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

  1. #3241

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

    If not, just let Mordor have one-handed animations for the said mace.

  2. #3242

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

    I noticed that the cloak chains for the Numenorean Guardians, under the vanilla name in Milkshape as schnalle01, it was mismatched, as opposed to the preview image. Instead of assigned to the attachments texture (num_infbg_diff_norm), it went to the Figure texture (num_infbg).
    Click image for larger version. 

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  3. #3243
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    The DCI team are happy to present the terrifying Balrog
    ** made by Louis Lux **

    THE BALROG


    Among Tolkien's creations, the Balrog is one of the most intriguing and talked about . Their appearance is a source of debate probably due to the mystery and vagueness of their description but also due to the fact that their nature changed and evolved throughout the years. In our depiction of the Balrog we've aimed to adhere firmly to the text (at least the strongest interpretation of the text) but also to reconcile the aesthetics of the movie, the mod's own aesthetic and the limitations of the game.



    Nature and Form


    Balrogs are powerful Maiar in the service of Morgoth, a Valar. Maiar and Valar are by nature discarnate but could incarnate and acquire a physical body or hröa (famous examples being Melian, Sauron and the Istari) and could therefore be killed. There are many examples of Maiar reincarnating but it seems to depend on the stature of their spirit and in Sauron's case the presence of an anchor such as the One Ring. It's possible but unlikely that the Balrog that survived beyond the First Age was a reincarnated spirit. Balrogs are referred many times as 'demons' which led many to depict them with horns, tails, cloven feet and other attributes of biblical demons. Similarly, Tolkien refers to Angband as 'hell' and the Istari as 'angels' but those associations are only symbolic. The word 'demon' is not exclusive to balrogs and is rather used to refer to an evil spirit or to any original form an evil spirit takes. There is no reason to give Balrogs demonic attributes (horns, tail) and those attributes are never mentioned in the text. The Balrog is described as having a 'man-shape' in The Fellowship of the Ring and in the drafts as 'no more than man-high' and 'of man-shape maybe, and not much larger'. There are earlier descriptions of Balrogs being much larger but the description in FotR should be viewed as the most accurate and final one. The form of the Balrog is described as of humanoid shape, taller than most Elves and Men, and wreathed in shadow and flame.



    Purpose and Armour


    Balrogs serve as captains of Morgoth's armies and sometimes as his torturers. Despite not uttering any words in any of the books, as Maiar and Captains it's safe to assume that they were capable of speech and were intelligent. There are a couple of mentions of Balrogs wearing iron armour and their flesh could be pierced so some protection would make sense. The armour in this case is derived from the armour of the Boldogs and Sauron (other corrupted Maiar).



    Physical Attributes


    Concerning wings, Morgoth sought to steal the ability to fly from the Eagles and the Eagles are described as being out of reach from Orc and Balrog, which points to Balrogs not having wings. The wings mentioned in FotR are accompanied by phrases describing the shadow around the Balrog becoming larger. Therefore, the most credible interpretation of the text is that the wings are shadows or illusions projected by the Balrog's menacing aura. Durin's bane is described as having 'furnace-fire' yellow eyes and a 'fiery mane'. I've taken those descriptions to be figurative rather than literal and have simply given the Balrog yellow eyes and long red hair. Sharp claws are mentioned in the text and I also decided to give him sharp teeth.



    Weapon

    Balrogs wielded all sorts of weapons but Durin's Bane specifically used a red flaming sword and a whip of flame. Because of the game limitations my focus was really on the red sword part, so I tried to give it a distinct look.


    I gathered most of the information in here from these two sources:
    On Balrogs
    Ëalar and Incarnation
    Last edited by Louis Lux; April 09, 2022 at 08:00 AM.

  4. #3244
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by RaiderofMordor View Post
    I noticed that the cloak chains for the Numenorean Guardians, under the vanilla name in Milkshape as schnalle01, it was mismatched, as opposed to the preview image. Instead of assigned to the attachments texture (num_infbg_diff_norm), it went to the Figure texture (num_infbg).
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	tol acharn army.jpg 
Views:	19 
Size:	127.9 KB 
ID:	366855
    Thanks for the bug report. We'll fix it.

  5. #3245

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

    Okay so I was planning on making a post after progressing to at least 120 turns, but Im getting a crash Autosave.7z. Here I provide the save game where Enedwaith turn is causing crash, in the hopes it helps with finding bugs.
    I have the mod patched with the mod db patch and I think i followed all instructions, its not my first mod install so im confident I did everything including cleaning the necessary files properly.

    Well I was very hyped for this mod 2 years ago, and when it came out I couldnt play it, but finally found time.

    I played a campaing with the Kingdom of Khazad Dûm, overall music, the new skins and the map were extremely high quality, this mod is up there in terms of immersion and looks, I especially love the re-imagined/closer to the books skins.

    The fastest way to describe this campaing is a single word.... PAIN.
    The economy is a joke and I found my self always at my limit operationaly, I had way too many war fronts with way too few meaningfull targets. The first and only worthwhile settlement I captured was GoblinTown.

    Many avaiable units have queastionable performance. Two handed units are not given dmg bonus to cover for their bad animations, its very pronounced with low tier units such as Miners, but even the supposedly tough Goblin 2 handed orcs and goblins are a joke, much easier to kill than 1 handed snaga due to thier poorly performing animations and badly scaled damage. Because of the prominence of 2 handed units in the roster, this units cant really be trusted with fighting frontally so they are relegated to flanking manouvers to minimice casualties ( they still get shredded in long lasting combat, even with favourable odds).

    Dwarven warriors ( longbeard axemen) are overpriced and badly equipped, similarly to vanilla but for some reason I gotta overpay them, not worth to recruit unless pre-barracks event and only for numbers reasons, they have good animations and are a good fodder for lategame if economy gets fixed somehow ( found a few gamey ways to adquire money, like selling settlements, or trading valuable settlements with AI, last turn before crash I got one of the elven provinces with 1k production in exchange for erebor and Dale which were both producing 200 each, i was in my way to send warriors to prevent a rebellion).

    Overall decent units cost a lot to maintain, not much difference between the best units ( such as Ered Luin halberds) and the worst out of the usable ones ( like nogrod raiders). General spam and continous frontline use is the best tactic I have used so far, with low casualties and massive success in both settlement and open field battles, relying on this units for frontline rather than any others including spears or khazad swords nets the best results.

    I guess I had bad luck but Numenor, Lindon and Green Wood elves were all losing their neighbour fronts even though i was attacking settlements and going into bankrupcy constantly ( so I could get something close to an army, only to meet a fullstack I cant beat in open field), went out of my way to attack, and attack and attack, with no rewards. There is no point in progressing through Forodwaith because its a wasteland full of Bolgor generals. There is no point in playing around defending Erebor and Dale because both cities are trashland with low income and slow growth/hall script. Ered Luin has the best troop of the faction but is far away from the best frontline to push through, even in ideal conditions due to the low development of forodwaith there is no way to setup roads to make them get closer to goblin town faster, going through numenorian and Elven territory seems to be the only way.

    I guess I had a very bad earlygame preparation, I should have camped more and I guess exploited AI deals to get a better headstart. Even doing this I dont think getting mines in Ered Luin would have changed much due to the corruption.

    I would say my expririence up until this point was fun, but besides being a rough early game expirience I cannot speak of mid-lategame due to the crash. Although I think the campaing wasnt going to get much more manageable as time passed tbh.

    Garrison script feels cheap as it doesnt benefit the player, only the AI ( I got sieged once in Khazad Dum, no additional dwarves for defense sadly) I get the objective is make a hardcore/harder than other submods expiriences but I feel like it could be a staple mechanic both the AI and the player enjoy, as to make the ilussion of playing a campaing.

    Campaing feels slow, which is fine, but I can foresee my future more optimiced campaings to be based around clicking that end turn button a lot without much going on, unless sending the generals into tactical settlement sieges to get some money off of diplomacy due to their replenishment, i have played slower campaings like Orocarni Dwarves in PCP, but the slow progress was offsetted by the fact that PCP has an absurd amount of buildings , so you always have something to click on and get benefits growing your cities, vanilla is faster and the 2 war fronts are much more straight forward and worth fighting over. If anything I think Ered Luin should give more money so its worth fighting over, same for Erebor specifically. Hall script comes so late might as well sell erebor early game for a better city from lothlorien, which sounds absurd lorewise but quite a sounding move strategically, due to the great economical boost this generates.

    If I manage to get further in future campaings I will give more feedback. Of course If I manage to get around the crash I will keep playing this one, any suggestions on how to do so with console commands would be welcomed.

    Regardless of everything said this mod is a great expirience, thank you for you amazing work.

  6. #3246
    Araval's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Thanks for your feedback!

    I've never played Khazad myself but I tried to memorize some starter tips. You can't afford to go offensive on three fronts. Choose one and defend on others (maybe two if you're more experienced). Hammer and anvil tactics for battles and remember that victories won't come without sacrifice.

    Garrison script is to compensate stupid AI, humans should know that if they leave their settlements poorly defended, they might loose them.

  7. #3247
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Elven Lords



  8. #3248

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

    VERY nice indeed!
    DCI: Last Alliance: Unit maker. Proud member of The Imperial House of Hader

  9. #3249
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    What earl said!

    Citizenised by Shankbot - Patron of b0Gia - House de Bodemloze

  10. #3250
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Event picture I did today. Thought it might look cool as a signature.


  11. #3251

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Louis Lux View Post
    Elven Lords

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    This looks superb and so well done. Congratulations team!

  12. #3252

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

    Quality mod you have there guys.
    Nice new unit models with realistic size of weapons, your new model of Balrog looks great and Sauron is cool as well.
    Some cons: generals get bad traits too often, cities grow too slow to reach elite units unless you take AI settlements. Numenor is too passive when playing as Mordor maybe because they have 2 kingdoms and AI can't handle it. Not enough of big battles in late game compared with other mods, maybe increasing settlement income would create bigger AI armies more often.
    Spiders/wolves are OP so I disabled them, archers are too strong for my taste, unit balancing is weird like moria goblin infantry is elite unit stat wise.
    I enjoyed your mod for many hours and will continue to play much more.

  13. #3253
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by Grobar View Post
    Quality mod you have there guys.
    Nice new unit models with realistic size of weapons, your new model of Balrog looks great and Sauron is cool as well.
    Some cons: generals get bad traits too often, cities grow too slow to reach elite units unless you take AI settlements. Numenor is too passive when playing as Mordor maybe because they have 2 kingdoms and AI can't handle it. Not enough of big battles in late game compared with other mods, maybe increasing settlement income would create bigger AI armies more often.
    Spiders/wolves are OP so I disabled them, archers are too strong for my taste, unit balancing is weird like moria goblin infantry is elite unit stat wise.
    I enjoyed your mod for many hours and will continue to play much more.
    Thanks for the feedback. The frequency of bad traits is kind of part of medieval 2. It would be nice to have an updated trait system but it's a lot of work and we don't have anyone currently working on it. One way to mitigate bad traits is to not leave generals inside settlements for too many turns.

    The goal of the mod is to be different and to not constantly be fighting large battles. Moria infantry is an elite unit, it's also AOR and rare. I don't really see what's strange about it.

  14. #3254

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

    i have the same experience as draco playing ered luin, economy is really bad and the dwarf units cant hold their own in most fight 1on1 fight against goblin/orc units. one thing i do though that i find it help at the start is to get a general and all the troops stationed in ered luin to moria, avoiding fights. then i gather whatever troops i have recruited in moria and rush the goblin towns in the misty mountains. generally as the campaign goes on the ai starts to field better full stacks that are a pain as a dwarf to deal with.

  15. #3255
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    I'm open to giving some dwarf units a bit of a buff. If you have specific suggestions regarding stats or unit prices let us know.

  16. #3256

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

    Regarding a possible buff for Dwarves i think it comes down to Performance/maintenance cost ratio.
    Economy is tough, there is no Erebor to give big gains, lots of enemies. I Continued the Campaing up to Conquering Gundabad itself, got busy with exams, will try to finish it in July.
    Overall numbers have always been much stronger in third age mod and submods. Main issue so far is that performance does not match cost.
    I dont necessarily dislike the tougher campaing in itself, but it can become very slow and long, not figuring out the useless units can be costly as a newer player will certainly lose battles due to poor performing units, or will be crippled into submission.
    Main reasons for it to be "slow":
    -Ai seems to get scripted stacks, I dont know how often or what triggers it, but seems to be certain settlements loss, this scripted stacks require lots of Elite troops present to guarantee a low casualty victory, artillery or some other tool to avoid heavy casualties or matching numbers 1 to 3 with fodder.
    -All dwarven troops have absurd upkeep regardless of how good their equipment is. Upkeep variation is too low (200-400), overall too high.
    -Most low-mid tier dwarven units have equal/lower stats than troops widely used by the orcs. This translates in massive losses even with ideal tactical situations (flanking, high terrain). Also translates in total decimation/defeat when facing bad odds.
    -Replenishment on recruitment pool for most Dwarven units is very slow, which makes every death something to mourn, combined with bad performance/upkeep ratio makes the faction be scared of fighting.
    -Starting settlements are underdeveloped useless chunks that require up to 100k investment each to support a proper war effort ( being able to face Goblin armies comfortably, replenishing losses).

    This makes the campaing extremely high attrition expirience, where every step must be calculated and evaluated, I required 4 spies to get every Goblin army location and plan sieges accordingly, getting cities with near to no garrison was a requirment in order to be able to fight bigger goblin armies, again open field battles are a complete no-no situation.

    So assuming the grim dark tough slow campaing is the intended expirience, what kind of buffs are you considering? Due to low numbers dwarves cant really do anything with 1-3 points higher in any stat they will still heavily underperform.
    I think the campaing situation naturally makes battling not desirable. i find especially funny the placement of certain ror units like Halberds and Dual swords in Ered Luin (The "frozen front") where they are not usefull until a Moria-Ered Luin road connection for troop supply.

    Goblins simply have the number advantage and some tough times even the quality advantage.

    Some thoughts on specifc units that might need buffs/upkeep reductions:

    Useless/Money Drain tier:

    -Miners might as well be deleted of the game as they are, no use. In any other Submod/vanilla third age they would be the backbone of the early game armies, here they are an economical drain that cannot be justified. They die by the sneeze of a snaga and cant kill anything. Give them stats or make them near free otherwise I advise any Dwarven enjoyer to avoid them at all costs, and only recruit as emergency fodder to allow city defenses.
    -Dwarven Travelers:Miners with shields and rarer with lower replenishment.... big never recruit. Damage/armor/defense/lower upkeep anything would be good to make them less comically bad.
    -Longbeard Axemen replenishment is a joke, damage is also quite bad, cant see any usage other than expensive fodder. Higher replenishment and lower upkeep would make them usable as a backbone infantry unit. I recommend 8-9 damage.
    -Ironhills Ror are a funny joke, yeah they seem to be just slightly better miners, i can still laugh at their underwhelming performance melee against the weakest of Rhun units, Right now overpriced Fodder to protect the usable units.

    Currently somewhat usable:

    -Spearmen are the current best "low cost" infantry avaiable, they dont do damage, but can hold the line for long time, which makes them perfect anvil for Noble Units to sweep from flanks. A bit overpriced, could get a small damage buff so they kill something themselves.
    -Dual Swords from Ered luin could get higher armor, ( so they survive a bit) or a massive damage increase so they do their role better, no reason to use them other than necessary filler when Rhudaur attacks the Ered Luin cities.


    Overpriced/underdeveloped "Good":

    Belegost DragonBanes would hardly survive fighting a First age drake, let alone a Dragon. 19 Armor for their avaiability, rarity and replenishment alongisde prohibitive cost and maintenance.... is not enough. Amazing looks but the unit fail to find a role in the army. needs desperately higher armor, I would recommend nothing less than 22-26.

    Gundabad Champions need more damage/armor to be actually meaningful/distinct. No reason to not prioritize Durins Chosen supply line over them. lack of Shield makes them less than ideal to Fight rhudaur, stats makes them not ideal to face Bolgors. Desperately need over 25 armor at the very least, i would give them 30 just to make them something to look forward as the player expands and would signify the restoration of Gundabad.



    Every other non-mentioned unit:
    Good price/performance ratio recruit and use extensively,, casualties will be very present, re-recruitment lines will be slow, caution is necessary, all units would benefit from a less harsh upkeep or replenishment recruitment rates but they are good enough in combat to support the ever necessary commander units.

    Overall Dwarven stats seem to have been made in 1-1 comparison to other factions. Considering their lower numbers makes them questionably bad, add the higher importance of flanking and terrain and they will face non-desirable odds and unoptimal stats.

    Whatever you decide to do the campaing is fun, slow a bit of slog, but fun. Unit designs are great. Buffs to campaing situation would aliviate the toughness, otherwise upkeep reductions would help viability and army fielding. Ultimately stat changes would be great to make unit performance a bit better and make roles of each unit more distinct, right now is a bit confusing as many units seem to be unoptimal bait (as of recruit once, enjoy looks, send to fight never recruit again).
    I would advocate for interesting affordable units as after the Defeat of Gundabad orcs the campaing kind of finishes difficulty wise, I would make certain units more memorable so the journey is enjoyed a bit more.
    Never expected having to use a burned land tactic and Guerrlla tactics against goblins extensively, interesting, tough, bloody, sad and emotional campaing.
    if I get time this summer I will give a go to the goblins themselves, I have the feeling it would be a more dynamic campaing with multiple fronts and lots of land to sack.

  17. #3257
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Thanks for the feedback. We'll make some changes to the Dwarves for the next release that is coming soon. If you're able to play them again when you have some spare time and share your experience it would be much appreciated. It would also be interesting to know if the Dwarves become too much of a challenge for OotMM players after the stat changes.

  18. #3258
    Araval's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Quote Originally Posted by Draco View Post
    ...
    Did you use armour piercing units specifically against heavily armoured units?

    Did you realise that the Travallers are faster runners than the other dwarves?

  19. #3259

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Araval View Post
    Did you use armour piercing units specifically against heavily armoured units?

    Did you realise that the Travallers are faster runners than the other dwarves?
    I want you to realize that my opinion on the units is heavily affected by 2 factors. the first is the economic struggle the second how hard it is to replenish this troops back into the army.
    travellers are faster than usual dwarf, could get flanks could pursue sure..., good number of troops with AP is going to be usefull, but you can give sticks with 1 damage to the units I didnt mention in my post that work wonderfully, like any of heavy armored units and I would still put them as usefull and worthy.

    The most important aspect of the slow dwarves is their sturdiness and capability to hold the line, factors that go against this (terrain disadvantage, enemy doing successfull flanking, enemy ranged focus fire, dangerous troops...) must be tackled by the dwarven player to ensure sucess of the campaing.

    The moment your dwarven units are taking above 40% of the unit as casualty you can consider the unit wasted/badly used unless you were fighting 1-4 or worse odds. Anything that isnt a miner is going to take long before its avaiable again.

    Fighting goblin armies have a lot of inherent annoyances that makes the fighting a struggle. The first is the fact that you will face AI most of the time on the offensive, this is due to the fact they will move troops in small/medium sized groups in mountanous areas. When entering battles with higher/ equal numbers you will be met with Ai that takes good positioning in favourable terrain, and will reposition using their speed the moment you get to leveled terrain. This is realistic and cool, you need some sacrificial miner to start AI agression going and good manouvering/ranged advantage to get the situation out of a unfavourable one, this is very important because terrain multipliers seem to be much more important in this mod, at least the casualty ratios are much higher, even units that are considered good/best in dwarven roster will get slaughtered uphill by melee snaga. terrain disadvantage is somewhat lessened by armor, but prolonged combat will surface lots of casualties either way. Bless the skirmish mode being a thing for AI lmao, if AI used half of those javelin snagas to flank/simply attack frontally they would inflict much more damage, instead of being easy pickings for archers. Then goblins sometimes get those nightmarish wolves those units are a menace I get PCP monsters ptsd whenever they appear.

    So as dwarven player with slow units you will naturally avoid openfield in mountains unless the army has enough ranged offense or is supported by artillery.

    Here comes flat terrain performance, most of the time you need troops capable of holding so you can get a flanking manouver going, or time for the archers to clean up. Miners, travellers,ironhill veterans... this units simply lack stats to warrant low casualty rates on ideal conditions, thus they require often replacement or retraining. Then the replenishment and cost factors come into play, especialy when compared with better troops. Why recruit miners or travellers when their effect on economy will be worse than the benefits that they bring to battle. By increassing the numers of your garrisons and armies they will make less likely for AI to attack with smaller forces, thus they become a strategical liability, because of their low stats they cant really hold themselves for long enough to allow other units to flank in time, they will generally just not do their job as good as other units while being very similarly priced in upkeep, thus becoming a tactical liability. Pit them with any decent goblin unit and they will simply get crushed while not inflicting enough damage, their potential contribution and importance in the army is too low for the cost of keeping them in the army, so if economy is tight they are not worth.

    Generally my opinion is that either Stat increase, keeping upkeep, or upkeep reduction,keeping stats the same would be good to make this units more desirable. As a goblin player I would not hesitate getting snaga and light goblin infantry in mass, because their numbers and speed will make me win lots of battles. However as a dwarven player the economy will be crippled and the gains will be minimal.

    Overall I think the archetypes of each units are good, the problem is that beggars cant be choosers and thats the situation Dwarves deal with. Miners, ironhill veterans and travellers do not increase the strength and projecting power of the Dwarven armies because of the combined disadvantages that their usage warrants. If having 2 miners is going to prevent me getting a fourth spear and shield unit in the upcoming 5 turns that will perform /replace losses of the current army recruiting the miner will only cripple me and make my armies weaker as battles are fought, in other words it is more expensive and with worse consecuences to have a consistent replacement line of miners, than it is to have a less consistent but existent replacement line of stronger troops.
    The only 3 consistent usage I gave to miners/ironhill veterans and travellers (Usually 2 per army, max of 4 per army when preparing a critical siege) were : 1.Sacrifical role, in other words attacking high value enemy units, such as elite goblin archers, elite infantry to be tied down by this low value troops, inflict as many losses posible with intent of crippling with disregard of their state, just to allow main frontline to deal with the rest of the goblin army/give archers time to eliminate unshielded threats. 2. Risky flanking, flanking when traversing non-desireable terrain or uncertain situations. 3. Emergency frontliners for defensive overwhelming odds situation as important parts of circle shaped or triangle shaped flanking bonus fishing formations where the front is severely punished while the elite filled flanks advance to kill overwhelming forces. This tasks are fine for their stats and they did as fine as one can expect, they can help win me a single battle with massive casualties on them but not more. Since they do not really affect the overall performance of the army and their usage is usually not important I would sacrifice them to minimice casualties on the good usable troops, during sieges they would usually sit back as they usually die too much and their sacrificial role would not be as valuable, when commander units and stronger infantry can do a better job without suffering as many casualties, and casualties taken while conquering Goblin town or Gundabad are worth casualties to take on stronger troops, unlike fighting some random stack in the wilderness that blocks the way to the desired fort or taking the majority of the pushing power of a full stack trying to conquer a city.

    It would be a much more different story if Miner usage would warrant true abundancy of troops, but it doesnt due to economical and avaiabilty factors.

    Then again this factors make the campaing what it is, a fun expiriences but plagued with decision making that is the difference of a stagnating losing war or a great victory against overwhelming odds.

    This is not to say Miners or travellers should be terminators or something, I just fail to see compelling reasons to recruit them in comparison to vanilla Third Age, MOS,DAC,PCP... Here you recruit them because you see a full stack that spawned 3 turns ago and is going to conquer Goblin Town after all the hard work you did, so you need something that those "goblin veterans" can eat for breakfast, economy and logistics can wait to be a concern after that stack dies.

    Sry for the wall of texts, im not trying to argue just sharing thoughts on the wonderfull mod you made ( writing about games is a good way to clear up the mind after long sessions of study), still one of the most enjoyable Dwarven expiriences I have had since I started playing Third Age. I have severe Dwarveoneitis that I plan to cure playing goblins asap. Maybe a goblin player can share thoughts on how Ai has managed the dwarven troops on their end, or how the elven front or the dual Dwarven front affects player controlled economy on the goblin side.

  20. #3260
    Louis Lux's Avatar Into the Light
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    Default Re: DCI: Last Alliance - Open Beta released, NEW: 10 October 2020 new patch released, contains Ents - Wolves - Spiders crashes fix! (and more)

    Gundabad Champions need more damage/armor to be actually meaningful/distinct. No reason to not prioritize Durins Chosen supply line over them. lack of Shield makes them less than ideal to Fight rhudaur, stats makes them not ideal to face Bolgors. Desperately need over 25 armor at the very least, i would give them 30 just to make them something to look forward as the player expands and would signify the restoration of Gundabad.
    Have you used them in battle? They have 2 hit points which should make them one of the most powerful units in the game.
    Last edited by Louis Lux; June 12, 2022 at 11:18 PM.

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