That's a very interesting thread and I agree with you: although Arnor will remain a map-feature, the faction gotta get it's own identity. I mean of course Arnor and Gondor must have a lot of connections between their gameplays, but in the same time I believe Arnor could use more uniqueness.
Paragraph per paragraph, here's what I think:
-- "In my opinions, Arnor is just like a "ancient Gondor" which represents the Dunedain kingdom in the early stage of 3rd age. Compared to Gondor, Arnor still keep closer relationship with elves, have stronger individual units(purer Numenorean blood) and preserve more ancient technologies and artifacts(maybe reduce the cost of some upgrades and some power concerning the Numenorean artifacts).
However, it also suffers from the the decay of economy and population, which should limit their income and command points available."
~> Very fitting analysis. Additionally, I believe Arnor is also a very mixed faction which gathers Arthedain soldiers, Gondor aid, Dunedain, Elves from Rivendell and Lindon, Bree, The Shire and The Old Forest. I think the faction should change towards that mixing of units coming either from the main base, settlements, outposts or the spell tree.
- "As for the hero roles, I always think Eärnur should return as the hero killer with unit support aspect since he is the perfect counterpart of Aragorn for Gondor. He should even be a candidate for ring heroes as Arvedui(What if one of these two hold the ring and reunit the two Dunedain kingdoms) The final power of Arnor should be something more powerful, maybe summon the three founder of Arnor and Gondor."
~> These two are both nice ideas. I like the fact that Arvedui/Earnur could reunite the two kingdoms by getting the ring.
-- "The three related eliven heroes: Glorfindel, Cirdan and Elrond's role should be reconsidered. Cirdan is OK for now as a support hero for early game, Glorfindel is not very approachable (I am never big fan for make heroes only recruitable from fortress). Elrond should definitely play a role in Arnor's faction due to the history. Gandalf, as well as all other Istari is not very suitable for Arnor, because they basically do nothing during the history of Arnor, including their war with Angmar and the final downfall of north kingdom(I always thought Valar didn't care about the destiny of Arnor at all)."
~> Here's where I respectfully disagree with you.
First, I would rather see all Elves in the Spell Tree as a 15 PP spell summoning a great army with Cirdan and his fighters, Glorfindel and his Windriders and Elrond with Rivendell soldiers. In addition, Gondor would take place in outposts: I'm thinking about something special featuring both Gondor and Arnor soldiers in one outpost but I've no real idea at the moment. I think this is necessary because currently the Lindon Tower makes me think too much about the Rivendell faction and such a great building should be unique.
Secondly, I'm satisfied with Gandalf even though he didn't really stand in the history of Arnor; he makes a fine hero and ring hero.
-- "Another potential feature for Arnor is to give them the system of Beacon as well, which could summon reinforcement from elives, Gondor and other free people to save the north kingdom."
~> I also disagree: such system is perfectly implemented in the game in my opinion and must remain unique.
Ultimately, you surely noticed that I mentioned Bree earlier. As I said: I think Arnor should change towards a kind of an Eriador faction and Bree is an important part of Eriador, plus it is not in the game yet and I don't see any other suitable faction. It could be implemented as a settlement building (design: former Inn from the vanilla game but arker), being both a resource and prodution building. I'm not too sure about what units would fit or not.
Thema: More thoughts for Arnor (Gelesen 2757 mal)