The Ilsamiren Wars

[Ilsamir Lord]

Thanks, guys! The encouragement really helps :) .

I'll be posting another shot or two of the map soon, I just want to get some of my mountains under control and to make the textures more varied. I'm also looking for a way to change the campaign map army banners and faction icons without unpacking my whole MII install (I'm low on HD space) and without damaging my vanilla folder. Any one have any ideas?

[Ilsamir Lord]

Here are two more in-game shots to be going on with:

The Clauthnor on a Clear Day

The Clauthnor is the vast "Forest of Light" which dominates the Southern Lands of the Western Continent. It is roamed by ancient clans of warriors typically referred to as the Warlords of the Clauthnor (or Halteruri or Clauthnoras). Their chief fortress is the Stain of the Clauthnor from which they raid into the fertile lands around the Tairen Virone (the Beautiful Bay).

The Clauthnor will be one of the harder landscapes to present as I had intended, and to achieve the effect I'm striving for may be impossible, but ultimately I plan for the forest to come across as much like this as possible:

As the light grew to be stronger than the clouds outside, the scene became one of unparalleled wonder. The drops of rain were caught by the smallest and sharpest shafts of light Udeval had ever seen and it was as if the roof of the Forest glowed from some inner light, like to the sun but wrought of something finer than fire and as cool as mountain water and tiny beads of gold fell from it. The roots and trunks of the broad trees were covered in delicate green moss which caught the droplets as might a spider’s web and the floor of the forest itself was similarly carpeted with soft lichens, green and brown and mild yellow, now and then interrupted and accompanied by minute flowers, white and yellow. The smell of it was sweet, but edged with the distinct note of new rain and wet earth. There was not a sound to trouble the place, only the softest of murmurs from the golden droplets falling to the moss. Udeval stopped, his mission forgotten and only the cool green and brilliant gold occupying his thoughts. His eyes were enchanted, his mind put to rest and the world arrested, frozen outside his senses.

Well, that's what I'm after. :) .

The Bay, Looking South-West from North Claw

This second image shows a coastal keep which overlooks the Bay and serves top make a stronger choke point of the narrow inlet which leads into it. On each side of the inlet is a fortress which doubles as a light-house point and a military position from which can be launched fleets to blockade the inlet.

More map shots soon!

[Ilsamir Lord]

The Arkiri Garise - The Giving Mountains - from the shore of the Anchor Lake at Glemandh

Here is the view looking north-east from the city of Glemandh across the Anchor Lake (Or Taidh Gleman) to the Arkiri Garise. The Anchor Lake is believed to be the place to which the Weaver anchored the winds to the world and so is a site of major religious significance for the Ilsamiri, though the king of the West is its custodian.

When an Ilsamir King dies he is borne to the centre of the Lake and his sarcophogus is sunk at its deepest point. This act allows the King's spirit to fly upon the winds which rise from the Lake and ascend to the sky and to the Weaver.

The city of Glemandh (which translates approximately to Anchor Town) has become wealthy from the constant tide of pilgrims visiting the Lake and many of its merchants have taken advantage of this religious ferver to an unhealthy degree, selling trinkets and hiring boats at high prices to anyone gullible enough.

[Ilsamir Lord]

I'm hoping, as you will see, that the multiple campaigns of the expansion will allow for a set sequence of progression which will allow for "unlocking" of new campaigns. I also hope that victory conditions can be considerably more complex.



Explanatory Note
The number beside the name of each campaign refers to the overall order in which the campaigns would need to be played to have all factions unlocked for the Final War. The faction names beneath each campaign name are those of the faction which will be unlocked for the Final War upon completion of that campaign. The arrows refer to which campaigns can lead to the Final War for the named factions.

I - The War of Expansion

Background
When the Ilsamiri suddenly appeared on the coast of the Western Continent they brought with them a desire and drive for conquest. This campaign details their wars of expansion to the South and West, their encounters with the Morchanin, the various warlords of the Southlands and with their future allies, the Western Kingdom.

Participants
Playable:

The Ilsamiri - Orn Ilsamiri
Objectives:
1. To capture X number of provinces
2. To send an emissary to and gain an alliance with the Western Kingdom
3. To capture and develop into a large city the Southern Port (or Glatir Nomer)
4. To build paved roads in all their provinces.

The Western Kingdom or the Descendants of the Sun - Or Heirua Domer, Or Cirume Cehu'ath - Escgliro Sive
Objectives:
The objectives of the Western Kingdom are:
1. To send an emissary to and gain an alliance with the Ilsamiri
2. To crush the Warlord of the Lake

Non-playable
The Morchanin – Or Morchanir (Matto Morchanin)

The Warlords of the Lake – Or Halteruri or Taidhas

The Pirates of the Bay – Or Kareinir or Tairenath

The Warlords of the Clauthnor – Or Halteruri or Clauthnoras

Unlocks
By beating this campaign as the Ilsamiri you will unlock the Western Kingdom and the Ilsamiri for play in the Final War and the Western Kingdom for play in the War of Expansion. You will also gain access to Campaign II.

[Incongruous]

Mmmmm.. Im hungry for you're MOD

Like the way you'll make us work for the great camp, nice work so far aswell. So glad this will finally become a reality.

[Commanderkickass]

Hey, I really would like to see this mod. I saw it in this forum a couple of weeks ago…about a month actually. I really like how you came up with this whole world of yours, which belongs in a book with LOTR or Harry Potter. I joined this forum to keep track on your mod. I’m really looking forward to The Ilsamiren Wars. Just a little more encouragement from another MOD fan.

[Ilsamir Lord]

Cheers, guys :) !

Sorry the update is taking so long, but in the mean-time I thought I'd post a request (what great compensation for the lack of an update :P ).

What I'm after is someone with experience (or the necessary software) to make an Ilsamiren font - that is, a font for the Ilsamiren language ideally compatible with word and other MS Office programs. This font, while it could not be used for in-game text due to engine limitations, would be utilised in UI, cutscenes and publicity materials.

The Script
The Ilsamiren language is written left to right, top to bottom and without spaces between words. It is based on a diacritic system similar to Arabic, but is in fact, at least initially, based on Tolkien's Quenya mode of Tengwar.

The script contains 23 consonants and a vowel holder which are modified by 13 vowel diacritics, though these diacritics are made up of only three shapes - the crescent, the diagonal stroke and the dot - which vary in alignment and size. It also has eight punctuation marks.

An Example of the Ilsamiren script (some letters/words may vary from their current forms as this is an early version of the letters)

I have a complete list of letters and symbols which I am currently reworking. I will post it as soon as it is ready. Also, I am in the process of composing a numeral system, which would be nice to include later but which is by no means essential as numbers could easily be written out fully.

Possible Bases for the Font
As the font bears similarities to Arabic (a writing system I have little knowledge of besides certain key aspects), IME fonts for that script may be a good basis for the Ilsamiren letters. Another possible base would be the Japanese IME system which works by converting English letters into the appropriate syllabic symbol or character.

However, using Japanese as a basis for the font would mean that the script would need to be redesigned as a syllabary then disguised as a diacritic based alphabet - which is hardly ideal. To do this each individual consonant would need to be included in the font with each individual vowel as well as with capitalisation and "new-word" modifiers meaning that the script would not contain 24 letters and 13 vowel diacritics but 336 individual symbols plus the punctuation.

If someone with knowledge of the Arabic IME system can assure me that the Arabic IME works in the way I wish it to that would be great news.

There is a large community of Tengwar writers out there, seemingly, who have developed a number of transcription tools for Tengwar, perhaps these could also be a base for the Ilsamiren script.

Thanks for reading,
Ilsamir Lord

[Ilsamir Lord]

I've now finished off the reassignments for my letters, so they're available to send to anyone interested in working on the font.

I've also completed an extended, hand-written example of the script to give an idea of the overall look using the new letter assignments - I've chosen not to release the conversion table for the time being to retain an air of mystery.

The Ilsamiren Script, written using the Religious "Mode"

The capitalisation system (which uses the ~ symbol) is at its most complex in the Religious Mode which is used in sacred texts and when writing words of religious significance, even if the mode of the document is otherwise non-religious. Various other forms of capitalisation and vowel placement exist and are used for differing purposes. For example, the Modern Mode uses the capital symbol only at the start of a new word, below the line to indicate a space, above it to indicate a capital letter and the ~ is often simplified into a straight line.

[Ilsamir Lord]

Well, in the absence of any models to show off - after nearly a month :P of waiting for our modeller - I thought I'd just give everyone a general update:

The Map
Well, it's basically finished, including most of the resources and all but two or so of the regions - I've done about 78 of 80 I believe - and now I'm investigating battle-map fog in a bid to make the view distances a bit more Rome-like in terms of visible mountain ranges and the like.

I'm planning out the new building types, only very roughly, and I'm still planning out my settlement maps and such for my additional campaigns, which are all but a certainty now that the Kingdoms expansion has so specifically included the ability to add them.

The Planning
At present most of the planning is done and I'm simply executing it or having it executed by a number of capable team-mates. Further units are a possibility as I plan the additional campaigns, but most will probably be just more basically equipped versions of their future counter-parts.

The Story
My writing of the central plot document - which is a fancy way of saying "that story I'm writing about that guy" - has slowed to a stop with the encroachment of university on to my time, but I occasionally go back to it for revision or addition.

I've been working on the story mainly in the capacity of a historian and I've written a substantial timeline for the Ilsamiri themselves which runs from their arrival on the continent to some one thousand years later with the arrival of the Mekathenain on the Forest Coast and the subsequent war. I'm also considering a massive expansion of the map for some far off project involving conquest or exploration into the vast, uncharted seas.

Well, that's the news for the moment. I hope to be able to show a model shortly - which I know is hardly an impressive boast after so long in development, but that's just the way it goes. I'll have more shots of the map up just as soon as I find someone(/work out how) to do the UI for the campaign map as I don't want vanilla unit flags and models cluttering up my nice new map.

I hope that's been interesting to some people as I know I haven't really posted here since, well, a month ago. Suffice to say, progress is slow, but I think steady, and you can expect a version of the mod in the not-too-distant future - by that I mean late this year, I hope :D .

[Ilsamir Lord]

Hello everyone,

Time, at long last, for a news update I think. This time I’ve got a number of images to show, both of practical elements – such as the following banners – and of the results of my height-mapping.

To start off: here are a couple of shots of the mountain range known to the speakers of the Ilsamiren language as Or Hlan Kires – The Final Wall. This is the range which separates the Eastern lands of the Betrayers from the green fields of the Descendants of the Sun, the Western Kingdom.

This first image shows the dwindling eastern extreme of the Final Wall as it descends to the Open Pass.


This image shows one of the roads which link the Western Capital, Cerinan, with the smaller farmsteads and trading posts of the kingdom.

The next images show a piece of practical progress – the implementation of banner colours and symbols into the strategic map. These symbols were designed from my written descriptions by NodachiSam.

The banner shown above belongs to the Ilsamiri and is based on the Ilsamiren letter “D”, which stands for Darineth, their capital city.


This image shows the Sun-flare banner of the Western Kingdom, flown from the city of Varas Thenor, or Forest Gate.

That’s all for now, but hopefully it shows that work is still being done. Now that I’m on holidays again I should be able to finish off the UI, or at least get it to a workable point. There should be a model (or two) to show off in the near future, but don’t hold your breath – I’m not .

Thanks for reading,
Yours,
Ilsamir Lord

[alpaca]

Very nice screens, you're definitely spending a lot of time on this

[Ilsamir Lord]

Cheers, alpaca :) . I've been doing my best to get all the faction banner icons in, then I might move on to reskinning some of the strategic map characters. I'd rather not have them all purely colour coded though, as I think that's relatively unrealistic - instead of distinctive colouring I'll favour distinctive costuming. So, stay tuned and we'll see how it goes ;) .

I'm also doing my best to fend off some potential copyright issues (or rather, a few cases of possibly coincidental convergence in concepts - to avoid giving it a legal tone) , but that shouldn't be too big a deal, seeing as all my threads predate those of this other mod.

[Ilsamir Lord]

I'll start publishing unit lists soon. These will contain a complete list of all available units for that faction, covering every campaign in which that faction appears. It will also contain the names of those units in the appropriate language - these will be the names heard in-game.

[Ilsamir Lord]

I just wanted to update everyone on the project. It's not dead by any means, I've just moved to a much more useable platform for the concept and, if I'm honest, it will give me the scope to realise my original ideas much better.

A Total War mod is not beyond the realms of possiblity in the future, but for the moment I'm focussing on this new iteration.

I won't be posting here anymore, but if anyone is interested in doing some concept work for the new mod that would be great. Shoot me a PM here or at Crymod.com if you're interested.

Thanks to everyone who has offered support during the MII phase of the concept - it has been invaluable as a source of encouragement, but sadly, there's only so much I could do by myself with such a tightly stitched engine.