LOTR: War of the Ring ver. 0.9

[stachnie]

Very nice scenario. I have played it a few times (at Legolas level) and I have a few remarks.

When I was playing as Rohan, I managed to kill Saruman and Sauron, Gondor destroyed Corsairs but I suffered an ambarassing defeat (time limit exceeded) because the Ring was lost somewhere.

Playing as Mordor is very easy: just patrol roads next to Minas Morgul and the Ring sooner or later falls in your hands.

Armies don't have blitz ability - is this by design?

Elven helicopter (a.k.a. Eagle) is great! Just drop Bowmen to mountain squares with no road and no enemy units may kill them.

The Ring may be used as a Nuke (of range 1). I captured it next to Minas Morgul (Frodo was killed by a Stone Troll) and because I had no other choice (a wounded Bowman surrounded by enemies) I nuked the fortress. My Bowman survived... to be killed in IT.


Best regards,

Slawomir Stachniewicz.

 

[DragonRunner]

Say, Quasi, why don't the ents ignore movement in FOREST? wouldn't that make sense? This looks great though. If I can add some units I d/l like uruks, etc. This will be a blast.
Edit- In the books, wasn't the Barad-Dur north of Orodrurin?

 

[WildWeazel]

Edit- In the books, wasn't the Barad-Dur north of Orodrurin?

Yes, slightly, it should really be here:

 

[quasidemo]

Yes, slightly, it should really be here:

Hehe... cute. I put Mt. Doom there after playtesting Frodo's journey into Mordor.

The Ents should be ignore all movement cost, which is different from ignore specific terrain movement cost.

 

[quasidemo]

When I was playing as Rohan, I managed to kill Saruman and Sauron, Gondor destroyed Corsairs but I suffered an ambarassing defeat (time limit exceeded) because the Ring was lost somewhere.

Impressive. The remaining civ you have to destroy is the Ents. To keep them neutral I couldn't add them to Free Peoples. So the victory conditions are more like defeat conditions (i.e. keep your cities and kings alive) and the one true victory condition is dropping the Ring.

Playing as Mordor is very easy: just patrol roads next to Minas Morgul and the Ring sooner or later falls in your hands.

If Sauron knew that his enemies intended to destroy it, yes it would have been easy to simply intercept it. So you benefit from more knowledge than he does having read the story.

Armies don't have blitz ability - is this by design?

No, I'll turn blitz back on for the next release.

Elven helicopter (a.k.a. Eagle) is great! Just drop Bowmen to mountain squares with no road and no enemy units may kill them.

Ya wonder why they didn't do that earlier? I've found dropping them on Mindollin and Cirith Ungol makes for good recon.

The Ring may be used as a Nuke (of range 1). I captured it next to Minas Morgul (Frodo was killed by a Stone Troll) and because I had no other choice (a wounded Bowman surrounded by enemies) I nuked the fortress. My Bowman survived... to be killed in IT.

What's "IT"?

 

[skanar]

Hey, I love this mod...

Just one question:
I've been playing as Gondor, and my rear keeps getting attacked by Uruk-Hai coming over the pass. Is this supposed to happen?

Oh, and Rohan seems to not be helping at all.

 

[The Omega]

Hey, I love this mod...

Just one question:
I've been playing as Gondor, and my rear keeps getting attacked by Uruk-Hai coming over the pass. Is this supposed to happen?

Oh, and Rohan seems to not be helping at all.

Yes, uruk-hai are supposed to attack from there. Also, Rohan is controlled by the AI. Try to emember the last time the AI was ever intentionally helpful. Tough, eh?

 

[stachnie]

What's "IT"?

I am not a native English speaker and I am not sure what is the origin, but I guess it is something like "Inter Turn". It is the time between your turns, when the other civs move. I have found it in the Succession Games.

BTW: recently I decided to give Elves another try and while attacking Isengard (it is essential to bribe Ents!) dropped as many troops to Mordor as possible. They could see Frodo approaching Mordor and enemy Pikemen killing him next to Morannon. In the next turn these Pikemen took the Ring and tried to transport it to Mt. Doom. It was THE time for Elven Bowmen to act - they attacked these Pikemen, killed them, covered the Ring with as many troops as possible and the other ones sacrificed themselves to block the roads. My troops were slaughtered but thank to reinforcements they managed to throw the Ring into the volcano


Best regards,

Slawomir Stachniewicz.

 

[stachnie]

Oh, and Rohan seems to not be helping at all.

Usually they lose Westfold to Isengard and Eastfold to Mordor very soon so they have their own problems...


Best regards,

Slawomir Stachniewicz.

 

[quasidemo]

I'd like to take a moment from Civ to let people know where and how they can choose to donate. We may be students or young professionals or otherwise not the most well-off, but I for one feel like I have to do something to help or I'd regret it for the rest of my life.

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/tsunami/ngolist.html

Charity Watch is useful to determine to whom to donate:

http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html#intrelief

The following animation is from NOAA and Architecture for Humanity.

 

[quasidemo]

Okay, I've posted a revamp of this scenario plus the result of rethinking the Ents in the form of an Ent-playable scenario. I think the mechanics of the game are as tweaked as I'm able to get them, so the next update--if there is to be one--would be the art and trimmings.

 

[Arklain]

wow sounds cool!

 

[Portuguese]

Try to use more mod-specific units and less pikes, spearmans,...

Oh, and for a 160x160 map, if you guys like huge maps, use wimpmiddleearth.biq, somewhere here at CFC
(I use it all the time, but I am a bit lazy to search for it now...)

 

[nullspace]

Try to use more mod-specific units and less pikes, spearmans,...

Oh, and for a 160x160 map, if you guys like huge maps, use wimpmiddleearth.biq, somewhere here at CFC
(I use it all the time, but I am a bit lazy to search for it now...)

War of the Ring is a very fun scenario because it doesn't do either of those things. No custom units means it's very fast and simple to download and install. Quasidemo made good choices for standard civ units to fill in for LOTR units. Using a little bit of imagination isn't going to kill me.

This is also a situation where bigger does not always equal better. War of the Ring captures the essence of the conflict from any perspective and allows you to finish the game in one or two hours. I've probably completed more games of this scenario than any other due to the quick time.

The only complains I have are:
Gondor is too strong compared to Mordor. Gondor has better lands and better units. Mordor's puny orcs are not good for much, and their trolls are overpriced compared to Gondor knights and longbowmen.

It's almost impossible to sneak Frodo to Mount Doom. The only way past Minas Morgul requires a step on a heavily-traveled road. Frodo is almost certain to be found unless you fight your way into Mordor.

Ent units are extremely strong. They have twice the attack of any other unit, 3 moves and blitz. The Huorn units are very good, too. In my game as Rohan, the Ents single-handedly wiped out Isengard before I could, and also captured Osgiliath.

For some reason, units can't be renamed except when they create a leader.

Otherwise, everything is great. I'm in the middle of a very difficult game as Mordor on Iluvatar difficulty. No sign of the ring yet, and I couln't capture Minas Tirith until about turn 35. I've got enough trebuchets now that I might be able to conquer the world, but I certainly won't do it before time runs out.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

I've played the scenario (with Mordor) and really enjoyed it! Well done!


I've played with Mordor and lost. Frodo was no where to be found, so decided to try the conquest approach. Failing to destroy the Elves (due to having my allied Ent units blocking the mountain road) and the Dwarves (they are far and strong with those "berserkers"), I lost!

I really appreciated the imagination you used (the nuclear weapon, the stealth bomber, the Sauron ability, ...) , making it a real scenario but still fast and simple!

My suggestions\considerations are the following:
- Shouldn't Mordor have more Nazgul? Maybe they could have more but weaker Nazgul.
- Mordor has 2 very strong units but you can't build them. So, if you lose them... it's gone for good. I think you should be able to build some sort of horseman, stronger than orcs and weaker than Knights. And much more expensive than orcs!
- I agree with nullspace, Ents are too strong.


Off course I've only played Mordor so I'm still on Mordor's side... I'll try the scenario again soon (with other tribes), maybe I'll be able to use the knowledge for victory. The Dwarves seem very strong!

 

[Swiss Bezerker]

I noticed a few jokes u in the rules

1)Under the list of cities for the ents are A)Ents B)Dont C)build and D)cities

2)Under the list of science leaders for gondor A)J. R. R. Tolkien B)Peter Jackson and C)ddchen@gmail.com. Whats with that last 1?

 

[quasidemo]

I noticed a few jokes u in the rules

1)Under the list of cities for the ents are A)Ents B)Dont C)build and D)cities

2)Under the list of science leaders for gondor A)J. R. R. Tolkien B)Peter Jackson and C)ddchen@gmail.com. Whats with that last 1?

Signature of the artist.



Regarding the Mordor is weaker than Gondor comments, that's somehting I'll start balancing. I beefed up Gondor a bit in this last round of balancing but didn't do much for Mordor, so I'll play as Mordor a bit more and fiddle with the levers. The problem with making trolls cheaper is the AI builds trolls all day and no Orcs. But I'll see if I can get that some better middle ground.

 

[quasidemo]

Thanks for the support.

It's almost impossible to sneak Frodo to Mount Doom. The only way past Minas Morgul requires a step on a heavily-traveled road. Frodo is almost certain to be found unless you fight your way into Mordor.

Ent units are extremely strong. They have twice the attack of any other unit, 3 moves and blitz. The Huorn units are very good, too. In my game as Rohan, the Ents single-handedly wiped out Isengard before I could, and also captured Osgiliath.

For some reason, units can't be renamed except when they create a leader.

1. Frodo on high traffic road... yeah I am not sure how to mitigate that. Denethor's recon ability helps a bit in seeing if any units are down the road that might be coming up next turn, but it does take a bit of luck to successfully get past the two road tiles. The 'draw them out at the Black Gate' strategy works sometimes, other times they keep coming through Cirith Ungol anyways.

2. Strong Ents... the description you gave seems a little overly active. Was this on Iluvatar setting? I let Iluvatar difficulty AI's have extra starting units and so if the Ents start with a bunch of Huorns they tend to be a lot more active than in the lesser difficulty levels.

3. Renaming units... I noticed that too, but that wasn't a conscious decision on my part. I'm not sure where one toggles that feature. But, if you read Plotinus' little story about renaming Gandalf to Gandalf the White after a victory in battle, that seems to be fitting.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Is there any way of making the movement cost for the mountains near Cirith Ungol REALLY high? If so, perhaps you could force mordor units to use Minas Morgul/Cirith Ungol city route (i.e. have Minas Morgul as a city, and Cirith Ungol as a Fort, and a road connecting the two) whilst allowing both Frodo, Sam, Gollum and Shelob?? to ignore the cost of the mountains movement.

I confess that I don't see an easy way around issue #1!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[nullspace]

2. Strong Ents... the description you gave seems a little overly active. Was this on Iluvatar setting? I let Iluvatar difficulty AI's have extra starting units and so if the Ents start with a bunch of Huorns they tend to be a lot more active than in the lesser difficulty levels.

That was on whatever deity was renamed as. And it was quite a few turns into the game, (maybe turn 30 or so) so it wasn't really the starting units. The Ent units are just way stronger (and faster) than anything else in the scenario.