Middle-Earth: Lord of the Mods

[Kindred72]

umm... not to be self promoting, but if you're talking about advanced units like the balrog, dragons and such, I did make a pretty good Ent unit.

 

[Mithadan]

I don't really understand you about the goblins. Remember that goblin is just a different word used in Bilbo before Tolkien invented the word orc.

mrtn-then you should´nt call them goblins if they are the same as orcs.

It's better to call them goblin spearman and orc spearman, rather than orc spearman and advanced orc spearman. Or orc spearman 1 and orc spearman 2. IMNSHO.

Well, that's the funny thing about "Civilization" and Middle Earth. There's not a lot of "advancing" going on, so having "lines" of developping units isn't really condusive to Middle Earthing it. You get the odd "advancement," like breeding the "hai" lines, or the Blasting Fire at Helm's Deep, or Eol's galvorn, but nothing on the scale of ol' Sid Meier's view of history. That's probably what the Fourth age is all about. "Advancement."

Oh well, I won't complain about this mod. I think it looks pretty sweet, a lot better than Tolkien-through-the-lens-of-TSI/Games Workshop-type stuff that could have happened. I'll sure as hell play it! Good work so far, you Ardans.

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by Mithadan
...Oh well, I won't complain about this mod...

Well, we would very much like to hear constructive criticism. And if it's not constructive, I could always rip your head off.
And the sooner we hear it, the sooner we can do something about it.
Kindred72: If Conquests give us some kind of scripting language, the Ents is in like a shot. If they don't give us any scripting, then we're in a different boat. And I won't promise anything about it. I really like your Ent, so I'm hoping for scripting.

 

[PCHighway]

Mrtn answered most of Yoda questions. And Yoda, it’s better to have them goblins, I actually remember Gandalf saying something about them being ‘smaller’ Orcs. Perhaps only they Rode Wargs because they were small enough?

Celeborn- That looks Freaking amazing!! Just one thing, is that the grassland I see beneath the cracks? Maybe if you used a grey sort of underlining, so it doesn’t look so pronounced? This might be to much trouble, but then again a filter might be able to handle it. Don’t worry about it if it is. And remember, if you decide to make a Marsh, don’t make it a ‘dead’ marsh, just regular Marsh graphics. We can put some resource\overlays over it to make it more customized.

Mrtn- Whats this talk about It looking strange in Gondor? I got your PM, but it was to late .

Doc M - The way we (or I) envisioned it, the First era would start a little bit before the arrival of Men. This would be a sort of primitive age. The arrival of Men took place in the First age. We would simply call it: The First age. Then the Next Era would be The Second Age. This is the longest most detailed age ‘chronicled’ by Tolkien, so I thought we should split it into two Era’s. The first part, perhaps titled: Age of the Rings? And the Second part could be: The Age of Númenor? Then this would go into the longest age *tech wise) called, quite obviously: The Third Age. So it would go like this:

First Age
Age of the Rings
Age of the Númenóreans
Third Age

Perhaps its wouldn’t be good to call the middle two eras ‘ages’ as they were actually only one. Perhaps: The Time of....

And yes, we will include all the Tolkien fantasy units we can get our grubby little hands on, the Urk Hai warrior, as Mrtn thought, could be either a UU or a stand alone unit.

Noldodan- I would much rather add to the attack of the main offenders than subtract from the Defenders. Mordor is not supposed to have as good as units as the Men (except stand alone units). If I gave Men only 2 attack, I would have to have given Orcs main First age Defender, only 2 attack. Which is supposed to last Mordor for TWO ages . I agree with the Lancer, but had trouble putting in a good place, I was thinking it would be better as a Rohan unit. I like the idea about the Elves, so i will change that. It is tricky business giving Hp to attackers, especially Men, as I wanted to keep them down for the first age. Did you know, with a +3HPB a Civ3 warrior has a good chance a beating a pikeman? HPB are tricky things to work with. I agree with Yoda, and if someone makes a Olog-hai we can use it for an offensive Cave Troll, not having to make the regular Cave Troll better on attack.

Mithadan- Mrtn came up with the idea of not having Elves and Orcs unit upgrade, so in many cases, they aren’t actually unit lines . It will make them have weak and strong units running around, and IMO his idea is a great one.

Kindred72- We have every intention of using your great unit! And most likely as you say. We haven’t let any of your units slip, most of the units will be used as stand alone (SAU) ones anyway.

Doc M, forgot to mention, Level used to use 3D studio, he made a tutorial.
3D unit tutorial by level

If Mrtn already mentioned it, I must have missed it.

Sorry for the late replies, I have a busy weekend.

EDIT, ditto on what Mrtn said, the Ent will most likely be included in the Scenario, as perhaps Immobile units? Unless of course, as Mrtn mentioned, scripting is added.

 

[SoCalian]

Dragon barbarians mabey?

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by PCHighway
...Mrtn- Whats this talk about It looking strange in Gondor? I got your PM, but it was to late .

What I tried to communicate is that I think that the desert graphics is not only used as desert but also as coastline graphics. And if you look closely at the preview you see that the coastline in the lower left side looks like the 'Mordor graphics'. And if you want to see problems with terrain graphics, check the Alexander the Great thread over there=>. I think it might be best to just make it a modification of the desert gfx, so that you can keep the 'fringe' gfx the same.

Originally posted by PCHighway ...First Age
Age of the Rings
Age of the Númenóreans
Third Age

Perhaps its wouldn’t be good to call the middle two eras ‘ages’ as they were actually only one. Perhaps: The Time of....

Yeah, we'll have to think about this.

Originally posted by PCHighway And yes, we will include all the Tolkien fantasy units we can get our grubby little hands on, the Urk Hai warrior, as Mrtn thought, could be either a UU or a stand alone unit....

Muahaha! I might clean my hands sometime, but don't think about it too much.
Don't think of these unit lines as the only units in the mod, but rather like something to base the discussions on.

 

[Celeborn]

i may not be able to be very active the next 2 weeks...

and i'll try to work out the kinks in my desert...

anyway i made it in 5-10 mins so dont expect it too be the best ...

 

[Doc M]

I have seen tutorial a long time ago that Level made and it's very good and has some very useful things, but I was looking for some tutorial that explains IK animation in MAX.
Anyway,somewhere in next 3 weeks I'm going on 3D Studio MAX course, after that, watch out for my units . In the meantime I'll try to learn by myself.

 

[Celeborn]

hmmm...

i noticed the coast problem...

i'll have to fix that...

*ponders ways in which this could be fixed*

and why has there only been one post since my last one yesterday, you guys are losing your touch

 

[embryodead]

it's long, but please read
I'm not Tolkien specialist, but I always had the impression that goblins were smaller orcs. Anyway, there is (or rather was) a card game based on Middle Earth world - ME:TW (and ME:LD) - not the new game with pictures from the movie!. It is really awesome, made with extreme detail, research and so on. Almost every card has some quote from one of Tolkien's book, more or less matching the card idea. The game is awesome, because of its size, details, graphics etc. - compared to it, the new card game based on the movie is CRAP.
OK, time to get to the point...
Here are few examples of goblinoid factions. Goblins here are counting as orcs, but they form a subgroup. In all graphics, painted by many artists, goblins are smaller version of orcs:

Orcs of Gundabad
Orcs of Moria
Orcs of Dol-Guldur
Orcs of Angmar
Orcs of Gorgoroth
Orcs of Mirkwood
Orcs of Udun
Orcs of the Red Eye
Orcs of Ephel-Duath
Morgul Orcs
Uruk-hai
Goblins of Goblin-gate
Grey Moutain Goblins
Snaga-hai

you see... this game was really enjoyed by Tolkien fans, including people that didn't even played it, just collected the cards because of beautiful graphics and how excellent it resembled details of ME. If you need, I am willing to help using my cards (I have about half of all cards released, should be more than a thousand) - that is enermous list of locations, factions, characters, creatures, events, items.. usually with graphics and some background info.

There is one more thing - the game idea was great, because it allowed you to play your own version of adventures in middle earth, from the good or evil side (or another, balrog's side...). I think you are heading in wrong direction, sticking sticking too much to book's storyline... My suggestion is - prepare the huge world and allow players to interfere - do not make the mod force you to play the world as it was in books...

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by embryodead

...I think you are heading in wrong direction, sticking sticking too much to book's storyline... My suggestion is - prepare the huge world and allow players to interfere - do not make the mod force you to play the world as it was in books...

Remember that most of our posts is about the mod. And that will be quite open-ended, I think. Some of our posts though is about a possible scenario with preplaced units and such. This would be quite close to the books. So check which ideas is for which type of game.

That card game thing might be interesing, but I know too little about it to be able to comment very much.

 

[embryodead]

mrtn,
ok, im content the distiction between mod and scenario is just right. what i meant is that for example ents are a must in the mod, so if you want to limit them to appear only with an event, do it in scenario etc.

as for the card game - i used to show that goblins are perceived mostly as distinctive to orcs (and that's a game by tolkien enterprises not some no0bs ). the help i could give is by posting a list of locations (from cities to special places - ie. wonders, each with approx. location and basic info), creatures, factions and so on... of course this is all in the books but here you have handy glossary of things already gathered and sorted for puprose of a game.

 

[Mithadan]

Any Tolkien-based merchandise has to be licensed by the Saul Zaentz Company ("Tolkien Enterprises," if I'm not mistaken). They own the copyrights to most of the names etc., but that doesn't make them scholars. They lucked out when they made the first cartoon movie back in the sixties, that's all.

That is to say, it certainly is a common perception that goblins are distinct from orcs, but that doesn' t mean the perception will hold up to a study of the texts. It won't. "Goblin" is an English replacement for the word "orc" (which is likely an anglicisation of the Sindarin word "yrch"), used primarily in the Hobbit, more of a kid's book than the Lord of the Rings. Note that "Orcrist" translates as "Goblin-cleaver." It's debatable that "snaga" denotes a type of orc, and isn't just a slur.

But big deal.

Seeing how we need a vocabulary for weaker orc units, I don't see the problem with using "goblin" as a diminutive. It's taking a bit of licence, but hey, this is Civ3. (It's also 3 AM.)

Now, the thing about mods versus scenarios, and all those "factions" from that card game mentioned above. If we're talking scenario (and it doesn't appear to be the case), then there's almost no sense in having "advancement" and "eras" going on. Nobody was discovering new "technologies" during the War of the Ring. Be ye not suprised at Tolkien's resistance to technology. Plus it would have to be sort of questy, with the importance of the ring and all ... sort of like Harlan's Civ2 scenario.

But modding has more room for "civilisation advances." Morgoth bred the orcs (out of elves or men, depending on the dates of the texts yer reading), Eol makes galvorn for himself (only!) and forges two swords out of meteoric (sp?) iron, mithril shows up as the holy mother of all metal-for-armour, Sauron breeds "thoroughbreds" (Uruk-hai and Olog-hai) and builds a serious siege machine, Saruman cross-breeds orcs with humans and mixes up a batch of gunpowder, Ted Sandyman replaces the mill with a smelter-type factory...these are the sorts of "advancement" one comes accross in the thousands of years between the First age and the Fourth. Mostly genetic manipulation (breeding) with regard to "upgrades" to the enemies, mostly belching furnaces with regard to evil's "production," and mostly metalurgical with regard to weaponry. No plate armour, no crossbows, no nothin' really.

So you could have "Evil" breed new kinds of biological monstrosities over the aeons, and at the very end think up the bright idea of blasting fire (i.e., "magic"). Recall also that there was severe animosity between Saruman's orcs and the Mordor orcs (Two Towers, "The Uruk-Hai"), conflict between Cirith Ungol orcs and Barad-dûr orcs (designations escape me), and I believe Orcs of the Eye (Mordor, I suppose) and Orcs from the Misty Mountains had to be forced by Sauron to fight together and not amoungst each other. So another way of "advancement" in addition to "breeding" new unit types might be to "discover" and "subdue" different orc "tribes" or whatever you want to call them, with slightly different stats or whatever. Like some of the "factions" from that card game (although not all, I'd imagine that's a bit much, no?). Course Sauron busied himself with pulling in all the exotic warriors of the South and East, what with their War Elephants and their Wainriders (although I can't confirm Wainriders were in the War of the Ring; they sure ran around a lot in the Second Age, though) and all. You could maybe give "Evil" or "Mordor" or "Sauron" the ability to build Variags and Haradrim and whatever other subdivisions and synonyms you'd like to throw in for spice, sort of like "discovering" and "subduing" human races amenable to the Dark Lord...

The sort of advancements you'd give the Elves over the Ages, or Men before the Fourth Age, I can't imagine. Maybe the three Elven rings would be something of a "discovery," but more in the sense of a "Wonder" perhaps... Man would develop military "technology" (i.e., how to make swords better, or whatever) from contact with Elves, or Dwarves for that matter -- hence the Numenorean's "advancement"...

See, there's just not much civilisation going on in any pre-history, actual or Tolkien-styled. It's tough, I think, to think "tech-trees" in a literal sense here. Maybe "techs" just need to be reinterpreted somehow.

Ugh, it's too fricking late for me to make any sense. Sorry for all this. I doubt any of it's helpful.

Have fun. I will surely play this mod when it comes out. I'm happy to see it's in the hands of some decent Tol-keeners!

 

[PCHighway]

Mithadan, your post is well written, and I see we have something in common, as I would say you think better after being up late . But your post is also confusing, you seem to be musing about the Tech tree there, so I will address it. It is difficult, from a Modders perspective, to name the tech tree after specific things. For instance, it involves rethinking and foreseeing many possible branches, how it could go wrong, what it would lead to things like this. What would researching a form of Orc\Men breeding do for the Dwarves? Sure it lets Mordor and Isengard be able to build Uruk Hai, but what for the other races? Perhaps they get a new unit upon the ushering of stronger Orcs? But which one, and why call it Orc\Men breeding? (insert better name here). Same thing with a ‘the subduing of the Southrons’.

I used Goblins simply because I didn’t have any other names, yet no one can deny, whether they be a diminutive form of Orcs, for a different name, there is a significant difference between the Goblins of the Hobbit, and the Orcs of Lord of the Rings. Most likely because Tolkien, as he has said many times, wasn’t completely sure how the Hobbit would fit into his ‘universe’.
To be honest, I couldn’t name all the different Orc tribes to you, I have vague memories of where to find them in the book, but that’s about it. If it is necessary, I wouldn’t mind looking them up and re-naming the Goblins after one of the weaker tribes.

Mod Types
Random Map Mod (regular)

Middle Earth (map of LotR, with specific placed things [like dragons])

Lord Of the Rings quest (You can only choose out of 3 Civs, though the rest make an appearance, but depending on the Civ you choose, you have a specific Victory cond.)

I have lofty expectations for the MOD, that I realize isn’t really realistic. Unlike other fantasies (I like open endedness in some cases, don’t get me wrong) but with LotR, my attraction is it’s epic history, and re-living such moments. But not everyone has my acquired tastes, and I realize that. I had planned on making 3 versions of the Mod, all spin offs. My own personal version of the MOD, (the one with lofty expectations ) would be as real as possible, if you played as Isengard, you would start with Men units, and get new units as you turned ‘evil’, this MOD wouldn’t be balanced, but thats the way I like it. This Mod is, quite obviously, my last priority, and never would be finished, in the sense of the word.

embryodead, I see what you mean, it would be unfair to limit an Ent to only the scenario. But I warn you, if we add them to the Regular game, they will be seriously handicapped. It amazes me, that so much of my hope depends on what Civ3 conquests can offer. .
Hopefully it will give us the option to require a building to build certain units. If so, we could make a wonder, which can only be built once, thus only one city would be able to build the unit (whoever has the wonder). But then this, again depends on hoping C3C gives us the ability to make certain wonders only built by certain Civs, so it would work outside of a Scenario, in a RM. The Cards should be helpful, (1.000!) especially for Wonders, we can question their accuracy later.

Celeborn-
And why has there only been one post since my last one yesterday, you guys are losing your touch

I said I had a busy weekend didn’t I . Busy, as in stuffing my face, sleeping to the point of delirium, and actually playing a game or to instead of just modding them . BTW I am off for Monday and Tuesday, so I am counting that as part of the weekend.

Mrtn- Clean hands? In any case, I agree with you about units, there will be much more than just the lines people!
We are just getting warmed up in that department.


Lets talk wonders.
(I don’t have the energy to think of the Dwarven unit line today, so this is the easy way out )
Any one think of some? I’ll just through them out there, important things that grabbed me in the books and things I’ve read. In no particular order.

Stone of Erech (Gondor Wonder)
Meduseld (Rohan Wonder)
Stair falls (Dwarves wonder)
Mathom-house (Hobbit ‘Museum’)
Dimrill gate (Moria Gate)
Amon Hen (Any of them would do, or all collectively)
North Road Of Eriador
Orthanc(?)
Rauros (as a meeting place)
Barad-Dûr (?)
Annûminas (or city?)
Minas Arnor (or a city?)
Red Book of Westmarch\Thain’s Book (?)
Zirak-zigil (Slivertine\Celebdil)
Durin’s Stone

I have been thinking about cities, and have decided there are more than enough Hobbit (Shire) Cities to make it it’s own Civ, but we should include Bree, as mrtn mentioned earlier.

[EDIT- Should we use Embyodeads great English Pikeman, for the Men's 'armored pikeman' unit, instead of the un-Tolkienesque Civ3 graphics?]

 

[Celeborn]

I would've liked to see the trees of the valinor but since we do not start in ages of starlight they wont work now...

BAH!

spy small wonder = palantiri...

 

[Fier Canadien]

Yet something like the "White Tree" small wonder could quite recreate the feel of the Two Trees.

For those that don't know, the White trees of both Minas Anor and Minas Ithil were offsprings of Telperion. And the "Mallorn" trees are of undefinite nature. All we know about the is that they came from Aman and were given to the Adùnaïc people by some Teleri marineers during the Second Age.

Such a small wonder could produce a happiness bonus, like the Hanging Gardens of the Bach Cathedral.

 

[Mithadan]

Well, I'm glad my lengthy nocturnal post wasn't completely useless.

Regarding the researching of Evil crud, yeah, it wouldn't do much for Dwarves etc. (unless they went evil, but that's silly when it comes to reliving the epic). I guess we'd want Civ-specific tech trees then. What I was getting at generally was that there's not a whole lot of room for much advancement at all. Dwarves have been smithying about for thousands of years, and haven't gotten past chain mail, for example. That's all. Just an irony of taking a technophobic world like Middle Earth and modding it onto a technophiliac game like Civ. Makes things difficult, seems to me, and I only had the weakest suggestions for how to try and overcome that.

Absolutely, use "Goblins" because there aren't any other names. Fine with me, as I think I've said. Given that we're going to have to make concessions in order to map Middle Earth onto Civ3, it's no big deal. It's but a scholarly point, I suppose, to decry the perception that "goblins" are some other "breed" distinct from "orcs." They aren't. The first's a synonym for the second. As unsure as Tolkien was initially about how the Hobbit might fit in with the rest of his corpus, he was intensely concerned with maintaining consistency throughout. One of his biggest tasks in incorporating the Hobbit into the rest of his myth was not translating the kiddie "goblin" vocabulary into the more sophisticated "orc" vocabulary (sophisticated orcs? My language is twisting all around me!). It might be a lot cooler, though, to replace the term "goblin" (as denoting a weaker orc-unit) with "Mountain Orc" or "Gundabad Orc" or "Moria Orc" or whatever. Maybe "Orcs of the Eye" or "Morgul Orcs" or "Mundburg Orcs" or "Lugburz Orcs" (I can't remember the Black-Speech names for Isengard and Barad-dûr, sorry!) are tougher than the more "independent" bands running around out of the direct thumb-range of the corrupt Maiar. I guess changing the names to tribes might be better, after all. No wonder I'm confusing, I realize things as I write! (I still haven't recovered from my late night.)

But how you do this with prerequisite techs that aren't available to Dwarves etc. is the prerennial problem noted above.

I'm glad to see that the modding is with a view to the First through to the Third (at least) Ages, that allows for as much breadth as possible, which is the best chance for mapping Middle-Earth onto a civilization paradigm.

How are you going to allow for the sinking of Numenor and Beleriand, though?

Again, many congratulations on the dedicated and good work apparently done so far.

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by PCHighway
Mithadan, your post is well written, and I see we have something in common, as I would say you think better after being up late . But your post is also confusing, you seem to be musing about the Tech tree there, so I will address it. ...
I used Goblins simply because I didn’t have any other names, yet no one can deny, whether they be a diminutive form of Orcs, for a different name, there is a significant difference between the Goblins of the Hobbit, and the Orcs of Lord of the Rings.
...I have been thinking about cities, and have decided there are more than enough Hobbit (Shire) Cities to make it it’s own Civ, but we should include Bree, as mrtn mentioned earlier.

[EDIT- Should we use Embyodeads great English Pikeman, for the Men's 'armored pikeman' unit, instead of the un-Tolkienesque Civ3 graphics?]

Mithadan, nice post. About the tech tree, we can make so that we have quite many techs which aren't needed for era advancement. The Elves and Dwarves can research Mithril Working to build some special unit, while Mordor researches Orc Breeding which gives a new orc unit. Or something like that.

This is enough talk about goblins I think.

The thing with making one civ out of Shire and/or Arnor and/or Eriador is also that Eriador don't have very many city names. From the top of my head I can think of Tharbad and that's the only one. As we only have one hobbit unit we need to use human units, so they should also get some of the human cities.

And of course we should use embryodead's pikeman.

And, Mithadan:
Uncle Eru wants YOU!

EDIT: I think we will/should use the Second to third age, not the First.

 

[Mithadan]

Agreed about the goblin talk. Enough is enough!

*Mithadan slaps his own wrist*

I can't turn uncle Eru down, either. So now what? My entire Tolkien library is boxed up back in Alberta (where my spirit is), so I'm no use with doing any textual research -- save what I can remember (not so reliable) and what I can scam off my friends on other Tolkien boards (they're usually brilliant, but it is a roundabout way of doing things, no?). I don't know Richard-all about making graphics; I can't even make decent Civ2 units! So I guess that leaves me making comments hopefully not to the undying annoyance of the people who do the real work!

Eriador's pretty empty. I wouldn't want it to be filled with a single civ, let alone a whole lot of civs. Oh, whoops, yeah, I forgot we're starting in the second age. Arnor. Eriador used to be full. What has been said about Gondor and Arnor? Hmm, boy, it would be really handy to have forced diplomacy already...and I hope there's more than just that to look forward to in Conquests! I wonder if you could force empires to split too, that would be sweet. We really need scripts, don't we?

Humdeehumdeehum. I guess it would be best to keep Gondor and Arnor separate. The Shire was included in the Arnor, but outlasted it. If we could keep the Shire as its own "hobbit" civ, but force it to ally with Arnor.... I think Arnor split into various realms after a while. Something to do with Angmar? There should be a city name for each splinter-realm at least -- so for names there's a few options (Annúminas, Fornost, Amon Sûl, I think we could go in this direction). What to do about Dunland, south of Tharbad? Arnor probably ruled them back in the day of the united kingdom (whatever it's called), at least. Dunlendings are basically "barbarians" in Civ talk, but it would be fun to have them as playable. City names for them would be pure speculation. There's Dwarves in the Blue Mountains, too, I do believe. Isn't that where Thorin was coming from when he stopped in at Bag End one fateful day?

So...

Elves in Lindon and Imladris and Hollin
Dwarves in the Ered Luin
Hobbits in the Shire etc.
Men in Arnor and Dunland
The Witch-King and his cronies in Angmar -- that should cover Gundabad and the Orcs of the Mistys rather nicely...

Now how to empty out Eriador towards the Third Age? Can we force the Witch King (or whatever civ represents him) to just raze cities, instead of occupying them? (Do razed cities turn into ruins in Conquests? That would be a nice touch.) Very interesting.

Well, on to the next thought.

Having no First Age is fine with me too, but the sinking of Numenor and Beleriand didn't happen until mid-way through the Second Age (if I remember correctly, the Second Age ended when Sauron was defeated by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men). So unless we start our mod after the Akallabeth (where do my circumflexes go?), we'll need a SERIOUS disaster script to wipe out half the map! (Cool...!)

Well, that's enough for now. I need to chew.

 

[Celeborn]

Beleriand sunk when the second age began...

Numenor sunk ay the begining of the thrid age...

I personally think that we should have the first age of the sun...