110 replies to this topic

[Gaelicman15]

BTW did anyone look at my Power up a couple posts?

I did! I like that idea, makes sense. It would make any Isengard player think twice about just loading up on pikemen.

[Thorin]

I'd have to say that I don't feel all that comfortable with a random speed boosting power, unless you could link it up with the books with more than just a name like 'Kin of the Mearas' (absolutely no offence meant). Though it could be implemented in another way. In TEA, the hero Gamling had the ability 'Lead the Charge' which increased speed to nearby troops for a short while. If anything that would make more sense and would be a little less overpowering; if I understood correctly the 'Kin of the Mearas'-type ability was a global one, meaning it affected all cavalry across the map.
I'm not trying to bash your idea or make mine seem any better, I'm just throwing this one out for variety. To be honest I would like to see a global ability for Rohan, but one that affects speed looks a little unrealistic, unless of course it's like a 'Warchant'-type power.

It's not like Gimli's +100% speed boost. Probably more about +10%. Not a huge increase, just noticable so they can just about pull away from other cavalry, for example. People keep saying it'll be overpowering... But that's like saying the Army of the Dead are overpowering. It's made for a high level power. It's not just a speed boost, though, it'll increases crush damage and and decreases crush decelleration - essentially the power 'Kin of the Mearas' would give Rohan better charges. It links up with the books just as much as Forged blades, for example. It's just an upgrade - better quality horses. They may have found better breeding techniques, etc etc. I don't think it's that important to go into detail into the 'what's actually happening', just as much as we don't need to know why forged blades give units stronger attack - what different alloys are the using, for example.

[Olorin]

Of course it wouldn't be that radical, I'm just saying that it'll be a little...big, for such an ability. *shrugs shoulders* It just doesn't feel right, IMO. As I said, I'd rather see it as either a 'Warchant'-type spell or a hero ability, but unfortunately, democracy rules, and this isn't my mod.

[Bard]

SOLUTION!
Normal Rohirrim get their melee weapons...
and Horse Archers can Draw swords... that way its not like a single cavalry unit for everything...
You could even, if you like... divide Rohan Cavalry into 3 different classes

The Weakest Cavalry:
(name? Plainsmen?)
misc. close range weapons such as axes and swords, upgradeable with shields and forged blades... lightest Rohan cavalry....

Riders of Rohan
Come with close range weapons and spear and can toggle them... upgradeable with shields, forged blades and heavy armor... heaviest cavalry with significantly more HPs than other types... can easily slay legions of orcs...

Rohan Outriders
Come with Bow and Close Range weapons... upgradeable with heavy armor, forged blades, but not fire arrows (you try carrying fire on a horse... plus it makes them the ultimate bomb squad in the vanilla version)... light HPs again like the light cav... but capable of arching guys to make them roughly equivalent... since they have no shield their not invincible... but they can still handle orc fodder in h2h

That doesn't seem like a bad idea.
The first class would represent the irregular éoreds of all able-bodied men with horses assembled during a Full Muster of Rohan. The second would represent the Household Guards and full-time éoreds of the Marshals of Rohan. The third would represent its scouts and the small companies of horse archers each éored has.

[mike_]

And possibly battalion size could change for each of them - the first class could have ten units, the second five, and the third three.
Though, that might be pushing it.
EDIT: Something that I'd like to see implemented would be the ability of the Gondor infantry to join up similar units into larger battalions. Could that be used here as well?
Cheers,
-mike

Edited by elfhelm.., 26 April 2008 - 03:50 PM.

[Thorin]

Cavalry of the Mark
Armed with swords, axes and clubs
Upgradable with Forged Blades and Shields
Cheap and cheerful

Rohirrim
Toggle between sword and bow
Upgradable with Forged Blades and Heavy Armour
Like current Rohirirm Archers but can toggle to sword

Guards of the Households
Toggle between lance and sword
Upgradable with Forged Blades, Heavy Armour, and Shields
Powerful & expensive
Lance better v monsters and mounted units (and pikemen, but still not effective 'enough')
Sword better v infantry and archers (and in charges)

How's that?

[Foe-of-the-Nine]

good! Except I can't see one of the riders using a club... but other than that it'll take the over simplicity out of making a cavalry army! you'll actually want to mix it up a bit... to have th best of everything

[Thorin]

It's almost exactly the same as Gondor's infantry system - cheap soldiers, better guards of the citadel that can switch between sword and bow, then the elite fountain guard.

[Foe-of-the-Nine]

I'm just so smart

it appears everyone agrees then

[cahik_]

i am against...too much toggles and hell to balance if you ask me.

[Thorin]

Toggles on 2 units in an entire faction is too much - and even on one of those both of the toggles are melee... Riiiiiight

[Nertea]

Toggles kill the uniqueness of the unit. They're a bad design idea to use in large numbers. Archer/sword toggles on horse are NOT happening either, because of balance issues there. I do support various levels of cavalry though.

I'm just going to explain the older cavalry balance that we decided on so you people can maybe comment on it, and then I'll outline what I've gleaned from the thread so far, savvy?

Old:
Cavalry is divided into several classes: Light, Heavy, Archer, Beast and Special. Each class defines certain characteristics of the unit - don't assume that Light Cavalry = worse than Heavy, these are equivalent to things like Infantry/Cavalry/Monster. In this we create a sort of advanced counter system
1) Light Cavalry included Rohirrim, Harad Cavalry and the like. Light cavalry units benefited from:
-highest speeds
-highest distance before slowdown in trampling
-highest attack rates
-low to moderate damage
-low health and armour
-in summary, better at killing mounted/foot archers and large amounts of weaker foot troops
2) Heavy Cavalry included Morgul Knights, KoDA, etc. Heavy Cavalry units benefited from:
-slowest speeds
-moderate distance before slowdown in trampling
-highest trample damage
-lowest attack rates
-highest damage
-highest health and armour
-in summary, better at killing heavily armoured foot troops in smaller number
3) Archer Cavalry included all kinds of mounted archers. They benefited from:
-moderate speeds
-lowest distance before slowdown in trampling
-poor hand to hand performance in any cases
-in summary, good at range and nothing else
4) Beast Cavalry included Wargs and Wolf Riders. They benefited from:
-moderate speeds
-highest damage versus other cavalry
-low trample distance
-moderate trample damage
-moderate attack rates
-moderate attack damage
-low armour and moderate health
-in summary, good against other cavalry and decent against foot soldiers, poor against archers
5) Special Cavalry were limited to Royal Guards and possibly Roquentar. They benefited from:
-higher speeds
-moderate distance before slowdown
-moderate trample damage
-high health and armour
-high damage
-high attack rate
-in summary, combines the Heavy bonuses with the Light bonuses. Good at almost everything

We also had this interesting system of impact damage for intercavalry balance, but I'm not going to go into that now. Plus I cannot find the text file describing it

Now
Lances... is a problem. They can't be modeled accurately with the BFME damage system, they're sortof tentatively included as the Heavy cavalry category. Thankfully, we tend to use the film art design, so we don't NEED to model lances! Rohirrim spears seen in the film are not used as lances except in one ambiguous shot of RoTK. Lance/sword toggle is bad because KoDA have that and it takes away from the uniqueness of the unit. So here's what I propose, stealing a few of Thorin's names.

Cavalry of the Mark
-Mustered Cavalry
-Light Cavalry
-Random selection of weaponry and armour (think standard rohirrim in the films)
-Can get HA, FB, Banners, Shields, Horsie upgrade?

Mounted Archery
-They're the 300 bowmen Theoden had at BotPF
-Archer Cavalry
-MIGHT, just MIGHT consider the sword toggle, but it won't be worth much anyways. It may simply change their armour type to one better against other cavalry and non-pike foot troops
-Can get HA, FB/Shields (IF sword toggle), Marksmen, Banners

Rohirrim
-They're the individual eored household troops
-Light Cavalry
-graphically more fancy set of armour and weapons. Already have shields
-Can get HA, FB, Banners, horsie upgrade (maaaybe), upgrade X

Meduseld Royal Guard
-They're the awesome guys
-Special Cavalry
-possibly limited in number
-swords and shield
-throw spear ability
-Can get FB, Banners, upgrade X, horsie upgrade (maaaybe)

A few comments on this:
-The horsie upgrade is debatable on this because plans are already to make the Rohirrim the fastest cav. So therefore they may be of equal speed initially but faster with the horsie upgrade (if this all works). I rearranged the upgrades to make room for it. It doesn't exist on the horse archers because if the horse archers were untouchable by even other factions' light cav things would suck.
-The abundance of light cavalry class means that Rohan is unique suited to carving up orcs (lore-accurate)
-Rohan is the only civilization that can field all types of cav (if you count special as heavy and ignore wargs). Therefore they can fight anything that is fielded by the enemy without building infantry! Other factions can't do this - eg. Dale only has light and special, Gondor only has heavy, Harad only has light and archer...

So what do you people think of that? Kudos if you read it all... and if you do like it, I would appreciate some ART comments, because YOU KNOW WHO IS GOING TO BE DOING ALL THE ART FOR THIS unless i can dump some on Dain and there isn't really enough movie armour to cover LA and HA for all these classes if randomization is included

[Foe-of-the-Nine]

note... I see your point with toggle... I admit I did go toggle happy in my post but hey at least thats cleared up now... HOWEVER, I cannot stand in games where there are archers getting attacked Hand to Hand and they're loading and firing arrows... sorry people don't shoot at pointblank while their being hacked to bits... my vote is that horse archers have super light armor/HPs so you won't want to get them in combat... this won't change when you toggle so even tho they'll be able to do a bit more damage when in melee mode they'll get killed for lack of armor thus nobody will do it unless their attacking buildings or surrounded anyways... What think you?

[Olorin]

I do like the super-light armour said above (think about it: if their infantry is hardy enough to get past all those arrows, then they deserve to take your troops down), though the problem with this is that archers (particularly Elven) could take them out quite easily. Aside from that, I also agree with Nertea's ideas, but I say leave the sword toggle out from the Mounted Archers - in the vanilla game, infantry barely managed to touch my mounted infantry, let alone do enough damage to worry about. Four types of cavalry available for Rohan is certainly going to spice up gameplay.

About the art concepts Nertea, maybe for light armour you could have variations of mail and lamellar armour, and for heavy armour you could have scalemail like the Rohan Royal Guards. Have you played The Third Age on console? You could use some of Eaoden's armour for inspiration; the shoulder pieces look really cool.

Edit: I forget what it's called, but it's basically cloth over mail and could be used for light armour (looks very much like the Dwarven Iron Guards' armour). I hope that helps.

Edited by Olorin, 29 April 2008 - 09:16 AM.

[Bard]

Alternate proposal: We could have the horse archers change to melee weapons when enemy melee units attack them up close (like the vanilla BFME Ithilien Rangers), so they wouldn't necessarily have a toggle, but still be realistic (they don't shoot point blank).

Edited by Bard, 27 April 2008 - 12:40 PM.

[MasterSilver]

Hey you guys, I've been following the dscusion and have read most of the post. I know you guys have moved on to discuss cavalry, and I love what you guys have come up with. I wanted to bring this back to Rohan seige for a moment though. I think the Huron idea is awsome, and woud give a very unique feel to Rohan seige. If you don't want to put in in the main Rohan faction maybe it could go in a Fanghorn minifaction, that is assuming Rohan gets Fanghorn. For the main faction if you don't implement the Hurons, I see nothing wrong with having a few men pushing a trunk on wheels, I mean any one can do that, so why not give Rohan whose strength is in its cavalry, the most elementry seige weapon. On that note, I wanted to make a few coments. I am a huge fan of home field advantage, and I think it would be perfectly fine to have it so that some factions are betterto use on some maps. For instance, if you are playing on an open plains map, Rohan should be a faction that has a distinct advantage since its cavalry will have plenty of room to move. Spam factions would also have an advantage, no bottle necks. On maps with just camps, I would think that evil factions would gain an advantage, since the walls of the good factions would be much easier to tackle, and they never have walls anyway (does this make sense?). Finally someone said not to use Hurons because it was a one time thing. This is a terrbile argument. The army of the dead was a one time thing, but if a game goes long enough you will see it multiple times. The eagles don't show up for every battle, but in the vanilla version I always had them in the thick of it. If you try to make a game too consistant with book lore you take most of the fun out of it, if we go by this logic, every faction except Mordor should have a set number of troops that they should be able to produce throughout the entire game. This is proposterous of course. At least we are not saying give the Hurons to Mordor for seige, they did at least kill a bunch of orc while in Rohn, and they helped do a number on Isegaurd too. Well, tell me what you think, and sorry for the overly long post.

[Thorin]

What would be the difference between Cavalry of the Mark and Rohirrim? They look almost exactly the same except the Rohirrim will be a tiny bit more powerful?

Is the horsie upgrade my trample/speed idea?
Just thinking that if it is then buying individual upgrades for units may look a bit funny if they're getting speed upgrades - half your cavalry will run ahead with the upgrade, and half behind. Maybe it'll work. If that is it though, I think that when you buy it at the stable/armoury that once you do, your heroes are automatically given the upgrade, because it'll look funny upgrading heroes individually.

[m@tt]

@ MasterSilver:


From the front page... Rohan will most likely have Fangorn as a MF.

[Thorin]

Rohan's minifactions are reportedly the Westfold, Lorien, and Fangorn (according to 'Confirmed new units'), with the units Treebeard, Quickbeam, Ents and Huorns.

[Foe-of-the-Nine]

Alternate proposal: We could have the horse archers change to melee weapons when enemy melee units attack them up close (like the vanilla BFME Ithilien Rangers), so they wouldn't necessarily have a toggle, but still be realistic (they don't shoot point blank).

THERE WE GO!
that'll satisfy everyone I think! (I still think it would be better if they could draw swords to hack buildings) but hey thats still a HUGE improvement on loading their bows while their being attacked (that is one of my biggest annoyances in video games, archers who fire while their being attacked) It defeats the light infantry to engage them strategy since they can still be shooting at whatever you're trying to distract them from... I likes it Bard!

And as a side note I just wanna reiterate my opinion about Huorns for anyone who isn't gonna bother reading the older posts... they should have a continuous drain type attack rather than a battering smashing punching ent type thing... I think it'd look way more like they were squeezing the life out of the orcs or that they were "pulling" the gate or citadel apart...

Edited by Foe-of-the-Nine, 27 April 2008 - 05:18 PM.