Jack and the Beanstalk DLC Suggestion

Why not a DLC built around giants and a beanstalk.

The premise is simple; there are settlements of organized giants in Elemental. Some live among the clouds, others in the shadows of volcanoes and others in cold wintery mountains. Each type of giant present different challenges.

The cloud giants access the lands from a giant beanstalk. Until this beanstalk is destroyed their numbers in the land of elemental continually increase. These giants lacking magic have two types of troops large boulder throwers and units armed with a range of weapons including giant spears (that can pierce through 3 units), clubs, swords and giant boulders. If you climb their beanstalk; instead of destroying it, you may reach their castle in the sky where a great treasure can be found. Take the treasure if you can, escape back to earth and destroy the beanstalk (300hp) to prevent the giants from following you. Their sky castle guard is supplanted by giant wolves and trained giant eagles. Many cloud giant armies are supported by a shaman skilled in air magic.

• The cloud giant king is a highly skilled mage of air magic.
• Trained giant eagles can fly (move) pass intervening units without penalty to attack units in the rear. These eagles can only be attacked by ranged weapons or spells. They disappear from the battlefield if their giant trainer is killed OR they are killed.
• Find the beanstalk on the map and you will find the path to the castle of the cloud giants (EPIC). Rumors in each game may hint to its location; There is a rumor of a giant beanstalk in the [South]. A unit of cloud giants and ogres guard the beanstalk that reaches towards the sky.

The fire giants live in the shadow of volcanoes and are resistant to fire based attacks. They fight as an organized and highly trained army wearing metal armor and bearing great swords. Their shamans can cast spells of fire and they have trained red dragons  and giant fire breathing dogs as pets. In battle against humans their shaman favors fireball and smoke. The smoke spells reduces the reach of ranged attacks to 8 tiles.This creature fraction tactical map of their lair has a throne room and a cavern with a river of lava. Visitors suffer fire damage per turn from the heat unless their fire resistance is x% or more. The fire giant's throne room also has 2 fire crystals that increases the power of their shaman's spells.

• Fire Giant King is a highly skilled commander that has trained his followers to strike true in battle. He uses a giant flaming sword in battle.
• Fire giants are heavily armored and tend to advance in methodical battle lines.
• Their Giant swords can counterattack against human spears and human spears cannot penetrate more than one tile of giants.
• The path to the fire giant's lair are often guarded by fire elementals. Defeat the fire elementals and you may find the entrance to the fire giant lair close by (EPIC).

The snow giants are armed with great axes (they use for cleave attacks) and boulders in battle. They are resistant to cold based attacks and their shamans are skilled in water magic often casting blizzard against their enemies and casting ice lake to cause them to fall prone, unless they resist. Their home is a giant ice cavern populated by cold resistant creatures and white dragons that breath frost. Armies entering their lair take damage every turn from the bone chilling cold unless their cold resistance is x% or more. Snow giants move faster than fire giants and cloud giants. The snow giant lair has 2 water crystals that increase the power of their water magic spells.

• Snow giant chieftan is a highly skilled warrior, that excels in battle with the axe.
• Snow giants move have a +2 movement bonus and tend to rush the enemy in battle in a berserk battle frenzy swinging their giant battle axes.
• Terrain around the snow giants lair is covered in snow throughout the year. Find a land of perpetual snow and you will be close to their lair (EPIC)
• The tactical battle map of their lair is a large ice cavern with patches of ice and snow covering the ground. Non giant units moving across patches of ice must resist vs. falling prone unless they are protected against this. 

In this DLC these giants may venture forth from their lairs to conquer and raze settlements until they are tracked down to their lair and eradicated. Fractions may offer to ally with each other to fight the giants; whom threaten all. Their is a chance that the giant fractions have been united under the influence of an evil wizard that makes their threat even more DEADLY. GIANTS and an EVIL WIZARD, oh my.

Fractions would share news about giant attacks; Messenger from [Magnar] reports that [Ice] giants have destroyed the [Fortress] of [Raznor]. He requests peace and an alliance until the giant threat is ended. Hostile fractions would be more likely to agree to peace when faced with reports of ravaging giant armies.

Naturally, with giants in the lands you would have some heroic traits, spells, quests and treasures that are oriented around giants.

New spells would naturally include mass fire resistance and mass cold resistance to protect your armies against the elements for a specified number of turns if you decide to attack them in their lair. Note that the snow giant shamans cast ice lake spell that causes enemy units in the affected titles (3x3) to fall prone unless they resist. Fire giant shamans tend to cast smoke that reduces the range of ranged missile and spell attacks to 8 tiles.

Traits would include Giant Dodge (+10 to dodge vs giants) and Improved Giant Dodge (+20 to dodge vs giants), special attacks would include Cripple Giant (successful slash attack slows the giant, -3 cumulative penalty to Giant's initiative) or Blind Giant (giants suffers 50% miss chance with successful ranged attack).

Defenders and Warriors could learn the Giant Fighting skills, and Commanders with these skills enable veteran units under their command to use these skills in battle (i.e. Commanders train their troops in how to cripple a giant or blind them).

Treasure from the cloud giants would include a goose that lays a golden egg and a magic harp that allows its owner to cast mast slow along with a hammer that does extra damage to giants and titans (think Thor's hammer).

New Weapons include Giant sized weapons; usable only by giant sized creatures, that do greater damage. Giant slaying technology allows human sized 20' long Pikes that are immune to counterattacks from sword wielding giants and sand bombs; range of 3, designed to blind giants (no damage & giant suffers 33% miss chance with successful attack) and unlocks giant fighting battle skill traits such as Giant dodge, Giant fighting, cripple giants for melee attacks and blind giants for ranged attacks. (i.e. once researched you can build units with these traits).

Quests would include seeking out sages that know the strengths and weaknesses of a giant type or the location of their lair. It may include rescuing a princess captured by giants in exchange for a reward from her King.

Kidnapped Princess Quest

If the kidnapped princess is found surrounded by giants you need to rescue her without killing her with mass effect spells that target the giants.This quest has political effects:

1. Rescue the princess = Choice of 1) reward in gold, 2) peace for x seasons if one kingdom is of men and the other fallen, 3) an alliance for x Seasons if both kingdoms are fallen or a 4) wedding that merges the two kingdoms if both kingdoms are from the race of men.
2. Decline to Rescue the princess = No Effect
3. Slay the princess while trying to rescue her = War with her father's Kingdom

Find the Giant Lair Quest

The land of [kingdom's name] land is ravaged by [random giant type] giants. That king's herald offers a reward for the first kingdom to find the location of the giant's lair (if it has not been already revealed on the map). Their is a 1% per turn that another randomly selected king finds the location of the giant's lair and claims the reward. The quest ends when the giant's lair is found. If the player defeats a band of these giants; roaming the lands of [kingdom's name] they will find a clue that directs them to the general location of the giant lair (North, South, East, West). The player can find the location by a random search of the map or by seeking out a band of these ravaging giants to narrow the area to be searched. The kingdom that first finds the location of the giant's lair receives a reward of 400GP.

Players could build town improvements that would help protect their cities from giant attacks - such as immobile Giant Scorpions; i.e. giant crossbow, that would give units a powerful ranged weapon if the town is attacked by giants. The Scorpion would do +80 damage vs giants or dragons if it hit and normal damage against smaller and faster normal sized units. A fortress with a castle deploys 2 of these weapons. Conclaves and towns only deploy 1 unit. Building this would require the Catapult technology and this building has a gold cost per turn as it must be maintained and men must be trained in how to use it. You could research advanced catapults technology that would allow you to build immobile Greater scorpion town improvements with +120 damage vs giants or dragons.