Blue Lotus: Total War

[hoggy]

edit:This thread is the original thread started in october moved from the modding forum. It has a lot of the background info and early development stuff up til 8th Jan after which point we moved to this sub forum:


Blue Lotus: Total War
BLTW is a mod I’m planning on doing for Rome Total War. Set in a fictitious land of three continents the Mythology of China and Japan blend in an epic campaign with absolutely no grounds in historical reality. In the center of the world lie the fickle drunken gods in their impassable mountains reigning disasters upon the hapless humans. Below them the forces of evil are stirring, demons and evil beast of every kind who’s only plan is to destroy the world. Facing them are two squabbling human kingdoms beset by infighting and feuds. Only Total War will decide the fate of the world!

Essentially a bit of fun, I’m hoping to do most of the art myself (slowly) but could do with a hand with modding the campaign later on if anyone fancies it. I’ll just post progress up here and if anyone has any ideas for unit types (with visual reference that would be much appreciated) post it here. I’m going to be drawing on Chinese and Japanese mythology, cinema, fiction and random imagination etc as a source so there is no real constraint. A lot of the ideas for the mod will obviously change according to the future moddability of RTW including number of factions etc.

[hoggy]

Here are my initial thoughts on the army lists:

edit: see Army List Thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41921

[hoggy]

I'm going to try, if I get time, to do little concepts of all the units to get an idea of what they'll look like. Here are some for the japanese infantry and demon infantry (smaller units)

edit:see Arm List here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41921

[radcan]

I have to say mate i hope this mod goes weel as im well lookin forward to kickin some demon ass with some shaolin monks or even just looking at some snow monkeys lol. kepp up the good work lad .


Buy haggis. Keep Scotland out of poverty.

[Thoros of Myr]

Love the concept work. The snow monkey infantry is classic. What's the inspiration for the basket ronin lol?

This popular Japanese fox charactor (kitsune?) might be something to look at.
http://www.coyotes.org/kitsune/media/TheFoxDance.jpg

Will the three continents be caricatures of say china, japan, and korea?

[d6veteran]

Great idea for a mod. Need magic abilities for the demons.

[Ianofsmeg16]

THAT LOOKS ABSOLUTLY FANTASTIC! Especially the chinese they look great!
how far are you in the project? are you finished? if so reply telling me where i can download it because it looks great!

[Big_John]

from the all-empires forums again:
http://www.allempires.com/forum/foru...?TID=1606&PN=1
see bottom of page for chosun dynasty armor/dress.. there's a lot of pictorial examples of korean and chinese armies on that forum.. less about japanese, some about southeast asian, didn't see much indian or mongol info

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/...=ZVE&code=8003
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/...=ITA&code=6020
13th c mongol army toy soldiers, not colored but you could use them for model guides.

here's a couple of painted mongol toy soldiers:
http://www.hz-forum.de/galerie/ga_herrick.htm
http://users.adelphia.net/~ftduq/Eastern.html
here's a couple of painted mongol toy soldiers

a little more mongol stuff:
http://www.csen.org/Mongol.Nadaam/Mongol.text.html
i really think there should be a mongol wrestler unit, not sure how you'd implement it though.. it could be like the berserkers, high damage, low defense, small unit, good for smashing into the back of engaged units.. i dunno probably sounds better than it would actually be.. just sounds funny and cool to me..

also, i know osprey makes several books on the mongols (http://www.ospreypublishing.com/sear...491328a9ce378e)
if you're so inclined, you could buy a couple..

also, if you make a somewhat realistic map, i'd suggest moving india (and tibet/nepal) over to the east so they are more south than southwest of china, shrinking southeast asia and bringing japan down a bit.. it'd be better play, imo.
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~p...es/mongmap.jpg


awesome models and concepts as always

[OldRPGer]

Galen - excellent reference for weapons there. I'm going to have each monk faction have it's own style of monks ie chinese monk faction or japanese monk faction.

Maybe Buddist for the Japanese, or perhaps you could substitute Sohei, or
Yamabushi priests if no appropriate monks can be decided upon.

And how about some Ninja, either as a special unit, or perhaps they could
be substituted for the spy and assassin units. They serve pretty much the
same purpose!...........Just a thought!

[Ferocious_Imbecile]

WOW...I was hoping you'd add India to your list of factions, Hoggy...and you've outdone yourself again. I love your drawings...you're a superb artist..the tribal fanatics in particular are great. I can't wait to see them in 3D..

BTW...what courses have you taken for your 3d work? any Gnomon DVDs or courses?

[Zanderpants]

Hey all,
Hoggy, I was wondering if you'd need testers for your mod. I tested H:TW, so I've had some experience in testing. Also, I am quite familiar with Feudal Japanese history, as well as Japanese mythology. I'm sure that you've had lots of offers for testig, but I figured I give it a shot.

Thanks,
Zanderpants

Btw, amazing job you're doing here.

[hoggy]

Brimston3 - I'll try to do an update soon, I've mostly been concentrating on unit building so very little else is done at the moment. The Japanese base army is done and about 90% of the base demon army. Edit: Just updated page one of this thread to show completed units in red on the army list

Lonely Soldier - No idea for a release yet, it won't be soon as there's still so much to do.

Zanderpants - When it comes to testing I'll post here to call for testers. you sound eminently suitable though.

I'm having my PC overhauled at the moment, upgrading to a GForce 3! Hooray! Might be a bit intermittent inthe meantime. Here are the beast riders:
edit: link temporarily removed - hoggy

[wilpuri]

Hoggy, this is amazing. You are a true pioneer of the TW modding community, great work.

[Myrddraal]

*lost for words*

[DragoonXXIV]

Amazing job on the demon yaks

[Bulten]

Hoggy, this is amazing. You are a true pioneer of the TW modding community, great work.

I couldn't agree more :)

[Azzaturtle]

I don't know anything about modding...but I had to register to say the mod looks wicked!!! Looks well worth the wait.

[Zastrow]

I concur.

[hoggy]

I've been spending the last week or so working on the campaign map and other text files (getting region names in took quite a while) The basic plan at the moment is to have 2 Chinese, 2 Japanese, 1 Monk, 1 Demon, 2 more specific factions (indian and one other) and assorted other factions with 1 shared army list. Here is a basic outline, could the chinese and japanese speakers among you check I've not accidentally put swear words in or give any feedbackon region names. At the bottom left is the radar from in game:

[Byzantine Prince]

LOL, China is an island? Why can't we change the whole map. I hate how everything so is so hardcoded.

[Zanderpants]

Oh man MONGOL! Um, I don't see any swear words, but on the southernmost small island, you have the city of Nagashino which the site of a famous battle between Takeda, Oda and Tokugawa. I dunno if you want that in there or not. Looks awesome as usual!

[Unseen Potato]

Awesomme work Hoggy!!!!! Cant wait to play this mod

Just wanted to say that Hoggys post has now reached 20.000 views!!!

[anti_strunt]

Doesn't Ashasima (the island of the yellow clan) looks awfully much like Cyprus? Regardless, it is looking great as always, just don't overdo it adding all these new factions in; I'd rather see a mod with just the Japanese and Chinese than see you work yourself to death creating quality skins...

Though I must say I concur with Zanderpants, Mongols are just too cool to pass up!

[manu7777]

do u think that it could be possible to download or send me all japanese kingdom models units and textures?

[dclare4]

A page on Buddhist beliefs (demons and other creatures)

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/oinari.shtml

Cheers,
Clare

[Kageka]

Hello again!

I really like the new logos for the factions. I especially like the Karazai button. The Choson is cool too (even though it has that "primitive" feel to it).

But the Krishnapur looks some how "strange". Don't know exactly why but I get the "copy-paste"-feeling when I see it plus it dosent really follow the same style as the other buttons/logos.

[hoggy]

Just a quick progress update for Blue Lotus.
I'm currently finishing off the Chinese armies, the officers, generals etc and then I'll be moving onto a period of polishing these units and doing the texture variations for the Yuwan Clan. After that I'll start on finishing the Demon armies' remaining units, generals etc. Obviously I'll post progress along the way.
Blindfaithnogod and Sykotyk Rampage have been doing an amazing job on everything else. Between them they have sorted the character names, portraits have been sourced by Sykotyk and implemented by Blindfaith, tech trees are coming along nicely, event pics are done, music is currently in progress by Sykotyk, they are both doing some excellent job creating building pictures right now and hopefully they'll post samples soon. All of these and others are huge tasks and they've done an outstanding job on them
So we're moving along nicely. The unit building is likely to take several months yet and we've still got a lot to do but I'll be happy if, with our small part time team, we release the mod around the time of RTWs expansion pack (if there is one).

cheers - hoggy

[hardgainer]

So basically, what your trying to say is, It will be a very long time before the first version of your mod is released? I havnt even heard anything about an exapnsion, so I guess thats what your trying to hint at.

Im not much of a mod person, but the extensiveness of your mod looks quite impressive. I like how some demon units are larger than normal troops, like the orange demons, hanya? Being a fantasy mod doesnt bother me, it looks very interesting. I like the idea of trying to hold a bridge with samurai against huge hulking demons.

Im not sure how long this project has been in development, but it does look great. There appeared to have been alot of screenshots in this thread previously, is there anywhere I can see them now they have been taken down? Anyway, this mod looks really fun, keep up the top work.

[blindfaithnogod]

..................around the time of RTWs expansion pack (if there is one).

cheers - hoggy

there is always an expansion pack. even if they(CA) have not officially made it known.

[hoggy]

Sykotic has been sourcing oriental art for event pics but we were unable to find one for weeping women (used for most disasters) so I've had a go at one trying to copy the style. obviously not as good as the original masters (and thank god for the undo button):