Nature/Ents/Tom Bombadil

[Pariah]

I'll give it a go...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yes, that would fit. The mother of all giant spiders, Ungoliant, was originally a servant of Melkor, but turned against him. Some should serve the Shadow, some should be wild.

I'd say that Ungoliant was for a time an ally of Melkor, not a servant. Melkor himself was rather afraid of her. Ungoliant was actually a rather powerful Maia who fell on her own (she rebelled just like Melkor did, but was never one of his followers. She was arguably more evil than either dark lord), capable of consuming light and "emitting darkness so deep it was a substance of its own, not merely the absence of light" (I forget the exact wording), but there were other giant spiders that were merely animals. She mated with one, and created a race of spiders (ending with Shelob) that was partially supernatural.

I don't see Giant spiders as buildable units. Having one barbarian (or possibly shadow) hero with the ability to spawn more would be better.



Honestly, I have trouble seeing how Tom Bombadil can fit in the game as a unit; I would rather he be limited to a series of events, which won't necessarily have much impact on the game.

I'm undecided out how how to implement the Ents (their own civ, barbs, spwned by events, etc)


It wouldn't be particularly hard to have a unit spawn randomly, but there could be trouble with making a Watcher be able to move in water and rivers. I guess you could make it able to move on "all tiles" and then restrict its movement to those next to rivers (probably requiring SDK changes). Of course, you could also try changing rivers to be water tiles instead of a feature between tiles (possibly a good idea seeing as how many were navigable and hard to cross), but that would be a pretty major change from the way Civ IV works now (I guess you could handle most of it by using custom maps with long tin sections of coasts).

 

[thomas.berubeg]

thanks

glad to see you here magister.

That's a good idea about having ungoliant spawn the spiders. (maybe ungoliant could be randomly barbarian or shadow?)

 

[cornerback24]

"Power to defy our enemy is not in him." - Galdor, councilor of Elrond. It would be better to maybe make him somehow be a "safe" for the ringbearer. Perhaps by stealthing him. I don't know if we have ringbearer functionality though.

Tom is not affected by the ring, nor he cares about it... what does he actually do is shelter the ringbearer and his fellows... and then save them once again as they get chanted on their way out of his place towards Bree (btw I might muff some nomenclature since in the Italian version the names and places are different.. sorry about that)...
Couldn't he activate a promotion-like thing on the ringbearer, like medicine or march? He could popup (invisibel goody hut?) as you enter a choosen or casual forest spot and then disappear forever (maybe sticking with the ringbearer unit as the Great General does, a "blessed by Tom" tag?)... Otherwise, since (don't remember the exact words) he was on here before everybody else and will still be there when everybody else is gone, he could just move into another foerst spot until someone else finds him, all the way through the game?

p.s. HI everybody, this place is coooool!!!

 

[rocklikeafool]

Ya know, in both the LotR books and the 2 LotR games, Tom Bombadil was very, very minor. He never had more impact than the Trolls Bilbo and the Dwarves met in The Hobbit. Cuz of that, I'd leave him out. Yeah, he sounds cool to have, but puttin such an insignificant character (don't even try to argue that he isn't insignificant) in this mod makes little sense. If ya put in every single hero possible, then you'd have over 100 heroes. That jus makes it utterly cluttered.

 

[cornerback24]

(don't even try to argue that he isn't insignificant)

I won't... I guess significancy is up to the reader's thought... after all, Tom wasn't mentioned in the movies, and they were grat even if they didn't stick up with the original story...
but you're probably right about the game... sigh...
but still... would a "some of your workers in the woods near [cityname] met a strange friendly fellow named Tom and your forest gives +1 happy face" occuring event be a fair enough compromise?

 

[rocklikeafool]

Yeah, that would work well. That mentions him and makes it so he's there but not too big. Yeah, I like that.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I agree.
I can foresee a whole series of events base on him... giving major bonuses, but not game breaking ones.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Why a series? Maybe ya should explain. And possibly outline how the series would go?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

when i say series i mean a whole selection of events. (maybe a chain, but maybe not...)

 

[rocklikeafool]

And I'm wonderin if you could please layout that series. i.e. Event 1, Event 2, etc. Then we could see those events and wat they do.

One event could be that if evil invades the Shire, Tom Bombadil is spawned as a unit with lvl 5 strength and 2 movement and maybe promotions to give bonuses and a spell or two. Then when evil leaves the Shire, he disappears. This event could be repeated every time evil invades the Shire, unless Tom is killed by evil.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

for exmplae...

I'de have to think out a few, but i'll do so eventually.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Ok, fair nough. Wat ya think of mine? (See above.)

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I think it's a good idea, but i don't see how to do it.


edit: more and more, i'm thinking we should use the FFH code to start off, as there is a mechanic that would do that...

do you have anymore ideas?

 

[rocklikeafool]

FfH code is the best code to use for a mod that's goin to be as dynamic as this one. I know we use it for Dragonia.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

There are better codes to use than FfH's: FfH modmods. Xienwolf's xml modcomp adds a lot of useful things.


I still oppose having Tom Bombadil ever being a unit, but think some Bombadil events are a must. Some might have a huge impact on the game, while others are purely for entertainment.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Which one would you recomend? xienwolfs? (i've never even palyed his modmod... )

 

[MagisterCultuum]

His isn't really a modmod, it is a modcomp. Its mostly SDK/xml schema changes, with just a few examples of how new tags can be used. It isn't designed to be balanced or fun to play. The point is mostly to make and share changes in the base code that will make modmods better. He is planning to release his own modmod using it, sometime soon, but won't release details on what it will include.


xienwolfs modcomp would probably be a good base, but is is still changing. There is a long list of things I've requested on the third post, along with a couple suggestions by others. Those things may or may not be added.

If you want a more complex alignment system based on actions instead of just religion, them Broader Alignments is a must. Unfortunately Grey Fox has not updated it to 0.32, and doesn;t really plan to keep working on it (except for combined with his Commanders modmod, I guess).

Fall Further might be a good choice too. The latest version includes Broader Alignments and Xienwolf's xml modcomp (not the latest version of the modcomp though. It doesn't have anything related to Duration or dynamic UUs)

 

[OttoVonBismark]

Mirkwood could be this huge, huge place where half of your units die

well... i the outsider think if you want that effect, you should have spiders. spiders that can only travel in forrest. remember, the elvenking did just fine in mirkwood. then again i just saw this post and probably got this completely out of context and don't know what i'm talking about... like with gandalf...

 

[thomas.berubeg]

no, no... that's okay. If i recall correctly, spiders in ffh can only travel on forest