In my opinion not. There are always big empires in the later games because no rebel survive, factions like Elves and Dwarves become superpowers and regions like Mordor can become wonderful living areas for Elves. In my opinion the diffrences between the races and factions should be alot more based on the lore.
1. Dwarves and Elves were diminishing factions in the lore. They hope to survive and not to settle in new areas. It is totally against the lore that e.g. Silvian Elves can conquer anmd colonize cities far from Mirkwood and Lothlorien and recruit Elves there.
2. It is also totally against the lore that Dwarves and Elves conquer new regions. That they hold their starting regions would be ok, but that they found big empires is very weird.
3. That everybody can colonize Mordor is also very weird. No human, Elf or Dwarf would live there and they would never make big cities of Barad-Dur or Minas Morgul.
4. It is also totally weird that e.g. Moria can become a big Elven or human city. According to the lore only Dwarves and Orcs should be able to reign Moria with profit. I mean what should Dwarves do in Bree, Elves in Mordor or Humans in Moria? They would maby try to controll it with an army but they would never live there or even build huge cities there.
What do you think about that? Do you would like a more lore centric mod or do you feel fine as it is?
i personally like it like it is. it is relativly true to the lore and gives the player enough freedom to play with it at the same time.
in very long games, there will allways be big empires. thatīs how the M2TW engine works (and the hole TW series for the matter) take a look at LOTR-TW for example: it gives a lot of racial limitations (specially to elves and dwarves), and yet in late games it is allways most likelly that the Noldor elves will rule all of Eriador. you just canīt help it, someone is allways going to get pwned.
though maybe you would probably enjoy LOTR-TW more. it has many of the things you want and is much more lore-hardcore.
Last edited by maxi90; November 08, 2009 at 03:53 AM.
I like TATW more because the units, the map and the buildings are better but I really liked the limitations in LOTR-TW and in my opinion would help TATW.
i suppose that we can't have it all .... The ballance between lore accurancy and enjoyable gameplay is IMO kept well...
if dwarves or elves weren't expansive Mordor - Rhun ant OoMM would own them in few turns and that would be totaly against lore... Don't you think?
I don't think that it is impossible to solve this problem.
E.g. you could make the dwarven and elven units very strong but only recruitable in some homeland areas.
I would like when the good factions really have to fight for their existance, but I made this poll to see wether I am alone with this opinion.
There is a way to have both. Custom campaigns. This is one I'd like to see and I've posted it in another thread.
An idea could be a close up of Rhovanion during the war of the ring, and would be perfect for a more lore centric game in that It would be much more regional, for example playing as the elves you would have to fight a defensive war against dol guldur until you gain the strength to reclaim the forest and with around 50 settlements in mirkwood their whole campaign would be set in mirkwood which, I think, would be much more immersive and true to lore. you could still advance outside the forest, but the settlements that you capture would be more like outposts,(the only reason to control them is for a strategic defence point, or so the enemy can't use them.) in which you can't build or recruit any advanced units. This would lead to more differences between the factions, and more immersion seeing as for example most(you'd need some buildings outside) the dwarves buildings would be built in mountainous areas meaning you could have the dwarves buildings be tunnels or on mountain peaks (e.g. dwarven barracks= warriors halls/caverns etc.) which is more true to lore seeing as all the great dwarven cities were underground. ootmm and dol guldur and possibly rhun could build any where, and Dale and a possible Vales of Anduin faction could build in most places but obviously not some, e.g. only the elves could manage to create a city in the depths of mirkwood, same for dwarves and mountains, but all the surrounding areas could be settled by men. Men could have advantages in certain areas, such as Dale could have extra buildings buildable in areas with river or lakes.
Each faction would be different to play and the good factions would have a much more defensive campaign. Possibly for Dale and V.O.A. you could start with all the regions needed for victory and have to defend them until a certain turn. The Elves would be a very Isolated faction predominantly fighting only dol guldur. They should have to reclaim mirkwood for victory. The dwarves would need to reclaim the mountains on one front and defend Dale on the other, with them losing if Dale is destroyed. They would probably be the most offensive of the good factions.
Rhun could be like a golden horde faction, either emergent or with a few settlements on the edge of the map, however halfway through the game a few rhunic stacks should spawn, which I think would be fun in a dormant volcano sort of way. This one quick blitzkrieg-like attack on dale would be very different to the stagnant wars in mirkwood and the misty mountains, which had been on and off for years.
Each faction would be like it's own little mini campaign, e.g. with around 50 settlements each in mirkwood and the misty mts the elves will never need to leave the forest, and the dwarves will only need to leave the mountains if(When) Dale is assaulted.
I would like the main campaign to be more lore centric. But if someone would do such a campaign I would certainly like it.
BTW I like the idea with the race buildings for special regions.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
in which you can't build or recruit any advanced units. This would lead to more differences between the factions, and more immersion seeing as for example most(you'd need some buildings outside) the dwarves buildings would be built in mountainous areas meaning you could have the dwarves buildings be tunnels or on mountain peaks (e.g. dwarven barracks= warriors halls/caverns etc.) which is more true to lore seeing as all the great dwarven cities were underground. ootmm and dol guldur and possibly rhun could build any where, and Dale and a possible Vales of Anduin faction could build in most places but obviously not some, e.g. only the elves could manage to create a city in the depths of mirkwood, same for dwarves and mountains, but all the surrounding areas could be settled by men. Men could have advantages in certain areas, such as Dale could have extra buildings buildable in areas with river or lakes.
I don't think it is plausible in the main campaign though as there is a limit on settlements. for it to work you would need something like as I said around 50 settlements each for mirkwood and the mountains and the remaining 99 (I think 199 is the limit) sscattered around Rhovanion.
I like the balance between lore and gameplay too. Some things are limited by the game itself, plus the freedom you have is to a large degree what makes it interesting. I'm not very interested in replaying just the LOTR events over and over - I know them by now. But a custom campaign solely focusing on the LOTR events would be great.
By the way your forgot in your poll the option that TATW is too lore-centric. Not my opinion but in this forum you will meet many who express this opinion. All these fans of spiders riding cataphract mumakil.
Last edited by Hermes Trismegistos; November 08, 2009 at 04:45 AM.
There are a couple of misgivings I have, but overall it seems OK. Some parts are also limited by the game engine:
- Repopulating "lost" cities or cities with low population is too easy (eg. Fornost, Tharbad etc.)
- Elves have population growth
- Rebel cities which weren't neutral or rebel (Eastern Anduin regions for Gondor)
- Culture conversion isn't entirely realistic. Eg. converting a city full of orcs into Numenorians?
Last edited by Freek; November 08, 2009 at 05:09 AM.
I think the balance is fine, and it's hard to argue with TATW's current popularity.
If this was truly lore-centric, and the elves and dwarves were slowly dying off and getting pushed out by goblins even before the game starts, who would want to play as those factions? If they're supposed to vanish, then what are their victory conditions in a conquest-based game engine? I think the gameplay/lore compromise has been done pretty well, IMO better so than in LOTRO and certainly better so than in BFME. I mean, even the movies had to frequently compromise or adapt the lore for the sake of viewability. Anything in TATW that isn't faithful to the lore is either because there is no lore for a foundation (Rhun, for example), or for the sake of fitting into the game engine (Eriador, to my knowledge is far from united and doesn't have a royal family). Of the people I've introduced to this mod, both the lore nuts and the tactical nuts have been pleased, so I think, by and large, it's fine the way it is.
I do really like the regional custom campaign idea though, maybe splitting up the regions Kingdoms-style, based largely on the 1-on-1 conflicts? Gondor/Mordor(Harad?), Isengard/Rohan (Eriador, since Saruman wound up there?), Dwarves/OotMM (Elves @ Imladris?), Dale/Rhun, etc.
Maybe for 2.0....
Last edited by Caml3; November 08, 2009 at 05:17 AM.
Maybe just keep the actual gameplay where you can dominate the world with hobbits if you like...BUT add a campaign meant for Gondor more lore-centric gameplay. Gondor is actually the only Good faction that could be use lore-wise to have a truly epic campaign.
I ,for one, always try to do the reunited kingdom while playing Gondor... Add one of my previous suggestion to do some "gondor insurgent faction" like in the The New Shadow mod for RTW some time after you conquered Mordor and stabilized it and you get a full time-long action campaign. So all other good factions could be scripted to do things like there supposed to
The most important aspect of a mod is its playability, not its realism. If you want to make things real, then you would need to add limitions and limitations usually destroys gameplay. One thing for instance is that you can have a decent campaign with EVERY faction in TATW. If some are to limited one way or another then people simply will not play with them. Of course some factions are more difficult to play with than other and thats just natural. But what you don't want is that these factions become impossible to play with ''due to certain restrictions''. The balance in TATW is very good. But it is very much a case of personal preference. For this we have submods. Mini-campaigns for instance might be a nice add-on.
Well my oppinion is that all faction are very simular to each other. There is no unique experience in one faction. I mean on the campaign map. On the battle map the factions are of course different but on the campaign map there are no big differences.
You conquer a city, build the cultural building, wait some round and recruit then the soldiers you need. There is no faction specific behaviour. But there are a lot of possible ways to include something like this. It havn't to be limitations. Only differences.
I have some ideas how this could be done, but I don't want this specific ideas to be implement. There should only be some differences.
One example is EB1. When you play e.g. the Parther you could decide whether you would like to build a horde region or if you want to settle, while with Rome you can only colonize regions. Something like this could also be added. E.g. Dwarves can build in areas with mountains somewhere near their tunnels and after that their cultural buildings and Elves can build only in areas with forests. This is only an example. It hasn't to do only with limitaions but I would like a more unique gameplay for all factions which is based on the lore.
And even those who aren't really interesting in tolkiens works could like the variety.
Is TATW lore centric enough?
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