A Japanese/Asian Faction

This is a late April Fools joke, right?

Its Facetious half joke half serious. I guess it could be a full joke because I know it is far to late for them to add such a faction.

Ok, but the only problem with adding ninjas is that even with fake hollywood attire we still wont be able to see them.

That was definantly the joke part of the facetious post. still some people would like it greatly.

Just give me asian props so I can create my custom japanese/chinese/vietnamese/korean... faction.

Actually I think this would be a good concept for an expansion down the line.... They could make 2 Empire Factions (Based on Japanese, and Chineese mythology) one being Ninjas and stuff and the other being something akin to Romance of the Three kingdoms.... than 2 Fallen factions, say Oni (Japanese Demons) and something else..... Or even better yet, have 5 totally new factions that are a whole new group like the Kingdoms and the Fallen....

I prefer original cultures, not real life ones transplated to a fantasy setting.

And I would prefer a race themed with Samurai, Ronin, Yamabushi Monks, Ninja ... with the extra ability to train Snake-riders and "lesser" drake riders.

Ninja could be ronin units equipped with Sealth gear and "Ninpo" training ... so they can sneak around, do fireball ninpo, and do flash ninpo where they stun the opponent and teleport backwards several squares. Being equipped with both a Katana (+combat speed) and a Shiruken (+combat speed) would work as well.

Meanwhile, Ronin units equipped with Ancestral Armor, and recieving "Honor" training, would be heavily clad soldiers with extremely high morale.

Basically its acess to specialty Equipment, Training styles, and Mounts (storm drakes, Cobras) ... with some cosmetic support as well. Also, the Racial abilities would be default customized to portray the warrior training the peasants have had, since all peasants will be wandering ronin, waiting to be trained for a true master (worthy of their loyalty).

Yamabushi Monks could be equipped with Quarterstaff, and recieving "Monk" training ... which would increase attack and combat speed using either Fists or Staves (as long as no armor is equipped). As well as wearing "Mountain Robes" which increases attack and defense when using Staves.

Cobras could be half as fast as horses (much slower), yet stronger (more HP) and a powerful bite attack.

Storm Drakes could be 50% faster, fly, able to spit fire, but perhaps have less HP than a horse. (afterall, they are a Giant pair of Wings ... not alot of protection). A greater drake might be able to be trained with the HP of a Cobra, but would probably require 4x the time to train (fearsome unruly beast).

Ceramic roof tiles would go a long way.

we don't have to go overboard with this, a couple idea's for Fallen Races could include Oni (demon), Kappa Humanoid turtles), and Tengu(humanoid birdmen). The Races of Man could get a fantizised version of Mongolions (I'm kinda thinking like Mulan, large barbaric men) Japanese with there Samurai, Sohei, and Sengoku (L5R magic users), and the Chinese who i'm sure someone could fill out better than me.

and of course Ceramic roof tiles.

Aye ... and to separate Oni from demons ... Oni could be "man eaters" ... or large fallen that can eat enemy soldiers on the battlefield to regain health.

Is "Western European" an original culture to you?

It really takes a creative mind to come up with a completely original artistic style and an inspired fantasy culture. I've stopped expecting people to deliver on this, but I am super duper impressed when people pull it off.

Now me, I have zero hope that there will even be a decent "hindu" fantasy mod. The hindu gaming community simply isn't strong enough, and there isn't enough interest among non-hindus. I still think a vedic mythology mod would be awesome though.

Hmm, I suppose after creating an Asian faction, we need to start working on the Turkish Fantasy mod, and then the Hindu Fantasy Mod, as those are the two main "real life" mythologies that seem to be under-used in terms of direct gaming representation.

Turkish Mythology, for those of you that don't know, is a branch off of Middle Eastern Mythology that is practiced by all the Menistans (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan), Turkey, and probably Western Chinese as well (those that are culturally Turks).

And then we all make them fight each other!

Damn. That would be an amazing game.

Oh crap, someone already made Dominions 3...

Put this wy: "Oriental" is more enjoyable than "The Island Nation of Nihon." There's nothing wrong with Japan*, but I don't really care for the times when there seems to be an originally developed world that then, for many different reasons, has a Japan-clone (or China-clone, or Rome-clone) dropped smack dab in the middle of it.

It's not just that. For some people, oriental mythology is the presence of signature elements like samurai and ninjas and certain monsters. I prefer the creation of a well-researched individual who takes care to explore the original sources of mythology from across the world, the functioning of social systems and integrates them into a seamless and believable entity.

If you want an example of this you can compare the Legend of Five Rings to the early versions of Forgotten Realms "Unapproachable East." One of them was a crass attempt to cater to a market that had an appetite to play samurai who faced down vicious Oni, while the other is an internally consistent world.

It's not that including the culture is bad, it's that including it without taking care to give it a reason to be is something I find tacky and blaise. It's done so very frequently. Over time you can work it in with a franchise: L5R used to be pretty bad like the first D&D attempts, but it got better over time.

*Actually, historical settings fascinate me.

To really answer your question, MagicwillNZ, keep in mind that my comment was specifically directed at the original poster who basically asked for Japan to be added to official game. I don't have a problem with settings like "western europe" (although that well is a little dry) or "oriental" and actually, I think a Vedic mod would be very interesting.

And I'm all for adding little things to help modders realize their visions (hence the ceramic roof tiling suggestion) of making whatever they like. I'm not even saying Elemental can't add Japan if they wanted to, just stating my own personal preference.

Imagine that all of a sudden every second game you played featured warrior monks who would level from being Chandala to Shudras to Brahmin. They would fight Vishnus and could briefly ascend to a higher spiritual plane to travel great distances. It would probably be amusing the first couple of times, but would eventually wear itself thin, especially when you start finding them in games about Venice, in science fiction, and in combat shooters. Movies about Rome would suddenly feature the Mysterious Easterner Monk.

Actually, I do get what you're trying to say, and I find that sort of monolithic "this is fantasy China" and "this is fantasy New World" sort of frustrating as well. I admire Pathfinder: Chronicles for making a believable Africa-esque continent and a less Western European heavy fantasy world. There is going to be a Fallen faction with an interesting Perso-Japanese art style which I quite like. All of these things are good. Randomly having Ronin warriors in Waterdeep, with no context, I agree, is not so good.

It's frustrating to me that many world maps of fantasy settings seem to have the same sorts of landmasses and cultural distributions as Earth. We have random map generators now to avoid that kind of deja-vu, and world-designers should make better use of these products.

I think we're basically on the same page here.

I figured that we were, but decided I should clear it up. : )

I haven't seen any of the art for the fallen empires yet. The direction sounds interesting.

it is really hard to give a goof thematic reason why you would get asian people in a fantasy game.

Still, it could probably be achieved without adding asian race and culture.

You could have almond eyes facial traits, like elves, for example.

To make ninja's, you only need a black suit some hood and some cool weapons which is probably doable with the current unit system so far.

Sorry but I didn't really get the point. Are we talking of physiologial features  developed during adaptation to the enviroment or culture developed by people of certain geographical parts of the world?

Make the game based on asian fantasy and not western one

Yes, but do you want a strictly asian fantasy game? The answer is no, you want to give access to everything. NOw it a civ game, it works well because everybody is human, in a fantasy game, there are multiple races.

So if you want asians and africans, you would need to have various cultures for each of the races, which simply multiply the amount of races you get in the game. I prefer to only keep fantasy race with no subdivisions. If they make the elves look more asian fine, but I don't want to get 5 kinds of elves, humans, dwarves, lizardmens, etc.

Well ... luckily the race of men will be multi-chromatic.

Otherwise it would seem more like a Continent within a single Biosphere rather than a diverse World.

WOOHOO JAPAN!!!I love Japan I hope they add Japan its the contry with the best culter so far ive been around the world I find the Asian contrys MUCH better than the eastern contrys I dont see why people like america so much I think americas culter is mcdonals and burgerking Japan is pretty awesome tho I go there 3 times a year now China is good too ^^

No pl0x.