Postby littleangryman » Wed Mar 09, 2011 8:44 pm
Well, I spent all day yesterday playing Third Age. Clearly, I still have much to explore, but here's what I've got thus far.
THE GOOD
-Epic cast: The game features a wide variety of actual characters from the books, each with a "biography" entry under their traits list that gives them unique bonuses.
-Who are these guys?: I freely confess I'm not as well read on the history and peoples of Middle-Earth as some. As testament to this, a number of the playable factions are totally new to me. Also, the variety of playable factions is quite astounding (I mean really, you can play as the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. Who knew they were organized?). Each faction has strengths and weaknesses that set it apart from all the others, meaning a great deal of replay value.
-As far as the eye can see: Huge map. HUGE. No skipping half the book on these guys, no sir.
THE BAD
-I can't build what?: I have found that for some reason you cannot upgrade settlements. I know not the reason for this. Perhaps the right event has yet to occur, perhaps it's a bug, or perhaps it's deliberate, emphasizing which settlements were and were not historically important in that Age. Whatever the case, it means that roughly half to 2/3 of the settlements on the map are useless drains on your military (in the form of order-keeping garrisons), contributing few troops and almost no money. Also, you can't build ports, and must make do with the ones in place at the start.
-Guns and butter: Even more so than Medieval II, of which this is a mod, Third Age suffers from crippling unit upkeep costs (I didn't think it possible, but here we are). If you build an army capable of defending your own lands, never mind invading someone else's, your faction will be hemorrhaging money, out of every orifice, in perpetuity. And (apart from cheating) there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT except disbanding your entire military and watching the bad (or good) guys curb stomp you.
*Ahem*
All told, I thus far give it a 6.5 out of 10.
"Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently determined fool."-someone
"Man up or I'll beat you with my Peace Prize!" - Switzerland (Hetalia)
"ERROR!!!!!" -warforged barabrian
"Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly." - Captain Jack Sparrow
"And now... let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure." -Albus Dumbledore
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Iron Gods battle map:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing