Technology Overhaul Mod: Ideas and Feasibility

[orclover5]

I have a personal submod that I have to near perfection, I was testing and ready to start a campaign when I was reading a book about world war II. I realized that most of the tech in wars is created via research during the war, and the faction that makes the most investments seems to have an advantage. I then realized that there are many "advanced tech" in place at the beginning of the war when it really shouldn't exist. So here is my idea... script experts can dash my dreams.

Here is an example of how this system would work for Gondor.

1. Gondor only starts with soldiers that use leather and mail as is their current tech.(militiaman).. they haven't had a true war in hundreds of year, are finacially stretched, and haven't been investing like they should have... that is lore. Archers do not get fire arrows and no plate armour and no cavalry and no armour piercing... that goes for dol amroth and any fiefdoms as well...only bodyguard cav in DA.

2. There would be an early building available called "Armour Research Facilities" Only in Minas Tirith, Pelargir, and Dol Amroth as they would be the centers of education... it would have a cool description about investing 3000 into the tier 1 building or consulting dwarves or something to that matter. This building would have upkeep because of the resources needed to be given for testing and such.

3. At this point a script would need to be made . will need help on the script but it will take time and so here is the run down....


1. the building will be called "plate armor research"
2. It can only be built in Minas Tirith


declare_counter plate_armor_research

monitor_event SettlementTurnEnd SettlementName Anorien
and I_SettlementOwner Anorien = sicily
and settlement_buildingexists= plate_armor_research
and RandomPercent < 1
historic_event Plate Armor Discovered
set_counter plate_armor_research 1

end_monitor


In edb

recruit_pool "Gondor Infantry Archers" 0 0.05 1 0 requires factions { sicily, } and region_religion numenorian 66 and event_counter plate armor_research 1

So in game you will pay 300-1000k for a building... wait for a while, on some random turn a historic event pops saying your armor smiths have discovered a way to make plate armor efficiently... at this point all units that wear plate, ie... your proffesional ones(gondor infantry archers) either become available or see an increase in their recruitment.


4. The power in this is that every faction has multiple things that can be limited, Units should not need to be created maybe just duplicated... like Dunedain Ranger could become Dunedain Flame Arrow... same unit, but one has fire arrow ability once it is researched.


Here is a list of just a few ideas for a few factions

Gondor:
Plate armour
horses( horse buildings could require an alliance with rohan, if rohan falls you lose this option)
fire arrows( early game and high percent chance)
Cannons(late game and very expensive) low percent change
Muskets?(late game and very expensive) low percent change
Armor piercing( mid-game, expensive, high percent chance... this would

Rhun:
Plate Armour
armour piercing
Flame throwers
fire arrows

Mordor:
Olog Hai
Heavy armour
Horsemen
Advanced artillery

These are just a few examples.....just imagine playing different campaigns where mordor has few olog hai but then they have advanced artillery. Or a campaign where isengard has massive amounts of wargs because they invested in it but they don't have pikeman.

Pros:

1. Every campaign will be different... the AI will not research the same things and not all units will be available but some advanced tech could show up and it is random with a better chance with more money spent.
2. Makes campaign more challenging and suspenseful... you may invest in plate armour as arnor, spend 50k on it and never get the armor, will be pressed and then you engineers find the trick, and withing 10 turns you have a fully armoured army, and new life.
3. Add buildings for AI to spend money on... this will cut down on stack spam dramatically while making AI armies more diverse in the long run
4. Makes spies and assasins useful... send them to spy on what the enemy is looking into, and send assasins to destroy the buildings.


Cons:

1. A ton of work.(building pics, descriptions, historic events, scipt, limit units, duplicating units)
2. AI gets an unlimited amount of money so they may just build every building, and eventually get every advanced tech while you suffer. Maybe lower percent chance for AI will help this.
3. Not sure how it will fit in with MOS or DAC, not sure about building limit if each faction gets 15 more building options.
4. Unit limit... this probably isn't that big of a deal... I could just tie certain traits to certain units... ie... Master Rangers or Pelargir marines and ballista and any lossarnach axemen can only be recruited when you get armor piercing...


In Conclusion: I need our resident script experts to tell me if it is possible to set a counter based on a percent chance, I will limit the settlements where the building has to be checked by the script to 1,2 or 3... maybe just the capital... or base it on needing mines for armour, armour piercing... horses present for cavalry training...so each faction would have 12-15 new buildings that could be built in 1-3 cities... that isn't too big of a script. And also those working on other submods give me feedback on if this is something that you have thought about or if it is even feasable or desired in the massive submods... if it isn't I may just beg for the script and do it for myself. Thanks.

[Jmonstra]

Throwing this out there because your alliance with Rohan idea intrigued me:

In addition to an alliance with Rohan, what do you think about the idea of making heavy cav only available to factions who control areas with the horse resource, similar to the way mines work?

In that vein, what about doing something similar with mines and heavy infantry/plate upgrades?

[orclover5]

Throwing this out there because your alliance with Rohan idea intrigued me:

In addition to an alliance with Rohan, what do you think about the idea of making heavy cav only available to factions who control areas with the horse resource, similar to the way mines work?

In that vein, what about doing something similar with mines and heavy infantry/plate upgrades?

Davincis submod that is the base for my personal one already has a limit on recruitment due to mines, and horses...

I expanded this to the point where I , as eriador, have to hit a faction rank of 4-6 to get the dwarves to help me build an advanced armorer and I also with the help of Withwnar created a script where I needed to conquer the main mines in West middle earth to be able to recruit all armored troops....argond, isengard, carn-dum, and MM. Some troops only require 1 of these locations but the most heavily armored required armor from at least 3 of them.

monitor_event FactionTurnEnd FactionType turks
if I_SettlementOwner Carn-Dum = turks
set_event_counter holds_carn-Dum 1
end_if
if not I_SettlementOwner Carn-Dum = turks
and I_NumberOfSettlements turks > 0
set_event_counter holds_carn-dum 0
end_if
end_monitor

I can then allow recruitment for a unit only when Carn-dum and its mines are captured.
recruit_pool "Arnor Sergeants" 1 0.15 1 1 requires factions { byzantium, turks, } and hidden_resource arnor and event_counter holds_argond 1 and event_counter holds_carn-dum 1 or event_counter holds_isengard 1 or event_counter holds_misty-mountains 1

So I can only recruit arnor sergeants in an arnor region and if I hold the iron ore of two major ore centers in middle earth.

**** to be honest not sure if the script actually fires because I haven't completely tested it... Not sure if the "or" is read... it doesn't work for religion.


Once I finish the building mod I would like to look into alliances, and bordering with an ally for resources. Gondor would need to be allied with rohan but could only recruit horses in provinces bordering rohan or provinces that itself had horses.

The building submod really excites me because I can put all this under that envelop....in order to research plate armor you would have to have a mine in the city you build the building, and be allied with dwarves to get their inside info... in order to research heavy horse use, you would have to have a province with horses, and or be allied with rohan...I can also tie the this to having captured certain settlements. You can do research on fire bombs if you capture isengard.

[manekemaan]

sounds like a very good idea. I really hope this gets developed. It would be a great addition to the current game.

[Jmonstra]

I would definitely love to see the above expanded! Could go as far as to make markets only available to regions with agricultural resources. It would make the game much more challenging if we had to compete with other factions over limited resources, and would make trade agreements more valuable since that is how you would gain access to items you don't have (Kind of the purpose of trade, no?) i.e. heavy infantry/cav, as well as boosting your overall economy.

[Macilrille]

I am sorry to say, this is not Lore and it also does not fit well with a medieval setting. It is a fine idea as an alternative to Lore and history, so by all means go ahead, but it is not either.

I know I sound like an arrogant right now, but it is for brewity's sake as I am on my way out the door. No offense or patronisation is meant, and if you want I will elaborate tomorrow morning.

[H.Maverick]

Like the idea, but if you put muskets and cannons in there I'm gonna get pissed, they don't belong in LOTR and they never will, only isengard had explosives and that was only the bombs used at Helms Deep, apart from that, It shouldn't be in the game.

[British empire]

Great idea, but you should leave the muskets and cannons out

[assurbanippal]

I like the idea, gunpowder included, why everything must be lore?its just another approach

[Radagaisus]

Nice idea, could be interesting to see it's implementation.

Concerning the question of lore, you're incorrect. The last major invasion of Gondor was a century before the War of the Ring, when the Haradrim invaded Ithilien and were beaten back. After that you've got a seemingly endless supply of trouble from Mt. Doom, causing Ithilien to be depopulated. Gondor wasn't in economical trouble, slacking off - they were under constant pressure and refugees fled across the Anduin.

It's in this period that Aragorn works for Rohan and Gondor under the name Thorongil - including leading a raid on Umbar, burning their ships.

So to claim that Gondor is weak and shouldn't have military tech because of being at peace for centuries, is a misunderstanding. It's having to stay on constant war-footing that's eating up the nation.

[Macilrille]

Nice idea, could be interesting to see it's implementation.

Concerning the question of lore, you're incorrect. The last major invasion of Gondor was a century before the War of the Ring, when the Haradrim invaded Ithilien and were beaten back. After that you've got a seemingly endless supply of trouble from Mt. Doom, causing Ithilien to be depopulated. Gondor wasn't in economical trouble, slacking off - they were under constant pressure and refugees fled across the Anduin.

It's in this period that Aragorn works for Rohan and Gondor under the name Thorongil - including leading a raid on Umbar, burning their ships.

So to claim that Gondor is weak and shouldn't have military tech because of being at peace for centuries, is a misunderstanding. It's having to stay on constant war-footing that's eating up the nation.

Exactly, it is also not correct in a historical medieval context. Medieval societies- at least their elites- were constantly on a war footing and medieval society was a very violent one. Try reading the Icelandic sagas for example, or a fictional description "Pillars of Heaven" (I do not necessarily agree with his interpretations of events, but the picture of a nobility always preparing for war is quite accurate).

[manekemaan]

Exactly, it is also not correct in a historical medieval context. Medieval societies- at least their elites- were constantly on a war footing and medieval society was a very violent one. Try reading the Icelandic sagas for example, or a fictional description "Pillars of Heaven" (I do not necessarily agree with his interpretations of events, but the picture of a nobility always preparing for war is quite accurate).

I know that Middle earth is based on our world but I must say that I don't believe the "nobles" ,if we must call em that, are the same out there as they were in here...

The other arguments, about gondor constantly being in a war, are valid indeed. So if we do this ( and indeed no gunpowder pls) we would need another system.

My 5 cents would be looking into ancient numenorian secrets to regain certain skills. Like stonemasonry, smithing, sailing, longevity, etc etc...

[Kiliç Alì]

I agree with Mac that this is by no means lore, and I would never play such a campaign myself, but the idea is quite intriguing and I'd love to see some pics of gondorian musketeers (just like romans in that other Thera mod lol).

I need our resident script experts to tell me if it is possible to set a counter based on a percent chance,

It is possible.
Either you need a counter or an event_counter, you can call the RandomPercent function.
There is also a generate_random_counter x y command that generates an event_counter with a value between x and y. Keep in mind that files outside campaign_script consider event_counters only in term of "1" and "not 1" (or was it "0" and "not 0"? I always counfound this bit)

Cheers and good luck with this.

[orclover5]

Can we please put away the lore arguments. The war of the ring lasted ONE MONTH at most... with maybe 10 major battles... that would be 12 turns, and each faction might fight one battle with a dozen full stacks. The Silmarillian is a better compaision to TATW battles. The war between morgoth and the elves lasted hundreds of years and increases in "tech" drastically changed the outcome of war... namely everytime the elves encountered morgoth he had a "new" evil... whether it was balrogs, or dragons, or fiercer orcs. The dwarves built counters to the dragons in terms of better armor, as did the elves changed their own tactics over time. Between 2980 and 3019 there were skirmish battles in ithilien and on the coasts of gondor. Those are not even full on campaign battles... in our game we have full out war during this time(NOT LORE). And we fight for dozens of YEARS(not lore). And entire factions dominate middle earth(namely ours... NOT LORE). The technology mod mirrors lore in that Rohan was completely suprised by the armor and the power of sarumans "magic". Gondor was taken back by the mumakil, the troll men, flying beasts, olog hai, and grond... all of those are NEW tech created as counters after previous defeats. Most of our campaigns go past 3019, which means there would no doubt be new tech...and modders have blessed us with lore "possible" resources. As player with free will you can choose what to add... but the AI may have some better tech if they choose.

To allay fears the gunpowder additions would be last, and likely not happen as I am not a fan myself....they might be a fun addition for the last 50 turns as the game tends to get a little boring once the tide of battle turns in our favor.

Heavy armored horseman will be considered new tech, armor piercing, elite units of any kind already in game will be considered new tech... I believe this is a more LORE accurate filter for getting certain units than "barracks events" or "recruitment" pools, or even a union of arnor. Thanks for the discussion it has been fruitful for me.

[Ngugi]

Dude, it was you who brought up "that is lore.", if you make that statment HERE of all places then the responsibility for the reaction is on you

Strictly, this mod is not interested in Tolkien's presented world, it is interested in your idea about about wartime technologal develpoment; completly different matters indeed.
Many will play the mod, make it for them, those who like to be closer to Tolkien's world than further away from it will not play it anyway,

[Macilrille]

Dude, it was you who brought up "that is lore.", if you make that statment HERE of all places then the responsibility for the reaction is on you

Strictly, this mod is not interested in Tolkien's presented world, it is interested in your idea about about wartime technologal develpoment; completly different matters indeed.
Many will play the mod, make it for them, those who like to be closer to Tolkien's world than further away from it will not play it anyway,

THIS!

If you claim something that is definately not Lore as Lore, some of us will react. Just as I will when people make false statements of history.

Now, you brought up WW2, I corrected you that WW2 is in no way applicable to M-E that you should rather look at the Middle Ages, and enlightened you on how all society was constantly at war footing then. So the "tech-leap" in a medieval setting would not be due to a sudden war, they would be constantly struggling to improve. And did, back then innovations were just slower than now. Hence the tech-leap theory would not be applicable to any medieval world. Now for M-E tech, the high point for Elves was Beleriand, then a slight rebirth in Ost-en-Edhil. For Men it was Númenor, then a slight rebirth in Gondor. For Dwarves it would be Khazad-Dûm in mid-Third Age. Middle-Earth was characterised by dwindling of all "higher" beings, not advances.

As for guns, Tolkien hated machines and industrialisation, and the war it had bred on an industrial scale in which all his friends died. He hated pollution and mechanisation.

Nuff said; your mod is not Lore.


But as Ngugi says, if you want to make it, make it- by all means- if it makes you happy it is good. If people will play it, it is good, and some obviously will. And if you happen to come up with something brilliant in the process that others can use it is good.

Those are three positives, so be like Niké and just do it.

And good luck, but please do not call it Lore.

[orclover5]

THIS!

If you claim something that is definately not Lore as Lore, some of us will react. Just as I will when people make false statements of history.

Now, you brought up WW2, I corrected you that WW2 is in no way applicable to M-E that you should rather look at the Middle Ages, and enlightened you on how all society was constantly at war footing then. So the "tech-leap" in a medieval setting would not be due to a sudden war, they would be constantly struggling to improve. And did, back then innovations were just slower than now. Hence the tech-leap theory would not be applicable to any medieval world. Now for M-E tech, the high point for Elves was Beleriand, then a slight rebirth in Ost-en-Edhil. For Men it was Númenor, then a slight rebirth in Gondor. For Dwarves it would be Khazad-Dûm in mid-Third Age. Middle-Earth was characterised by dwindling of all "higher" beings, not advances.

As for guns, Tolkien hated machines and industrialisation, and the war it had bred on an industrial scale in which all his friends died. He hated pollution and mechanisation.

Nuff said; your mod is not Lore.


But as Ngugi says, if you want to make it, make it- by all means- if it makes you happy it is good. If people will play it, it is good, and some obviously will. And if you happen to come up with something brilliant in the process that others can use it is good.

Those are three positives, so be like Niké and just do it.

And good luck, but please do not call it Lore.

1. All middle earth races hit a high point in their civilizations at some point... this was driven by conflict with a specific enemy and the desire for victor encouraged increases in tech... so the world war II reference is accurate to all war, whether between two tribes or modern nations.

2. You see a disconnect because the elves and dwarves and men hit a high point...but their decay was caused by defeat... not a lack of punctuated improvement of arms. When numenor wanted to conquer middle earth did they slowly devise the strongest fleet in the world? No, they designed and built the best possible fleet for that day and time, against mordor as their enemy. That is an increase in tech. Gondolin fine mail and spears, Nargothrond and their stealth, Mablung and his marchwardens all represent specific tech created in the cauldrons of war... a long war. In TATW a faction can increase its tech because of a desire to beat a predicatable enemy, that is human nature not tied to any time period, therefore always lore accurate. In my mod if a faction is destroyed then their tech increases do not happen, in the 1st age, 2nd age and 3rd age, ship technology, arms, and armor were improved and only lost when a faction was completely and utterly destroyed like Numenor... or a large portion of the elvish houses. I do not believe in cannons, guns, and have already state so... armor piercing, plate armor, heavy horseman, javelin throwers, fire arrows, trolls, mumakil are all lore accurate technologies that may or not have been present in 2980, this could be expanded to testudo, shield wall, schiltrom formations...my mod can allow the player to invest money into training and advancing an army and nation... it is definetely as lore accurate as vanilla.

3. Tolkien hated war...even TOTAL WAR and would have found disgust in a game that glorifies war only, and not the tenderness of the individual relationships, and the courage to endure evil. Our game is about dominating many other factions and controlling either all or part of middle earth... so I will say this mod stays in line with the lack of lore in the vanilla. People can play evil and kill hobbits, and can only destroy the ring once gondor has proven all powerful. In Tolkiens eyes that is setting another dark lord on a dark throne.

4. It is lore accurate to me, makes me feel like I am in my own personal TATW universe... the idea came from what I would feel is "reality". And tolkiens reality, for the reasons stated above.

5. Final point: I am a new modder with some pretty creative stuff in my personal submod, if the community wants to stay strong please be more gentle with someone who is excited to present a creative source. I made valid points, maybe not all with the semantic completeness they deserved, but I was excited, and it was very late. The arguments against me were launched using the lens that ME is the middle ages, it is not. Tolkien was purposefully vague about the particularities of his many wars, that has left a ton of "lore" to be filled in, what I call lore, may not be what you call lore, but with good arguments it is my right to call it that.

-That being said, I would likely need to duplicate too many units in the edu, and no mods have enough room to have each faction have 10-15 more units...
- Also, personally I find their aren't enough different units in the main factions such as harad, mordor, and rhun so the fighting gets boring after 100 dead stacks... I have alleviated this in my own mod with added units but limiting the AI in what it can have technology wise could make for a boring game if we end up only killing weak units.
- it doesn't seem this is wanted by the major mod people like dac, and mos, I don't play those mods and spending 10-20 hours making a mod that is not wanted and that I won't play doesn't seem wise... I will dabble in my personal mod, and may release the script with the EDB counters so people can add it if they want.

thanks

[Withwnar]

- it doesn't seem this is wanted by the major mod people like dac, and mos, I don't play those mods and spending 10-20 hours making a mod that is not wanted and that I won't play doesn't seem wise...

Personally I wouldn't let that stop me. They are popular but not everybody wants to play those submods and frankly it is great to see a new submod come out that is not for any particular other submod but for vanilla.

People will play it. Maybe not many - who knows? - and maybe not enough to justify the effort in making a release but that could be said for any modding venture.

As for gunpowder, which might scare off some potential players, it could be made optional with a yes/no script at campaign start.

recruit_pool "Arnor Sergeants" 1 0.15 1 1 requires factions { byzantium, turks, } and hidden_resource arnor and event_counter holds_argond 1 and event_counter holds_carn-dum 1 or event_counter holds_isengard 1 or event_counter holds_misty-mountains 1

...

**** to be honest not sure if the script actually fires because I haven't completely tested it... Not sure if the "or" is read... it doesn't work for religion.

The ORs will work because they are last. Or you could have a single combined event counter that is 1 only when all three regions are owned.

[orclover5]

Personally I wouldn't let that stop me. They are popular but not everybody wants to play those submods and frankly it is great to see a new submod come out that is not for any particular other submod but for vanilla.

People will play it. Maybe not many - who knows? - and maybe not enough to justify the effort in making a release but that could be said for any modding venture.

As for gunpowder, which might scare off some potential players, it could be made optional with a yes/no script at campaign start.



The ORs will work because they are last. Or you could have a single combined event counter that is 1 only when all three regions are owned.

Thanks for the encouragement... I am still brainstorming where to start to maximize my limited time. It seems the .exe may get modded so we can have 1000 units in the edu... I may wait for that... at that point I could create training "doctrines" and this would allow any number of attributes to be trained using the random counter...for example you could start with Dunedain who have high damage but not high range, ap, elite speed or really any attribute. You could then pick a training doctrine to pay for... ie... we want to train our rangers to hit enemies in the weak spots of the armor... it would be an "armor piercing doctrine" really just a building in the archery tree, 50 upkeep per turn as you train and research...once the counter fires randomly... then you could recruit " Dunedain Marksman".. or Dunedain fire arrows, or Dunedain Scouts, and so on depending on which doctine you use and if the random counter actually ever fire. . That direction seems to excite me. Also the artillery tree may be a good place to start, adding more artillery would be a neat strategic addition.


Anyone have anymore brainstorm ideas...

[Slurm]

I bet on you and your ideas, it seems that some people takes the LOTR lore as a sacred thing when into every mod there always are some not lore stuff.
I hope you will go ahead on this mod