Palantir: Coding Manager of ‘The Fourth Age: Total War’

The Guards of the Citadel await the onslaught

This interview was first posted on the 16th of October, 2006.

COR: Greetings! This is the second instalment in our series of Middle-earth modding interviews. This time we have managed to catch Palantir (MasterOfNone/Dol Guldur at other sites) of ‘The Fourth Age: Total War’ for an interview. Palantir, thank you for finding the time for a chat.

PAL: Delighted. You did well to catch me!

COR: Can you tell us a little about yourself, how old you are, where you live and what you are up to in ‘real life’?

PAL: Well, I’m thirty-cough and live in England. I am often up to many varied things one of which is modding – a terribly time-consuming hobby with a tough learning curve for something unpaid.

COR: Could you tell us what your job is in the mod team?

PAL: Currently I am the Manager of the Coding Department and also one of the three Mod Team Managers. I have a number of other roles such as a lore researcher, Middle-earth Consultant (chiefly on geographical matters), Designer (non-graphical), writer, and a game researcher (the latter of which is still much a part of coding). My task in the early days of the Mod was to research and design the concept for the campaign map. But, to be honest, I have done a bit of everything with the exception of modelling – I do not possess 3ds Max or the skills to use it.

Umbar Guards & the great Mûmakil

COR: So ‘The Fourth Age: Total War’, what is it all about?

PAL: Briefly put it is a modification for Rome – Total War: Barbarian Invasion (patched to 1.6) which seeks to faithfully and accurately bring to life the lands and peoples of Middle-earth as they (probably) existed about two centuries into the Fourth Age. For those unfamiliar with the Total War engine, the game has two distinct levels: an RTS battle campaign where you can enter into real-time combat with huge armies, and a strategic turn-based level where you can view the entire map, move your armies and manage your cities.

COR: Which factions will we be able to play as?

PAL: Currently for the full campaign, called The New Shadow, we have slots set up for the Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor, Rohan, Dale, Rhûn, Elves, Dwarves, Dunland, Harad, Orcs and another Dúnedanic-based faction which is of yet unnamed. These are subject to change though. Originally we had more factions but game and time restrictions forced us to be more realistic and those factions were assimilated into the 10 factions listed. As of writing it is intended for all factions to be playable.

COR: Can you give us any info on the storyline behind the mod?

PAL: The storyline is set about 200 years after the crowning of King Elessar at the end of the War of the Ring and is based upon “The New Shadow”, a Fourth-age story begun but abandonded by Tolkien. This is the Dominion of Men but we have allowed for the other non-Mannish races to become a force to be reckoned with should the player wish to guide it that way.

A Haradrian host marching to battle

COR: Why the Fourth Age, and not some other, more explored period of Tolkien’s writings?

PAL: I think the fact that it is open and unexplored is exactly why it was chosen, that together with the fact that the stage was set with the breaking of Sauron’s power for a game of independent nations which lends itself to the game engine. We can alos avoid having to script or create certain “historical” events of course as well as entirely avoid the problem of heroes. Only Thranduil is still walking Middle-earth from all the rulers and lords of former stories!

COR: This ‘Corsair Invasion’ mini-campaign – what is it exactly? What can we expect to see and experience?

PAL: It’s a provincial campaign which encompasses approximately one third of the full campaign map. It is set one year before the start of the New Shadow. Harad is poised with land armies and its Corsair allies to invade Gondor and the Easterlings have crossed into the eastern extent of map. Players can choose to play a strong but sandwiched Reunited Kingdom, a poor but horded Rhûn, or the large Haradrian forces which are going to run out of money fast provisioning their armies unless they make a massive attack against Gondor.

COR: In which ‘phase’ would you say the development of the mod is in now?

PAL:That’s difficult to answer. We’ve had the full map for a long while. As far as the Corsair Invasion is concerned we have sought to complete the graphical interface, the units, the coding & in-game text, the 2D art and the strategy map. The battlemap vegetation has been adjusted slighlty but not modification to battlemap buildings has yet occurred (and they will remain that way for the upcoming public release). We have also quite a bit of 2D art to complete even though quite a bit has been done, so WIP images will also be around in the release. Waiting to get all the 2D art done (of which there is a huge amount) would just delay the release too much. The future of the Mod as a whole will be reviewed probably toward the end of November.

The White Company, the guard of the Prince of Ithilien

COR: What kindled your love of Tolkien’s works?

PAL: Now you are pushing the borders of my memory! I read The Lord of the Rings as a child, and the Hobbit too. I also like Tolkien’s view of things. I have read some of his essays, letters and a few biographies and other books in addition to strictly Middle-earth-related books. The fact that Tolkien draws so much from the culture and myth of my own land and people also helps me to relate to it, and certainly kindles my love for his world all the more. The books are filled with a lot of symbolism too, but that’s another topic

COR: Which books, resources, websites, forums, and so on, have been especially helpful in the development of the mod?

PAL: For Modding I would have to say it is the Org (Totalwar.org) which has provided great research and tutorial threads and responses from a greater number of the more experienced TW modders than I have found anywhere else. Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Tolkien’s Middle-earth has been priceless in our research for the map. Of course, Tolkien’s books have been well used as have the History of Middle-earth series by Christopher Tolkien.

COR: Have research been a lengthy process? And exactly how thorough have you been?

PAL: Yes, very lengthy. I think the first 6 months of the Mod must have been largely research. I focused on the geographical elements mainly. Apocalypsis, who joined the Mod as a Tolkien Researcher, has provided a massive amount of textual and visual research on every other aspect of Middle-earth. From the beginning he must have had everything Middle-earth related in electronic form and could locate anything about anything in seconds!

A Man of Far Harad in the fury of battle

COR: One of your stated goals has been ‘Tolkien accuracy’: what exactly does that entail? How have you gone about achieving it, and have you in fact, in your own opinion, been successful in realising that goal?

PAL: Research is what it entails! We’ve really tried to portray Tolkien’s world accurately even down to using the same sort of language found in the books. I think it’s important to say that we have tried to avoid the Mod being too “fantasy” as well. I’m not sure everyone will know what I mean by that, but I’m not going to explain it yes, I think that – within the parameters of the game engine – we have been successful in conveying Tolkien’s world accurately. The Mod will of course be open to criticism and improvement though – from modders and Tolkienists alike.

COR: How have you ‘filled in the gaps’ of Middle-earth, so to speak, in what is not known from Tolkien’s own writings?

PAL: Where it has been necessary to ‘fill in gaps’ we have based it on what little we do know and kept to the spirit of Tolkien in our projections of likelihoods. We hope this comes across in the game.

COR: What first got you into modding? Was it a game before Rome: Total War?

PAL: No, in fact I am not sure I even knew what modding was before Rome: Total War came out. I cannot remember exactly what ensnared me into the world of modding; I think I came across the original Fourth Age forum at SCC (StratCommandCenter.com) and read something about them needing help with the regional boundaries in Middle-earth. I was at SCC because of R:TW of course. This would have been around October 2004 I believe.

'Shoot at their eyes!'

COR: What ‘type’ of modder would you describe yourself as: coder, modeller, skinner, scripter, etc.?

PAL: I would have said a designer or researcher when I first joined. Now I would definitely say a coder / game mechanics researcher. I’ve covered a lot of different aspects of modding on my two-year journey but modelling and scripting are two areas I can say I know virtually nothing about – modding comprises quite a wide set of skills and I doubt you’ll find modders who are proficient in all of those skills.

COR: Where did you first start with coding R:TW, was it with units, stats, traits?

PAL: Hmm…I may have to preface every answer with the words “I can’t quite recollect…”. I believe it was the tech trees that I started coding first, though I’ve done a ton of other stuff since then. Thinking about it, I probably did some light map text-file coding at the very beginning too, but I did not continue that as another coder, Tittils, took over that part of the coding. Traits and ancillary coding I researched and coded a little but this was again taken over by another coder, Apocalypsis (now Apoc, his High King majesticalness….grovel, whimper, bow…), and so I went back to focusing on the tech trees and the rest of the files. I have coded many units into the game and done much stat work but I must say it is not my favourite part of coding though I am comfortable with it I guess. My favourite type of coding is what we coders call “tinkering” – researching the code, changing things and test, test, test! It’s great to get things working (or working in a way) that were not in the original game and making discoveries to share with the community.

COR: Which part of coding has given you the most trouble? And which has given you the most joy?

PAL: Now that’s an interesting question and one I do not think I have been asked before. My heart probably lies in the EDB file. This is the file which sets up all the tech trees for the factions, declares hidden resources, and assigns capablities (bonuses and recruitment) to buildings. I’ve no idea why I like it really, perhaps it is the sense of building and creating something that gives life to the strategy side of the game. Maybe it is a bit like models and unit creation except for coders Vegetation-related coding & generation can be very fiddly; it took many weeks for me to get the palm tree forests for Near Harad displaying and working the way they should. If you’re not careful it can mess up your whole battlemap turning it into essentially one big sky

A look at the Haradrian interface

COR: Any advice for all the would-be modders out there?

PAL: Don’t join a team – let alone start a Mod – unless you are committed (not just excited), have a good deal of spare time, and – if starting a mod – have some understanding of what you want to achieve and how long it will take to get there. Do some research on the modding forums and see how long other mods took to complete. Be a member of a modding team for a good few months before even trying to start your own mod. It is probably wise to set a limited mod goal to begin with such as Wlesmana, creator of the LOTR:TW mod, did when he decided to mod a faction of R:TW into Gondor – that grew from that to battles and then to a campaign. Aim to achieve your goals in such a way that each goal is a completion of a playable, releasable mod. This will give you a sense of achievement and boost the morale of the team.

COR: One of the most important aspects of any ‘Tolkien’ mod – at least to me personally – is atmosphere, creating that sensation for the player that he is truly experiencing Middle-earth. Is this something you have worked towards? Has it been a goal in the development? Do you think this ‘atmosphere’ is present in FATW?

PAL: Players must answer this for themselves but I think our images, our music (compiled and coded by Arakorn) and our in-game text have stuck as close as we can make them to the spirit of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. It certainly is our hope that players do feel they are in Middle-earth.

COR: And related to the above question; which aspects of the mod do you think will immerse the player the most in the world of Middle-earth as envisaged by the FATW development team?

PAL: Another difficult question. I would have to say that it all blends together to create the illusion. I suppose the map and unit appearance (and maybe the music) will be how most judge it, perhaps justly so.

An example of the work that has been done on the ancillaries

COR: You have created something called MEZoRS – can you tell us a little bit about what that is?

PAL: It is a ZoR-based system where units are harder to train and recruit the further you go from your initial territories and into hostile areas. We’ve divided the map regions into two types of area which, in the Corsair Invasion at least, divides the two faction alignments. This has a bearing on recruitment. Furthermore, each region is tagged as either a homeland, fiefdom or outland for any one faction. Homelands are populated by your own population, fiefdoms by a different but fairly friendly population, and outlands are inhabited by hostile populations. All this affects recruitment, by both increasing building build times and pushing units further up the tech tree levels. For example, Gondor Militia are recruitable from a 1st-level barracks in homelands, but creep up to am availability at 2nd-level barracks in fiefdoms. To complement this we have “local levies” which are low-moraled troops recruited from those you have conquered in a fiefdom or outland. These are available at the lower levels and are useful to create a little protection for your new conquests whilst on the path to gaining access to your own troops. There’s a bit more to it than this – such as chief cities and assimilation units – but I think that’s the basics. Oh, MEZoRS stands for Middle-earth Zone of Recruitment System

COR: You also have a feature you call ‘City Development & Diversification’; what does that entail?

PAL: This is a somewhat inchoate feature of something we hope to develop in the future. Currently, when you city arrives at the Large City level you have the opportunity to engage the City Development process. This opens up a number of building options (a bit like temples) depending upon where you are. For example, if you are playing as Harad and have a haven (a 3rd level port) in the area then you will have the option to build a Corsair Stronghold to endow your haven with more strength which enables better Corsair ships and more experienced Corsair units among other things. Such technolgies cannot be reversed. You may only choose one per settlement. Testing has shown that the AI will also build these so be warned!

COR: Some other features of the mod include Marvels, Wonders, Landmarks, and Unique Cities. Can you give us a quick overview of what those are?

PAL: OK, let’s start with Marvels. Marvels are actually Diversification Buildings (see above) that exist at the start of the game. They can be considered as Wonders except that they tend to be in the actual city rather than some remote location within a region. One Marvel is the White Tree of Gondor for example. Wonders work the same way as in vanilla except that we have set down a sequential approach to gaining their bonuses by means of a three-level tech tree which simulates seizing, securing and exploiting the Wonder. An example of a Wonder in the Corsair Invasion is the old Elven haven of Edhellond. Landmarks are famous features on the landscape such as the beacons of Gondor. Some are just eye candy but most offer regional bonuses of some kind or another. They use the unused 0-trade visible resource models. Unique Cities, or Cities of Renown, are reserved-tier cities that we use to represent cities that had a certain distinct apperance or nature. Minas Tirith is a Unique City for example.

Adrahil, the Prince of Dol Amroth

COR: What about other areas of the mod such as units, the campaign map, interface, music, etc.?

PAL: There’s one or two models knocking around that are still WIP or placeholders but 95% are done, complete with lods in many cases. The map is done although some of our models need a bit more work. Hopefully there’s a screenshot of the regions in this interview so you can see how many regions there are! We have interfaces more or less finished though, as of writing, the new menu interface, loading bars and screens are still be put together (let’s hope they make the release!). Music is complete, though it is of course an ongoing course in perfection

COR: How have you gone about balancing the units and factions? Will some be more powerful than others, or ‘overpowered’?

PAL: Initially we asked for beta testers but the response was not as great as we had hoped, or perhaps my expectations were too high. In the end I spent several weeks creating an Excel sheet, punching figures in, coding, testing and studying the efforts of others in the realm of the AI. Despite the amount of time gone into this there are no doubt many things that still need tweaking.

COR: And now to the most dreaded question for any mod team… There seem to be a lot of rumours about a release date before M2:TW comes out. Can you give us an estimated release date?

PAL: OK, I’ll go out on a limb and say that you should see a public release around late October/early November of this year. We really want to get the Mod out at least 2 weeks before people start playing M2TW. We will no doubt release it to registered Fourth Age members first for a quick test run. You can register at www.thefourthage.org if you want to be notified before the rest of the community

Aldarion, third King of the Reunited Kingdom

COR: What is the plan after ‘Corsair Invasion’ is released? Will you continue to work on a full campaign release for R:TW? Are you considering modding Medieval 2: Total War?

PAL: What happens after the CI release will depend upon the Team as a whole, people may leave – others may join. We’ll just have to make a decision some time in November as to the best course of action. However, as the map and much of the basic placeholder coding has been done for the full campaign it would be a great pity to lose that work. We are hoping that the release of CI will enthuse some new blood into supporting our efforts. We are only so many and no one has a skill in all areas of modding.

COR: And at the very end we again have some ‘quick questions’:

PAL: OK

COR: Which is your favourite faction in FA:TW?

PAL: In CI’s campaign factions it is the Reunited Kingdom. They have the most diverse and developed units. Though I must say I also have a softspot for Harad as I have probably had the most dealings with that culture and faction in terms of imagery. I would probably most want to play as Rohan if they were in the campaign, and probably as Dale if it were the full campaign.

COR: Which is your favourite unit in FA:TW?

PAL: I don’t really have one. Some of the Reunited Kingdom superior and elite units look great though I do quite like the Helmingas (a Rohan infantry unit). I’ve given them a slightly different attack behaviour to most other units to reflect their nature (see if you can notice it when the mod is released).

COR: Which is your favourite book by Tolkien?

PAL: The Lord of the Rings – no other of his works is so epic whilst at the same time being so cradled in the storyteller’s rich narrative.

COR: Who is your favourite character from a book by Tolkien?

PAL: I think it is King Théoden of Rohan. I like the way he changes, puts on his vigour and rides without fear to both victory and his own doom.

COR: What is your favourite moment from a book by Tolkien?

PAL: I think it has to be the chapters where they are in Rohan up to and including the Battle of Helm’s Deep.

COR: Which is your favourite film?

PAL: The Two Towers. The Battle of Helm’s Deep, the Rohirrim…and some of the best music and scenes of all the films.

COR: Which is your favourite character from the films?

PAL: Théoden King – Bernard Hill’s a good actor who I think played the part very well. I just love the whole story of this King and his people. I guess the English and Scandinavians would relate to this most. Sorry that everything is Rohan!

COR: Which is your favourite scene from the films?

PAL: I think I have a few: the sun peeking over the rise as Gandalf leads the Rohirrim into the Uruks at the conclusion of the Battle of Helm’s Deep – Gandalf fighting the Balrog as they plummet through the earth and ascend to the high places – the arrival of Gandalf at Minas Tirith as he rides up the walkways of the city – the release of Théoden from the spell of Saruman and his clasping his sword once more – oh, and strangely enough, the scenes as the camera follows the lighting of the beacons of Gondor; I just love that!

COR: Many thanks for giving us the opportunity to ask you these questions, Palantir – it has been an honour!

PAL: Thank YOU. It’s been a pleasure!

COR: For more information on ‘The Fourth Age: Total War’, check out their website and forum at: thefourthage.org. I would also like to thank messenger, WimPyTjeH, and Alatar for their help with this interview.

A look at all the regions included in 'Corsair Invasion'

One of the loading screens in 'Corsair Invasion'

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