The One Ring ideas, script and ancillary triggers

[Adjudant-Major]

Greetings to thee,

I got back to TATW and I restarted my projects of old, the extended map (see euskingc's submod here), and the scripted campaign which brings more role play and the LOTR story line into the imperial campaign, without forcing the player to follow it.

This is the actual story of the one_ring ancillary in my script, I am putting it here for two reasons : 1) to organize my thaughts after all those years, 2) to gather your ideas, propositions, etc. I will eventually post here the code too, but I am not releasing this as submod, and I do not mean this to be a suggestion thread for any submod or for TATW itself; let's have eventually a discussion about the One Ring effects, use and possibilites.

- 3 ancillaries are there: "one_ring" and "one_ring_transferable", and "no_one_ring" - the difference between the first two is evident, the last one is a placeholder for Sauron because he may get one_ring through script or one_ring_transferable from the player, and we do not want to get stuck if the character reached the ancillary limit.

1) only no_one_ring exists at the start of the campaign, Sauron (england) has it - he is locked in Barad Dûr, has the portrait of The Eye, and he holds 6 rings of the Nazgul (3 Nazguls are generals, 6 Nazguls are spies - there is the immortal Nazgul script that will turn the spies into generals later) ; Frodo (turks) is locked in Hobbiton (my campaign starts in January 3007 TA, and I use 12 turns per year); there is no pope yet; Saruman is allied with the Elves, with Rohan, with FPoE and with Gondor, and he can't recruit uruks yet - all he does for the first 60-100 turns or so is boosting his economy, using diplomacy, conquering slaves eventually (and it is a very enjoyable way to play TATW I must say; of course, he can choose to start his war anytime, but he is not forced to it, the initiative is his and his own)

2) from turn 60 there is a 3% chance that Gollum gets captured in Mordor; when he's captured, four major events occur : 1) Frodo in Hobbiton gets the ancillary one_ring; 2) the Nazguls are spawn as generals, 3) 12 turns (a year) after Gollum's capture the "pope" is spawn, and the invasions may begin, 4) the human player Isengard is getting, every turn after Gollum's capture, the possibility to reveal Saruman's true intentions - click yes to become allied with Mordor and Orcs, to get three initial stacks of uruks led by Sharku, Ugluk and Lurtz, to break alliances with the good factions, and to be able to recruit the uruk-hai (and Gandalf the Grey turns into Gandalf the White... he is not general, he is "imam", the good factions are all of the religion of "islam" ("Free Peoples") - the "jihad" (Alliance) may be called by him against an evil settlement now; he comes with Gondor if you play for an evil faction or in hotseat, or with any other good faction in singleplayer; he unlocks the Ents, he unlocks the Fellowship, actually to have him as "priest" makes much more sens than to have him as general; he is a nice and able general, but you may have dozens like that, not as good, but still generals with bodyguard cavalry, etc. - to make him priest brings more options to the game); the AI Isengard will become evil 12 turns after Gollum's capture (or anytime before when there is war between Isengard and Gondor, Rohan, Eriador or the Elves)

3) once Frodo gets the One Ring, Gandalf the Grey (or later the White) needs to go to the Shire province to remove Frodo's trait Locked - if you do play for Eriador, you than need to get Frodo to the Rivendell province to form the Fellowship of the Ring, if you do not, it will happen when simple conditions are met - Gondor, or Rohan, or Eriador will than get the Fellowship of the Ring which will spawn near Rivendell - Aragorn (Legolas and Gimli are officers in his BG unit), Boromir and Frodo (with Sam as officer of a small Grey Company unit) - Frodo has the One Ring, and his aim is to get to the Mount Doom province, survive there for more than 2 turns, and destroy the Ring, and the faction of Mordor with it; (the AI can't do that, of course, unless pre-scripted at random turn - which is something I need to test and to think about, as the Mordor player would only have to wait for Frodo's appearence who would thus deliver the One Ring to him)

4) Frodo may get killed... if it is by a human controlled general, the general recieves the ancillary one_ring_transferable - if he's Mordor, no need to explain what to do; if he's Isengard, Saruman will decide whether he passes the One Ring to Sauron, or he keeps it and use it, or he keeps it in secret (and use it later), or he turns good and gives it to Elrond; if he's Orc or Wicked Man, a messanger of Mordor will be spawn, and will deliver the One Ring to the Dark Lord... unless you decide not to... ; if Frodo is killed by a captain or by an AI controlled general, or if he diseappears at sea, or dies of age, once he is no more, the one_ring goes automatically to Aragorn, if he's alive. And Aragorn may also destroy the Ring at the Mount Doom. If Aragorn is not alive, the Ring goes to Sauron, or it goes to Elrond, or it is lost : 33/33/33. If Aragorn is killed, the thing repeats with the one_ring_transferable ancillary.

5) if Sauron gets the one_ring or the one_ring_transferable, a financial boost for the evil factions comes and the Sauron Elephants unit is spawn in "The Eye's" army; if killed by a human controlled general, the one_ring_transferable is back in the game... destroy it, or keep it and risk Sauron's return

Now a few questions...

a) what could Saruman do with the One Ring, a question treated many times not only in this forum; according to the Unfinished Tales ("I have it not, as surely its servants perceive without telling; for if I had it, then you would bow before me and call me Lord.") Isengard might use the service of the Nazguls somehow... possibly not as strong as the original ones, let's say the Mounted Nazgul unit might do; what else, besides some economical boost, perhaps some new units as proposed by DAC, I thaught the Orcs of the Misty Mountains might join the banner of the White Hand, and those of Gundabad too - that would open the gates for a late campaign war between the White Hand and Mordor for the domination of Middle Earth; an option I am currently considering too is to make Saruman to wake up from his evil dream, remember why he was sent to Middle Earth, and help the good factions... somehow

b) what would the primitive Goblins do with the One Ring should the player not to give it to Mordor... the best option I would see is that the faction would get everything from Mordor and continue to play as a sort of orcish Reunited Kingdom; with some strict conditions met to make it harder

c) what would the Haradrim or the Easterlings do with the One Ring... there I would see only some minor economical effects, and generally a prevention from seeing Mordor to get too strong - so they can defeat it later eventually; again, it would be a risky choice which might cost them...

d) any faction, except for the Orcs and Mordor, might be able to destroy the Ring at the Mount Doom, and england and papal_states with it - the problem here was that we can't remove the ancillary from an unknown, random character by script: the solution is that the faction spawns a unique labeled character, a hero, who is the only character who can do so.

- to avoid the AI's influence on all this as much as possible, all good factions will be given the possibility to form the Fellowship, so it's always the player who is reponsible for Frodo's fate (with hotseat options); and if the player is evil, Frodo's or Aragorn's deat would spawn the One Ring in a random good settlement, never automatically with Sauron as I have it now, so you would always need to go through the one_ring_transferable by killing the actual ringbearer; this will also mean that you can ignore the entire myth of the One Ring totally, hide your ringbearer somewhere, do not talk about him anymore... they do not know it is here. Do they.

The major part of this is done and working. To change religion or to merge two or more factions is the hard thing because I need to add many lines especially to the export_descr_buildings and to the unit models file.

[Adjudant-Major]

Isengard changes the banner and the symbol, from Saruman's personal sign and the White Tree to the White hand banner when it becomes allied with Sauron



I would see a better symbol, but did not find any.