Wrong settlement visuals/art/skins/graphics as of 2.3

mind5torm_#7137

As many have noted, some of the settlements on the IE campaign map have visuals that don't match the lore or the battle map. Many of them seem to be caused by the settlements somehow having the visuals of the initially occupying faction's race, including permanent "ruins" for settlements initially occupied by Skaven.

2.2 unfortunately only corrected a small part of the problem despite expectations, and 2.3 corrected only one (without mention in the patch notes).

Most of these settlements currently use different races' visuals for the battle map and campaign map, so the problem should be obvious.

(excludes presumed future chaos dwarfs settlements)

Not corrected as of 2.3:

Kaiax: ruins → Lizardmen
Marks of the Old Ones: ruins → Lizardmen
Subatuun: ruins → Lizardmen
Sulpharets: ruins → Dark Elves
Tyrant Peak: ruins → Dark Elves
Scarpel's Lair: ruins → Dark Elves
Plain of Dogs: ruins → Dark Elves/Greenskins
Temple of Khaine: Empire → Dark Elves
Fortress of the Damned: Dark Elves → Warriors of Chaos
Bay of Blades: Kislev → Norsca
Pillar of Skulls: ruins → Norsca/Warriors of Chaos
The High Place: Greenskins → Dwarfs
Deff Gorge: Warriors of Chaos → Dwarfs/Greenskins
Fyrus: Vampire Counts → Bretonnia
Temple Avenue of Gold: ruins → Lizardmen
Dragon Fang Mount: Warriors of Chaos → Lizardmen
Skrap Towers: ruins → Ogre Kingdoms/Greenskins
Flayed Rock: ruins → Ogre Kingdoms/Greenskins
Granite Spikes: Greenskins → Ogre Kingdoms
Blizzardpeak: Greenskins → Ogre Kingdoms
Icespewer: Greenskins → Ogre Kingdoms
The Challenge Stone: Ogre Kingdoms → Norsca/Warriors of Chaos
The Volary: Ogre Kingdoms → Norsca/Warriors of Chaos
Fortress of Eyes: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos/Norsca
Dragon's Crossroad: Cathay → Norsca/Warriors of Chaos
Red Fortress: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos/Norsca

Corrected in 2.3:

Brionne: Greenskins → Bretonnia (not mentioned in patch notes)

Corrected in 2.2:

The Moon Shard: Norsca → Dark Elves
Arnheim: Dark Elves → High Elves
Zavastra: Norsca → Kislev
Vitevo: Norsca → Kislev
Fort Jakova: Norsca → Kislev
Fortress of Vorag: Dwarfs/High Elves → Vampire Counts
Xing Po: ruins ? → Cathay

Corrected in 2.1:

Teotiqua: ruins → Lizardmen


If settlements should never use generic ruined settlement visuals without actually being ruins or occupied by Skaven:

Altar of the Horned Rat: ruins → Lizardmen
Crookback Mountain: ruins → Greenskins


Other possible improvements (although these seem to be "working as intended"):

Plain of Spiders: Greenskins → Dark Elves
The Twisted Glade: Vampire Coast → Dark Elves
Al-Haikk: Vampire Counts → Bretonnia
Lost Plateau: Greenskins → Dwarfs
Howling Rock: Vampire Counts → Greenskins
Karak Krakaten: Ogre Kingdoms → Dwarfs

Perhaps all of the "greenskin decorated dwarf holds" should look like regular dwarf holds instead.


Settlements in the chaos wastes are a special case: by lore, probably most of the settlements there should be "Norscan" (or "tribes of chaos" / "northmen"), with a smaller number of "Warriors of Chaos" settlements.

If basically all settlements in the chaos wastes should use WoC settlement visuals like most currently do:

Ironfrost: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Glacier Encampment: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
The Glacial Gardens: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Shard Bastion: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Fortress of the Damned: Dark Elves → Warriors of Chaos
The Bleeding Spire: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Floating Mountain: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Dragon's Death: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
The Challenge Stone: Ogre Kingdoms → Warriors of Chaos
The Volary: Ogre Kingdoms → Warriors of Chaos
Fortress of Eyes: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos
Foundry of Bones: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Dragon's Crossroad: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos
Red Fortress: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos

If there should be a "balance" of Norsca/WoC settlements, perhaps this would be a start:

The Glacial Gardens: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Shard Bastion: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Fortress of the Damned: Dark Elves → Warriors of Chaos
Blood Mountain: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
The Folly of Malofex: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
Cliff of Beasts: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
Bilious Cliffs: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
Monolith of Festerlung: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
Monolith of Bubonicus: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
Stormwrack Mount: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
Pillar of Skulls: ruins → Norsca
The Bleeding Spire: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
The Gallows Tree: Warriors of Chaos → Norsca
The Challenge Stone: Ogre Kingdoms → Norsca
The Volary: Ogre Kingdoms → Norsca
Fortress of Eyes: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos
Foundry of Bones: Norsca → Warriors of Chaos
Dragon's Crossroad: Cathay → Norsca
Red Fortress: Cathay → Warriors of Chaos

The Iron Storm settlement visuals could probably be used more widely as well ("Daemons of Chaos" settlement visuals ?)

Brass Keep should probably use Warriors of Chaos battle map instead of The Empire (by the lore it shouldn't look exactly like an Empire city)

Mount Silverspear faces the wrong direction (possibly some others as well)

Winter Pyre should be renamed to Kraka Dorden


Finally, I would prefer a system of "dynamic settlement skins" like some earlier games in the series, so that most settlements (not necessarily all) would have new visuals at least if rebuilt from ruins.

xXAlduin99#1974

Mousillon should also be a vampiric settlement. And Al-Haikk a bretonnian one.

John_Kimble#3765

NIce post indeed. I've noticed plenty of these irregularities myself.
There's also the matter of battle maps and "biomes" being completely absent from the game as of yet.

For example:
- The sand-themed, arabic Bretonnian settlements are absent. We either get Vampire Count Empire-themed forested battle maps or the lush bretonnian settlements which look as far away from a dry desert as possible.
- Any map from the southern, Badlands themed, World Edge Mountains is missing. We get snowy peaks maps all the time, be it around Mount Gunbad or Misty Mountains deep down south.
- Jungle themed Dwarf Holds in the Spine of Sotek.
- Jungle themed Vampire Coast settlements in Lustria

Finally, CA has wonderfully redone a lot of the battle maps which like WAY better than game 2. These include Bretonnia, Empire, Badlands (just recently in 2.2), World's Edge Mountains, Wood Elves (though they are very few...).
They have yet to retouch most of the New World, which in fact now looks very dated and far worse than the newly retouched maps of the Old World. Maps that are now old include: all Lustria, all Naggaroth, all Ulthuan. Nehekhara are still old too, but they actually look quite OK and the new lighting certainly does them a lot of favor.
Hopefully next patches will see a lot of new maps.