61 replies to this topic

[isledebananas]

The weapons of these two units are part of the model? You can't just switch the weapons around? I don't think the pikemen need to have more animations because they are regular units. The pike weapon are huge after all and its not like they should be doing much other than lunging or thrusting with it or do that hunker down thing they did BFME 1. So them having fewer animations seems fine to me.

Nah I don't think the archers need to be helmless. I think all the regular units archers, pikes, swords, and finally the mounted units looking similar is fine and seems to be the norm for all factions. That was part of my gist about changing the elite is to make them alone look unique and the regular units all quite similar except the weapons they use.

[Nazgûl]

ALL edits in a model require rebinding and everything held or used by a model is part of the model, meaning weapons and shields, even FX like Forged Blades glow, Fire Arrows etc... so yeah. Any form av edit in a model is like almost starting over. That's why we cant change models without some serious consdieration and decisionmaking before we do it. I truly wish it wasn't so, but EA sure did NOT make this game EASY to mod...

I don't think the pikemen need more anims either, as they are the unit I decribed as part of the regular army (not using shields), and they do come with loads of nice anims. Anims are more than attack anims you know It includes running, falling, hit reactions, taunting, idle anims, etc... The library for them is about 3 times bigger than the anims of the spearmen (elite with shields). That's why I chose them for the elite battallions. They'll probably be limited to 4 squads...

[Námo]

... the elite units of Rhun should look more unique and stand out just like unique units in other factions ...

I think the real problem is, that this faction as it is now is too generic.

For an authentic Rhûn faction it is possible to make four different unique unit, three of them would also be elite warriors, but only two of them Easterlings (and of these only one elite):

• The War-chariots of the Easterling Chieftains (Wainrider descendants)
• The Shield-maidens of the Easterlings (defense unit).
• The Axe-men of the Far East (heavy elite infantry) [non-Easterlings]
• The Variags, (elite) mercenary cavalry of Khand; descendants of Northmen refugees.

Comments:

We do not see much of the Easterlings in the movie, and they also don't have a dominant role in the lore. In both 'the Battle of Pelennor Fields' and 'the Battle of the Morannon' the estimated forces of the Easterlings counted for less than one tenth of the total forces send forth by Sauron; in 'the Battle of Pelennor Fields' the bulk of 'Easterlings' were not those portrayed by Peter Jackson, but the Axe-men out of the far East.

The strength (and the wealth) of the Easterlings had peaked already in the second millennium, and in the third millennium their former empire disintegrated, and "they were only rudely armed" ... with this in mind we must assume, that the Easterlings portrayed in the movie probably were elite soldier forming the core of the Easterling army, due to the quality of their equipment.

Also, most of the cavalry from Rhûn were not Easterlings proper, but were "Men of other race" ... (see below)

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Notes on the Easterling forces of Rhûn:

The Easterlings of the second millennium T.A., The Wainriders:

While the Wainrider empire may not have lasted that long, their culture survived throughout the TA. Even as late as the 31st century, their familiar vehicles could be seen: "Out of the East Men were moving endlessly: swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon horses, chariots of chieftains and laden wains." (FR)

The Easterlings of the third millennium T.A., The Balchoth:

"They were only rudely armed, and had no great number of horses for riding, using horses mainly for draught, since they had many large wains, as had the Wainriders (to whom they were no doubt akin)" (CE), and with whom they likely shared many other cultural traits.

The Easterlings at the time of the War of the Ring:

In the War of the Ring, the Easterlings still maintained the traditions of the Wainriders, approaching with wains and chariots, but like in the war of 1944 supported by cavalry units: "Here and there [there was] the gleam of spears and helmets; and over the levels beside the roads horsemen could be seen riding in many companies. ... These were Men of other race, out of the wide Eastlands." (TT)

The Shield-maidens of the Easterlings:

Another noteworthy feature of their society, alien to the West, were their women-at-arms. These provided a distinct "home advantage" for while the male Wainriders were on the battlefield they did not leave "their homes undefended: their youths and old men were aided by the younger women, who in that people were also trained in arms and fought fiercely in defence of their homes and their children." (CE) It is conceivable that during the occupation of Rhóvanion, some Northmen learned from them the habit to train what the Rohirrim later called "shield maidens", (RK) female warriors who would join them in battle or defend the home front.

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Notes on non-Easterling forces of Rhûn:

The Axe-Men:

This nation or tribe, if it was a tribe, was first observed during the War of the Ring, and only their description is known as it was provided by a Gondorian soldier: "The new host that we had tidings of has come first, from over the River by way of Andros, it is said. They are strong: battalions of Orcs of the Eye, and countless companies of Men of a new sort we have not met before. Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come, we deem." (RT).

During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the axe-men were among the most effective forces of the Morgul army. Nothing else is known of them.

The total number of forces from Rhûn in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields did not exceed five thousand, and the majority of these were Axe-men.

Variags. The only convincing interpretation on these people is the one given by Lalaith, e.g. Variags being some kind of 'elite' mercenaries:

Variags ... may in fact be a translation of a Northern Mannish root, for Variag also is a known Slavic rendering of Varingar, Old Norse for "people bound by a contract", root vár "contract" (from which the Varangian Guard of the Byzantinian emperors derived). Perhaps the Variags of Khand were not an ethnic group but a kind of elite mercenaries in more or less voluntary service of Mordor.

This interpretation fits well with Tolkien's use of Old Norse as representing the language of the Northmen living in Rhovanion; The Wainriders invasion and occupation of great parts of the Northmen's land east of Mirkwood caused migration of the Northmen in various directions, away from the Wainrider empire.

In the lore it is said that the Easterlings "had no great number of horses for riding", and in their history there are only two times, where they had cavalry in substantial numbers; in both cases they were joining forces with Khand: in 1944 as allies (after a hundred years of war between the two realms), and in the War of the Ring under the supreme command of Sauron.

There exist no other indications concerning the Variags.

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Note on the concept of 'Kataphrakt': Even the dubious lotr.wikia classifies this unit as non-canonical. Well, at least they got that right; actually it is in contradiction to Tolkien's vision of the Easterlings, as documented above.

Edited by Námo, 08 December 2010 - 06:56 PM.

[yams in a can]

I heard the Variags were similar to the Haradrim, and particularly good on horseback... Why do I have this in my head Mandos?

[Gfire]

More like the eastern version of the Rohirrim, aren't they? Archers on horseback and whatnot. I pictured them comparable to standard horse-archer civilizations.

[Kwen]

Dare I ask what the rough polycount is on those Easterlings?

[Nazgûl]

You dare... it's about the same as the SEE CaH Uruks (that most mods use now), around 3000 polys if I remember it correctly. Mind you though, that I have tried playing with a few hundered of those uruks, and I had no lag Lag comes mostly from Internet play over Hamachi IMO... or when playing ws Ridder Blauw online and his, at the time, army of about 5000 Galadhrim elves, lol. THAT was some serious lag, roughly about 1-2 frames/sec or so =p

@Namo: I hear ya, I always have. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to remind you though of the same underlying reason that you once "left" the forums - this is a game/mod based on the movies first hand, and just like PJ I do take the liberty of expanding things and making a few interpretations of my own. In this case simply because I find the Easterling empire very interesting to explore, even if it at the time, wasn't that great. I know this is dead wrong and in contradiction to the lore, but once again - the mod is not aiming for 100% lore accuracy - I'm sorry. There will be some things you (and many others) will not aprove of, I'm sure, and a hefty Rhûn faction might be one of them. That's just the way it is. Not saying I don't appreciate your awesome input though. A few adjustments have been made here and therem based upon it

[isledebananas]

Well maybe there is a way to compromise between lore and game necessity. Khand can come with its own building for infantry like axemen and bowmen, which could have some uniqueness which doesn't make them obsolete compared to the regular Rhun counterparts. To make the lore accuracy necessity of Khand the Khand building could be a requirement for the Rhun stables. The stables could contain Kataphrakts(heavy cavalry), Wain Riders(chariots), and Khand Cavalry(medium cavalry bow/axe toggle). The latter two requiring an existing Khand building to be able to produce them. Since Namo is saying Rhun can't field a large cavalry force of their own without outside help that should cover that aspect.

I don't particularly agree that Rhun forces we saw in the movie are the elite. Personally while their armements looked nice it didn't look all that nice compared to the forces of Good, which during the height of Rhun's power they would have been able to produce an army just slightly inferior to the Gondor of that time. Now they don't seem as high quality so these could be the result of waning strength. Furthermore, Sauron has no doubt been having influence over Rhun for sometime so he maybe able to come up with something for them in exchange for their allegiance.

These shieldmaidens I'm not really sure how they can be put in though. Maybe as a kind buffed peasant force? That could be Rhun's spam unit, which could be superior to most others save elves.

[SoulFox]

Hey! I am back from military war in Afghanistan. I have 3 shoot kill gang.
But I hear SEE mods destroyed. But the life or died? I will NOT mods died!
Hope experience life mods.
You really good at making carefully skins/model units Easterlings. See like HD from Playstation 3. FUCK EA!!!
I did see others Russia's mods is LOT 100% skins/model for units and buildings.
You have never see Gondor faction http://www.google.no...1t:429,r:28,s:0.
Russia mods is LOT skins/model than The 3rd Ages.
You can rival against Russia.
SEE mods vs. Russia mods.
I true many year later new other Lord of the Rings new RTS.
Games is unkown!
I hope SEE mods fresh!

[yams in a can]

Mother Russia...

Did that guy just say that Russian mods pwn 3rd age mods ... ?

[Mathijs]

I don't know what he said, but I do know most Russian mods are composed of assets stolen from our mods.

[{IRS}Athos]

These shieldmaidens I'm not really sure how they can be put in though. Maybe as a kind buffed peasant force? That could be Rhun's spam unit, which could be superior to most others save elves.

Rhun doesn't seem the society that would throw their women to the enemy like tasty tidbits experience points.

Now, if it could be worked out that they had higher defense when close to buildings, to represent that they were the defense force and would certainly fight more fiercely when defending their homes, they would be a unique unit. Otherwise there would be no point in choosing them over the normal Easterlings.

[Námo]

These shieldmaidens I'm not really sure how they can be put in ...

... if it could be worked out that they had higher defense when close to buildings, to represent that they were the defense force and would certainly fight more fiercely when defending their homes, they would be a unique unit. ...

One way of achieving this could be to give the fortress an expansion like "House of Maidens" to produce female warriors, who have the sole purpose of defending the fortress. The might also alleviate the problem of creating some authentic fortress-expansions for this faction.

[{IRS}Athos]

That would be somewhat similar to the spider hole for the Goblins, only not as lame.

[Emperor of the East]

I like the models that have been produced, and I also like the effort being put forward...

I would also like to put in ideas. Since the Easterlings had chariots and wains, we should factor in that they are both two different kinds of wagon.

Chariot vs Wain

Concerning anti-cavalry... Tolkien never says they have pikes, only spears. The difference between those two is also evident:

Spear vs Pike

We also have to tink about geography. Look at the two maps below and look for similarities
-

If we consider this, then its a no-brainer that Harad is Tolkien's version of Africa, while Rhun is his version of Asia. And the books say that the Easterlings were bowmen upon horses, and he also made reference to them having spears and helmets, so it would only make sense to portray them as well-equipped.

In The Return of the King book, it says that the Easterlings are strong and war-hardened and ask for no quarter. This would make it sensicle to portray them as well-deciplined, brave, and merciless.

And the fact that Easterlings have axes separate from spears is a stark contrast to the movies, which give these guys halberds. And since this mod is primarily based on the movies, the right way to handle this contrast would be to keep an axeman unit out of the faction, and just stick to the spearman. The pikeman unit is not of Lore, and the axeman unit is. If we were to include an axeman unit, we would need one who uses the same short halberd as the spearman but as a two-handed staff weapon. But for consistency with the movies, we would have to give the spearman the long halberd, the same way the Gondor spearman's spear is long but not a pike.

[yams in a can]

Actually the Easterlings do have axes in the books. During the siege of Minas Tirith, the Eastelings present were ones with axes, never seen before until then...

What is the difference between pike and spear?

[Nazgûl]

- Pike: long
- Spear: short

[NewErr]

- Pike: long
- Spear: short

Actually I thought the pike is a long one-blade axe while the spear has you know , the round top that stings you .That's just me tho , should have the same role .

[Emperor of the East]

Actually the Easterlings do have axes in the books. During the siege of Minas Tirith, the Eastelings present were ones with axes, never seen before until then...

I wasn't denying the Easterlings having axes, and actually their presense at the Siege of Minas Tirith was a thing of the movies, whereas in the book they didn't show up until the Battle of Pellenor Fields. And, if you look at Rhunic history, it says that the Easterlings started to be a rich and well-manered empire with "walled cities of stone" in year 1000 of the Second Age. It also says that the Easterling axemen who were "never seen before" were a blockade force in Anorien, meant to prevent the Rohirrim from helping Gondor. They were not a different troop type just becuase they had different hairstyles or different body-builds.... Rhunic History

[khamulrulz]

Simply brilliant models, guys! I'm not quite sure where the mod stands now as far as reconstruction, but having seen these new easterlings models/skins, as well as the new tower guard, noldor, and goblins (and of course the uruk-hai ones from way back when), I think that a release is definitely worth the wait! These units are beauties.