Lord of the Rings [Archive]

Wellington

05-20-2003, 20:00

DJ,

A long, long post unfortunately, but -

Remarkable ...

... AT LAST

Initial impressions
===================

Finally it appears we have someone who has the potential to create LoTR type units that are -

- visually accurate
- pertain to the correct camera-angles for the MTW engine
- contain the necessary number of frames to ensure fluid actions within MTW
- animate some/most of the actions that are consistent within the constraints of the MTW engine

Believe it or not this is the FIRST TIME I've seen entirely newly designed units that conform to the MTW engine. All of the previous LoTR mods fell by the wayside due to the inherent problems in producing units (on the MTW battlefield).

That's no disrespect to others whom have attempted, and made significant progress towards, an MTW LoTR mod. It just means that the creation of ENTIRELY NEW/DIFFERENT UNITS for such a mod always proved to be somewhat of a showshopper.

However, there are many many different "components" pertaining to a LoTR mod that have been created by this groups members. Battlefield maps, icons, portraits, campaign maps, etc: that can still be utilised.

Also there are many, many individuals whom have craved a LoTR mod since the release of MTW.

If, DJ, you can really create such new LoTR units (and based on what I've seen and tested so far it appears you can) such a LoTR mod is finally feasible.

However
=======

One aspect of such "new" mods is to ensure not only that the basic units are readily available for creation but also to ensure that all aspects of such new units (actions and weapon/shield images) are also "creatable" to ensure such units (for a such a different mod) are fully compatable with the MTW engine.

Hence the following questions for DJ (pertaining to the provided unit Uruk-Hai) -

a) is it possible to create a "die" action for this unit?
b) is it possible to create a "shoot" action (ie: crossbows) for this unit?
c) is it possible to create a "thrusting two-handed" action (ie: pike/spear) for this unit?
d) is it possible to remove the weapon from the images?
e) is it possible to remove the shield from the images?
f) is it possible to recolour slightly (considering how, software wise, they have been created) the images armour?

From a), b) and c) if these new actions are attainable then - THE SKIES THE LIMIT

From d) this is not a big problem, and will make creation of other units based of the basic generic plates far more easier.

From e) it's not necessary to remove the current shield image from the figure images as (providing a new shield/s is provided and positioned correctly) the original shield on the figure image can be hidden - any new positioning parameters for such units can be provided by myself or others.

f) Different colouration of units would be (even if ever so slightly - eg: amending silver items to bronze, or copper, or brass, or iron) extremely effective in creating new Generic units from existing Generic plates.

I have some software to do this, and it really is'nt a complicated job.

However - THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS THAT REQUIRE ANSWERING BEFORE ANY POTENTIAL PROGRESS ON A WORKABLE LOTR MOD CAN REALLY START

Answers
=======

I am planning to make pike and crossbow Uruk-Hai, but that's no simple as a weapon swap. Positioning weapons and shields on the units would be too time-consuming, so I've created models with the weapons and shields "stuck" on them.

True, it IS time-consuming but very worthwhile in terms of how to create several different units (weapons/shields/actions) from a "base" unit.

This is how CA managed to provide so many different specific units based on only a handful of generic ones ... seems like a good principle to me.

If you, DJ, can produce the frames/images required for different LoTR units - then I can provide the necessary shield and weapon positioning parameters/files to ensure such new units would have the capability for -

a) axe-based units and sword based units for images portraying a "single handed chopping fight action"
b) spear/pike/halbard based units for images portraying a "double handed thrusting fight action"
c) missile based units (crossbows) for images portraying a "fire fight action"

You already have the images for a), if you can provide 4 more images (1 per camera-action) for b) and 4 more images for c), together with 4 more images that represent a "die" action then your basic generic unit of Uruk-Hai would provide
several units for that faction -

- Uruk-Hai swordsmen
- Uruk-Hai axemen
- Uruk-Hai flails
- Uruk-Hai spearmen
- Uruk-Hai pikemen
- Uruk-Hai halbards/long-chopping-axes
- Uruk-Hai crossbows
- Uruk-Hai heavy crossbows (ie: arbelasts)

... and that's just the infantry

Any/all of the above could have the same or different shields - even more variety.

Some of the above units could be created into a different BIF (same actions ect:) and have the headgear (crescent) amended/removed and/or the armour recoloured slightly (from black/silver to gold/silver or whatever). This gives even more possibilities but is dependant on what images can be created from the basic generic images.

Making new Uruk-Hai would mean adjusting the normal model, which isn't a work at all. The work comes with cutting/pasting/adjusting 60 images. But it can be done.

True, it can be done. But the effort required in cutting/pasting/adjusting 60 images is not as hard as you imagine. I already have a software product (UM) that manipulates individual images and builds BMP's and then the BIF's based on the image rectangles (sizes) of each image. This is NOT as difficult as it would seem. A software based utility that positions multiple independent images into 12 BMP's (ready for incorporation into a multi-framed BIF) and then builds the BIF based on the 12 BMPs containing all of the frames, already exists.

The berserker isn't impossible, actually I also thought it. This way the Isengard army would have swordmen, pikemen, crossbowmen, berserkers, and perhaps later Dunlendings and Warg Riders.

Sounds very interesting.

This is the first model I've finished. It will probably take me a week per model to make. So if you wish 5 models per faction/race you have to wait some time.

I suspect 1/2 models per faction/race would be sufficent initially.

But I'll wait with the human races, since the existing medieval units will be enough for the time being.

True

Next I'll start probably on the other Uruk-Hai, but I've also got this great idea about flying Nazgul...hmmm so much to do, so little time.

Flying units are possible within MTW - but they would have to fight on the ground so-to-speak.

But everyone can help. Making models doesn't take alot of time. As said above making all the frames is the most labourous. So if you would be willing I will send 60 bmp's of a unit which you then have to paste into 12 bmp's. Using readbif.exe you can then make the .bifs. This would greatly speed up the proces.

If, DJ, people can rely on you to produce the basic generic LoTR units (as per your original offering) that had images conversant with the MTW required actions (shoot/die/fight etc:) I'm quite sure this LoTR potential mod would take off.

If you are willing to help, please email me at robgraat@hotmail.com I will then give you further instructions on how this process is done.

I would love to see this mod prgressed, and I also love to see the many LoTR enthusiasts who did so much previously (PantherPower/Whitey and others) also involved yet again in such a mod that, as we all know, has been the most requested mod since "The Org" first started thgis modders forum.

Conclusion
==========

The one factor that has, perhaps, renewed interest yet again in a LoTR type mod is DJ producing the first feasible unit (Uruk-Hai) that look good for a LoTR mod.

All further progress with such a mod would depend on DJ proving such additional images (for a "die" action and "shoot" action) are producable for these images and then also producing new images (however basic but conforming to the MTW engine requirements) that prove the basic premise that we finally have someone who can CREATE SUCH UNITS.

If this is achievable, then the other additional constraints (new weapons and shield positioning parameters, and new images as such, to ensure a variety of units, based on a single BIF) can be relatively easily surpassed.

This group currently has the capability to create new campaign maps, new images, new portraits, new factions, new battlefield maps ... and so on.

Only DJ has providied us with the potential to create new units (which was always sadly lacking) for a realiaable LoTR mod. So - who's interested? .

Duke John

05-20-2003, 22:01

D-mn, Wellington you make me proud http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Thanks alot for your post. As gratitude I'm also posting a long one. I'm getting really enthusiastic now about this mod. Why? Because I can answer all your questions with YES

a) is it possible to create a "die" action for this unit?
No problem at all, I didn't make one yet, because I couldn't wait releasing it to the public
b) is it possible to create a "shoot" action (ie: crossbows) for this unit?
Not possible with the current model, but I can relative easily remove the sword and shield. If you can add a crossbow with positioning...tadaa.
c) is it possible to create a "thrusting two-handed" action (ie: pike/spear) for this unit?
Same as b. Really making models and animating them is not a problem at all.
d) is it possible to remove the weapon from the images?
Removing the weapon from the images will be alot of work. But I can adjust my model and render it again. It has the same result but quicker.
e) is it possible to remove the shield from the images?
Same as d). Possible but since it's stuck, it will be better to adjust the model and render it again.
f) is it possible to recolour slightly (considering how, software wise, they have been created) the images armour?
If you mean colouring so that faction colours are displayed, I have to say no unless you want to paint all the colours (the green and purple which are replaced by the MTW engine with faction colours) manually on the frames. If you mean just black armour instead of grey, that's feasible but I'll have to repaint the textures. More on that later.

So indeed THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

First let me explain my working method:
Day one
I make in a 3D modeller program a model. Then I add skeletons to the model, I can later use these skeletons to put the model in a certain position.
Day two and three
I paint textures in a painting program. These textures are applied onto the model. This takes some time, because I have to constantly check how the result is. Recolouring isn't so time-consuming because I already have the right proportions.
Day four
I animate the model in the 3D program. In 12 frames I position the model step by step. These are rendered in the 4 angles and saved per frame as bmp.
Day five
From day four I get 12 bmp's per action, which I then have to paste into a 512x512 bmp. Then I have to replace the palette with a Total War one. This is VERY important, otherwise the transparant colour R0 G132 B0 isn't the first entry in the palette. Then I'll have to replace all the greens with the transparent colour. Only thing left is to run readbif on the bmp's.

This means I could get a model every 5 days if I work 4 hours per day on it (still an estimation, maybe less).

Concerning new models
Wellington, if you can help me with positioning weapons and shields, I would be so gratefull While sticking weapons and shield onto the model saves time on postprocessing it isn't very flexible at all.
If you indeed have tools for positioning weapons and shield, we'll have the best of two worlds: fast unit animation and fast item positioning.

The flying Nazgul isn't really flying, but since I'll place the shadow not directly below the model, you'll get the idea he is. The only problem would be fitting the animations onto a 512x512 without losing too much resolution.

So let me repeat it again:

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT
I can relative easily make new models. I can adjust the Uruk-hai model and you'll have bmp's (not bif's&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif for crossbow, pike, sword and shield by the end of the week. Next week I can then start on making an High Elf model for bow, two handed sword, spear and shield.

Really, if you have the right tools for positioning, Wellington. Then we can certainly get this mod working

Greetings, a thankfull Duke John http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Sir Robin

05-20-2003, 22:13

Wow thank you for the incredible work.

I am all for anything that brings orks to TW.

I would love to help but as my wife will confirm I have no noticeable skills or value. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I'll still email though, since I would like to do what I can.

Duke John

05-20-2003, 22:14

A further request to the community:
Can someone collect Lord of the Rings sounds? I think we can replace all the muslim sounds with Orcish sounds and orthodox sounds with Dwarf or Elven sounds. The catholic sounds will then count for all the human races.

Monk

05-21-2003, 00:57

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif great job duke

Emp. Conralius

05-21-2003, 02:18

hhhhmmmm... Ive done this about 8 times; and everytime I try to download the units, a 404 ERROR message comes up. Can you someone email me the file? It would be greatly appreciated.

Here:

BBenham169@aol.com

DJ, are you going to start making factions?

Monk

05-21-2003, 02:28

Conralius same thing happened to me, i was about to give up but i went to the file section under stats and mods and saw the unit there. when i clicked that link i was transfered to 3d downloads and the d/l began. so try that

Duke John

05-21-2003, 06:40

Apparently they have uploaded the zip file to 3ddownloads. Here's the new link (http://www.3ddownloads.com/strategy-gaming/totalwar/MTW/Stats/Uruk_Hai.zip). You can also find it by going to downloads -> Medieval mods -> Uruk-Hai (new unit)

Well first we will create some new units, while Dimeolas works on new graphics for the mod. Factions will only be made when we have enough units. But we can start brainstorming of what the techtree should be.

Dimeolas
Can you perhaps create some shields for Uruk-Hai and Elfs? They don't need to be 3D just flat bmp's. Wellington or somebody else can then use them for the bif's.

Duke John

05-21-2003, 15:15

Ok then, I said animating was easy right. So I've uploaded a zip file called TEST_raw_uruk_hai_images.zip (http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mtw_Uploads/MTWbeta/TEST_raw_uruk_hai_images.zip)

It contains pcx images (without extension, but can still be opened with a painting program. If I exported the animations as bmp the colours were all wrong). They show each a frame out of 12 from the following 9 actions:
Walking
Walking with pike
Running
Running/charging with pike
Charging with swordhand overhead
Dying
Standing
Fighting one-handed
Fighting with pike

This means there are 9x12=108 pictures to be processed. Wellington, you said you had automated the process... well here's your chance to test it out http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif All the images are without weapons. I'll will soon add a shooting animation so you can also create crossbowmen. Btw do you want them to kneel or stand? I think standing is more appropiate.

Contents of readme.txt, if there are questions about this, please ask.
Use the following guidelines to make bifs.

These images need to processed. To do this correctly you need to cut and paste them in a 512x512 bmp.

After all the pasting, FLIP the whole image. This needs to be done because the shield arm should be in front not behind. It's simply because I made my models right-handed while the animations are left-handed. But it needs to be done, otherwise it won't look good in-game.

After making sure all the animations are correctly aligned make sure that it's a 8 bit bitmap with number one palette entry a transparent colour (R0 G132 B0).

You can do this by openening an exported bmp from an (appropiately couloured ) existing bif. Next you need to save the palette, you then open the palette in the Uruk-Hai bmp and all the colours are converted.

Tidy everything up and fill all the shadows black (they were grey before) .

Lastly check in readbif if all the background colour is right. If you use the dropper and chooses the green background you should get the "green" transparent colour.

Finally import all the bmps in readbif and save it as a biffile. Using the commandline (DOS) works better.

End of readme.txt

I don't know how it all fits into the bif. But if you discover that it won't fit, then I can just as easily adjust the models a bit, rerun the renderings and we'll have slightly different units.

Goodluck http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

Emp. Conralius

05-21-2003, 20:15

Dj, I have some ideas about the factions banners/shields of the different factions. Though, I'm not sure whether you're thinking of races or factions

Isengard: A white hand (Saruman's) over a black banner
Mordor: a Red eye (Sauron's) over a black banner, I read about thisone in the TT novel
Gondor: The symbol of Gondor is a silver tree over a black banner, but I think the colors would be too similar to Isengard's.

these are just a few things off the top of me head
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

As far as Uruk-Hai go, I believe the TT console game is a very good source of ideas. And since thy were an elite unit, they shouldn't be 6-7 types of Uruk-Hai. Uruk-Hai Crossbow, pikes, berzerkers, and swordsmen should be just fine.

Duke John

05-21-2003, 21:13

You're on spot with the banners, although they may look the same it's true to the book and let's not screw this mod like Jackson did to some parts of the movie.
And Uruk-Hai should be indeed elite. Also I don't think lots of units makes a mod necessarily better. It's in the human nature to pick the best and you'll probably end up with 4/5 units you constantly train. Below I'll summarize possible factions with some background I found on the internet.

Isengard White hand (with pointing finger) on black
If Orcs are the foulest creatures to walk Middle-earth then Uruk-Hai are the most dangerous perversion of the breed. Where ordinary Orcs are crook limbed and timid, the Uruk-Hai are strong, muscular, upright warriors of greater skill and courage. They are no less evil-hearted than their smaller cousins however. Their capacity for evil is greater still. They are armed from the forges of Saruman with efficient armor and keen-edged weapons.
Proposed units:
- Uruk-Hai with pike
- Uruk-Hai with sword and shield;
- Uruk-Hai with crossbow;
- Uruk-Hai berserker;
- Warg Riders;
- Wildman of Dunland.

Mordor Red eye on black
Mordor forces are largely composed of huge numbers of Orcs. Although cowardly Orcs are dangerous because of their large units.
Proposed units:
- Mordor Orcs armed with spear and shield;
- Mordor Orcs armed with bow;
- Mordor Orcs armed with great axe;
- Warg Riders;
- Trolls;
- Nazgul.

Rohan White horse on green (yellow trimmings)
The Rohirrim are inspired by Celtic history. They almost exclusively go mounted to battle. They use javelins and bows to soften up the enemy before engaging them with long spears. When dismounted they form a phalanx with their spears and throw their javelins before close combat begins.
Proposed units:
- Riders of Rohan armed with javelins and spears;
- Riders of Rohan armed with bows;
- medium cavalry armed with spears;
- Royal Guard.

Gondor Silver tree on black
Throughout her history the army was a minority of mounted nobles and their small households, mustered alongside the masses of infantry which were the citizens under arms. According to Peter Jackson they're modelled after the Romans.
Proposed units:
- Gondorian Spearmen, perhaps with javelins;
- Gondorian Bowmen;
- Mounted Nobles;
- Rangers.

High Elves banner?
The High Elves are the deadliest warriors in all of Middle-earth, combining skill at arms with expertly fashioned wargear. They are proficient with swords, spears and bows, and are the bravest of all fighting troops.
Proposed units:
- Sindar armed with bows;
- Noldor armed with greatsword;
- Noldor armed with spear and shield.

Other thoughts
I think this mod should be designed for Viking Invasion. Beside the general improvements, we wouldn't have trouble with the pope or all those events.
Although the only way to play SP would be World Domination, I don't think we should aim for that. Going for a more realistic approach means that High Elves won't be butchering everybody on the face of Middle Earth. It should get the feel of Good vs Evil and trying to dam in the Good vs Good conflicts. Although I read somewhere that in the Second Age Elf fought Elf fought Dwarf fought Men fought Men etc.

If anybody comes with anything please post it here I'm always interested to read it (if it's constructive). Especially history concerning all the ages that we can use for the mod I would find a good read.

Cheers, Duke John

jeffreyLebowski

05-21-2003, 21:22

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 21 2003,15:13)]Although the only way to play SP would be World Domination, I don't think we should aim for that. Going for a more realistic approach means that High Elves won't be butchering everybody on the face of Middle Earth. It should get the feel of Good vs Evil and trying to dam in the Good vs Good conflicts.
agreed. is there perhaps some way to script a permanent ally situation between all the evil factions, and another for the good factions? of course, this would present problems with the fact that you cannot move your troops your allied lands...a fact which will unfortunately limit how well a lotr mod could work out... after all, many of the battles in lotr and the silmarillion feature alliances of different races working together against the forces of evil. also, a perhaps less than satisfactory solution would be to have only two factions: good and evil. either way, this mod sounds really promising. i hope it works out.

Duke John

05-21-2003, 21:41

Only 2 factions would limit the diversity and thus the replayability. And no, you cannot have permanent alliances between different factions. The big problem is probably that eventually it's everybody against the player. Playing evil this isn't that bad because backstabbing is all in the game when you want to control the world. Strange it would be when Mordor allies with the High Elves... Speaking of High Elves right now I'm busy modelling a High Elf warrior. Should be available soon.

Emp. Conralius

05-21-2003, 22:57

Just tried that Uruk-Hai unit, and i gotta say it's the bes model uni for a mod I've seen

DJ, are you going to give Isengard an archer unit? I believe that in the literature, Saruman's persnal bodyguards were men. Will Mordor ge Easterlings?

I apologize for al the questions, but this mod seems to be going full circle Are you using the Encyclopedia of Arda as a source DJ? I dont have the link to it, but thats what you should type in at a search engine.

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

05-22-2003, 02:16

Hey DJ

those orcs were cool. I like all this talk about a lotr mod.
i know theres been some atempts in the past.I will help
with the mod,if you need anything

regards
Monkey

Duke John

05-22-2003, 08:44

I don't mind questions at all. This mod costs alot of time and seeing that people are interested keeps me motivated. Isengard will get Uruk-Hai crossbows. They will also be able to train Wild Men of Dunland. Giving them even more men and they lose the "Orcy" character.
Southrons and Easterlings will probably units for Mordor. Making another 2 factions costs too much time. Although Southrons might get away with it.

Thanks for the link to the Atlas, it will be a helpfull guide.

Cheers

NagatsukaShumi

05-22-2003, 11:10

If you are still looking for a link to the atlas

Encyclopedia of Arda (http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/)

vortex

05-22-2003, 17:07

WOW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Great job Duke John Probably the best model I've seen. Can't wait to see your elf model....do you know when it will be done? I don't have much free time on my hands, but if there are any small tasks you want me to do - I will help as much as I can.

vortex

Wellington

05-22-2003, 17:11

DJ,

Very quick post.

I've downloaded and checked your original images (shield-less and weapon-less) for the Urak_Hai faction.

They are fine (er .. not true - they are more than fine&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

The actions you have provided assure me that this faction (Urak_hai) can have multiple units based upon the images you've created.

I'm busy re-writing a new version of UM specifically for the images you can create. It's called UM_LoTR and will be able to create the final BIF's based on the original PCX files/images produced via yourself.

One of the key aspects of this utility is to make things simple (ie: the process of building vorrect BIFs from your original PCX images).

A few questions relating to this -

a) do you have an image (PCX/BMP or whatever) of the shield that was originally included with these Urak_hai images?
b) it is possible to name some of the action sequences with a number that indicates the camera-angle (this will make automating the BIF creation far easier). For example, your images for 'action_running' are named -
- 22_urak_warrior_running_nnn
- 67_urak_warrior_running_nnn
- 112_urak_warrior_running_nnn
- 157_urak_warrior_running_nnn
Is there any possibility of indicating (perhaps via the 1st number - 22/67/112/157) which camera angle a 'set' of images relates to?

Maybe by the value of the number (ie: the lowest number in a 'set', 22, ALWAYS relates to camera-angle 1, whilst the highest, 157, ALWAYS relates to camera-angle 4)?

Alternately, could you add another number to the names of these files that indicate the camera-angle (1/2/3/4) that these images represent?

I can produce the shield and weapon positioning files for these images (may take a bit of time - no problem), but for now it's important to get this UM_LoTR (which is a hybrid of the original software) up and running in order to make the BIF creation process automatic and painless.

Finally, E-mail me at alan.tipping@wxs.nl if you have the shield image.

I'll have something usable (UM_LoTR wise) within a day or two and will send it to you ASAP. We can then discuss what else to do with it (if necessary). Note - I have to E-mail this to you as I don't have the capability to upload to "The Orgs" new 3ddownloads area.

regards,
welly

A_B

05-22-2003, 19:01

Quote[/b] (jeffreyLebowski @ May 21 2003,15:22)]
Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 21 2003,15:13)]Although the only way to play SP would be World Domination, I don't think we should aim for that. Going for a more realistic approach means that High Elves won't be butchering everybody on the face of Middle Earth. It should get the feel of Good vs Evil and trying to dam in the Good vs Good conflicts.
agreed. is there perhaps some way to script a permanent ally situation between all the evil factions, and another for the good factions? of course, this would present problems with the fact that you cannot move your troops your allied lands...a fact which will unfortunately limit how well a lotr mod could work out... after all, many of the battles in lotr and the silmarillion feature alliances of different races working together against the forces of evil. also, a perhaps less than satisfactory solution would be to have only two factions: good and evil. either way, this mod sounds really promising. i hope it works out.
You could leave a 'pope' unit in the game - renaming it 'high council of free peoples' or something similar. It could have only one territory, which isn't linked to any others - to keep it from warring on other factions. It could excommunicate any 'good' race which warred on another good race.

Another thing to do would have units be associated with territories, instead of factions. So if you capture Rohan (as a good race), you can build Rohan type units - the assumption being they've 'allied' with you. If you had to conquor them previously, the assumpution is their king was under the control of Sauroman.

Crusades and Jihads could still be called as well. Can those be renamed?

Duke John

05-22-2003, 19:14

Wellington
Very handy that you're good with programming, this will speed up the proces considerable. If you can that program work we can produce two units every week

Question a)
The shield was part of the 3D model, but I will make a flat image of all the faction shields.

Question b)
I thought you would understand that
22_urak_warrior_running_nnn
67_urak_warrior_running_nnn
112_urak_warrior_running_nnn
157_urak_warrior_running_nnn
would correspond with camera-angle 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Let's put it this way, the camera looks at 0 degrees. I've then rendered the model changing the facing from 22 degrees to 157 degrees (with a 45 degree step). So 22 -> angle 1, 67 -> angle 2, 112 -> angle 3 and 157 -> angle 4. All the images should be this way if not, please let me know I'll rerun the renderings.

vortex, GreasePaintMonkeyBrains, Sir Robin, and everybody else
Already some people have offered to help creating this mod. Although you're not all modders, there's a lot of other work to be done if you want a great Lord of the Rings mod. Here are a few things:
- Come up with names for the different races. Just as in normal MTW all the factions have different names, we can replace them.
- Discuss different techtrees, ie which units are available for a faction and which buildings (with appropiate names) are needed for them. I've been offered help from Dimeolas who can make 3D buildings to use for icons and such.
- Explore the world of Middle Earth, eventually there needs to be a worldmap. But this needs to be filled up with provinces and saying for example that Rohan is just one province won't make a great game.
- Point out any "mistakes" that exist in normal MTW that you would to change for this mod, and we will see if it's possible.
- Start thinking about balance issues. What are the characteristic features of a race; Elves are few but formidable fighters, Orcs are cowardly but numerous, human are in between and so on. What should be the statistic of a basic Orc/Elf/Dwarf?
- Write descripions for the different units. When you right-click on a unit in campaign mode you get a parchment describing the unit. We can all mod this so you can read about the Uruk-Hai or whatever.
- If you have any ideas, just post them, be creative http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

Cheers, Duke John

ps I don't want this to be a mod I made (although Wellington is already helping me out greatly). So although I'm flattered with all the posts directed at DJ, it would be greater still if this would be mod WE made

Duke John

05-22-2003, 19:37

Some great ideas A_B, the Pope might represent the council of Elrond. Playing as a good faction you then get a warning from them if you wage war on another good faction. But you will still have the common frustation when other good factions start attacking you without being warned.

Building units only in certain provinces is indeed a feature we should incorporate; building Elfs in Mordor isn't very believable. I thought about this and maybe all the good units can only be build in "capitol" provinces. These provinces are surrounded by lesser ones that can only produce the core units and provide a buffer before the capitol is taken over. This way most of the armies will consist of core units with few elite units. Note that we won't be making any peasant like units, so core doesn't mean neccesarily bad.

Duke John

05-22-2003, 20:28

Here's the Elven warrior I'm working on. If all is good Dimeolas will be texturing this. Not so much as another finished unit, but more as that we're working on it.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/elven_warrior.jpg

vortex

05-22-2003, 20:29

good start Duke John http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Emp. Conralius

05-22-2003, 22:53

DJ here are a few unit descriptions a came up with:

Uruk-Hai Swordsmen (not sure what you have called them)

Spawned from the pits of Isengard, the fighting Uruk-Hai are a warrior elite. Unlike their orcish predecessors, the Uruk-Hai stand upright and are not stifled by the affects of the sun. Good in both defence and attack, Uruk-Hai Swordsmen are heavily armoured and armed with broad swords and shields.

DJ, have about 5 songs from the TT soundtrack, I would mail them to you but I dont have your e-mail.

NagatsukaShumi

05-22-2003, 23:25

Are you making Historical Battles and Historical Campaigns for this?

Warmongerer

05-22-2003, 23:58

I'm not much good for anything involving the actual modding process, but I have taken an interest in the Dwarven inhabitants of Middle-earth and feel qualified to be a consultant on their ways of war-making.

First of all, I don't think they should have any mounted units at all. Dwarves' extreme disdain for mounts is best exemplified by Gimli's repeated refusal and unwillingness to ride on a horse even as a passenger in the novels. Dwarves would much rather fight on their feet. In place of mounted units, there should be one or two special Dwarven units trained for speed.

Also, Dwarves are not noted for their use of bows. An interesting idea, if I may say so myself, would be to make a special Dwarven unit which sports Erebor axes (the mithril-edged axes thrown by Gimli in the Two Towers video game). This should be as close as the Dwarves get to ranged combat.

My best suggestion would be to make the Dwarves similar to the Vikings, with many types of superior infantry but only one average missile unit and no cavalry. I'm glad if this helps in any way, and good luck on what should be an outstanding mod.

Emp. Conralius

05-23-2003, 01:16

A agree Warmongerer, the dwarves sould be strictly infantry. The TT console game is a very good template for this mod. I'm very anxious to see Warg Riders

Dj, you said you needed some ideas for races/factions? Here are my ideas

Human Factions:
1. Gondor
2. Rohan
3. Arnor
4. Dunedain

Orc Factions:
1. Mordor
2. Isengard

Elf Factions:
1.Hidden Kingdom (A name for both Doriath and Gondolin)
2.Lorien
3.Aman (Undying Lands, I'm not sure if it's on most map)

Dwarf Factions:
1.Belegost
2.Khazad-dum
3.Erebor

just some ideas http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Duke John

05-23-2003, 09:39

Maps
I am not into mapmaking at all. Somebody else might be able to do that, although Alrowan already has made a mappack containing some LotR maps.

Factions
I did read the book a couple of times, but I don't know that much about all the different cultures, where and when they lived. So the Arnor, Dunedain and the Elven Factions are pretty new to me. Could you guys perhaps make a description for them in the same way when you pick in normal MTW for example the French?
But the number of factions doesn't look too good right now; the Good factions outnumber the Evil, 10:2. I have the following suggestions:
- Drop the Undying Lands, it's not on the map and the Elves abonded Middle Earth so shouldn't take part in the wars there.
- Are Arnor and the Dunedain really necessary? Do they have a distinctive enough character. They aren't that known with the general players, so is it worth the trouble making them?
- There should be more Orc and Goblin cultures, such as the Orcs from the Misty Mountains or the Moria Goblins. The latter can't stand the sunlight, but I couldn't resist making a Cave Troll http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/cavetroll.jpg

Dwarfs
I am not sure about the way you want the Dwarfish (or did Tolkien wrote Dwarven?) army to look like. I think they should have the same slow speed as for example Halberdiers. But if you don't give them any missile weapons, they are then outmanuevred and outshot. Giving them all heavy armour and great defence might make them a little better, but not enough.
I thought crossbows fit well with Dwarves, but I am not sure how Tolkien made them in Middle Earth. Throwing axes are by the way not possible; we can't adjust the projectile images, they're hard-coded.
My idea was to give them enough crossbows and warmachines to make the enemy come to them. Otherwise it'll be very tough for them to win a battle.

Cheers, Duke John

ps
My Uruk-Hai unit is already downloaded 44 times It seems that there is indeed interest from the MTW crowd http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

GoldenKnightX2

05-23-2003, 15:39

The Urak-Hia look great, good work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Emp. Conralius

05-23-2003, 19:57

As you suggested DJ:

The Northerners (orcs and goblins from the Mines of Moria, Grey Mountains and Misty Mountains; their capitol is Mount Gundabad.)
- the troops of the Northerners should be short and slouched in stature (if possible) and when they wear armour, it's usually black, pointy and dangerous looking (asseen in the Fellowship of the Ring).

If you just want Rohan and Gondor, thats fine, I just wanted to fill the 12 factions.

Is is it possible for you to make the goblin units slouchedand bow-legged DJ?

for more info DJ, you really need o check out the Encyclopdia of Arda, it ill help out a bunch

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm

_Martyr_

05-23-2003, 23:29

What about including the Corsairs of Umbar? ...Easterlings and Men of Harad.

Give the RingWraiths a faction.

Instead of earthquakes, you could have Balrogs destroying builings in provinces.

Arnor and the Dunedain are vital, The blood of Númenor must live on
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

GoldenKnightX2

05-23-2003, 23:41

Duke John

05-23-2003, 23:44

The battle was going well for the Dwarves. Until now that is, a small group of Trolls made great holes into the line. They slaughtered right and left, their low intelligence was greatly balanced by their enormous strength. No this battle wasn't go well at all.

After some hard work I'm proud to present:
THE CAVE TROLL

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/cave_troll.jpg
This unit will be available for the Moria Goblins. And it's already my favourite Hopefully we'll get to see this boy soon on the Middle Earth battlefields.

Conralius
Welcome on the team Conralius is now "responsible" for all the background making. You offered it yourself, no turning back now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

The Moria Goblins will be quick, short creatures with black spiky armour. After the High Elf they will be the next model I'll be working on. And be assured they will look pretty as my abilities with Lightwave are getting better and better http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

Cheers, Duke JohN

GoldenKnightX2

05-23-2003, 23:49

Man, that looks great. Your really good http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

jeffreyLebowski

05-24-2003, 00:28

just wanted to drop a line in the thread applauding all your guys' excellent work. this stuff looks great. keep up the good work.

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 01:17

Quote[/b] (_Martyr_ @ May 23 2003,17:29)]What about including the Corsairs of Umbar? ...Easterlings and Men of Harad.

Give the RingWraiths a faction.

Instead of earthquakes, you could have Balrogs destroying builings in provinces.

Arnor and the Dunedain are vital, The blood of Númenor must live on
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
The Ringwraiths will (or should) go to Mordor; for the Nazgul only serve the Dark Lord Sauron. Actually, I tink that they should be the "royal" bodyguard unit for the ruler of Mordor. btw, in LOTR lore, the Nazgul serve as the rulers of Mordor in Sauron's absence.

Great cave troll DJ Truly amazing When is it prepped for release?

Martyr
Dunedain and Arnor were major "Factions" in the 1st and 2nd Ages, but this mod will take place in the 3rd age when the alliance of the Two Towers came to be (Orthanc an Barad-dur). I suggested Arnor and Dunedin at one point, but they really didnt seem to be distinct enough to stand apart from Gondor or Rohan. Plus, most movie fans of LOTR have never heard of them. But I see were your coming from.

Your Balrog instead of Earthquakes idea is great Though, I'm not sure if it would ever leave it's home in Moria.

jeffreyLebowski

05-24-2003, 01:44

Quote[/b] (Emp. Conralius @ May 23 2003,19:17)]Your Balrog instead of Earthquakes idea is great Though, I'm not sure if it would ever leave it's home in Moria.
i hate to sound like a nerd... but since i am, i guess i'll fill you in: there's actually several balrogs... during the 1st and 2nd ages, they served as morgoth's generals and leaders, much like sauron did. i'm not sure if any more than the moria balrog survived from the past ages, but in the earlier ages, it wasn't uncommon to see several on the field of battle. if 1st and 2nd age units are going to be made, one could argue that balrogs should simply be a powerful elite unit.

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 03:12

Quote[/b] (jeffreyLebowski @ May 23 2003,19:44)]
Quote[/b] (Emp. Conralius @ May 23 2003,19:17)]Your Balrog instead of Earthquakes idea is great Though, I'm not sure if it would ever leave it's home in Moria.
i hate to sound like a nerd... but since i am, i guess i'll fill you in: there's actually several balrogs... during the 1st and 2nd ages, they served as morgoth's generals and leaders, much like sauron did. i'm not sure if any more than the moria balrog survived from the past ages, but in the earlier ages, it wasn't uncommon to see several on the field of battle. if 1st and 2nd age units are going to be made, one could argue that balrogs should simply be a powerful elite unit.
True, but as I mentioned before, this mod will most likely take place in the 3rd Age. And at this point in time only one Balrog existed in Middle Earth, in Moria. If the mod had taken place in an earlier age, Balrogs would have been part of the plan but then we woulden't have had Isengard as a "bad" faction since Saruman was a good guy back then. Plus, in those ages the Uruk-Hai didn't exist and those guys are one of the big selling points of the mod and LOTR in general...not to sound like a nerd http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

But I see were you're coming from Lebowsky. But as far as the Balrog being in the mod, you should consent DJ, cuz i honestly don't know.

cugel

05-24-2003, 04:50

"as I mentioned before, this mod will most likely take place in the 3rd Age"

Since the books mainly tell the tale of the end of the 3rd age and that's the main point of interest that's natural. But I might suggest that a 3rd age mod would not work as well as an end of the 2nd age - Battle of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men mod would. In the book, Sauron had learned a valuable lesson from his earlier defeat at the hands of the elves and men - not to strike too soon before his armies were ready. At the time of the War of the Ring as depicted in the books, by patient forming of alliances with the Easterlings and other men of eastern middle earth, plus careful mustering of his orcs, Sauron is in an impregnable position. The men, elves, and Dwarves left to oppose him simply aren't strong enough, even if they were all gathered together which they were not, to conquer Mordor by breaking the black gates, fighting their way through the guarded vale of Udun, piercing through the narrows of the Isenmouth into the plain of Gorgoroth, beseiging the tower of Barad Dur and forcing Sauron to capitulate. Thus, there's simply no way to be true to the books and have the human player have a chance to win a campaign game. Yes, it would be possible to have battles between men and elves and orcs, that might be fun, but in that case why would you need a strategic map? I also think most players are envisioning a complete SP game mod with a working strategy map.

If the ring hadn't been found Sauron would have ineveitably won a crushing victory in which his armies would have conquered Gondor, Lorien, Rivendell, the dwarves and men of the Lonely Mountain, Thranduil's elvish kingdom in Mirkwood, and the Shire, virtually every kingdom of free people, dwarves or elves in Middle Earth. This is stated explicitly by Gandalf in the 1st book. If the game mod were to accurately reflect the balance of power as depicted in the books then only the incredibly unlikely chance event of the destruction of the ring would give the good guys any ray of hope. This makes a very gripping novel and a very good movie, but it makes a very poor strategy game. Every LOTR game has to face this inbalance of power. The only way to create suspense and keep true to the novel is to give the player a chance to send the ring into Mordor and thus destroy Sauron. There's no way to depict this with the MTW engine (you can do it with a role playing game in which the player takes over the caracters from the books, like Aragorn and Frodo, but that's not what we have here).

On the other hand, the battle of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men is much more balanced. The armies were approximately of equal strength. True, we don't know that much detail about the battles, just that because of the sword of Elendil and spear of Gilgalad the alliance won the day. Gollum stated to the hobbits during the passage of the dead marshes that the armies "fought for weeks in the plain [Dagorlad] and for months before the black gate". This suggests a siege of the black gate followed by the armies of the last alliance breaking into Mordor, marching through Udun and Gorgoroth to Barad Dur and placing it under seige (which lasted for 7 years). Finally, Sauron came out to fight a last battle on the slopes of Mt. Doom, where he was defeated. All this could be depicted in the game, as could all the events of the campaign of the last alliance from the downfall of Numenor to the end of the 2nd age: the capture of Minas Ithil by Sauron and his unsuccessful attack on Osgiliath (where he failed to win across the Anduin river), the escape of Isildur, the mustering of the Last Alliance army west of the Misty Mountains, moving the army over the mountains down to Dagorlad and the battles before the black gate, etc all described in the books. These events seem much closer to something that the MTW game engine could successfully model.

The types of units are also depicted in the books, such as the Unfinished Tales, which contains lengthy descriptions of the Numenorean spearmen and archers (heavily armored elite infantry, they would resemble Order Footmen). They used steel bows of great strength - could easily be similar to Longbowmen, etc. Sauron would have numerous contingents of Easterlings and other men of middle earth that worshiped him during the dark years. They would be similar to Vikings, light cavalry, archers and spearmen. His orcs and goblins would not be elite for the most part, but there were some different races of orcs, they weren't all the same (mentioned in the Return of the King when Frodo and Sam witness a fight between members of two different races of Orcs, Tolkien tells us that they couldn't even understand each other's Orc speech).

This is certainly worth a thought, since it would make a much more balanced game, closer to what the MTW engine was designed to handle. We don't exactly know the size or exact composition of the armies, except that in the last debate in the Return of the King Prince Imrahil stated that the 7,000 men that Gondor had on hand was "barely equal to the vanguard of it's army in the days of of it's power". If we assume that the vanguard (troops marching in advance of the army to prevent surprise) was approximately 30% of the total of Gondor's army during the days of it's greatest strength, this gives an estimate of 23,000 (horse and foot) for the total army. Multiply by 2 since there is also the elvish army of King Gilgalad (presumably of similar size) and we have an alliance army of about 46,000 or thereabouts. This is a large army by ancient historical standards, about the size of Pompey's army at Pharsalus in his fight with Ceasar, but not unreasonable. Obviously, Sauron's was several times larger than this, but of inferior quality (far fewer elite troops with lower morale).

All this makes for a possible campaign game in which both sides have a reasonable chance of success, intriguing possibilities.

Duke John

05-24-2003, 07:26

Conralius
It's a great idea to make the Nazgul the Kings and Heirs of the Mordor Faction. Before I thought we could include them in the techtree, but then it would be possible to create more than nine Nazgul. But by making them the Heirs this is automatically held in check.

Jeffrey
Thanks for the feedback

I won't be making a Balrog model. Not because I don't want to but because the bif that contains the animations are too small to contain such a enormous creature as the Balrog. The Cave Troll is only 3 metres high and will probably only just fit.

Cugel
Thanks for the info I perhaps made the mistake to make the Uruk-Hai first. I simply created that unit, because I like the model. A lot of work has been put into it, but I am willing to drop the unit and go for a Second Age mod.
I believe another mod was also centered around the that Age. Although it might not be that famaliar with the large masses, it does provide a more challenging game as Cugel pointed out.

Another plus is that the Elves and Dwarves were more numerous, thus raising large armies isn't that unrealistic. The Elves were ready to depart at the time of the LotR and making them faction would then not be very true to the book.

So we'll need some info on the armies and factions in the Second Age. And we might need more Evil armies. Southrons might be an option but they will have to fight through Mordor to win the campaign and that wouldn't be very likely. I guess the Moria Goblins are still there (otherwise my little Cave troll has to go http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif ) and the Orcs from the Misty Mountains. But we need more Evil cultures to balance the factions a bit.

Techtree
I have this idea that the production of troops should only take place in your home provinces and perhaps some appropiate nearby lands. Otherwise we can get the situation that you produce Elves in Mordor. This might make the game a bit slower but conquering the world will now take some serious thought as when you stretch too thin you will be overrun.

Cheers, Duke John

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 12:13

Here's another evil faction suggestion:

Angmar (in the northern reaches of the Misty Mountains)

The realm of the Witch-king (the Lord of the Nazgûl) in the far north of the Misty Mountains; Angmar made war unceasingly with Arthedain and its allies, and eventually destroyed them, but was itself destroyed by an army of Gondor.

As far as units go, Angmar would be similar to Mordor, with the Nazgul and the ability to train goblins and "evil" human units.

Good info Cugel

Wellington

05-24-2003, 14:02

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 24 2003,01:26)]I won't be making a Balrog model. Not because I don't want to but because the bif that contains the animations are too small to contain such a enormous creature as the Balrog. The Cave Troll is only 3 metres high and will probably only just fit.
DJ,

There is the possibility for providing basic "monster" images for a LoTR mod within the MTW BIF constraints providing they are'nt too big.

Each image in a BIF is defined by a rectangle that is, on average, around 50x90 pixels (width and height). If we consider this pertains to figure that is around 2 metres (6ft) high, producing a 'monster' image that is 3 metres (9ft) high would appear to be a no-no. That is because each 'monster' image would require an image rectangle of approximately (again, on average) of 75x135 pixels.

Thus, the area required for any single image in a bif that is 2 metres high would have top be increased by 225% for an image that is 3 metres high. Sounds bad

However, several things to consider -

1) some large monster images wont require shields or weapons - as they fight with their hands/fists.
2) all MTW units bifs also contain shield and weapons - not required for a such a 'monster' image/unit.
3) most MTW units/bifs contain multiple 'similar' actions. For example, many images may have 2 or 3 different 'fight' or 'charge' actions that represent fighting and/or charging for different types of weapons (a one-handed sword/axe fighting action, a two handed pike/spear fighting action). If weapons ar'nt necessary (as per 'monster' images) the number of actions can be limited to the minimum 6 (stand/walk/run/charge/fight/die).
4) Furthermore these 6 actions can really be limited to 5 (as the run and charge actions can ve the same - considering the images ar'nt carrying any weapons/shields).

Therefore, the minimum actions for any unit (without weapons/shields) is 5 actions and that means 20 images (4 per camera-action).

One problem, however, for large images is the 'die' action. The reason being that the image rectangle required for such an action is not 50x90 but more like 90x90 for 2 of the camera-angles.

(Note: have a look at cavalry images whenthey die - a LOT of bif space required. Why? Because they are falling off a mount - hence the height of the image, as represented in the bifs, is a lot greater because it has to take into account the additional height of the mount - a similar problem for 'monster' images).

However, considering the 4 camera-angles required for each image (angles 22/67/112/157) the die action that takes up most spece are the 3 middle ones (67 and 112). This is because the final image has to lie 'horizontal' to the camera. BUT - if we can dispense with these 2 die actions and only utilise 2 die actions (22 and 157) to represent all 4 camera angles we can save a LOT of space in the bifs.

For example, for the 4 camera-angles required for such a monsters die action -

- for camera-angles 1 and 2 use the 22 image
- for camera-angles 3 and 4 use the 157 image

This is not a problem for the 67/112 camera-angles (it just looks like the die has turned slightly before dying) and has the advantage of releasing more space in the bif for other images. Also, it means that only 2 die action sequences are required instead of the normal 4.

Therefore, for such a 'monster' that does'nt require shields/weapons all we need (per frame) in the bifs are -

- 4 images for 'walk'
- 4 images for 'stand'
- 4 images for 'fight'
- 4 images for both the 'run' and 'charge'
- 2 images (representing camera-angles 22/157 only) for 'die'

This gives 18 images, no weapons or shields, for a bif, to represnt such a 3 metre monster.

Considering the total space available for these 18 images (512x512) and the average size of each image (75x135) you can just about fit them in, even though the 2 images for the die action would be more like 100x135. I'll leave you guys to work out the maths.

Even if the image sare just slightly too large to fit in, the providing it's not a big problem (for DJ) to resize such images from 3 metres high to only 2.75 metres high - then they would fit in the standard 512x512 bif. It really does'nt matter (to my mind) just HOW BIG these monster images really look on the MTW battlefield providing they are significantly and visually larger than the standard MTW men images.

I tried this with the troll images from the games Balders Gate/Balders Gate II some months ago. It DOES work I got 18 images in the bif (just about&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif and they worked ok - although I hasten to add I did'nt check eberything - only the principle. Certainly the die action was no problem using just 2 camera-angle images for all 4 required camera-angles.

Now consider this. A large monster would not be able to run fast - perhaps only move at a walking pace. Therefore we can , maybe, just create a 4 metre high monster that even less actions required -

- 4 images for 'walk' and 'run' and 'charge' (really just a walking action)
- 4 images for 'stand'
- 4 images for 'fight'
- 2 images (representing camera-angles 22/157 only) for 'die'.

This gets us down to 14 images required for a large monster (still too big to fit into the bif probably), but if we also consider that the 'stand' action could be incorporated into the other movement actions (walking on the spot?) then we are down to -

- 4 images for 'stand' and 'walk' and 'run' and 'charge' (really just a walking action)
- 4 images for 'fight'
- 2 images (representing camera-angles 22/157 only) for 'die'.

Just 10 images, for a 4 metre high figure (twice the size of the original MTW figure images). Considering that mant MTW bifs contain 44 images (plus weapons, plus shields) such an image that is twice the normal size and thus 4 times the normal area is just about achievable.

A final consideration is the height of the unit as defined in crusader_unit_prod11 - but this is not a big problem either (define them as camel or horse height).

Anyway, whats the point of this post Well, if you require several different 'monster' images that all have different sizes then it's always possible to reduce the sizes in a proportional manner. For example, if we have 4 different monsters that are (relatively speaking) 2.25 metres/2.5 metres/2.75 metres and 3 metres high (4 metres?) in proportion to the normal men figures - then what does it matter Is it perfect as per Tolkiens descriptions - perhaps not. Would it allow a visual perception of relartive sizes on the MTW battlefield - absolutely.

Bear in ming guys - we can't provide a perfect mod that represents everything (scale-wise) in the LoTR, as the MTW constrints won't allow some things. We can, however, provide images that give an idea of the relative proportions.

Hope all this long-winded blah-blah-blah explanation makes sense to some guys

Welly

(BTW: DJ - yes the 22/67/112/157 makes sense I was a bit slow the other day&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

_Martyr_

05-24-2003, 14:08

I think a 3rd age mod would be more successful for the simple reason that a second age mod will only have a very small (but fanatic) following, while a Lotr mod will be HUGE

A way to get around the massive imbalance would be to make the "good" factions' role one of survival untill the ring is desrtoyed rather than victory, so, at the end of every few turns, you get an information dialog telling you where Sam and Frodo are, how their adventure is turning out and how long you have to hold out for.

The "evil" forces could have some sort of sanction, in that they cant produce a large amount of powerful units untill a certain point in the game, (im thinking of a way of doing this, any ideas?) Having chronicly low loyalty in your provinces would mean you couldnt launch many attacks without losing your own provinces to rebellion? Perhaps giving them a large amount of absolutely crap attack units at the start so all they are good for is a defensive role. Then at a certain stage you get better units and to be able to pay afford them you need to downsize your army by either destroying them yourself or in pointless battles where you just pour large amounts of orcs into gondor to be slauhtered. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif Then you could get arrivals from your allies, such as the Corsairs of Umbar etc.. that slowly make your armies more viable. Then its a race for time as Frodo and Sam are close to the crack of Doom, and you have to conquer the entire map to be victorious, (another option would be to make Frodo & Sam a sort of "spy" unit that you move around the campaign map as the "good" guys, and for the evil faction(s) you dont know where he is) We would have to think of a condition whereby the evil factions could somehow stop Frodo without relying on assins, watch-towers etc.. otherwise it would be too easy... Any ideas?

jeffreyLebowski

05-24-2003, 14:39

i have to agree that a 3rd age mod would certainly be much more successful...despite it's inherent balance problems. i was actually suggesting that throwing in some second age units would be a nice touch, so historical battles/campaigns could be created based upon the countless battles of the second age.

oh, and by the way... duke: i hope you're saving all your excellent 3d models somewhere safe, because when rome comes out, you'll have a cadre of lotr units already set to go for the new 3d engine. (minus animation, of course.)

cugel

05-24-2003, 16:03

"I perhaps made the mistake to make the Uruk-Hai first"

I don't think that making the Uruk-Hai model was a mistake at all (It looks quite good by the way). You could just modify the stats for the unit in the unit_prod11.txt file and voila Two different units, one for the 3rd age and one for the second. After all, the Uruks looked similar to other Orcs, they were just a bit larger and more robust. The main difference was that they were cross-bred with men (in the books) so that they weren't afraid of sunlight and had greater stamina. There seems no reason not to use that model (perhaps with some modifications) for all the elite (fighting) orcs. We would also need a smaller breed of orc as well (perhaps the more numerous). Tolkien describes them in Return of the King:

"Presently two orcs came into view. One was clad in ragged brown and was armed with a bow of horn; it was of a small breed, black-skinned, with wide and snuffling nostrils: evidently a tracker of some kind. The other was a big fighting orc, like those of Shagrat's company, bearing the token of the Eye. He also had a bow at his back and carried a short broad-headed spear."

Thus, we have at least 3 different types of orcs. The Uruk model could be used and renamed and could actually be two different types based on the same model:

1. The fighting Uruks only in the 3rd age (elite orcs available only to the Saruman faction - Sauron didn't have any). The Uruk model that you have already done (carrying swords). These guys are like Varangian Guards, heavily armored beserkers. They would be more expensive to build and perhaps take 2 turns to make each unit (to reflect the fact that Saruman only managed to create 10,000 of them in the books).

2. The standard fighting orc of Mordor during both the 2nd and 3rd ages (an example depicted in the book is Shagrat's company - the orcs of the tower above the pass of Cirith Ungol where Frodo was taken prisoner). Cheaper and far more numerous, the backbone of Sauron's armies. Heavily armored and based on the Uruk model in appearance, except that they have a spear and bow, not a sword. Some variants could also be sword bearing (perhaps the sword bearing ones could be a different color, like brown to differentiate them from Uruks), but neither sort would have the same elite stats in the cusader_unit_prod11 file as the Uruks. These guys are like Chiv. Sergeants. They have low morale and come in units of 100.

3. Lesser orcs as described in the quote above (this type is also described in the Two Towers, Grishnakh the orc that tried to kill Merry and Pippin when they were held prisoner was one of them). Longer arms and shorter than the Uruks, they were lightly armored and armed with spear and bow. This would require a new model - shorter and squater and more bow-legged than the Uruks. The most numerous sort of orcs.

4. Goblins. The Goblins of the Misty Mountains are smaller than the orcs and lighter skinned. About the size of Dwarves. Lightly armored, they are armed with bows and short swords. These guys are like urban militia, the scrubs of the armies of evil. Useful but expendable and with low morale. They also would require a new model.

5. Men. There are a number of different varieties of evil men in the service of Sauron described in the books:

a. Southrons. Both medium cavalry armed with spears and sword-bearing men-at-arms. They have reasonably good morale but are not elites (perhaps equal to feudal-men-at-arms). Their leaders would be like early royal knights. (The chieftan killed by King Theoden in the battle of the Pellanor Fields is the model for them). Their symbol could be the serpent in red on a black field.

b. Corasirs of Umbar. Heavy infantry (like Halbrediers) and armored archers (like the Genoese sailors). These guys could also include a few rare elites modeled on Templar footknights - because they are armed with swords. (In the 3rd age, only the Umbar leaders were men of Numenorean origins). The losers of the civil war of Gondor (mentioned in the appendixes of the Return of the King) during the 3rd age seized Umbar and held it against the Kings of Gondor. They sailed a large fleet up the Anduin river to attack the men of southern Gondor at Pelargir during the war of the ring (remember they got routed by Aragorn leading the army of the dead).

In the 2nd age, the Numenoreans of Umbar were loyal to the King of Numenor (and hated the faithful followers of Elendil and the elves). So they would be servants of Sauron after the fall of Numenor and probably served in his army, fighting against Elendil and Gilgalad. Not very numerous perhaps, since most of them would have sailed off to fight with the King of Numenor and been killed in the downfall of that realm, but some would have remained.

c. Easterlings. These guys could include both cavalry archers (modeled on the Mongol CA's) and spearmen (modeled on the Mongol spearmen). They lived in the open steppes south of the inland sea of Rhun. Tolkien probably took them from the Huns and Mongols and other horsemen of the grasslands of central asia. Fierce fighters they were some of the most effective forces in Sauron's army, with good morale. Tolkien mentions that even after the downfall of the Lord of the Nazgul in the battle of the Pellanor they fought on against the victorious armies of Gondor and Rohan until they were all slain or driven into the river. Presumably they also were men who worshiped Sauron during the 2nd age and served in his army back then. They are not a match one on one for Numenorean swordsmen or spearmen or elves, of course, but more reliable than orcs in a tough fight. We don't need a new model for these guys, just rename the Mongol units and we're there.

You'll notice from this that, aside from the orcs, trolls and goblins, most of the units can be based on existing MTW units, which would cut down on the work involved in creating them. All the men units on both sides could be based on the existing models, perhaps with a change of coloring or emblem (for instance, the men of Gondor should have the White Tree surmounted by seven stars on a black field for their flag), and changed stats in the unit_prod11 file. The elves of Gilgalad should have their own emblem as well.

The Numenoreans should be elite spearmen based on the Order Footmen (with excellent morale) and also include elite foot soldiers based on the chivalric footknights and Templar footknights (remember that the Templars carry swords while the Chiv's carry pole arms).

The elves would be similar (elite spear and footknights) with very high morale. Their archers should be like longbowmen (perhaps with greater lethality to reflect their tremendous accuracy at long range as depicted in the books and movie - remember the scenes in the Two Towers movie where Legolas kills warg riders at extreme long range). Ligtly armored but very agile with exceptional running speed and morale, they could reload on the run (as Legolas showed in the movies). The high elves might require a new model (if you wanted to show the ears&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

_Martyr_

05-24-2003, 16:39

Nice overview there. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

I have had so much fun with the Uruk Hai unit Its so cool looking at them charge You did such a great job DJ Any more ready to be tested? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

NagatsukaShumi

05-24-2003, 16:44

Have you thought about Diplomatic peices yet? Spies, Assassins, Emmissaries etc.

Spies for example could be different for each race, evil for example could have (sp?) Craboids from Dudland as their spy piece, then it gives each faction even more variety when you give them individuality in the diplomatic department also, however I do not know whether you can make units faction specific (I believe that you can, either that or you can make them religion/race specific).

Also your maps, have you given these any thought as of yet? As it something you must think about, unless you want people fighting on lush fields in Mordor and vast deserts in the Shire, you will need to create more textures for the maps so the places you fight in reflect the region you are in, just gives it an even more realistic feel.

How will events be handled, as they will occur and I don't think you want a peice of the true cross been found in Rohan increasing Catholic Zeal across their lands.

_Martyr_

05-24-2003, 16:50

WHat about sea trade? Will that feature in this mod? The elves and the Corasirs of Umbar definitely have ships, but is trade going to be an element in game?

cugel

05-24-2003, 17:11

"Have you thought about Diplomatic peices yet? Spies, Assassins, Emmissaries etc.
"

We might want to limit diplomacy somehow, or else you might get anomalous situations like Sauron allying with the High Elves to invade Gondor http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

AI alliances are a real problem. We could eliminate emissaries and princesses so that no factions could make alliances. This might be best if we could create alliances in the initial starting conditions. That way, the elves and men that started as allies would have to stay allies (unless the AI elves for instance invaded Gondor, http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif ). At least then a faction of evil orcs under the rule of Sauron would not switch alliances to fight for the elves of Rivendell That would spoil things a bit in MHO (though it would be an eye opener).

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Even better would be to have only 2 factions, good and evil. Remember that we are going to have more problems with the AI, the more factions there are. It would be best to limit the number of these to a minimum. At Most there should be one elvish, one good human (Gondor & Arnor) perhaps with the Rohirrim as one of its starting provinces, the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain (or Moria if it's the second age) and the forces of Sauron (orcs and evil men). If we start adding numerous factions of evil men, for instance, they won't stay allied to Sauron or march in support of Mordor, the AI will pursue it's own agenda for each of them.

Same problem for the good guys. For instance, if Rohan is an independent faction it won't go to the assistance of Minas Tirith (unless we can somehow specify that they are allied to begin the game and they can't change that status during the game because of not having an emissary). Similarly, the elves of Mirkwood and the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain fought together against Sauron's army in the war of the ring. But, if they're different factions how do we get the AI to do that? If the high elves (Rivendell and the Grey Havens) and elves of Lorien are different factions how do we get them to support each other or at least not fight each other or have Lorien attacking Rohan or Gondor? For these reasons, I believe it is necessary to have only 2 factions the good and the evil, with the good player controlling elves, men and dwarves and the evil controlling orcs, goblins, trolls and evil humans.

Even without emissaries, remember that as the player gains control of the map the AI factions all want to go to war with him. Inevitably, if the player is playing as Gondor, if he starts winning, then his (AI) elvish allies will break the alliance to attack him, perhaps making alliance with Mordor in the process. The AI just is programmed that way and we can't change it.

In the books, good and evil don't really mix. The only real "wild card" in the book is Saruman, who could go either way and really is only out for himself. The AI playing Saruman would be true to the books: it could ally with Gondor, ally with Mordor or remain neutral, whatever he thought was best for himself at the time, without violating the spirit of the books. But, IMHO we have to eliminate the possibility of the elves or Gondor allying with Sauron to attack the player's faction

NagatsukaShumi

05-24-2003, 17:20

Yes it would be odd to see a last alliance of Orcs and Elves against Gondor http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif.

Limiting alliances would be a very good idea now that you mention it, otherwise you could get alot of wierd combinations, only in some extremely warped Middle Earth would Gondor and Isengard ally to fight Mordor for example, so yeah it would probably be best to remove alliance peices, as for princesses, I can't recall a group of factions bound in alliance by marrying their daughters off.

_Martyr_

05-24-2003, 17:39

The biggest problem I see right now, is how to move troops from A to B, if you dont want to invade your allies that is...

Perhaps we could make the river one big long sea province with a land bridge from each province touching it to each province touching it, or limit it to three whatever...

Or

Engineer the campaign map so that every faction meets in the centre, this would make for pretty crap gameplay though.

Or

Figure out some way of editing the Jihad/crusade function of MTW to make it possible to send troops to aid Gondor, take out mordor etc...

Or

Beg CA to add an option to the game that allows passage through allied territory. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

Please add more ideas.

LordMonarch and I are going to start making a battle map for the Shire if nobody has any objections.

LeBob

05-24-2003, 19:01

Simply amazing work....No words to qualify it...
These units are commercially quality.

I cannot wait to play this mod..and I also applause for the way you are working on it: by giving specific tasks to different people. Everybody should follow this example.

Once again to all who are working on this MOD: Congratulation

Lord Le Bob
http://napoleontotalwar.tripod.com

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 19:40

Cugel

You really know your stuff Your unit ideas are a valuable asset to the mod. Your no emissaries and princess ideas are right on point Keep 'em comin.

You want to join the team? I dont have word from DJ, but I'm sure that he oul agree to let you help us more directly.

Though, I think only 2 factions would make the gameplay stale http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Duke John

05-24-2003, 20:26

Great discussion guys

Diplomatic Pieces
I also agree on the choice to outmod the princes and emissaries. We must solve the unrealistic alliances as much as possible. But we cannot make alliances between the good races at the start of the campaign. Catholic factions may perhaps not attack each other as quickly as attacking muslim factions, but the game is designed to make war. So there will be war between Elves and Dwarves, but there won't any alliances between Mordor and the Elves because the Diplomatic peices are outmodded.

Number of Factions
You have to ask yourself: do I want to remain true to the book or true to the world. Sure Gondor didn't ally with Mordor but what if the Ring had taken control of Lord Denethor. Or what if Gandalf didn't rescue King Theoden of the Rohirrim. Then you would have two seeminly unlikely "alliances". Perhaps in the book it went a bit too positive for the good side. And sure it would be great if in campaign-mode Elves fought together with Gondor against Mordor, but that kind of stuff should probably be reserved for Historical Battles and Multiplayers games.

And another thing why there should be more than two factions, I don't want this to be a mish mash of all kind of units. The different races did indeed ally sometimes to fight a common enemy but most of the time they were different and independent countries. A ruler of a nation has its own lust for power and self esteem, so being dependent all the time on other "good" races takes alot roleplaying away.
Or let's look at this way, you want this game to a representation of Middle Earth by using just 2 factions. But in the end almost every player will take the best of all races and constantly mingles them in every army he has; Elven Archers, Riders of Rohan, Dwarven Infantry. That seems even more of a warped Middle Earth than the wars between Elves and Dwarves. I vote for their own identity of the factions instead of total loss of character ( I don't mean to sound this harsh).
You cannot replay the books, you play a game in which random factors play a big role. Accept this fact and find out how the story would have ended if Gondor was submitted by Mordor, the Elves had civil wars and so on.

Campaign Map
The action of Middle Earth was I believe centered around Mordor and the Misty Mountains, so I guess that's where I we should make our map of. I've included some ideas about which and where the factions could be:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/MJZTI-factions.jpg
Legenda:
Red 1: Moria Goblins
Red 2: Mordor
Red 3: Orcs of the Misty Mountains/Isengard
Red 4: Haradrim
Red 5: Easterlings

Green 1: Gondor
Green 2: Rohan
Green 3: Lorien, woody Elves
Green 4: Dwarves
Green... where are the High Elves or not so woody Elves?

? Don't know by who this territory is ruled by, if it is ruled.

You can see that all the good factions are pretty much surrounded by Evil Factions so there isn't that much of a problem of transportation.
But if we want we can make a new kind of crusade with new icons and all: "War for the Ring" and make it available only for good races. It's then possible for good races to go to Mordor without having to wage war before reaching it. The only huge problem I see with this, that there is the possibilit even with low zeal you pick up Orcs with your "Crusade".

As you can also see from the map is that there isn't that much see, and thus we should leave ships out of the mod. We've al read too many times that alliances were broken or war was fought only because the computer made some weird move with a fleet. And the seatrade mostly benefits the human player, but we want this mod to be tough, right?

Note that the Shire won't take a part, since the Hobbits were not warmongers.

Battle maps
We need to sort out which provinces get what kind of climate and terrain. This is pretty forward, but someone must do this.

Martyr
*I have had so much fun with the Uruk Hai unit Its so cool looking at them charge You did such a great job DJ*
I can get no greater appreciation of my work than you just did http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

leBob
*Simply amazing work....No words to qualify it...
These units are commercially quality.*
But then you didn't thought this would be available for free, right? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Wellington
*Hope all this long-winded blah-blah-blah explanation makes sense to some guys
I understand exactly what you mean, Wellington. Probably because I already had the same idea. Guess your effort to explain was a bit overdone http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif. Monsters simply don't run. I use the reasoning as some do for Dinosaurs; if creatures that large and heavy start running on two legs and fall they would break their bones and as a consequence die of starvation.
Large flying creatures can use for walk/stand/charge/run the same one animation because they need to continue flapping their wings.

Except I didn't think of your 2 angle die-animation. Great idea, it will save some needed space.

*Even if the image sare just slightly too larger to fit in, the providing it's not a big problem (for DJ) to resize such images from 3 metres high to only 2.75 metres high - then they would fit in the standard 512x512 bif.*
When I said 3 metres I didn't mean the image-rectangles on the bif should be 1.5 times large by definition. I believe there is also the option of making the unit larger by changing the parameter "Height" in the unitproduction file. This way the resolution is a bit worse, but that should be acceptable if you want large monsters.

*** To everybody who wants to contribute or already is***
Although Conralius gives the idea I run this mod by giving everybody a job to do, this is not entirely true for the following reasons:
1. I've read the books, seen the movies and just as everybody else, I have an opinion on how I want this mod to look and feel. But my word is not law, I would rather have everybody contribute on the same constructive level and then decide which course WE should take.
2. This mod will cost hundreds of hours before it's finished and requires almost the same amount of work as CA did for the VI expansion. This means that if we don't coordinate we'll lose track of all the information we gather or decisions we make.
3. Psychology. I say to people what they can do; to give them some sense of responsibility and direction. I tell them they're on the team; to give them pride and the feeling they're really part of something. (I probably shouldn't have said that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif ).

So what are the jobs?
Unit animation: me
Programming: Wellington
Buildings creation: Dimeolas
Background: Conralius and Cugel?
Mapmaking: ?
Campaignmap: ?
Techtree: ?
Faction descriptions: ?
Faction balancing: ?
Unit descriptions: Conralius?
Unit and building modding: ?
Unit balancing: ?
Find out needs to and can be modded: ?
General modding: ?

One final note
If you have a contribution to a discussion or the brainstorm proces, please make a heading like I do. This will make this thread still readable even after it has numerous pages.

Cheers, Duke John

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 21:03

Im comfortable with background and unit description. Cugel, it would be great if you would help with background as well. I also think Cugel and I can split up faction descriptions.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

cugel

05-24-2003, 21:39

"You want to join the team? I dont have word from DJ, but I'm sure that he oul agree to let you help us more directly."

Well, I suppose I could help some with the unit_prod and build_prod files.

I still think 2 factions would be better though. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
I had a long post typed in on this point, but my computer crashed before I could send it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

The main problem as I see it with multiple factions is that the obvious allies won't help each other. For instance, in the war of the ring, the dwarves of the Lonely Mtn. joined the men of Dale under King Brand to fight against Sauron and King Thranduil fought for control of Mirkwood with Sauron's forces out of Dol Guldur. If these forces were separate factions, they just wouldn't cooperate. The AI just assumes each faction is independent. In addition, the Easterlings and Haradrim were both under the control of Sauron and worshiped him as a god during the dark years. That was the basis of his control over them. They weren't independent in any real sense after he reformed in Dol Guldur.

"You have to ask yourself: do I want to remain true to the book or true to the world. Sure Gondor didn't ally with Mordor but what if the Ring had taken control of Lord Denethor. Or what if Gandalf didn't rescue King Theoden of the Rohirrim. Then you would have two seeminly unlikely "alliances". Perhaps in the book it went a bit too positive for the good side. And sure it would be great if in campaign-mode Elves fought together with Gondor against Mordor, but that kind of stuff should probably be reserved for Historical Battles and Multiplayers games.
"

I would totally disagree here. If there had to be a choice I would say be true to the book, but the two really go together. There are simply no circumstances in which Gondor could have allied with Mordor. If Denethor had taken the ring then he would have sought to overthrow Sauron (and ultimately to replace him). The same goes for Gandalf or Elrond, Galadriel and Faramir (the only other leaders who had a chance to seize the ring). Galadriel explains this quite clearly in the Fellowship, when Frodo offers her the ring. They wouldn't have worked together at all. Sauron, as Gandalf explains in the Return of the King was just waiting for the new ringlord to emerge before throwing all his forces against him. His only hope in that instance would be to act quickly and decisively before the new ringlord learned how to use all the power of the ring. If Gandalf didn't rescue Theoden, Theoden (under the infuence of Wormtongue) would have just sat doing nothing until Rohan was overrun by Saruman (so there wouldn't have been any more Rohan). They wouldn't have allied. Plus, how could the elves like Galadriel or Elrond ever have joined with Sauron? NO way Yet the AI surely will at some point if they are independent factions.

In my view, there are only 2 factions in the book, the good and the evil. The good faction includes the following provinces: Gondor (including all the provinces of Gondor), Rohan, King Thranduil's elven realm in the northern 1/2 of Mirkwood, the Bardings of Dale under King Brand, the dwarves of the lonely mtn. under King Dain Ironfoot, the High Elves of Rivendell and the Grey Havens under Elrond and Cirdan, the elves of Lorien under Galadriel and the hobbits of the Shire. These forces really should work together or at least not ever fight each other. There's no indication from Tolkien's history that these countries ever fought each other at any time during the entire 3rd age (some 3,000 years), so how can this be justified? If you're going to make some mod that violates the history as Tolkien set it out, but is set in his world, what's the point of that? Since it's easy to avoid by having only two factions, (three factions including Saruman) why create more problems than necessary? (BTW: if you want elves fighting each other they did that during the 1st age more than 6,000 years before the war of the ring, due to the influence of Morgoth, as told in the Silmarillion but that's another issue).

Saruman is neutral (he's really only out for himself and is the only faction that ought to have emissaries). He has the provinces of Isengard and Dunland (he controlled the Dunlendings and got them to march to his aid at the battle of Helm's Deep). Although he's evil in the books and movie, he would have been perfectly willing to ally himself with Gondor or Rohan if he thought it served his purposes. He only pretended to serve Mordor because he thought Sauron was too strong - and logically he was right. There really was no realistic hope for the good side, Tolkien just wrote the books so that good triumphed against all the odds. As I pointed out, this makes a great book, but is tough to play as a game.

Sauron has the provinces of: Moria with the goblins of Misty Mountains, Dol Guldur (the southern 1/2 of Mirkwood) under the command of one of the Nazgul, Mordor itself (including the Sea of Nurnen where his granaries and workshops are), the areas east of Mirkwood and south of Mirkwood up to and beyond the Sea of Rhun (Easterlings), Near Harad and the Haradrim, and Far Harad (Southrons).

You can see from this that the entire map of middle earth should be used, not merely the portion that DJ has included in his post. For instance, if Sauron conquers Gondor, that isn't the end of the game. He still has to conquer Rivendell, Lorien, Mirkwood, the Lonely Mtn. and the Grey Havens to complete his conquest. If the player conquers Mordor (which he could never do according to the books), then I suppose that Sauron could flee to another province. I doubt he would make the same mistake as before in getting trapped in the dark tower and ultimately killed. He would have been smarter to flee and slowly rebuild his forces in the east.

In addition to these provinces and the units they contain we have the special problems of Gandalf and the Nazgul. In the books both Gandalf and the Nazgul have magical powers of sorts that are impossible to replicate in MTW. Gandalf especially is a problem.

1. Obviously he should be under the control of the good faction. Of course, you can't build him, he's present at the start of the game. (Once again if there's more than 1 good faction which faction gets Gandalf? If he's independent then you must suffer the further absurdity of the AI Gandalf attacking the elves, wiping out the Hobbits or invading Gondor) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Gandalf must be a single person unit (a general) with exceptionally high honor, morale and a great defense bonus and armor bonus. He should have armor piercing weapons, cause fear, and be a naptha thrower. How to handle him is problematic. If he is too powerful, the player will use him like a super tank, but too weak and he'll easily die in melee. As Gandalf says in the Two Towers to Aragorn when they meet again "Indeed my friends, none of you has any weapon that could hurt me." He's practically invulnerable to normal arrows and swords and ordinary orcs could hardly stand against him when he gets really angry. In the Return of the King at the battle of the Pelannor, even the Nazgul (except the Lord of the Nazgul) flee from him. We don't want him to be killed off by lowly orcs or someting.

The Nazgul have similar powers to Gandalf, only evil. Just as orcs, goblins and trolls hardly dare to face Gandalf, men and elves shrink from the Nazgul and only exceptionally brave men like Aragorn dare face them when they are banded together. The Nazgul cause fear, can't be killed by ordinary weapons, it takes special magically enchanted weapons like Pippin's sword to kill them (which would be tough to replicate in MTW).

In addition, there is the 3rd problem of the time scale. MTW turns are 1 year in length and the full campaign takes centuries, but the war of the ring happened in about 1 year (from September 3018 to March 3019). Maybe the turns could be a week instead of 1 year, but then it would be absurd to be able to train a unit in say, 2 weeks. Still it would be better than having the war of the ring last 200 years or something

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 21:51

Quote[/b] (cugel @ May 24 2003,15:39)]"You want to join the team? I dont have word from DJ, but I'm sure that he oul agree to let you help us more directly."

Well, I suppose I could help some with the unit_prod and build_prod files.

I still think 2 factions would be better though. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
I had a long post typed in on this point, but my computer crashed before I could send it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

The main problem as I see it with multiple factions is that the obvious allies won't help each other. For instance, in the war of the ring, the dwarves of the Lonely Mtn. joined the men of Dale under King Brand to fight against Sauron and King Thranduil fought for control of Mirkwood with Sauron's forces out of Dol Guldur. If these forces were separate factions, they just wouldn't cooperate. The AI just assumes each faction is independent. In addition, the Easterlings and Haradrim were both under the control of Sauron and worshiped him as a god during the dark years. That was the basis of his control over them. They weren't independent in any real sense after he reformed in Dol Guldur.

"You have to ask yourself: do I want to remain true to the book or true to the world. Sure Gondor didn't ally with Mordor but what if the Ring had taken control of Lord Denethor. Or what if Gandalf didn't rescue King Theoden of the Rohirrim. Then you would have two seeminly unlikely "alliances". Perhaps in the book it went a bit too positive for the good side. And sure it would be great if in campaign-mode Elves fought together with Gondor against Mordor, but that kind of stuff should probably be reserved for Historical Battles and Multiplayers games.
"

I would totally disagree here. If there had to be a choice I would say be true to the book, but the two really go together. There are simply no circumstances in which Gondor could have allied with Mordor. If Denethor had taken the ring then he would have sought to overthrow Sauron (and ultimately to replace him). The same goes for Gandalf or Elrond, Galadriel and Faramir (the only other leaders who had a chance to seize the ring). Galadriel explains this quite clearly in the Fellowship, when Frodo offers her the ring. They wouldn't have worked together at all. Sauron, as Gandalf explains in the Return of the King was just waiting for the new ringlord to emerge before throwing all his forces against him. His only hope in that instance would be to act quickly and decisively before the new ringlord learned how to use all the power of the ring. If Gandalf didn't rescue Theoden, Theoden (under the infuence of Wormtongue) would have just sat doing nothing until Rohan was overrun by Saruman (so there wouldn't have been any more Rohan). They wouldn't have allied. Plus, how could the elves like Galadriel or Elrond ever have joined with Sauron? NO way Yet the AI surely will at some point if they are independent factions.

In my view, there are only 2 factions in the book, the good and the evil. The good faction includes the following provinces: Gondor (including all the provinces of Gondor), Rohan, King Thranduil's elven realm in the northern 1/2 of Mirkwood, the Bardings of Dale under King Brand, the dwarves of the lonely mtn. under King Dain Ironfoot, the High Elves of Rivendell and the Grey Havens under Elrond and Cirdan, the elves of Lorien under Galadriel and the hobbits of the Shire. These forces really should work together or at least not ever fight each other. There's no indication from Tolkien's history that these countries ever fought each other at any time during the entire 3rd age (some 3,000 years), so how can this be justified? If you're going to make some mod that violates the history as Tolkien set it out, but is set in his world, what's the point of that? Since it's easy to avoid by having only two factions, why create more problems than necessary? (BTW: if you want elves fighting each other they did that during the 1st age more than 6,000 years before the war of the ring, due to the influence of Morgoth, as told in the Silmarillion but that's another issue).

Saruman is neutral (he's really only out for himself and is the only faction that ought to have emissaries). He has the provinces of Isengard and Dunland (he controlled the Dunlendings and got them to march to his aid at the battle of Helm's Deep). Although he's evil in the books and movie, he would have been perfectly willing to ally himself with Gondor or Rohan if he thought it served his purposes. He only pretended to serve Mordor because he thought Sauron was too strong - and logically he was right. There really was no realistic hope for the good side, Tolkien just wrote the books so that good triumphed against all the odds. As I pointed out, this makes a great book, but is tough to play as a game.

Sauron has the provinces of: Moria with the goblins of Misty Mountains, Dol Guldur (the southern 1/2 of Mirkwood) under the command of one of the Nazgul, Mordor itself (including the Sea of Nurnen where his granaries and workshops are), the areas east of Mirkwood and south of Mirkwood up to and beyond the Sea of Rhun (Easterlings), Near Harad and the Haradrim, and Far Harad (Southrons).

You can see from this that the entire map of middle earth should be used, not merely the portion that DJ has included in his post. For instance, if Sauron conquers Gondor, that isn't the end of the game. He still has to conquer Rivendell, Lorien, Mirkwood, the Lonely Mtn. and the Grey Havens to complete his conquest. If the player conquers Mordor (which he could never do according to the books), then I suppose that Sauron could flee to another province. I doubt he would make the same mistake as before in getting trapped in the dark tower and ultimately killed. He would have been smarter to flee and slowly rebuild his forces in the east.

In addition to these provinces and the units they contain we have the special problems of Gandalf and the Nazgul. In the books both Gandalf and the Nazgul have magical powers of sorts that are impossible to replicate in MTW. Gandalf especially is a problem.

1. Obviously he should be under the control of the good faction. Of course, you can't build him, he's present at the start of the game. (Once again if there's more than 1 good faction which faction gets Gandalf? If he's independent then you must suffer the further absurdity of the AI Gandalf attacking the elves, wiping out the Hobbits or invading Gondor) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Gandalf must be a single person unit (a general) with exceptionally high honor, morale and a great defense bonus and armor bonus. He should have armor piercing weapons, cause fear, and be a naptha thrower. How to handle him is problematic. If he is too powerful, the player will use him like a super tank, but too weak and he'll easily die in melee. As Gandalf says in the Two Towers to Aragorn when they meet again "Indeed my friends, none of you has any weapon that could hurt me." He's practically invulnerable to normal arrows and swords and ordinary orcs could hardly stand against him when he gets really angry. In the Return of the King at the battle of the Pelannor, even the Nazgul (except the Lord of the Nazgul) flee from him. We don't want him to be killed off by lowly orcs or someting.

The Nazgul have similar powers to Gandalf, only evil. Just as orcs, goblins and trolls hardly dare to face Gandalf, men and elves shrink from the Nazgul and only exceptionally brave men like Aragorn dare face them when they are banded together. The Nazgul cause fear, can't be killed by ordinary weapons, it takes special magically enchanted weapons like Pippin's sword to kill them (which would be tough to replicate in MTW).

In addition, there is the 3rd problem of the time scale. MTW turns are 1 year in length and the full campaign takes centuries, but the war of the ring happened in about 1 year (from September 3018 to March 3019). Maybe the turns could be a week instead of 1 year, but then it would be absurd to be able to train a unit in say, 2 weeks. Still it would be better than having the war of the ring last 200 years or something
I think mutliple factions is a solid investment. 2 factions on an all new campmap equals dry gameplay (to me anyways). But with a game like MTW, you can't stick to the script completely (Peter Jackson knows a lot about that).

I wouldn't exactly say Ringwariths are similar to Gandalf, though. btw, wasn't it a woman who killed the Witch King? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

The whole "War of the Ring" terminology will probably be modded to replace the Crusades in MTW.

NagatsukaShumi

05-24-2003, 22:38

2 Factions wouldn't really work for this game, you would control too much land and too many units in each factions, and who would lead the "good" faction?

Having numerous factions aids the game more, after all this is not the LOTR book or movie, it is a game, and the whole point of a game is that you make your own decisions, not replicate those of another person, Medieval more so than most games, after all when you play the English do you simply attack France and deliberately fail alot to replicate real history? No I seriously doubt that you do, you play to win not replicate the history of which you are acting out, the same goes with this, you are not Sauron, Saruman or anyone else from the books, you are a games player and thus you play to your style, not theirs. So in all fairness, if you ruled Gondor and you saw a significant advantage of invading Rohan for example, you would obviously do this not go "Nah I shall not do this as it would never happen in the book".

I do not mean any disrepect to you or the book, but this is a game, and so it must be made to suit this purpose. The whole point of Medieval is to shape your own destiny, doesn't it say in the opening movie somthing along the lines of "But few shape their own destiny".

I mean, at the base of all this, this is a game, a game which is magical because you can make your own choices not follow other peoples, I think the multiple factions is the right thing to do.

A small note on no emmissaries, the only problem you haven't thought about is, if you go to war with someone, you will not be able to ask them for a ceasefire, though I could see the advantage been, Sauron etc would not offer a ceasefire to anyone and accept one as he wishes to dominate all, not dominate some and ally with others.

Emp. Conralius

05-24-2003, 23:37

Quote[/b] (NagatsukaShumi @ May 24 2003,16:38)]2 Factions wouldn't really work for this game, you would control too much land and too many units in each factions, and who would lead the "good" faction?

Having numerous factions aids the game more, after all this is not the LOTR book or movie, it is a game, and the whole point of a game is that you make your own decisions, not replicate those of another person, Medieval more so than most games, after all when you play the English do you simply attack France and deliberately fail alot to replicate real history? No I seriously doubt that you do, you play to win not replicate the history of which you are acting out, the same goes with this, you are not Sauron, Saruman or anyone else from the books, you are a games player and thus you play to your style, not theirs. So in all fairness, if you ruled Gondor and you saw a significant advantage of invading Rohan for example, you would obviously do this not go "Nah I shall not do this as it would never happen in the book".

I do not mean any disrepect to you or the book, but this is a game, and so it must be made to suit this purpose. The whole point of Medieval is to shape your own destiny, doesn't it say in the opening movie somthing along the lines of "But few shape their own destiny".

I mean, at the base of all this, this is a game, a game which is magical because you can make your own choices not follow other peoples, I think the multiple factions is the right thing to do.

A small note on no emmissaries, the only problem you haven't thought about is, if you go to war with someone, you will not be able to ask them for a ceasefire, though I could see the advantage been, Sauron etc would not offer a ceasefire to anyone and accept one as he wishes to dominate all, not dominate some and ally with others.
I agree http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 00:26

If you set forces of good = catholic, forces of bad = muslim, and allowed daughters in the game you could marry your daughter to a good faction (thus declaring alliance) but the evil factions could not do this because the muslim factions dont have daughters.

I see advantages with both sides of the discussion (2 or more factions). I can see an idiotic possibility of the AI being stupid and declaring war on all allies, but I can see how only two factions would be mundane also. Perhaps a compromise of the two ideas is best... devide the good factions by race, men, elves and dwarves. Then put all "bad" forces under Sauron, and have Saruman as a loose canon who has emisaries who can side with either.

Good
Men Gondor, Rohan

Elves Lorien, Green Elves etc...

Dwarves All Dwarven races

Evil
Sauron Mordor orcs, Moria Goblins, Misty Mountain Orcs, Haradrim, Easterlings, Nazgul

Either/ loose cannon
Saruman Isengard

To balance the unfair advantage of Sauron, give his provinces very low loyalty to make sure he stays put for a while.

I would be happy to do a few maps. I did one of the Shire, but now you said it wasnt needed
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Tell me which locations and i'll give them a good shot http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

NagatsukaShumi

05-25-2003, 00:41

I am willing to do Tech Tree and anything prod11+13 related, I can make units faction/race specific and so on, I can make other diplomatic units and so on, anything you want name it, anything else you need doing I would be happy to help in any way I possibly can.

samandshirley@splaxton.fsnet.co.uk is my e-mail.

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 01:05

Heres the Shire Map (http://martyr.leftzed.com/others/Shire.zip) I did, its not that great but its my first, and it looks a lot like the shire. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Duke John

05-25-2003, 10:18

Number of Factions
I still have the opinion that we should have multiple factions. We all played Medieval: Total War and when you start playing, history is out of the door. Danes taking over whole of Europe? French and English having a lasting alliance? All very ahistorical but we most of the time accept this "fault".
We're playing a game and the main reason is to have fun. If you want to remain true to the book, we can release a series of "historical" battles in which you can recreate the Alliance of Men and Elves. But what if the Alliance loses? That is not how it happened in Lord of the Rings, does that mean the mod has failured? No, since it's a game everything can happen but that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.
And I know we'll have the problem of Elves declaring war on Gondor, but if we eliminate emissaries and princesses we won't have the situation in which Elves are allied to Mordor. I think it's just a fact we need to accept to have a (re)playable mod. We can always adjust some parameters and boundaries to get as close as possible to the book.

Famous personalities
One thing that I want to avoid at all costs is making uberunits. I won't make a model for Gandalf or any other powerfull character. The impact they have on a battle will prove great difficulties for balancing. One of the goals for me making this mod is recreating battles in the way they happened in Middle Earth; Elves vs Orcs, Gondor vs Haradrim, etc. I've no intention in bringing the Fellowship to life. Characters played a big part in the books, because it's a book, you have to get involved in it, have compassion with them. If you want that of game, play a role playing game. This game is all about waging war, and in the case of the LotR mod, bringing war to the world of Middle Earth.

So what's the goal and features of this mod?
In my opinion this mod should have the following features to get a reasonable game that represents Middle Earth:

Factions of the Middle Earth races
This mod will you give the ability to be the king of Rohan, the Dwarven Lord of the Misty Mountains or the Dark Lord of Mordor himself.
New units that represent the Middle Earth races
As already showed with the Uruk-Hai unit, this mod will contain all new units. A few examples are: Dwarven Clansmen, High Elf archers, Riders of Rohan, Moria Goblins and Cave Trolls.
A whole new map containing a part of Middle Earth
This map is centered around the conflicts between Good and Evil; Dwarves fight for control of the Mountains with the Moria Goblins, Gondor tries to hold off the vast Orcish hordes of Mordor.

Jobs to do
Unit animation: me
Programming: Wellington
Buildings creation: Dimeolas
Background: Conralius and Cugel
Mapmaking: Martyr
Campaignmap: ?
Techtree: NagatsukaShumim, Cugel
Faction descriptions: ?
Faction balancing: ?
Unit descriptions: Conralius
Unit and building modding: NagatsukaShumi, Cugel
Unit balancing: ?
Find out needs to and can be modded: ?
General modding: ?

Cheers, Duke John

NagatsukaShumi

05-25-2003, 12:34

Here's a small thought I've had, are you planning on making updates for the MOD, and if so what are you going to add in each one? More units, even greater balancing etc?

Also have you thought about amking a website for your MOD? I would not mind dedicating the plentiful time I have now to make you one.
(http://www.geocities.com/mtwturks/Home.html) That is basically what it would look like, obviously changed to suit the MOD rather than the Clan Seljuk it was previousy used for, then I could put contact addresses etc of each member of the team so that people could get in contact with the relevent person (i.e. If there is a very important question concerning Unit/Faction description they could then get in touch with Emp. for example).

Up to ytou, I've got 8 hours to kill here and I'd be happy to make a site for the MOD where people can find lots of information about it and so on.

Duke John

05-25-2003, 12:52

Website
Making a site is a good idea Although having it on geocities is not so great.

I think the most important sections would be:
News
Factions
Units
Screenshots
and perhaps as you suggested a "memberlist", but I'm not that fond on having my e-mail everywhere published...

See what you can do, I'll try to give updates when I can.

NagatsukaShumi

05-25-2003, 13:02

I could always make it on geocities then tranfer it by simple methods of copying and pasting the code into another server (Freewebs or somewhere).

As for your e-mail, I could setup a forum with a special sub forum called Ask Duke John rather than giving your e-mail out if that would be better?

Duke John

05-25-2003, 13:19

Website
A general forum for all is perhaps better, then everybody can respond on numerous topics whereas in this topic everything will get chaotic once we hit 10 pages. It can be used for example to post an unit description by Conralius where the rest of us can respond to it. Or the results of unit balancing can be posted on another thread.

NagatsukaShumi

05-25-2003, 13:23

Well I could leave the forum up to you and simply link to it later? If that would be easier?

I'll get to work on it now.

Emp. Conralius

05-25-2003, 15:14

I favor 2 factions. If we put hundreds of hours of work into this (and we will http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ), and only create 2 factions with rather vague identities like "good" or "evil", then I believe the replayability of the mod will suffer as a result of lack of variety.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

NagatsukaShumi

05-25-2003, 15:28

Ok I've made a basic website, I'll need information mailed to me before I can progress it further.

LOTR MOD Webpage (http://www.geocities.com/mtwlotr/index.htm)

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 19:55

Ive made a a new map for Rohan. Its the Castle map, I believe its called Edoras? Anyway, can people test it and tell me what needs fixing/changing. Click here to download (http://martyr.leftzed.com/others/rohan-castle.zip) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

Emp. Conralius

05-25-2003, 20:12

Not bad Martyre. It's just that Edorus was a wooden city. With a great hall at it's peak. You should try the Viking era buiding textures. They'll look a lot better.

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 20:21

Yeah I thought a bit about that.

I was thingking of the location.

Its RIGHT beside Isengard, when the Uruk Hai (that DJ has created http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ) attack Rohan thats where they will be attacking. If the city is only wooden then It will not be able to withstand any sort of attack by those brutes.

Duke John

05-25-2003, 21:16

They won't be able to withstand such an attack, but that's why they chose Helmsdeep as their defense. Edoras cannot withstand a horde of troops, but since it's on top of a steep hill, it's still difficult to conquer.

By the way, right now I've more or less finished the walking animation of the Cave Troll. Watch this space

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 21:25

Im making a seperate map for Helm's Deep. (or we can use the one that was already created in that map pack) It will have to be a seperate provence though. Call it The Westfolds, and call the provence with Edoras West Emnet. So whats the general opinion should it be wooden? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Quote[/b] ]By the way, right now I've more or less finished the walking animation of the Cave Troll. Watch this space
*Drools*
WOW I cant wait to see those... got any more images? How long do you think it will be?

People, There will be very many provences and areas in Tolkien's Middle Earth, so if you could maybe submit some of the ones you would like, with details of terain and other things, it would be very helpful. Plus other people can make the maps too you know. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif It would speed the process up a bit

Wellington

05-25-2003, 21:26

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 24 2003,14:26)]So what are the jobs?
Campaignmap: ?
The campaign map is the least of our problems (for MTW that is). We can easily use LMM to build a LoTR middle earth campaign map.

One of the easier ways to progress this would be to use one of the many potential LoTR campaign maps that are available at the site DJ refered to - http://lotrmaps.cjb.net/

It's really quite easy to build a campaign map together with provinces/names/factions/identifiers etc: in MTW (although for VI I'm still working on it).

I've downloaded a few images from that site so I'll make a few TGA's and get some MTW screenshots of potential middle-earth maps. I'll then E-mail these screenshots to NS who can host the images on his website - at which point someone or other will have to make a decision as to which middle-earth campaign map we should go with (NS - expect screenshots over the next few days).

Once a campiagn map has been decided upon someone also has to decide how the provinces should be split up. Questions are -

- how many sea provinces
- how many land provinces
- where do such provinces begin and end

These are the questions that are important as (once a general campaign map has been decided upon) they will determine the province boundaries pertaining to the chosen map.

Welly

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 21:32

Thats great Wellington

I look forward to seeing your work.

An idea was to leave out ships, thus reducing the idiotic AI's oppertunities to make war on allies. Perhaps only give ships to the elves and to the Corsairs. That would be realistic I suppose. And they are enemies anyway so that they can fight it out if they want with no problems for the balance of power.

Emp. Conralius

05-25-2003, 21:46

DJ, whats next? Moria Goblins or riders I hope

Wellington

05-25-2003, 21:48

DJ,

Urak_Hai faction
----------------

The software to progress the BIF's from the PCX's is progressing fine. What I'll do with this faction's bif(s) is E-Mail NS with the finished stuff to host on his website. ALso I'll E_mail the software to ensure other people can get involved in the bif-building process if they wish to.

As regards the images for the Urak_Hai faction, then if we want missile troops (crossbows) a 4-camera-angle set for a standing 'shoot' action would give us basic crossbows and heavy crossbows (arbalests).

Also, if it appears a good idea, we can provide 2-hansded axemen and 2-handed swordsmen for this faction. If so, a fight action (2-handed) would be useful (a swinging action with a large axe/sword) and potential a run/charge action that is 2-handed (eg - the hands of the figure images are clasped together).

At present we have, and I'm working on builkding the bifs, the images for Urak_Hai -

- Scimitars (with scimitar and shield)
- Axemen (with axe and shield)
- Spearmen (with spear and shield)
- Pikemen (with pike only)
- Halberds (with halberd only)

A 'standing_shoot_action' gives us 2 more units -

- Crossbows (with crossbow)
- HeavyCrossbows (with a different crossbow and maybe a shield)

A 'fight_2handed_action' together with a 'run_2handed_action' gives us 2 more units -

- TwoHandedAxemen (a large double bladed axe)
- TwoHandedSwordsmen (a largw sword)

I think these actions would effectively complete the Urak_Hai faction (providing no-one wants bowmen?). Thoughts please

I'll E_mail NS with the provisional weapons plate that show what I have in mind for this factions weapons.

DJ - flat shield image for this faction? Is it available?

Welly
P

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 22:08

Heres a good tolkien site with lots of images for those of you who are doing the visual aspects of the mod. http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/ http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Duke John

05-25-2003, 22:13

Wellington
No the flat shield image is not yet available. But I can make one tomorrow. The Uruk-Hai will get a two-handed axe swinging unit in the form of the Uruk-Hai Berserkers. I will make a new model for this one (with a White Hand painted on their faces). And I will soon start on making the shooting animation.

Uruk-Hai
Me and some others didn't think the Uruk-Hai should too many units; just the Pikemen, Crossbowmen, Swordsmen and Berserkers. Also giving them shield and axe(= armour piercing) makes them too powerfull IMHO. Creating an unit with crossbows and shield/pavise gives the player to hold back and outshoot the enemy before engaging with his Uruk-Hai. That should not be the case; the Uruk-Hai march forward while the crossbows give covering fire.

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 22:16

To all the graphic modders:

Is it possible to mod the in-battle buldings to create something like this?
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/anderson/orthanc.jpg
(ie. Orthanc)

Or any other buildings that are very destinctive in the books such as Barad dur, the white tower etc...

Wellington

05-25-2003, 22:24

To All,

MTW or VI?

I've noticed a few words in this thread regarding whether this LoTR mod should be developed for the original MTW or for the MTW/VI expansion. Ok, this is VERY IMPORTANT as it will undoubtadly determine how this mod progresses.

Here's my thoughts.

Ideally it would be great to provide this mod for BOTH MTW and MTW/VI.

Realistically, if we only provide for MTW/VI (which I'm sure the majority of us have) we omit the participation of guys who don't have the expansion.

Also, we have yet to surpass the 'learning curve' required for the many additions/changes/opportunities inherent in MTW/VI. Read other threads in this forum. Has anyone really yet surpassed this learning curve ... er .. no Not yet.

I would love to assist in a LoTR mod for VI (which offers immense potential) - BUT - on a purely practical level I would rather spend time solving the "LoTR mod" problems that we will hit rather than the "MTW/VI environment" problems that are currently being hit.

Is'nt it better to work with what we know - initially?

Therefore, I would think it better that this group/team progress this mod (initially) in terms of the MTW engine - which many people now reasonably understand - and move on to MTW/VI when the "time is right". In this manner we can eliminate many potential and unforeseen problems whilst keeping all of the LoTR fans in the loop - regardless of whether anyone has purchased the VI expansion.

This also gives me the advantage in knowing that an MTW campaign map for LoTR is available, workable, and providable immediately (I've yet to finish LMM for VI).

It's unfortunately that this mod has transpired at the same time as the VI expansion arrived - but that should'nt divert us from the facts.

MTW/VI may well be a preferable environment, eventually, when everyone understands it.

MTW is, for now, a far practical environment that allows us to concentrate on LoTR problems - as opposed to MTW/VI potential problems. What's more important?

Thoughts guys.

Welly

_Martyr_

05-25-2003, 22:29

Yeah, it seems logical that way to me. Eventually it can be upgraded. And any unit models that are needed that are only in VI can be exported anyway.

Duke John

05-25-2003, 22:39

VI or not to VI
Before we have finished all the animations and backgrounds we are a few weeks later. In the meantime LotR modders can explore and study the possibilities of VI. Once we have the ALL units ready we can start on making the campaign.

This doesn't mean you can't play with the LotR units. We will release units, maps and historical battles to satisfy the masses http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif . The units can be used for MP games, which are on their own fun enough if you recreate the Last Alliance with some buddies. While we're playtesting the units we get an idea of what the strongpoints are of the different factions. We then have a firm base for a complete campaign and hopefully enough knowledge to start on VI modding.

Wellington

05-25-2003, 22:49

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 25 2003,16:13)]Wellington
No the flat shield image is not yet available. But I can make one tomorrow. The Uruk-Hai will get a two-handed axe swinging unit in the form of the Uruk-Hai Berserkers. I will make a new model for this one (with a White Hand painted on their faces). And I will soon start on making the shooting animation.

Uruk-Hai
Me and some others didn't think the Uruk-Hai should too many units; just the Pikemen, Crossbowmen, Swordsmen and Berserkers. Also giving them shield and axe(= armour piercing) makes them too powerfull IMHO. Creating an unit with crossbows and shield/pavise gives the player to hold back and outshoot the enemy before engaging with his Uruk-Hai. That should not be the case; the Uruk-Hai march forward while the crossbows give covering fire.
Ok,

Let me know what "type" of units (in terms of weapons and shields and purchasable units within MTW) you want to end up with regarding the Urak_Hai faction.

Bear in mind I'm not a LoTR expert I just know a bit about MTW.

You currently have enough animations to provide a good variety as per the MTW unit-animation-system - but what do you guys really want? Let me know -

- how many different Urak_Hai units will be available/purchasable
- what these units should have as weapons and shields

Obviously the images you provided so far give immenese potential - but I'm only thinkng in terms of the MTW possibilities for mixing and matching shields/weapons/images to create a variety of units - just as CA do.

What you guys decide upon in terms of units/weapons/shields will be important as it determines what shield/weapon positioning files I have to create for the various units/actions for this Urak_Hai faction.

Let me know now. A list of units you want for this faction, together with weapons and shields - please

Welly

Duke John

05-25-2003, 23:06

In game buildings
As far as I know it's not possible to create other buildings. The parameters for them are in .txx files and on the internet I didn't find any program that could handle those files. On this forum I also found somewhere that those extensions where from a program exclusively used by CA. Textures on the buildings can be changed, but that won't get you far. Although you can make the walls a bit more darker.

Isengard Faction
Using the Uruk_Hai model (shield and sword images are yet to be made):
- Uruk-Hai swordsmen, with sword and shield (as the one I've already created);
- Uruk-Hai pikemen;
- Uruk-Hai crossbowmen, with sword and crossbow (for which I've yet to create a shooting animation)

Using a new Uruk_berserker model:
- Uruk-Hai berserker, with two-handed sword.

Using a new Dun_wildmen model:
- Wildmen of Dunland with two-handed axes.

Using a new Warg_rider and Warg model:
- Warg Riders, with spear and shield;
- Warg Archers, with bow and sword.

Moria Goblins Faction
Using the Moria_Goblin model:
- Moria Goblin swordsmen, with sword and shield;
- Moria Goblin spearmen, with spear and shield;
- Moria Goblin archer, with bow and sword.

Using the Cave_troll model:
- Cave Troll, with large club.

High Elven Faction
Using the High_Elf model:
- High Elf swordmasters, with two-handed sword;
- High Elf spearsmen, with spear and shield;
- High Elf archers, with bow and two-handed sword;
- High Elf sword, with sword and shield.

That'll be enough for now I guess... I've got some work to do http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Wellington

05-26-2003, 07:06

NS,

Can you add an E-mail contact on your website in order to pass stuff to you. I've tried sending you some screenshots via the E-mail in your Orgprofile but this opens a panel within The Org - does'nt open up IE6 - therefore I have no attach facility for zips

Anyone know if there is a solution for this.

Welly

NagatsukaShumi

05-26-2003, 12:35

I shall add a staff page today, my e-mail shall be present as I do not mind e-mails from others asking questions, anyone else who wishes for their e-mail to be visible can e-mail me with this wish and I shall add theirs under their name.

NOTE-At the bottom of the LOTR page you shall see "Done but with errors" or something along those lines, ignore this, it is saying this because it has not been able to create the advert for geocities that usually pops up in the corner, the page will not damamge your computer nor has it not loaded properly, thank you.

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 13:26

My email is chrisdeering@dublin.com

Feel free to send me anything that you want an opinion on.

(in other words, please send me some screenshots of those Trolls as soon as they are done http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Brother Derfel

05-26-2003, 13:38

Ok, this is the list of Regions/Provinces that i think should be included for the LOTR Mod. I have also included the type of terrain that each should have, and where possible, the capital city of each:

Andrast [Costal Province. Quite Wooded, not Much Open Ground. Only Site of Note is a Ring of Stones. Bit like Stone Henge]

Andrast Coast [Sea Province]

Anduin Vales [Foot Hills. Should Be Hilly/Flat Inland. Framsburg would be capital. ]

Anfalas [Costal. Quite Wooded, Not Much open ground. Edhellond or Lond Gallen would be Capital City]

Angmar [Hill/Mountain. Barren Northern Waste. Angmar would be Capital City]

Anorien [Flat Inland. Wooded Area. Minis Tirith would be Capital City]

Arthedain [Flat Inland. Wooded. Bree would Be Capital City]

Bay of Belfalas [Sea Region]

Belfalas [Flat/Hilly Costal. Heavily wooded. Dol amroth would be Capital City]

Brown Lands [Plains. Stepps Inland. Barren. No Capital City of Note. Bandits make their lairs there.]

Cardolan [Lat/Hilly Inland. Site of the Barrow Downs and The Old Forest. Capital City Tharbad]

Dagorlad [Marsh Land leading to foot Hills. Area contains the Dead Marshes. No Capital City]

Dorwinion [Hilly Inland. Capital City Shrel-kain]

Dunland [Hilly Inland. Are inhabited by the Dunlendings. Capital City is the Dunnish Clan Hold]

Elven Shores [Sea Province]

Enedhwaith [Flat Inland. Wilderness. No Capital City, site of some Ruined signal towers from the old kingdom of men]

Eriadoran Coast [Sea Province]

Fangorn [Dence Forest. Flat Inland. Forest of the Ents. Capital city would be Wellinghall]

Forochel [Cold Iceland to the North. Hilly Inland. Inhabited by the Lossodan, a race of lower men. Capital City would be Lossadan Camp]

Gap of Isen [Hilly/Mountain. Pass through the Mountains. Capital City Isenguard]

Gorgoroth [The Most Evil place in Middle Earth. Flat Waste land, leading to foot hills with One big Mountain. Capital City either Bara-dur (Sauron's Stronghold) or Mount Doom]

Well, Thats all i have Time to do now. Got to get on with Revision. I will finish the rest of the descriptions for the regions below later.

Grey Mountain Narrows []
Gundabad []
Harondor []
Heart of Mirkwood []
High Pass []
Hollin []
Horse Plains []
Imlad Morgul []
Iron Hills []
Ithilien []
Khand []
Lamedon []
Lebennin []
Lindon []
Mouths of the Anduin []
Northern Rhovanion []
Numeriador []
Nurn []
Old Pukel Gap []
Old Pukel-land []
Redhorn Gate []
Rhudaur []
Rohan []
Southern Mirkwood []
Southern Rhovanion []
The Shire []
Udun []
Western Mirkwood []
Withered Heath []
Wold & Foothills []
Woodland Realm []

Duke John

05-26-2003, 13:42

The Cave Troll

Cave Trolls are large and loathsome creatures which shun the light, preferring to hide away in dark caves and subterranean tunnels. They are both cumbersome and slow-witted but none-the-less dangerous creatures once roused to anger. Fortunately there are only a few of these fearsome monsters compared to the vast hordes of Moria Goblins amongst whom they live and which, in all probability, form the bulk of their diet.
http://martyr.leftzed.com/lotr/images/cave_troll_action.jpg
Note that this is just a testing image, but I couldn't resist sharing it with you guys.

My idea of a Cave Troll unit, would be:
- Very hard to kill (high def and armour);
- Few in numbers (20 or even less);
- They can crush enemies with ease (armour piercing and high att);
- Cause fear (if it's moddable);
- Slow and dumb (unit cannot be turned quickly, cannot run but can charge);
- Elite unit, high morale (we don't want it to start routing because of fleeing Moria Goblins or its low starting numbers)
With these characteristics, we have an unit to strenghten the weak Moria Goblins. They can easily make a hole in a line, but because of their numbers they can't handle an army on their own. Also they need to be protected against missile fire to keep them on an effective size. IMO we then have an unit that has it's strenghts but also it weaknesses.

Wellington
Although the Cave Troll looks considerable larger than the other infantry, the actual images are almost the same size. There are two parameters in the unit_prod11 file namely: Height and Scale, I set these both to 200 and the Cave Trolls were of appropiate size in-game. BUT there were some major faults in the pathfinding of the Trolls; if I told one unit to move it would move partly in a total other direction and thus breaking up the unit with a 100 metres between the two groups of Trolls. This probably only needs some adjustments to get it right, but you should know this.
Because of the scaling I now have enough room to get 4 angles at dying and maybe a running animation.

Future monsters
Apperently scaling is possible, and this opens some further possibilities: Ents, Flying Nazgul are now all achievable. Oh and let's not forget the Balrog

Provinces
Good job on the provinces Brother Derfel, it already looks enough (not sure though...)

Cheers, Duke John

Brother Derfel

05-26-2003, 13:48

http://www.non.com/metw/maps/METWpath.big.gif

thats a link to a good map of Middle Earth, showing all of the provinces clearley. Obvioulsy it will not do for the campaign map, but it will show where all of the provinces I alude to are.

It is from the old Middle Earth The Wizards Collectable Card Game bye ICE.

I will finish off my descriptions of provinces later today

Emp. Conralius

05-26-2003, 15:01

What can i say? GREAT CAVE TROLL DJ

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 15:15

Yeah, Im gob smacked, they look great. Once you get that bug fixed, post the files up here so we can test em too. Nice one man http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

If you really do get to make ents, you will go down in history http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

They would be very hard to make without making them far too powerful, what are their weaknesses?

Animation would be very hard, they would need to take long slow strides that cover lots of ground, theywould be absolutely nothing like any other unit in this game.

How do you suppose to make the flying Nazgul?

Duke John

05-26-2003, 15:25

Hmmm, I looked up some pictures...now I can't wait to make an Ent http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Indeed they will take alot of room in a bif but if we can scale them enough the only problem would be the low resolution when you get close to the model. But hey, if we want Ents don't start whining about that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

We can make pretty rare by making them only available to good races in Fangorn Forest and perhaps by making them 3 years to build.

The Flying Nazgul work in the same way as cavalry. But it will some extra difficulties because of positioning and masking the Rider. I'll probably make the rider stuck on the mount. They will always "fly" so that I only need animations for stand/walk/run/charge, attack and die. That means 10 or 12 angles in a bif... 170 x 130 pixels or so.

Thanks for the appreciaton http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 15:31

How is it actually possible to make units fly in the Mtw engine?

Will they not have to land to fight?

Will arroms be able to shoot them down?

Can they hover, or do they always have to move or land?

Will they flap their wings?

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 15:49

Here, some inspiration,
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/lee/lee45.jpg

Brother Derfel

05-26-2003, 16:23

Here is the rest of the Province descriptions. I won;t be able to make any maps myself, but I hope everything is there that people would need to know to make the maps:

Grey Mountain Narrows [Mountainous. Cold Northern. Capital City Gondmaeglom. Here be Dragons]

Gundabad [Hilly/Mountain Northern Waste. Capital is Mount Gundabad.]

Harondor [ Southron Homeland. Desert Costal. Capital City Gobel Mirlond]

Heart of Mirkwood [ Dence Forest. Flat Inland. Capital is Sarn Goriwing]

High Pass [Mountain region, populated by Goblins. Access to goblin Capital through the Goblin Gate.]

Hollin [Flat Hilly Inland. Foothills. Capital is Ost-In-Edhil]

Horse Plains [Stepp Flat Inland. Open plains. Home of the Easterlings. Capital is Easterling Camp]

Imlad Morgul [mountain, Evil, baren and dark. Home of Cirith ungol and the passage where Shelob makes her layer. Capital is minas morgul]

Iron Hills [Mountain/hilly. inhabited by Dwarves. Capital is Iron Hills Dwarf Hold.]

Ithilien [Wilderlands. Flat Inland. Covered in Sparse woodland. Haunted by the rangers of ithillien. Capital is Henneth Annun]

Khand [Home of the Variags, an evil human clan. Desert Flat Inland. Capital is the Variag Camp]

Lamedon [Flat/hilly Inland. capital is the Vale of Erech]

Lebennin [Costal Flat. Inhabited by Men of Gondor. Capital is Pelargir]

Lindon [Costal Flat. The Land beyond the Shire where the Elves travel to leave Middle earth. Capital City is the Grey Havens]

Mouths of the Anduin [Sea Province]

Northern Rhovanion [Flat/Hilly Inland. Region where much of the events of the Hobbit took place. The lake Town is the Capital city. Area also contains the ruins of the town of Dale, and the misty Mountain]

Numeriador [The area where the Dwarves dwell in the West. hilly/Mountain. Capital is the Blue Mountain Dwarf Hold]

Nurn [Deep into Mordor, Inhabited by Orcs and the Nuriags, an evil human clan. Flat Inland Lakes. Capital city is Urlurtsu Nurn]

Old Pukel Gap [Hilly/Mountain. Pukel Men dwell here. Again only noticable feature is a Stone Circe. No capital]

Old Pukel-land [Flat Costal. Heavily Wooded. Pukel Men Dwell Here. Capital City is Geann-a-Lisch]

Redhorn Gate [Hilly/Mountain. Contains the dimrill dale, the entrance to Moria. Capital City is Moria]

Rhudaur [Flat Inland. The region in which the Hidden Valley of Rivendell is Located. Elves live here. Capital city is Rivendell]

Rohan [Flat Inland. Steppe possibly. Land of the Horse Lords. Could be split into East and West March. Capital City would be Edoras. other towns include Dunharrow and Helms Deep]

Southern Mirkwood [Forest. Wild and evil place. Capital is Dol Guldur]

Southern Rhovanion [Flat Inland. Capital is Buhr-Widu]

The Shire [Flat Inland. Land Of the Hobbits. Capital City is Hobbiton, or the actual Capital, whos name I have forgotten]

Udun [Mountain. Capital is Cirith Gorgor]

Western Mirkwood [Forest. Flat Inland. Capital is the Woodmen Town]

Withered Heath [Cold Northern Province. Hilly. Capital is Ulund. Here be Dragons]

Wold & Foothills [Flat Inalnd. Contains the Forest of LothLorien, the Elven realm. Capital City LothLorien]

Woodland Realm [Home of the Elves of Mirkwood. Where legolas' Father thranduil dwells. Capital is Thranduil's Halls]

Wellington

05-26-2003, 16:40

Quote[/b] (_Martyr_ @ May 26 2003,09:31)]How is it actually possible to make units fly in the Mtw engine?

Will they not have to land to fight?

Will arroms be able to shoot them down?

Can they hover, or do they always have to move or land?

Will they flap their wings?
The 1st two numbers in the ActionPages files per lineare the x/y origin. These two numbers define a point on the image for weapons positioning and also for renderending the figure on the terrain. By increasing the y value you can make the image appear to be in the sky (likewiese by decreasing this value the figure appears to be half sunk into the ground).

They will probably have to land to fight (or it would look silly).

Missiles would work fine. As far the the MTW engine is converned they are on the groung - it's just an 'illusion' changing the x/y origin for some actions to make they appear to be in the air.

Yes, they can flap there wings as well In fact 'hovering' would be the stand action - which would be same action as run and charge (all actions show the creature flapping it's wings) - hence less images required.

In fact only 3 actions really -

- stand/walk/run/charge (all the same images as the figure is always in the air)
- fight (on the ground)
- die

One problem is the quick animation 'jump' that would occur when they ange action from charge to fight.

Likewise another problem is the die action as if they die whilst they are in the sky they would have a long drop to the ground, whilst if they die whilst on the ground they don't have as fall as far ... oh, well - we can't have everything

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 16:43

Yeah, guys... there is no way I can do those all on my own, we will need a good few more on the team if we want all those finished in the next 3 years. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

If anyone else has any map skills just say so http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

To coordinate things we will have to comunicate to each other what maps have been done so that we dont do multiple versions of the same maps. Once some more people volunteer, we can assign a certain number of maps to people. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif Come on people even if you can just make a few.

jeffreyLebowski

05-26-2003, 16:58

am i the one thinking that this thread deserves to be a sticky?

NagatsukaShumi

05-26-2003, 17:06

I would be perfectly happy to help with maps or anything else that needs doing, the only things I cannot do is unit animation or the whole campaign map stuff, I can do Loc/Eng, prod files, Battle and campmap files with ease, I'm always at hand now I no longer go to school I have plentiful time to help out.

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 17:08

Great, are there any particular maps you really want to do?
Have you got any messanger programs that we can communicate over that would be easier than using the forum.

Brother Derfel

05-26-2003, 17:12

Quote[/b] (_Martyr_ @ May 26 2003,10:43)]Yeah, guys... there is no way I can do those all on my own, we will need a good few more on the team if we want all those finished in the next 3 years. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

If anyone else has any map skills just say so http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

To coordinate things we will have to comunicate to each other what maps have been done so that we dont do multiple versions of the same maps. Once some more people volunteer, we can assign a certain number of maps to people. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif Come on people even if you can just make a few.
Well, I have no map skills at the moment as i said earlier, and at this point, I don't have any time to aquire them. However my exams will be over by the middle of June, so I might be able to teach myself then.

As for the Maps, many area's can just use exisiting MTW Maps. As for specific places, i am certain that Helms Deep has already been done, as has Osgiliath and I think the Pellenor Fields. I Believe it was Alowran that did these, I have them on my old heavily modded install of MTW, so i will check.

We should probably decide which mpas will be needed for each province, and start filling them in from there. E.g, I am certain that The Brown Lands can be done using exisiting Steppe Maps with an Arid tempertaure to make it look like scorched ground. Whereas Rhudaur will need a specific Valley map, with Rivendell at the Centre, heavily surounded by woods in which Elves and Rangers can lurk to ambush invading Orcs.

NagatsukaShumi

05-26-2003, 17:18

LOTR Webpage (http://www.geocities.com/mtwlotr/index.htm)

Screenshots are up, check out the campaign map ones. I apologise for the positioning of the units images, I am working on sorting this out as quickly as I possibly can.

balticson@hotmail.com is my MSN address, you can usually catch me on there, EwrestlingVenom is my AOL name though I rarely go on there now, its safer to look on MSN.

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 17:20

Yeah I have those maps. I think we could use those, and maybe edit them a bit to improve a few aspects of the gameplay. I think map making is by far the easiest skill to learn because the editor is provided, and is fairly easy to use. Its just a matter of time. The more people who even do one map, the quicker it will be finnished. If anyone completes a map, send it to me at chrisdeering@dublin.com

I will collect them all together, and can host them on a high bandwidth server.

NagatsukaShumi

05-26-2003, 17:25

Your e-mail has been added to the staff page now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Brother Derfel

05-26-2003, 17:55

Well, if it will help, I can compile a list of all new maps that will need to be made in order to fill out all of the provinces I have listed above.

Obviously I don't know whether you intend to use those exact provinces yet, so some feed back on that will be helpful.

But I can quite quickly and easily work out how many new maps will be needed for each of those provinces (Probably less than you think Martyr). I can also work out which Maps would be used when invading from province to province. (i have no idea how to mad this for the game, but I can at least let those who do know which one will be linked to which.)

cugel

05-26-2003, 18:05

Very nice troll DJ http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

A number of points I think need making:

SARUMAN there will be an absolute minimum of 3 factions, not two (since you must count Saruman). Saruman is probably the most interesting faction to play, since he's only in it for himself and is presumably the only faction that will have emissaries. Plus, he controls the Uruk Hai (the best Orc unit) and the wildmen of Dunland (like Vikings). Plus he has half-orc spearmen (if we can make them - if you don't want to redo the bifs, then we can just rename an MTW spear-unit and make do with just changing the stats).

Even if you decide to make many factions (a point I will address in another post), Saruman must be a neutral (perhaps Pagan) faction. Make him a rebel and he should do o.k. (In that case remember to give him the rebel set:behavior in early.txt (or whatever we name the campaign file). He has the provinces of Isengard (capital: Orthanc) and Dunland. He only has 2 provinces, but a large standing army, which requires the Saruman player or AI to expand aggressively, which is what we want He should probably invade Rohan right away and is a threat to take over the north as well as the south.

PLAY BALANCE AND THE EMPTY PROVINCES

There are a lot of empty provinces on the map which will be rebel held with no population or only a few peasants. We should be careful not to eliminate them. They serve as buffer zones between the factions, giving the factions some time to tech up or create units before all out war engulfs everyone. Playtesting will confirm or refute this, but I think this will be very valuable. Remember the 1530 campaign of Shogun: MI? The factions started out very small, most with only 1 or two provinces surrounded by rebels. It sometimes took some years before you even contacted another faction. This gave each side a chance to expand a bit before all out warfare broke out between all the factions. Maybe this would work with the mod. A thought to consider.

NAMES OF PROVINCES It should be easy to get this right. See this map by Tolkien from the books:

http://lotrmaps.middle-earth.us/maps/r3t_M07.jpg

This map has even more detail but is a bit cut-off: http://lotrmaps.middle-earth.us/maps/r3t_M19.jpg

GONDORAs you can see that the provinces of Gondor are: (ones without city names are presumed to have no structures).
(From West to East) Anfalas, Belfalas (with the city of Dol Amroth), Lamedon, Lebennin (with the city of Pelargir), Lossarnach (with the captial, Minas Tirith), and Anorien (no city). East of the Anduin there's North and South Ilithien, which also belong to Gondor, but have no cities (Osgiliath in South Ilithien is the capital of Gondor during the 2nd age, but is destroyed at the time of the war of the ring). These are small provinces, but including them all gives the advantage that the evil forces will have to conquer them all one province at a time, giving Gondor the possibility of holding out for some time in the event of invasion - a badly needed balancing advantage given the overwhelming strength of Mordor.

This map, also by Tolkien gives a detailed view of Gondor and Mordor and the surrounding region: http://lotrmaps.middle-earth.us/maps/r3t_M07.jpg. From it you can get a very good idea of some of Sauron's closer provinces.

MORDOR Mordor has 3 provinces: Udun (with the "city" of "The Gates of Mordor", Gorgoroth (with the capital of Barad Dur), and Nurnen (no city). (Mt. Doom wasn't an inhabited place).

Mordor also has the provinces of Near and Far Harad, Kuhn, and Haradwaith (Sutherland) without cities, but with standing armies all under the control of Sauron, like Wales in the early campaign. This will give the evil player a choice (attack now with the forces at hand in an attempt to overrun Gondor, Rohan and Lorien before they can build more units - or wait to tech up a bit to produce more cavalry units in these southern and eastern provinces.

Actually in the book, Sauron's strategy was to wait a bit and collect even more troops to make his victory certain before he struck - his hand was tipped by the discovery of the ring and the fear that one of the lords of his enemies would appear wielding it.

Mordor also controls Umbar, with the Havens of Umbar as the capital. Umbar has the corsairs (fleet), the only place the evil player can build ships. (But absolutely NO merchants - I assume we're all agreed on NO MERCHANTS). Sauron could have ordered his fleet to attack anywhere along the entire coast so this is important (to give Sauron's forces mobility). The Mordor player, for example, might choose to attack the elves first.

Mordor also controls the southern 1/2 of Mirkwood (capital: Dol Guldur). South of Mirkwood is Rhovanion (Easterlings) also controlled by Sauron. As I explained in an earlier post these are the "Mongols" of middle earth. No capital city. Also Sauron's Easterlings control the province of Rhun (about the Sea of Rhun). This gives Sauron the ability to attack Thranduil's northern realm of Mirkwood and the lonely Mtn. and Dale at the same time as Gondor (as he did in the books).

You'll notice that Sauron has a lot of provinces, but most of them are not developed. They should have large standing armies, but no buildings. This is important for playbalance.

ROHAN Rohan is divided into: The Westfold (with Helm's Deep), West Emnet (with the capital of Edoras) and East Emnet (no city). Further north it also has the Wold (no city but some cavalry forces).

FANGORN FOREST Fangorn forest (no city) has the Ents. If you can make them, they should also have the Huorns (the moving trees that massacred the orcs at the battle of Helm's Deep in the book). They could be like the "spearmen" of the ent armies. Also, don't forget that ents can throw stones. We can give them missile abilities as well as melee abilities.

Fangorn should be rebels allied with no-one (but their "religion" ought to be the same as the good faction's so that if evil takes over their forest then they would be very rebellious). Their rebellion factor should be at least 4 or 5, since they are very independent, not tolerating at all any efforts to control them). The ent units ought to be divided into units of about 20 ents each. There weren't that many ents all told less than 200, so dividing them into small units gives them greater tactical flexibility (5 ent units of 20 each, plus 11 Huorn units of 100 each is a useful approximation of the ent army). Maybe no-one can build ents. They should be independent. Once they're destroyed, they're gone (unless more are created via a rebellion). They aren't really a "faction" since they aren't out to conquer anyone. They just want to be left alone and Saruman wouldn't do that. He kept cutting down their trees until he REALLY PISSED THEM OFF

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

NEUTRAL REBEL PROVINCES South Gondor is deserted (neutral), no city or starting population, as are the further northern provinces of Minhiriath and Edenwaith.

Arthedain and Rhudaur, the provinces of the lost realm of Arnor were deserted during the time of the war of the ring, as was the witch realm of Angmar, so these provinces should be empty. IF this is a LOTR mod of the time of war of the ring, you can't have Angmar as a power for example IT was DESTROYED. It was headed by the chief ringwraith (who will be needed elsewhere by Sauron). The capital of Angmar was Carn Dum. The capital of Arnor was Fornost (during the beginning of the 3rd age it was Anuminas), but both were deserted and should not be part of any faction (rebel) to start the game.

All these provinces were uninhabited or very lightly inhabited so they should be empty at the beginning of the game and contain no troops. They should be rebel held.

HIGH ELVES The High Elves have the kingdom of Lindon, which is divided into the provinces of Forlindon (capital Forlond) and Harlindon (capital Grey Havens). The Grey Havens has a shipyard but no ship, so the elves can build one to defend themselves against attack by the corsairs, but they don't start with a fleet). They also have the province of Rivendell (capital: Rivendell), with elvish cavalry and spearmen.

If there's to be more than 1 good faction (which I still oppose) then for playbalance, all the elves should be part of the "elvish" faction and not split up into separate realms.

DWARVES The dwarves have the provinces of "the Kingdom Under the Mountain", capital the Lonely Mountain and Dale (Dale is too small to make an independent faction), plus the Iron hills).

WOODELVES The elves of Mirkwood have have north Mirkwood (capital: Halls of the WoodElves).

LORIEN Lorien has the province of Lorien (capital Calas Galadhon) and the Field of Celebrant (belonged to Lorien, but not used much by Galadriel).

GANDALF I sympathize with your desire not to have hero units, but if you have the ringwraiths you need Gandalf for balancing. The Nazgul are just as much "hero" units (well anti-hero) as Gandalf is Maybe they both should be eliminated, but I would favor leaving both in. It just wouldn't be LOTR without Gandalf. (No we don't need a separate Aragorn or Gimli unit) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif You can change the names of the generals so that Gondor has general "Aragorn" leading it's forces, but that's it. I believe that there is some game mechanism for ensuring that heros like William Wallace appear with certain advantages like Excellent Leader (+6 to morale). I believe that it may be hard-coded though. We should check that. If it's possible, we can simply have general Aragorn with great leadership and health qualities, his unit could be Dunadan Cavalry (elite knights). He wouldn't be anymore of a "panzer" unit than the virtually unkillable kings of MTW are After all, haven't we all experienced endless battles where the lone enemy king kills off our ENTIRE FRIGGING UNIT and THEN gets away scot free This happened to me last night http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pissed.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif At least in the LOTR mod, the way Tolkien wrote the books this is supposed to happen

(Sorry for the length of post - it got away from me there) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 18:08

That would be great

About the provences, I would definitely devide Rohan in at least 2, maybe even 3, making it harder for Isengard to over run them.

NagatsukaShumi

05-26-2003, 18:58

I have made a texture set for Mordor however I have them in a folder called Mordor, I placed it with the other folders but when I go in game there is no option to choose my Mordor texture set for my map, I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me on how I could get it to work without wiping over other textures sets?

cugel

05-26-2003, 19:51

SHOULD THE PLAYER BE ABLE TO SEIZE THE RING?

This question should be asked. Should the player be able to seize the ring? It's definitely possible to do it. The decision to seize the ring could be represented by building a crusade (just call it the ring instead of a crusade). Say it takes 10 turns to "build" and costs X florins. Perhaps you can only build it in one province, so that you have to "conquer" the province to have the opportunity (no more than 1 ringlord&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. Then once the ring is built and the new Ringlord conquers the target province (of the "crusade"), it opens up a new tech-tree. Elves can now recruit Orcs and Men. New more powerful versions of the old units are available (representing the power the ring gives over it's followers - we wouldn't need new bifs, just different more powerful units with names like "(Ringlord's) Elven Spearmen" or "(Ringlord's) Knights of the White Tower" using the same bifs, so they would be easy to make). Perhaps the ringlord's faction can now build high valor emissaries and would receive 100,000 florins (I think this could be done somehow) so they could bribe other armies. This would represent the ringlord drawing men, elves and orcs to his banner. Perhaps you can now build Nazgul units (this is a bit far fetched, but the ringlord could make lesser rings to give to his followers like Sauron did, who would then over time turn into Nazgul themselves).

No? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif Well, I don't insist upon it

The problem would be how do we represent the downside of taking the ring? The corruption of the good forces? But, what if the Balrog got the ring? Wouldn't he try and challenge Sauron for the supremacy of Middle Earth? What if Galadriel or Elrond took it? What would happen?

You can also see the surprise you'd have playing as Sauron if suddenly "holy C*** Elrond just declared himself the New Ringlord I'd better take him out quick or he'll start recruiting much more powerful units"

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

BTW: I don't think Sauron player should have this option. If he got it, then GAME OVER. He certainly doesn't need more power.

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 20:29

But how do you "get" the ring, it doesnt just appear in your provence. The way of doing it as I see it is having a yearly dialog box that outlines where frodo and sam are, telling of their exploits etc.. then when they arrive in your provence you get the choice of letting them pass, if you claim it you get the above mentioned powers. We would really have to think of some balancing feature, so that you dont just claim it every time and get super powerful.

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 20:32

NagatsukaShumi and I are just in the process of incorperating his new textures into the game, as of yet we can find no other way than simply replacing one of the existing ones. If someone knows please tell us. But if we had to get rid of one texture which should it be? I think sandy desert. Opinions? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

NagatsukaShumi

05-26-2003, 21:30

A bit of an update here, I have wiped over the Sandy Desert textures just to test it, and it looks absolutely amazing, I'm quite proud, theres one thing I will keep from you but you shall see it in a group of screenshots I will post tommorrow, trust me Mordor will look stunning when you play it with these textures, and they were extremely easy to create, however I wish to simply add a mordor texture set rather than remove another set, if CA answers my question. Tommorrow I weill make a simple map so you can see a basic texture set.

EDIT-Work on the building textures will begin tommorrow.

_Martyr_

05-26-2003, 21:39

Great to hear, Ill be looking forward to those http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

People, If at all possible, lets make Orthanc, the White Tower and Barad dur in abttle buldings. It MUST be possible. Any ideas?

GoldenKnightX2

05-27-2003, 02:14

Cant you set it so where dragons destroy buildings instead of earthquakes.

Alrowan

05-27-2003, 03:03

well i am here.. yes your savior http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

as for maps, i can help out for sure, my uni finnishes in 2 weeks, so ill be home on holidays..

ive already started work on Edoras... ive been waitng for the vikng buildings for a long time, and now i have them im in heaven

Alrowan

05-27-2003, 03:08

also, ive just looked at the site... you need a Lukmap to be made. Is one under development? I can easily make one in a week to suit your needs, all i need is a copy of the map you will be using for the campagin

Wellington

05-27-2003, 10:13

Quote[/b] (Alrowan @ May 26 2003,21:08)]also, ive just looked at the site... you need a Lukmap to be made. Is one under development? I can easily make one in a week to suit your needs, all i need is a copy of the map you will be using for the campagin
Alrowan,

The idea with posting a few campaign map screenshots (just TGA's) on the site is for people to decide what looks good/bad and decide on a campaign map - presumably one chosen form the site mentioned earlier in this thread. The images onthe site are from 2 different maps (r3T_M35 and r3T_M79) and should give a good idea of the resolution/colour/feel for these two maps within MTW.

If anyone wants suggests a different LoTR map to use I can quickly download it convert it to MTW TGA's and offer more screenshots to NS's site. Hence, eventually we should find a map that most people are happy with.

At present I see discussions of era's (3rd age etc) but once a campaign map has been agreed upon (that looks ok) I can use LMM to split it up into provinces and create -

- the 2 TGA's
- the 2 lukmaps
- the 4 mini look up maps
- a startpos file defining the areas/borders etc
- Names.txt/Descriptions.txt ect

Two problems with providing a campaign map (created from wa LoTR map on the web) and allowing download from NS's site are copyright and download sizes.

The idea therefore would be for me to create all the required stuff (this is all automated via LMM now) and then provide all the stuff for the NS website (expect the big maps). Then, users who want this LoTR campaign map would just have to -

a) download their own copy of the map from the web site, generally jpeg's, for their own personal use - thus not breaking any copyrights)
b) use LMM to build the 2 MTW required TGA's (9 meg and 36 meg) on their own PC's
c) download all the other required stuff (less than 1 meg) from NS site

This approach does not break copyright for any LoTR map we wish to use from the web, and also prevents downloading 45 meg of data).

Would such an approach work? Yes, it's all been done before.

If anyone wants to get involed in the splitting up of the map into provinces, naming the areas, naming the people living in the areas, naming the titles etc: then I'm all ears.

First thing, however, is to actually decide on a map to use

Welly

Duke John

05-27-2003, 11:00

So if we draw our own map, we can let people download a complete campaign instead of letting them do alot of extra work? Or is the size of LMM processed maps to big for downloads?

I don't mind drawing a map of Middle Earth, but you'll have to give me some time http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Btw I prefer more the authentic Tolkien look. With the map being drawed on a piece of parchment instead of the coloured stuff.

Factions
Here are some flags I've painted for Gondor and the House of Gilgalad:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/Flag_Gilgalad.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/Flag_Gondor.jpg
D-mn I forgot the Gondor has the Silver Tree as her symbol. Will make a new one.

And here is an unit of Spearmen under the flag of Gilgalad fighting some Cave Trolls:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/Banner_Gilgalad.jpg

Wellington

05-27-2003, 12:03

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 27 2003,05:00)]
So if we draw our own map, we can let people download a complete campaign instead of letting them do alot of extra work?

Drawing our own campaign map would be fine. However, you then have the problem of hosting such a LoTR campaign on a website that can both cater for 45 meg of map downloads. Would the bandwidth be ok? Do people want to download such a huge amount for just 2 campaign maps?

On the web are many potential maps that are generally jpeg's (only 1-3 meg at most). Such maps are no problem to download and if the user has LMM they can use LMM to convert these jpegs into bmp's and then into tga's acceptable for MTW.

One question is resolution Depending on the mapin question the final tga resolutin may look ok or not. That's why I downloaded screenshots and a few closeups to see what the 2 maps on the web looked like in MTW.

Basically if we can create our own LoTR map - that's fine - but presumably it would take time. It's even preferable because whoever draws it can think in terms of LoTR provinces (and the sizes of such - MTW requirements) whilst they are doing it. Alternately, using an existing map is also ok.

Or is the size of LMM processed maps to big for downloads?

LMM accepts maps in several formats - JPG, JPEG, PCX, PNG, BMP but NOT GIF - due to compression algorithm copyrights.

If the map is not BMP then it must convert 1st it to BMP. It then converts to TGA.

However, both BMP and TGA formats require map sizes of 9 meg and 36 meg. Are such maps too big for download? A similar map using JPG format would only be 1-3 meg, but resolution may suffer slightly as a result.

Take your pick. Pro's and con's.

I don't mind drawing a map of Middle Earth, but you'll have to give me some time http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Btw I prefer more the authentic Tolkien look. With the map being drawed on a piece of parchment instead of the coloured stuff.

Sounds great Considering what you've produced so far I have every faith I'll love to see you produce a map - but also don't want the creation of the required unit images to suffer time-wise

Urak_Hai
========

I've now got to the stage where I should be able to upload a provisional new BIF with the current images/actions and a few weapons. I'll upload this BIF to NS website and people can then look at the weapons and decide whats okk or not.

Note: I can't start doing the shield/weapon positioning files properly until the actual look and size of such weapons/shields have been finalised for this unit.

PS: Like the Cave Troll - do we have a set of PCX's (unfinished or not) for these yet, that I can take a look at BIF wise?

Welly

_Martyr_

05-27-2003, 12:14

Quote[/b] (GoldenKnightX2 @ May 26 2003,20:14)]Cant you set it so where dragons destroy buildings instead of earthquakes.
It was already suggested. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

About the copyright, how about finding the creator of the map you like and asking them? There is a good chance they would allow us to use it. After all its not as if we are making a profit from this... If they went to enough bother to create a tolkien map, then they are either:

a) Highly dedicated to Tolkien, and would love to see such a mod that uses their map

or

b) Employed by some company in which case they would want money.

Its a matter of finding a good map with the first type. Or drawing our own.

Because at the end of the day the mod will be very large, I think it would be best to destribute it to gaming mags, such as PCgamer etc.. who would put it on their disks. That would absolutely great, it would be a HUGE hit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif . Also, if we all put in money together, we could buy a domain and some webspace, and create a dedicated site, with high bandwidth, also provide options for dling the mod bit by bit so that peolpe can do it over time.

_Martyr_

05-27-2003, 12:44

An idea for the elven factions:

Create a unit that is very similar to JHI in mtw, they fit the profile almost perfectly to the Elven warriors at the start of the FoTR Film.

Alrowan

05-27-2003, 13:05

ok, i see your point

i tihnk it would be best to provide a map with the campagin, it would make the mod seem so much more genuine. Also, im sure if you eventually ran the entire mod past CA they would support it. First though you would have to get the mod near completion. If you are really lucky you might get the mod published, but thats being hopeful. The mod if successful would probably be the most popular and anticipated of all the MTW mods to date. So id daresay you would have no trouble in getting it hosted, just ask for a site sponser, and im sure theyd be happy, the potentual number of hits for such mod is guarenteed to be quite high

Duke John

05-27-2003, 13:15

Providing a campaign map
40 mb is indeed a bit large. But if we want this mod to be distrubed to a lot of people I don't think we want them to give the burden of running LMM. Perhaps we need to find a site which allows such large downloads.

Let me make a summary:
Provide the map in jpg:
+ Small downloadsize
- Probably lots of people are reserved, because they don't how to handle LMM, even if it's easy to use.

* Solution: Wellington makes a very userfriendly installationprogram that a) installs all the necessary files and b) generates a campaignmap using the jpg images.

Provide the map ready to use:
+ People can download, install and they're ready to go
- Large downloadsize, BUT is this really a problem? The bifs for a single unit are 1mb large, 20 new units equeals 20mb. And we have to add the terrain textures, menu images, unit images. Perhaps going from 40 mb to 80 mb isn't that big of a problem. Although the latter can be downloaded in 2mb packeges from for example 3d downloads.

* Solution: Find/buy a site that allows large bandwith.

Website
After tomorrow I'll have even more time to spend on this mod. I've got plenty of ideas to paint images to be used on the website, such as borders, unit previews (as on totalwar.com) and banners.

Ingame menus
All the menus images are saved in tga or lbm format, these can also be altered to suit LotR mod. I'm looking forward to add for example runic borders, new unit-command-icons and so on.

Because at the end of the day the mod will be very large, I think it would be best to destribute it to gaming mags, such as PCgamer etc.. who would put it on their disks. That would absolutely great, it would be a HUGE hit.
WAKE UP, MARTYR, YOU'RE DREAMING http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Units
I've borrowed a book from the library containing concept art from the first movie. Using that as an inspiration I can make Elven units, banners, Orcs quite detailed.

Elven units will be indeed elite and I will model them after the Elves as seen in the Prologue battle. That will give us Spearelves, Swordelves, Archers and Elves with twohanded swords.

Duke John

NagatsukaShumi

05-27-2003, 13:18

Ok a picture of a simply Mordor map here (Note that geocities is been an ass so try it later)

Mordor (http://martyr.leftzed.com/lotr/images/Mordor.jpg)

I used one of the 180 tile sets so there is little variety as far as textures go, it is only a quick little map I rushed up just so you could see what a very basic Mordor map looked like, easy to make much much better than it is with all the other textures I made.

_Martyr_

05-27-2003, 13:42

Ok, the screen shots are now being hosted on my webspace, it has a very good bandwidth allocation so i dont think it will be a problem anymore. From now on if you have screen shots, send them to me and to NS, he will remote link them to my site, and I will upload em to my web space. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Very nice NS

DJ, I dont think Im dreaming, PC gamer has a huge section of their monthly dvd edition devoted to destributing mods, Im very sure that they would Put lotr on, seeing as MTW was voted their favourite game of 2002. I dont think it would be a problem.

Anyone got any good names we could call our website?

Wellington

05-27-2003, 13:47

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 27 2003,07:15)]Providing a campaign map
40 mb is indeed a bit large. But if we want this mod to be distrubed to a lot of people I don't think we want them to give the burden of running LMM. Perhaps we need to find a site which allows such large downloads.

Let me make a summary:
Provide the map in jpg:
+ Small downloadsize
- Probably lots of people are reserved, because they don't how to handle LMM, even if it's easy to use.

* Solution: Wellington makes a very userfriendly installationprogram that a) installs all the necessary files and b) generates a campaignmap using the jpg images.
Good points. However, were both thinking along exactly the same lines.

What we need is -

a) a map creating or a map usable from the web
b) such a map to be in jpeg format (preferably to avoid huge download sizes)
c) all of the additional files related to such a map that are required specifically for the MTW engine/considerations

LMM is two things. It's A for modders and provides a means of creating all of the stuff required to build/design a new campaign. It's B for mod-recipients (ie the users) who wish to install such a mod that has been already created by other people. The facilities offered required for either of these 2 are quite different.

Many problems have been experienced with several people using LMM in manner A. I don't know anyone who has experienced problems using it in manner B.

A modder who is creating a mod has to understand how LMM works, draw provinces/origins/ports etc on maps and write many parameters files for LMM.
A mod recipient just downloads such parameter files, downloads the jpeg of the map and hits 3 buttons (1st to build the maps, 2nd to build all other MTW required stuff, 3rd to install it all to the MTW directories). A mod recipient changes nothing but uses the files provided by whomever has created the mod.

I can easily create a specific version of LMM just for the LoTR mod recipients, that just has 1 button (lets call this version LMM_LoTR) and does everything. The recipients then just download all the required paramters and the jpeg, and run 1 button to install it all.

I can also create all the parameter stuff required for the LoTR campaign (once a map to use has been decided upon). I then upload all these parameter files to NS website, upload a cut-down version called LMM_LoTR to do the mod recipients parts only and this then makes it easy.

If the map is a jpeg downloadable from the web, the users just download directly from the site (as most maps on the web allow downloads for personal use this breakls no Copyrights).
If the map is created by people from this group - we host the jpeg on NS website - no problems at all.

Finally, I have no intention of expecting LoTR mod recipients to use LMM to build a campaign themselves - no way. They just use a new cut down version, LMM_LoTR, to install the LoTR campaign (even though the install process will do a little 'file building/creation' as a result of parameter files provided with the download).

Welly

Wellington

05-27-2003, 13:48

whoops - hit the button twice

Duke John

05-27-2003, 13:48

Campaign map
Ok then that problem is solved, using your LMM_LotR is much better since it cuts down on size.

Website
Very nice to have such a large bandwith, I was getting tired of deleting my old screenshots since my bandwith of 5mb a day was not enough.

Some names:
Middle Earth Total War

The Lord of the Rings Total War

We-will-never-finish-this-mod Total War

Oh and it would be very cool and a great honour to have our mod baked on a Gamermag CD

Duke John

Wellington

05-27-2003, 14:27

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ May 27 2003,07:48)]We-will-never-finish-this-mod Total War
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

This mod will be finished and available for 2 simple reasons -

1) A LoTR mod, as I've said before, will elicit far more interest/participation/enthusiasm/work than any other mod that has been created or proposed before.
2) All previous LoTR mods, as I've said before, have hit a 'showstopper' whereby the creation of new units THAT ARE SPECIFICALLY FOR A LoTR MOD has been difficult. This major problem has now been solved due to someone who can create such images.

The only way We-will-never-finish-this-mod is if (God forbid&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif you, DJ, are suddenly struck down by lightning and the unit-creation thus dies a death

As this post now sounds like a pep-talk let's see where we are at this point -

1) In little more than a week this LoTR modding group is now well advanced in creating new-units, campaign-maps, battlefield-maps and so on.

2) NS has graciously, and commendably, created a website specifically for this mod that all components can be upload to/downloaded from.

3) The interest generated so far has ensured that all other aspects of creating a LOTR mod will be circumventable by the individuals who crave this mod (people are generally intelligent - they'll work out ways how to do things that none of us have thought of before).

End of speech http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Welly

Duke John

05-27-2003, 14:44

Quote[/b] ]The only way We-will-never-finish-this-mod is if (God forbid you, DJ, are suddenly struck down by lightning and the unit-creation thus dies a death

Duke John felt the corruption of the One Ring surging through its body. He held the ultimate power over this mod. If he would stop, so would the MOD. Oh, yes they will bow for his Might.... And reality returns... d-mn I'm just a guy behind a monitor.. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

But we have indeed some resourcefull people working on this. I fully believe we will finish this and deliver an outstanding product.

Duke John

_Martyr_

05-27-2003, 15:09

Any predictions on how long it will take before we have at least a beta? How many unique units are needed? (by this I mean, uruk hai etc, uruk hai spear men are not, they are the same unit model changed a bit) How many maps? How long do you think before the campaign map is stable and the provences are defined properly? With the people who are now willing to map, I think we could do it in 2 or 3 weeks. The unit and faction descriptions wont take too long, I dont think, have you started on them yet? Tech tree is a matter of days rather than weeks i think. Then there are many many misc tasks that need doing. I think that before the end of June we will have nearly completed it... Any idea how long the unit production will take? I wish I could help, but I dont think theres much I (or anyone else who isnt a master modder) can do.

jeffreyLebowski

05-27-2003, 15:10

since you guys have brought up the issue of bandwith and the mod's final size...have you considered the music? i think we'd all agree that throwing in some tracks from the two towers soundtrack would be a nice touch for both the battles and the campaign map. unfortunately, the mtw engine can't decode mp3s... which means we'd need ridiculously large wav files. i'm not sure, perhaps we could rip the audio from the cd and encode it as lower quality wavs? i'll take a look at this problem... it's a shame we don't have access to the source http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif, or i'd just add in the ability to play mp3 files.

_Martyr_

05-27-2003, 15:20

The problem you run into there is copy right... those movie people will not allow us to rip off their music.

Zawath

05-27-2003, 15:27

www.fileplanet.com hosts pretty much anything. Of course theres those nasty waiting lines but it would be a good start

Duke John

05-27-2003, 16:06

Faction colours
In contrary to the VI expansion the normal MTW game doesn't allow us to adjust the faction colours. So we need say in which colours the different colours are represented. I try to use these colours on the models. Below are the different LotR factions with respectively only the primary colour. The secondary colour is of no importance because they're only used for unit heraldry and we're not using that.

High Elves
French: blue

Rohan
Italy: green

Gondor
Germany: black

Mordor
Poland: dark red

Moria Goblins
England: red

Isengard
Sicily: grey

Release time
1 or 2 models per week, 7 factions, so 5 more weeks or so?

Wellington

05-27-2003, 16:13

Quote[/b] (_Martyr_ @ May 27 2003,09:09)]Any predictions on how long it will take before we have at least a beta? How many unique units are needed? (by this I mean, uruk hai etc, uruk hai spear men are not, they are the same unit model changed a bit) How many maps? How long do you think before the campaign map is stable and the provences are defined properly? With the people who are now willing to map, I think we could do it in 2 or 3 weeks. The unit and faction descriptions wont take too long, I dont think, have you started on them yet? Tech tree is a matter of days rather than weeks i think. Then there are many many misc tasks that need doing. I think that before the end of June we will have nearly completed it... Any idea how long the unit production will take? I wish I could help, but I dont think theres much I (or anyone else who isnt a master modder) can do.
I've sent the provisional plates for Urak_Hai to DJ. These are not finished as they require all of the additional MTW files to go with them (a bit more prgramming required on my part), and DJ is finalising weapons/shields images to be used with such plates.

Just to keep everyone in the loop I'll send NS a PROVISIONAL BIF for Urak_Hai - bearing in mind that the images in this BIF are not usable yet and will require additional files to complete this unit. Also weapons/shields images will be changing. Still, I always think that any visual confirmation of what people are doing is better than nothing - it retains direction/interest.

The final BIF (with all associated files for the units contained in the BIF) will be available when the final images/weapons/files have all been correctly built ...

.. but for now - something to visualise what is "happening"

_Martyr_
========

There is a lot you and other people can do. Forget the idea that "Modding MTW" is an exclusive domain, and very few people can do it. That's rubbish. It's like driving a car - we all have to learn, and then we are constantly changing are ideas/techniques/information regarding what else is on the road Also, we have to adapt our driving skills if we choose to drive a different car

It's no different.

There is no such thing as "master modder". Fortunately this group has people who have a bit of experience in various areas of changing MTW.

If anyone is willing in getting their "hands dirty" in modding MTW for LoTR - you will find a lot of assistance. Think about driving a car - after someone shows you the basic ideas you can take it from there. Are you a perfect driver? Er ... no Will you have accidents? Er ... yes Will you be learning new things all the time ... yes Will you require assistance from others ... yes. Will othgers offer you assistance ... yes Will you work out things that only you are aware of ... ABSOLUTELY

The only consideration is determine an area that you are really interested in ... and then get stuck in

Welly

Rob The Bastard

05-27-2003, 18:43

Ok... I will make a map ( only one for now)...
how many should be built for each location??

Heart of Mirkwood [ Dence Forest. Flat Inland. Capital is Sarn Goriwing]...

I was thinking of a medium sized map with small undulating hills... if I make it too large and the trees too dense you'll never find the enemy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif... occassional clearings and few tracks.

If you have any suggestions ... let me know

_Martyr_

05-27-2003, 18:47

Sounds good, leave a bit of open groung though, after all it is the elves who will fight there, and they rely heavily on archers, so there should definitely be an opertunity to defend themselves using those. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Lotar

05-27-2003, 20:16

Here is an issue that nobodies thought about yet. How are you going to deal with aging leaders. It would be kinda strange to have Elrond, Galadriel, Sauron, or Saruman die of old age. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
I know you can set a princesses birthdate in the future, and make her -2000 years or so. Can you do this with faction leaders?

Rob The Bastard

05-27-2003, 22:37

A question... are the maps compatible with earlier versions of the game??

Currently I do not have VI... should I wait until I have bought VI before starting my map? or will the map work ok with MTW 1.0, 1.1 etc

Alrowan

05-28-2003, 03:06

i tihnk whoever is in harge of the map making sohul assign us map makers a set of maps to complete.. say give us 5 at a time, we make them hand them in for another 5?

Crazed Rabbit

05-28-2003, 03:15

What an AWESOME mod http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Great work on everything guys
I would like to add my humble map making abilities to your team. I am currently working on a map of Helm's Deep. V1.0 should be done in a couple days, and I can email to you if you'd like to see it (when its done). It won't be a polished version, but rather a template for a better version in the future.
I wouldn't be able to make maps very quickly, and I haven't made many so far, but I learn quick.

Crazed Rabbit

Rob The Bastard

05-28-2003, 04:30

Cancel my earlier comment ... picked up VI today... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Obex

05-28-2003, 06:32

Hi everyone,

Great work on the mod so far. The models look great.

OK, i have a suggestion, which i hope is neither too controversial nor previously addressed.

I was reading the posts about the problem with the inability to create permanent good vs. evil alliances, and the inevitable "in the end, there can be only one" faction in domination mode. This actually reminded me of the final battle in The Hobbit, where elves, dwarves, and man met to do war, only to discover the goblin host advancing.

Anyway, i think that you might want to consider adding a dwarven faction as well. Even though the dwarves had no large military contribution in the LOTR, to omit them as a faction in middle earth would be wrong.

To forestall the "if you want dwarves so bad, why dont you make them yourself", i can only say that i lack the skills to do so.

Lotar

05-28-2003, 06:40

I believe that a dorf (I ment dwarf http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif ) faction was already planned.

Duke John

05-28-2003, 10:37

Factions
There will be probably be a Dwarven Faction, but since I'm not that convinced that they will be a balanced army with chances to win I'm not that motivated to start creating models for them.

NagatsukaShumi
The textures for Mordor look pretty good When I tested my units on all the green grass, something felt wrong. But now I saw your screenshot I know what. Keep up the good work

In-game graphics
Here's a possible new logo for the mod:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-5/192738/lotr_logo.jpg

NagatsukaShumi

05-28-2003, 12:15

Yes, the Mordor textures have the downside of been 34.8MB in size, however I'm sure it'd be possible to download the tiles in groups, before however I want to change the water to look even more like lava than it does already (Yes I made sure that Mordor has flowing lava rather than flowing water). The lava looks a bit bright, so I may darken it a bit to give it a move lavary feel. If any one on the team (ONE been the important word) wants the tiles I shal send them to you one by one over the coarse of this week and you can start making maps with the texture set. Note that you need to replace sandy desert textures with the Mordor ones (I decided to wipe over those because I do not recall vast deserts in LOTR and Mordor could never be Mordor if it was grassy or sandy for that matter.)

If anyone feels like taking my example and making some texture tiles then by all means feel free to, I simply used the Colourise option in PSP7 to turn temperate textures to dark grey Mordor textures. I may create a Moria texture set (It too is rock like, more dark than Mordor more likely as you know it is lush fields, rolling deserts or any of the other textures found in Medieval.) A small note, the textures are compatible for V1.0 and 1.1 of MTW and compatible for VI also.

If Wellington or anybody can inform me of what type of program I need to open up building textures I shall make a Mordor Building Texture set, the buildings currently look very odd indeed on the Mordor Texture Set, giving them a darker edge will just make Mordor maps look even more menacing, because, lets face it a bright grey wall in a dary grey landscape does look rather out of place.

As Duke John said there will be a Dwarf faction, you cannot exclude them simply because if you did something would not feel right. If possible I believe we could make a Dwarf unit which wields a large axe and has a few small throwing axes also, making it a projectile and hand to hand unit. I believe Dwarves used that tactic in Middle Earth, but I can't be entirely sure on that.

Now Mordor. Been on the whole tech tree side of things I thought I'd plan Mordor out briefly. Mordor should have the Ring Wraiths as its Kings, so a King would simply be one Mounted Ring Wraith, causing fear and been of extreme power to make up for its lack in numbers. The reasoning behind this is Sauron cannot be the leader of Mordor because he could diue of old age or something dumb like that, so I thought, make the Kings and Heirs Ring Wraiths and make them Saurons representitives on Middle Earth, his puppet leaders if you will, doing as he wishes because of his inability to physically be on Middle Earth.

Now comes the solution of the problem to the whole been able to create these Ring Wraiths (Like any Royal Units). Make it so the player needs a Fortress, the Tower of Barad Dur and a Swordsmith, and I shall make it (Or Cugel) so that it take a long time to create them (Lets say, the years it takes for Sauron to poison their mind and the years of them slipping into darkness).

Now the bulk of their army should be made up of Orcs, however the Orcs need to be in large groups to make up for their lack of real fighting skills. Different types of Orcs wielding different types of weapons should be fine for Mordor really, I cant' recall them having any other kind of specific units other than Ring Wraiths and Orcs, maybe the odd Cave Troll could be theres (Like the ones that open the gates of Mordor).

To the team, if you have Tolkiens Appendices I suggest you read up on them, just to get your knowledge to perfection, I myself have taken to reading The Hobbit, The Simmilarian (sp likely) and the LOTR, as well as watching the Fellowship, just to get my knowledge up to match yours (Having not read the full LOTR book yet).

As for other people, don't think you need to be assigned a place on the team to be able to help out. If you think you can do something for us, don't ask, just do it and then send it to one of us, if it's something different then we shall fit in the MOD and make sure your name comes up on the credits (Yes you can edits the scrolling credits at the end so if someone {DJ?} could make a list of all who have helped?).

Ok I think thats all from me for now.

Nag

_Martyr_

05-28-2003, 12:28

Ok these are the people who have volunteered so far to help create maps:

(me)
Alrowan
NagatsukaShumi
LordMonarch
Rob The Bastard
Crazed Rabbit

Its great all of you guys came forward. So if you have any maps completed send them to me in an email, I will host them, with a link on NS's page so that people can test them.

We will assign everyone with a certain number of maps, I forsee a problem with people only wanting to do the "glamorous" maps such as helms deep etc... I think its great if people put in effort, but we will need to coordinate what maps we make so we dont all make the same map.

_Martyr_

05-28-2003, 12:35

Here is Brother Derfel's list of provences we cant split them among us. Many dont need to be unique, eg. create a tree covered map and we can use it in many places. But certain noteable ones obviously do have to be unique. If you feel things should be changed here we'd be happy with lots of suggestions.

Andrast [Costal Province. Quite Wooded, not Much Open Ground. Only Site of Note is a Ring of Stones. Bit like Stone Henge]

Andrast Coast [Sea Province]

Anduin Vales [Foot Hills. Should Be Hilly/Flat Inland. Framsburg would be capital. ]

Anfalas [Costal. Quite Wooded, Not Much open ground. Edhellond or Lond Gallen would be Capital City]

Angmar [Hill/Mountain. Barren Northern Waste. Angmar would be Capital City]

Anorien [Flat Inland. Wooded Area. Minis Tirith would be Capital City]

Arthedain [Flat Inland. Wooded. Bree would Be Capital City]

Bay of Belfalas [Sea Region]

Belfalas [Flat/Hilly Costal. Heavily wooded. Dol amroth would be Capital City]

Brown Lands [Plains. Stepps Inland. Barren. No Capital City of Note. Bandits make their lairs there.]

Cardolan [Lat/Hilly Inland. Site of the Barrow Downs and The Old Forest. Capital City Tharbad]

Dagorlad [Marsh Land leading to foot Hills. Area contains the Dead Marshes. No Capital City]

Dorwinion [Hilly Inland. Capital City Shrel-kain]

Dunland [Hilly Inland. Are inhabited by the Dunlendings. Capital City is the Dunnish Clan Hold]

Elven Shores [Sea Province]

Enedhwaith [Flat Inland. Wilderness. No Capital City, site of some Ruined signal towers from the old kingdom of men]

Eriadoran Coast [Sea Province]

Fangorn [Dence Forest. Flat Inland. Forest of the Ents. Capital city would be Wellinghall]

Forochel [Cold Iceland to the North. Hilly Inland. Inhabited by the Lossodan, a race of lower men. Capital City would be Lossadan Camp]

Gap of Isen [Hilly/Mountain. Pass through the Mountains. Capital City Isenguard]

Gorgoroth [The Most Evil place in Middle Earth. Flat Waste land, leading to foot hills with One big Mountain. Capital City either Bara-dur (Sauron's Stronghold) or Mount Doom]

Grey Mountain Narrows [Mountainous. Cold Northern. Capital City Gondmaeglom. Here be Dragons]

Gundabad [Hilly/Mountain Northern Waste. Capital is Mount Gundabad.]

Harondor [ Southron Homeland. Desert Costal. Capital City Gobel Mirlond]

Heart of Mirkwood [ Dence Forest. Flat Inland. Capital is Sarn Goriwing]

High Pass [Mountain region, populated by Goblins. Access to goblin Capital through the Goblin Gate.]

Hollin [Flat Hilly Inland. Foothills. Capital is Ost-In-Edhil]

Horse Plains [Stepp Flat Inland. Open plains. Home of the Easterlings. Capital is Easterling Camp]

Imlad Morgul [mountain, Evil, baren and dark. Home of Cirith ungol and the passage where Shelob makes her layer. Capital is minas morgul]

Iron Hills [Mountain/hilly. inhabited by Dwarves. Capital is Iron Hills Dwarf Hold.]

Ithilien [Wilderlands. Flat Inland. Covered in Sparse woodland. Haunted by the rangers of ithillien. Capital is Henneth Annun]

Khand [Home of the Variags, an evil human clan. Desert Flat Inland. Capital is the Variag Camp]

Lamedon [Flat/hilly Inland. capital is the Vale of Erech]

Lebennin [Costal Flat. Inhabited by Men of Gondor. Capital is Pelargir]

Lindon [Costal Flat. The Land beyond the Shire where the Elves travel to leave Middle earth. Capital City is the Grey Havens]

Mouths of the Anduin [Sea Province]

Northern Rhovanion [Flat/Hilly Inland. Region where much of the events of the Hobbit took place. The lake Town is the Capital city. Area also contains the ruins of the town of Dale, and the misty Mountain]

Numeriador [The area where the Dwarves dwell in the West. hilly/Mountain. Capital is the Blue Mountain Dwarf Hold]

Nurn [Deep into Mordor, Inhabited by Orcs and the Nuriags, an evil human clan. Flat Inland Lakes. Capital city is Urlurtsu Nurn]

Old Pukel Gap [Hilly/Mountain. Pukel Men dwell here. Again only noticable feature is a Stone Circe. No capital]

Old Pukel-land [Flat Costal. Heavily Wooded. Pukel Men Dwell Here. Capital City is Geann-a-Lisch]

Redhorn Gate [Hilly/Mountain. Contains the dimrill dale, the entrance to Moria. Capital City is Moria]

Rhudaur [Flat Inland. The region in which the Hidden Valley of Rivendell is Located. Elves live here. Capital city is Rivendell]

Rohan [Flat Inland. Steppe possibly. Land of the Horse Lords. Could be split into East and West March. Capital City would be Edoras. other towns include Dunharrow and Helms Deep]

Southern Mirkwood [Forest. Wild and evil place. Capital is Dol Guldur]

Southern Rhovanion [Flat Inland. Capital is Buhr-Widu]

The Shire [Flat Inland. Land Of the Hobbits. Capital City is Hobbiton, or the actual Capital, whos name I have forgotten]

Udun [Mountain. Capital is Cirith Gorgor]

Western Mirkwood [Forest. Flat Inland. Capital is the Woodmen Town]

Withered Heath [Cold Northern Province. Hilly. Capital is Ulund. Here be Dragons]

Wold & Foothills [Flat Inalnd. Contains the Forest of LothLorien, the Elven realm. Capital City LothLorien]

Woodland Realm [Home of the Elves of Mirkwood. Where legolas' Father thranduil dwells. Capital is Thranduil's Halls]

_Martyr_

05-28-2003, 12:40

In a discussion with NS, I came up with the idea of adding our own sounds to the unit battle sounds, eg. orkish grunts, maybe take sound bits from the film

jeffreyLebowski

05-28-2003, 18:55

here's an interesting question that we've not talked about... are the starting buildings going to acurately reflect the history of the territories in which they're placed? ie... will minas tirinth start as a massive citadel with dozens of buildings and upgrades? it seems like it'd be rather underwhelming to lay siege to the white city only to tear down the wooden palisade and raze the 2 huts located inside. hehehe.

Duke John

05-28-2003, 19:41

Starting provinces
Good point Jeffrey, we indeed do need to build the provinces to reflect them as they are described in the book. We (or Dimeolas) might even make new buildings such as Barad Dur, The Tower of Saruman and so on. The provinces start with these buildings and give much power and unit possibilities. But once they're down, they can never be rebuild, which isn't that weird considering they will take hundreds of years to be build.

I would take this even further. In a previous post someone said that are wastelands and provinces which aren't populated much. I think we might want to stop players from advancing those wastelands to large Citadels with lots of buildings.
Perhaps some people like it to build everything up from the ground, but I think it's a bit unrealistic how everything can be fully developed. Training Elven Archers in Mordor doens't seem to likely. So I suggest the following:

Restrict training elite units to home provinces
Elite units can only be build in the home provinces of a faction. This has four advantages:
1. Players can't create uberpowerfull armies and thus won't be annoyed with less powerfull AI armies.
2. There won't arise the situation where you create Elven units in evil country. Since this mod is in Middle Earth we have to take in consideration the very diverse population.
3. The action won't be centered around pumping lots of units but more about making the best of the resources you have. Note that core units will be available in all provinces.
4. We retain the wasteland/unpopulated feeling of some provinces. As the advanced buildings only provide elite units there is no use in building them. The newly conquered provinces will then have a more outpost use as opposed to a new metropole.

Any opinions on this matter?

Lotar

05-28-2003, 21:06

I think that units should only be able to be made in provinces that would be populated by that race. So if Gondor took control of the Misty Mountains, the player couldn't produce any units from that province, but if Moria took control of that province, it could create orcs, warg riders, trolls, ect
I think every unit should be region and faction specific.
BTW, if you need any help with the unit, building, or the start position files, I'd be willing to help.

NagatsukaShumi

05-28-2003, 21:24

You can easily limit units to certain regions, so Elves can only build in proper provinces etc.

LordMonarch

05-28-2003, 21:35

Hello all, Martyr asked me to get involved in the LotR mod. I know some of the three Elvish tounges (yes I am that sad) and have been involved in a good few of the Starcraft, Warcraft lotr mods and have made my own maps and mods of it. Well, I offer you my services, if you wish.

jeffreyLebowski

05-28-2003, 21:40

i agree with you guys 100%... unit construction should be very faction/region specific. it just doesn't seem right to be recruiting riders of rohan in the misty mountains or some other strange combination. this would also lend some intensity to the struggle to maintain control of your own lands... i mean, it seems to me that if minas tirinth was captured, the gondor faction would be pretty much finished, right?

here's another thought for waayyyyy down the road... it'd be rather nifty if you took aragorn (or whatever heir of isuldir that's currently king of gondor) to the paths of the dead, you would receive a stack of units representing the army of the dead... you could do this only once, and could be used as a last resort, seeing as how you'd have to take your faction leader out of the fray for some time while he travelled there. i dunno, just a brainstorming idea. i'm not sure if it's even feasible given the mtw engine.

btw, i've tried my hand at mapmaking before, and i'm going to start getting back into it. a while back, myself and someone else from the forums (alrowan i think) attemted to pull off a working helm's deep map... however, getting the AI to recognize, understand, and utitilize those unorthodox fortifications is no easy task.

Brother Derfel

05-28-2003, 22:08

Well in my opinion, there should not be an awful lot of building going on if you want to keep it true to the books.
Perhaps if buildings were made very expensive and took a long time to build, that would be more effective?
That way if Humans took control of a new province, after a long time settlements would sping up and eventualy some Militia may be able to be produced there. This would take much longer than it does in MTW when provinces are already populated.
But I agree that for factions like Elves and Dwarves, they are unlikely to colonise new areas so should only be availabe in select areas. Humans and Orcs on the other hand settle swiftly and so should after a while be able to produce bottom of the range troops in new provinces.

cugel

05-29-2003, 01:28

DJ: In order to encourage you to complete an Elven Archer unit I play tested what I think the stats ought to be like and am sending you both the crusader_unit_prod11.txt file and the replay of a test battle so you can see the example. Let me know what you think. We will all need to playtest the units for play balancing over and over. This will probably be the hardest part of the mod to get right. If a unit is too strong or too weak it will unbalance the mod and ruin the experience. Many games fail for this reason (as you probably know). Gamers find out that all you need to do to win is build hordes of one kind of unit and rush over the map. Even worse, if a faction has a hole in it's tech-tree because of a weak unit that doesn't hold up it inevitably fails. That's not good. If anyone else wants to take a look at the unit let me know and I'll send you an e-mail.

(I havnen't bothered to make all the necessary .txt file entries for the new unit yet, since (of course) you haven't created the unit bifs). So, I just used the english longbowmen and modified their stats to match the following unit description:

"Elven Archers (Woodland Elves)"
"More keen-eyed, quick and dexterous than any of mortal race, the woodland elves make formidable archers. Armed with sword and bow these lightly armored elves are able to move and fire with amazing rapidity and they rarely miss their target Like all elves they are tough and fearless in battle."

Once I get the unit bifs, I'll add the necessary entires to deadpage_coordinates.txt, etc, etc. and e-mail them to you.

Notes on this unit:
1. Elven archers will form the backbone of the woodelves army (and a major component of Lorien's and probably some of the Rivendell High Elves as well). This means that they have to be able to fight with spearmen and knights on a relatively equal footing. Thus, they have to be fast enough to run away from the spearmen on skirmish, then turn and fire. They aren't heavily armored, but they do o.k. in melee as you can see from the replay. Remember, they will usually be outnumbered by Orcs, etc., and will be expected to melee, so they need to be much tougher than the average bowmen in MTW.

2. As with all elven units they are elites and have very high morale (being immortal, very tough and quick healing). Though not as elite as the high elves (who basically aren't afraid of anything in the books), woodelves have very high morale and valor bonus.

3. Elven Archers were amazingly skilled and quick (as you remember from the books and movie), but lightly armored. They were very agile and fast, so they should be much faster than ordinary infantry units. To give these guys a chance they should be able to run away from ordinary infantry units, then turn and fire. Only when the enemy has been softened up and their numbers reduced should they melee.

Let me know what you think of their performance. I might have to make them weaker or tougher in melee and possibly have higher accuracy. I modded the projectile txt file entry for longbowmen previously, based upon much experience and comment by other experienced modders in that thread in the dungeon, so accuracy and lethality is already higher than the standard mtw file. The reload while moving, as you can see Legolas do this in the movie.

"Urlurtsu Nurn" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Martyr? Where on (middle) earth did you learn that the capital of Nurnen is Urlurtsu Nurn? Haven't seen that one before in the Encyclopedia of Arda. Live and learn. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

In any case it is one of Sauron's provinces. In addition, "elven shores" are you referring to the elven kingdom of Lindon (provinces of Hithlond and Farlond)?

Plus, what you call "Horse Plains" - isn't that Southern Rhovanion (the region south of Mirkwood, east of Anduin and West of the Sea of Rhun). There is also the province of Rhun further east and Khand, just south of Mordor (and naturally under his thumb).

Crazed Rabbit

05-29-2003, 04:19

Hi again.

I just wanted to say that I will be happy to do all types of maps, not just glamorous ones http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
But Helm's Deep was the first thing that came to mind.
Also, what's your email Martyr?
Keep up the great work everyone

Crazed Rabbit

Alrowan

05-29-2003, 09:42

also, most of my maps arent really designed on a campagin level, as they are landmarks as opposed to landscapes. you will need separate maps for castles of different levels as well as the landscapes. So instead of one minas tirith you will need about 5, each suiting the different build levels

Duke John

05-29-2003, 10:11

*** ATTENTION TO ALL PEOPLE DEDICATED TO THE MOD ***

I've made a forum where we can discuss this mod in a more orderly fashion. As it goes now, everything is hussled and it will be difficult to read or remember where everything is once this mod is a few weeks later.

It needs approval of me, to avoid having people posting on the forum with pointless statements. I/we only want people who are willing to make an effort for this MOD. I've seen too many forums degrade to let everybody in. Since I already put more than 100 hours into this I think I can say this without problems.

Application for dedicated forum. (http://www.network54.com/Hide/Group/24671)

Sorry I made a mistake. The forum below is not entirely public. You can read, but you cannot post. Unless you apply see the above link.

Dedicated LotR MOD forum (http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/181408)

Cheers, Duke John

_Martyr_

05-29-2003, 12:43

Quote[/b] ]Martyr? Where on (middle) earth did you learn that the capital of Nurnen is Urlurtsu Nurn? Haven't seen that one before in the Encyclopedia of Arda. Live and learn.
In any case it is one of Sauron's provinces. In addition, "elven shores" are you referring to the elven kingdom of Lindon (provinces of Hithlond and Farlond)?
Plus, what you call "Horse Plains" - isn't that Southern Rhovanion (the region south of Mirkwood, east of Anduin and West of the Sea of Rhun). There is also the province of Rhun further east and Khand, just south of Mordor (and naturally under his thumb).

Hey, thats not my list, its Brother Derfel's. I just posted the list he had made, nothing to do with me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

My email is chrisdeering@dublin.com

_Martyr_

05-29-2003, 13:43

I updated the website with all current screenshots and a link to the new public forum. Any more content to go up on it, send it to me by email.

Brother Derfel

05-29-2003, 14:36

Quote[/b] (cugel @ May 28 2003,19:28)]"Urlurtsu Nurn" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Martyr? Where on (middle) earth did you learn that the capital of Nurnen is Urlurtsu Nurn? Haven't seen that one before in the Encyclopedia of Arda. Live and learn. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

In any case it is one of Sauron's provinces. In addition, "elven shores" are you referring to the elven kingdom of Lindon (provinces of Hithlond and Farlond)?

Plus, what you call "Horse Plains" - isn't that Southern Rhovanion (the region south of Mirkwood, east of Anduin and West of the Sea of Rhun). There is also the province of Rhun further east and Khand, just south of Mordor (and naturally under his thumb).
http://www.non.com/metw/maps/METWpath.big.gif

That is a version of the Map from which I have taken my provinces, it has the outline of all of them.

Urlurtsu Nurn comes from the old ICE Kuduk law (basicaly a lot of Tolkien based information they invented for their middle Earth role Playing Game and their Middle Earth CCG). I just used it as I could not think of any other Capital of Nurn to use.

Elven Shores is the Sea province off of Lindon (I have used only one province for the kingdom, but two could easily be used Hithlond and Farlond.

Horse Plains is further to the south East of Southern Rhovanion

LordMonarch

05-29-2003, 21:49

Well, I guess I'll put down some of the stuff I did when making LotR for Warcraft and Starcraft.

In Starcraft we had max 7 factions:

so usually: Gondor
Rohan
Elves
Dwarves
Isengard
Mordor
Moria
Harad/Evil Men/Umbar
optional was Eriabor Alliance
(Dunedain Northern, Elrond, Hobbits)
or Fellow ship

Units I had in mine were:

Gondor: All armoured. Slow but powerful with small unit numbers.

Swan Knights of Dol Amroth(dol amroth)
Led by Prince Imrahil. On Horse. Heavy Armoured Knights.

Winged Tower Guards(minis tirith)
Elite guards of Minis Tirith

Gondorian Infantry
Armoured. Sword and Shield.

Gondorian Archer
Armoured. Sword and Bow.

Ranger of Ithilien(ithilien)
Farmir's men. Powerful hidden soldiers.

Knights of the Stars.(osgiliath)
Unmounted. Heavy as hell with decorated spear and shield. etc.

Lotar

05-30-2003, 00:19

I tried to sign up for the forum, but it said that my name was already taken Anyways, how do I apply?
I'm willing to work on unit production, building production, startpos, and the Loc files. I can also make shields and weapons for the bifs if you need help.

Lotar

05-30-2003, 05:38

http://www.geocities.com/lotaroo7nrw/Italy_lge_f1.bmp

This is my idea for Rohan's shield. Like, dislike?
I have a working bif for it, so if people like it, I will finish the set.

MR EGG

05-30-2003, 14:45

Hello DJ what 3d modeler do you use I have 3d studio but I haven't tried it yet, it looks worth trying now. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I_Love_Sherri

05-31-2003, 17:13

Great work guys. Very impressed. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Sherri

_Martyr_

05-31-2003, 22:54

The Mordor Texture pack is now available for download, its the beta version right now, and lava is not yet included, but download it now and try it out. It looks truely awesome IMO, give it a try.

Mordor Textures (http://martyr.leftzed.com/lotr/textures/mordor.rar)

Ps. The concept and much of the work was NS's, he gets all the credit. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Rob The Bastard

06-02-2003, 04:21

A question

Is it posible to edit the items in the map editor to make them larger?

In the building column there is an oak tree, could this be made larger than it is currently?? I would like to use the tree for the Elven part of Mirkwood... but the size of the tree is less than impressive.

Anyone know ??

_Martyr_

06-02-2003, 13:32

As far as I know, yes. Thet are located in the Textures\Trees\ directory in your MTW folder, I havent tried but its worth giving them a try http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

That would be really cool, lorien and mirkwood would look fantastic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

NagatsukaShumi

06-02-2003, 16:29

Yes it is simple, simply resize a previous tree to be larger and voila bigger trees for terrains.

Wellington

06-02-2003, 23:27

Quote[/b] (NagatsukaShumi @ June 02 2003,10:29)]Yes it is simple, simply resize a previous tree to be larger and voila bigger trees for terrains.
NS,

One or two bandwidth questions have cropped up regarding downloading the nessessary files for this LoTR mod from your website. Check out the "Brainsroming" thread at DJ's forum site.

Your input regarding this is crucial, as there will a few files/programs uploaded in the next 2/3 days

Welly

jones21

06-03-2003, 00:27

i just lowndoaded the first unit u made forgot what it was. the unit that was like absyssian guards. the only thing i see is shields and axes thats alls. no bodys.

Rob The Bastard

06-03-2003, 03:01

Quote[/b] ]NagatsukaShumi Posted on June 03 2003,04:29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes it is simple, simply resize a previous tree to be larger and voila bigger trees for terrains.

Quote[/b] ]_Martyr_ Posted on June 03 2003,01:32
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as I know, yes. Thet are located in the Textures\Trees\ directory in your MTW folder, I havent tried but its worth giving them a try

That would be really cool, lorien and mirkwood would look fantastic

Ok... throw this dog a bone...how do you do that???

Pressing F1 hasn't explained if it can be done within the MTW map editor... if I need to download a .lbm file editor can you tell me which one??

Thanks

_Martyr_

06-03-2003, 09:26

Paint shop pro 7 works for me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Once you have it (or any other program that can edit the files) its just a matter of doing a 2 second size changing job and your done http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif You might have to do it a few times before they look about right in Mtw, and dont forget, that if you change it for one map, you change it for all of them, so its best only to change on of the models. Best of luck Rob

_Martyr_

06-03-2003, 13:11

We are going to buy a website for this mod...

Anyone got any good names for one??

Check out www.whois.net before you post to make sure its free. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

max_killer_payne

06-05-2003, 17:48

Well, I know u all probably thought ud managed 2 get rid off me, but im back. After a brief spell of OFP mi back. As some of u may no I expressed a HUGE intrest in the other LOTR mod, I think it was a different one neway. And I really want to download the Uruk Hai, but it always only downloads 16.4kb of the file and says it is done, can ne1 give me an alternative link or be kind enough to send it to me?

_Martyr_

06-05-2003, 22:41

Hi m_k_p,

The development shifted from this thread to this dedicated forum (http://www.network54.com/Forum/181408) about a week ago, but today we are moving it again to a brand new phpbb powered forum that is located here. (http://www.leftzed.com/lotr) Join up and help make this mod

That goes for other people who want to help too, just check out the forum, and sign up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Here is the Uruk Hai unit model that DJ made:
Uruk_Hai.zip (http://martyr.leftzed.com//lotr/units/Uruk_Hai.zip)

Hopefully that one works. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

edit: added uruk hai link

Duke John

06-06-2003, 08:40

Max, if you start posting on the LotR-forum, may I strongly suggest to spend some time making proper posts. The one you just wrote is just lame. If you don't spend the extra minute to write "anyone" instead of "ne1", how must I feel spending hours on the Uruk-Hai unit you just downloaded?

max_killer_payne

06-06-2003, 15:39

Sorry Ur the first person who has ever told me to speak without using shortened words, I usually get told to speak like dis. Chill out,

_Martyr_ thanks 4 the link, but alas It doesnet work, It does the same thing it does when I download it from 3d downloads. Just noticed it is the 3d download link. If you could do me a favour I'd appreciate it, if not don't worry. If you can send the Uruk Hai file to anthony.jenkins@virgin.net

cheers,

max_killer_payne

06-06-2003, 15:46

Sorry Just ignore my last post. I just got the link to work. Thanks _Martyr_

Edit: Just got it. In the readme it says

Medieval Total War\Textures\Men\AbyssinianGuard_W.txt

I didnt get this file, in I only got the NegInf_H.bif and the AbyssianGuard. txt file http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Duke John

06-06-2003, 18:45

Since you made some effort to make your last post readable I will answer your question, although I won't chill because someone thinks writing normally isn't cool these days.

If I remember correctly I wrote in the readme that you should DELETE the Medieval Total War\Textures\Men\AbyssinianGuard_W.txt file.
Since I've animated the unit with weapons stuck to the model you won't need the weapon positioning file.

You welcome, I'm glad you appreciate my efforts to bring you this new unit.

Cheers, Duke John

max_killer_payne

06-06-2003, 19:55

Check your forum messenger. Now.

Emp. Conralius

06-07-2003, 00:22

hhhhhmmmmm... everytime I try to register at the new site of the LOTRs forum, it says "invalid ession"

_Martyr_

06-07-2003, 15:21

Ok...? Ill register you and send you your password by email.

But first ill need your email.

Emp. Conralius

06-07-2003, 15:30

Quote[/b] (_Martyr_ @ June 07 2003,09:21)]Ok...? Ill register you and send you your password by email.

But first ill need your email.
bbenham169@aol.com

Duke John

06-10-2003, 18:24

*** Playtesters and unit-modders wanted ***

The LotR-team is in need of playtesters and unit-modders. This area has been neglected, but here is your chance to influence the greatest mod of all and earn your place in the credits

Follow this link to start making a difference:
Lord of the Rings forum (http://www.leftzed.com/lotr/index.php)

*** Minor update ***
Things are going very well in the graphics department. I've almost finished work on three units for the Isengard faction and unit icons are rolling out the factory. Wellington is doing a great job programming a tool to process my animations.

Emp. Conralius is slowly but surely providing unit descriptions while others tinker about general background things.

EchoAlpha is editing the sounds to give the players of this mod the chance to fully immerse in the world of Middle Earth.

Well, that's enough for now, hope to see you on the forum contributing stats for the mod

Duke John

The Blind King of Bohemia

06-10-2003, 20:53

Any hint on the new Isengard units? I'm following this mod with great interest

Duke John

06-11-2003, 10:41

If you want more information about the Uruk-Hai follow this link:
Isengard faction (http://www.leftzed.com/lotr/viewtopic.php?t=13&sid=436207cade5513e0f1a46c4b770778c5)

From there you browse the other topics. The Rohan faction also has alot of information so be sure to check that one out.

Duke John

06-13-2003, 13:40

I've finished the bifs for the Crossbow, Pike and Sword Uruk-Hai. You can see them in action below. Note that the weapon and shield coordinates still need a revision, but you'll get an idea how it will look like. Have fun
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-6/192738/screenshot_uruk_hai1.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-6/192738/screenshot_uruk_hai2.jpg

Cheers, Duke John

Sir Robin

06-13-2003, 18:40

Wow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

Those do look incredible.

Thanks for helping to make the LOTR mod a reality.

Duke John

06-17-2003, 11:13

To let you guys know we're still working on this mod, here is a screenshot of a testrun of the brandnew the Dismounted Royal Guard I made. Enjoy
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-6/192738/web_battle_rohan_isengard.jpg

_Martyr_

06-17-2003, 14:59

New website is now bought

It will be up and running in the next few days Everything will be centralised there from now on, the forum, the screenshots, the downloads - everything http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

www.metw.net (middle earth total war)

It might will not work till about 12 hours from now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Stormer

06-22-2003, 22:25

very nice, very nice keep up the good work.

TenkiSoratoti

06-22-2003, 23:14

Ooooo does thou challenge the mighty nap mod?
Long live Mordor

Stormer

06-23-2003, 11:51

Well Sora unless a unit equals the mighty Howtzer and the Ranks of British Infantry, me no think so http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

but we'll see, Good luck LOTR team http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Duke John

06-24-2003, 12:55

Tosa just made it possible for Junior members to use custom avatars. If anyone is interested I've made some avatars that you can use freely for this forum, follow the instructions Tosa wrote in the sticky post.

Cave Troll
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_troll.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_troll.gif

Moria Goblin
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_goblin.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_goblin.gif

Orc
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_orc.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_orc.gif

Gondorian Soldier
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_gondor.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_gondor.gif

The Eye of Sauron
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_eye.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_eye.gif

Treebeard
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_treebeard.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_treebeard.gif

Rohan Royal Guard
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_royal.gif
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/other/avatar_royal.gif

Cheers, Duke John

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

06-24-2003, 18:47

keep up the good work

cheers
GPMB

Mechstra

06-24-2003, 18:47

This mod is looking great. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I wish I had one tenth of the ability to create new graphics. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif Hope to see this one when it's finished

_Martyr_

06-24-2003, 20:01

Nice one DJ, I like those a lot http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Right now the forum is down. Im working flat out to restore it, just give me a little while. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

_Martyr_

06-24-2003, 23:49

There... its back up. Stupid php script errors... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

Quote[/b] ]Well Sora unless a unit equals the mighty Howtzer and the Ranks of British Infantry, me no think so

but we'll see, Good luck LOTR team

Id say a unit of Noldorian HI could rip apart your British infantry...

And our cavetrolls will just flatten your puney guns http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

It could be an interesting colaberation effort after we are both finished... LOTR meets NAP http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif Think of the fun.

Hamburglar

06-26-2003, 17:51

Here's just a random idea.

I think Warg Rider units for the Orcs should be designated in the crusader.txt as Camels.

I think they should have a bonus attack and defense against cavalry and also cause fear to them. Why? It seems pretty obvious that a huge snarling wolf will be really biting the horse as the man and the orc in the saddles clash swords. I know horses are a little bigger but size isn't gonna cut it against huge fangs and a thirst for blood.

juuuuuuust my idea.

Also - Orcs are averse to sunlight and such, so maybe make them "camel style" in the sense that they get a bonus in certain terrain. For example, the "desert" of Mordor would give Orcs and advantage because its always dark in Mordor. That's it reallly.

Duke John

06-26-2003, 17:57

Good thinking Hamburglar We will try to incorporate them. Although letting Orcs be affected by terrain is kind of disbalancing for multiplayer games.

Duke John

06-30-2003, 09:31

Here's a screenshot that shows Rohan Fyrdmen and in the back an unit of Javelineers.
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/screenshots/screenshot_battle_rohan_light_infantry.jpg
Archers in action:
http://chronicles.metw.net/images/screenshots/screenshot_battle_rohan_archers.jpg

I continue working steadily on finishing the units of Rohan and Isengard that will be included in the first release. This package will contain historical battles and 21 NEW units

Cheers, Duke John

Stormer

06-30-2003, 10:32

very nice, so when we be able to play the mod.

Duke John

06-30-2003, 20:55

"so when we be able to play the mod."
Follow this link if you want to know how much needs to be done:
Schedule for the first release (http://www.leftzed.com/lotr/viewtopic.php?p=94#94)
Still alot, so I can't see when it's finished since it's all done in spare time.

Cheers, Duke John

Stormer

06-30-2003, 21:16

Duke jhon how longs it take you too do 1 units

do you use shogun bif reader?

Alrowan

07-01-2003, 01:09

looks like the dead men still need editing

_Martyr_

07-01-2003, 02:00

Didnt you hear? Saruman's fighting Uruk Hai are well known for turning a bright shade of yellow after they are killed in battle http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Alrowan are you still interested in doing a few maps? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Duke John

07-01-2003, 08:14

"Duke jhon how longs it take you too do 1 units"
That depends on. I've made a system of processing humanoid units and after I've done the shield and weaponpositioning then it will go quick; 2 days per BIF. But Wargriders will take much longer as they have different anatomy.
Wellington has made a program for this project that I can use to process rendering images so that a BIF is created. We're still having some problems with that but it greatly speeds up.

"looks like the dead men still need editing"
I know, that image will be adjusted once all the units are done.

Stormer

07-01-2003, 12:13

intresting, i tryed making a couple of units but i havent got the patience to paint about 20 diff actions on 12 frames.

drives me mad.

Duke John

07-01-2003, 17:40

Me neither and that's why I don't paint them on the frames by hand http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif I make 3D models for each unit which I then animate and render. The output are simple PCX images. These are then processed by Wellingtons program and voila we have a new unit.

kataphraktoi

07-03-2003, 06:15

What 3d programs did u use to make the new units?

Stormer

07-03-2003, 09:37

so duke john all your really doing is making 1 model of the unit and painting it.

or are you painting it 12 times but 3d style. so u can spin around it.

Stormer

07-03-2003, 20:03

nice

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

07-03-2003, 20:06

Thanx stormer
I still need to edit the start position a bit...
Regards
GPMB

Stormer

07-03-2003, 21:48

Some Scenery would be nice maybe an odd tree? its looks very plain, But the castles great.

Razor1952

07-03-2003, 22:06

I've been reading with great interest you guys progress on LOTR,

Your new maps look great , how about a few dead trees? or a small foul river?

NagatsukaShumi

07-03-2003, 22:25

Hey Stormer,

In an answer to the tree question, it is impossible for him to add a tree, I did turn the tree's grey as well but they looked very odd so I decided to leave them alone. The Mordor tileset I created for the maps you see only have editted tiles rather than trees/buildings also. Sorry but tree's were too difficult to do with what I had, unfortunately MTW screen captures rarely do the picture justice, they look impressive as they are but trust me the Mordor tileset is much more impressive in game without the blurring of screen capture, good never the less.

Stormer

07-03-2003, 23:19

Hey NagatsukaShumi,

looking at it i can imagine grey trees they would look silly, but i think i know whats missing, Larva http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif maybe a couple of volcanos would look good on the badie lands http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif i think thats mordor http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif but i love the way you have made that castle its really good, castles are the hardest thing to make on maps and you've constructed it very nice. Well done LORT team, keep it up.

_Martyr_

07-03-2003, 23:40

once again... way ahead of you.

The blue water has already been changed to lava, the texture pack GreasePaintMonkeyBrains used is the old out of date one, that hasnt been updated yet (I think). In the next few days i will make the update. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

PS. NS, have you done anything about the sky yet?

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

07-04-2003, 01:22

Community,

Thanx for the comments Nagatsuka is right ingame look
alot better.also i would really like to have the lava update when you release it.Im not offically part of the team ....but
i will continue to help out in any way i can http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

p.s. ill have this map availible for dl in a couple of days.
regards
GPMB

Duke John

07-04-2003, 07:47

Im not offically part of the team ....but
i will continue to help out in any way i can
There is no such thing as being officially a team member. If you're interested in making the LotR mod, come visit the Developers forum (http://www.leftzed.com/lotr/) and start discussing mapmaking. Once you start participating you're part of our little group. Hope to see you there soon

Duke John

NagatsukaShumi

07-04-2003, 13:54

So far the Sky hasn't been touched, finding the right colour is difficult i don't know whether to go with a dark blackish sky or a dark orange or red sky....my Medieval screwing up doesn't help either (I cannot test anything in battles because it won't load them for some stupid reason.)

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

07-04-2003, 18:42

heres my map with many revisions http://publish.hometown.aol.com/bigcatdaddyg/myhomepage/00000022.gif
http://publish.hometown.aol.com/saggwg/myhomepage/00000024.gif
the pictures really fuzzy sorry:(
regards
GPMB

_Martyr_

07-04-2003, 19:10

NICE... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I like the sky, what exactly did you do? (or is that just mist or clouds in the first pic?) It seems there is a special mist effect in play too or is that just the normal in game mist?

If you like, you can send me the modded files and I will host them as part of the mordor texture package. Seriously, come and join up in the dev forum, the link is in my sig. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

NagatsukaShumi

07-04-2003, 19:56

Nah that sky effect is a sandstorm which as you know blocks out the sky, hence the blue sky in other pictures, as for the sky, that "problem" is now under healing.

GoldenKnightX2

07-04-2003, 20:06

man that is good

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

07-04-2003, 20:30

I have registered today with the LOTR Mod Forum and i look
forward to working with you guys some more. i will post my
new mordor map later on ...tonight approx 9 hours from now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Regards
GPMB

_Martyr_

07-04-2003, 21:12

Your account is activated now...

(double post from other forum)

Ive just begun working on the sky files. Here is an idea of what Im doing, its just a sample though and the quality is low right now.
http://www.metw.net/images/mordor_sky_alpha1.jpg

GreasePaintMonkeyBrains

07-05-2003, 08:23

Here is the new map http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Im going out to town and i wont be back for two weeks
so.....post your questions and i will fix any bugs on the new map when i return.

Regards
GPMBBarad Dur.zip (http://www.3ddownloads.com/strategy-gaming/totalwar/MTW/Maps/Barad_Dur1.zip)

NagatsukaShumi

07-05-2003, 13:06

Ok problems with the sky on my front. They screw up big time, its white swirls on a blue background...it looks...wierd.

_Martyr_

07-06-2003, 00:53

Reached the same dead end... I had worked on a nice set of images, based on the one above, spent a few hours getting them right, and then i tried them out... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif Typical http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Its a bit like an acid trip I suppose, all colourful and rainbowish.

It seemsmtw will not function properly if the palette is altered for those image files. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Alrowan

07-06-2003, 05:58

looking good again, i cant wait till you guys bother to put the mettw.net site up

Duke John

07-06-2003, 09:35

Wohoo we got a sticky http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

The site is something we're working on, but we're devoting much of our time into modding at the time. The first release will be soon; I've completed almost all the units. You will probably be able to play with Isengard and Rohan within 2 weeks.

Cheers, Duke John

NagatsukaShumi

07-06-2003, 13:13

Ok since I'm deciding to put the MOD into VI format I decided I'd spruce up the main menu a bit..........but to my horror after an hour and a halfs work, it didn't work Some of it is spruced up and CAN be used in the V1.1 also, I thought I'd show my little babies off here to see if everyone else wants to use them, if not then thats ok I'll simply use them on mine and get to work on more core issues then making it look fancy.

Preview (http://www.geocities.com/mtwturks//Preview.html)

NOTE-These aren't finished, I wouldn't make a set of skins that leave out a logo, they are bases, they are for the V1.1 also as they work on both, making it work on VI is a small part it is not a seperate MOD at all.

Emp. Conralius

07-08-2003, 23:16

The progress of the mod is moving along very well. Duke John is aiming to release the 1st Beta of the mod in about 2 to 3 weeks. But a lot still needs to be done.

I can't make this any clearer: THERE IS NO OFFICIAL TEAM IF YOU CAN HELP IN ANYWAY, IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED

The first Beta will focus on the conflict between Rohan and Isengard. These are what we're working on now:

Battles

Historical Campaigns

Campaign Title
- Description
- Army compisitions
- Maps

Historical Battles
- Description
- Army compisitions
- Maps

Isengard

Names
Generals

Units

Uruk-Hai Warriors
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Pike Uruk-Hai
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Crossbow Uruk-Hai
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Berserker
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Warg Rider
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Warg Archer
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Wildmen of Dunland
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohan

Names
Generals

Units

Riders of Rohan
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohan Horse Archer
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohirrim Fyrdmen
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Horse Lords
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohirrim Mounted Javelineers
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohan Royal Guard
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Warriors of Rohan
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohan Archer
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohirrim Fyrdmen
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Foot Horse Lords
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohirrim Javelineers
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats

Rohan Foot Royal Guard
- Unit model
- Unit animations
- Unit bif
- Unit Icon
- Weapon and shield coordinates
- Unit stats