Middle-Earth: Lord of the Mods (XIII)

[Quibish]

Hmmm...

I rather like Mrtn's suggestion, very workable.

 

[PCHighway]

Yeah, I also think Noldor cities should be different to the more earthbound (aka forest hippie) elves.
One possibility is to make it like this:
High: Gondor, Arnor, Númenor, Noldor
Middle-Low: Rohan, Northmen, Isengard, Easterlings, Harad, The Shire
Dwarves: Dwarves
Evil:Mordor, Angmar
Grey and Dark Elves: Sindar, Moriquendi

If the popHeads for the High guys are beardless it should work to put the Noldor with the men.
This way the Moriquendi and Sindar can use the elf city gfx I made.
The High can possibly use the cities aaglo made a while back.

I have no complaint with this, but I don't see why the Sindar and Moriquendi should have trees as buildings, in the graphics you suggested. I don't see why the Sindar and Moriquendi's city graphics should look that extremely different, either. The Sindar and Moriquendi did not live in trees AFAIK.

This is a list of which culture groups will be replacing which-
Dwarves: American
Elves: European
Evil: Mediterranean
High: Mid East
Middle-Low: Asian

Barbarian listings will be a problem. If we use "Bandits" we can add a lot of practical and logical flavor to the MOD. If we choose to have beasts we can't do that. All barbarians will be named one thing.
Also, has anyone thought of a Naval barbarian unit? If we choose to go with beasts, we will be forced to use the squid. That isn't a good thing, and very inaccurate.

Vote:
Who wants wild beasts?
Who wants bandits?
Who wants something else?

 

[The Last Conformist]

I'm for bandits. Nasty as wargs and the like may have been, having them represent a real threat to military units feels wrong.

 

[PCHighway]

Do you think the word "bandit" itself not a good choice, The Last Conformist? Do you have some other suggestions?
Highwaymen, outlaws, brigands, plunderers, ravagers, pillagers.

Do you know of an Old English word that would fit the bill?

 

[tjedge1]

I would go for human type barbarians and a pirate ship of some kind.

 

[AlcTrv]

Come on, we need Corsairs as the sea barbarians! And we could always do spiders as a barbarian unit Or at least one of them. Ungoliant at least... but whatever, my vote is for bandits

 

[The Last Conformist]

Do you think the word "bandit" itself not a good choice, The Last Conformist? Do you have some other suggestions?
Highwaymen, outlaws, brigands, plunderers, ravagers, pillagers.

Did I imply I didn't like it? I think it's OK, and better than the ones you listed here.

Do you know of an Old English word that would fit the bill?

Not off-hand. Could do a bit of research, tho.

Edit: Waitaminit! Are we talking names to replace "barbarian", or to replace the various tribe names (Uzbek, Assyrian, Goth, etc)?

 

[PCHighway]

We are talking names to replace the word "Barbarian".
Mrtn thinks "Bandit(s)" is too "American West."

 

[The Last Conformist]

He does? I don't have any very specific associations with the word.

Well, what else could we have? "Marauders"?

 

[odintheking]

"Brigands" is good

 

[Olorin0222]

Maybe "Raiders" will work.

 

[[Ant]Wimp]

Im for the human type barbs, perhaps call them brigands

 

[mrtn]

I don't want the squids. Having said that I'd like wargs and spiders. The sea barb could be either a corsair or a (yet unmade) storm.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Should we perhaps refine the vote to wild creatures vs humans (presumably including darkelves and loose bands of orcs, but you get the point), and only if the second wins worry about whether they're to be called "bandits" or "brigands" or "accountants"?

 

[Olorin0222]

I think I would prefer humans. What we could do is give the "Barbarians" a certain number of wargs and spiders at the beginning of the game, so that they are in play to begin with but unable to be rebuilt. I also think that "corsair" should be a Haradrim UU, not a barbarian.

 

[Noldodan]

Corsairs wouldn't really work as the sea barbarians because when they went out to sea, it was always for a specific purpose, and this was almost always to land troops in and/or attack Gondor. Also, the Corsairs didn't even exist until the mid-Third Age, so its unrealistic to have them as barbarians from the beginning.

 

[RRnut]

Hello!

I've said this before, I'll say it again, I do not like barbs being humans! The reason? In ME, brigands, robbers, ruffians, accountants, etc. attack good peoples. They are in league with evil peoples. Wolves, spiders, and other such beasties attack indiscriminately, both good and evil peoples.

Civ3 barbs attack all peoples including the "evil races."
ME brigands and robbers only attacked good people.
Therefore ME brigands and robbers cannot be represented by CIV3 Barbs.

So i reccommend that barbs are:
Wolves for basic barb, perhaps wolf pack?
Spider for advanced barb.
Storm for sea barb.

The storm would also help represent the conditions during the ban of the Valar, quite a decent bit of realism. Give them quite high stats, about the same as an elvish ship of the period.

If everybody else decides that human barbs are the way to go, then make call them brigands or ruffians. however, I think that a better use for them would be to make them hidden nationality units 2-1-2 ATAR low cost in 4th era available to evil civs. would make good raiders that would be useful for raiding for workers and such things.

Oh yes, I do not think that tree'd cities are good for all the Sindar and Moriquendi. IMHO Lorien would be about the only example of that. Perhaps use them for the villiages, then do we have a grey stone city graphics, with trees included, for the city and metropolises?

RRnut

 

[The Last Conformist]

I can't say I can think of much mention of brigands and the like at all, but the bad peoples were perfectly happy to fight with one another. Wainrider invasion of Khand comes to mind, as do the internal fighting among the Haradrim. I think we can take for granted that whatever bandits existed away in the East and South did not care about the lacking moral purity of their neighbours, but robbed them anyway.

 

[Olorin0222]

I agree with TLC. Especially during the Third Age before the Necromancer returned, Orcs formed separate kingdoms and fought each other or good people e.g. Battle of Five Armies. It's not above bad guys to fight each other.

 

[PCHighway]

I've said this before, I'll say it again, I do not like barbs being humans! The reason? In ME, brigands, robbers, ruffians, accountants, etc. attack good peoples. They are in league with evil peoples. Wolves, spiders, and other such beasties attack indiscriminately, both good and evil peoples.

Not at all, as The Last Conformist pointed out this is a major falsehood. In LotR you may remember the battle between Shagrat's forces and Gorbag's. Orcs themselves held no specific allegiances to each other; in fact I think Sauron wanted as much violence in their lives as possible. That being said, you could argue that Sauron allowed Shelob was allowed to live for a similar reason. She was a vigilant guard for his borders, unknowingly or not. You could make just as much of a case that bandits never attacked badies as you could for beasts being part of Morgoth's overall plan.

Civ3 barbs attack all peoples including the "evil races."
ME brigands and robbers only attacked good people.
Therefore ME brigands and robbers cannot be represented by CIV3 Barbs.

Not true, again. The group under Turin had a conflict with the Orcs of Angbad. The Orcs slew one of the outlaw scouts as well. By the looks of it the outlaws had no love for Orcs, and no dealings of alliance whatsoever. An outlaw in LotR is like an outlaw in reality. They would attack whoever they could if it would be fruitful.

Wolves however were often the steeds of Goblins, and they besieged Gandalf & co. in The Hobbit, they also helped to force the Fellowship to go through Moria. Wolves had 10X more allegiance to Mordor than any outlaws.

So i reccommend that barbs are:
Wolves for basic barb, perhaps wolf pack?
Spider for advanced barb.
Storm for sea barb.

What you suggest would do the following:
1.) Take units away from Angmar.
2.) Try and use a unit that doesn't exist.
3.) Take away all sorts of flavor of the names of Barbarian Tribes in the MOD.

The storm would also help represent the conditions during the ban of the Valar, quite a decent bit of realism. Give them quite high stats, about the same as an elvish ship of the period.

A storm would be cool. In a scenario.
How exactly would a unit look attempting to fight a Storm? A Storm unit would need very special conditioning in order to work correctly. You will get AI attempting to HUNT down storms. You will get the Storms attacking ships by your coast. None of that is historically accurate for the Ban of the Valar.
The only available graphics for a "beast" type of unit would be the Squid. A man operated ships spawning from Wolf and Spider camps is lame!

If everybody else decides that human barbs are the way to go, then make call them brigands or ruffians. however, I think that a better use for them would be to make them hidden nationality units 2-1-2 ATAR low cost in 4th era available to evil civs. would make good raiders that would be useful for raiding for workers and such things.

Why would Mordor be able to use Outlaws? Outlaws are bandits, which did not ally with anyone.

Vote tally:
Who wants wild beasts? II (2)
Who wants bandits? IIIIIII (7)
Who wants something else?

Maybe we should do as TLC says and refine the vote.