Beren IV
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Posts posted by Beren IV
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Yeah, wish it were more active and up to date...
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I agree; in fact the stats I gave the corrupted units were generally +2 to attack and -1 to defense relative to their uncorrupted counterparts. Higher morale would also be appropriate for the uncorrupted units, although not much higher morale. The big bonus for staying uncorrupted, I think, in addition to being economically self-sufficient, should be that you retain units like the Harper or equivalent that boosts friendly battle stats. If you go evil, then you get sorcerers, who reduce enemy stats (again, particularly morale).
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Well, Númenor still wasn't a major military force for over a thousand years. I would suggest perhaps that where Númenor really should shine is (surprise) their naval units. Númenórean warships should be powerful early in the game, and enjoy the grace the same way the Teleri navy does. But they shouldn't be all that high and mighty on land until well into the game. This also fits with them being an island-based civilization.
As for the effects of corruption, the economic effects that I was envisioning involve the following:
1. Númenórean natural resource harvesting is sustainable before they are corrupted. For example, the Dúnedain replanted their forests that they felled for shipbuilding early in their history. After they became corrupted, they stopped doing this, becoming ravagers and pillagers instead of the ideal agriculturalists. Thus, as their corruption increases, their need to expand into virgin unspoiled lands increases, but they get better at raiding. Effectively, they can't turtle (or boom) so effectively.
2. The Dúnedain had some kind of magic that enabled them to build all but indestructible fortresses; Orthanc, for example, or the lowermost wall of Minas Tirith. They also build monuments like the Argonath that should have morale effects. I would suggest that this magic is associated with the grace of the Dúnedain and the favor of the Valar, and, as they lose it, they lose the ability to do these things.
3. Númenórean ships also enjoy the grace of the Valar early on and don't sink in bad weather (mainly because they don't run into bad weather that can sink them; again, it's grace). Once corrupted, the weather works against them. It would be cool if there were some mechanic to account for this.
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All right. First, I don't like your attacks/second number - I understand that the early AoE games did it that way, but later historical or pseudohistorical RTS games like RoN or AoM have the attack value representing the amount of damage inflicted over a reference period of time.
I am just going to give attack and defense values, since the parameters of the defense (e.g. hp) are going to need to be adjusted depending on the sizes of typical armies and especially whether or not there is some kind of attack roll system you would have in a TBS or RPG.
So, for Númenor, I envision something like this:
Basic citizen-type units
Attack: 5
Defense: 4
Guards
Attack 7
Defense 12
Spearmen
Attack 9
Defense 12
Man-at-arms
Attack 11
Defense 11
Axeman
Attack 13
Defense 10
Archer
Attack 9 (but with a good chance of missing)
Defense 8
Knight
Attack 14
Defense 12
Guard of Armelenos
Attack 12
Defense 15
Captain (provides leadership, etc.)
Attack 15
Defense 18
Zealot* (can also farm, cut timber, etc.)
Attack 10
Defense 3
Black Archer*
Attack 12
Defense 7
King's Knight*
Attack 15
Defense 10
Temple of Melkor Guard*
Attack 14
Defense 14
Sorcerer Captain* (lowers enemy morale)
Attack 17
Defense 18
*All units marked with an asterisk require you taking the path of corruption which lowers the productivity of your citizenry and makes you less able to use magic.
Heroes should generally have attack values in the high teens and defense values in the middle twenties. Elros and Elendil should be higher than the rest. Ar-Pharazôn and possibly some of the other wicked Númenórean kings should also lower enemy morale like sorcerer captains.
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For Sauron in the Second Age, I would say something like:
Slave
Attack 6
Defense 4
Taskworker
Attack 7
Defense 3
Orc spearman
Attack 6
Defense 6
Orc swordsman
Attack 8
Defense 5
Orc archer (can track)
Attack 6 (medium-range)
Defense 5
Warg
Attack 11
Defense 10
Orc warg-rider
Attack 13
Defense 10
Orc captain (provides leadership boni)
Attack 15
Defense 14
Cave troll
Attack 15
Defense 16
Stone troll
Attack 12
Defense 20
Snow troll
Attack 18
Defense 14
Orc Sorcerer (lowers enemy morale)
Attack 18
Defense 12
Heroes should have attack and defense both around twenty, although the Nine should have slightly lower attack higher defense, and lower enemy morale like other sorcerers. Sauron himself should have stats in the forties.
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These numbers are meaningless without a reference.
I will also note that it is entirely possible that the sizes of military formations in TLA will be very large compared to typical RTS games, and as a consequence they will have much higher attack stats in relation to their hit points, so that often times one unit could realistically kill another with a single stroke.
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The student concept is supposed to represent a combination of several attributes of the Hylar, including their scholarship, the relatively egalitarian nature of their society, and also their rapid birth rate.
About the elves being "Magical", I don't they should because Tolkien himself said that what the elves to should not be mistaken as magic, it is rather their knowledge and grace which enables them to do what they do.Tolkien in his later years said that - in The Hobbit, he just goes ahead and calls the Elves' powers magic (ditto for the early versions of the Silmarillion, too).
My point, however, was this: the Hylar are intended to be about as fantastical a people as are the Sindar of the First Age. The fantastical element in Arda fades with passing ages, but the Hylar resist this trend better than anybody else. As a consequence, in the Third Age, the Hylar will be the most fantastical civilization in the game - but would only be roughly average if set among the various First Age civilizations.
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Good question - I'm not sure it's been thought about that much.
The trouble with Dwarven buildings is that they are, for the most part, carven out of existing rock rather than built upon the ground. As a consequence, if we are given an overhead view of a landscape, then all we will see is the entrances to the Dwarves' mines and dwellings - not very satisfactory. On the other hand, if they really can tunnel through mountains, then we might be able to see the insides of the buildings. The trouble is one of scale - a Hobbit hole, which is similar in concept, would be barely visible on a map side-by-side with a magnificent Dwarven mansion. Will the graphics depict individual buildings, intending them to be representative of entire cities, or will we try to draw the entire city? I doubt that this decision has been finally made yet.
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I don't think the development team is even considering that at the moment; I'm sure they're more concerned with what Morgoth looks like instead.
As for the burning eye, when Frodo looks into the Mirror of Galadriel, the burning eye is one of the things that he sees. I don't know if the Mirror can show something that isn't real and is only a symbol, but I would imagine that the flaming lidless eye is a real entity. Whether it is a form that Sauron can take (as a Maia, he can shapeshift, remember), or whether it is some enchantment, magical item, or spirit of some kind that is bound to him by sorcery, we'll never know.
But yes, it is quite clear that Sauron is capable of taking on a humanoid shape, may even be confined to a humanoid shape, at the time of the War of the Ring.
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I would assume that it means that they will be using the same engine with entirely different units, although I do not know which concepts they will retain and which they will not (the citizen-soldier concept is quite peculiar, IMO).
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I think my forum name answers that question, then.
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Well, if that be the case, Numenor could have strong farmers/scholars/miners, but weak hunters (they were quite sedentary after all, so they wouldnt hunt a lot).
Farmers yes, builders yes, foresters yes - the Númenóreans replanted trees they cut down for their ship-building efforts. Miners I'm not so sure about, although they should be better than most other civilizations. They should be no match for either Dwarves or Noldor, however.
As for military units, it seems to me that Númenórean culture evolved over time from a very peaceful agrarian society to a very warlike conquerer's society. I would suggest therefore that Númenor should be constructed as a "boomer"-type civilization: it's difficult to raise an effective army early in the game and it takes a long time to climb the military tech tree, but when you do, you get some quite powerful end-game units. I would also suggest some in-game mechanism to represent the corruption of Númenor as this trend progresses - perhaps there could be some technologies that you could research that would increase the prowess of your units and possibly even enable some late-game superunits, but do bad things to your society and economy.
As for your unit list and their respective prowess, I think that Númenor should be kinda like the Noldor, and no, I don't think that Númenórean soldiers are any physically more capable than Noldorin Elves (although the same probably does not hold true for the Sindar). So this means that their units are expensive, favoring quality over quantity, but otherwise being all-around effective, unlike the slow-but-strong Dwarves or the mobile-and-tricksy Sindar or Avari. Númenórean magic should be roughly intermediate compared to the other races, better than Orcs or any other Men, but not as good as that of the Elves. I would further suggest that their magic should be best at building stuff, especially fortresses and other structures of military use (e.g. monuments that cause fear in enemies, such as the Argonath), although they should still have the morale-boosting magic of the sort that the Elves have.
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I'm not sure you can really compare the heroes of the Edain to the lesser Men of later ages. It's also not a thing really subject to knowing, shall we say.
As for feats of incredible martial prowess, it's hard to beat Eärendel and the slaying of Ancalagon. However, the finest mage in the history of Arda has to be Lúthien, and her hubby kinda has to serve as counterpart to her, or it would be horribly anticlimactic...
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Alas, that I am not at all confident that the unit lists that exist for the First Age civilizations are ever going to be put into use. People right now are working on a more Myth-style game than an AoE-style game, and I'm not sure that there are going to be many of the units on there, and by the time people come back to it, they will likely want to have an altogether new list.
FRANKLY, I do not like the "citizen" concept in AoE-style games. I would much rather the different kinds of resource-gathering be performed by different units, or at the very least that farmers, miners, and scholars should each have respectively different abilities to harvest different resources (scholars can mine, in a pinch, but miners are much better at it).
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Ah.
I normally assume that the graphics is one of the last layers that goes over a game, and that the core programming of the game goes underneath (i.e. you need to know what the sprites are going to do before you can actually make them).
As for being busy with real life, I remember being invited myself to apply to be a member of the 0. A. D. team. I declined; I couldn't spare the time, and still can't. So believe me - I understand!
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0 A. D. looks like it's getting not too far from release time. Is there a team ready to take the engine and run with it?
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Yes, it will be a real-time strategy, if and when it ever happens.
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Not sure - I don't think there will be anything akin to the God-Powers of AoM, and similarly there will be few or no myth units. I think the plan instead is to have magic-users be in the vicinity of non-magic-users giving them increased stats, healing, and the like. I also wonder if there are going to be things like the bonuses that wonders generate in Rise of Nations.
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It was originally supposed to be a civilization-building RTS similar to the AoE series, but at the moment, the plans for the first release sound more like a tactical RTS like Myth...
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Something to notice: the 0 A. D. team says that their version of the game is currently "playable". That means they're not far from being able to hand it over to the TLA team...
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To quote the artist:
Well, I understand where you're coming from. to me they're just feathers, and I like the combination of classical style with the beauty and delicacy of the peacock feathersTolkien did not mention any details on the plumes of the helmets of the Noldor, except that those of the House of Fëanor were red. That they should be peacocks is unlikely, because peacocks are a tropical bird and Beleriand is anything but. Maybe they belong to an extinct relative of the peacock!
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I suppose that I have been fairly fortunate not to have encountered a great many Mary Sues in Tolkien fan fiction, but I can easily see how they would be horrendously irritating.
TLA is a game, which means that it is a very different medium from a pure story: the ending is uncertain even to the maker of the game, and the player of the game, or at least the winning player, takes on a role of pivotal, even Mary Sue-like, importance, if it were a story. This is true of any game. However, it's not irritating, the way that a Mary Sue in a story would be, because it's a game.
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Actually, no - I was thinking of a situation that might crop up in TLA (i.e. Lindon and Kingdoms in Exile players are both at war with Umbar, but have not otherwise contacted each-other yet). There is no fanfic that this comes from, except in the sense that TLA itself could be considered fan fiction.
I quite agree with you on most of these points, certainly as regards the realism of who our fallen soldier is; for instance, my question about wondering whether she would be perceived as nobility is dependent solely upon the high probability that her equipment is fit for nobody short of high nobility in Gondor. I was envisioning that she was of whatever social rank would be typical of a Lindonese cavalry soldier.
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I recently posted this on another forum. I'm curious, however, as to what you guys think about this situation:
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Suppose that the Men of Gondor sometime in the 2900s of the Third Age are fighting with some bad guys in western Gondor, near the coast; the bad guys are possibly Dunlandings, possibly Corsairs, maybe some Orcs thrown in. Anyhow, a cavalry (from Lindon, although the soldiers don't know that) shows up and fights some skirmishes on the far side of the battle with said bad guys and then disappears again (sailing), but in the course of the fight, one of the riders is shot off of its horse. The Gondorians emerge victorious, and the mysterious fallen rider, and discover, to their surprise, the body of a female elf.
Now, some questions: most of these Gondorians likely have never seen an elf in their lives, or if they had, they would not have been in a position to identify one. Certainly they would recognize her race for what it was, but all that the soldiers might know would be that elves are supposedly immortal. Now, they have seen their first elf, certainly their first elf up close, and a female at that... but, she's dead, with an arrow through her heart.
How do you think that the soldiers would react? Would the fact that she's obviously dead clash with the conventional wisdom that Elves are immortal, or would they not be so shocked because they would remember that Elves can still be slain? Do you think it would matter to them that this elf was a female?
How do you think their officers would react? Would the body be transported back to Minas Tirith to show to the Steward? How do you suppose that he would react (either Denethor or Ecthelion)?
How curious do you think that the Gondorians would be about the fallen woman? Do you suppose they would autopsy her?
Being Elves, the Lindonese probably have very good equipment for their soldiers. The fallen woman's sword and armor could, as C.T. puts it in Children of Húrin, be "worth the ransom of any king of Men". Do you suppose that the Gondorians would think this woman likely a queen because of it?
Now, coming back to the more general situation: in the Fourth Age, the United Kingdom I get the impression is more cosmopolitan than in the Third. Suppose that this had happened under Ellesar's rule: do you think that the reactions would be different?
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Women do have more sons on average when men are scarce, although for a very different reason that does not apply with the reproductive behavior that the Elves exhibit, so I'm not sure it would work that way.
Welcome to The Last Alliance
in General TLA Discussion
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It's been a year and a half since the last even minor news note. I don't think there is a TLA dev team at the moment.