34 replies to this topic

[CrazyThumbs]

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I don't know how hard it would be to actually pull off, though. Has any other computer war game every done this sort of thing? This may be a dumb question, I know pretty much nothing about programming.

0ad is doing this. And a few games have had random looks for some buildings, the AoK houses and hovels in stronghold come to mind.

[Beren IV]

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And they were fighting during the daytime, so they can't have been Stone-Trolls.

Unless, of course, Melkor had some equivalent to Sauron's Olog-hai, which seems likely.

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I agree that it was pretty difficult for evil forces to act independently of Morgoth in the First Age, at least in the Beleriand and Eriador areas where TLA concentrates.

That depends on what you mean by independence, but yes. I suspect that there were evil peoples, even Orcs, who did not fly Morgoth's banners, or to whom Morgoth didn't closely control or give specific orders, but were nonetheless among His servants and worshippers.

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I'm not sure old white-haired Mortals really be in an army.

That depends on what the army is supposed to represent. If the troops are trained and professional soldiers, then no, they should all be reasonably young, except maybe for their officers. If the troops are peasant militia scrounged up to defend Helm's Deep, then yes, absolutely, Gamling has white hair.

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I don't know much about pre-industrial army uniforms and armor and suchlike.

They were usually pretty variable, at least in medieval times. They weren't even armed with the same kind of weapon, often. Most soldiers were responsible for providing their own equipment, and no two blacksmiths forged alike in any case. Soldiers absolutely shouldn't look the same.

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But with some forces (I'm thinking the Haladin especially) you could even have an even mix of male and female warriors.

This has been discussed before, and I think that female warriors should be fairly common in a lot more than just the Haladin, actually. Certainly the Sindar belong on that list, and probably the Noldor and maybe the Dwarves, too. Most of the development team are "purist" enough not to like it, though.

Honestly, though, would you be able to tell make and female warriors apart? You and I both mentioned boys too young to have beards, and I would presume there are also boys too young for their voices to drop as well. Many ancient peoples wore long hair, and all of them are probably wearing enough armor (a good suit of leather is enough) to prevent it from being obvious that the females have breasts. I have proposed that the best solution to the army sex ratio problem is just to have some figures be sufficiently androgenous that they might be female, but also might not. Not everybody needs to be hairy (unless they're Dwarves - but then, we've also brought up bearded Dwarven ladies, haven't we? ).

Female logistics personell, however, they should be obvious, because they won't be wearing armor - and they should be common (maybe even more than half!), even among the Gondorrim or the Haradrim, just as they were in real medieval armies.



But yes, 0 A. D. is doing it, and we're going to get their game engine, so that means all we will need to do is re-skin and we can do it, too.

[CrazyThumbs]

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This has been discussed before, and I think that female warriors should be fairly common in a lot more than just the Haladin, actually. Certainly the Sindar belong on that list, and probably the Noldor and maybe the Dwarves, too. Most of the development team are "purist" enough not to like it, though.

Female warriors werent that common, sure there were a few, but its really not that importan to the game if you cant tell the difference.

[Beren IV]

Well, define "common".

The percentage of female fighters in the SCA is about 10%, rough estimate. The SCA is not totally without sexual stereotypes, but it's pretty egalitarian in terms of what encouragement one gets, so that's probably not far off what the sex ratio of a human army would be if there were no cultural baggage associated therewith. Elves are less sexually dimorphic than Humans, so I would imagine the percentage for them to be higher, although there is no telling how much.

10% is what I would call "common": frequent enough that finding that a particular warrior is female is in no way surprising, but still not anywhere near half.

[Enarwaen]

questions ... questions ... questions that need answering ...

sorry for the long delay - but i was away on honeymoon for three weeks and didn't have proper time to answer all the questions you've posted in here. i will remedy the situation beginning now ... stick around!

CrazyThumbs said:

What will the weapon switches be? Sword and bow, or a different combination, and is it player or AI controlled, or both?

that will depend on the unit - a warrior unit will most likely be able to switch between a spear and a sword/axe combination. an archer will be able to switch between bow and sword or any other melee-weapon. the unit system that is in place within the engine already will let us be quite flexible when it comes to unit types (keep in mind our prop randomization feature as well).
about AI controlled - that remains to be decided - currently it's all manuall - but that can change further down the road.

CrazyThumbs said:

And are company fomrations still in, one of my favorite features in the game.

of course

Rinion said:

It would be interesting to include all of the Orc subtypes: Goblins, Snaga, Uruk, Uruk-hai and so forth. That would add a nice variety to the gameplay.

there *will* be different kinds of Orks available ...

Deacon Raptor said:

True, but I'd like to see a "Wild Orcs" race - Orcs out from Sauron/Saruman's thumb. For example the Orcs in the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit, I already mentioned. I seriously doubt they were under anyone's control.

currently we are working exclusively on the First Age - although you can picture a more or less independent Ork faction that flees the destruction of Beleriand and ends up in the northern reaches of the Misty Mountains and begins to pester both the Dwarves from Mt. Gundabad and the Northmen (akin to the House of Hador) who reside in northern reaches of the Vale of Anduin. Although those Orks would later again be under Sauron's thumb as he overran Eriador in SA 1695 ff and used them to close down any passes over the Misty Mountains. But in the first half of the Second Age they would be pretty much independent. I can already picture some nice campaigns and scenarios for that *ahem*

Ellen said:

Are you going to have the wolfrider units work the way Night Elf cavalry works in WC III, where the animal and rider are separate units that you couple together during play? Wargs I think could exist as independent units, they are intelligent (or semi-intelligent) after all. Would it be possible to make the randomised appearance of the warg, and of the orc, carry over into the combined appearance of the wolfrider unit? Likewise, would individual warriors/archers/whoevers retain their randomised appearances when grouped together into groups or companies? That would be cool.

yes we are planning to use that type of unit behaviour. and yes - there will be 'stand alone wargs' - although don't pester me about mounting/dismounting - that's something that hasn't been decided upon. and yes of course - wargs will also have their random appearance - same goes for horses and other ingame fauna.

more later ...

[Rinion]

Ooh! A post!
The Warg-Orc coupling idea sounds good.

[rohirwine]

Rinion, on Aug 3 2006, 07:50 PM, said:

The Warg-Orc coupling idea sounds good.

It sounds also quite Tolkien, doesn't it?

Jokes apart: next civ over the surgeon table are those from Dwarves. Expect some news starting from the end of September (there is a bit of delay due vacation time, wich slows down contacts and discussion among staff members)

Stay tuned

[Rinion]

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It sounds also quite Tolkien, doesn't it?

Oh, of course an Orc riding a Warg is Tolkienesque. I was referring to the dismount ability.

[Mithrandil]

Medieval: Total War 2 is doing it more or less.

[Deacon_Raptor]

Wc3 also has it where Night Elf archers can mount/dismount Hippogryphs.

[Tathar]

the warg/orc coupling thing would be cool. and carry over random appearance that sounds really cool, I've played the few other Tolkien rts and will this will be the "BEST"

Yay TLA

i will don the ring and rule middle-earth

[Beren IV]

For an RTS, I don't see how TLA can be anything other than the best, once it's finally done. But you can argue vs TBS.

[Radagast]

Unless you count Age of Wonders as a tolkien TBS, what games are there out there?

[Beren IV]

None that I am aware of. There are RPGs set in Middle Earth, and any number of mods for other games, but no official releases.

You could play Dominions in Middle Earth, or use a Middle Earth map, at least... although the nations in Dominions as well as the basic concept are both quite different from Tolkien.

[rohirwine]

There have been numerous mods for various versions of Civilization (wich is a turn based game and not a real time one, btw), some were of quite decent graphical detail (for the time), but now dust cover their Bytes...