[Alpha] Third Age Total War HS Patch

[Matto16]

Third Age Total War HS Patch

We all know what is the main problem in TATW hotseating - unbalance between factions, both financial and most importantly military.
As this is also the major reason why so many people don't want to try playing Hotseats in our Community I decided to work on this Patch and release it's early version as soon as I can. I fix and change many things, mainly with consideration about what was said in this topic http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-TATW-HS-Patch but there may be still some things lacking.

Complete list of changes:

- Riverrun is now a town
- Both Riverrun and Grasgard now have ports and Paved Roads in the beginning
- Dale now starts with 10000 gold and their kings purse is increased to 3500
- Gondor starts with Cair Andros as their starting region with two additional units inside
- Eriador starts with Weatherthop (they have to capture it in first turn which is quite easy with general next to it. I didn't manage to make Weatherthop their starting region).
- Bowyer and stables have been built in Bree but they can be only used from 5 turn just like barracks
- HE start with additional units in Imladris and their king's purse has been increased to 6000
- SE start with two more units and their king's purse has been increased to 6500
- Dwarves mines have been upgraded in Erebor and Iron Hills and their king's purse has been increased to 5000
- Isengard king's purse has also been increased to 5400
- Corruption has been harshly reduced from 1.0 to 0.2
- Watchtowers now cost 150 instead of 200
- Amount of garrisoned rebels reduced to max 4 units
- Population requirement from Town to Large Town changed from 4000 to 2500
- Population requirement from Wooden Castle to Castle changed from 8000 to 4000
- Population requirement from Large Town to Minor City changed from 12 000 to 6000
- Population requirement from Castle to Fortress changed from 14 000 to 7000
- Scripts not compatible with hotseat removed
- AND PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY Mordor, Isengard and Dwarves AR weakend while Rohan and Eriador AR has increased. Here is a picture of defeating the Witch King which was nearly impossible before that: http://shrani.si/f/23/Aa/3497vMPI/ki...11-28-07-2.jpg
- And least but not last Legolas now has a true father instead of a twin brother

How to install

https://mega.co.nz/#!jUkU3ZQR!WQ1a4n...V4dRyRnfSIywQc

1) Locate where you have installed The Third Age mod / SEGA> Medieval II Total War > Mods > Third_Age_3

2) Open the downloaded folder. You will find folder named "Third_Age_3".

3) Extract the content of this folder into your Third_Age_3 folder at this location SEGA> Medieval II Total War > Mods > Third_Age_3 It should then say, "would you like to merge these folders". Click yes to "Copy and Replace" all files.

And you are done.

Know however that this is only testing of Alpha version of this patch and I am not sure how everything works. I would be grateful if other players try it by testing especially Gondor vs Mordor, Rohan vs Isengard, Dwarves vs some other faction and Eriador vs orcs. Let me know how it works and I will really appreciate it.

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

There are some major changes here. What are the changes in AR?

Btw, nothing's been done for HE while you increase Rohan and Eriador AR, that seems unfair.

[Matto16]

There are some major changes here. What are the changes in AR?

Btw, nothing's been done for HE while you increase Rohan and Eriador AR, that seems unfair.

- AND PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY Mordor, Isengard and Dwarves AR weakend while Rohan and Eriador AR has increased. Here is a picture of defeating the Witch King which was nearly impossible before that: http://shrani.si/f/23/Aa/3497vMPI/ki...11-28-07-2.jpg

If you read carefully you would know that HE received additional units in Imladris + their king's purse is increased. Since I lowered population required for upgrading settlements players could recruit better units more quickly and HE top units are much better then that of Eriador and Rohan.

[ForBalin]

Could i use this in the youngbloods hotseat???

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

Statistically HE units are maybe the best ingame, but in AR they are really bad. Giving them a few units extra and increase their money while you increase other factions AR souds unfair to me

[knight of meh]

Could i use this in the youngbloods hotseat???

only if everyone else does at the start ..

[PandaChef]

What about Harad? They are useless in AR, surely they need a buff? Although there is a fine line between buffing them and really unbalancing it, if you buff them too much then Gondor will be impossible as they wont be able to handle Harad and Mordor. Although as Gondor got an AR buff and Mordor is less strong in that department, giving Harad a buff might not unbalance it.

[StealthFox]

Wow, this looks really great. Glad to see these changes; I think they will really improve TATW hotseating!

Everyone send some rep to Matto! Did anyone else help? Let us know so we can rep all involved!

[DrakeRox]

It looks very good !

[Arrow2daknee]

I notice that the pic about defeating the Witch King was in PoA!

Also Matto, you HAVE GOT TO INCREASE HARAD's AR!!!

[joerock22]

I would tend to agree with increasing the AR for Harad and the Elves, but I think that testing is needed. Over the next few days, I will try to do some testing and post my results here.

And let’s not forget that Harad is the faction that suffers the most from corruption. Reducing corruption by 80% as Matto has done will be a huge economic gain for Harad (I wish I was so lucky to have that in Knicolas' HS!). So maybe Harad will always be a faction that has to win with overwhelming numbers rather than unit quality, but that’s okay in my book. Gondor should be able to win vs. Harad unless Harad has significantly higher numbers.

Thanks to Matto for doing all of this too. I’d rep you but it says I can’t.

[Matto16]

Wow, this looks really great. Glad to see these changes; I think they will really improve TATW hotseating!

Everyone send some rep to Matto! Did anyone else help? Let us know so we can rep all involved!

Thank you

No, I was working on it alone as other players in this Community don't possess modding experience but it was not hard and it was done pretty quickly.

I would like to remind all others that this is only a testing version for AR balance between Gondor and Mordor, Isengard and Rohan, Eriador and Orcs and for Dwarves. So it is up to you to test it and if it will work good then I can change also AR for Harad and HE but without testing it there is no point of changing anything else. So please download those files, choose your conflict and see if AR is better then it was before.

Also all other changes made in this patch are also important for hotseating and they should not be ignored. I believe they will be a great addition to hotseating.

I notice that the pic about defeating the Witch King was in PoA!

No, this has nothing to do with PoA. It is simply a testing hotseat.

Thanks to Matto for doing all of this too. I’d rep you but it says I can’t.

You have to give rep to someone else before you can give it to me. Probably I was the last one you gave it to.

[Arrow2daknee]

No, this has nothing to do with PoA. It is simply a testing hotseat.

hmm. looked like it until I saw Denethor still had his head!

[Aldor]

Good work, Matto!

Some early ideas:

- SE and HE desperately need AR changes. Keep their rare recruitment, but increase stats so they defeat similar troops. Give them more elite troop opportunities early on such as more developped baracks and cities. OotMM/OoG can easily win the war agaist either of them with a well placed strike of a halfstack due to much better troop production and AR at this moment.

- Isengard doesn't have a large economic issue initially, but it does have a production issue. If you decrease their AR strenght, Rohan can beat them from turn 1 if perfect moves are made without Isengard being able to do much about it. Give Isengard more advanced barracks to increase their troop production while keeping their units medium (above orc, below human quality). Give them a spy early on.


In the far future...

I'd like to make it more lore-like:

Orcs: crappy, cheap, easy recruitable
Elves: great, expensive, medium/hard to recruit
Dwarves: good - great, quite expensive, medium/hard in mountains
Humans: variable

etc.

It will be harder to balance, but one of TATW's great strenghts is faction diversity. The factions all offer a different experience and require a different strategy.

I feel that TATW factions originally recruited from their homelands. Perhaps we can focus on that as well. Like only medium troops outside faction boundaries with medium availability. (making better troops zone of recuitment)

Change some passage to 2 squares maybe, to cope with possible orc spam.

What I basicly intend is, make TATW as a different kind of hotseat but limit balance issues.

[ForBalin]

Are some of these changes yet to be mad because i just looked at it there and some of it hasn't kicked such as Riverrun not being a town and Eriador not being able to take
amon sul very easily are to be made or did i screw up???

[Axis Sunsoar]

Great work, looking forward to using this on the next HS I play, should help alot, especially for some of my favorite factions!

[Nice]

Improving Rohans AR while leaving HE and SE untouched seems very strange.
The Elves have the by far worst AR.
Improving Rohan AR while decreasing Isengards will also cause Isengard to get stomped.
I think the matchup Rohan vs Isengard was fine early. The only problem is Isengards late game.
If you weaken any units I would suggest only weakening Uruk infantry and maulers.
I have played Rohan and I think their AR is pretty decent better than eg Harad and Rhun

I somehow can't understand why you almost nullify corruption and I think that it's a very bad idea.
It only benefits factions that are already big(and Dwarves). It will allow big factions to get unstoppable.
In my hotseats I normally ended up with a lot of regions and had great income because of it.
With this change I would have had infinite money supply.
Do players have problems with their economy or why did you think of this change?
I never had any economic problems so far and also don't think that any faction automatically has these.
Maybe I should write an economy guide to tackle this because I see the same mistakes made over and over again.

The rest seems fine. I like the reduction of the population needed for settlement upgrades. It may be a bit low though.
Is it on purpose that you didn't change the large city requirement? I would love to see Arnor in a hotseat, but 24000 people in Annuminas is probably still impossible.

[Matto16]

I was working stricktly using the suggestions in TATW HS patch. Since there was nothing there about improving HE and SE AR I didn't do it and I decrease Isengard AR because right now their full stack (even half stack) can beat Rohan full stack while Rohan full stack cannot beat Isengard one. I have experienced that so I am 100% sure that their balance had to be change and with giving Isengard additional money they can build better troops faster.

There was also a lot about decreasing corruption in that thread and I did exactly what players suggested. We will never have the same opinion about everything but I think corruption is a very bad thing and had to be harshly reduced. But then again until someone test this we can only speculate so you are free to try it and then we can talk about this in more detail.

Next versions will concentrate only on AR while all others things seem allright to me. That is also the main problem in hotseating.

[PandaChef]

TATW HS is very hard to balance and this is only alpha on its first try so it wont be anywhere near perfect. However through testing we will we able to see what works/doesnt work and improve it.

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

When I first saw the corruption reduction I thought 'nice!' but now I read Nice' post I have to agree with him. It is mainly large factions ( and dwarves ) that face a lot of corruption and by decreasing it, it will make those large factions even stronger.

Gondor for example has a lot of corruption in their western regions if you keep MT as capital and it will not be worth to economically expand in those regions because corruption will increase a lot as well. If corruption is minimized even those regions become economically interesting and strong.