Middle earth is comming!

Middle earth is comming to FFH2, not here yet but not too far off!.

WWhat is here is the map, with 2 types of game, the conventional build settlers and one here you dont, all the AI empires are set up and dont build new citys/regions, and you as Gondor start with 2 regions and 4 settlers to decide which parts of the map you want to settle and thats going to be it for settlers. To expand means taking somone down. Map itself is unlikly to change except for resource placement and or addition of new factions and regions. As isa lot of the art and sounds stuff.

Factions at present are:
Gondor/Bannor
Rohan/Hippus
Elves 2 types/ljosalfar
Cardolan and all independents/amurites
Mordor/calabim
Dunland/illians
Moria and Gundabad/clan of embers
Angmar/balseraphs
Easterling and Balcoth/grigori
Umbar/lanun
Harandor/malakim
Haradrim/doviello
Dwarves/khazad
Khand and Rhun/svartalfar

Created but not ported in are Angmar, Arnor and a further generic men civ. These will be added over xmas when the next version of FFh comes out and a more presentable version of Middle earth will arrive shortly therafter.

What ive done is tried to create all the units for each civ and port them into FFH, so ive a ton of units but not ported them all into ffh as ive used the same names as FFH and meerly replaced the files nif and dds so as to make best use of others hard work, ie i meerly copy paste my art onto their files, adjust tyhe animations to suit, rather than spend time adding in units, which ive forgotten how to do in any event!!, as FFH adds in more units i simply paste over the new looking middle earth ones.

I dont need posts telling me this units sword is pointing the wrong way or the shield wrong, this i know, this build is simply to get all the units in game and not showing a lack of head, or no graphics at all or the red blobs or lack of gloss dds etc and get me used to how to import units and asign them sounds, ect, the sounds are all there, just not all linked up. Horses are the latest thing im looking at how best to do so each faction has its own saddle cloth etc, just as each faction will have its own swords design and so on, this version is to see how to do it and get it in game.

What would help is views on what would make the game more ME themed, like help with cutomised resources, so a tower of Orthanc can be depicted in game, or minas tirith etc. Now that FFh is in a form that makes modding it a sensible process, my intent is to repalce everything to themed LOTR style.

So, links to downloads.

Filefront takes 9 hours to upload and the server can be rest and break the process so heres the maps for .34 and the xml changes, while i wait to see if the upload works fora full asset folder upload, will also load only the asset folder files that contain changes, so there will be a full assets folder download, or the 3 folders that contain changes that live in a full aset folder, art/sounds and a xml rar to repalce those folders in assets.

An example of a unit has been uploaded, itsa gondorian warrior along with his associated sounds for build, select and orders.

http://hosted.filefront.com/HannyIOW/

===========Edited due to time takeing to upload.=================================
Given up on a full upload and settled for the 3 folders that contain changes. There is as of 12/10 the assets1 folder, and the maps and the xml folder, anda sound folder. these replace the same in a standard FFH.

Now that .40 is about to be released ill port everything onto that with an installer.

Reserved for images, most current links.

http://hosted.filefront.com/HannyIOW/

Gondorian, Uruk (Vampire), and Royal Gaurds units as examples.

Thanks for sharing, just to avoid any misunderstandings:
To play that mod, we'll need to:
- copy a FFH 034 folder (which patch version btw?)
- extract the assets, the xml and the sound folders you provided on gamefront to the corresponding folders of the copied ffh034

That's it ?

There must be something in the air. Middle Earth came to Dizzy too, a couple of days ago. See http://www.yolkfolk.com/dizzyage/dz027.html

Shakiko said:

Thanks for sharing, just to avoid any misunderstandings:
To play that mod, we'll need to:
- copy a FFH 034 folder (which patch version btw?)
- extract the assets, the xml and the sound folders you provided on gamefront to the corresponding folders of the copied ffh034

That's it ?

Click to expand...

I've installed it to try over the regular 034 folder and it works nicely. Not sure if it will work fine if you use a copy of the folder with a different name.

I'm just starting to look at it, but I'm very happy of having a LOTR mod for civ finally in my hands!

Good Luck. A LOTR Mod would be great.

I copied the FFH2 folder & renamed it LOTR, then copied the XML, sounds, and art over the FFH2 asset files. It does take a while to load up, but has seemed unstable in that has crashed on startup requiring a reinstalling of the entire FFH2 0.34 mod folder then overlaying LOTR again.

This has happened quite often with FFH2 0.34 so I'm not sure if its the LOTR mod itself. Is there another solution to this rather than the time consuming process of reinstalling everything?

Also, is there a way to simply change the names of the civilizations to their Middle Earth counterparts? [so that the evil power occupying Mordor is "Sauron" rather than "Calabim"?

I'm looking forward to testing this LOTR mod, something I've been looking forward to for a very long time. Impressive work indeed!

Shakiko said:

Thanks for sharing, just to avoid any misunderstandings:
To play that mod, we'll need to:
- copy a FFH 034 folder (which patch version btw?)
- extract the assets, the xml and the sound folders you provided on gamefront to the corresponding folders of the copied ffh034

That's it ?

Click to expand...

Yes thats it.

0.34 is the version i used, with the last patch (h iirc), so if you copy that folder and overlay the folders in the links, your on them same page as myself.

Ive changed monarch, but no others as thast the only one i play on, im going to use difficulty slightly different in that you get more or less initial settlers as the faction you pick.

What ill do for the next version is have an installer and you just run that instead of all this copy past.

caesarmd said:

Also, is there a way to simply change the names of the civilizations to their Middle Earth counterparts? [so that the evil power occupying Mordor is "Sauron" rather than "Calabim"?

I'm looking forward to testing this LOTR mod, something I've been looking forward to for a very long time. Impressive work indeed!

Click to expand...

Thats simple text edditing, but not worth doing while the patches and FFH was constantly changing, you can do it yourself by opening up the files and substituting Gondor for Bannor and so on, but its not really high up on my todo list. Sure its nice, to read about the Oath of Eorl gives, that gives you 3 Eothed horsemen units instead of the 3 giants wonder or that the Heron throne is actually the Ship kings guild of adentures that give you adventures anda trireme, but thats all for a rainy day in the future. Besides im not sure what units will be changed, so skeletons are atm, wild men of middle earth and summoned by vampires who are uruks, when they will end up as orcs when summoned by uruks, so textual changes are not looking likly for a while.

What im doing now is re jigging scn Test2 so that you start as Gondor, with the Falas and Lebbinen and 4 settlers, and have Dol Amroth and Anorien on your team as allied sub civs, along with personalitys for the civs, so Gondor has a king (hero) for instance. Along with more regions in game and hero leaders for the factions at start, since the next version allows me to have a lot more persoanlitys in game, and preventing small civs from falling early in game, iron hills gets improved as it gets the bulk of barbs drawn onto it. more units in game from the start, and this means that whole stacks of orcs get stranded in regions rather than head back to moria of Gundabad and become pains later in the game. that and doing new horses for all factions, look at magnadines horrse to see what i mean.

Esentialy as Gondor your supposed to create the realm of Gondor, which means chosing where to place your 4 regions, while helping Harandor with a war it cant win against haradrim thats going to happen to them, and keep the sub civs of Amroth and Anorien from falling.

Your not going to get a good playing experience till i check over all the units and make sure that heads and shields and swords all are in the proper place, and that version, the first beta, will come with an installer and sit alongside FFH, rather than be copy pasted over it.

This should be fun ...

Is there any way to get a Middle Earth map alone without the civilizations added onto it?

caesarmd said:

Is there any way to get a Middle Earth map alone without the civilizations added onto it?

Click to expand...

A number of ways to do that, heres one.

Start a game with random civs, or the civs you want in play, let it generate and open up worldbuilder without makeing any moves for the civ your playing as. save this to worlkd builder and exit.

Useing notepad open up this save and copy the civ info down to where it starts map generation and open up the LOTR WBSsave scn and replace with this set up, ir replace all the civs a set up etc with what you had from the other WBS, you will then get random start posistions for civs, which means a number will die as they are placed in the ocean.

Or edit the LOTR WBS to have random placement rather than pre defined start locations, again some will start on oceans and be lost.

There is no way to have random start and not get this to happen that i know off, that can be done with minimal effort like the above.

Is The Shire not included in the mod?

cfkane said:

Is The Shire not included in the mod?

Click to expand...

Yes, its the region called Suza, part of the kingdom of Arthedian. But no hobbits or hobbit units etc.

http://www.lindefirion.net/maps/ in the process of putting more regions in game so that there is less wild lands and more settled lands, and creating scns based on different time periods.

Latest news from Middle Earth.

Gondor scn is close to being ready, ( just the religions units and who can have which religions to do, and will be done before xmas and link in post two when uploaded.) you start out with the King of Gondor, 2 coastal regions and 4 settlers to establish the Realm of Gondor, but can build no further regions (citys are now regions) you have 2 permanent allied regions, Dol Amroth and Anorien and protecting them and acting in concert with them is rather fun to do, Anorien built a large force up and went south to take down a Haradrim region and i went along with some units to help it and see what happened. You also start on excellent relations with Harandor to your south, and will want to get open borders as soon as poss so that you can go south and help it defend itself from the Haradrim and later Umbar. Also an excellent chance to gain exp for units while defending Harandor.

Via your navy, you can expore the coast of Middlea earth and dellve into the dungeons on the coast, far from where you are establishing your realm.

If you let the 5 regions of Harandor fall, you end up with a hostile force right on your border that has doubled in regions.

Later Dunland and Khand, and later still, Rohan and then Mordor will become problems, but thats 200+ turns and rather difficult to predict.

Could you update this for FFH2.40z?

0.41 might not be too far off, although it looks mostly like art additions and optimizations more than anything. Considering how long it's being worked on and how cosmetic the changes are it probably will be a pretty stable build, one that should hold for a while.

Maybe my mind is going but i am sure i have played a LoTR mod before - it was unfinished but showed a lot of promise - was that yours Hanny?

Could you update it for .41 then?

What did you say about an installer for .40 version?