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A possible new Evil Men faction

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Garlodur:
Here I am finally with a reaction to you, lordoflinks. I have been away for a bit due to study occupations. First of all, thank you for your feedback. Let's discuss some of it as far as it fits in one post in a structured way.

I am glad you start with the way the Haradrim are incorporated in this faction. As mentioned in the post before yours, this is greatly inspired by discussions on a free-building system concept with Harad as the main faction, reducing the Easterlings to the outpost. Although it fitted in that concept and different scenarios as well, I see however, that it is not fair to reduce either the Easterlings or Southrons to a secondary position in the faction Men of Darkness. I hope to have found a fair balance between the two in my concept, having the Men of the East in a defense-oriented castle and the Haradrim as front-line harrass troops with their moveable tents. In my eyes they are both the core to the faction, knowing that Sauron used them at the same time in the great assault on Mordor, which is arguably the largest and most determining battle of the Third Age with all forces of the Free People in Minas Tirith and the Pelennor Fields.

Anyway, I envisioned the Easterlings and Haradrim working together in harmony on the battlefield. This goal can only be reached when they have comparable units offering both sides of a coin (defensive and offensive), which means either army would have too many units to delegate to an outpost (Easterlings have 7, Haradrim 6) while upsetting the balance. In fact, I believe my devision of Haradrim units makes sense: Swordsmen, Archers and Raider cavalry are cheap and disposable troops for the front line, while Mûmakil are stuck to one building, but can walk right out onto the battlefield, and the Spear Throwers and Hasharii are elite units right at place in the Haradrim Palace on the outpost plot.

In your concept I see more reasons to be confused with how the faction works regarding the great amount of buildings, units, and heroes for all different subfactions. I understand they should not be available at the same moment but I have tried in my own concept to give each building, unit, and hero a clearly defined role so that all aspects of the faction combined could still give a balanced approach to the game.

I am unfortunately still not convinced about the steel bow, and mostly for the reason that the Men of Darkness are not caracterised as a great archer faction. The Black Númenorean Warrior heroic unit is also not thematically meant to have such skills: they disable and kill enemy heroes and are trained in sorcery to increase their strength (this aspect will be emphasised further in the Dome of Umbar outpost).

Thank you for pointing out the Emperor's/Dragon's Throne spell. Indeed, the idea came from the Stronghold of the Witch-King spell, but it has gone under many transformations with my concept. I like the idea of having the citadel function as the most central building in the whole faction (including Haradrim, Variag, and Umbarians) so perhaps it should have something more to do with the worshipping of Sauron.

Point taken on the Mouth of Sauron, he is removed as a spell and Khamûl will fill up this position.

With regards to your explanation on the differences in our concepts I have come up with an idea of shaping the Men of Darkness more to the faction of people's liking.

At the start of each game the Easterling castle will be built in a regular way. When you click on the citadel you will then have the option to choose to upgrade right away into a particular subfaction for free. This choice affects your starting units and allows buildings to level up in time. Later in the game, you can choose to upgrade the other subfactions as well so that you can pull together the full might of the Men of Darkness.


* Choose Easterlings: the citadel is extended on one side with a small embassy-like reception hall with war priests; the starting units remain Easterling Swordsmen; Easterling recruitment buildings will start levelling in time. This choice benefits the defensive player but is still necessary in mid-game if you want quick access to elite troops and siege
* Choose Southrons: the citadel is extended with a embassy tent from the south with NPC Spear Throwers on guard; Southron Buildings build freely on the map by Southron Builders start levelling in time; starter units change into Haradrim Swordsmen. This benefits an aggressive player with easily spammed units from different corners of the map but remains necessary in mid-game to extend the power of the Mûmakil.
* Choose Umbarians: the citadel is extended with a small temple-like building with an NPC Black Númenorean on guard; starting units are turned into Corsairs and the Bazar now allows recruitment of Corsairs. This allows for a strong economic harrasment strategy which is weak if not founded by units from the other realms
I would like to hear all your thoughts on this implementation, whether it's feasible, strategically interesting, and not too similar to the Dwarves' system.

lordoflinks:
I've said all I have needed to say really, so I can offer no more thoughts really.
Good luck with the rest of your concept.

FilipGeorg95:
My concepts for Harad+Umbar as sub-faction and Rhun+Khand as sub-faction. I hope you will like it
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wuyasSsgwL3EBGGdE1LG3dXqR9hwE46J
https://drive.google.com/open?id=12Sbe0PjQIiMd1nB8obLobm9_29p9SF3_

Filip Georgievski

dkbluewizard:
Like the awesome work, and it looks great man. Very interesting. Hope some of this is incorporated into the grand fold of things.

AulëTheSmith:
Hello Evil Men Fans :) I want to present you one of my last Hero concept i made. I put some fantasy in it and i have lot of fun during the creation. However, you will notice that the character is not totally invented but is actually based on lore. The starting goal of my work it was in fact to explore the identity of unknown Nazguls. In particular i was inspired by one of the armor from BOTFA, as you will see below.
Note that i'm not posting it for a definitive judgment (the usual FOR/AGAINST list), because it would be simply to early to do that. Moreover, i currently don't have a clear idea about how this character would be actually introduced in the faction (via spellbook, external outopost, or whaever), since all about Evil Men faction is unknown and open to discussion. it is really incredible how detailed your ideas and plans are in this thread. It is a really creative place and i'm actually posting this concept keeping this exact spirit  xD
So let me know all your opinion: what do you think about lore connection i made? What about this precise design and do you like other Nazgul armor that currently can't be implemented?
I thank Filip because he gave me his opinion and help me for some details  :)


HERUMOR: THE CRUEL NUMENOREAN KING


--- Zitat von: The Silmarillion ---"But because of the power of Gil-galad these renegades, lords both mighty and evil,
for the most part took up their abodes in the southlands far away; yet two there were,
Herumor and Fuinur, who rose to power among the Haradrim,
a great and cruel people that dwelt in the wide lands south of Mordor beyond
the mouths of Anduin."

"Herumor: A renegade Númenórean who became mighty among the Haradrim at the end of the Second Age."
--- Ende Zitat ---

LORE AND HYPOTHESIS

As you can see i quoted above the Tolkien writings about Herumor. Both him and his brother Fuinur, were black Numenorean that estiblished their domain in Harad after the downfall of Numenor. Both were powerful and cruel allies who served Sauron during the second age. I do believe like many fans that they finally become both Nazgûl enslaved by two of the nine rings. Evetually, they have been forsaken and finally forgotten by their own folk along with their names and personalities.
I saw that for example MorgulLord (creator of BOTTA) introduced in his mod a similar Nazgûl (same armor shown below), naming the character Ji Indur. It is a widely used name across the web, but it is actually a fictional name which comes from  Middle-earth Role Playing game (MERP) published by Iron Crown Enterprises.
In my opinion Herumor and Fuinur are the most valid and lore-friendly hypothesis about two of the unknown identities of the Ringwraiths, given also that their name have been written by the Professor himself.
Actually the fictional nameless title "The Forsaken" comes from Forge World's website, which is a sort of subdivision of Game Workshop. As the team did for the Dark Marshall and Shadow Lord, i would like to keep this title, leaving the story of Herumor as lore background.

HERUMOR: THE FORSAKEN (RINGWRAITH)

What actually triggered and inspired me to craft this concept is the Haradrim-like Nazgûl  we have seen in The Hobbit. I myself like especially this robe along with the one of Khamûl, since they are more sober and clearly shows the orgin of the two damned  kings of men. Instead, i deem the other BOTFA armor (WK included) quite strange and too much full of details and not worth to be implemented. Pheraphs also the Dark Headsman (the one with axe) is acceptable, but with adjusting some details. Here below the three ringwraiths and the miniature from FW:



Since i don't like so much the shape of the trident, i would actually turn it into a lance. Maybe also enlarging a bit the central blade would be more proper. An example could be the one below:


My idea is that The Forsaken's Southern Spear  is a cursed weapon that cause terrible wounds. The Haradrim Wraith was a skilled spear masters in his past life (GOT fans will catch where my inspiration comes from).

THE SOUTHERN NAZGÛL IN GAME
The Forsaken is a terrible vision both for enmies and allies: during his life as man, he was a cruel and mercilessy black Numenorean king who ruled diffusing terror and executing the opponents. Even his wraith form he didn't lose any of his ancient character: wherever he goes he draws life of surrounding lifeform, turning all like an arid desert of the South.
His role in harad faction will be of an hero killer and unit interferer. He will have the same intial stat values of the other two minor Nazgûl (Dark Marshall and Shadow Lord).

Level 1: mount/dismount: the Forsaken mounts his black Harad steed.

Classic mounth of a Nazgûl.

Level 2: Plaguing Aura (passive): wherever The Forsaken goes he draws life of surrounding lifeform, turning all like an arid desert of Harad. Surrouding enemy units lose 10% of attack and armor while enemy heroes' lose 10% of attack and their abilities take 10% longer time to recharge once used.

The classic influence of a Nazgûl with some improvements against heroes.

Level 5: Burning Sand : The Forsaken temporary turns a medium area into a desert terrain. The burning sand slow down severely enemy heroes and units slowly damaging them.

Level 8: Cursed Spear : The Forsaken's spear causes terrible and incurable wounds. The selected enemy hero is damaged and marked by the spear for a certain time: every time the marked hero is hit by the lance he lose 5% of armor up to 50%.

An alternative to Morgul Blade which fits best for a spear master

Level 10: Desert Terror : The Forsaken temporary summons five black scorpion of Harad. These terrible creatures have high single damage thanks to the powerful pinces: they can easly shear off even the best of the armor. Futhermore they have the ability to sting a single unit or hero poisoning him over the time and slowing down due to paralization effect of the venom (-25% of speed).

Scorpion model and animation from vanilla's Gorkil mount (totally out of place in the original game). These monsters are awaken from under the sand to chase down a weak hero or monster eventually finishing the target.

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