Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

[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.

[mattbarnes]

Hepps - you say Cavalry look underpowered. However I've found that in non-mountain areas their Charge and Flank bonuses are very effective. In one PvP game, a mass of Wargs could move around blitzing everything. Even with a large target, a strafing attack with Charge can double the one-round damage. Flank rips-apart any archer-heavy stacks. But you're right that in the north, Arnor get little benefit from cavalry against Cave/Mountain-based Angmar.

In my second PvP on this map, I toggled the option that prevents Charge/Flank against fortifications. This was crucial to prevent the Evil cavalry being overpowered.

Alexr - the game currently prevents new Fortification building. These are expensive and would be rarely built but could be tactically crucial some time to defend against cavalry stacks. Can you add this capability?

Alexr - where is your thinking about Siege units? I love the dynamic of strong settlements, surrounding them, and needing specialist units to break them. However, I have struggled to make use of them due to their speed. In my PvP, I have had to make dwarf siege units in turn 1 and then march them for 8 or more turns to get them to join Arnor in attacking Carn Durn. I narrowly achieved this but by then time is starting to run-out on other fronts. In the south, as Mordor, I've been able to deploy catapults against Osgilliath, which is good. However, in other theatres, no-one seems to be able to build siege engines or at least get them to the right places, so the dynamic is relatively limited.

Alexr - I saw the debate about Unseen power. This is the feature I've struggled most to bear in mind or effectively use in the game. It's not very effective as Terror-immunity as there are usually other units in a stack for Terror to work against in any case. So the main effect is to add randomness to big battles as the Unseen units get extra hits on each other.

[Hepps]

@mattbarnes Yup on open plains I can see where they'd have some value... and when I did the Angmar chart I also noted just how valuable the Wargs were. All great points.

[mattbarnes]

If anything, Formation isn't powerful enough. If I invest in Formation troops I want them to effectively dissuade a Charge but their effect is weaker. Maybe it's because you only get one Formation roll per attacker, so two 6Charge units get a roll at 12 together and three 4Formation defenders only roll 8 together. I get the logic (the third defender isn't charged) but in reality well-formed infantry should be relatively impervious to charges so maybe need higher Formation values?

[alkexr]

@mattbarnes said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

Hepps - you say Cavalry look underpowered. However I've found that in non-mountain areas their Charge and Flank bonuses are very effective. In one PvP game, a mass of Wargs could move around blitzing everything. Even with a large target, a strafing attack with Charge can double the one-round damage. Flank rips-apart any archer-heavy stacks. But you're right that in the north, Arnor get little benefit from cavalry against Cave/Mountain-based Angmar.

Yes, wargs were overpowered, especially for 6PUs.

Alexr - the game currently prevents new Fortification building. These are expensive and would be rarely built but could be tactically crucial some time to defend against cavalry stacks. Can you add this capability?

I detailed changes to fortifications in this post.

Alexr - where is your thinking about Siege units? I love the dynamic of strong settlements, surrounding them, and needing specialist units to break them. However, I have struggled to make use of them due to their speed. In my PvP, I have had to make dwarf siege units in turn 1 and then march them for 8 or more turns to get them to join Arnor in attacking Carn Durn. I narrowly achieved this but by then time is starting to run-out on other fronts. In the south, as Mordor, I've been able to deploy catapults against Osgilliath, which is good. However, in other theatres, no-one seems to be able to build siege engines or at least get them to the right places, so the dynamic is relatively limited.

All units will have at least 2 movement.

Alexr - I saw the debate about Unseen power. This is the feature I've struggled most to bear in mind or effectively use in the game. It's not very effective as Terror-immunity as there are usually other units in a stack for Terror to work against in any case. So the main effect is to add randomness to big battles as the Unseen units get extra hits on each other.

All Elves have unseen, so their stacks will be mostly immune. In the lore Elves existed in both the seen and unseen realms, and so they did not fear wraiths or the nazgul. This is just a not-so-important ability to add more depth.

An entirely different ability that had the misfortune of being given the exact same name is a special attack. That is intended to reflect that whenever two Maiar/other powerful beings met on the battlefield in LotR, they almost always faced each other in some sort of duel (Gandalf vs The Nine at Amon Sul, Gandalf vs Durin's Bane in Moria, Gandalf vs the Witch-King at Minas Tirith).

I'm not sure the terror-immunity adds too much to the game other than being a refeerence to the lore, but the special attack makes you be more cautious when engaging in masive battles.