The Palantiri and The Mirror

**Jonlion** · March 31, 2012, 05:20 AM

yeah sorry for being dumb just so far in my game I havent been able to use it.

Thanks

**Withwnar** · March 31, 2012, 05:45 AM

Assuming that you have read the instructions and are past turn 5 then it might be this:

Press F3 (or whatever key you have mapped to "Radar: decrease zoom")

It is possible that you have this action mapped to a different key. The Help scroll (F1) tells you your mappings.

**Bloodly** · April 11, 2012, 06:00 AM

Looking through the data, I see the potential for 'Illusion' units to turn up on viewings. This seems odd, as it's noted that the Palantiri cannot lie, and even Sauron can't cause them to. Heck, the quotes that says so have been included into Third Age's loading screens.

WHy is this?

**Lord of Cats** · June 11, 2012, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by Withwnar

The Help scroll (F1) tells you your mappings.

When I hit F1 with a palantiri settlement selected my game kind of "reloads" and when it's done my sound is muted and the settlement and character lables are toggled off and on respectivly (which I then need to change). Nothing else happens. No help scoll. No palantiri info. Nothing. What might I be doing wrong? Should I try hitting the other function keys? Any help on this would be great. This seems like an awesome feature.

Thanks.

**Withwnar** · June 12, 2012, 02:14 AM

Wow. F1 seems to be doing a lot of things to your game.

By default F1 should be showing you your key mappings. For palantiri settlements (when selected) it should instead be showing you Palantiri Help, which probably isn't telling you much more than this tutorial. i.e. F1 isn't all that important for Palantiri if you already know how to use them.

F3 is the important one as it is this key that begins the viewing.

Why it is misbehaving I don't know. Check your key mappings: main menu > Options > Keyboard Settings > Misc. It should say this...

Code:

Radar: decrease scale ... F3
Show help window ... F1

If they are correct then maybe something else on your PC is intercepting these key hits and doing something different: try setting the above to different key(s).

If they are set to something different then either change them back to F1/F3 or, in the game, use those keys for Palantiri stuff instead of F1/F3.

This seems like an awesome feature.

Thank you.

It is certainly a unique feature but it has limited usefulness. The Palantiri Revision submod hugely improves the usefulness and appearance (but is not yet 3.2 compatible).

**Lord of Cats** · June 12, 2012, 03:47 PM

Still doesn't work.

I should probably post this in the bug and technical help forum... But I'll post it here anyway. According to my key mappings F1 should bring up the help scroll and F3 should do the palantiri viewing (Radar: decrease scale). F1 still does the "reloading" thing. And when I hit F3 (with Barad-dur selected and the blue circle in the bottom left corner surrounded by a red line) it crashed the game to desktop and showed my battery stats (I have a laptop with windows vista). It's a good thing I adopted the habit of saving my game every turn when in mods.

How do I set the keys differently? And if I find out how I would probably set the palantiri viewing to F6 since that key doesn't have a sysmbol on it. I have version 3.2 so I'll have to wait until that submod is compatible I guess.

**Withwnar** · June 12, 2012, 10:37 PM

Posting here is good: it isn't a bug and if other people are having the same palantiri problems then here's a logical place to find the solution.

Yep, sounds like your laptop has been set up so that the Fx keys are globally mapped to do special laptop things, overriding what any game/application would do with those keys. A few people have had problems with F3 not working for them on laptops.

F1 is a strange one for the laptop to be overriding: it is the standard "Help" key for Windows applications. Are you sure that you are using the key correctly? Laptops often double up those Fx keys: to use it as an Fx key you need to hold down the Function key when pressing it.

To change key mappings: from memory you go to that Keyboard Options menu page, click on the one you want to change and then hit the key you wish to map it to.

**DBradley333** · December 29, 2014, 12:05 PM

Hi all,

I recently installed the Third Age mod and it is working pretty well. One thing that I need help on is the Palantiri. I am Isengard. I know how to use the palantiri and the turns and authorization, etc. When I press F3 to use it, it moves around which I assume is normal, but it doesn't show me anything. The only thing I see is the blank map as if I hadn't explored it. No cities or armies or anything appear. It just moves around a blank campaign map. Is this normal? Do I need to wait for Sauron to be present? XP OS, about 16 turns into the game. Please help if you can.

Thanks,
Dustin

**Withwnar** · December 30, 2014, 02:51 AM

In the center of the screen the fog should be lifted, in a circle, like it is around any character or settlement.

If it isn't then something's wrong. Installation problem maybe. Are you using any submods?

**DBradley333** · January 01, 2015, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by Withwnar

In the center of the screen the fog should be lifted, in a circle, like it is around any character or settlement.

If it isn't then something's wrong. Installation problem maybe. Are you using any submods?

Thank you for the response. There is not area with the fog lifted. Nothing is visible. I am not using any submods. Maybe a resinstall will work.

Dustin

**Roma_Victrix** · July 24, 2015, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by Withwnar

Wow. F1 seems to be doing a lot of things to your game.

By default F1 should be showing you your key mappings. For palantiri settlements (when selected) it should instead be showing you Palantiri Help, which probably isn't telling you much more than this tutorial. i.e. F1 isn't all that important for Palantiri if you already know how to use them.

F3 is the important one as it is this key that begins the viewing.

Why it is misbehaving I don't know. Check your key mappings: main menu > Options > Keyboard Settings > Misc. It should say this...

Code:

Radar: decrease scale ... F3
Show help window ... F1

If they are correct then maybe something else on your PC is intercepting these key hits and doing something different: try setting the above to different key(s).

If they are set to something different then either change them back to F1/F3 or, in the game, use those keys for Palantiri stuff instead of F1/F3.

Thank you.

It is certainly a unique feature but it has limited usefulness. The Palantiri Revision submod hugely improves the usefulness and appearance (but is not yet 3.2 compatible).

I'm not sure if it's because I'm using Leo's Alternative Patch sub mod, or because I'm playing on Windows 8.1, but hitting the F1 key works fine for me in pulling up the necessary information scroll. However, hitting F3 causes the game to go bananas, throwing up a bunch of random zoomed in scroll images before reloading the map where (as has been alluded before) the names of settlements are suddenly missing and the music (and all other sound) has been muted! WTF?

I tried this once as Gondor, and it made me frustrated, so I didn't try it again. Now I'm playing as the High Elves, and I would really like it to work this time (seems like a shame to let such a cool feature go to waste).

I'll try and see if your solution here works (i.e. changing those keys altogether from F1 and F3). Just to let you know, F2 and F3 on my current keyboard are the keys that control the brightness level of the laptop screen (on my HP Pavilion Notebook 15).

EDIT, UPDATE: I changed the "radar: decrease scale" from F3 to the "E" key on my keyboard by going into the keyboard settings and Miscellaneous tab as you suggested. After changing it, I reloaded my campaign, hit the "E" key instead of F3, and voila! It worked! I can now use the Palintir at Elostirion!