Topic: Atlanteans & other tribes

We all know that one Wideland's strong points is its diversity. All tribes "work" a little differently. And that makes the game interesting and far superior to Settlers 2 which had 4 tribes - all of which were basicly the same with just different graphics. But with diversity comes complexity - and with complexity comes the great difficulty to balance the tribes.

I've played quite some games now and I'd like to say that I think the Barbarians and the Empire work well. But the newest tribe, the Atlanteans, do not seem to be perfectly balanced right now. So thought, I'd mage a few suggestions on what could be changed to have a better balanced tribe that is not at all less interesting. So that you don't get confused, I'll talk about Atlanteans when I mean how they currently are and about New Atlanteans when I mean my new ideas for the tribe. I'll also share with you a first draft of two other tribes that I have in mind for some time now. Maybe someone likes some of the ideas in it. If there are words in brackets after buildings names or such, they are their German forms, so if you don't speak German, you might just ignore them. But for German speakers it will hopefully make a bit clearer what I meant.

Another - maybe - interesting idea was that there could be actually two "fractions" of Atlanteans; "good" and "evil". The story of the Atlantean campaign (I don't know how much of it has been writen yet) could tell how their home was devastated and how the two groups (that are quite similar but with a few crucial differences) formed. But I didn't think any deeper about that.

New Atlanteans

Description of the tribe: The New Atlanteans are a highly developed, sophisticated society. They have lived ruling their own continent for hundreds of years - but just a little while ago, their home was destroyed by natural desasters that eventually led to their entire continent sinking into the see. Not much but a few isles remain of what had been a great world until recently - but that time is over now forever. So the New Atlanteans are struggeling to survive and are ultimately searching for a new home. A long journey lies before them... One of highest ideal in the Atlantean religion is that of purity. Atlanteans do not eat meat at all. They are vegetarians. And while the shocking end of their homeland has severely shaken their pride, they still think high of themselves and look down on others that have not yet developed their high standards of technology.

Changes:

Since the New Atlanteans are vegetarian, they do not need the hunter anymore (a building that was almost useless, anyway. While the Empire has other means of getting their hands on meat, for Atlanteans it was always a problem, since they had no gamekeeper.). Also the fisher and fish breeder can't be build by them. Instead of the fisher, New Atlanteans however have an Algae harvester (Algenernter). Algae could technically be identical to fish - it'd be found where fish is and if it is harvested, the number of fish in the water decreases. Atlanteans value the algae since they are an important source of many vital substances for a vegitarian culture. However the algae cannot be eaten directly. Of course the New Atlanteans do not need a smokery, either. Instad they construct a Creamery (Molkerei) that will make cheese from alpaca (just a suggestion) milk and curd from alpaca milk and algae. Together with their traditional bread this feeds the New Atlanteans well. Of course the Atlanteans need an Animal farm that requires just water to produce milk. Also corn is not the best ressource to feed spiders (especially since the corn farms require one part of spider cloth to be build! I got stuck in my first Atlantean game because of that). A medium building, the Spider nutrition factory (Spinnennahrungsfabrik), that needs water and lumber, breeds insects in the rotting lumber for the spiders to eat.

Some Asian tribe

Desctiption: Asians appraise bamboo for being a great ressource. It grows fast, is easy to process and can be used in many ways. They also specialized in fish, making it their primary source of food. They clothe themselves in silk armour, sometimes reinforced with metal parts and use eastern swords like the katana. Some warriors are also trained with the wooden shield.

Economy:

Asians have the woodcutter to gain wood and the forester to replace trees. A well gives them water and a fisher will catch fish. All of these buildings just cost wood. Then there's the bamboo plantage (Bambusplantage) (which needs wood + water to be built) and produces bamboo. With these resources they can operate a Small sushi bar (wood + bamboo) that processes fish into sushi (which works like a ration). They also have the fish breeder (wood + bamboo) and a bamboo processing building (Noch kein Name) (that also needs wood and bamboo) and processes bamboo into bamboo tubes and bamboo spires (not sure of the word, though). They know how to build a hunter (wood + bamboo), too. The Sushi bar (wood + bamboo + bamboo tubes) takes fish and bamboo spires and produces bamboo sushi (like snacks). Like any other tribe, they build the Charcoal burner and of course mines (wood + bamboo). If a mine is exausted, they can upgrade it to a deep mine (wood + bamboo + bamboo tubes + water) or even a deeper mine (wood + bamboo + bamboo tubes + water + granite). They have no Quarry and their only chance to obtain stone (which is an advanced building material for them) is by mining it. After they have built a Rice farm (wood + bamboo + bamboo tubes + water + granite) they can grow rice (needs quite some water). In a Big sushi bar bamboo sushi with rice (like meals) is produced from fish, bamboo spires and rice. They also need water to produce silk in the Silk plantage (wood + bamboo + bamboo tubes + water). Silk is preprocessed in some silk processing building and can be woven into silkcloth in the weaving mill afterwards. A Blacksmithy_ (wood + bamboo + water) creates their tools and a Finesmithy (wood + bamboo + bamboo tubes + water + graite) their weapons. Their armour is made in the armour mill (wood + bamboo + bamboo tube + granite) from silkcloth, iron and gold sheets. Gold sheets are created from gold and coal in the __Gold smith (wood + bamboo + bamboo tube).

A Highlander tribe

Description: The Highlanders are a tribe used to living in high mountain regions where natural ressources are scarce and making a living is as harsh a task as is the climate. They grow little grain and there's usually not much to hunt. Instead they are excel at breeding cattle and are excellent miners and craftsmen and very fierce warriors. Something special about them is that they use iron for some of their bigger buildings. Their weapons are huge two-handed swords - and the claymore rightly feared by its foes... Highlanders are quite superstitious. They won't build a bigger building without runes of protection in poker work.

Economy:

Just like any other tribe, Highlanders have a woodcutter and a forester. They also produce stone at the Quarry and take water from their wells. Their hunters are specialized to hunt both land animals and go fishing at the coast with their spears. These buildings only take wood to build. Then there's the Poker works (Brandmaler) (wood + stone) that produces poked wood with ancient and magical runes. Highlanders prefer to create their coal from wood instead of digging it out of the mountain which has led to a proficiency that would make other tribes jealous. Thus their Master charburner (Meisterköhler) (wood + stone) needs just half as much wood to produce one unit of coal. A very important building is the Cattle farm (Rinderhof) (wood + stone + poked wood) that needs water and produces three things: meat, milk and hide. The third one is processed by the Tanner (Gerber) (wood + stone + poked wood) into leather, making another building material for the Highlanders. The Smokery (wood + stone + poked wood) produces smoked meat and fish from their original forms. The highlanders mines (wood + poked wood + water) are easily up to imperial ones and can likewise be upgraded to deep mines (wood + stone + poked wood + water) - with exception of the coal mine. With the iron mine there's something special with, however. Just like any other iron mine they produce one unit of iron ore with each work. Yet they also produce one unit of iron ore rubble together with it (this is the little bits of rock mixed with some crumbs of ore that are the result of mining). While other tribes waste these resources, the Highlanders use them as well. In their Rubble washer (wood + stone + poked wood + leather + water) they use water and ore rubble to gain one extra unit of iron ore! In the foundry (wood + stone + poked wood) iron and gold are being produced from coal and iron ore or gold ore. Tools are produced in the typical way by the toolmaker (wood + stone + poked wood + leather). The Armoury (wood + stone + poked wood + leather + iron) creates the armour and the Weapon smith (wood + stone + poked wood + leather) the simpler weapons. Advanced weapons are created in the War smithy (wood + stone + poked wood + leather + iron). The mine workers not only eat smoked meat and fish but also bread. Bread is produced from millet (Hirse) which also grows in colder regions and milk in the bakery (wood + stone + poked wood). The Millet farm (wood + stone + poked wood + leather) of course grows the millet. But the miners in deep mines also want something to drink! Therefore the highlanders also have the Apiarist (Imkerei) (wood + poked wood + leather) that produces honey. And from the honey and water they produce mead in the Mead maker (Noch kein guter Name) (wood + stone + poked wood + leather).

Please feel free to comment on my thoughts!

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I suggest not adding more tribes at this point. We should focus on the game mechanics. I agree that the atlanteans need tweaking, but we must stay on focus: each tribe must be able to spawn at each point on a map without too much problems later on.

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