Civilization List

As discussed in the features thread, I moved this to a seperate thread. This will help us keep track of the different elements and will always have the updated list in the very first post. A prelimenary list of civs and their leaders and heroes is here. Suggestions are always welcome, especially for the not yet known heroes and leaders.

• Elves
  • Noldor
    • House of Fingolfin
      • Leaders: Finwe, Gil-Galad, Galadriel
      • Hero: Elrond, Glorfindel
      • UUs: Elven Archers, ??
      • UBs: Flets (city defense)??
    • House of Feanor
      • Leaders: Feanor, Fingolfin?
      • Hero: ??
      • UUs: ??
      • UBs: ??
  • Teleri
    • Leaders: Cirdan, Celeborn, Elwe
    • Hero: Arwen??
    • UUs: Elven Archers, Swan ships (early transport)
    • UBs:
  • Sindar
    • Leaders: Thranduil, Luthien, Thingol
    • Hero: Legolas
    • UUs: Elven Archers, ??
    • UBs: ??
  • Vanyar
    • Leaders: Ingwe
    • Hero: ??
    • UUs: ?? --> maybe something with more magic, are still in Aman after all
    • UBs: ??
• Good Men
  • Numenor (leader: Elros Tar-Minyatur, Tar-Elendil, Ar-Pharazôn, Tar-Palantir, Tar-Minastir)(hero: Valandil)
    • Leaders:
    • Hero: Valandil
    • UUs: Unique ships
    • UBs: Something with watchtowers maybe?
  • Arnor
    • Leaders: Elendil, Isildur, Aragorn II, Arvedui, Earendur, Argeleb I
    • Hero: Halbarad (captain of Aragorn after Helms deep)
    • UUs: Dunedain Rangers (horseman & rangers, if this is possible)
    • UBs: Watchtower, healing house
  • Gondor
    • Leaders: Elendil, Isildur, Aragorn II, Eldacar, Earendil
    • Hero: Boromir, Faramir
    • UUs: Tower Guards, Guards of the Citadel
    • UBs: Strong gate, Rammas Echor
  • House of Beor, Haleth, Halor
    • Leaders: Beor, Haleth, Halor
    • Hero: Beren
    • UUs: ??
    • UBs: ??
• Neutral Men
  • Rohirrim
    • Leaders: Theoden, Eorl, Helm Hammerhand
    • Hero: Eomer, Fram
    • UUs: Different mounted units.
    • UBs: Keep, ??
  • Northmen [Dale and Beornings]
    • Leaders: Beorn, Bard
    • Hero: Brand
    • UUs: Dale archers, ship??
    • UBs: city on water (something with health or gold)
  • Dunlending
    • Leaders: Freca
    • Hero: Wulf
    • UUs: units plunder more gold??
    • UBs: ??
  • Isengard (only one city, rest settlements)
    • Leaders: Saruman
    • Hero: Lurtz (not really from the books though)
    • UUs: Uruk-Hai
    • UBs: Industry?
• Evil Men
  • Haradrim
    • Leaders: Herumor
    • Hero: ??
    • UUs: Mumakil (only civ with elephants), chariots
    • UBs: something with a stable?
  • Easterling
    • Leaders: Bor, Ulfang
    • Hero: ??
    • UUs: ??
    • UBs: ??
  • Angmar
    • Leaders: Witch King
    • Hero: ??
    • UUs: sorcery maybe?
    • UBs: ??
• Shadow
  • Mordor
    • Leaders: Sauron
    • Hero: Mouth of Sauron, Ringwraith(s)
    • UUs: Orcs, Uruks, Trolls
    • UBs: Something with factories or breeding pits??
  • Angband
    • Leaders: Melkor
    • Hero: Gothmog (first of the balrogs), Glaurung
    • UUs: Balrogs, Dragons, Orcs, Trolls
    • UBs: ??
• Dwarves
  • Longbeard
    • Leaders: Durin, Thorin Oakenshield, Dain, Thráin I
    • Hero: Gimli, Balin
    • UUs: Dwarven slingers, Dwarven "cannon", Dragon slayers
    • UBs: something with forge
  • Firebeard & Ironfists
    • Leaders: Azaghâl, Telchar
    • Hero: ??
    • UUs: ??
    • UBs: ??

Azaghâl and Telchar for the Firebeard and Ironfist Dwarfs. I would concentrate on leaders first, heroes later.

How many Noldor leaders are we going to add? There are quite a lot of them.... one of the first scenario's that we should make is a first age one with all of them in

Haradrim leader: Herumor

That's a good question. I would say we add to start something like 4 maybe and only take the most important ones (preferably in 4 different era's). I was thinking of Finwe (first king of the Noldor) and Feanor (creator of the Silmarils) (first era), Fingolfin and Gil-Galad. These are all high kings of the noldor which may be appropriate, but not covering all era's. But then again, elves are immortal . Maybe we should add Galadriel as well? Glorfindel could be a good hero by the way also for the Noldor (just came across him as also being Noldor).

For Gondor and Arnor: the reason three leaders are the same is because they ruled both. In FFH2, although I'm not sure about only BtS, is that leaders can be assigned to multiple civilizations. This is really cool for at least some of these leaders and gives us the flexibility to put leaders in multiple civs if that would fit better and we don't have to choose.

Didn't knew about leaders subbing for multiple civs. That's going to come in handy. I think Finwe and Feanor should definately be in, and I would like to see Gil-Galad as well. Not so sure about Fingolfin. He could indeed be used as hero as well (not that we are short on Noldor heroes). I think we best have a open slot for the last leader of the Noldor, that we can fill in when we are deciding on the traits of the other leaders, so that we can pick a leader with a unique feel to it.

Yeah that is true. I thought Fingolfin because he was the king of the Noldor that led them to Middle Earth if I remember correctly from the top of my head. As far as the others go, Gil-Galad definetly and as far as I'm concerned also Finwe and Feanor. That way we at least already have three fixed ones.

Do you know actually if there is a maximum number of leaders per civ? I don't think so but I'm not sure (although of course to many would really also not be good)

Heroes:

Teleri - Arwen (since she is Celeborns Granddaughter)

Numenor - Valandil (first of the Lords of Andunie - renowned for their friendship with the Eldar).

Gondor - Faramir

Edain - Beren

Longbeard - Balin

Rohan - Fram (slayer of Scatha the Worm - The Great Dragon of Ered Mithrin) - Eomer should perhaps be a Leader

Dunlending - Wulf (Son of Freca - conquered Rohan for a time)

Isengard? Where is Isengard?

The problem with Isengard is that it is a city, not a civ really. Though I read about some civ in FFH that was limited in the number of cities it could build (and could build settlements for obtaining more resources IIRC (Kuriates??)). Maybe that could be adapted for Isengard.

Sengir said:

The problem with Isengard is that it is a city, not a civ really. Though I read about some civ in FFH that was limited in the number of cities it could build (and could build settlements for obtaining more resources IIRC (Kuriates??)). Maybe that could be adapted for Isengard.

Click to expand...

This is indeed a possible solution although I'm not sure about it. It could give some very nice flavor to the civ (one city with special Orthanc texturing or something and the rest as settlements) but I'm not sure how workable this is. I haven't yet played with the Kuriates in FFH2. It is worth considering. If not than I don't know if we should really make it a civ. Maybe Saruman in the Dunlendings although that also doesn't really fit well I think.

Also hero for Arnor: Halbarad, the leader of the dunedain that accompanied Aragorn after Helm's Deep)

Do what we were originally planning, and make a civ that is both Dunlendings and isengard....

early units are human, but later ones are Uruk hai

That makes a lot of sense actually.

I'd say it's nonsense to have both Arnor and Gondor, and only one Edain civ. The later were actually one people, thought divided; the first were completely different in all concerns, and never had anything to do with each other except race.
Also, having only one civ for the Noldor is a thing I could not conceive (perhaps I like them the most...). The houses of the Noldor were allies against Morgoth, but in all other concerns rivals and even enemies - the House of Feanor actually turned against the survivors of Gondolin and crushed them. In the Second Age, they kind of united; but still there was Gil-Galad amongst the Falathrim and Celebrimbor in Eregion (let's say, too civs: the people of Gil-Galad in the Havens and Rivendell, and the people of Celebrimbor in Eregion). In the third age... well, there were too few noldor for even one kingdom, they actually had one single city.
One Shadow civ for Sauron and Angband for Morgoth? First, if this is the structure adopted, it would be Mordor and Angband. Second, I'd not separate Morgoth and Sauron in 2 civs. Sauron was never a rival power to Morgoth, only one servant and sucessor. Like Finwe and Feanor, or Elendil and Isildur (even thought the later actually had two coexisting realms, they were not really separate - Isildur "served" his father).
The Men of Khand could easily fit in one of the other civs. We know too little about the evil men to separate them in all the correct peoples and kingdoms.

I see what you're saying but to be honest I don't agree. Mordor and Angband are completely different in the kind of units etcetera they employed (Morgoth used werewolves, balrogs, dragons, etc, while Sauron had different units, think uruks, etc). Of course there are similarities in units (orcs, trolls, etc) but I would really make them seperate civs. Gameplay wise this also makes much more sense, even if it would theoratically be possible to have them against each other in a normal game.

Arnor and Gondor I would really like to have seperate. We can do enough I think to make them unique and it is not a problem of having more civs in my opinion. The leaders can be shared among the two in FFH2 so that is not a problem.

I see your point in splitting the Noldor and the Edain. If we can find sufficient names for each civ and give them a distinct feeling, this is not a problem in my opinion.

PS: Mordor was a typo, should always have been this instead of shadow twice.

I'm in favor of splitting the Noldor and the Edain (especially the Noldor), at least for the 'long list'. And I agree with Berenthor that Melkor and Sauron were so different in outlook that they shouldn't be lumped together, though I think I'm going to see whether it is possible to restrict the shadow civs to one per map (Angmar would have to move to evil men in that case).

For Isengard, you could merge them with the Dunlendings, but I think the whole Kuriotates idea works great for them.

I think keeping Arnor and Gondor separate works, there's enough difference. I'm neutral on the Noldor and the Edain - if you can pull off enough differentiation between the splits to make it worth it, do it, otherwise just add some extra leaders.

Keep in mind that if Angband gets Balrogs, they're going to almost have to be ridiculously overpowered. Either every Good civ is going to have to have some way to counter them, or you have to somehow make it so that they can if they all ally together. (And if there's only 1 evil civ per game, then Good players fighting Mordor are going to have a WAY easier time than fighting Angband.)

As a random and highly unlikely suggestion: Split the game into Ages. That way Morgoth's Balrogs don't way overpower TA Good guys like Gondor, and FA Good guys don't way overpower Sauron. Wouldn't be easy to pull off though unless you did something reminiscent of RFC.

For Morgoth and Sauron, perhaps they could be different civs with different Unit lists, but we could make it so that only 1 of those Civs can be presant in any 1 game. Both can never exist at the same time. That would be easier perhaps.

I remade the civ list to reflect the current discussion and also added UU and UB placeholders and suggestions. This way when we talk about differentiating them we can immediatly do that there. I definetly like the Kuriates idea although there they have as a minimum on small maps four cities I think. Isengard would have one, so we have to check if that is still playable. As for the Balrogs, we can in favor of gameplay not make them that strong. Keep in mind, nothing can be perfect, we have to balance for gameplay. We can also keep them as later units in a kind of berserker way (strong attack, week defense) and keep the earlier units as orcs, trolls, etc. The same holds for the elves, I would make them not stronger in the first age, but make some good decisions about when units appear.

In FFH2 you can select a random civ normally but also by allignment. Maybe we could add something that also does this for the shadow civ. Only one can be there, although maybe it would be cool to have Sauron fighting Melkor (he wants the power for himself). It is about alternate paths in history . I wouldn't really limit the game by disallowing this completely. Maybe people want to play this.

Perhaps allow both Shadow Civs through Custom Games only then.

Unique Building for the Rohirrim should also perhaps be an upgraded Stable of some sort to show their mastery of Mounted Warfare.

For normal games either Sauron or Morgoth (not both), give a check box in the Custom Game screen for allowing both.

I agree with splitting the Noldor into House of Finwë and House of Fëanor. That, or if there's not enough difference you can have some of the House of Finwë as Good-aligned leaders and some of the House of Fëanor as Neutral-aligned leaders.
However, I don't think you can get as much gameplay variance out of splitting the Edain, especially with three separate civs.

I think Dunlendings should be merged with some other Evil Men civ (in the Quenta Silmarillion their ancestors fell under what was then called 'Easterling'), and Isengard should be a separate Evil civ. It shouldn't count as a full Shadow civ, but it shouldn't be any Men civ either. The vast majority of Isengard's military in the late-game should be Uruk-based, but IDK about the early-game.
We might want a sort of Wild Orc civ too (Goblins?), just as a suggestion.

Do you think we could add the civ leaders as heroes as well? Pretty much everybody listed as Leaders up there personally fought in some battle or other (Vanyar excepted).

Rohan UB agreed. Mordor UB should be Orc Pit or something (replaces Barracks, adds some bonus when producing Orc-race units), and any Isengard civ (Dunlendings if Isengard isn't separate) get a better Forge. (But of course a Forge doesn't make any sense for a pure Dunlending civ, they barely had any metalworking in the first place.)
The Dwarves should get something special with Mountains - workable Mountain tiles? cities in Mountain tiles? Maybe we should have a separate Mountain-with-Underground-Passages tile for the Dwarves and some kind of Orcs.

There is the Machu Pichu Wonder from one of the Mods (History in the Making, I believe). Change the name to Durin's Tower or something like that, to give it the Middle-Earth flavour.

The Wonder doesnt give workable mountains, but gives the peaks food and commerce. It could be changed to allow working though, I am sure.