The Hyborian Age - Total War

[Gurkhal]

Great work. Although I'd like to ask about one thing:

Dedicated to Ymir, the Frost-Giant of Nordic mythology,

would it not be more sensible to simply name Ymir the patron of the Aesir and Vanir? Do they (Vanir and Aesir) even have any other gods except Ymir?

[Taranaich]

No others are mentioned, but there's no reason to assume Ymir's the only one. I will be taking the absence of evidence = evidence of absence approach though, unless I find another Nordic god in the books. Perhaps "Ymir the Frost Giant, god of the Aesir and Vanir" or something.

[Gurkhal]

I think Ymir is mentioned as the patron of the Aesir and Vanir peoples in the story "The Frost Giant's Daughter". He is also called the Father of Giants, if memory serves.

[ninjahboy]

wow looking really good so far keep up the good work! Will there be new voice acting or will it just have default sounds :P

[Taranaich]

I'll generally be keeping as close to Howard as possible on the mod, and because there is so much conflicting stuff in the pastiches (sometimes conflicting with Howard too) I'd prefer to fill in the gaps with my own stuff drawn from Howard's design, though I will use pastiche references if there is no clash with Howard (such as city and region names).

Hopefully there will be some voice acting (it wouldn't do to have the Cimmerians praise God or St Andrew now would it?) as well as the usual fluff like new loading screens. I'm also making some new opening movies: nothing spectacular, mostly montages of units and scenes with some suitable excerpt of Howard's writings as narration.

Work hasn't begun on the in-game map yet, I'm going to try and finish the skins and icons before the map, since that's what I'm most familiar with.

Anyway, here's the first civilized kingdom, Hyperborea!


The Hyperboreans are very mysterious, with very little mentioned of them in Howard's writings. All that is known is that their warriors are tall, big-boned, gaunt, slow of speech and with violent temperaments, and that their castles are of an awesome scale. I've based them on the Russians, since the land is geographically close, and a few tidbits left here and there, plus the proximity of the Aesir, Kozaks and Hyrkanians (Vikings, Cossacks and Mongols) means they can have an interesting and diverse range of units.


Militia
Like the more advanced Hyborian kingdoms, Hyperborea relies on its peasants for the more mundane duties such as garrisons and patrols.


Having been born in the harsh northern wastes, Hyperborean peasants are hardier than other Hyborian peasants, made strong through a life of toiling frozen fields and herding horses. They wield strong work axes used for a variety of purposes, but suitable for relieving enemies of their heads.


Raiders
After the overthrow of Hyperborea the Elder's ruling classes by a group of roving Aesir, Hyperborea adopted a strong Nordic influence, especially in the upper class warriors. These warriors are the descendents of those Aesir invaders, ironically now defending Hyperborea from outside invasions.


Spearmen
Like all Hyborians, the infantry of Hyperborea's army consists of poorly armed and low-morale spearmen to protect their archers and offer a defense against cavalry. They may not be ideal spearmen, but their large shields offer them more protection than their southern brethren, adopted after attack from both Hyrkanian arrows and Aesir axes.


Knights
Apart from Aquilonia, all the Hyborian kingdoms have a great gap in quality between infantry and cavalry. Hyperborea is no different, their heavily-armed and disciplined knights are far more effective than their barely adequate infantry apart from the Raiders. They start off in classic Nordic-style armour, but the very elite units can afford lamellar armour which offers protection against arrows and heavy weaponry equally, and some even wear plate.

I expect I might get a bit of flak over Hyperborea from those folk who liked DeCamp and co's White Hand Hyperboreans with their sorcerers and purple alien dudes, but after a discussion I had with other Howard enthusiasts I decided a more realistic approach would be best. Besides, it's not as if Hyperborea will be boring: because of their position they'll have a good variety of barbarian-style heavy axemen and Hyrkanian-style horse archers as well as classic Hyborian armies. Let's leave the sorcery to Stygia and Zamora, having too many sorcerous kingdoms would lessen the impact of sorcery in mod, which is meant to be earth-shattering and change the course of a game.

[Gurkhal]

Once again magnificent. I can't wait to start playing this mod.

[Bwian]

No reason why you shouldn't take a bit of licence with the source material. In actual fact, a significant amount of the published material was either edited or finished off by others after Howard left it undone. The actual true, genuine work is fairly small.

As long as it fits the mood, and doesn't jar with the existing Mythos, then go for it!

[Dimeola]

check out www.reality.com for the mail hyborian war game. The website besides rules and signups has a good map and links to some fan sites with troop types etc.
What about add some undead foot to Hyperborea?

[GrimFinger]

Ack, it won't let me post a URL, until after I have posted one posting. So, please forgive.