The addition of all the new treasures and guardians is fantastic work. These new assets are great for the immersion of the new maps. However, there are still some rather apparent omissions and inaccuracies in what was seen with the treasures present in the beta. There are also several potential guardians that while not an obvious omission, could be used very extensively on not just the latest maps, but numerous ones in other regions.
Water Treasures
Since a lot of the new maps are barren islands it would be nice if a comparable level of work went into the water treasures. For the new barren maps there is not nearly enough to do on land, so adding ample water treasures provide an outlet for player attention.
Repurposing some existing models for more nuggets like the flotsam one and adding Porbeagles as a Great White variant is a good start, but there is a lot more potential.
New Nuggets
Icebergs
Having all these new arctic maps with icebreaker trade routes but no floating sea ice whatsoever is a huge miss. Icebergs should be a nugget for these maps and even ones further south as they can drift quite far before they melt.
I even cobbled together some for the Ungava map I made using retextured boulders and visually it is a huge improvement to the looks and immersion.
For an official version, a new model with animations of bobbing and rolling would look very slick.
It would also be very entertaining to have a sneaky guardian version of icebergs. It could move super slow but deal massive damage to skink the ships of inattentive players who don’t keep a proper lookout and run into it.
Ghost Gear
Ghost gear is lost, abandoned, or derelict fishing gear such as nets, lines, or traps. A nugget with some free floating nets, lost paddle, and a lobster pot or damaged fish trap could add some variety.
Driftwood / Log Jams
If not an outright new resource there needs to be plentiful driftwood treasures on the sparse island maps. There are a handful of treasures who’s description is of driftwood, but when the nugget is some otters on kelp or an island with sea turtles, the visuals don’t really match.
New Guardians
Narwhals
Narwhals are another excellent potential guardian for arctic maps in the range shown below.
I had also added these guys to my Ungava map and gave them the unique feature of a long ranged melee attack thanks to their long spear like tusk. With sufficient range (~3.75) that actually lets them stab back at land units that attack them from the shore and prevents them from being sitting ducks if attacked from there.
Giant Squid
Giant Squid would be an excellent water guardian that would be appropriate for any water map along deep ocean coasts. There have been numerous encounters with giant squids throughout history such as with the Alecton so they are very fitting as a guardian.
Functionally, they should also have a long ranged melee attack due to their long grappling tentacles. They could also have a chance to stun their targets as they wrap them in their tentacles to immobilize them and blind them with ink.
As shown below, they range across the deep ocean so they are appropriate on a very wide selection of maps. In the southern ocean there is also the colossal squid which could be a variant of this guardian.
Swordfish
Swordfish are another wide ranging potential guardian that could fit most water maps. While swordfish attacks are somewhat rare, there have been deadly encounters such as one stabbing through a boat and killing a fisherman or more recently, impaling a surfer. Functionally, giving Swordfish relatively weak stats but a powerful charged attack would match the real life encounters of dealing a deadly blow at the expense of being lodged in the target. Normally when hunting they slash rather than stab so that could be their main animation outside the charged attack. They also are very fast fish so they should have a high speed stat.
Land Treasures
New Guardians
Wolverine
Just reskin the Honey Badger model, and you’ve got a new guardian for a good chunk of the new and existing Canadian and Scandinavian maps. Could have the exact same stats too.
Walrus
There are now Walruses as huntables, but they would be a great fit as a guardian as well. Most massive animals like hippos and rhinos are only present in the game as guardians, and elephants are already present as both. The example of the first voyage of Willem Barentsz shows this as they tried to hunt some with hatchets and pikes and gave up when the steel shattered on their hides.
Walruses could fill the role of a rare animal guardian on some of the maps of north Atlantic islands that have no other wildlife. Though rare, the occasional itinerant walrus strays from their normal habitat.
SkĂłgarmaĂ°r (Skogarmaor)
Maps in Nordic regions like Iceland and the Faroes are chocked full of British guardians but are completely lacking in Scandinavian ones. A Skogarmaor guardian could provide some representation as well as being a good outlaw option too. Depicting them as some kind of axeman would be most obvious.
Existing Guardians
Wild Boars using the Warthog model, and Arctic Foxes using the Ethiopian Wolf model look very bad. They should have their own models. A fox model could be used in lots of other biomes as well.
Out of Place Guardians
- Brown Bears are way out of place in Iceland. Polar Bears do occasionally arrive there so they should be replaced with them.
- Wolves on the North Sea islands. It is understandable to fudge things a little but maybe a Wolfhound would fit better. Or the Beast guardian could be used to represent black dog folklore.
- The Icelandic guardians are way too British.
Missing Guardians
Barbary Pirates
Barbary Corsairs operated as far out as Iceland and the Faroes. There ought to be some treasures guarded by corsair pirates on these maps. They could potentially serve as outlaws as well.
