Second Age Mod Ideas

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

First Age is difficult due to Dragons, Balrogs, Sauron, Werewolves and the uberness of High Elven regiments.

Difficult, but, mainly because of Wlesmana's "discovery", possible.

[Finrod Felagund]

First I thought these were númenórean settlers but somehow it seems they were a different people (or maybe it's just because Tal-Elmar didn't notice the relationsship between those people and the Númenóreans). If anyone ever read this story (Aradan, Éorl?), maybe you folks know what Tolkien was talking about.

Backing up Aradan, I always got the impression they were other Numenoreans, Kings Men essentially.

First Age is difficult due to Dragons, Balrogs, Sauron, Werewolves and the uberness of High Elven regiments.
Also because of the limited economy. There was but Angband in the north and maybe some smaller outposts of Morgoth's. There were but a few major settlements of Elves and men, all the war would take place in the very north of the map, you'd need events to be triggered and everyone would have to be allied against Morgoth. Not really suited for a Total War game.

I had an idea for a First Age mini-mod, set at the start of the Battle of Sudden Flame. I was going to keep it simple - no Dragons, Balrogs, other Maiar or Ents - with just a simple Free Peoples vs. Morgoth campaign. I think it'd be fairly straightforward to implement with a few alterations to FATW, the new strat map of Beleriand being the biggest obstacle to tackle. I didn't get very far though as it was more a learning exercise for me and I ended up travelling instead. I'm probably (in many months when I have time) going to focus on an Emberverse: Total War mini-mod instead, borrowing heavily from the works of the FATW & NI teams (Thankyou Aradan & I will be PM'ing MoN in just a minute...).

I've not the first idea about modelling, so I couldn't introduce any new unit types not already in FATW, but I don't think the allies system would work against First Age: Total War. There was a 'nervous' friendliness between the Dwarves & Elves (didn't take much for them to come to blows over the Neckace of the Dwarves), the Green Elves were pretty isolationist, the Sons of Feanor were 'tolerated' by the greater part of the Noldor & disliked by almost all the Sindar. So essentially, all factions would have -600 against Morgoth & visa-versa, but there would be subtle other neutralities & grudges between the other Free Peoples.

The downside to my approach was that you don't quite get the epic-ness of the Elder Days but you do get to fight a losing battle across the plains of Nargothrond, and have the Sons of Feanor riding through Maglors Gap with Dwarven allies to defend against the hordes of Morgoth.

Anyone interested can find info on Emberverse: Total War here - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...11#post9421711

And War of the Jewels: Total War here - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=389758

Difficult, but, mainly because of Wlesmana's "discovery", possible.

Am I missing something?

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Difficult, but, mainly because of Wlesmana's "discovery", possible.

Am I missing something?

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

He cracked the RTW skeletons
It's around the workshop somewhere. It allows modders to make more advanced animations and models, like bows with animated bowstrings. Or ents, balrogs, etc.

[Beorn]

Well Tal-Elmar is a story of unmeasured potential, both narrative and mod-wise, and my original inspiration to a long forgotten mod idea, which was later the base of SATW. At the beginning, I was sure that the Fair people of the East were Elves of some kind, but the most logical would be the Numenorean case, or a brach of kinsmen of Marach

[Thangaror]

Eldar? Nay, I really don't think so. Indeed there are evidences: The "flint-eyes", the fact that Tal-Elmar understood the language the Númenóreans speak (though it's unclear if they spoke Adûnaic or Sindarin), the bright weapons "made by demons from the hills". Still this sounds really, really absurd. Also the "Fell Folk" drives away the "old people" (Tal-Elmar's people) and in the Battle of Ishmalog "a whole people of the Fell Folk had been on the move, with their wains and their cattle and their women". That really doesn't sound elvish. Neither wains nor cattle nor being on the move as a whole people.

Númenórean settlers still seems strange to me (because they weren't recognized as essentially being "Go-hilleg", too. On the other hand the Fell Folk had not been around that place for quite some years and it's even longer since númenórean ships came there). Anyway if they were Edain, they certainly were not Kingsmen but Faithful: The story takes place in Eriador or Anfalas, Kingsmen settled further south. As Beorn said, I also suspect they were kinsmen of Marach. A tribe of the Éothéod perhaps or some other northmen.

[Revelo]

Personally I'd love to see Second Age and First Age mods, one reason I suggested early second age was because things were somewhat subdued for a while and would mean we wouldn't need to worry about things like Balrogs, Nazgul or an all powerful Sauron. But having been a big fan of The Silmarilion I would sorely love to see something done for the First Age.

[Figaro]

An idea for a way to implement earlier Tolkein scenarios in the mod as it is would be to add Custom-Battle-only factions such as Isengard, Sauron/Morgorth/Angmar/darkness - there are presumably loads of faction slots left, what with there being only 10 or so in DoM. The issue of unit descriptions, lore-friendly buildings and whatnot would be irrelevant (as would, to a lesser degree, issues of balance). FATW comes with a Historical Battle with an Isengard faction for example, only it's not accessible anywhere else.

To a great deal they could use existing units - e.g. Saruman/Isengard would include some Dunlending troops, along with the more advanced Orcs from Adunabar, and Wargs/Trolls. Sauron might be able to field a mixture of Orcs and Easterlings.

[Ajidica]

I haven't read the Silmarillion in a while (and never really finished it when I did read it), but based on what I got from Wikipedia wouldn't the more 'fantastical' events work just fine in semi-scripted events if the mod ended just before the Valar arrive?
EG: the fight between Fingolfin and Melkor could be set up as a script where if a Noldorin army is forced to lift the siege of Angband, the commanding general is killed.
I don't know alot about scripts in RTW and my entire experiance with scripting has been with the python in Civ4 where effectively anything could be scripted.