Comments, Suggestions and Gameplay Issues (v3.0)

[Halvar von Flake]

Thanks, Bardo. Bugfixer would be nice.

some more suggestions:

- if possible make Sauron vulnerable to Anduril even if Mordor has more than five regions
- little decent ruins as watchtowers for free peoples to make the lost realm of Arnor feel even more lost
- and elven watch towers for strat map
- a real balrog for moria would be nice! Imagine the screen shots for fighting the balrog on khazad dum brigde! Okay, Gandalf would be needed as single fireball unit like Saruman but Radagst could fulfill diplomatic and observing tasks...
- new warg models (from the new hobbit movie). They would look more scary and sophisticated if they looked more like wolves and not like dumb hyaenas
- armor upgrades for Gondor from black coated chain mails of the guards of the tower to the more shiny armors...guess many players wouldn't upgrade cause they would prefer the more beautiful Tolkien style chain mail models

EDIT:
- make barrow downs hard to control with barrow wights rebellions if possible to modify...this would lead to more conflicts between Dunland faction and free peoples...or to a ghost region that no one dares to control...and put more and only barrow wights from the beginning into the downs

EDIT 2:
- strat map models for rangers of the north units - together with ruin watch towers would create an awesome atmosphere for free peoples faction

[Halvar von Flake]

Some more suggestions...

free peoples:
- Enable script triggers without requirements after Rivendell. Let the player decide the way of the fellowship. If someone wants to go the classical way he is free to do so, but if not he is free do so to either...would be a lot of fun to write the fellowship history new at least partially...!

silvan:
- the greenwood sentinels and the emerald guards are very well crafted units but remind me of modern warfare or sci-fi units. I suggest to give elite mirkwood rangers as bodyguards. Maybe with hoods taken off, better leather armor and plain long swords to distinguish them from the normal mirkwood rangers...

[Stath's]

Does Mordor get later in the campaign the ability to build roads?

[LittleDwarf]

Why the Dwarvves do not have flaming catapult ammo? Is this a bug? How to fix it?

[Halvar von Flake]

Suggestions Rohan:

- give Theoden -200%movement until Gandalf arrives in Edoras
- arrange Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli so that you get a battle at beautiful Amon Hen Hill

Other issues:
- you wrote in the mod description that Ents are not available yet, but they are and they look great!

[CaliGen]

I've not installed any patch, so maybe this is problem.

First impressions - wow, great mod!

Started campaign as Isengard. Great units, so perfectly done. Great job!

- Can't build roads? I thought orcs loved cutting down trees and other environmentally unfriendly activities? =D

- So several turns in I try to take Helm's deep. Bugs bugs bugs. Only a few orcs fro each unit go up the siege towers, rest mill around at base getting shot at. even once I have a few siege towers in place, captured the gateway, and undermined a wall section. So they have muliptle wasy of getting into the city. Nope, Uruk Hai would rather randomly run around outside the city. Also, the captured towers don't fire on the enemy. I was relying on this tactic to win against the Rohan cavalry. After loosing half my force due to bugs, I ragequit and decide to DL patch in hope.

[CaliGen]

Patched version - Helm's Deep siege take 2

This time I took ladders instead of towers. Worked better- maybe half of my units got on to the walls without bugs, but rest still just started wandering around at base of ladders. Some units split apart- started walking towards the main gate for some reason.

More problems of some uruks wandering away from their unit formation inside the Deeping wall. I took the town center eventually, but it cost more lives than it should have...

great map btw...but I think this is probably related to the problems with units. The map is so complex, the game can run without bugs when moving around inside.

I was also getting a CTD when I fought Ents which had spawned near Isenguard. The battle loaded but each time was CTD about 10 seconds into the battle. Had to autoresolve, and Ents are apparently the equivalent of the vanilla Egyptian chariots in autoresolve, because 4 of them took out a half stack =( Dem trees

I'm loving this mod despite occasional buggy moments. The wargs are the best so far. The skins are perfect. and they are a great unit for pursuing fleeing cavalry. Love the sounds this unit makes too: my favorite is "It's Go - time! " always has me in stitches. Lotrrtw: proof that cockneys are pure evil.

[CaliGen]

Mordor and Isenguard need roads please. This was annoying me so much I went in to data and gave all regions the potential to build roads, and enabled roads for all orc clans. However, it doesn't seem to work in game =/

I am very sure of this suggestion now. I checked in the books and on the map there are many roads drawn within Mordor itself. This is what orcs are all about- cutting down trees, building roads and other environmentally unfriendly stuff. Urbanization of the British countryside was actually one of the main themes Tolkien was trying to get across in the books, and it was also strongly influenced by his experiences as an officer in WWII.

Orc territory should be covered in mines, roads and camps.

[CaliGen]

Also please to be explaining what is going on with "frodo and sam", and the "entrance to mount doom" marker. Why are these some turns going up to these small box regions in the far corner of the map?

When start a campaign as Gondor, I see a stuck "king of the dead" character in the mountains. How to activate him? Do I need to get Aragorn to him somehow?

There are obviously game layers here that I am missing out on... a little advice in game would be nice, even if just hints. Like the spontaneous advice about using the palantir from the adviser was good.

When Isenguard attack helm's deep, there is an army spawn in a mountain tile, but it can't move or do anything. I had to use the console to move it out of the mountains...

[Halvar von Flake]

CaliGen, what about reading the sticky thread "Scripts Info for v3.0 (Eng-Fr-Es) >>Read it before playing<<"...

[Vicious the Conqueror]

Guys, don't know if I have a problem, here... turn 27, Gondor campaign, I had Frodo and Sam spawn around Emyn Arnen, and I tried to attack them with Gandalf to get the One Ring, but after beating them with or without autoresolve I got nothing, after reading the script thread I was lead to believe I would get the ring! I end turn and the "the ring is lost" message comes up, I even tried giving some of Gandalf's treasures to make sure he only has his original ones, but nope , I want Gandalf of the Many Colors! >...

So what's the deal with that? is it because it's Gandalf? Should I try taking Narya off first? (I just thought of that)

I wanted to attack them simply 'cause I'm and like that, and I'm roleplaying Aragorn turning evil after (or if) he beats Mordor, and Gandalf was the only one that could actually reach them in one turn

[Zydrius]

I think elven units should have bonus fighting in woods (that must be written in unit description);

No trade resources for elves? Are you serious? What about wood (timber), fur, lembas, etc.

[Bardo]

The bonus fighting at wood is applied when the units are fighting in battle map over terrain defined as "forest".
The new terrain generator uses a mix of several terrain types to achieve the resultant terrain textures in battle map, and at the end it makes it hard to know exactly when the units are really fighting at woods or desert.
For example, when you fight in mordor, the groups of rocks are implemented as woods, so elves would get bonuses there. In the same way, units with bonuses at desert will get bonuses when they fight over "sand" terrain, but such terrain is found in every climate from marshes to elven forests.

With the new enviroments, the ground bonuses are completely unpredictable, and they unbalanced the multiplayer games. Since we removed those bonuses, now the multiplayer games keep the same balance no matter the map that you choose.
The advantage of elves is that many units can hide in forests, and the colours of the soldiers really makes it harder for human eyes to detect them. At the same time, areas with trees or bushes break the charges of the cavalry and makes it harder to move large units like mumaks or chariots.
I think we not need extra bonuses/penalties to simulate the effects of terrain, since they are perfectly simulated by the visual RTW engine. When you fight against silvans in Mirkwood you will notice how hard is to find the enemy units, and hard is to take advantage of your cavalry.

No trade resources for elves? Are you serious? What about wood (timber), fur, lembas, etc.

The way RTW trade system works, a city only get trade bonus from resources that the city does not produce itself.
In this mod the trade resources were simplified a lot. Every elven regions produces timber as you say, and you need to conquer regions without timber to see this timber as a trade income.
Fur is also traded from regions marked with wild animals, and lembas are Special ancillaries that elven character may get if they travel a lot.

[Bardo]

Halvar von Flake, CaliGen, thank you for the comments and suggestions.
Even if I do not answer, I always read this whole topic and I'll take them into account if I have time for a bugfix patch.

Guys, don't know if I have a problem, here... turn 27, Gondor campaign, I had Frodo and Sam spawn around Emyn Arnen, and I tried to attack them with Gandalf to get the One Ring, but after beating them with or without autoresolve I got nothing, after reading the script thread I was lead to believe I would get the ring! I end turn and the "the ring is lost" message comes up, I even tried giving some of Gandalf's treasures to make sure he only has his original ones, but nope , I want Gandalf of the Many Colors! >...

So what's the deal with that? is it because it's Gandalf? Should I try taking Narya off first? (I just thought of that)

I wanted to attack them simply 'cause I'm and like that, and I'm roleplaying Aragorn turning evil after (or if) he beats Mordor, and Gandalf was the only one that could actually reach them in one turn

As you said, the rings are uncompatible. You need to give Narya to someone else before Gandalf can capture the Ring. Or try to capture it with a different character.

[Vicious the Conqueror]

As you said, the rings are uncompatible. You need to give Narya to someone else before Gandalf can capture the Ring. Or try to capture it with a different character.

Thaaaanks! I already continued the campaign, but at least now I know it's not a bug or problem with my installation or something , thank you!

[Vicious the Conqueror]

Hey, it's me again! Same campaign, Gondor, I'm a few turns from sieging Barad-dur, and just now the Haradrim are trying to assault me through South Ithillien. I tried the old, tried and true (on last version!) way of just parking an archer army in the ford of river Poros to take care of the Mumakil on the bridge battle, but it seems the ford tile overlaps with a wood tile there, and most of the time my army tries to ambush, and I have the luck and they fail... so I have to go on the offensive against Mumakil on really hilly terrain, with mostly archers , so far I haven't lost a battle much less Calembel, but last time I was pretty close: I had to maneuver my army just so to be on about even terrain and at the end I technically lost via time out even though I had just routed most of their army, and the last two units were on full retreat xD

So my question is: Is this deliberate in order to prevent that cheap way of controlling the Southerlings? I wouldn't mind that if failed ambushes weren't so annoying! I'd rather prefer if you made another ford down river heheheh.

[Bardo]

Good point. I admit it was not intended, and I agree it might be better to add another ford. I'll see if I can add it for the bugfix patch, altough I'm not liking the idea to change the campaign map unless really needed.

[Leeroy9000]

Hello there, guys.
First of all, let me say big thanks to all developers of this mod, you have done a really outstanding job!

I have started a campaign as Isengard, and just noticed that pikemen are OP. I have read Bardo's reply concerning this issue on the first page, and it seems reasonable. However, let me explain my point. This unit is the only one having lethality of 1 among regular spear infantry, as opposed to 0.6 for the other ones and 2 times higher attack compared to regular uruk-hai spearmen. Moreover, it has a ridiculous 6(!) shield, which not only bugs me, since it does not correspond to the visual appearance of this unit (apparently, it only carries a gauntlet, not a tower shield), but also makes it nearly impervious to missiles upfront (phalanx doubles shield value, shield gives 2x protection from arrows + armor, so it has 6*2*2+6=30 defence vs frontal arrow barrages, if the bonuses stack this way and work as I think). Add to this bonus vs cavalry and you have a unit, which can mostly ignore archers, beats any infantry due to the mechanics of the game and is very potent vs cavalry (if you order stop then attack, it would return to spears even if the formation has been disrupted by the charge), so it basically only lacks mobility and needs a flank protection... well, since it can turn freely, it does not even need this.

Yes, I understand that this unit is special and you want it to be more prevalent in Isengard armies, but it can be done w/o the need to make it super imba. For AI, you can boost HP which is used in auto resolve. For the balance, its cost can be reduced to levels of general Isengard units, training time to 1, shield to 2 (it has a gauntlet, it counts as 1, + 1 as even axmen without shield have 1 shield value), lethality and attack can be left as they are, since its the only unit I remember in this game that uses a 2-handed pike, which is a really powerful weapon, but should probably be reduced a little so infantry will not die instantly when attacked by those guys.

In my unitdescr, I reduced shield to 2, cost and time to about the same as a spearman, attack to 5 and lethality to the level of an ordinary spearmen, due to the mechanics of the spear wall and free turning and possible micro against formation breaches. Even then this unit remains more than viable and very powerful in the open field vs cavalry and infantry alike, easily beating Ёored elite lancers 1v1 without stop-attack micro involved, only ordered them 1 stop and then attack if the enemy disengaged and charged again (so I did the same amount of micro the opponent would have to do to repeatedly charge with cavalry).

And off-topic question/bug report, the vanguards have a training time 0, is it intended or a bug?

Thank you for reading this wall of text, hope it will be useful in some way.

[Bardo]

I agree the pikemen are a bit overpowered compared to the rest of isengard units. In the bugfix patch (v3.01) I reduced the attack from 8 to 6, but I agree we might reduce the shield value too, as you suggest. The idea was that the long pikes protect them a bit against projectiles, as well as the reforced armour, even when they have no shield, but you are right that shield 2 or 3 makes more sense compared to the value 4 of the swordmen.
When the pikemen had standard lethality it was possible to beat them with infantry from the front, by using a little trick: you double click behind the pikemen so your infantry run trought the pikes until they reach the soldiers, and then you click to attack. With lethality 1, if you try this trick, many attackers will die before they reach the uruks behind the pikes.

The recruitment time of Vanguards is a bug, it should be 2, thank you, fixed for next version of the bugfix patch.

[Leeroy9000]

The phalanx to my mind is the most broken thing in the RTW engine; apparently I played successor states too much to know how imba the it is, but not enough against them to figure out the counter. Much grateful for informing about this trick.