FOLLOWERS OF THE WHITE HAND - minisubmod for MOS 1.7 - UPDATE 30/12/17

[aetiusaetius]

- CURRENTLY NOT WORKING -



This is a minisubmod for MOS. The main goal of this mod is to enhance gameplay when playing as Isengard. Specifically, it's main focus is on Saruman's decisions during the War of the Ring. I have tried to make it lore friendly so you, as Saruman the White will be able to revive moments like the Last March of the Ents or the seek of the Ring. And you may be defeated by them in order to cope with lore... or perhaps you are here to change the History of Middle-earth?

The mod consists (at the moment) of two differentiated scripts (an extended version of 'The Fires of Isengard' and a 'Saruman gets the Ring' script) and other addons:


The Fires of Isengard - extended script

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Isengard, once a merry exuberant place is now a vast armoury with deep pits and warg cages. Saruman is preparing a great host with which to assault Rohan, but the fires of Isengard require a vast wood supply. Fortunetly, the Fangorn forest neighbours Isengard...

If you are to deploy a powerful Uruk-hai army, and you dont have yet the means you can invade Fangorn Forest to speed up your plans and develop your military potential by giving enough fuel to your furnaces. Do realize that this could anger the inhabitants of the woods...

How does it work: perhaps you would like to play first an Isengard campaign and discover by yourself before reading this, it contains gameplay spoilers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

first you shall take Fangorn province (the one neighbouring the Misty Mountains). Then you have to construct a lumber camp in order to chop down the forest. After that, when the development process is completed, you will be turnly rewarded with a medium increase of income. But if you keep chopping down the forest for too long (keeping the province and the lumber camp, hence keeping the income bonus), you will have chopped down and killed enough trees to make Treebeard really angry. You shall expect then a fully ent invasion towards Isengard. Be prepared: as I said, I like things lore-friendly so the ent army is indeed powerful and you, as Saruman, could end up being overruned which could lead to the destruction of Isengard like in lore

You can see some screenshots below (I will not post scrennies of all events, you shall find them ingame ) :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you dare cutting down Fangorn forest you may end up facing this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Followers of the White Hand: Isengard religion conversion and Saruman desire for the Ring

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

At the begining of the War of the Ring, Saruman betrayed the White Council and all Free People making alliance with Mordor and the Dark Lord. He had been already betting on two horses: he was leader of the Council, but kept a palantir and sought the One Ring by his own, beeing Ortahnc his base of opperations. When he finally contended with Gandalf the Grey and formed an alliance with Sauron, he was still playing both sides of the fence: if Sauron was to regain the Ring and rule Middle-earth he would prove loyal and useful so as to rule with the Dark Lord afterwards; but if by any chance he could finally gain control of the Ring, Saruman would take it for him and rise as the new most powerful Dark Lord, defying even Sauron.

When you start an Isengard campaign you will be one of Sauron's trusted realms and your faction religion will worship Melkor (as in vanilla MOS 1.7). If you find the Ring, you will have the opportunity to deliver it to Sauron and be greatly rewarded by him (vanilla), strengthening your alliance; or you may want to keep it, leaving Saruman time to struggle with the Ring. If you do keep it (prepare for Sauron's anger), Saruman will finally manage to subdue the One Ring and claim it for himself. Doing this, he will use the power of the Ring to greatly expand his military potential (you will be greatly rewarded).

If you decided to subdue the Ring to your will, you will also have the opportunity to change your faction's religion. If you accept to change it, Isengard will no longer worship Melkor but only Saruman the Great of Many Colours, changing its religion to Followers of the White-Hand (uruk). The Uruk-hai will only obey you and you will not suffer the effects of loosing Sauron's protection, for your subordinates wont care for him anymore, only for the will of the White Hand. Obviously, you will no longer be able to participate in Sauron's raids nor invasion, in fact, most probable he will call on an invasion against you (don't worry, you will have the power of the Ring to protect you).

Here you can see some screenshots:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

See that the religion has changed to Followers of the White-Hand.


Note that the Dark Lord is gone after conversion.

The rewards of keeping the Ring are truely great but the consequences will be great too! I may add other type of rewards in the future...
I hope you enjoy and have real fun rewriting Middle-earth History or maintaining it lore-wise!

As you may know, this is my first modding release, so I will appreciate your feedback. Constructive criticism is also welcome.


Other stuff included in this minisubmod:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- New mercenaries for Isengard: Dunlending Veterans and Dunlending Clansmen. This units where already in vanilla MOS 1.7 but only appeared via scripts
- New Isengard general at start: Sharku, Captain of the Warg-Riders. He has a Warg Rider general's bodyguard. The battle model used is the same as Grishnákh, which is in vanilla MOS. All credit for the Third Age team, who I believe made the model.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- New visual upgrade of Uruk-Hai Raiders, Uruk-Hai Archers, and crews from Rocket Launcher, Catapults and Ballistas with DAC textures. The new textures are incredible and the units look great! Thanks to Arachir Galudirithon and the DAC team for their work, wich is very impresive! You can see them here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Credits and acknowledgements:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- The whole MOS team, for their great submod which is mother of this work.
- KingKong and all the Third Age team for their wonderful conversion of Medieval 2 TW.
- Arachir Galudirithon and the DAC team, for some of the pictures I have used and the wonderful uruk-hai textures.
- proximusj , for his great Sauron's Counter Attack script which inspired me for the ents invasion script.
- Special thanks to Ngugi, Veteraan, MIKE GOLF, alreadyded, Withwnar, paleologos, Gigantus, Mhaedros, TheEmperor, atthias, Emperor of Hell, ElveKind and Greymane for their answers in the Modding Q&A and MOS thread, and their maintenance of the forum.

If I have skipped you, please let me know and I would be happy to credit you assap

Istall instructions:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Download the folder below. FotWH has been tested to work on a clean MOS 1.7 install. Other submods may be or not be compatible. A back-up of your folders before install is recommended (you can see which files will be modified in the downloaded folder). Deleting map.rwm in Third_Age_3\data\world\maps\base is also recommended. Install the same way you installed MOS: Extract the "Third_Age_3" file to the "mods" folder.
In a standard install, you can find it here:

***\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3

[aetiusaetius]

[Reserved]

[aetiusaetius]

I'm having problems posting the .jpg images, I'll try posting them as soon as possible!

Done!

[alreadyded]

Good job.

I use postimg.org, and copy the Direct Link code.

Then;

[*SPOILER][*IMG]Direct Link[/IMG][/SPOILER]

(remove both the *) to post it.

Also, while glancing over it, I noticed you spelled Fangorn as Fanforn.

[Ngugi]

Nice work, +1

[aetiusaetius]

Thanks for the help alreadyded , I solved it with Imgur and the help of Ngugi and Veteraan!
hahaha just edited


@Ngugi: thanks!!

[MIKE GOLF]

Looks very promising.

[♔atthias♔]

is it intended that the new isengard mercs have no unit card?

if not I will gladly lend you a [white] hand in fixing it
I am not sure I can but I think I know how to fix it
no guarantee but I can try

[aetiusaetius]

Looks very promising.

Thank you MIKE GOLF!

is it intended that the new isengard mercs have no unit card?

if not I will gladly lend you a [white] hand in fixing it
I am not sure I can but I think I know how to fix it
no guarantee but I can try

The help of the White Hand must never be rejected, I would be very happy if you did! They do have a unit card once purchased and in battle, but not when recruiting them.

[♔atthias♔]

will download your files and have a look

[MIKE GOLF]

Sharku is currently a silver surfer. If you open your battle_models.modeldb in the unit_models folder search for 'grish' and update it to:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

5 grish 
1 1 
41 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/grish_lod0.mesh 6400 
2 
7 england 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0 
6 france 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0 
2 
7 england 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0  
6 france 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0

The red text is what has been updated.

[aetiusaetius]

will download your files and have a look

great! Tell me how does it go!

Sharku is currently a silver surfer. If you open your battle_models.modeldb in the unit_models folder search for 'grish' and update it to:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

5 grish 
1 1 
41 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/grish_lod0.mesh 6400 
2 
7 england 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0 
6 france 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0 
2 
7 england 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0  
6 france 
48 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish.texture 
55 unit_models/_Units/Heroes/textures/grish_normal.texture 0

The red text is what has been updated.

It's now update. Good news is that it is save-game compatible! thanks MIKE GOLF!

[CatoTheYounger]

Fatastic mod but it crashes at times when you go to battle, when you quit a game(strange) etc...I tried it once with another submod attached and another time with only MOS 1.7. The best feature is the ability to recruit Dunlending clansman. I don't know why Mos does not make them available as merc for Isengard when Sauruman had a substantial amount of Dunlendings in his forces. The Dunlending faction in MOS is not lore as the units are well armoured and armed. The clansman units are as I picture the Dunlendings and seem lore acurate although I think their attack ratting is too low. They were strong tough men. Maybe I need to learn to mod sthem in as merc myself.

[aetiusaetius]

Fatastic mod but it crashes at times when you go to battle, when you quit a game(strange) etc...I tried it once with another submod attached and another time with only MOS 1.7. The best feature is the ability to recruit Dunlending clansman. I don't know why Mos does not make them available as merc for Isengard when Sauruman had a substantial amount of Dunlendings in his forces. The Dunlending faction in MOS is not lore as the units are well armoured and armed. The clansman units are as I picture the Dunlendings and seem lore acurate although I think their attack ratting is too low. They were strong tough men. Maybe I need to learn to mod sthem in as merc myself.

Hi CatoTheYounger! I'm happy you are enojoying FOTWH! How where the crashes? In current version 1.1 the mod doesn't change anything regarding battles or units, so I don't think that kind of crash is related to this mod. I did however experienced once a crash when exiting the game. It didn't affect gameplay but it was weird... How was your experience?
I agree on the point concerning Dunlendings. It is very nice recruiting them as Isengard, it makes armies more diverse. Dunland was an interesting addition to MOS, but I think it lowered difficulty for Isengard, as you now have to fight only on one side (against Rohan). From my point of view, not only Dunlendings are too weak in MOS but also Uruk-hai. Saruman worked very hard and put all his knowledge to creat a superior race which would be tougher than both men and orcs. They were also a highly disciplined force, while beeing brutally strong. In MOS they feel much more like bigger orcs, disorganized and not very strong. I might better a bit their stats in the future, though that would also mean an increase in upkeep in order to keep balance. For now, you can change yourself the stats you want easily:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Open with Notepad++ the file called export_descr_unit.txt in the data folder, in the Third_Age_3 folder. Browse for the Dunlendings soldiers, it will show like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type Dunlendings
dictionary Dunlendings ; Dunlendings
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Heavy
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier dunlendings, 80, 0, 1
officer dunland_captain_early_flag
officer dunland_captain
mount_effect horse +2, camel +2, elephant -4
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, legionary_name, free_upkeep_unit, no_custom
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square, schiltrom
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 3, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 90, 1 ; heavy spear
stat_pri_attr light_spear
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 2, 0, 5, leather ; 1 -2 peasant mil -1 impet -1 hvy weap +2 agil +1 shield
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 5
stat_ground 1, 0, 2, 0
stat_mental 5, impetuous, untrained
stat_charge_dist 6
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 250, 95, 75, 75, 250, 4, 100
armour_ug_levels 0, 1
armour_ug_models dunlendings, dunlendings_upg
ownership france, slave
era 0 france, slave
era 1 france, slave
era 2 france, slave
recruit_priority_offset 5

Now you can change the stats I bolded to whatever number you desire.stat_pri 3, 2, refers to attack: the first number is the attack value and the second the charge bonus. stat_pri_armour 2, 0, 5, leather indicates the armour and defense: first number is armour, second defence ability and third the shield bonus. Happy modding!

I have already planed a newer verion for FOTWH, I will start working on it soon. Dunland will be a target of this next update so if you like Dunlendings I guess you might enjoy next version!

[aetiusaetius]

NEW UPDATE 17/09/17: I have just uploaded the updated mod with the new visual upgrade for Uruk-Hai Raiders, Uruk-Hai Archers, and crews from Rocket Launcher, Catapults and Ballistas with DAC textures. It is save-game compatible. Thanks to the DAC team, their work is great!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

UPDATE 30/12/17: added AI Saruman script, now AI Isengard can convert its religion to Followers of the White Hand (if script enabled by player).

[aetiusaetius]

I need some testers for next update. If you can help please let me know. I was going to release it already, but I need further testing.

Now AI Saruman can covert its religion. Testing is for AI Saruman getting the Ring.
Thanks all!

[lequintal69]

Solid mod, loving it so far, +1 !

[aetiusaetius]

Solid mod, loving it so far, +1 !

Glad you're loving it. Enjoy, my Lord Saruman!

[lequintal69]

Hey, I have been continuing my lovely campaign and I think I found a bug. Siege workshop only use sauron religion, they don't switch to white hand religion after you converted so you can't recruit siege engines anymore

[aetiusaetius]

Hi lequintal69. Thanks for reporting. I have added the necessary entries in the EDB and reuploaded. It should work correctly now
You can either install the Third Age file as usual or add this file export_descr_buildings.txt in the data folder. When asked, rewrite the file. Enjoy!