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State of the mod

I wanted to talk about the release date. I started this modification almost four years ago in 2012. A lot has changed and I have reworked on things and concepts a lot. The modification has expanded more than I thought it would (4 races, 17 realms, ~18 natives, ~40 maps +2608 techs...). People have offered their help which in turn has helped it take less time. However, it's nowhere from being done anytime soon, so I currently have no release date planned. I never liked the idea of having several releases but if I had a smaller first release then I could focus more on certain things and get it out sooner. I will leave it up to you guys to vote in the comments: a release sooner with less content or a full release in the distant future. If I were to have a first release it would have around half the maps, less natives, and the realms I have completed the most:

• Men: Arnor, Gondor, Harad, Rohan
• Elves: Lindon, Lothlorien
• Orcs: Goblins, Isengard, Mordor
• Dwarves: Erebor, Iron Hills

Please let me know about what you would like to happen by writing a comment.

Ages

Lately I have redesigned a lot of core aspects.The ages being one. Tolkien divided middle earth history into eras/time periods called "Ages". I thought that I could just apply each era to an age ingame and have the mod focus on the third age (when the events of the Hobbit and LoTR happened), but I never was really happy with it. Originally I had players start in the "First Age", then age up to "Second Age" then "Third Age" and finally "Fourth Age", 7269 years of history in total! obviously that is too long, the other problem is that AoE is known for having players go through five different ages, not four. So I decided to take out the era called "first age" (I never really added much involving the first age of middle earth anyways) and divided the "Second and "Third Ages". Now players start in an age called "Second Age", then you go to "End of the Second Age", then to "Third Age" and then "End of the Third Age ", and finally "Fourth Age" (It's still 6682 years of history but it is more manageable). To have the age up icons match the names of each age they look like this:

(even though I didn't explain it too clearly and it sounds complicated it really isn't)

obviously making this change was huge since all technologies, units, and cards were centered around the first age system I had. I still haven't completed implementing it, but I'm working on it

Politicians

Another aspect that I have reworked a lot has been the politicians. Balancing the existing ones, adding and redoing old ones. Since each race ages in a different way, I'm trying to keep it simple and not too complicated.

Realms

I have mostly tried to complete the existing main ones (Gondor, Rohan, Harad, Erebor...). Making new portraits, texturing buildings, and balancing units. I also have made standard shared home city cards for each race. I realized that it has been almost a year since I first explained about the different races in the game. I really need to explain one by one like I said I would.

Also a big thanks to the wonderful Lesketin who helped by offering his textured units for Rohan. it was really kind of him and also elevates the modification with higher unit texture quality.

I also have been working on something that is really cool but I will explain about it in a different post later on.

Please dont hate me book fans!