Territories and the campaign.

[Burns]

So, whats this mod's plan for the campaign map? How many settlements will there be? Since FA isnt limited in terms of settlements - so long as the team is creative with the names (or be very sly about things much like my campaign map for METW). How far into the east will the map stretch?

[MasterOfNone]

Burns,

Work for the campaign map started around September of 2004, though it has changed much since then. Hundreds of hours were poured into research for the concept map, drawing upon maps drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien and his son. We also looked into older, discarded maps by Tolkien for ideas and Karen Wynn Fonstad's excellent The Atlas of Tolkien's Middle-earth has been my constant companion.

The compiling of the map files for the RWM file was begun quite late and our Map Editor, Tittils, has done a fine job. During the Spring and early Summer of this year we have done much to refine the campaign map. We've researched relative heights of mountain ranges, compared with their real-world counterparts of the same height; we've analyzed elevation and relative positioning, crossings, passes, and numerous other features and concepts.

It is still not quite polished off, but is certainly the most advanced area of the mod.

It was a great journey for me (and quite some fun) to research regional and settlement names; as you can imagine the Storyline and the nature of geographical/political elements are much intertwined.

The map will have around 95-100 regions and its borders are deliberately limited to those of the official maps in the books themselves - we saw no reason to enter into less-known territory and create unneccesary work for ourselves which would bring no significant pleasure to future players.

My goal has always been to make it as good a representation of the lands of Middle-earth as the game engine would allow, and provide credible (though minimal) additions to accord for the Fourth Age. Clearly some things will be missing too such as the absence of the Morannon which of course fell at the end of the War of the Ring along with its towers and Barad-dûr.

Or perhaps they were rebuilt...

- Palantir,
Fourth Age management.

[{nF}remix]

That sounds awesome, will you guys implement wonders too?

[Arakorn]

Yes we will.

[Major König]

Will the Dark gate be a settlement? Ive always enjoyed drawing it and looking at pictures of it.

[Amroth]

Achilles_47: The Black Gate (Morannon) was destroyed at the end of the War of the Ring.

Apoc

[HighPriest16]

it may have been destroyed, but this is an alternate universe. It could have been rebuilt.

[Euro]

the black gate was originally built by gondor. So It can be rebuilt. It fell to mordor when the great plague happened and gondor withdrew its forces to stabilize itself.

[Marcus AureliusVI]

High Priest, this is no alternate universe. This is simply going further into Tolkiens world, and hypothesizing what the world would be like, via Tolkiens thoughts.

[Amroth]

The Morannon was indeed built by the Gondorians, but it would not make sense for Aragorn (or his son, Eldarion) to rebuild it; it became after all one of the chief physical manifestations of the power of the Dark Lord. Another fortification might have been built in its place, with a new name, but I highly doubt it.

Apoc

[MasterAdnin]

They might have rebuilt it in order to keep orcs under control because orcs are a race of their own and humans maybe greedy in LOTR, but they are not heartless.

[Amroth]

Orcs would have been exterminated in Mordor; that is our take on it at least. And we try to keep the might have's to an absolute minimum, even if this is the Fourth Age.

Apoc

[bon]

how is your historical cities coming? have you managed to create minas tirith yet?

[Gaius Drakan]

I don't think they have, their concentrating on the units first I believe.

[Marcus AureliusVI]

yes, units have been our first priority.

[Amroth]

Although it is true that we have been concentrating on making units, we have done much work on other aspects of the game as well.

When it comes to historical cities most of what we have done so far has been in the field of research.

Apoc

[tomdidiot]

The Morannon was NOT built by Gondor, the towers of the Teeth were built by Gondor, but not the black Gate itself. That was built by Sauron.

[Pietrak]

and even if the Morannon would be rebuilt in the Fourth Age, it would not look like the old one... it would look like a plain Gondor fortification

[Artemas Ward the XXIII, Esquire]

The spot where the black gate was is a place of HIGH strategic importance. I find it highly difficult to believe that the current inhabitants of Mordor would not do something to fortify it. If it were rebuilt it could looke like a normal big-ass wall, or it could be made to copy the asthetic of the Morannon, either are possible.

[Professor420]

Very true... there are basically two-three ways into Mordor from NW Middle-earth, and since Mordor is a place of import plot-wise in the Fourth Age, its very possible we'll need to figure in some sort of fortification there.