DoM Gameplay Mechanics and Features Overview (upd: 24/12/2013)

[Ar-Another]

I do fully agree with you, but as a matter of fact the Anglo-Saxon thing has simply stuck in the community. Even without the stupid movies.
Anyway, even if only the language is represented by Anglo-Saxon, why not the art, too? Also, to my uneducated eye the artwork, whether it's Anglo-Saxon, Alemannic or Gothic, looks all the same.
It's just that, AFAIK, the Anglo-Saxon hoards of Staffordshire or Sutton Hoo, are the largest hoards found from this time, while Frankish or Lombard art was much more influenced by Roman art and Christianity.

I looked up the "translations" for the Rohirric names, and I only found "Turac" for Théoden. Are there more examples?
The only names that are definitely Gothic are Marhwini and Forthwini, but those are/might be "Proto-Rohirric".

P.S: This IS getting off topic. Split the thread?

Yeah, those detestable movies.
In my opinion Anglo-Saxon art is much prettier. It is best suited to represent Rohirric art. Btw, that horse head resembles a seahorse (hippocampus).
Turac is in fact the only given name.
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Rohirric

This "rogue thread" made a circle back to where it started, resolving some of the burning issues in the process. I believe there is no need to further discuss the matter of Anglo-Saxons and Goths.

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

One would think they were disapointed in Sauron since he died so ingloriously. Anyway, the Cult is not about Sauron - although the Mouth of Sauron might be kind of a horcrux Sauron made (like Voldemort's snake). He may even be Ar-Pharazon. Then we have everything all over again.
They are men of darkness because Numenoreans labeled them thus. What are Numenoreans then, anyway?
I think that men do not need any aditional evil beside their own greed and pride to make war onto others.

The Cult is never said to be worshiping Sauron. If anything, they would worship Melkor, with Sauron a revered figure as his "messenger". Also, what the hell is a "horcrux"?

There is no reason to believe that Herumor is Ar-Pharazôn, because Pharazôn's fate is clearly stated.

Orcs would hide in the mountains, but dwarves would follow them and hunt them. How would orcs survive? They can't live in woods. It is not counter-intuitive, it actually makes sense. I already explained how orcs stand after Sauron's fall.

The date where Durin the Last reclaimed Khazad-dûm is not given, and might be near the mod's time-frame. Also, the Mist Mountains are huge. The Dwarves couldn't hunt them everywhere. They would have reclaimed and purged some important locations, but not everything.

There are lands further to the east inhabited by people that probably weren't under Sauron's dominion. Advanced and warlike people, like the Mongols after they've conquered China. And somewhat mysterious.

Nothing of the sort is ever mentioned by Tolkien. It is one thing to say that you like to think there were, and another thing entirely to claim it as actual fact.

I'm not sure about poor gameplay. Did anyone try it that way? Is expansion into "rebel" teritory necessary for good gameplay? I find it dull. It is always pretty much the same thing and other factions do nothing while you make war on your neighbours.

It is so because every faction needs room to expand without running into a major power. And with the shoddy vanilla diplomacy, war always follows.

Also, I find the idea of "slow start" (undeveloped cities, poor infrastructure, small army) to be non plausible.

True, but this mod generally averts it. If you play as the RK in TNS, Minas Tirith for example has all but the most advanced buildings.

While bigger is not always better it is always bigger. We know next to nothing about the lands east and south of the current map, but we'd sure like to explore them.

That does not hold true for everyone.

There are the Easterlings to the east and some rebels ("troll-men") with some mumakil in the jungles to the south.

And that is all we know about them. Which would force the Modders to make

1) Geographic features
2)Backstories
3)New units

All of which to fit factions which are neither supported by the lore, nor essential to the game.

Again I meant alignment (I guess). Nothing - "farmers, merchants etc." is just my description of their lifestile and tradition. I just needed to point that they are pathetic military-wise when compared to any other people.

And how does that translate into the gameplay?

As for "Caliphate" and etymology, how do the "Variags" fit anything. Variag means Viking.

No it doesn't. You're thinking of 'Varangian'.

Naming the Haradrim state a Caliphate simply points out it evolved into something else.

The term 'Caliphate' has strong religious connotations.

War chariots would not be an effective force against Gondorian army. That was Tolkien's misconception about chariots.

The Wainriders are noted to have ridden wains while moving. Also, the battle where Ondoher died was lost because the Gondorians were caught by surprise. When Eärnil faced them in a straight battle, he destroyed them.

Open war suggests invasions, large battles and such things. I think that RK would let them secede because they would find it pointless to invade Mordor. But they would expell cultist from the lands of the RK.

Adûnabâr controls a large part of Gondorian territory, as well as part of Arnor. Do you truly think that the Reunited Kingdom wouldn't want those lands reclaimed?

Dwarves need allies among men.

They have the Bardings.

They have a long friendship with Dunlendings

They don't. They merely settled there for some time.

[Aradan]

@Ar-Another: I don't have the time to address each point individually, but Feanaro has covered things pretty adequately. The main point here is that you do not like our vision. You have your own views about how you would like the 4th age to be, you keep stating personal opinions/misconceptions as if they were some absolute truth and you emphatically want a TW experience based on them. Harsh as this may sound, this is our work and we're going to tell the story we want. If you do not like the fundamentals of our vision, no amount of debating the details will ever prove productive, especially given the specific purpose of this thread (which is to discuss mechanics not generic story/design principles).

[ooji]

@ar-another
Majority of your points are purely your preference/opinion and it would not make much sense for the modders to modify their work based on your unsupported opinion.

[Nehcrum]

So this mod isn't dead?

I was active here a couple of years ago, and then the mod was "almost complete" and with just a few months to go.
And then things sort of died away and activity here dropped etc.
I still check in every couple of months hoping for something to have happened, so I'm glad to see that it is still in the works.


Also, where can I get a hold of TNS? I used to have it, but after getting a new computer I messed up the install and now I can't find it.
The links to downloading it all seemed to be dead (or was a couple of months ago anyways).

Unique Units

At the beginning of the campaign certain factions have at their disposal a very limited number of unique and powerful units, which are retrainable, but not recruitable. If they are taken care of and their casualties in battle replenished, they can be a valuable asset during the course of a campaign. However, if such a unit is destroyed, it cannot be raised ever again. Mannish factions may train a non-unique, "lesser" version of their unit instead, but unique units of other factions can never be replaced in any way.

Is there a way to reverse that?

In other words, to make a unit recruitable but not retrainable? At least not retrainable with new replacements (but only armor/weapon upgrades).

That would make units like rangers and other powerful stuff more viable.
Make them take a long time to recruit (3-4 turns? Or even 5?) and they can't be retrained to replace their numbers, but your only option is to merge damaged units together.

Powerful units are a problem otherwise, since you can so easily just retrain them in a single turn, with the only limit being money, population and the unit slots in the city (10?), making powerful units even more powerful due to not having to spend time to train them, while cheaper units tend to get massacred and having to be replaced with a new unit.
I assume that is really the reason for the limitations above. An army filled with these powerful units are near unstoppable, and any losses can be so quickly replaced in just a single turn of retraining.
But this twist on it would work the same way, since the only way to replace losses is by training up an entirely new unit (which takes a long time, reflecting it's power).

[ooji]

Making overpowered units recruit able would only mean that players can mass up an army of elite troops like elves and just annihilate everything on their path. Plus, Aradan doesn't want elves fighting elves, so being recruit able is not an option.

[Nehcrum]

Making overpowered units recruit able would only mean that players can mass up an army of elite troops like elves and just annihilate everything on their path. Plus, Aradan doesn't want elves fighting elves, so being recruit able is not an option.

Nope.

Normally, yes, but having long training times means it will be hard to mass them up in large numbers.
Usually this can be countered by the fact that once you have them trained, you can replace losses in your units near instantly. It only takes one turn to fill the unit up to max and you can do that to several units at once.

But if you disable that, then all losses you take to your units are permanent. There is no way to replace them other than training an entirely new unit, which takes several turns and is only available in a very few select places, which then can't produce anything else.

Normally, if you got 2 units of elven archers (to take an example of a powerful unit) then you can throw them into battle, lose half of them in each unit, send them back to town, retrain them and have them back on the field in the next turn, with maxed numbers.
That is a problem, and is a reason why you can't have such powerful units recruitable.
Because if you recruit a new one, then you will have 3, that you can go out with and lose half their men, then go back, retrain and together with a newly recruited one you will have 4.

But remove the retraining part, and those two units that lost half of their men are now stuck at half man-power (or elven-power), and the only way to fix that is to merge the two units together.
Small losses incurred to a unit when being in a city that is under siege can't be replaced etc.
If you have a powerful units such as elven archers, that can only be trained in a single city, and takes 4 turns to train, then it will be a very powerful unit, but it will also be a unit that is fragile due to not being able to replace losses in them. Losses taken to these units are permanent, with no way of replenishing them.
Balance that by having them available in fairly small units, and you can't really abuse them (unless you wanna spend 40 turns to pump out 10 of them, and then tear your hair out if an enemy cavalry unit gets off a successful charge, or someone unloads a volley of arrows at them).



Personally, I think the idea of having non-recruitable superunits that are retrainable can be more abused. Because then you can happily throw them into fights and you just need a single soldier to survive to have the unit back to full strength in the next turn or two.

[Nehcrum]

Making overpowered units recruit able would only mean that players can mass up an army of elite troops like elves and just annihilate everything on their path. Plus, Aradan doesn't want elves fighting elves, so being recruit able is not an option.

Also, with powerful units, I was more thinking of rangers for RK, rather than elves. Making rangers a powerful elite unit that can only be recruited in a very few select places and take a long time to train up but that are highly skilled.
And with losses being hard to replace. Especially since a dev once said something about wanting to avoid a "ranger-fest", if they make rangers as powerful as they really should be according to lore.


One cool function would be to have units lose one point of experience (chevron) down to the basic value that they would get as a newly recruited unit of that type in the city they are retrained in. Showing that you can't just replace losses in a veteran elite unit with fresh recruits and not having it affect the overall quality of the unit.
Would make it far less likely to retrain units with a bit of experience (above the starting experience) when they only have minor losses, instead of always just topping them up whnever they are in a city.

[Aradan]

It is impossible to have a recruitable unit that is not retrainable (or at least I don't know how to do it).

Unique units are just a single unit (in RK's case 3 units) in a faction, it's not that overpowered. It generally adds an element of attachment and role-playing, besides giving a small edge. We can also make their recruitment costs (which is what retraining costs are based on) extremely high, to simulate the difficulty in training replacements. They also start with exp stacked on, so there's not much to improve through exp (not to mention that retraining lowers the average per-soldier exp adn can lower the unit's exp level).

[ooji]

What Aradan said.

[Nelduin]

I'm very proud to tell you that I finally finished the French translation of this great preview: http://www.mundusbellicus.fr/forum/s...l=1#post202922 . It took me nearly three months with the help of one of our editors, but I'm glad we managed to finish it.

Hopefully it will help non-English speakers to understand the deep changes and modifications and increase interested toward the mod. Keep it up, and be sure a lot of French players will download and play it, and we will maybe even start a translation .

Cheers !

[CountMRVHS]

That's great news! Now to see if my college French is still rattling around in my brain somewhere...

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

I should also inform you that the images cannot be seen.

[Aradan]

Right, bandwidth issues with my photobucket account. I'll see what can be done about it.

[Casual Tactician]

Aradan, you are making one of the best mods for TW ever! These mechanics are simpy awesome, and unique to any RTW mod... You are a ground-breaker!

Please keep it up! The same goes for Eorl, Master of None and all others working on DoM.

You guys are one of the reasons I love PC's (and haven't given up on TW - yet).

[Foradan]

Hi Everyone. I have followed this mod for some time now and like everyone am eagerly awaiting the release. I am an avid Tolkien fan and have read almost all of his extant works and I would just like to say that I have thus far seen no flaws in the lore behind the games development. I believe it follows as accurately as possible( without forgetting play abilty entirely) the literature and gives an excellent representation of the Middle-earth 'Politics' of what would have been the Fourth age. Well done on what looks to be a fantastic mod! The mechanics look as well though out as all of the lore!

[MasterOfNone]

Thank you, Faradan And thank you for following the mod.

[sturmdg]

Good morning,

First of all, I have been following you for the last 1.5 years (since I first played Viking Invasion 2 and Norman Invasion, two “small” but great mods) and I think the work previewed so far from the Dominion of Men is absolutely fantastic. Kudos for devoting so much time to make such enjoyable and inspiring games!

Now, in the updated original post of this thread, we learnt about the Horde-capability of a faction after it had been defeated, to reflect its people going into exile. However, in the thread DoM Faction Previews, a post from Aradan said that the team decided against this feature later on. We know that some work had gone into making sure hordes targeted suitable, rich settlements. Why was this feature disabled?

At least in my imagination, this feature enables for interesting situations that make sense. (After all, many factions descend from migrant groups of men who settled in the North-West of ME). Just as examples:

_ Defeated Reunited Kingdom nobility would embark to Umbar or take refuge in the North.

_ Rohan riders (betrayed by their Gondorian allies) might horde to the East and become the new ruling dynasty in Rhovanion.

_ Even when a general pardon is granted after the civil war, the most black-hearted servants of Herumor would find a safe haven in which to plot their return.

_ A defeated Haradrim faction would go nomadic and cause more than one headache to its invader.

_ Non-mannish factions: I notice this feature would not match their intended in-game representation.

In any case, please understand this post only as a means to voice why it could be interesting to keep the feature, from a player’s point of view. I know you must have considered the plus and minuses and have some solid ground for your decision. Maybe the in-game horde mechanic is not strong enough to support reasonable in-game events.

Anyways, I look forward to see the release of DoM. I am confident it is going to be a jewel of a game!

[Aradan]

The feature was mainly disabled in order to make the 'proper' hording ability of the eastern factions more special and distinct. Apart from that, hordes are spawned with 0-exp units, while units recruited normally by factions start with exp (+6 atm) already assigned, which means the hordes are quite weaker than they should be (we can always give their commanders stat bonuses through traits, but it's not the same).

[Ryoga84]

A quick question: in the next version, can be still included DoM, as a Provincial Campaign?