Blue Lotus: Total War

[ramareddy]

Hoggy,

For the Japanese factions, Battle Field Ninja have vote. I'm not sure how Ghurkas will be different, but ninjas are a must. Maybe the japanese factions can have better assassins because they're ninjas? Also, the Yumis that Japanese Archers will use weren't used for volleys I don't think. From what I understand the arrow was released without any angle up or down, parallel to the ground. Maybe the Japanese Archers can have worse range then most archers, but be very accurate and armor penetrating.

Go with the fantasy map.

I'm curious to know if that "Mantra" ability can be given to Indian missile units. We should think of some more special abilities for each faction. I'm sure breaking from RTW special abilities will be refreshing.

[Ferocious_Imbecile]

If the Tibetans are factored in how would that faction work? Is it possible to have a pacifist faction in any Total War game? Could they raise any kind of real miltary force beyond some kind of spies or police type agents and diplomats to be used solely upon the strategy map?

[SingeDebile]

I finely had to get an account here just give you some ideas. Ive been following your progress for sometime now but i couldnt take it. Great job on the mod thus far, you can only hope activision notices you.

Here is my idea. Since your dealing with the supernatural and even the human units are super-human. I figured you could play with the speeds of the units. Ie one type of demon might be really fast, imagine this haord swiftly runinig through a field. Of course you would balence this by say making them tire easily or making them otherwise weak (you could even compliment it with a cool sound effect).

The same goes for unit combat animations. Some of the super strong units that are fewer in number but higher in skill could be represented by exicuting their combat moves with equal speed and grace. Probobly killing one other unit per hit (of course there are say 10:1 so he wouldnt be overpowerd).

Going along this direction you could have a demon unit type that Never tires. Maybe they are slow and expensive but they are tough and quite simply never tire.

Basically I believe that by "playing" with these attributes (someone who kills with almost every hit or someone who blocks almost every hit), and the speed of animations or movement would Greatly Help give a fantastical feel to playing the game. GL
-Yann Schutter

[Zafer]

If the Tibetans are factored in how would that faction work? Is it possible to have a pacifist faction in any Total War game? Could they raise any kind of real miltary force beyond some kind of spies or police type agents and diplomats to be used solely upon the strategy map?

Heh, the Tibetans had an empire too. The notion of of Tibetans being pacifist by nature is very much a Hollywood stereotype. Their empire collapsed in 842. And as recent as 1975 the last CIA-funded Tibetan guerilla bases in northern Nepal were shut down. Believe it or not Tibetans also have a small community of Tibetan Muslims, given official patronage by the 5th Dalai Llama in the 17th century. Anyways

I still think a Turco-Mongol faction is essential in this game, as much if not more an Indian faction.

Uygur Khanate 745-840 AD


Another map showing the Uygur Khanate, Turfan Empire (in red lines), Yellow Uygur Empire (when Uygurs became predominantly Muslim, Buddhist Uygurs were then referred to as "Yellow Uygurs". So the Yellow Uygur Empire is Buddhist). And lastly the Kara-Kitai, another Turkic people who converted to Islam at around 1000 AD.

Most Turkic factions converted to Islam at around 740-1000 AD, I can give you information on their original pagan religion if you wish.

The empire of choice among these to include in Blue Lotus would probably be, in my opinion, the Gök Türk (Tujue) Empire.

[ramareddy]

I still think a Turco-Mongol faction is essential in this game, as much if not more an Indian faction.
-Zafer

See, I have to disagree. I think the problem with most ancient/ medeival strategy games is that they COMPLETELY leave out any visage of an Indian influence. South Asian empires are not as well known as others, but that doesn't mean they did nothing, or were uninfluential beyond South Asia. These countries are vastly underrated and under appreciated. Not to mention, in context to the game, India has a much longer history of written folk-lore and myths when compared to pastoralist steppe peoples.

[Meneldil]

Mongols are just as important as indians.
Both of them will be in game, so what's the point ?

[hoggy]

Firstly apologies for slow movement recently, a lot is being done just that a lot of it is behind the scenes nitty gritty stuff. The new patch requires some implimentation for starters. Blindfaithnogod is currently dealing with that and implimenting the current units amongst other things. justmeandthedog is currently writing something to speed up the input of names in the project and Sykotyk Rampage is doing some fantastic demon portraits amongst other things.

Marshal Murat - plague sounds good, not sure if it can be coded though

ramaready - we wont have battlefield ninjas but japanese factions spys may look like ninjas and may possibly add them later as mercenaries

Ferocious_Imbecile - tibettans won't be having their own faction but will be available to chinese factions or as mercenaries

SingeDebile - unfortunately unit speed is tied to the animation speed so it might prove to be too big a job but might be worth a look.

Indians are in as a full faction and Mongols as a mini faction (ie less unit types not smaller)

[Big_John]

problem with plague is that it kills peopel in the cities, so unless you could unbind recruitment from city population, a permanent plague in all demon cities would be bad for their army.. maybe you can give the demons a building that counteracts the plague growth hit? make sure the AI builds it immediately though..

[Paul Peru]

Indians are in as a full faction and Mongols as a mini faction (ie less unit types not smaller)

Oh, please! Can't we have ferocious Mongol Midget Maidens biting demon knees off?

On a more serious note:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=43291

The number of factions is hard-coded, and so are the mappings to the culture types and the behaviour of Roman factions as a group

Were you aware of this? Will Roman, Barbarian, Carthaginian, Greek, Egyptian and Eastern be adaptable to BL's needs?
Luckily Carthaginians are portrayed as quite demonic in RTW