[en] The Prancing Pony > Other
A possible new Evil Men faction
Morwereth:
As far as I remember, Castamir was a Gondorian admiral who dethroned King Eldacar by civil war. He ruled around 8 years and eventually got killed by Eldacar's himself when he returned with reinforcements. His sons escaped to Umbar and possibly became leaders of Corsairs.
My point is, Castamir died long time ago before War of the Ring. I'd like to suggest adding heir(s) of Castamir as a corsair hero to possible evil man faction, instead of himself or hero who shares the same name. It would be more lore friendly in my opinion.
OakenShield224:
This is a very interesting proposal. I like the fact that you start in Rhun and then work with other groups of evil men depending on your strategy. The idea of the Bazaar that allows you to specialise in a sub-faction is also interesting. One idea could be that the Bazaar also provides trade deals with each sub-faction. For example, if you have a trade deal with Harad, the Harad buildings produce a small amount of resources. The Bazaar itself would have to be more expensive. This is just me speculating though so feel free to ignore all of it.
I also like the unique heroes like the War Priest and the Scorpion Lord (although I'm still not sure how Amdur works). I think I agree with lordoflinks regarding Khamul. He seems to have too big of a role in Evil Men, especially since he is also one of Mordor's most powerful heroes. He is best as temporary summon who disrupts enemy buildings and units.
If only one of Saleme and Murakhan is kept, then there may need to be another hero in the faction. One role that I think could be filled would be a leader of Rhun as Amdur seems to be more like an elite warrior and tank than a leader. This leader could be made as a Ring Hero as a contrast to Suladan.
This is just more of me thinking of ideas. I think Umbar would have a emphasis on slaves. They are descendants of the Black Numenoreans from the Second Age who took slaves when they came to Middle Earth. They also used slaves to row their boats (Aragorn freed them when the Army of the Dead attacked the Corsair fleet). I don't know if this can be implemented, but there could be spell book power that recharges as enemy units are killed. When it is full, you have to option to immediately earn some money (selling the slaves) or to boost the production of a target structure (use the slaves as a work force). I also think Men of Darkness would have a close connection to Morgoth/Sauron and would worship them (the Numenoreans of the Second Age worshipped Morgoth while the Men of Darkness though Sauron was "both king and god"). They may make sacrifices to them to gain some sort of blessing. This could be implemented with the slave system. You would have the option to sacrifice the slaves. All units across the map would gain +30% damage for 1 minute but would earn no experience for this time.
Again, feel free to ignore these ideas if you think they don't work.
Regarding the name of Castamir, although a new name could be made, men in Middle Earth have been known to use their ancestors names before. For example, there have been 2 Aragorns, 2 Boromirs, and 2 Denethors.
lordoflinks:
Two additional thematic concerns I think are:
1. The absence of the steel bow; I believe it is a very cool weapon and the best place for it is Umbar
2. I do not believe you should be able to build Black Easterlings, in my opinion they are a very special unit that should remain as a summon from Khamul only. Rather the Easterlings should get their own unique infantry such as a "Dragon Guard."
Garlodur:
Thank you everyone for your kind feedback. I invite to delve into critically analysing the proposal in search of questions regarding theme, balance, style, gameplay, originality, and technicalities.
I will clear up the questions so far:
--- Zitat von: Fredius am 9. Mär 2017, 20:17 ---Well done on this concept, I agree with the most part of it :). Personally I prefer the option in which the player chooses if they want either Harad or Rhun as their main base, but I believe that is (sadly) technically not possible; if it ain't possible then I would choose Rhun as the main base, since I like the red wood and golden roofs design of vanilla BFME2 :).
--- Ende Zitat ---
This chosing of the subfaction I took as a starting point quite obviously, not wanting to have one of the core factions subordinated to the other. I took inspiration, however, from earlier proposals (particularly in the German forum) that suggested a semi-free building system for Harad in the form of moveable tents. As is I am not yet content in terms of playability in this aspect: I have a few ideas to make it easier and smoother, and bind it yet a bit more than currently described. I believe the ET will only want the Misty Mountains faction to have an uniquely free building system. Stay in tune. ;)
I value your opinion as an Edain Beta-tester, so please feel free to share your thoughts.
--- Zitat von: lordoflinks am 10. Mär 2017, 12:50 ---I am very impressed however I do disagree on a few points:
1. I feel personally Khamul has too much of an influence in you concept; during the time period of the WotR he was the captain of Dol Guldur and so it feels odd that he would leave to deal with the East, rather I think there should be a separate Easterling Emperor, mind you I am biased as I have my own concept. (Personally I think Khamul is suited as an ultimate spell to capture his true might and power); also they can't start with Kamul in WotR as then you have two khamuls walking around if Mordor is in the game (Angmar is acceptable as they are not set in WotR)
2. One game play concern I have is that Khamul as a ring hero seems very OP as a player could wait till they find the ring and spawn him on top of it, which seems unfair to the enemy
--- Ende Zitat ---
Right, that summon has slipped my mind. I intended to clarify that. In that case some original way of summoning should be conceived. Perhaps he can be summoned at the side of the map, or at a citadel. Small idea, but not sure if technically possible: he could start walking into the map uncontrollably in Wraith-form, spreading fear to all units, until until the spot of summoning where he appears.
Ah I see I have not updated the War of the Ring information. Khamûl will not be one of four heroes to lead an army there. The War Priest, Amdûr, Suladan, and Castamir should do fine without him. Besides, the Edain Team does not focus effort on WotR. :)
--- Zitat von: OakenShield224 am 10. Mär 2017, 18:27 ---I also like the unique heroes like the War Priest and the Scorpion Lord (although I'm still not sure how Amdur works). I think I agree with lordoflinks regarding Khamul. He seems to have too big of a role in Evil Men, especially since he is also one of Mordor's most powerful heroes. He is best as temporary summon who disrupts enemy buildings and units.
If only one of Saleme and Murakhan is kept, then there may need to be another hero in the faction. One role that I think could be filled would be a leader of Rhun as Amdur seems to be more like an elite warrior and tank than a leader. This leader could be made as a Ring Hero as a contrast to Suladan.
--- Ende Zitat ---
I understand your concerns regarding Khamûl, lordoflinks and Oakenshield224. Indeed, I took it from this discussion to not have the Second in Command a recruitable hero, and give him a spot in the spellbook instead. Yet I still have my doubts to what extent his abilities make him worth purchasing as his role of general disturber is copied from Mordor, hence not so original. In the spell book the Shadow of the East is meant as the clearest connection to the one external ally of the Men of Darkness (and far more!), Sauron the Deceiver.
I'll share my design philosophy to the Khamûl concept. I envisioned the Easterlings to follow Sauron's commands as if he were the god of a religion/ object of cult: this led directly to the War Priest hero, who receives and interprets messages from Sauron (either directly, through Khamûl, Mouth of Sauron or other messengers). Amdûr is conceived as the military leader with this regard, being a general but not a king. My motivation for this argument is that Tolkien only explicitly mentioned The Serpent Lord at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields leading the forces of Southrons, Variag, etc. This example I take as the proof that these armies (that were bought, deceived or forced) needed a cruel general to lead them. The Easterlings clearly did not, as is also shown when they lie in ambush at the Crossroads in Ithilien, and continue the Battle of Dale and Erebor even after Sauron has fallen. They are delirious/faithful/indoctrinated in their belief and trust in Tar-Mairon, Lord of Men. As such I felt that Khamûl is the only one to function as a ruler of Men (if he takes the Ring and becomes Emperor of Darkness): he will unite the Men of Darkness with an illusionary form that reminisces them of Sauron/Morgoth himself, thus gaining their allegiance through worship and fear.
Here, you see, is no thematic place for a leader of Easterlings as significant as an Emperor. I will not neglect your comments and will try to conceive of a new hero if and only if I can turn it into a completely unique one. I already started thinking of a hero that has different abilities when riding a Wain and unmounted. Kindly leave your thoughts on this. :)
--- Zitat ---3. About your interpretation of the Variags, I feel gameplay wise they should be a pure mongolian horde so they do not clash with the Black Numenoreans in term of themes and role
4. What about the Dragon Throne giving Rhun a full wall as an idea? (I believe that is technically possible)
5. I hope if your concept is used the greek designs are not, as in my mind they fit better in Dorwinion
--- Ende Zitat ---
Regards the Variag, I admit I do not understand your concern, although I have started considering other possibilities of implementing them. I see them as single units with comparable strength to Beornings/Berserkers, with a certain hero-support aspect. This is based of the historical Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Empire: sultans, lords and kings bought the services of mercenary guardians from Scandinavian origin, impressed by their fierceness (and their loyalty to money, without interest in politics). The Black Numenorean heroic unit are meant to pull closer to a past of Dark Sorcery and Witchcraft in combination with worship of Morgoth/Sauron. They are a powerful elite/hero-killing unit with aspects of sacrifice.
Concerning the Numenorean Steel Bow, I kept it out knowingly in the supposition that this knowledge was not well conserved. Indeed, the falling of Isildur described in the Unfinished Tales mentions his archers being equipped with Steel Bows. Would this not mean also smithies in Arnor and Gondor had this knowledge up to the end of the Third Age, and not only the King's Men remaining in Umbar? Besides, the faction requires no niche or thematic necessity to include a heroic ranged unit.
About the Dragon Throne giving a full wall, this was my initial idea but I am not sure whether it is technically possible, feasible, sensible and fun to play with. I need a concluding word on this from ET.
The Greek designs were meant to illustrate ideas of armour and helmets at some stage of the process: I agree that designs more unique and fitting to Middle-Earth should be created. I just hoped I could draw better, because I do have ideas in my head.
--- Zitat ---Overall I have felt your concept is very impressive and I think if any concept will be chosen in this thread it will be yours (This is me conceding defeat...) although personally I prefer my own (as it is natural) as I am a sucker for symmetry and structure and that is what my concept embodies.
--- Ende Zitat ---
I never meant to defeat you. I have looked at your proposal and I see you put care into it. It seems as though our concepts are not compatible. Could you explain what you mean with lack of symmetry and structure? I would gladly improve that.
--- Zitat von: OakenShield224 am 10. Mär 2017, 18:27 ---The idea of the Bazaar that allows you to specialise in a sub-faction is also interesting. One idea could be that the Bazaar also provides trade deals with each sub-faction. For example, if you have a trade deal with Harad, the Harad buildings produce a small amount of resources. The Bazaar itself would have to be more expensive. This is just me speculating though so feel free to ignore all of it.
--- Ende Zitat ---
The Bazaar has cracked my skull many times and is also now in a phase of restructuring, though almost final. Your suggestion has past my mind as well, but I felt it would make this building too important for the faction, rather than just providing a smart and unique way to getting unit upgrades.
--- Zitat ---This is just more of me thinking of ideas. I think Umbar would have a emphasis on slaves. They are descendants of the Black Numenoreans from the Second Age who took slaves when they came to Middle Earth. They also used slaves to row their boats (Aragorn freed them when the Army of the Dead attacked the Corsair fleet). I don't know if this can be implemented, but there could be spell book power that recharges as enemy units are killed. When it is full, you have to option to immediately earn some money (selling the slaves) or to boost the production of a target structure (use the slaves as a work force). I also think Men of Darkness would have a close connection to Morgoth/Sauron and would worship them (the Numenoreans of the Second Age worshipped Morgoth while the Men of Darkness though Sauron was "both king and god"). They may make sacrifices to them to gain some sort of blessing. This could be implemented with the slave system. You would have the option to sacrifice the slaves. All units across the map would gain +30% damage for 1 minute but would earn no experience for this time.
Again, feel free to ignore these ideas if you think they don't work.
--- Ende Zitat ---
I will clarify my points here, the resource building called Workshop is in fact conceived of
a place of slave labour. It must be natural for people in the East and South to oppose Sauron's regime, so these are mostly political prisoners and labour force to forge and build. I also thought it would be an interesting place to include Orocarni Dwarves, both as enslaved and overseer. Back to your suggestion, it seems to put too much emphasis on enslaving tribes or races throughout the whole faction. This aspect is better at place in Mordor's Slave Camps (Orcs cannot do agriculture it seems) or Misty Mountains Slave Prison (Orcs cannot mine or build either, it seems :D ).
The idea in-between the lines of the worship aspect I see reflected in the Shrine/Well or Statue of Sauron structures. This requires work still, but thanks for the heads-up.
@Morwereth: The name Castamir links to an historical character in Middle-Earth, I am aware of that. I did this for the exact reason that names are reused in other instances, indicated by Oakenshield224: they are meant to remind us of these characters. I have thus build the character of Castamir (the Second if you will) on the basis of revenge for his ancestor Castamir the Usurper: I believe this is a very interesting position to start from because it gives the hero a background story far more realistic than a simple Corsair Captain who wants loot and booze.
lordoflinks:
This is going to be a long post so I hope you are ready.
Garlodur, I shall address your concerns first by explaining my feedback with your idea and then I shall explain why I did the things I did in my concept so you can understand my viewpoint.
1. Feedback on your Proposal
* Firstly I think there is a major flaw in your concept, specifically with how Harad's units are recruited as in my eyes it is too complicated. I think your free build system is good, but not in Edain 4.0 (It would be right at home in 3.8.1); what I have noticed in 4.0 is that all of a subfraction's units come from a single place (Whether it is a settlement or an outpost) and breaking this pattern I feel confuses the player, for example I am having a hard time getting my head around which Harad units are recruited where. The other concern is that the AI can not handle the system and then when facing it you find out you will face hardly any Harad units. My suggestion would be to make Harad purely an outpost and give Rhun archers in their barracks. This is what I mean by a lack of clear structure, at least to me for it is making my brain hurt :D.
* If the above was adopted I would argue there is now an opening for the steel bow are wielded by an Umbarian Unit as if Harad was in one settlement there would need to be something to make Umbar more worthy, and what better than an extremely long ranged archer unit. In any case to answer your concerns about the steelbow I have always felt that Gondor by the time of the WotR was in decline and was unable to muster their might of old, hence the disappearance of the steel bow, and while some may have existed among the Dunedain I doubt there would have been enough to field an army. Hence it makes sense the only ones who still use it are the Black Numenorians who are still great in power in the south.
* I concerned Dragon Fortress is too similar to Stronghold of the Witch-King myself, perhaps have that be the fraction spell?
* My final specific concern is that there is too much Mordor in Rhun. I see no need for the Mouth of Sauron if you have the warpriest as they seem to fulfill the same role thematically of a diplomat encouraging Rhun to fight. As for the idea of showing ties between Mordor and the Men of Darkness remember there are 4 distinct realms and I think having Khamul, the War priest and a statue of sauron is enough; any more and I fear you are stifling the potential of the 4 realms to stand on their own two feet as a fraction. Now on to my reasoning behind my own idea. I think the reason why our two concepts are so different with much the same aim of creating a fraction that blends multiple sources is different interpretations of Rhun's primary motive in the WotR. I always have understood their primary motive to be a hatred of the West rather than complete blind obedience to Sauron as a god (Not to say they did not worship him as such) and as such designed my idea around that facet. Your interpretation is also valid (And holds true for umbar and harad regardless in my opinion who are in close proximity to Mordor). As such I decided to have Rhun have little to no connection to Mordor except through Shadow of the East for pure gameplay reasons so they would feel unique. Hence I had to decide on the central themes that would make up Rhun and I decided as they have been usually associated with cataphacts one of their themes would be greek fire and the other would be a gradual progression from a collection of tribes to an empire (Hence the leveling system). At this point I intentionally chose to give them weak siege and range capacities, for reasons you will see soon. The Emperor is positioned as a parallel to Aragon, a leader of men for the Shadow who has had to claw his way up through the ranks rather than assuming the role. Giving the ring to the Emperor helps plug up Rhun's siege weakness.
I then tried one concept but received feedback it did not take all the Evil Men into account and shifted to my current one that gave all three remaining evil men fractions equal representation meaning all three are important. The main reason behind the choice of only picking one outpost is to allow all three sub-fractions to have a good amount of heroes; the role of the choice overall is to allow Rhun to diversify; I recently changed it so you can pick your fraction at any point in the game so as to surprise your enemy. Hence I allowed all 4 settlements to be built regardless to show that even though you may not choose to focus on a minor fraction they still have some representation in the fraction as a whole. I also gave each of the outposts a unique building/leveling system so they would feel like different realms. Rhun does not have a normal outpost, instead it has a lothlorien style outpost, so as to allow Harad to have a mirkwood style outpost and thus feel like a proper mini fraction.
The intended strategy for Rhun is to either turtle at the beginning of the game until you can start producing your normal units or to utilize Brodda II and the Balchloth Embassy. Now, each of the choices embodies a different approach. Khand is the aggressive fraction giving you very mobile units that reward you with resources if you press the opponent, hence why the outpost levels up depending on the Khans' level so as to reward aggressiveness. Harad exists to fill the gaps in your roster by allowing Rhun access to affordable cavalry, good archers and good siege as well as economic boosts through the Golden King as Rhun's normal units are not cheap. Finally Umbar is a risk for while it grants access to extremely powerful units and a fortress, favoring a slow defensive approach, it does not fill up the gaps in rhun's roster and the units for while powerful, are slow and very expensive. It does grant access to the steel bow however which helps Rhun's ranged weakness, the name Temple Guard and Knights are an allusion to their dedication to Sauron and Morgoth.
Thank you by the way your comments have helped me improve my concept my getting rid of the BN sorcerers, making the Temple Guards a normal unit. I see no problem with Khand having a single heavy infantry unit now, and I have adopted that approach in my own concept, giving them a living siege weapon that is an elite that combines the Variag guardian look with the role of the Black Easterlings; in my mind that works as it makes sense the elites of Khand would own heavy amour, everyone else would be mongols.
I hope my explanation has been sufficient. Please ask me if you have any questions. My comment about conceding defeat was meant in jest as an expression of how impressed I was with your concept, and the extreme likelihood that if any concept will be picked it will be yours.
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