I was going to make a post about this, I'm glad someone already did start it, and is supporting the idea. But I have a different concept for it, which I would like to present here:
-DISCLAIMER- This whole proposal and discussion began from a couple of suggestions on ModDB's commenting section and with an overexcited nerd (me). The suggestions were to either make Mirkwood a realm option at the begining of the game, like the dwarven realms, or to make it a map faction like @DrHouse93 proposed above. Both suggestions implicate MASSIVE changes in the current Lothlórien faction, mainly require the creation of a Mirkwood castle and camp and quite a bit of balance tweaking. I chose to support the first suggestion in which the player would choose if he wants to begin with a Lothlórien (agressive) or Mirkwood (defensive) base. I really don't like the idea of map factions but I
totally understand the Team's predicament with Arnor and the spellbook thing, and understand that there is no other way for it to be anything other than a map faction, I am
not speaking against that resolution. I know my post and suggestions are HUGE and complex, but either one of these proposals
are huge and complex and do require a through examination if they were to be
seriously proposed. So I tried to cover every angle of everything that would change and how it could change if this proposal would be implemented. I think these ideas deserve to be discussed with the community and the Team, given that Mirkwood is as interesting and as great an elven realm as Lothlórien and (I believe) with as many fans, so it deserves to be discussed if it is possible occupy the same grand space in the faction as Lothlórien, instead of appearing ""only"" as an outpost (may this outpost be as awesome and as big as it is right now or not).
My MAIN POINT in this disclaimer is, as I mentioned before, that I know these ideas and suggestions are huge and complex and that they would demand an equally huge amount of work from the Team. And that knowing this I'm certainly
not trying to demand anything from the Team upon discussing it or insisting on it. Corellon knows how they are blessed for already giving us this amazing mod- not mod, this amazing GAME, to us entirely for free, spending hours upon hours that probably amount for months when put together. So I, or anyone else not in the Team in this community, don't have the right to demand anything from them beyond of what they already present us with. And certainly not anything this huge that I'm proposing. Upon discussing and proposing this suggestions and ideas I'm just trying to geek out and improve the mod even further. I don't know whether I'm going right about it, or if it will result in anything, that's for you guys and, mainly, the Team to decide. If it actually really doesn't result in anything and technically I was wasting my time, well then, at least it was fun writing all my ideas down, because I almost never get to do that. But my expectation is that the community will like at least some of my ideas, and that maybe one day the Team may use some of them (even though this is all meant to work together as a system). -END-OF-DISCLAIMER-
Instead of having access to Mirkwood or to Lothlórien at early game as determined by map as @DrHouse93 suggested, the player would choose which faction he wants to begin playing with, and the corresponding castle or camp would then be built.
[insert initial castle ruins screenshot]
This would be a new and unique system for Edain because this new Lothlórien faction, henceforth dubbed the Elves or Elven faction, would cease to be an exclusively agressive faction to be what I will call a "situational" faction. In this concept the player would be able to choose if he wants to play an agressive faction (choosing Lothlórien castle at the begining of the game) or if he wants to play a defensive faction (choosing Mirkwood castle instead).
After choosing either of the two factions as his initial faction, the player would still have access to the other one through the outposts. The current Lothlórien castle and the two existing outposts would be the same as they are now, going largely unchanged. But the player would only have access to one of the outposts, the one that belongs to the faction he did not choose to start with.
If this were to be implemented, Mirkwood would need its own castle and camp rather than using the same castle and camp as Lothlórien with some different buildings. It needs to be unique, and Lothlórien and Mirkwood's architecture styles are too different to be integrated in the same castle or camp.
SPELLBOOKI want to adress this first, in the concept here proposed the spellbook would remain roughly the same. And I must make clear that the Team already said that it's not possible to make the spellbook change depending on the realm you choose. But in this case I strongly belive that this would not be necessary, even if it were possible to do.
THE MIRKWOOD CASTLEThis concept is taken from the fairy
brughs of english folklore from which Tolkien himself took inspiration to create the elvish cavern complexes of the city of Menegroth and the Elvenking's Halls in Mirkwood. The idea is to create a castle base for Mirkwood like the old 3.8.1 dwarven citadel:
[insert 3.8.1 dwarven citadel screenshot]
That citadel had some problems in 3.8.1 that I think can be overcomed if a similar concept were to be used for Mirkwood. The main problem with it was that the hewn-rock-like wall objects used to create the citadel were pre-existing Worldbuilder objects, they were not created by the Team to compose the citadel, they were repurposed to create a round stone fortress and looked weird because that was not what they were created for originally (I may be wrong, but I think they were mountain walls part of the EA Ered Luin map, not meant to form a round shape when put together). I'm not speaking out against repurposing objects to create new mod designs, I'm just saying that this Mirkwood castle concept should need to use new wall objects modeled to fit each other evenly in order to create a cavern atmosphere and not to look off.
That being said, I know the Team tried to replicate this cavern feeling in the first version of the Mirkwood outpost, with its stone pillars, and were later forced to change it into a forest canopy, because it didn't look right. Well, creating a Mirkwood castle instead of an outpost gives the advantage of actually creating walls to compose the cavern.
As a defensive faction befitting Thranduil's reluctance to put his people in harm's way, Mirkwood castle, as I am envisioning it, would be a killbox. The base's walls would be modeled to look like natural stone in a round format surrounded by shrubs, and trees and all kinds of greens. It would be completely sealed, without garrisonable walls (at first, read below), and having only a front gate.
Mind that this is the concept for a
castle base, not a camp. It may be weird and different at first for a defensive faction's castle in Edain not to have garrisonable walls, but I will talk more about that below when I get to the Wall Extensions section.
Mirkwood Castle BuildingsAll the buildings inside the Mirkwood castle are connected to its central citadel by stone bridges harboring Mirkwood archers, there are five build plots inside the castle.
-The Throne Room: Mirkwood Castle's central building, its citadel, would be Thranduil's Throne Room and would look a bit like the current central building in Mirkwood's outpost. It would be a central stone dais befringed by four stone pillars, each at one corner, with Thranduil's throne at its center. Two small entrances at the sides of the stone dais would be the places where Mirkwood units recruited in the castle would be spawned from. So this concept establishes that Mirkwood castle will use the same recruitment system currently used in the Lothlórien faction, where only one unit can be made at a time. Moreover the Throne Room can be used to sit Thranduil into his throne, where he would have different army support abilities than he has while not in the throne (his out-of-the-throne skills would be the same as they are now), see the Heroes section below to know more about enthroned Thrandy, and other heroes that can be recruited in this building.
-Vault of the King: This building would look much like the current Vault of the King in Mirkwood's outpost. It gives access to the castle's upgrades, and it allows the training of Palace Guards at the citadel. Thranduil's Mobilisation Order is moved to enthroned Thranduil. Captain of the Guards posts two palace guards at the Throne Room (instead of around the vault itself like in the outpost) that climb down the stairs to attack nearby invaders. Protect the Borders adds +1 more archer to each of the stone bridges connecting all the buildings to the citadel, this is in addition to the maximun of two archers in each bridge when its building reaches level 3, in this way Mirkwood gets more archers than Lothlórien given its killbox concept. Wine from Dorwinion works as normal, I'm not gonna mention the old dorwinion units because I don't know when the Team intends on adding them or how.
-Troopchambers: The Troopchambers allow the training of all the regular Mirkwood units at the citadel. The player also must choose if he wants to buy recruit speed upgrades or command point upgrades at the recently built Troopchamber, once the choice is made it can't be changed, another Troopchamber must be built to buy the type of upgrade that wasn't chosen.
-Mirkwood Forges: Access to all the current Lothlórien upgrades.
-Feast Hall: The Feast Hall is a new two-story building, as all the other buildings of Mirkwood, it is formed by stone pillars connected through bridges, the building consists of the wine cellars at its base and a spiral stair leads from the cellars to a upper floor where there is an elven feast (reference to the Feast of Starlight), a strip of light from a crack in the cavern ceilling illuminates the feast (like the old 3.8.1 Lightbringer building). This building heals nearby allies and from a roleplaying perspective it would be where the Elvenking receives his honored guests. People would point out that one of the problems of this Mirkwood castle idea is that Mirkwood has too few heroes to be a faction, so my idea is that the Mirkwood faction would be able to research an upgrade in this building where they can recruit allied heroes from Lothlórien. It would further integrate the two realms and solve the lack of heroes problem.
Wall ExtensionsAs I wrote previously, Mirkwood's castle doesn't have garrisonable walls as other defensive factions do, but it can defend itself externally through its wall extensions upgrades. In this concept there are five wall extension plots around the castle's cavernous walls, each is positioned in the same direction the internal build plots are, as if five imaginary lines extended outward from Thranduil's Throne crossing the build plots inside the castle and then reaching the wall extension plots outside. There are two extension options, the Overlook and the Secret Path:
-Secret Path: This extension creates a small crack in the fortress' natural rock walls that allows allied units to pass through.
-Overlook:The Overlook is how the
brugh (Mirkwood castle) defends itself, it's supposed to look like a cliff that sticks out of hole in the cavern wall, it should have an appearance resembling this:
In the same way that the internal buildings of Mirkwood castle are connected through stone bridges to the citadel, so is all the overlooks built connected to the internal buildings of Mirkwood that lie in the same direction or imaginary line as the overlook. You can only build an overlook in a wall extension build plot if you already have an internal Mirkwood structure built in the correponding internal build plot. From the moment you build an overlook an empty garrisonable slot appears in the corresponding internal structure. When you garrison it with a batallion of units those units enter the building and then walk out in the stone bridge that connects the building to the overlook, this uses an elevator system not unlike the one in Rohan, Gondor, and the Dwarves' castles. Units garrisoned in an overlook are subject to enemy fire as normal.
After building an overlook you can further upgrade it to have an ent at its tip hurling rocks, like the old Ent fortress upgrade for the elves in the original BfME II.
MIRKWOOD CAMP As of now in my idea Mirkwood camp has four build plots and no natural walls or extension build plots to speak of.
SETTLEMENTSI think both the Ent Moot and the Beorninger Hut settlements are fitting to both Lothlórien and Mirkwood, but the Mallorn Tree is too specific and special to Lothlórien and I think Mirkwood deserves another resource settlement in place of the current Mallorn tree, given that Mirkwood is a special forest realm in its own right with different thematics to explore for its magical trees.
Border Guard Treehouse: This settlement is a green-leafed tree with a small elvish tree house attached to it, the bark of the model of this tree should have either a darker or more multicoloured appearance than the white Mallorn Tree to give the impression of a totally different forest, and also a more twisted trunk. I mentioned the multicoloured option because in the movies the trees in the set were wildly full of psychedelic colours to give exactly this feel to the actors, and were later darkened in post-production. So I don't know which you guys prefer, dark or coloured. This settlement would function more or less like a Mallorn Tree, but with different "melian" effects (doesn't need to be called melian):
*Forest of Illusions: A multicoloured fog (dark green, dark blue, purple, and pink) covers the area around the Border Guard Treehouse that slows enemy units' speed, doesn't affect monsters (including spiders).
*Eyes of the Elvenking: The Elvenking knows all the secret passages of Mirkwood and his eyes and presence are everywhere, augments the vision range of the tree and a elk appears grazing around it (Desolation of Smaug EE easter egg, the elk is a symbol of the Elvenking's presence in the woods).
*More ideas?
HEROESThese are the heroes recruitable from Mirkwood castle/camp:
-Legolas: remains unchanged from his outpost version.
-Tauriel: becomes a permanent hero recruitable from Mirkwood castle, but is still non-recruitable from the outpost if the player chooses Lothlórien as his initial faction. In this concept she will no longer be present at the Spellbook, and instead be replaced by a third battalion Guards of Mirkwood in that spell (clarifying: this is a global change, and I'm not proposing for the spell to change depending on what the player chooses, because I know that's not possible).
-Thranduil: Thranduil remains unchanged... actually, sort of, he is indeed the same version as the one from the outpost, but in this concept he can sit at his throne in the same way Saruman can be put atop the Isengard's citadel after the Wizard's Tower upgrade is researched. While sat he obviously can't move and his abilities to change to army support skills, see below the Enthroned Thranduil:
-Enthroned Thranduil: The skills of Enthroned Thranduil conceptually follow the Fisher King trope in which a ruler's moods and health are reflected in his realm's appearance and health. That same trope was part of how actor Lee Pace thought of and concieved his character in the movies, and I think it's a very fitting concept for both Thranduil and a defensive faction like Mirkwood. Here's some ideas for Enthroned Thranduil's skills:
*Level 1: Passive ability. While sat on his throne Thranduil takes a small fraction of damage everytime one of Mirkwood's buildings outside the castle (the settlements) take damage. But Thranduil also gains a small amount of experience everytime enemy units are killed in close viscinity to one of Mirkwood's settlements. This experience and damage are only awarded and taken respectively while Thranduil is sat on his throne. (Variant feature to make this more balanced = the experience gained through this skill only advances Enthroned Thranduil's abilities, the army support abilities being presented here, not his regular combat hero abilities.)
*Level 3: Thranduil's Mobilization Order. Unchanged from its outpost upgrade version.
*Level 5: Silvan Revelry. Thranduil orders a great feast for his people, The Feast Hall stops producing resources and all units in the viscinity of any of Mirkwood's buildings are healed much faster for a time, but are also slowed. Elven heroes are also healed, but not slowed (that's because all elven heroes except Tauriel are either Sindar or Noldor, and thus can't get drunk as the lowly silvan elves lol).
*Level 7: Wrath of the Elvenking. All units in the viscinity of a Mirkwood building get +25% attack and damage.
*Level 10: Any ideas?
-Avari Scouts: Instead of a scout hero Mirkwood has access to the Avari scout units, these are the same Avari units from 3.8.1, but they are limited to three battalions of three soldiers each. I think they would make great scouts and it's a good opportunity to bring the Avari back, their design fits well with both the Mirkwood Border Guards from the spellbook and the Elkriders.
-Other Heroes: One of the few minuses of this whole turning-Mirkwood-into-a-realm concept is its few heroes. In this concept Mirkwood would only have three heroes of its own + the Avari scouts, one fewer than Iron Hills, the faction/realm with fewer heroes. My suggestion to this problem has already been mentioned in the Feast Hall building entry above, creating an upgrade that makes it possible to recruit Lothlórien hero allies through that building. The other solution would be adding at least one more noncanon hero to the mix, perhaps Elros, the horn guy:
UNITSThe other minus of implementing this concept is how the units are currently built to work in the Lothlórien faction. As of now, the Lothlórien units and the Mirkwood units are meant to complement each other, in which you begin with the fast and weaker Lothlórien units to later get the access to the more tough Mirkwood units at the Outpost. If I remember well that's the same mechanic to be implemented in the future with the Misty Mountains faction, where you would begin with the weaker goblins of Moria to later get access to the more tough Gundabad orcs or the more specialized Goblin Town units at the outpost. I totally understand that it's a little difficult to disturb that balance, but I think some balance tweaking should help the Team get this right so that players can begin with Mirkwood units if they choose the Woodland Realm castle and make that Lothlórien units are still useful at late game. It is not something new or impossible balance-wise in Edain for a faction to begin with tougher units and later get access to lighter ones, such is the dynamic of the current Ered Luin and Erebor realms where they begin with the more resistant dwarven units and later get access to the lighter Lake Town/Dale units.
Contrary to @DrHouse93 I don't think that begining with the current Mirkwood units would be necessarily OP, as I said it just needs a little balance tweaking. My suggestion to this matter is to keep the same Mirkwood outpost units in the castle if the player chooses Mirkwood as his initial faction, but nerf them a bit compared to the ones that can be recruited in the outpost (remember what I said at the begining of the post that, in this concept, if you choose a faction, you later don't have access to that same faction's outpost, only to the outpost of the faction you didn't choose initially). So the idea is that Mirkwood Swordsmen recruited in the castle would be a little less resistant than the ones you could recruit from the outpost (had you chosen Lothlórien as your initial faction) and they do not have their tower shields. Instead, the Tower Shield could be a special upgrade. A new unit could be created, the Mirkwood Spearmen, weaker than the elite Palace Guards and that could also benefit from the Tower Shield upgrade. Maybe the Mirkwood Archer (and that pains me a lot to propose, but I think is necessary given balance reasons) isn't so good as the Lothlórien archer, so getting the Lothlórien outpost at late game should be really useful for a player who chooses to begin as Mirkwood. Maybe Mirkwood should be the tougher faction and Lothlórien should specialize not only in speed, but also in greater damage than Mirkwood.
-Dorwinion Units: If the Team means to implement them, these could be Mirkwood's support units in the same way the Chanteuse is Lothlórien's.
P.S. I will not revise this huge text right now, I've spent my day elaborating it from ideas that I've been cooking up in my head and dreams the past two weeks (I think). I'll later edit both for revision's sake and for adding new concepts and ideas that come up later as the discussion in the thread evolves and becomes a 15 page monster. I really love this community and the Edain Team, happy holidays! (Great Corellon, I still have to write the whole Disclaimer section at the begining of the text.)
P.S.2 The [insert screenshot] things are here because currently I cannot take screenshots of the game, and couldn't find the described images on the web. It will be edited later.
P.S.3 Do I win "Biggest Proposal/Post of the Forums" or "Biggest Useless Human Being" LOL
P.S.4 Ignore the names I gave to buildings, abilities and such, while writing they were thought of to be completely provisory. I bet anyone here can come up with better names for these things than me.