Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread
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2.1 beta with balance changes and bugfixes is out. If you want to test it out, you can download it manually (green "code" button, "download zip"). I'll wait a bit before pushing this version to the in-game downloader.
Changelog:
- Unit price changes: rangers 7 PUs, up from 6; pony riders 5 PUs, up from 4; eagles 32 PUs, up from 24; winged nazgul 36 PUs, up from 30
- Unit stats rebalance: uruk warriors attack 5, up from 4; oathbreakers defense 1, down from 2
- 3 units can be placed in Fornost, down from 5
- Territory production changes: Dale 6 prod. (up from 4), Esgaroth 8 prod. (up from 6), Lond Daer 6 prod. (up from 4)
- Angmar owns East and West Forochel Coast. Starts with an extra warg rider on the former and 2 warg riders and 2 snaga skirmishers on the latter.
- Freefolk starts with fewer units. Removed 1 ranger from Andrath, 1 pony rider from Brandywine Bridge, 1 spearman from Archet, 1 scout from Bree Hill and 1 pony rider and 1 hobbit archer from Old Winyards.
- Saruman starts with more units. 3 additional halforcs in Nan Curunír.
- Rohan starts with fewer units. 2 Helming warriors, 2 bowmen and 1 riddermark militia removed from Hornburg.
- Rohan starts with its cavalry further away from the front. 1 King's Company from Edoras, 2 Eorling riders from West Emnet and 1 Eorling rider from the Eastfold was moved to the Folde.
- Territory effects no longer block blitzing if blitzing is enabled in the game options
- Fixed the oliphaunt TUV bug
- Added a "canal" connection across the Falls of Rauros for air units only
- Updated game notes
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Looks like good changes for the most part. I look forward to playing it. Though I can't play it online until the updates make it to the bots. I poked through it some in single player and it all seemed to work fine.
The net changes seem like a pretty big boost to evil; while I agree evil needed a boost, this seems like quite a large one, with a tuv shift of some +100 for evil. I'll have to play it some to get a feel for how it works out though, as these are notoriously tricky. It's certainly going to be a huge difference for what saruman can do early on, as he now cannot be piled on so much, which will let him hold his income for much longer.
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Thank you so much for the update! Very excited to play it again. Quick question: Did you design and update the map with the intent for it to be played with low luck, or regular dice? Went through the game notes for recommended map settings but didn't see one for dice. I thought I remembered one of the LOTR maps had low luck in mind but it might have been the older map not Battle for Arda.
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@alkexr Thanks for the balance patch and for continuing to work on the next version.
I think that the balance changes are pretty all good:
- It helps out Isengard a lot against Rohan and the Free Folk, which was very needed, and makes uruk warriors less useless
- It makes Winged Nazgul and Eagles less dominant when used
- It gives the northmen a bit more production against Rhun
- It gives Angmar an extra 1-2 turns before the seige
However, I think it's missing two huge balance issues in the game:
- Dol Guldor can be irreparably held back on turn 1, since the woodland realm can take out two spiders before they move (with 100% chance on low luck). I think that either Dol Guldor needs 1-2 more snagas on west mirkwood and the narrows, or the woodland realm needs 1-2 fewer sentinels (maybe replace with spearmen or a wall, or just move them farther back).
- Moria can likely take Rivendell on turn 2 (with ~70% chance in low luck. Basically if they don't lose the duel) and there's nothing Good can do to stop it. I think another wall in Rivendell should be sufficient
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Has it been long enough for this to be pushed to the downloader?
and how long does it take something to get to the bots after its been pushed to the in-game download system?