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Knights of a golden ship and a silver swan

Posted August 7, 2012. By Lauri

Hey everyone!

Now it's over a year since the last update, and it's been over 5 years since I started on this mod(!).
What have I got today? Remakes... Yes, damn the self criticism.. I wanted to improve those who bears the token of a golden ship and a silver swan..

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Eranoth, the Prince of Dol Amroth, has been redone. He wears a cape, a sword and no helmet to distinguish himself from his knights.

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And of course his Knights of Dol Amroth has been redone to fit. No, they don't come dismounted. They have been assigned to the be only cavalry unit that Gondor has, as I have been doing some pre-balance work, trying to settle the factions with a decent amount of unit types that resemble their overall theme. This means that Gondor will have infantry as their main focus again, while Rohan will be more cavalry oriented and less about infantry than they are now. Same applies for Harad and Rhun and their themes. If you visit the site, you'll see an outdated category of how it used to be.

That is all, if there's anything you wonder let me know!

Keep your eye on the horizon, I've heard reports of Haradrim gathering an army in the South...

| 13 Comments |

The Normandy Reborn

Posted May 24, 2011. By Lauri

So, what'd we got?
Work has been slow lately, and for that I apologise. I had a thought, and planned out a doable "remake" of Gondor's units. Why? Here is my reason;

The mod's story. Gondor has been invaded by forces of Rhûn, and Minas Tirith lies in ruins. King Eldaravir flees before all hope is lost. They make a new capital in Dol Amroth. Now, it only makes sense that the
biggest part of the army will come from the fiefdoms of Gondor, so that is exactly what I have done with the units list of Gondor:
I've redone it. Most changes are purely cosmetic, but you can watch the new list here.

Here are some renders of the new units of Gondor.
First, the Swordsmen of Lamedon; second, the Bowmen of Blackroot Vale; and third, the Riders of Pinnath Gelin
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Secondly, I've made some progress on Harad as well.
The Haradrim Siege Ladder. Now, I'll explain something about it. I wanted a rope ladder from the start, to have a unique one (I did get the idea from RA though). Now, this man carrying the ladder, is carrying a HUGE ladder compared to himself and everyone else. It looks ridiculous, it truly does. It looks very unbelievable. But in the end, it's all I bother to do. And I think it acctually looks good in-game, even if the ladders a little oversized. Okay, it's BIG compared to him, especially on the render! I don't give a frak, because I can't get hung up on petty details on every godsdamn thing.
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Lastly, I have in-game screenies. I thought I had 8, but it turns out 4 of them was from the last batch, that I didn't know I had out, so you'll only get 4.
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You can enter the site from my signature. That'll be all, dismissed.
Reference for cookie!

| 4 Comments |

The Southrons

Posted February 17, 2011. By Lauri

Another day, another update,
this time, Haradrim Buildings;

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The main citadel for Haradrim Castles. I wanted a big boomer for this one, and I got one!
The toughest and most durable citadels of all factions.

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The stables, inspired heavily by the arabic stables in AoE2.
Rendering in Max, I can't get to show alphas, but this is how the fence looks in-game.

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And at last, the watchtower.. This is the weakest structure Harad has, being the only one that is entirely wooden.
Ironically, it's just for defence.


And I've also got some in-game screenshots of the various buildings, including some that I haven't rendered.
NOTE; The camp-floor are yet to be replaced, and there won't be a Darkness spell in-game. And of course, there will be a visible archer when I sort out that bug on the Watchtower!

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Being an efficient son of a bitch, all are complete with destruction, buildup and idle animations!
What does this mean? Well, for starters, it means that Harad has, in theory, only 3 buildings left before all their structures are done!
When taken into account that there was 8 only a month ago, that's pretty good progress!

Logging you out, Shepard.

| 6 Comments |

Techtree updated

Posted August 8, 2010. By Lauri

Hey all, pardon the wall of text. It's about the changes in the techtree, so if you don't care, the sweets are at the bottom. If you care, but don't want reasons, just go to the site to see it. Thanks :)

So I come to you know with the updated techtree. The reason for this is because I've never thought about balance before, and just wanted cool stuff. Cool stuff is, without a doubt, cool, but cooler yet when they've got a purpose ;)
So now I've gotten around updating the techtree, by mostly removing units acctually. Rhûn is the only faction that made it though without a scratch, so to speak. The rest had units removed, and altered purposes. I will give each and everyone a reason to why I removed them, hopefully some of you will be sorry to see some of these units go:

So, let's take Rohan first. The only unit they got removed was the Knights of the Eastfold. The reason for this was because they're practically a duplicate of the regular Rohirrim. I really wanted to give Rohan some diversity when it comes to cavalry, but don't see many options. They're basically a horse based faction, with spam of Rohirrim Cavalry and Rohirrim Horse Archers ;) The Royal Guards are currently an Elite Infantry horde. Why there's both a mounted and unmounted one in the render for them is because the King Eothain is able to summon two battalions of Mounted Royal Guards. I am considering switching this a bit, so that Mounted Royal Guards are the Elite Cavalry unit of Rohan, and the Infantry could only be summoned by Eothain. This would give Rohan a more horse based faction apperance, and lessen infantry while gaining cavalry. At the moment, they've got 2 cavalry and 5 infantry! I'm also considering removing the Spearmen of the Westfold, since Royal Guards are better at their job, and Eastfold lost it's unit. I don't like to play favorites, so we'll see..

Harad lost the Desert Spearmen, Serpent Guard, Half-Trolls and their leader. The spearmen went because they're a fodder duplicate of Rhûn's spearmen, and I don't really like spam fodder units. Serpent Guard went because of Harad's excessive Elite units. Either the Serpent Raiders went, or the Serpent Guard. I think they should have an elite Cavalry given their vast land area ;) They had 4 elites, they've now got 1. Last are the Half-Trolls. I didn't really know anything about them, 'cept for their White eyes and red tounges. And I don't really have any neat ideas for them, so, they aren't in anymore. They'll manage fine without, and I'm already pushing my luck with the Evil Dwarves for Rhûn ;) Don't want to do something drastic here aswell. They're leader is also thus gone ;)

Gondor... heh, where to start? There's been a giant change here. First of, the Swordsmen have been replaced by the Men of Anfalas, which have basically replaced them. The Men of Lossarnach and Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth have been completely removed, due to their "I'm a duplicate with an axe, and here's my duplicate friend with a two-handed sword" attitude, and last there's been a change with the two Guard units. They Fountain Guard have been removed completely, reason which I'll present to you in a quote:

would have remained at their posts even if Minas Tirith burned all around them

True to the story of the mod, Minas Tirith burned all around them. So they are completely removed, and the only possibility for them in-game are through King Eldaravir's summon power, which in I haven't decided yet, and if it ever get's to it (likelyhood = 1%) a campaign. The Citadel Guards have also changed from the Bow\Sword toggle unit, to basically replace the Fountain Guard role.
This lowers the Elite units of Gondor from 4 to 2. I no longer see the Ranger as en Elite unit, but rather very good archers with stealth abilities. If you can use them good, set up ambushes and the likes, they'll feel like an Elite, but I mostly use Attack Move so I can't ;)
As a last note, I'm considering if I want to replace the Archers of Minas Anor with Archers of the Blackroot\Morthond Vale or whatever. That would only be a visual change however ;) That would give Gondor the meaning of really being Gondor, and not Minas Anor with friends :p
Also, the Men of Lossarnach and Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth may appear if I decide to swap Refugees of Rhovanion with Summon the Fiefdom or something.. Since Rohan's already got the Rhovanion one ;)

Okay, so to sum it up. I hope some are dissapointed to see some units go, 'cause if not they wouldn't really have been wanted in the first place :p
And here are some new screens of an updated and\or changed Man of Anfalas and Citadel Guard. Yes, that is a Heavy Armor skin I've made for the men of Anfalas ;)
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Last but not least, I've got some in-game screenshots with working Housecolor. These screens are examples of one of the units in the game that works, because far from all do ;) Please go here to vote on the issues of having them or not :)
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And also a "close up" of a improved Royal Guards. What can I say, Kwen inspired me to fix the helmet at least :p
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Again, please VOTE on my poll about having Housecolour on or not. It's alot of work, and I don't want to do it if nobody wants it. Thanks, and that's all for this time!

| 1 Comments |

Small haradrim update

Posted August 1, 2010. By Lauri

Okay, so I've got a small update for you.

The Cavalry Raiders are "done" in the regard that they're bound to a skeleton and work in-game.
I've yet to add diversity to any of the Haradrim units, and for now they will all be the same.
Reason for this is that I'd rather have a Harad faction mostly up and running, than to waste my
motivation on trying to make good looking haradrim skins, which I simply can't!

Second units is the Hasharii.. They've been in the mod's asset for a long time, as Matias created them
a long time ago. I even remember that he wanted to redo them 'cause he meant they were so
outdated and ugly. Using the same reason as above, they'll do fine.

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I've also checked and see abit on the tech tree for the different faction and came to the conclusion:
Balace isn't there. Simple as that. Gondor and Harad has 4 elite or semi-elite units, while Rohan
and Rhûn has the more appropriate amount of 1. There's also other weird stuff, like having
5 different melee infantry for Gondor.. I mean, how many do they really need? Not 5..
I'm only satisfied with Rohan's at the moment, so the other factions will change, Rhûn being
the only possible exception to that rule.

Also I'm having troubles with the spells that allows the forces of Kingdom of Rohan and Gondor
to be buildt. Basically, you don't need to purchase the spell to be able to build them, making the
spell useless. I might look more into the spells and redo them, but since most are basic units,
they come to late in the game.. So anyone who want's to suggest new spells for Rohan and Gondor,
go ahead! I'd love to hear 'em!

So stay tuned for the next update, when I'll hopefully have some more renders and screenshots
for you, but also an updated tech tree..

| 6 Comments |

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