The Dominion of Men 3.3 - The End of the Beginning patch released!

[webba84]

Thanks for responding to my ramblings and pedantry, just want to clarify some of my ideas.

Appreciate the feedback, it really does help a lot!

Is it not possible to add a hidden resources just like how the larger boats require a province with wood? Alternatively rather than just references to it in trade buildings, a dedicated lake / river port would be a good addition, as most of the factions are reliant on riverine trade or make extensive use of it.

Yes, it's possible and not that hard, but there is some utility for the player in being able to move units over that water by boat so we have to balance that with trying to prevent the ai doing anything completely braindead. Probably we will remove the ability for building ships in that area next patch. As for the river port idea, it's great but we're already at the hardcoded limit for buildings.

Just a little tweak to the borders, or changing the little patch of terrain to mountainous like the range it is a part of would resolve it.

Yup, will be done in the next patch.

I am appreciative of the complexity of the mod. By repetitive I mean when characters come up for adoption there seems to be a very large chance that his traits are negative, and they seem to be the same "Careless Speaker", "Careless Fighter" "Unwise" etc

I suppose one of the themes of the mod is that humans are kind of rubbish. Those traits do improve as you develop your settlements (especially things like libraries) but possibly they could do with a little adjustment to be better out of the gate.

I am referring to the fact than when I double click on Isengard (which does provide a bonus for the province) it comes up with an information card, when I do the same to Amon Hen it doesn't, it seemed incongruous so I wondered if it was an oversight.

I'll double check it but I don't remember anything being amiss there. Amon Hen may not be in exactly the location you were clicking (I'm sure I've clicked on it and had the information card come up).

No, I only asked here as I know the people who worked on this mod had far greater understanding of the mechanics of RTW than the average user.

I don't think there are any fixes available for graphics cards issues, it's an old game and this sort of thing is only going to get worse.

The comments from these two guides, suggest it is not especially difficult.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...uidelines(WIP)

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/archi...p/t-84221.html

As for your second point, whilst on release there were numerous problems with Alex, with the maturity of digital download services it is simple and cheap to obtain Alex.

Would be happy to have an Alex version, but rest assured that I have looked into it and it is harder than those guides suggest. If you'd like to try your hand at making it, that would be great.

This is true but Riddermark Bowmen have 115 range Steppe Outriders have 120 whilst Snaga-hunters 125 it just seems a little strange the that they cannot out shoot some of the worst bowmen in Middle Earth.

While this is primarily a balance thing (and believe me it is very necessary) its also quite plausible - horseback shooting does not allow for as big a draw, or bow, as standing on the ground and so range is going to be less. In any case, Snaga Archers may slightly outrange those units but they definitely don't outshoot them.

I guess it would be best to explain this though narrative. Initially whilst playing as the RK I struggled with staying in budget, whilst fielding two full stacks and initiating one or two buildings every couple of turns. After several punitive expeditions against Harad in Harondor and agianst Dunland in Rohan to protect those factions not to occupy territory, I had more money than I could spend and have now almost fully upgraded all of my starting settlements. It was very jarring to go from struggling, to money being no object, I think the Helms deep settlement is particularly valuable to capture, but in general the value of the looting as shown on the capture card is not the same as the amount you actually receive. I have attached a picture , however as you know the graphs are far from being great.

All hardcoded unfortunately.

From the books I got the impression that they were a very special and elite group, however in the mod they don't seem to justify their expense and build requirements. Due to being horsemen they are vulnerable and not especially well armoured and their small size and range means they are poor HAs. They end up as a jack of all trades, but mediocre at all.

Grey Company are primarily a bodyguard for characters, not a frontline unit. Aside from the unit size (which is buffed by unit xp and character personal security) I don't see how their stats are weak at all. That said, they'll get a little bit of a buff in the next patch.

Would it be possible to create "Company of the Guard Platoon I, "Company of the Guard Platoon II" etc This would also help role-play value.

Yes, but a bit of a waste of unit slots (the few left we'd prefer to let submods play with).

I am specifically referring to the timber walls with battlements, they can not be scaled, so the ram is the only option and the low height of the gatehouse means its arrows are particularly effective, this makes them easier to defend than stone walls which can be scaled easily. I would recommend that the firing arc of the towers is restricted, so that they can only fire outside the settlement, as the AI does not grasp the significance of capturing or destroying towers.

The firing into the settlement cannot be modded without actually editing the 3d model (which I have tried and failed to do). Stone walls are much stronger (especially as a faction that has ballista) but it is a good point that this combined with the relative ease of scaling the walls and taking over the towers makes them easier for a player to attack. Will see if further adjustment can be an improvement, as there are some pretty annoying limitations on what is possible here.

Is it not possible to tie the settlement layout to the "Province building", or to the Walls? Alternatively to have Dol Amroth, Pelagir and other major military centres have the castle layout as "unique" settlements, whilst smaller settlements have something a little more befitting.

It's tied to the core building, but there are a hardcoded number of settlement layouts available and we've used most of the others already (for custom settlements and the like). Settlement modding is really hard and time consuming, it is not at all a simple thing to just create another settlement layout to add to the mod. (Which is not to say that it's not a good idea, I just don't have time to do it anymore).

Again thanks for responding and for your continued hard work on the mod.

Cheers mate

[Wambat]

@Dom9127

RK is meant to have a hard time of it in the north at the start. I am pretty damn good at this game, and I was losing settlements in the north to Adunabar when playing RK until I learned a trick or two from some other players. In the begging you are not going to have any troops that can be thrown head on at the enemy and hope for victory. You will have to fight from fortified positions and use guerrilla tactics to wear down Adunabar until you can build up enough strength to go on the offensive. These circumstances may make the Grey Company feel like a useless unit, but, while they are not as strong as the HA of Khand, they are the ONLY HA in their theater AND they replenish themselves in an area where population is hard to come by. Use them to distract and wear out the enemy, lure the enemy into traps, and absorb casualties to preserve your troop strength.

As for money: It is crazy easy to eat through seemingly enormous reserves in this mod. Check out my Rhovanion campaign: At one point I had well over 300k in the bank, but toward the end of the campaign I was living hand-to-mouth, and I am pretty careful with my funds. If you really feel like you have too much money, try absorbing some new lands into your empire and watch your bank account evaporate.

[athanaric]

As for your second point, whilst on release there were numerous problems with Alex, with the maturity of digital download services it is simple and cheap to obtain Alex.

If you're interested in porting, we (some of the fans) are trying to port FATW to M2TW. It's a bigger task than "just" Alex, but will yield better results I believe, and we can also use some items from TATW as a base.

This is true but Riddermark Bowmen have 115 range Steppe Outriders have 120 whilst Snaga-hunters 125 it just seems a little strange the that they cannot out shoot some of the worst bowmen in Middle Earth.

Well, if your Riddermark Bowmen are facing Snaga or similar crap-tier archers (not orc hunters or Parchereb Tribesmen though, which have spears), it's usually best to charge headlong into them since RB and similar heavy horse archers (including Grey Company, Horse-archers of Khand, The Serpent Black) carry swords and are pretty decent in melee.

@Dom9127

RK is meant to have a hard time of it in the north at the start. I am pretty damn good at this game, and I was losing settlements in the north to Adunabar when playing RK until I learned a trick or two from some other players. In the begging you are not going to have any troops that can be thrown head on at the enemy and hope for victory. You will have to fight from fortified positions and use guerrilla tactics to wear down Adunabar until you can build up enough strength to go on the offensive. These circumstances may make the Grey Company feel like a useless unit, but, while they are not as strong as the HA of Khand, they are the ONLY HA in their theater AND they replenish themselves in an area where population is hard to come by. Use them to distract and wear out the enemy, lure the enemy into traps, and absorb casualties to preserve your troop strength.

Exactly; I usually avoid losing settlements in the north to Adunabar, but it is difficult, every move can count, and you have to fight dirty (and exploit the AI's stupidity). Kind of like a minor faction, but that adds to the fun of the RK campaign IMO.

[acci_dent]

I'll double check it but I don't remember anything being amiss there. Amon Hen may not be in exactly the location you were clicking (I'm sure I've clicked on it and had the information card come up).

are they different because of a hardcoded wonder limit maybe? Osgiliath's behaved differently to other wonders (can't be clicked on, no movie plays when captured) since the TNS release i feel like.

Also, the advantages of holding the other, clickable main wonders aren't detailed in-game anywhere, could probably do with adding their effects to their description scrolls.


also also on line 274697 of export_descr_character_traits.txt:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

;------------------------------------------

Trigger blood_of_numenor_harad_of-age_inherit
    WhenToTest CharacterComesOfAge

    Condition Trait SubCulHaradCorsair > 1
          and FatherTrait SubCulHaradCorsair > 3

    Affects SubCulHaradCorsair  2  Chance  50

;------------------------------------------

Trigger blood_of_numenor_harad_marriage
    WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage

    Condition Trait SubCulRKAdunDunadan > 2

    Affects SubCulHaradCorsair  1  Chance  3

;------------------------------------------

Trigger blood_of_numenor_harad_adoption
    WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption

    Condition Trait SubCulRKAdunDunadan > 2

    Affects SubCulHaradCorsair  1  Chance  3

;------------------------------------------

Trigger blood_of_numenor_harad_lesser-adoption
    WhenToTest LesserGeneralOfferedForAdoption

    Condition Trait SubCulRKAdunDunadan > 2

    Affects SubCulHaradCorsair  1  Chance  3

;------------------------------------------

those three bolded RK traits should be the Harad variants i think

and finally there's an error with the mumak model or animation, their left forelegs behave weirdly when on the move. Not sure if this affects everybody but I noticed it a while ago:
https://i.imgur.com/MYYLRy3.gifv

[CountMRVHS]

Ah, the ol' "hobble the Mumak while the mahout isn't looking" trick. Real mature, guys!

Kidding aside, I haven't encountered that visual bug myself.

[Aexodus]

Haha that’s kinda funny.

Same I haven’t seen that bug

[MasterOfNone]

Yes, the mumak bug with the leg does exist. I suspect that it has arisen due to graphic cards rather than any change in the mod, as I am not sure the mumak model has been changed in yonks.

I also suffer from the invisible ammo bug which appeared about the same time - which is a graphics card issue*.

And, yes, we did run out of true Wonder (I think there is 9 iirc) slots and insert landmark wonders to make up the shortfall, but Aradan took over from me on this so I am not quite sure where things were left off - you could look in the file though, I think it had landmarks in the file name.

Aradan did the traits.


EDIT: On Windows 10, Nvidia.

[acci_dent]

yep that's probably it. this is on a windows 10 nvidia laptop and i get the invisible ammo/fires thing too