asian-themed race

[minger]

while some of us are on the topic of possible new races for possible expansions, i'd like to put in a vote for an asian-themed race. I like the dwarven or orcish ideas definitely ,but i think it'd be a nice change from the traditional Tolkein-esque races.

At the risk of totally coming off like a PC multiculturalist, I totally liked how they made Academy have a Middle Eastern theme. It was a subtle (or not so subtle!) twist that really enriched the game for me.

That's why i think it'd be nice to have an asian/chinese-themed race.

For one, I fits the whole dragon thing perfectly. Dragons are ridiculously prominent in much of Chinese mythology anyway. How cool would it be to have the level 7 creature of this new town/race be a chinese style dragon!?

Creatures would be super easy to come up with -- the stereotypical ones - ninjas, samurai, fighter monks, geishas, etc etc , -- you could steal the mythological monkey guy as one of the high level casters, -- whatever.

In terms of this race's speciality, I'm not sure how this could be implemented in a fun and simple way, but I was thinking of a whole Daoist theme of flow and chi. Or maybe something to do with elements or balance. Or maybe each hero can pick a different element, and all creatures of an opposite element get extra damage. I don't know, i'm sure someone more creative can think of something.

Anyways i'm curious what people think.

[ThunderTitan]

A Naga/Lizardmen town could easily have an asian theme.

And having a chinese dragon would be a nice change from the normal one, even if it would be better if the Sylvans had a Phoenix instead of a Dragon at lvl7.

[MrSteamTank]

A Naga/Lizardmen town could easily have an asian theme.

And having a chinese dragon would be a nice change from the normal one, even if it would be better if the Sylvans had a Phoenix instead of a Dragon at lvl7.

Definitely. Too many dragons and a chinese naga race would best fit in with having a dragon as their top unit. They could easily replace the dragon in the sylvan town with a pheonix and it would feel more natural as the pheonix represents the cycle of life and death.

[DaemianLucifer]

Just a clarification:Middle east is in asia,so maybe renaming this to oriental theme.

No more dragons!Though I prefer chinese dragons over the europian ones,and would really like to see the fiery serpent,I dont want a sigle more dragon in this game(well,maybe just one,but only as an uber powerful neutral,not as a towns level 7 unit).

[ThunderTitan]

Just a clarification:Middle east is in asia,so maybe renaming this to oriental theme.

I'm pretty sure it's not all in Asia. But Oriental sound good. Oh, and Oriental Dragons are perfect for a Dragon of Water Faction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_drag ... _and_water

No more dragons!Though I prefer chinese dragons over the europian ones,and would really like to see the fiery serpent,I dont want a sigle more dragon in this game(well,maybe just one,but only as an uber powerful neutral,not as a towns level 7 unit).

That's why i said they should replace the Sylvan with the Phoenix. But even so, the chinese one is different enough for me not to mind. They could call it a Coatl or something. And any serpentgod name for the upgrade.

[LordHoborgXVII]

One one hand, HoMM has never really been about dividing its towns into national groups, greek and egyptian mythology units being distributed between towns, so having specific national towns would be changing a long-standing feature of the game.

However, I have to agree that with the new Arabic theme for the academy and a more pronounced focus on 'unifying races,' towns in H5 seem to require something to keep them together. While I really don't want to see any more dragons in this game, far Asia's rich mythology can certainly make a very awesome town. Since h5 has begun the trend toward separating factions in this manner there isn't really anything left but to go along.

For unit ideas, there is currently a mod being made for Rome Total War which will have a far eastern fantasy setting. There are actually some pretty inspiring unit lists which can be seen on http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41921, drawing from a variety of asian sources.

[Gaidal Cain]

Having an "Asian town" with only Asian creatures isn't too appealing to me. Much better to give an Asian look to creatures from around the world- exactly as done with the academy, where the only creatures that's "from" the arabian/indian part of the world is the Rakshasa and the Djinn.

[ThunderTitan]

Hmm..... were is India again? Oh, that's right, Asia. So Nagas fit the bill.
And neither the Gremlin, Golem or Titan look Middle-Eastern to me.

@LordHoborgXVII
Ur kiding me, right? Castle has always been medieval french/english/german europe in theme.

And it's not really national towns, but more like region/culture based towns.


BTW, did you know Gremlins were invented in WW1 or 2, as joking explinations to equipment malfunctions. Wilburys are audio gremlins.

[LordHoborgXVII]

@LordHoborgXVII
Ur kiding me, right? Castle has always been medieval french/english/german europe in theme.

Yeah they've been european in theme, but more from a broader fantasy perspective. Now they have blatantly German writing on their armour and swords, which they haven't ever had before, and so on. I can't disagree that they've always had a medieval bend, but now the connection is being strengthened.

[Odolwa]

For one, I fits the whole dragon thing perfectly. Dragons are ridiculously prominent in much of Chinese mythology anyway. How cool would it be to have the level 7 creature of this new town/race be a chinese style dragon!?

We already got 3 level 7 units that are dragons.
Now we need some variation.

Just a clarification:Middle east is in asia,so maybe renaming this to oriental theme.

Agreed.

[sylvanllewelyn]

I do believe that alrhough Heroes should not intentionally seperate towns into real world national identities, these cultural characteristics are quite convienant at addressing the "theme consistency" requirement that the game designers wanted to enforce more strictly than 3DO. Just adapt it a little bit, that's all.

I think the best way to introduce a Far-Eastern theme is to make them the "Free Cities of the East", the Sylath worshippers. If you look at their location of the map, you could either go for Chinese/nomadic or Japanese/Indian, although I strongly advise against mixing them all. As for their spells... they could try to go for something more creative, such as all four types of spells will appear, but no damage spells. Or you can trade the spells taught within each town, or you can customize your mage guild's spells at a cost, or no spells at all and have the creatures emulate spell-like effects. Must complement well with skill wheel though: the advanced abilities must not be spell-related then.

Some ideas:
halbardiers: triple attack skill against level 6's and 7's
repeated crossbowmen: very low damage, scatter shot, decreases morale of targets
horse archers: ranged attack, then moves
elite swordsman: very high attack and defense skill, suffers double effects against magic
white dragon: increases luck and morale of troops nearby, protects nearby troops from enemy abilities...

[cornellian]

Academy town isn't Middle-Eastern actually; you are probably deceived by the music I guess; though even that isn't entirely Middle-Eastern with a North African rhythm base (actually a common Berber base if I'm not mistaken) and Gypsy style violin.. Besides Rakshasas are Indian folk creatures, and a little geography lesson: India is as close to Middle East as America is close to Nicaragua!!

Still with the rather clear implications in the architecture, I must say that I find Nival's approach of juxtaposing certain towns with certain cultural themes disturbing actually.. LordHoborg is right in saying there never have been such obvious connections; as we now have Haven practically a Central European town with German phrases on the armors and paladins and crossbowmen, not to mention the huge crosses carried by priests and cross shaped angel swords, and of course the town theme lyrics coming directly from Requiem, a poem used for Christian masses for hundreds of years..

This just isn't right, the very last thing we need in a world like this...

[St0rmB0lt]

geishas are japanese not chinese for the record.

[Corelanis]

so are samurai but they still fit the theme being discussed. seeing as how no one said asian minus japan.

[ThunderTitan]

Academy town isn't Middle-Eastern actually; you are probably deceived by the music I guess;

The town's main theme is somewhat middle-eastern, with indian influences. But you're right, is a mix between arabian and indian themes.

An Oriental/Far East town would work with a mix of chinese and japoneze themes. The 2 cultures certainly are more similar in theme to eachother then to those of India or Russia.

[MrSteamTank]

Their are so many possibilities when it comes to using cultures.

Asian, aztec, and egyptian are all styles that really haven't been used in homm and would all fit appropriately. Both asian and aztec would fit well with a naga race.

[minger]

I definitely agree that subtledy is much better than overt "this is obviously an asian race" town... For instance, I think it's good that Academy isn't SO blatantly Middle Eastern, as it has elements of lots of different non-Middle Eastern things as well. (But as ppl pointed out, the only blatantly cultural-specific race is Haven)

And by "asian" I should have specified "far east" or "east asian" -

[Paradox]

whatever new races are added, i just hope they dont add more dragons.. i for one am sick of them.. theyre just too lazy to come up with more original creatures..

personally, im hoping for an aztec lizardmen type race, i think it would fit perfectly and could be very interesting.

[ThunderTitan]

Enough with the Aztec Lizardmen. Propose some Oriental themed races. Like rat-people or something (Skaven).

[LordHoborgXVII]

Heroes 3 made an exploration into aztec themes with its fortress town, for which the main castle was a mesoamerican pyramid with 'glyphs' on its gates, but it fortunately didn't extend that connection any further. They just picked an interesting cultural element and plopped it in where it fit well (jungle swamps) without getting carried away and forcing a whole race to adopt that theme.

Now with the Asian Town (I know it's a misleading name but for lack of a better defined town we can't really call it anything else), as much as I'd love to see ninjas doing backflips and carrying naginatas, it really wouldn't fit in very well with the HoMM tradition.
Gaidal Cain had a very good point with giving asian themes to more general, non-asian creatures (btw the Rampart in H3 sort of started along this road, but basically they didn't go beyong having asiatic buildings and town music), and of course this could very well go hand in hand with maybe giving sort of less asian an essence to distinctly asian units, helping to integrate them. After all, what we don't want is a player looking at these creatures and saying, "oh this is definitely a Bosnian-themed town," or "these kappas are obviously Romanian." This is a fantasy game and it's always better to have the cultural references be more suboncious, such as certain styles of decorative copper thingies or certain musical notes bringing back memories, without being intrusive on the world of Ashan.