Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

Hepps

@alkexr here you go. I have included the revisions for the reliefs based on the PU values you sent me.

I included new base tiles with the river and sea colours blended a the estuary for each major river.

I included medium sized versions of all the flags. You are going to have to rename them depending on what you decide to use.

Happy releasing! And have fun on your trip.

alkexr

Large Middle Earth - The Battle For Arda (version 2.0.1)
Download latest prerelease -> Download map -> Unzip -> Put into downloadedMaps folder -> Play!

I'll be away for a week. I might or might not be able to check the forum, but I definitely won't be able to start TripleA or do anything other than using the forum.
I'm releasing because unit rework is mostly done, but I don't know how much the units are worth. The map is in playable state I think, so feel free to give it a try. I warmly welcome any savegames, whether PvP or single player. I'm also waiting for your suggestions for tweaking units stats/costs.

State of the map can be summarised as follows:

New units mostly completed
Some of the unit images were done hastily, some old unit images are still present... But worry not! Before: After:
There is no way that balance is anywhere in the reasonable spectrum
There are no game notes and no unit tooltips. I had no time left for that, unfortunately. May the light of Varda and @Hepps guide you through the darkness.
Sea Units option is not yet included. I'll have to rethink sea units when I have the time.

Some important points:

Now every unit has a "Terrain preference class" or whatever. This determines how it is affected by terrain. It is independent of unit categories.
Added shield ability, which is basically armor except against ranged, not melee.
Unseen attack renamed to duel, and now it happens in all combat rounds.
Now there are some units with 10/12 charge. This means that you need a very recent prerelease to play, and it can easily be that Low Luck AA will throw an error.
Fortifications had to be reworked after minimal testing revealed that the original idea wasn't really good. Walls now have a relatively significant defense value, and they are cheaper. Ancient fortifications now have defense values too. Everything gives less battlements support.
Hard AI exhibits... erm... well, sub-human level play.
Losing your capital now hurts you in no way (well, maybe you could consider keeping that juicy production), at least in theory - dragons and olpihaunts now repair two hits a turn.
@redrum there is an engine bug with the minimap I think when territories change ownership. Also there is a bug in 10535 in edit mode when trying to place units on the same territory twice.

Future plans:

Fix all them bugs.
Number versions like 2.0.x until it is polished
Replace the unit images that have an innate 12 terror against players.
Balance units by tweaking stats/costs.
Add game notes and tooltips.
Write a better placement picker and generate better placements for territories.
Add sea units.
Achieve balance by changing territory production values and starting armies.
Play games. And get beaten on my own map in front of the whole TripleA community. (This is actually likely... I've never played PvP games of PBF/PBEM length.)
Keep reminding the community that their savegames would really help with balancing. Even if it is a shameful defeat at the hands of the AI. (I don't think that's possible at the present state though...)

Here is another thing that will probably be helpful for you in deciphering the xml to learn unit abilities. Large Middle Earth TagX.xml - the game xml is generated from this.

Ask any questions, leave any suggestions, I will read them (eventually). Have fun!

redrum

@alkexr @Hepps Looks great already! Excellent work. I can easily see this becoming a top TripleA map!

@alkexr Any additional details on the engine bugs are appreciated.

@all - Make sure to rename the folder after unzipping so you should end up with this file path in downloadedMaps: \large_middle_earth\map

redrum

@alkexr @Hepps Found a few minor issues:

~~Hornburg shows 3 PUs on the map but actual value is 1 PU~~
~~If dragons lose 2 HP in battle then they can't move afterwards to land~~
~~Dragon 2 damage image has damage number overlap top blood drop, probably should move drops to both be in the bottom corner~~
Small white piece of line dividing between Lower Forest River and Elf Path

I can also confirm:

~~The minimap issue that conquered territories color in too dark (I'll look into fixing this)~~
~~I did get an error when trying to add units in edit mode and reported it here: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3536~~

alkexr

@redrum said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

Hornburg shows 3 PUs on the map but actual value is 1 PU
If dragons lose 2 HP in battle then they can't move afterwards to land

Fixed - 2.0.1 is out. Dragons now don't change into dragon_hit2 after taking 2 damage - this must be causing the bug and it's purely visual. @redrum you might want to look into why air units can't land if changed mid-battle.

Last morning fix for a while.

Hepps

@alkexr Looks good so far. Going to be an adventure going through the XML to hunt everything down.

Hepps

@redrum said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

Small white piece of line dividing between Lower Forest River and Elf Path

First comment and that makes the list! I had hoped for it to take longer before someone noticed that.

Hepps

@redrum There are two more of them on the map as well.

Cernel

@alkexr How did you upload this zip this way that you get it downloaded directly with the link. How does this work? I think we should document this practice somewhere, as it is better than posting a SendSpace link or something.

Cernel

@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"

Cernel

How about having combat move before purchase?

Cernel

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.

Hepps

@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.

alkexr

@cernel

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].zip after 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?

@Hepps

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.

Hepps

@alkexr Yes as the designer you know what everything is supposed to do... trying to back engineer this info is quite the undertaking.

Frostion

@alkexr As for landing in recently conquered territories, look at Dragon War. Here dragons may land. Take special notice of the player steps.

redrum

@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

Hepps

@redrum And he gets all three white marks on the first go round.

redrum

@hepps Someone has to keep you honest and keep up the expectations of perfection.

Cernel

@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.