could have some minor magical abilities related to deserts or storms. Or it could be like a very tough dog-like unit, but with higher hit points and a stronger bite attack.

River Man: a muddy, plant-covered amphibious unit that can come up out of of water and/or drag people into it. Technically these guys are probably deities, but unlike Shezmu and Wepwawet they aren't a unique, singular deity. Like the minor guardian deities in the Duat, they are very minor and exist in large numbers. They're more comparable to Greek satyrs or nymphs than to major deities like Shezmu and Wepwawet.

another thing im trying to do is keep units mostly as unique as possible, thats why theres two seperate scorpion units available to the same civilization that dont have the same abilities (the sandwalker buries itself to ambush while the scorpion-man poisons). thats one reason im kind of hesitant about the serpopard, because its kind of similar to the mesopotamian sirrush. i think i may include it only if i need to fill in one last space on the egyptians.

serpents of duat doesnt sound too bad. id probably simplify their initial appearance and make them get more limbs as they upgrade

aah, yes, the set animal. i had something like that a while ago and gave it up in lieu of wepwawet. i may consider bringing it back

now, river man, THATS an interesting unit. it could perhaps be that he regenerates health when he's in water and slowly dries out on land (meaning he loses health) so he cant stray too far from water. kind of like the japanese kappa. i think we have a winner here!

I also recommend renaming the Inpu warriors: if they are meant to be very minor underworld deities, then naming them Khatyu (plural) and Khaty (singular) would work well. Khatyu are very minor deities (in the same way that Greek nymphs are minor deities) who are sent out by major gods to punish those who offend them, and when not going on such missions Khatyu can be found in the Duat punishing the wicked dead and protecting the righteous dead. Several of the knife-wielding "demons" in the Duat are probably Khatyu. As far as I can tell, your concept for Inpu warriors would fit the Khatyu well, and in fact you could switch it up and give them human, ram, baboon, shrew, or catfish heads, or make them female (Khatyut plural, Khatyt singular) with snake or lioness heads, if you prefer that instead of jackal heads (but jackal heads work too). Yeah, I know, shrew-headed and catfish-headed Khatyu sound odd, but I'm just mentioning your options.

not a bat idea. i had originally chosen "Inpu Warrior" because i thought it sounded better than "Anubite", but this is MUCH more authentic! another winner!

that reminds me: at the moment, i have alot of the names for myth units far more informal that what they'll eventually be, like "fire giant" instead of the more proper "eldjotnar", so ill have to remember to change those names later

AND, i also filled in the last mesopotamian myth unit that needed was required for a town phase god, though may mix it up a bit and give it a bit more respect because of its power: its the Bull of Heaven from th Epic of Gilgamesh and serves as a living siege unit, and i gave it its proper name: Gugalanna. i actually learned that it, too, is a god and not really a monster even though it WAS killed (then again, tiamat was the progenitor of the gods and yet SHE was killed, too). but i think gugalanna is more deserving of a place as a myth unit than wepwawet or shezmu would be because i literally never knew that he was a god until just earlier today, whereas the other two are clearly identified as such

so, yeah, i think wepwawet may stay, but shezmu is probably out. what would you recommend as horus' new myth unit? it has to be something powerful.

[Aldandil]

I hadn't thought of that at all, but you're right: serpopards are so similar to sirrush that they might very well be the Egyptian interpretation of the same exact concept. (Plus, sirrush look cooler.)

And yeah, Ammut is technically a "netjeret" (though the word has more meanings than the English "god") but she was never worshiped, as far as I know. One could say that Apep and his spawn are "netjeru" though I don't know if they were described as such, but nobody would think of worshiping them! Of course, not even the gods would let them run around on a battlefield, but some leeway is necessary in a game.

I think the River Man in either Coptic or Late Period Egyptian was called Reme pa-Iar or Reme pa-Yar. I don't have JSTOR access anymore so I can't be certain, sorry! Losing strength outside of water is an interesting idea. Here's another: what about giving him the ability to cause small localized floods that harm land units? I don't know whether that can be programmed, or if it's too similar to other myth units you have already.

Which were the two gods whom you gave Shezmu and Wepwawet to? Or what is your current line up for all myth units and which gods grant them? If you have a river or earth god (like Khnum, Hapy, or Geb) that would be the best way to grant the River Man, and of course Set is the guy to grant a Set Animal if you go with that (sorry that I don't have a lot of creative ideas for its attacks). Any underworld god, such as Wesir/Osiris or Inepu/Anubis, could grant the Serpent of the Duat, Ammut, or Mummy (Akh is another possible name).

My ideas:

Ammit, Mummy, Serpent of the Duat: an underworld god

Apep-spawn: nearly any god really, but not Re (he's Apep's main adversary) and probably not Set (Re's bodyguard), but this is a hard one

El Naddahah: no idea, I don't know what this is

Giant Scarab: a sun god such as Re is the best choice

Inpu Warrior: (or Khaty) would work just fine for any god, since I think any god could command them, and would fit well with Heru/Horus since he and Osiris both have lots of servants in the underworld

Sphinx: I can't think of any specifics here, sorry. I guess it depends if you use a human-headed, ram-headed, or hawk-headed sphinx -- the ram-headed ones are associated with Amun, for example

Uraeus: Practically any god could grant a Uraeus, though underworld gods, sun gods (especially Re) and Re's Eye goddesses (Wadjet, Sakhmet, Bastet, etc.) are the best choices for Uraeus

Edited August 2, 2010 by Aldandil

[oshron]

And yeah, Ammut is technically a "netjeret" (though the word has more meanings than the English "god") but she was never worshiped, as far as I know. One could say that Apep and his spawn are "netjeru" though I don't know if they were described as such, but nobody would think of worshiping them! Of course, not even the gods would let them run around on a battlefield, but some leeway is necessary in a game.

exactly. i pretty much NEED to take some liberties in order for the coolest mythical creatures of each civilization to be included. for instance, the norse get giants even though they were the sworn enemies of teh norse gods, and even a few of the norse minor gods (and possibly loki) are actually jotunn (giants)

I think the River Man in either Coptic or Late Period Egyptian was called Reme pa-Iar or Reme pa-Yar. I don't have JSTOR access anymore so I can't be certain, sorry! Losing strength outside of water is an interesting idea. Here's another: what about giving him the ability to cause small localized floods that harm land units? I don't know whether that can be programmed, or if it's too similar to other myth units you have already.

i was thinking about it earlier, and while ill still give him his proper coptic name (hadnt thought of that for the egyptian language, even if it may be incorrect, its the closest thing, so ill try to find a dictionary or translator for that), i think ill refurbish "River Man" to just "Mud Man". my idea now is that he'll be a basic myth unit (perhaps replacing one of the earlier egyptian myth units; mudmen just seem more like a town phase myth unit) thats trained from the temple and is a sturdy guy with lots of health and relative resistance to attack from mortals because of his consistency, and that, if it can be programmed, he just healths when he's in shallow water because it allows him to reform and heal any wounds because of his consistency. but he wouldnt be an amphibious unit.

Which were the two gods whom you gave Shezmu and Wepwawet to? Or what is your current line up for all myth units and which gods grant them? If you have a river or earth god (like Khnum, Hapy, or Geb) that would be the best way to grant the River Man, and of course Set is the guy to grant a Set Animal if you go with that (sorry that I don't have a lot of creative ideas for its attacks). Any underworld god, such as Wesir/Osiris or Inepu/Anubis, could grant the Serpent of the Duat, Ammut, or Mummy (Akh is another possible name).

wepwawet goes to Ma'at while shezmu would have gone to Horus. ill admit that sometimes the reason i give certain minor gods certain myth units is because of which major gods they are available to. i suppose i could swap the availability of wepwawet to one of the gods available to set, because ma'at isnt, or i could do the reverse and make ma'at available to set, because i dont want to move around sobek and the other god available in the town phase is bastet. i COULD, course, make wep a weaker myth unit available to a later god and consequently make that god a bit more powerful in other aspects. ill list the egyptian gods and which myth units they give:

Batet | none yet

Ma'at | Wepwawet

Sobek | Petsuchos, El Naddahah

Hathor | Sphinx

Khepri | Giant Scarab (invented)

Khnum | Uraeus

Anubis | Inpu Warrior (i still need to change it and dont want to bother with that atm)

Isis | none yet

Ptah | none yet (formerly a giant scorpion, Serket, but i cut it out when i gave the Mesopotamians the Sandwalker, which was also a giant scorpion)

Horus | none yet (formerly Shezmu)

Sekhmet | Apep-spawn (formerly Sand Giant and then Mummy, cut out first because of situational considerations and then so Osiris and Set got mummies instead of Ra and Set)

Thoth | Mummy (so that both Osiris and Set got mummies: the mummified god and the evil god, what more could you ask for with this?)

now that i think about it, there was a mud-man-like unit in AOM, the promethean, that split in two when it was killed and reformed to create two smaller prometheans. perhaps the mud-man could have a similar trait?

My ideas:

Ammit, Mummy, Serpent of the Duat: an underworld god

Apep-spawn: nearly any god really, but not Re (he's Apep's main adversary) and probably not Set (Re's bodyguard), but this is a hard one

El Naddahah: no idea, I don't know what this is

Giant Scarab: a sun god such as Re is the best choice

Inpu Warrior: (or Khaty) would work just fine for any god, since I think any god could command them, and would fit well with Heru/Horus since he and Osiris both have lots of servants in the underworld

Sphinx: I can't think of any specifics here, sorry. I guess it depends if you use a human-headed, ram-headed, or hawk-headed sphinx -- the ram-headed ones are associated with Amun, for example

Uraeus: Practically any god could grant a Uraeus, though underworld gods, sun gods (especially Re) and Re's Eye goddesses (Wadjet, Sakhmet, Bastet, etc.) are the best choices for Uraeus

while the association of a god SHOULD have to do with what is available, another thing i did with minor gods was try to not have many gods that embodied the same thing where i can help it. one thing i try to do is set it up so that the minor gods available to each major god are not only associated with that go where applicable but also so that they grant myth units that can be best associated with that god. for instance, mummies are often antagonists in fiction, so set can get them, and osiris also gets them because he's the ORIGINAL mummy as well as king of the underworld. with the greek faction, poseidon gets all of the minor gods that can train naval myth units, and hades can get harpies, stymphalian birds/cyclopes, eyrmanthian boars/nemean lions, and medusae/chimeras, all of which are monsters you would EXPECT to encounter in the underworld. in another case, the japanese, i actually decided on which gods get different MUs depending on what role those gods actually play in a book im writing

ill go into detail on the myth units now that i have the time to do so:

Serpent of the Duat: i hadnt thought of this. maybe this could replace the apep-spawn. what do you think?

El Naddahah: this is actually a MODERN egyptian cryptid thats something like a siren. iirc, the legend is that she tries to lure men into the nile. her name is presumably arabic in origin.

Giant Scarab: available to khepri, who in turn is available to ra and set, so it all works out here. the MU itself serves as a living siege unit

Khaty: for anubis, of course, since its replacing the inpu warrior

Sphinx: teh sphinx went to bastet in AOM, which fit in well there, but i felt it went better as a city phase myth unit with hathor

Uraeus: went with khnum i guess because of his association with the nile. not quite sure why i decided on that, maybe i originally envision them as naval units

Edited August 3, 2010 by oshron