The Naked Fanatics

Finally its going to happen. The Lord of the rings hotseat is going to start. I'll have some information on how to get the mod and stuff. Then some other things about rules. Its going to be very much fun indeed!


The mod: Get it here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=253976

After downloading the two parts, just install it in your main medieval II directory. When installed, try a custom battle first. If you see weird things in battle (the UI is messed up) then download the small hotfix too. It will solve that problem.


We have the following players now:
Ruz
OAM
Reaper
Flim

Are we going to play with just us four, or are more people allowed?
Please give your two preferred factions. You don't need to have read or seen the books and movies to play, but it will give you some knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of each faction. In short, i will give them here:



GOOD

Gondor - One of the strongest starting factions. They are of the race of men, thus their soldiers will be fairly strong. Their economy is good and they have a large starting country. They have good expanding abilities. They rely on good heavy infantry with good spear and pike support. They have access to the heaviest cavalry of the game, but it comes with a price and they do not have many cavalry to choose from. This faction is one of the most popular factions. They are allied to Rohan, but start in war with Mordor and Harad. They tend to be one of the main targets for Mordor, so be ready to have plenty of work to do.

Rohan - An interesting faction to play. They are strong men with an interesting unit roster. As horse based faction they have the best cavalry support, although not the heaviest. They start without real enemies, but will have trouble from Isengard pretty quickly. They have good infantry support, but cavalry will be the backbone of the army.

Dwarves - Economic strong. They have no cavalry at all, which is a great weakness. They do have the best armor in the game and their infantry are heavy shock troops. Their starting position is spread, which can be effective but difficult.

Eriador - Men and hobbits form the armies. Few elite units and lots of cheaper militia men and hobbits. They can expend rarely quick and if relations with high elves and dwarves are good they have their back covered.

High Elves - They are elves and have the best units in the game. However, they are very expensive and rare. Prepare for a though time. Use elite units wisely. They have to win the war.

Silvan Elves - Elves who are less powerful then high elves, but are experts in archery and ambushes. They have good starting positions which are highly defended. Again they need elite units to win the battles.

Dale - Men who are allies of the dwarves. They have a reasonable small starting position and have a reasonable unit roster.

EVIL

Mordor - The main evil faction. Must rely on cheap orc masses, but do have heavy infantry (heavy orcs) and trolls.

Isengard - One of the smaller starting factions. Their ranks draw from men, orks and halforks. There strength lies in heavy Uruk Hai infantry and pikemen. Except the warg riders (great wolves) they do not have cavalry. They start without allies and enemies.

Orcs of the Misty Mountains - An orc faction. Cheap masses of weak orcs fill their armies. Good defensible starting position. They must overwhelm other armies to win their battles. They do have access to trolls, who are nasty big creatures who can turn the tide. Prepare for war against men, elves and dwarves.

Rhun - Also men, but evil ones. In the east, they have a very interesting unit roster. Both cavalry and infantry come in many forms: Skirmishers, light and heavy and shock troops. Their vast lands are both an advantage and disadvantage.

Harad - Evil desert men who have good cavalry. Fairly undisciplined perhaps, but they do have access to the sea and have access to the mighty Mumakils.

A full list of buildings and units can be found for each faction here:
http://totalwar.honga.net/faction.php?v=third_age&encode=en


Rules
Still empty. I'll post it in this first post though.


Are we going to sent it by email or upload it on a site? I suggest mailing it.

Something that should be noted. Evil factions get quite a big advantage in auto-resolve.

I got the Mod up and running, Jesus this Mod rocks. I love the armour, it is up you guys. I don't care how many ppl want to play. I have to look at he factions to see who is cool. I might start a practice game. I love this Mod.

As 4 rules, we should follow the standard rules as we have played. but we can discuss that. I love this Mod.

yeah, we need some rule about the autoresolve. I'd say fight the battle's yourself. Perhaps we can agree on some rule when fighting against a human faction. Like not fighting more then two battles in a row, but let the other faction fight a battle too or something like that.

If it wasn't so time consuming and difficult to organise I'd say fight the battles yourself in MP. But that would make the game go on for VERY long.

Flim how did you make this Mod a hotseat? is there anything I have 2 do on my end? I love the opening scenes. I have read the Books so many times. this is to cool

Updated the first post. So how we going to play this? Split evenly between good and evil or own pick? Is it just the 4 of us?

I can guarantee that if we posted this in the hotseat forum over at the commie we would find a few good players, but I have the feeling that the general response from you guys would be no.

I suggest we each pick a good and an evil faction, and then let chance decide what it is going to be.

I'd go with Dwarves or Isengard.

Mine would be Rhun\Isengard (depending on which is free) or Rohan.

I have another idea: let the battles against human factions auto resolve. Get a fifth player and let three players get on the good side, and two on the evil side. This might even the autoresolve thing. And yes, give a preferred evil and good faction. I will blindly pick the factions for each player. How does that sound?

My favourites would be Mordor and Gondor

I'll go with with Flim evil side Mordor or whatever


OAM go ahead and dewit, lets see if we can get some players then

you mean set it up as a hotseat on the commie?

I really think it would be fun. Otherwise, we could just recruit players over there, but the hotseat board on the com is working nicely.

Yeah, it would be cool to get some .com's involved. Isn't there a dedicated hotseat forum over there now?

As for how many players, I think we could possibly have every faction filled if we can find people who want to play. Theres 7 Good factions and Only 5 Evil so that should balance the auto-resolve. Also are we going to make it set alliances? So say we don't have hobbits or elves allying with Morodor etc? I think we should make it a Good vs Evil thing where its one group of players vs others and you have to stick with those allainces. I think that would be really cool. Thoughts?

yes, there is a dedicated forum at the com (it was my initiative, based on what we have done over here). I know that there are a lot of people lurking, so we might get some together.

I'll make a post over there to see what the mood is.

Yeah, i can live with that. Nice suggestion Reaper, i am up for it. Perhaps you can set two 'neutral' factions: Dale and Dwarves. But a big two camps war can be fun