Hello everyone,
I've probably logged several hundreds of hours playing the latest S.E.E. mod which I heavily tweaked via the included .ini files to my liking. Of course I also still remember the original unedited version and am therefore here with some ideas, suggestions, and questions based on my experience.
First of all S.E.E.'s skirmish mode is downright addicting: There are so many different gameplay elements that make it a fresh experience each and every time. And for a mod to stand the test of time this good is indeed quite rare (I made sure to personally thank Naz for this as he is still working hard on this!).
My first suggestion would be to lessen siege damage to regular units. Just two Catapults can be catastrophic against any type of horde unit, which is especially lethal against the A.I. Who practically always have some fodder units shielding these siege weapons and regular units won't be able to plow through them falling victim in massive units (even the elite veteran units) fast against two relatively cheap siege weapons. Of course a siege weapon would realistically indeed kill a unit in one hit, but you also have to factor in other elements in RTS games like how infantry units would IRL be able to dodge most large siege weapons such as stones, and the fact that siege weapons are much less accurate than portrayed and of course they're simply unusable over such short distance in reality also.
The second thing would be both a suggestion and a question (I already contacted Naz about this, but he suggested I ask in the public forum for help because he unfortunately lost all that he typed in a PM reply). It would be to give Sauron the ability to summon units in the next version of S.E.E. (and can someone explain how I could accomplish this myself; all my attempts via .ini editing have failed so far). I think a summon ability for him would be befitting of his character. I was thinking something in the range of 1 Attack Troll, 1 Drummer Troll, 1 Mountain Troll, 3 squads of Morannon Orc Archers, and 5 squads of Barad-dûr Orc Warriors with all their respective upgrades and their maximum level and them staying indefinitely. I tried to re-work the “Summon Royal Guard” ability of Dáin without any luck.
Thirdly (also a suggestion + question), some heroes have special abilities that damage friendlies such as the Fireball ability for Saruman and Sauron. Shouldn't this be disabled, or was this intentional? Maybe something for the next release? I can't find anything in any .ini file pertaining to “Friendly Fire” that I could use to solve this for the old S.E.E.
And yet another suggestion + question: If you're the player starting in Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, Helm's Deep etc. the maximum Command Point capacity is always a 1000, no matter what setting you apply in the Skirmish Settings. I would really like to play these levels with similarly massive units caps for that respective player. The other players with a regular keep can make tons and tons of units (one of my tweaks for gameplay with huge armies) while the player in the city/fortress can only make several hordes before reaching the unit cap. I tried to solve this in two ways but both didn't pan out that well: First I tried giving the “Outposts” a bonus unit cap of + 20.000 (each of these levels has outposts for the player in the fortress). I tried giving the Statues a huge bonus unit cap which didn't work either. Lastly I went through all unit types and simply gave them a command point total of “0”. Little did I know the A.I. bases their production on command points and this resulted in the A.I. Simply producing so many units that even my PC starts to slow down and eventually crash, even with only one Brutal A.I.
Where can I find the command caps for these maps? Are they even in the .ini files or are they part of the map files? Would this be something that could be changed for the next version of S.E.E.?
Lastly, and this is way beyond my skills: Having played Shadow of Mordor a lot, there was one thing I thought cool if it could be realized in BFMEII: Warping/Teleporting. Celebrimbor (a powerful Elf Lord) can do it without using the power of The One. The Tower of Sauron can even teleport despite having himself split up in several bodies. Sauron does this as well in “The Bright Lord” campaign at the end during the boss fight. And just having watched The Hobbit movies: Gandalf does it several times in these movies (teleporting away from Azog and the other orcs and he teleported himself into the goblin town and did some kind of “Word of Power” type attack). Actually, he even does in The Fellowship of the Ring when he's already there after Bilbo put on the ring and ran back to his house. And I think Galadriel teleported away from Gandalf, but that's a bit iffy. I'd have to see that part again to confirm.
But anyway wouldn't it be cool is these characters having the ability to teleport in S.E.E. I do not know how that could best be implemented. Perhaps as a special ability you click on and then you have that red crosshair and just left click where you want to teleport to. And for Sauron maybe implement it into his standard movement. If he can teleport so casually, I doub't he'd do a lot of walking. Teleport to the enemy lines and then start walking. So when the command where he needs to be next exceed a certain range he will teleport but if the next command is 3 meters to his side he'll walk.
Anyway I think that was it. I'll probably have forgotten many things but yeah that's it.
Edited by Invadious, 15 September 2015 - 06:46 PM.
