Features Thus Far Decided...
Like I said in the mod-status thread, I am going forward with light pre-production. Part of that is the design of the mod. I've used up 2 five-subject notebooks with my various notes and ideas for the mod, as well as questions I wish to ask the community on what can be done... just a few things I've decided on.
* Darth Battle AI will be used. It is quite simply the best AI mod out there, bar none, and the focus on Knights in the world of Krynn necessitates his cavalry charges.
* 4 years per turn if possible and practical. Ansalon is a relatively small continent, roughly 3/4 the size of Europe alone. Time scale must be slowed in order to not allow armies to travel the breadth of the continent on a single turn.
* The Solamnic Empire and The Knights of Solamnia will be separate factions that start with an alliance and trespass rights. The Solamnic Empire, based in Palanthas, will use the standard family tree system, while the Knights of Solamnia will be a Teutonic style military order.
* National religions will simply be based on the three pantheons... the Pantheon of Light, Shadow, and Darkness. Factions who maintain a strong standing with the pantheon of light (i.e. 90+ percent of population worshipping Light, high chivalry, little dread among generals) will receive Knights of the Crown units from the Solamnic Knighthood. Dark factions will receive the same boon from the Knights of Neraka. Factions of both light and shadow may receive units from the Legion of Steel if their chivalry is high enough.
* Wizards and sorcerers will not be trainable except by elves. Other factions may hire them as high cost mercenaries. The units will have artillery-like abilities that are highly potent but yield little ammo.
* I honestly do not know how I will handle Priests, Mystics, and Clerists. There doesn't seem to be a mechanism for healing, but we'll see what the more intelligent scripters in the community can pull off.
* Each of the Goblin and Ogre nations will have a different focus. Lemish will be mostly Hobgoblins and Goblins (strong skirmishers and light infantry), Throtl will mostly Goblins (skirmishers), Blode and Kern will focus on Ogres (strong heavy infantry).
* I am going to try to make every nation as utterly unique as possible. Solamnia will be similar to France in composition, while Neraka will mirror HRE a bit more... but I want to take it a step further and have slight but notable adjustments to particular units. Knights of the Crown, for instance, will have slightly different strengths than Knights of the Lily.
* The Tower of the High Clerist will be a permanent fortress, not a settlement.
* Minotaurs and the Empire of Ergoth will have a noticeably superior navy than other factions.
* Qualinesti vs. Silvanesti... the Silvanesti will be more magic based, while Qualinesti will focus on their archers.
* Dwarves- slow but immensely tough heavy infantry with superior crossbow technology for support. Pony riders are a possibility for the Neidar, but the Hylar will have no cavalry. Klar "berzerkers", Theiwar sorcerers and very cheap aghar (peasants) will add flavor to the army.
* It doesn't look like the Ice Folk or Thanoi are going to make it even in a final release, simply because their homeland is apparently impossible to represent on the map with reasonable accuracy.
* Thank god for Kingdoms, it looks like it'll be possible to make the landscape of Noordmaar accurate.
* I don't have the expertise to create custom cities/battle maps, so I don't expect I'll have an accurate High Clerist Tower or Sanction, unfortunately.
I'll add to this as more becomes concrete.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
nice.
If possible you could look at Warhammer's TW orc and goblins and base a model around those.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
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Originally Posted by Eufarius
nice.
If possible you could look at Warhammer's TW orc and goblins and base a model around those.
Yeah, it's looking like I'm going to have to be a scavenger of sorts, go to various other projects and get permission to use aspects.
So it's known: Though similar, Krynn differs from Middle Earth in some very key aspects. First off, Goblins and Orcs are not different terms for the same race. Goblins on Krynn as smallish creatures, not dissimilar to Gollum. Orcs do not exist at all on Krynn. Hobgoblins are Krynn's Orcs, though they're less common than Goblins.
The "Uruk-Hai" of Krynn are the Draconians, which are going to be tough. Draconians are created through a process of corrupting dragon eggs so they produce these dragon-men. They have strange effects on death (one turns to stone, trapping a bladed weapon, another turns to the likeness of its killer, one explodes, one turns to acid, etc.). Tough to pull off in Total War.
There are no halflings/hobbins. Instead there are Kender, which will make for a fairly interesting army. Essentially a very mobile skirmishing force that will be highly effective in ambushing, but are pretty useless in a pitched fight.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
Being an avid reader of DL (I think I have 70+ books) I would be very happy to see this mod made.
Really, the only custom area I would worry about is the High Clerist Tower. Sure, it would be nice to have the other custom cities, but really its not a major issue. More like something to add in after you get the rest done.
4 years per turn seems like an awfully long time. If the landmass is smaller, you would want a smaller time per turn. Plus, if possible, you could shorten the amount troops and such can move. Im just now re-reading the Elven Exiles books and a small band of elves were able to travel from Khur to Qualinesti in like 2-4 weeks.
Speaking of Khur, dont leave them out of things. Having Egypt, the Turks and the Moors would be perfect for the different tribes of Khur.
Since your setting it in the 5th age, Draconians would be rare. Not too many left and those in the city of Teyr probably want to be left alone, since they only found females in the last 30 years. If you really want them in, Id have them be recruitable only by Nerakans and even then they should only be available once every so often and be very expensive. Maybe not retrainable too.
The only other thing I will mention is be careful on which towns you add. Putting in Solace for example probably wouldnt be a good thing since its unlike any town. Would be silly to see Solace as a major city.
All your other ideas and such are great. Looks like your really on the right track to making a good mod. I just might have to keep an eye on this and put in my thoughts, if you dont mind of course.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
ad. the warhammer goblins are perfect for DL, maybe not as cartoonish but they are perfect https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=90663&page=2 scroll to post 56 by Alletun and I think we've found the Goblins.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
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Originally Posted by Nazralte
Being an avid reader of DL (I think I have 70+ books) I would be very happy to see this mod made.
I couldn't count the number I've read, but I own about that many as well... not counting the gaming books.
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Really, the only custom area I would worry about is the High Clerist Tower. Sure, it would be nice to have the other custom cities, but really its not a major issue. More like something to add in after you get the rest done.
Secondary goal. Unfortunately, it's looking very unlikely anything's going to be particularly doable in this regard. I hope to have a HCT that works, but it's going to be tough.
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4 years per turn seems like an awfully long time. If the landmass is smaller, you would want a smaller time per turn. Plus, if possible, you could shorten the amount troops and such can move. Im just now re-reading the Elven Exiles books and a small band of elves were able to travel from Khur to Qualinesti in like 2-4 weeks.
Well, the vanilla game runs 1 year per turn, and I'd love to be able to cut beyond 4 years, but I'm not sure it's possible yet. I haven't gotten that deep into the coding quite yet.
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Speaking of Khur, dont leave them out of things. Having Egypt, the Turks and the Moors would be perfect for the different tribes of Khur.
I'm firmly committed to including the Caliphate of Khur, if for no other reason than it gives us an alternate human culture since the Ergothian (Solamnia, Abanasinia, Ergoth) and Istaran (Taman Busek, Saifhum, Sanction) cultures are so similar to one another. I'm also thinking of including the Plains of Dust tribes and perhaps the Que Plainsmen.
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Since your setting it in the 5th age, Draconians would be rare. Not too many left and those in the city of Teyr probably want to be left alone, since they only found females in the last 30 years. If you really want them in, Id have them be recruitable only by Nerakans and even then they should only be available once every so often and be very expensive. Maybe not retrainable too.
Draconians are tough, but I'd LOVE to be able to include Teyr as a playable faction. Doesn't look likely though.
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The only other thing I will mention is be careful on which towns you add. Putting in Solace for example probably wouldnt be a good thing since its unlike any town. Would be silly to see Solace as a major city.
I don't see Solace being a settlement in the game. More likely, Haven will be the capital of the region that Solace is in.
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All your other ideas and such are great. Looks like your really on the right track to making a good mod. I just might have to keep an eye on this and put in my thoughts, if you dont mind of course.
Input is always welcome! Thanks for commenting.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
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Originally Posted by Eufarius
Thank you so much for pointing this out. I'm gonna have to get in contact with them... if I can save some work this way, I'll be well on my way.
Quick question... in what way were you considering helping out anyways?
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
Descriptions and other things.
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
YAY!!! Now I don't need to spend all my time at The Guild on WTW. I haven't seen any work for this mod, but since it's Dragonlance, I'm really excited. YAY!!! Oh, and hello Eufarius, oh yeah why do you have the Magic The gathering thing as your signature, nothing personal but I've been curious for a while. :gossip:
Re: Features Thus Far Decided...
I apologize if this was mentioned elsewhere but concerning the healers/priests, instead of making them units why dont you just have them as a retinue addition that gives a greater rate of casualties healed by the victor of the battle? That could free up a unit slot and give a little more diversity to the retinue options
