Custom Battles for Third Age

[RubiconDecision]

I'm guessing that perhaps 10-20% of the people playing this mod actually play through the battles. That's the norm for most mods as a lot of people enjoy being builders and autoresolving. I'm the opposite. I enjoy fighting every battle and discovering the interesting terrain since each battle is different as a result.

If there's interest, I'd be willing to explore across Middle Earth and create 25-50 spots that were unique because of fighting in a dense forest, mountain top, along a passage, fighting an uphill battle, shore battles with limited manuevering, river crossings (no bridge), bridge battles, dry stream beds, etc. Those are way more fun than a siege or defense of one. Of course, changing the weather or fighting in different seasons, or time all have major impacts upon the success of the battle, and this adds to the fun.

A battle site is the result of the nine map coordinates points in an array of three by three like this:
XXX
XOX
XXX
Where the O in the middle is the battle map coordinate. The X's are the approach from those direction toward the foe or them towards you.

Say one direction is unapproachable because of a shoreline to your West like this:
XXU
XOU
XXU
Where U= unapproachable attack map coordinates. Then the attacker wants in general to attack from the best vantage point to the O= the army being attacked. This means that if the coordinates are labeled thus:
123
456
789
Where 1= NorthWest (NW), 2 =N, 3 =NE, 4=West, 5=Origin of army being attacked, 6 = East, 7 = SW, 8 = South, and 9 = SE
but in this specific case:
12U
4OU
78U
Which means that O= the army being attacked and U=unavailable approaches, then an attacker can only attack from 1(NW), 2 (North), 4(West), 7(SW), or 8(S).

Now the map coordinates can be located and set up as custom battles, but you're manuevering on the battle field to get the best approach so your infantry is not ascending to attack and so has less momentum. Likewise you want elevation for your archers and artillery (such as it is) to cast arrows in an arc downward for most range.

Think of it this way, in the campaign, one may maneuver to get to elevated ground and then attack the other army such that their position is worse than yours. The O is the place where the battle takes place.

In a custom battle you can't do that, but you can pick which half of the field to be on. Of course usually unless it's like a football (soccer) field, it's not perfectly flat so one team has an advantage.

What I've done before is label the field by showing a character standing upon the map coordinates if possible so you know that you're fighting in the viscinity of a particular settlement locale. Then include pictures of the battlefield and put that in a pdf so you can get your bearings and pick appropriate armies to fight together.

Because many kinds of terrain are impassable, there no way you'd ever fight there. Likewise, there are only so many battles, mostly waiting for battles to happen, or influencing them to happen. As a result, using custom battles means a lot of enjoyment because you could have a battle on a mountain peak that you could never fight in Third Age. You might play a thousand turns (at least) to fight on that particular map coordinate. This makes custom battles really great.

Are you interested in trying it? It would take about a week of work to document the potential battlesites, make screenshots, custom battle map graphics, and then present the minimod. Then I'd include a pdf of the battlesites.

Let me know by indicating your interest to play. I'll post some example screen caps here soon.

As long as the map remains the same as Third Age, then in general you can be using any submod to fight upon those map coordinates in your own games.

Note: For people who don't usually fight battles, this is a great way to learn what works and what doesn't. Including some map cooridnates in common areas means that you've fought there before and so know what is the best army composition to sally and fight or what are great ambush spots too.

[knight of meh]

hmm i would like to see it if it's possible...

and put them in places were you can get lots of battles

Edit:quick question you say you have done this before does it increase the resources needed to fight battles at all

[RubiconDecision]

hmm i would like to see it if it's possible...

and put them in places were you can get lots of battles

Edit:quick question you say you have done this before does it increase the resources needed to fight battles at all

There's two parts to what you are asking. Let's address that:
1. I can place the new battlefields almost anywhere. There are only a handful of places that you can't define in a custom battle location:
a) volcanoes are out as they really are graphics placed upon the map, not actually surfaces to accurately generate a battlefield
b) some water tiles along shores result in a humorous condition. You can set up armies and then once you begin the battle, they DROWN!
c) Some places on the campaign map result in a CTD so I can't or won't cause that to happen to your game.

You don't know this, but those custom settlements that are created upon the surface of Middle Earth end up altering the elevation of the map coordinate. It can raise or lower it. So I can configure the map coordinate beneath Bree for example, but the map may look quite different without a city. With a city, it will look similar.

2. Resources. I have not found custom battles to be any different in creating lag during the game.

If you have lag, then I recommend that you do this:
a) if using Steam, then run it in offline mode.
b) if connected to the Internet while playing, turn off your Wifi so that you stop creating more heat in your computer. Often people play using laptops and the fan circulation is weaker so reducing any heat whatsoever results in less lag.
c) Use Advanced SystemCare (free to download and use) to shut down unneeded programs and services. It will free up memory to reduce lag.
d) If running too hot, get a cooling fan. It makes a dramatic difference.
e) Don't try to use the highest textures and grass (a really laggy portion of the program). Try medium settings.
f) Since you're disconnected to the Internet, turn off your antivirus while playing Third Age. Don't forget to turn it back on. It makes a major difference in reducing lag.
g) If you are using an older laptop, sometimes the heat sink paste is cracked and isn't transferring heat to the fan. It can be easily replaced. I used to have lag issues with Third Age and it ran extremely hot. Now in battles I can run at maximum textures and effects and not have any lag or heat issues.

I have a very low end 2007 Asus laptop and if my old system can run it with no lag, then chances are you can too if you do some troubleshooting.

[RubiconDecision]

Please also answer the poll so I know how complicated to make the pdf to explain basic battle terms and strategy. Also please indicate in your posts which kind of battles most interest you among these choices or your own: shore battles, mountaintop, fighting in a previously disallowed impassible area, narrow passage battles, river crossings fighting in the water, bridge battles, dry stream beds, fighting in a swamp, fighting uphill (usually costly unless you use great formations), flat terrain, rolling meadows, dense forest, scattered brush, insert your own kind.

[knight of meh]

narrow passes any kind , uphill battles , would also like to try swamp battles in a med 2 engine cavalry being slowed would be interesting

... in reference to the poll may answer doesn't fit .. i auto resolve only in the med late game when i have vastly superior numbers ... an army facing one doesn't interest me unless i am trying to conserve troops on the way to Mordor ... could that be added to the poll?

Also i would try and steer clear of military terms in the pdf as much as possible there are people who speak other languages that download these mods and jut because you play these games allot doesn't mean you will know military terms

[paradamed]

I never autoresolve. I never get bored to see these beautiful units in battle.

[RubiconDecision]

I autoresolve when I'm modding and in a hurry and want to play a few turns to see what happens. Maybe a marathon burst with ten hours of free time, and so I can't fight each battle. Conversely, I can fight ten battles in a row in custom battles within the span of a couple of hours because it's very enjoyable to play the dynamic collisions of units on various terrain. Playing the campaign takes a lot of time. For me the custom battles are way more fun. In other mods that resolve turns faster, I always fight every battle. By doing so you get far more new generals. Paying attention to the relative strength and speed of the units versus the ones invading means that you can get a victory or a heroic victory many times . A lot of people think of battles like chess with one unit pitting their mettle against another unit. That's not realistic, and I know we're talking about Third Age and elfs. Real battles are more like dancing spinning moving billards upon a moving table in 3D with elevations and weather and availability of light. Attacking one unit against another is brute force against brute force nd very high unit deaths versus clever formations to pin and flank and feignt and overbearing with shields, etc. Battles are NOT like chess at all. I hope some autoresolving players give this a try when it comes out. I expect to have it out very soon since it's no fun waiting for months for something.

[RubiconDecision]

Explanation of Custom Battle for Third Age

I don't know about you, but while I greatly enjoy being a King and improving settlements, what I really want to do is win the game by kicking Orc butt. There is precious little of that (“my precioussssss”) as it takes a lot of time until I'm strong enough to actually be in a position to do much of that.

So, custom battles in Third Age allows us to fight any siege battle or upon designated battlefields. Those are great and I enjoy fighting those. Each of those poses challenges and you can learn about tactics from fighting them.

But something else that I most enjoy is exploring. One of the great aspects of the Middle Earth franchise is exploring regions to meet interesting people, then kill them. Excellent, no? Maybe while I most enjoy playing as the High Elves, I really have a little Sauron in my heart.

Now most people don't know this, but you can mostly fight upon any battle location in Middle Earth, it just is that most people don't know how. After making the mod, I'll be happy to explain to people how to make your own battlefields. It's an excellent way to practice NOW before the Orcs are beating down the doors of your castle keep.

Now it's a bit of work so I don't want to spend a lot of time creating something that doesn't seem all that thrilling. Maybe a lot of you don't actually fight the battles because you like to autoresolve. You lose far less soldiers that way as a beginner, and so if you're concerned about that, and have limited time to play, then folks autoresolve.

If that's the case, I encourage you to learn how to fight battles in my minimod, because this way, you'll learn how to use tactics to damage the enemy using formation and elevation and range to minimize the death of your soldiers. After all, the units are expensive, and in the case of Elves, they're long lived and it's awful when even one dies. I doubt many people mourn the death of Orcs.

If you're not interested in the magic behind the scenes then you can skip to later spoiler boxes, but I encourage you to read the whole post.

The Process

Here's what I did to research one battlefield. The process takes about 30 minutes the first time you do it, but then gets faster. What takes time is: Explaining where the battlefield is located on the campaign map Explaining where the deployment areas are Understanding the custom battle menu Showing how to configure it Demonstrating tactics For now, I'll show you one battlefield, and how I found and configured it. Some of you are explorers at heart, and so you can help me find a battlefield that you'd enjoy fighting upon, and I'll then add some of those to the minimod.

An interesting place around Black Gate

OK, here's an interesting place in Mordor. It's SW of the Black Gate, but my scout can't go there. It's in an impassible region of the mountain. The red dot is the actual map coordinate. The 1st pic is an aerial view, the 2nd pic showing the variance in terrain. Let's take a closer look. There's a waterfall here. Cool. Based upon the depth of the stream, we can sometimes cross the water or not, we have to look closely using the Battle Editor, something most people have never used in Third Age. I first need the map coordinates, so I type the ~ button (different for other people based upon their country and keyboards), then type toggle_fow to see the whole map, then click with my mouse on the point of the map I am interested in. Now that's easy when a scout is standing upon a map location (called a tile), but you have to intentionally click on the map location and then type in show_cursorstat to see if you get map coordinates. Here they are: 268 145. For clarity, I placed a red dot so you know precisely where the battlefield will be.

A view in the Battle Editor

Here's what that looks like. The Battle Editor allows me to explore the region and see if it's appropriate for a battlefield. It's not, merely a mountain plateau with the waterfall at the edge. So we change the map coordinate one point in the X and Y axis to get were we want. Not what we want. The waterfall is beyond the red boundary box. Let's try relocating. That's better. 267 145 got what we desired. Here's what it looks like configured as a custom battlefield. I'll skip the modding aspects. The important thing is finding many scouts among you who wish to help find interesting battlefields. Maybe you always get crushed in a location. If so, then I can configure that one battlefield for you for if you're having a tough time fighting there, then others are also.This means those of you who find places that look great, then post the show_cursorstat map coordinates in this subforum, and then I can pick some of those as new battlefields in the minimod.

Let's fight there and see what happens.

I picked Gondor and Rohan randomly. The game configures a bridge there (but sometimes if shallow, it does not). Note the radar window to the left. It shows where the first team and second team may deploy the soldiers (place them on the battlefield. Once deployed of course they may move almost anywhere as long as it's within the red boundaries of the battlefield. Exception: most streams are nondeployable regions, but not all, which means some battlefields can be fought in chest deep water which is quite enjoyable and makes for a challenge.

Now, this battle could easily be won as a bridge battle

Now, this battle could easily be won as a bridge battle. If my soldiers have better range or I have artillery that exceeds my opponent, then I can simply shoot them until I run out of projectiles. Then I can use my other soldiers to engage in combat (sometimes called melee).

Let's try something different

Let's try something different. The enemy has their backs to the cliff, so if I were to charge in with my units, they would rout down the mountainside, which is not very chivalrous of me, is it? Besides that, pitting one army against another (a head on collision) is being a poor general. There's no finesse to that kind of tactic. I move to a higher elevation but still near the waterfall streaming down the mountain.

continued in next post....

[RubiconDecision]

So what happens?

Eventually they tire of this, and cross the bridge, now I can engage them, but:

1. Now their army is reduced from earlier losses from archer fire/artillery
2. While they move towards me, they are climbing uphill and it's making them tired.
3. By the time they get to me, I can easily defeat them since my own units are rested.
4. If I want... my cavalry can run them down, even back across the bridge.
   

   A tired demoralized Rohan grimly climbs to defeat

That's why custom battles are interesting. If I lose, it's no big deal as it was in the campaign game. In fact this lets me experiment with other tactics. Sure you can do that with Third Age now, but using the minimod, you can fight a whole series of battles that you never could on impassable terrain, or would have to wait forever in the game.

[RubiconDecision]

Here's a peek at the minimod at the Mountain Peak West of Durthang in Mordor. It's at map coordinate 272 140

Mountain Peak West of Durthang

This is one of those impassable area, in the mountains again in Mordor, we have all those great mountains around, but in the Third Age campaign we can't fight there usually. Again, the red dot indicates the aproximate map coordinate.

Let's take a peek at where our armies ended up.

Army Deployment Areas

The Mordor army has a deployment zone where much of it is at a lower elevation. The High Elves as team 2 has almost an entire flat plateau. Mordor must get to the plateu for the High Elven Archers are legendary. The Elves must not let themselves get pressed back into the precipice

Here the Mordor army attempts to use their hulking troll general, giant spiders, and orcs to press the Elves off the Mountain.

Will finess or force win?

[proximusj]

Heh! Ignore my vote. I never autoresolve. Clicked the wrong option.

[RubiconDecision]

For a military commander, few military operations are worse than establishing a beachhead of your soldiers. Shores by their nature begin at a lower elevation, for water collects in low places. That means always ascending into battle and only after assembling your troops from the ships that they arrived in.

A "grade" is a term dealing with terrain which describes how the land transitions in elevation. Here the grade is not very sharp, but neither is it gradual, and so requiring effort for the invaders to climb.

Think upon this, if your soldiers climb a steep grade, then they don't deploy in a straight line, but what happens is a wedge forms as some soldiers are slower as they ascend. A wedge going down a grade can sometimes break a line of the enemy, but a wedge ascending a grade LOSES strength.

Meanwhile any defender running down a grade has momentum to give it more strength. A cavalry in a wedge going downhill upon a tired enemy struggling in a weak wedge will BASH them.

This means if you're the attacker and ascending, then you must have spears ready to protect your troops, and the units coming down to attack the invaders here must be wary of charging into spears. Cavalry in general shouldn't be used to charge into a wall of units. That's usually suicide.

If one army can deploy faster than another, a military commander can force the enemy to climb a steeper grade, and as the enemy gets closer, moves his/her rested army faster into a retreat but into a higher elevation. This makes the enemy to ascend yet again, to which the general may yet again retreat higher still. As the enemy wastes all their effort into climbing, the defending general may then charge their men into the demoralized enemy and so make them rout when they wouldn't ordinarily.

If the defending general can bring in cavalry from the sides moments after the front line of his troops hits, then that's called a pin.

If the general can bring in the cavalry from the back, that's flanking. Here that would be very hard to do for that means the cavalry running very fast downhill, to get behind the Orcs (which is easy), but then reclimbing the hill and that ruins their speed and weakens the cavalry's wedge.

Dwarves don't really have cavalry though. Any kingdom fighting in history has some limitation. That means altering your tactics based upon the troops you can muster (raise up) and or mercenary troops who are specialized in some ability that your own troops don't have.

Shorelines are not very wide usually. and so hopefully the naval commander safely delivered the marines to the easiest place to disembark and most easily transition. Then hopely there is some shrub or tree cover such that they can remain undetected as possible. After all, some fisherman or those manning watchtowers are likely to see the naval invasion.

NW Rocky Beach of Frozen Pitkaranta 96 331

The pale red dot indicates the position on the shore. Of course this is a region not unlike a Scottish shoreline in Winter. The map coordinates are 96 331. It is far from ideal and a good challenge, but not an impossible one. It is highly realistic, for all naval invasions begin thus. Things often go "fubar" fouled up beyond all recognition in war. Having arrived at night would have been far better for cover of darkness. The Orcs haven't in this case and have little cover, so it's a very tough landing. Meanwhile the Dwarves are used to this kind of terrain, don't have to exert themselves either.

Here a lost party of Orcs has arrived in Winter. It's under very bad conditions. It's cold, but worse, it's foggy and the Sun is setting. Thank the stars that it's not snowing on top of all of that.

Orcs start position

I would bet that most people begin battles fairly close to the deployment line ...in most cases in sieges or even in battle. That's not allways correct of course. An army assembles into position, doesn't it. For an extra challenge, you can attack from the beginning of the shore, something I highly agree with as being more realistic. A ship arriving was a big deal to a community for trade, but also the Dwarves also despised the Orcs and so an invasion is something that are always expecting. There are few stealthy naval invasions in Third Age, unless the attack is at night and with lots of tree cover and the ability to hide within them and inch their way close enough to ambush.

Dwarven start position

Of course nothing beats having "home court" advantage. The dwarves are used to fighting here in these cold regions. They are suited for it and brought PIKES. As you can see, the invading Orcs have a very tiny deployment area versus the wide area for the Dwarves. Of course that was chosen on purpose to allow you to have either have the challenge of the worse position or to enjoy stomping the invaders.

Dwarven units hastily assemble their siege engines and units to achieve the best elevation and drive the Orcs back to sea where they came from.

[RubiconDecision]

As an invader enters into your lands, how do you best cope? You have two options: defend from the settlement or meet them in the field as they move to attack a city. Some of this is like chess, but an actual battle is not like chess at all.

Let's talk about meeting them in the field this lesson.

The red dot is the location of the invading army. All the other compass points are places around the invading army in which you can deploy your own troops.

When an army is coming in to attack, each army has a number of movement points that limit how far that army can move each turn. The terrain itself uses up more movement points (MP) as some kinds of terrain are more difficult to traverse. Often, the total number of movement points is not used up, and there's a good reason to do this very practice, but to use most of the MP. If a named character general (an identified general) is leading the army, he gains or loses traits. Often, a measurement of the movement point percentage (MPP) is calculated, and so using many gives him positive traits like disciplined which results in more and more ability to move more per turn. In reality, there are good reasons for not using them all.

When an army detects another in the field, then they cautiously move around each other and vie for position. One army may elect to attack, but always wants better terrain. Based upon the strength of the stack of units (total number of units within one map coordinate), that army projects a value that causes zone of control. Move into another army's zone of control and neither can move easily if at all. Attack another army, and if the defending army has MP left over, then usually the retreating army will relocate to the best elevated position within it's radius of MP.

If you surround an army from all 8 compass points, then even if the invading army has MP left over, it can't without combat taking place. Then, the loser is allowed to retreat perhaps using MP as well, but mostly given extra MP, a frustrating aspect for they retreat beyond your own MP. By surrounding an invading army, you can make them sit still and fight. This can be to your advantage, but means being able to use speed and tactics to assemble the army into a new centralized position within the red dot area.

If one direction has a better elevation than the center (red dot area) that the invaders are standing upon, then by all means attack from that direction. By using multiple armies from multiple sides, even if weaker, you can force the invader to retreat for a calculation is done and it determines whether it is better to fight or retreat.

A more complex tactic is deliberately surrounding the invader so that you leave a gap for them to retreat. Maybe you don't really want combat, only to move them out from your settlement region so they won't cause devastation.

Now an even more superior tactic is to guess where the enemy might retreat to. Should that high point be in a forest, then your army can wait in ambush (be unseen to the invaders) and then they will stumble into them. Then if you have enough movement points, you can deploy others to attack them at that new map coordinate, or fight them with the ambushing unit.

The best situation results in an invading army retreating into terrible terrain such as a shoreline and with you in an elevated position. Then they have no choice but to fight and in a horrible deployment zone.

Often these retreating armies mean that one unit may not be able to finish them off, so you need to plan accordingly with a second army to attack them where the retreating army ran out of MP. Be careful. Sending your army across into another kingdom is also an invasion. If the attacking army drives the retreating army(example Isenguard) into Rohan, then if you pursue them you're liable to cause a change in diplomatic status unless you have a rite of passage treaty with Rohan. Meditate upon this, for you're trying to create alliances that allow you to crush enemies but maintain positive relations.

[RubiconDecision]

Manuevering and Supply Traits
If you're playing Third Age and using a submod that uses supply traits, then each turn you move your army with a named character, then that army is eating up supplies. Usually in history, an army moved from settlement to settlement and using forts inbetween. That way, the army could be fed and resupply. It's important to slowly establish a supply line in mods like that, or else starve your expensive army.

Forced March on the Campaign Map
If a named character leads an army using up all of the movement points (MP) for many turns, in some submods there are traits that fire for using such discipline. Warning, doing such a thing in enemy territory is fraught with issues on retreating if necessary. See my previous post.

Manuevering on the Battlefield
Think upon this. In the actual battle, if you run your soldiers, not only is their cohesion lost as they cannot stay in tight formation, but also it exhausts them. Don't do this. Preplan your initial deployment based upon where you think the enemy will deploy. Take the high ground usually. If they have the higher ground, pull back a little and move to the best elevation you can within reason.

Create a formation. Get every unit in place. Usually this is with archers out front and spears behind and heavy infantry behind them with cavalry on the wings. Select all of the units and declare that they're one unit and carefully move at regular speed into a new position.

Inch across in tiny hops. Usually the enemy will stay somewhat fixed. If you run, then the enemy will often move. If you slowly manuver then you can carefully get into an increasingly better position to attack.

Resting
At interim steps, rest your army. I know it's boring to sit there. You can speed up time and in so doing allow them to be "Fresh". Attacking with less than "Warmed Up" soldiers will result in higher casualties. Even though this is more methodical, it's correct tactics. Winning with low casualties results in your named character general getting high traits.

[RubiconDecision]

Here is a picture of a small island West of Erelond at map coordinates 137 24. The custom battle is marked by a red dot. Chances are you'd never fight there. That's too bad. The problem is usually one kingdom is fighting for another settlement regardless of the rest of the region.

The upper limit is 199 settlements per map, and often maps are huge, so the result is often less fighting in unusual places and more fighting in settlements. Really the most interesting things can happen in a field battle versus a fixed settlement, although Third Age has wonderful settlements in which to do sieges.

West Island of Erelond

Now let's look at the possibilities of fighting on an island and the limitations too.

Island issues for custom battles

Islands have a tiny space in which to fight and sometimes depending how the island is built into the map. The shore region on which one army can be placed can be tiny relative to the other army. Here despite the small island, it still is larger than an entire battle map. Some islands may have more than one map coordinate on them.

The intial deployment will include making decisions based upon the terrain, which includes the elevation, the land types, the effect of vegetation, and the potential places that the enemy might deploy.

My guesses and ideas on deploying in this location

While I initially have a decent treeline, in this particular configuration, the Rohan riders are largely cavalry. I could hide in the trees and that would limit them some, but it's very close to my anticipated guess where Rohan will deploy. I elect to put my army up higher even though there is less cover. Rohan has no artillery so I'm not so worried about a ranged attack, and even if they did, I am higher relative to their deployment area.

Now let's look at Rohan's decision on placement

Rohans assembles their army

Indeed, Rohan moved exactly where I though they would. If they can get their cavalry to the center, and using speed, they can run me down into the shoreline.

Note the grade of the shoreline

Shoreline

You can see the other islands in the distance. The picturesque setting is part of the enjoyment and art of Third Age. Try a battle at sunset sometime as it's very beautiful.

Shores leave many troops moving slowly due to sand, but our Harad units are suited for sand, right?

Note the shape of formations. On Harad's side, my units are mostly squares. Square shaped cavalry can hit with a medium force and then dart away. A series of square infantry and spears will result in some of the enemy moving into gaps and so often more enemy get chewed up instead of having my own units in straight lines. It actually works out better, and I'll discuss that later in another post.

My archers are in a straight line, for I want all of them to fire if they can and at the same distance. More about that later. Likewise my mounted archers are in a line.

Rohan's units are typically set up as well.

Remember that retreating units get a speed bonus. That's a problem for Harad here as Rohan is more mobile. As most of the fighting will be in the center of the island and it slopes away, then any retreating cavalry of theirs will likely get away.