Official 'Third Age 1.0 - 3.2 Question & Answer' Thread

[Eorl der Junge]

Ahmmm... Maybe it sounds stupid, but how can I play the Fellowship campaign?
I have TATW 3.2 installed, but my heroes can't move out of the Shire if I try to play it. The normal campaign works.
Oh, and I use the Steam Version with a copy of medieval2.exe named kingdoms.exe.

[Skydog91]

Hi Everybody

Kind of a silly role-playing aesthetic question- I've just started playing Third Age total war again (still one of my favorite mods of any game ever, thanks so much to everyone who put so much time into such great work), and I've been having a lot of fun, but I've hit a bit of a snag with my Eriador campaign... In an epic turnaround I've managed to retake several orc-held settlements to the east and south, but in that time their development level has been maxed out. The only real problem with this is that as far as I can tell there is no way to change their appearance back on the campaign map- with no way to upgrade or demolish the settlement walls they will always look like orc camps. As cool as the orc camps look, I was just wondering if there was any trick or mod etc that would allow me to convert them back to a human settlement strat model. It's far from game breaking, but it would be nice if my triumphant liberation of Eriador from the forces of darkness could be reflected via architecture

[Withwnar]

no way to upgrade or demolish the settlement walls

That's right. There's no way to rebuild/re-upgrade a settlement, so if it's already at its highest level (Large City in TATW) then you're stuck with it.

What you could do is re-enable the ability to upgrade to Huge City. In TATW that was disabled except in one case: Gondor can upgrade East Osgiliath, for the purpose of 'restoring' its broken walls/buildings on the battle map.

You would need to prevent some factions from doing this. e.g. Gondor's will be the East Osgiliath model (on strat and battle maps), Dwarves would be Erebor. Everyone else (I think) would get vanilla M2TW huge city models which wouldn't suit Elves or Orcs, though you wouldn't want Orcs to be able to do it anyway as that defeats the point.

In export_descr_buildings.txt, find this section...

            upgrades
            {
                huge_stone_wall
            }
        }
        huge_stone_wall city requires factions { gondor, }  and hidden_resource osgiliath_east

...and change to...

            upgrades
            {
                huge_stone_wall requires factions { turks, }
                huge_stone_wall requires factions { gondor, }  and hidden_resource osgiliath_east
            }
        }
        huge_stone_wall city

That will allow Eriador to upgrade to huge cities, without breaking the Gondor-EastOsgiliath thing.

WARNING: do not upgrade these settlements: Imladris, Edoras, Esgaroth, East Osgiliath. You'll lose their custom models. And you should remove the "huge_stone_wall requires factions { turks, }" if you're playing any other faction, to prevent AI Eriador from doing that.

[Skydog91]

This solution suits my purposes perfectly. Thank you very much Withwnar

I also appreciate your avatar.

[Withwnar]

No worries. It's a shame that settlements can't be rebuilt.

[Aetherion]

Hi there, after coming on and off this mod/forum/game for give or take 3 years, finally getting close to completing my first (HE) campaign. Found the One Ring in Goblin Town, got extremely confused having to wait for the mission to the White Council and when I finally get to Imladris the mission pops up I accept but accidentally loaded up the autosave of that turn. Mission did not pop up (and I didnt get 10k gold for accepting) still had the One Ring and proceeded to assume I accepted the mission. Few turns later, Gollum stole it. Nearly a hundred turns later, found the ring again in Isengard, waited around for a bit without the mission, sent the Ringbearer to Imladris anyway and then stormed the Black Gate. The question is can I still destroy the One Ring (and Mordor) by standing in Barad Dur over the countless corpses of orcs for 5 turns or do I have to double the body count and wreck each Mordor settlement? Cheers and thanks XD

[Ngugi]

Hi there, after coming on and off this mod/forum/game for give or take 3 years, finally getting close to completing my first (HE) campaign.

Hello Aetherion, welcome to TWC and glad to hear the campaign gone well

Nearly a hundred turns later, found the ring again in Isengard, waited around for a bit without the mission, sent the Ringbearer to Imladris anyway and then stormed the Black Gate. The question is can I still destroy the One Ring (and Mordor) by standing in Barad Dur over the countless corpses of orcs for 5 turns or do I have to double the body count and wreck each Mordor settlement? Cheers and thanks XD

Yes, nothing you write implies there should be any problems; just make sure the general with the Ring is the one commanding the army at Mt Doom

If you're close to the end and want to ensure that Gollum do not steal the Ring again before you're in place, here is a "meta gaming" work around:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Every time you select the general with the Ring there's a few % risk Gollum steals it.
If you put the general with the Ring (for example call him Elrond) in an army commanded by another general (call him Glorfindel), then every time you select the army the game do not count it as if you selected the the Ring-general.


Ex:
Elrond has the Ring. Put him in an army with Glorfindel if Glorfindel has higher command. When you select the army the game thinks you sleected Glorfindel, not Elrond, so Gollum won't steal the Ring.
March to Mordor and Mt Doom. Take Glorfindel out of the army so that Elrond commands the army instead.
"Cast it into the fire!" ^^

Good luck

[Aetherion]

Thanks for the quick reply, been using your additional mercs mod I found a much more permanent solution to Gollum, ~remove_ancillary this gollum justified by my max dread HE general giving no about a thieving Stoor

[Ngugi]

No pro'
Mhm, cool!

Naaw, Smeagol never have a good day, has he? haha

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"No."

[DonnyBrasko]

How do people rate bandits? I've just taken that South Tharbard settlement and have an opportunity to recruit them. Playing as Rohan.

What Rohan units do people rate against late game Mordor? Trying to determine what buildings to construct near the front. I'm currently on turn 30 with Isenguard destroyed

[Ngugi]

Arrow fodder, as their stats should make obvious. Good attack but weak defence; they can only be retrained in regions where they're avilable as mercs.
Use them to fill out an army, throw them at the enemy, they're no long-term commitment: they have no free upkeep anyhow.

[DonnyBrasko]

How does one overcome the spiders as Rohan?

[Ngugi]

Javelins from Eored Skirmishers should be very useful, due to ther armour piercing and javelin efficency against elephants (that spiders technically are).
Any unit with AP will be useful (axemen), as while they have a slight penalty against elephants that is compensated by AP removing half of the enemy's armour value.
And Eorling Swordsmen for some reason have +4 against elephants, though they have no armour piercing.

[DonnyBrasko]

Thanks Ngugi. I have a force including Ents sieging Dol Guldur. Mordor has spiders. Is it possible to play the battle without crashing?

[Ngugi]

If you encounter the problem with crashes from elephant units [Ents, spiders] there's no sure answer. Some can manage on the first try with luck, some only at the fifth attempt, some never when it comes to a single battle.
Restarting the game before the battle can sometimes help.
Otherwise, if you expects to win, use the cheat to auto-win the battle and delete units to the degree you expect you would got losses if you played it normally.

[DonnyBrasko]

On the 5th retry I reloaded a move or two previous and tried something which worked in the past, I fought with reinforcements. Again there was no crash and enjoyed an epic battle. No idea why this seems to prevent CTD.

2questions:

I'm seizing gol Duldur over 9turns. I understand the garrison script is triggered on the opening siege move but then they received another 5 or 6 units at about siege turn 6. Is this the garrison script refireing?

Mordor are fielding Uruk Halbeders Morannon Guard heavy armies now (plus the odd armoured trolls ). What would be the best Rohan counters or army mix?

[lolIsuck]

Mordor are fielding Uruk Halbeders Morannon Guard heavy armies now (plus the odd armoured trolls ). What would be the best Rohan counters or army mix?

Archers and AP, with a good cavalry charge mixed in there as well. That's really the answer to basically everything.
Rohan's got missile cav as well as an added bonus. The problem Rohan has is that most of its units and especially its infantry aren't all that special so unlike factions like Gondor or the Elves and Dwarves you don't outclass your enemy much, if at all.

[Withwnar]

I'm seizing gol Duldur over 9turns. I understand the garrison script is triggered on the opening siege move but then they received another 5 or 6 units at about siege turn 6. Is this the garrison script refireing?

Yes. It's designed that way.

[DonnyBrasko]

Hi all, when generals regenerate their bodyguard does it cost chevrons?

[♔atthias♔]

Hi all, when generals regenerate their bodyguard does it cost chevrons?

if you lose a lot of BG yes