The Dominion of Men Open Beta General Feedback Thread

[Dom9127]

Have you implemented a force diplomacy feature? I tried to implement my own, only to find the "Silver tongue" option appear from the advisor.

[webba84]

Yes, force diplomacy is in. We have made it cost you some gold to use though, so it feels a little more like part of the game rather than a work around for broken ai. Thats what the Silver tongue refers to.

[Wambat]

Thank you, I build two tiers of religion buildings, but had not build urban province yet. It is a real pain to do, first pacification, then rural province, then two religion buildings, then urban province and then again a religion building. That is a lot of money and seasons. You also need a large garrison at all times, because the way of the west people are revolting against you. It is a good way to counter blitzkrieg, but it might be a bit too much of a pain to covert a bordering rebel region and logical first conquest for Tharbad.
Thanks for the answers.

There are a few provinces in the game that are intentionally difficult to convert. It is usually a good idea to leave the population unconverted until you are ready to build the required conversion building.

It would be a good idea to have the required conversion building made clear somewhere in the settlement's description so that players are not groping in the dark.

[Thangaror]

In some cases religion is a bit over the top, though. I played Dorwininon and captured Gaurgaul. There's a huge percentage of Ways of the West, but official religion is Ways of Darkness, due to the Province Building. It's pretty ridiculous that Gaurgaul's population is kicking out fellow Men of the West. It's also virtually impossible to hold this settlement, I had a half-stack there, and order was still at 10%. It takes 3 + 6 turns until I can even build a religious building. Ultimately this makes expansion for Dorwinion impossible, and I assume North Rhûn would get a benefit.

[Thangaror]

This is a suggestion to improve skirmishers, I'm getting really pissed at tehm. They suck in pretty much every RTW mod.

There are basically two things they do:
1. When they could attack, they don't even throw one volley, run away and live
2. When they really shouldn't, they stay, throw their javelins, get caught right in the middle of it and get slaughtered

Dunno if skirmishers were supposed to be sword-fodder back in the days, but this drives me nuts. As far as I am concerned, skirmishers are utterly useless, at least in the role they're supposed to fulfill. The only thing to do to use their potential is to hold them back until the heavy units are engaged in melee, and then order them to pepper the enemy with javelins from behind.

The obvious problem is the RTW engine which doesn't allow the soldiers to act individually, or a sprint ability. Nothing can be done about that.
Another problem is that it takes them so long to 'reload' and attack. Until they've thrown, turned their heels and run, they're caught. So, either their animation is improved, making them reload and throw faster (I'm under the impression that one of Signifer's animations is achieving that), or, which is much easier, their range is increased.

I'm not sure upon the impact on unit balance, if this is done. They might gain an advantage of units with precursor weapons (such as Swords of Harad), but the I'd attribute the increased range to the fact, that a lightly armoured man can actually throw the javelin after a run-up much like today's athletes.

[webba84]

In some cases religion is a bit over the top, though. I played Dorwininon and captured Gaurgaul. There's a huge percentage of Ways of the West, but official religion is Ways of Darkness, due to the Province Building. It's pretty ridiculous that Gaurgaul's population is kicking out fellow Men of the West. It's also virtually impossible to hold this settlement, I had a half-stack there, and order was still at 10%. It takes 3 + 6 turns until I can even build a religious building. Ultimately this makes expansion for Dorwinion impossible, and I assume North Rhûn would get a benefit.

This particular region is a known problem, and we are looking at the best way to fix it, and other regions like it. I agree its pretty ridiculous the way it works right now.

[MasterOfNone]

Gaurgaul is not impossible to control. I tried it myself. However, it is too much in unrest and we are going to review it and the handful of others that are causing a disproportionate amount of unrest in relation to similar provinces.

As for skirmishers, you make a good point that lightly armoured units could have a significant run up. The game units compare to meters I believe. Here is our current range listing:

light javelin = 55 M
med javelin = 50 M
hvy javelin = 40 M
balanced throwing spear (prec) = 35 M
throwing axes = 30 M

The units you are referring to would mainly be in the light-med javelin categories.

[Revelo]

Gaurgaul is not impossible to control. I tried it myself. However, it is too much in unrest and we are going to review it and the handful of others that are causing a disproportionate amount of unrest in relation to similar provinces.

As for skirmishers, you make a good point that lightly armoured units could have a significant run up. The game units compare to meters I believe. Here is our current range listing:

light javelin = 55 M
med javelin = 50 M
hvy javelin = 40 M
balanced throwing spear (prec) = 35 M
throwing axes = 30 M

The units you are referring to would mainly be in the light-med javelin categories.

I think Dwarven throwing axes are pretty fine as they are to be honest. They have proven to be a pretty solid unit, either in skirmishing or in close combat, A good all-rounder and I wouldn't advise changing them, in my opinion of course.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I think skirmishers are fine. Just turn off skirmish mode and micro them yourself, and they will net you plenty of kills.

[webba84]

Speaking only for my own experience but I find skirmishers very, very useful in DoM. (Elvellyn Hunters are my personal favourite) The skirmish mode keeps them from stupidly letting heavy infantry engage them but no more, so they aren't quite so overpoweringly easy to use as horse skirmishers are. (I just played with a full cavalry Rohan army for the first time today - so incredibly easy)

And while 1 v 1 ends in a sort of stalemate 2 skirmisher units attacking a single infantry unit (cost wise this is more than reasonable) in this way is very effective, one unit kites while the other attacks a vulnerable side or rear. They are also good on the flanks of a large army, obviously.

Its true that we dont really have any elite skirmisher units, (cavalry aside, I suppose) but if you can point me to Tolkien (or historical) sources that describe such things I would be very interested to read up on them.

[Aikanár]

Speaking only for my own experience but I find skirmishers very, very useful in DoM. (Elvellyn Foresters are my personal favourite) The skirmsh mode keeps them from stupidly letting heavy infantry engage them but no more, so they arent quite so overpoweringly easy to use as horse skirmshers are. (I just played with a full cavalry Rohan army for the first time today - so incredibly easy)

And while 1 v 1 ends in a sort of stalemate 2 skirmisher units attacking a single infantry unit (cost wise this is more than reasonable) in this way is very effective, one unit kites while the other attacks a vulnerable side or rear. They are also good on the flanks of a large army, obviously.

Its true that we dont really have any elite skirmisher units, (cavalry aside, I suppose) but if you can point me to Tolkien (or historical) sources that describe such things I would be very intersted to read up on them.

Elvellyn Hunters are a huge asset to every Elven army and made up roughly around 30% of all my recruited troops in all closed beta runs - extremely cost-effective and with some Elven archers behind them and around 4 melee units to back them up, 6-8 Hunters wrack havoc if use proper and carefully - as with all skirmishers, microing them increases their effectiveness even more so.

[webba84]

Gah, I misremembered. The unit Aikanar and myself are referring to is the Elvellyn Hunters. You'd think the guy who designed the unit would remember what it was called...

[Aikanár]

indeed! Same goes out for the Elven BT However, I'm bad with names LaLeLuwyke?

[Galgus]

Galgus, the walls in RTW require you to capture each section or else the uncaptured sections will fire on you. The RTW engine favours the attacker in a siege and walls are the only way to counter that disadvantage and so they must be strong. They are not even taken into account in automated battles as far as I can see

When you take a gate or section of wall, get an infantry troop up and capture the necessary towers. Be warned that forts and Dwarven settlements are especially powerful in repelling attackers.

Ah, thanks for the information. How does the engine favor attackers?

[webba84]

A quick question for anyone playing Haradric or Dunedanic factions - How do you find the administration policy? Under what conditions and in what sort of regions would you use it over the financial or military policies?

[MasterOfNone]

The AI favours attackers in automated siege battles by seemingly not taking the walls into account. In manual battles, the palisade does more or less nothing as missile troops from both sides can fire over it. What is of more use to the player s using their settlement structure effectively to repel attack (choke points, high ground, town square, etc.). Platforms and strong arrow towers are a must for walls to mean anything for the defender.

[Doomsday]

Hello, great mod, kudos to all the modders, just wondered if there was a way to make the effects of the charters a little more obvious, especially differentiating between which resource under a charter is most beneficial (e.g. dwarfs can build construction charter in moria, then specialise to either stone or metalsmith, on paper they seem to act in the same way)


also, when playing as both dwarfs and elves, I could see what numerous other factions were doing such as tharbad and dorwinion, don't know if that's supposed to be happening, but didn't seem right

[MasterOfNone]

We are working on that very thing, Doomsday. Thanks for the kind words!

[Revelo]

Hello, great mod, kudos to all the modders, just wondered if there was a way to make the effects of the charters a little more obvious, especially differentiating between which resource under a charter is most beneficial (e.g. dwarfs can build construction charter in moria, then specialise to either stone or metalsmith, on paper they seem to act in the same way)

Stonemasons reduce construction costs, while metalsmiths reduce construction times, so fun comes in deciding what you like better. That said the charters could do with tweaking on the descriptions?

[Wambat]

also, when playing as both dwarfs and elves, I could see what numerous other factions were doing such as tharbad and dorwinion, don't know if that's supposed to be happening, but didn't seem right

Dwarves and Elves have a special relationship with the superfactions in this mod which results in some odd phenomenon when playing these factions, but is necessary for proper behavior when these factions are AI controlled. This is not likely to be changed for the main mod release.

Odd phenomenons include:

- Public order can be ignored as no provinces will revolt under ant circumstances.
- Sharing line of sight with Reunited Kingdom, Rohan, Elves, Dwarves, Dale, and Shire; some of these line of sights are more limited than other, i.e. I don't think all include military units. That was as of beta 2.2, I have not played these factions in beta 3.0, so if you are sharing Tharbad and Dorwinion line of sight that is news to me.