882 replies to this topic

[Devon]

isengard is strong enough as it is. theyre on the verge of being op. crossbows are good enough anyway.

[HOLY_RAVEN]

isengard can have new unit urok with large board shield,in movie i see in battle of helm's deep some unit shielding one battering ram and i see the original urok warrior with small shield (game already have it).
(raven)

[Scryer]

Yoda, in what ways is Isengard on the verge of being overpowered? I've played them a couple of times in the latest release and I can honestly say that I really don't see this.... Then again, I'm probably not playing them properly (which is what I'm expecting).

I think that Isengard, out of all of the evil factions, lacks an 'edge' to the game. I came to this conclusion from the times that I have played as Isengard (which is rarely...) which is why I don't know how to use Isengard (currently) to its full potential. Anyways, you have the Goblins which do the quick assaults, Angmar has its weird 'edge' to it, MOTE specializes in unit strength (that's what I get from them...) (and possibly illusions- if you have one of the blue wizards), and Mordor does their mass siege and hero power thing. Some might argue that Isengard specializes in getting upgrades fast.... but really? After you gain heavy armour and fire arrows, there's not much you can do with that other than trying to outnumber your opponent.

Here's my suggestion: Why don't you guys alter Isengard so that they specialize in destroying their opponent's resources? The other evil factions appear to focus their energies on rushing in and trying to destroy the enemy (whether it's done in one big horde or in multiple assaults) so why don't you make Isengard a faction that can cripple an enemy's resources and quickly rub them out of the game? The problem that I see with this approach, is that it could make Isengard a late-game faction that would hardly get any use in the early-mid game. Unless you found a way to give Isengard an early-game power to temporarily debuff their enemy's resource production by a small percentage. This would also be useful in multi-player (if you guys managed to get the mod online) massive siege as it would give Isengard another purpose (besides the mines).

Another problem would be that you would have to completely shift Isengard's focus on attacking their enemy's resources first and then taking them out.

If you guys made Isengard this type of a faction, I honestly don't know what kind of effect that this would have on the units currently. Maybe it would give the player an option to either; Assault the enemy as Isengard's depleting their enemy's resources or; To gather a huge force and take out the enemy when they're having trouble getting units out.

This is just a suggestion, what do you all think?

[Shikari]

Yoda is right, Isengard is probably one of the strongest factions atm. Try to arrange a game against Yoda, and you will see what I mean...

Basically, if you can build the units fast enough, and get them upgraded quickly, then get some seige out, its very hard to beat. Especially with mid/late game deathbringer, which are definetly op.

[dojob]

Yeah, I get stomped by his Isengard all the time, whether its by the incredible uruk hordes near the beginning or his zerker mass later on.

Yes, Isengard should be an offensive raiding faction. Imo, dunland units aren't viable enough (Yoda never gets them) and should be available/used earlier, perhaps by becoming cheaper and/or built faster. They should be encouraged to pin the enemy down with Dunland harassment while building up a strong economy to finish the enemy off with their heavily armored infantry and powerful siege units (As they did in the movies). Uruk units should be cheaper and weaker to fit the evil spammy style, but upgrades should have greater effects to represent the strengths of Isengard's industry.

There should be more rewards for raiding in general imo, but I'll go into details on that in the general suggestions topic.

Edited by dojob, 25 February 2008 - 09:03 PM.

[Devon]

I will point out that the units are the most expensive for early game, and isen only has like 7 total units Dunland camp costs 600 (or did) and isn't really useful atm. It takes an incredible econ system to support two contant streams of uruks, and if you guys would just attack it instead of my troops, you'd be fine DBs are op, but then every hero horde is, so I only get them when my enemy does too I only used zerker spam once, and that was when you were on the verge of beating me Zerkers are also pretty pathetic unless you get a group of more than 5, as they can be taken out very quickly by a horde or two of archers.

Also, that isn't how the movies went. He started out with uruks, then brought in some dunlandings for harrasment and just extra troops whie upgrading his uruks...I don't think Saruman would have put the resources into recruited dunlanders instead of uruks if they hadn't wanted to fight the rohirrim themselves.

[dojob]

-I can't attack your base with those towers popping up and slaughtering my guys and I'd have to be an idiot to attack without destroying ur army, since it will just run in and, combined with the towers, will stomp my army.

-Yes, any unit is better in numbers and zerkers happen to be very good units, i'm not complaining about them.

-Then this EXACTLY supports my vision of Isengard; you start with 2 hordes of uruks, use dunlandings (whose clan steading would be cheaper) to harass and keep the enemy busy, and then u can come in with ur mob of FU uruks. I never said you couldn't go for uruks early btw they just wouldn't be beastly w/o upgrades.

[Shikari]

Okay, so in conclusion, the dunland clan steeding should be cheaper, and unarmored uruk hai slightly weaker.

Incidently, something I would like to see is a dunlanding creep. Small group of dunland units around a small settlement. Just to add a bit more variety. In fact a few new creeps in general wouldn't be a bad thing. Ent creeps on forest maps, scorpions desert, maybe even eagle and fellbeast creeps....

Anyway, got a bit carried away.. this topic is about isengard so don't discuss that here...

[dojob]

and again, I don't think saruman would have bothered with dunlandings if they weren't free.

May as well get rid of the dunland clan steading then, eh and go back to inn and summon only? If they're going to be useable, then they may as well be useful, am I right?

And about starting uruks: You can't worry about exact numbers in this mod. That would be like saying "You should be able to get 10,000 uruks", but that's beside the point; I just want Dunlandings to be useful. Unit mixing ftw!

Edited by dojob, 26 February 2008 - 01:42 AM.

[Devon]

I didn't say get rid of it, I said most people wouldn't bother with it if it was expensive. So make it 25 or something like the hobbit house, so people get it. If the hobbit house was 600, I don't think many people would get it....You don't have to worry about exact numbers....but uruks still were "early game units" for isengard in the books and films. As for unit mixing, you're always the one telling me how elves aren't that useful at all for arnor, and dunedain only moderatly so

[dojob]

As for unit mixing, you're always the one telling me how elves aren't that useful at all for arnor, and dunedain only moderatly so

Yes and I want them to be better so that they're worth putting into my army.

[Scryer]

One thing that I do agree with is the Dunlending units costing less (and same with the building) and unarmoured uruks being your early game units. I don't know whether it's my crappy playing skill or not, but I rarely combine hordes except for the classic soldier/archer battalion.

On another thread (General Suggestions, I think?) I believe that we briefly discussed the idea of giving the Isengard Fortress a tier 3 (is that what you guys are calling them?) upgrade. Basically we skimmed over the idea of having Saruman mount a "Tower of Orthanc"-like upgrade and casting spells from there. But from the sounds of it, Isengard will become overpowered with this upgrade.

Anyways, my main point to this post is that something needs to be changed with Saruman!! The other 4 wizards are much more offensive than Saruman is currently; You got gandalf with his Lightning sword and Word of Power spells; Radagast with his eagle mounting and Poultry spells; Romestamo (sp?) summons his rock giant; And Morehinetar (<SP!) has his illusions and his light blast spells. Saruman just gets spells that basically blasts away enemies for moderate/minor damage, a leadership, and an experience boosting power. This would be much different if the other wizards weren't so offensive. I don't think that Saruman could hold his own against the might of Gandalf's Word of Power and Isatari Light spells and Romestamo's rock giant (plus more spells). If you guys are going off of the idea that Gandalf the White and the Witchking were equal in power, then I would think (correct me if I'm wrong) that Saruman and the Witchking would have been equal in power as well.

Here's my suggestion... Obviously Saruman needs a moderate-minor boost in speed and defence. I think I might have heard that you guys were already modding Saruman's stats...I could be wrong. I don't mind his attack with the extra knockback effects.... I think that the normal attack could cause more damage (not knockback) but that's just a small opinion of mine. I believe that we discussed before (in the general suggestions thread) that Saruman's lightning power should be buffed more. Well I think that Saruman's lightning power should be equivalent to the Isengard Fortress' lightning power except Saruman's new Lightning power should either have a couple more bolts or a larger AoE. I told you guys before that I honestly don't know Isengard that well, so if this suggestion doesn't help then please excuse it.

Instead of the Fortress' tier 2 upgrade being the lightning storm, I think that it should be a darkness (assuming that the regular darkness boosts your own units' stats...) that debuffs the enemy's stats for like a minute and some. I hate to ask another naive question but: Are there going to be tier 3 fortress upgrades? I believe that RJ talked about it, but I think that it could've easily been an idea that was scrapped.

Now onto something other than Isengard, one thing that I would like to see with maps are more destructible buildings (like the tower falling over and causing damage) and more wild units. With the wild units, though, I would like to see something like wild dunlendings where they have a camp (or whatever) that has a flag that you can capture. I have several ideas bouncing in my head for the whole "Mordor purchasing Harad/Rhun as allies" for the evil campaign but I'll save that for another thread.

Edited by Scryer, 27 February 2008 - 03:56 AM.

[Devon]

First of all, I don't think saruman on a tower would be op as long as his normal unit is buffed. You'd be sacrificing an awesome hero for some spells from the fortress. Tier three...idk, it's been considered for some factions, but they're all so different, it probably won't be universal. And whoever said isengard has no late game units is 100% correct, only zerks and DBs qualify there.

[Dalf32]

you cannot remove friendly fire from siege because the stone doesnt know who is on which side; and it doesnt care either. i suggest that you micro a bit more and separate your siege from the rest of your units. send them in separately and have them target only buildings or units that are far away from your own.

think about this with ballistas: they are not just arrows, they are really big and heavy (also the shape would make them rather unwieldy) and the loading process is imo, more difficult than that of a catapult or trebuchet. both catapults and trebuchets jsut need to be pulled back and a projectile thrown in, but a ballista projectile must be lined up quite a but more, so its fine imo. you must also look at the cost; as far as i know (i dont use isengard much) ballistas are pretty cheap and you should be able to get a lot more than the 1000 resource trebuchets.

i dont really have anything to say about the rest of it so...
dont worry, we will always read and consider everything that everyone says.

[Devon]

Trebs are 700, ballistas are 600

[Dalf32]

i htink arnor trebs are still 1000 then, because i played a game like last week and they were 1000 methinks.

[Lauri]

IMO, both siege and archers should be able to hit friends... All ranged weapons should...

BUT, as I would hate to use archers then, I think it's fine with them
But trebuchets, balistas, and everything else that fires a big prosjetile, should be able to kill your own units... If not, it's getting to unrealistic, and we don't want it too unrealistic, do we?

[Dalf32]

well we're already unrealistic because in actual history, it takes a very long time to reload any siege weapon just because of its sheer size (some could be 30+ feet tall) and the projectiles/counterweights were very heavy as well (they also built many of their siege weapons on-site, and did not have wheels). so it would take a long time to reload, but each shot would do much more damage; it would probably only take 1 or 2 shots to destroy a barracks, but thats a bit op.

but yea, fine as it is for me.