Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread
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@redrum Aaand make sure to have sounds on.
@alkexr I also like that you changed the title. I didn't like "All Stars". I would also remove the "Large" at start, if that is meant to be comparative to the other LotR we already have, as this is definitely a map in its own right, not an enlarged variant of something else.
My suggestion would be:
"Lord of the Rings - The Battle for Arda" -
How about having combat move before purchase?
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Also, I believe here air should be able to land on conquered territories, and maybe conquering them with air only, if not even hovering enemy ones. I don't know if air should be able to hang on sea zones too.
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@alkexr Love the changes... probably going to wait for you to get back from your trip before trying to finish the unit charts... just way to much crap to try and filter through in the XML. Sorry buddy.
The new units are much improved.... but for the sake of honesty... The new wizard you put in for Saruman and the High Elves... looks like the silhouette for a witch Halloween costume. All the rest look fantastic. Really enjoying the changes. Looking forward to seeing the details of all the new units.
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How did you upload this zip this way that you get it downloaded directly with the link. How does this work?
There is a big green "Clone or download" button on GitHub. When clicked, anoher button named "Download ZIP" appears. Right click that button and copy the link adress. Alternatively, you can manually type
/archive/[branchname].zipafter the link of the GitHub repo.I would also remove the "Large" at start, if that is meant to be comparative to the other LotR we already have, as this is definitely a map in its own right, not an enlarged variant of something else.
People refer to this map as Large Middle Earth or LME. My guess is that people would still refer to it this way even if the map name was changed. But it's just a guess.
My suggestion would be:
"Lord of the Rings - The Battle for Arda"
That would be slightly confusing, because the game is not about the War of the Ring. (As if I couldn't include a War of the Ring scenario...).
How about having combat move before purchase?
Ehm... not sure
Also, I believe here air should be able to land on conquered territories
Is this even possible?
just way to much crap to try and filter through in the XML
Why, is ten thousand lines of XML so much?
Anyway, so it seems best if I focus on unit tooltips and game notes for now to make it accessible to players.The new wizard you put in for Saruman and the High Elves... looks like the silhouette for a witch Halloween costume.
Lol. I'll redraw it.
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@alkexr Yes as the designer you know what everything is supposed to do... trying to back engineer this info is quite the undertaking.
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@alkexr As for landing in recently conquered territories, look at Dragon War. Here dragons may land. Take special notice of the player steps.
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@alkexr Well here is your first save game for the new beta version: 0_1531889451036_save_LME.tsvg
I only played through the first round playing both sides but overall seems pretty solid (though tough to play without the beautiful unit charts @Hepps is working on as I now very much realize the engine really shows nothing to give any indication on territory effects for each unit). Balance is probably within reason for now and I'd need a few more rounds to really see how far evil can push in a few places. Lots of contentious areas and high movement units which leads to lots of action. Once naval units are added it will get even more crazy as that would open up the map further. Honestly lots of really good stuff already and like the unit variety, territory effects, fortifications vs siege dynamic, and mountain movement restrictions.
Few more minor issues I noticed:
- Emyn Muil -> Dead Marshes connection missing
- White mark on territory border between Pinnath Gelin and West Gondor
- White mark on territory border between North Brown Lands and East Brown Lands
- White mark on territory border between Lower Forest River and Elf Path
- Would be good to add in a PUs image
- Would be good to shrink the player flags in the bottom right corner
Also here is the map.properties I'm using to smooth out the color scheme: 0_1531890096841_map.properties
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@redrum And he gets all three white marks on the first go round.
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@hepps Someone has to keep you honest and keep up the expectations of perfection.
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@alkexr Then I would just call it "Middle Earth - The Battle for Arda". I don't think the map name, and even more so the game name, should have any references about how large the map is or is not, or there would be many games starting as "Large" or "Big" (I don't like names like "Big World", either, but at least that one uses exactly v2 or v3 rules in a bigger map; so it makes sense, as it is in direct comparison with Revised, etc.).
Of course, not a big deal.
The suggestion that Eagles and such should not crash to the ground an be destroyer if ending in a territory you just conquered (or liberated) was a general statement that the current TripleA air rules are really bad and silly at representing fantasy flyers, as they are based on the assumption that all flyers need airports to land on. Since it is you that are doing this stuff, you can tell ideally how the fliers should actually work, and, then, we can see if to open a feature request (for supporting bird-like flyers) and how close we can get to it with what you can currently do, using steps, conditions and triggers.
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Large Middle Earth - The Battle For Arda (version 2.0.3)
(Fixed a lot of stuff. Shrunk flags, air units no longer have to land, siege lasts 1 battle round only, tweaked some unit stats. Fortification now prevents charge, flank and trample by default. For full list of changes, visit GitHub.)Most importantly, we now have awesome tooltips (kudos to @redrum!). For tooltips to be displayed properly, you need at least prerelease 10803. Now you can play knowing the abilities of your units... it certainly is going to be a refreshing experience!
Here is how it works. For targeted attacks and supports, the generated tooltips are used. The things that are appended to it: the type of the unit (melee, infantry, etc.), the abilities unseen and mountaineer (yes, I turned my back on MTG), and territory preferences. For territory preferences, only one keyword is found in the tooltip - a hastily done table in the game notes explains their meaning.
The idea behind territory preferences is that rangers and bowmen are both ranged infantry, but obviously rangers like forests, while bowmen hate it. So instead of using unit type as a base for calculating territory effects, each unit gets a fighting style of some sort. Most cavalry prefer open terrain, especially plains. Levies prefer to fight for their homes near their homes - they like settlements and plains while disliking the wilderness. Some other units prefer wilderness - forests, hills; but this comes at a cost of penalties to fighting in settlements, the opposite of the wilderness. Unyielding units are great at holding positions, while relentless units just keep attacking regardless of how unfavourable the terrain is. Etc. In general, all terrain favours the defender, except plains, which favors the attacker.
Short description of the abilities:
- armor: negative support to melee
- shield: negative support to ranged
- ranged: positive support to melee, attack only
- web: negative support to melee, defense only
- leadership: positive support (siege engines and fortifications are unaffected)
- terror: negative support (unseen units, siege engines and fortifications are unaffected)
- charge: offensive first strike vs infantry
- trample: offensive first strike vs infantry and cavalry
- flank: vs ranged infantry and siege engines
- formation: defensive first strike vs units that "charge"; can't roll more dices than there are valid targets
- siege: offensive first strike vs fortifications, kills instantly regardless of hitpoints
- antiair: defensive vs flying units
- duel: vs other units with "duel", kills instantly regardless of hitpoints
- mountaineer: can enter mountains (flying units can enter mountains too, of course)
- battlements: positive support to infantry AND negative support to non-flying non-siegeengine non-fortification
(Siege engines and fortifications are not considered "combat units", so they are unaffected by most things unless explicitly stated otherwise.)
Stuff not yet adressed:
- Halloween witches
- Game name
- Game notes
- Some unpolished unit images
- Move before or after purchase?
- Sea units
- placement picking
- balancing, balancing, balancing
PS. It's so awesome that the procedural tooltip generation knows LotR lore!
Or how else could it possibly know the name of the wizard?
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Move before or after purchase?
You can have both, actually. Look at my WWIIv3 Move-Buy-Move in WWIIv3 Variants. Not necessarily advising it: probably better just before. But you can experiment that way and behold yourself that almost all movement will be made before (just speculating).
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@alkexr Looking like some great updates! On remaining items, I'd vote for purchase after move.
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@alkexr Any input on how to address the flier issue? It makes some sense that an aeroplane cannot land in conquered territories, but it really makes no sense that an eagle cannot.
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@cernel In my opinion, games with flyers or helicopters are in need of a property allowing to land on any friendly territories, no matter if newly conquered. I also guess it should be something easy to do, as the matter would be just to ignore a check or something?
EDIT: Probably the best, rather than a property, would be having a unit option for allowing landing in newly acquired (conquered or liberated on the same turn) territories, in case a game wants to have, like, aeroplanes and helicopters.
However, as now, you can totally disable the crashing for planes. So you could do that and detail in notes what rules are supposed to apply for air, making it self-enforced.
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@cernel in the latest version flying units can end their turn wherever they like. They still can't conquer territories alone: it isn't supported by engine, and I won't ever include player enforced rules in any of my maps.
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@alkexr Well, this is surely better than dragons needing airports to land.
An alternative to user enforced, is trigger enforced. For example, you tell in notes that air cannot stay on water, and make a set of triggers to remove air units on water, preferably also with a set of notifications telling the players when they lost some flyers. -
@alkexr said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:
They still can't conquer territories alone: it isn't supported by engine
Theorically you could make a set of triggers that conquer the territories if attacking units are left and the territory is enemy owned. I don't know if that would take into account liberation, tho (if it doesn't, more triggers would be needed).
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@alkexr It would be good if you format the zip correctly, meaning:
- Having it not double folder, but with the "map" as the first subfolder.
- Having it called just "large_middle_earth".
Mostly because it's already hard enough to get regular users to manual install; without having to unzip, cut/paste and rename folders around... Failed to get a game going in lobby with a regular because of the above (he gave up).
