Civilization List

[xmen510]

That explains it perfectly. Thank you very much. I like that idea. It is sort of like border forts being placed as you expand your empire. All they do is allow you to control more territory without adding to the GNP (so to speak) of your empire.

What did you think of my bonus for Isengard as the ages go along. Instead of 1 big bonus right away, they get a small, but steady increase over time.

 

[Sengir]

That's actually a pretty good idea to keep Isengard balanced through the ages (otherwise it will have a really big advantage early on, but will be progressively harder to play as the game evolves.)

 

[T_F]

Like the bonuses. I've been playing as the Kuriotates to get a feel for them too, so that may help.

If we go with the Kuriotates thing for Isengard, their settlements may want a slight bit more freedom - for the Kuriotates, they can't grow or build anything and contribute nothing more than an extra spot of culture.

People may have missed me suggest using the idea for Elves too. Don't know how to balance it out with Isengard though, since you can't reasonably restrict the Elves to just one city.

 

[xmen510]

I think using the 1 City aspect for Isengard helps to make it unique. It is also true as Saruman never conquered any other places (unless you count Hobbiton of course ).

 

[T_F]

True. Then we have to figure out other ways to try to keep the Elves small with big cities.

 

[xmen510]

Is that really necessary?

If we have to do that, you could always increase the maintenance penalty of the cities. Or perhaps put in a limit of how many settlers any 1 city can build or put in a cap on how many cities that Civ can have.

 

[T_F]

It just seems to fit them better. If we didn't have Isengard I would push the Kuriotates idea harder for them, but I agree that it helps keep Isengard unique.

Increased distance-to-palace maintenance costs seems like it would work, maybe balance it with a small health and happiness bonus in the X number of largest cities. Or just have a health and/or happiness penalty for more than X number of cities over Y size instead of increased maintenance.

 

[xmen510]

I had a quick question about the Dwarven Civs.

Why did we decide to use the Ironfists when it was the Broadbeams that were with the Firebeards. They were both in the Blue Mountains. The Ironfists were out east.

 

[Sengir]

Because we made a mistake I guess. I think the plan was to use the pair, so that would indeed be Broadbeams/Firebeards

 

[xmen510]

Ah, I thought we might just want to be including more. Should I change the Civ name to Broadbeams & Firebeards then everyone?

 

[T_F]

Sure. (10chars)

 

[xmen510]

Another thing. Perhaps we should rename "Elves" to "Eldar" to make it more unique and fit in wth the Arda concept better. Not so generic this way and still correct.

 

[Elda King]

Eldar would be great, but it isn't the same as elves. Only those who attended to the call of the Valar were called thus. However, the generic Quendi would work.

Still one last comment about the shadow: I still think that the difference in agest would be enought for Mordor and Angband. But it's just a difference in concept. You'll have a hard time making anything unique for Morgoth after the First Age, thought: you'll have one civ that has more unique units than any other (vampires, werewolves, dragons, balrogs, etc) in one age, and none at all later. Of course you could advance those, but it wouldn't be the same as having Ologs and Nazgul... and Morgoth not having a Sauron unit in the first age simply seems wrong. It was one of his most powerful units!
By the way, a Morgoth king unit wouldn't be unbalanced - Fingolfin battled him. Also, Tolkien said that in the end of the 1st age Sauron was more powerful than Morgoth (because Morgoth "used" his power to corrupt all the world, and empower his servants, and create new monstrosities) - and still used the resources of Morgoth, like Trolls (that he improved to Ologs) and Orcs (to Uruks) and even the corruption of the world ("Morgoth's Ring").

Edit: Just remembered one thing we considered once, but decided was too complicated and unbalanced. The Men didn't have cities right on the start, but camps that spawned units like in the Warlords mod. I'm not saying this should be done, but may give you some good ideas.

 

[xmen510]

Eldar would be great, but it isn't the same as elves. Only those who attended to the call of the Valar were called thus. However, the generic Quendi would work.

Quendi would work well I think.

Still one last comment about the shadow: I still think that the difference in agest would be enought for Mordor and Angband. But it's just a difference in concept. You'll have a hard time making anything unique for Morgoth after the First Age, thought: you'll have one civ that has more unique units than any other (vampires, werewolves, dragons, balrogs, etc) in one age, and none at all later. Of course you could advance those, but it wouldn't be the same as having Ologs and Nazgul... and Morgoth not having a Sauron unit in the first age simply seems wrong. It was one of his most powerful units!
By the way, a Morgoth king unit wouldn't be unbalanced - Fingolfin battled him. Also, Tolkien said that in the end of the 1st age Sauron was more powerful than Morgoth (because Morgoth "used" his power to corrupt all the world, and empower his servants, and create new monstrosities) - and still used the resources of Morgoth, like Trolls (that he improved to Ologs) and Orcs (to Uruks) and even the corruption of the world ("Morgoth's Ring").

Very good points there. Perhaps a few thoughts from everyone is needed on this.

Edit: Just remembered one thing we considered once, but decided was too complicated and unbalanced. The Men didn't have cities right on the start, but camps that spawned units like in the Warlords mod. I'm not saying this should be done, but may give you some good ideas.

This sounds like the beginning of The Stone Age Mod. Perhpas it would work better as a Mod/Scenario to try out at some point (the same Mod with a slightly different working for men. Everything else the same I mean).

 

[T_F]

Race: Quendi as a promotion just sounds cool. We can show off our geek-ness ^_^

Still one last comment about the shadow: *etc*

Good points, definitely. It would certainly work if we could pull off a leader switch at a certain point (after X turns or Y technology or whatever) to signify that Morgoth leaves direct control. We could just have early-game Shadow be a Angband-ish civ which morphs to a late-game Shadow that's more like Mordor. (Since that's pretty much what happened anyway...)
That also eliminates the need to constrain it to one Shadow civ per game (since there's only one Shadow civ anyway), though you would need to make sure that the Shadow does appear in every game.

The camp thing would give Men a distinct disadvantage, but it is an idea.

I'm just thinking of how awesome it would be to do an RFC equivalent for this mod. EPIC.

 

[Sengir]

Eldar would be great, but it isn't the same as elves. Only those who attended to the call of the Valar were called thus. However, the generic Quendi would work.

Definately go for Quendi.

Still one last comment about the shadow:
-snip-

You make some strong arguments, I'm going to think about this a bit.

Edit: Just remembered one thing we considered once, but decided was too complicated and unbalanced. The Men didn't have cities right on the start, but camps that spawned units like in the Warlords mod. I'm not saying this should be done, but may give you some good ideas.

I don't think this is a good idea for the basic mod, though we might want to revisit this idea for a scenario. Another thing I've read somewhere that we might want to think about in this regard is the minor civs thing, that some civs will show as barbarian untill they have discovered writing (I think this is how it works, but I'm not quite sure). Still, I would have the Men start as full blown civ in the basic mod.

 

[xmen510]

Allrighty then. Lets get this thing locked up.

Civs:

1 Shadow or 2 Shadow = I like either.

We could limit Sauron being in charge for Scenarios or Custom games only perhaps if we go with 1 Civ. We wouldn't need to change the City lists then. Morgoth should have Sauron as a Hero Unit unless Mordor is in the game, in which case Glaurung(?sp) becomes the Hero Unit.

If we do it as 2, then Balancing would be required, such as limiting a lot of Morgoths Units to National and Unique Units (Dragons/Balrogs, etc.). We could give him more Men/Orcs/Werewolves/Vampires, etc..

Hopefully Berenthor can come back on soon to give us his ideas.

 

[xmen510]

Also, if we have the Witchking as a Hero for Sauron, then he shouln't be Leader of Angmar.

EDIT: One other thing we could do is have a completely open game on an Arda and/or Random Map and have another verion with just Morgoth (in a reworked civ) in another. Because of the difficulties in combining the best in this instance I think we should be looking at creating multiple scenarios from the outset.

This would make everyone happier I think and head off potential problems.

We could even name the Civ differently in that case and even change Morgoth's name to Melkor for the single Shadow Civ.

 

[T_F]

I'm fine with either 1 or 2 as well.

We should probably have several scenarios, yes. We could have a First Age scenario with all the elves and Morgoth and such, and a Third Age scenario with a lot of Men and Sauron. I still do want to be able to have everybody in one game though.

 

[T_F]

------double post-------