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[Aexodus]

Missile troops are definitely deadly in Fourth Age. There are some "historical" or "realism" reasons for this (IIRC medieval armies tended to have a high proportion of missile troops), and there are also lore reasons (Tolkien had a thing for bows). But gameplay is also a consideration. There is a fine line between archers being OP and completely ineffective.

We have toned down the wall defenses somewhat in the latest release. The original idea was that powerful wall towers were the only way to simulate a strong defensive position, given the difficulty of modifying cities' terrain. But we now have some very nice settlement maps, so the uber towers aren't needed. To me, the strength seems about right. If you're defending Helm's Deep, for example, the walls will kill a fair amount of the attackers, but they'll still be able to get siege gear to the walls in at least a couple of places.

You can of course tone down the attack values of missile troops, but I wouldn't recommend tinkering unless you make backups of your files and are fairly confident how to go about it. The values would be found in export_descr_units.

Before you do that, though, I'm curious - which units in particular are you finding overpowered? Are they overpowered for you, the player, or for the AI? What battle difficulty are you playing?

I'm playing as Rohan, at M/H. Maybe it's because of Rohan's troops having low defence values, but against any type of missile my troops get decimated. And when defending the fort beside Isengard against Dunland, against two full stacks, there must have been thousands dead outside the fort due to missile towers. Still lost that battle though :p So to clarify, it's all missiles that are overpowered for me, affecting myself and the ai.

PS. Against Dunland my archers on the walls also got a lot of kills so it's troops as well

[CountMRVHS]

Dunland does have a lot of missile troops - mostly javelin throwers. And yeah, those can be very very effective. But as you observed, Dunland's troops are also rather weak against arrows themselves.

I don't play Rohan often, but you might have a couple of options when fighting Dunland. One is simply to bring enough of your own (infantry) archers. Get 4-6 units of bowmen, include other assorted infantry and cavalry, and park them on the Isen river crossing. Dunland will try to attack you (usually choosing that instead of attacking the fort, if I'm not mistaken), and you should be able to hold them off handily.

The other approach would be to focus on pure cavalry armies, which you're well equipped to do as Rohan. Don't fight at river crossings, but on open fields (so stay on the roads to ensure you have clear ground to charge over), line up your heavy cav, and practice the repeated charge technique. You should have a pretty decent time against Dunland if you hit them hard and fast, and keep charging. Their archers won't have enough time to get off more than a volley or two, and if you kill enough of them you'll get a mass rout.

So yeah, archers have to be dealt with no matter what faction you're playing. (Well, except Dwarves maybe.) You can either focus on winning the missile duel by training more or better archers than the other side, or you can focus on *ignoring* the archers and hitting the main body of the enemy hard.

[Aexodus]

Thanks for the detailed reply Count.

Mind you I just realised I tried to change missile damage in the projectiles txt file by changing projectile velocities of some things from 60 to 48... Probably not my best idea. I'll give your advice a go tho

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, I'd recommend reverting those changes if possible and giving it another shot. Granted, you are not the first to suggest missiles are OP, so you may eventually opt to make a change. But the current setup does work out fairly well in my experience!

[athanaric]

I'm playing as Rohan, at M/H. Maybe it's because of Rohan's troops having low defence values, but against any type of missile my troops get decimated. And when defending the fort beside Isengard against Dunland, against two full stacks, there must have been thousands dead outside the fort due to missile towers. Still lost that battle though :p So to clarify, it's all missiles that are overpowered for me, affecting myself and the ai.

PS. Against Dunland my archers on the walls also got a lot of kills so it's troops as well

You should use your own archers (foot and horse) to target and eliminate (or at least decimate) the most dangerous units first, that is Hillmen, Axes of the Wolf, Wolfhunters, pikemen, and the bodyguard unit. Oh and also dogs, because they're bugged and just ing annoying. Luckily for you, all of these units except the BG are very vulnerable to missiles. While doing this, line up your infantry and cavalry to crush the rest of the enemy in one fell swoop. You may need to destroy the enemy cavalry first, using your own horse.
As a general rule, you need to move quickly as Rohan. Same is true for (non-Cultic) Dunland, BTW - both armies rely on breaking the morale of the enemy, though by slightly different methods.

[Highland Laddie]

Rohan's missle cavalry should be able to soften up most armies before you meet them with your main host. I try to keep anywhere from 4-6 archer cav units in my armies. Send them ahead on the flanks. If you manage to get some of theirs units but to break up and give chase, bring up some heavy cav and charge the unit and it will likely lose
morale and retreat

[TW-fanboy]

I haven't really worked on a Medieval 2 mod (besides contributing one or two descriptions), but I'd recommend Europa Barbarorum II (if you don't have it already). Also, TATW can be pretty cool with some submods that improve gameplay depth and lore accuracy.

Which TATW submod would you recommend?

[athanaric]

Which TATW submod would you recommend?

Good question. There are a lot. IIRC there are one or two (one of which is MOS) that bundle a multitude of minor ones. But you'll have to ask in the TATW forums for better info. Been a while since I played TATW.

[The Despondent Mind]

How script-heavy is this mod? I mean the Dominion.

[CountMRVHS]

My understanding is, it is extremely light. I don't believe there are any scripts that run during the campaigns. (There is, IIRC, one script that kicks off at the start of a new campaign to establish the starting setup... but I could be wrong there.)

So, for example, there are no scripts that auto-generate new units or characters at specific times. Any units you see the AI training are trained "organically" over the course of the campaign.

[Davosz]

Is there some trick to using 'give_trait' in the console? Game loves giving my generals the annoying 'self-maimed' trait and I want to get rid of it, but I can't seem to find the right way to enter characters' names.

[CountMRVHS]

I've never played with traits via console, sorry. I'd wager there are some guides floating around for such a thing, though. As for the characters' names, I suppose you'd want to ensure they are typed exactly as they appear in descr_strat; beyond that, I'm not sure.

[Davosz]

Yeah, the rest of the internet said RTW console's name recognition was really hard to figure out. Tried every arrangement of underscores I could think of, but to no avail.

Oh well, the mod is still glorious - probably my favourite RTW mod, even above EB and that's saying something.

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for the kind words - sorry I'm not able to be more help currently!

As much as I get bummed by a sudden occurrence of "Self-maimed", I try to think of it as a roleplay opportunity. Plus, the guy can still govern and lead just as effectively; you just want to keep him out of direct combat - but even then, combat isn't necessarily a death sentence.

If you need to get a maimed (or otherwise fragile) character into combat but want to keep him as safe as possible, you can try the "trick" of using the "Rally" function just before making contact with the enemy. So, charge your bodyguard unit (ideally cav), and just before they connect, hit "Rally". The mass of your cav will still charge, but your commander will rear up on horseback and stay out of the fray. Keep an eye on him, and as he drifts into the battle, you can pull out the unit. Then repeat the charge.

Of course, disasters can still occur, and this is no defense against a wild arrow. But it can be satisfying to pull off a victory with your maimed, disfigured, peg-legged, hook-handed captain!

[inzaghi4ever]

Greetings! Any news on the 3.3 patch?

[CountMRVHS]

I'm currently playtesting a 3.3 build (not to brag ) and working on adding and changing some unit/building descriptions. I believe Webba has some work obligations this month, so I wouldn't expect anything too soon.

But, so far 3.3 is playing out to be a blast. There have been some unit roster changes and even a few small campaign map tweaks that will have a big impact. The Dwarven campaign in particular will be something of a shock to those who are familiar with its current incarnation.

[Aexodus]

Are there any plans to make the Edoras battle map more like a hill fort? Like in the movie. Same for Dunharrow.

[CountMRVHS]

I can't speak to Webba's plans there - but I don't believe there are plans to change Dunharrow's layout, at least.

[Aper]

Hi, congrats for the amazing mod, I'm having one of the best TW campaign ever, and that's something considering how old RTW is.
My question is: why do you recommend hard difficulty for battles? My understanding was that hard and very hard battle difficulties just added bonuses to attack, defence and morale of AI units, doesn't this ruin balance? Or I'm wrong? Thank you

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks, glad you're enjoying it! Always nice to hear that the older engine (properly modded) is still standing up.

You're correct that the battle difficulty settings add bonuses to stats & morale of the AI units. I think the mod was designed with Hard battle difficulty in mind because a human player is generally going to do better with an otherwise even playing field. In my own experience, Hard difficulty doesn't make the battles seem unfair, but it offers a reasonable challenge. Of course, some factions have a harder (or easier) time than others.

That said, I don't think there should be dire consequences for playing on Medium battle difficulty. There have been a few testers over the years who played on Medium and reported that the mod played just fine. So I'd say it comes down to preference.

One last thing to consider is that some factions (Elves and Dwarves in particular) have super strong but generally small armies. You might find that Medium battle difficulty for those factions is too easy. But again, up to you!