Speculation thread?

[Democritus]

Is it possible that Adunabar would have gained control of the former lands of Angmar, or other places where evil may have continued dwelling?

[Aradan]

Lots of things are possible. The thing is, what would be possible, believable and gameplay-enhancing.

[StealthEvo]

Hence why the game needs moar Rangers for Dunland ^^

[CountMRVHS]

Way back some years ago, there had been talk of an orc faction, but that idea has been long dead, AFAIK. I think the reasoning was that orcs generally needed some strong outside leadership in order to be a kingdom-scale threat (although an exception seems to have been the events leading up to the War of the Dwarves & Orcs in the Misty Mountains, and the Battle of 5 Armies).

At any rate, I don't feel the need for an extra faction at this point, whether orcish or Angmar or what have you. I might change my mind if the good guys seem to have no enemies in the north, or if Adunabar (assuming it has any presence there) folds too quickly.

Most of my reasoning for wanting Adunabar in the North is from a gameplay perspective. I understand that there may have to be some tweaking of the storyline in order for their presence there to fit with the lore, but to me at least it seems worth it. Good guys need bad guys to fight, after all! And the fact that there *was* an evil presence in those regions, even in the relatively distant past, seems a good enough precedent. Especially when you consider that the regions west of the Misty Mountains (the areas that used to make up Angmar & Rhudaur, etc.) probably weren't too strongly populated by the good guys at the end of the 3rd Age. I'd assume there's still a bunch of orcs and trolls hanging around there, at any rate - good cannon-fodder for some Adunabar agents to exploit!

[Agamemnon]

Yeah, that would be the best way to go, as rebels are usually defeated in the first 5-10 turns, and adding a faction would be difficult.

[StealthEvo]

The "good guy" versus "bad guy" debate. I have a differing viewpoint. Likewise with the charming diplomacy issues, who says it has to be good versus evil. I'm aware that the whole lore is based around that, but the game play is some 248 years AFTER that, given that Aragorn himself only was present for half of that. (died FO 120).

!20 years is along time for things to break down quickly. Hence the formation of Adunabar which is comprised mostly of Gondorian Traitors. Things just arn't as peachy as they are, seeing as it is the Age of Men, Men just don't get along

[ogre44444]

Insofar as VCs for Elves and Dwarves are concerned...both these races seem historically to have not been particularly interested in expansion. So what I think makes the most sense is for them to want to A) Reclaim old lands to restore their former glory and B) Avoid genocide, which is basically what at least the elves have been doing since the 1st age. So maybe make surviving repeated barbarian hordes a big part of their VC...i.e. part of the VC could simply be surviving for X amount of time. Is that possible?

On an unrelated note, are there still Sindar in the 4th age or have they all left? Are there elves left in Rivendell or Lindon? It might be easier if there weren't, because unless you have hordes of snow people coming out of the north, I can't imagine Lindon having many enemies.

[CountMRVHS]

Drat, looks like a post of mine was lost. Here goes again:

The reason I think we need some "bad guy" presence in the north is sort of summed up by ogre44444's comment about Lindon not having many enemies. Let's consider the Elves first. How many "Elvish" settlements will there be?

Lindon may include 2 to 4 regions: Forlindon, Harlindon, perhaps a different settlement including the Grey Havens, and perhaps a fourth North of the gulf of Lune but East of Ered Luin.

Rivendell

Eregion (Hollin), west of Moria (probably one region)

Lorien (probably one region)

North Mirkwood (probably one region only)

South Mirkwood (aka East Lorien) (probably one region only)

All those places would make good targets for the Elves' VCs, but at most that's around 9 regions.

The question then becomes, what if the Elves already own all these places at game start? One thing to do might be to have the Elves begin play with only a few of them: say N. Mirkwood (probably the capital, as Thranduil was still apparently around), S. Mirkwood, Lorien, maybe Rivendell, and one or several of the Lindon regions.

The balance of Elvish settlements could be held by rebels - or, more tastefully, by a bad guy faction: Adunabar could have some control over part of Lindon, and maybe Dunland holds Eregion.

In addition to "hold all of these particular places", the VCs could suggest that the Elves need to own a total of 15 or 20 regions to win. That gives them some freedom to strike out against other enemies.

But if the RK is the only faction in Arnor, it could lead to the RK taking those rebel-held Elvish settlements before the Elves get there - requiring a distasteful war to take them back. Far better, I think, if the "bad guys" were a strong presence, to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

As for the Dwarves, their VCs could include:

Erebor (Lonely Mtn)

Iron Hills (maybe split into 2 regions?)

Moria

2 or more underground regions in the Misty Mtns north of Moria

Mt Gundabad

1 or more underground settlements in the Grey Mtns/Withered Heath

1 underground settlement in the southern Blue Mtns

another underground settlement or so in the northern Blue Mtns

the settlement in the mtns near the Sea of Rhun

To win, they'd need to take all or most of them. But they'd probably only *begin* play with a few, such as Erebor, Iron Hills, Moria, part of Blue Mtns... The rest could be occupied by strong rebels, Orcish, Dwarvish, or what-have-you.

The problem w/ the Dwarves as I see it is that they'd really need to have a lot of underground settlements, as historically they weren't interested in settlements above ground. But still, this gives them around a dozen to hold for victory. Again, part of the VC could be to hold a total of 15 or 20 regions, which would allow them to strike back against their enemies in a more free fashion without needing to establish a big, sprawling, lore-unfriendly empire.

What do you think?

[Stark1]

Why all that fuss with VCs anyway? Make your own goals, why do people need to have some imaginary numerical sign that says they won? If you want to reclaim all old Elven lands, do that, if you want to conquer entire ME nothing is stopping you either.

[CountMRVHS]

This isn't about what the individual player would want to do in the campaign - we're talking about what the victory conditions *should be* for certain factions. If you want to invade Harad as the Elves, go for it - but it probably wouldn't make sense for the Elves to *have* to conquer Harad in order to win the game.

I know I can make my own goals for my faction during the game, but the devs need to have some goals for the factions as well. That's all I was trying to imagine in my last post.

[Stark1]

You mean tries to fullfill its victory conditions? In that case sorry, victory conditions are much more important than I thought.

[CountMRVHS]

I'm not sure I know what you mean. I don't think the AI especially tries to follow its VCs; I'm just trying to think about what might work as VCs for when *you* play as Elves, Dwarves, etc.

[Aradan]

AI's behaviour is determined by its VCs to an extent.

But having fitting VCs adds to the immersion; having an 'official goal' in your campaign doesn't hurt.

[Anakarsis]

There is still plans to extend the map towards the north of the Middle Earth?

[Stark1]

There is still plans to extend the map towards the north of the Middle Earth?

FATW 3 will have entire ME on map.

[Éorl]

There is still plans to extend the map towards the north of the Middle Earth?

Here's a composite image used in the menus of FATW 3.0 that shows you the exact extend of the map:

[Balbor]

You guys have all the extra units i created before retiring right?

[Agamemnon]

Cool map, Éorl!

[CountMRVHS]

Neat!

Does the white area in the north mean those regions will be snowy year-round? I hadn't pictured that for the Iron Hills, but then I don't know much about that area.

[Agamemnon]

I think that it is snowy there most of the time. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right.