Blue Lotus: Total War

[Big_John]

ha that water buffalo chariot is awesome!
love the expresion on the camel's face..

personally, i think a map based on the real globe adds a lot of personality and atmosphere to the game. i don't see a problem with having different starting difficulties btwn factions either, that's the way it should be (e.g. if i want more of a challenge i can play as korea). tweaking the sizes and start pos., as you said, will be sufficient. meh, make a poll if you can't decide.

i like that you moved japan south, but by connecting it to korea, it seems like you're automatically setting up war btwn two. seems like throwing out the baby with the bathwater to me. i think if you make japan big enough, make hokkaido a rebel province, make taiwan bigger (and rebel), this would give the japanese an option to attack china too. all of this depends on how you deal witht he navies anyway, though.

anyway, it doesn't seem like you're in a rush, so you'll figure it out in time

[Turin]

I like the new map too!

Just remember to be liberal with those impassable mountain ranges, they make for good strategic play.

If you stick with the new map, you might have to keep the Japanese as one faction and split the Chinese into three, just to make the starting territories fair. Otherwise you'd have to make the Chinese territories desolate or somehting else to compensate for the advantage in landmass.

Love the new Chinese cavalry units! Only suggestion: Manchurian Horse Archer. They aren't Mongols and are really quite closely related to the Chinese.

Again, if you are going to stick with the new map, it'd be a good idea not to leave Korea as an independent faction, they would be impossible to play. Put them on the side of the Japanese and separate Japan from the mainland by a very narrow straight.

Just a few friendly suggestions!

[the tokai]

hm what if you take the map from page 8 and merge all the islands together into one big continent? that way you will have a big continent with a sea in the middle. when you do this it is possible to get anywhere on the map over land (except for the monk island) but over sea it goes a lot quicker. so naval power isn't a necessety but it can be very usefull. it's kinda like with the map from vanilla RTW, you've got the mediterranean sea in the middle but you can get anywhere over land.

[ptolemy]

dude this looks so kool keep up the good work. keep me updated plz. how do u do stuff like that anyway?

[Big_John]

i second almost everything the wise turin suggests

but, i hope a better solution to the koreans (than making them unplayable) is found

[vlad 1]

lol- why demons in russland
may be better comrades woriers ,red guards,

[Saranalos]

Hey with all this discussion about what map to use wouldent it be best to use two maps(I heard it was possible) and one campaign could use the original map and the other a new one that way everyones happy.

[DragoonXXIV]

Firstly, amazing job with the Chinese calvary. Also now that i think about it, the easiest solution of Korea & Japan would be to displace Korea into Manchuria, that way they will contest Kamchatka with the Demons and Mongols, and they won't be completely surrounded or be a natrual enemy of anyone. Also i think it's rather impossible to fit 3 factions on Japan, however 2 will easily do, one in the north, and one in the south with a some islands kinda like the Julii and Scipii in R:TW. Also i don't think the Chinese factions should be united, they already have plently of places to expand in, best to give them borders. Finally I think it would be cool for there to a be single (possibly heavily forested) pass through the Himilayas.

Turin: Actually the Chinese did use Mongols as elite troops in the later dynasties. They were called banner troops and served as quick response forces to combat the constant ethnic rebellions that plagued later chinese history.

[TigerVX]

I love your concept art. But one problem with the Buffalo Chariots. I'm doing the Easterlings for FA:TW, and I caught a hitch when making the Wain Riders. Apparently you can have no more then 4 riders on a chariot otherwise the game crashes when you load up =(. However, you can use it as ana Elephant mount whihc can have far more riders, and integrate the buffalo into the animation and model for the chariot which might.

I also like the new map better. It gives the game that kinda Tolkienish feel, like these great wars could have actually happened, how the Demons could have actually existed at one time. You might want to modify it though, since Japan doesn't have a clear path to the Demon armies without invading Mongolia or China. And seeing as how you made the Japanese and Demons first, I thought the Japanese and the Demon armies would be the first to battle.

[Ferocious_Imbecile]

So now that you've decided to do India, can we expect a Khymer faction too? Imagine the temples with their huge scupted faces...

[Lonely Soldier]

I reckon the entirely fantasy map has many superior elements over the more standard option. It adds a certain unique quality that I think would be missing from the more realist version of the map. Perhaps if you used your original concept with a few minor alterations: making the Japanese islands more like their real world counter parts for example. I just think that if we wanted a real world Asia we would just play someone elses mod.

Keep up the good work Hoggy!

Lonely Soldier

[hoggy]

Here is an updated rough version of the map with some alterations. It’s worth mentioning if we use this map that current, modern day borders will only be loosely followed and most region names will be different or only reminiscent of modern names. The map is it’s own world or prehistory where tectonic plates have shifted and distorted the landmasses. The red lines are just faction borders not region borders, each faction will have a handful of regions.

On the gameplay side for any map, the monks are separate and non playable as they will be where rome is and essentially a very defensive faction. The focus of the game should be on the continent with the Monks to fall last. The purpose of the game is still world domination so the Demons are not your only enemy just the immediate aggressive threat. Areas not inhabited by known factions will have factions using a standard army set (not set yet) with some special units and also roaming rebel armies allowing for expansion

TigerVX - cheers wasn't sure if they'd work, I'll have a look when I come to them. Any news on large scale units like Olog-hai?

Saranlos -2 maps would just be too much work really. It'll be hard enough getting one working well.

Vlad - sorry, I really didn't want to put the demons in russia but they had to go somewhere

[Al Khalifah]

I feel the 'real' map is better than the fantasy one. It gives it a bit more sense of realism and helps to build each factions individual personality. A few volcanoes in the more damned realms would add something - more mountains and snow and general doom related terrain.

My suggestion would be to use a real map but feel free to morph it quite a bit and add plenty of fantasy features to further each civilisations personality. Remember that most of these factions had no real idea what their lands truly looked like anyway (no consistent measurement units or surveys) and even if they did they didn't really know what their neighbours lands looked like by comparrison (if you look at an older map of a large area it will be very distorted).

So, why not keep the basic shapes but alter the sizes. Make Japan a lot longer - someone suggested connecting it to the mainland twice with a sea in the middle.

Edit: thanks for posting while I was typing hoggy - making me look all foolish.