[Discussion] The Hobbit Influence

[♔atthias♔]

goat cavalry should be available but only in limited numbers, to serve as scouts. i think making them light cavalry with small charge bonus (small animal and small dwarve) and half the unit size but somewhat high cost would be acceptable. Mountain goats do live in mountains, and having some cavalry is extremely important. Ancient greeks did not have cavalry units, but they still had horsemen to serve as scouts and messengers. Since in Total War Rome 2 there is fog of war and Tolkien did keep things quite realistic, even orcs were far closer to real humans than in movies, it makes sense to give Dwarves scouting units. They should not have any real cavalry or mounted infantry, but i certainly think they should have scouts, goats or ponies. I prefer ponies, but since goats actually live on mountains i think they make sense too.

luckly that will not happen in the main mod yay

[TheRomanRuler]

Only wargs are mounts, and that is because they are an express mechanic in Tolkien's works, demonic spirits in league with Sauron. That is black and white. What is also black and white is Tolkien's words on the matter, Dwarves have nothing to do with animals. And Dutch folklore from 1912 hardly demonstrates a prevalent mythology, especially since rams were not demonic in Tolkien's mythology.

Did Tolkien write books about every faction and their units? If not, we should not be limited to what he says. Unless you mean Tolkien directly said "Dwarves have nothing to do with animals", Dwarves certainly should have scouts of their own. It does not need to be Dwarves even, it could be humans who work for Dwarves, as long as Dwarves have scout units that are recruitable just like their bread and butter units are, becouse scouts are bread and butter.

[Mr.Jox]

Guys we really appreciate your suggestions and arguments but as we stated once and forever the goat cavalry will not be added for dwarves for many reasons.
We consider it's not worthy to make such contradictory and difficult (in terms of animation and geometry) unit.
Of course I don't limit you in discussing it at any point but just don't expect us to make it. We will also appreciate if someone will release it as a submod (we will even consider to include it to our mod).

[Ngugi]

Did Tolkien write books about every faction and their units? If not, we should not be limited to what he says. Unless you mean Tolkien directly said "Dwarves have nothing to do with animals", Dwarves certainly should have scouts of their own. It does not need to be Dwarves even, it could be humans who work for Dwarves, as long as Dwarves have scout units that are recruitable just like their bread and butter units are, becouse scouts are bread and butter.

All in all there's a difference between trying to stay faithful to Tolkien's legendarium, and to ignore that ambition because PJ & Weta in some regards arguably wanted to make Warhammer-universe films and not the Hobbit, hehe. To each his own naturally, but (and this not directed to you TheRomanRuler, but the repeated contestations) that each make up his mind on how important Tolkien's writings actually are do not mean that the mod team's decision should be disrespected merely because it do not fulfill someone own desires.

Now, it's not required what this topic concerns, since Tolkien indeed told us exactly what Middle-earth's Dwarves did when they wanted cavalry - they made alliances with Men.

[The Northmen] were lightly armed, chiefly with bows, for they had little metal and the few smiths among them had no great skill. These things the Dwarves amended in return for one great service that Men could offer. They were tamers of beasts and had learned the mastery of horses, and many were skilled and fearless riders. (29)
These would often ride far afield as scouts and keep watch on movements of their enemies; and if the Orks dared to assemble in the open for some great raid, they would gather great force of horsed archers to surround them and destroy them.

(...) §29: No Dwarf would ever mount a horse willingly, nor did any ever harbour animals, not even dogs.


- from History of Middle-earth 12

[Alkar]

Did Tolkien write books about every faction and their units? If not, we should not be limited to what he says. Unless you mean Tolkien directly said "Dwarves have nothing to do with animals", Dwarves certainly should have scouts of their own. It does not need to be Dwarves even, it could be humans who work for Dwarves, as long as Dwarves have scout units that are recruitable just like their bread and butter units are, becouse scouts are bread and butter.

Please, read the thread - history has indeed repeated itself. The lore has been discussed countless times.

[TheRomanRuler]

All in all there's a difference between trying to stay faithful to Tolkien's legendarium, and to ignore that ambition because PJ & Weta in some regards arguably wanted to make Warhammer-universe films and not the Hobbit, hehe. To each his own naturally, but (and this not directed to you TheRomanRuler, but the repeated contestations) that each make up his mind on how important Tolkien's writings actually are do not mean that the mod team's decision should be disrespected merely because it do not fulfill someone own desires.

Now, it's not required what this topic concerns, since Tolkien indeed told us exactly what Middle-earth's Dwarves did when they wanted cavalry - they made alliances with Men.

Your quote is what i wanted to hear. It allows Dwarves to have cavalry in their armies, even though Dwarves are not riding. That is perfectly reasonable. I never wanted to go directly against Tolkien, my point was that if Tolkien left something unsaid, if there was something he never mentioned anything about, we could do our best to fill the caps. In this case we don´t need to as Tolkien himself has filled the cap. But if Tolkien would not have said anything directly about Dwarves and their cavalry, then we should think ourselves. And since cavalry of some amount existed in every army, Dwarves should have some cavalry. And now they do, hired cavalry from non-Dwarf folks.

[TheRomanRuler]

Please, read the thread - history has indeed repeated itself. The lore has been discussed countless times.

yes sorry.

[LOTRGuy2016]

Your quote is what i wanted to hear. It allows Dwarves to have cavalry in their armies, even though Dwarves are not riding. That is perfectly reasonable. I never wanted to go directly against Tolkien, my point was that if Tolkien left something unsaid, if there was something he never mentioned anything about, we could do our best to fill the caps. In this case we don´t need to as Tolkien himself has filled the cap. But if Tolkien would not have said anything directly about Dwarves and their cavalry, then we should think ourselves. And since cavalry of some amount existed in every army, Dwarves should have some cavalry. And now they do, hired cavalry from non-Dwarf folks.

Hey there, a few months late I know, but since the factions are currently being worked on, I felt I could throw a few things out there. Personally I always felt that expanding the lore without disrespect to tolkien is indeed a good thing.

Even though the critically acclaimed middle earth game shadow of mordor is considered non-canon by tolkien standards, The team at Monolith did a tremendous job at basically creating the enviroment for Mordor in that game. Nobody really complained about Graugs or Caragors being added into the wildlife. The reason being is that they fit very well into a middle earth environment.

What you talked about concerning the dwarf cavalry brings up (though probably dead by now) a good point. "Who decided what should be added to an already existing world?" I feel that simply keeping things rank and file seems a little too straightforward. As explained above, Monolith did just fine in adding new fauna to a middle earth enviroment. I don't really see a problem in designing totally new creatures for a middle earth game/world etc... or at least expanding upon already existing ones, (Wargs, Trolls etc...)

PJ and his crew at Weta had decided to spice up some things by considering a whole new list of creatures for the Battle of Erebor, not to disrespect tolkien, but rather to build on creatures that could exist in the world he already built in his writings. I honestly do not see many games or other things based on the hobbit films as much as I do the Lotr films. The team at Weta worked just as hard on both.

In this mod, I personally feel if a faction was presented or showcased in the Hobbit films more so than the Lotr films, the physical attributes and rules of the faction should apply to the hobbit films.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lL3WY for example, if the Gundabad wargs (seen in the hobbit) are physically smaller than the wargs of isengard (in lotr)

I also mentioned on several threads the armored trolls from the battle of Erebor in the hobbit films. PJ and the Weta Crew added them to the film's battle (Tolkien of course wrote little to nothing on the battle itself) The trolls were specifically designed to be Olog-Hai (like the ones from lotr) however they made them much, much larger. So this still concerns me...If one creature or character is presented differently in two different medias (in this case different films) which do you go on in designing for this mod? Honestly this has to do with comparing things between the hobbit and the lotr. And this will probably be a more relevant quote once the dol guldur faction is being worked on.

[Commissar Caligula_]

So this still concerns me...If one creature or character is presented differently in two different medias (in this case different films) which do you go on in designing for this mod? Honestly this has to do with comparing things between the hobbit and the lotr. And this will probably be a more relevant quote once the dol guldur faction is being worked on.

I'd imagine the Lord of the Rings films will be our first reference, then the Hobbit films, then WETA Workshop, then the books for the visuals.
For the lore, I'd imagine the books come first followed by the LOTR films, the Hobbit and WETA.

[Mr.Jox]

Hey there, a few months late I know, but since the factions are currently being worked on, I felt I could throw a few things out there. Personally I always felt that expanding the lore without disrespect to tolkien is indeed a good thing.

Even though the critically acclaimed middle earth game shadow of mordor is considered non-canon by tolkien standards, The team at Monolith did a tremendous job at basically creating the enviroment for Mordor in that game. Nobody really complained about Graugs or Caragors being added into the wildlife. The reason being is that they fit very well into a middle earth environment.

What you talked about concerning the dwarf cavalry brings up (though probably dead by now) a good point. "Who decided what should be added to an already existing world?" I feel that simply keeping things rank and file seems a little too straightforward. As explained above, Monolith did just fine in adding new fauna to a middle earth enviroment. I don't really see a problem in designing totally new creatures for a middle earth game/world etc... or at least expanding upon already existing ones, (Wargs, Trolls etc...)

PJ and his crew at Weta had decided to spice up some things by considering a whole new list of creatures for the Battle of Erebor, not to disrespect tolkien, but rather to build on creatures that could exist in the world he already built in his writings. I honestly do not see many games or other things based on the hobbit films as much as I do the Lotr films. The team at Weta worked just as hard on both.

In this mod, I personally feel if a faction was presented or showcased in the Hobbit films more so than the Lotr films, the physical attributes and rules of the faction should apply to the hobbit films.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lL3WY for example, if the Gundabad wargs (seen in the hobbit) are physically smaller than the wargs of isengard (in lotr)

I also mentioned on several threads the armored trolls from the battle of Erebor in the hobbit films. PJ and the Weta Crew added them to the film's battle (Tolkien of course wrote little to nothing on the battle itself) The trolls were specifically designed to be Olog-Hai (like the ones from lotr) however they made them much, much larger. So this still concerns me...If one creature or character is presented differently in two different medias (in this case different films) which do you go on in designing for this mod? Honestly this has to do with comparing things between the hobbit and the lotr. And this will probably be a more relevant quote once the dol guldur faction is being worked on.

Unfortunately there are two different approaches in The Hobbit and LOTR how to portray Middle-Earth. While there are almost no complaints about lotr (which has many non-canon elements) The Hobbit resulted in a great lore-raping film due to things that would have never happened and it's visuals (too much Hollywood there). It starts from armour to creatures that would've never existed and fit Middle-Earth.
Hell, so happy they didn't put ostriches in the film otherwise we would've been spammed with requests for that unit.

Again, the team thinks that trolls with rams on their heads, troll with catapults on their back, trolls-puppets and goat-cavalry are non-canon and won't be present in the official release, however we appreciate if other modders will make submods with these units.

So bad there's lotr influence thread as this is our direction and we try to lotr-fy the Hobbit armours which look more like Warhammer rather than ME world.