Third Age TW - DLViscussion thread...

[Gaias]

Well since I have played this mod for a week now I can say that it is a quick and dirty release of TA:TW. Get it out to the fans and work or testing and implementation of new features later. This is a good thing I think as it allows for a greater audience to examine and scrutinize. Also, it allows for some wonderful modifications to be made for it in the mean time.

I would have to say the overall design of the UI and map are fantastic and very LoTRO inspired. Attention to detail with the icons is a nice touch as it gives a sense of belonging to the world of Middle Earth. Campaign map voices obviously have to be redone as they are vanilla ones attached to some factions and refer to 'Christianity' or the factions they are. The amount of unique map resources and custom cities/castles are truly wonderful about the campaign map. Of course their mapper did an excellent job at creating on that is the very likeliness of the Middle Earth map. Descriptions of units and building could use some work though, as they lack the flavour of any loresque type stuff.

The battles in TA:TW are what you would expect with vanilla, frequent and with poor quality units. Most units are exceptionally well made buy the modeller/skinners of the team. Some factions have inconsistancy in quality (Eriador and Dale for instance), but that can be improved later on. Balanace was poorly placed in some units, but has since been corrected (to an extent) by sub mods. Unit pricing and availablity is what you would expect of Stainless Steel, with little to vary from faction to faction. I don't particularity like the hard limit of the elite units being made available to some faction, but I understand it's for balancing purposes. Still, battles are truly epic in the open field, but as you start doing some seige battles it can become tedious. Custom battle maps not being an option yet so it's understandable I won't be fighting in Helm's Deep. Also an expanded unit list for all factions would be nice, but that is going to have to wait as units are not so easily made and implimented.

Mostly what TA:TW lacks is a uniqueness of the campaign that is presented in DLV. Very little has been implimented in the way of traits/ancillaries that would give it that Middle Earth unique flavour. Such functions as the more dynamic garrison script and rebel spawn that DLV has would go along way. Features like military level required for buildings for elite units would work well. The greater robust economic scripts and events would work perfect, along with the expanded economy buildings and resources. Settlement titles and unique weapons/armour would also work well. The military/governor level and campaign experience are just screaming to be added to TA:TW, as they offer so much to the mod.

Overall a wondeful mod from a talented team that was able to impliment a popular setting into a total conversion of MII:TW. Giving it the campaign uniqueness that is the distinguishing features of DLV would go a long way to making it great.

[Tokus*Maximus]

TOKUS*NEWS...

I'm redoing the TATW faction symbols for the 1/1 version. Reminds me how much the DLV set need a look at - heh.

UPGRADING CURRENT EVENT PICS
I'm playing Rohan and Mordor, moving on to other factions once I've completed faction symbol revamp, I'm going to Tokusify the event pics that appear in the course of most games. Team TATW have done a great job on the mod and redone some but there are still a few old vanilla events make me feel unwell for some reason so will be hunting them down slowly for Tokusfication... Anyhoo, below are other event ideas that I'd like to DVLVelop - should any of the gang have the desire, and scritping skills to collaborate).

EVENT POP UPS - NEW!
I'm thinking of a series of event pictures; "My lord, travellers from distant lands report that Gondor has lost a province", and "Sire, scouts report Mordor has been victorious and has taken more land!", etc. Bacically an event sysytem for each faction when it looses a city/provence and another event pic right after for factions who have been victorious. A similar script existed waaay back in DLV and survives in Europa. Harry did the code while I sorted the images.

CAPITAL EVENTS - NEW!
One specifically for each and every captial should unit become beseiged.

ONE REGION LEFT EVENT - NEW!
A unique event for every faction when they're down to just one settlement!

Some of you guys probably don't like pop-up events as much as i do - I'm not looking for your comment - just those who have time and inclination to put something along the lines above together. I'm only getting to know the TATW developers and they have their hands pretty full the noo.

-- All the best you magnificent bast'ds!

[Ahlerich]

TOKUS*NEWS...

I'm redoing the TATW faction symbols for the 1/1 version. Reminds me how much the DLV set need a look at - heh. Anyhoo, here my other ideas that I'd like to DVLVelop - should any of the gang have the desire, and scritping skills to collaborate).

UPGRADING CURRENT EVENTS
I'm playing Rohan (Celtic mongols Whoohoo!) and once I've completed faction symbol revamp, I'm going to Rohanify event pics that appear in the course of most games. Team TATW have done a great job on the mod and redone some but there are still a few old vanilla events make me feel unwell for some reason so will be hunting them down slowly for Tokusfication... Note: any event pics for Rohan I must ensure looks good with Eriador and Dale for they are also witihn the northern_european group the mod uses.

EVENT POP UPS - NEW!
I'm thinking of a series of event pictures; "My lord, travellers from distant lands report that Gondor has lost a province", and "Sire, scouts report Mordor has been victorious and has taken more land!", etc. Bacically an event sysytem for each faction when it looses a city/provence and another event pic right after for factions who have been victorious. A similar script existed waaay back in DLV and survives in Europa. Harry did the code while I sorted the images.

CAPITAL EVENTS - NEW!
One specifically for each and every captial should unit become beseiged.

ONE REGION LEFT EVENT - NEW!
A unique event for every faction when they're down to just one settlement!

Some of you guys probably don't like pop-up events as much as i do - I'm not looing for your comment - just those who have the time and inclination to put this together with me. I'm only getting to know the TATW developers and they have their hands pretty full the noo.

-- All the best you magnificent bast'ds!

hey since you do "grafical stuff" ( ) couldnt you create more general portraits for eg rohan? gondor gets away with some vanilla generals but for rohan and some other factions it really kills a lot of athmosphere

[ivanhoex]

hey tokus can you warn someone that i found myself being called dwarf, when a popup warned me about a succesfull invasion (me playing harad)

[Tokus*Maximus]

Gaias - great post, many good ideas of DLV style stuff. I've a few too; Orcs were always falling out with each other in Tolkien's world. I'd love to see a script that when any 'bad' faction gets much larger that any of it's fellows, the others gang up and declare war upon it. Hopefully taking the heat off the 'nice' factions. Or (using the spare faction slots) create rebel variant versions of all the factions and a civil war script that breaks the huge factions into two warring parts. Oh, and I'd love to see far more mercs so you can recruit simpathetic races and troops to your banner from distant lands.

Ahlerich - aye, the guys on the TATW mod need more help on portraits (though they've made good inroads into the main characters). I'll look into them as I do my Rohan/Eriador/Dale events 9they are all N.European grouped).

Ivanhoex - have you posted that up on their bug threads? It is a beta and still has rough edges. Oh, I didn't do the Harad UI - not guilty yer honour!
Conclusion: Orcs were always falling out with each other in Tolkien's world. Recommend a script that when any 'bad' faction gets much larger that any of it's fellows, the others gang up and declare war upon it. Hopefully taking the heat off the \'nice' factions. Or (using the spare faction slots) create rebel variant versions of the factions and a civil war script that breaks huge factions up into two warring parts. Create more mercs.

Am not playing the mod until the 1.1 version with all the best of the sub mods plus the steady work by KK, CK and team.

-- Tokiod

[Gaias]

I was actually thing about AoR units and how they would be a great at introducing unique units that could only be recruited once in a campaign. Say being able to recruit Fangorn/Ents as Eriador if you invade Isengard. Granted, that would require more work than is being discussed here, but it would be nice to have some flavour the campaign when it came to unit recruitment.

[Tokus*Maximus]

Aye Gaias, introducing unique units - even once - in a campaign. 'Good' factions being able to raise Ent and Huorns (to tackle Trolls) or Units of the Undead near Dunharrow (really powerful but cannot retrain so slowly, over numerous battles, their number dwindles. 'Mercs' on the otherhand are perhaps more common and retrainable; free companies of Men, Rangers, Horsemen, Elves and Dwarves to hire. 'Evil' factions on the other hand would be able to raise various types of wicked men, black Numenorians, goblin freebooters and wolf riders.

[Ahlerich]

Aye Gaias, introducing unique units - even once - in a campaign. 'Good' factions being able to raise Ent and Huorns (to tackle Trolls) or Units of the Undead near Dunharrow (really powerful but cannot retrain so slowly, over numerous battles, their number dwindles. 'Mercs' on the otherhand are perhaps more common and retrainable; free companies of Men, Rangers, Horsemen, Elves and Dwarves to hire. 'Evil' factions on the other hand would be able to raise various types of wicked men, black Numenorians, goblin freebooters and wolf riders.

good idea. has to be done carefully though coz trolls is all the evil can count on

[Xtiaan72]

I've got a Sylvan Elves campaign going. I'm having a blast...

A siege costs script and a DLVish supply script would be most welcome.

But for an initial release, It's pretty awesome

[Taiji]

I love the idea of building a 'ritual' that allows the creation of a group of undead. You'd then have to destroy the building and build another to get more

[ivanhoex]

i think there is still lot of room to improvements, but i kindda enjoy having a different game style than DLV

i mean, i cant care less about where i put my generals, but the thrill of seeing those fantasy cinematics are a game of their own
so, less attention to detail and more to overall stuff and just watch them all hitting each others faces XD

there is also a quite deep sea battle stuff that i am enjoying more than ever, the only thing i miss is variety.
as i always play harad, i had no chance to fight others than gondor except when i join a invasion, which i never did so far.

i also did my first TATW minimod, so new it is that you can still find it in the general forum, where it got born


@tokus:
gondorian UI is bugged, when you go over a button, it highlits rounded as per the old button set.
send my praise to the one who made harad´s

[Tokus*Maximus]

I am helping Reknown on his expanded faction version of TATW called DIVIDE & CONQUER http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=262063 - next week (when I've time from real life stuff) I will begin enhancing the much increased faction rosters list of symbols. DLV by Repman, DAC by Reknown, anyone see the pattern I do? Heh.

[Agis Tournas]

DLV by Repman, DAC by Reknown, anyone see the pattern I do? Heh.

"D" by "R" with Sir Tokus on board!

[Xtiaan72]

Wow... Really looking forward to this....Perhaps one day I can do a strat guide for D by R for Third Age. Best of luck with everything Tokus!

[ivanhoex]

hey tokus!

another question, but this time its quite OT!

look, i just changed monitor from a 4:3 17 inches to a beautiful dell 24inches 16:9.

i changed all .cfg to have under video the tag "widescreen = 1" as recommended.
i also changed resolutions on battle plus campaign to 1920*1080

but all UI is way stretched out... its just something people with widescreen have to endure or i am forgetting a step here?

[Ahlerich]

while tatw looks great and was fun playing with some sub mods applied i must say it becomes flat quickly.

[Xtiaan72]

The thing is once you've played DLV for a certain amount of time...Vanilla or mods without challenging scripts... You can just roll over everything like it's nothing...

I had the same feeling... I have great respect for King Kong but Third Age is S.S with pointy ears... Although I do feel like my armies are 'special forces' in those mods and that is fun for a little while.

[repman]

Back in school during the 70's i never understood all the hype about the Lordoftherings Books. One of the most stupid fashistoid book series. Even the Conan series was more advanced. From these days on fantasy means Orcs, they destroyed a whole genre. The films were even more idiotic...


repman

[Tokus*Maximus]

The beta 03 of Divide and Conquer (an expanded faction mod for TATW) is well underway. Renown is putting in more interesting stuff, making D&C a deeper immersive experience for those who like the world of Middle Earth. Fighting those bloody Trolls is tricky - Catapults and Ballistas have come into their own as troll-killing weapons par excellence! I've redone all the TATW faction symbols a second time over; very pleased with them too. Expect the next build sometime this week.

-- Tokus

[Ahlerich]

The beta 03 of Divide and Conquer (an expanded faction mod for TATW) is well underway. Renown is putting in more interesting stuff, making D&C a deeper immersive experience for those who like the world of Middle Earth. Fighting those bloody Trolls is tricky - Catapults and Ballistas have come into their own as troll-killing weapons par excellence! I've redone all the TATW faction symbols a second time over; very pleased with them too. Expect the next build sometime this week.

-- Tokus

thats good news. the divide and conquer project is so ambitious that i was worried it will be dead soon. if there are first releases this became unlikely. good stuff.

The thing is once you've played DLV for a certain amount of time...Vanilla or mods without challenging scripts... You can just roll over everything like it's nothing...

I had the same feeling... I have great respect for King Kong but Third Age is S.S with pointy ears... Although I do feel like my armies are 'special forces' in those mods and that is fun for a little while.

the units in tatw look really awesome. if you look at harad, rhun and rohan especially.
some factions in dlv could really need some units of that class. this is secundary though. even though i dislike the loyalty part of dlv, (partlially because i never get it to work to execute or imprison a noble) and the hardcoded like alliances which makes campaigns the same (which is optional now, yippieh) its really a experience without comparison. it just doesnt get boring.

i played some historical campaigns with hre and i try to not expand or only little. it is still fun! the game revolves around total war but with this mod its even fun to manage your empire in peace, support other factions, roleplay a bit, etc..

i tried the same game style with TATW. i wanted to have a small but powerfull high elven empire that doesnt grow in size, when time comes i wanted to send out elven stacks just to assist rohan or gondor who truely need that. it did get boring pretty quickly though.

the only option is to fight and expand and that gets boring too once one is stinking rich and therefore undefeatable.