Apologies for not seeing this post until today.

While having just Forest Goblins is outside the scope of this mod (for now), I am planning on the ability to have additional tribal recruitment buildings in each of the settlements. Once you capture your first Forest Goblin Settlement you would be able to add a Forest Goblins Recruitment building to your non Forest Goblin Settlements. I still need to test some things to make sure this works out smoothly, but that is the plan.

Additionally, I am wanting to plan something special for when you take over the Wood Elf territories that will be specific to Forest Goblins. I'm not entirely sure what that will be yet, but if I had to guess it would be additional unit variants, additional upgrades of sorts, and probably a new building or three (since you can have 10 in each of the WE Settlements).

As far as a pure Forest Goblin Faction, I will not say no to this as this is something that has intrigued me (I really do like the units), but I wouldn't expect it any time soon.

See, now you got me thinking about a standalone Forest Goblin faction. I'm not sure if this will come to fruition, but I've started making notes.

awesome
it would be sweet at least while i wait for the skaven to finally get here

Since most of the Crooked Moon mod is done, minus a few bits here and there, I figured I'd start mapping out some things for a Forest Goblin faction. The plan would be to make them a separate playable faction with Snagla Grobspit as their LL. There are, however, a few issues that need to be ironed out ahead of time.

First, the Forest Goblins have never had a recorded WAAAGH! or participated in one in any major way. This pretty much eliminates the Greenskin WAAAGH! mechanic, and weakens the faction overall. However, they make sacrifices to their Spider Gods, which in turn grant them favor and the use of the mighty Arachnarok Spiders. My idea is to use the Wood Elves' Amber mechanic that increases as the goblins offer sacrifices (usually after a battle), which in turn can be used to unlock certain units, buildings and technologies, and perhaps used to recruit units as well. For example, one may use this favor to recruit Arachnarok Spiders (possibly no longer locked behind technology), or recruit a Greater Shaman with an Arachnarok Mount. It could be used to unlock the Purple Skullback Spider technology node, which in turn unlocks Shamans and Great Shamans, or it can unlock a technology node that makes your spiders more terrifying or gives them the ability to use webbing to slow down enemy units.

Second, I still need a way to monitor Animosity. The WAAAGH! meter is good for this, I'm just not sure what to do for the top part when they unlock the WAAAGH! as I don't want it to generate a secondary army that follows you around. Perhaps a Leadership bonus?

Finally, I'm not sure where I should start them. My initial idea was to have them start somewhere in Drakwald Forest territory, but without a starting city. This would force them to immediately go to war with an Empire faction to get their starting city. Additionally, I need to find out where the Black Pit/Valley of Many Eyes is located, so I can make the nearest capital city the special settlement with the appropriate building unlock; I'm guessing this would be Middenheim.


As far as combat is concerned, being mostly made up of goblins, I have given the Forest Goblins in my current mod a special poison that damages enemy morale; its fairly small, but noticeable enough. This means that they can break units easier then normal, but that only gives them a bit of breathing room until those units rally. During which time they are usually fighting another unit and trying to break it; they really need to work in swarms. It is a lot of juggling, and I've personally found it to be entertaining, challenging, and frustrating all at the same time. Furthermore, Forest Goblins use warpaint which gives them a small ward save to help them stay alive a bit longer, since they do not have any armor. Additionally, I have created both Snotling and Spider Swarms that are very useful for tying up vastly superior units, since swarms are unbreakable. They will still need some help later in the game, but I'm hoping to cover some of these holes with the Amber mechanic, and with a few additional units, like Netters and Frenzied Red Toof Goblins.


Right now I'm looking for feedback on the use of the Amber mechanic, and a good use for the WAAAGH! meter beyond just tracking Animosity.

I love the Amber mechanic idea it seems to be the most realistic in terms of the Army. As far as the WAAAGH meter goes what if once the WAAAGH meter fulled up you didnt get a 2nd army to follow you but it gave you say a free Arachnarok or 2 that followed your army for a bit and after a while it just wondered off. also the black pit was west of Middenland i beleive if i remember correctly.

I like how differently it plays when compared to Skarsnik's gobbos. I can fully endorse this, plus the "no starting city" situation is amazing since it'd add a lot of challenge and flavor to the campaign. If you can pull this off then by all means do so, it sounds exciting! I'll let you know if I come up with mechanics or ideas because now you've got me wanting this mod too haha

After playing a bit of Bretonnia, I think the Chivalry mechanic would work better than Amber. With Chivalry you have a bit finer control over it, and once it is used it is gone. That's not to say I will just axe the Amber mechanic, as I can still think of ways it can be used.

To continue with lore-friendly mechanics, I'm looking at giving them a bonus to Ambush while in a forested area, and give them additional bonuses vs agents while in Ambush stance. Additionally, I may also cause the region they are in to have a penalty to public order/control.

Since Middenheim will most likely be their capital, which will also have a special building for the Black Pit/Valley of Many Eyes, FGs would need the ability to settle in human settlements. If they can settle there, then they can settle anywhere.

To further separate them, I'll probably remove their ability to use the Underway, since they're mostly about the forests above ground, whereas the night goblins are all about the underground (since they hate sunlight).

FG territory will probably have some kind of Infestation, either a building in that region, a tech unlock, or some form of corruption, that causes attrition to non FG troops, due to all of the poisonous spiders or all sizes. Additionally, I am looking at a defensive building that reduces enemy agent activity chances while also offering some standalone spider units in the garrison.

All FG troops will have Forest Striders, obviously, and I'm pondering giving many of them Forest Stalker as well to grant them bonuses while fighting in the forests. Spiders without riders may have Hidden while in forested areas as well. Many of their troops will have Vanguard Deployment. They Hate Empire and Beastmen, and Fear Elves. Beastmen are tasty and might offer additional favor from their sacrifices (if I can do that).

Troop-wise, I'm looking at what I already have as well as adding in a few new units:
* Red Toof Goblins would be a Tier 3 infantry unit with Frenzy (they allow themselves to be bitten by poisonous wildlife before entering battle).
* Giant Spiders would be rider-less spiders. I'm also looking at having a variety of these at a higher tier, but with special abilities (and new textures) and having a Favor cost associated to them, keeping them limited in number. Some ideas I have here are spitters, webbers, leapers (though I'm not sure is leapers are possible), and widows.
* Savage Giant would be a giant with warpaint, granting it an additional ward save.
* One thing that I'd love to get working, but I have no idea if I'll be able to do it, is to mount a Rock Lobba on an Arachnarok.

Additionally, the FG Shaman will use magic similar to the Little WAAAGH!, but will be tailored for the FGs.

Again, I'm still brainstorming, and there is a lot that I want to do here that deal with areas of the game I've not really delved into in regard to modding, so it will be slow process while I'm learning. And I'm not stopping on the Crooked Moon mod either. In fact, branching out like this may allow me to improve CM in new ways moving forward.

"To further separate them, I'll probably remove their ability to use the Underway, since they're mostly about the forests above ground, whereas the night goblins are all about the underground (since they hate sunlight)." -- Use of Beast Trails like the Beastmen.


"Additionally, the FG Shaman will use magic similar to the Little WAAAGH!, but will be tailored for the FGs." -- Again Beastmen Lore of Wild or something similar

Beast Trails, or in this case, Forestpaths, could work. Good call on that one. With Lore of Wild, there are a few spells that could work, but I'll probably end up pulling a few spells from here and there to make something a little more tailored to them.

I've got a really good first pass on the tech tree and layout done, and I'm hoping I can make it work in-game. The majority of the overview stuff is mapped out, like the faction effects, lord effects for Snagla, starting army, building chains, etc.

I'll be delving into some of the questing with this mod as well, which I'm hoping isn't as difficult as I'm thinking its going to be. :) The first quest I want to do is have the player take an Empire town, and upon completion they will be gifted their first Arachnarok. This will make their starting army weaker than other starting armies, but an par once they get their first settlement.

Really leaning towards and ambush theme for the faction. Ambush stance would be their "Encampment", grant some defense vs agents, army gains a leadership bonus during an ambush, etc. Additionally, if it is possible, I may add a few "buildings" to Ambush stance to disrupt the region they are in (lowered income from industry or trade, penalty to control, etc), but these would need to be rebuilt each time the army moved (I think that'll be the tricky part).

this will be epic

Perhaps making the buildings very cheap and only one turn to make would give them a sort of semi-nomad feel. The gobbos would set up camp and build their disruption and recruitment buildings in one turn to benefit from them the next. That would still pose some problems though, since they would essentially be immobile for one or two turns while they set up shop and recruit whatever they have to from the temporary buildings. Is there a way to make instant structures or instant recruitment?

You can do instant recruitment with the RoR already, and I can test instant buildings fairly easily. The buildings themselves would be similar to Tier 1 buildings, probably a bit cheaper, and I can't think of any that would require more than 1 turn to build. Perhaps make these a 1-slot encampment so you need to choose what kind of disruption you want to do. If the region already has happiness issues, hit them there; if they are a heavy trade faction, disrupt their trade. Maybe unlock an additional slot via tech (if possible, need to look into extra building slots for some other ideas as well).

The idea is to stay stationary for a few turns to get some disruption going and try to get them to come to you for an ambush attack. You would also gain some pretty good anti-agent protection while in Ambush, so they can't just swarm you with agents (lord knows the AI love their agents).

Since FGs do still worship Gork and Mork, I'll keep the regular Shaman/Great Shaman with their Little WAAAGH! spells. For the Spider Shaman/Greaater Spider Shaman, they'll have their own building chain (Spider Shrine/SpiderSanctum) which will require a tech unlock (Purple Skullback Spider) which requires Favor. This and four other Favor techs will be available from the beginning, with no pre-reqs beyond the Tinker Bench and required amount of Favor.

For my first pass on the spells:

Lore of Spiders
Ensomoc’s Embrace: +22% Weapon Damage, +30 Armour
Bahtar’s Blessing: Increased Power Reserves
Dalnaspa’s Reach: Magic Missile
Scourge of Sessaphezael: -22% Weapon Damage, -34 Melee Attack
Ilsikem’s Unbreakable Carapace: +22% Physical Resistance, +24% Speed
Shroud or Sxarinad: -96% Visibility Range, -30% Accuracy
Curse of Kosor: -24% Speed, -60% Accuracy
Zsanem’s Deadly Swarm: Summon Spider Swarm

This is basically a combination of Little WAAAGH! and Lore of Beasts. There is one extra listed, as I added the Summon Spider Swarm at the end. I can possibly combine Shroud and Curse and lower their numbers a bit for balance. I'll go through and Lore-ify the spider gods a bit to add some more flavor. I might also swap something out for an AoE Terror effect, perhaps make this the Shroud, and move the Summon into an Ancillary Item. Still brainstorming. :)

Thanks Perfect

I like the spider swarm and a few of the buff spells, but maybe a but more unique choices would be better? The summoning of the spider swarm is an excellent choice, maybe something like a morale reducer to show the shaman scaring the enemy with the invocation of a spider God or something. Here are the spells I think work great with the shaman. The rest are good but one or two can be sacrificed for something else:

Zsanem’s Deadly Swarm: Summon Spider Swarm
This is great for lore reasons and summoning monsters is always cool.
Curse of Kosor: -24% Speed, -60% Accuracy
Maybe decrease the penalty to accuracy or replace it for a penalty to charge bonus since it'd conflict with the Shroud of Sxarinad. This spell should be used to catch annoying cav or break charges.
Scourge of Sessaphezael: -22% Weapon Damage, -34 Melee Attack
This maintains the theme of debugging I can see developing here. The lore of spiders could work as a penalty driven lore, damaging and inconveniencing enemies instead of providing buffs since
the goblins since the forest goblins are devious little buggers. Could also be because they exploit advantages, and these kinds of spells give them openings.
Shroud of Sxarinad: -96% Visibility Range, -30% Accuracy
I personally like this one for matchups against elves. Increase the hit to accuracy a little and you have a nice spell that can instantly turn a good archer unit into a crap one, basically taking it's teeth out for a few precious seconds while you manage to deal with everything else.

The ones I'd like to see are the AOE terror spell, it goes well with the debuff theme of the lore and can set up some nice chain routs if used correctly. Another one could be a sacrificial spell like Morghur's ability. Pick any unit you have, boom, it's instantly a spider swarm or a heavy unit or whatever. It could also be weaponized like Morghur's second ability, but then it'd be too much like him to retain the forest gobbo flavor. Another cool sacrificial spell idea is to grab any enemy unit that is below 50% or lower health and automatically explode it, damaging everything around it. This could offer you combos with artillery or something, where your rock lobbas would whittle down an annoying archer unit, your shaman explodes that unit, and the surrounding archer units receive damage and possibly rout temporarily, giving your troops some breathing room.