Ask Your Questions Here!

[Wambat]

Do you surround the agents and then 'step on' them with a 9th army?

^ this

[Wambat]

Does the "prevent-CTD-unit" show up as a grey unit in the roster, or is it invisible?

[Aradan]

It's invisible, it doesn't show up anywhere.

[Basileos Predator]

The map has changed a bit since I posted that. There are a number of orkish strongholds in the Misty Mts, Grey Mountains and Mts of Angmar, plus a few settlements. One of the settlements and all the strongholds start as orkish, so Dwarves will have things to do (AI-controlled Dwarves will stay put).

This sounds great and will giv the player when using the dwarfs some real, lore places to expand.BTW, will the dwarfs have a moria-type unit to be recruited is they re-capture that city(if it exists)?

[Aradan]

The city starts under dwarven control. No, there is no AoR unit there.

[Jagmodo]

Here I am again with idea about supplies. Is it possible to make supplies run out differently than usual for nomadic cultures? Is it possible to give family members certain traits in dealing with getting around in wilderness?

I’m having in mind something like that:

- Family members from Rhûn and Khand could have greater chance of getting some traits because of their (semi-)nomadic culture. Maybe characters from Far Harad too if their culture is similar.

- Wood Elves are generally known for their resourcefulness in woodlands.

- House of Húrin similar, because of their ranger training and help from White company bodyguards. If there will be Rangers of the North (or Grey Company) bodyguards same thing.

- Other Faction members could have some chance to get it if they meet certain conditions (staying in wilderness for number of turns).

That would simulate hunting, gathering and other means of resupplying an army. Maybe is also possible to simulate resupplying from the many villages (landmark/resource) on the Enemy or Ally territory (doesn’t matter much here if peaceful or less peaceful way of obtaining supplies)?

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Supplies are handled through character traits, AFAIK, so you can't have them differ from unit to unit.

[Aradan]

Such bonuses/penalties must be predicated either on character skills or on things that would either be very common across an entire faction/culture (and not unit-specific), since the composition of an army can vary and cannot be checked. With that in mind:
1. Elves lose supplies more slowly than other cultures
2. We don't have any factions that are predominantly nomadic. Rhun, despite its ability to horde, starts quite settled and most if not all its troops are non-nomadic. Khand does include a nomadic subculture, but 2/3 of its units are non-nomadic. So I'm not sure a default bonus for those factions would fit.
3. Ranger training doesn't necessarily make someone better at logistics, I think. Better at ambushes is more likely.
4. There's no way to check for a character's location on the map.

That said, spending time outside of settlements, especially in enemy-held provinces, will increase the chances of getting traits that will help with supply etc.

[Gonras]

A question on a different matter:

Will there be faction introduction videos like in Vanilla RTW? If not in the game, perhaps on Youtube and other video portals? Or are those not planned yet?

[Aradan]

Assuming we find a video-maker...

[LOTRRTW]

A question for Aradan. Apologies if this has already been asked btw but this is a seriously long thread and I dont have 20 years to search it all
In FATW;TNS with my current version, major customised cities such as Minis Tirith or Helms Deep which are customised on the campaign map are not similarly reflected on the battle map. They simply come up as the standard, large cities. Is this a problem with my version or was it simply not possible to do? Also, will this be changed in DoM?

Many thanks in advance and just to say I have much enjoyed and have huge respect for your (and the other modders) work.

[Aradan]

There are plans to enhance the battlemap side of things too, but they depend on the availability of the modder who specializes in that sort of thing. He is currently unavailable, but we'll see how things go until we release.

[Jagmodo]

Question not about something particularly important but I’ll ask out of curiosity.

Loosely related to the previous question, I’m wondering how will you deal with elven buildings on the campaign map (building cards and descriptions). That seem far easier than implementing custom cities on the battle map, but I do see one specific thing that may complicate things quite a bit.

Namely, elven culture varies greatly settlement from settlement and naturally their buildings/habitat (from probably stone masonry in Mithlond and Imladris to flets in Lórien and Halls of Thranduil). I'm wondering will there be a way to implement all that cultural and building differences (I doubt it’s possible, that’s why I’m asking) or you will go middle path and have same generally elven looking buildings that could by design fit (almost) everywhere.

[LOTRRTW]

Ah okay...
I'm still confused though... Does that mean that TNS was released without the matching custom battle packs for those cities; ie the version I have is working? Also out of curioisity, TATW seems to have the city map packs. Is their availability there to do with the newer M2TW engine making it easier?

[Jagmodo]

Yes, The New Shadow does not have custom cities on the battle map and it didn't mean to have any. This particular aspect of the mod was never much important to developers. Also, as you may guess, it is tremendous work to make such unique cities and even more to make them right. This means they must not have any problems so AI can use it without problems (pathfinding and so on). Also, testing that can take much of their precious time.

I’m not sure M2TW is much easier to make such custom cities. I think the main reason why TATW has them is because they have huge community and much more developers than FATW ever had. To my knowledge Aradan and Éorl are only full-time moders of this mod, while CountMRVHS works on the unit and building descriptions and Master of None occasionally helps out when he has time; also, Aikanár was working on the sound files if I remember correctly. They also sometimes receive help from other moders and from such affair Jarlaxe’s beautiful Minas Tirith was born.

[LOTRRTW]

Thank you...
I understand the modders time concerns but may I ask the modders why they felt that custom cities weren't a crucial element? From what I've gleaned, it's primarily what attracts gamers to TATW OR LOTRmod, being able to play battles at those famous places... I think the mod is beautiful and has clear advantages in gameplay etc, I'm just curious as for me I'd have felt it essential...
also, just as a point of amusement; regularly I see people pestering aradan for a release date and must confess find his understandable frustration a little funny... Did the modders, when starting work of DoM back in 2008, post-TNS, ever think naively "yeah, well probably have this done by 2010" or something of the like?

[Aradan]

Namely, elven culture varies greatly settlement from settlement and naturally their buildings/habitat (from probably stone masonry in Mithlond and Imladris to flets in Lórien and Halls of Thranduil). I'm wondering will there be a way to implement all that cultural and building differences (I doubt it’s possible, that’s why I’m asking) or you will go middle path and have same generally elven looking buildings that could by design fit (almost) everywhere.

It's not possible to have different UI cards for the same culture for the same building. We'd need to have 'clones' of the same building, with different descriptions each, but we feel that would overcomplicate things. It applies to other cultures too, of course. Northmannish farms in Harad would look like haradrian farms (arid climate, haradrian farms in Dale would look northmannish, etc. Unfortunately we can't go into that level of detail without sacrificing a ton of building slots and complicating everything. So, some abstraction/imagination is required.

Ah okay...
I'm still confused though... Does that mean that TNS was released without the matching custom battle packs for those cities; ie the version I have is working? Also out of curioisity, TATW seems to have the city map packs. Is their availability there to do with the newer M2TW engine making it easier?

TNS never had custom settlements. As for M2TW mods, the reason why they can have custom settlements is makanyane and wilddog's work on ITWE. They cracked M2TW settlement creation code, so all people had to do was use their tool and plug their own models in. Unfortunately things are not as easy in RTW, custom settlements are a pain. Not so much the modelling, but the "getting it to work correctly" aspect.

To my knowledge Aradan and Éorl are only full-time moders of this mod, while CountMRVHS works on the unit and building descriptions and Master of None occasionally helps out when he has time; also, Aikanár was working on the sound files if I remember correctly. They also sometimes receive help from other moders and from such affair Jarlaxe’s beautiful Minas Tirith was born.

Don't underestimate the amount of work put into text. Count has written many thousand words worth of high-quality, immersive, lore-accurate and original descriptions, which is a far greater feat than most people give it credit for. The majority of mods pay little attention to text, and end up having terrible and immersion-breaking descriptions.

Thank you...
I understand the modders time concerns but may I ask the modders why they felt that custom cities weren't a crucial element? From what I've gleaned, it's primarily what attracts gamers to TATW OR LOTRmod, being able to play battles at those famous places... I think the mod is beautiful and has clear advantages in gameplay etc, I'm just curious as for me I'd have felt it essential...

What is crucial for a mod depends on the mod's orientation. Custom settlements are a main feature for TATW, because visuals are its only selling point. Those custom cities were the only major difference between TATW 3.0 and the previous version, which speaks volumes. LotRTW is similar, the express goal of Wlesmana and Bardo are enjoyable movie-like battles, so again you have a 3.0 version with custom settlements as its main feature.
DoM on the other hand, despite its excellent visuals, puts more emphasis on gameplay, so we feel having custom settlements is not really a must, especially given the amount of work they require and the pay-off they yield. Of course, if we can find someone to make us custom cities, we'll go for it, but if we have to choose between them and other art-related features that will be seen more than twice during a campaign, we'll go for the latter.

also, just as a point of amusement; regularly I see people pestering aradan for a release date and must confess find his understandable frustration a little funny... Did the modders, when starting work of DoM back in 2008, post-TNS, ever think naively "yeah, well probably have this done by 2010" or something of the like?

Actually, work on DoM didn't start in 2008. After TNS was done, we worked on Viking Invasion 2, then on Norman Invasion, and in the meantime I was doing various things for 5-6 other mods. Work on DoM started in 2010.
Anyway, yes, we miscalculated. Back in 2010 the idea was that DoM = TNS + full map + 3 factions, and that would be it. We announced a release date (against our long-standing policy) because life allowed us a period of rapid progress and our goals seemed achievable. But DoM gradually evolved from an "add 40 regions and 3 factions" job to a total overhaul of everything with constant researching, adding, improving and redoing of things, until it got to its current state. We failed to meet our self-imposed deadline both because our goals changed and because real life reduced our team to barely 2 people.
That said, I am not really frustrated with people asking for the release, even if some underestimate how little free time we have for hobbies or how much work is involved in this project. I was in their shoes in 2007 waiting for Forth Eorlingas. What frustrates me is the possibility that we'll lose players because they grow tired of waiting. It's nobody's fault though; we go as fast as life allows and we ask people to be patient. We believe the result will be worth the wait.

[Jagmodo]

Don't underestimate the amount of work put into text. Count has written many thousand words worth of high-quality, immersive, lore-accurate and original descriptions, which is a far greater feat than most people give it credit for. The majority of mods pay little attention to text, and end up having terrible and immersion-breaking descriptions.

Sorry, I didn’t want to underestimate anyone’s work. Actually I was merely repeating your words about two and a half team members differently. Actually, I am one of not so many players that are reading unit and buildings descriptions and appreciate such work very much. Also, I don’t nearly have complete insight in your development work and don’t actually know how much and how often anyone contributes. But yes, something that may be truth in the past may changed in present and so on. And that’s why I should refrain from replying to such questions...

I apologise if anyone felt insulted or marginalised, especially to CountMRVHS, I didn’t meant to do it.

[Aradan]

I doubt Count would feel insulted or marginalized. That was just me grasping the opportunity to bring some well-deserved spotlight to the 'unsung' hero of the team. Models and textures can be previewed, new features advertised, but descriptions (and their writers) are often left in the shadows.

[Jagmodo]

I wouldn’t have anything against if you show us some of Count’s work. A new Specialization Building description would be nice.

Seriously, I would like anything you could give us since we didn’t get any screenshots... well this year. Let’s pull Count’s work out of the shadows.

Regarding the text work, if I may be so bold to say it, I still (maybe naively) hope you didn’t forget this (link)...