Hi there,
just want to write about my idea for an additional "smaller" nation: pirates, slaves and vagabonds aka free folk. I don't have the time to create a completly new nation like the Babyloniens or Celts. So my plan is to use as much avaiable graphics as possible and create a more simple, neutral nation which is also useful for campaigns as background.
Here is a teaser what I have accomplished in the last hours:

Mostly I wanted to get used to the LST format / modding and just inserted existing ruin graphics as preview, but I want to refine those dump huts in the near future. The doors and building frames also need to be fixed. I also added polar bears and swapped donkeys with horses :D I can't even remember ever seeing the polar bears used in a mission, do you know of any map?
I like how the flag poles turned out, not sure about the border posts.

I already have some plans for the soldiers, but I'm looking forward for ideas and initial feedback from you.

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First I'll answer the bear question, they
were used in mission 4,the northern area
is frozen and there were some of them.
Always tried to hunt them :x.

Regarding your nation and work, I do think
it's okay to have such nation but more
like barbarians. I do not like using
destroyed buildings (although it's looking
good as those graphics are great) but
building a destroyed building? Mhh don't
like that if I'm honest. Also all other
buildings need to be done, are those
broken roman buildings as well? If not and
you'd create new buildings, why not create
military buildings as well? Please
remember those are just my ideas regarding
pirates ;)

Also, I'm working (more or less active)
since 2010, Arivald is working on those
Celts since 2-3 years, if there is nobody
who could possibly create those graphics
this won't be more than an idea, like
indians (which I'd prefer as I like the
idea of having a tent nation) :-/

This answer is not meant to discourage
you, if that nation is fully done, there'd
be no reason to not add it!

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First thanks for your input.
I get where you are coming from, building destroyed huts doesn't make much sense. But on the other hand pirates living in new, renovated buildings doesn't feels right to me too. Tents and wooden shacks also need to be set up in a way. The ruins realistically should be there in beforhand, but not sure how you could implement this in a feasible way. Maybe with some other, additional gameplay tweaks you could lower the building time for pirates.

I would also prefer a real nation like indians, inuit, aztecs, polynesian or aborigines. But as you said, its much work as it is and with priates I can reuse at least some graphics. What do you mean exactly by barbarians? Like fantasy barbarians? Aren't in ancient romans view vikings and celts already barabaric nations?

My main inspiration for pirates comes from the Anno series. There you also have pirate hideouts as hindrance and smaller counterpart in (campaign) missions. Maybe we can add naval boarding in the future, aye that would be fun

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Regarding the building problem, maybe
instead of first building a scaffolding
one could build the "building" first
(instead of scaffolding) and then the
detroyed building over it.

Regarding pirates, maybe take a look at my
idea of 'neutral' nations. Also one could
create some basic nation for missions and
disallow most buildings. That could work
as well. Overall its quite hard to
implement I think.

And by babarians I mean folks which are
not connected by a nationality or culture
but by an idea. Those are barbarians for
most nations then.

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Oh yeah, your neutral nations, sorry totally forgot about them. I took a closer look, just needed to adapt some of your scripts to be compatible with the nightly version. Not sure if the available lua functions are enough to create the neutral pirates I have in mind, but thanks for the reminder and your examples. Its the right direction for sure :)

Made some progress with the graphics:


PS: Deine Musikauswahl in deinen Videos bringt mich häufig zum schmunzeln, etwa als ich jetzt das Empires Dawn of the Modern World Menu Theme hören musste, nur weiter so ;)

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I like the idea as it stands apart from the existing nations (which are all too similar, whereas Settlers IV had some more variations in game play with different nations).

One thought I have (though perhaps too hard or too "un-s2"): Free folk don't build, but take over (civilian) buildings when conquering enemy military buildings. That way, the idea of dilapidated buildings make sense (which could even be from different nations).

This leaves the question of the game start - without a bordering enemy, how do free folk set up a war industry...

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