Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

rsnorunt

@alkexr Thanks for the balance patch and for continuing to work on the next version.

I think that the balance changes are pretty all good:

It helps out Isengard a lot against Rohan and the Free Folk, which was very needed, and makes uruk warriors less useless
It makes Winged Nazgul and Eagles less dominant when used
It gives the northmen a bit more production against Rhun
It gives Angmar an extra 1-2 turns before the seige

However, I think it's missing two huge balance issues in the game:

Dol Guldor can be irreparably held back on turn 1, since the woodland realm can take out two spiders before they move (with 100% chance on low luck). I think that either Dol Guldor needs 1-2 more snagas on west mirkwood and the narrows, or the woodland realm needs 1-2 fewer sentinels (maybe replace with spearmen or a wall, or just move them farther back).
Moria can likely take Rivendell on turn 2 (with ~70% chance in low luck. Basically if they don't lose the duel) and there's nothing Good can do to stop it. I think another wall in Rivendell should be sufficient

zlefin

Has it been long enough for this to be pushed to the downloader?

and how long does it take something to get to the bots after its been pushed to the in-game download system?

alkexr

The map is now updated in the in-game downloader.

I couldn't find a good way to fix the issue with Rivendell @rsnorunt pointed out. One extra wall is far from enough if Moria buys catapults in Goblin Town. I'll keep an eye out for a solution.

On Dol Guldur I disagree. Rhun can help. It's a tradeoff.

Zaroph

@alkexr
Cool to see its been updated, was looking forward to playing new version. Will give it a go thanks.

rsnorunt

I had the chance to play both sides against the hard AI. A bit hard to properly judge because the AI is absolute shit (esp at playing Evil). But my feedback is:

When playing Evil:

Angmar felt noticeably easier, to the point where it might be game-breaking. In previous games against the CPU, I'd be fighting a losing battle from turn 1, eventually getting restricted to just my cities and maybe the mountains between them. In this game, I was never in danger of losing a city, and managed to hold off Arnor and the Free Folk while simultaneously pressuring the Dwarves and Northmen with my dragons. Though then again this may just be because I took Rivendell on turn 2.
Isengard also felt noticeably easier. I took Tharbad on turn 2, but was never really in danger from the tide of free folk. I was able to hold the gap of rohan and/or the westfold for the entire game, and rohan never sent troops to the other side of the Isen. The uruk bonus felt huge, and I actually used them as a result
The AI still has no clue how to use ships, so I managed to build some rafts and take Pelargir and all of western Gondor with the harad. After that the game was trivial.
The AI just gave up Rhosgobel, so Dol Guldor was pretty easy. I did help with Rhun and Mordor, but help can't really arrive until ~ turn 3, and Rhun is very bad in the forest

When playing good:

Arnor, the Free Folk, and Rohan didn't feel any harder to play. Though Angmar stranded a dragon on turn 1 and focused entirely on Framsburg, so Arnor/FF had an easy time of it. Also Isengard decided to split its forces in three parts so I could defeat it in detail. I think the AI doesn't really understand the value of strafing, multi-hit units, or fear/leadership... I think against a real opponent it would be much harder.
With the woodland realm I took two spiders from Dol Guldor on turn 1. Yes I sacrificed the wizard and needed help from the Northmen, but they never even got close to taking Rhosgobel, and rarely even took the narrows of Mirkwood. Rhun and Mordor tried to help them too, but the AI was bad at it
Is still ended up buying rangers, ponies, and eagles (and winged nazgul) so I think those changes were fine.

On Rivendell:

For the Rivendell turn 2 capture I described, you need to buy 4 catapults in Goblintown (all your money) and mobilize almost everything within range. The elves on the other hand need to build a wall, 4 elven archers, and 1 noldorin (max bodies / armor per $).
This means that the most the orcs can have is: 4 trolls, 4 spearmen, 6 archers, 6 catapults, 3 warg scouts, 3 warg riders, 9 orcs and a balrog. Also 2 bats but they'd die instantly. Though in practice a few of those will have died. Also, through clever play, Good can try to stop the two trolls in the trollshaws from reaching Rivendell. Though it might be impossible if Angmar tries hard enough.
The elves can have: 7 walls, 2 sentinels, 3 noldorins, 2 cavalry, 7 archers, an eagle, and a wizard (I'm assuming that Angmar takes the Eyrie and Rhudaur bc obviously they will)
With regular luck this has a ~93% chance of victory for Evil. With an extra wall it's ~84%.
On low luck it has a 100% chance of victory for Evil. With an extra wall it's still 100%. But with two trolls and two goblins less it's down to ~78% (whereas without the wall but minus the trolls and goblins it's 97%).
If additionally you make Rivendell a forest, you'll drop Evil's win chance by another 10%. If you add an ancient tower instead of the wall you drop it 20% (above what the wall already did). Though if you don't take it turn 2, that means you'll never take it. One other thing you could do is drop Orc first turn IPC by 2, so you can only buy 3 catapults. This also doesn't eliminate the victory, but it reduces it by 10-20%
A 70% chance doesn't actually sound too bad, since then clever play on the margins will change it quite a bit. And the IPC trade will likely still be negative in expectation. Though then again, whichever side loses will be held back pretty irreparably... It's a hard problem lol

On Dol Guldor:

I still disagree with your disagreement (lol), but you're the designer. The ideal change imo would be very small. Eg Dol Guldor getting one extra snaga, or one elven sentinel being one step farther away.
Like maybe have 2 sentinals on the elf path and one on the mountains of mirkwood, and give the woodland realms 2-3 IPCs as a bonus on turn 1

Also, I've noticed that there are a few major decisions early on that radically damage you if you don't do them. Eg taking Eagle's Eyrie or preserving your dragons with Angmar. Taking Tharbad turn 2 with Isengard. Building boats in the Celduin as the Northmen etc. I know the old middle earth map had a list of tips for turn 1. Have you collected anything of that nature?

zlefin

I'm not finding it in the ingame downloader, it still seems to hvae the old version, without any option to update to the new version, nor does doing a remove/add bring in the new version. Are others able to find it in the downloader?
I've updated to the 2.6 line, so that can't be the problem.

Cernel

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

I'm not finding it in the ingame downloader, it still seems to hvae the old version, without any option to update to the new version, nor does doing a remove/add bring in the new version. Are others able to find it in the downloader?
I've updated to the 2.6 line, so that can't be the problem.

Are you going to report this problem? I've tested (removing the previous map and downloading the new same-named one) that the download just does not work: the map is not pasted into the folder at all. Looks like this is a major problem right on release time.

Cernel

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

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

I'm not finding it in the ingame downloader, it still seems to hvae the old version, without any option to update to the new version, nor does doing a remove/add bring in the new version. Are others able to find it in the downloader?
I've updated to the 2.6 line, so that can't be the problem.

Are you going to report this problem? I've tested (removing the previous map and downloading the new same-named one) that the download just does not work: the map is not pasted into the folder at all. Looks like this is a major problem right on release time.

Uhm, now it is there instead. It looks like that either there is no problem (so I overlooked something) or it took more time (meaning that, when the downloader showed 100%, the map was actually not yet 100% downloaded but was still downloading).

Whatever the case, now all looks fine for me, and I have the new version with no apparent problems.

zlefin

Ok, I tried again and was able to get it to work with a remove then redownload.

Still, it's odd that the 'update' button was missing and I had to do that, normally when a map has a new version there's a button for update.

It also reached 100% twice during that single download, (ie it reached 100%, then went back to 0 then started up again, like it had 2 separate things to download). Quite odd.

Cernel

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

It also reached 100% twice during that single download, (ie it reached 100%, then went back to 0 then started up again, like it had 2 separate things to download). Quite odd.

I'm not sure, but that or something like that happened to me as well, the first case of "100%" being fake.

TheDog

@zlefin & @Cernel
I too had a similar issue, I thought it was me/one off.
I went here and manually downloaded & installed it.
https://github.com/triplea-maps/battle_for_arda

Cernel

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

The map is now updated in the in-game downloader.

Only the map itself but not the download list.
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/blob/master/triplea_maps.yaml

(This means that the description is outdated (still says Version 2.0.7, last update 2018.10.08. for engine 1.9.0.0.11000+), and users won't get the update prompt so will have to delete and re-download it if they otherwise know that an update happened.)

I'm saying just in case. I get that maybe you intended this to be a silent update?

mortetvie

I removed the map and re-downloaded it but it only shows the older version. How are people installing the new version?

zlefin

@mortetvie

did you actually load up the map to look at it? because it looks like and is labeled as the old version, despite being the new version. past that I've no idea, unless they're in the process of updating it properly, which is possible.

mortetvie

@zlefin I removed and reinstalled files and it now shows up offline but I can't choose the map online.

Before I was getting an error trying to load the original map online or offline.

zlefin

@mortetvie

what do you mean 'cant choose the map online' You mean in the bots? and if so are you using 2.6 or 2.5? cuz there's a lot of bot issues, and the bots haven't been updated wtih the new version of the map yet.

Mostly I'd say best to wait for various issues to be resolved unless you can direct host or play with someone direct hosting.

zlefin

blin and I finished our first game on the new version, a resounding and swift victory for evil; partly a result of some strategic mistakes, but partly it felt like the new v overcorrects in favor of evil, giving it a large advantage, and more of one than good had over evil in the prior version.

fawhxl

Awesome work with this map guys me and my friend play it tons, I knew about triplea a while ago and introduced to my friend almost a year ago now and we been playin the shit out of battle for arda him evil me good.

Anyway, we had it balanced our own way on the pervious version at 200% handicaps across the board except freefolk with evil additionally boosted.

Some other minor boosts here and there.

Anyway,
Excited to see how this new version plays out, and we kinda wanna try it with blitz but we're not sure cause that seems crazy but also maybe is interesting.

Was interested to see you cant build forts in mountains anymore, that was nice for angmar and orcs, for us atleast.

Probably gonna play straight 200% for everybody this time around if evil has a better start now.

And the reason I always played with 200% because the bigger numbers were fun and didnt seem to break things too much. 100% is good too though, just seems like 200% makes the game faster, but I like playing it slower at 100% too

This game is just so elegantly complex honestly and the lorefulness is so amazing too, atleast to me it feels like a struggle for Middle-Earth.

I cant read so I dont know if the change log says this or not but I'm excited to discover if there have been unit changes or if evil's beast/multi-hp units and spiders have been changed

zlefin

We've finished two more games with the new version, evil seems to have a very large advantage. In the third game we gave good a bunch of extra starting stuff (about 7 scattered walls in places that already had some and 64 tuv of units in non-forward positions) and evil still won and got ahead quite readily. Though some of that may be mistakes by good, but even that's not so clear.

The buff to uruk warriors seemed a bit unnecessary, they were already used a fair deal by some nations.

we do always play on ll which does ofc affect balance a little, but not THAT much.

saru is hugely stronger for sure, as expected. They get big and never seem to get beaten down at all, being quite able to maintain their entire territory and threaten to expand outward or support orcs.

The unit price adjustments do feel good and fairer, though they may contribute to the side imbalances felt in our games, since good used to heavily rely on those underpriced units. Still, it's better to have balanced unit costs and then fix any balance issues between the sides by adjusting other details.

Hao Zhou

I’ve played a couple games by myself vs hard AI on both sides and the game is much fairer, though obviously any side a human plays is going to be stronger.

I also ran the game on all-AI overnight and one time the good won, and one time evil won.

It seems like good is still overall stronger both games in the hands of the AI - both games they were ahead in both Production and army size.

Good only lost that one game despite being ahead for most of it because so much of its forces was “stuck” sieging Angmar - somehow most of Andor, and most of freefolk forces were all stuck there. Even then, good was still holding until Gondor finally fell.

In the game good won, they took the city and swept the whole map.

Some thoughts from my own games and the AI games

Pony rider is too weak - the cost increase was justified but maybe defense should be boosted 1 by to compensate.

Snagga goblins are too weak - 3/2 with no anti air, while their comparable archers are all 2/4 with anti air. Should be made 3/3 or given anti air (jav can take out ravens and eagles flying down to attack as well as a bow).

It’s odd that Moria is so bad on mountains and caves with most of their goblins unable to enter mountains, and their caves and mountains easily crushed by dwarven infantry, as their units get no bonuses on what you would expect to be Moria’s main terrain.

An overall comment is if there is a major rework coming, if overall terrain bonuses could be made more “logical” because I had to keep consulting the chart:

why are goblins regular levy? unable to go into mountains, and suck at fighting in caves. In the books they fight evenly against dwarves inside mountains/caves, and prefer them over exposed plains.
why cavalry is bad on open plains with a river, and yet decent in a marsh where horses should get stuck?
pikemen should be good on flat plains, rivers, and bad in forests, hills, instead of being relentless or unyielding and ignore terrain.

The units are already very complicated and terrain effects add another layer of complication, where one archer is an ambusher, another is levy, another wilderness, and they all have completely differently roles.

If there was a large rework, I’d like everything fall under

archer/ambush
troop (swords, axes, spears of men and orcs)
pikemen (bonus to flat plains, rivers, caves and cities, and bad on all others).
open/cav
air
mountain dwellers (dwarves, goblins)
forest dwellers (elves, treemen)
wilderness (scouts, wild men, beasts)

The concept of unyielding or relentless should be removed, buffed into their stats. They are elite because of higher stats, not because they fight equally on all terrain, and this will reduce confusion as well.

Overall great update, much better balance, and looking forward to what is next!