Civilization List

[xmen510]

#1: I understand this point. I'll remove my comments and leave it as is.

#2: Agreed = no comments necessary

#3: I understand. I'll put them in Brackets to perhaps be used for a Scenario, but not as main civs.

#4: It depends on the Era about units I believe. In all, men were used. Specifically the Men of Carn Dum during the Witch-King's Rule. We'll leave them as an Evil Men Civ. You are right about not pumping up the Shadow too much.

#5: I agree. Saruman should be able to go either way.

Current List:

How Civs stand at the moment without any other information.

Civilizations:

Elves:

Noldor: House of Fingolfin
Noldor: House of Feanor
Teleri
Sindar
Vanyar

Good Men:

Numenor
Arnor
Gondor
Edain *

Neutral Men:

Rohirrim
Northmen
Dunlending
Isengard

Evil Men:

Haradrim
Easterling
Angmar

Shadow:

Mordor
Angband

Dwarves:

Longbeard
Firebeards & Ironfists


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* = In regards to the Edain, we can break them up for a scenario at some point.

* = In regards to the Dwarves, we can add these other Fathers for a scenario sometime perhaps (Broadbeams, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks & Stonefoots).

 

[T_F]

I mostly like the civ list as it stands. I'm not sure about having men divided by alignment at the beginning though. I kind of like the idea of all (or at least most) men starting out neutral and then being attracted to Good or Evil by either the Elves or the Shadow.

5. I am of the opinion that Saruman is not inherently evil and should not start out as such (it is mainly Saruman we are talking about). He started out as quite a nice guy, albeit a tad arrogant. He should however be more easily turned to evil then to good.

I like this, and I think it should be extended to several other civs (see spoiler).

Spoiler ALIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS :

STARTING ALIGNMENT (ALIGNMENT MOST LIKELY, i.e. Isengard's would be EVIL)

Elves:
Noldor: House of Finwë - GOOD
Noldor: House of Fëanor - NEUTRAL
Teleri - GOOD
Sindar - NEUTRAL (GOOD, faster than most)
Vanyar - GOOD (PERMANENT GOOD?)

Men:
Nûmenor - NEUTRAL
Arnor - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Gondor - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Edain - GOOD
Rohirrim - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Northmen - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Dunlending - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Isengard - NEUTRAL (EVIL, maybe faster than most)
Haradrim - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Easterling - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Angmar - EVIL

Shadow:
Mordor - PERMANENT EVIL
Angband - PERMANENT EVIL

Dwarves:
Longbeard - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Firebeard & Ironfists - NEUTRAL (GOOD? I don't know who they are, so I don't know if it fits)

Don't forget your dïâcrítîcs ^_^

 

[xmen510]

Good list T F.

Most of the Firebeards and Ironfits amalgamated with the Longbeards after there homes were destroyed. By the end of the Third Age, I don't think there was really any difference anymore due to intermarriage and all.

 

[Berenthor]

I like the allignment list. I made some modifications to the first list. I removed the Edain as three seperate civs and added Isengard as its own civ. I like it how it stands now. One point in the alignment list: Northmen should be neutral (good). It is the men of dale and esgorath so they were more good than evil if I remember correctly. Keep all dwarfs neutral indeed. Vanyar definetly permanent good. They still reside in Aman and not in Middle Earth. Like the Isengard civ, we should make this civ quite different and special. That would be really cool. The rest of the allignments I like. I will add them to the first list after we discussed it a little. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[xmen510]

If this is the finalized list of Civs, then we can officially move on to Alignments.

Lets get a yes or no here before really getting into the alignments.

I believe the Civ list is good and done.

What is everyone elses vote on this?

We should also have a listed order of discussions.

Idea:

#1: Civs: Not Finalized

#2: Alignments: Not Finalized

#3: Leaders: Not Finalized

#4: Heroes: Not Finalized

#5: Unique Units: Not Finalized

#6: Unique Buildings: Not Finalized

I will start a new thread just for this. The only posting will be to announce updated material. We can debate over the list here as well.

 

[T_F]

Yes for alignments. Agreed on the Northmen thing (wasn't thinking), that balances Good and Evil leaning Men civs perfectly (1 starting, 4 leaning each).

I'm fine with the order.

 

[Sengir]

Civ list is ok. Alignments as well (with Northmen as (Neutral (Good)) that is). It has a nice spread indeed.
Let's give others say 24h to comment, otherwise we'll brand this as the offical Arda Mod Civ List (TM)

 

[Berenthor]

I agree with the list and also with the allignment.

 

[xmen510]

All right. So just to confirm, according to the post by T F:

STARTING ALIGNMENT (ALIGNMENT MOST LIKELY, i.e. Isengard's would be EVIL)

Elves:
Noldor: House of Finwë - GOOD
Noldor: House of Fëanor - NEUTRAL
Teleri - GOOD
Sindar - NEUTRAL (GOOD, faster than most)
Vanyar - GOOD (PERMANENT GOOD)

Men:
Nûmenor - NEUTRAL
Arnor - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Gondor - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Edain - GOOD
Rohirrim - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Northmen - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Dunlending - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Isengard - NEUTRAL (EVIL, maybe faster than most)
Haradrim - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Easterling - NEUTRAL (EVIL)
Angmar - EVIL

Shadow:
Mordor - PERMANENT EVIL
Angband - PERMANENT EVIL

Dwarves:
Longbeard - NEUTRAL (GOOD)
Firebeard & Ironfists - NEUTRAL (GOOD)

----------------------------------------------------------

My comments:

So so people know about the two changes I made based on previous comments. I changed Vanyar to GOOD (PERMANENT GOOD) - removed the question mark. I also changed Firebeard & Ironfists to NEUTRAL (GOOD) - they ended up integrating with the Longbeards so they are they are the same alignment wise.

I have only 1 problem. I believe that the Northmen should be NEUTRAL (GOOD), not NEUTRAL (EVIL), because they are based on the Beornings and Dale/Esgaroth. These are all basically good people, not evil. Let me know what you think and then we can have this info for the Alignment posted in the discussion as completed.

I am also going to post completed material there in spoilers so the post doesn't get to be as big as Arda itself . I will post the completed Civ list there now. Now that the Civ list is completed, Sengir can update the features page if he wishes.

 

[Sengir]

Yeah, about Northmen I that's what I said, T_F agreed as well, and I think Berenthor did too (but his text can be interpreted both ways).

Other than that, alignments are done in my book.

 

[xmen510]

Done then, I must have forgot about that sorry. I'll move it over now as well.

 

[Sifaus]

What about Elda King's and Thomas's "King Unit" idea? It was quite good.

 

[xmen510]

Long time no see. Good to see you back Sifaus. That is an idea that can still be talked about. Perhaps you should create a thread for Hero & King Units. That way we can talk about it without get too distracted about other things.

 

[Sengir]

I think hero and king units should wait until we have agreed upon the leaders as that will make a major difference. I do however think it would be nice to have them in, if only because most of the leaders were heroes as well and using king-units is a way to have them as both.

 

[xmen510]

Good idea. We should make all the Leaders, King Units. Perhaps also have Heros. This should go in its own thread however. This thread, now that the Civ list is finalized should be considered dead. This way we can concentrate on those that need attention.

 

[T_F]

Agreed with King Units (I think I suggested them somewhere back too...), and Heroes definitely also. We need an official Leaders thread now.

 

[xmen510]

Apparently the Civ list is no longer finalized. Both Sengir and Berenthor have problems with it now it seems.

The POINT:

Isengard as 1 City and Dunlendings are their own Civ.

or

Isengard and Dunlendings as 1 Civ and Isengard is the Capital/Master.

I am putting this in the vote thread.

 

[Elda King]

The Noldor are great with just 2 Houses, but it should not be House of Finwe but House of Fingolfin. Feanor was the heir of Finwe, his most loved son; Fingolfin was the other major Noldo leader, Feanor's "rival", the High King after him, and Finarfin's people followed him and his sons allways.

The Edain really don't have that much information to make many different civs. But if you go for separate Arnor and Gondor (wich actually were one people, and allways strongly linked) having 3 different peoples, that had completely different culture and nothing at all to do with one another as a single civ is simply illogical. Make an Exiles civ and it would be simply fine.

I do not agree at all with having Mordor and Angband. Sure, they were different, Morgoth had a lot of units Sauron didn't. They were of different ages. The Shadow can build Balrogs in the first age, either it is Sauron or Morgoth, but later it focuses on better orcs and trolls, nazgul, etc.
The point with the single Shadow civ was: all the evil in ME actually came from Morgoth. Sauron was all the time only "serving" Morgoth, even when he was acting for himself. Even when banned from the world, Morgoth was still the responsible for all the evil in it. Also, one predominant event in the books is the recognition that all the while, behind all the evil powers was a single will. Separating Angmar from the Shadow broke it a bit, but it made sense because it was actually a "vassal" of Sauron much like the evil men. But the goblins in the mountains, the evil on Mirkwood, the Balrog of Moria ("maybe the malice of Sauron had already awakened it"), the plague in Gondor, the civil wars, even Smaug, everything that was thrown against the free peoples in the 2nd and 3rd ages was Sauron's will in action - and behind him, Morgoth's. That was what I thought when I created the Shadow civ.


About balrogs: having them as expensive units, or heroes, would not work. They were very, very early units - so no civ could build an expensive unit. They were powerful at all times, and not more powerful with time passing. They should be national units, but something should keep you from building more and more as they died - no Balrogs in 3rd age, perhaps except those that survived the 1st.
Giving them a good power level, but weak against heroes, is a must. But my idea was giving them a very powerful promotion, not based in their strength, that kept them frightening wether your unit has an attack of 2 or 10. I thought about the "Doom" promo, that killed any unit that defeated the Balrog. It made a lot of sense, since every balrog-killer in the canon died with his feat (Ecthelion, Glorfindel, Gandalf), and made you think twice about attacking a balrog even if you could easily defeat it - specially since it's allways hard to defeat it without a hero, and losing a hero is something you really wish to avoid. But there are other options: for example, random events when fighting a balrog (from collateral damage to feature changing, first strikes or losing promos, everything may count) or giving it a constant chance of victory (and perhaps turning any unit that defeats it into a hero, or giving a HUGE bunch of exp. points to heroes). A unit that wins 80% of it's fights, even against your strongest units, means trouble (perhaps lesser chances against heroes...). A increase in strength from age to age should also work, making it challenging against either first or third age units.


About leaders, kings and heroes: when I designed the first civs, I took care to do not use great warriors (like Aragorn, Túrin, etc) leaders, because I wanted them as heroes. But later, we came up with king units, that allowed those to be both leaders and units. Anyway, having just civ-based leaders is not the best way - some heroes should be buildable by many civs, sometimes even by different peoples (elves should be able to build Beren or Túrin, for example). The main problem was that some civs had way too many heroes, while some (like Harad) had none. I believe that having a Hero Cap (only X heroes, either civ-specific or free for all) would be great, but you should still watch for no civs being unable to build heroes. Also, I'd advise you to diferentiate between great warriors (should be heroes) and great commanders (should be leaders/kings).

 

[Berenthor]

I like the idea of King units. I hadn't heard the idea yet and we should check if it is possible to determine which unit you can build depending on the leader instead of the civ, but this should be possible (probably in python code I think). A max number of heroes is indeed also wise (maybe one or two per civ or one per age or something but I'm really not sure). Can someone explain the full concept of king units to me, please?

The balrogs should indeed be contained and I like the idea of making them obsolete after the first or second age but the ones you have will stay. Personally I'm not too fond of only letting heroes be able to kill them and then also dying themselves. Gameplay wise I think this would be very frustrating. Increasing strength (coupled to the entry tech of an era maybe) is however a nice idea.

On the shadow being Mordor and Angband seperate or together, I think we disagree completely. In my opinion, Mordor and Angband are sufficiently different to make it into two civs. One of the proposals done in this thread keep it more realistic is to make sure there is only one shadow civ in every game (either Angband or Mordor). I don't like the fact of making Mordor an immediate vassal of Angband or something like that. I think officially they can propably even coexist: Sauron went to Mordor while Morgoth was still in Angband before his defeat. Another argument I would like to present is that this mod is also partially about being able to make alternate history for Middle Earth. In the mod it will/should be possible for example to have Rohan (neutral leaning to good) slip into evil and help the shadow against for example Gondor. Or for Arnor to split more directly from Gondor and maybe even completely align themselves with Angmar (I think one of the three kingdoms of Arnor almost did).

On the Noldor: I am not sure about which houses to take so if nobody has a different opinion I'm fine with going with the house of Feanor and the house of Fingolfin (if I understood it correctly).

 

[Sengir]

King units should indeed be used.

About the balrogs, they should indeed not be buildable after the first age. And I agree with Berenthor that having it auto-kill your unit will only cause frustration, as you'll probably have thrown a reasonable amount of troops on it to kill it in the first place, and now it's taking another, depriving you of any xp in the process.

About shadow civs: I like the idea of two different civs better as Morgoth and Sauron were inherently different, even though, or maybe because Morgoth had a hand in Saurons actions. If at any way possible I'd try to prevent having both in a normal game (people can select it in a custom game), to avoid them fighting each other (though I wouldn't think it impossible). I agree very much with Berenthor on this: civ (and this mod) is about alternate history.

On the Noldor: yeah that should be Feanor and Fingolfin, not Finwe. I simply assumed he was on the list, but it never occured to me that Finwe could be on it instead.

@T_F apologies for any missing diacritics