ToME Wiki
The Siege Module
When I eventually make a module, this might be it.
A mixed strategy/combat module with all gameplay taking place during the Siege of Barad-Dur at the End of the Second Age. Instead of creating a character, the player would choose which group to play for: Elves under Gil-Galad, Men under Elendil, or Sauron's forces. The members of these groups would all have individual character sheets, partly pre-determined and partly randomized at the start of the game. After choosing a group, the player begins the game with control over its leader. At any time during the game, he can switch to control of any creature within his group (e.g., switching from Elendil to Isildor, or from Sauron to a lowly orc). The game will be designed so that it will be advantageous to switch control. For example, if part of your forces are under attack and the creature you control is far away from them, it might be advantageous to switch control to a member of the part under attack. If you play Sauron the whole way through and just wade into the middle of the opposing forces, trying to do the work of all of your underlings, you might die too quickly.
The game will be won/lost when any of the following conditions are met:
- If Sauron is personally defeated (guess how), the Elves and Men win.
- If at least a certain high percentage of combined Elvish and Mannish forces are killed, Sauron wins.
- If at least a certain high percentage of Sauron's forces are killed and at least one leader survives from each of the Elves and Men (the leaders for Men including Elendil and Isildur, for example), the Elves and Men win.
There is no retreat.
The number of creatures involved in the battle will be large, probably a few hundred on each side.
The battlefield will be a wilderness-style map, showing, instead of towns, locations of active skirmishes. Visiting one of these locations will switch you to a dungeon-style map appropriate for the location and enable you to take part in the skirmish. When entering/leaving the "wilderness" mode, you will have the option to bring any number of lower ranked members of your group who are at the same "dungeon" location with you. (So, Isildur leaves skirmish A and brings 50 troops from skirmish A with him overground to skirmish B.)
Monster AI and commands issued by the player to lower-ranked members of his group will determine the behavior of participants in skirmishes in which the player participates, while an evaluation of force strength plus some randomness will determine the progression of skirmishes in which the player is not participating.
It will be possible to scavange items from corpses. To facilitate scavanging, "scouting reports" will occassionally appear as messages to the player to the effect of "a Mithril rod of healing has been recovered by Isildur from the body of an enemy in the skirmish at..."
There might be some useable siegecraft.
XP will be granted for kills as normally, skills can be chosen upon levelling (non-player-controlled creatures will have their skills increased automatically). XP will also be granted (not on a 1-1 basis, though) for kills by creatures in your group of lower rank at the same skirmish. So, as the game progresses, the survivors will generally become increasingly powerful.
Spells will probably be capable of damaging anyone, members of your group included.
At game startup, the player will be able to adjust the difficulty of the game. Higher difficulty increases the number of opponents.
Sirrocco: Interesting idea, but what would be the advantage of leaving troops behind? Also, it sounds like to run it right, you'd have to have the battle do a lot of taking place without you, and I suspect that that would be a bit of a challenge to code decently. Also, how would skirmishes be generated?
(thought - Use "group" monsters in overland. Whenever two opposing group monsters encounter each other in the overland map, create a skirmish. Monster AI to determine what sorts of skirmishes each type seeks. Once a skirmish occurs, there is a period of time where other nearby monsters (or the player) can hop in, after which point, if the player is not yet there, it resolves with some sort of relatively simple math.)
(thought 2: for the humans and elves, perhaps a human or elf that distinguishes itself enough in combat (ie, gains enough levels) could gain a name and start to qualify as a leader?)
(thought 3: many of the "summon" effects would summon from elsewhere on the battlefield.)