Arrrgh, you got me! I guess I was just saying "hello"...but...I read in the thread "ARDA: total war released" the following:
21 factions
440 units
balrog and ather maiars
I am playing a freaking awesome CapnDan2.6-WaroftheRing-FreePeoples-Campaign and when I reached Moria I was thinking of a real battle between Gandalf and the Balrog at the Brigde of Khazadum...but you are probably right as most of the time at least for my beloved free peoples faction...Gandalf is a diplomat at this point and the fellowship should bypass Moria...hmm...maybe a video popping up showing the fight... ...for other factions there could be a stationary balrog with a fire whip item showing -200% movement...I don't know if it is possible to integrate Gandalf the Grey as a fire ball unit like Saruman and coding that after the battle regardless of its result the fellowship of the ring is landing east of Moria and Gandalf the Grey and the Balrog being dead...hmm...difficult... ...but on the other hand you need the diplomat to fullfill the quest with V2.6 aggressive AI behaviour to free Gandalf the White at Fangorn...if you dont make peace with Isengard until this point Uruks will attack Gandalf the White waiting in the forest in most of the cases...hmm...but! it would be great fun to have Gandalf the White as fireball unit anyway…I don’t like the grey company unit very much…in my opinion Riders of Rohan for Gandalf would be the best solution for this unit…
I noticed in my current free peoples campaign that the samwise unit does not have the “hide_anywhere” trait making it impossible for Frodo and Sam to go a single step without being killed after Amon Hen and the split at Rauros…I changed that by myself…I am short after Henneth Annun in my current campaign and I had a funny fight between Frodo, Sam and the Gollum unit near the Pass of Cirith Ungol and Gollum fled…this unit has only little description which is a pity I think…it has a trait showing “Smeagol – no effects”…
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I was thinking that it would be nice to hire the rogue bandits bowmen and light spearmen riders as mercenary unit or as common unit for free peoples….the one handed axemen would better fit as infantry…moreover, I noticed that some units still have the light axemen captain and not the improved model…maybe you remember that I was thinking that a ranger captain would be the ideal model… …by the way I disabled the -200%movement trait of Vilya and Elrond stays in Rivendell most of the time…so thanks a lot for your wonderful addon project!
EDIT: Hmm...what would be the best company for Gandalf as a rider...
EDIT: I read some of our old dialogues and I guess I have to try a hopeless Numenor campaign after my current campaign during the next weeks...there should be some time left...
Whoa that was a crowded post just there, haha.
-Video popup - would certainly be cool but too much work for too little gain for me anyway
-Fireball Gandalf is there in the game code, I believe you can even get him in skirmish matches for FP (you may need to make him available in EDU)
-Riders of Rohan Gandalf unit, I believe, is what you'll get if you play the Rohan Campaign
-Could all be bugs too, I didn't put too much work into the Free People's Main Campaign - just minimal stuff really, I've never been able to play a full one without running into some sort of issues
-Yes, the old standard captains for Free Peoples still remain, I kind of like them and they fit with the lore, Rangers were kind of famously never really 'men of the people' anyway right?
-'Return of Numenor' Campaigns plenty fun I think, hope you'll enjoy.
So, it looks like I might actually do a Campaigns Addon V2.7 - which will most likely be the definitive final version of the addon I hope.
It's mostly just cumulative casual tweaking from the last little while and finally getting around to a couple of last wishlist items.
While I'm at it though, I thought I'd ask if there are any other minor bugs, requests, suggestions, or whatever else that anybody still looking at the forum might have seen and could share.
Also, if anybody knows if anybody still has admin rights to the ModDB page, I'd be keen to know as I'd like to post this up there for sake of easier sharing and for safekeeping.
Thanks all.
-Dan
My list of suggestions:
-make elite Numenorean units available in all three starting regions;
-reduce recruiting time of elite Numenorean units to 3 turns;
-make that units to have 60 mens in campaign;
-replace the peasant units with sellsword units.
I hope this can help you.
CapnDan, I'm glad you kept working on your addon to fix bugs and to improve the balance of the campaign. It is something I'd have liked to be able to do myself.
Let me know if you have some question where I can help you.
Wulfburk was the admin of moddb page, and he seems active in this forums. I'll try to contact Wulfburk later (thanks and reagards if you read it ).
It's great to hear from you Bardo! Hope all's well over on your end!
In terms of questions, I've pretty well picked through most of the coding in the mod a handful of times - so I do already know many of your secrets.
And excellent work btw, it was a real pleasure actually reading through it all and seeing some of those creative uses of scripting; not to mention all the collective work and assets from the rest of the team.
If you still have a RTW/LotRTW install floating around somewhere I'd certainly be interested in your feedback and thoughts - both in general and for the 'Return of Numenor' provincial campaign in particular (Numenor faction especially -it really does introduce a fairly new feel to the game I think). I could share the updated version within a couple of days if you'd be interested.
Since we released the latest patch, I have been unable to play this game again, and I have hardly played other games either.
For some time I have been using linux in my pc, so I did not even have RTW installed. But recently I tried to run RTW under Wine, and it worked. Surprisingly, this mod also seems to work, just by executing:
wine RomeTW-ALX.exe -mod:alexander/lotrtw
I'm not sure how stable it will be, but I'll give it a try. I'd like to play at least some campaign as we released it, to remember a bit how it was balanced. Then I'll try to check your changes, if I can.
Surely you already know more about the mod, than the little that I remember . I was just afraid that some of our odd "tricks" could have discouraged other modders from making their own submods.In terms of questions, I've pretty well picked through most of the coding in the mod a handful of times - so I do already know many of your secrets
This is encouraging, my small RTW side hobby is one of the main reasons I have not yet made the switch to Linux.
Study of the tricks was a great learning tool! On at least a couple of occasions I had wrestled with some problem due to apparent engine limitations or whatnot, and after three or four failed attempts just happen to find a bit of Bardo code that easily solved a similar problem long ago!
I have been playing an isengard campaign and I'm starting to remember how our campaign was balanced. Let me play a couple of games with other factions and then I'll start checking your changes. There is no hurry about your latest version, I plan to be around for some time.
Thanks for that
I just recovered access to my moddb account. Let me know when you want to upload your addon there. I'll see if I can give you access to the development group so you can upload it by yourself.
Finally got around to looking at the ModDB page (thanks Bardo!) and ended up thinking I'll probably wait until Campaigns V2.7 is ready, just for simplicity sake and making sure I've re-done the readme and all to make it as easy as possible.
I did also look through my old notes and, in addition to the list of remaining unfixed bugs, found two random questions that possibly the Mighty Bardo might know answers to:
1. The Umbar custom settlement was not implemented in the campaign. Was it due to a hard code limit?
2. I do remember seeing a Balrog model at some point, and I thought it might have been in an older version of this mod, was this ever a thing?
Last edited by CapnDan; October 20, 2017 at 02:00 PM.
Hey Dan, is the 3.02 patch needed/recommended for playing with your submod?
Edit: Sorry I mis-read your instructions, it says right there . Cant wait to try it out soon mate
Last edited by Aexodus; October 21, 2017 at 05:39 AM.
Sounds good.
1. I remember that Umbar custom settlement crashed in campaign, and we were unable to fix it. I think it was related to placement near the coast or near a port. But I do not know if we tested to place it at other locations, because it is a pitty to keep it unused in campaign. I'll see if I can get it working elsewhere.
I almost forgot about it. Thanks for pointing it out.
2. There was a Balrog made by some submod or addon, but wlesmana never finished his own model. I remember to ask wlesmana if he could make a Balrog and Giant Eagle model (the only ones remaining in my wish list). He said no about the Eagle because it would have the same issues in game than the fellbeasts. He said yes about the Balrog, and he tried, but I guess he did not get a satisfactory result at the end.
Last edited by Bardo; October 21, 2017 at 10:30 PM.
I figured it wouldn't have been something so common as a simple oversight. Kind of glad I didn't try to do the thing myself, sounds like it would have been hours of work leading to only confused frustration.. If you do decide you want, at some point, to do another round of working on the mod and could parcel out some of the work, just let me know, happy to be involved.
There are a good number of mods out there (for M2TW in particular - here's one http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...by-Brevi/page4) that have a balrog model and might be generous enough to share. In terms of ingame implementation, I'd imagined something like a goblin's Army of the Dead (in terms of mechanic), either fully static (campaign) or with some mini-mission to set it free from Moria. Similar to your vision of Balrog ingame? Something better/else?
Another question, about fellbeasts: I've rather grown to like the slightly unpredictable nature of fighting them in the main game, makes them a genuine concern even for an experienced player. The only serious problem, i think, is that they are coded to be able to attack fortress doors but, due to the attack animation (and possibly damage rating?) can't ever knock the door open - which occasionally leads to needing to wait out the timer on siege battles. Any thoughts on options one might pursue to solve something like this?
Last edited by CapnDan; October 22, 2017 at 11:22 AM.
Every unit model from this mod was made by wlesmana, and it does not feel right to me to try to introduce new models from other mods at this point.
I'm talking about the main release, of course I see ok if someone makes it as an addon, but I never worked with those files (unit models and animations) and it'd not be easy for me to try.
I think to remember that the tool used to import custom animations to RTW format had this bug that caused a wrong alignment between the attack animation and the door. I think it is the same issue that makes it hard for the fellbeasts to hit units that are moving.Another question, about fellbeasts: I've rather grown to like the slightly unpredictable nature of fighting them in the main game, makes them a genuine concern even for an experienced player. The only serious problem, i think, is that they are coded to be able to attack fortress doors but, due to the attack animation (and possibly damage rating?) can't ever knock the door open - which occasionally leads to needing to wait out the timer on siege battles. Any thoughts on options one might pursue to solve something like this?
We tried to disable the ability of fellbeasts to attack doors, but it is somehow hardcoded (I think linked to use of elephant animation as base). If someone knows how to disable it, I will be glad to release the fix for sure.
There are some things in my ToDo list for v3.0 that I did not finish, and I'm trying to do it now, but I'm still not sure if I will be able to release a new patch or don't.If you do decide you want, at some point, to do another round of working on the mod and could parcel out some of the work, just let me know, happy to be involved.
For example:
- Fine tune campaign balance.
- Redo problematic pathfindings of custom cities.
- Historical battles at Moria, Osgiliath, Black gates, and Battle of 5 armies.
- I'd also like to check all your changes for this campaign addon, and to copy those that I like, specially any bug fix. And I'd be glad to be able to talk to you when I start working on this, but I will need some more time before I can start testing them.
Something I do plan to do is an all-in-one pack that includes v2.0 + v3.0 + v3.02 in .zip format and without the .exe that is causing virus warnings. I delayed it because I did not want to replace the 2.0 installer made by wlesmana, but it is something I should have done years ago, before I left.
Maybe it's just the thing for a bonus easteregg in the last version of Campaigns Addon... if I ever get around to finishing it anyway...
That would be a good fix to see. Now all we need to do is scour the internets for a models/rigging expert in need of a small hobby project... common forums, don't disappoint!
Campaign balance (overall) was the main focus of what eventually became the Campaigns Addon, so it's possible this part is nearly done already. Also traits fixes, some sounds, and a few other things.
Four new HBs sounds like an awesome idea!
It would simplify the dl/install process of this still quite regularly downloaded mod to be sure!
Actually, if/when I make the all-in-one pack, I'd like to include your addon pack, if you agree, as an alternative option, but keeping v3.02 as default for now.
I'm not sure what is the best way to do it. Either to include the pack untouched with your instructions to overwrite the v3.02 files, or if possible (I have to test it), a mod for JSGME.exe, that can be enabled or disabled at will (same as spanish/italian traductions).
I agree. I plan to rewrite a bit the readme of the mod. And I'll include the info/help of your addon.
I'm also open to suggestions about the way to include this addon inside the all-in-one pack.
Last edited by Bardo; November 03, 2017 at 02:25 PM.