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For the Forest Goblins, I'm looking to add a Netter variant for the Spears, Swords and Bows, similar to how the Fanatics work. I'm also going to be giving them a special variant of Snotlings, so they fit a little better visually (feathers, war paint, etc). Giant Spiders will be a new unit, without riders, to give them an early, cheap, expendable cavalry unit, while also opening up the possibility for future spider variants (once Favor is in and working), and some other fun things. They'll also be getting the Red Toof Goblins (from Mordheim) as a high tier infantry unit (dual wield, frenzy, poison, all the fun stuff). Finally, the new Spider Shaman and Great Spider Shaman will round out the big changes. A Huge Spider mount will be an upgrade for the Warboss and Great Spider Shaman, and I'm looking into a special Arachnarok-mounted Great Spider Shaman (if I can get all the little parts to work properly).
The Badlands Goblins will be getting Fire Arrow variants for their Infantry and Wolf Rider Archers. We'll hopefully see a Hill Goblin Warg Chariot to give them a solid heavy hitter (using the Boar Chariot at a base). Da Howlerz will be a special, unique Wolf Rider unit. They'll also be getting a Savage Giant, which gives them a gatecrasher unit (as they have no artillery). The Warboss here will probably see a Warg mount upgrade as well.
The last bit is on Trolls. I'm hoping I'll be able to do a decent enough job on some re-texturing to allow for Forest, River and Stone Trolls. This is something I've wanted to do for a while now. The Forest variant will just be a standard Troll, probably with some forest bonuses. River will have a breath attack, and Stone will have high defense and magic resist.
But it's not all roses, as some units will be cut, specifically the Berzerkers and the Fanatics Canon. These were originally intended to be fun units that could be picked up when taking over the Dwarven starting cities, but they didn't really pan out. The Skulkers and Red Toofs pretty much cover what the Berzerkers were going to offer, and I couldn't really get the Canon to work as I wanted. That's not to say I won't revisit these in the future, as I do like the idea of gaining a special unit when taking a capital, but for now they're getting sidelined.
First thing first: Forest Goblins will definitely be stealing the Skaven's "Stalk Stance", which grants you a chance to Ambush the enemy when you attack them. This is very fitting with their ambush theme, and should allow them an offensive game, rather than just trying to position and hope the enemy gets ambushed. I think this will greatly enhance their gameplay.
Tech trees and character skill trees will need a going over, to take advantage of some of the new possibilities as well, such as boosts to troops who are of a certain rank or higher. Adding some exclusive skill choices should also add some variety and strategic options. A cleaner, more refined bottom skill line for Agents will be very welcome as well. Having a more interesting skill tree will also benefit the factions. Enhancing some of the skills in the spell line will also be more interesting.
As far as units, I'm still happy with what I have mapped out, but I might look at some of the war machines and monsters and see if they can be repurposed. For example, a Bolt Thrower could be a Spear Chukka. Unfortunately, there's still nothing that could be converted into a Snotling Pump Wagon. ;)
For Settlements, the 3-tier resource buildings offer some interesting possibilities, and the Landmarks already have me brainstorming a Black Pit / Pit of Many Eyes building chain for Middenheim (which will be the Forest Goblin capital, since it is nearest to where the Black Pit is).
Rites are interesting, and I've got a few ideas for these, but I'm going to wait and see if these are brought over to Mortal Empires before I really start thinking about these.
I really can't wait for Mortal Empires, because I think this is going to be fun to mod. There are some downsides, however. There are a ton of new UI elements that I'll have to learn, and I have a feeling all of these new bells and whilstles are going to complicate things.
Speaking of shrines, the plan is to have one for the initial release, with seven more planned out. This will leave one for each of the eight spider gods, most of which also have a special spider unit themed after them, and each of which have a presence in the Lore of Spiders. Once Favor is in and working, then the plan is to allow the first shrine chain to unlock all of the other shrines. The question remains, can I make a single Tier 2 building split into 8 Tier 3 buildings. If not, then I'll need to create all 8 chains and link them to the same Instance, so only one can be built per settlement. This does mean that their settlement screen will be a bi cluttered, but I'm going to look into putting these into their own grouping, rather than Advanced Military.
The Black Pit/Pit of Many Eyes will become a Landmark in Middenheim, as that is the closest capital to where the Pit is located (from what I have found). It is meant to be a somewhat key building, as if affects both of the primary mechanics of the army: Favor and Ambush. It will be a three-tier building (1/3/5) that will offer an increasing amount of Favor per turn, as well as increasing Ambush chance for your armies. For added flavor, the upper two tiers will offer a bit of Untainted, as well as grant some ranks and upkeep reduction for your non-mounted spider units.
One of the other things I've looked into is separating certain themes for their tech upgrades and linking their starting nodes to different buildings, rather than just having the Tinker Bench/Workshop. I'm hoping this makes things a little more interesting, as I personally found this to be more interesting in WH2 than in WH1. This isn't completely set in stone, as this is making the tree itself a little more difficult to manage.
The last thing I want to mention is that instead of reinventing the wheel I'm going to give Forest Goblins access to Beastpaths. It's mechanically the same, and it's one less thing for me to need to worry about. While the name may not make sense (and I'll see if I can rename it for the faction), it made more sense than the Underway or Worldroots. The Underway is mainly Goblins using Dwarven tunnels, and Forest Goblins are in Empire territory; and there is no way that Forest Goblins would survive a trip into the Worldroots, plus they fear Elves. If I cannot simply rename the mechanic for the faction, then I'll still use Forestpaths as a building that offers increased campaign movement for armies starting their turn in a region with that building.
I still need to do another pass on the tech tree and see if I can get it working with multiple starting nodes, while also not making it too easy to access powerful nodes (more difficult than it seems with the tree layout). Non-Favor units are mostly covered, but I'm going to wait and see if they fix/balance any vanilla units, since those changes will migrate into my own spreadsheets. I'm still not sure if Rituals will be making it into ME, but I have a few ideas for those, at least for the Forest Goblins. There is still work to be done, but I think the foundation is coming together.
The plus side to all of this is that I've got most of the units in and working, locally. I need to go in and manually add all of the text, as the exporter doesn't seem to be exporting that right now. I've also gone ahead and created all of the special spider units (the ones to be unlocked with Favor), just to make sure balance is still achieved. I'm also jumping in and starting my first bit of texture work, which will take a little time but should be worth it.
Speaking of balance, I'm going to need to do a lot of balance testing, as I've made some big changes to the infantry. Infantry no longer has any armor, but instead have a flat damage reduction to physical and ranged damage. The plan is to allow the Dye resource to increase those reductions, and possibly add in a node to a general's skill tree for the same. I'm beginning my work on getting the Lore of Spiders into the game as well, since the shamans themselves are done.
There is a total of 7 spider units, not including the two Riders and the Chariot. The Spider Swarm is a large unit of small spiders, similar to the Snotlings, that are meant to just help hold units. Giant Spiders are your basic riderless spider unit, since Riders will be an early technology unlock. Spitting Spiders are the ranged variant of the spider units, meant to offer an additional ranged support unit. Frostweb Spiders have their own unique poison that applies a movement debuff to their target. Skysnare Spiders have a special ability that allows them to web flying units, slowing them and applying some additional debuffs (I wanted to them to ground a unit, but I'm not seeing an option for that). Widows have a very potent poison, which combines the spider poison with the default poison (and I'm hoping that doesn't become too powerful). Wraith Spiders can hide in any terrain and have armor-piercing attacks. Other than the Wraith Spider, the other spiders have the same offensive capabilities, and they all share the same defensive abilities, at least for now, and they all ignore movement penalties in forests.
I also got a good number of hours in TW:W2 over the weekend and got to play with the Black Arc. After seeing how it works, the wheels are turning in my head to find a way to get this working for the Forest Goblins. This will most likely take the form of an Ancient Arachnarok, perhaps an avatar of one of the spider gods. The trick is going to be in finding units just for that (I may move the special spiders into that, or allow it to recruit a rider version of those units), and to get a few abilities that make sense for it which are also not offensive in the sense of direct damage. The big theme for the Forest Goblins is in debuffing the enemy. Even their magic missile is more of a debuff than a direct damage spell.
Due to the current toolset not exporting the text info, I'm also learning a bit more about that aspect of the mod, so I should be able to cut down on the CM file size and clean that up a bit. It may take a bit longer when dealing with future mods, since I need to add all of this stuff by hand in PFM, but it should be a cleaner mod overall.
It also looks like Mortal Empires may be releasing in as soon as two weeks. One thing I noticed in one of the interviews is that "Rites aren’t something Old World factions will be getting, they’re unique to the New World races and part of what makes them special and different to play." I wonder if this means that the functionality of Rites will be in the game, but just for the WH2 races. If so, then that means I'll be able to use Rites. I can see Forest Goblins using Rites, but I'm not sure if Gitilla's faction will be seeing them.