I was thinking that something we could add after the first release (or with it if you prefer) is a retooling of the Traits for Civs. Give them more flavored Unique Powers based on Middle-Earth History.

We might also want to do some new Civics/rename them and possibly even new Civic Categories.

I know these are more advanced ideas, but I thought I'd bring it up now for brainstorming effect.

Ideas:

Dwarves:

Protective: Grant the Hills Defence Promotion to all Units

Great Miners: Mines give +1 Hammers and +1 Gold, +15% Trade Income

Rohirrim:

Horselords: All Mounted Units receive the Flanking Promotion (or Combat I)

Nomadic: Grants +1 Movement for all Land Based Units

Those are just a few skeleton ideas for Traits.

For Civics, there are a number of Mods which have added Military, etc. There are some good ideas out there.

Civics is definately something that needs a look at (as are the traits), but I haven't given it much thought as of yet. Will think about it a bit.
About Dwarves: I don't think that they would need a trait for the Hills defence, as that would make that trait limited to the Dwarves. I would rather see all dwarven units inherently have a the Hill Defence bonus as a promotion (Should be renamed, I don't think guerilla is a good fit for a bonus inherent to dwarves). This goes for the Horselords trait as well. Unless we go for Race/Civ specific trait for each trait to make it easier to lump promos in, that would work I guess.

Agreed on the promos thing.

Should there be non-promotional related traits too? Stuff like Dwarves get to use mountains as tiles and Elves don't remove forests when they found cities in them.

I think we've got to look at how FFH handles the elves vs forest thing and go from there.

How does it? I haven't played FFH as Elves.

I'm not sure, as I haven't played as elves either. I just know that the elves are capable of it. Will see if I can do a testrun tonight.

I played one as elves and I works quite well. You just build improvements without removing forests. This is quite nice because it always gives you an extra hammer. With the religion fellowship of leaves you even get ancient forest which also give you an extra food per plot with that ancient forest. Gives great city potential (most cities are 35-40 big) :)

Oh wow, nice. If we combine that with high late-game maintenance (probably distance-to-palace mostly) we could get exactly what I'm talking about for late-game Elf civs.

Nomadic Triat by tsentom1:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11133

I think this would be great for Rohan.

It gives +100% Gold for Pillaging
Prevents enemies from recieving Gold from Pillaging and Capturing Cities within Your Cultural Borders
Doubles the Production Speed of the Stable

Looks interesting.

Here is another one from tsentom1. With just a bit of tweaking it would be perfect for Numenor.

Seafaring Trait:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11895

Civ starts with Sailing
+1 Movement for Naval Units with Astonomy
25% Faster production of Caravel

Those both seem great.

Here is the page with a bunch of Traits by tsentom1:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297557&highlight=trait

Some of these could be very good for us, with just a bit of tweaking.

I especially like the Resourceful one for Isengard. Just combine the two effect. Great for a 1 City Civ.

Here is an interesting Civic by The Navy Seal:

It is called Civic Mobilization. It is used for balancing your Armies and Economies.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4048

I think we've got to look at how FFH handles the elves vs forest thing and go from there.

Sorry to come in late, this is the first time I've visited this forum.

The elves are handled well in FfH2 and are very powerful -- however, I'm not positive it works as well in a LoTR type setting. Maybe it would work better if Fellowship of Leaves weren't available.

Yes, the trick for the elves is that they build improvements in a forest without chopping down the forest, giving them the advantage of the forest's production along with the underlying improvement. Their relative weakness is that their workers are slow, I think 20% slower.

But the Fellowship of Leaves religion makes them into a powerhouse. The Fellowship of Leaves allows a civic called 'Guardian of Nature'. This Civic has each forest give one happiness. Furthermore, thier priests can cast 'bloom' and turn unimproved tiles into forests themselves.

These traits mean that the elves actually have the largest cities in FfH; with Guardian of Nature and the fact that they don't cut their trees down they get happiness and health going out the wazoo. So the elven nation if FfH 2 is filled with megalopolis like cities across their forests. Moreover, it is easy for htem to specialize their cities since the forests add to production. Their slow worker growth somewhat compensates, and since they don't chop trees they grow slower intiially, but the elves are absolute powerhosues once their cities are built up.

Just to be clear, the elves are very powerful in FfH, but they have one kryptonite-like weakness, which is burning their forest down (the blaze spell in FfH) for having hell terrain spread there which probably doesn't happen in an LoTR world.



My own personal take is that a LoTR world is the opposite, that the Elves do not have large cities and very high accompanying wealth and production; rather they have the opposite, smaller foces that are very powerful on a per unit basis.

My view of LoTR elves (especially the Noldor and the Vanyar) would be that they cannot chop trees, they don't get Guaridan of Nature, so they have limited city growth. Also, their settlers would be very, very expensive, they don't grow a lot. However, their units are powerhouses (give them tough units on the early part of the tech tree since they won't get a lot of money for tech).

Best wishes,

Breunor

A lot of good advice there Breunor. We will deffiantely take it under advisement. We are not going to be using everything from FFH however, so some of the concerns you have will not be an Issue. We are not having a "High Magic" world, and we are doing our own Religions (3 right now) as well.

The others need to way in on your comments as well.

I think I like Elven Settlers being more expensive.

Fellowship of Leaves will probably not be included, so that problem is solved. Thanks for the information though, it is very helpfull.

Other suggestions look interesting as well.

More expensive Elven Settlers make sense, though I'm not too sure about limiting forest chops for Noldor and Vanyar. What is the reasoning behind this?
Guardian of nature civic should be limited if we put it in (a max of 2 happies or something like that.)

Maybe we can have *secret item* give a bonus equivalent to that of Fellowship of Leaves/Guardian of Nature.
Agreed on settlers, and I think at least the Noldor should have to cut trees.

I am here to post about my 'Group Orcs Idea'.

If orcs are to be a weaker unit on a One-to-one basis, then combat will orient severly to men and usually they can't make a major hit.

However, you can group them. It will go from "Swordorc-Swordorc Band-Swordorc Party-Swordorc "

In regards to the weaker unit, they will also be cheaper, so you can produce many more and more quickly.

In regards to the weaker unit, they will also be cheaper, so you can produce many more and more quickly.

Here the 'warrens' from FfH may serve well which doubles production for the Orcs for certain units.


As far as the Elves cutting the trees, I probably don't remember my LoTR as well as you guys do. I kind of remember the original Eldar being friendly with the Ents, teaching them their langauge and all, so I thought they wouldn't cut trees and anger the Ents.

Anyway, if you use the FfH mechanic of being able to build improvements on forests you wouldn't cut the forest anyway in practical terms regardless of lore!

Best wishes,

Breunor

Thanks for your input, you are always welcome to contribute.

The Cutting of Wood was more directed towards the Noldor outlook, because they were the Smiths and Gem Oriented Elves, thus they sould have needed the fuel. For the Sindar however, you are completly correct. It makes a lot of sense that they would not want to cut down trees arbitrarily.

For the cutting of trees maybe it is a good idea to limit them to do that. However disallowing them to do that might cost them to build any improvements. One possibility to remedy that is to let them make one or two improvements specifically designed to be build in forests or let them build improvements while keeping forests (like in FFH).
On the orc grouping, I would keep them as cheaper and weaker (not to dramatically of course) and not venture into the grouping idea like I said in the other thread. It is not sure if it is possible and how and I think we should also keep the normal unit aspects of civilization.

I agree that the Elves should be able to build improvements without losing the Forest terrain.

At least for the Sindar, and maybe the Vanyar and Teleri. I think it fits both Noldor fine to have them chop forests.

I would not forbid chopping for them alltogether, as it can serve defensive purposes as well. We could however limit the amount of hammers they get from it or drop it altogether. Alternatively, we could give the elves a bonus for forest attack equal to the defense a forest tile gives, to counter that problem.

That last part sounds really nice for the elves.

Agreed, once again, at least for the Sindar.