Here you can suggest what do you think could be in future updates, any ideas are welcome but don't expect all ideas to be realized.
Of course good and crazy ideas have better chance of success.

Dragon Lords Quick Ideas

Note: Writing this allowed me to procrastinate from real work for almost 20 minutes.

The easiest way to make this work would be to simply add 1+ new LL similar to Cataph’s HE sea patrol. In fact, you should use that as a model… or maybe We’z Specshul is more similar.

If you go this route then your goblin dragon lord is already halfway good to go. You just need to move her to a new unlocked faction. Perhaps a savage orc faction would be better overall. It will be as it is now, a new dragon LL for an otherwise normal greenskin faction. You could also do this for dark elves, norsca, and empire factions. In each case the new LL would enjoy the faction mechanics of whatever race he was assigned to. You could give negative traits like ‘+50% upkeep for non-hero, non-lord units in this army’ in order to balance out the power of a dragon.

So four starting LLs: Norsca, Greenskin, Dark Elf, and Empire. Each LL has a very different skill tree and abilities to reflect its unique differences. Each LL has costly traits to balance their power. Different lords have different shapeshifting and movement abilities:
• Greenskin DL: Doesn’t shapeshift; always dragon; can fly
• Norsca DL: Always shapeshifted; only dragon at 75% or below health; cannot fly; can mount
• Dark Elf DL: Always shapeshifted; can shapeshift whenever; can fly
• Empire DL: Always shapeshifted; becomes dragon at 20% health; cannot fly; can mount

Next comes making the LLs unique amongst their race. The easiest way to do this is to add faction-specific buildings to starting capitals. These buildings produce special dragonkin units and are shared by all DL factions. Maybe they add dragonkin salamanders, kroxigar, and bats.

So in all:
• 4 new LLs in different factions
• Each LL has a unique skill tree and abilities
• Each LL gets access to a building in its capital that allows for building of special dragonkin unit regardless of the faction the DL is in

There would be much more you could do with this. Eventually you could add generic DLs for the DL factions (similar to the HE sea patrol). You may also be able to add a dragonling hero that all of the different DLs, regardless of their race, could access (See Sons of Asuryan mod for examples). Then you could obviously add more DL factions for TK, Bret, VC, etc.

NOTE: Nothing is more important than mod compatibility. You are already doing SFO, which is great. However, there is the ‘canon’ of added factions, and you want to fit well with them. I suggest you try to make it compatible with both CFU and MFU, but if I had to choose then probably MFU.

Yea procrastinating in work to write ideas for mods is tight, my everyday after lunch fun :)

Some ideas are not bad, I already had some plans for expansion to other races so will add it to pile of useful ideas, special units in unique building, also not bad.

I know that these are just rough ideas, but to point out fishy parts,
debuff to have more expensive units sounds like bad idea since it promotes hero-wars ( where units don't matter),
adding stuff to Empire, there are bazilion mods for Empire, giving something to them is last on my list,
it feels little like give lot of stuff everywhere and that could be detrimental to quality and uniqueness(creating LL takes lot of time),
as far as I know it is compatible with MFU and CFU it just doesn't utilize them and if you would read description you would learn that next update is moving it to minor faction and that means utilizing them.

Mod started as just LL with one special spell, and because I am lazy, I have chosen Crooked Moon, because they come with orcs removed, now since it finally feels more like race I will move it on minor faction.

Well, my ideas are kind of a grand vision. Cataph's or Xoudad's mods show that you could do much more than I am suggesting, but this is kind of a minimal vision of a complete product. That being said, my suggestions are certainly not easy or quick.

My vision is of different LLs in different factions that have this dragon lord thing in common. The ideas about the special building and heroes for them are meant to keep them similar to the other LLs of their race. The idea about debuffing the army is meant to keep the dragon LLs from being OP compared to the other LLs of the race the dragon lord is in.

Yes, it encourages hero wars in a certain sense, but otherwise you end up with ridiculously powerful LLs for the factions. I was thinking the debuff would encourage you to keep the LL with a few special units in its own army which could be reinforced by other armies.

Essentially, a dragon LL at full power could solo a 20 stack of low tier units. A full power dragon LL with its unique hero and a couple of consort dragons (which have a low cap for total units but are unaffected by the debuff) could take on a pretty serious army. However, in order to wage war against doom stacks you will still need to reinforce your dragon LL army with other armies. (If that gets OP then you could play with the horde infighting attrition mechanic.)

This would create a unique play experience where you are running a main army with only 5 units in it. It would be something different.

The shapeshifting thing is just meant to give it some cool flavor. I haven't seen shapeshifting mods done well by any modder though, so I am not too optimistic. This would be the place to implement it.

Instead of the Empire dragon lord you could make a Bret or Southern Realms lord. I just wanted to suggest a human lord that would want to hide his real power. Either way, I wouldn't make this one until you have mastered the shapeshifting mechanic.

I think you should start by focusing on this current mod. Do the things you mentioned wherein you move it to another faction and get it setup with an unlocker. You already have a badass skill tree for this LL. My units and building idea is close to what you are already doing. The advantage of doing all of the unique units and hero onto one building is that you could copy that building for other future faction-leaders.

I did already read your description about the unlocker and future plans and everything else. I mention that stuff because it is important and because I have a specific idea about where this faction should be moved. If I mention these things after you have already moved your faction onto an unlocked faction then it obviously cannot help you. This is meant as encouragement rather than criticism.

Well of course I take it as encouragement, I am glad for any input, just your mention of unlockers felt redundant.

Anyway I like strategy part of the game, where it matters what tactics you use with your army and hero wars are usually opposite of that, where for instance dwarf LL soloes 10 stacks of black orcs and it doesn't matter what orcs will do because he just have too high stats and too small model so they lost before battle even began.
It feels better to make LL expensive so you don't punish player for using units but rather make him pay for strong lord he is using, also unlocking dragon form at higher levels when armies are also strong could help,
of course at that time he could solo lot of low tier units, but same can do any high tier unit.

Transformation mechanic has lot of limitations(it replaces one unit with another, that why it "heals" to 100%) so it is harder to balance, I will see what I can do with it.

In concern of grand plans, problem is not their grandness(my own plans are also grand) but rather fact that suggested Dragon Knights don't feel draconic enough to commit to make them in 4 LL flavors, perhaps 1 and will see from there and then max at cca 4 because otherwise they would be too common (for instance you would not remember Kholek too much if there would be 20 large monster LL)

But what you said about human Dragon Knight gave me idea for mechanic, when he transforms in battle it will hurt his reputation on campaign map(public order debuff or something), that will make him to use it only when it is truly needed.

Right now moving it on Arachnos, making it available for both campaigns, experimenting with some spells(army spells Doomrocket caliber), plus some units and maybe hero.

That sounds great, bro! I agree with everything you are saying here.

There must be a way to penalize shapeshifting to make it balanced. Your diplomacy penalty sounds great and could be used in conjunction with other things:
- make it one time per fight
- make it harm allies or debuff them in the fight
- make it happen automatically when certain conditions are met
- give it a cooldown from the start so you can't use it right away

Different conditions are a way to differentiate your different lords.
- Greenskin dragon lord probably wouldn't ever need to shapeshift, so you could give her extra self healing or add penalties to other dragon lords to balance between them
- norsca dragon lord maybe has cooldown and requires human model to be under 50% health
- human dragon lord requires human model to be under 25% health and have broken leadership then automatically transforms and applies diplomacy penalties
- DE dragon lord gets short cooldown and applies debuffs and damage to allied army

Shapeshifting also helps the 'too many monster lords' concern a little bit. the human dragon lord wouldn't even use dragon form very often, and he along with both the DE and norsca would be humanoids on the campaign map

Besides that, it comes down to faction units, dragon lord units, heroes, and buildings.

Most simple mods that add content just create a building or two that can only be built in certain settlements by certain races or factions.

For example, 'expanded rosters: amazons' adds a building that can only be built in certain lustrian cities by a lizardman faction. Each tier of this building adds more amazon units. In vanilla Avelorn already has something like this in her starting city. Assuming you want to start with something that works and possibly expand from there then this is your best bet. You would have the added benefit of using this same building any time you wanted to add a new LL.

Sticking with your GS dragon LL: Give her full access to normal gs units. Give her starting capital your building that contains a few unique dragon-kin units. I suggested a dragon kin light flying unit (bats), ranged (salamanders), and monstrous infantry (kroxigars). You could also do a monster (carnosaur) and a hero on the same building. Those are general units that can be used in any army regardless of the faction.

Obviously this GS faction would be stronger than other GS factions. You would need to balance in some ways:
- debuffs involving the LL as discussed above
- restricted access to racial units, which you did in your original mod
- put low unit caps on the dragon-kin units with no way to raise it
- make dragon-kin units expensive and have long recruitment times

The hero might be more complicated than the rest. 'Sons of Asuryan' mod uses lots of new and unique heroes, so perhaps there is a way to do it. The simplest way to do it is to copy the unique hero vanilla The Drowned faction starts with. These lords start with an immortal unique hero. Then you don't have to worry about all of the ui changes that accompany new heroes. Alternatively, you can add quests that unlock the hero like lord kroak. As a way to balance this, you could do something like -1 to the cap of every other hero in the faction, which would reflect the dragon lord's mistrust of non-dragons and secrecy. (I got that idea from a LL added by Cataph's 'southern realms' mod named 'Gashnag the Black Prince' who heads the Border Princes faction. He is a strigoi masquerading as a normal human.)

Well I think it would be really great if you could add garrison units to those buildings, as I play with a beastmen incursion mod (as do most people I know), so garrisons are kind of a must XD

And I think it shouldn't be too big a boon to have +25% income from Gold/Gem/Diamond mines, seeing as those are rare, and it is more of a extra boon to help smoothen out the campaign.

You could then keep the -10 leadership penalty, but also keep the rest of the Crooked moon boons (like -20% Goblin upkeep, and the +100% experience for goblin heroes and increased success chance). This to compensate for your strong Dragon units, and also forcing you to invest into Draconian units to provide them with leadership support. You would not have the penalties of not having Karak Eight Peaks, but you would also not have Skarsnik and the ability to super boost your Goblin units. So even then it should be quite fair :)

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Oh, and I had one more idea. I don't know if it is too lore friendly, but here it is:

Could you grant their roster the Dragon princes? But rename them to "Half Dragon Princes" and also grant them this mod's flaming aura? https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1703050735 (as well as martial mastery). Which deals 2 magic damage per sec to each entity within 10 m.

I'm a big fan of Half Dragons in the lore, and I heard that the dragons of Cathay were rumored to be dragons in human form. Perhaps Istarzia and her dragon princesses and consorts were able to do the same? So they would have elite soldiers that are more flexible than draconians.

This way you would have a heavy cavalry unit, whose statistics and price would be the same as the High Elf Dragon Princes. But to compensate for the faction's few specialized units, they would also have that damaging aura which you could name: "Breath Weapons" as it symbolizes them occasionally using their breath weapons as they fight.

Their models would be colored red like the ROR dragon princes. How would this sound? I think it would be super thematic and awesome if you could add them :) The damaging aura would symbolize them using their own weaker breath weapons in between combat.

So the Half Dragon Princes would have the Martial Mastery and Dragon Prowess traits from the standard Dragon Princes, but they would exchange their "Asur Trample Them" SFO trait for the "Breath Weapons" aura which deals 2-3 damage per second to enemies within 10 meter. That way their upkeep and cost could remain the same.

The reason why I suggested Half Dragons, is because whenever I think of Half Dragons I think of this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18FKIJFsp7FxEMfSr6KB_TWSNZEbd3eRm/view so you could get away with making them look a bit more human like that.

These Half Dragon princes could be recruited from the main building, so that it would not be tied to the Dragon cave. With their color scheme being red like the ROR dragon princes, and instead of "Asur Trample them" they would have that "Breath Weapons" aura.

Also, if you really want to go all out, you could create a unit called "Half Dragons", which uses the models of the red dragon princes here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1833538052&searchtext=dragon+princes+low+tier here is an image of them: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/779606193190227277/59B537CA933BE2BE7A746B40424A94BEA91AF2CF/

These could be a mid tier unit with good speed and decent armor, but also with only okay leadership (better then goblins though) and low armor piercing as well as only okay statistics with only 60 models.

However, they would have a good amount of standard damage (so like Saurus Warriors) along with flaming melee attacks, the "Breath Weapons" aura, the Dragon Prowess trait (Not the Martial Mastery), they can be recruited within 1 turn, their upkeep is around 250 (like Saurus Warriors), they would have the Dragon Prince's fire resistance, and they would have the "Flammable!" contact effect on their melee attacks (vulnerable to fire, and slows). In SFO you could only field a limited amount of them with unit caps, so you would still need to rely on your low upkeep Goblins.

Like Half Dragon Princes, Half Dragons could then be recruited from the main building in a province, perhaps at the 3th tier building. Their role is to debuff and be a cheaper and reliable anchor for your troops. They would not have the aura boons from the draconian units, but they would be a good in between option.

How would that sound? It would provide them with a decent mid tier unit.

Perhaps if you want to go all out on the Half Dragon, how about the following idea for a Half Dragon hero?

Make him ranged, but turn his ranged attack into a flame thrower (with the animation from the Iron Drakes flamethrowers).

And as his model, take Malekith. Then recolor him until he looks like a Red Half Dragon (maybe change model?).

Then, instead of transforming into a Demon, he transforms into a Dragon. Similar to Malekith his Demon form, the Dragon form slowly drains his health, as Half Dragons cannot stay into their Dragon form for too long.

This would be more balanced. And he would start with Immortality, and reduced Wounded time reduction when he gains his dragon form.

Also, about the Burning Tide traits, I think SFO removed the mine buildings. If so, perhaps their traits could be as the following?

* Reduced upkeep (-20%) for all Goblin units.
* +50% experience gained for heroes, -50% hero action cost.
* -10 leadership armies (faction wide)
* +10% income builidings.
* You cannot recruit Orc units, but you instead have access to unique Draconic units.

How would this sound for their faction traits?

Also, perhaps you could change some of the technologies and building boons? So that they no longer support Orcs, but instead grant boons to those draconic units?

For example: rename "Orcs are da best" to "Dragons are da best!" or something, and let the boons in the technology tree affect the draconic units instead?

Also, could you give the Dragon Consorts the game statistics of the High Elf Star Dragon? Star Dragons have better stats and the Armor Sundering trait on their melee attacks (in exchange for slightly more upkeep), and it would have great synergy with all those low tier goblin units!

Consorts are little weaker statwise than star dragons by design, since new faction would probably not get support of ancient dragons, but their magma breath melts armor so they can go toe to toe with star dragons

right now I am working on talent trees to support dragons rather than orcs,
will add something to research tree later, as for buildings, its complicated, since I will probably need to make separate things for SFO vs vanila

Okay, that all sounds pretty good! But could you at least give them armor sundering then? For synergy with the weaker Goblin units.

Also, after thinking about it a bit more, I think your idea of making the Half Dragons into heroes is a lot better. If you can then also add my suggested faction boons, then they could be a Lord/Hero focussed faction, with weak and cheap infantry.

I think that, after adding the Half Dragon as a hero, the roster will then be complete :) So you won't need to add my suggested Half Dragons as Infantry/Cavalry units (unless you want to of course, but I think that with a Half Dragon Hero they would be pretty good already).

What do you think? You could use Malekith his base model, and modify it to look more like a Half Dragon: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18FKIJFsp7FxEMfSr6KB_TWSNZEbd3eRm/view and give him a transformation like Malekith, which transforms him into a Dragon whose health is slowly drained (with the immortality trait, and with reduced wound duration) just like Malekith.

If you could then give him a ranged attack, with the animation of the Flamethrower Irondrakes, then he could fill the roll of high damage and mid range damage dealing hero. Who, at higher levels, is able to transform into a Dragon if the need really calls for it.

Yea will probably give him armor sunder,

Malekith sounds like interesting idea, will think about it,
and I don't think he will need to have hp drain, since if it will be high level talent it would protty much match strength of lord on dragon,
but that is for future updates