Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

Supposedly this was the intent, but Tolkien decided at some point that elven names should be entirely unique. So, he retconned some idea of Glorfindel being reincarnated and sent back with the Istari or something crazy like that and that the two were the same person.

Nevertheless, Glorfindel the Golden Haired would be at least 75% of the maximum level of badass. Only Fingolfin would get to 100%. Riding alone and pissed off through the biggest enemy army that's ever existed right up to the enemy commander's (who happens to be the GOD of evil things) door, then calling him out to single combat wherein you wound the otherwise unmarred DEIFIC entity seven times before your inevitable mistake? Bad. ***.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

I actually read the Fingolfin fight earlier tonight. In proper Dominions fashion, Fingolfin racked up fatigue until his defense was no longer impenetrable :(

Having your starting scout be instead a summoner of giant eagles would be kinda cool.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

Heh, good point.

Start with Thorondor, the King of Eagles and then he just spawns more and more?

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

I dunno, I'm pretty sure Feanor outranks Fingolfin in badassery. It took a literal army of Balrogs to bring him down by swarming him.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

Nah, Feanor got taken out by Gothmog. He didn't even get a proper battle narrative, just that he was a dumbass who went in without any support and got taken down. Even in the passage describing Feanor's death, it mentions that Ecthelion was better.

Hurin even is better. You could even justify him being a hero for the nation, as he was a good friend of Turgon and hung out in Gondolin a decent amount. I can't imagine what abilities he might have, though. A bunch of reinvig, a bit of regen, good stats and onebattlespell quickness?

Speaking of which, is it at all possible to have units/heros which start off cursed? I was thinking Maeglin, at least.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

Well, I think I've gotten some great suggestions in this thread. For the Eagles, I'll probably throw out the site-summoning idea and leave them as national summons. Too much work, and having recruitable autospawning commanders would be too imbalanced, probably.

As for Earendil: the main reason I'm putting him with Gondolin is that, well, it's the only real realm in Beleriand which I can properly associate him with. If I continue beyond Gondolin to create mods for all of them, then it would be impossible to assign him anywhere, as I can assign all of the other notable heroes to one land or another. Plus, he's the Morning Star, and an important part of the whole mythos. And he slew a flying dragon. In a flying ship. And as for the whole trampling thing, it was more the thought of: "hey, he's in a ship. If I had a flying ship when I went into battle, I would use it to run my enemies over. Wouldn't you? :D "

As for Glorfindel...well. He did take down a balrog (albeit with his life), but Ecthelion took down Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, despite having the use of only one arm (sword arm, shield arm was broken during the Fall). Then again, Rog led his House off the walls and into the middle of the beseiging host and killing everyone in sight, including boatloads of balrogs. So in essence, we have a case of too much awesome: everyone (except Salgant, who hid under his bed) were awesome during the Fall of Gondolin, and we only have a limited number of slots. That's the idea behind the multihero: besides for those who are really important, (i.e. Tuor, Maeglin, as both were princes and not standard "high lords") they're designed to cover all of them.

And yeah, Glorfindel is to have been reborn from the Halls of Mandos and sent back as a messenger along with the Istari.


I think what I will do is make it so that Gondolin does not need much in the way of magic from it's pretender. It would lack death and blood and major astral, but instead I could give them perfectly good non-unique, elemental SCs. I can also probably run with the idea of limiting the gem income from the initial sites (but, considering they'll be given access to 6 different paths, it wouldn't be too hard to limit gem income only to only two or three while still starving them of other gems). It frees them up to give massive investments into scales and/or a minor bless, to encourage them to go Order/Productivity/Luck. How effective would this be?

Also, another question. Is there a way to have a unit autocast a set script of spells throughout a battle (or something to that effect)? My thought is to have those of the Harp cast Song (of Bravery/Healing/Soothing/etc.) throughout the battle. If I can't have them random cast the spells, I'll probably just limit them to casting Song of Bravery (in addition to their standard effect), and make them awesome for boosting morale.

EDIT: For Hurin, if/when I make a Hithlum, he'll be on the top of this list. :)

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

That's why burnsaber and I suggested that you make them a unique commander. That way you could never have more than one of them. :)
However, doing them as summons instead is perfectly valid.

As for shooting for order/productivity luck, well, it would work. But turmoil and luck are more synergistic, at least when you have a smallish empire. You would get a lot more lucky events with turmoil luck, which means more chances to get heroes, which means overall having a higher rate of acquiring heroes. Once you own a bit more land order+luck will start working out a lot better, but for a significant portion of the game you'll have fairly few lucky events, at least in my experience. So, turmoil luck would get you the best chance for heroes, but if you can convince the player to go order+productivity+luck that's not bad.

Order+productivity+luck is a LOT of points into scales though, and basically, if you want the player to go that route you'll have to make the nation so good it doesn't need the pretender for anything else.


Oh. And my reasoning for not making him trample with the ship was that it seems a bit dangerous flying a ship low enough to the ground that you could kill people with it. It seems like the ship would take all kinds of damage being scraped up by the ground.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

I'm spotting the irony just now ... but Tolkien is asking how Earendil should but called? :D

I think you can chain spells to create a scriptlike autocast effect but they are all cast in one turn.
Hmm, the shutendoj of Shinuyama does have an interesting every of seemingly casting a spell every turn.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

Hmm. The only thing I can think of is to give them a custom onebattlespell. Say.. a AoE 25 "Song of Bravery" as a cloud spell that lasts for 8-9 turns. Of course the downsides are that the commander has nothing to do with the cloud once it is cast, (it's not centered on him and will still be up if he dies or flees).

You also could just go the easy way and give them ludiciriously big "standard" attribute.


Might work, assuming the shutendonj's flute is a spell effect, not weapon effect. This could use some looking into.

Re: Questions for EA Gondolin Mod
 

Well I have half a dozen epithets and all of them perfectly valid. :p

Actually, I think there may be a way around that: if I mod a new self-buff spell, say...Soul Vortex, and replace the life/fatigue regeneration effect with one that boosts morale, I think I could get it to work.