8 replies to this topic

[Kraft Singles]

I was just playing a game as Elves on the mouths of the Entwash against three brutal AI's. Moria, Isengard, and Mordor. Mordor finished off the Moria and I killed Isengard pretty quickly. I had a fair amount of Mallorn Trees (I'd say about 50+) Mordor and I battled over the middle of the map for about an hour before I finally pushed them back across the river. I regrouped my troops and started to build a massive army. However I found myself lacking a large amount of resources (It was hovering around 1000) I was pretty freaked out, so I went and looked at my Mallorn trees. Instead of producing +30 they were producing +1. It crippled my ability to raise any sort of sizeable army. I couldn't rebuild my heroes fast enough, my army couldn't be rebuilt in time. Mordor summoned the Balrog and sent in their army and I lost. I was pretty pissed.

So what exactly is the cause of this? Is it a legit bug? Or does Mordor actually have a power that completely screws over the enemy's economy? I never play as Mordor, so I really wouldn't know.

Anyway, regardless of the cause, this issue NEEDS to be fixed. It just totally ruins any possibility of late game victory. It's ridiculous.

[Ring o' Fate]

This is not a bug. It is something EA did to prevent super massed resource gathering. If you pass a certain number of resource farms, the amount of money each farm makes goes down. So if you have like 4, you make the natural 30, as opposed to having, oh I don't know, 50, you will be making only 1 per farm. Which brings down the only way to avoid it:
DON'T MAKE SO MANY DAMN FARMS!!!!
And no, I LIKE it. It keeps people from farm spamming.

Edited by Ring o' Fate, 21 January 2010 - 08:36 PM.

[Kraft Singles]

It's not a bad idea to be honest, unfortunately it just negates the entire gameplay of an RTS.

Let's start with the basics.

In a war scenario, you have two main objectives.

Objective 1) Keep your own forces alive
Objective 2) Diminish the enemies capability to make war.

This is basic strategy people.

Objective one is by far the more simple objective, so we won't spend much time on that. Basically, make sure your units are upgraded and not wasted on pointless objectives. It doesn't get much more simple than that. KEEP YOUR ARMY ALIVE.

Objective two however, is far more complex. In a game like BFME 2, how do we diminish the enemies capability to make war? First and foremost, we destroy the enemy war machine. Target the barracks, the seige works, the stables, etc. Unfortunately, in BFME 2, gameplay is centered around creating bases. You build everything pretty close to your fortress so that you can benefit from the protections it offers (ie, arrow towers, leadership bonuses, etc) What this means is that any attack on an enemy base must be powerful enough that it will be well worth the losses. But because buildings rebuild pretty quickly and are inexpensive, there just isn't a point in taking out the barracks and then leaving. Raiding a base with a few ents and some archers just isn't an option. The only way to cripple the enemy war machine is to invest in a very powerful, well thought out attack that destroys the enemy fortress and all of his buildings.

^
This is all fine and good. I actually like that. It prevents the Rush style gameplay we so hated in vanilla BFME 2. Unfortunately, it doesn't leave much open by way of tactics.

There is however, another way to cripple the enemy and that is by destroying his economy. Now, the BFME 2 economy is fairly simple. Step 1, build farms. Step 2, profit. End of story. However, the resource plots ensure that farms can't be build close together. If you want more money, you'll have to build farther and farther way from your base. This is an EXCELLENT concept. It promotes map control, which makes an RTS game dynamic and exciting. How boring would it be if you just slugged it out between each others fortresses all day long?

Particularly late game this concept is really effective. Late game, especially when playing as Elves and Mordor, you absolutely NEED a ton of farms in order to produce a sizeable army. Elven late game units, such as the Ghaladrim warriors and then ents, are pretty damn expensive. When you have to fight off a few mumakil, a bunch of Nazgul, a bunch of attack trolls, and endless hordes of Orcs, and even a balrog or two, you're going to need a good army and a lot of heroes. Which means that you'll need a lot of money. Which in turn, means that you must expand outside of your base.

So that's pretty cool actually. It means that late game, you should have a sizeable economy, a ton of farms, and a very large front to defend. Resource plots ensure that you will have to expand.

So, as an enemy, how do I take advantage of that? Quite simple. Raids.

Using cavalry units and light seige (battering rams, attack trolls) Strike quickly at their exposed farms, well away from the safety of the fortress. By late game, there should be enough farms that raiding is an effective way of diminishing the enemies capacity to make war. Cripple the economy and the war machine goes down.

So why bother limiting the amount of farms at all? An intelligent enemy will exploit the massive amounts of farms you have and raid the hell out of you. It's pretty damn hard to defend against fast raids, especially with slower moving infantry. Furthermore, when you limit the amount of farms you can build, why should I bother controlling much of the map at all? There's no incentive to actually leave the comfort of my own base. Everyone knows it's WAY easier to defend a smaller base. It's basic strategy. The smaller your front is, the easier it is to defend, ESPECIALLY when you have a lot of late game powerful units.

So in essence, limiting farms just promotes turtling and slow, boring gameplay.

There is however, a solution that doesn't involve bringing back the old rush system.


Because in SEE structures all take WAY less damage from infantry, raiding is no longer a viable alternative. By the time I've taken down one farm, the enemy army will have arrived and my raid is considered to be a failure. Raiding just doesn't do as much damage to an enemy economy as it should. There are three reasons for this.

1) Farms take a while to take down with infantry
2) Farms are cheap
3) Because the resource plots have been scaled down, the enemy front is rapidly scaled down.

What is the solution to this?

Simple.

1) Remove the limits on farms. This will promote expansionism and map control. Also, make the AI build more farms.
2) Make farms WAY more vulnerable. Think about it. They're farms, not the tower of Orthanc! They should be pretty easy to take down with cavalry.
3) Increase the size of the resource plot, or make the farms less effective. This way people will need to build more. Thus expanding your own front and making for a more dynamic and tactical game.

Thank you.

[Nazgûl]

Thanks you for that elaborate take on resources... We'll defenitely consider your views as many of them make scense I do want to avoid "farm spamming", but we are also discussing more ways to gather resources, like hunters, fishermen, herb collectors, markets, etc...

[yams in a can]

Hey it's you!

Anyway, cheese has a point. You should be allowed to make farms. Farms are usually not in a city/fortress. They are in areas where they gather resources effectively. A cool idea, from Age of Empires, where the units throw torches. I think units should have a torch throw ability. Only certain units should have it though.

The units that should have it are raiding units and light cavalry units. Normal and elite cavalry units can be upgraded with the torches. All other infantry units should only be able to throw torches when they have a torch carrier by them . This guy will be just like a builder, but have a cart full of torches (unlit!! ).

How this is related to the manner? Well, farms should be the most vulnerable thing in the game to fire.

[isledebananas]

Isn't it possible to increase the threshold on the resource reduction? Meaning instead of the output per farm decreasing at say 15 it does so now at 25-30 or something. I think there should be some differences between factions. Say some need a big economy to be very effective while others can go it with less money but using more strategy. I think Mordor would fall into the former and Lorien in the latter considering lore.

I guess I don't have as many complaints since I'm a turtler myself so that suits me just fine. Anyways last I checked the AI makes quite a bit of resource structures. I remember them making some almost within wall-trebuchet distance from my base. However, I don't think it was anywhere close to 50 that seems really excessive in my opinion. The fact that you had that many and the enemy wasn't targeting them speaks volumes too.

[Dark_l0rd_Davian]

I agree with kraft singles,this is a good idea.I hate farm spamming though.also i think making the farms easier to destroy is the best idea i heard because i hate bringing 5 units just to destroy 1 farm and they should be weak,cavalry should be able to destroy it kind of easily.like in movies,theres a village and the enemy burns it to the ground.

Edited by Dark_l0rd_Davian, 25 January 2010 - 09:24 PM.

[Arveanor]

After a few games with my friend I've found that map control is a very important issue to allow a larger economy. I'm not really sure how large my econ ever was but it never lost its ability to gather max resources, but its frightening that that threshold was looming somewhere out there.

But I definitely agree with cheese that they shouldn't be limited, and I don't think farms/other resource structures should be much easier to kill. I mean think about it, if your part of an army and your raiding a nearby farm, while you may very well burn it down you'll pillage it rather than destroying it, or maybe both, but you'll certainly pillage it.

Now typing this I had an interesting, possibly over-complex idea. What if farms built up resources within their own structure over time and you would then have to send out convoys from the farms to the fortress, it would be a simple manner of going to your structures regularly and clicking on a 'send resources' button to ship the resources to your fortress. It would add realism and attacking units could pillage one resource per every (melee) hit on the structure, taking away from the goods stored in it.

What you guys think?

[AndraK]

These are all interesting ideas but i do not think its necessary to complicate the resource gathering.
Just leave it with a large threshold and the shrunk resource plot, farms could be made weaker to fire(but come on the buildings getting broken down with swords). There's so many resource stealing abilities already

The Wildmen of Dunland can be upgraded with torches ... why not have some thing like that to deal extra damage to seige wepons and farms, meaning you could burn farms and approaching Wooden seige like in real life.
(although a Furnace isnt going to be to flamable in reality ... so why not have it that furnace weaker than other farms but fire resistant).

hmmm hey i like those ideas i think they might be something to consider S.E.E Team.

(Fire arrow can work the same)