Wonders

[Sovin nai]

Why don't you use the 'good,' 'evil,' and 'neutral,' things as civics, and use something completely different as religions. Nothing says that religions have to be religions. For example, you could use dwarves, elves, halflings, half-elves, orcs, humans, etc, as the religions. They would actually spread, unlike the 'religions' of good vs. evil. They would only spread through conquest.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

that might work. we'll wait until Elda King can decide, but i like the idea.

 

[Love]

Or whith culture...

 

[Elda King]

Does "black & white" mean only two religions? That would be simpler, of course, but might disappoint user who are accustomed to Civ4's normal 7 religions.

I know what you mean about not filling the spaces, though. Some purists don't like seeing their favourite works adulterated. However: if this is to be a modpack & not a single scenario, it must have scope for creating many divergent worlds within the style of Tolkien's world (which was only 1 possible history for Arda, without even envoking variable geography).

Do you plan to involve the eastern & southern civilizations in the role-playing Arda of the Guild Companion? Such as the Chyan Empire, Bellakar, Mumakan, the elves of Luindor, the Empires of Urd and Womaw? A whole-world Tolkien simulation could include also the work of other hands - and those races would clearly have religions of their own.

Well, we plan to have "religions" more like an alignment system: you can have the "bless" of the Valar and the great development of your people sub-creativity by coming from Valinor or intense cultural intercourse with the elves (like the Edain in the first age, for example). It's the Light of Aman religion that spreads in your cities. Or you may be corrupted by the emissaries of Morgoth/Sauron, tricked to believe in their lies, like the Haradrim or Númenor (after Sauron go there): the Worship the Darkness religion spreads quickly over your empire. You also have the possibility to develop a culture that, even wihout direct contact with the Valar, knows and respects Ilúvatar, living in peace and ofering Him the first fruits of each season (like the early numenoreans): you may found the Reverence for Eru religion.
The idea was to have a "racial" civic that made it very difficult for elves to adopt a religion other than the Light of Aman (suposing that specific elven civ founds it), using the "no non-state spread" thing: if they don't found the religion, it doesn't spreads, they don't adopt it, and stay neutral or good the rest of the game. The dwarves and men wouldn't have this, and so would be susceptible to the first religion to spread in their cities, or even to more than one (though it should cause conflicts and unhappiness in cities). But the alignment civic works fine, we could simply put the Elves to be good, the Shadow to be evil, and other to be neutral - possibly changing at some point. Also, I think we could include a "dwarven religion", something like "Family/Acestorship Loyalty" or even "Respect for the Creator", thought that would be too much vala-worshipping for me.

Now, about filling the gaps, I think that simply letting some things more general (like, who build each wonder, each hero, who make war upon who, wich civs are in each game, who founds religions, etc) would sufice to make alternative Ardas. I'd rather not give options that are not in the books. I've even seen some of those adaptations made for MERP, but I didn't like them at all: they had things that don't fit into ME, like powerful mages and even some bad elves. It's probably better to avoid inventing, and just deduce when it comes to something we don't know about ME.

 

[Pariah]

OOPS! Duplicate post... sorry.

 

[Pariah]

The idea was to have a "racial" civic that made it very difficult for elves to adopt a religion other than the Light of Aman (suposing that specific elven civ founds it), using the "no non-state spread" thing: if they don't found the religion, it doesn't spreads, they don't adopt it, and stay neutral or good the rest of the game....Also, I think we could include a "dwarven religion", something like "Family/Acestorship Loyalty" or even "Respect for the Creator", thought that would be too much vala-worshipping for me.

If you fix the techs and civics so that the elvish civs have to adopt the Light of Aman religion (which elves? Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, Avari..?) won't they become a bit inflexible to play? I wouldn't want the development of my civ straitjacketed like that. There's no reason elves couldn't be evil: look what Feanor and his sons did when motivated by their oath to reclaim the Silmarils...

The dwarven Ancestor Worship religion sounds OK: Tolkien's dwarves did believe that their kings were reborn in their own descendents, especially the House of Durin. But again, such a religion need not be limited to the Dwarves. Humans, in particular, learned a great deal from other ME races, and certainly borrowed elvish belief systems - so why not dwarven?

The text of the Valaquenta does say that "their names [the Valar] among Men are manifold..." clearly, they are meant as prototypes for the pantheons of various real-world civilizations.

Manwe (sky god) = Zeus/Jupiter/Marduk/Odin;
Ulmo (sea god) = Posidon/Neptune/Tiamat/Jormundgand
Tulkas (divine muscleman) = Herakles/Hercules/Enkidu/Thor... etcetera.

Valar-worship surely happened among the 'lower' Human races of Tolkien's world, who knew of the Valar only by hearsay and "feared the powers, rather than loved them" (The Silmarillion, "Of Men").

 

[Pariah]

It's been 16 days... any more progress on this modpack, folks?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

were waiting for Beyond the sword to start over and hopefully circumnavigate the bugs we had... i will probably start as son as i get BTS (or as soon as i get used to some of the new features)

i will also be gone for two weeks... so that willl slow things down.

 

[T_F]

Hmm, religion ideas...

Something like
Religion (source)

Ilúvatar Worship (elves)
Vala Worship (people who don't know any better)
Melkor Worship (Melkor/Sauron/Númenóreans)
Ancestor-[something] (Dwarves)

We could have it so that religion was set in scenario forms, but was a little more like normal Civ religion in [our] epic game.

Had an idea, posted in the Silmarils thread:

...there should be a wonder like Eärendil's Voyage that you can build in a coastal city with a Silmaril. When it's done, it consumes the Silmaril (thus nullifying anyone's hope of a Silmaril Victory), but allows you to call down the Wrath of the Valar one time on one of your enemies.

Tying that in, perhaps it would only be allowed in a city with Ilúvatar Worship, and only allowed against people without Ilúvatar Worship as their state religion.

 

[Elda King]

If you fix the techs and civics so that the elvish civs have to adopt the Light of Aman religion (which elves? Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, Avari..?) won't they become a bit inflexible to play? I wouldn't want the development of my civ straitjacketed like that. There's no reason elves couldn't be evil: look what Feanor and his sons did when motivated by their oath to reclaim the Silmarils...

The dwarven Ancestor Worship religion sounds OK: Tolkien's dwarves did believe that their kings were reborn in their own descendents, especially the House of Durin. But again, such a religion need not be limited to the Dwarves. Humans, in particular, learned a great deal from other ME races, and certainly borrowed elvish belief systems - so why not dwarven?

Well, the elves can be evil - they need not to adopt the Light of Aman. They just don't serve the shadow, but they can make war between themselves or with the others. And Men can adopt any religion...

 

[xmen510]

If you did something like the Trees of the Valar, they could possibly eliminate say the fog of war aspect. They light the world after all. Also you could have some wonders be multiple projects.

Take Minas Tirith for example. If you used it as a wonder, you could:

1 - The Wall of Pelenor - small bonus to defense and culture.
2 - The Gates of Minas Tirith (Mithril) - bonus to defense and culture
3 thru 9 - The 7 walls and gates of the city - each gives a small bonus for defense.

10 - The great court and fountain - culture bonus
11 - If not already built: The White Tree - culture
12 - The White Tower - bonus to defense (sight) and culture

Just an idea for large multiple part wonders. It would be interesting, but i'm not sure how difficult that kind of thing would be to incorporate. Also you could have multiple resources required to complete it. Stone for the first part. Mithril for the second. Copper, Iron and stone for the 3rd thru 9th parts and all of the previous plus Marble for the 11th and 12th parts.

Or just have it as one wonder but require multiple types of resources to build it.

Another wonder idea is the Caves of Aglarond. They could possibly give you 1 free gems, silver and gold resource and increase culture. It would also grant you a bonus toward a great artist.

What do you think?

 

[Elda King]

Aglarond was in my original idea for the wonders... The effects you sugested are good, only too many.
And we were already planning to have a similar system of defensive buildings (not wonders, just normal buildings - I believe that not all the towers, fortresses and walls should be wonders, there were too many towers and all of them were important): you must start with the basic, and then add more and more buildings. By the way, does anyone know how to remove the cultural defensive bonus (to make the defensive buildings more important, without having to give them huge bonuses and thus unbalance all the combat system)?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

that might be in gameinfos.XML

 

[T_F]

What about a beacons wonder? Don't know what it would do, though.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

something like the great wall? (we could have the beacons poping up on your cultural borders...

 

[T_F]

I figured graphics like that would be involved...
Maybe if we had a system that made contacting other civs more difficult (as you know it was in LOTR), this could make it faster.

 

[Elda King]

The beacons were intended as a building. They could perhaps grant a free sentry promo to units produced in the city, or give a small defense bonus. But making them like the great wall would be cool also - though we already have some wonders that would do so.

 

[xmen510]

What about Dol-Guldur as a Wonder. It is a smaller version of Barad-Dur after all.

You could also have say Sarumans Mines as a version of the Ironworks Wonder with a Middle-Earth Flavor to it.

Another Wonder idea:

Search For The Entwives

Since you have decided to help the Ents in their search they have taught you how to preserve and maintain forests properly. Have the Forest Preserve improvement available only with that wonder and also pershaps enable the National wonder of National Park also only with the Search For The Entwives wonder. I believe that both of these are only available late game. Attaching both of these to the one wonder would allow them to be used in the time period of the game.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

What about Dol-Guldur as a Wonder. It is a smaller version of Barad-Dur after all.

You could also have say Sarumans Mines as a version of the Ironworks Wonder with a Middle-Earth Flavor to it.

Another Wonder idea:

Search For The Entwives

Since you have decided to help the Ents in their search they have taught you how to preserve and maintain forests properly. Have the Forest Preserve improvement available only with that wonder and also pershaps enable the National wonder of National Park also only with the Search For The Entwives wonder. I believe that both of these are only available late game. Attaching both of these to the one wonder would allow them to be used in the time period of the game.

i rather like these ideas

 

[T_F]

Good ones!