I don't see the ring particularly as a game-breaker. And I don't think that corruption needs to be applied directly to the character using the ring if it empowers Sauron. Basically does the same thing.

I'll try to spell out what I mean and how magic/essence could be tied in.

1. Most characters and races don't use essence. Only Sauron, Saruman, Gandalf have a fair amount of essence, lets say 10 to start with each. Lesser magic figures such as Elrond, Galadrial, Radagast would have a small amount of essence, lets say 3 to start with.

2. Essence is non-transferable directly and can not be gained through levelling.

3. Owning the Ring gives an essence boost of 10 to the wearer. This essence boost is of no use to Frodo because he doesn't have a spell tree.

3. Each character with essence has his/her own spell tree but it wouldn't be very large.

Eg. Sauron's spell tree would mainly be cast on the main map and could consist of spells such as Eye of Sauron for 3 mana, Orc Band for 6 mana (can be cast into any controlled location), Send Nazgul for 8 mana (which would teleport to a non-good controlled square, plus or minus a random amount, maybe plus or minus random 8), Burn Ring Bearer for 15 mana (this is where the essence growth of Sauron becomes a problem for the bearer), Corrupt Bearer for 22 mana (converts the bearer into a nazgul and Ring then disappears to become a quest again.

Galadrial, for example, would have spells such as Heal for 1 mana, Blinding Light (tactical spell) for 1 mana, Elven Crusade for 8 mana (she would need to control the ring to cast such a spell because of the essence boost - which would spawn a powerful elven unit at her location but would also add an extra essence to Sauron).

4. There is no spell research. Characters start with their full tree but the powerful spells are out of reach without gaining extra essence.

5. Mana is only replenished at specific locations for characters. Eg. Saruman only gets mana replenished at Orthanc.

5. Wearing the ring in a tactical battle gives a defensive boost. Perhaps base defence x 3 + usual bonuses (armour etc). But using the ring in battle adds one essence to Sauron so each time he gets closer to being able to use his more powerful spells. Weak characters such as Frodo might start with a base defence of 3 so wearing the ring boosts this to 9. More powerful characters such as Boromir might start with a base of 8 which gets boosted to 24. The magic users in the game would mainly be using the ring to cast their powerful spells that without the ring they can't access. Using the ring also exposes the player to everyone else and so they become a target.

6. Getting the ring to Mount Doom removes all of Sauron's essence and destroys the ring. Doesn't necessarily need to end the game at that point.

7. The game is primarily about non-magic units and non-magic battles. Magic and the Ring are just boosts to the main battles going on and magic only plays a major role if the ring is controlled and used by an essence empowered character.

8. If the character wielding the Ring is killed or converted then the Ring disappears and eventually turns up as a quest.

9. Nazgul units have their attack strength boosted when confronting the ring bearer.

So most of the game is still building units, conquering territory, etc. If a powerful character gets the ring, they still need to be in their seat of power to replenish their mana. So the presence of the Ring slowly builds within the game over time but it isn't the primary focus.

Lets say Frodo uses the ring in a battle. He is then exposed on the map for that turn. Sauron then casts Send Nazgul costing 8 mana to Frodo's location. The plus or minus random eight leaves them 4 squares away. They eventually catch Frodo and kill him. The Ring then disappears and a number of turns later spawns as a longish quest that any player can complete.

If you guys play wc3, or want more ideas, you can download the custom map Ring Wars from epicwar.com. This map of 3rd age is awesome because it has all the races, heroes of 3rd age. And each faction has bonuses depend on their locations. And if for example forces of evil kill Mirkwood, then that place become corrupted and spawn spiders for Saurons. Or if Khazad-dum is razed then the Dwarves reclaimed their city and land. etc

Also 1 more unique mechanic in that map is that if Denethor, Gollum, Galadriel, or Saruman kill Frodo and gain the ring, they will betray their force of good/force of evil team and become independent race. If the ring reaches Mt. Doom then Sauron faction and the cities Baradur, Minas Morgul die permanently. If the ring is fallen into evil heroes and brought back to Baradur, Sauron hero is revived. etc. FUN MAP!!

Anyway, I think the cloth map mode would fit LOTR map perfectly. I think the only NPC's the mod should have is bandits/pirates and weak monsters here and there. I propose these races for the mod:

Force of Good:

1/ Hobbits and Rangers of the North. Ents of Fangorn

Main cities: Bree, Shire, Hobbiton, Fornost, Entmoot.

Traits: Bonus food a lot of population. Weak warrior skills. Rangers of Fornost can be special units. Ents are strong heavy hitters, fire weakness. Earth magic bonus.

2/ Elven force of Mithlond, Rivendell, Mirkwood, and Lothlorien

Main cities: Grey Havens, Rivendell, Thranduil Caverns, Lothlorien. That's it really there aren't many elves left in Middle Earth.

Traits: Bonus intelligence. rely on life and the 4 elemental magics, but not too specialized on any of them much. Cirdan - fire. Elrond - water. Thranduil - earth. Galadriel - air. Conceal bonus, some magic fortification bonus. Improved accuracy, swift movement in forest.

3/ Dwarves and Men of Dale

Main cities: Erebor, Iron Hills, Dale, Esragoth, Blue Mountain

Traits: Mining (lol duh). Hardened warriors bonus. Merchants, more gold coming in from population and trading.

4/ Rohan

Main cities: Edoras, Helm's Deep, Dunharrow

Traits: Cavalry, fast units on plains. Raiding? These guys will fight Saruman mostly.

5/ Gondor

Main cities: Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, Pelagir, Dol Amroth, Linhir, special hidden base at Emyn Arnen

Traits: Ultimate warriors. Siege constructs and fortification bonuses. Diplomacy good? Ships are strong to fight Corsairs. Far-sight(since Denethor has a Palatir)

6/Fellowship of the Ring

No cities. Special faction here. Control all major heroes in the fellowship. Events trigger where they go I guess. Gain more power as they progress toward Baradur. Since Gandalf is only spellcaster and he wields ring of fire and is an Istari, I guess this race use life and fire mostly.

Forces of Evil:

1/ Mordor

Main cities: Barad-dur, Durthang, Dol Guldur

Traits: Huge army, very good warfare tech. Obviously magic will revolve mostly around global spells. Death and fire magic. Far-sight.

2/ Minas Morgul - 9 Nazgul & Shelob

Main cities: Minas Morgul, Cirith Ungol

Traits: Death magic mastery, can sense where the ring is, can not be killed permanently, True-sight.

3/ Men of the East: Easterlings and Khand

Main cities: Rhun, Khand

Traits: Cavalry, fast warriors, raiding.

4/ Corsairs of Umbar and Haradim

Main cities: Umbar, Near Harad, Far Harad, pirate harbor at Lond Daer

Traits: Faster boats, Piracy, special unit Oliphants, stealthy units. Very small use of water magic? Can initiate attacks fast from Gondor to Grey Havens by ship transports.

5/ Goblins and Orks of Moria

Main cities: Khazad-dum, Mt Gram, Mt Gundabad

Traits: Numerous weak goblins and orks, but also strong heavy hitters like Orges. Channeler can be Balrog, using death, fire, earth magic.

6/ Isengard and Men of Dunland

Main cities: Orthanc, Dunland

Traits: Intelligence, air and fire magic mastery. Bonus on diplomacy, technology warfare stuff, and fortification. Men of Dunland are savaged warriors. Far-sight. Wormtongue-esque spying & mind-control abilities of some sort?

If the game is spaced out good, Gondor will fight Mordor, Rohan fight Isengard, Elves fight Moria, Hobbits fight Corsairs ship raid, and Dwarves fight Men of the East, while Fellowship and Nazgul running around the map getting bonus weapons and trigger events.

There could be special characters like Tom Bobaldi, Beorn, people of Druadan Forest. Where you do quest for them and they give you a group of their race units or special items.

Dungeons could be Erech, Barrow Downs. Special places can be Annuminas, Amon Hen or Carn Dum. Going there grant unique powers to specific race or trigger events.

Since not all races in Third Age use magic and since Elemental technology trees only have magic/sorcery as 1 out of 5 paths, this implementation is perfect.

Das: I like your idea a bit better now that I understand it better, but I still have some problems with it. The most important being that whenever possible, I want the mechanics to mirror the canon as much as possible. Using the Ring doesn't (necissarily) make Sauron stronger. It might gain him a minion, but if anything it makes he weaker. Someone using the Ring could overthrow him and become the "new" Dark Lord. He doesn't want a "strong" character (Gandalf, Denethor, Elrond, Aragorn, etc) to use the ring because they could get rid of him (whereas a weak character would be converted). Sauron doesn't really benefit from others using the Ring, except that he can see them. I think your idea would be a good back up plan if I can't figure out something better, but to be honest it isn't my first choice.

Glass: Nope, don't play WC3. I was vaguely considering picking up Medieval 2: Total War just to play The Third Age, though

Anyway, in regards to your faction suggestions, I can promise you right here that Mordor and Minas Morgul are NOT going to be seperate factions. Morgul and the Nazgul are a part of Mordor, end of story. Also, there will be no playable Orc factions outside of Mordor and Isengard. There might be roaming bands of Orcs (similar to the bandits in the game right now) and maybe a minor faction, but nothing playable. There just isn't enough to make them a full faction, IMO. Not to mention that even the "seperate" ones would for the most part follow Sauron's orders.

The same goes for the Hobbits and Rangers. There just isn't enough to them to justify making them their own faction. Again, maybe an NPC minor faction or something similar.

I'd strongly suggest you try out the Third Age mod for Medieval 2. Not because it is a great mod (which it is), but because of how they handled the same sort of story-line issues we are discussing. I enjoy playing that Mod up to a point then get bored with it, but they have done a good job balancing the realms of Middle Earth. And the settings are before the Fellowship of the Ring so they are dealing with the world rather than trying to squeeze the story into their game-play experience. They discuss this in some detail from memory on their website - the pros and cons of focussing on the world.

I agree that Minas Morgul should not be split from Mordor as a separate faction. Mordor should be large, powerful and cohesive. What about the goblins of Mirkwood. They are at war with Legolas's people and seem to be aligned but separate with Mordor.

I guess that at the start the project will be split up into manageable portions so maybe the balance of things will sort itself out along the way to some extent. For example it might start with playable factions within the main Elemental game before the total conversion is attempted. This would give some good feedback on what is working on an empire by empire aspect with regards the units. Interestingly, Frogboy has mentioned that the game campaign was developed using the mod tools and doesn't contain any tech researching. This could give good clues on how to tackle the conversion.

It's too bad I don't really want to pay to play a mod And were I to get it, I'd prefer a digital version (so I can play it now vs waiting a couple days) but it's ~$15 more expensive on Steam than Amazon. Plus it's Steam Still, I have been reading the stuff on their website.

IIRC, they came from Dol Guldur, which was under direct control of Sauron (or one of the Nazgul, same thing really, though). Unless you're talking about the ones coming from the mountains. Still, I don't think there is enough substance to them to warrant a seperate faction.

Oh yes, certainly not going to try to do everything at once. One faction at a time.

Ugh, I just realized there's a bunch of black text in the OP that you can't really see on the new forums. Should be fixed soon.

By the way, the Third Age mod doesn't just require Medieval II, it also requires the expansion pack 'Kingdoms' as well.

Yeah, the gold pack is $16 on Amazon and $30 on Steam...

Also, the colors are fixed now, which was way more painful than it should have been.

I personally like the Ents as a playable faction with Treebeard as their channeller.

Alot of the variables depend on the goal, the mod will look very different if the goal is to recreate the challenges and battles of the books versus using the lore to create random maps that will use LotR factions.

Did I miss something or has there been no mention of the One Ring?

You definetly missed something; the first post on this page is about the Rings

The Ents just don't work if you want to stay true to the lore (which I do). The Entwives have long since disappeared, so they can't procreate. What you start with is what you get, which would be horrible to balance (what's to stop them from dominating everything at the beginning when no one can resist?). Also, the Ents aren't aggresive. They don't wage war, they wait for it to come to them before they act. That's not conducive to exciting gameplay.

My goal with this mod is to do a bit of both. If you want to recreate the War of the Ring, you should be able to (or at least come close) and in fact, I plan to make a campaign focuses around that (or have Annatar do it, if he still wants to ). But if you want to do a random map, that will still be possible. But unless doing so would be completely game-breaking, the random games will stay as close to canon as possible.

I've been rather busy lately, what with school starting and all (hence the lack of recent updates to my lists ) but I have had time to do a map of Middle Earth, and it's been posted in the mods section in Impulse::Reactor. It still has some issues, and certainly isn't balanced, and it's freaking huge, but it's up. As I improve it, I'll remove the old version(s) and post the new one(s).

I have down loaded the map and was wondering why you decided to make it so big? 24x24 is way to big in my opinion, I would offer maybe half that size as a suggestion. I wasnt aware you could make them that big. I tried to play on it and the game crashed after about turn 5, lol. That could just be the current state of things, or it could be the size of your map. Also how will people on older machines play your mod if this is an issue? Just some thoughts.

P.s. I am all for a middle earth mod. I look forward to watching it come about. 

I also play Lotro so a mod like this is epic win. 

We're going to have that issue in the DL Mod as well. A Huge map is a must to fit in all of Ansalon. Dinky land masses just don't cut it.

Because the default "large" map size is not nearly big enough for Middle Earth (it's only 12x12, iirc). I tried it, and didn't like it. 24x24 might have been a little excessive. I was counting on the optimization to make it better (as I made it during the beta). It certainly does play better than before.

Also, there's a tutorial by RavenX/Frogboy that shows you how to make custom map sizes, because you're right, normally you can't. It's very easy to change that, though.

Really I was looking at maybe a 12x8. I havent really tinkered around with it too much. But was thinking of doing one just so people with older machines could play on the map.

 My other concern with the large size, was how long it would take players to run into one another. If it is too long a time span, then this would create a disparity between how equal each factions chances were, once they did run into one another. One faction who just happens to catch a break on some resource placements in the begining, might end up with a huge advantage over the others. This really wouldnt be to fun for the player if they had been playing for 1000 turns only to discover they have no chance to win. Obviously tweaking the map to play well is something that comes with time. But using an existing map, made without game balance in mind, creates some challanges that will have to be answered in other ways perhaps. Size might be one of them. Just something to keep in mind.

As for the map size thing, I stumbled upon the mod links after I posted my reply. hehe, figures right.   I read them all and found them very interesting.

Anyways keep hammering away, I will be following along!

Well, like I said, the default large size is 12x12, and I didn't think it was big enough. It didn't let me create the amount of detail I wanted. 20x15 or something would probably work, as there is a lot of useless ocean. Eventually I'm going to place the resources on the map myself, so you hopefully won't run into imbalances like that. I actually want the players to be far apart. At the end of the Return of the King, it took the army of Gondor a week (it was a week, right? It was certainly a couple of days) to reach the Black Gate after leaving Minas Tirith, and those two places are relatively close to one another. I want the huge scale, although it remains to be seen if that ultimately proves to be viable.

I follow what your saying about the map size. I will play with it more to see if the new patches make it more stable.

Something is was thinking about when you talked about having large gaps between players. If you do this is might require changing some game play stratagies. Like building cites that only have one purpose, like building troops or food. Then laying out a starting guide or suggestions for how the players might start thier cities. Like saying in the begining it is suggested you follow the standard layout of building 3 cities(one for food, one for troops and one for research). Otherwise you run the risk of having a disadvantage,etc,etc. Or maybe you could just start them out with three pioneers or something. That way the players have a jump on setting themselves up to handle the vast areas they are going to have to cover.

In hind sight someone has probly already thought of that, but it just crossed my mind. I have only been playing since release. *shrug*

Just something else to think about.

Hope much more works you need to complete this? Any ideas when you guys have it done??

Good at mining (presumeably including gold) would become a balancing issue because with lots of metal/gold, they could buy their way through diplomacy.
Kinda like the MoM Rockefeller dwarves. =P      (Dwarven/Alchemist FTW!)

There are ways to offset this but a direct resource boost is always tricky.
It could be offset with higher metal cost for their eqipment but that implies a wholly unique set of "dwarven items" for the tech tree and no access to the cheap items of other races... because dwarves would shun such shoddy workmanship.

Alternatively, dwarves would generate resources normally but produce higher quality items - again with a dwarf-centric tech tree and their own items.
However, that limits the scope of the balancing to the dwarves themselves and their tech tree / items, wheras resources alone play into too many aspects of the game - such as the already mentioned diplomacy.
This way would have the advantage that dwarven champions would have access to better gear in the shop, too, or if you had a non-aggression pact with dwarves, you could outfit your champs in their shops.
And they could not use this "better mining" to create huge amounts of cheap foot soldiers.

ROFL A lot. Don't expect it any time soon. I'm not even going to try to give an estimate, as it will without a doubt be wrong. And it's not "you guys," it's just me

Diplomacy will be overhalled. As I've said before, my goal is to recreate Middle Earth and the Lord of the Rings as close as possible, and I think that you'll agree that in LOTR factions aren't "buying" friendship with gold/diplomatic capital/whatever. Honestly I'm not sure yet exactly how it will work, but it will definetly be different.

Regardless of how their mining bonuses end up working, they won't be able to create huge amounts of cheap foot soldiers. Their population growth will be very slow, and there just won't be a lot of them. If you try to make large armies of them, you'll end up with on one left in your cities really quickly.

I got Barad-dur into the game!

It obviously has some orientation issues. And scaling. And texturing, but it's in (and it's currently taking the place of a catapult, but whatever ).

"Now witness the firepower of this fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!"