(UNOFFICIAL) New Faction Ideas

[Ceasar Gubius]

I've seen alot of different ideas and talk of new factions on other threads. So I figured it would be interesting to see what new factions people would have in mind to bring up the gameplay ... BTW, this is completely hypothetical and has no bearing on what the modders here do....

Primary idea I would have would to divide the Silvan Elves into Mirkwood and Lothlorien...

[lordyu]

change start date to 1050 to 1950TA

[Manoflooks]

change start date to 1050 to 1950TA

It doesnt start in 1050. My Mordor campaign is 30 turns in and in the 2000s...

[maxi90]

i can only think of one good candidate: The Galadrim.

anotherone that could work would be Dundland... but i think that they are better as Isengard early infantry (although i hope they will increase their roster in the future)

edit: the mod start in TA 2955 i think..

[cherryfunk]

Primary idea I would have would to divide the Silvan Elves into Mirkwood and Lothlorien...

That might make sense...

[Elphir of Dol Amroth]

From what I know the team is already considering to split the Silvan Elves, but they haven't decided about it yet.

[Elfhelm]

How about a Far SouthHarad/Khand/Nurn faction expanding the great Variag units and including the mysterious 'troll' men and their red tongues . The Galadrim should have their own faction like in LOTR-TW.
Fangorn with puklemen,Tree Ents huorns and wood pixies! Only jokin with that last one! Perhaps it already exists but they are still talkin it over! The puklemen and the Ents I mean.....

[Ceasar Gubius]

Another idea would have been to divide the Dwaves into an Erebor faction, and then make the have protectrate, the Blue Mountain clans...

Another concept would be to divide Eriador into a few smaller (Playable and nonplayable) factions... Like Have a Shire faction (Nonplayable hobbits) and make them a protectrate of another faction, The Dunedain (Playable). And last (Seeing there is no enemy factions in the region), have a neutral
South-Farthing (Spelt right?), that makes quite a bit of money because of it's Tobacco, and may have ambition for the nearby regions... Now those are just a crazy idea

[MadTiest]

That might make sense...

I think the devs mentioned this might happen in a later version.
I think the current amount amount of playable factions is pretty good. Only thing that might be interesting is adding a few minor non-playable factions so the main factions don't start out as big. The reason I don't want new factions is because I'd rather have the devs spent the time improving the current factions (some factions already have a pretty sweet roster, but OoMM and Isengard for example really need more units before they start adding more factions). I'd rather have 12 perfect factions, each of which is very appealing and worth at least one playthrough, instead of say 16 factions of which I'd only be really interested in trying out a few (As is usually the case with a total war game for me).

[Garet Jax]

I'd rather have 12 perfect factions, each of which is very appealing and worth at least one playthrough, instead of say 16 factions of which I'd only be really interested in trying out a few (As is usually the case with a total war game for me).

Completely agree with you here, although splitting Silvan Elves would be cool.

[Jean=A=Luc]

The irony is that, except maybe the Dwarves, the elves are the least numerous (population-wise) of all the factions but will potentially be represented by 3 factions, 4 if you count the New Shores submod.

[Ceasar Gubius]

The irony is that, except maybe the Dwarves, the elves are the least numerous (population-wise) of all the factions but will potentially be represented by 3 factions, 4 if you count the New Shores submod.

LOL, I know, isn't that funny ... Maybe all the "Pointy-Ears" leaving middle earth should be made into the game as a statistic that influences the population growth of Elven cities???

[Leroux3369]

LOL, I know, isn't that funny ... Maybe all the "Pointy-Ears" leaving middle earth should be made into the game as a statistic that influences the population growth of Elven cities???

I really like that idea. In LOTR:TW if you started as the Elves (and mostly the High Elves) you started with a huge population decrease every turn at every city, symbolizing the Elves leaving Middle-Earth. Then the hardest part was to bring it back to 0%, and then even manage to bring back population grówth. It made playing as the Elves much harder.

I think the Galadhrim and Mirkwood should be separate factions, but closely connected to each other. Like an alliance from the start, trade rights and military acces.
As for the rest, Dunland shouldn't be in the game. I like it that they are Isengard's early infantry, and later replaced my the more powerful uruk-hai. It makes sense to me. And Dunland would never start their own empire anyway.
As for the Dwarves: Two things: OR make the Blue Mountains a vassal state for Erebor, OR you leave it to the dwarves but fix the corruption thing because of the distance. I know the Blue Mountains in the books were vassals of the Erebor Kingdom, but starting another fully fleshed out dwarven faction might be too much..
As for all the little evil factions like Dol Guldur, Khand, Umbar etc, Dol Guldur is fine under Mordor control, but they could put in some special units only recruitable at Dol Guldur. As for Khand and Umbar: Khand as a separate faction sucks.. Umbar could be one, but as an ally or vassal of Harad, and maybe Harad could recruit some Umbar units (as long as they are allied to Umbar or have that region).
Oh and I REALLY like the idea of a few non-playable factions instead or Eriador Like the Shire, or Bree, or Bucland, or in the north a small Dunedain faction. It's nice for RP reasons (think of slaying the Shire as Isengard), and personally I found 'Kingdom of Eriador' a bit or Lore rape..

[Faffenback]

In LOTR:TW if you started as the Elves (and mostly the High Elves) you started with a huge population decrease every turn at every city, symbolizing the Elves leaving Middle-Earth. Then the hardest part was to bring it back to 0%, and then even manage to bring back population grówth. It made playing as the Elves much harder.

I totally agree. In addition to this population decline to be dealt with in the beginning of the game, elven factions in the ending Third Age shouldn't be able to train to many soldiers given their limited numbers as a people. One should think about strictly limiting troops production, in the same king of way reportedly used by the developpers of DAC for the "Rangers of the North" (that is, 10 or 15 turns training per unit instead of one or two, and a deterrent cost as well).

In order to compensate all this (so that to keep the balance of the game) and make elven factions able to defend themselves against OotMM and Dol Guldur, I have two suggestions :

- boosting elven units, so that they would be able to beat masses of orcs and Uruks with small numbers of highly skilled/highly expensive troops. In the current scheme, I think elven units are not so incredibly strong compared with peasant militias from Dale (for instance) and grunts from the Misty Mountains. But that point should be further discussed.

- Another solution would consist in creating a defensive bonus for elven troops, only when they're stationned in Lothlorien, given that appendix B of the LotR mentions (when it comes to the description of military events of the War of the Ring) the existence in that place of a power (Galadriel's of course) that couldn't be mastered by anybody unless Sauron himself came to lead the assault. That effect helped Galadhrim resist to three massive assaults from Dol Guldur.

I think the Galadhrim and Mirkwood should be separate factions, but closely connected to each other. Like an alliance from the start, trade rights and military acces.

Once again, I totally agree. For at least two reasons :
- lore : Lothlorien and Mirkwood kingdom are two distinct factions. Whatever cultural/linguistic (roster...) proximity one could find, we have here two kings for as many kingdoms. Besides, as a matter of fact the two silvan factions (contrary to the remnants of Noldorin Elves in Lindon and Imladris) played a quite significant role from the military point of view in the war of the Ring (crushing Dol Guldur armies and wiping out orcs from Mirkwood, all events related in LotR, appendix B), so I think each one really deserve to be represented as such in the game.

- gameplay : I've noticed in my first game (playing with Dale) that Silvan Elves are very active and successful in extending their borders far from their bases. A little bit too much for the balance of the game I think . That's why dividing them into two different factions (even allied) would limit their conquest ambitions and make the game more realistic.

That split could be compensated by giving those two factions highly developped cities as starting positions (those cities are quite ancient after all). That would help in particular the Mirkwood faction, starting with only one settlement.


By the way, I think the victory conditions should be less ambitious for elven factions. We're in the ending Third Age, so it's no more time for elves to build huge empires anyway.

[MadTiest]

The irony is that, except maybe the Dwarves, the elves are the least numerous (population-wise) of all the factions but will potentially be represented by 3 factions, 4 if you count the New Shores submod.

Agreed.

Maybe all the "Pointy-Ears" leaving middle earth should be made into the game as a statistic that influences the population growth of Elven cities???

I'm not sure it's fun to be stuck with the same size (or even smaller) cities all game. (EDIT: well, you can also conquer bigger cities...but still)

[JonSnow]

I think there's less dwarves unless I am mistaken...

[Ketchup]

I don't think any extra factions are needed. What is needed is to flesh out some of the existing factions.

[Ceasar Gubius]

I don't think any extra factions are needed. What is needed is to flesh out some of the existing factions.

I think it would be better to have more Nonplayable factions in-game. Otherwise these factions grow to fast...

[Ceasar Gubius]

What about a complete new alternative campaign for an earlier era, in wich you have Agmar and the three Arnorian Kingdoms (What are they again?). Now that would be really cool!


*Sorry for the double-post

[Kabudhan]

What about a complete new alternative campaign for an earlier era, in wich you have Agmar and the three Arnorian Kingdoms (What are they again?). Now that would be really cool!


*Sorry for the double-post

This is a fantastic idea. It would take a while to mod though. But make it so it started after Cardolan became subjects of the Witch King, and you have a fantastic start position there! Heck, you'd only need a map covering Eriador, really!

I wish Tolkien wrote more about this period, as it's frankly more interesting than the War of the Ring. But perhaps that is because I am a history student.

On topic, the Silvan elves split is a great idea. Beyond that, I think the factions are fine.