Cultural Differences

[Iron Kaiser]

I really like this idea and support it, but I would definitely think that this is prime material for an expansion pack. I would definitely put in all the base factions before we start looking at cultures. But with that in mind, what kind of cultures can we imagine for each race? I can see Humans being subdivided into High, Viking/Barbarian, and Nomad, and we've talked about Dark Elves having both darkness/spider/underworld and sea-faring/pirate cultures. What of the Undead, the Dwarves, and the Elves?

[Aaron]

Undead is a difficult one. It would have to be dripping with flavor and represent some schism or major division of power.

Dwarves are easy IMO, as are elves.

Dwarves: Hill, Mountain and Duergar (evil dwarves) spring to mind.

Elves: High, Wild and Wood jump into the imagination.

There's a lot that could be done and plenty of room for expansion.

[Rybon]

Taking a page from Warhammer, Undead.

Vampire Counts

Tomb Kings

Wraith Lords

Pit Lords.

[Aaron]

I need to check out warhammer. I have only a very passing knowledge of it. It sounds interesting

[Happerry]

Actually, Undead are easy to break apart into different cultures. It all depends on what they were before they died. Elven Mummies defending their dead civilization's borders with honored warriors lovingly entombed and now called back to walk the earth and fight once more make for a very different undead faction then a Vampire Counts faction with cringing thralls and blood bats.

Which is very different then a Death Cult faction, dominated by living necromancers at the low levels and liches on the upper levels, worshiping death for death's sake and stitching together the bones of dozens to create skeleton giants as unliving siege weapons.

Which is different then the ancestor cult barbarians, with living units at the low levels, aided by their honored elders returned to the world to strike down one more foe at the high levels.

Which isn't the same as nation ruled by undead nobles, ghosts who possess their children and children's children for hundreds of generations, immortal kings who can only be defeated temporarily until they find a new host to use as a vessel for their dark and undying spirit.

And those are just the drifts I thought of while typing this post up!

[Oerwinde]

I find it hard to believe that mages can raise the dead or create fireballs out of thin air but can't figure out how to communicate with someone 100 miles away.

Mages maybe, but the regular folk won't have access to that kind of thing. Plus you have religious differences, political differences, etc.

[Mardagg]

i think different cultures are a great direction in general and not necessarily must mean to eat up another race slot.
E.g. some cultures could share the same basic units only with different high tier units ,in addition it might mean a lot less work on the art,because u might just have to tweak the original artwork a bit.
If you take the dwarves for example,u could do a culture of hill dwarves and a culture of cave dwarves or maybe even dark dwarves.
the main difference would be,that cave/dark dwarves start on a different sphere,but it would be perfectly viable imo,that both cultures would share the same unit pool fielding lots of axe units,with the exception of just a few units.
On the other hand,High Elves and Wood Elves would probably not share too much units and artwork and therefore mean more work...but still probably not as as much as a complete new race.

[Aaron]

We probably can do additional cultures with a much lower cost and additional work. We'll start looking into it in more detail after we've added full blown races.

[Rybon]

Just when you think your heading a direction all these new suggestion start coming in.

[Mardagg]

This is a thing i liked a lot about Dominions 2,which got sadly removed in Dom 3:

U had races/factions and then after u would choose your race u could often choose from different subcultures,often resulting in some different units and slightly different playing style.
it was great because if u take multiplayer games for example,u would see your opponents race but you never would know what culture was chosen so that this could result in quite a surprise until u would meet your opponent in the world,depending on his leader and culture.

This is something to consider for the Undeads as well maybe.
Because in general u could follow the MoM road,which was missing some typical generic undead units like Vampires and Liches or u could just do 2 different subthemes of Undead,both sharing skeletons/ghouls and whatnot but with different high tier units:
one culture is "ruled" by Vampires and focusing on life drain attacks ,the other culture going more the necromancer route,focusing on raise dead.

It could as well solve some problems with making a mixed Goblin/ Orc race.
Just call it Greenlings or something like that,make 1 subtheme with orcs,the other with goblins.
Add orcs for the release,leave goblin units out,and make goblins a subtheme later on.

I do think though,this is something that has to be decided pre-release.
Because once u include for example goblinoid units in the initital orc race,u wont have the possibilty to make a goblin subtheme later on that easily.
Just some ideas thrown in