The Dominion of Men Open Beta General Feedback Thread

[Wambat]

I do not know if this is the vanilla or the mod, but the AI can not seem to keep an alliance with the player. I'm playing Dorwinion and allied myself with Dale. Three turn later, betrayal. Same with an alliance with North Rhûn who lasted twenty turns. Playing Beornings in my last play, five turn of game and Dale is betraying me.
The same happens when I accept them to be my overlord : the same turn, they betray me and attack me.

It's very hard to play because I can not keep any border unarmed, even if they are supposed to be safe.

This is hard-coded behavior from vanilla. In order to keep alliances you still have to show your ally you are not a pushover; that means keeping up your military rankings (not always possible), but also maintaining your territorial sovereignty. When your allies start probing your territories with troops you need to move your troops out to obstruct their probings; if you fail to do this they will see you as weak and attack you. A twenty turn peace with North Rhun would be a success in my book; you will always eventually be at war with any faction with whom you share a border. The best way to maintain an alliance is to not share a border with your ally, and/or make sure your ally is at war with another faction of similar or better strength.

[Mandatus Caelum]

Hello, wonderful Dominion of Men team! I'm about to suffer what Wambat speaks of (Harad's two 20-unit armies might be about to make my life pain; never give map information to your bordering allies! And I thought Far Harad was annoying). In any case,two issues: one tiny and likely ignorable, and one just because it's a CTD and you probably want to know about those.
The first is that I do not know why my Khandian general bodyguards, who look like cataphracts, have such a low armor/defense rating -- roughly half of that of a Dunedain/Adunabar Noble, and below that of a Serpent Guard general cav unit of Harad. I can understand why Dunedainic cav is higher, but..... my Khand bodyguards look like cataphracts; they've *got* to have a higher armor/defense rating than most other bodyguard cav! Just curious as to why.
The second, the CTD, I have no record of but happened in this way: I besiege the settlement south of Lond Nurnen on the south side of the Sea of Nurnen. My force consists of a general's bodyguard and three Steppe Outriders. I buy a Black Shield mercenary unit, fight the battle, almost win and lose my general, and so reload. Now I move the three horse archers and attack with the Black Shields and bodyguard.
CTD immediately after hitting the "fight battle on the battlefield" button. As I had saved before I clicked the button, I tried the same twice more with the same results. I then went back to a slightly earlier save, tried the same thing, and CTD'd. Seems to only be an issue under that exact circumstance, so I wouldn't worry much about it, but there it is anyway.

[Mandatus Caelum]

One last thing! I played a custom battle as the Beornings with the Beorning Guard as my general unit, and my general seemed to be the size of a short man to my Beornings (he was about the size of a Halfling). Might be a glitch.

[MasterOfNone]

Mandatus, thanks for the feedback.

The cataphract does receive a bonus larger than other cavalry to its armour value, but Khandians are of a subculture that not only has no access to steel (let alone the dunedanic kind), but which also relies more on leather. Their armour is not low but you are comparing it with either very high-tech factions or with the very rich Harad bodyguard. Khand focuses on speed rather than armour. Other barbarian mounted bodyguards have an armour value of around 14-17 (less than the Khand bodyguard).

Can you attach the saved file to a post so we can test it?

[webba84]

One last thing! I played a custom battle as the Beornings with the Beorning Guard as my general unit, and my general seemed to be the size of a short man to my Beornings (he was about the size of a Halfling). Might be a glitch.

The Beornings are larger than usual and in the campaign will be accompanying a general of the same size. In custom battles you only ever see the captain model, which is a normal man.

[Mandatus Caelum]

Ah, both of those replies made sense. I figured it might be Beorning size, and I did notice that the cataphract armor seemed.... rather dull and not-steel. Good reasoning!
I deleted that save earlier, as I had not thought of and had forgotten potentially posting in the bug thread at that time, but I will go back and see if I can re-create the glitch.

[Hopit]

Gaurgaul is not impossible to control. I tried it myself. However, it is too much in unrest and we are going to review it and the handful of others that are causing a disproportionate amount of unrest in relation to similar provinces.

As for skirmishers, you make a good point that lightly armoured units could have a significant run up. The game units compare to meters I believe. Here is our current range listing:

light javelin = 55 M
med javelin = 50 M
hvy javelin = 40 M
balanced throwing spear (prec) = 35 M
throwing axes = 30 M

The units you are referring to would mainly be in the light-med javelin categories.

On this topic (skirmisher) I've found the swordsmen of harad (swordmen who throw spears/javelins) have rather hilarious range, my variag horse archers, if I leave them on auto run away mode, get absolutely decimated by their spears, because they let them just close enough to start the throwing animation, and when they turn to run (and sometimes get quite far away I might add) they suddenly loose 1/5th of their numbers.

[MasterOfNone]

Swords of Harad have a 40-meter range.

Khandian horse-archers have a range of 130 M (there's no such unit as Variag Horse-archers, although we did have that name for that unit many months ago; it's not still in the build somewhere is it?)

[Thangaror]

Are you suggesting Middle-earth didnt have any great beasts to hunt?

Hehe, no. I still have this vanilla thing in my mind: Capture some rare animals and sell them to the Romans for some crazy Gladiator games. If this resource indicates good hunting grounds, you could rename it to represent this fact.

[webba84]

...you could rename it to represent this fact.

Do you have a good suggestion?

[Hopit]

Swords of Harad have a 40-meter range.

Khandian horse-archers have a range of 130 M (there's no such unit as Variag Horse-archers, although we did have that name for that unit many months ago; it's not still in the build somewhere is it?)

Yep I meant those xD (the ones who are armored on an un-armoured horse) I just keep thinking them as variags all the time :/.

It's the range when the AI decides it's time for the horse archers to run away that's the problem (funnily enough, the steppe horse archers(? the first ones you get) Don't have this problem of getting obliterated by the swordmen of harad's javelins... Might have something to do with the cantabrian circle I use with them? They don't seem to let the swordmen close enough at all, when the more expensive ones do.

BTW, Why don't the expensive horse archers have that ability?

[MasterOfNone]

That's a good question. Do others think the second-tier horse archers should have the Whirlwind ability?

[webba84]

As long as they aren't fast cavalry (gotta have a weakness somewhere), I don't see why not.

[MasterOfNone]

I'll have to check - but I think they are likely medium.

[Hopit]

As long as they aren't fast cavalry (gotta have a weakness somewhere), I don't see why not.

I'll have to check - but I think they are likely medium.

Horse Archers of Khand are fast, but they don't have the "whirlwind", you call it? Or long range missiles, like the outriders do.
And the dragonshields description says they "utilise the eastern whirlwind" and, again, don't have it.

[Thangaror]

Do you have a good suggestion?

A more appropriate term for the trade resource is probably 'game'. I understand 'Wild Animals' unites 'Hides' and 'Furs' that were used in vanilla (that's the reason for my confusion). Not the animals are the traded good, but the processed materials they provide: Hides, fur, meat, bones etc.
I suggest: Game - plentiful hunting grounds provide many valuable goods

As long as they aren't fast cavalry (gotta have a weakness somewhere), I don't see why not.

The 'Whirlwind' puts quite a strain on the horses endurance, so I agree that only light units should have it. (Not that I'm a fan of the cantabrian circle).

[Thangaror]

I started a campaign with the Dwarves, they seemed like fun and I wanted to have some insight into the whole recruitment thing.

And AGAIN everything's quite queer in the campaign. It does not really feel like Total War, you know.

Some factions appear to go into 'hibernation'. Rohan e.g. had some early success against Dunland, taking Isenmarch Dol Baran and the next settlement. Then nothing happened for years, then they stormed central Dunland. Now they're passive again, Dunland driven back to one mountain hold and the settlement south of Lond Daer. They're also really rich, some 500k, far ahead of everyone else.

Adûnabâr got crippled early on, now only owning Trollshaws. Took Imladris from them, and handed it over to the Elves. I'm a nice Dwarf.
Tharbad is extremely aggressive. But only against rebels. They didn't attack Dunland until it was almost gone, but didn't capture any settlements, Rohan was faster. They also attacked Adûn at some point. They were allied with the RK for decades, but recently those bastards attacked the Shire. Actually they should be able to take over Arnor, I don't know why they still don't dare to attack RK.

The RK is quite passive too. Took Ithil and Gorgoroth, but didn't have anything to do with Adûn driven back in Arnor I think. Completely fails to attack Rhûn in Mordor. Had some skirmish going on with Harondor.

Harad again struggled to defeat Far Harad. It took them even longer to defeat Harondor, they only succeeded because Harondor was at war with the RK, too. However, now I'm having a dejavú, Harad sending full stack after full stack into Ithilien. Poor Gondorians.

Rhûn, too, is quite inactive. Fought against Adûn for a while, but the Nurn area is quite rebellious. Ultimately they finished off Khand (which essentiall had been defeated by Harad). Again they didn't bother to deal with North Rhûn at all.

Consequently North Rhûn is terribly successful. I allied with Dorwinion early, so with some financial help they're still holding their capital, but NR pushed all the way to Mid-deeping, . I Think I messed up the AI when I took Rath-in-whatever next to Ered Rhûn. Their armies are standing next to it, not attacking, not moving. They also took settlements from Dale.

And now those dabblers, they managed to take one or two settlements from Rhovanion only. For a while they waged war against the Beornings, pretty much without any success. They've a strong garrison of Black Spears at Dale, and two full-stacks of somewhat low tier units marching aimlessly across Wilderland. I have to retake their cities for them! Despite NR's garrison being Levies only.

So, in general the many small factions balanced the game a lot, compared to TNS. However, some factions, especially the large and powerful ones, do have a really weird policy. Sometimes it seems as if they didn't know what to do. The AI probably perceives a stalemate when comparing its military powers to other factions and thus does not dare to declare war.
This is odd, usually the AI is masochistic and all into suicidal attacks against the more powerful factions.

[webba84]

It may well have something to do with the medium difficulty, or the random fates of a particular campaign. ATM it seems like at least something different happens every time, which is good.

[Thangaror]

I was wondering, whether maybe a suggestions thread should be opened to post ideas that are not really feedback or specifically related to the factions.

Anyway, it'd be nice to add information to the unit cards, how much ammunition they carry along and what the range of their weapons is.

[CountMRVHS]

I'd say suggestions fall under the 'feedback' aegis. (Did I use 'aegis' correctly?)

That extra info - could do, but it's a bit off my radar screen atm. Things like range/ammo are still being tweaked and that would take a lot of time, so we'll see as we get closer to release.