Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

[mattbarnes]

BTW, I love all the units and the map is beautiful but I was just amused when I imagined Saruman’s halforc playing snooker. See what I mean?

[Hepps]

@mattbarnes LMFAO!!! I hadn't even seen it til you mentioned it!

Just for fun... a new unit... the snooker siege unit.

[Hepps]

@Hepps It is an effective unit... depending on your angle of attack!

[mattbarnes]

Ah, I still seem to be able to make wizards for Saruman (and dragons for angmar etc) with Unlimited Uniques set to off. Is this wrong or have I done something awry?

[alkexr]

@mattbarnes I can't replicate it, I can't produce wizard as Saruman. Can you send a savegame?

There were plenty of dragons living around the Withered Heath and Forodwaith, albiet not as big as Smaug. They even fought a war against the Dwarves of the Ered Mithrin, so their numbers don't appear to have had a hard cap.

[mattbarnes]

@Hepps that’s a great new unit. Will it be “relentless” ... because it has a lot of balls?!

[alkexr]

@mattbarnes And it will have legs as support attachments.

[Cernel]

I'm curious what is the assumed dynamics by which you can produce Ents? Weren't they unable to reproduce? If realistically you should not be able to do it, and it is just for gameplay/fun, can a list be made of all major lore-inconsistent game items (at default options), if any? I want to point out I don't know much about the scenario.

Also, the notes say that "Unlimited Unique Units" is default off. But actually it is default on.

I'm not really a player of this game, but I would suggest the default options to maximize adherence to the lore (this would be my preference).

This map makes me wish that there would be a time setting for the board tooltips to appear and that the customized ones would actually show up on the board and in all cases (this might be a bug).

By the way, traditionally the "Experimental" is just the section for all those maps we are not so proud to show up. I don't see why this is not in Quality, already.

[Cernel]

@alkexr Another thing I wondered, since in this game (as well as the other Middle Earth one) the Freefolks power ends up conquering a lot of neutrals, is it in the spirit of the lore that Freefolks, or any other "Good" powers, attack neutral territories? I wonder because that is something that doesn't sound like a good thing to do, deliberately attacking someone that is minding his own business. Would it be more realistic for "Good" powers to be somewhat inhibited, if not outright impeded, from attacking Neutral territories?

[Captain Crunch]

@Cernel interesting question although aren't "free folk" usually rebel immoral liberals who do whatever to be "free" amiright

[mattbarnes]

I am not the game designer but my rationalisation of the Ent question is that they are not breeding new Ents, just expending effort on waking dozy Ents or mobilising then towards the war. I don’t think this is contrary to lore and indeed I recall the Ents of lore were very reluctant to get involved.

Similarly, when the Freefolk ‘attack’ neutrals, the game mechanic implies conflict but one could rationalise it as a proxy for sending diplomats, recruiters and trainers to encourage the neutrals to join the good fight and contribute their resources. The ‘destruction’ of the neutral army may be a proxy for wearing down their reluctance. I don’t think it detracts from the scenario.

For anyone interested, I just completed a pair of games with my father in law (each playing good in one). Does it help the designers to see game files by way of play test feedback? We thoroughly enjoyed the games and detected no major flaws. (Bar Saruman’s snooker players!)

[redrum]

@mattbarnes Generally, it is helpful to have some completed save games and that was @alkexr initial goal was to play a bunch himself. So attaching or linking to them here would be good.

[mattbarnes]

@redrum here you go M&M2.tsvg M&M1.tsvg

[Dany]

@alkexr Hello,

Great map sir! Myself (Dany) and Epinikion have had 6 games so far and we find that the balanced is achievable, we prefer dice so far too make every dice count, for example Air units can be vulnerable too multiple arches, and straff are never really safe. Different strategies for the map from both sides, and it allows a lot of give and take possibilities, that both sides can adapt. Epinikion and I have played a lot of games over the years, mostly vs each other and at a high level, and since this map we don't want to go back too another map. So far the good side is easier too play, but evil sure has a lot of possibilities. I don't think the map needs much change, i hope players can adjust to difficulty level by adding a bid. So far we have not reached a decision on if a bid is necessary. Thanks for your work. Best dice map!

• I fear that special attacks in LL make the game too predictable

[redrum]

@Dany @epinikion One thing that could be helpful for assisting new players on the map is creating a small strategy guide as part of the notes or here on the forum.

[alkexr]

@mattbarnes Thanks for the savegames! They show some interesting strategies that I haven't so far seen played out. From a quick glance it seems that the first game was decided by Isengard stretching their forces too thin and a well-planned Last March of the Ents. The second one was over when Good missed a canopener and the forces of Gondor were more or less annihilated at Pelennor Fields.

I also had a look at your choices of units. A wide variety of units were employed, with powerful units (like eagles and dragons) not being ignored but also not spammed. Some units, however (notably the cavalry of Rohan and one-hit air units) weren't appreciated by the two of you, and this could indicate a power-level problem if more save-games showed the same pattern. (And this is one of the reasons why save-games are so useful for balancing. @Dany @epinikion I'd most certainly welcome 6 save-games from players who have that much experience with the map!)

What I still haven't seen yet is a Harad naval invasion that could be called succesful (although the mental image of oliphaunts crossing the river on rafts made my day). The "Saruman goes north" is another strategy that looks difficult to impossible to pull off, as reinforced by these games.

[mattbarnes]

You’re welcome. I’m not sure how much you can read into our strategies because we were playing our first game on this map (albeit we had played previous versions) and making up the strategy on the hoof, making errors along the way.

I think you’ve just about got the price right on dragons and eagles. It’s handy for Angmar to get an extra dragon but soon needs to prioritise bodies. The High Elves definitely want to spam Eagles and do start to try to do so but the cost slows them down. If the fight had remained in the balance a little longer then I think we’d have seen progressively more eagles around. Is there a possible mechanism to make each new eagle cost 1 more than the last?

As you saw, my opponent did try an Oliphant landing and to be fair was mostly thwarted by dice else it might have been a good diversion.

Saruman does seem to be quite forced to capture and hold Tharbad in this map version and the previous one. It’s not a problem but does seem quite critical and therefore a limitation on strategic freedom.

As you say, we made little use of one hit flyers. They are handy for picking off lone spearmen, say, but there are so many anti-air units around that it makes the opportunities relatively rare.

I agree that it was difficult to make significant use of Rohan Riders, although sometimes they were handy. I don’t think the points balance is wrong, it’s just hard to mimic the books given it isn’t that realistic that a nation surrounded by woods and mountains could be quite so cavalry focussed. It would be interesting though to see what 1 extra movement point might do, and/or adding Blitz ability.

The siege mechanics were interesting. The one query I had was whether flanking should prioritise artillery targets, else any army with a few archers can keep its siege engines pretty safe. At a critical mass, the artillery becomes a juggernaut as it can knock down wall after wall in a succession of towns without loss.

[zlefin]

minor bug: Just noticed that for Oliphaunts form when they've taken 2 hits, that form has a listed TUV of 0, which throws off the tuv calculations done by the battle calc (which really matters because the ai depends on them for its strategy). I don't know what others units' forms when taken a hit also have the default 0 tuv, thus throwing off estimations; as I was merely watching somebody else's game, and it's not so easy to check. I checked a few other units that happened to be wounded, and there weren't bugs on those, but I couldn't do a complete check.

[redrum]

@zlefin Glancing at the XML, the reason is that oliphaunt_hit2 aren't purchasable and don't have the tuv unit option defined so it defaults to them being worth 0.

[epinikion]

hello all.

I say: if eagles are not reduced to 4 movement evil is without a chance at this map. just a balance-issue. Dany agrees. besides that its not really understandable why eagles are so much better in air battles than nazguls (as the higher cost unit).

best, epi