Middle-Earth: Lord of the Mods (XII)

[PCHighway]

Bingo. In fact, this past agreement is what makes PCH's present recalcitrance so odd.

Just what am I standing in the way of?

Doesn't look like jaguar skin to me, although it does look strangely similar to Kinboat's Cataphract...

Still looks exotic enough. I don’t think the unit would make a good Easterling unit as I stated before. This is largely due to the fact that you (from my impression) view the Easterlings as Middle Eastern, while I view the Southrons as so.

You can't prove a universal negative, son. If there's Ants, Apes, Bats, Bears, Bees, Boars, Butterflies, Cats, Cows, Crows, Crebain (big crows?), Deer, Dogs, Eagles (big ones and probably little ones too), Elephants (not just Mumakil), Fish, Flies, Foxes, Gnats, Gulls, Hawks, Horses, Hounds, Kine (wild cattle, probably aurochs), Moths, Nightingales, Oxen, Ponies, Rabbits, Rats, Ravens, Serpents, Sheep, Snails, Snakes, Spiders (not just big ones), Squirrels, Swans, Thrushes, and Wolves (including white ones and evil ones) in Arda, it seems likely that there might be the odd camel out there in the odd desert too. God knows what's in the jungles! It's not as if Tolkien only wanted us to infer the existence of bees in Middle-Earth, and not wasps, simply because he neglected to mention any. (He doesn't mention anybody taking a scheit either, so maybe Middle-Earthers never felt the need?)

No one can, old man . But the fact remains that Tolkien gives no evidence to make us believe there were war camels in use in ME. If they were in use, I would imagine that Tolkien would have stated so, as he did with Horse Archers. If they are so far out and beyond “ME”, past far Harad, then there is no point of having them in our MOD, either.

I am not the one making claims there are camels, or llamas, or an other type of animal than what I read. Because I’m not saying Tolkien implies there are camels, I don’t have to prove anything. You are the one who wants to make the ‘radical’ change of camels in ME, if you prove to me they existed and were used in war then you got yourself a deal.
Convince me, in other words.
Oh, and you will have to do a better job than saying since that because there are no records of Orcs taking a ****, that the act of taking a **** doesn’t exist. You are more or less attempting to say that anything exists in ME. As it is now, there is more evidence that napalm and gunpowder exist in ME, than camels.

Fine by me, so long as we reject BeBro's Generic 12th/13th Century Knight as the generic mannish 4th era cavalry graphic. We can't reject the one because and not the other simply because nobody likes the colour of one set of trappings and a lady's token stuck in the helmet. ('Tis a shame, though, because the colours of the trappings are as close as we've got to the white swan ship on blue -- wait, have I said that before? ) Maybe utah's heavy cataphract, drenched in uncovered mail, would be in order then? (Who knew my hammering away at the Dark Ages would be so convincing? Now they won't even let me make compromises that slip a little into the 13th century! I love you guys! )

I don’t agree completely about the dark ages. But now that the line has been drawn, it’s a rule. It’s a rule just like how we won’t abuse ‘magic’ units ME, or how we won’t include gunpowder. If you are going to tell me that they-very imperial looking knight fits ok in ME, I’m going to start my breastplate argument again, as it fits in with that time frame too.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I made no secret about BeBro's Knights being compromises, about the possibility of assortments of dinner-plates being well-hidden beneath their surcoats and hauberks.

I thought I proved breastplates were around in the 13th century. Now you are saying that instead of ending the dark ages in 1066, we are ending it in the 1200's. Naturally I am going to say that in this improved time span, the breastplates would fit into ME. You keep saying BeBro’s unit is 12-13th century, but I disagree here. As I said before the use of the fleur-de-lis was 15th century stuff, not 13th century. France wasn’t untied in a ‘real’ sense at that time. As being so, the entire unit feels (to me) as if it were made for the 15th century.

Eh? What's this? Why can't Easterlings have bows, and why can't Sindarin and Moriquenderin elves have melée armed cavalry? Are there some texts I'm missing? Do share. I'm not asking you to push the issue, of course, I'm just eager to learn.

Ok, there are only a few statements of mounted archers. One is for the Easterlings, One is for the Noldor\Sindar, and one is for the Eorlings. When looking at the specific quotes, it becomes apparent to me that Tolkien made a point of saying when cavalry made use of mounted archers. Being so we should only use mounted bowman graphics for civilizations that are similar to the ones said (The Northmen and Rohan, for instance). The point behind this, is that there is no reason for Isengard, or Arnor, Gondor, etc. to have mounted archers. I feel it is important to uphold this, and we must base it on current knowledge (if we find out more later, then we change it later).
I don’t think we should add anything that might have cosmetic or gameplay alterations that did not exist in ME. For instance, we shouldn’t add sacrifice to the game unless we have proof of it (which we do).
That being said, I was not aware that the Easterlings had any mention of horsemen with bows, and so at the time I presumed we were going out on a limb by assuming the Easterlings were famed for their horse archers.

That might be because we didn't discuss Elven Cavalry graphics or lines that much (in my limited memory, of course).

The AoK Cavalry unit you linked there looks okay, although I'm not sure exactly which unit you've got it pegged for (let alone what it should be pegged to). Is it the "High-Elven Roquen" from the lists?

I did indeed discuss it, I can find a link if you want, but would rather not.
No, the Roquen would be embryodeads unit, whereas the AoE would be the Noldorin Cavalry (not overly fond of the name).

This brings me to the question: why do we have a special cavalry unit for the Noldor in the 4th Era?

The unit is not ‘special’ in the sense of the word.
The idea was to make both a Cavalry Archer and Knight line for the elves, but that has gameplay problems. To solve this I made it so the Noldor got the knights\melee units, while the Sindar and Moriquendi, more famed for their archers than metal craft, got the horse archers.

I couldn’t ignore the fact that the Noldor under Fingon had cavalry archers, however, so the lines overlapped.
I don’t understand what the rest of this quote means, the part about the Moriquendi in Rhun.

Stainless steel and what not- I actually like this idea, but the problem is you would need it _with_ iron. That just makes not having iron more of a problem.
(Your link seems to be broken for the source)

Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die? 'Cuz I don't like stopping with unit discussion simply because the thread reached 21 pages. I get the feeling something of a consensus is being hammered out, slowly, and new units get mentioned that others have overlooked (that would be me doing plenty of overlooking) that could be considered. I must be a visual learner, but I'd like to post another set of lists showing each "line" with little pictures attached (as I did earlier), with alterations in accordance with the discussion so far. Would that be so terrible?

I would like to see that too. I have gotten completely lost when we agreed, I have no idea what we have decided on. But I do know we agreed on some stuff, somewhere in there.

What techs exactly are you looking for?

Not looking for techs, per se, we are tying together the tree.

The Resource
We don't need to introduce stainless steel in ME! That's absolutely silly.
Then I prefer the copper idea. We could make the use of bronze more widespread than ME history suggests, by making the first offensive unit per civ (except the odd Noldor or dwarf smith) require copper instead of iron.
Similarly the odd spearman can require copper.

I don’t like copper. Bronze is made from copper and tin, is it not?
Don’t we have the same dilemma with steel? How is it suddenly better to add only one side of a more primitive resource, then to do the same with a more advanced one? What makes copper superior to coal?
I’d rather go for Wimp’s two irons than this, personally.

The Numenorean Knight
Why should the Numenoreans get kick ass knights? Were they famous for their mounted charges? I thought naval action was their forte, and ships and horses goes together like oranges and toothpaste.

Númenor was essentially all the Edain in one place. But even so, they weren’t renowned for their cavalry. Mithadan, we would more or less have to give the entire offense unit\defense unit\cavalry unit\archer unit better stats, in order to make your Númenor idea work, otherwise all the other units would not work properly. The Númenóreans would be getting a 7 attack 2 move unit while everyone else had a maximum 6 attack unit and a maximum defense unit of 4.

EDIT: I've searched the Silmarillion for both horse and rider, and didn't find anything in any part dealing with Numenor.

Got Reader, have you?

Mithadan raises an interesting question: The Noldor could merge with the other elves later in the game. Plus, we don't need to add another unit. In short, I agree.

Don’t see the point of merging them. If we are going to say that for the last two eras of our MOD there is no difference between Sindar, Moriquendi, and Noldor than we shouldn’t have them as separate civilizations in the first place.
The idea behind the cavalry was, as I said earlier, to accent the use of bows among the wood elves. Also, I admit such stories like that of Glorfindel inspired me. The unit is exactly the same as the Mannish line, 'cept for 1 extra defense and raised cost.
The difference between the archers and cavalry line is that one obviously has 0 range bombard, a pretty big tactical option, when combined with being able to run away.

Which leads me over to a similar question: why add cavalry for the Easterlings and the Southrons in the fourth era if we are giving them wains and Oliphaunts? They fill the same niche, plus the Oliphaunt (at least) don't need horses.

Didn’t you just answer your question? The Mumak doesn’t need horses, it is much like TLC suggested for the wains, a more defense oriented unit, in many cases completely different than cavalry. I have been wondering whether we should give the unit 2 movement at all.

 

[Mithadan]

By the way, TCH, I don't think your contributions are irrelevant or incoherent. Quite to the contrary, actually. Keep 'em coming.

Boy, I'm an idiot. Seems to me this has happened before, too.

 

[PCHighway]

I saw that Steph started making posts in his units collection.
I'm going to have to ask, wouldn't the Celtic chariot be better than the Gish one? Or are there too many horses?
Tribal archer looks very helpful! In one week will have two new nice-fitting archer units.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The thought of one-move mûmakil had actually occured to me too, but I felt it was a bit more radical than was likely to be received enthusiastically. Elephants don't really have the manoeuvrability of cavalry.

And as already said, yes, it's possible, with a mix of luck and skill, to get the AI to build sensible numbers of two units of the same role but different strengths and costs - ACW achieves it with the Brigade and Division class units (Divisions has the same ADM as the corresponding Brigade, but a hefty HP bonus and a defensive bombard).

Having Iron go "commonplace" was, I believe I indicated, meant to combine with higher units requiring some other resource, like timber/coal/charcoal/whatever.

Southron 3rd Age bronze weaponry is a mess and an anomaly. An anomaly, because their ancestors in the 2nd Age are known to've wielded iron blades, and in the third age, their neighbours to the North - Gondor and Mordor - were happily using iron, and a mess because of resource requirements - once you've got the relevant tech, getting hold of copper and, especially, tin, is tougher than iron. Implementation is gonna be a mess pretty much whatever we do, I'm afraid.

No-one commented on my suggestion to make copper a prereq for commercial improvements, to represent copper coins. Anything wrong with it?

I'd prefer not to see the any camel riders included. As someone said, we're not really that short of Mid-East-looking cavalrymen that we need include an entirely hypothetical camel rider to fill out the gaps.

Brought to you by a founding member of The Conformist Highway

 

[Mithadan]

Brought to you by a founding member of The Conformist Highway

I've only got time right now to chuckle at this!

Edit: Okay, I'll make a little more time.

I'm going to have to ask, wouldn't the Celtic chariot be better than the Gish one? Or are there too many horses?

I checked the Slitherine unit lists, and apparently what Steph's got listed as a celtic chariot is really a "Gish Gigir Battle Cart." Same as the Gish Battle Cart, but with two guys inside and four "horses" (onagers, I thought) instead of two. That explains why there's still four wheels (Celtic chariots didn't have that).

Dunno which would be better. I think of wagons as being drawn by two rather than four horses (although there are rodeo chuckwagons, a tad outside our time period! ), so maybe the Gish is better than the Super Gish. However, I like the look of more guys in the cart than less guys. So now what? I need more opinions from you fellers in order for mine to solidify.

Okay, back to exams...

 

[mrtn]

I don’t like copper. Bronze is made from copper and tin, is it not?
Don’t we have the same dilemma with steel? How is it suddenly better to add only one side of a more primitive resource, then to do the same with a more advanced one? What makes copper superior to coal?
I’d rather go for Wimp’s two irons than this, personally.

No, we don't have the same problem with steel.
(Important notice here: The words for carbon and coal are the same in Swedish, so I've confused them. When I said steel needs 2% coal I meant 2% carbon.)
That said, there is no problem at all to get the carbon for the steel, just burn some flowers. The iron is the important part.
Having both copper and tin required for first era units is a very bad idea, as the player isn't that widespread and connected to hook the resources up so early. So I just, completely counterfactual, ignored tin for the sake of gameplay.

Having no-resource units? That’s worse than needing onc resource for all units. We need another resource to add tactics and strategy, taking the resource away defeats a large strategic aspect of the game.

Having a defensive unit in the middle of the tech tree that doesn't require any resources works well in vanilla. It could work for us too.


I can buy a one move Mumakil.

No-one commented on my suggestion to make copper a prereq for commercial improvements, to represent copper coins. Anything wrong with it?

Nothing wrong with it.

Got Reader, have you?

Yes. As some of you might have guessed I have found both the trilogy and Silmarillion in pdf format. If you (general you) are cute I can give it to you. Ask through PM.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Having both copper and tin required for first era units is a very bad idea, as the player isn't that widespread and connected to hook the resources up so early. So I just, completely counterfactual, ignored tin for the sake of gameplay.

If we're going down that path, it would make more sense to make tin the SR, since it's usually been the restricting factor.

(And yes, I know the Egyptians and their ilk substituted arsenic, and got along jolly well sans tin (except for the odd poisoned smith!), but let's just say the Tin resource represents either tin or arsenic. Should keep the realism fanatics happy, shouldn't it?)

 

[mrtn]

Copper seems more intuitive for me, but either or is better than steel.

The newly posted Assyrian cavalry looks good, we should be able to use it somewhere.

Edit: Darn, we missed the one year celebornation of the mod.
LOTM!

 

[AlcTrv]

yeah! Time for a song (dances on table, falls off drunk)

(continues to not have an opinion)

 

[RRnut]

Hello!!

I go away for a week, and look what happens. 3 new pages (in my 40 post for page accounting), a new thread, a new focus (flavor units rather than a simple mannish cavalry line, and a new discussion about resources.

Re: resources, don't really really like having another resource. We had this discussion back in oh thread 7 or 8 or so. will reread the discussion there before making a decision.

re: units. hmm. look back at my unit lists for such grand ideas as one move mumakil. Main thing that I want to know, if we are discussing flavor units, will those units be differentiated in stats?

No time, I'll just say happy birthday,

RRnut

 

[[Ant]Wimp]

Yum yum! Oranges and toothpaste!

If we do go with the 'nickel/chromium/charcoal' approach, how would we include a recourse like that in the game? It really should be needed next to iron for a unit to imply the making of steel, which realy doesnt solve our problem of having every unit require iron.

Does everybody still thinks this is the way to go though? Whats everybodys opinion on this??

Happy bday LotM!

 

[The Last Conformist]

I repeat, I think the best solution is having iron go "commonplace", and have later units require some sort of carbon (coal or timber) to represent steel.

 

[[Ant]Wimp]

but its kinda odd having a knight require timber...

 

[The Last Conformist]

Oddness is in the eye of the beholder. It makes perfect sense to me ...

 

[PCHighway]

It's got to be a new resource. Timber would be stupid as it doesn't solve our game-play problem . Mrtn already stated that coal wouldn't work, as it is inaccurate.

The idea behind your theory is perfectly fine, but unfortunately in this case we have no reason to make timber (around from the beginning of the game) and coal would be inaccurate.

Now adding some new tree-type resource would work.

I'm going to make a post soon on all the compromises I'm willing to make with Mithadan’s suggested graphics.

 

[Mithadan]

I'm going to make a post soon on all the compromises I'm willing to make with Mithadan’s suggested graphics.

Oooh goody! (I'd do that, but I haven't got the time at the moment. The days of long posts are past, for now! ) Make sure BeBro's Generic 12th/13th Century Knight gets knocked off the lists, because as we all agreed with Bebro's French 12th/13th Century Knight, it's too far outside our analogical timeline. (Forgive me for the emphasis! )

Charcoal is slowly burnt wood. Saltpeter is pig poop (and something else, I dunno exactly what). We are accustomed to saltpeter in Epic Civ. Perhaps we could be accustomed to a late game strategic resource called "charcoal," represented by, I dunno, big smouldering turf-covered mounds or charcoal-maker huts. (!!!!!!!!)

Whatever we do, as T. L. C. (I will get it right, dammit, I will!) pointed out, iron would be unnecessary late in the game. It would be "taken for granted." Is iron required to build a battleship in Epic Civ? Noooooo...

 

[The Last Conformist]

So, no charcoal, no coal, no modernistic alloy elements, and no steel resource. Seems like we're screwed. The thing that remains is making Iron run out alot, but that's not particularly sensible either (they went on mining in Moria for millennia).

 

[The Last Conformist]

Saltpeter is pig poop (and something else, I dunno exactly what). We are accustomed to saltpeter in Epic Civ. Perhaps we could be accustomed to a late game strategic resource called "charcoal," represented by, I dunno, big smouldering turf-covered mounds or charcoal-maker huts. (!!!!!!!!)

In defense of saltpeter, guano piles, formed over long periods by the accumulated ****ting of huge bird populations, has actually been mined for it, and was quite a strategic resource back in the 19th C. No wars have been fought over charcoal, but guano deposits in the Atacama was part of the reason for the War of the Pacific.

Edit: Which war is in Swedish sometimes refered to as salpeterkriget, which I hardly need to translate.




(OK, it means "The Saltpeter War".)

 

[Mithadan]

Oh, I had no idea! (I thought pig poop did the trick).

Aww, you didn't have to translate the Swedish. I could get the rough idea, my Germanic language Cousin!

Would "timber" be the best sort of word for the kind of wood used to make charcoal? Or would it be those little stands of thin, softwood trees, like birch or something...not at all what one thinks of when you say "timber" (timber sounds like big trees to saw planks from etc.).

I had a really nice graphic of a little stand of birch trees that I used in Civ 2. Maybe that could work. (Although I think a smouldering pile of turves is cooler... )

 

[the mormegil]

So many posts and so many long ones!

*Removes self from lurking fence*

Resources
I think having copper as a resource is a good idea, if only to provide some variation (which is one of the main aims, no?) and making it required for some commercial buildings is an even better idea, IMO.

Timber as a strategic resource for bow-units? Or is that crazy

Having two different Irons, I don't particularly like the sound of that, though it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Steel etc. - Around the time Mithadan and PCH have argued to be the time ME is set in, what raw materials were used to create steel? Did they mine cola to make it? If they did then it seems the perfect resource to have.

I feel the same about having a tin resource to make bronze, no problem.

Stop me if this is stupid...
What about having a iron/steel resource line for North Western ME and whoever else uses that stuff and a copper/bronze line for whoever uses that stuff.

I don't think we should have resources becoming abundant therefore not needed because there is nothing to replace those resources with. I know resources become redundant in Civ3 but it doesn't really fit in with the whole ME thing. There is no great advance in collection methods in ME and nothing becomes commonplace. Yes I know we have to compromise in fitting ME and Civ3 together but I think that this is too far from ME for me.

Units
(A bit passé but...)
Not bothered too much about the graphics. I can overlook a bit of plate armour, especially for now since there is always the option of requesting units.

I don't think Mumakil should be one move. I would assume they do have the speed of cavalry owing to the fact they are absolutely fudgingg massive.

I would approve of a few non-resource units to give the Civs without resources at least some slight chance in hell.

Numenoreans have super cavalry? Why? Shouldn't they have super ships and archers?



Apologies if I say something that has already been said (or anything just plain stupid), I haven't read through everything in that much detail.