DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

[Green Partizan]

Alright ! Reached turn 60. I'm going ok with Men of the Mountains, I conquered Calenardhon and western Gondor. Minas Anor has been taken by invasion then taken back by Gondor itself with Tol Acharn, so this feature is working well and does its balancing job.
So far :
- Mordor is quite asleep, not expanding ; Numenorean holds far better than Gondor in vanilla TATW ; yet the Northern Kingdom is losing some territories against Hillmen
- Elven factions are doing well
- Rhovanion is flourishing
- Orcs of the Misty Mountains are thriving ; they're the real threat in the North (Dwarves seem to turtle around their starting territories)

I've only had 2 CTD, when besieging rebel settlements (when the enemy sallies out), so I used auto_win to go through.

Problem I'm facing now, is that I'm ready and willing to switch culture and join the Numenorean. Yet I can't seem to achieve cultural change. I'm hundred percent sure I built the maximum level cultural buildings (Numenorean of course) in every settlement (sometimes 1st level, sometimes 2nd for the largest ones), but when I press alt+M, I get a generic message only explaining how to switch culture either way.
What am I missing ? Is this the power of Sauron stopping me from joining the West ?

[Withwnar]

Problem I'm facing now, is that I'm ready and willing to switch culture and join the Numenorean. Yet I can't seem to achieve cultural change. I'm hundred percent sure I built the maximum level cultural buildings (Numenorean of course) in every settlement (sometimes 1st level, sometimes 2nd for the largest ones), but when I press alt+M, I get a generic message only explaining how to switch culture either way.
What am I missing ? Is this the power of Sauron stopping me from joining the West ?

That message is also saying "For now they are still hesitating, and will not chose* at this point in time." Yes? This is shown when you have not yet built the maximum level culture building available in every one of your settlements. If you are dead certain that you haven't missed one somewhere then could you upload a save game somewhere for us to take a look? It might be a bug.

* Oops, typo!

[Green Partizan]

That message is also saying "For now they are still hesitating, and will not chose* at this point in time." Yes? This is shown when you have not yet built the maximum level culture building available in every one of your settlements. If you are dead certain that you haven't missed one somewhere then could you upload a save game somewhere for us to take a look? It might be a bug.

* Oops, typo!

It says indeed that they are still hesitating.
I just double-checked and no cultural building can be built in any settlement, or is under construction right now.

Here's my save game !
Thanks for you help !

[Withwnar]

@Green Partizan
I can't load that save. It crashes the game every time. It could be a problem with my install, maybe I've made changes to my copy of the game that aren't compatible with your save. I don't think so though. Do you have the latest patch installed?

Either way, looks like I won't be able to help.

[Louis Lux]

It crashes for me too, probably the mod is not patched.

[LuckyPistol]

- Rhovanion is flourishing

This is like the one TATW mod that doesn't have the Easterlings (AI) steamrolling their opponents.

[Fahnat]

[Withwnar]

@Green Partizan
Good news. I can now load your save and can see the problem. Adorn doesn't yet have a Library and it can't be built because you still have a Halabor there. Destroy that, build the Library, try again. It works for me.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Merry Christmas to all!

Been having a blast with this mod.

[King Athelstan]

Merry Christmas!

[Green Partizan]

@Green Partizan
Good news. I can now load your save and can see the problem. Adorn doesn't yet have a Library and it can't be built because you still have a Halabor there. Destroy that, build the Library, try again. It works for me.

Oh great ! So I did miss something ! Thanks a lot !

Meanwhile I started a campaign with the Kingdom of Lindon.
I guess it's a choice of the team to greatly nerf archers, am I right ? I'd say it's a bit disappointing since it's nearly not worth training archers, for they are expensive but quite weak, and infantry do the job better while being much more sturdy.
What do you think ?

[Veteraan]

Oh great ! So I did miss something ! Thanks a lot !

Meanwhile I started a campaign with the Kingdom of Lindon.
I guess it's a choice of the team to greatly nerf archers, am I right ? I'd say it's a bit disappointing since it's nearly not worth training archers, for they are expensive but quite weak, and infantry do the job better while being much more sturdy.
What do you think ?

I think they are much better than most (new) players realize, especially when they just look at the (available) specs. I usually have a great number of kills using any elven archer unit, especially when you avoid them getting caught in melee fighting. Having said that, they are indeed not the super kill units they often are in other mods and that is quite intentional. This mod is meant to be a challenge.

[Louis Lux]

What do you think ?

To expand on Veteraan's response. We use an archery accuracy submod where there are 12 "arrow types" each one with different accuracy values. So it may seem like some archer units have low stats when in fact they're using a very accurate arrow type that gives them a great advantage. We're implementing extra stats to the unit info card to reflect the different accuracy levels.

[LuckyPistol]

Oh great ! So I did miss something ! Thanks a lot !

Meanwhile I started a campaign with the Kingdom of Lindon.
I guess it's a choice of the team to greatly nerf archers, am I right ? I'd say it's a bit disappointing since it's nearly not worth training archers, for they are expensive but quite weak, and infantry do the job better while being much more sturdy.
What do you think ?

You think they're nerfed, but as others said above there are some seemingly small differences that make a world of difference. Experiment a bit in custom battles.

[Green Partizan]

All right I get it. Anyway I have full trust in the team to build something nice and balanced.
It's just that I found archers (of all factions) to look surprisingly close in terms of specs, while there seem to be greater differences (compared to vanilla TATW) between the weakest and the strongest infantry units.

However the mod itself looks quite well balanced since I'm having great trouble with "secondary" factions such as Hillmen of the North or Wildmen of Enedwaith. It's challenging and I like that !

[Earl of Memory]

Often you will find that archers get more than their share of kills after battle, whereas infantry... not so much, so really it's just a matter of protecting them long enough for the enemy to lose morale and rout.

[King Athelstan]

Aye - tactics are key here to a larger degree than the vanilla game, one can't just doomstack the elite and instantly rolftstomp everything

[Fahnat]

I forgot to mention that if you guys want to use this video for any opening of the faction or other type of event video, your welcome to use it.

[sarpedon21]

is very hard the reccomended battle difficulty? on that difficulty setting most units will not break but fight untill 10-15% of it remains making the battles a meatgrinder. a peasant unit can 1on1 a dwarven warden and kill half the dwarfs number before routing.

[King Athelstan]

Very hard is indeed the recommended difficulty - If the peasants don't rout in a 1v1, try flanking them, hammer+anvil, arrows, cavalry, etc - Tactics are more important, and there are a lot of hidden variables that affect how units perform. I used to hate the Dwarven spearmen and thought they underperformed heavily, but as they came across higher tier enemies they really came into their own.