A Setting Where Humans Are Rabble

This sounds like any old fantasy rpg realm

Well, Supreme Commander was shit, so I wouldn't expect anything more.

What is stopping the rabble from rising up against their masters? Or do humans in this setting have none of the tenacity inherent to the species?

Didn't you just describe the battles of Black & White 2?

Reminds me of some MMO released a couple years ago. You play as a huge guy, about 15 stories tall or so and human worshippers ride you. Your humans fight hostile humans who try to climb you and you can throw your humans onto the enemy giants to deal passive damage. A human could fit in your hand with his head and feet poking out of either side of your grip so you can image that even such a small sword would leave a nasty cut.

Also there were titans as big compared to the players as the player is to the humans. I don't know what the point of them was.

Pick a system with mass combat rules, and just work out how xboxhueg monsters work with it. Players are minions of whatever boss working for their own improvements; they'll never tand on par with a dragon, but they get conrol over bigger and bigger human/elf/etc portions of the army as they get promotions, letting them get into the mass combat once they've done some recon missions and non-mass skirmishes.

As a side note, all dragons and all liches being factions seems a little odd - I understand the three-way appeal for an RTS, but for a setting you'd probably want a couple of kingdoms for each, given the jealous nature of most fantasy dragons and similar attitudes for ancient wizards. They'd have less-powerful underlings as special units though.

...Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I just described WHFRP that eventually just becomes WHF. There's got to be rules for that shift.

Presumably, they either did or tried to at some point in the distant past, before realizing tenacity's really only so much good against an opponent that's a hundred times physically larger, more civilized, has more advanced technology, more intelligent on average and has access to more powerful magic. I'm talking giants in the "godlike jotun" sense, not "big, stupid person" sense. Dragons are also Eastern mythology style divine beings. Liches are magical powerhouses. Resistance was crushed.

Holy shit, that sounds awesome. Got names?

Intriguing. Got any more about it?

So, you want Steven Brust's Phoenix Guard series.

Make it something akin to fantasy version of metro 2033. Or human version of Mouseguard and Redwall. Humans are tiny fucks who survive by the sheer virtue of blood, steel, and sacrifice. We hide in dark corners of the world waiting to shank dragons and giants when they sleep.
We're not growing but we're not dying out either.

By factions, the intention was "playable sides", not necessarily unified political factions in-setting. Think of them as like the nations from Rise of Legends: each has its own aesthetic and setting, but each campaign basically feels like its own fantasy world, in a way. We intended for there to be more factions vs. faction battles (giants big enough could literally pluck low-flying dragons out of the sky), but in-setting they're more "races". That is to say, not all giants are on the same side, not all dragons work together, etc. They have the same units, same structures, and so on but they can totally fight.

Lorewise, most (but not all) of the giants are unified under one king, the dragons have a "warring kingdoms" style situations where various dragon-lords rule over lesser lords, but nobody rules everyone, and the liches are nominally unified but their god-emperor is an ineffectual idiot and in practice the whole Immortal Court is full of backstabbery and pettiness which translates into Lich vs. Lich battles in-game.

> a game about playing as a big guy

Satisfactory answer. Where are there character sheets? I'm ready to start.

From OPs description, it seems we ain't doing neither. We're slaves/subjects/food.

To help you visualize this better, the giants are the equivalent to Europeans while the humans are Zulus.

Ascend: Hand of Kul

I DELIBERATELY avoided using "big guy"

The main inspiration was Supreme Commander with its jaw-droppingly huge experimentals, combined with a frustration with the fact classical fantasy RTSs appear to be becoming a dying breed. We thought "what makes epic fantasy battles exciting? giant monsters and huge armies", and the idea sort of rolled off from there. Everything was theoretical, obviously, but we talked quite a bit about gameplay mechanics, made unit lists, stuff like that. The "gimmick" is on the interaction between the "micro" and "macro" scale units. Micro units come in big battalions and have simplified UIs, you basically manage them (ironically) solely on a macro scale. They're good for strategic purposes like hampering the enemy, occupying small zones, zerg rushing, etc. but they aren't the main damage dealers. Dozens or hundreds of them need to work together to bring down a macroscale unit.

Macroscale units are the ones the battle revolves around. They get hit locations, detailed interaction animations (the aforementioned giants wrestling with dragons), and tons of special abilities that need managing.

When they meet microscale units, fun stuff happens. They can stomp them to death, but they can also be climbed on and brought down. They can pick them up and throw them (or eat them), but they can be overwhelmed and tied down Gulliver style. They can shield them with their bodies or offer buffs.

(cont.)

The three races were called the Thrym, Vritra and Anu. Thrym was the giant ruled faction, with a primarily Norse aesthetic, but also some Celtic and Slavic influences. Basically cultures where bearded people live in snow. Their microunits included stuff like elves and dwarfs (their workers), while their macroscale units started at trolls and went all the way up through frost and fire giants to godlike storm titans who fling lightning everywhere from their hammers. Their maps were made up of fjords and mountains (high verticality, meaning they had to climb and jump a lot), often snowy. Cities basically looked like pic related Gameplay-wise, they were the "balanced" faction. Giants are relatively cheap and powerful, but at a disadvantage compared to many macroscale units due to being landbound. They need good support from their microscale armies to survive, but their microscale units are high quality. They don't have a whole lot of special abilities/spells to have to manage in battle.

(cont.)

Vritra was the dragon faction. Their aesthetic was Southeast Asian/Indian with a little bit of Chinese in it. The dragons generally looked western (we needed them to have wings to be vulnerable), but we imagined them as being a lot more colorful and having lots of extra bits like whiskers, manes, jewels growing out of their bodies, etc. Their maps are misty jungle with tracts of marshlands, and their cities have a lot of gold statues and domed pagodas. Microscale units are mostly humans, but also include things like animal headed spirits, serpent people and minor gods.

Their biggest advantage is that all but one of their macroscale units fly. The problem with this is that while flight is useful for getting around, ultimately most important things to interact with are on the ground. Dragons have to descend to deal with enemy structures or armies, which makes them vulnerable. While flying high, however, they are at a distinct advantage.

To balance this, their microscale armies are zerg type. Lots and lots and lots of units, but they are individually weak. They need close dragon support to stand a chance.

(cont.)

Anu was the lich faction. Meant for more high-skill players, they defied the order of the game by blurring the lines between micro and macro scale units. Their most powerful and important battlefield setpieces, the liches themselves, are human SIZED, but their abilities are giant SCALED. Their spells can cover entire armies and influence the shape of the map. Since they are so micromanagement heavy, there are also very few of them. They are fragile, so they must be protected.

Their biggest units are NOT their most valuable. To go toe-to-toe with dragons and giants, the Anu summon or bring to life golems, demons and massive war machines. But these are relatively weak: they need magical support from the nearest lich to shine.

Their microscale units are mostly undead, but also include armies of humans with spears, chariots, elephants, etc. as well as smaller demons.

Aesthetically speaking, we're talking Sumerian, Babylonian and Akkadian with a touch ancient egypts. Stepped pyramids, huge statues, heavy magic all around.

Their cities are mobile. Their maps are mostly rocky or sandy desert, and are very flat. Nowhere to hide.

Sounds a bit like Black and White.

So what stops a Dragon swooping down onto a Lich?

Clever use of magic, and hopefully an army of skeleton archers and/or giant golem to ride.

But yeah, liches are vulnerable to that. They're the Protoss of the game, they have to manage their abilities to survive.

Sounds to me like you shouldn't be bringing them to the front line at all. They're more support units, standing behind their armies casting huge spells.

I feel like this all needs a permenant record somewhere. Got a Pastebin or Google Doc?

Any naval element at all?

Did you notice that in strategy games, whichever faction is closest to "American/Northern European humans" will tend to be the balanced/starter/plays-just-like-Terran one? Like, if it's a fantasy or science fiction game, it'll be the humans. If there are several factions of humans, it'll be the Nordic ones. If it's a modern style game, they'll be the Americans if the other factions aren't American or the UN or EU or something.

A fun observation about modern and near future themed RTS': there was once a time where it was standard for the "good guy" faction to be the one using a few, subversive units with weird special abilities and the "bad guy" faction to be the one who can do massive juggernaut tank rushes.

Ever since 2001, this trend has curiously reversed itself.

An interesting point, though not universal - both command and conquer universes pretty much stuck to their guns - the GDI was always the good guy juggernaut, the soviets remained big for Red Alert 3

Completely true for C&C Generals, but the reason their is obvious - and the tank rushes went to the "semi-good" faction... who iirc ended up the canonical winners

It's called Exalted.

>The nations of the world, or at least the only ones featured in the "setting", which may just be a region thereof, are all ruled by powerful nonhuman beings

Yup, Exalted.

>and use the "standard races" as slaves, food, worshipers, cannon fodder or in the last case experimental subjects/skeletons in the making.

Exalted alright.

>When they go to war, the human troops are basically a massive meat shield for the titans striding the battlefield, flinging them aside by the hundreds with each strike.

100% Exalted.

What if you DON'T want a load of weaboo fightan magic shit though?

Godbound

Why wouldn't you want a load of weaboo fightan magic shit?

Ah, I couldn't recall how the base campaigns went, I just remember the US retreating to its boarders and losing an aircraft carrier in the expansion while china rose to new heights

Still annoyed Generals 2 went nowhere

>giantesses are as far away from my magical realm as possible
>but I like the idea of one of the most patrician GTS scenarios
user I think you're confused

We did it years ago, half in our heads, half on paper. Whatever's on paper is not in English. But if I have time later this evening, I'll look into maybe uploading a unit list or something like that.

We considered it (something about the image of giants wading through the sea, and it's only up to their waists), but decided that it kind of takes the focus away without feeling essential to the gameplay or storyline. At one point, we did envision an (equally imaginary) possible expansion pack or DLC focusing on a fourth, naval focused faction ruled by Great Old Ones style tentacle monsters and featuring armies of Deep Ones and scary merpeople (the Thrym would get longships and sea-serpent style naval units, the Vritra would get junks and sea dragons, while the Anu would get golden temple-barges and biblical whales), but we hit the Aquaman problem. The oceanbound faction would be at a major disadvantage on any map without heavy water coverage, and that just doesn't make for good game balance.

That said, I can't see why not to add them to an RPG focusing on the little people anyway.

Sounds pretty cool.

I like the idea that the liches big units are designed to stonewall and tie up the enemies macro units while their liche bosses get into position with the hard-hitting magic or to empower their micro-units

Yeah, a pure "naval" faction would be pretty gimped unless water was always present, but I do think your ideas for naval units sound cool as hell

How about a fourth, Grecian style army? They could have sirens, nymphs, and a ton of sea monsters for water warfare, lots of ships types, and wouldn't be gimped on land due to armies of minotaurs, centaurs, cyclopses, etc.

Only question is what kind of giant creature would rule them. I'd say titans or cyclopses, but it overlaps too strongly with the Thrym. Anything from Greek myth which is huge without being some kind of giant or dragon?

You could have the Great Old Ones operate from a seperate underground/cavern map a la HoMaM. Other factions could send units down there from specific entrances but only they could build structures.

Forgetting the imaginary RTS for a moment and returning to the realm of RPGs, I sadly think this is a bad idea. Playing a giant or dragon in this setting and doing some big shit while puny humans flee from your shadow? Awesome. Being puny humans being sent to their deaths by a dragon? What's the fucking point? Why would I like to play that?

Also, I suggest that to satisfy the HFY crowd, make it so the lich faction/Anu WERE once the "uppity humans" who didn't want to get shit from giants and dragons. They retaliated by mastering magic. Ironically, since they turned themselves immortal and had to use massive slave sacrifices to accomplish this over the ages they became just as oppressive of "other" humans as any of the bigger creatures.

Because if you throw aside politically correct bullshit, you realize that your game is most likely going to be sold mostly to white westerners. Therefore, they'll feel the most sympathy for that faction and want to play as them the most. It makes sense that the faction that will be played as first will be the simplest to get used to.

In Red Alert 1 and 2, the freaking MANUAL actually flat out said "the Allies use clever tactics, the Soviets use brute force". In 2 moreso, though.

But yeah, before the war on terror 'MURRICAH was still high off the victory at WWII and feeling threatened by BIG SOVIET BEARSKI, so they were the plucky, intelligent good guys and the bad guys were the lumbering brutes with the giant tanks (they just mysteriously forgot Vietnam, apparently). You could also see something similar done with the early Warcraft games, were whatever tiny differences there between the two factions specialized the "good guy" Alliance into using clever tactics to defeat the "bad guy" Horde specializing in many big units.

Come the war on terror, and suddenly the good guys were the decent, straightforward, big Americans/American stand ins while the bad guys were the pesky terrorists using subversion tactics.

You could be climbing up an uncaring dragon in the middle of a battle and stab it in the eye, making it flinch, saving hundred of other puny humans from it's wrath and giving your giant the perfect opportunity to fustigate it.

You could go dungeon delving into a Lich dungeon or demi-plane where the titans can't reach to destroy or at least damage their phylactery.

The players could try to gain the powers of minor/demi gods, which might let them survive getting stepped on a few times.

I'm sure you can think of something.

>Supreme Commander was shit
>Supreme Commander
>Shit
No

Most stuff from greek myth is pretty mid-sized, or large but not Huge - Hydra, Nemian Lion, that sort of thing - usually they were killable by humans, or demigods at least.
They had gods and titans, but make them big and they impinge on the Thrym, make them small they're like living Anu

Yeah, and Red Alert 2 was from 2000.

What I meant was that when Red Alert 3 rocked around they didn't change it - allies were still sneaky, soviets were still tough - they didn't suddenly make the allies less sneaky.

And then there was Japan, who were focused on being fast and flexible, but brittle

I'd kind of like to see a Red Alert style Vietnam, with the US going all dirty tricks, or at least having a dirty tricks sub-faction

How's starcraft 1 treating you there, champ?

Wasn't Vietnam the most triumphant example of the US coming in as the brutal powerhouse faction with all the latest in heavy, cumbersome firepower, only to have their asses handed to them by a bunch of scrawny chinks with kalashnikovs digging pits and hiding in the bushes?

You could combine both ideas with an Atlantis or occult science theme (that's not something you see in a lot of fantasy settings, so it's fairly original). The Great Old Ones command an army of minotaurs, sirens, nymphs and so on, all with an architectural style combining doric pillars and hanging gardens with tons of flowing water. I can imagine the waterfalls falling off their buildings and so on. This is combined with a sort of alien, mysterious atmosphere, like some of the buildings are made of corral in bizarre colors or have hypnotic lights shining out of them.

Besides the Greek mythology inspired units, they could also have units referring to occultism or conspiracy culture, like spellcasters shaped after gray aliens, Deep Ones, mothmen, or even flying saucers.

Home was fucking tired of war, and political bullshit prevented us from nuetralizing enemy assets (Harbors, bridges, etc), as well as preventing us from even entering North Vietnam. All in all, a gigantic cluster fuck we shouldn't have been involved in, but we did anyway, and to top it off, we gimpped ourselves.

HAHA! Those illiterate, shoeless children with rusty 30 year old weapons were no match for our aerial bombardments of chemical weapons!

Vietnam was where a nation that didn't have an Airforce kicked the shit out the US in air sorties so hard that number of Vietnamese aces was like 15-20. The US had 2. It's the entire reason why the Top Gun pilot program was implemented.

Also the war famous for the US using psyops and chemicals and things, which is what I was thinking of.

But yeah, vietnam is one of the more striking examples of the US going in big and expensive against sneaky stealthy guys, though I'd associate that more with more recent operations I think

Maybe just have it in sub-factions, like the Generals

I'd play that game

Second. That sounds fucking awesome.

What other factions for the RTS can we make up? I figure we need the following things:

1. A cultural theme
2. A unique race of giant or powerful creatures to rule them
3. Specific game mechanics or purpose

> Calling a question mark a interrogation mark
Fuckin terrorists

it is an interrogation mark you americunt

it's a latin principle

you just described primal rage. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Rage

Always a sucker for Nomads. People who haven't really settled down ever.

Cross between Romanies, Saharan African Tribes, and Native Americans. All of their stuff would look ramshackle, probably stolen from the other factions.

Living Manifestations of the Elements would be their macro units. The traditional four, plus a fifth to represent the Family. It would be like a Totem Pole that buffs the living shit out of everything near it.

Their mechanics would be to literally salvage the corpses of enemies. The more shit they pick up, the more powerful of the units would become. One of their highest level units would be able to resurrect fallen macro units of other factions. Not fully functional, but enough to be a boon.

Their maps would be rivers, crossroads, and the outskirts of mega-cities.

>come to thread expecting the mother of all magical realms
>find surprisingly nice fantasy setting/RTS concept I'm now sad will never be made

Vietnam also fought the communists. They were a wildcard to be respected - US and Nam actually became pals after the war, IIRC, especially after Nam fought off China.

Building off that idea, I don't think there's EVER been a fantasy strategy game with a Native American themed faction.

There inhuman rulers would be huge animal spirits. Thunderbird, Uktena, Great Wendigo, Coyote (represented as a gigantic, shadowy coyote who can swallow battalions whole, but can also change shape to a nondescript microunit to fuck with the enemy and has a tone of misdirection/illusion style abilities), Grandmother Spider, etc.

Their microunits will include the obligatory tomahawk waving braves and anachronistic Lakota horseriders, but also entities like living kachina dolls, kowi'anukasha hiding in the trees, obsidian giants, and skinwalkers.

In terms of gameplay niche they will not have cities at all, or maybe only a few structures (Anasazi style monolith dwellings?), making them highly mobile. Maps will include arid plains and flat topped mountains and canyons.

Only thing I'm kinda worried about is this is truly a horribly offensive mishmash of the cultural traits and folklore of tribes from literally all over the continent. I bet there's someone out there who knows enough Native American mythology to be able to give this shit more focus. I think the Southwestern nations had the most usable material for our needs

Turning a Lich faction into an Anti-Empire of the WFB fame sounds like a plan; they're fed up with all the giants bossing them around and want to show then that there's more to power than size. To complete his vanity, said lich is never seen without his body-encasing suit of golden armor, making him look indistinguishable from his elite warriors aside from the fact he wears an elaborate cape.

Rather than fighting using other mega units, they'd deal in traps. Massive holes to ensnare giants and break their bones, barrage balloons to entangle dragons. Their ground forces manly exist to be a distraction to steer the opposition into traps, but they're also among the best when it comes to countering fellow micro-units with an iron discipline in order to execute their lord's tactics flawlessly. They would be the sneakiest of factions, which would ironically go against their heroic Holy Roman Empire-esque image.

I was under the impression that the Anu were a well established empire that has been fighting the Thrym and the Vritra for centuries, if not more. Any ideals of "standing up to the titans" have long, long, long ago been subsumed into the "we are immortal god kings, fetch me a hundred more slaves to throw into the sacrifice pit" mentality.

Yeah, they're modeled after mythological Mesopotamia. The gods they are fashioned as were self-centered to the point of making the Greek Dodekatheon look like a bunch of Bodhistavas. What's that? Gilgamesh (a horrible dictator who slaved his people to death building a vanity wall) wouldn't sleep with me and die? DAD, FETCH ME THE GIANT MONSTER THAT KEEPS THE RAIN FALLING AND THE SUN RISING OR I WILL RELEASE A PLAGUE OF UNDEATH ON THE WORLD. Oops, the Bull of Heaven died? Thousands will starve? Meh. Remember when the people of Atrakhasis made too much noise in the night, so we flooded everything?

If nothing else, that could be established as a reason the Lich empire began in the first place in spite of its morally questionable use of magic, with the Anu's modern state being the result of really bad motive decay.

The idea of a Lich decked out in armor to hide the fact he's a lich sounds cool, though.

Gotta add in some Apache Raiders. The real question is: How far south do you want to go?

Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas all had some badass soldiers and Gods.

Too aesthetically similar to the Anu (stepped pyramids), setting too similar to the Vritra (misty jungles).

Plus, mesoamericans are often used in RTS games. Northern natives, less so.

A'ight. Let's stick with Northern Native Americans.

Apache Raiders, Dog Soldiers, Ghost Dancers, etc. Lots of cool shit man.

Not to poop on the indian parade, but OP mentioned all the way back that the Anu have already got the moving cities shtick covered. If this is like most other RTS games, I'm assuming this is a major shtick which is central to their strategy and one of the things that make them unique. You can't take that away from them with another "moving cities" faction.

>moving cities
You know, I loved Cannon Fodder as much as anyone, but I really don't think the ancient mesopotamian undead faction suits that theme.

Don't need to have moving cities. Maybe no cities, but large units that make other units.

Or... they raise mountains for buildings, reroute rivers, spawn forests.

Could do something like the Goo from Grey Goo. You start with some kind of essential macroscale unit (some mother spirit or what have you), and it produces units by interacting with various features of the terrain e.g. place it over a mountain and it will slowly spawn obsidian giants. Place it near a riverbed and it will slowly spawn kachina guardians. Place it on top of a forest and it will spawn skinwalkers.

Only problem is where other macroscale units come from, because it still feels kinda derpy for the mother spirit to randomly birth Thunderbird. Plus, there are only so many kinds of terrain features you can count on being on every map (otherwise they'd be useless in multiplayer), and for game balance reasons, they need to be either rare or require some specific circumstance to spawn more powerful units.

Maybe upgrades to the Mother Spirit allow it to choose from a specific set of units (3-4 micro and 1 macro) for each type of terrain it's over.

It's an interesting game mechanic and it ties nicely into the concept of being a people "ruled by the natural world" and the whims of the spirits.

Except that's fucking wrong.
It's derived from a latin symbol, maybe we're not sure, but the question mark in it's current state comes from England

I don't think the intention was mechanically moving cities. I think it was implied that Anu cities fly. It's quite common in fantasy setting for the most magical faction to have flying cities.

Interestingly, now that I think about it, both Rise of Legends and Heroes of Might & Magic gave the magical, desert themed faction flying cities. What is it about Middle-Eastern magic and floating palaces?

The Mother Spirit could be an aura effect, at least initially. Growing units out of a mountain is fucking cool, by the way.

Later in the research tree, the Mother Spirit could create vortexes on the map - increase rate of unit production and better units.

Eventually, the Mother Spirit could be a unit in and of itself. Punching the ever loving fuck out of enemies while buffing units around it.

Or perhaps the Mother Spirit could split into several units. Units would still grow, but slower.

Just wondering what happens when the "Mother Spirit" unit is defeated. Would the unit production be hit with a penalty? Have to rereserach the unit?

My only concern is aesthetic in this case. The most obvious appearance for the "Mother Spirit" macrounit is some kind of mountain sized, fat woman with gigantic thighs made of red clay and flowers growing all over her, or something similar. But then, wouldn't she kinda look like she belongs with the Thrym?

I would love for this to be an RTS, I really would, but this is a tabletop roleplaying games board.

OP, either you tell them, or someone would have to. Don't let a beautiful thread get deleted for being too off topic.

Magical Realm does not mean what you think it means.

If she was swallowing the dragon whole or cramming soldiers into her vagina, that'd be magical realm. This is just different and attractive.

See, you two I can get along with, because while it doesn't fit the definition of 'fetish' that shit's still muh fetish in the same way diagrams of firearms are gun 'porn'.

Okay maybe it's a LITTLE bit my fetish in the actual sense...

>Just wondering what happens when the "Mother Spirit" unit is defeated. Would the unit production be hit with a penalty? Have to rereserach the unit?

Make one of the few buildings the Native American faction builds be a "village" (considered to be one building for gameplay purposes...). It would have a lot of general purposes, fitting with the idea that these people don't build cities and helping them maintain a more mobile focused gameplay. Villages may be the Native Americans faction's means of gathering some resources (which would simplify their base management even further), produce some units, etc.

One of their functions would be that, over time, each village you build can also spawn its own Mother Spirit. It takes a very long time (don't know what the scale of the game is, if it's like Supreme Commander where matches can last hours than at least half an hour or so), an each village can only "support" one Mother Spirit at a time, but it does at least make for gameplay.

Villages can be "built" by Mother Spirits (they stand in one place waving their giant hands while tiny human sprites spawn out of the greenery to build the huts and so on), but there's probably some limit on where e.g. only a certain distance from each other, only on a certain type of terrain, etc.

For extra cultural mishmashness, make it so that ANOTHER of the faction's buildings is some kind of "warrior camp", a unit production structure that can be unpacked and moved around the map. Because Native Americans, being a single culture the whole continent over, were both nomadic and settled!

>I don't think there's EVER been a fantasy strategy game with a Native American themed faction
>what are tauren
>what are the elves in Heroes of Might and Magic
>what is Age of Wonders

>what are the elves in Heroes of Might and Magic
which part
i dont remember them being indian
they were green, fairylike and shit

So, the Humans would have an equal if not better chance at winning if they also employed muskets en masse?

Sounds like a little bit of lore from the Elder Scrolls back when the Ancient Nords essentially were in that same scenario until they used the power of the Thu'um to fight back for their sovereignty.

You can probably reapropriate the setting from Titan. That's an old strategy game where the leaders of roaming hordes are colossussi that recruit little guys (dragons and such are really just another kind of unit) and then throw the amassed armies at each other.

This sounds like a stupid idea and you should feel bad for posting it.