The Official WIP Screenshot Thread

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Ok, my guess at the new factions:

1. Harondor (?);
2. Khand;
3. Elves that live in the trees;
4. Elves that are wiser and snobbier;
3. Dwarves;
4. Dale;
5. The guys of Beorn;
6. Rhovanion?
7. That city-state.

P.S. I agree with Aradan. No more rebels, more proper and decisive action!

P.P.S. I know that most of those are probably way off.°

P.P.P.S. NVM, a single Elven faction and Hobbits. You said 17, but so far I only see 15 with some emergeant faction (Probably RK rebels or something).

[The Sloth]

Whoa, that's unexpected. Did you honestly create that many new mini-factions with their own units?

Other than that: Rivendell looks really, really screwed. There might be some really desperate battles for experienced players there.
Also, I can't seem to find Erebor, only the Iron Mountains. Didn't the lonely mountain make it as a settlement?
And... a hobbit faction? I can't wait to see some weed-drugged hobbit berserkers. ''DID YOU TRAMPLE THE TULIPS IN MY GARDEN??!!'' ''Hu- what? No, please, I'd never...'' ''DIIIIIIIEEEEE!!!''

[Stark1]

No joke. 17 factions in DoM in total.

Well, you certainly weren't kidding when you said final release will be stunning. All this time everything pointed to only 3 new faction, and now out of nothing we get 8 new factions. Great PR to say the least.

[Elphir of Dol Amroth]

but so far I only see 15 with some emergeant faction (Probably RK rebels or something).

You're forgetting Far Harad and Tharbad.

[Aradan]

P.P.P.S. NVM, a single Elven faction and Hobbits. You said 17, but so far I only see 15 with some emergeant faction (Probably RK rebels or something).

They are 16 on the map, count again.

Whoa, that's unexpected. Did you honestly create that many new mini-factions with their own units?

They don't have unique units per se, we'd need another 100 model slots. I've used existing models for them, with certain twists here and there. Eg, Rhovanion uses the units that were originally intended to be Dale's Rhovanion AoR units. Hobbits of course have unique units.

Other than that: Rivendell looks really, really screwed. There might be some really desperate battles for experienced players there.

The AI does not attack Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits easily. Rivendell especially has some intended pathfinding 'difficulties' that make it hard for the AI to target it.

Also, I can't seem to find Erebor, only the Iron Mountains. Didn't the lonely mountain make it as a settlement?

The borders don't appear so well on the mini-map, but Erebor is of course there as its own province.

And... a hobbit faction? I can't wait to see some weed-drugged hobbit berserkers. ''DID YOU TRAMPLE THE TULIPS IN MY GARDEN??!!'' ''Hu- what? No, please, I'd never...'' ''DIIIIIIIEEEEE!!!''

Exactly why I added them.

Well, you certainly weren't kidding when you said final release will be stunning. All this time everything pointed to only 3 new faction, and now out of nothing we get 8 new factions. Great PR to say at least.

The addition of the minor factions is just a part of what will make DoM stunning. Lots of work put in this mod in every department, trust me. But yes, I felt the map was very empty with just 9 factions, and adding the new ones adds to the depth of the world.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

You're forgetting Far Harad and Tharbad.

Ah. I forgot the name of Tharbad.


@Divine Master Sir Aradan The Uber Awesome

I have bad color vision...



BTW, wasn't Rhovanion destroyed a while back by the Easterlings?

[Thangaror]

Where would you have more settlements?

I personally prefer fighting against other proper factions instead of rebels with different units.

Rhovanion/Mirkwood/Upper Anduin and Cardolan/Rhudaur. But as you said the map is still WIP.

In general I prefer to have small regions, rather than large ones, which is the case in Rhovanion, and I also hate seeing a certain faction being annihilated (respectively crippled massively) almost immediately. This might be true for Beornings, The Shire, the Gwathló-guys, Rhovanion and the Elves.
Of course fighting rebels is boring and in the case of RK and Rohan it's alright that they'll clash immediately with Adûnabâr and Dunland, respectively. At least in the South. Eriador though was pretty desolated, so I'd rather have more rebels there. Adûn's base could move further northwards to Carn Dûm/Mount Gram/Mount Gundabad and Cardolan and Rhudaur remaining rebel. Or splitting Cardolan in two regions, Tyrn Gorthad and South Downs, as well as splitting Rhudaur in Troll Shaws and the Angle. Beside this I think it funny that RK claims the ever-have-been-wastelands south of the Shire.

The Rhovanion faction will be pretty screwed, having but three regions (intended?). The same is true, to an lesser extend maybe, for the Beornings, though these folks won't have anywhere to expand. What really troubles me are the Elves: I cannot really judge from the map, but it seems they'll have but five regions (depends on the Lindons), and none of these will share borders. And the only ones that could be linked are Lórien and East-Lórien. East-Lórien and Northern Mirkwood could be linked, too, though this would immediately cripple the Beornings. I hoped to have at least two settlements in Northern Mirkwood, regarding the fact that Thranduil's people settled for quite some time in the Mountains of Mirkwood.

And there are four more questions I have:
1) The dwarvish regions, supposedly Erebor/Iron Hills, seem to have different colours. Is that just me?
2) Is there, or is there not a white dot where Mount Grams is located?
3) What's up with Misty Mountains/Ered Nimrais? They seem to belong to no one? That's alright for the Misty Mountains (yay, Dwarves conquering their old strongholds!) but this seems weird for Ered Nimrais.
4) Nindalf/Dead Marshes and Entwash estuary are no man's land? Unaccessible, without settlement???

[Gen. Chris]

Jeez I didn't think you could make me want the game more...

[Aradan]

BTW, wasn't Rhovanion destroyed a while back by the Easterlings?

Quite a while back. This is the 2nd version. We have a good backstory.

Rhovanion/Mirkwood/Upper Anduin and Cardolan/Rhudaur. But as you said the map is still WIP.

In general I prefer to have small regions, rather than large ones, which is the case in Rhovanion, and I also hate seeing a certain faction being annihilated (respectively crippled massively) almost immediately. This might be true for Beornings, The Shire, the Gwathló-guys, Rhovanion and the Elves.

a) we need to portray the fact that certain regions were sparsely inhabited. Rhovanion was such a region, for example. We can't make it as densely populated as Rohan, when it's supposed to be a wild, empty place that's constantly raided or in the middle of war. Eriador is also like that. The aim is not to have provinces all have the same size, but rather be of roughly comparable 'power'.
b) we need to keep DoM a non Siege: Total War affair. Having many tiny regions is all nice, but as soon as they get walls, every second battle is a siege and that gets very boring.
c) campaign mechanics don't allow us to calibrate the 'power' each settlement offers in the degree we'd like, which means adding settlements is unbalancing.

Of course fighting rebels is boring and in the case of RK and Rohan it's alright that they'll clash immediately with Adûnabâr and Dunland, respectively. At least in the South. Eriador though was pretty desolated, so I'd rather have more rebels there. Adûn's base could move further northwards to Carn Dûm/Mount Gram/Mount Gundabad and Cardolan and Rhudaur remaining rebel. Or splitting Cardolan in two regions, Tyrn Gorthad and South Downs, as well as splitting Rhudaur in Troll Shaws and the Angle. Beside this I think it funny that RK claims the ever-have-been-wastelands south of the Shire.

I think it makes more sense that Adunabar would have more power in a region that did belong to Arnor and that RK would have reclaimed. Moving its base to Angmar means moving it away from all population centres, as Angmar was pretty much desolated (minus Orcs), while Rhudaur was actually the area were most Dunedain lived during the late 3rd Age, which means there would be enough population there to start expanding etc. Atm Angmar is closed enough to be used by Adunabar, but not yet claimed.

Cardolan and Rhudaur were pretty empty, no? Adding one more region to either/both will be considered, but I wouldn't add any more. Eriador is a region contested by 2.5 factions (since non-mannish factions don't expand), and adding too many provinces will be unbalancing.

As for Southern Arthedain, that is Sarn Ford's region, that's why RK has it.

The Rhovanion faction will be pretty screwed, having but three regions (intended?). The same is true, to an lesser extend maybe, for the Beornings, though these folks won't have anywhere to expand.

No way of knowing that without having seen the campaign balance, no?

What really troubles me are the Elves: I cannot really judge from the map, but it seems they'll have but five regions (depends on the Lindons), and none of these will share borders. And the only ones that could be linked are Lórien and East-Lórien. East-Lórien and Northern Mirkwood could be linked, too, though this would immediately cripple the Beornings. I hoped to have at least two settlements in Northern Mirkwood, regarding the fact that Thranduil's people settled for quite some time in the Mountains of Mirkwood.

3 in Lindon (connected), Lorien, Imladris, East Lorien, N. Greenwood. That's 7. Adding an extra province in N. Greenwood is something I'll consider. Connecting Lorien and E. Lorien is a no-no, and so is connecting S. and N. Greenwood.

Scattered homelands is something Elves and Dwarves will have to deal with. Trust me, they have certain perks (that mannish factions don't), which can come in very handy.

1) The dwarvish regions, supposedly Erebor/Iron Hills, seem to have different colours. Is that just me?

That's just because the radar-map image file (on which the faction colours are layered semi-transparently) has different colours there.

2) Is there, or is there not a white dot where Mount Grams is located?

There is, but it's not a dot.

3) What's up with Misty Mountains/Ered Nimrais? They seem to belong to no one? That's alright for the Misty Mountains (yay, Dwarves conquering their old strongholds!) but this seems weird for Ered Nimrais.

They belong to no-one, exactly.
a) it looks better
b) it helps the AI a lot, because it forces it to understand that Rohan and Gondor don't share borders (except in Anorien), so it can make better decisions, both diplomacy-wise and targeting-wise. The parts that belong to those provinces are the tiles that are inaccessible anyway.
c) Those regions are inaccessible, Dwarves can't reclaim "Misty Mountains", though certain parts of the mountains are 'claimable'.

Nindalf/Dead Marshes and Entwash estuary are no man's land? Unaccessible, without settlement???

Entwash estuary belongs to Anorien, map-wise (it's inaccessible anyway, due to the river). Nindalf and Dead Marshes are separate. And yes, same as above, they are inaccessible and without a settlement (at least one that the player can interact with). That's also the case with Fangorn, Forodwaith, Ephel Duath, Ered Lithui.

[Stark1]

I wonder what will be explanation for those new factions regarding lore. IIRC, Rhovanion was a part of Reunited Kingdom under Aragorn, so a reborn Kingdom of Rhovanion is either founded with rebellion, or these lands were abandoned by RK (more probable). I both both cases, I wonder what will be the backstory.

Tharbad was rebuilt by Aragorn Ellesar, so it belonged to RK and it's situation is similar to Rhovanion's. I guess Shire can be considered a protectorate of RK, it was mostly independent anyway. I guess it won't be protectorate ingame, it didn't owe any taxes or tributes to RK.

And all those new evil factions will probably make life a lot easier for RK, instead of great Empire of Harad it will have to deal with shrinked Harad with potential enemies in east and south. That brings me to my next question, will Harad and Far Harad be allied in any way? If they do have some alliance, Far Harad will probably be harmless to everyone, RTW AI won't send any units north (unless you covered even that somehow).

[Aradan]

The Empire of Harad is the evil expansionist imperialist faction that tries to unite all of Haradwaith under one banner, so it doesn't have many friends in the area. Yes, this makes things easier for RK/Adun at start, but give them time to annex Far Harad and Harondor, and you'll have issues...

Far Harad can have borders with Khand actually, so it's not as harmless as it seems.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Will Khand, Rhovanion, Far Harad and the Shire be playable? I mean, they're probably impossibly difficult to play unless some of those regions are rich.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

^I'm guessing they will. Aradan & Co are too awesome to not let hobbits be playable

Awesome map, Aradan. Can't wait to see the styles of all these new factions

[athanaric]

RTW AI won't send any units north (unless you covered even that somehow).

Actually, it's the other way round. The RTW AI will expand northward first, as many frustrated EB players can tell you.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

The point is, it will be impossible to play them. You'll lose by turn 3. And so will the AI.


For MP, however...

[Aradan]

The minor factions won't be available to the player, no. It will be easy to make them so, if one can mod the files, but they are limited (in various degrees) in terms of recruitment, construction and certain mechanics and they are intended to be unplayable.

The AI actually sends troops in all directions, under the right conditions.

[Gen. Chris]

The minor factions won't be available to the player, no. It will be easy to make them so, if one can mod the files, but they are limited (in various degrees) in terms of recruitment, construction and certain mechanics and they are intended to be unplayable.

The AI actually sends troops in all directions, under the right conditions.

So essentially they are just meant to be an obstacle for the playable factions?

[Thangaror]

a) we need to portray the fact that certain regions were sparsely inhabited. Rhovanion was such a region, for example. We can't make it as densely populated as Rohan, when it's supposed to be a wild, empty place that's constantly raided or in the middle of war. Eriador is also like that. The aim is not to have provinces all have the same size, but rather be of roughly comparable 'power'.
b) we need to keep DoM a non Siege: Total War affair. Having many tiny regions is all nice, but as soon as they get walls, every second battle is a siege and that gets very boring.
c) campaign mechanics don't allow us to calibrate the 'power' each settlement offers in the degree we'd like, which means adding settlements is unbalancing.

Alright, I'm convinced.

I think it makes more sense that Adunabar would have more power in a region that did belong to Arnor and that RK would have reclaimed. Moving its base to Angmar means moving it away from all population centres, as Angmar was pretty much desolated (minus Orcs), while Rhudaur was actually the area were most Dunedain lived during the late 3rd Age, which means there would be enough population there to start expanding etc. Atm Angmar is closed enough to be used by Adunabar, but not yet claimed.

As for Southern Arthedain, that is Sarn Ford's region, that's why RK has it.

Well, I imagined sort of an orcish Adûnabâr in the north, governed by a few loyal cultists but only orcs to govern (Have fun, you filthy Morgoth worshippers!). The Dúnedain of Arnor always seemed to me to be the "better" Dúnedain and therefore less prone to Herumor's teaching (also that guy is way down in Gondor).
I actually forgot that Sarn Ford does not belong to the Shire (at least on Wynn Fonstad's maps).
Btw, I'm curious to know where there's evidence that the Dúnedain mostly settled in Rhudaur after the Fall of Fornost. I just read this on Tolkien Gateway, too, but there are no sources listed.

No way of knowing that without having seen the campaign balance, no?

True, I'm but guessing on what I know.

3 in Lindon (connected), Lorien, Imladris, East Lorien, N. Greenwood. That's 7. Adding an extra province in N. Greenwood is something I'll consider. Connecting Lorien and E. Lorien is a no-no, and so is connecting S. and N. Greenwood.

Scattered homelands is something Elves and Dwarves will have to deal with. Trust me, they have certain perks (that mannish factions don't), which can come in very handy.

Phew. My main issue was Lindon. Of course the scattered homelands are the interesting thing about these factions and completely accurate. Still, the Elves would probably have an additional malus because they don't have an ally like Dale, which is the reason why I feared they might proof seriously underpowered if they didn't have any neighbouring provinces.

There is, but it's not a dot.

So, Gram belongs do the Dwarves, but Gundabad to Adûnabâr.

They belong to no-one, exactly.
a) it looks better
b) it helps the AI a lot, because it forces it to understand that Rohan and Gondor don't share borders (except in Anorien), so it can make better decisions, both diplomacy-wise and targeting-wise. The parts that belong to those provinces are the tiles that are inaccessible anyway.
c) Those regions are inaccessible, Dwarves can't reclaim "Misty Mountains", though certain parts of the mountains are 'claimable'.
Entwash estuary belongs to Anorien, map-wise (it's inaccessible anyway, due to the river). Nindalf and Dead Marshes are separate. And yes, same as above, they are inaccessible and without a settlement (at least one that the player can interact with). That's also the case with Fangorn, Forodwaith, Ephel Duath, Ered Lithui.

That's great. I already feared having to fight the Dragons in the Withered Heath.
They'd run away from the Dragons' stench probably...

[Aradan]

Alright, I'm convinced.

Come on, so easily? And I just added a province in Rhovanion...
So, you're convinced no more provinces are needed in Cardolan, Rhudar, Upper Anduin, etc?

Well, I imagined sort of an orcish Adûnabâr in the north, governed by a few loyal cultists but only orcs to govern (Have fun, you filthy Morgoth worshippers!). The Dúnedain of Arnor always seemed to me to be the "better" Dúnedain and therefore less prone to Herumor's teaching (also that guy is way down in Gondor).
I actually forgot that Sarn Ford does not belong to the Shire (at least on Wynn Fonstad's maps).

Setup is still WIP, Adunabar's possessions in Arnor may very well change by the time DoM is out. I'll have to see how those things affect gameplay and balance.

Btw, I'm curious to know where there's evidence that the Dúnedain mostly settled in Rhudaur after the Fall of Fornost. I just read this on Tolkien Gateway, too, but there are no sources listed.

It's a bit of educated guesswork actually, not evidence per se. Eg: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/832355/posts

Phew. My main issue was Lindon. Of course the scattered homelands are the interesting thing about these factions and completely accurate. Still, the Elves would probably have an additional malus because they don't have an ally like Dale, which is the reason why I feared they might proof seriously underpowered if they didn't have any neighbouring provinces.

Still think a second settlement is needed in N. Greenwood?

So, Gram belongs do the Dwarves, but Gundabad to Adûnabâr.

No and no.

[Stark1]

Actually, it's the other way round. The RTW AI will expand northward first, as many frustrated EB players can tell you.

I know (EB is my second favorite mod). I meant that if Far Harad is made ally with Empire of Harad, they will just sit there and do nothing, as I haven't seen AI move through allied territory (atleast that much). But as they won't be allies, my worries were in vain.