TES Tamriel Project Input/Discussion- Age of Tamriel

[Artfactial]

Hello all,
I am currently working on an XL map for Age of Wonders 3, the huge thing will encompass the whole of Tamriel. I'm pretty far in the geographical creationed , zo now I'm looking for gameplay and lore input from you. Looking for input on what countries/provinces should be playable and what locations you would like to see.
My plan is, once I finnish the basic set-up, to make at least two versions. One taking place around the end of 3E, either just prior or after the Oblivion Crisis. And another taking place during Skyrim's events. I'd love to do others, like Tiber Septim's conquest, the Battle for Red mountain and the Great War or even things like Merethic Era situations or the Alessian Revolt, but I'll first get to these and see from there on out. The Skyrim Era map will be first off since that is the situation that most will be familliar with.

Development thread on the Paradox Forums:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/tes-tamriel-project-age-of-tamriel.1121431/

To start of, some recent screenshots:
Ingame Map
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1211244325
Tamriel Geography
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1202832039
Vvardefell-Vivec City
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1211327753
The Rift-Riften
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1203230651
Iliac Bay-Wayrest
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1203230718

High Rock, Skyrim, Morrowind and Cyrodiil are pretty far along, with the other provinces being a bit more bare lacking concrete canon locations. I have been using lore and ESO information, but don't play it myself so am somewhat limited. The entire continent will be dotted with intersting lore-accurate locations both above and underground. So every player will have many things to explore regardless of the politcal situation.
The main problem right now is rulership, mechanically the game is bound to a max of 8 players, so there will always be at least one country that is either independant (unplayable) or merged into an empire.
The choice of which countries will be playable in a most lorefriendly and interesting way will determine the gameplay. With that I come to the rulers. It's furstrating how little appears to be known about contemporary rulers outside of the focused settings. We get big governing bodies but even the Thalmor don't appear to have a known leader figure.

For the ~4E 201 version I'm thinking this set up for the start game. This is taking into account that the Stormcloack rebellion has already started, altough a pre civil-war situation might be easier.

1-The Empire (including Cyrodiil and High Rock): Emperor Titus Mede II- As far as I can gather, High rock is loyal but troublesome. There is no High King/Queen and the only ruler we know of might be Queen Barynia of Wayrest which may or may not still be in corsair hands. Some High Rock cities might be independant.
Human-Warrior class
Peace with all, except in Aliance with Skyrim and at war with the Stormcloacks.
This gives the Empire the largest direcly controled starting territory but stretched thin recourses.

2-The Altmeri Domion (Summerset Isles/Alinor): -Some old Thalmor elf-
Elf-Theocrat class
Peace with all, except in Alliance with Valenwood and Elsweyr maybe an alliance with the Stormcloaks. This way the alliance as a whole is as supreme as it should be but requires coordination.

3-Skyrim (Empire minded holds): Ruled by either Elesif or Sybelle Stentor
Human-Warrior class
Peace with all, Alliance with The Empire, War with the Stormcloaks. This will give this player the option to side with either side with the Empire, the stormcloaks or defect and rule their own country.

4-The Stormcloaks (Stormcloak holds): Ulfric Stormcloak
Human-Rogue Class
Peace with all, exc. at war with Skyrim, maybe alliance with The Dominion. Not giving the alliance would probably mean a harsh short game for this player. This, of course, forms the catalyst for a Dominion-Empire war; which I don't want to force.

From here on out things get iffy.

5-Elsweyr(including Annequina and Pelltine): A Mane, assuming a new one has been appointed since the assassination. Any news on that?
Tigran-Rogue class
Peace with all, exc. alliance with The Dominion and Valenwood.

6-Valenwood: Is there a Cammoran on the throne again? Is there an indication of a clear devide in Thalmor support?
Elf-Archdruid(even has a comparable Wild Hunt skill!)
Peace with all, exc. alliance with Elsweyr and The Dominion.

7-Hammerfell: Probably a Lhotunic with some cities being independent where Forebears and Crowns hold is firm. Do we know any leaders of any of these factions?
Human- Warrior
Peace with all.

8-Argonia (Black Marsh and former House Dres cities): An An'Xileel official-Do we have a name? Archwarden Qajalil from Lord of Souls pops up in places?
Draconian-Archdruid
Peace with all.

Here is options I'm considering: I love to have a Dunmer-Sorcerer player with Redoran holdings in N-W Morrowind. It would be a fine oppurtunity to start to rebuild the land (something many players would like, I think); but more importantly it would put a damper on the Argonian player to not take half the continent without relative oposition.
To achieve this I have been discussing two options:
1-Give half of Skyrim to the Empire player. This will remove the option for Skyrim to fight for and determin its own position, which is a loss. It will also increase the diffeculty of the Stormcloak rebellion even more since they'll have to direclty challange the Empire (4 vs 13 starting cities), so something would have to be found to ease the Stormcloack plight. With this option, both Valenwood as well as High Rock are opend up for player control, adding some wonderful variety to the classes.
2-Give Valenwood to the Summerset player as well as High Rock to the Empire. This will free up a slot for Morrowind. This option will even out the Dominion and Empire more power/controle whise. The Stormcloak rebellion will be a more even playing feeld as well; even though this is not nessicarilly what they face in reallity.
Either way both the Dunmer or Stormcloacks will be a hard game to play. I am currently in favor of option 1.

Allright, this post is getting long so, if you came this far, thank you, and some questions:
-What do we know of the conteporary rulers of the provinces?
-The class variety is quite low as of now, I'd love to have some more; especially a Sorcerer. Suggestions from AOW3 players as to which players might have a class change. -Indedpendant cities; any suggestions? I've got the latest Orsinium between Elinhir and Dragonstar. Maybe Orcrest. Probably some High Rock cities.
-Any sugestions for this or other era's? Maybe another one would be easier to implement? -Any lesser know locations in the provinces that ought to be exploited?
Any suggestions that might make for fun/interesting play are welkom. I'd love to hear what you have in mind!

[Artfactial]

Alright; here’s the rundown of the state of the project atm.
-Leaders and heroes are, as said fully playable for all 10 races. I’ve been adding custom hair, skin, eyes, facial decorations, background scenes and player shield icons to ground the characters in the world and provide more variety between the races.
-I’ve started adding the basic racial traits; based on Elder Scrolls racial traits. This is probably one of the things that will need the most playtesting in the short run as to not make an entire race too op. That said; some races will be naturally more suited for situations than others.

-While I’m figuring out how to speed up the process of creating at least 130 heroes to fill up the roster I’ve been busy fleshing out the individualization of race, alignment and location based units.
First of is the Imperial Legion which is coming along nicely. Regular soldiers and legionnaires are quite distinct.
Imperial soldiers with Wip shields.


-The cityname system I’ve set up has been turning out nicely. At first it was a way to individualize cities and flesh out lore. Then I added the ability to build guard barracks in each city to recruit local guard watch. This system can further be used to add certain cultural or historical values to the city which might affect units build or stationed at the city. I’ve been thinking of further uses such as empire quests to conquer a given set of cities to earn a title. This can only be done when I find a way to make the empire quests conditional and repeatable.
Oh, every race now has a list of lorefriendly village/settlement names for newly created settlements.
-In the same vain, I have been slowly working in the religion system; this means that you will be able to build a temple like normal and then dedicate it to a specific deity. This in turn will allow you to make deity specific units within that city. E.a. When you have a Temple/chapel of Akatosh in your city a Breton, Nord or Imperial will be able to produce Priests of Akatosh and, when also having a War Hall, be able to make a Lodge of the Hour which will let you create Knights of the Hour, dedicated to that god.
Imperial Legionnaires in the background and Knights of the Hour with wip shields.

As a bonus, light cav will be able to evolve into knights as usual but are afterward able to evolve into any given knightly order.
Similarly, Nords can produce a Stormcloak hall to produce Stormcloak specific units that have a specific hatred for Imperials and the Thalmor. Dunmer are able to produce Council halls for the Great Houses in order to make a city a stronghold for that House; the exact bonuses and penalties there will have to be looked into.
Ulfric and his soldiers near a camp in the Rift

-As said earlier, I’ve been adding unique buildings; actual inns, tombs and ruins that appear in the games. This was a small effort since I am going to need to make custom treasure sites and such anyway to add spawnlists of Tamrielic units.
Ebonheart region in Stonefalls with new Morrowind mushroom textures.

This will open up the way for location specific enemies; more native people in particular treasure sites. Draugr in Nordic tombs, Automatons in Dwemer ruins.

-I’ve been toying with minor military outposts. First with banners, which provide a small sight radius and secondly with small encampments, also bearing the faction specific banners. I’d love to give these custom Tactical Battle maps but am daunted by the complexity of customizing those.:\

A nice overview of some new features:
-Custom Imperial player shield icon (have added 13 so far)
-On the left is Wawnet Inn on it's correct location. Notice the customised in model.
-Custom racial icons are in.
-I am planing the racial governance bonuses and paths but the ascensions is in place.
-New wip textures for the White Gold Tower.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Very nice!

I particularly like the imperial Legionaries (Or is it "legionaires" in the lore? Correct term for Romans is legionaries, for the French foreign legion it's legionaires, but I'm not sure about the Elder Scrolls..) Dwemer centurion also looks very promising, but I'd need to see it in-game to be sure. And the giant mushrooms are just fun. (Now I want giant mushroom forests for AoW4)


I have to admit that when you first started posting here, I wasn't too sure you'd manage to turn your ambitions into something real, or whether it would just be a big AoW map with a different layout. But the things you're showing here are making me quite excited to play this.

[Artfactial]

Thanks a lot!:)

Yeah, the Legionaires (that's what gets used in the lore) have kind of become the standard I'm aiming for with the unit deisgn. Dwemer is very much a Wip but I love the idea of exploring Dwemer ruins in-game.

And by all means you have the right to be sceptical; it's agiant project and I am sure that I won't be able to complete all of my ideas. But I have been playtesting the basics and it already feels fresh and way more involved in the world than I have feld in most AOW scenario's.
Last night I did a test run with the Stormcloaks. After securing some gold income from eastern mines and adventruing in caves I was able to vassalise Whiterun. In the mean time, in the south, Titus Mede declared war on the Bosmer unleashing the Second Great War...I was able to divert my troops into Cyrodiil, capruting Fort Pale Pass and Bruma since most troops had gone south.:D
Notice Bleakfalls Barrow on the mountain in the left corner

It's still going to take while to add the unit spawngroups for all locations and create a TES hero roster and to balance it all decently. But the solid basics are starting to form!^^

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

That looks surprisingly accurate considering what you have to work with, especially the barrow. And in Whiterun, I can even see that point in the wall where I would make my character jump over to take a shortcut to the Skyforge.

The inn is riverwood, I take it? Inns work pretty well for small settlements, now that I think of it. Plus most of them have an inn in game anyway.

[Artfactial]

Yes, that's riverwood.^^ There's some small houses around it as well. I'm working on diversifying the Inn models as well; Riverwood hasn't had the treatment yet.

A fun side effect I ran into while playtesting: the existing villages are, in most cases, property of towns. This means that when a town is independant, you will have to declare war on it in order to attack a village.:)

[TemplarComander]

This is incredible! I'm not sure what timeline you're hoping to follow, but I'll definitely keep following. Your hard work is really visible, everything looks amazing.

[jaersavo]

What do you guess, how long till we can play your map?

[Gladen]

I usally dont like maps converted or recreated from another game. But I must say you have done a great job with the map.

I look forward for the amount of work put into this map.

[Artfactial]

@ATempler Thanks a lot, it has been about a year's work off and on by now so things are starting to shape up nicely; glad it shows!:) As for the timeline: I am wanting this to be the framework for any TES period. I am planning to have at least a 3E Oblivion map and one around Skyrim's 201 4E period; but there are many interesting times to choose from of course. The current testing map is 3E in geography but 4E in political state. I think most people would like a Great War/Skyrim rebellion map first but I am open to other options!:)

@jaersavo, well currently the closed beta is focusing on map balance, racial diversity and most of all implementation of heroes. When this is smoothed out I'll move to an open beta to start thoroughly testing the systems and the map. I have been testing the map on a per-race basis and it's incredibly fun already. I am hoping to have the open beta within a few months but this is dependent on the heroes' progress.:)

@Gladen Thanks! Yes, I myself am hesitant on these types as well most of the time. But I've always felt that AOW's races and mechanics fitted the Elder Scrolls world perfectly.:) I'm hoping to convince more people of this.

[Artfactial]

Alright, a heads-up to all: the project has been on pauze for about two months now since I am unable to work in the Mod Editor. It crashes a few minutes after launch due to unspecified errors with different error messages every time it does. There hasn't been anyone able to pin point the trouble although most seem to agree on a memory leak.
It appears to be a problem on my end with the game/editor but I currently lack the energy and motivation to do thorough testing.

So, for now, the project is on hiatus until someone has a bright idea of what to do or I feel more inclined to fight it again.
Sorry! I too was looking forward to getting the first playable beta out soon.

[Gladen]

Thats too bad to hear. I was looking forward for the release. The memory leak can be frustrating sometimes and encourage to drop their projects completly.

[Artfactial]

So, I am slowly starting to get back into the mod.
With ongoing health issues and the techincal crap going on this has been on low priority.
Expect more info on the progress soon!

I have started a new thread on the offcial AOW/Paradox formus, you're welcome to join us there.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/tes-tamriel-project.1121431/

[Durrrrwin]

This is such a good idea! Let me know when its playable, I'd love to test it.

[Artfactial]

Glad to hear! I'm hoping to get it back into closed beta soon after the re-orginisation of files. That will again mainly entail finding balance in the unit/racial properties and gradually implementing the hero roster. If you're up for that I'll let you know by that time!:)

[Durrrrwin]

cool thanks!