Return of the Shadow: The War of the Ring

[ReindeerThistle]

Played Arnor for 1-1/2 hours (still in the game. just taking a break):

1. Found the Balrog -- Awesome graphic. But, my Fellowship of Aragorn, San, Frodo, Galdalf and a Veteran Ranger kicked it's ass!

2. Lost Sam and Gandalf at the gates of Morannon to the spider.

3. Gandalf destroyed the walls of Morannon before he got done in.

Anyway. Never a dull moment with this MOD!

More to Come...

 

[ReindeerThistle]

1. Okay, so I lost as Arnor after 3 hours and 13 minutes and 40 seconds. Lost Aragorn and Frodo and my Ranger at Morannon. Sauron got the ring, end of Story. This was the longest play to date. This is on iMAC G3 with CIV 3 Complete.

2. Played Rohan for 28 minutes, got a VP victory! How did that happen?

The above were at Dwarf level.

3. Currently now Playing Gondor at Human level -- how come everyone else starts building a Lair of Shelob? Is that another glitch? I lost Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Pelargir, Linhir so far, and falling fast. Lost Denethor, Farimir and Boromir (who rose from the ashes or something). Rohan beat the Uruk-Hai, so help is on the way.

Again, Lord Malbeth. Good going!

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Okay,
Very
So I scrapped the Gondor game and went back to Rohan, and lost after 33 minutes.

Played a second Arnor as Human, put the AI aggression up to one past normal, played 3 hours, 24 minutes and 35 seconds. Lost the ring at the gates of Morannon -- there'ds gotta be a better way.

Anyway, I'm off to test play more of CCM "Epic MOD."

Best of skill to all!

See my Earth Map for CCM at:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11460851&postcount=1114

 

[Lord Malbeth]

1. Okay, so I lost as Arnor after 3 hours and 13 minutes and 40 seconds. Lost Aragorn and Frodo and my Ranger at Morannon. Sauron got the ring, end of Story. This was the longest play to date. This is on iMAC G3 with CIV 3 Complete.

2. Played Roahn for 28 minutes, got a VP victory! How did that happen?

The above were at Dwarf level.

3. Currently now Playing Gondor at Human level -- how come everyone else starts building a Lair of Shelob? Is that another glitch? I lost Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Pelargir, Linhir so far, and falling fast. Lost Denethor, Farimir and Boromir (who rose from the ashes or something). Rohan beat the Uruk-Hai, so help is on the way.

Again, Lord Malbeth. Good going!

I believe that Lair of Shelob thing is a glitch. I'll try to fix that. Anyway, I'm super glad you're liking this mod. I put a lot of my soul into it.

Also, it's pretty hard to get into Mordor. You really just have to rush in with a ton of soldiers, get a fort and then escort Frodo in. Unfortunately, it won't work like in the movies.

 

[r16]

on the other hand , obviously ı can't do anything unless ı have a couple of Balrogs in the field . tried Hobbits a few times , had an army with Gandalf and could not occupy Isengard , my favourite place , since they were down to their last city . Not totally familiar with regicide thing . Can ı get the city in one piece after ı kill Saruman ?

 

[Lord Malbeth]

on the other hand , obviously ı can't do anything unless ı have a couple of Balrogs in the field . tried Hobbits a few times , had an army with Gandalf and could not occupy Isengard , my favourite place , since they were down to their last city . Not totally familiar with regicide thing . Can ı get the city in one piece after ı kill Saruman ?

Unfortunately, if you kill Saruman, the civ is destroyed and the civilization crumbles, relegating the city to a mere ruin. I've always not liked this part of regicide. If you kill the king, you should at least get to have the city he was in. In real life, killing a monarch may ruin a civilization, but rarely do warring nations go "Well, I killed your king. May as well raze your capital to the ground and never ever live there again."

Sorry for my rant.

 

[r16]

well , ı would like the city as a staging area and a place for unit production to fight Mordor . One could add another king in the editor ı guess . Though as said elsewhere ı stick to Isengard elsewhere , a need for familiarity is the single reason .

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Unfortunately, if you kill Saruman, the civ is destroyed and the civilization crumbles, relegating the city to a mere ruin. I've always not liked this part of regicide. If you kill the king, you should at least get to have the city he was in. In real life, killing a monarch may ruin a civilization, but rarely do warring nations go "Well, I killed your king. May as well raze your capital to the ground and never ever live there again."

Sorry for my rant.

Actually, in the case of Orthanc, and eliminating Isengard -- I'd leave the roads and make colonies where the iron is -- that's all I want, anyway from Isengard. Don't know if it's possible, since I pillaged the roads before I took Isengard and could not get back into the mountains with my workers to make colonies.

No worries. It's still a challenging MOD.

 

[Lord Malbeth]

OK, I just started re-tweaking this scenario. Basically, just addressing bugs. I've down-graded Rohan and Arnor a bit so they aren't uber-strong and I beefed up Isengard so they're better prepared.

I'm also thinking of adding a cannon/Hwacha unit for Isengard to use later on, even though its not super-canon, I think it might be neater. I can't decide which I like: the Hwacha (cool graphics) or the cannon (steampunky). What do you guys think?

 

[Lord Malbeth]

Hey everyone! I just finished the huge update! It's up now. Here's the big updates.

1. Sacrifice has been added for The Elves, but its called "Return to Valinor" and now Elves can win a Cultural victory by "returning" Elvish Civilians to Valinor.
2. Settlers are back, but can only be built by either Gondor or Arnor (depending on who's the human player) and can only be built after a certain tech is picked.
3. More barbarians and goody huts.
4. I rebalanced and tweaked most units and improvements.
5. I weakened Arnor and beefed up Isengard. Dunland has been removed during the scenarios for The Elves, Dwarves, Mordor, et al (to make it less easy for the bad guys).
6. Isengard can now build Hwacha-like units that serve as awesome artillery units.
7. Minor tweaks to civs, cities, and the map.
8. More atmosphere! More fun!
That's pretty much all the big things. Tell me how it plays!

Edit: I've also made a patch to add a couple more elements to the game, like Wormtongue, fixed issues with Elves, added Haradrim unit, minor tweaks, etc. DL on front page.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Hey everyone! I just finished the huge update! It's up now....

That's pretty much all the big things. Tell me how it plays!

Edit: I've also made a patch to add a couple more elements to the game, like Wormtongue, fixed issues with Elves, added Haradrim unit, minor tweaks, etc. DL on front page.

Lord Malbeth, some issues:

1. What is one of my Theodens doing in Easterling Territory? He has to fight his way through barbarians and easterlings to get home!
2. Thankfully, I can finally save Theodred but Rohan gets its ass kicked fairly handily and I lostthe first try in 45 minutes -- admittedly, I sent Eomer out to Mordor and the Nazgul got to him and I had chosen "Regicide,' versus Mass regicide.
3. Weaker Riders of Rohan a little disappointing, but that's how it happened in the books.
4. Time frames are in years (starts in BC).

None of these make the game unplayable, and I appreciate your effort. I can probably fix some things for my own play and I'll keep playing to test it out.

Thanks!

 

[Lord Malbeth]

Whoops. Those sound like dumb patch issues. I must have screwed up on the scenario properties screen. I'll try to straighten those up soon.
It should be Mass Regicide, not just normal Regicide, also, the time is all messed up. And I don't know why Theoden is out in Easterling territory... Frankly... I don't know why there are more than one Theoden!

EDIT: Figured it out. Some of the rules defaulted. Whoops. I will fix ASAP and post a patch.

EDIT 2: Patch is now up.

 

[Trinkledink]

Hiya! So, I love this mod (even though i haven't gotten to play it yet) because it looks so great! I'm DYING to play it, but can't. Life is not worth living without it.

I have a mac and i can't get it to work i have tried so many things and spent countless hours trying to get it to work. I have downloaded every patch and every mod from every location (atomic game, civfanitics.com) and nothing has worked. I keep getting those silly error messages saying it can't find one .wav file or another. So what i tried doing was download a SH*T ton of copies of this mod from both the atomic gamer site and from the main link here and would open the game get the error message, search for the missing .wav file and take it from some place (the other mods and stuff) and trow it all up in the folder that civ 3 wanted it in. WELL that worked for about two things and then it went back to giving me the error messages (civ likes to switch up the error messages now and then).

Soooooooo, i was wondering it y'all could help me out a lil' bit because I have given it my best shot and now i could REAAAAALY use some guidance.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Hiya! So, I love this mod (even though i haven't gotten to play it yet) because it looks so great! I'm DYING to play it, but can't. Life is not worth living without it.

I have a mac and i can't get it to work i have tried so many things and spent countless hours trying to get it to work. I have downloaded every patch and every mod from every location (atomic game, civfanitics.com) and nothing has worked. I keep getting those silly error messages saying it can't find one .wav file or another. So what i tried doing was download a SH*T ton of copies of this mod from both the atomic gamer site and from the main link here and would open the game get the error message, search for the missing .wav file and take it from some place (the other mods and stuff) and trow it all up in the folder that civ 3 wanted it in. WELL that worked for about two things and then it went back to giving me the error messages (civ likes to switch up the error messages now and then).

Soooooooo, i was wondering it y'all could help me out a lil' bit because I have given it my best shot and now i could REAAAAALY use some guidance.

Here's what worked for me: I used an Ubuntu linux machine and kept the 2009 (or so) files that nick0515 uploaded in the "Scenarios" folder, and then I unzipped the new warofthering package into the "Conquests" folder. Incidentally, this worked on a Windows Vista machine as well. I copied and pasted THAT into my iMAC.
That seemed to work -- though not on a terribly efficient level, since I went from an AMD64 microprocessor to a 750Mhz iMAC G3.

Sorry there was not an easier way for me.

Hope it helps.

Get Ubuntu, anyway. It's awesome.

Note to Lord Malbeth: I have not been able to play Arnor -- it bounces back to Gondor. What's up with that?

I still play the old mod, Rohan rules!

 

[Lord Malbeth]

Whoops, that seems like a mistake. I'll try to fix that.

Maybe I should re-beef up Rohan. They are a little wimpy now.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Whoops, that seems like a mistake. I'll try to fix that.

Maybe I should re-beef up Rohan. They are a little wimpy now.

I'm still enjoying the old MOD. Played Rohan for one hour, 55 minutes and defeated Isengard, the Dunlendings, Morder and the Harad -- I played at Elf level -- a first for me -- and built two butt-kicking armies from leaders created from battle. Great game.

I tried beefing up Rohan myself in the old MOD, making Theodred a Veteran, putting walls around the gap of Rohan (Sacrilege!) but the response from Isengard was to send an army to smash the Gap of Rohan. Nice touch!

Whatever you do with the new MOD, keep the settlers and re-introduce Rohan starting at War with Isengard, Gondor with Morder, et al.

Anyway, good work no matter how you take it.

 

[Trinkledink]

Sorry it took me a while to respond ReindeerThistle, I've been busy.

I'm just a little confused, nick0515 hasn't uploaded anything in 2009, the only thing that he has uploaded was the .rar file (which im not sure what to do with, it is just a single file and when i open it up with VLC, it just lists a bunch of zero second long sounds with names such as 'warofthering\Art\Units\Balrog' or 'warofthering\Art\Civopedia\Icon\Terrain')

I think I am missing some files because that message always pops up when I try and play. How do i get them??? =[

 

[Lord Malbeth]

Whatever you do with the new MOD, keep the settlers and re-introduce Rohan starting at War with Isengard, Gondor with Morder, et al.

Wait, does Rohan not start at war anymore? Well that's a mistake...

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Sorry it took me a while to respond ReindeerThistle, I've been busy.

I'm just a little confused, nick0515 hasn't uploaded anything in 2009, the only thing that he has uploaded was the .rar file (which im not sure what to do with, it is just a single file and when i open it up with VLC, it just lists a bunch of zero second long sounds with names such as 'warofthering\Art\Units\Balrog' or 'warofthering\Art\Civopedia\Icon\Terrain')

I think I am missing some files because that message always pops up when I try and play. How do i get them??? =[

Hi,
The file nick0515 uploaded in 2012 was the previous (2009 version). While there are some issues, to me it plays better than the new one, so far.

If you have a .rar you need to find and get a MAC program that will unzip the .rar file, which is an archive. Unzip the .rar file into the "Scenarios" folder.

PM me if you need more data for Civ III in MAC. I have a G3 MAC with OSX 10.4.11, and the CIV III complete for MAC, running off of a no-DVD crack (since my machine does not have a DVD drive, and the CIV III Complete for MAC that I own is a DVD).

ReindeerThistle

 

[Dane338]

I consider myself a halfway decent player, playing on Monarch comfortably in scenarios and known to win a few on Emperor or Sid. I did the equivalent of Regent ("Dwarf") for this one, as I do when I first try out any scenario to get the gist of it.

This mod is incredibly hard for the good guys.

1. As Gondor, I held out for fifty turns before retaking then losing Osgiliath and Pelegrir. Couldn't go through the mountain pass at Rivendell (because I had to go from a hill/plain road tile to a mountain road tile instead of a regular tile to a mountain road tile) and a damn Elf Civilian blacked off Moria for five turns before I went down to the Gap of Rohan (which was Isengard). Lost everyone except Gollum and Frodo trying to find a way through. Then it got boring and repetitive (save for what remained of the Fellowship) as I was just defending against enemies I couldn't see 90% of the time (which I found needlessly frustrating, as how is an army of fifteen spearmen that are surrounding Minas Tirith invisible).

2. Tried as Arnor on Human and played cat and mouse with Dunland and the Corsairs with a single Ranger (which was incredibly fun). Eventually lost the Fellowship trying to get into Mordor. There should be another mountain pass somewhere (guarded by an immobile Shelob, who can detect you and thus alert Mordor), as I can't get through unless I assault a city (most likely as Gondor) akin to a suicide run that Aragon did on the Black Gates in the books (was that your objective?). Also, the Ents kept going to way with everyone before backtracking and having everyone gang-up on Isengard.

Ideas:

I noticed you separated the "Fellowship" into different characters as king units for different nations (for obvious reasons; didn't want to overpower anyone). Why not do away with that and have Frodo, Sam, Gollum, and the remainder as an army (named "The Fellowship").

Please don't make everyone invisible (why not just the Nazgul, Wraiths, and Spiders?) it makes playing as Gondor, even the AI being Gondor, unrealistically hard.

Great and creative scenario, aside from the frustrations trying to guide the Fellowship or playing as Gondor. Easily 8/10.