Unit list

[Berenthor]

Maybe a good idea is to get a list of units going as well, this way we can fit the tech tree on that. I like the two lists in the other thread although I wouldn't seperate sword and spear mounted. I think maybe three tiers of units. Maybe a very rough division in units, using those two lists as base:

• Worker
• Slave
• Settler
• Warrior
• Melee
  • Swordsman
  • Axeman
  • Swordsmaster
  • Long Swordsman
  • Infantry (axeman and swordsman both go here)
  • (only evil) Berserker (does collatoral damage during attack, attack is higher than defense)
• Spears
  • Spearman
  • Phalanx
  • Pikeman
• Archers
  • Bowman
  • Archer
  • Longbowman
  • Marksman
  • Crossbowman
• Recon
  • Scout
  • Hunter
  • Ranger
• Siege
  • Ram
  • Catapult
  • Trebuchet
  • Siege Tower
  • (UU Isengard maybe) Ballista
• Mounted
  • Horsearchers
    • Mounted archer
    • (UU Rohan) Horse archer
  • Horseman
    • (UU Easterlings) Chariot
    • Horseman
    • Knight
    • Cavalry
• Ships
  • Transports
    • Ship/Galley
    • Transport/Galleon
  • Warships
    • Warship
    • Siegeship/Quinquereme/Penteres
    • Great ship/Man'O'War/Ship of the Line
  • Misc
    • Workboat
• National Units
  • Captain of the Guard (3 allowed) --> Tower Guards, Eorlingas Royal Guard, Black Riders, etc.

PS: attack and defense values for units are seperate in FFH2, this may be nice (archers better defense but poorer attack, etc)

 

[Sengir]

I like the list, would add Marksman instead of Elite Archer, and probably some sort of heavy Cavalry. Also, the ranger should be either invisible (but able to attack) or hidden nationality.

Another point: I like the idea of captians and such as a national unit with limited availability (should be mostly foot units, though the unique version for the Rohirrim for example should be mounted)

 

[Berenthor]

I added the suggestions to the list. I actually think that the ranger could still be in there although we could make it a national unit as well. In FFH2 they have given certain recon units the ability to carry a bird (which works like a plane, with rebase etc. but without an attack). These birds have a range and are used for scouting. This may also be a nice addition to a recon line or an ability to give only to rangers. Another possibility is to make rangers invisible to most units except a certain kind of unit. But we have to balance this well. I personnally don't like the hidden nationality for a ranger.

 

[Sengir]

Will have a look at the FFH birds. That might work as well. Are recon-units per definition disallowed from attacking? In that case we should make the unique rangers able to attack (or make rangers unique hunters).

 

[Berenthor]

If I remember correctly from modding BtS, it is a setting that you can set in XML per unit, and not per unitclass. This should allow us to manually set this for each unit that we want not to be able to attack. Although actually depending on how we implement it, we might want hunters or scouts to be able to attack.

 

[xmen510]

Those are good ideas. you should also include the Elephant for Haradrim Civ.

Under the Mounted list you could have two types of Elephant mounts.

Mumakil
Ballista Mumakil

------------------------

On the idea of the attacking Recon, perhaps that ability should only be for the Ranger unit (the last/most powerful of the unit tree). (Sorry saw that sengir already mentioned this in a way). I think that the Cannon idea should be left out however. It just seems a bit "too" advanced.

Also, what about ships? Should we allow up to Galleons? or Ship of the Line? Anything further would be too advanced IMO. Perhaps the animation could be changed for those two to show arrows instead of cannons being used (if that isn't too hard of course).

 

[Sengir]

There was a ships list somewhere too. Will see if I can dig it out so that we can reuse it.

Edit:
Here it is:

Oh, good point, we have to think about the ships... There will be no combat ships until the second age. Many of the naval units would be UUs, like the Swan Ships (a weaker transport ship, but cheaper and available earlier) for the Teleri, the Corsairs for the Haradrim, and several boats for Númenor. A sketch, without any values (but they should be expensive, in ME we didn't have many ships):
Work Boat: normal, available to all
Swan Ship: only ship available in the Age of Stars, only to the Teleri (transport ship)
Ship: first transport, no attack, available to all
Transport: better transport, not completely defenseless, available to all
Warship: first military naval unit, available to all
Siege Ship: can bombard cities, good against transports, slow, weak against warships, available to all
Scout ship: weak, but fast, good to exploration, available to all
High Ship: best naval unit, hybrid between Warship and Transport, only to Númenor (maybe Gondor/Arnor)
Fast Ship: best explorer ship, only to Númenor
Great ship: late game siege ship, available to all
Quick ship: late game warship, available to all
Corsair: ???, only to Harad

So that would make:

• Transports
  • Ship
  • Transport
• Warships
  • Warship
  • Siegeship
  • Great ship
  • Quick ship
• Misc
  • Workboat
  • Scoutship

The rest as UU's

While I like the list in general, I'm not too fond about the names. It's a bit boring really. Will have to look around for other names.

 

[Berenthor]

I like the list, especially the list of UU's. Numenor should also have UU ships because they were also shipbuilders. Some ships, like the quick ship feel maybe not needed. I agree with limiting the ships because there are not that many in ME, but than why so many categories? I tried to improve the names. See the first list for improvements.

 

[Sengir]

Good work on the names of the ships, let's use those (unless someone finds an awesome in one of Tolkiens books that's generic enough to not be a UU). I would drop the quick ship as well, it sounds like it should be a scout ship, but we've got a scoutship allready.

 

[xmen510]

I agree as well.

 

[Elda King]

I find Man'o'war a quite bad name for ships in ME. Quinquirreme is not actually very good, but can be used, as Galleon. Frigates would be usable, and more generic names would be best - specially for non-UUs.
Crossbows I'd use in the very end of the mod, in the 4th Age. There's no mention of Ballistas, but we may suppose they existed in ME, but no cannons. Berserker should only be available for a few civs - elven or dwarven berserkers, or even edain, would be a shame. Rangers should not have birds, but Radagast or some heroes should.
I really loved the idea of the Captains... thought I don't know in what age they would be. Perhaps there should be some kind of advancement for them.
Oh, chariots are definitely UUs. Only the easterlings ever used any, and this was very weird for anyone else.

 

[Sengir]

Having played around with FFH a bit, I think the captains should be units that can only be upgraded from units with level X (probably 5 or so), that, and needing a tech to enable them (probably late 2nd/early 3th age)

 

[Berenthor]

The captains should indeed be upgradable units instead of producable. If I remember correctly Quinquirremes were siege ships of the Romans so the name sounds apt for this. As for Man'O'War, I think we could also call it Ship of the Line or something like that.

 

[Sengir]

It's greek originally, but quinquirreme is the Roman name. We can call it Penteres if you like the sound of that better.

Wikipedia

 

[T_F]

Like captains, like the upgrade idea. As a general suggestion, civs should get WAY more than one unique unit, I don't see even 10 or more as a problem.

For Rangers, they should be pretty good archers as well as recon. Hidden nationality and can attack without declaring war. If you can get them to only stealth in forest that'd be great, if not, general stealth is fine.

IDK about chariots, nobody in canon used chariots. Also I don't think the dwarven cannon is a good idea either, no gunpowder.
Berserker should be an Isengard UU of some kind. Maybe substitute it as their Captain unit or something.

The Teleri should probably get work boats before everyone else too, maybe they can work water tiles earlier also. They should probably get better ships than anyone else except Númenor throughout the game instead of just being able to use water sooner.
You could have the Teleri and Númenor as counterpart sea powers, maybe the Teleri have faster (and maybe cheaper) ships than everyone else and the Númenoreans have stronger ships.

 

[xmen510]

Maybe we should only allow berserkers to Orc type units. To so their barbarity in a way. I also like the upgradable captains idea.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Berserk or Captains as promotions? that'de be interesting...

 

[T_F]

How about upgradeable Captains for everybody, and you can choose to make Orcs or Uruk-hai Berserkers instead of Captains (both choices available at the same time always)?

...Was there ever anything that counted as an Orc Berserker, or is that only an Uruk thing?

 

[Berenthor]

There is indeed no gunpowder. Dwarven cannon was mostly a cool name for their UU catapult or something . I think everybody should get upgradable captains. Not sure about the berserkers. Maybe if we give them another name, we can use it for all civs. Just a unit that has higher attack than defense, something like that.

Rangers I would really see as recon units, not archers. They may use bows but should not be better than regular archers, otherwise what's the point in having those. They should not have hidden nationality I think, especially not if they are also invisisble. Way to unbalanced imho.

Chariots should indeed be UUs for Haradrim. In the civs thread I added space to add UU's for the civs and already some suggestions. If you have suggestions, place them there as well.

 

[xmen510]

I agree with everyone being able to have the Upgradeable Captains/Berserkers idea. That would be really cool.