Hi Mr. Soul. I'm not entirely at odds with the new slave mechanic but I do miss the grounded feeling of putting them in provinces and storing them. I am not aware of your modding skill, but I appreciate the opportunity to give input. I think people are already working on a reversion of the system so maybe create something on top of the update instead of going back like others might.

Perhaps you could create a "slave market" to "sell" slaves, i.e. trade them for rare artifacts, banners, loyalty, diplomatic relations, etc. You could have a section to trade with each dark elf faction, maybe even other races too? Each faction would be "selling" different items for slaves, trading with them might even increase diplomacy in a loreful way. Each crafting section or "faction trade menu" would be randomly open or closed each turn, "this faction isn't looking to buy slaves right now". Next turn the price may double or the market might be closed. You would have to plan how you will get rid of your excess slaves before reaching capacity. Maybe even trade with Skaven or Ogres so they don't hate you. You could just play random dark elf diplomacy lines with you open their market, same with other races if you add them. It would be fun to open the market when you want and see what's available.

TLDR: Slave market item-crafting("trade") menu that increases diplomatic relations with evil factions in a loreful and way. I don't know if this sounds interesting/doable but thanks for the post.

Originally posted by Metamorphosis:

snip

very interesting, and ya I like new system but it could still be expanded in ways to make it more engaging during longer campaigns as eventually it just becomes same "youre an economic titan" and even with -230 a turn, struggling to see how could run out, which guess is point of pushing player to keep attacking

perhaps doable if I copy over another factions mechanic to use their faction resources. Noted, and thank you for sharing.

Originally posted by Mr.Soul:

Originally posted by Metamorphosis:

snip

very interesting, and ya I like new system but it could still be expanded in ways to make it more engaging during longer campaigns as eventually it just becomes same "youre an economic titan" and even with -230 a turn, struggling to see how could run out, which guess is point of pushing player to keep attacking

perhaps doable if I copy over another factions mechanic to use their faction resources. Noted, and thank you for sharing.

Thanks! Can't wait to see what you do with it.

Hey, I appreciate your approach and work ethic, I like Metamorphosis idea too, would be really nice to have a slave mechanic overhaul that feels more like a faction mechanic.

My two sent: In WH2 when looking for unit mods, I found a slaves unit for the Druchiis and thought it was so cool that they would send excess of slaves in the front line to cover their advances and such. I think it could be nice if you could recruit a unit of Slaves, not for gold, but for Slaves, the upkeep could be a few coins for the daily piece of bread or slaves directly (to account for harder treatment), or even free idk, since the slave cost mechanic may be something that have to be handled through a script checking for number of slave units each turn it might be unnecessarily heavy, but maybe you can directly set-up slaves as currency for upkeep, I don't really know...
The idea was that if you are short on money but have slaves laying around and ennemies lurking or assaulting, you can throw your slaves at them so they die while your troops/towers showers arrows at your foes.
Or even just for fun, by pure cruelty... or both.


Oh, and, by the way, I'm starting to translate mods to bretonnian, already did your "Druchii Raiding Camp Stance" (took me a whole minute... I'm a bit proud of myself ngl) and definitelly lookign forward to do the full Druchii Overhaul mod.
Thank you for your work. Cheers!

Cheers too, and I know exactly what mod you're talking about. Think we're thinking along exact same lines and yeah, for slaves not a normal recruitment system. Based on other faction mechanics I should be able to cobble something together and get that going, probably be my main thing be working on here.

Originally posted by Metamorphosis:

Originally posted by Mr.Soul:

very interesting, and ya I like new system but it could still be expanded in ways to make it more engaging during longer campaigns as eventually it just becomes same "youre an economic titan" and even with -230 a turn, struggling to see how could run out, which guess is point of pushing player to keep attacking

perhaps doable if I copy over another factions mechanic to use their faction resources. Noted, and thank you for sharing.

Thanks! Can't wait to see what you do with it.

o7 thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts too, hope I can impress haha

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Hello there,
I just thought I'd add my two cents here.

I really hate WH3's new slave mechanic. I'm on a very hard campaign now with Helebron, managed to confederate all the DE lords, I have all of Ulthuan, Lustria, the Dark Elves area, a bit of the north and a bit of the empire at turn 150.

Right now it costs me around 5k slaves per turn to keep up the the economy.

Even with slave generating buildings, in all settlements it isn't enough. At this point of the game you kind of need to be at war with everyone and fight maybe 5 battles per turn which would net you around 1k slaves per battle.

This just isn't sustainable or fun in the late game.

As such, and as you can probably imagine one thing I'd really love is a more reasonable rate of slave attrition in the ultra late game.

Thank you for your input.
Yeah, figuring out how best to approach this has been a conundrum.

Reverting to the old system entirely appears to be not an option from early tests(CTD like crazy even trying to edit one value in there for it, plus its all been gutted for new system, ie old files simply dont exist, tho could try migrating them from 2...hmmm)

Get this too, I'm in the other boat for some reason. Got like 30,000 capacity and basically nothing to spend them on(and it is one thing havent modded yet with the faction lol), tho yeah I'm constantly fighting at least one large battle a turn, but been about 20-30 turns since even bothered paying attention to the amount in any detail.

HOWEVER you are the second person I've seen report the opposite, my suggestion to the first was simply try to double down on building things which increase your cap, and really really limit the amount of the jewellery buildings you get going before at that 10k-30k capacity. Which i've done, and obviously worked BUT no, there is nothing i can build even with my successful campaign run to offset the depletion rate. I get that it's supposed to encourage the player to be aggressive, and I don't entirely dislike new system but yeah like you need to be CONSTANTLY on the go to keep that number up and more or less like me, not even building your profit buildings until like into turn 80-90, which is...odd.

I think my current plan is to either nerf, or entirely change way it works with ports, cos like wow, that's a mandatory building. You don't get a choice but once it's up to top tier, holy crude -50 lol Okay...My idea behind this too is that they only bring them in, and never cause a depletion which if you think about from lore perspective, like yeah duh, why would slaves be expended at the place where they are brought in from naval raiding, which I'd assume is going on in the background every day in druchii society regardless of what Malekith's actual legions are doing.

Also holding off on any major changes until next update in October, I feel like there's going to be a mix up, and a whole whack of balance tweaks based on feedback like yours to the main game.

Now, if they don't course correct or worse yet double down on this new concept and gets even more brutal to maintain any positive balance, or hell yeah I"ll reverting those kinds of changes haha.

I think it regards to the slave issue at later stages of the game, maybe a change in play style could help with that as we can't always be at war 100% of the time. So with slaves being earned when raiding, this could really help with later stages of a campaign while destroying the enemies economy and hold over lands, making their lands become hostile to the owner and adding important corruption when necessary.
But maybe that's just me RPing a little there haha but the Druchi are renowned for raiding lands and grabbing slaves rather than fighting pitched battles all the time. But we all have our preferential way of playing this.

But it's good to read what people have gone through in the later stages of their campaigns, potentially creating ideas for additions etc etc

Now with the additions you've made to Morathi - WOW, I effing like it! Having those lesser beings to act as her darkshards/Bleakswords etc sounds like a unique play style for her.

What makes the player recruit those units btw? Are Druchi units more expensive to recruit and maintain? Or are there caps on DE units? Was just thinking what would be a good way to reflect the fact that she's basically been told Malekith's war has upmost priority than her own. Think we've got something really good here in spicing up campaigns for players who might usually play Malekith or Lokir!

Wondering too just hijack Cathay’s caravan system like did Tomb King’s crafting. Except instead of trading can send off smaller raiding parties that have an end goal. Smaller battles, or even none and all and do it all through dilemmas and some rng. Point being another means to make slaves consistently without having to solely rely on battles as main source, tho now with new vanilla mechanic a full stack off raiding on its own is pulling in hundreds every turn.

As to the questions about Morathi’s new boy toys. I’d be lying said haven’t had thoughts to expand more on concept of Morathi lacking easy access to more conventional druchii forces. As it is right now they are mainly thematic bonus from docks, and tied into the pleasure cult chain and sorcery building chain(to unlock some of higher level daemons need both), lorewise being summoned with aid of sorceresses, gameplay wise means need to really commit to that building chain. And so far have seen now exists clear division how plan out provinces, have a few with normal barracks but lean towards cult for added corruption bonus meaning many provinces lack basic dark elf military with an abundance of norscans.

Caps could work to better represent this as could simply removing options, access to buildings etc. ideally, if decide to pursue this further, and I believe is some way to achieve this but like to have it where can’t really recruit druchii as morathi unless own certain provinces; bleak holds area and hag hall being first need to take, Ssildra Tor maybe giving very small selection.

As it is now tho this is fully possible from an RP perspective and in fear of curtailing how others may enjoy playing as her(ie opposite end of using mainly dark elf roster with select daemons/norscans) is why decided to leave it where it is for now and focus instead of trying to brainstorm similar expansions appropriate for other factions beyond already planned slave levies.(which if I do heavy on thematic additions may become more of naggarond feature)

Vomit spit of ideas:
Roster ideas for Lokhir and Malekith:
Pistol-ere Corsairs for Lokhir, maybe some arty he's stolen from Cathay

One new elite unit for Blackguard; Venom Rifles.
"Few among Druchii society consider the firearms of the humans with anything other than passing amusement, yet some have begun to see their advantages much as their ancestors had with the Dwarven crossbow eons ago, not least of all and perhaps most suitably as the one who brought the crossbow to his people, Malekith has taken some note of their potential application.

Malekith is wise enough however to understand wide spread use of them could jeopardise his power station and thus has only entrusted deploying them in extremely small numbers, of the highest quality Cathayan samples he can aquire, to his most elite and trusted members of the Black Guard."

Pistol-ere's just be militiamen with base stats of corsairs, so, about the same but figure be fun thematically, and one of Lohkir's slave levies obviously be Cathayan riflemen pressed into service.

Malekith's unit be late game ranged option, figuring maybe even smaller units than normal black guard, but straight up be using crane gunner rifles they've acquired, ie long range, armour piercing and something be tough for enemy to just flank or harass off the field in melee(debating still have halberds, prob just swords so little weaker against large entities to balance it a bit). Likewise, once taken some Imperial territory or Cathayan, with any Druchii faction thinking eventually be one of the higher level slave levies, or some kind of mercenaries to employ little more boom boom with the Druchii.

Oh, if reading this and going like "hell did this direction come from?", been musing today how illogical it is for Bret' to live beside empire yet disregard firearms entirely cos not knightly or w/e as if honourable pistol duels never existed.

That got me on tangent of how in Warhammer the only factions should be employing archaic weapons are elves(cos stubborn and byzantine by very nature), as how hell could any human, dwarven etc society hope to survive chaos, undead and numerous other existential and extinction level event threats without embracing firearms? Like ya sure magic, but humans suck at magic compared to elves, hence why elves can afford to backasswards.

So okay, what about Druchii though? Well they adopted crossbows despite being non elf like because of the tactical advantages they offered. Literally no other reason. Could understand simply ignoring, or disregarding firearms as crude instruments for most part monkeys make that "go boom" in their users face more often than not, but not even having a passing fancy with them once seen how brutal and effective they are?

Nah, Lohkir for sure be using them as he could in Cathay simple because probably lacking proper supply lines enjoy even in Lustria versus over there, and he ain't no moron so why would he not afford himself of their tech?

Malekith, he's the one adopted the crossbows in first place, of course he'd be curious as no dummy when it comes to military logistics.

Morathi? eh, as one of few probably have full understanding of technical mechanics at play(ie that its just a combustible process), she'd probably be least impressed and with access to daemons and mindless norscan hordes now, well, who needs military innovation when can metaphysically, and physically, bum rush the opponent.

Hellebron? Okay, yeah she's arguably conservative af and probably looks down upon ranged combat overall, so think to skip her in this assessment.

Rakarth? Dude's a hunter, give him one demonstration and probably see first legion of Druchii line infantry in less than a year lol

Malus? Yeah, don't think the dude on a crusade in chaos wastes going to say no to some firearms in his army, especially when he'd arguably be next after to Lohkir with fighting them since Chaos Dwarves trade readily with chaos and provide things like Helcannons to them.

So yeah, im probably going to work on this as do roster changes over time. Be easy as just need to kitbash vanilla assets, not create anything new. If I do the ballistics will be balanced on respective units I've taken the firearms in questions from, and the unit's stats for melee etc will be same as their vanilla counterparts. No op game ending units, just some extra late game fun can recruit, maybe even do your own military reformation of the druchii to firearms if you see fit, or if playing hellebron, hold onto traditions of stabbing people up close, etc.

Word vomit/re-post from General Discussions(figured anyone reads my ramblings here prob be interested)
Someone started a thread talking about history of when lords first appeared and I went and looked for Morathi/Malekith. First link too some names and ideas in there I think for if I want to add some unique lords and/or flesh out minor factions via Mixer in the future. The "Forestburner" character first up I find particularly interesting for an idea.

"...For Druchii fans like me, thread inspired me to contribute:
Earliest DE models(1982-1983, are apart of the "Fantasy Tribes" line of Citadel models, my guess back then be mainly for use in DnD as were inspired directly by Drow):
http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Speciality_Set_-_Night_Elf_Patrol_%28SS3%29

These first iterations of Dark Elves(or Night Elves as were originally called) date back to first edition, but our fav Mother/Son duo was not around yet until fourth edition in 92' (when actually started releasing sep army books and really getting into lore of factions).

Thought this was kind of neat too, much like faction itself predating their later namesakes in Warhammer as Fantasy Tribes models, we have a Witch King and Queen model from 1984 before Malekith and Morathi had names:

King(actually wouldn't make for a terrible Malekith model Sundering era, except for the staff, young Malekith was not much of a mage lol):
https://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:Witch_King.jpg
Painted: https://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:Witch_King1.jpg

Queen(funny part is its obviously old model, but still looks better than one particular version of Morathi imho lol):
https://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:C09-12.jpg
Concept art: https://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:C09-12a.jpg (ngl, giving me ideas for a reskin for Morathi, cos Elvira Morathi is kinda awesome lol)

Source: https://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Dark_Elf_(WHFB_1st/2nd_Edition)_-_Collectors_Guide"

Hi Mr. Soul,

I've recently returned to Warhammer 3 to find the Blood Forge up and running! Excellent work! Now the slaves are more of an actual mechanic than an economic buff. I can't play Dark Elves without your overhaul.

If you are still looking for any more suggestions for this Druchii Overhaul, I have some more. Convert slaves into instantly recruitable peasant mobs or a pitfighter hero? Reverse Chivalry(Tyranny?) mechanic that revolves around your nobles trying to betray you(loyalty for cities/heroes?) and having to make them fear you (sacking/razing/dilemmas)? Exclusive Black Ark buildings that recruit more/better variants of corsairs, corsair heroes, and extend its global recruit radius(lategame Lokhir)? I like the Venom Rifles and I get tired of just Darkshards and Shades. These superheavy "venomspitters(?)" could carry a one-man modded mobile bolt-thrower like ironguts. Same firepower as a gun but it'll appeal to the loreheads. Poison and fire versions? Fast glass cannon "Raptor Corsairs(?)" on cold ones(dread knight alternative)? Black Arks could spawn those cathayan raiding parties you want, recruiting them via the new buildings.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the slave market come to fruition. Thank you for your hard work.

Think we may need rework names of few things for guns(after rereading my 40k book on Drukhari lol, venom rifles unfort verges dangerously close to that fluff and that’s a no no :( ) but I like what you’re saying with a lot of those ideas.

Loyalty is one been thinking of lately too, slave levies ya, gotta find right way to do it for pooled resources cost(slaves) as something isn’t normally tied into recruit system but also thinking shouldn’t be impossible to tie them to regions. Ie, you take ulthuan get HE slave levies, brett, peasants, so on and so forth usually significant cultural capitals as well to unlock higher tier, or outright turncoat units.

As well had an idea, tho still no clue how best could implement, but wouldn’t be cool expand loyalty and fluff up how vassals work for at least malekith? Ie, once beyond taking ulthuan benefits factions more to just vassalize and raid rest from a distance, and MAYBE could migrate the system from empire, with fealty etc, when gets too low cos outright exploiting them for too long/haven’t cracked down etc, boom instead one general causing grief have one of vassal states of empire rise up, even script it so get some spawned armies make it bit more of a threat etc. but that’s borderline pipe dream stuff for now xD

Thx for posting that, again like what you’ve suggested, if I can look into expanding on those ideas in the future, I will.