Printable View
So, I noticed that the KOD Thread was becoming more and more infected by talk about the gameplay in the mod, and less about kod and things related to that so I open these two topics, one about the Campaign and one about the Battles, Here you can ask questions, discuss your views of what you want and so on. We will try to answer your questions as much as we can. Have fun:)
/Andreas
So, I will start this off by addressing, and copying, some questions and responses from the KOD topic that didn't fit there(something I intended to do yesterday...).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is there a possibility to add false dragons to spawn once in time as rebels? (4th Dimension)
Yes it is though they'd just be rebels... No special flag or anything (Myrddraal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will the Shadow feature and/or be playable in the Early Era, or are you concentrating on the interaction between the human nations? (Antagonist)
The Shadow will be featured in both eras (Andreas)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which year does the first era start? (4th Dimension)
As for when the early era will start, we do not have a absolute number for that yet, but it might be somewhere around 100 years before the aiel war. The late will start with the fall of cairhien. (Andreas)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a thought, would it be possible to script the emergance of a Malkieri Horde, with the sole purpose of fighting the Shadow? (Wigferth Ironwall)
We have talked about making The Golden Crane a playable faction in the late era. (Andreas)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a clarification, I can repeat the fact that we will have two eras, one pre-Rand and one with Rand. The difference will be in which factions (the early will have all the nations, the aiel, the shadow, Malkier and the sea folk) and the late will remove the nations of the Sea Folk, Mayene, Tear, Cairhien and the Aiel and add Seanchan, People of the Dragon, the Golden Crane, the Prophet and the Shaido Aiel. There will also be channeling troops in the late era and some other modifications regarding units.
I have a couple of questions about territories. The biggest difference, and I mean the biggest, that I can find between Barbarian Invasion and Rome Total War is money $$$$$$$$. In Rome Total War, money was tight, but I could earn enough through keeping trade routes open and through taxes.
I really don't like Barbarian Invasion because I always run out of money. I am not sure if the decrease in the number of provinces is the cause or if when the expansion came out, they reduced the number of tradeable items or the income gained from trading. Maybe they did both. Also, I don't remember having ancillaries that gave me so many penalties to collecting taxes in Rome Total War as I get in Barbarian Invasion. It seems that every one of my generals, no matter which faction I play, ends up with -30 to -50 % tax penalties from ancillaries.
The nations in the Wheel of Time, even the smaller ones, seem to be fielding armies near 100,000 men. While the stronger nations seem to be able to support well over 100,000 men with no problem.
I hope this won't be an issue in The Wheel of Time: Total War. What have you done to test that each faction has an appropriate amount of money, and more importantly, money earning potential?
Changing the subject slightly...When the Aiel left the 3 fold land in The Fires of Heaven, each clan brought about 40,000+ spears to the "wetlands" implying they have even more than this because they would have left some men at home. With 12 clans, they had well over 500,000 men that were capable of going on campaign. I've heard that you plan for the Aiel to only have 4 territories. Are they going to be super rich? They should be in my opinion. Each one of those 4 territories represents the same production power as Andor, for example, from a militaristic point of view. If you'll remember, Andor can only field about 130,000+ men, and many of those will be new recruits and poorly trained. All of the Aiel are highly trained and experienced. What are your plans for the Aiel territories?
Is there any particular reason you chose only 4 territories for the Aiel instead of sub-dividing their lands?
cdaulepp
P.S. New_Name at wotmania.com updated his/her map today.
I don't know if the armies are that numerous. The combined forces of the West in the Aiel War were about 130,000 I think, and the Aiel numbered less than 100,000. There was also mention of 5,000 men being a sizable force in the days just before Rand. I think it was brought up when Elayne was talking to her advisors.
I agree with GrayHuntr, your numbers are way to big.
In the books (that i recall) the only people to get armies regularly over 100,000 are Rand and the Seanchan.
All four borderland counties have a cumulative army of 200,000 or so. Rounding off figure each brought 50,000 armsman. Figuring they left at least 1/3 of their men at home, thats about 67,000 or so soldiers from each borderland country.
Illian under Sammael most likely got over 100,000 but from that tone in the books he was grabbing every man he could.
Speaking of Sammael how are the forsaken going to be used in this game?
I'm getting those numbers from the wotmania.com FAQ about the Military Forces of the Mainland. The FAQ is here: http://www.wotmania.com/faqtopic.asp?ID=107
The people at wotmania.com research that stuff a lot. Also, there's some guy/gal there named "New_Name" who is the ultimate poster when it comes to that type of stuff. He/She has a map with all of the armies on it, and there are a lot of nations with more than 100K men. I was just repeating what the FAQ says and what New Name said. I figured they knew their stuff.
cdaulepp
i believe aiel forces minus the Shaido are more like 400,000. When the borderlander countries brought troops it says they left enough to defend the blight which means basically they brought the excess, also in the borderlands much like the waste any man can pick up a weapon and fight. I think the Aiel should have a trait for their generals providing skills at governing it seems they have a very intricate and strong leadership base. Most of their forces to start should be hordes, and if the aiel land's are conquered no aiel troops should be able to be trained I dont believe any aiel would fight for a wetlander other than Rand. In the Aiel it says many times in the books that, that was only a few clans and a few societies far from the true strength of the Aiel. That wotmania site is bogus on numbers we talked about this in some other thread.
Those numbers may be right after the Aiel War and when Rand starts to take power.
But it says many times (In the books and the Big White Book) that pre-Aiel War armies were much smaller. 5K was an enormous army back then.
Well, the last part will have to wait for betatesting, but I can tell you that the numbers of possibilities to trade will be more numerous then in the vanilla game, but also keeping large armies will be more expensive then in the normal game, and you will ahve to plan what you build. (You income form farming will for example be lower if you choose to produce loads of troops in a settlement...). We do this for a higher reality (the soldiers in WoT get a fair payment) and to avoid people stacking large armies everywhere, ehich is not very realistic.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdaulepp
And IIRC, we do not have alot of traits and ancillaries with negatives for tax income.
The layout of the provinces are not absolutes, but as for why we ATM has only 4 aiel regions is to make it harder for the person playing aiel, since the aiel has advantage in the fact that they can produce much better troops at much lower city levels then anyone else, troops not taking has high wage as normal troops. We also want to prevent the person playing the aiel from producing a large army in just a few years and then overrun the "wetlands". But the number might change.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdaulepp
------
As for army numbers, I would say most nations field as many troops they can ATM in the books, because of civil wars, rebellions, seanchan threats, conflict about the dragon and so on, and I would say most field more then 100K, except the smallest nations. Also, since a lot of troops are tied to other forces then their native (the prophet, Rand, the Tower Guards, Seanchan and the Shadow), I would say the large part of the rand worlds men is in some kind of army. This was not the case before the Dragon of course, where most nations probably only had a core of soldiers, the elites and border patrols, as many countries has today (for example my native sweden, which has only a small number of paid soldiers, but in case of war could gather a pretty large force).
I want to add... I had written a much longer post, but my browser crashed before I could post:/
It's true that the Aiel only brought 90,000 men or so with them in the Aiel War but remember that only FOUR clans, one-third of the total, crossed the Dragonwall. In Fires of Heaven I think it said that Rand's combined strength, the 11 Aiel clans following him plus the armies of Mayene, Tear and Cairhien are approaching the half-million mark.
The Borderlanders left behind enough men to face anything save the Trolloc Wars come again (big hint for what happens in Book 12, but there you go). I'd guess that the 200,000 men in the army represents no less than one-third of their total strength but possibly one-half.
Andor's combined military strength between all the houses would be about 200,000 men according to Knife of Dreams. However, the quality of some of these troops would be lacking. Andor is the largest and most populous Westland nation, so no individual nation should have more troops than Andor. However, I'm guessing Cairhien, Illian and Tarabon would not be far behind (although Cairhien is fairly ravaged by war), with Tear and Arad Doman just behind them. The Borderland nations are difficult to guesstimate, as are Amadicia and Altara (Altara would probably be pretty big if it was unified). Ghealdan and Murandy have the smallest armies from the look of things.
The Wotmania FAQ is pretty interesting but I don't think it has been updated to reflect the events of Knife of Dreams yet. The army size given for Arad Doman (the proper army plus the Dragonsworn, minus what now appears to be Rand's forces, would not far behind Andor in numbers) would indicate that the 'total mobilisation' numbers for the nations are far larger than what has been thought of previously. Previous wars, notably the Whitecloak War, were not 'total mobilisation' conflicts, but were instead fought with small, professional, mobile armies. For standing armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands, you have to go back to Artur Hawkwing's time.
The Big White Book is uncertain on the number of Aiel men that crossed the Dragonwall during the Aiel War. On page 123, it says that the Alliance of Wetlander Nations totalled 170,000 men. Then it says that some reports put the Aiel numbers at twice that. Other reports, more reliable, put the Aiel numbers around 100,000 . Later reports, from the Aiel, say they had 70,000 spears. So there's no way to know for sure how many men the Aiel brought across.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werthead
Where in Fires of Heven does it say that Rand's Aiel plus all of his wetlander nations combined equals half a million men? A quote or chapter would be good.
In Lord of Chaos we do see how many men 5 clans of Aiel can field.
LoC - Chapter 4 - A Sense of Humor - "Then let us go to Illian now,” Jheran said. “Forget these wetlanders, Rand al’Thor. Already there are nearly two hundred thousand spears gathered here. We can destroy the Illianers before Weiramon Saniago and Semaradrid Maravin can be halfway there.”
Rand sent 5 clans to the Illian border. Those 5 clans have more than 200,000 men. So each clan consists of about 40,000+ men on this side of the Waste. We also see the same consistency of 40,000+ men from the Shaido.
aCoS - Prologue - "They faced a few dozen Aes Sedai, a few hundred wetlander soldiers, yet with the more than forty thousand algai’d’siswai they had insisted on, they still wanted their screens of scouts and their spears in reserve as if they faced other Aiel or a wetlander army. "
So we see that each clan has brought 40,000+ men across the dragonwall. The real number for each clan is probably closer to 50,000 but the battle at the walls of Cairhien took its toll on some of their men before we got an accurate count. Notice each clan still has over 40,000 after they have had big battles and suffered losses from the bleakness.
I agree with most of this. Illian and Tear can field about the same amount though. They haven't been able to kill each other off yet. I agree with you about Ghealdan, Altara, and Murandy having the smallest armies. However, we don't know how large an army Tarabon or Arad Doman can field, only that they are about equal because they constantly fight over almoth plain (similar to how Tear and Illian always fight) yet they haven't killed each other off yet. However, I believe that Arad Doman and Tarabon can field almost 200,000 men each. Let me explain...Quote:
Originally Posted by Werthead
At the end of KoD, General Galgan gives us a quote that 350,000 men is probably all of Arad Doman's strength (see Remember the Old Saying), but a portion of this is Rand's army that he sent by gateway to Arad Doman. So one of the two armies fighting the Seanchan is Arad Doman's army. If the southern army is Arad Doman's that is 150,000 men plus Ituralde's 20,000 men. That would mena Arad Doman could field 170,000 men. If it happens that the northern army is Arad Doman's, and the southern army is Rand's, then Arad Doman has 200,000 men in the field. Either way, Arad Doman can field at least 170,000 men. They could probably field more if Graendal didn't have Bandar Eban in a mess and if she didn't have them fighting before Ituralde united them together. So Arad Doman can field around 200,000 men. Likewise, Tarabon should be able to field this many as well.
It was updated back in November with the information from Knife of Dreams. And New_Name has been checking them on their facts and I've noticed several corrections thanks to him/her.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werthead
I agree with you that the previous line of thought has to be revised because we're seeing several nations raising armies in the hundreds of thousands. I'll concede the point that those are probably total mobilization numbers and not necessarily "trained soldiers".
Remember armies are expensive, remember all the stuff about Elayne and Egwen complaining about the expensive of about maybe 20000-50000 men. Since we have seen bankers in a new spring it is probably understandable that countries still have to take on some loans for that number. Also even if it is feudalism it doesnt mean there are bigger armies. Quite the opistite. It sounds that in somelands there is a millitary culter (real world example: lords knights ect in the middle ages) thus limiting there rucuritment pool. There are only three non boarder non aeil nations that allowed "peasents into the army that we know about, seachen illien and andor. Standing armies only came back into favor in the real world after the thirty years war so it seems unlikly they were used in WoT much. War plunged nations into massive debt and i dont think there is too much of a difference here
My number for Arad Doman incorporated the Dragonsworn, who aren't trained soldiers but have been fighting on and off for about two years, so aren't wet-behind-the-ears levies either. But yes, a lot of nations could probably reach the 200,000-level incorporating the levies. Andor's army is probably limited by the size of the nation. Summoning levies from the far west of the nation would take some time so they're probably left out of military calculations. If they could be brought into play, Andor's military would be even bigger in size.
What's interesting about WoT is that the tech level, particularly the military tech, seems stuck at about 13th-14th C. level, when armies generally tended to account for 1% of the population, whilst the sociology and general cultural level of the society seems to be rooted more in the 17th-19th C., when armies were moving towards the 10% size that was commonplace by the First and Second World War. Mind you, since we don't have population numbers for the nations either, this isn't much help.
I think you answered your own question there (btw, the half-million thing came from me adding together the very figures you quote, I don't think Rand actually came out and said "half a million" troops). If 5 clans = 200,000 men, then 10 clans = 400,000, plus the 11th clan, the Cairhienin, Tairens and Mayeners (and now add into the mix the Illianers as well). Rand's total military strength at the end of KoD must be well in excess of half a million, not counting Andor and Ghealdan which have agreed to ally with him and the CoL and Borderlanders who seem to be heading for his side as well. Rand's forces are large enough to send a large army of Arad Doman, maintain a large army in Illian (no doubt so he can crush the Seanchan from two sides if they reject his peace proposals) and have reasonable peacekeeping forces behind the lines in Tear and Cairhien.
Once Seanchan joins up Rand will have an army somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5-2 million troops, which is insanely huge. Possibly many more than that if Tuon and Mat can bring the Seanchan continent into play prior to the Last Battle and Shara joins up, which I don't think will happen in the time remaining. Not to mention the 7,000+ channellers he'll be able to call on (1,000 Aes Sedai, 500 Asha'man, 2,500 Kin, 1,000 damane, 2,000 Wise Ones if the Shaido numbers of Wise Ones can be applied to every clan).
Of course, if the Shadow has 50 million Trollocs to call on, than that levels the playing field.
The Aiel numbers west of the Dragonwall seem to be less than 100,000. The Aiel themselves stated this figure, so I don't see any contradiction. The western lords spread the lie that they were 'massively outnumbered' because they were either incompetent and believed it, or because they wanted to better reflect their own glory.
Yeah, I think RJ doesn't explain how those numbers got so high in such a short period of time. It seems soldiers are paid fairly well, but in the early books it seemed as if the world were on the brink of starvation from the DO affecting the weather. And it's odd that a desert as harsh as the Waste can support nearly as many soldiers as the wetlands.
It's because every Aiel is a solider. In wetlander nations only what did he say 1% are soliders. Aiel do not need to soport their army, they ARE that army
I have some more questions.
1) Families played a huge part of RTW for all factions, how do they work in the MOD, and do they work differntly for each faction?
2) women- do they just mary into the family and have kids like in RTW or are they usable?
3) Children- since you are slowing the time of each turn down, do characters still marry and have children that become usable?
Example: Say my Faction Leader (Rand, Tylin, Tenobia, whoever) will they over the course of the game marry and have children? Or do random nobleman just appear in my list when i start losing my leaders.
Since we cannot do very much with the families, they work the same in most accounts. On the other hand, playing with different nations will produce family memebers with some what different skills from other nations, since we have a lot of planned ancillaries to make them reflect impressions from the books(militarian borderlanders, touchy domani, sneaky cairhiens and so on)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Sivart
Since we cannot change them, they will work the same... Except for Aes Sedai, where the women will be family. I would have loved to give them a larger part, but well that cannot be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Sivart
They will marry, get children, and age in the same way they do in vanilla.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Sivart
And this old question of yours (sorry I missed it...):
As generals of the shadow, with skills in the areas they master.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Sivart
What about andor will the throne be passed down through the female line?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andreas
Ah yes, could you implemend trait "Does not belive in Trolocs/Shadowspawn" that they get if they never fight Troloc, and by not doing so they get -1 or -2 Comand when fighting Shadow.
And I soppouse speaches will be the same as in vanila game?
[QUOTE=Andreas
They will marry, get children, and age in the same way they do in vanilla.
[/QUOTE]
:2thumbsup: That simplifies things.
The time of the turns is what i'm worried about mostly though. I believe the game is going to be ?4? turns a year right?
EX:So assuming My King/chief/forsaken/Dragon gets married, and has a kid , the kid matures at 18. thats 72 turns before he's usable. Thats a loooooooong time to go without my King dying.
I suppose for Andor what they could do is label the family head "First Prince of the Sword", that would make whoever his wife is queen right? Since queens don't lead battles anyway...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashton
Well Andor queens do have a tradition of throwing themselfs in the thick of the battle.
I for one might have more to discuss about the campaign Map if we had some more screenshots. If someone would email me the map, I could host the images. I don't mind taking shots of the entire map and hosting them. Then we'd have a lot more to talk about I think. Alternatively, Andreas or whoever could put up some more shots. I want some more screenshots.
cdaulepp
Ме тоо
@ Andor: The line will be male, because of code restrictions. Tar Valon will be the only country with female heritage.
@ the turns: Well, you will have to watch your king not dying. Potect him, and he will surive. A king shold not be on the field anyway.
@ Campaing map: We can not send the map to someone who isn't a team member, and we do not want to release he entire look of it yet since it is not finnished. Actualy, we work with it ATM so any posts would be out of date soon enough. Tell me what you want to see, and I can give you posts if that area is anywhere near a final look.
I want to see Murandy, Tear, Cairhien, and the Aiel Waste (especially the waste)Quote:
Originally Posted by Andreas
Ok, I will look at what i can do... What is it you want to see with the waste? IIRC(it was a while since I looked in the area:)), it looks only like a... waste... We haven't placed any items, or wonders, on the map yet so ruhedain isn't there....
I'd like to see Cairhien.
Ok:Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonR.
Murandy
Aiel Waste
Cairhien
Pretty cool. Although I thought the big cities of Murandy where Lugard, Inishlin and Midea, not 'Mindia'? Midea is mentioned several times as being in competition with Lugard, so that would suggest it was the second-biggest city in the country.
Otherwise, pretty cool. What is the deal with the map at the moment though? Is that the map as it will appear in the game or is the plan still to 'blow it up' (zoom in) more? And how do you edit the map? Is there a map editor on the RTW CD or something (had a look around but couldn't see anything).
If you can't make the line female for Andor because of code restrictions, how can you do it for Tar Valon?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andreas
Sounds odd to me...
They probably won't get maried, and will live usual AS lifes of about 200-300 years.
Well you can either have male or female members, not both.
I suppose it's done by editing the possible names of Tar Valons family members and replacing them with female names. And then you replace every picture of a family member with a womans picture.
Otherwise you would get a bald guy named Elayne Victor, or Nynaeve the Mad, or Siuan the Infantryman, or something like that...
The plan is to blow it up(it is done right now, actually), and you edit it with a photo editor, like Photoshop. Pretty hard work, a lot of pictures to edit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werthead
And that is just a spelling mistake, easy to fix.
@ Heritage: It's a matter of cultural restrictions. All factions in one culture shares the same info pics, diplomatic responses, city look and so on and we did want Tar Valon to have unique diplomatic responses, city looks and so on and had to give them there own culture. We could not do this with Andor, since there wasn't enough cultures for that. And we cannot grant AS longer life....
So Aes Sedai are going to age normally + Marry and have kids?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andreas
yesQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord Sivart
And if one dies of old age, you can just assume she was poisoned or something. After all, these are turbulent times, and I don't think they are planning on having the game run for over 200 years.
Yes but still.
60 years old AS is by A mesures still a werry green AS.
Is there some cheat code to make sure your generals don't die of old age?
Or you could always say that it was the day they were elected to the hall of the tower instead of them turning 16. And then say that there children are there elected successors... or something like that.
even that won't work. But we'r contzent with what we have.
There is a certain mod for RTW called Client Kingdoms witch I think could be added to the WoT:TW.
For an example, when you conquer Sparta from greece, if you keep them happy and keep an governor in it, you may get an offer to recruit a small greek army.
It would be great if you added it to your mod, so Seanchan would be able to have altaran levies, and when PotD conquer Illian they would have Illianer troops...
Download it, if you want, to see how it works...
We have planned a system like that from the begining, so you will see our version of it in the mod.Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonR.
Great, can't wait.
SO the campaign map is almost finished right??
Yay guys I can't wait!
No it's not yet finished as I know.
That is right, we only have the basic features done. We work with it tohugh.Quote:
Originally Posted by 4th Dimension
Just picked up this question form a topic further down:
Yes, the blight will be several provinces, as it is the number will be four.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynx321
And yes again, as for human countries this troops will be very unproductive, and hard to hold. ATM, we have not planned to make the blight draw back, and that would mean that for balance it would have to expand as well, and that would have been very hard to do, if possible.
Just out of interest, do you think it would be possable, to do this by a similar method as the controled seasons. i.e snow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andreas
Thanks for answering me Andreas:2thumbsup:
It all sounds good.
No, I do not think it is possible to change the visiual apperance from turn to turn except as with the winter/summer. Not 100% on that, but it seems unlikely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashton
Thanks Andreas I was just curious, I also came to the conclusion that this would not help any way as the normal>snow shift is on the same land tiles each time, therefore it would not help showing an expansion of the blight.
Exactly, it is just an image file that controls that.
I was wondering, could you make academies improve trade for PotD, 'cause of the steam wagons that were invented in Cairhien...
That would be an easy thing to do. I will consider it when I do buildings... Something I do right now.
Will the Stone of Tear be a wonder? I dont know if its possible but it could grant a defensive bonus or something?
Also would it be possible to make watchtowers garrisonable that would be pretty cool like the border towers in shienar in EOTW and would be fun to play on the battle map.
You could just put watchtowers next to forts to represent that.
Some possible wonders could be the Tower of Ghenji, Whitebridge, the Stone of Tear, and those big statue sa'angreal. But if you are using BI, I don't know if you can implement Wonder effects.
about something to represent the expansion of the blight, could farms be used since a province with farms looks differnt to a province without. would it be possible to script provinces to aquire a farm building at a certain date?
How large is the campaign map going to be (in regions.tga pixels, please). How many cities? How much water? How dense are the cities going to be in spacing? Will movement points be altered? Any custom tiles?
As it now, it will be 355x250. We have more cities then the vanilla game, but not much more. The distances will be greater, then make the game more tactical. The water is probably exactly as much as it must be. Don't think we will alter movmentpoints much, though there will be some talents that will change it. (travellin, skimming, portal stones and so on). And there will be alot of custom stuff on the map, I think.
As for wonders, we gotta have them give something resonable, not just give them a bonus to make them wonders. In that case, they will just be items without effects.
The problem there is that there's only one texture for farms. So you can't have a special 'blight' farm, you'd have to change the texture for all farming...Quote:
about something to represent the expansion of the blight, could farms be used since a province with farms looks differnt to a province without. would it be possible to script provinces to aquire a farm building at a certain date?
Why would u need to use farm textures for the blight? Just use the desert textures. The expansion of the blight would cause the areas around it to become more barren and desolate, there'd be no farms left.
We were thinking about the possiblility of having a special 'farm' building for the shadow called 'blight' which would expand the blight. When a farm is built, you'll notice that the farm texture is overlayed over that province in the campaign map.
However, there is only one texture for farms, so editing that texture would make all farms cause blight.
Yeah, i think u should use desert textures and can u script it to expand every so many years but not too often? So can i join the team?