Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread
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Experimenting with the color of Dol Guldur...
How quickly can you notice the stray Mordor army?
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@alkexr Definitely better.
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@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.
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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).
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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.
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not that it means much as a baseline, but on hard ai only games, the good side consistently wins in this newer version.
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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
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hey, i updated the map
now i get an error loading a file with the previous version. Any help?thx, epi
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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
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@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 HillWere these renamed or are they actually missing?
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@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).
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thank you cernel
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@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.
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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
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@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. -
@alkexr You can still set it up and just not play the first turn
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@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.
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I really like this map but I would really suggest you using Heroes iii unit images.
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@alkexr Seems that you are coming around to some of my feedback that you didn't necessarily agree with after our first game
Interesting game and appears that its definitely more balanced after the changes. Though IMO both Saruman and Angmar played pretty poorly and ended up pretty much collapsing. If they had been able to at least stalemate their fronts then it probably is a close game. Though surprised evil didn't play it out a few more turns to see if they could make more gains against gondor or the north trio.
I think you are coming around to see that most of the cheap air units are pretty strong. Crebains and bats are both hard to deal with and apply a lot of pressure. And yes Dwarve units are painfully slow especially given the dwarves span across a large area. They really aren't that strong given their slow speed and high cost. This leads to them just feeling kind of frustrating to play which is why I went ravens to at least have more movement and be able to apply some pressure/trades. I still think given the Dwarve units that unless you need to stack defense somewhere or think you can build a stack to capture Mount Gundabad that ravens are the best option.
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@redrum No, no. I played good. I resigned
