The Issue:

His campaign mechanics can still be quite buggy:

- With his Hunter's quests sometimes not completing despite conditions being met. Sometimes getting soft-locked due to other factions messing up the quest condition.

- Imperial Supplies Elector Support mechanic bugs out and never rewards you with Elector Count State Troop rewards. 

Poorly explained:

- Imperial Supplies: There's no tracker to say which electors you've previously supported, so unless you have a good memory it's possible to miss out on the rewards entirely before completing a long campaign. 

- Hostility: There's no indicator for which territories must be controlled to stop the Lizardmen armies from spawning (there's also no indicator if these provinces can be held by friendly factions or if it must be your own). 

Lastly his campaign suffers in much the same ways Franz did, it's fine for WH2 but in WH3 IE it's too Lustria focused. Once you conquer all of Lustria, which doesn't take that long, he's pretty much got no additional mechanics. 

What I would suggest:

 - 1) Same as Volkmar, remove the elector count state troop unlocks from the Imperial Supplies/Elector Support mechanic. There's no indicator on progress and it takes far too long. I've won long campaigns before even unlocking a single unit. Just give Markus the new unlock technologies that Gelt and Elspeth received.  

 - 2) Make Wulfhart's Hunters work more like Tamurkhan’s Chieftains. The mini-quest chain he has now is boring, buggy, and really not worth the effort. All you get at the end is a single unique trait. His hunters also need a skill tree rework, not as extensive as Gotrek and Felix, but currently all they have is 1 unique skill compared to their generic counterparts. 

- 3) Hostility should be removed from Markus's campaign and instead applied to the territory of Lustria itself. Lustria is far too safe right now and this would make playing there for any faction far more interesting. Think of it as a reverse Imperial Authority mechanic (the new one CA changed it to in ToD) that as soon as you control a single settlement in Lustria that mechanic triggers and you get a notification advising you. This does not apply to Lizardmen factions as Lustria is naturally their territory, though perhaps they could get a more traditional Imperial Authority system. Hostility increases if you're actively fighting Lizardmen, fighting over settlements connected to the geomantic web (even if not owned by Lizardmen), and by corrupting the geomantic web (reaching 100 corruption in anything except untainted in a province). Make this mechanic more defined by showing which territories need to be controlled to stop Lizardmen from spawning. If there could also be a way to reduce Hostility by being friendly with the Lizardmen that would be great too, though that might be too much effort.

 - 4) The Huntsmarshal's Expedition needs a mechanic that can work anywhere in the IE sandbox. Something like Monster Pens reframes the Expedition from being one of conquest/colonisation in Lustria to one of discovery/research where Markus is providing his expertise leading an Imperial Zoo Expedition to bring back creatures from across the world. Options for what you can do with these creatures can be:

- Send to Imperial Zoo: Temporary research rate boost/acclaim reward/gold reward.

- Send to Elector: Diplomatic favour increase/acclaim reward/gold reward.

- Tame: Can summon the unit in battle (appears as ally)/unique mount for Markus/Huntsman General.

- Slay: Small experience reward.

It doesn't need to be 100% the same as Monster Pens, the creatures could be more generic. Say for example you're battling Lizardmen there could be a chance to capture a Horned One, Ripperdactyl, or Ancient Stegadon. 

- 5) Give Markus something like Marked For Death. He's a famous tracker and hunter. Marked For Death gives him rewards for killing lords that threaten the Empire. Rewards could be acclaim/gold/magic items/ancillaries/temporary campaign buffs.

 - 6) Mini-quest chain that either lets him abandon Lustria and go help Volkmar, abandon Lustria and return to the Empire, remain in Lustria ally with Alberic and "help him in his mission", or do nothing. Thanks to his new campaign mechanics he can now travel anywhere and still be able to engage with those mechanics. 

- 7) Huntsman Generals need a warhorse mount (non-barded), this would remove their ability to fire on the move but gives them far better mobility. As mentioned above they could also access unique mounts via the Imperial Zoo/Monster Pen mechanic. Circle of Protection should include regular Swordsmen in the Bonus vs Infantry section. Survival Expert should also include a minor reduction in attrition damage. They should also uniquely for Empire generic lords have the Stalking stance. 

- 8) Markus should get the Circle of Protection skill in his tree. He also needs access to a mounts as mentioned above. His skill tree could use a rework to make it less laser focused on buffing Huntsmen, it's so laser focused an entire stack of Huntsmen might as well be his endgame army. He's a man-of-the-people, that's why he declined a knightship from Franz and his army should reflect that being focused around T0-T3 infantry. 

 - 9) Their unique faction and legendary lord traits need a rework. Literally the only faction trait that gives them a bonus is +3 Huntsman General recruit rank they should have more buffs to units that come in their DLC and low tier infantry. For example the Huntsmarshal Expedition Spearmen and Spearmen (Shields) could get Expert Charge Defence. Same with Markus's LL traits, combine the +50% ambush success and defence into a single trait and give him something that buffs state troop infantry. I'd probably also swap Woodsman as LL trait as it's so situational and likely only given to him to make controlling his starting War Wagon easier. 

You can see my other stuff here:

- Improving Volkmar/Cult of Sigmar

Markus is a monster killer not a monster tamer and he for sure doesn't collect anything for a zoo that's thousands of miles and a perilous ocean journey away. Can you imagine a Dread Saurian getting on a tiny Empire ship and that journey having any chance to reach its destination successfully? Yeah, me neither. Also, you are copying Rakarth's mechanic and that should stay unique to him because he IS a monster tamer.

Sorry, but the first and foremost factor that needs to be changed in Markus' campaign is that his mechanics need to be contingent on the Empire in the Old World actually still existing. That's the constant immersion breaker. Imperial supplies keep coming even when chaos or Skaven own all the lands there and KF is dead and buried, yeah no.

I said it in the other thread:

1.Give him the caravan mechanic and make this his primary way of acquiring supplies and Empire troops. Otherwise you have to be reliant on "native" levies loaned from the local

2.Have the colony be his only proper settlement and its growth dependent on attracting settlers from back home. Everything else he conquers should stay outposts at most

3.Have that attraction of his colony be dependent on delivering the riches of Lustria back home, but with a choice of acquiring them through cooperation and not just through bloody marauding. If Pirazzo managed that, so can Marcus

4.Every LM city you sack, capture or raze should increase the chances of daemons or skaven to pop up and go on the offensive. The LM are their biggest obstacle to taking the place, so removing it should have consequences

There should be no more hard-coded requirement to genocide the Lizardman. No more forced stupid evil actions, please!

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Theo91#7431 wrote:
You should watch Jurassic park 2 if you're struggling to picture a big dinosaur on a boat back to civilisation :D

LoL, you should picture what boats are available to early modern civilisations, buddy. A Tyrannosaurus on Columbus' Santa Maria? Yeah, right. Also, double LoL for citing a work of fiction to support your point.

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Herald#9684 wrote:

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I wholeheartedly agree with this criticism. There are Yuan Bo mods which move him back to Cathay (including mine), but I don't know if there are public Alberic mods moving him to Bretonnia, I haven't noticed one being published yet.

I made one but haven't published it yet as I'm waiting to see what CA would do if there would be a Bretonnia rework soon. If Alberic would actually get some mechanics based around Lustria, he could actually become worth having in Lustria, but considering Wulfhart didn't get anything more done yet, I doubt it.

On the flip side, I wonder if there would be any more content in Bretonnia, as both Mousillon and Aquitaine are contenders for Legendary Lords - Mallobaude, and the Red Duke and Armand d'Aquitaine. I don't want to stuff too many Legendary Lords in a small area with my start position mods, especially if we would get one in Aquitaine (same province as Bordeleaux).

I can understand wanting to spread the Cathay dragons around the map. It's the same issue as adding more elector count legendary lords, that portion of the map just becomes clustered with LL's starting right next to each other. 

That's why I recommend giving Hostility to the lands of Lustria instead of just Markus. It makes expanding in Lustria more difficult for any non-Lizardmen faction. 

I'd also love a Lustria focused map expansion so we can add some more Lizardmen minor factions and spread the human factions out a bit more, but that's beyond the scope of this suggestion.