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[demagogos nicator]

Why do the starting characters have different traits everytime in each new game? In one hand it may contribute to better replayability but in anouther it is quite annoying to find out that your favourite character starts with really terrible stats.

[TW-fanboy]

Is there a possibility to increase population growth for the non-mannish factions?
I conquered Rivendell as the Elves and established it as a homebase, but since the growth there is 0% and the population number is 400, retraining the noldor there or recruiting any troops is impossible.

PS: Could population growth possibly be randomized? Once I started an Elven campaign, and Lindon ahd negative growth. Another time, the Lindon provinces had positive growth.
PPS: I found out, that not the population growth per se, but the character traits are randomized, and ispired governors add to the settlements public health, therefor its population growth. As demagogos nicator asked, why did you decide thus?

[Highland Laddie]

You can grow Eleven populations in Elvenking's Halls, Rivendell, and maybe Mithlond also by building a Garden of the Silver Light and keeping the taxes set to low.

The next easiest ways to grow populations for them is to keep governors there and either Expel populations of captured towns, which divides the dispersed population between governed settlements, or recruit mercenaries and disband them. Although the latter is a bit frowned upon by the purists.

[Wambat]

@ TW-fanboy: As far as I am concerned it is perfectly legitimate to send Elvish units from other Elvish settlements to disband in Rivendell. Considering how few casualties your Noldor Swords are likely to suffer, a single Threshold Troops will likely provide all the population you need to keep your Noldor Swords up for an entire campaign.

I don’t know if this is set to change, but currently the only population bonuses that apply in settlements with Elven populations are those provided by the Garden of the Silver Light project and the Elvenking’s Great Banquet Hall project. There is a graphic error that will show bonuses from governors when they are first moved into a settlement (or during the first turn of a campaign), but the displayed bonus will disappear when you end turn and is never actually applied.

Only Forlond and Harlond cannot get positive population growth, but even they can hold population at 0% growth up to around 1500. I think the highest sustainable number of Elven population it is possible to achieve is 22500 between all Elven settlements. That is an armchair calculation and will have be verified.

Edit: Checked my calculations. the exact figure is 22492.

[webba84]

Why do the starting characters have different traits everytime in each new game? In one hand it may contribute to better replayability but in anouther it is quite annoying to find out that your favourite character starts with really terrible stats.

Short Answer (because only Aradan can provide the long one) is because we have to. The traits you see are all generated by hidden traits in the RPG system Aradan designed, the hidden traits are all semi random (because its how trait scripting works) so character starting traits are randomised within the parameters of the system. We can't set their starting stats manually, and if we tried they wouldn't be 'proper' DoM characters, wouldn't interact with the obtainable traits correctly, and be liable to cause all sorts of bugs.

Elven population growth will not be changed, as it is balanced as well as we can between lore and game-play at present. Feel free to mod your own copy to whatever you want but be aware that increasing elven population growth will make the campaign very easy.

[TW-fanboy]

Ok, I like the idea of low populatino for elves (and less, dwarves). I just was curious because Forlond and Harlond are pretty useless regarding recruitment.
Maybe turning them into mannish provinces is necessary, even though I don't like the idea of giving up elven settlements^^

[webba84]

Oh, they are completely useless for recruitment and really there for lore more than anything else. Converting them to mannish is not a bad thing to do with them, but what I usually do is send all their population to Mithlond (by recruiting ships on the first turn, then disbanding them in the Mithlond port) and then set their taxes to very high. Gets a decent income out of them with very little investment.

[TW-fanboy]

Oh, good to know^^
May I ask under what circumstances I can rebuild Ost-in-Edhil? I captured it as the elves, but there are no construction options.

[Wambat]

Concerning Forlond and Harlond, webba84’s advice is spot-on for early game, however, late game they are two thirds of your Lindon Guards production centers. If you have not converted them to Mannish you can be sending a steady stream of Threshold Troops to those settlements to be converted to the world-beater Lindon Guards. Likewise, Forlond is one-half of your Elven shipyards for heavy combat ships. You have to feed them Elves, but they will turn those Elves into useful things.


As for Ost-in-Edhil, I am sure this question has been asked and answered here before, but I cannot seem to find it. I believe that once you have possession of Ost-in-Edhil it will be possible for one of your Family Members to acquire the necessary trait to develop Ost-in-Edhil. I think the FM has to have the Far Sighted, and one other trait, maybe Charismatic, and be of the Noldo or Sinda race. Once that guy is found he needs to be sent to Ost-in-Edhil to become governor there and Ost-in-Edhil will experience a population boom. Once Ost-in-Edhil reaches, I think, 12000 you will have the option to develop the settlement.


I welcome another to clear up the points I have wrong.

[Highland Laddie]

To rebuild Ost-in-Ethil your character must be the following:

A: Noldo or Sinda
B: Intelligent & Charismatic
C: Far Sighted (having the "True-Seer" trait also worked for me)

And he has to stay in the town for a couple turns before the process starts, as well as after it starts.

I think that is all the character requires, but it's possible I missed a trait.

[webba84]

Nope, that's all of them

[Liltom001]

Guys, just a quick question, do you think its possible/will you ever patch it so you can create siege battles in skirmishes? Cause I want to play some custom sieges!

[webba84]

It's possible, we have heard from players who modded it themselves that it works (previously it was causing crashes), but I haven't had time to look into it yet.

[Masaccio]

Does anyone know if MoN did a how to video with his Mac edition? I am totally tech inept and rely on such videos.
http://depositfiles.com/files/y5b4hm1tc
I can't wait!

[Flinn]

Does anyone know if MoN did a how to video with his Mac edition? I am totally tech inept and rely on such videos.
http://depositfiles.com/files/y5b4hm1tc
I can't wait!

what's exactly the file you are sharing there?

[Masaccio]

According to webba84 who sent it to me, its MoN's Mac Edition of Fourth Age Total War, .rar version.

[parfu]

i am also extremely interested about the mac version. I tried putting the fatw folder inside the app (like the instructions about other mods here, btw this instructions worked for me for the total realism mod). I also used the "-mod:fatw" but there were no result. I hope somene can help.

[Masaccio]

Does anyone know how I can get in contact with MoS?
This site is an utter and painful labyrinth!!!

[Masaccio]

Apologies,
I meant MoN and can't find the edit feature.

[Flinn]

tnx for the feedback Masaccio

You cannot edit your posts unless you have been a member for at least 1 week AND have a minimum of 25 posts; it might be an annoying issue I know, but it's needed to protect the fora from spambots. Other that this, I'm replying to your PM right now