Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

alkexr

After lengthy consideration, here is a draft of planned changes.

Unit changes

Generally try to avoid over-nerfing units. There will be plenty of time for changes later.
✓ AA buff: all units with AA gain +1 AA
✓ Air units will have their movement reduced: 8 -> 5, 6 -> 4, 4 -> 3. This is a nerf enough, prices wil be unchanged until further testing.
✓ Rivercraft buff: rafts defense 2 -> 3, cost 7 -> 4. Swan-boats defense 2 -> 3, cost 10 -> 5.
✓ Ship buff: dromunds defense 4 -> 5, cost 14 -> 12. Black ship defense 3 -> 4, cost 16 -> 14. Both will have 2 HP.
✓ Dragons will get 3 armor (x2), as originally intended. Cost 36 -> 42.
✓ Dunlending wildman cost 4 -> 5, attack 2 -> 3 (slightly stronger, considerably more expensive: half-nerf)
✓ Tower guard attack 5 -> 4
✓ Goblin shooter defense 3 -> 2
✓ Warg scout attack 4 -> 3
✓ Raiders cost 5 -> 6
✓ Easterling cavalry attack 4 -> 5, cost 7 -> 8 (half-nerf)
✓ Chariot defense 5 -> 6, cost 7 -> 8 (half-nerf)
✓ (EDIT) Dúnadan lancers: movement 4 -> 3
✓ (EDIT) Variag raider: cost 7 -> 8
✓ (EDIT) Scout: cost 5 -> 6
✓ (EDIT) Éorling rider: movement 4 -> 3
✓ (EDIT) Éothéod cavalry: movement 4 -> 3
✓ (EDIT) Rohirric scout: cost 7 -> 8
✓ (EDIT) Elven cavalry: cost 7 -> 8, defense 2 -> 3

New unit

✓ Barrow-wights: 7 cost, 3/5/2 infantry, 2 terror, ambusher. Not melee or ranged (they fought with magic of some sort). Countered neither by armor nor by shield, they will be an interesting defensive option for Angmar.

Intended dynamic changes

Make naval invasion by Harad viable, instead of braindead oliphant-canopening
Strengthen Gondor considerably while weakening Mordor, push the front into Ithilien, at least initially
In exchange, make Evil more resilient in the long term where they are outnumbered, especially Angmar + Orcs
Try to avoid the "rush through Osgiliath" vs "rush for Carn Dum" scenario. Breakthrough should be the result of strategic decisions other than "move forward".
Decrease the amount of neutrals wherever reasonable, as there is little interesting in them, save for a few exceptions (Tharbad)
Saruman will not get Hornburg, hopefully this and other changes will allow both Saruman and Rohan to leave the boring doomstack stalemate for more interesting frontlines (vs Freefolk and Lorien / vs Rhun and Mordor)

Unit placement / territory owner changes

Remove pointless neutrals. Territories which will have more than 2 defending neutrals: Eryn Vorn, Druwaith Laur, Druadan Forest, Old Forest (lore reasons) and Tharbad (strategic reasons)
Decrease amount of starting units everywhere, as it has been requested by several people on and off-forum. This means that we can throw many of our observations out the window, but hey, progress requires sacrifices. Currently there's around 7K TUV on board, of which around 5K is land (+air) combat units (rest is mostly walls). This will be reduced to 3.5K-4K.
Angmar will get the Barrow-downs, infested with barrow-wights (with the anticipation that Freefolk will take them out quickly, but at the cost of being able to send less help to Arnor initially)
Angmar will also get the Coldfells
Harad will get catapults to help a naval invasion
Saruman will get everything to the river Greyflood: Lond Daer, North + South Enedwaith, Greyflood East Bank, Isen North Bank
High Elves will get Swanfleet and Ost-in-Edhil (with the anticipation that Orcs/Saruman will take them out quickly)

Territory production

Evil is favoured here slightly. production will grow in importance relative to starting armies, and Evil is significantly behind on production (especially after changes on the Southern Theater)
(Orcs) +1 production to Gladden Fields, Eregion, Dimrill Dale
(High Elves) Move production from Harlond (-1), Forlond (-1) and Mithlond (-2) to Trollshaws (+1), Rhudaur (+2), Coldfells (+1)
(Gondor) +1 production to Calembel, Linhir, Ethring, Pelargir, Anorien, Emyn Arnen, Field of Cormallen, Henneth Annun
(Mordor) -1 production to Morgai, Udun, Gorgoroth, Plateau of Gorgoroth
(Angmar) +1 production to Ettenmoors, Barrow Downs, +2 to Mount Gundabad, +4 to Carn Dum
(Saruman) +1 production to Lond Daer, Swanfleet, Methedras, Ered Nimrais, +2 to West March
(Dwarves) 3 -> 5 unit production to Dain's Halls to shorten Dwarven supply lines ( @Hepps )

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.)
✓ Tweak Dol Guldur and Gondor colors
✓ Ask @Cernel about this thing with map blends
✓ Remove placement hack and add dont_show_units
Flip Eorling riders (to make them easier to tell from King's Company)

Bug fixes

✓ Carn Dum, Mount Gundabad and Wellinghall don't have settlement territory effect
✓ Balcoth tribesmen don't have full tooltips
✓ (EDIT) snaga skirmishers are incorrectly described as ambusher
(EDIT) The names of "Rhudaur", "West Rhudaur", "Helm's Deep", "Treebeard's Hill", "Lands of the Balchoth" are misspelled ("Rhunaur", "West Rhundaur", "Helms Deep", "Treebeards Hill", "Lands of the Balcoth"), the former two only on the relief ( @Hepps yet again - only if that's not too much trouble)
(EDIT) Ethir Anduin doesn't have marsh on the relief

New feature (?)

Quasi-impassable rivers felt nice 4-ish years ago, because they made exploiting the AI much less effortful. Now they feel like they constrain frontlines too much. Rafts and boats were made significantly cheaper now, we'll have to see how this works out. But I feel that river-crossing land canals will be necessary, which can only be crossed if you control both ends (i.e. if you have secured a bridgehead).

redrum

@alkexr Changes look good. I think the only major thing that you still might want to consider addressing further are 4 move land units (I like the air movement changes). Looks like you nerfed a few of them by increasing cost (scout, raider, easterling cav, chariot) but I still feel 4 moves is a lot and maybe should go further on either changing most to 3 moves or making more expensive.

zlefin

looks good; that air nerf should be enough for now at least, and we can see how it goes from there.
One thing I still need clarification on: what combat type are Snaga supposed to be? Ambusher or something else?

alkexr

@zlefin Snaga skirmisher is ambusher atm.

epinikion

hey, I won`t purchase any air with this changes.

Frostion

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

I feel that river-crossing land canals will be necessary, which can only be crossed if you control both ends (i.e. if you have secured a bridgehead).

I am curious.. Is there a way that a mapmaker can limit the number of units that may cross from one territory to another? Like if there was a natural narrowing in terrain or if the army had to pass via a small bridge or improvised rafts.

Btw. It looks like @alkexr is doing great work and progress. It's nice that players give feedback as written reports With lots of detail.

zlefin

@alkexr

are you sure snaga are properly coded as ambusher? iirc when I was testing in game; based on the numbers they got in provinces they were actually some other type (forget the name of it atm, ?creature? I think, the one with -2/-2 in cities). I'm quite sure I saw large stacks of snaga having 0 defense in cities even when there were like 20 of them, they had 0 pips of defense.
I'm not in a position to double check it myself right now.

alkexr

@zlefin Nice catch! They are coded to have wilderness preference.

alkexr

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

I think the only major thing that you still might want to consider addressing further are 4 move land units

I've been thinking about this. A major issue is that we didn't actually see most of those units in play.
But we can nerf them, it will likely be a move towards balance, not away from it.

Dúnadan lancers: movement 4 -> 3
Variag raider: cost 7 -> 8
Scout: cost 5 -> 6
Éorling rider: movement 4 -> 3
Éothéod cavalry: movement 4 -> 3
Rohirric scout: cost 7 -> 8
Elven cavalry: cost 7 -> 8, defense 2 -> 3
Warg rider: stays as is (I didn't want to buff them yet, but they didn't feel very strong. Their wilderness preference is inconvenient for Angmar. Orcs were busy building warg scouts.)

Note that for now I don't plan to buff units. Also the immediate goal is not fine-tuning units; the dynamics of the game is still going to change a lot in this version, maybe even the next.

redrum

@alkexr Cool. I think those changes look like a step in the right direction and yeah until things settle a bit more, we can't really fine tune.

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