Kingdom of Angmar - Version 0.52 available
 

I have no modding skills and no real graphical skills, but I thought it would be a really awesome thing to try to mod a nation based on Tolkien's works. In selecting a nation which I could aspire to create, I wanted to try to emulate some of the dominions feel of having older nations and myths and concepts of which many people are unaware.

So, I thought of the Angmar, founded by the Witch King of Angmar (the lord of the Nazgul). It would be a MA nation (with a nod in the direction of having Morgul be the LA variant and Mordor be the EA variant), and would be based on the evil human kingdom in northern Middle Earth. Since this kingdom is in the Misty Mountains, there is certainly the possibility of goblins and trolls.

Notable Figures:
The pretender selection for Angmar will be pretty limited, perhaps being restricted only to various forms of Sauron. Currently, there are a number of possible ones, which need to be fleshed out: Dark Lord (titan SC), Eye of Flame (immobile), Lord of Gifts (forge bonus, stealthy, corruption?), The Necromancer (archmage style), Master of Shapes (can alter between vampire, great wolf, and bat forms).

One thing that would make Angmar have a different 'feel' from other nations would be the inclusion of a heavy thug with the starting commanders, the Witch King of Angmar. This is a pretty big benefit, since it automatically supercharges expansion, but much of the magical potency of the nation would be focused in this unique unit. So, it's not so much a question of his presence overpowering the nation, but the fact that he can only do so much keeping the nation balanced.

I'd like to have the eight other ringwraiths as either unique summons or essentially as the result of artifacts. The unique summons seems like it would be relatively easy. However, I'm wondering if it's possible to do something like the lycanthropos amulet or the pebble skin suit and have a MR-based chance of turning into a Nazgul each turn when the artifact is worn. Obviously, these would be the nine rings of power intended for human hands.

Magic Diversity:
I'm thinking Angmar would have three magical paths as primary things: death, astral, water and fire. I think having very few sacred units (just priestly commanders and the nazgul themselves) would help to prevent it from being one of those mod nations that makes a race that can do everything.

National Units:
For units, I think the wild and barbarian-like human kingdoms of Angmar and Rhudaur as well as the orcs of Mt. Gundabad would provide sufficient variety. I'd imagine the Angmar humans to be elites with good equipment and stats, but costing lots of resources and a fair bit of gold. The Rhudaur humans would have furs and axes and would probably have a small berserk bonus. Finally, the orcs of Mt. Gundabad could be the capitol-only troops, supplying cave trolls and warg riders.

Anyway, suggestions are very welcome.

Version 0.5 - All national units done. No national spells complete and no heroes available yet.

Version 0.51 - Nazgul heroes added. Some units changed for gross balancing efforts (national mages made not quite so sucky)

Version 0.52 - Three national spells added, along with Barrow Wights and Uruloki.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

A little research into Tolkien mythos indicates that the Witch King was essentially on his own as a Nazgul until Angmar was destroyed and he fled to the Morgul Vale, when he met up with the other 8 ringwraiths. As such, perhaps he should be alone as a unique summon for Angmar.

All of the nine would be available for a LA Morgul nation, if I manage to piece together stuff to construct all of this.

Is it possible to have a recruitable unique? Or, can you set the starting commanders for a nation independent of what they can recruit? It would be very different if Angmar had this one immortal big thug chassis that it could use at the start of the game, but didn't really have any good recruitable mages otherwise, except as really mild support or for pretty poor research. It would be almost like having two pretender gods.

Magical beings disintegrate on the battlefield if there's no mage that can lead them, right? If so, I can have trolls as magical beings, and if you kill the mage who's exerting influence over them, they succumb to the sun and turn to stone.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

The Witch King would be more along the lines of a pretender.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

1) Yes.
2) Yes. Although I am inclined to agree with Zargen that the witch king should be more like a pretender than a recruitable.

3) Yes.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I think there is a mod which enables the player to summon a commander based on a Nazgul/witch king. Or rather, I know there is a mod but I can't find it now. Maybe someone else here knows which mod it is?
You should check it out.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

It's mytheology, IIRC

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Trumanator was also working on a mordor mod that has the nazgul as unique summons.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Angmar and Mordor was active at different times, at the events of the Lord of the Rings Angmar was already of the past. Anyway, Angmar lies in the Frozen lands beyond the Misty Mountains - unlike burning Mordor. Aligning their casters with water/ice and giving their troops frost resistance might be an interesting choice if you want to differentiate the nation from Mordor.

I like the idea of having unique recruitables/summons, partially because I think pretenders are a bit out of place in most of Middle-earth. You could weaken the pretenders by inflating their costs so high paths become impossible to by. You could even take them out altogether by making them immovable & feebleminded (Steward of Gondor?).

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I actually have a mordor mod nation about 50% done, but my inability to understand sprite editing has left me there for the last few months.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

What is there to understand?

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Does it make more sense to have the Witch King as a unique summon, unique recruitable, or as an option for a pretender god?

Trumanator, what era were you going for for your Mordor nation? Maybe when I actually figure out what programs can edit .tga files I'll be able to share some of what I work on with you so you can get sprites out for yours. How were you dealing with the Nine in your mod?

Unique, probably summon. Pretender makes no sense - he serves Sauron. Pretender gods serve no one but themselves.

(Sauron would be the pretender - although arguably you can 'construct' a sauron with the current system. Although better graphics and tailored magic paths/abilities would be cool. Sauron at the time of Angmar is effectively 'imprisoned' in dom3 terms).

And pretenders make plenty of sense in middle earth terms. Its just by the time of the War of the Rings the Valar were not involved directly in the affairs of the world. One could argue the Istari are sort of like pretenders... Hmmm...

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Sure, in that the Istari were Maia. Maia were on the same order as the Valar, just of lesser magnitude. I view the Valar as equivalent to dominions Pantokrator but as a pantheon. Sauron is a perfect example of a pretender god: a somewhat lesser being trying to claim a throne that's really too much for himself.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Almost any program can edit .tga files. I prefer GIMP because it's free but still has some quite advanced tools. As for sprite editing itself, first steps are the hardest. GIMP has a bit confusing command layout and learning the finer points of pixel art will take some practice.

For your first mod, one should try to stick as basic designs as possible. If you take a quick look at my first mod (Alugra, City of Wonders, see sig for link), you will see how the units basically are vanilla units with recolors,altered equipment and capes added. Like has been mentioned, Psientist has done a wicked sprite for both Nazgul and basic Orc (can be found in the Antilarium and Mytheology mods), you should consider using those as base sprites.

Like always, I'll also like to state that I'll give constructive feedback and suggestions to any sprites posted on the "Sprite Editing Tutorial" sticky thread. If you ran into some other trouble, you can post in the thread I mentioned or try to seek me up from the dominions3 IrC channel.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I love the idea of the Witch King as a unique starting commander, more powerful than anything recruitable. That's a unique way to approach a nation.
Sauron should be the only available pretender and should only be taken imprisoned. I don't think there's a way to enforce that, but it could be strongly recommended in the descriptions.

The other Nazgul could be available as summons. They may not have been around Angmar, but that doesn't mean they couldn't come.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Oh good, someone else likes the idea of having a unique thug commander to start with.

I was thinking making the witch king something like the following:

I could see him being the nation's only access to astral, and certainly the strongest access to death. Having him at the beginning would let the expansion go very well (especially if you could quickly forge armor for him), giving you more territory than others. However, I intend to make units somewhat less cost efficient for Angmar than what other nations enjoy, requiring those extra resources to have forces on par. This would result in ritual/forging goodness (because sites are based on number of provinces and gem costs independent of who's using them) and more strategic tension (since with more territory you need to be more wary of stretching yourself thin).

Other mages would probably include some sort of cap-only orc shamen, with passable death and fire access, as well as recruit-everywhere wildmen shamen with weak water and death magic. With only average researchers at the capitol and definitely sub-par ones elsewhere, Angmar will need more castles to keep up in research, which they can manage because of the extra SC to begin with. It should feel like a different dynamic than playing other nations.

With regards to encouraging the player to take an imprisoned pretender, it seems like the best ways of doing that are to give them good sacreds to encourage a huge bless (not doing this, there will be no non-commander sacreds), or to make it so they really need fantastic scales. Not sure how to do that. Of course, it shouldn't be necessary that any pretender the player takes should be imprisoned, but only that specific chasses encourage such activities. In fact, there could be multiple chasses representing Sauron in different stages:

Lord of the Rings : most powerful; titan-like SC who should be imprisoned.

The Lidless Eye : immobile, perfectly feasible awake or sleeping.

The Necromancer : research-based pretender that makes sense if it's awake (sort of).

Annatar : forging pretender, makes sense awake, due to timeline in the world.

Feedback would be appreciated.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

The titan-SC is an invention of the movie. It has nothing to do with any of the real source material. I'd skip it.

If anything, possibly a shapechanging version (into a werewolf or vampire) would be more appropriate - see Beren's tale in the Silmarillion.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Oh? I thought after corrupting Numenor, Sauron, like Melkor before him, could no longer change his form from that of a great dark lord. Kind of a punishment for leading men to break the Ban of the Valar. Either that or he couldn't be pretty again. Can't remember which.

Anyway, I'm starting to dissect some other peoples' mods to figure out what I'm doing in terms of mechanical changes. Is there any way to make sure I don't step on toes with unit numbers and such?

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Couldn't change his form anymore, but that mostly meant he couldn't become pretty. The only story involving Sauron in a physical fight is Beren and Luthien, and then it involves shapechanging. In fact, afaict he never takes a form substantially larger than man-sized. (I haven't read all the collected notes books that Christopher Tolkien collected, in particular I haven't gotten to the War of the Ring book, but given how the ring and power in general is portrayed by Tolkien, something as vulgar as larger size seems unlikely).

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

It would be fun to have a 'pretty' Sauron too--very high pretender cost, but flying, stealthy and a corruptor, a la Lord of Civilization. Maybe immortal too, but low enough hp/stats that he wouldn't really work as a SC.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Specifically, he was no longer able to take a fair form, and thus was no longer able to deceive Elves or Men about his true nature, but had to rule by force and terror.

The other case of Sauron in a physical fight is when he is overthrown by Gil-Galad and Elendil. It is not described in any detail, but I got the impression of an epic struggle. A larger than human, though not titan sized form could be justified.
Isuldir did describe the Ring as shrinking.

I do like the idea of multiple Sauron forms to choose from for a pretender, even if justifying them is a stretch. Gives the player some options, while remaining appropriate.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

In my mod I was specifically following the movies more than the books, for whatever that's worth. I actually posted it, since rdonj was helping me out, and I was kinda hoping someone would want to help me out by doing some sprites. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Sombre: I suppose its not the editing itself, but figuring out how to make the editor do what I want it to.

Edit: Here it is.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Speaking of which, do you remember what it was we were going to do next when I vanished? I kind of got busy and forgot about it :(

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I'm not sure either, though I forget if we actually got the Sauron pretender to work.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Well, first try at sprite editing. Started with the unarmored mounted commander, but made him into a black rider. There's a lot of depth to the grays, but they seem to be lost in the scale of things. I have a long way to go, clearly. Amazing how even one this simple could take so long. Spent a couple hours on it.

The bright pink does represent shadow, right? In which case, it just uses a darkened background color? I'd really like something to make the nazgul *pop* but they're notable for being just black riders, right? Anyway, at least I have the rider separate from the horse, so I can plop him down on a fell beast when I get to those.

http://i37.tinypic.com/jhsv12.png

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

The units seem to be going as follows:

Rhudaur Men: 3 varieties, all share mountain survival and cold resistance 50.
Wild Man: Slightly better equipped barbarian with great club, berserk +0, pillaging bonus (1)
Hunter: Shortbowman with prec 11, stealth, forest survival
Savage: 2 hatchets on a berserker +3 which serves as a heavy hitter that will be consumed by arrow fire; pillaging bonus (3), ambidex 2

Angmar Men: 2 varieties, both have mountain survival. A premium is paid for either type.
Swordsman: broadsword/kite shield with chain hauberks, pretty good stats (atk 12 def 12 base)
Bowman: composite bow at prec 11

Gundabad Orcs: 3 varieties, capitol-only. All of these orcs are hardy, having reinvigoration 3, which serves to make their very heavy armor somewhat more practical. They all have gluttony 2, cold resistance, mountain survival, darkvision 50% and berserk +3. They are expensive gold- and resource-wise.
Orc Warrior: Morning star/Kite shield, plate hauberk
Elite Warrior: Flail/Kite shield, full plate mail. These elites have berserk +4, which will make them tough as nails.
Warg Rider: Light lance, broadsword, kite shield, plate hauberk. Addition of bite attack from warg makes these effective shock troops.

Cap-only Gundabad Shaman will be F1D1H2 +110% EFDW. It still has the reinvig 3, but also has the berserk +3, which could be a distinct disadvantage for a mage. Is equipped with armor and weapons anyway.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Hmm, a quick test reveals that the bright pink does NOT actually become shadow in the game... So, I'll just get rid of it or something. Does it have to be an exact color?

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

It has to be an exact colour. Don't get rid of it! Sprites will look terrible without shadows. Copy it from another sprite. Make sure you are using something good (like GIMP, which is free and excellent).

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

So, I want to have hill trolls in for Angmar, but I have too many cap-only troops as it is and they're probably too powerful for recruit-everywhere. I also want to somehow model the idea that they cannot travel normally since they get turned to stone in daylight. It was suggested to me that they might work in this way as part of the heavy province defense that comes at 20+. As part of PD, trolls would make attacking into the core of Angmar a pretty scary prospect, which would help the nation to wait for the Witch King to marshal its strength when it wants to attack.

If possible, I will have the trolls have questionable loyalty (or just give them trample and low morale with the usual consequences).

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Having them as part of the PD isn't a bad idea. I'm pretty sure your plan to give them questionable loyalty through some modding trick won't work, but I don't think low morale trampling is entirely thematic. Decent morale and trampling, maybe. Actually I think it would be more thematic for trolls to go berserk, but it is your mod, and I haven't read the books super recently.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Questionable loyalty might come from a copystats of a War Lobster. Give them 10 hp or something in their firstform, and their second form just goes berserk on everyone. It'd be fun. And terrifying.

I'm kinda weirded out by Angmar not having any recruit-anywhere orcs. Maybe at least have a snaga recruitable? And I hope there are orc summons.

It'd be nifty to give orcs/trolls/the witchking darkpower of some level(at the very least darkvision 100). It would also be cool to have some sort of commander(summoned/hero/???) autocast darkness at the beginning of combat. It just seems...wrong... that casting Utterdark as Angmar isn't really a good idea right now, between the nice bowmen and even their elite troops not having full darkvision.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

If you make Trolls able to go "War Lobster", I'd suggest to make them summons instead of PD units. Otherwise your PD 20+ would be extremely vulnerable to anything with "Fire Largest" command (or spells like "Mind Burn"), which would make the trolls "pop" while they have only friendly troops nearby.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Angmar seems like it was mostly a kingdom of men, though there were orcs also in the misty mountains. I'm using the idea that the real stronghold of the orcs in Angmar was Mount Gundabad (the ancestral home of the dwarves and the reason why dwarves so hate the orcs). However, since smaller goblins lived in the mountain chain that housed Angmar following the War of Wrath against Morgoth, they're definitely in the area. I could make these snaga orcs small, cheap and numerous, I suppose, with real crap for morale, but full darkvision.

Anyone know if it's possible to have specific bad events for a nation? Would be funny to have Angmar being plagued by the dragons out of the north.

How does the lobster thing work? Is it just that they automatically smash anyone around? Or, do they have to take damage first, or fail a morale check? I'd be sort of ok with the idea of the trolls having this serious flaw of just eating anyone nearby when the going gets tough. Promoting the use of different strategies for attacking the nation is something that I think should be encouraged, unless the weakness is such that it makes them useless.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I'm not sure you could Fire Large Monsters down the "War Lobster" trolls. They'd only have like 10 hp in their first shape, and so probably wouldn't be targeted. If anything, the Mind Burners would just take out the berserk ones for you. It's still a good idea to pull, but if people are targeting your trolls, they are targeting the berserk ones over the controlled ones.

The idea is that they would have only 10 hp or so. Then, when they die, they get replaced by a much tougher unit that just tramples everything nearby, friend or foe. It would be glorious.

I am a bit worried about having a composite bow recruitable. They're quite nearly as good as longbowmen, and I fear that this will become another archer nation.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

The archer nation concern is one I have also, but still I feel they should have some archers. Maybe I should do something like what shinuyama has, and make the archers into good melee combatants, so that the idea is to let them soften the enemy before crushing them up close.

Alternatively, I could just give them shortbows. Or even remove the Angmar Bowman unit entirely, and leave the nation to rely on the Rhudaur Hunters for ranged support.

Tests on my original design for the Gundabad Orcs made them nigh unstoppable against indies. Two turns worth of recruits could take out any sequence of indie provinces forever, knights notwithstanding.

The current Gundabad Elite Warrior looks like this:
The combination of heavy armor, berserk with 2 attacks, and reinvigoration makes them really really effective. Which I suppose is predictable. But, they cost 40 gold and 36 resources a pop. I originally had them at 23 hitpoints and with full plate mail, but that was just crazy. Now the lesser shield makes them trigger berserk more from slingstones, and the lesser hitpoints makes them somewhat more killable in melee. If it's really unreasonable, I'll drop the reinvig to 2.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

The reinvig is just fine. They have what, 4 net fatigue, 6 when berserking? The real thing is that you mentioned a desire to make Angmar troops less effective pound per pound than other nations; these guys are pretty badass, mostly from the flail+shield(which is kinda weird, since flails are 2handed weapons). The real thing is just that a square of these can destroy an entire square of enemies every round, so they don't get hit too much. Combine that with a high attack and repel against prettymuch everything but spears, and they do well.

If you find them too powerful...just change the flail into a morningstar. Or take away the shield entirely. I'd actually like to see the 23 hp version with full plate and no shield, just to see how they run. You might like the style a bit more. I think overall they'll have lower survivability than this current version.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Make the trolls a summon. Conj 2-3 req E1? Oh wait, we have that already...

Alternately, make some of the orcs more widely available so another cap-only doesn't seem like that big of a deal =)

(I mean, orcs breed rather rapidly, there's no reason why the lesser versions shouldn't be available everywhere).

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Given his view on the nation, it makes sense to have all but snagas cap-only. Then you can summon some more(and other nasty things) using gems from your larger empire, thanks to your SC Witch King.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Good reminder. These orcs are a problem with that concept because they're both the heavy hitters and the front-liners, which is inherently effective. I want Angmar to have to spend more for the same effectiveness. Maybe it does make more sense to have them play the attrition game instead of just making things very expensive. The extra cost can come from upkeeping the large armies required to perform well against others, I guess.

How else can I achieve that design goal?

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I'm finishing up a first draft of the actual mechanics for all the units and such. I'll sketch up some basic graphics and post it up in a day or two.

For this first draft, I'll really be testing to see if the highly-expensive and non-massable but effective cap-only troops make the whole nation's military as powerful as others. If I give Angmar a very strong early game, leading into only a mediocre mid-game due to the unmassable elite troops and the massable troops that die by the hundreds, then that part will essentially be successful. I suspect that as it is, the nation is *very* front-heavy. The extra SC/thug at the beginning plus the ability to recruit a few crazy orcs from the capitol early on makes their start a real juggernaut. Their best access on mages is pretty weak (D1F1 +110% BDFW and D1W1 +100% DEFW), except for the Witch King himself, who is D4S3, fully capable of getting the high death stuff.

After I get the crappy sprites in there and post it for a first review, I'll start to consider things like national spells.

That reminds me, how many hero slots are there for a nation? At least 8?

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Not quite. There are 6 hero slots, and 2 multihero slots. If you wanted 8 specific heroes you'd probably have to make two of them summons.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Eh, the chances of getting more than 8 multiheroes is pretty slim. Maybe I'll just make a "Ringwraith" multihero to represent each of the others. Not like any but one has a name anyway.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Yeah, I don't think that would be a problem at all. The chance of getting even 4 heroes in the same game is so small it might as well be nonexistant.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Lies! I remember Andunaphel the Quiet, Ren the Unclean, Khamul the Easterling, Akhorahil, Hoarmurath of Dir, Uvatha the Horseman, Dwar of Waw, and Ji Indur Dawndeath.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Too bad only Khamul is an official name. Not that I oppose the use of the other names.

Of course, only the Witchking was actually in Angmar...

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

That's why I was thinking it would be best if the others were heroes. They have to "arrive at your city, ready to fight for your cause" because they weren't there previously. Consider it Sauron sending reinforcements :p.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

I'm pretty excited about this mod. I'm a big fan of Tolkien and thought I'd put my 2c in about the Heroes vs Summons debate.

Please feel free to ignore them :).

I was thinking about this, and it would (to me, anyway) be really neat if each of the 9 ringwraiths was a unique summon. That's something Tolkien never got around to. Only 2 of the ringwraiths even have names. This is an interesting Nation by itself, but adding a bunch of unique summons I think would make it stand out, not only as a Tolkien-based Nation, but even compared to all the Vanilla and Mod Nations already out there.

Also, actual magic users are very rare in Middle Earth, so having the Ring Wraiths and Pretender as your main/more or less only casters, with heroes providing additional spellpower, would make the Nation very interesting to play, I think.



As heroes, you'd only get 6 of them, at best, and I think there's plenty of other options here for heroes/multiheroes.

Suggestion for possible Heroes: Saruman (E3/F2/A1/W1/N1/B1/H1, elderly but self-healing, 25% forging bonus), Mouth of Sauron (high leadership, some magical ability: S2/D2/B2? possibly H4?), Gothmog (high leadership, high morale, possible Boldog--see below), Shagrat (very large, extremely tough orc with very high Prot and possibly even Awe--he won the battle of Cirith Ungol and he's got the mithril coat), Grond (construct with high Seige bonus, produces Mountain Trolls), Corsair Lord of Ships (excellent Sailing, could have a secondform that rides a Mumakil, strong Banner in either form, could occasionally produce Mumakil-riding Black Corsairs.).

Suggestion for Multiheroes: Mordor Troll--huge, relatively intelligent, very nasty troll with spiked armour, Boldog--largest, meanest, smartest orcs around, might even have some magical ability (from Wikipedia: Boldog (…) is a name that occurs many times in the tales of the War. But it is possible that Boldog was not a personal name, and either a title, or else the name of a kind of creature: the Orc-formed Maiar, only less formidable than the Balrogs. Melkor had corrupted many spirits — some great as Sauron, or less as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive Orcs.)

It seems to me that, considering that Sauron is just a disembodied spirit at this point in time, instead of giving Angmar the Witch-King as a starting commander (The Witch-King in the books doesn't really show up until late in the game), you might possibly give them a "Sauron's Shadow" unit, which would have immortality, etheriality, and a patrol bonus, but no physical stats (1 hp, 0 Str, etc.), only 1 mapmove, and no actual magic, but the ability to lead your mindless trolls, and the sun-fearing varieties of orcs (since "the Uruk-hai and Olog-hai could fight in the sunlight, as long as they were under Sauron's Shadow.").

Speaking of uruk-hai and olog-hai, have you considered that they might be a Summons? possibly Blood/Nature, along the lines of Crossbreeding?

By the way, do you have any intention to include Shelob? Maybe as a Unique, in place of a starting scout? Could be (appropriately, I think) a good early Rush deterrant. You could make her a stealthy cannibal (so that she eats orcs) with no Leadership.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Well, I'm sort of making the assumption that the other ringwraiths are about in the world, but are not tasked with any duties in bringing down the kingdom of Arnor. This leaves wide open the concept of the Nazgul being unique summons, which would be perfectly fine to me, where the summon calls its services, but doesn't create it on the spot. This is quite possible as a way of going about getting them, but it also puts a little more control over them in the hands of the player in a time when they were more or less Sauron's only powerful actors in the world, since he had not taken shape.

I was more inclined to have the Nazgul being unique summons (probably at low level conjuration) in the Late Age version of the nation, which I wish to do after this one, which would be modeled on Mordor, not Angmar.

I intend for other magic users to be weak, but I didn't really consider that it would be playable to not have any access to other mages. I'd probably have to improve the unique magic users significantly, especially in the research side of things. Or, I could have some cheap magicless commanders with very low research values and a strong death income for skull mentors or something. It's something to ponder. I would very much like to reflect the idea that mages in Middle Earth were rare.

However, in the Lord of the Rings, when the fellowship was traveling south from Rivendell, they were fallen upon by a pack of wargs, led by some sort of magic-using wolf, if I recall. It was pretty much the most blatant use of magic present in the books (Gandalf calling down lightning strikes and such). I need to look it up again, but if that's the case, the magic stuff could be more prevalent on the evil side of things.

Those are great ideas, but I think they're better ideas for the Mordor concept for late age, since they're all from that time period. I particularly like having Grond as a heroic construct that generates trolls. I'd probably give it a high standard ability too.

Well, as far as I know, the books don't go into Angmar terribly much, and the Silmarillion more than the actual trilogy. It seems to me that the Witch King was the founder and ruler of this kingdom all throughout its life if war against Arnor. The fact of the Witch King's presence all through that time period is the reason I'm including him as the starting commander. Though, the different playing dynamic of having such a powerful, unique, and immortal commander early on who represents a sizable chunk of your nation's access to magic is also interesting to me.

I do really like this idea, and that's what I'm trying to get at for the trolls. They cannot survive the light of day, so they need to be led by someone who can extend the shadow over them as they go. I dearly wish there was a mechanic that I could use to make them die when not in friendly dominion, because the dominion spread mechanic for them would be perfect. Also, weren't Uruk-hai specifically the orcs that didn't particularly mind being out in the sun? I didn't think they needed a shadow at all, hence Saruman's army of them.

I hadn't considered that, but again it makes sense for a Mordor nation, and I do like the idea. I have no idea if there were uruk-hai and olog-hai in the northern parts of the Misty Mountains in that time period. Perhaps Angmar could also have access to the spells, but not have any convenient mages who can cast them, like many of the national spells that get inherited from previous eras.

I had considered adding Shelob when/if I do Mordor. That's one reason why I had been asking about whether it's possible to mod events. I think Shelob would be fun as one of those indie attack events. She strikes and claims one of your provinces as her own, and is a nasty SC alone. Having her as a starting scout is also quite possible.

Edit: the sprite that I made for the witch king doesn't look quite so dark and homogeneous in the actual game:
http://i48.tinypic.com/9i65cp.png

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

The sprite looks really good!


The problem I see with getting this guy from the beginning is that, by the second round, you've already Prophetized him (not that you really need to, since he's Sacred, but it'll let him self-bless, give him access to all the other Holy spells--including one that grants retributive damage to any unit that actually hits him--spreads Dominion, and grants extra hp, att, def, mr) and slapped black plate on him, making him a perfect Rusher, or just a perfect Indie-killer. And you don't have to worry about getting him killed or wounded, since he's immortal.

Waiting 2 more rounds gives him a black shield and a black helmet, neither of which will encumber him, since he's undead, solving that pesky archer problem.

Speaking of Bless, I'd do everything I could to give this guy a Fire 9/Water 9/Astral 4 bless (he's got 3 attacks, afterall, his Att's a little low, and he's worth the MR boost), giving him atleast 4 attacks a round, at a base Att 18, and Def 22, and 18 MR, plus whatever the prophetizing gets you.

If that becomes too expensive (not sure why it would, since this guy's the starting army to end all starting armies, who needs Production, or income?), Fire 9 + Astral 4 will get the job done.

Fire vulnerability sounds like a problem, except it isn't, because you've quickly forged him a ring of fire resistance as soon as it becomes a problem, and he's got cold resistance and natural undead poison resistance. Shock resistance isn't so far behind, since there's a number of forgeable items for that, including and especially Copper Plate, which takes care of Shock, and does even more additional retributive damage.

With Fear +4 (+14, with the Horror Helmet he can forge by himself), Etherialness, Twist Fate, the Luck he'll soon be able to cast on himself, and the high Prot I just mentioned (20 or so), what, besides an SC Pretender, is going to have a chance of stopping this guy in the first year? How about the 2nd year, when he's got a real army behind him?

An army of Shades and Shade Beasts, Banes, Black Servants, and Longdeads, by the way, led by Mound Kings, with a host of Revenant researchers. With this guy to get your Deathmill rolling, forget about your National recruits. Undead don't cost any upkeep, don't eat, don't age, etc.

At the end of the 2nd year, having used him to ravage the countryside, and now using him to finely crush anyone left standing, you're going to be collecting plenty of Astral Pearls from all the site-searching you'll want him to do (infact, taking the time to do site-searching might be the only thing slowing him down. It's worth the time, since high Astral + high Death = win), and since this is one unit that's actually worth empowering, even Mind Hunt isn't going to reliably stop him.

And if you think he's nasty now, just wait till you hit Soul Vortex and Const 6.


It's not just that he's good in the early game, it's that he's very very good, and keeps getting exponentially better throughout the game, and practically by the month. With a good Pretender to back him up (a Cyclops, Blood Fountain, or Great Sage would do quite nicely), he might as well be a walking Nation all by himself. As a prophet, I'm not convinced he even needs his home Province, so long as you carefully monitor your Dominion.

I think having this guy around from round 1 would change not just this Nation's strategy, but the strategies of everyone he's going to fight. Pretenders become SC Killers, magic weapons, priests, and Dom Pushing are priorities, and nobody except the Witch King bothers with basic PD at all.

Re: Possible mod nation? - Kingdom of Angmar
 

Not really any worse than starting with a Prince of Death. The same things that take him out will deal with this guy--and he doesn't fly. If you want to spend 400 design points to help one unit(no sacred recruitabless) that's easily counterable with death, astral or blood...I guess you could go after Eriu! After putting both air and nature magic on your pretender and forging a ring of tamed lightning and snake ring(with no national income in either), you can watch as you lose because you have one thug who can take out province defense, and he has a dozen.

If nothing else...people will realize that your Witch King can only be in one place at once--which means you're dead meat the second you commit yourself against one enemy. You cannot afford to ignore your nationals.

It does make this nation really different from other ones, but it's not any more game-changing as starting near someone who has elephants. If it happens, you grab some counters. End of story. I can't think of a middle-age nation that doesn't have counters within reach, unless you planned from the beginning to go after Eriu.

His purpose is to jumpstart you against indies so you can leverage your inferior nationals and get some momentum for your first war. He's powerful, but not against a prepared foe. He's a ridiculously powerful raider, but not a viable front line.