"War of the Ring" thread

[Kristoffer O]

Replace all undeads with snaga and other lowly orcs that do not cost gold, nor eat and use the ashen empire. This way orcs would pop up everywere in Mordor. Uruk, elite orcs and trolls could still cost money and be recruitable. Unholy priests could be replaced by orc commanders able to 'reanimate'/recruit orcs. The need for unburied corpses might seem a bit strange though. Cannibalism?

C'tis is not necessarily the best choice as it is the default theme that is altered with a mod. Thus you wouldn't have access to theme specific spells. On the other hand you can give a nation spells in the map file.

Strikes me that this applies to the ashen empire as well. Bothersome. The ashen dominion is not available i believe.

Hmm, it might be after all. You can still choose themes when you have modded a nation. Altering units and name and using ashen theme should do it as long a you don't choose to play with other themes.

[UNIVAC]

Originally posted by Zen:

Maybe a better Idea would be to not let you control any of the plotline heroes or notable figures but instead have them as events.

Is another approach, yes.But this way you dont let the players to change the history.Main chars cant die, or events cant be avoided (what if gandalf dies in first turns? what about the moria event? events can be conditional?).Is not so easy, turning history in events, you limit in some way players interaction with it, and the capacity to change it.We have to think if we really want this to happen

Well yes; it doesn't.

Maybe that would be a different mod. I didn't know if the Mod was just fighting (ala Dom2 style) with the heroes and notable figures of each race/unit type etc so it doesn't matter if Gandalf gets hit by Wind Ride turn 10 to a Rohan province and killed (and never returns); because the Rohan demanded 50 Water Gems to fight a war because Gondor needed that one good plains/river province that had low provicinal defense that was by his capital.

Is this the intention or type?

Because I know even if I'm playing Hobbits; and the Elves of Rivendale start attacking, or gets too close to victory (Whatever the conditions are) I don't care about our relations and longstanding friendship and I'm going to hammer you into the floor

No?

[UNIVAC]

Sure, but if the victory conditions are the destruction of the ring and the defeat of the evil factions (for the "good" team,of course),then it should not make much sense good factions fighting each other (although still possible to do it).
I still dont know if the events can be conditional depending on game factors or are time scheduled.Can anybody enlighten me?

[ December 14, 2003, 15:54: Message edited by: UNIVAC ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
C'tis is not necessarily the best choice as it is the default theme that is altered with a mod. Thus you wouldn't have access to theme specific spells. On the other hand you can give a nation spells in the map file.

Strikes me that this applies to the ashen empire as well. Bothersome. The ashen dominion is not available i believe.

Hmm, it might be after all. You can still choose themes when you have modded a nation. Altering units and name and using ashen theme should do it as long a you don't choose to play with other themes.

Themes can be selected in the map commands. But might not apply unless its AI. Someone could test that now.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Replace all undeads with snaga and other lowly orcs that do not cost gold, nor eat and use the ashen empire. This way orcs would pop up everywere in Mordor. Uruk, elite orcs and trolls could still cost money and be recruitable.

Excellent! Thanks Kristoffer.

The only reason I was looking at Desert Tombs is I don't know Ermor but if they are the way to got then I'll go that way.

I was thinking Saurons dominion was going to be fairly destructive so Ermor is good, (though perhpas to full on) but how does this impact on a gold economy inside Mordor? My intention was to have most of Mordor a wasteland with little or no population and as Sauropns dominion spread the Midfdle Earth becomes cloaked in darkness and ruin - ie everyone starts dieing off excep[t orcs who keep being breed. This being the case it would seem to make sense to have Uruks and Trolls summonable rather than buyable.

By limiting intial placement of Saurons temples and providing alternative sources of dominion Sauorons holdings in Harad, Khand and amongst the Easterlings could avoid the worst impact of Saurons dominion.

I must sit down and have a play with the Ashen Emnpire.

Thanks again Kristoffer.

Cheers

Keir

Altering units and name and using ashen theme should do it as long a you don't choose to play with other themes. [/QB][/quote]

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I was thinking Saurons dominion was going to be fairly destructive so Ermor is good, (though perhpas to full on) but how does this impact on a gold economy inside Mordor?

Soul Gate has a less destructive Dominion, and you could use money producing magic sites to reduce the economical impact.

[ December 14, 2003, 21:53: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Keir Maxwell]

Ok some progress has been made.

There are many tricky design decisions which will shape the game and thats what I'm working on at present. Here is what I'm coming up with.

Two sides each of three players.

Evil

1. Sauron - Castles/forts in Barad-dur, Minas Morgul, Morannon, Dol Gulder, Umbar (Corsairs), and Near Harad (Haradrim).

2. King of the Mountain Goblins - Castles/forts in Mt Gundabad, Moria, Sea of Rhun (Easterlings).

3. Saruman - Isengard

Good guys

1. Gondor/Rohan - Minis Tirith, Dol Amroth, Pelargir, Helms Deep, Edoras.

2. Elrond/Galadrial/Thranduil - Rivendel, Lothlorien, Mirkwood.

3. Dain - Lonely Mountain/Dale, Iron hills.

I have grouped peoples so that those that fought together in the War of the Ring may do so. thus Rohan is with Gondor so that they may fight alongside each other and Harad and Mordor likewise.

It would be possible to do a much more free for all scenario but having decided to leave the quest out for the moment I don't want to give up on too much more of the specific charachter of the books.

I'm working away on units and if anyone compiles a list of equipment I would love to see it.

I would like to have items such as orc mail, light orc mail, crude orc mail, full orc mail, dwarf mail, elvish longbows etc and I assumming this is do-able.

One task which is avaliable for any keen soul is starting work on a master list of charachters, and their items, worked out in the format of the mod files. This could then be worked on and the characters cut and pasted into the appropriate place.

I'm not going away on holiday and should get the opportunity to get quite a bit done in the next month. I will organise a friend to get a web page up for me to post files at for ease of communication/access.

Cheers

Keir

[ December 15, 2003, 03:10: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[Keir Maxwell]

re the quest to destroy the Ring.

I'm sorry but I'm going to dodge questions on this for now. I have many, many ideas, but I fear that writing them done and discussing them would take up the time I should spend on working on step one - the military game. Once that works the issue of quest will be vastly more do-able.

However I will make one point - the key to it all is the will of Sauron (death gem income) and the different pressures on Saurons attention. Given no distractiosn he will toast the Hobbit and take the Ring but if distracted . . .

Cheers

Keir

[Keir Maxwell]

LI Idea for the mod.

Grade all LI as a size 2 troop.

If I understand things right this means that only 1 can fit in a square and smaller troops (size 1 HI/MI) can move through. If there are no size 2 tramplers (perhaps no size 2 troops other than LI) in the mod what problems would this create other than?

LI not being able to interpenetrate LI is the obvious answer but its still probably an advantage on not having a LI role.

I had a flash and thought "hey I can make all the Orc sprites a bit bigger and improve the detail." Then I realised this would mean redoing the rest of the sprites I used and the cloud of insanity passed.

Cheers

Keir