246 replies to this topic

[robnkarla]

lol-with this amount of testers im fairly certain all the bugs will be found within minutes

I'm hoping to find them all, but I'm really hoping we can get a bunch of MP games going to hammer out the balance and fine-tune everything. It really nice to see people from so many different sites.

[Lotrfan2]

hey rob....you wanted me to post so i did..add me as soon as you like.

[Xingdao Fan]

If you need suggestions for faction spellbooks, can I send my ideas?

[robnkarla]

If you need suggestions for faction spellbooks, can I send my ideas?

Feel free to send any items anyone might have.

[Allathar]

Evil men:

5pp: war chant
5pp: desert sand: creates small area of desert, same like any other terrain powers
10pp: horn of the mahûd: stuns enemy units in particular area
10pp: desert watch: summons stealthed tower (like Harad tower from BfME1)
10pp: allies of the east: summons several battalions of rhûn units
15pp: desert heat: similar to cloudbreak
25pp: burning sun: similar to elven sunflare power
25pp: the blue company: summons alatar and pallando, the evil blue wizards

These are just quick ideas, and won't take much coding time

Edited by Allathar, 19 June 2007 - 06:34 PM.

[robnkarla]

Well, I thought I'd throw in some of the powers that I've also already been working on or completed:

10pp - Power of the Istari - will be explained later, but it gives buffs to Romestamo & Morinehtar
15pp - Union of Evil - This has to do with the Evil Men system that is implemented. Evil me is really two sub-factions that you choose which path you wish to follow - Haradrim or Eaterlings. This will be explained shortly I hope.
15pp - Scorpion Swarm - Summons a few hordes of Scorpions in the area, attacking/poisoning enemies
25pp - The standard Mumakil/Oliphant Stampede - a set of Mumakils are summoned to an area, destroying everything in the path.
25pp - Sandstorm - Pretty much as it says
5pp - Fell Wind - Currently a copy of Fell Wind, but I'd like to add some modifications

I will have at least 1 summon allies - which will summon troops
I have thought about the modified Tainted land.
For the Lone Tower, I'd like to do this as well, but see note on Union of Evil. Depending on which faction you pick, their corresponding tower is summoned.

I have other powers that I am working on as well.

Here are some for the other factions:
Rohan:
10pp Muster the Rohirrim - Similar to Call of Horde, but for Rohan's Cavalry
25pp Stampede - Well I just like this weapon type. Summons MANY horses than crush everything in their path
25pp Three Hunters - Well I could not help but add this. It is a throwback to BFME1 that summons Gimli, Legolas, & Aragorn to Rohan's aid. One difference, Aragorn has mount instead of Army of the Dead.
15pp Ent Allies - Summons a group of Ents - throwback to BFME1
15pp Elven Allies - Summons Haldir and some Elven Warriors to your aid.

Gondor:
Heroes of Gondor - power that upgrades some of Gondor's Heroes - Gandalf the White, Anduril for Aragorn, Armor Upgrades for Boromir, Faramir, & Pippin.
Rebuild is added back to Men and ElvenWood removed
Summon Dunedain is now Summon Grey Company - Summons new Dunedain rangers with Elrohir and Elladan

Mordor:
Call of the Horde is added

There are other powers, but these are some of them that are in 1.05.

[Allathar]

Nice powers there

A question: how will you start the game with Evil Men? With Harad, Rhun or both?

[robnkarla]

All right, here is the basic information on Evil Men.

When you start you will have a pack fortress. From this fortress you select whether to start as Easterling's or Haradrim. The Fortress is them unpacked and you get the appropriate fortress.

Now, what is the difference? Well, the porter has a switching commandset that switches between Harad and Easterling Structures. From these structures you will build your haradrim or easterling units, etc. So if you choose to go the haradrim route, all haradrim buildings you gain a discount on all of their buildings, heroes, units, etc. This will be the case until you either build an easterling fortress or purchase the Union of Powers pp.

So if you choose Haradrim, the haradrim palace is let's say 400, if you choose easterlings then the palace is 700 and takes longer to build. The subsequent units costs more and take longer as you are essentially calling in your allies.

So that in a nutshell is how the EvilMen faction/subfactions work. Because of this, they will have among the highest number of units available if not the highest and will have a very nice late game that I will have to keep in check. (You'll more when I release all of the information on the faction.)

[Devon]

whats the advantages of starting with harad vs rhun? or have you balanced it enough so u can even figure that out yet?

[Allathar]

I think Harad will be cheap, fast units but low armoured, while Rhun has more expensive stronger units.

[Xingdao Fan]

How will that work in War of the Ring?

[Lotrfan2]

i dont think it will work in War of the ring

[el kevo]

easy. you can buy 2 diff. kinds of barracks, one harad and one rhun. and then there will be 2 heroes from each of the 2 places on the living world map. Man do i have to think of everything all by myself

[adummy]

it should work in War of the Ring, seeing how Rob started this mod as a WOTR modification first

[robnkarla]

Yeah, El Kevo has the basic idea, but I will just need to come up with living buildings to use, low-poly buildings. The units will then be produced from each of the buildings. While there will not be a cost decrease after choosing a fortress, you will still have to build seperate buildings.

As for the benefits of each, I'll lay out each of them shortly I hope.

Some of the differences:
2 different arrow upgrades for each
They will have different units and abilities.
Harad has Mumakakil & Oliphant units while Rhun has the Sorcerers (the story is they represent that the blue wizards began their own sect in the east-not)

The heroes for the east:

Easterling Captain-
Damage Leadership
Refresh Units (heals easterlings units)
Pillage
1 more power to finish

Morinehtar (Blue Wizard)-
Leadership for Sorcerers (refresh speed increased, speed increase, plus other small bonues)
Grant Experience
Summon (I will annoce what it summoned a little later)
2 direct damage spells - Level 1 & Level 10

Romestamo (Blue Wizard)-
Replenish sorcerers - allow faster regeneration of wights for sorcerer
Ignite - Starts a fire in a specific area
Summon - (Same as above)
2 direct damage spells - Level 1 & Level 10

Khamul:
Nazgul - moved from Mordor - debating whether to have fellbeast or horse. I think horse for Khamul

Harad:
Mumak chief:
Can summon Mumakil to ride
Defense leadership
Enrage - mumakil's very close gain speed/damage increase
1 more power to be decided

Black Serpent chief:
Generic Leadership (Aragorn/Elrond style)
Bloodrage - enrage units gaining +speed +damage -armor
Mount
Inspire Fear
1 more to be decided

Indur:
Nazgul moved from Mordor, though debating to put on fellbeast or horse

Cheap hero - debating what name
This is more of a spy - he will have a number of model states allowing to disguise himself as a unit from any of the factions. This one is taking some time to get right, but he will be fun as an offset to the hobbits.

Units:

Harad:
Haradrim Warriors (Swordsmen)
Haradrim Mumakil Lancers (units that can mount Mumakil or watch towers)
Haradrim Guard (Lancers that are more powerful and can be upgraded)
Haradrim Archers
Haradrim Riders (Basic cavalry)
Black Serpent Guard (Elite ranged Cavalry)
Oliphant herd (group of 3 oliphants with no houda and cannot be mounted)
Mumakil

Rhun:
Easterling Warriors (Swordsmen)
Easterling Pikemen
Easterling Archers
Soldiers of Rhun (Elite Pikemen from BFME1)
Riders of Rhun (Cavalry)
Wain Riders (Chariots from BoG) - Thank you!
Sorcerers:
Powers - Enhance Senses, Move to Shadow, Sting of the Scorpion, Ring of Fire, & Energy Transference

Netural Units at tavern:
Corsairs
Brigands

So that is a general idea of the Evil Men units.

As far as combo units - here is the idea and let me know if you want it or not:

I wanted to have evil men have the same size hordes as Isengard - 10 basic units in the horde. The units that can combine together are:

1) Mumakil lancers can combine with themselves 2x with wedge formation in both sizes
2) Corsairs can combine with themselves up to 3 times - 6 units in each basic battalion
3) Haradrim Warriors, Archers, & Guard can combine up to 4 times - 5 units in each battalion with 20 total max
4) Easterling Pikemen, Archers, & Warriors can combine up to 3 times - 6 units in each battalion with an 18 total max
5) Haradrim Riders & Serpent guard can combine up to 2 times - 5 units in each battalion with a 10 max
6) Rhun Riders can combine with themselves 2 times - 5 units in each battalion with a 10 max
7) Soldiers of Rhun can combine with themselves 2 time - 5 units in each with a 10 max

Sorcerers, Wain Riders, & Oliphant battalions cannot combine.

I like the idea of the small 5 unit battalion up to the 20 unit combo battalions. The original idea was for the units to come in combo horde of 10 and can break into 2 5s, but this just cannot work so I am going with the the small battlalions that are cheap and quick to build.

As for the upgrades - Haradrim have scorpion poison and Easterling have barbed. At least that is where I am right now. It's changed so many times.

This week I will have a few updates that I will display. I want to get Evil Men, Elves, Isengard, Gondor, Rohan, & Mordor ready for display, though I might not finish everything by then. It still is really crazy, but I need a break. That will leave just Arnor and Angmar (**shiver** as I don't know exactly what I want to do with those pesky thrall masters and combo hordes) to do.

Edited by robnkarla, 20 June 2007 - 06:37 PM.

[el kevo]

wow. this is very impressive. will you make a tutorial for adding the living world map

[Lotrfan2]

hey there are 2 Morinehtar

[robnkarla]

When I go through and make all the changes in the Living World I will make a tutorial on everything that I do. WotR will not work correctly for all factions in the next release. I don't want to do the same work twice.

With this release I really want to get all of the bugs out and balance the heck out of it. I was thinking I will provide updates bi-weekly for beta testers with bug fixes & balance changes & campaign maps until we get closer. Once that is done I'll be doing a rehaul of the WotR mode. First will be units, buildings, & heroes. Once that is done I'll undertake the horrid job of the auto-resolve values for all of the units. I shudder at the thought, but with so many changes those values really need to be adjusted. Though EA never fixed them for BFME2 1.05/1.06. There are a lot of auxiliary areas that are still broken in 1.05/1.06.

Robert J.

hey there are 2 Morinehtar

Fixed - it should be Romestamo - they are alternate names for the Blue Wizards. Though I like Pallando and Alatar, they are just used too much.

Edited by robnkarla, 20 June 2007 - 06:38 PM.

[el kevo]

sounds cool. couldn't you just remove the auto-resolve system or is it hard-coded in

Edited by el kevo, 20 June 2007 - 07:04 PM.

[Allathar]

It's uhm... necessary to have it in. Unless you want to real-time fight every battle.