Official 'Third Age 1.0 - 3.2 Question & Answer' Thread

[PandaChef]

Does the size of a settlement not affect it? Seems a bit silly a city like Minas Tirith would have the same percentage as a small village.

Thanks

[DrBeast]

Once the spy is in the settlement, only his Subterfuge affects the chance to open the gates - it tops out at 88% chance for a 10-subterfuge spy.

[chriskourou]

I recently had to face Sauron, playing with High Elves. The three Saurons actually. I had almost two full stacks of elite units and attacked him. I put all the Eldar Archers under my control, so that I wouldn't have to suffer casualties from arrows by the stupid AI.

I manages to eliminate all enemy units ecxept for the three Saurons by losing about 19% of my army. And then the three Saurons killed the rest 80%. Is this normal?

What I've noticed is that their "number" went from 8 to 6 pretty easily but that was it. It never went down from there.

So. Then I decided to let the whole battle to the AI. And I won by losing 40% of my army.

[Duke of Metz]

I recently had to face Sauron, playing with High Elves. The three Saurons actually. I had almost two full stacks of elite units and attacked him. I put all the Eldar Archers under my control, so that I wouldn't have to suffer casualties from arrows by the stupid AI.

I manages to eliminate all enemy units ecxept for the three Saurons by losing about 19% of my army. And then the three Saurons killed the rest 80%. Is this normal?

What I've noticed is that their "number" went from 8 to 6 pretty easily but that was it. It never went down from there.

So. Then I decided to let the whole battle to the AI. And I won by losing 40% of my army.

Yes that is normal. As for the auto-resolve, KK and the team have always stated that the game is not balanced for A/R and advise everyone to fight all battles themselves.

Lorewise, Sauron almost single-handedly broke the siege of Barad-Dur against the full strength of the Last Alliance. Only the combined might of Gil-Galad and Elendil (probably the 2 greatest warriors of the period) were able to withstand him, and they lost their lives in the process. He is by far the best/toughest unit in the game, even better than the Balrog. It usually costs people at least a full stack to defeat him, unless you get lucky with a ballista/catapult shot or have Ents.

[RInger]

I was wondering if there is any way it could be possible to combine multiple factions into one "super faction," or to make it so that the player can control more than one faction during the game. The reason I ask is because it gets frustrating sometimes when your AI allies are making dumb decisions or not pulling their weight, like during a Dwarf campaign I was playing a while ago, when the High Elves and Eriador would just let the Orc factions march all over their lands willy-nilly, so it was basically me fighting the Orcs by myself. I kept thinking, "Man, it'd be great if I could also control the High Elves, and then I could just have them guard all the mountain passes while the Dwarves took out the Orc settlements." Also, if you could combine or control multiple factions, you could coordinate big Last Alliance-style invasions of Mordor and stuff, and who wouldn't love that?

Is there any way to do this type of thing, or would it be impossible due to the different cultures of the factions, and stuff?

[Mank]

Good news, you CAN control more than one faction!

Go to "Multiplayer" on the main menu and select the Hotseat Campaign. On the faction selection screen you can then click on each faction you want to control, and you will have the opportunity to play as each of these in-game. The only downside to this is that sometimes you don't get to control the battles that occur during the A.I's turn cycle.

Also as a side-note, future questions like these are best asked in the "Official Third Age 1.0 - 3.2 Question and Answer Thread"

Hope this helps!

~Mank

[RInger]

Good news, you CAN control more than one faction!

Go to "Multiplayer" on the main menu and select the Hotseat Campaign. On the faction selection screen you can then click on each faction you want to control, and you will have the opportunity to play as each of these in-game. The only downside to this is that sometimes you don't get to control the battles that occur during the A.I's turn cycle.

Ooh, that sounds cool. I'll definitely have to give that a try. Thanks!

Does the Hotseat Campaign include the scripted events, like the One Ring script and stuff? And is it compatible with submods like MOS? I've never tried the Hotseat Campaign before because I assumed it was a multiplayer thing and I don't really play multiplayer very much, so I know nothing about it.

[RInger]

Go to "Multiplayer" on the main menu and select the Hotseat Campaign. On the faction selection screen you can then click on each faction you want to control, and you will have the opportunity to play as each of these in-game. The only downside to this is that sometimes you don't get to control the battles that occur during the A.I's turn cycle.

I did some searching, and it turns out there is a way to make it so that battles don't auto-resolve when the AI attacks you. You can find the solution here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=1#post5822458

Also, you apparently have to set the files to Read Only after you edit them, otherwise the computer will automatically switch them back, for some reason.

[Ethan Davies]

hello, I understand this must have been asked so many times but I'm so bad at using these forums I've no idea how to check them. Anyway, im wondering if you can change the age before death for generals as my elrond is 119 years old and I'm sure they die from 120-150 (glorfindel just died) is it possible to make generals die at age 500? I know you can't change individual generals but I don't mind as long as generals basically don't die of old age. I also think you can't change things like that during a campaign but I'm just wondering if its possible?

[Ngugi]

hello, I understand this must have been asked so many times but I'm so bad at using these forums I've no idea how to check them. Anyway, im wondering if you can change the age before death for generals as my elrond is 119 years old and I'm sure they die from 120-150 (glorfindel just died) is it possible to make generals die at age 500? I know you can't change individual generals but I don't mind as long as generals basically don't die of old age. I also think you can't change things like that during a campaign but I'm just wondering if its possible?

Max age is 150 years, and then it will apply for every character in all factions

[ThaDoews]

hello, I understand this must have been asked so many times but I'm so bad at using these forums I've no idea how to check them. Anyway, im wondering if you can change the age before death for generals as my elrond is 119 years old and I'm sure they die from 120-150 (glorfindel just died) is it possible to make generals die at age 500? I know you can't change individual generals but I don't mind as long as generals basically don't die of old age. I also think you can't change things like that during a campaign but I'm just wondering if its possible?

As Ngugi said, max age is 150 years old - it is hardcoded and cannot be changed. If you wan't to get around this, then you have to lower the age of all the generals. To make this more realistic, you should only lower the elves (and the Ringriders) age

[Mank]

Yes hotseats will include the scripted events, so no worries there.

As far as MOS goes I know you can play hotseats with it, though I seem to recall some people having errors with it on occasion. Best thing to do would be just to try it out and see for yourself!

[patrickpow]

Recently I acquired the great ring playing as the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. There was a message to bring the ring to Sauron or something (can't recall what it said specifically). I was wondering what I have to do to complete this particular task. I have no mission log for this, in the current mission tab. Please help I am quite puzzled.

[Wizad]

Recently I acquired the great ring playing as the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. There was a message to bring the ring to Sauron or something (can't recall what it said specifically). I was wondering what I have to do to complete this particular task. I have no mission log for this, in the current mission tab. Please help I am quite puzzled.

You need to take the general with the ring to the Black Gate (not Barad-Dur).


@AdmiralThrawn
Good of you to ask nicely first, I'm sure the person who created the models will appreciate it. You could search around in the Submod section. Most units come from the submod section and usually the threads there specify whether you can use models, etc.

[Loki_999]

Take the unit with it to the region where Barad Dur is and wait there for about 5 rounds. If you succeed, then Mordor will get Sauron as your unit. Plus you'll be in the pope's favour.

Probably a good idea to have military access with Modor as well to avoid annoying them with your unit.

Also, be aware, every time you select that unit with the ring, there is a % chance that gollum will steal the ring. Its best to save before selecting that unit, then direct it to Mordor and try not to select it again (assuming you have a clear path to Mordor... which probably means having Rohan as allies or dead.

[AdmiralThrawn]

Hey, so I'm not sure who to ask about this, but I was hoping to take the Rhudar Scouts and adapt the skins/models to be the Black Ears Mountain Clan in a submod of Westeros Total War that I'm making. I would be changing the models, but I would use the Rhudaur Scouts as a base from which to work. Obviously I would give credit to the TATW team. Would this be OK?

[Ngugi]

Hey, so I'm not sure who to ask about this, but I was hoping to take the Rhudar Scouts and adapt the skins/models to be the Black Ears Mountain Clan in a submod of Westeros Total War that I'm making. I would be changing the models, but I would use the Rhudaur Scouts as a base from which to work. Obviously I would give credit to the TATW team. Would this be OK?

Depends on weither the unit is made by King Kong or not; if so then his permission is required before it is used in any way for a release.
If it is made by someone else then it's that person or mod that should be contacted, sadly I can not find the OoG preview where that info is normally stated

[Woodrow Skillson]

So I recently got this and am enjoying monkeying around with it so far. Before I get more into it though, a few things have kinda irked me. The population growth seems really low to me. Is the game balanced around smaller unit sizes? It seems like a dead end to have so many 400-1000 population cities when 1-2 units takes nearly 20 turns to replace. Only a few cities can effectively replenish populations after heavy recruitment. There are also not all that many mercenaries, so you can only swell your ranks so much with those. The lack of city development also means some of the villages never have a chance to ever get to be a large city within any reasonable timeframe. In other TW games its relatively easy to get 5-6% growth per turn on a lot of settlements, which can actually net you growth over a number of turns due to the logarithmic nature of it. It seems like if you want to have large armies at any point you will be severely limited in your growth. While I get that this is meant to replicate the low populations in the lore, it seems like this leads to situations where you have to fight an immense amount of battles with nearly no losses, since even one bad break is catastrophic, meanwhile the AI can replace stacks at will.

Am I overthinking this? Are there any methods to get growth rates of 6% at all?

[DrBeast]

Only a few cities can effectively replenish populations after heavy recruitment.

I think you're thinking Rome: Total War here - recruiting units does not draw from the population pool in Medieval 2.

[knight of meh]

king kong set the growth rates intentionally so that all the cities wouldn't be huge by turn 100-150

taking major recruitment centres is a must really..

really you have two choices in this mod turtle and wait until you can field elite units so you will take small losses in lot of battles

or rush come out all guns blazing and try and take major recruitment centres