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Empire Civilisation

Adds the Empire, led by Emperor Karl Franz, as a playable civilisation.


// REQUIREMENTS

Requires both Gods and Kings and Brave New World, and the Empires of the Smoky Skies scenario.


// DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINK

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fi31ttmqu1c6fxc/AAAOvf7RE0SEVKNTepkF6BE7a?dl=0

If you're having trouble with Steam, just copy the folder into your MODS directory.


// SUMMARY

UA: Sigmar's Heirs: units get 33% more combat strength in Golden Ages (to reflect the Empire's ability to find deep reserves of resilience in times of dire need, e.g. apocalypses) and a free Great General after discovering Iron Working (to represent the coming of Sigmar).

UU: Warrior Priest: Warrior Priests are now a Swordsman replacement who generate Faith from kills and can spread religion, but only once and very weakly, and doing so removes them from play. This prevents Empire spamming WPs to dominate a religious war.

UU: Steam Tank: replaces Cavalry, requires Coal. Steam Tanks are armour, not mounted, units and are stronger but much more expensive than Cavalry. Might draw your resources away from Factory-building, so you have a choice to make in the early Industrial Era.

UU: Greatsword: slightly stronger and more expensive than Longswordsmen.


// DISCUSSION

The Empire's ability to build a strong religion enables many strategies, but for the military-minded, many cool synergies can be found with their UA. Rushing to Chichen Itza and/or storing Great Artists can make you very dangerous, both in driving toward a Domination victory or fighting defensive wars as you turtle toward any other victory type. With easy happiness and military boosts available from ideologies, it takes little imagination to see that Empire are a strong late-game Domination civ, but depending on how you configure your religion, you can shoot for most victory types. This, I think, reflects the versatility of the Empire in the original tabletop game.

The Empire is the largest human realm in the Old World, and Games Workshop's poster-boy for the "good" armies in Warhammer. They're mercantile, pluralistic and outward-looking, and high achievers in magic, engineering and the hard sciences.

As an AI, Karl Franz is a bro. He’s among the friendliest of the Warhammer civs I've made (though everything's relative; he’s certainly no Gandhi), the fairest in trade, and quite loyal. His biases are all reasonably balanced though, so he’s not above a backstab if he senses weakness. He likes to befriend and protect city states and will try to run the World Congress – a fair representation of Karl Franz’s diplomatic skills and status as de facto leader of the free world. He’s almost as expansionist as Archaon, and so tends to covet your land.

He’ll build gold and trade lots, in keeping with the Empire's entrepreneurial spirit, and will go for a diplomatic victory first and science victory second (though his science infrastructure is usually worse than his economic infrastructure). He likes religion, but not quite as much as Louen, and will rarely contest you in cultural warfare. He should be easy to befriend as long as you’re not a vulnerable target in the way of his growth or a rival for his city states.


// ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DISCLAIMER

Special thanks to zwei833 for his excellent Landsknecht/Doppelsoldner model, which makes so good a Greatsword that I had to add a third unit, and to FramedArchitect and Murphy613 for the Druid - aka Warrior Priest - model.

Art work sources include various free wallpaper sites and Games Workshop artists Karl Kopinski, Daarken and Adrian Smith; The written content within this mod is a paraphrase of, or extrapolated from, the background writing to the Empire army of Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy universe, as found in the associated rulebooks.

All external art assets have been edited, and no profit is being sought for this mod, whether through donations or otherwise. This mod is based upon the universe of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles tabletop wargame, wholly owned by Games Workshop. Warhammer and all related names are tm and (c) Games Workshop.

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I can only do so much playtesting, so feel free to share your experiences for future tweaks and updates. Hope you enjoy it!