22 replies to this topic

[njm1983]

Recently Ive been watching replays of 3rd Age Total War. It has me thinking about units and their roles in SEE. The Erebor faction is going to ditch axe throwers in favor of Dwarven Bowmen, Im hoping that we will go for short bows which wont have a long range, Id like to think of Dale a supplemental faction filling roles the Dwarves dont have.

 

Dale Barracks

 

Men at arms - Early tech infantry unit, used unitl heavier Dwarven infantry is available.

Longbowmen - Advanced archer unit, weak against melee with longer than average range.

Archer Cavalry - Light armored fast cavalry unit. limited in number

 

I think these units would fill in nicely the lacking of the dwarves in these areas.

 

Thoughts welcomed

 

 

[Rider of Rohan]

I like the idea, But my thought ( In The Horse Lords ) was for the Dwarves to get a Light Calvary Unit to make up for their Slow Pace in Battle via Inn. But since S.E.E. has the Dale Barracks they could go there. Also find the Idea of the Dale Horse Archers very fitting.  

[MattTheLegoman]

I think that the Men at Arms would not be used as much (unless you're a spammer ;p )

 

Cavalry is actually a great idea. It is lore appropriate. Adding to that idea:

• Maybe limited to 1 or 2.
• Rohan should definitely have an unlimited number of cavalry archers
• The Men of the North definitely had horses and the Rohirrim might be related to the people of Dale.
• Dwarves made human allies to make up for their lack of speed. (This can be implemented in game, Dwarves are slow - perfectly placed in The Dwarf Holds mod - but they can also have something that is fast but not their main army. Having a small section of the army fast with long range and the larger part fully armed and filthy).

[njm1983]

Good thoughts. Id expect horses would be used by most of the civilised world of men. Its to what degree that we must take care in presenting.

 

The men at arms are meant more as light infantry. The dwarves seem to be exclusively heavy infantry. I think itd be appropriate in the tech tree to have the Barracks be cheaper than the Hall of warriors, so as to promote using the Men, at arms early for raiding, you could also put the dwarven warriors as a rank 2 unit and put Short bows as rank 1.

 

Hall of warriors

Short bows

Rank 2

Guardians

Phalanx

Rank 3

Veterans

 

Dale Barracks

Men at arms

Rank 2

Longbowmen

Rank3

Horse archers

 

Combine men at arms with Dwarven Short bows whom should be the fastest on foot dwarven unit and they should make a nice coupling.

[Bofur]

But then it would seem as though the Shortbows were the Dwarves' Primary infantry...

[Dreamwalker]

Maybe the other way around? Maybe make Dale archers the primary, Dwarf archers the elite, and let guardians be trained earlier. Though I'm not sure what to do with those men at arms...

[njm1983]

Not necessarily. The Goblins have an odd tech structure as well. The archers are available first, you need a fissure and the free upgrade for scavanged blades before any goblin unit wielding melee weapons can be recruited.

 

Switching the Dale archers and Dwarven archers is interesting, I cant bring myself to accept Dwarves being better with bows than men. Fili and Kili, are an exception and most of their use was at extreme close range. I suppose if the Dwarven short bows were extremely light (fast) with short range, they could when upgraded become a heavy archer unit, slower and tougher like all the other Dwarven units.

 

Guardians could be moved up into rank 1, just more pricey than the Men at arms. Men at arms would also have faster movement speed than the guardians.

[Rider of Rohan]

I agree with Njm on this, though i find the Dwarven archers as first on the lists a bit odd. 

[Arthadan]

A bit off-topic, but this is the look they will have in The Hobbit movies (official miatures by Games Workshop):

 

[AllTheGoodNamesWereTaken]

I spy Dwarves without beards... blasphemy...

 

As for Dwarf bowmen...I definitely think they should be on par with Gondor archers. Dale archers should be more like Ithilien Rangers. The Dwarf bowmen would not have the power, range, etc. but would have much more armor and hp. Meanwhile, Dale archers are lightly armored and are much more vulnerable to cavalry. That would be the trade off  Dale archers are better offensively, whilst Dwarf archers are better defensively, because of their armor. They wouldn't be as good as Dale archers but would be able to take much more hits when things get hairy.

 

As for cavalry, I think Dale should provide both archer cavalry and normal cavalry...the Dwarf faction has always lacked adequate cavalry support. Battle wagons suck lol.

[MattTheLegoman]

The above picture are Dale units.

 

I think that Dwarves should still suffer from a non-complete cavalry. Dale Horse Archers, I think, should be the only type. More like the current Rohirrim Horse Archers while the Rohirrim have "turrent-like" shoot while moving abilities.

 

Someone should look it up to see what exactly it says in the lore.

[AllTheGoodNamesWereTaken]

Ohhhh okay. Lol I was a bit worried there. Thought those were Dwarves.

 

Anyways, that sounds good either way, concerning the Dale cavalry.

 

So, will the Rohirrium be able to shoot on the move?? That is freaking sweet!!! I have always thought that would be an amazing idea...

 

Another thing I would like to add is that it is mentioned in the Hobbit (book) that Thorin's company primarily use bows for hunting purposes. I imagine that Dwarves aren't too keen on their marksmanship. It is just that they are unable to pull back the drawstring far because of their short arms. Also, Dwarves favor getting up close and personal anyways...they like to get in there hand-to-hand as opposed to shooting from afar.

[Nazgûl]

Bump!

 

Is it safe to say that the people of Lake Town are actually refugees from Dale (that lies deserted at the time of the third Hobbit movie)...

[HaldirOfLorien]

The Hobbit book says that Lake Town already existed before Smaug came to Dale.

[Nazgûl]

Oh... okay, then I wonder, where were all the Dale-people at the time of Smaugs attack on Lake Town?

[Lauri]

Laketown existed when Smaug arrived and sacked Erebor and Dale, but, as I understand it, Laketown itself wasn't ruined by Smaug. The refugees from Dale fled to Lake-town (atleast Bard's descendants did), so when Thorin returned there no longer was any "Dale-people", because everyone from Dale was dead (humans + 171 years = dead, after all). When Smaug attacked Laketown and died there, they went on to rebuild Dale and the new Laketown, Esgaroth, a bit further south of the original Laketown.

[Nazgûl]

I see. So the rebuilt Dale, by the time of the War of the Ring, would mostly be people from Lake Town, or rather Esgaroth, even though these peoples were most likely pretty much the same as in ethnicity and culture - only more prosperous in Dale while Lake Town looks like slum more or less..

[MattTheLegoman]

Both Lake Town and Dale benefited from Erebor. =D

In fact I believe it is likely they rebuilt Lake Town using stone. We see stone ruins when entering the town on the lake for the first time and that hints at more prosperous times.

[Lauri]

We don't really know how Esgaroth (the new Laketown) looks, as it isn't shown in LotR. They did build it more durable, and used a lot more stone than wood this time around (they learned from Smaug, fire is bad). They did get a share of the treasure, after all, as they were a part of the Kingdom of Dale, if I recall correctly. Laketown had to be rebuilt at any rate, to keep on trading between the elves of Mirkwood and the men of Dorwinion, etc..

[Stokstaartje95]

What do you think about making the Dale units like Rohan units? This means Dale variants of peasants, yeomen archers, and Rohan spearmen. A spell 'Arm peasants' could turn them into town-guards.