The Fourth Age: Total War - Forth Eorlingas v1.9 Patch!

[Amroth]

The Fourth Age: Total War Development Team presents:

The Fourth Age: Total War – Forth Eorlingas v1.9

The 1.9 Patch for ‘The Fourth Age: Total War – Forth Eorlingas’ (versions 1.5, 1.6, or 1.7) has now been unleashed! It contains many improvements, tweaks, and additional features, such as an entirely new historical battle, The First Battle of the Fords of Isen, featuring Saruman’s Uruk-hai and dreaded Warg-riders. Also included are, for the first time ever in FATW, Dwarves (as units). The 1.9 Patch is cumulative (i.e. it can be installed over FE 1.5, 1.6, or 1.7), but it is NOT save-game compatible.

If you do not have 'Forth Eorlingas' yet, you can get hold of it here. Many thanks go out to the thousands who have downloaded FE, and especially to those of you who continue to give us feedback and constructive criticism! Please visit us at www.thefourthage.org, or at our forums.

List of Changes introduced with 1.9:

• New historical battle, The First Battle of the Fords of Isen, added (see screenshots!)
• One un-retrainable Dwarven unit, the Dwarves of Aglarond, available to Rohan
• A Dwarven surprise!
• New Variag Noble Archers unit added to Easterling faction
• More forest added to Rhun, Dunland and Haradwaith areas
• Dunland garrisons, armies and settlement populations reassigned
• Many textures and cards for local levies added
• Peasant/Settler/Thrall weapon type made un-upgradeable
• Many missing unit faction cards now in-game
• Markets now more productive in land trade
• Farming benefits now tied to fertility of regions
• Barracks now require blacksmith to first be built
• Men of Far Harad now at correct scale
• Most Orcs resized upward slightly & animation speeds increased
• Campaign map tidied up (cliffs, trees in sea, some heights etc)
• Alcarondas Venturer replaces Alcarondas in Guild of Venturers
• Unit celebration sounds added for all roster units & other generic audio
• Realistic skies added (thank you to the Lordz)
• WIP Barbarian interface partially implemented
• Ancillaries & VnVs have been tweaked & improved
• And lots of other minor improvements made

Download links:

Forth Eorlingas v1.9 Patch | Mirror 1 (33.57 MB)

Installation Instructions:

Double-click on the fatw_fe_1_9.exe that you just downloaded, and make sure that you have it pointed to your Rome directory where you installed FE (this is normally C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War, or - if you have Gold - C:\Program Files\The Creative Assembly\Rome - Total War). After the initial extraction is finished a dos window should open briefly to finish the installation. You can now click on the FE shortcut on your desktop, and continue to play!

[alexej]

WOW!!! Those dwarves are taking my breath!!! I want to play them as faction, make it happen soon please! This is the number one fantasy mod

[Titus]

Nice! Are the dwarves playable in custom battle also the orcs or just campaign?

[MasterOfNone]

Just campaign - I like things to be revealed in context and gradually...lots of people like custom battles but few test battles for us

[Arakorn]

Now, where's our frontpage coverage? It was promised yesterday...

[matricaria]

well which faction can recruite the dwarfs

[Amroth]

They're not recruitable - Rohan starts with one un-retrainable unit (as The Reunited Kingdom starts with one unit of Elves).

[Atabeg of Damascus]

wow im likin the HUGE men of far Harad

[Sete]

goodbye social life...lol

[Eastern Red]

Started playing last night and everything from game installation, balance, stability,sound track and gameplay were excellent. Can't imagine that such total facelift could go without a hitch.
Thanks, -apocalpsis-, MasterOfNone and the rest of the modding team members for contributing so much to the gaming community. Its the same as playing an expansion pack and even better without paying for it.
BTW, what is the ideal level of gameplay? Which is the strongest faction?

[MasterOfNone]

Thank you eastern - we aim to provide the best

The strongest factions are RK, Rohan and Harad but RK has the greatest potential though Harad has the best advantage at game start.

Balance is only basic at the moment, we are working on a complete overhaul of the unit entries in order to provide a professionally balanced mod in our next release (as well as some more visual surprises too).

You may be interested to know that we have officially sponsored (and are aiding) a mod called Moria - Total War which will be featuring and showcasing our Dwarves, Orcs and Trolls.

I've no idea what difficulty is best probably 'decidedly tookish' or 'bullroaring'

[DaVinci]

Hi MoN, good to hear about the above overhaul plan.

And, "... difficulty ..." did you ever play your mod?

[Eastern Red]

Thank you eastern - we aim to provide the best

The strongest factions are RK, Rohan and Harad but RK has the greatest potential though Harad has the best advantage at game start.

Balance is only basic at the moment, we are working on a complete overhaul of the unit entries in order to provide a professionally balanced mod in our next release (as well as some more visual surprises too).

You may be interested to know that we have officially sponsored (and are aiding) a mod called Moria - Total War which will be featuring and showcasing our Dwarves, Orcs and Trolls.

I've no idea what difficulty is best probably 'decidedly tookish' or 'bullroaring'

Thanks for the reply MasterOfNone. For the record, You are already the best by bagging the award. You are truely humble and I am guilty to admit that I didn't expect this mod to complete since the announcement of M2TW release.
I didn't know much about the myth of the Fouth Age either but with the knowledge I learnt from my son, I'm taking a great interest in it and wow! I must admit that this is the best expansion TW pack. You guys are really giving CA a run for their money.
BTW, I am playing at 'bullroaring' level and which totalwar series is the Moria - Total War modded on? Cheers!

[MasterOfNone]

LOL. Thanks. I'm sure SEGA are pleased with people buying BI to play FE. Most mods do not finish - especially ones with a strong fantasy element - so your concerns were certainly statistically justified.

Interestingly, there has been a surge in new mods for RTW and BI since M2TW came out ... no, I don't understand why either

Moria - TW will also be for BI 1.6

Thanks again for your kind words of praise.

[Arakorn]

Of course not! Who has time for that?

[DaVinci]

Of course not! Who has time for that?

That's my main intention if i mod: Playing a game based on a commercial game fitting to my own interests and preferences.
And anyway, i'm myself my best beta-tester ... always ... at least if possible and especially important for the main development timephase. On the other hand, yes, time is very rare.

[MasterOfNone]

LOL.

Let's just say I've played the first turn many many times but must rely on others to tell me if the victory conditions work

Yep, we will certainly be sharing the research with other mods (none of which have done it to my knowledge), and hopefully the system for balancing too.

[DaVinci]

Will this include the campaign-balancing ... you know i have significant problems with the relations between RK and Rohan

[MasterOfNone]

I cannot see any way of permanently dealing with the issue of Rohan and RK going to war one with another, though it is the rapidity with which it occurs that hopefully will be lessened. But campaign balance and such issues must take a back seat until the unit balancing is done, and new elements in 2.0 may affect this 'issue' anyway so we'll have to see what it is like after everything else is done...

We've had one of outsourcers going through Nikolai's stratmap AI improvement research and hopefully the things that have been gleaned from there will also help, though I am stubbornly refusing to bend roads and place big forests where they did not go or exist according to the lore

[Arakorn]

I think the only ways (without scripting) is to

1. Increase Rohan armies (numbers) or decrease RK armies. As said, the AI only looks at the forces and their numbers, not quality and cavalry bonuses.
2. Change the victory conditions (for example set a Dunlendish settlement as VC for RK).