ARDA - Arisen Realms from Distant Ages

[LordBlackblade]

Hello there. I'm back with new details on ARDA, my submod project for DaC 3.0 that is actually starting to take form. I abandoned the original plan to make a "Midlle Earth Nationalist" mod, instead, inspired by the feedback I got, I decided to go for earlier Third Age bookmark. The mod will begin somewhere between 1000 and 1500 TA. It will feature 4 turns per year, as usual, and have and end date at the end of Third Age, giving the player around 2 millenias to complete their goals. Short campaign will highly likely be formed like you'd expect a regular long campaign to be and the long campaign will be a total domination campaign, having a win condition of either being the last faction standing or requiring control of 100+ regions. Directly under this intro is an extremely crude map sporting starting locations of each faction. It also shows the faction each new faction will replace. As it is with DaC, much of the content is inspired by lore rather than fit strictly within it's borders. Below the map will be a list of factions divided by culture and with a very brief overview on certain things about the faction.



Black Númenórean
Empire of Haruzan
-A southron empire ruled by elite of fallen Númenórean descent

Children of Aulë
Kingdom of Durin's Folk
-The most numerous of the Dwarven peoples.
Realm of Mount Dolmed
-Remnants of the ancient cities of Belegost and Nogrod.
The Orocarni Expedition
-An expedition sent by the Orocarni clans to explore the west and help against the shadow. They are a horde with two possible starting locations.

Children of Yavanna
Treeguard of the Onodrim
-Ents.

Dragon Cult
Empire of Scatha
-An empire ruled by the great wyrm Scatha. Armies tend to consist of dragon worshipping men of the east and orcs of Ered Mithrim.

Easterlings
Great Khanate of Khand
-Nomadic peoples of the East.
The Balchoth Confederacy
-Expansionary tribes inhabiting the steppes.


Enedwaithrim
Dunlendings of Galenardhon
-People of Enedwaith who have taken the mostly vacant lands of Galenardhon.
Kingdom of Saralainn
-A breakaway realm from Cardolan. Populace consists mostly of natives of Enedwaith.
Tribes of the Druedain
-Tribals who tend to mind their own business.

Northmen
Kingdom of Rhovanion
-The greatest realm of Northmen.
The Èotheod Horde
-A horde of highly capable cavalrymen. They also have contact with the Stoors.

Númenóreans
Empire of Gondor
-Castamir's breakaway state of southern Gondor.
Kingdom of Arthedain
-One of the Arnorian successor kingdoms.
Kingdom of Bellakar
-A southern Númenórean realm with their own traditions of worshipping the One.
Kingdom of Cardolan
-One of the Arnorian successor kingdoms.
Kingdom of Gondor
-Eldacar's state of northern Gondor.
Kingdom of Rhudaur
-One of the Arnorian successor kingdoms.

The Firstborn
Kingdom of Hollin
-Having returned to Middle Earth, Celebrimbor seeks to re-establish his realm in Eregion.
Kingdom of the Noldor
-Valar sent two great princes of Noldor back to Middle Earth and they have stablished their realm in Lindon.
The Avarin Republic
-An Avarin realm located in the isle of Neburkah.
The Sindarin Realm
-Celeborn has managed to unite the Sindar and Nandor east of the Misty Mountains into a single realm in the Eryn Lasgalen.

Worshippers of Melkor
Dominion of the Necromancer
-Sauron is back much earlier than expected but not quite as powerful as his followers might have hoped.
Kingdom of Angmar
-Witch-King is tasked with the utter annihilation of Arnor's successor kingdoms.
Kingdom of Moria
-Azog and Bolg have taken the reign in Moria and are looking to establish the first great orcish realm that is also ruled by orcs.
Remnants of Angband
-Some balrogs who had managed to flee the War of Wrath have gathered armies of trolls and orcs and have returned to the shores of war. They still stay in shadows leaving their slave soldiers to be the public face of this incursion to avoid the attention of the Valar.


This is what we've managed to decide. If you'd like to join us or simply give us suggestion or feedback, please do let me know. As previously, much of this is subject to change should a better idea arise.
Discord: https://discord.gg/jrHX2H

Current team:
Knox Gargol / Lord Blackblade - me, the team founder
Fauxvail - a huge help all around
Blackwater - refines my writing in descriptions

A huge thank you to each and everyone who has contributed to our little project!

[Grauman]

Interesting Mod.

I'll keep an eye on it. ^^

[Jojo_Fr]

Impressive and bold !

[LordBlackblade]

Good to know people are interested in my idea. Just don't expect a playable build overnight.

It seems I accidentally put up a temporary link to ARDA's Discord server so here's an invite set never to expire: https://discord.gg/YQy6sWx
Sorry about that, was my bad. I can't edit my starting post as of yet but I'll update the link there as well once I can do it.

[LordBlackblade]

A small update:

Azagal has joined the team as a writer and planner. Furthermore, we have permissions to use assets from Reforged, Heirs of Elendil and Ar-Adunaim reskin mods in our work. A huge thanks you to WK, Callistonian and Taurion of Lindon for that.

As you may have noticed, the number of factions doesn't quite add up. We are not using the Dark Lord faction's slot for anything. I was thinking (and would love your feedback) whether we should or should not implement Istari as a faction in Dark Lord's place. Since the mod will be set to begin around the year 1000 TA, it would coincide nicely with the arrival of Istari. And if it is implemented, then there is the question whether it will be a horde, an emerging faction or a regular faction with a preset starting location, needs to be asked. But first of all: Istari as a faction - yay or nay?

[Goat rider]

Mod sounds interesting.

[jedi7000nathan]

Keep up the work looking forward to this

[LordBlackblade]

We are focusing our efforts on the Kingdom of Bellakar at first. Which means we do need 4 region slots available for the new provinces in the south (taking space in the south-western Wasteland region). We can get at least two regions from shire, since we need to keep at least Elostirion and Iach Sarn and maybe one more in there (no, there will not be hobbits in Eriador in this mod, go to Anduin Vale area to find them). I'm actually looking for suggestions on regions that should be merged. Feel free to let me know. Therefore, we need to merge regions in 2-3 locations (no more than two regions will be merged together, don't worry).

As it is, we do have one more faction slot open (Dark Lord) and since Istari hasn't been a popular idea so far, I'd love to hear your suggestions on it. Once I get enough suggestions, I'll look into a possible poll on this thread, if such can be added at after the thread has been opened. If not, I'll poll it on our Discord (the current invitation link can be found in the second message I posted on this thread).

[antanis]

Very interesting, i hope news.

[Domeric_Bolton]

So this never went anywhere, right?

[LordBlackblade]

I've been away from the forums for sometime. I have found some new help with the project but we decided to wait for the next new version of DAC before we start working on it. I can't really promise anything for certain but the mod isn't quite dead - not yet at least. It might never get anywhere but on the other hand it might. Hard to say for certain when the project is this huge.

I'll be giving modding DAC a shot anyway, no matter whether i get this project off ground or not.

[LordBlackblade]

I know that double posting is most commonly irrelevant but now I do have an urgent update to anyone still interested in this project at this point:

I lost my last active team member beside myself so I had to give some hard thought to whether I am going to go at this by myself or not. If I haven't mistaken, guys at Reforged are working on something relatively similar to me so I decided to delete my channel and give this project up. I will, however, be doing a smaller mod revolving around minor changes for the AA and ND factions, unless the DaC team will address the things I have complained about in the past. When we are getting close to next bigger update to the mod, I will start a new thread for the smaller mod project.

Everyone who told me starting a mod of this size was a mistake: You can pat yourselves on the back and shout at your screens that you told me so. I'll save my more ambitious ideas for when I actually have some experience and skill in this stuff. Working on this project, however, taught me how to edit battlemodels.db without breaking the game and what is required for making changes to the campaign map. Thanks for everyone who offered me advice, help and critique.