Greetings my dear readers. It is my pleasure to announce a new sub-mod for DaC today.....
Twilight of a Third Age Volume II: Drums in the Deep
Why?
Drums in the Deep will be a small expansion to DaC that splits the current Orcs of the Misty Mountains faction into two distinct factions, each with their own unique units and flavour. These two factions will be the Goblins of the Misty Mountains and the Orcs of Gundabad.
We have chosen to do this primarily because we feel the current Orcs of the Misty Mountains is too much of a 'blob' faction, being made up of 5 distinct groups and encompassing a huge amount of regions. Therefore, we feel it is in the spirit of DaC to split this blob into two smaller, more distinct and more unique factions. This has several benefits. If you play as them, you will find either of the factions should be harder as you no longer control the whole mountain range, and share it. We also believe this will help the AI, as currently we feel the AI suffers a lot playing this faction due to how spread out it is, and how many enemies it has, and so we predict that if we cut it into two, the AI will perform better as it will be more condensed and will border less enemies and thus, be able to focus better.
What?
The Goblins of the Misty Mountains will occupy the same territory as the current Orcs of the Misty Mountains bar the northern regions such as Gundabad, Wrackyburg and Dain's Halls. Their main enemies should be Imladris, the Vale of the Anduin and Bree. Their playstyle will be much the same as the current Orcs of the Misty Mountains, with low tier hordes of trash; however we hope to spice them up by adding a few unique warg units and some elite archer units. They are composed of Goblintown, Moria and the Wargs of the Vale of the Anduin.
The Orcs of Gundabad are a new faction composed of Gundabad and the Trolls of the Northern Mountains. They start with less territory than that of the Goblins and are set to dominate the Grey Mountains (The range to the north of Mirkwood and between the Misty Mountains and Erebor). Their main enemies will be the Woodland Realm, Erebor and the Vale of the Anduin. Their playstyle will revolve around trolls, and heavily armoured legions of orcs. As many of their regions contain lost dwarven strongholds, they have learnt to forge fine armour and weapons using dwarven forges, so we hope to give their elites the look from the Hobbit.
This one:
We also hope to give the two factions a unique script that links them, and as the only two pure orc factions, they will not get any human units unlike the other 'orc' factions that use sizeable amounts of humans.
Who?
So far, our team consists of myself, Lordoflinks, El Monstero and Black Goldfish, MilesNDavis, Matsz, among others. The Undying Nephalim is responsible for the lovely Gundabad icon above.
When?
I know the question that is on everyone lips. When will it come out? The truth is, we don't know; while we have already done a LOT of the framework and stuff that underlines a faction, we are lacking in one area, units. This will be the area that slows us down most, so if you can help us create the units we need, we would be eternally in your debt; any aid will speed up the development of this sub-mod. The more unit help we get, the faster we can release.
Preview Images:
Note:
All the above information is subject to change, and the above images are from an older build, not everything in them is up to date.
This mod will also be the second in a series entitled 'Twilight of a Third Age' that plans to overhaul various regions and aspects of DaC. A smaller taster focusing on Rhun will be released in the near future as Volume I: Flames in the East.