Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

[TheDog]

@alkexr
Im really liking the idea on the Neutrals.
Good change for the Flyers as this keeps most of them out of my lists below.

Consider the following;
Warships like the Dromund moving 3 as it is rower and sail powered.
Cavalry transport cost 1 -> 2
Creature transport cost 1 -> 3+, some like the Oliphant could be 99, so it cannot be transported by sea.
This requires that transport carrying capacity increases.

For what it is worth as we calculate PUs differently, I have the following PU suggestions;
(These do take into consideration your proposed changes.)
However with the proposed changes in the size of starting armies, Leadership has lost some of its value.

Top 3 differences are;
winged_nazgul 30 -> 47, difference of 17
nazgul 18 -> 27, difference of 9
wizard 20 -> 29, difference of 9

Increase PU of;
olog_hai 20 ->24
swan_knight 12 ->19
wainrider_chieftain 14 ->18
kings_company 11 ->18

Decrease PU of;
fire_of_orthanc 14 ->12
This is hard to value as it is a suicide unit, but I think it is currently overvalued. I think it closer to 8 PU, but that is too much of a change for now.

The PU suggestions are just that, suggestions.

Once again, thanks to all involved, for all the hard work!

[Cernel]

@alkexr said in Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread:

Visual

• Remove PUs from the reliefs and add PU placements ( @Hepps I will add the placements if you give me the relief without PUs and the PU images.)

Yes, be sure to do that. While I understand putting the territory effect display in relief, as that is the only way to have them fancy, having the PUs is relief is potentially an even bigger issue, both for developing and modding the map. If you want to save time, just make a decoration covering the whole map, having the PUs images, that is much easier to manage (very minor basic graphic skills required and no surging needed) and will display also with map details off (as PUs info should).

• Tweak Dol Guldur and Gondor colors

I don't see any need to change Gondor. Dol Guldur, just have it exactly in the middle of the colours of Mordor and Saruman (currently, it seems a bit too closer to Mordor). I have to say that, for a map featuring 16 different players and neutrals, and also colour based units, colours have been close to excellently selected. It is a huge challenge to be distinctive with 17 different players plus the sea, and there are maps around that have distinctiveness issues with half or less that number (pretty much, if you go to 20+ players, then you cannot anymore distinguish with colours, as there is no way you can have all distinctive with each other, thus you would need to have flags everywhere and units with flags or anyways not colour based, talking also to those suggesting to add more players to the map).

• Ask @Cernel about this thing with map blends

I see that you are already using blends to overlay, meaning mostly mixing the base with the relief (albeit that applies more to the normal setting, as overlay has also other effects, that make the relief somewhat more defined or grittier looking and sharpen the transparency differences) that, as the base behind the territories being white, it basically manily means you are whitening the map a bit.

You prefer having that?

Anyways, if you are fine with losing that available effect, in favour of a darkening one, you can substitute the relevant lines with this:

map.mapBlends=false
map.mapBlendMode=LINEAR_LIGHT
map.mapBlendAlpha=0.2

This will allow mostly to darken the board a bit, by ticking "View/Show Map Blends", for people that prefer so, and also being able to keep switching during the course of the game, while keeping the default at its own bright colourful glory.

• Remove placement hack and add dont_show_units

Low priority, now that the stable is out, but a nice clean up to be made, since I feel responsible for being always the one suggesting the dirty hacks.:winking_face:

• Flip Eorling riders (to make them easier to tell from King's Company)

Nah, let them cavalry all face the same direction. Add a pennant to the lance of the King's Company, if that makes sense. Also, should the King's Company have the biggest horses? Also I believe everything being different should have a different image, the colours just telling a different ownership story; meaning I suggest making some changes to either "raider" or "variag_raider" (also, if feasible, changing "raider" to a name not being a subset of "variag_raider", so that you can talk about those without the risk of confusion).

Bug fixes

• Carn Dum, Mount Gundabad and Wellinghall don't have settlement territory effect

Now here I could use that feature request by @zlefin.
Also add that Ethir Anduin doesn't have the marsh graphic in relief.
It's important you get everything right here, since the territory effects are on the relief; so basically you can only change them by remaking the relief. Hopefully the players of this map will report anything the like they might spot.

• (EDIT) The names of "Rhudaur", "West Rhudaur", "Helm's Deep", "Treebeard's Hill" are misspelled ("Rhunaur", "West Rhundaur", "Helms Deep", "Treebeards Hill"), the former two only on the relief ( @Hepps yet again - only if that's not too much trouble)

Oh no! The names are on the relief too. I understand that doing it the proper way is a lot of work on top of already a lot of work, but, in this case, I suggest making a decoration image covering the whole board, where to have the names (much better and practical, at no additional workload). If going this way, I suggest such decoration having whatever the like (PUs etc.), meaning not using this method more than once, as having multiple decorations covering the whole board would slow down loading times.

[Cernel]

@cernel Also, I recall that veqryn told me (not in forum tho) to avoid having apostrophes in the names, or anything referenced to the user really, as, in his opinion, it might have given problems to some. He didn't explain better, so just saying in case this is of any relevance, and I'm curious to know more on the matter, in case anybody knows. Feel free to ignore, as veqryn didn't explain me specifically what might have been these problems, and I definitely would go with "Helm's Deep" as well, if no major problems in most cases.

[alkexr]

Experimenting with the color of Dol Guldur...

How quickly can you notice the stray Mordor army?

[redrum]

@alkexr Definitely better.

[Hepps]

@alkexr All of the territory spelling mistakes are fixed and the missing swamp images have been added to the reliefs.

I am working on removing all the PU from the map now.

[alkexr]

Okay so I finished the planned changes. I also made some other changes, most importantly snaga skirmishers got nerfed (cost 4 -> 5, attack 2 -> 3).

https://github.com/triplea-maps/battle_for_arda/archive/development.zip

@redrum you may want to have a quick look at the balance before the next round of game(s).

[alkexr]

Version 2.0.7 is online, next round of games can commence any time now. I think I can try up to two games at once this time. @epinikion you are the next in line if you want a game, since you've already asked for it quite some time ago.

[zlefin]

not that it means much as a baseline, but on hard ai only games, the good side consistently wins in this newer version.

[epinikion]

hey alkexr, yeah that would be fun. can you make it to the lobby? Or should we start pbem? my email is epinikionrevised@gmail.com.

best, epi

[epinikion]

hey, i updated the map
now i get an error loading a file with the previous version. Any help?

thx, epi

[epinikion]

0_1539540060769_wass.tsvg

this is the file i cant open any more since i updated to new version. Wassmuss and me are very thankful for any help!

thank you in advance,

epi

[redrum]

@alkexr Looks like some territories are missing centers:

No data of type centers for territory: Helms Deep
No data of type centers for territory: Lands of the Balcoth
No data of type centers for territory: Treebeards Hill

Were these renamed or are they actually missing?

[Cernel]

@epinikion It is almost certainly because some territory names were changed between versions, so you (both) need to get back the old map, if you want to keep playing it.

It would be good if there is a way to warn users when a version they download is breaking backward compatibility with the one they have installed (and might have savegames of).

In general, better never updating maps when you have any savegames to finish.

The way to change names while granting backward compatibility is to keep all the old entries in the folders, but this is kind of a dirty solution, as it keeps around a lot of useless entries (maybe for the years to come), and, anyways, it is up to the mapmakers to do it, and it is sometimes just impossible (like in the case you are using for some territory a name previously assigned to another one).

[epinikion]

thank you cernel

[alkexr]

@epinikion I have played neither in the lobby nor PBEM yet, so I'll need help setting the game up. We can start it now, but I'm having busy days, so I won't be able to make my move until around Thursday.

I prefer default rules, except Low Luck and Low Luck for AA on. Choose your side.

[epinikion]

hey alkexr, i have send you an email. so you have my mailadress. for pbem is an easy manuel at this website. short description: 1. register your emailadree at marti-dicserver. its free 2. start the trpleasoftware. 3. choose play by mail 4. enter your and mine emailadress 5. start playing. 6. Saver after your move and 7. send me the file (this could be also automatic). then i load the file, move my turn save , send file to you and so on. all dice rolls will be send by marti to both players. We also can play by forum but for this i need some help for the setup, bc i never did before

your settings are fine for me, i will choose evil, looking forward

[alkexr]

@epinikion Wait... you choose Evil... then I can't set up the game, because Saruman comes first.

EDIT: or can I? I manually posted a savegame in theory, not sure if that will work...
Anyway, tell me what I have to do if I didn't do something correctly.

[redrum]

@alkexr You can still set it up and just not play the first turn

[alkexr]

@epinikion won game 2 by resignation at the end of turn 5. Here are my observations.

Summary of the game (savegame)

• Gondor held Osgiliath firmly, and there was no sign of that changing.
• It took 4 turns of skirmishes on both sides until Henneth Annun was canopened by Harad and crushed by Mordor.
• The game saw small-scale naval harrassment by Harad, but their focus was canopening for Mordor.
• The Angmar strategy appears to have relied on a sneak attack against Rivendell, which the High Elves noticed in time. All it resulted in was the entire Angmar army being stuck before Rivendell for turns, putting little to no pressure on the surrounding players. It did block eagle spam, though, and wasn't too far away from succeeding to take the city either.
• Angmar got almost completely overrun by Arnor by turn 2.
• This in turn allowed the Freefolk to take Tharbad very early, and build up considerable pressure on Orcs and Saruman.
• Saruman focused on dunlending wildmen almost entirely, which did put pressure on Lorien, but resulted in them being hopelessly overrun on the plains by Rohan and Freefolk.
• Orcs focused on Lorien, relying on Angmar to prevent the High Elves from interfering. Lorien was cornered, the Ents were successfully neutralized, but Caras Galadhon wasn't quite about to fall yet when the Freefolk pressure became too strong on the Orcs to ignore.
• Rhun decided to go to North, bypassing the Halls of Gror and threatening the Erebor-Dale-Esgaroth town chain. Northmen failed to contest the Rhun naval superiority on the river in time, and were in the end forced back to desperately try to hold on to their capital.
• Dol Guldur couldn't take Rhosgobel, but bypassing it they managed to checkmate the already threatened Erebor-Dale-Esgaroth and the Elvenkings Halls.

Mistakes

• Saruman miscalculated a battle and lost their main force in a 100+ TUV-swing battle. (Why does it always happen to Saruman?)
• Northmen not contesting naval superiority on the Celduin river. Control over that river was worth more than 100 TUV (at least 2 turns worth of Rhun reinforcements, plus tactical advantage).
• Northmen not resisting the attack of Rhun. I suppose they couldn't have done too much, but in retrospect the alternative is unacceptable.
• Lorien not making up their mind what to do with their Ents. They were forced out of their forests, doing nothing. 64 TUV neutralized.
• Mordor spamming catapults, instead on e.g. winged nazgul. At some point Mordor had 8 of them. Winged nazgul are actually more effective at taking down unprotected walls, since they aren't prone to counterattacks. At the same time they are much more flexible and give tons of leadership and terror.
• Saruman spamming dunlending wildmen. Not that they aren't good for their own purpose, but they were forced into very disadvantageous exchanges on the plains.
• The Angmar strategy, as a whole. Letting Arnor get 15+ production that they shouldn't have gotten and by that letting Freefolk do their thing in the South, in exchange for a dubious sneak attack.
• Dwarves. I just don't see their raison d'etre. They marched West, but by the time they arrived, there was nothing to do. Then they went on to prevent all the 3 production in the Halls of Gror to fall into the hands of Rhun. They did nothing in the entire game. Now I see what @redrum was saying. It's so frustrating. I don't even see what I should have done with them.

Units

• Oathbreakers are overpowered. They should get cost 5 -> 6, attack 1 -> 2
• Swan knights feel strong. Rangers are good. Tower guards don't feel nearly as strong as they did playing against them.
• Eorling riders are probably a little too strong.
• Crebain make their threat felt, now that I played against them.
• As for trolls, now I too see their use. But I'm not sure they need a nerf, they aren't cheap.
• Bats are good.
• Pony riders are maybe a bit too strong. Fast moving fodder, reliable on most terrain.
• Hobbit archers feel inferior to pony riders and spearmen, not a lot of reason to buy them.
• Units of the Dwarves feel a little lacking in general. Dwarven terrain preference might get a buff: mountains, caves +1/+2 -> +1/+3, hills +1/+2 -> +2/+2

Balance

• Gondor is fine. They will have a harder time with nerfed oathbreakers. A Mordor breakthrough isn't trivial to achieve. Not sure how much Harad can threaten the coast, further encouragement may be necessary.
• Orcs-Lorien balance is ok. Orcs can make gains if they fully focus on Lorien, but an early kill seems to be beyond their capabilities.
• If not for that early mistake by Saruman, Evil could have made significant gains against Rohan / Freefolk. Further testing needed, but Evil appears to have the edge.
• Northmen / Dwarves / Woodland Realm: they were crushed, even though for several turns they defended most of their production base with something like stacks of 1 on the borders against Angmar. I suggest the following production changes: Esgaroth 6 -> 8, Lands of the Bardings 1 -> 2, Halls of Gror 3 -> 4, Erebor 8 -> 10 (+1 unit per turn, basically). Dwarves will get 2 more units in the Halls of Gror.