Ask Your Questions Here!

[Aexodus]

Would it be possible to maybe change the voice for the Rohan Riders? Its more than twice as loud as the other units and not really up to quite the same quality as the other voices... Quite often I have to turn the volume down when using them. Also, why does the date on thr campaign map say eg. FO 385 instead of FA for 'fourth age'?

[CountMRVHS]

I'm not 100% sure about the reasoning behind the date acronym. It could be that 'FA' might be interpreted equally as 'First Age'. Or 'FO' could be some Sindarin thing

As for making voice changes, I wouldn't be opposed to it. The difficulty has always been finding people with the desire (and time, skill, and equipment, etc.) to do it. Sometimes people even have all those things, but their work still doesn't fit somehow. I haven't been involved in these processes myself, but that's the impression I get anyway.

[Aexodus]

Me again

1. Why are the Dwarves and Elves allied to the 'free people's' faction at game start?

2. Where can I reduce damage caused by tower/wall missiles in sieges?

3. Why is this UI glitch occurring, and how can I resolve it (other than killing this general off as I usually do).



Thanks

[CountMRVHS]

1. This has to do with the establishment of the 'superfactions' that keep, for example, Dale and the Dwarves in a permanent alliance. I'm not sure *exactly* how it works, but that's the gist of it.

2. I don't know the files that affect that - but it may be resolved to some degree by 3.3. I know we had been getting consistent feedback that tower missiles were too strong, so we reduced them... not sure if that was in 3.2 or 3.3, but I can tell you that I just fought a defense of Minas Anor and to my shock and horror the towers did not destroy the attacking siege tower, nor did they take out *nearly* as many of the enemy as they did in the past.

3. Yikes! I've never seen that. Looks like the general's portrait has been replaced with one of the farmland building cards. No idea why that would happen; seems like some files were jumbled.... but that is not a very helpful response, I'm aware. Sorry to not be of more use. What version are you playing currently?

[Aexodus]

3.2, keep in mind it's on Mac so it could be just me. By the way, it's not always that building, it's just whatever was in that spot in the previous army, so it can be any unit/building card. But it's blank when I load up the game. I've taken a look at UI/Huns (I think that's the Rohan one, maybe it's nomads) and there doesn't seem to be anything missing... So unless I can see whatever file is assigned to this general at game start like all the other generals I may just have to live with it. You know the way every general has the same portrait at game start... Also if you can see if you have the same problem with the Rohan campiagn? Do it on the BI exe if you wanna do the same as me btw

[CountMRVHS]

Well, that's strange - I haven't seen it in the Rohan campaign; did one on 3.2 a while back. I always use the BI exe - not sure if there is another one?

I'm not very well-versed on the file structure outside of the text files. Seems like in theory it should be a fixable problem, given that you don't experience it with every single general, just that particular one. But I'm not sure how the portraits get chosen. I don't think a portrait is necessarily chosen for a particular character; it might simply be that the game assigns a portrait from the portrait list in order of how the characters are listed in descr_strat... but that's just a guess.

[Aexodus]

Oh yeah... Forgot this mod was built for BI smh And It's not just 3.2 specific for me, had it in 3.0

[CountMRVHS]

I guess then I'd chalk it up to either a Mac-specific quirk, or a (surprisingly consistent) error with the file structure. I do wonder if anyone else has seen this error crop up.

[Aexodus]

Do you plan on making the 'Reunited Kingdom' stronger in Arnor? Otherwise it's more or less just Gondor like in any other LoTR mod. Also, why was the game built around large unit settings, couldn't the elf and dwarfish roster simply have been balanced differently?

[CountMRVHS]

Getting the balance right in Arnor is tricky. In the early builds, the RK would always win up there - which would mean soon they'd be attacking the Elves, the Shire, the Dwarves, Tharbad, and eventually Rohan!

We decided that they needed a nerf. I believe originally, we gave the RK Sarnford and Fornost at game start; later, we decided that, due to the back-and-forth of the civil war, these places might start out as "rebel", being held by opportunistic brigands or survivors once the big armies had moved on.

Then we also wanted to capture the theme of the mod - in the Fourth Age, the old ways are fading. The most obvious example of this is the decline of the Elves, but this fading must also (eventually) apply even to Mannish factions with strong ties to the West. Given that we had established Adunabar as the 'villain', we wanted to strengthen them to ensure they would be a threat. Adunabar needed to be strong in the South just to survive (since they're very vulnerable there, completely surrounded), but we also wanted to suggest that the Cult had a strong presence in the North - farther away from the traditional center of power at Minas Anor. The North had to be re-established almost from the ground up with Elessar's re-incorporation of Arnor into the Kingdom, and there are lots of wide, empty spaces and wilderness - a good environment for disaffected weirdos who want to gather in secret and usurp the realm!

However, the other thing to keep in mind is that each campaign has a different balance, depending on which faction you choose. If you're playing Rohan, you'll find that your traditional allies start off weaker and your traditional enemies start off stronger. This means RK is more likely to lose in the North (and South) without your intervention, and factions like Harad and Adunabar may be juggernauts. But if you're playing Harad, you're more likely to see Adunabar lose (in the South, at any rate).


It is possible to 'save' the North if you're playing as Rohan, but it requires that you hold off on your Dunland conquests for a little bit, possibly secure military access with Tharbad (to bypass the chokepoint at the bridge; alternatively, cross near Swanfleet and up via Rivendell), and send a big stack far from home. That all may sound a little extreme, but then, so was the ride of Eorl the Young


I'm not sure about the reasoning behind large unit settings.

[Aexodus]

Granted I was playing on Hard campaign difficulty, the North fell well before I probably could have sent an army up there (without console). I would humbly suggest that maybe the RK be given more troops in the North? They have a very meagre amount of boots on the ground imo, but I understand if you rather Adunabar become the big baddy in the north rather than RK, it makes sense.

[CountMRVHS]

They do have very few troops up there. It would be an easy enough thing to address actually - you could do it in descr_strat; just find the settlements you want to affect (Annuminas and Bree; possibly Amon Sul), see the units listed underneath, and copy/add however many you like. I would guess the RK's economy might be impacted, though. I'll try to remember to mention it when Webba gets back, but I believe things are working more or less as we would like currently, so in the meantime a self-fix is probably the best bet.

I don't know how Hard difficulty would precisely affect that campaign, given that both RK and Adunabar are AI factions, and IIRC in Hard campaign difficulty all AI factions receive equal bonuses. But it could be the case that, because Adunabar owns more land in the North, they were better able to make use of those bonuses; so Hard difficulty possibly accelerated their victory. (I'm guessing you're already aware, but Medium campaign difficulty is recommended - I can't imagine playing on Hard, and facing a rampant Harad or Rhun in the midgame!)

[Aexodus]

Indeed, I've decided to restart my campaign after using toggle_fow to see Harad's hordes that were conquering Harondor...

[CountMRVHS]

Harad will conquer Harondor most of the time, barring intervention by the player.

The fun thing about Rohan, though, is that you can have a very strong economy, which will allow you to send your armies to these far-flung places. (It's even lore-friendly - there were a couple of Rohirrim princes I believe who died fighting Haradrim at the crossing of the Poros in south Ithilien).

I haven't done a Rohan campaign in a long time, but I think what I'd do is get Dunfreca and possibly the Dol Baran fort, and then just hold the Isen crossing from Dunland rather than expand. Build up infrastructure, and send an army up through Dunland, past Tharbad, to help out the RK in the North. Get a Scout or two for reconnaissance, and trash Adunabar's settlements, 2 of which begin the game without walls.

Meanwhile, get a stack to send toward MA. Take Calenhad en route and probably hold it, then push on into Ithilien and help out the RK against Adunabar. I don't know if I'd hold onto much territory here; probably gift it to the RK.

There's probably enough money left over to also expand into Feorfeld and Mid-deeping - though the latter might invite attack from other Northmen factions. You have to man the Undeeps at any rate, lest Adunabar outflank you.

Incrimentally, work up into Dunland and start taking & holding their towns. Retrain and reinforce the RK as necessary, and then get a good stack or 2 together - probably one all-cav, and another with a good mix of infantry to act as a sieging army. Get alliance & military access from Harondor if they're still around (so do this sooner rather than later!), and then head down south to chevauchee your way through Harad's territory. Conquer lands and gift them to Harondor or the RK - the goal is just to neuter Harad's production.

Not sure how that would work.... but now I want to try it!


Oh, and this will probably work a lot better on Medium campaign difficulty; your economy takes a hit, I believe, on Hard.

[Aexodus]

Will do! Sounds fun

[CountMRVHS]

Leave a campaign report if you get the time! I always love reading those.

[Highland Laddie]

In my experience playing as Rohan, the RK will allow you to hold onto Calenhad so long as you do not destroy the Dunadanic homeland building (even if it belongs to Adunabar). If you destroy it, and RK is strong in Gondor, they will betray and attack you to get Calenhad back. It's even more annoying when they do this after refusing to accept the settlement as a gift. This becomes even more likely to happen if Dunland is defeated and Rohan is not warring with Tharbad.

I was especially heartbroken after successfully defending MA for decades from both Adunabar and Harad, only to get stabbed in the back for the favor.

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm. I haven't noticed that the homeland building itself has an influence on whether you'll be betrayed or not... If so, that's a very interesting discovery. I'll try to remember to see how that works. How long have you held Calenhad in the past before being betrayed? I'd also be curious about the situation in Ithilien - i.e., whether the RK owned all that territory, or was being severely constrained by the other factions.

I've always assumed that the primary factor in AI betrayal is whether the AI has an effective channel for expansion away from your territories. I've seen campaigns where the RK/Rohan alliance falls apart very very late in the game, as a result of those 2 factions eliminating every other faction in between them (i.e., Rohan conquers all of Dunland & Tharbad; RK conquers all of Adunabar in the North). These were earlier builds of the mod, though. I haven't seen an RK/Rohan betrayal in a while.

As for Calenhad, I believe it's on the RK's list of provinces for victory conditions, so I wonder if that is the issue, rather than the presence or absence of a particular building in the settlement. I seem to recall thinking that the AI is responsive to its VCs, which would probably explain why Harondor bothers to invade Tolfalas regularly. If that's the reason for the betrayal, then there wouldn't be anything to do about it other than give it to the RK.

I can't remember if you were involved in those discussions about gifting provinces a while back. What we found was that for such a gift to be accepted, you couldn't have any troops standing around in the province (they had to be either inside the town, or outside the provincial borders altogether). Also, you may need to gift the AI cash *along with* the province. And the gift seems less likely to be accepted if the province doesn't border any of the AI's lands.

In my Elven campaign, I've had a hard time giving province back to the RK. I managed to give them a couple of places (Taurdal, Ettendale), but it took a few tries and some large cash gifts (between 2 and 5,000 mirian).

[Highland Laddie]

Yeah I was present in some of the earlier gifting territory discussions. I know that you have a better chance to gift provided a) no troops in or near the province, and b) the province is contiguous with the rest of the faction's properties (or close to).

I held Calenhad for at least a good 12 turns or maybe even more with no signs of aggression from the RK, and this is after at least 6 times I'd ridden down to MA to defend it against Adunabar. Again...no qualms from RK. However, once I decided that I could just own Calenhad instead of trying to keep defending it from Adunabar (I think I'd actually captured it 2 or 3 times before, and successfully gifted it, but RK never defended it well), I decided to hang onto it, and then the next turn after destroying the homeland territory building, they attack me. Maybe it has to do with changing the territory from Dunadanic to Northmen?

[CountMRVHS]

My guess is that your destruction of the homeland building didn't lead to the betrayal. I haven't heard of any evidence or theories that the AI takes settlement buildings into consideration when determining its targets. Of course, I certainly don't know much about the hardcoded aspects of the game, and there's still a lot that's mysterious about the AI's behavior, so you could be right.

It seems, though, that the RK was probably going to go for Calenhad at some point, and they figured they could get it from you. (The AI does seem to make attack decisions based on how well-defended a province is, especially WRT troops in the province but outside the settlement.)

Of course, that's very unfortunate; we want the RK-Rohan alliance to be strong. My understanding is that it's the same setup as the Brutii-Julii-Scipii factions in RTW - that is, normally they don't attack each other, but there are some late-game circumstances that can lead to betrayals.

In earlier builds, I remember noticing something similar regarding the Dwarves-Dale alliance (which is the same setup as the RK-Rohan alliance). I'd play the Dwarves, and take some troops out of Erebor to go conquer stuff, and Dale would betray me, laying siege to Erebor. Dale seemed more likely to do it if Erebor was poorly defended, so we used to recommend leaving a decent garrison in Erebor. Currently, when playing as the Dwarves you'll find that Dale is a passive faction, so there's much less fear of betrayal (and in fact I haven't seen any betrayal since that setup).

Now, the RK isn't a passive faction, so they'd be more likely to betray you - especially if Calenhad was lightly defended. Still, I don't think I've experienced a RK-Rohan betrayal on the current build, partly because I just don't play Rohan very much, and partly (probably) because I tend not to keep Calenhad.