Extended Map 1.12 for Alternative Patch 4.8

[euskingc]

Now where's the button to drop the outdated version number from the thread name? Or am I stuck with it?

[Withwnar]

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[euskingc]

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That brightens my day =)
Thanks boss

[fd7s]

i love it, i love the way you split the Orcani Faction in north and south my favourite part is the additon of Himring since im always playing as elves haha keep up to good work

One nag tho, it keeps crashing even if i save every turn, and what the hell is with OOMM they over ran me in Imladris haha its so interesting

[euskingc]

i love it, i love the way you split the Orcani Faction in north and south my favourite part is the additon of Himring since im always playing as elves haha keep up to good work

One nag tho, it keeps crashing even if i save every turn, and what the hell is with OOMM they over ran me in Imladris haha its so interesting

Interesting... the crash I mean. Forgive me if I'm telling you what you already know but if you look in Medieval II Total War\logs folder (note it is in the main directory, not the mod folder) there should be a txt file called system.log. If it isn't there you'll have to enable it (just ask if you're not sure how). Again sorry if I'm telling you what you already know. ANyways if you can copy paste the log contents into a message to me I can try to sort it out. Mine has been running stable but that doesn't mean a thing.


About the OoMM overrunning you... that's probably a 4.8 "AP" thing =)
The AP upped their recruitment capacity significantly. I know. It's a rough world now =/

On the plus side they'll no longer spawn huge stacks (sometimes behind your lines) when you start taking their key settlements.

(no credits required for anything I have made, use it freely, enjoy, change it, improve it to you likings, etc.)

I know boss, just putting credit where it's due =)
I sure don't want it.

[Adjudant-Major]

(no credits required for anything I have made, use it freely, enjoy, change it, improve it to you likings, etc.)

[Karthago]

So been playing around. Really love the map along with the alternate patch.

The map is huge though! A bit barren toward the south but you already know that. But, it feels like Harad might be a bit OP with controlling the entire south...but haven't played an actual game yet except for 15-20 turns as various factions. Going on vacation tomorrow, so don't want to start a game till I get back. But, Harad gets a TON of territory and it makes it feel like they are the "main" bad guys of the game lol. Maybe that is how they were in lore though, having a huge uncontested southern empire. It'll make it fun to go up against them I suppose. Or maybe the new factions you plan to add will fix that up

But overall, really love how the map looks. Especially love the size of it

[euskingc]

So been playing around. Really love the map along with the alternate patch.

The map is huge though! A bit barren toward the south but you already know that. But, it feels like Harad might be a bit OP with controlling the entire south...but haven't played an actual game yet except for 15-20 turns as various factions. Going on vacation tomorrow, so don't want to start a game till I get back. But, Harad gets a TON of territory and it makes it feel like they are the "main" bad guys of the game lol. Maybe that is how they were in lore though, having a huge uncontested southern empire. It'll make it fun to go up against them I suppose. Or maybe the new factions you plan to add will fix that up

But overall, really love how the map looks. Especially love the size of it

Yeah. I wish I could make it even bigger. It's roughly the northwestern quarter of the merp iron crown middle earth map. With the exception that I moved the orocarni mountains far to the west because (1) gameplay reasons, so we could actually have the orocarni dwarves, and (2) more official sources place the orocarni mountains down the center of rhun. So the idea is there's more rhun after the edge of the map. Not really a nation so much as a vast collection of culturally similar tribes united by, you guessed it, subservience to the dark lord.

All of the planned new factions will be evil, so I don't expect that to do much in terms of balancing. But I'll be honest, I'm not really looking for balanced if you're playing as a good faction. I want it to be like it was in the books, with the odds stacked in the dark lord's favour. I want the good player to have to rescue, eventually or right away, most of the other good factions. If you don't destroy the ring quickly that is.
I don't usually play as the baddies, but for those who do I can probably script in a reduction in kings purse to make it more challenging financially if nothing else.

THe new factions, will however, split the map up a bit. A little over a third of Rhun goes to Khand. About the same goes for Harad; much of the coastline will go to the Black Numenoreans (Umbar). At least that way if you play as one of these factions you won't just steamroll everyone else.


I've played about 80 turns in as FPOE. I'm not entirely happy with the balancing yet. Harad seems to hold their own against Gondor. They neither advance nor retreat, but seem to be doing their part to keep the pressure on.
The orcs tend to overrun Imladris unless you send aid by about turn 50-80. I'm ok with that.
They're putting up a good challenge in Eriador, but quickly lose the Grey mountains, as usual. I figure a fixed dragon could rectify that early game defect, and be lore-accurate.

Isengard is more of a nuisance than a serious threat. They seem about balanced with Rohan. I guess that's ok for now... but maybe a little more cash couldn't hurt. I'll see if they ever defeat Rohan.
Mordor seems to gradually encroach on Gondor. They haven't conquered Minas Tirith yet but every turn theyre inching closer to the gates. Gondor is putting up a good fight. That's about right.

The question of this Dwarvish company, however, troubles me deeply. I'm not convinced it's anywhere near balanced. Game after game, I noticed the dwarves gradually overrunning Rhun, in 3.2 vanilla, AP 4.8, and now in this extended map mod. The extra territory doesn't seem to make a difference, especially with the Orocarni dwarves in the mix, few and divided as they are.
According to lore, I don't feel the dwarves should have the numbers to do this. They should be holding out, just barely, and not much more. Ideally the Orocarni just wouldn't be all that interested in getting involved, unless they're the human player. With the new orcs of the orocarni mountains faction hopefully they'll have their own affairs to worry about.

Rhun should be pushing them to the brink, not the other way around. I'll try playing with the King's purse a bit, but in the next patch I'm intending to have a script that is constantly pouring in reinforcements from the Far East. Maybe that will help put the pressure on. Otherwise I'll have to consider make some changes to the dwarvish factions. Maybe increasing their recruitment times, because I feel the unit stats are what they should be. There should just be less of them. Maybe that was the solution all along.

But it does take the fun out of it. In the books it wasn't the dwarves that finally pacified Rhun. It was Aragorn leading the combined power of the Reunited Kingdom and it's allies that brought them to heel, AFTER mordor was out of the equation. This should be the only way anyone should ever have the power to subdue the vastness of Rhun, or Harad.

I'm thinking about toying with the OoG and OoMM a bit too. Seeing if I can have more of them, less morale for the snaga, (higher tier units are just fine) but much much more of them. They're not bred to be heroes... but at the same time it still needs to be challenging.


But yeah. THe barrenness to the south... welcome to Haradwaith =)

Although south of that vast desert I'll be doing some tweaking to make the terrain more interesting.

And I appreciate the feedback guys. Keep it up =)

[fd7s]

To make the dwarves weaker you could simply split them into Ered Luin and Erebor, with Ered Luin using vanilla TATW unit models and Erebor using the 4.8 patch ones, thatll decrease their income since theyll miss to vital relatively safe settlements and that early game expansion into Nenuial, btw ill get that log to you when i can

[euskingc]

To make the dwarves weaker you could simply split them into Ered Luin and Erebor, with Ered Luin using vanilla TATW unit models and Erebor using the 4.8 patch ones, thatll decrease their income since theyll miss to vital relatively safe settlements and that early game expansion into Nenuial, btw ill get that log to you when i can

Not a bad idea. Would be interesting to eventually split the orocarni dwarves between north and south as well. Then have some kind of unite the clans scripting flavour events for the longbeards faction.

[Tar-Falassion]

Alright, there is really not much I have to say about the current version of your submod, because it is close to perfection in its own way (apart from giving Adûnaîc names to cities in Rhûn - I mean, putting Zadan an-Adûn in Barl Syrnac ? ) so I'll try to give some constructive feedback about your ideas for the next release :
If I could give a small piece of my mind, I don't think that the Orocarni Mountains themselves should be added to the map ... but for a very few reasons :

From a lore point of view, even with the extended map Tolkien dropped hints according to which the Ered Carnen would be at the same distance from the Iron Hills than the distance that separates them from the Ered Luin. If one refers to this, you would still have to extend the map for at least the width of the Sea of Rhûn in order to attain the mountain range ...
Secondly, you mentioned the gameplay issue that the Dwarves actually steamroll Rhûn on the long run. And that should not happen at all, Rhûn should be a nearly impossible force to contend with : during the War of the Ring, both the Dalians and the Dwarves ended up besieged in Erebor, and only when the Easterlings received the tidings of the Battle of Morannon did they lift the siege and retreat.

Although I agree that some sources (i.e this map : http://wallpapercave.com/wp/PQVpQko.jpg ) display a range of mountains beyond the Sea of Rhûn, I'd say this is a complete misconception of Middle-Earth - the map itself is the prop used for the PJ films and does not respect the official geography (no bay of Umbar, malformed Gulf of Lhûn, Ithilien and Lebennin far too wide ...) And the mountain range itself just states "mountains of the East".

A good compromise IMHO would be to put a range of high and very rocky hills, that could act as an "outpost" from the Dwarves of the East, without involving the actual Orocarni. And for that reason you could put restrictions to their recruitment or replenishment rate (that would settle part of the issue of Rhûn being steamrolled by Dwarves).
Or maybe if you choose to also integrate Khand as a full-fledged faction, it could help balance the conflict in the East ...


When it comes to the Black Numenoreans being given Umbar and the neighbouring coastlands, well, I have some doubts about putting them so close to Gondor ... not only are they supposed to have been utterly chased from Umbar by the end of the Third Age, but with Mordor, powered-up Harad and Rhûn and possibly also Khand, wouldn't it put far too much pressure on the Gondorian player to contend with all these factions at once ? (I know DaC also has both Khand and Umbar, but at least they made Dol Amroth a separate faction to balance it out).

Would it not be better to have the Black Numenoreans as a sort of emerging faction, that only really comes into play if you take much of Harad's land in the south ? If you choose indeed to follow MERP's map and cities terminology, it would be better "lore"-wise to have their corelands in the southern part of Bellakar : the cities of Ûrêzâyan and Korlea were supposed to be the reliquary of Adûnaî population in Bellakar, maybe if you add to these Tarkhesh and/or Hazaj Tollin, that would make a good starting territory, as until Gondor really pushes Harad back they would only launch naval blockades and fleet assaults, and maybe very few sporadic land forces carried by ships ...

[Adjudant-Major]

The Zadan an-Adûn problem is my fault I did not check that properly. I thaught I've just selected them from a random list of names. There certainly are better names for the regions and settlements, and this one is ridiculous indeed, especially when one knows how important the language dimension of his work for Tolkien was. Luckily it is also the easiest thing to correct, the only thing needed is a good source or inspiration for those distant easterling lands.

[Tar-Falassion]

Well, we all do make mistakes, and as you said, it's easily corrected
According to ICE's MERP's topography, the area in question in your map would correspond as the Barl Syrnac, the western reaches of Kykurian Kyn and the Chey Sart beyond the Khand gap. There are quite a few possible settlements with "Easterling"-like names in these provinces, but I can give you a handful of names for them
Elyamû, Olyavuld, Szrel-Kaîn, Yjuvït, Taj Mokba, Tej Öda, Ilpar-Karam, Khurmand, Chey Goumal, Elpynir, Ulk-Chey Ama
(inspiration from : http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Category:...l_middle-earth )

[euskingc]

I was under the impression they were the same distance form the sea of Rhun that the misty mountains were... and that's about how far I've got them now.
I'm not sure I can part with them, because well... I just like dwarves =)
I'll make them work. There's a lot of good suggestions between all of us that I think they can work.
This is something that should have been addressed in 3.2 anyways.


Yeah, Zadan an-Adûn is south of the yellow mountains somewhere I'm pretty sure. Some black numenorean city if I'm not mistaken.
Tar-Falassion, have you tried the version 1.1 yet?
The names have been mostly rectified, but if you spot anything that ought to be named something else I'm open to suggestions. On a few occasions I was reaching and it's a stretch.
I actually wound up using some of the names you suggested, but some of those settlements I'm not familiar with. I'd like to know where they are... maybe I can stick them in in a later release... the problem is I'm supposed to be maxed out at 199 provinces and I've got 199. =/


Khand is planned. For sure, even if they're nonplayable and barebones for units at the start, but the Orocarni orcs really ought to help.


I'm not too worried about Gondor. I'm over 130 turns in and they're still holding their own even against the vast Harad and Mordor, and I haven't sent them any help yet. I could, but I've been focusing on other things precisely because they're still OK.
Khand would probably leave them alone except for invasions or if good factions expanded far enough south to actually have a common border with them. I've noticed the AI doesn't really like sending troops across other people's territory to either a) attack their common enemies or b) reinforce their own regions. I wish I knew how to remedy that.
Don't know how many times I've seen stacks and stacks just sitting useless around the grey havens while rivendell is getting overrun.


I figure Umbar will be mostly corsair units with a few black numenorean high tiered slow recruitment time units.


I'll probably give them some of those southern coastal territories as well as you suggest.

[Tar-Falassion]

It's even worse http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Seven_lands

So, not that far ... Zadan an-Adûn being the old capital of Anbalukkhôr (in the middle of that forest to the north, just a few hundred leagues south of Tulwang), it is on the south-west flank of the Yellow Mountains indeed - but that's not relevant since the map can't go that south ...

I was under the impression they were the same distance form the sea of Rhun that the misty mountains were... and that's about how far I've got them now.
I'm not sure I can part with them, because well... I just like dwarves =)
I'll make them work. There's a lot of good suggestions between all of us that I think they can work.
This is something that should have been addressed in 3.2 anyways.


Yeah, Zadan an-Adûn is south of the yellow mountains somewhere I'm pretty sure. Some black numenorean city if I'm not mistaken.
Tar-Falassion, have you tried the version 1.1 yet?
The names have been mostly rectified, but if you spot anything that ought to be named something else I'm open to suggestions. On a few occasions I was reaching and it's a stretch.
I actually wound up using some of the names you suggested, but some of those settlements I'm not familiar with. I'd like to know where they are... maybe I can stick them in in a later release... the problem is I'm supposed to be maxed out at 199 provinces and I've got 199. =/


Khand is planned. For sure, even if they're nonplayable and barebones for units at the start, but the Orocarni orcs really ought to help.


I'm not too worried about Gondor. I'm over 130 turns in and they're still holding their own even against the vast Harad and Mordor, and I haven't sent them any help yet. I could, but I've been focusing on other things precisely because they're still OK.
Khand would probably leave them alone except for invasions or if good factions expanded far enough south to actually have a common border with them. I've noticed the AI doesn't really like sending troops across other people's territory to either a) attack their common enemies or b) reinforce their own regions. I wish I knew how to remedy that.
Don't know how many times I've seen stacks and stacks just sitting useless around the grey havens while rivendell is getting overrun.


I figure Umbar will be mostly corsair units with a few black numenorean high tiered slow recruitment time units.


I'll probably give them some of those southern coastal territories as well as you suggest.

I haven't yet tried the 1.1 version, as I wasn't a 4.8 AP before - I'll probably install it just to give it a try though

The only other matter of renaming that bugs me out is the Ayal Koyren settlement in southern Bellakar - although I understand the logic that an inland settlement of Harad rather ought to be a village than a city, given the scarcity of resources, wouldn't it be more coherent with the rest of the area to rather have the settlement be the city of Nilûlondë (and eventually make the river that goes up to it navigable ) ? The presence of all those mighty cities gives a feeling of unstoppable force of nature to the Haradrim, tribal armies that would conquer entire realms and still inhabit their old cities, and that would be very well represented with Nilûlondë, the old capital of Bellakar

Those names that I gave you I found on the merp pages related to the areas concerned : http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Barl_Syrnac , http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Kykurian_Kyn , http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Chey_Sart
But I just handed those as for what I thought would be a replacement of those adûnaic-named cities, not as actual additionnal settlements

I put my trust in your judgement regarding Khand and the Red Orcs slowing down the Orocarni Dwarves then ! After implementing this larger map I'm persuaded it won't be such a difficulty to put Khandish units in your version !!

(same goes for the balance of Gondor, if you trust that their might is enough, I trust you entirely and as for Black Nums, I didn't get that you wanted to make a full-fledged Umbar faction with corsairs, I though of an actual full Black Num roster, my bad ^^' )

[euskingc]

I had a look at the map and I think you have me sold on Nilûlondë...
At least it being there and being a city. I'll have to read about it before deciding about making the river navigable though... or feel it out in a campaign or two.

Overall I really like the work Adjutant Major did in the southern coastal regions and I haven't really touched it, but I think that will make a nice addition to it.

Note that in 1.1 the Harnen river valley is totally redone. It didn't really fit the maps as it was in vanilla 3.2

Harad has some more substantial settlements in the southeast as well. I think you'll like the map.

And yeah. One way or another we'll get it all balanced =)


PLaying it through I really want to make it a priority to implement Adjutant Major's 12 turns per year script too.
Although I'm wondering if I shouldn't try to slow down population growth per turn a bit if I do...

[Adjudant-Major]

Zadan an-Adûn is south of the yellow mountains somewhere

It's even worse http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Seven_lands

[Adjudant-Major]

Marath Kharadûnê (Av. "Bered Carnarînn") or Zadan an-Adûn (Ad. “House of the West”) was a Fortress in the Thâni-Hazâd. (http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Marath_Kharad%C3%BBne)

[Tar-Falassion]

Marath Kharadûnê (Av. "Bered Carnarînn") or Zadan an-Adûn (Ad. “House of the West”) was a Fortress in the Thâni-Hazâd. (http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Marath_Kharad%C3%BBne)

And as it happens, Ciryatanorë, or Anbalukkhôr, which is the northernmost realm of the Thâni-Hazâd region, is also the Black Num realm of which the fortress of Zadan an-Adûn was the capital. So in the end, we're both right ! It is just that MERP's official wikia site is very incomplete, you have to look deeper for good info on that part of the world ...
(http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/An-Balukkh%C3%B4r)

Apart from that, @euskingc, I decided to install 4.8 this afternoon and apply 1.1 on it, but unfortunately it won't even let me go past the faction selection screen, as soon as I try to launch a campaign (be it Gondor, Rhûn, Orocarni, High Elves or other) the game crashes, and if I click on the Harad faction symbol, it immediately CTDs without letting me click on start XD

[fd7s]

Did you make sure you had a fresh tatw installed before installing 4.8

After installing 4.8 did you do to auto delete.bat

Then install expanded and delete the map.rwm?