Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

[mattbarnes]

In my PvP games, Evil seems to have the edge. I've introduced an extra 6PU income split across some Good races to try to balance it a bit.

[mattbarnes]

I like the Evil objectives around 4PU for each of the big 4 settlements. This gives Good a big incentive to really focus on one target (eg Carn Durn) to hurt the Evil side more generally.

[mattbarnes]

I like some of the one-off Objectives. Eg the Helm's Deep objective encourages Saruman to have a bit of an early offensive even if forced back later. The Rhosgobel objective encourages Dol Guldur to attack quicker. Mount Gundabad is a god incentive. The Incursions bonuses also encourage offensives but are very challenging. But I agree a load of other objectives are not meaningful. You can be more selective.

[alkexr]

@mattbarnes said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

Hey Alkexr. sz8 and sz20 (maybe some others too) seem to be impassable, stopping the High Elf ship support the Gondor Navy. Is that deliberate?

Swan boats can't enter seas, they can only travel on rivers. (I can only hope that works as intended.)

I mentioned before and maybe you made a note already, but some races have Ranged units with no Melee to complement them. Also some races would benefit from a Raider who can blitz .

I generally don't like the blitz ability - 1 peasant can prevent a zillion raiders from blitzing. I would keep that limited, especially considering the prevalence of canopeners with 17 players and units that move 2-4 spaces.

As for melee units, Lorien got elven_wardens, while High Elves got noldorin_warriors (6/4 unseen forest dweller melee infantry for 6 PUs) in the upcoming version.

Blitz seems to operate oddly, eg one cannot sally out of a settlement and back into it. I can why you don't want to be able to blitz through a settlement and out the other side, but it should be possible for the blitz to start and end in the settlement (or mountain or marsh, etc) to allow some guerilla warfare.

That's how the engine handles blitz. There's nothing I can do about that.

Marsh seems to be too defendable. It has become a crucial location in my games. More so than settlements. This could be rebalanced.

Territory effects have been reworked, alongside with many other things. You can follow development of 1.3 version here. Also, you don't want a village on the plains be better defended than a marsh. Important settlements usually have fortifications and/or additional territory effects that make them hard to take.

In my PvP games, Evil seems to have the edge. I've introduced an extra 6PU income split across some Good races to try to balance it a bit.

Thanks for the feedback, but this will go out the window. Most objectives will be scrapped and generally balance is going to be screwed up totally. We will need a lot of balance testing after release.

I like the Evil objectives around 4PU for each of the big 4 settlements. This gives Good a big incentive to really focus on one target (eg Carn Durn) to hurt the Evil side more generally.

That's the one of the two objectives I might keep (the other being the Rhun and Harad support). Namely, one of the following will happen:

• the 4x4PUs objective and the Rhun/Harad support stay
• the "really Evil players" get extra PUs by killing units, Rhun/Harad support stays
• Evil gets a large initial army to compensate for having less PUs

[redrum]

@alkexr Given that each faction in LOTR is supposed to feel unique, doing a combination where each faction has some sort of unique ability/objective/etc would be cool (rather than lots of the bland objectives). So maybe one of them has the ability that they gain PUs by killing units, another has a large starting army, another has low production but has very cheap & cost-effective units, auto-generate fodder units, etc.

Honestly, I'd worry less about balance initially and think about interesting/fun gameplay. Then once you have that flushed out just tweaking how strong different units are, objectives, territory values, etc shouldn't be too difficult.

PS. A map that I think achieved this to some degree is Grand War: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/852/the-grand-war

[alkexr]

@redrum

doing a combination where each faction has some sort of unique ability/objective/etc would be cool (rather than lots of the bland objectives). So maybe one of them has the ability that they gain PUs by killing units, another has a large starting army, another has low production but has very cheap & cost-effective units, etc.

I'm pretty sure it's Fallen Empire you are talking about

[redrum]

@alkexr Yeah, I do like a lot of your ideas for Fallen Empire. I think some of those as well as some from maps like Grand War, Civil War, Total World War, etc could help remove the objectives that LME has now.

[Hepps]

Might be kinda cool to play up some of the neutral territories a little more. Making your unique units more purposeful beyond their movement or combat abilities.

Maybe make some of them triggered to switch sides if a certain unit enters... like say as some general off-the-cuff examples ....

Say Isengard gets a Wizard to the territory of Trollshaws... then the Trolls join rather than having to be defeated.

Or if the High Elves get a wizard to the Old Forest territory then the Huorn will join rather than having to be defeated.

Or if the Woodland Realm has a Wizard in Rhosgobel it generate a War Elk or Rhosgobel rabbits.

These are just suggestions.... but I think finding some interesting in-game bonuses outside of the traditional N.O. structure might add some interesting options to the game.

[Hepps]

One more suggestion...

To make some more interest and give some flavour... and make the choice for Gondor less clear...

[alkexr]

@hepps I'm no fan of changing the map at this point.

[Hepps]

@alkexr Gotachya. Just thought it might be a nice balancing feature between the "if Osiliath falls the game is over for Godor" and a modified version where Gondror has to decide what to do depending on what is chosen to be done with Rohan and the battle for Isengard.

The idea being that both Rohan and Gondor have to choose between North & East without it being a "all or not" situation.

[alkexr]

@alkexr said in Large Middle Earth - official thread:

I'm no fan of changing the map at this point.

Yeah, that was two days ago. Today the entire East got reworked, along with several other map changes.

---

Question: should I merge Dale and Northmen into a new player called Northmen, with their capital being either Dale or Esgaroth?

From the perspective of the canon, the inhabitants of Dale (as well as Rhovanion) are techically Northmen. The current "Northmen" player represents the Eotheod (ancestors of the Rohirim, with their historical capital being Framsburg) and the kin of Beorn, likely of Northmen ancestry. As a united entity both the original and the proposed new "Northmen" player make about the same amount of (i.e. no) sense.

From the perspective of gameplay, this would give Good many strategic options, instead of "just don't lose your capital", which is currently more or less what they can make an admirable attempt of with their very limited amount of resources. In addition, having two players just slows the game down. They are also much closer to each other than the Dwarves or the High Elves are to themselves.

[alkexr]

Now the new map à la @Hepps ...

Before

After

Obviously the relief map got completely screwed up as a consequence, so temporarily it's advisable to turn map details off.

[Hepps]

@alkexr Thank god I hadn't finished the reliefs!

[Hepps]

@alkexr Interesting, merging the two is kind of a neat way to speed things up. How does it play out for turn order? Do they both go on Dale's turn? Or do they both go on North Men's turn?

[alkexr]

@hepps Turn order is a good question. The current turn order felt cool years ago, but it must be a nightmare for PBF/PBEM. It would be most time-efficient if first all Evil players finished their turn, and Good players came after that (or the other way around), but that would just create more possibility for surreal 4-player canopeners. So I suggest the compromise that 2-4 players of the same side take their turn after one another, but always players that are far away. With generally Evil players coming earlier (it feels fair to give Evil the initiative, and also consider that they're about to lose 80 production due to changes which they'll have to make up for). Something like

Saruman
Angmar
Mordor

Arnor
Gondor
Northmen
Lorien

Orcs
Rhun

High Elves
Woodland Realm

Harad
Dol Guldur

Freefolk
Dwarves
Rohan

Local turn order on several interesting fronts would be:

• Mordor > Gondor > Harad > Rohan
• Saruman > Gondor, Lorien > Orcs > Rohan
• Angmar > Northmen > Rhun > Woodland Realm > Dol Guldur > Dwarves

So the other side usually gets a chance to spoil plans involving multiple players.

Also with this turn order, you would only have to wait for your opponent 3 times a turn instead of 7.

[mattbarnes]

@alkexr the problem with the High Elf sea movement was with a Caravel.

[alkexr]

@mattbarnes Can you send a savegame? They are passable to me.

[Hepps]

@alkexr is this what you were thinking? Or leave as is?

[alkexr]

@hepps Unfortunately there is no excuse in the canon that would enable two territories for Gundabad. So instead of adding new a new territory let's just reshape Mount Gundabad and the surrounding territoeies. I've also broken up the mountain to the right into two territories, because it was getting too large. (And it was oddly strategic as well.)