“The are killing us! “We are losing this war. “We must adapt.”
These were the thoughts of a cabal of Cymanti Shamans who would band together to revolutionize the Hive. There was no doubt about it, the Cymanti needed to change its approach or face elimination. It was decided that attempting to appeal to the hearts of their enemies might improve their chances of survival, leading to Cymanti geneticists breeding new creatures with bigger eyes and cuter appearances. Of course, not everyone in the Hive is convinced that this is the new way forward, but that hasn’t deterred the New Dawn Movement, who hope to prove to the others that this is how they must change.
The New Stuff
So, let’s delve into what the New Dawn Movement has come up with.
It all began with genetically modifying the Ciru Bug into a new form, adding giant eyes, changing the color, adding cosmetic whiskers, and making it look more like a friend and not a horrifying insect that merges with your brain. It is still a horrifying insect that merges with your brain, but this one looks a lot more friendly, wouldn’t you agree?
The first ones to adopt these new Cirus were the Gurus, appointed by the New Dawn Movement as the group’s leaders instead of normal Shamans. Their Ciru Bugs have been specially adjusted to grow a “beard” made of silk, which the Gurus believe makes them look more distinguished, wise, and approachable. They are tasked with “convincing” others to join their Movement by bestowing Ciru Bugs…whether they like it or not.
Publicity is the game of the New Dawn Movement, and not only to the other tribes, but also to you! The rank-and-file troops have been renamed to Hoomans to be more relatable and endearing to us, the Earthlings who love to watch the Polytopians fight. They may be 10cm tall, have floating hands and feet, and have a bug on their heads, but as you can see, they’re pretty much identical to the average human.
This tall, rounded thing is a heavily modified Hexapod often referred to as a “Top Hat“. One part bug, one part fungi, and still a cheap, highly mobile killer. Their high speed is not impeded by the giant mushroom on their heads, surprisingly!
In their attempts to further blur the line between “plant” and “animal,” the New Dawn geneticists created the Cacti to replace the Kiton. Its sharp spines are laced with poison, harming anyone who gets close enough to attack it, all while looking absolutely innocent.
This is a “Ruby“, a very experimental blending of animal and mineral cooked up by the eggheads in the New Dawn’s genetic science cabal. No one’s quite too sure how they managed to blend the two, but the Ruby does its job as a replacement for the Mantis quite well anyway! It is sharp, resilient, and a complete enigma to Zebasi biologists. The mountains where the New Dawn Movement set up shop happen to be filled with rubies, so they probably figured this would be a great way to use the local resources.
“Shoo” is what you’ll be saying when you find these colorful buggers sliding up to your frontlines before exploding into a poisonous cloud of biological shrapnel! If it isn’t obvious, a Shoo is a modified Doomux, but is far prettier to look at. I mean, just look at those iridescent scales and big, ‘ol eyes! Awww!
This is a “Claude“, which is a very special strain of Phychi meant to look like a cloud. No one is sure how the New Dawn geneticists managed to remove the wings and completely change the shape while also keeping the flight and poisonous double-strike, but it’s believed that Claudes use a specialized air bladder filled with gaseous toxins to keep afloat.
This modified Exida is affectionally known as a “Lily“, due to its delicate nature. It’s a blending of normal insect biology with the flowers native to the region, and that flower is used to hurl toxic blobs of goo that can infect an entire regiment of troops easily.
And more new stuff!
The New Dawn’s naval power is comprised of “Squishies”, “Axolotls“, and “Super-Sponges”, respectively. The “plantimal” Squishies replace the Boomchi, and are designed to explode on both land and water! Axolotls are a replacement for the Raychi, and function as an all-rounder naval unit able to sink ships and capture coastal cities. Super-Sponges replace the Living Island, working as a way to easily spawn Foam, the Algae replacement, allowing your troops to move over the water effortlessly.
This is a “Fairy”, along with the “Kodama” and “Eggy”, its growth forms. Fairies aren’t actually magical forest sprites, but that doesn’t make them any less effective than the Moth, their standard counterpart. Get these adorable little bugs into enemy cities and watch as the civilians panic as they are infested with a deadly toxin and multiple eggs waiting to renew the cycle.
After the New Dawn Movement modified the local plants and fungi to better appeal to the hearts of their enemies, timid Snulles and delightfully sweet Pupli Nectar began to appear, functioning as their iconic animal and fruit, respectively.
And of course, there’s plenty of other things that the New Dawn Movement has made that you’ll be able to find for yourself! Flowers, mushrooms, honeycombs, new techs, and more are all waiting in the sugary-sweet realm of the New Dawn.
You can also find the New Dawn skin on Steam by tapping this link!
This tribe sucks but this skin is even worse who came up with this stupid idea?
Midjiwan did. 🙂
Just shut up you’re a noob
Haters will hate
This is so cool
Jo flowers just like in my idea! But These are better than mine, Great work!
We want the kindergartner audience!
Bro wth is this, this is absolutely not in the style of the game. Why are there so many round models here, where are the polygons?
I love the skin, but I have a question: Is it not currently available on the Epic Games Store? I use that version of Polytopia, but from what I can see, I can’t try the skin.
the idea is alright, but ngl with all the circles, it doesn’t feel like polytopia. I felt like Elyrion was better with the cartoonish approach
I don’t like the skin, its very elyrion default skin vibes, yet they got a wondeful edgy skin that wasnt bubble wrapped kiddy stuff this skin , can we run a poll in the cymanti community ? To me cymanti is like the zerg in starcraft, u cannot take it in the direction of ‘cuteness’.
Thematically i would do either starcraft zerg like, alien like, or glowing neon colored poisoning bugs-like.
All of the Special skins were meant to be “opposite” of their normal tribe in some way.
In this case, “opposite” of the “creepy, crawly bugs” is “cute”, so it fits the pattern.
polopia :3
it has been done, one skin for every tribe
Super weird that they don’t generate stars but hearts instead. Not sure this was the right direction to take my favourite tribe….
I like the troop skins individually but when seeing them on the map… It look way too messy and saturated. Also everything is so round, not jagged and not polygon-y enough.
When this skin was released, many people in our discussion group were quite surprised — it doesn’t feel that well-executed. After all, such a cute art style feels a bit odd for this tribe; the unit is very powerful yet comes off as harmless. Personally, I think a Cthulhu-style skin would suit Cymanti much better — like the monsters from Terraria’s Blood Moon and Crimson biomes. Replace the toxins with Ichor, and depict it as fierce and terrifying — that would fit Cymanti’s style far more.
Let’s see how Elyrion will comment on the new fantasy skin:)
By the way, after all tribes get its new skin, where will the later updates of the game go except balance passes?
I like the idea, it’s as messed up ad the tribe itself. But I have a very major complaint. The textures of the troops and some other aesthetics don’t fit at all Polytopia square world. They are just too smooth which looks gross on top of normal tiles.
I thought the special skin would be a robot hive lord… oh well