Azeroth Total War

[jim501]

My inspiration has been perhaps to only truly successful fantasy mod, Third Age Total War.

Namely: Less factions. Quality over quantity. This leaves the possibility open for far more interesting, better and different kinds of factions, with more specialized militaries. With a ton of factions you will either end up with a bunch of carbon copy factions (like in vanilla), or you will end up with a mess of a mod like RoDG. Now I think that RoDG has done an excellent job, visually. The hours of work put behind the modelling is absolutely astonishing. However, it is extremely hard to get into because of the vast numbers of individual units they have incorporated, especially if you are not very Warhammer savvy. I would suggest reducing the number of factions to under 15, leaving the rest as "independent" or "rebel". In TATW there are like 8 or 9 factions, and some of them barely have 10 units, but the game has an immense replay value because each faction is so distinct and well designed. You don't HAVE to meet the 36 (?) faction maximum for it to be an interesting game, believe me.

I know this probably is something that clashes with your vision of what the game should be, Darrowmeres... Which is why I wont share any of my specifics with you just yet. As I said, I have a very thorough concept laid out. This includes factions, sounds, units, buildings, and I have started locating several models/textures for the units. Your map is sublime, and I really want to be a part of your project. Still want me to send you a PM?

I can agree with quality over quantityt and the saturation, but I will disagree on another ground.
Firstly, TATW from what I have seen is indeed very popular and succesful,but it doesnt need to be copied to the letter, the new Lotr mod for example for Attila will have 25 factions
The low faction number had more to do with its lore I believe, and that had garnered some complaints about the low unit and fation variety.

Furthermore I think most of the factions Darrowmere chose are pretty fitting and important lorewise.
Exlcuding a couple factions, all the others had a significant presence,had cultural differences and are important on their own to just lump them under "rebel".
Even if some were to go, If you count it, 15 factions alone would leave major and interesting factions unplayble.
Alliance/Horde factions alone would be almost 12 so, you need other factions to have them as enemies.

As far as copy-pasting goes, even similar factions like the Trolls, can have their own key differences in units and also visual differences which will offer variety unlike Vanilla Med2 which was historical and was bound to have copy-pasted European units.
Even the human kindgoms can have their own unique armors,uniforms and units.

Also I havent played RoDF so I cant really tell,but, why would a lot of unit variety be off putting?

[Molochwalker]

I agree that 15 factions might be undershooting a bit. I have tried sending Darrowmere a PM, but it doesn't show up in the "Sent Items" folder, so I'm wondering if he got it?

[Darrowmere]

Hey your message made it through, you have to tick a box for you to see messages you sent. I've had a quick read of your message i'll read it through in detail and get back to you tomorrow. Thanks and welcome onto the team.

[Molochwalker]

Hey your message made it through, you have to tick a box for you to see messages you sent. I've had a quick read of your message i'll read it through in detail and get back to you tomorrow. Thanks and welcome onto the team.

Thanks! I'll continue writing units right away.

[jim501]

Darrowmere, have you thought about making the faction leaders like the new Total War WArhammer?
In that game, family trees dont exist, and faction leaders dont age nor die.
If they are killed in combat they respawn after a few turns in the capital, (supposedly they were just wounded).
It is the same mechanic used in Napoleon Total War, to avoid napoleon dying.

[Molochwalker]

This is interesting, but I'm unsure wether it's hardcoded that either all generals are immortal, or none are. I remember specifically that the TATW team couldn't for the life of them make the Elf generals immortal.

[Darrowmere]

I don't know if that's possible with Medieval 2 and even then the mod is going to have family trees and characters that can die and pemenantly. But the turn rate will be 4 or 6 turns per year and i'll set old age dying at near 70 so if your careful you can keep your major characters in play for most of the campaign.

Most factions will be family trees based with support family trees eg Stormwind has the Wrynn's but if they die out the Ebonlocke family tree could become the new main family. The factions without family trees will be the Teutonic Order style with Faction leader and heir set up with a few spare generals.

[cloudfly]

This looks really awesome! out of curiosity, will you be adding Karazhan as a settlement?

[cloudfly]

also do you think you will add the Lost Isles or Pandaria at some point? Honestly if you chose to leave out the Pandaren I wouldn't be suprised, but I think a neutral landmass of Pandaria would be cool.

[Darrowmere]

Hey thanks cloudfly and yes Karazhan will be a settlement. The Lost Isles (ones in the Goblin intro) are present as is an intact Isle of Kezan but no Pandaria i never got that far with WoW stopped playing.

[jim501]

Hey thanks cloudfly and yes Karazhan will be a settlement. The Lost Isles (ones in the Goblin intro) are present as is an intact Isle of Kezan but no Pandaria i never got that far with WoW stopped playing.

The Pandaria Isles could offer some interesting races in the form of Mogu and Mantids, who also have quite nice aesthetics and cities. However they also have Pandaren which I doubt a whole lot of us are looking forward too
So, I doubt they will be missed

These races could potentially of course be implemented for custom battles only, and not on the campaign map, if you feel like it.

[cloudfly]

Awesome! personally I feel that Pandaria (after the zandalari invasion) and perhaps a custom Zandilar could be implemented as troll settlements. The Broken Isles could also be added as part of a future release as well as a high elf faction zone.

Also if you need someone for map or any alpha testing because I would love to help.

[Darrowmere]

The Broken Isles are present in this map with the ruins of Suramar as it's settlement. Seeing as i never played any Mists of Pandaria i don't know anything about these races or how the landmass looks and due to a limt of 20 landmasses which are all in use i wont be adding Pandaria or these races but once the mod has a release then people are free to make submods for different periods and places.

The Alpha test is a while off yet but i'll keep that in mind.

[jim501]

Now that I notice, do you think the Vrykul could be implemented as a faction?
Or even as units for the Scourge ?

[Darrowmere]

Thinking of having them as a scourge units only recuitable in Utgarde Keep, Jotunhiem and Ymirheim after The Lich King Arthas awakens.

[jim501]

Thinking of having them as a scourge units only recuitable in Utgarde Keep, Jotunhiem and Ymirheim after The Lich King Arthas awakens.

Glad to hear, they make for awesome units.
Plus they have their armor/weapons ready from WoW so designing them will be easy I guess.

Do you think they can have multiple units like casters,cavalry(mamooths) or warriors with various weapon types (axes,maces,swords,halbers,archers).
Or do you prefer them as 1-2 melee units ?

[Darrowmere]

Probably only have 2 the Vrykul and Vargul as melee.

[jim501]

Probably only have 2 the Vrykul and Vargul as melee.

I see, well, multiple units would overblow the Scourge roster so few are best I believe.
Can I suggest dividing them into 3 though ?

1.vargul-undead vrykul
2. "low tier" vrykul- with leather/bone armor or naked
3. "high tier" vrykul, with heavy armor/helmets and weapons kinda like a warlord's royal guard, that would also have the model of their king from WoW (Ymiron) as "unit leader" (captain).

What do you think ?

[Darrowmere]

Vrykul are going to be an elite unit better than others so having low tier ones sounds nice but they'd be redundant with the other units on the Scourge roster. King Ymiron sounds like a good idea though.

[jim501]

Vrykul are going to be an elite unit better than others so having low tier ones sounds nice but they'd be redundant with the other units on the Scourge roster. King Ymiron sounds like a good idea though.

Glad you like the Ymiron one.
Your idea of the Vrykul as an elite unit also works with my thought of basically making the entire unit into a royal guard regiment of sorts with its "captain unit" representing the Vyrkul Warlord/King using the Ymiron model (without having to be Ymiron himself).

And there are enough material from the game to make this unit (regarding armors and weapons) both from Wrath and Legion.