The Dominion of Men Open Beta General Feedback Thread

[webba84]

A place for you to provide feedback on the open beta version of The Fourth Age Total War - The Dominion of Men.

Note that some areas of the mod are still WIP or incomplete, these include:

* the levy and rebel unit cards
* settlement plans/models (especially custom settlements)
* ancillaries not finalized
* some trait/anc text, esp. effect descriptions


Guidelines for Providing Feedback

1. We are open to feedback on all areas of the mod (bearing in mind some parts are WIP/unfinished) HOWEVER please avoid matters of purely personal taste (unless you think it's really shocking!) because going down that route will make for an unending testing phase

2. Report back on any game features you do not like (and say why), and let us know if anything is not intuitive enough (and thus confusing).

3. Under the rare circumstance of a CTD or error, please let us know the circumstances under which it occurred. If it can be duplicated, or if it happens again on reload, then please provide the saved game file.

4. You may play with any settings you please but if you do want to provide the most useful feedback please do all testing on Decidedly Tookish (campaign)/Bullroaring (battle) as per recommended level in-game. Large unit size. These settings are all noted on the campaign screen anyway. Oh, and Advisor off.

5. Provide specific details, such as economic details (financial tab or settlement details scroll), where possible, to back up assertions.

6. Check all aspects of the mod - including building effects, text, visuals, audio, balance, features, etc.

7. Have fun!

[Thangaror]

You sneaky little buggers!
I've absolutely no time for testing this right now! How can you do this to me? ... downloading.

[Basileos Predator]

Small issue, don't know if it is from my copy of RTW but i keep getting random ctd's or the mod( most likely my copy of rtw):
I have windows 8.1 and the game crashes, saying RTW Barbarian Invasion stopped working.A problem has caused the program to stop working.
Maybe you can help shed some light on this.

[MasterOfNone]

CTDs are virtually non-existent in the build, or not much more than you'd get in vanilla. I suspect all of mine (about 1 a month) were because of memory issues (I have a low-spec laptop). All BTs reported the build as highly stable.

Is anyone else having CTD issues?

[Basileos Predator]

Yes, I am entirely sure the mod is highly stable, and the issue is i get this weird crash in more mods, not only this one. I might be forced, if it persists, to do a full re-install of RTW and see if it can be solved.

[Eruntano]

Hi everyone,

I registered here some time ago, but this is the first time I am actually writing anything. First i wanted to thank you for your hard work. I played short campain as Elves and few minutes as Adunabar and the mod really brings middle earth to life. It looks pretty polished and finished. I love both graphics and the music.
As for my observations (decidedly tookish/decidedly tookish difficulty): building the region building as elves ( for example building called Lindon in Mithold) changes population of that province to human and it seems like it sometimes actually decreases population growth instead of increasing it. City development also seems to change population to human. While this may be WAD, maybe there should be a warning in description of buildings that change your population to human.
Also both elven infantry bodyguards and Guard company of RK ( Guards of the Citadel) seemed to be extremely indescructible. Eleves are capable of slaughtering whole armies and i saw Guard company completely surrounded by heavy infantry and medium cavalery for several minutes and they took only about 5 loses. They certainly seemed much more resilient than in TNS.
Also, is there a way to get at least some population growth as Elves? It seems like there is no building that increases growth for them.
I had one CTD when going to battle, which hapens for me from time to time in rtw.
Thats all for now. Thank you again for this great mod.

[webba84]

I found this, which applies equally to all mods really.

[Basileos Predator]

Oh, I think that will be the solver of my problems.I always use autosave and quicksave, and those points are really useful to fix. Thank you and i'l reply with the results. Cheers!

[slew-foot devil]

Pre-installing Feedback: I'm continuosly drooling and twitching in anticipating bliss

[Sentelin]

Ok here are some thoughts after 3-4 hours of playing with Elves.This feedback may not be all that useful or detailed,it's more of first impression.So here we go:

1.Let me just say outright that diplomacy seems kind of broken in this release.Here are the reasons:
-Literally almost all factions (expect dwarfs,independent people,shire and maybe some that i haven't met yet),have came forward with diplomats asking for trade right in exchange for their map information.
-It wasn't more than 3-4 turns and "Dark Cult" (I can't recall name ) purposed peace.Funny thing is that we didn't have a single battle and they are suppose to be our "nemesis" so why did AI choose this way of handling things ? Oh it was even more funnier when they give me proposal trade rights for their map info ....
-Also requests for Alliance are frequent by the 14-15 turn I had 2 more allies beside initial ally and they were enemies of dwarfs and Dales.Here's the thing, I formed alliance with enemies of my neighborhoods (Dale and Dwarfs ) and AI remained neutral instead of taking advantage and attacking me on two fronts,I hardly could repel them without significant loses since I engaged Beorns and took Oldfort taking "significant" loses ( I say significant but truth is I beat 1 army that had 2 generals with size of 700 soldiers - I had only 147 but more of that later).

So my question is this intentional ?I ask this because I have 88% of map discovered strong allies and AI who seems don't care much about me backstabbing him as soon as I build army.

2.Another issue is strength of Elven units:

-I understand that Elven need to have OP units because of declining population,being stretch across the map and each "faction" has different style of play ... however I managed to stabilize economy fairly quickly and stabilize growth in major region ignoring minor that are at west side of the map by the see.

-This led to opportunity to build decent battalion which along stationed troops in Mithlond took one settlement of "Dark Cult" and beat their main force in that region leaving other two settlements easy target (Rivendell and other one). Now when I say decent I have in mind army of 380 soldiers combined vs 1150 - 1200 and I took only 138 loses.

-Reason why this happened are generals.Elven general units are real power house in the game,just one general unit ("Spear") killed two units of which one was "special" taking only one lose.Even rain of arrows didn't benefit AI before other general unit wiped them out of earth ("Horse").I won't get in detail of battle after battle ended and report was displayed general units took only 11 casualties combined ( mainly "Spear") however they dealt most of damage to enemy army.

I hope this helps a bit I will write another feedback after I explore mod further.

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for playing, and for responding with feedback.

1. The trade rights/map info deal is pretty standard in vanilla RTW, and in any case we haven't done anything diplomacy-wise to make that more or less frequent. In any case, those seem like fairly reasonable requests for factions in the early stages of a campaign.

Adunabar and the Elves do not share any borders at the beginning of the campaign. Factions that don't share borders are more likely to seek peace. Another factor is that Adunabar begins play at war with several factions, so the AI may be more inclined to look for peace where it can. Ideally, of course, we'd like Adunabar to be more aggressive/stronger, and my understanding is that will be one focus of the mod's continuing development.

Not sure I understand your next point here, but it seems that you are wishing the AI were more aggressive against you in general. I think you'll see that in the early stages, factions are eager to form alliances; over time, wars will erupt; eventually, factions will be eliminated and some big powers will start to emerge. Playing for a few hours, my guess is you're still in the early stages of the campaign. Also, as a small faction (you've got, say, 9-10 settlements?), most factions on the map will not see you as a major threat, so they will want to ally with you and will not want to attack. That will change as you get bigger and as other factions get drawn into wars.

2. Elven generals, and units overall, are indeed powerful. The Elves can often win against great numbers thanks to their skill and quality of arms. However, we have aimed to create a situation where the Elves cannot simply spam their strong units all over the map. As you expand, you may find your forces stretching thin, and your economy suffering if you continue to recruit troops from your Elven homelands.

The challenge for the Elves, in short, is likely to be on the campaign side of things rather than the battles, most of the time.

I'll be interested to see how your campaign develops. Keep us posted!

[Stone Dog]

Fantastic!!! It truly is a Happy New Year!

[webba84]

Dont worry, the elven campaign will get significantly harder in about 50 more turns, and you will be telling us the diplomacy is broken in the exact opposite way you say it is now.

RTW diplomacy is always like this.

[Sentelin]

Count and webba thanks for replays.Anyway if you were curious how my campaign will progress,well I had to reload it.Whole thing has gone downwards soon after my previous feedback.I mean,I took wrong approach which lead to consequences and there were few unpleasant surprises which caught of the guard.

So after reading responses I won't discuss diplomacy,it may had been awhile since I played RTW however I know how TW games handle diplomacy (they don't at all,everything is about war) but I though you guys were tweaking that area of game that's why I though something was off.

Instead I will bring other matters like lore,music,atmosphere in general,along other things like AI behaving in combat,economy .....

1.Let's start with "cosmetic" features of the mod:

- First of all I am not expert of Tolkien's world and that may be part of why I enjoyed lore written in the mod.It doesn't throw at you dozen of confusing and somewhat boring information but it's brief,funny and captures reader's attention (at least in my case).

- I don't really anything to say about music besides that is very good.

-I never was type of gamer who looks for marvelous graphic details or "eye candies ",so as far as I am concern all those little details you put for elven units are nice and playing with each "faction" of elves doesn't just feel different because of style of play but also because specific "faction" units look unique on it's own.
-Re-design of settlements doesn’t just appeal to look but also brings new choices for defense (not all of them but I think I saw few or I haven’

-Another thing that caught my eye is “building cards”,this is nice little detail which adds additional flavor and it enhances feeling of playing with race that has deep and complex culture.

2.Enough of that I am pretty sure I made my point, now to battle:
-First time I engaged enemy I noticed very strange thing …. It actually tries to flank my position using number as advantage and what surprise me even more instead of throwing all units at once it actually kept some in reserve and sent them to where they were needed (like feeling gaps in his army where I penetrate or kept them steady sacrificing his troops he sent to engaged me, which of course exhaust my troops after sometime while he had “fresh and eager” to send as second wave).I mean just wow, this is something I don’t remember seeing in any TW mod I played.
-Further more the way AI use archers and how it choose targets is mind blowing. It so much resembles human behavior that most of time I forgot that actually play vs AI.And not just archers it seems that AI “knows” which troops are expandable and abuse them in the ways most players would. Of course AI is not perfect and in certain situation you can abuse it but it’s hell of the job you achieved in this area.
-Taking settlement now is way more difficult because AI knows how to deploy troops and defended it.I still have to see how AI handles settlements with walls but of what I have seen so far it’s definitely better than vanilla’s.

3.To the economy, province development and those less exiting stuff:
- At the first glance it was clear to me that development of one or more province will take both time and money.I can’t abuse this part of game like you can in most other mods and in vanilla. Further more it makes you really plan ahead of course of action you will take because it has huge impact which you find later… if you play for first time.
-Initial prices of buildings can be lowered sending governors with certain perks and building some buildings, overall it really feels like you are building an empire and governors actually have purpose now.
-Expanding is very discouraging early and at the beginning of mid game. Because it’s not just about capture anymore but what happens once you do. Especially if you play with Elves. Again time and effort needed to stabilize and make new province useful make you re-double think was it really necessary and profitable to conquer new province.
-I said that I stabilize growth in major provinces but that wasn’t enough since population was growing very slowly,so I decided to put “mannish “ cities to some use.Those mannish troops are average troops at best,I could forget about tactics I used with elven units and that I have to combine both them and elven if I really want to achieve something, however population issues got in the way and my remaining elven forces were either too thin or faraway for any good. So yeah I get now I point when you said that campaign is going to catch up with me.
-I mentioned surprises and those are your main generals “Departing from Middle-Earth” , this is worst thing that could happened to me.I was relaying so much on them as both of generals and governors that once that had happened everything went to hell.First my main general did it and I lost major advantage I had against my enemies but it wasn’t as much as few season later when king also departed leaving me with only 3 remaining nobles of which non of them was good for anything beside to be governors.
-My troops felt that and I had to focus now on stabilizing happiness and economy halt military campaign, however AI seems that he smelled in what mess I am in and Dales attacked ….I was in war with City-Kingdom of Tharbad because they got dangerously close to Mithold and they had conqured every province of Reunited Kingdom but one in the north,so I felt it would be good idea to answer fire with fire which lead to war that I was losing on that front.I simply underestimated numbers they had and strength of troops,plus departing of major figures and ….. So when Dales made their move I quit this session.

My verdict for now is that mod is enjoyable and offers very distinct style of play,so keep good work.

[webba84]

Thanks for the extra detail Sentelin, much appreciated!

A final point wrt diplomacy, is that it isn't moddable at all. Everything to influence the AI behaviour towards more reasonable courses of action has, afaik, been done. Aradan bent the RTW engine in a loop to get permanent alliances for some factions, the map is carefully designed to help the ai send its armies to sensible locations, and prevent it finding some settlements easily (Dale would have betrayed you much earlier if the map was not made they way it is), Faction strength balance and initial faction relations have been set carefully to incline them towards war with lore appropriate opponents and so on.

Unfortunately, as soon as that first turn button is pressed what the ai chooses to do with its diplomats and armies is not something we have any control over.

Anyway, I hope the campaign was a fun experience even if it did end badly. You could remember that even with Dale attacking you with oversized armies elves really are brutal on the battlefield, especially in defense of settlements. Good luck with your next campaign!

[Kaede]

So - I dont know if other persons have the bug too , and I didnt found and bug thread - And by the way sorry for my bad english -
Everytime If someone (or me) have troll Units on the field the game crashes after arround 1 - 5 sec's . But only with the two Units of trolls .

Now a Little Feedback about Adundabar (hope I wrotte it right)

After an night of gameplay I figured out that the Reunited Kindom is a Little bit mean.
Even If there allies going to in a ceasefire (and a trade pact) with me , the Reunited Kingdom is still a hatefull enemy for me .
And they are allways going to steal my "beloved" Towns near Rohan. - (Its funny if you see how big armies takes your under-developed Citys,but the own Capital of the Reunited kindom remains defensless ) - The Shadow cult...what should I say. Strong Elite Units but.... I have the Feeling that the Western Adundabar Units are Abit stronger. Just a Feeling. - But who Needs Western Humans or shadow cult elite Units , if you can spam Hundreds of Orcs. I like the Orcs, it was only reason why I could overhelm the Dwarfs . But it took nearly the half night to take them down with Orcs.

Sorry- My Internet is bad and I double posted x - x for no real ...reason (Triple posted actually but dont worry, I fixed it for you - Webba)

[The_Valiant]

Hey team -
Thanks you for your hard work on the mod! I'm really excited to play, but am having some difficulties. I am a Steam user, and have RTW Gold. Everything's up to date, and I've played many mods (including TNS and VI2) with Steam. Everything installed correctly and the game opens - however, it opens in a window about 1/3 of my screen. The launch option I have set is "-mod:bi/fatw -nm -ne -show_err". Any suggestions?

The mod is otherwise workable. I can start a campaign within the game window, it is just rather...small.

[Galgus]

This may well have more to do with my shortcomings as a commander than anything else, but I've tried and failed to get any use out of Dwarven Ballista.

I had six of them empty their ammo into an Orc army and they hardly killed enough Orcs for one decent unit, let alone six.

The Orcs were grouped in a typical open combat line-hoard before everything got messy.

For their part, the Dwarven infantry carried the battle in spite of having no real support - with more losses than I was expecting.
___________________________________________

If I'm just horribly misusing them, could a more experienced player highlight their ideal use?

[MasterOfNone]

The_Valiant, lose the -ne as this triggers windowed mode. Why do you have an -ne in it anyway? Is it in our instructions?

Galgus, we'll look into this - but ballista are not as good as catapults and are best against static targets. Ballista can kill more than one man per shot as they can kill one or two behind the initial one hit. Dwarven ballista are coded to be more effective than vanilla Roman ones. is this not the case?

[webba84]

By the by is anyone apart from Kaede getting CTDs when trolls are on the battlemap and are the crashes reproducible?