Hi everybody!!!

[Berserker1]

First off, this is a dream come true to me, thank you; you made up for the year of crap I got from EA's BFME game. When I saw this, I was like. About time LOTR got some justice in the name of gaming. The only thing that sucks is my pc is like ten years old, it barely runs it, but it is still tight (getting a new computer for this).

Did anyone play BFME? Because, this is exactly what BFME should of been like, what sucked is how everything just sort of went through eachother which made the game ultra cheap looking. I mean who cares if you have a bunch of guys defending the gate, the enemy will just go straight on through! Anyways, enough with my deep down subconscious rant.

Now I have a question, I saw a darth mod thing, that is supposed to make the units much more productive, one thing I do not like about total war games, is where you have a few guys fighting in the front, and the rest are just watching it, and they are not even trying that hard to get into the battle. But, this mod only works for 1.2... Though I am thinking "at this point that is either been integrated into the 1.4 patch, or some other popular submod." Though I have checked, did not see any, so did anyone put this stuff in as a default at this point? Or did people just ignore it? Know what I mean?

[King Ardumanish]

as far as i know Darth Vader gave up his work on this submod either cos of a lack of interest or because no he get too few feedbacks i don't know.. maybe he was just more concentrating on Darth Mod for ETW

[Louis Lux]

Not sure this is a problem, not all units should be fighting at the same time, anyway you should try this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=257970

[Berserker1]

Why a lack of interest? I mean, I watched a video on it, I liked the idea that the units will get closer to the fight at front type thing. The orcs should be begging to get in there.

Actually, I do have the reallybadai, I noticed a huge difference in the AI, but I think some of the things in darth mod are not going to have an affect in bad AI. Its just too bad I do not have the ability to have battles that fit the AI improvement; I mean, just loading the campaign map is a pain. Perhaps, playing the game on small has a limiting affect. Then again, I just did some hard drive cleaning, so I will be back. Playing on small is decent, but it lacks the epic feel. Plus, it lags even on such a small setting.

Anyways, on a side note, why are rohan cavalry generals have impenetrable armor against arrows (very hard difficulty perhaps?), I mean seriously 125 arrows goes into the general, and he is barely scratched, while I lost 1000 uruks (against ents), just to find out that I just needed one group of skirmishers, and just one volley.

I have RC and really bad AI, the game says to play on VERY hard, but I find that it takes the realism away from the RC submod, but is it outdated considering the reallybadai? Can I play the battle on medium, while having the economy be very hard? And still expect the battle to be decently difficult? Last thing, it has five different AIs apparently, do I have to switched them somehow, or is it just by clicking "show me how?" Thanks

[Wolfsblut]

about Vader:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=113546

[glassakias]

The orcs should be begging to get in there.

well, not so important, but lore-wise, the orcs would be rather... unwilling to fight
seriously, they fought because they were forced to. you know, evil masters and stuff. they were slaves and did whatever they could to avoid fighting. they enjoy pain and destruction, but only from a safe position.

the general tolkien discussion analysed this at some point, i dont remember exactly

[MonkeyChief]

On your first points OP - bfme1 wasn't bad at the time imo. But bfme2 was hugely disappointing. I played LOTR TW for ages before i found this mod a couple of months ago. Best lotr game ever made in my opinion - shame the franchise isn't recieving a penny for it lol.
And the darth stuff is news to me - interesting...

[Berserker1]

Compare the trailers of BFME to the actual game... Yes, I would not expect the game to be as huge, but the mechanics you saw in normal game demonstrations looked smooth, interesting, and well done. Its like, why not keep those animations, why ship the game with animations that were purposely made to be bad? Plus the collision detection was bad, it was not a problem for the CnC generals game, but that was a game with shooting, and the tanks did not just go through each other if I remember correctly.

The game we got was very slow, the animations were bad, I just wish I had the talent of animation. For a regular game, it probably would of been alright, but being LOTR, it has to be way better. When I saw BFME2, I felt sorry for anyone who is ignorant enough to buy it.

Anyways, I am thinking about making a submod, that deals with the units in general, I think the arrows in this game have been vastly underpowered, when you shoot at poorly unarmored orcs with eldar bowmen, the arrows should kill a whole row, not one measly unit, and maybe four if you are lucky.

[Ellin Athinaios]

I think the arrows in this game have been vastly underpowered, when you shoot at poorly unarmored orcs with eldar bowmen, the arrows should kill a whole row, not one measly unit, and maybe four if you are lucky.

Maybe so, but then an archer-based faction like the Silvan Elves would become OP.

[Berserker1]

What is op? Anyways, which attribute makes it so arrows kill units faster? Their is armor, and then there is shield, but which one? Also, can units have area attacks, you think when a troll swings at a group of soldiers, more than one would get hit.

Whatever op means, you got to be honest, if you have a huge wave of arrows hit a unit, and only one unit dies (in small unit size) maybe, imagine if that was applied to the movie in helms deep. I think the war of the rings would of been lost!

[confused german]

Hi Berserker, welcome!
Glad that you made it into the forum and into the Third Age mod. As an old LotR fan, I was absolutely stunned as you and thankful when I realized someone had finally made such great a LotR game.

Concerning your problem with the unit behaviour:
I know what your talking about and remembered that in my first encounters with TW this baffled me also.
Meanwhile I not only seemed to got used to it, but rather like this, because it makes micromanagement in the battle line so important. Remember always: he closer your guys stand to each other and the 'looser' the foes unit stands the more effective your soldier fight.

So, it depends on the units, but quite often for example there is a crucial benefit of doubleclicking an already engaged unit behind his enemy and then watch how the soldiers in the back run forward while the engaged soldiers at the front keep on fighting. Now, you have to carefully choose the point of time when you again click 'attack' on the enemy unit. In the best case your soldiers tighten up the line and start fighting immediately. Well, in the worst case, when you're too late or gor distracted, they just loose the line and run into their enemy spears - with high losses as a result.

Another worthy technique is to have a shieldwall unit behind an friendly unit engaged in melee combat. One-click this shieldwall unit behind the enemies unit and observe them walking into the enemy. If the start fighting just when they reach the enemy, one-click them again behind the enemy. When they begin to enter the enemy unit in full contact click 'attack' and watch what I call 'shieldwall charge'. You can see people fly around then.
I remember to have written an infantry combat guide for TW some time ago, there I explained all these things. I'll have a look for it if it's of some use still.

Referring to the arrow modding this threads might give you some support:
(Just heightening the arrow attack value isn't the thing though.)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=346568
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=346960
and if you've never been into edu deeply there's
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=221093

Kind regards & have lots of fun,
the german confuzius

EDIT: 'op' is probably referring to 'overpowered'. Alternative expression recommended would be 'imba'.

[Berserker1]

Thanks for the response, I am going to try out my much more accurate elven archers. The one thing is, how do you control how many units a troll can launch into the air? Simply increasing the attack, or what? Oh, on thing that bothers me is how often the elves defend, I watch a orc basically hack away at a elve, and he just keeps blocking. Elves should be a bit more aggresive.

[MonkeyChief]

'op' means 'original post/poster' btw
Maybe its just a UK thing?

[Berserker1]

So, he just said, those archers would become me?

Anyways, I have just made my changes, so all arrows are going to hurt a lot, but the question is, if they can hit type thing. I mean, as far as I know, arrows hitting you usually = death, its the accuracy that determines quality, and how far your arrows can go.

I just can not figure out what makes trolls push units back, is it mass, attack, or skill?

[Muffer Nl]

OP means either Over Powered or Opening Poster. Check the context.

[confused german]

OP means either Over Powered or Opening Poster. Check the context.

You're so good imo!
We even had both op's in this thread, when the op asked btw.
OMG -WTF!

[Muffer Nl]

Please don't push it too far or I might just...

You probably don't know but I have hacked the server and can now control every single user...

[Berserker1]

If a word has multiple meanings, do not use the abbreviation, plz and thank you. Typing aint that hard, I can understand if you are in a game. But, your on the internets

Anyways, no, It hink they are underpowered, a lot of things are. Berserkers are hardly worth mentioning, I swear I saw them swing and kill three elves/humans in one stroke! Arrows typically kill, or highly damage anything they hit, but some bows go further, and more accurate. And the crossbows should actually knock the units back, considering the movie.

I guess what I want, is the battles to be short and sweet (except for humongous battles), I think that is what I am going at, not the long drawn out shoot fest/sword fights where the elves are basically just being pansies, and playing defence with their swords. I just notice how they are almost afraid to hack away, they just wait for the orcs to make the first move. Which against more elite units might make since, but orcs should be almost fun to slash at.

[OfficerJohn]

Please don't push it too far or I might just...

You probably don't know but I have hacked the server and can now control every single user...

He doesn't control me

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Because I thoroughly support him

[Berserker1]

One thing is puzzling me, why are the orcs actually quite good? I sent berserkers on orc, and I made the berserker stats overwhelmingly better, yet they got slaughtered. I do notice the orcs tend to defend way less, and just attack. But, why do my berserkers always do that annoying defense?