Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

[Hepps]

Worked on refining it a little more...

[redrum]

@hepps I think you're are going in the right direction and looks pretty good to me. I think to @Frostion point is having a section in the notes briefly explaining the 'advanced features' (like AA/FS attacks, support, territory effects) for less experienced players would be helpful but that the table should somewhat assume they understand these so that it can be concise and used as a reference.

Only comment on that latest version is I'm not sure the duplication between the key at the top and each row is worth it. I think either going all in on the ability symbol concept or removing it all together would be cleaner. An example would be armor for each unit row could just have the the shield symbol and -1 since the "negative attack to enemy melee" is what the symbol stands for according to the key. Otherwise if the symbol for armor can't convey that well then I don't think its really adding any value. As it sits, the ability symbols and key at the top essentially have no value.

[alkexr]

@hepps Yes, I was going to rename things to resolve ambiguity. Although to respect lore, I would stick with unseen as terror-immunity, and rename the special attack to magic or duel or somesuch. Battlements is a good idea. In the case of siege, I would also rename the unit category, because whatever the fire of orthanc or a battering ram or dragons (units with siege in the upcoming version) do can hardly be called bombardment.

As for territory effects: I'm not really content with the result of the previous rework. I think I will separate territory preference from unit type (so each unit will have a terrain preference type, independent of everything else). What I mean by terrain preference type is "prefer open" (likes plains, like cavalry) or "prefer wilderness" (prefers forests and stuff, dislikes settlements) etc. These can go in the last column then.

[Hepps]

@redrum Except that the armor ability can have differing negative values.

[redrum]

@hepps Right. So each row would just have the shield symbol and the negative value. Essentially remove the "to x1 enemy melee" from each row as that is what the shield symbol means.

[Hepps]

@redrum Yes... I am moving that to the definition right now.

Now I get you.

Some of the info is still in different places as I muddle through which parts are consistent and which parts vary from unit to unit.

[alkexr]

@hepps said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

which parts are consistent and which parts vary from unit to unit.

Well, only the X or the X(xY) can vary between units, I believe.

Another note, the X(xY) format was confusing for some people. Maybe we should switch to 6 charge (x2) from 6x2 charge; similarly 2 ranged (x2), leadership (x6) etc. But if the x2 is a little black number next to a colored one, like the way you wrote the att/def of the knight, that's fine too I think. Just make sure no one will interpret "+2 for 3 units" as "+3 for 2 units".

[Hepps]

@alkexr Yup. trying to make it a consistent representation over the entire chart.

This is where all the attacks & defenses and their duration should be explicitly stated on every ability.

Like in your original chart...
is X Anti Air for 1 round or all rounds.
is X Flank for 1 round or all rounds.

[Hepps]

I think I attained a nice level of clarity and cohesion...

[Hepps]

The final touch...

Note---- The "Plains" terrain was left at 0 for every unit since I do not know how @alkexr plans to use it or whether he even wants to include it in the game.

[Hepps]

So after examining the chart a few things I had loosely suspected while in my journey to learn this game becomes very apparent.

I made some slight alterations to the chart to underscore some of the terrain effects information that muddles a clear understanding. Since many of the units cannot even enter mountainous terrain I replaced the stated modifier with NA. Seems to make sense since they can neither be placed there nor can they move in there.

Firstly, once you remove all the Mountain Terrain modifiers for all the units that cannot enter Mountains you realize Arnor is severely limited in what it can do against the heart of Angmar, since it has only 1 unit type that can even enter mountains.

Secondly, the Terrain Modifiers for cavalry units are looking pretty bleak on both offense & defense. In almost all terrain types their effectiveness is rendered pretty much impotent even for those with 2 attacks & 2 defenses and a charge ability. Never mind using them to attack Angmar's settlements... unless you need fodder since they are at negatives.

Just some food for thought.

[alkexr]

@hepps There is a game option "Territory effects allow all units" (which will be renamed since now only mountains exclude units by default). Also Mordor has 3 fortresses in mountains, and those can produce 1 unit.

Most players only have 1 or 2 units capable of entering mountains. The only problem is that Hard AI Angmar tends to spam mountaineer units.

Instead of being horrible everywhere, cavalry will get a bonus on plains, and only minor penalties on other terrain (so the difference between their performance on plains vs everywhere else remains roughly the same). This won't change much, except on territories with multiple terrain effects - they will no longer be penalized for "not being on plains" for each territory effect, only once.

[Hepps]

@alkexr Cool... glad some guy included plains in there.

[redrum]

@hepps Looks to be coming together nicely. Thoughts:

1. The territory effect numbers are a bit hard to read with the gray background and kind of light red numbers.
2. Might be a good idea to add the territory effect name under the icons at the bottom.

[Hepps]

Here is Angmar... looking pretty tough. The Traits and Abilities are completed but terrain effects are not done yet so ignore them.

[Hepps]

Idea....

[Frostion]

@Hepps Is it possible for every damaged HP to have its own picture? Like 1 hit picture, 2 hit picture and so on? Or what do you mean with the two drops?

[Hepps]

@frostion Some units in LOTR BFA have more than 2 hit points.

This was just meant as a quick rendering after @alkexr asked me about damage unit images.

Here is a full example...

[Hepps]

@frostion said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

@Hepps Is it possible for every damaged HP to have its own picture? Like 1 hit picture, 2 hit picture and so on? Or what do you mean with the two drops?

Yes now you can have units that change as they sustain damage. So you could theoretically have have a unit that has 7 hit points... each damage point would have a new image and (if you so desired) perform differently as it sustains more damage.

Here is the thread...
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/327/unit-option-when-damaged-change-into-different-unit-weakened-battleships/21

BTW TWW 2.8.0.4 BETA already has this incorporated into it. So if you are looking for a functioning XML and unit folder... it's there for you to peruse at your convenience. Our even... dare I say... play it!

[Hepps]

Just to get some feed-back... I went back and redid Arnor with all the finishing touches.

Please weight in on anything you want to see or want to see changed before @alkexr finishes the changes to terrain and unit rosters.