Yeah, but the Haradrim were pretty much under Sauron's control. I mean, they didn't really have any free will whatsoever, they just did whatever Sauron wanted them to. Whether the orders came directly from him or not, it was still all exactly what he wanted. And when they attacked Minas Tirith, they were following his orders (through the Witch King).

That said, I will grant you that your last two points are good reasons to make them playable. I don't know. Maybe they will be NPC's like the Ents and Lothlorien, but they start with an unbreakable (or very hard to break) treaty with Mordor. They will be a vassal, but it will be very, very hard for them to ever revolt and break free. But they will have limited free will to do what they want, unless Sauron "asks" them to do something, in which case they will drop everything and do it, because the penalties would be bad, to say the least.

I shall let you decide Kyogre, a lot depends on how moddable Elemental is, i.e. if it can be modeled that the Haradrim do not have Orcish troops without taking away Sauron's Orcs.

Thinking about it more, your idea of super-loyal vassals with limited free will actually sounds like the best compromise as that would retain Sauron's dominion without creating the "blob" effect.

I put the eye of Sauron in game as the logo for one of the Fallen races :

I can't find what to edit to change the name to "Mordor" though

More 2d art! Yay! I put the White Tree of Gondor in:

It's a little small there, I'll get the full size one up soon. I still can't figure out how to change the names, and I've looked in pretty much every game file.

Ok, here is the large version of the White Tree

Ok, in the interest of keeping this thread alive, I have a little status update

I am still, very slowly, texturing Barad-dur. But I kind of got a little sick of it, so I'm taking a break from it to work on other models, namely the Tower of Ecthelion (ie, the White Tower of Minas Tirith) Whether the rest of the city gets modeled with this remains to be seen And speaking of the Tower, do you have any idea how hard it is to get a decent picture of it to use as a reference? It seems that the only shots of it in the movies are some zoomed out ones of the whole city, and a couple of the base.

Anyway, I'm also (slowly) working on some more of the 2d artwork stuff.

I give you: the Tower of Echelion, otherwise known as the White Tower of Minas Tirith! Like I said, it was very hard to find good reference pictures, so I used a lot of "artistic license"

I'm not completely sure I'm happy with it yet; I kind of think it's a bit too "angle-y" but it looks wierd with curves.

So, what do you think?

The top of the tower reminds me of a lipstick. Ah... sorry but it's true. "angley" is not necessarily bad (http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2920671).:P

Anyway, so far looking good.

Hm, I guess you're right, it does kind of look like lipstick Angley isn't bad, it just doesn't seem like "Gondor" to me. I'd almost say that it looks like a futuristic missile or something. Maybe it will look better textured (hopefully )

You can try to search for screenshots or even the demo released by the Minas Tirith Project, they did a lot of concept, renders,... (a pitty the project died).

Thanks for the info! I think I'm going to scrap my model and start over. Maybe the current one can be something else, although I'm not sure what. Dol Guldur maybe? Make the top more pointy, add some spikes, and I think it would work.

It doesn't look like lipstick to me. Lipstick looks like this:

The end is sort of blunted on lipstick. That tower looks like a tower, and a fine lookin' one at that.

I thought that "look like" was different of "is". in the lines of "It reminds me of a lipstick although ovbiously it is not one because it's attached to a tower, the end is not blunted...".

Yeah... well...

You know, the more I look at that lipstick tube, the more I think how awesome it would be as a storage device for something horrifically radioactive.

Ok, here is the new Tower of Ecthelion I am much more happy with this one, and it bears less of a resemblance to a tube of lipstick

An old friend stopped by the other day kyogre12.  He asked if old Tom Baumbidil had a chance of making it on your list of Soverigns, in between puffs of perfumy tobacc..?

I don't think so. He doesn't so much have a "faction" to lead. Plus, his power only exists in the Old Forest, so he wouldn't really be able to do anything.

I don't like the base so much (compared to the rest of the model) but it's a lot better.

Tom B. could be a "Minor Civilization" a la Gal Civ 2 but without colonizing.

Yeah, the base is a little off, I'm going to rework that part a little.

As for Tom B., my plan is to include all of the "minor" characters/civilizations to be included. Not just Tom, but things like Rivendell, the Grey Havens, the Shire, the Barrowdowns, etc. They're not exactly things that will be fielding armies like Gondor, Mordor, etc, although I imagine Rivendell and the Grey Havens can be defended if it comes to that. 

They will provide benefits for whoever befriends them. For the Shire, if you're playing as a "good" faction and you befriend them, you will be able to occasionally recruit theives, who will be able to do something, I'm not quite sure yet If you're playing as Mordor, you will be able to conquer and enslave the Shire, giving a bonus to production in the region around the Shire.

Also, I'm now leaning toward including the Elves of Mirkwood as a playable faction.

Ok, here's the newest version of the Tower of Ecthelion, with the redone base. I also changed the big pylon thingys a little

The One Ring - Considering the fact that the Ring is pretty much the central feature to the Lord of the Rings, I haven't really given much thought to how it will work in the mod. So in an effort to remedy that, here are some of my thoughts on how it will work. Let me know what you think.

If any player on the map is 3rd Age Sauron, the Ring will automatically be added somewhere to the map (I'm assuming that this will be possible with the modding features). It will basically be hidden somewhere, up for grabs for whoever finds it first. Obviously the other players will want to find it before Sauron does, because if he gets it he will be nigh unstoppable. For balance, the Ring, while it's location will be semi-random, it won't ever start out close to Sauron's starting position.

Also, there is some small chance that the Ring will be found by someone/something that isn't directly controled by one of the players, like, say, a Hobbit. In which case the Ring will "move," so it probably won't be in one place for very long.

If a player manages to get ahold of it, either by random luck finding it, or taking it from another player or wandering creature, they will be able to do a couple of things. If that player is Sauron, it's basically game over for everyone else. If they're not Sauron, they can:

1. Use it. They will get bonuses to construction, unit strength, military might, etc. But they will lose diplomacy skill, and their good/evil scale will gradually move toward evil. If they use it too long... something will happen. I'm not completely sure yet. There needs to be downsides to using it, so that people don't always want to use it as opposed to the other options.
2. (Try to) Destroy it. If it is successfully destroyed, the Sauron player is basically gone. Sauron himself disappears, and his empire splits into a bunch of small, weak, and divided kingdoms that can't really do much. However, trying to destroy it runs the risk of Sauron discovering where the Ring is and who has it.
3. Do nothing. Everyone will keep looking for it, thinking that it hasn't been found yet, so while they're wasting resources trying to find it, you can be building an army to crush them. However, the player that has the Ring will gradually suffer the same fate as the one who uses it, but much, much slower (just as an example, we'll say 50 turns vs. 400 turns).

One more, kind of related thing. If 3rd Age Sauron is present, then in addition to the Ring spawning somewhere on the map, a volcano (Mt. Doom) will also be on the map. This volcano is, of course, where the Ring must be brought in order to destroy it. While Sauron doesn't *have* to build his empire near/around the volcano, it is highly encouraged to do so, to make it harder to destroy the Ring. The volcano will probably spawn close to Sauron's starting positon, to lessen the likelihood some other player will "camp" the volcano.

So, your thoughts?

What would the rules be if both 2nd and 3rd age Saurons are playing? Or would they be mutually exclusive?

The problem with random map generation and all that means that you can end with the following scenario:

1. Player Frodo spawns near Player Sauron. Not close enough as to know it without some exploration, obviously.
2. In early exploration, a goodie hut found by Player Frodo gets him The One Ring. I'm, maybe wrongly, supposing that it's far enough of Sauron to spawn but still close enough to suppose a problem.
3. A few turns later, Player Sauron finds Player Frodo and attacks him. He wins and gets The One Ring.
4. Steamrolling for the rest of the game for Player Sauron?

Maybe Sauron should only be able to get the Ring once he has completed some kind of quest or some turns have passed? A lucky Sauron can be a winner Sauron. It's doubtful that if Sauron defeats the ringbearer, the Ring won't allow itself to get recovered by Sauron though.

If a player gets corrupted by the Ring, let him die consumed by the Ring and his lands join Sauron.

I'm not completely sure. This brings up another problem I've been trying to figure out. In The Return of the King, Prince Imrahil says "Surely this is the greatest jest in all the history of Gondor: that we should ride with seven thousands, scarce as many as the vanguard of its army in the days of its power..." So obviously, Gondor, at one time, had a much larger (and probably stronger) army than it does now. It can likewise be assumed that Sauron during the time period of the Last Alliance was much stronger than he is now (he did have the Ring).

So going off of that, 2nd Age Gondor or Sauron would own their 3rd Age equivilents, which would be very much unfair. I see two ways to solve this problem; 1. 2nd Age Gondor+Sauron get a nerf, to bring them more in line with their 3rd Age counterparts, or 2., 2nd Age and 3rd Age factions can't be in the same game with each other. Option 1, I think, is the more preferable one.

Assuming option 1, and 2S and 3S are both playing, their will be two Rings, but each is only specific to its time-period owner. 3S's Ring will start somewhere, as already described. 2S will start with his Ring (which, as I said, may require a nerf to make it fair). But if 3S some how gets 2S's Ring, it won't be intsa-win for 3S, it will work like the Ring normally does for for non-Sauron players, and likewise if 2S gets 3S's Ring.

I'm thinking that no matter who you are playing as, you will have to go on a quest to find the Ring. But going on one specific quest wont' garantee that you get the Ring, you just have a chance to if the Ring happens to be somewhere on the path of your quest.

Also, the Ring will be very rare. Not quite as rare as dragons are expected to be in the vanilla game, but similar. So you could conceivable go through an entire game without anyone finding the Ring. Hopefully those two things will a scenario such as the one you suggest from happening.

The problem I have with the "get corrupted and become Sauron's vassal" idea is, what happens if you use the Ring to kill Sauron? Then you have the power the Ring gives you, and no real consequences of continueing to use it/hold on to it, unless you really care about being a "good" kingdom.

Maybe, the bonuses the Ring gives will depend on the "strength" of your kingdom/empire/sovreign.

I don't think that the Ring would actually allow you to kill Sauron. It shouldn't. It should try to conquer you or betray you. It's part of Sauron after all and in its limited way, always trying to go back home. What I want to say is that atlhough not impossible to kill him while in control of the Ring (ask certain hobbits about it), it shoul have some kind of penalty/difficulty added to reflect that.

Anyway, my LotR lore isn't that big but isn't Sauron immortal as long as the Ring is still there? Sauron would be unkillable by any means as long as the Ring is there (not a bad mechanic to have for a faction as long as it could be balanced properly). I suppose he could be temporarily banished but not killed. In any case, if he were to die and the Ring survive, let the killer enjoy the benefits of the Ring and be Sauron 4.0 if he wishes (and it's not like if he should have a choice, the Ring is supoposedly to corrupt anyone not matter its will).

I don't remember if you have mentioned it yet but... factions can be played by more than one player at the same time? Like 2 players with Sauron 3rd Age? Or 5 players with Sauron 2nd Age or Gondor 2nd Age? Gondor and similars might not be a problem but surely the Saurons can be one.