Faerûn[Forgotten Realms]TW - v0.2 released, check the first post

[vercassivelaunos]

I still can't see the whole pictures (only the upper parts)
But the parts I can see look very nice

[Vladyvid]

They could be called Kingdom of Adbar, or Dwarves of Adbar.

Kingdom of Adbar sounds good.

Excellent! It should be a difficult place to invade.

Yes it will be pretty much hidden from its neighbours, but it really has to be because to the east it borders Anauroch desert (Shadovar starting area). I think I will make kind of corridors of dense forest and mountains to make paths longer.

Another way to reinforce regions like Evereska will be making permanent forts - I intend to place permanent forts in most regions just like in the Kingdoms:Crusades campaign. So Evereska would have a fort on each path to block the way completely.

There will be more choke-points on the map, like on the Thayan-Rashemi border for example.

Myth Drannor and the Old Elven Court are essentially nothing but large ruin sites in this time-line.

I would put full stacks of rebel monsters & demons in Myth Drannor, and full stacks of rebel dark elves in the Old Elven Court. These areas should be very difficult to conquer.

I will make a dense forest maze and put these two settlements in the middle. With full stacks of monsters they will be hard to conquer, and with increased rebeliousness they can be even harder to hold on to.

About the extra orc/monstrous faction, I'm not sure which would be the best but the hordes of the north in the areas of Thar, Vaasa or those other lands around Damara, would add greatly to the gameplay experience - pressing on the Zhentarim and any other human kingdoms. I would prefer a faction of orcs or half-orcs as they would be easier to mod for me. The ogres would need larger models which I'm unable to do myself. So the Xul Jarak orcs sound more interesting. Or could they be called something like The Northern Horde, or some such general name for the orcs, ogres and alike who are roaming the northern wastes?

I still can't see the whole pictures (only the upper parts)
But the parts I can see look very nice

I don't know why would that be, maybe they are too big and I should post smaller pics?

[vercassivelaunos]

Now I could see the picture for Amn. It looks great.
btw: I could also see the symbol of Thay on the banners. I think it would look better without the grey background of the symbol. Only the cirles and lightnings.

[Vladyvid]

btw: I could also see the symbol of Thay on the banners. I think it would look better without the grey background of the symbol. Only the cirles and lightnings.

Ok but then let me explain why is it that way. For the Thay it will be the best to have red as their main colour I think, because they are the Red Wizards, so should they not have red as their primary colour? Well, if it is red, then making the symbol on flags only the circles and lightnings is going to make the circle red (as the main colour is red). While the symbol of Red Wizards is a grey tablet of a sort. That's why I decided to put the whole tablet there, to keep contrast with the red background because if it was without the gray circle the symbol would be less visible. I made Thay symbol same way as the Zhentarim who also have a circle tablet (a golden shield-plate to be exact).

For the moment I will leave these symbols as they are and focus on installing more factions into the campaign. When more factions will be added and the faction selection will be closing, I will probably share the results with the people who are supporting my work (like you) to test how things look/work for them. You get to see these factions symbols on your own computer, zoom in where you want etc, and then with your (and other researchers) feedback the necessary changes will be made.

[Vladyvid]

I've been editing the map files a lot since the last update, and I want to start working on units textures this weekend. I guess starting with infantry will be easier, so that will be my first attempt, probably foot squires.

Also I wanted to bring up one issue here - I'm considering splitting the Lords' Alliance faction into Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep (together with Neverwinter), so in a way coming back to the earlier idea. They would still be allies but I think if I can get more factions to work I will really like to see them apart. For the same reason that the Silver Marches and Elturgard are not one faction. Waterdeep and Neverwiner would be more busy with the north, while Baldur's Gate with the south. Please post your comments.

[vercassivelaunos]

In that case I would recommend a script that keeps them allied. It would be against lore, if they somehow fought each other. But it would be interesting to have two factions of them.

[Vladyvid]

If scripting their alliance (as well as other Lords' Alliance members) is possible, then it should be done. The Lords' Alliance will start at war with the Shadovar and the Zhentarim and they should be mostly concerned with these two enemies. Other factions like Luskan, Many-Arrows, Amn, Calimshan or Tethyr would be prone to entering conflicts with the Lords.

[vercassivelaunos]

The scripting of the everlasting alliance is easy to do, as it is done in Third Age TW. We can just copy it. Getting conflicts with the mentioned factions can be done by giving them bad relationships to each other.

[Vladyvid]

Campaign Map Update

I worked long and hard on improving the campaign map details. Not everything is yet ready, but I think most details are done. I will add some minor lakes in several places, a few rivers in the south and the rest is mostly already there.

Notice the ice bergs

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I added Citadel Felbarr. Eventhough the area has many regions, they are separated by dense woods and rivers so they are not all immediate neighbours.

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Evereska - only one way into the valley - from the south.

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High Forest

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Anauroch - the Shadovar don't have their symbol here yet I just put the faction on map.

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Border Forest to the west and the Ride steppes in the middle.

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Vaasa: ice, mountains and half-orcish city of Palischuk.

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Damara - without the proper symbol yet.

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Cormanthor: both Myth Drannor and Elven Court are placed inside spiral dense forest corridors, stretching the path of invading armies so much that it requires at least 4 turns for a cavalry army to get from the entrance of each maze to the target city. Most of the woods of Cormanthor are part of the "Elven Land" region that also includes High Forest, southern part of Evereska and Tethyr Forest. All these territories will spawn rebel elves and make it impossible to connect roads to places like Myth Drannor, Elven Court or Evereska (still making them all accessible). There is one road across the forest - from Hillsfar to Sembia (Ordulin), that is the only road across Cormanthor.

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Chondath and Turmish - at the moment I'm thinking that Turmish can wait to be included in the campaign.

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More details in Unther and Mulhorand.

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Aglarond (south) and Thesk (north)

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Thayan Empire

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Great Rift - work in progress.

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Instead adding Turmish, I decided for Dambrath. Turmish I think can be added later as one of the additional factions. At the moment there are already 20 playable factions, the pope one of these factions. The pope is not pope anymore, if you know what I mean - changed the AI model.

Now I want to add Evereska and probably Tashalar. By the time I add them I will probably have all of the map completed. The only changes possible would be adding another factions and adjusting the map for that particular faction.

I spent so many hours working on the map files that now I want to have a break from that and tomorrow I will finally begin trying making unit skins.

[Clansman117]

I like the idea of having a northern Lords' Alliance and a southern one. I would suggest for the ten (now nine with the Lords' split) these factions:
Unther: Although most of it is conquered by Mulhorand, I think it would be interesting to play as free Unther and try to rebuild the empire.
Dambrath: As said before it would be a nice evil faction in the south, they would use horse archers with elite light infantry, cavalry, and magic-users.
Halruaa: IMO a very interesting faction that would be a nice foil to Thay and Shadovar, as it is a mostly good nation of arcane magic.
Evereska: Although the elves never show any wish to expand, they still play an important part in resisting Shadovar and other evils.
Any two of Thindol, Tashalar, and Lapaliiya: Although I like Tashalar, I think Lapaliiya and Thindol might be better choices.
Hlondeth: A human kingdom that is strongly allied to Yuan-ti, it would be a very unique faction but probably very hard to model.
Calaunt: A powerful, evil, city-state on the north cost of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Raven's Bluff could be here instead.
Cimbar: The most powerful Chessenta city-state and the capitol of the brief Chessentan empire.
The problem I see with making Adbar or Mithril Hall into a faction is that they are technically part of the Silver Marches. Personally, I'd like it if the SIlver Marches included Silverymoon, Adbar, Mithril Hall, Everlund, Sundabar, and Nesme, and have units from all of it's members. The problem with the orcs and other humaniods is that they aren't much of a threat to the kingdoms unless a large number of tribes are united, like in Many-Arrows or under the Witch King's rule in Vaasa, and right now only Many-Arrows are such a threat. Although a large number of ogres, goblins, and hill giants were united by two Ogre-Magi and captured Amn's second largest port-city and declared their land the Sythillisian Empire, they could be a faction.

[wolfbane751]

will like the drow be there own faction? or no

[Clansman117]

Huh, the post with the map update wasn't there when I made my post, so I'll comment now. I love that map, it is fantastic, I especially love how you made the elven lands, great thinking on that part, I'll give rep if, or when, I can. By the way, I forgot to mention that Palischuk considers itself part of Damara, and I think a large gold cup would be a good symbol for Damara. I'll start looking for a Dambrath symbol now, and some possible unit rosters, if that's ok.
@ Wolfbane751 The Drow would be difficult to make as a faction due to nearly all of them being underground and divided into numerous, far-flung, city-states. However, Dambrath is most likely to be a faction and it is ruled by drow and half-drow.

[Vladyvid]

Clansman117, check the discussions in our social group, there is unit list topic for researchers there with some Dambrath units ideas already. And yes Dambrath I think has to be included as a faction - they are unique, agressive (expansive) and they do have a lot in common with the Drow. The Drow I think would not fit this mod because the Drow are sensitive to sunlight and I don't think it's possible to play only night battles.

Evereska, Dambrath - will be both in the first release.

Cimbar, Calaunt, Halruaa - their cities/regions are included in the campaign already.

Thindol, Tashalar, Lapaliiya - Tashalar indeed seems the smallest of these factions, so for that reason it could be more sensible to include Thindol and Lapaliiya as both cover much larger areas.

About Adbar, yes I also started researching it and they are indeed part of the Silver Marches so I guess they will have to remain as part of that faction. Silver Marches will have access to human, elvish and dwarven units. It will be ofcourse tricky to represent it correctly but I want the Silver Marches to initially control only some representative regions for each of its cultures. For example Silverymoon, Everlund and Sundabar. With Nesme, Felbarr, Mithral Hall and Adbar as rebel regions. Recapturing them would be the first goal of this faction.

Golden cup for Damara sounds good.

Hlondeth - is it one of the post-Netheril kingdoms? For Yuan-ti I think better choice would be the Kingdom of Najara. It would be located in between Evereska, Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep and Elturgard, making it interesting enemy to so many factions. And also adding more threat than the Shadovar itself. BTW the Shadovar faction will be a very tricky one because it is surrounded by other factions hostile towards it. It must be really strong militarily to be a threat as it is described in the lore. We can't have floating cities but in some other way the Shadovar must be made a universal threat to other factions. Perhaps some Shadovar-only traits which would give them much more moving points?

[vercassivelaunos]

The map looks very impressive, especially the mountains. I can see only one problem:
When regions border each other, the AI will think that they can reach those regions from the neighbouring ones, even if there is a forest or so blocking the way. As a result, the armies will go around the forest/mountain/whatever through all the regions they have to cross. I'd recommend to leave some small gaps, so the armies won't be scattered throughout Faerun.

[Vladyvid]

I think I will have to see how it really works in the campaign, but it can be quickly changed later so I'll leave it until the campaign can be tested (when there are units on the map etc). There are some gaps though so I don't think it will be so much of a problem. The gaps that are there, I think prevent from such absurd distances that you are probably thinking about. Where there is a way around it is of rather sensible length. Still as said before, all such issues must be tested later when the campaign can be played with armies.

Now aside the map issues, I started working on making skins for the units, but as a complete noob in this matter I will have to take the next couple of days to really learn how to do it well. When I produce some skins this week, I will post the results but at the moment I have nothing nice to show you.

I started making some battle banners and its looking fine, but the battle banners are not much work so there's little to screw up really.

[Vladyvid]

I've been thinking about the confederacy-type factions like the Silver Marches or Lords' Alliance, and I have an idea I want to share and discuss.

This idea is mostly because of the Silver Marches and the fact that they will have human, elven and dwarven units. So I was thinking how about for the units representing each of the races to give different battle flags so for example humans would carry banners of Silverymoon and dwarves of the Adbar kingdom. The ex-cormanthyrian elves could have their own elven flag?

Similarly with the Waterdeep-Neverwinter forces; those specific to Neverwinter would carry 'the eye' flags, and the Waterdeevians would have theirs.

Additionally Knights of the Silver Chalice (Tethyr) could carry their silver chalice banners, and other factions' special units could also have their unique flags.

I would use similar method for the rebels so they wouldn't have grey flags anymore but for example orcish/monster rebels would have some different flag than human or elven rebels. There can be up to I think 6 different flags for one faction, so in case of the rebels there could be different flags for:

-northern humans ( european type )
-southern humans ( middle eastern type )
-dwarfs
-elves
-orcs/monsters
-something else

I think it would look better (and more realistic if I can say so regarding fantasy mod ) on the battlefield. Let's say you are facing the Silver Marches and they have a mix of dwarven and human units. You could distinguish the units only by having their banners in sight. Same would go for your own units that could be more easily spotted in the turmoil of a battle.

[Vladyvid]

Update: first new unit skin!

Orc Warriors and Orc Archers for Many-Arrows faction, and for rebels.
I haven't changed the shields yet, so using scottish as its highlander model.

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I know its not the best in the world, but hey - it's my first skin and for me it looks decent for these ragtag orcs. They are ugly and wear bear and wolf hides and I think they should look rough like that.

[MedievalDragoon]

I Don't think you can have different battle banners for different units, I think it's one battle flag per faction.

Also, Nice Work on the Orc Skins!


Also, if you need anything from a source book just ask, I can probably find it, I haven't been able to help gather information lately due to homework but I can look up specific stuff.

[Vladyvid]

Factions can use different flags because for each unit there is a battle banner specified, for example cavalry banner (horizontal rectangle) , and for example artillery use the missle units banner (triangle). I will make some different banners for the Silver Marches and show some example what I mean when different units use different banners.

Thanks that you like the orcs.

[Briarius]

Nice job on the orc Vladyvid. For your first skin it really looks great, you'll get just better. And yes, the orcs should look rough and ragged! I'd suggest you to make at least one more head variation without the black beard.