Oh boy, someone should start working on the creature models already...Orcs, Ents...the BALROG!..etc.

I think I know where your mistake came from, You probably confused the coming of Turgon's troops from Gondolin at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears with troops from Doriath, since both are secretive and Gondolin had never marched an army outside its area before.  Doriath never did anything but defend, but they did defend fiercely.

To spell it, just spell Silmaril (easy enough) and add lion (ROAR) to the end.

Dang it! I didn't want to go look on my bookshelf, and this is what I get

I think that Harad should be a playable faction also. [3rd age of course..]

I realized I forgot to add Angmar to the list of factions, so it has now been added. I also added the respective sovreigns of each kingdom/race/empire. Heros will be coming later.

I've updated the main post with my initial thoughts on the heros+units for Gondor and Sauron. I will add them for the other races eventually. Keep in mind that these are still preliminary.

It's been a while since I've posted anything here (partly because my computer has been dead) but don't worry! I'm back! (I'm sure you all were worrying ) Work on Barad-dur stalled because of my computer issues, but I might have something else coming soon.

I would suggest working exclusively on the third age, at least at first.

That's the plan. 3rd age races first (starting with Sauron), then add additionaly races as they are finished.

GL guys! I am not that crazy about Tolkien & Co. to provide any viable suggestions, but for sure we will meet each other somewher in the ... modders forum.

I'm starting to come around on the non-playable nations idea, I think it may be a good idea (for now) to focus on the less esoteric nations in the 3rd age.

To keep with Elemental's gameplay I would suggest the game start as early in 3rd age as possible, so that the empires are small (1 to 2 cities with a smattering of hamlets for the bigger nations), in order to keep the game from being very deterministic.

One question regarding your vision: Are you going to pre-set the game according the the books or have it be more random? For example, on the map are you thinking of having us create a whole map of Arda, or would pseudo-random with various bonuses to the nations be good enough? Are you planning on modding the game to be more LOTR style (magic-wise, army-wise) or just doing Nation Mods?

No matter your answers, here are some possibilities

(all 3rd age in this post):

Neutral-

 Shire - Hobbits with slings, a very desireable area food production-wise. Perhaps the men of Bree could be stuck here also.

 Rivendell - Very powerful magic but (if possible) only within their national boundries.

Lindon - Before the events of the Hobbit, Cirdan wields Narya, the Ring of Fire. This and his advanced age, wisdom and skill (especially naval skill) made him one of the most powerful characters in the series. His kingdom though is so far West that it may be best to leave it out of the game, depending on how advanced Elemental's naval system is.

Mirkwood - Thanduil of the Sindar has a small but potent kingdom, again may not be significant enough.

Evil -

Haradrim - I would make the Southern men their own nation, just as Rohan and Gondor are separate. The Haradrim do not have access to the Orcs or Magic of Mordor, but have their own special Mamluks and hordes of horsemen and archers.

Depending on how the map creator works, I was thinking of having a couple different pre-made maps included that would basically do what you're asking. One map would be preset for 3rd Age Middle Earth, with all the factions in respective places, and maybe they would start with what they had the beginning of the War of the Ring (Gondor starts with Minas Tirith, garrison at Osgiliath, etc).

Another map would be 1st Age, War of the Jewels, then maybe a 2nd Age map (depending on if I put Numenor in or not). There would also be the option to just play on a random map, where all you choose is your faction. One thing I'm not sure about is how to treat the Eastern and Southern sections of Middle Earth. None of Tolkien's maps have anything there, they just focus one little section of middle earth. Maybe I'll just pretend they don't exist, and put an ocean there to simplify things.

I am planning on making the game more LotR-style, but for the first race or two it will probably be more of a nation mod. Since the first release will probably only have Sauron in it, it would get pretty boring to play with just a bunch of Saurons battling it out, so the regular Elemental races will still be in it for a while. But as I get more races done, the Elemental ones will be phased out, and things will be more LotR.

For the Hobbits, I was thinking of having them be recruitable heros. The "adventurous" ones leave to go on... adventures. Since the Shire was basically ignored and no one knew it existed, it might be best to just leave it out, but with Hobbits appearing from time to time. I don't know though.

The Haradrim I was planning on just grouping together with Sauron. I mean, they don't really ever seem to do anything for themselves, just what Sauron wants them to do. They already are basically his "units" But again, I don't know yet.

Just set it up so that Mordor is basically in the south-easternmost portion of the map, and the eastern and southern sections will be naturally cut off.

Maybe you could have a southern Island filled with Mercenary Lanun/Hippus, erm I mean Corsairs

Huh? If you mean you would make up cities and points of interest in the lands that Tolkien never laid out in any detail (south and east), I don't think that's a good idea. Personally I wouldn't really mind, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who would object to it. If that's not what you meant, then I have no idea

My big question (and my general worry for strongly thematic mods) is how will you handle unit design? The ability to design your own units makes it seem like it would be very difficult to get players to use the kind of units they're supposed to use. What prevents the Rohirrim from forming a primarily infantry based army?

Duh! I should've thought of that I'm just so used to the beta maps where you have one big continent in the middle surrounded by ocean. I think I'll start with that, then maybe if the mod gets far enough I might create my own stuff "back there" like Scoutdog suggests. I know the other two wizards not named went out East, so there has to be something there

As for unit creation, I'm thinking two things. For "senarios" where the goal is to recreate as much of the story as possible, the AI will be coded to only build "canon" units. Since the AI will be moddable, I would think that this is possible.

On the other hand, if you just want to do "alternate reality" like Rohan with infantry, you can do that on "non-senario" maps. However, each faction's natural bonuses and research will "guide" you towards the canon faction. Rohan will have a huge bonus for mounted units, and a lot of research for it, but very little research for generic infantry.

You can also guide a factions path with what resources it has availible. Give Rohan horses (maybe high quality horses). Maybe have special resources to represent cities that train a sort of legendary warrior unit.

lol j/k, sorry, couldn't resist.

Don't everyone try to kill me all at the same time now, I like LotR as much as the next guy.

Sacrilege! Burn the non-believer!

Sorry, but you were asking for it

The problem with doing it like that is that it only works on pre-made maps. On a random map, how do make sure Rohan starts near horses?...Actually, on second thought, it could probably be coded in so that no matter the map they start near (or with) horses...

And now, I give you the first peice of 2d art for Lord of the Elements:

It's supposed to be a background for a medallion. Of course, I'm a crappy artist, so it isn't very good, but it's the best I could do.

Anywho, as far as resource based, you could have the "Palace" of a faction supply a steady source of its specialty resource, without any meaningful map-tweaks needed. Now, you could try to code starting positions so that Rohan would be more likely to exist in open plains rather than dense forests, but either way they would have Palace-Horses, which could be graphically represented some-where nearby/very close to the capital, but soemthing that can never be denied to them (at least in their capital city)

So I just got Gimp reinstalled after all of my computer issues, and I had a little free time, so I made a couple banners for the mod. They are now in the main post.

The banners are looking good!

On the Haradrim: The reason I suggest a separation from Mordor is for multiple reasons.

Firstly, Mordor's "population" is Orc with Troll and Man minorities, wheras the Southrons were Man, with no other races mentioned as far as my memory goes. This is at least as different as Man and Dwarf or Elf.

The second reason is that the Haradrim did not have access to Sauron's magic. Sauron did not provide them with Ringwraiths, Risen Dead, or any supernatural powers.

Thirdly, in game terms it would break versimilitude to have Southron cities defended by Trolls or to have Mordor breed Mamluks, at least as much as it would to have Sindar Elf Archers at the gates of Osgiliath or Dunedain Knights defending the Lonely Mountain. Part of the feel of LOTR is the diversity and exotic nature of Arda, I just think that the villainous nations should share that diversity.

And last but not least, in a pre-set map of the third age where Sauron directly controls Mordor, southern Mirkwood, Moria and the Haradrim lands you would have a major imbalance in gameplay. I think part of the fun of playing Sauron would be managing the loyalties of "vassals" like the Goblins of Moria and the various nations of Southern and Eastern Men.