Like I said in the mod-status thread, I am going forward with light pre-production. Part of that is the design of the mod. I've used up 2 five-subject notebooks with my various notes and ideas for the mod, as well as questions I wish to ask the community on what can be done... just a few things I've decided on.

* Darth Battle AI will be used. It is quite simply the best AI mod out there, bar none, and the focus on Knights in the world of Krynn necessitates his cavalry charges.

* 4 years per turn if possible and practical. Ansalon is a relatively small continent, roughly 3/4 the size of Europe alone. Time scale must be slowed in order to not allow armies to travel the breadth of the continent on a single turn.

* The Solamnic Empire and The Knights of Solamnia will be separate factions that start with an alliance and trespass rights. The Solamnic Empire, based in Palanthas, will use the standard family tree system, while the Knights of Solamnia will be a Teutonic style military order.

* National religions will simply be based on the three pantheons... the Pantheon of Light, Shadow, and Darkness. Factions who maintain a strong standing with the pantheon of light (i.e. 90+ percent of population worshipping Light, high chivalry, little dread among generals) will receive Knights of the Crown units from the Solamnic Knighthood. Dark factions will receive the same boon from the Knights of Neraka. Factions of both light and shadow may receive units from the Legion of Steel if their chivalry is high enough.

* Wizards and sorcerers will not be trainable except by elves. Other factions may hire them as high cost mercenaries. The units will have artillery-like abilities that are highly potent but yield little ammo.

* I honestly do not know how I will handle Priests, Mystics, and Clerists. There doesn't seem to be a mechanism for healing, but we'll see what the more intelligent scripters in the community can pull off.

* Each of the Goblin and Ogre nations will have a different focus. Lemish will be mostly Hobgoblins and Goblins (strong skirmishers and light infantry), Throtl will mostly Goblins (skirmishers), Blode and Kern will focus on Ogres (strong heavy infantry).

* I am going to try to make every nation as utterly unique as possible. Solamnia will be similar to France in composition, while Neraka will mirror HRE a bit more... but I want to take it a step further and have slight but notable adjustments to particular units. Knights of the Crown, for instance, will have slightly different strengths than Knights of the Lily.

* The Tower of the High Clerist will be a permanent fortress, not a settlement.

* Minotaurs and the Empire of Ergoth will have a noticeably superior navy than other factions.

* Qualinesti vs. Silvanesti... the Silvanesti will be more magic based, while Qualinesti will focus on their archers.

* Dwarves- slow but immensely tough heavy infantry with superior crossbow technology for support. Pony riders are a possibility for the Neidar, but the Hylar will have no cavalry. Klar "berzerkers", Theiwar sorcerers and very cheap aghar (peasants) will add flavor to the army.

* It doesn't look like the Ice Folk or Thanoi are going to make it even in a final release, simply because their homeland is apparently impossible to represent on the map with reasonable accuracy.

* Thank god for Kingdoms, it looks like it'll be possible to make the landscape of Noordmaar accurate.

* I don't have the expertise to create custom cities/battle maps, so I don't expect I'll have an accurate High Clerist Tower or Sanction, unfortunately.

I'll add to this as more becomes concrete.