Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

alkexr

Release draws near...

Planned name: Middle Earth: The Battle For Arda
Endorsed acronym: TBFA

I also plan to create a new repo for it, since

it requires relatively recent prerelease, and as such people updating the old map could get stuck with an incompatible version
it's been massively changed since old LME
large_middle_earth being the folder name would make no sense anymore
then we can keep the old version as a deterrent

Planned repo (and folder) name simply: the_battle_for_arda
Release date: whithin a week

Will likely not contain

placements hand-picked for every single territory (it will happen eventually)
PU placement
awesome unit charts by @Hepps (the "unit help" menu and the auto-generated tooltips are reasonably good, so don't worry)
finalized game notes (it will come with adequate game notes, I hope)
balance

Waiting for feedback on all the points above and people willing to play games against me.

Rules:

PBF (never played PBF, might need some help setting it up)
I accept at most 6 games at a time
If I already have 4 games with the same side, I insist on choosing the other side. Otherwise, you choose side.
Low Luck and Low Luck for AA ON (edited, as LL is apparently working)
Free For All OFF, obviously
Mountains restrict movement ON (It's an entirely different game without this, and not one that is relevant to balance)
Fortification protects against targeted attacks ON (even more so)
Units repair hits start/end turn (one or the other; not neither, not both); All units Blitz; Unlimited unique units; Buildable fortress; Sea units: you choose
I answer any questions regarding game mechanics to the best of my knowledge.

redrum

@alkexr Sign me up. Can help you setup PBF if needed.

redrum

@alkexr The rules look good though the one thing you might want to consider is "LL on" as when initially balancing a map, I think that helps reduce the variability.

alkexr

@redrum Wow! Low Luck AA got fixed? POS2 xml threatened me with errors if something doesn't divide into something else. Now I tested and everything seems to be working fine.
Okay, then, I think LL is reasonable.

redrum

@alkexr Yeah, I put in what I believe was the fix for LL AA. Though it hasn't been tested that much so this would probably be a good opportunity to test it out

alkexr

Download version 2.0.4 here
Map has been moved to here
This is going to be the version released in-game initially (except for potential bugfixes)
You can also watch a trailer I made
Shouldn't we rename this thread to reflect name change?

redrum

@alkexr Renamed. I think you have the first map ever with a trailer!

Cernel

@alkexr said in Middle Earth: The Battle For Arda - official thread:

Shouldn't we rename this thread to reflect name change?

Are regular users unable to rename their own thread?

Cernel

@alkexr Cool trailer but I would have it full HD quality (it says its 480p max), remove the "Stunning visual design" comment, as I'd let the images speak for themselves, and "tactical" should be changed to "strategic", because tactics are like in those games where you command your units on the battlefield and decide what to engage (instead of rolling dice and picking casualties, like in TA).

alkexr

@cernel Yeah, that's the best quality I could squeeze out of the free slideshow editor I'd just googled. Imagine the worst one

prastle

@alkexr Which here? do I use ? Pokes @Hepps

Cernel

@alkexr not sure what of the following would be more consistent:
Middle Earth: The Battle For Arda
Middle Earth: the Battle for Arda
Middle Earth: the battle for Arda

I would go for the second one, since "The Lord of the Rings" is not written as "The Lord Of The Rings".
Of course, I assume that "Battle" is merely figurative, as I assume that was a war or at least a campaign (with several battles), which is fine, as it is commonly used this way also in WWII (for example, the "Battle of the Atlantic", that is strictly not a battle, but a campaign, with a lot of battles).

Maybe off topic, but @redrum @LaFayette how about to rename the current LOTR game as "Middle Earth: the Lord of the Rings" or "Middle Earth: The Lord Of The Rings" instead of "Lord of the Rings: Middle Earth"?

It would be good if all games set in "Middle Earth" (currently, 2 maps) stay one beside the other, both in game selection and in lobby, like you have the various "World War II etc.".

Opinions?

Frostion

Middle Earth: The Battle For Arda (The F in "For" needs to be lowercase.)
Middle Earth: the Battle for Arda ("the" needs to be uppercase since an : sign is treated as a . (with few exceptions of course))
Middle Earth: the battle for Arda (same problem, as well as the b in "battle". It needs to be uppercase.)

I would recommend the name
"Middle Earth: Battle for Arda" (BFA?)
thereby removing "the" and shortening the title. It seems to me that this word is redundant, just as the titles Lord of the Rings: War in the North and Middle Earth: Shadow of War also can live without it.

I'm looking forward to a release

Cernel

Not sure but:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitalization-after-colons/
In British English, the first letter after a colon is capitalized only if it’s a proper noun or an acronym; in American English, the first word after a colon is sometimes capitalized if it begins a complete sentence.

So, I guess that means the "the" should be capitalized if it is American English, assuming that counts as a "complete sentence".
But, yeah, I didn't know that Americans would (sometimes?) capitalize a "the" after a colon, if what I briefly searched is correct. That feels strange and somewhat arbitrary, since a colon is not a full stop.

Example of British usage from the university of Sussex:
www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/colonandsemi/colon
I recommend Chinnery's book Oak Furniture: the British Tradition.

So, in Denmark you use American English not British English? Anyways, I stand corrected, since I guess @alkexr is using American English. Just never knew about this American usage before.

alkexr

@cernel said in Middle Earth: The Battle For Arda - official thread:

since I guess @alkexr is using American English

Good to know.

"Middle Earth: Battle for Arda" seems to be the simplest solution, though I won't rename the repo or anything, only the displayed title.

redrum

@alkexr FYI, renaming the repo is pretty easy if you want it to align with everything else.

alkexr

@redrum Oh, I found it. I didn't estimate the chance of the repo name being easily modifiable to be large enough to outweigh the inconvenience of being bothered to ask. I hope it won't mess too much with GitHub Desktop though.

redrum

@alkexr Can't remember if you need to delete and reclone the repo to github desktop after renaming it.

TheDog

@alkexr
Hello again, thanks for posting your PU calculations, most hopeful.

I have been playing with the Battle/Odds Calculator and come to the following conclusions;
That the following should be increased in points.
wizard
nazgul
winged_nazgul
balrog
dragon

I am hesitant to say say by how much, as assumptions have to made to value of some of the clever benefits, but these are the units with the most difference.

You will notice most them are from the evil faction.

So maybe review their PU before testing?

alkexr

@thedog It is not entirely impossible that wizards, balrogs and nazgul can be abused with sufficient fodder. In the last rework they were given more raw power relative to their leadership/terror abilities, and I didn't consider this option. It's not obvious how you would do the same with winged nazgul or dragons though, because they are a less cost-effective means to get raw power, and especially because they can be countered by archers quite cost-effectively.

So I'd say I'll tweak those three units a bit. They will be more expensive, and have more terror/leadership at the expense of some raw power.