Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

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Zanaikin
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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby Zanaikin » Sun Mar 13, 2011 6:06 pm

Can you only recruit Ents if Isengard takes Fangorn and provoke them to war?
Cause otherwise I helped Rohan wipe out Isengard too early...

Isengard fell first since I last waste to their economy and Rohan overpowered them.
Then Orcs of the Misty Mountains with Rohan's help on the final assault...
Then Orcs of Gundabad up north, with help from the dwarves and Eriador... (poor Eriador/Arnor didn't get anything out of that war, they even lost Amon Su and Hobbiton which I took over)
Now me (High Elves) + Gondor (after I restabilized their economy by giving them a lot of cash) + Rohan + Silvan Elves (who was losing the war before we joined) are beating the crap out of Mordor. Dale already finished off Rhun's easterlings and Gondor is winning on the front against Harad. I sent in a full stack and took Black Gate, cut apart Mordor's domains, then took Minas Morgul, and now starting to rampaging inside Mordor's home territory while the others take apart their otherside territories. Endgame is here =)
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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby littleangryman » Sun Mar 13, 2011 11:20 pm

Well, I did some experimenting with a number of factions after my dwarven campaign, including Isengard and the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. As Isengard, I took Fangorn and the Ents arrived (under bandit control) two turns later (That said, I have seen Ents in the Silvan Elves' unit list in custom battle, so I dunno). I presume their objective is to retake Fangorn and then defend it against all comers. Only this time, the entire Isengard army WASN'T deployed at Helm's Deep, so it didn't go well for them =P.

Also, I discovered that the orcs of the Misty Mts. can do something interesting that the Dwarves can't. If somehow they build Moria up to Citadel level (good luck ha-ha-ha) and establish a mining network, they can then build "mithril mines" which are separate from the normal mine tree. This does two things, if I read the text right. One, it provides a huge amount of mining income (mithril's valuable stuff). Second, that's how the dwarves woke up the Balrog the first time, soooo...

Anyway, Dale beat Rhun? Seriously? O_o First time I've heard of that war going that way. When I played as the Dwarves, I took the bandit province of North Rhun fairly early in the game, which largely kept them apart. When they finally got around to going around the lake the long way, Rhun conquered half of Dale in five turns. Had to march troops down from Erebor to rescue them.
"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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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby Zanaikin » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:11 pm

Hey Scott, have you tried playing it on VH/VH difficulty like they recommended? It seems that setting is extra scripted, like retardedly. I started a Harad campaign recently and one of the things I noticed is that EVERY SINGLE CITY (nonrebel) has a garrison script. The major cities like Minas Tiris, Pelagir, and Dol Amroth receive half-stack to 3/4 stack reinforcements the moment you siege them, while every other city receive just as big reinforcements on the 1st round after siege begins... so you have to take cities in one turn lest you want to get stackspamed. It's forced me to take some pretty unusual strategies thus far, like waiting outside a city to hit the reinforcement stack right next to the city walls and draw the city's defenders out... then rout them completely and take the city unopposed.

It's actually darn hard, since Gondor soldiers outclass Haradim ones in every angle (except cavalry archers). Had to manipulate some allies to bring the pain on them (made Alliance with the Sylvan Elves to get Morder to stop warring them, then called an Invasion on Dol Amroth to flood Gondor's area with Mordor stacks xD). Just waiting for my Mumakil, which I'll need eventually to defeat superior Arnor and HighElven troops I guess.

I learned at end of my high elves campaign that you can recruit Ents as long as you're playing an elven faction and sends a general to Fangorn area. Don't even have to own the area.

Also, from what I've seen on the TATW forums, 3.0 release should come with custom designed cities... meaning it really WILL be fighting in the Hornburg's Deeping Walls, or Isengard, or Minas Morgul, etc etc.
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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby littleangryman » Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:43 am

No, I haven't been trying VH difficulty, but there's plenty of what I like to call "magic reinforcements" even on the standard difficulty. It's actually quite frustrating, when you hack your way through the enemy field armies and have your depleted troops lay siege to the city where their few remeaining soldiers in the region are hold up, only to discover that next turn, they aren't so few anymore. gets a little bit aggravating after a while.

I have to say, of all the factions I've tried so far, the Dwarves remain my favorite. Their troops are almost exclusively heavy infantry, with two missile units and some available cavalry mercs, but those infantry are uniformly superb, with good battle skills and morale. Plus, their higher-end units, such as the Axemen of Erebor, Iron Guard, and Guards of Khazad-Dum, are capalbe of not only dealing some of the highest melee damage in the game, but (especially those last two) pack on such heavy armor that the majority will still be standing despite the bad guys throwing six and seven hundred orcs into their meat grinder. This coupled with their good economy (they have advanced markets (some factions don't), banks, and the mining complex, which I think is a dwarven exclusive) and relatively secure location make them ideal, at least for my play style. Plus, they have good music.

Anyway, yeah, I noticed that with the Ents as well. They're quite nice, aren't they?
"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

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Zanaikin
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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby Zanaikin » Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:05 pm

Dwarven troops also mostly have the anti-armor property, even their ranged units (the elves' longbows dont even have armor-piercing property!), which is really good in late game against elite units. Actually it's probably why you could actually kill the balrogs while mine just get owned by them...

The magic reinforcements certainly *are* extremely frustrating, but at the same time I'm starting to enjoy the challenge it offers. I've been forced to fight several extremely lopsided battles against them already and--- heroic victories make intense battles.
For example, 4 major ones I fought recently:
-- A 3/4 tier-1 stack of mine, heavy in archers, defending a bridge against two 3/4 stacks of superior gondor troops; both attacking one after another on the same turn. Managed to win both, albeit barely since I lost all melee+half archers.
-- 1200 gondor infantry, including 400 of their top-tiered dismounted swan knights, against a 380-strong "all generals army" (9 generals, including both faction leader/heir). I managed to completely route their army with only 100 losses xD Once again defended a bridgehead and charged at them from three sides when they vanguard came through
-- the same generals army ambushing another 1k+ mixed gondor troops. They routed after a single charge from both sides...
-- a full-stack vs full-stack siege battle with me defending, except their stack was full of Tier3/T4 elite units (mine was T1/T2) and popped into my territory magically (no idea where it came from, probably scripted, since they didn't even have any cities capable of making that high level units as I took Minas Tiris from them). They virtually annihilated my wooden-castle garrison with their far better troops; I managed to scrap a win however when their general pushed through the gateway fighting with only 6 bodyguard remaining, and I charged him with my general and killed them. I had kept all of my archers off the walls to shoot at their troops when they climbed up, and sent them into melee after killing the general, and at the same time 4 units of my cavalry reinforcements arrived and began chasing down all their routing troops... never played a siege battle that close and intense


Also, an 'all generals army' works even better than I thought. Low numbers and costly, but all heavy cavalry, great strategic/tactical mobility, and replenishes its own losses every round! Take advantage of flanking and repeated charges and it can easily rout armies x2-x3 its size, especially with an ambush. Combine it with several spies to open gates and it'll even take lightly defended cities with ease (all-cavalry armies get around hostile armies too easily). I'm going to try supplementing it with only cavalry archers next--- use skirmishing to draw out isolated units from heavy stacks and then focus cavalry charges on them...
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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby littleangryman » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:37 pm

Well, that largely depends on who you're playing as. Your Haradrim Serpent Guards are quite nice for that purpose. Others, not so much. The "orc bodyguards" that the Orcs of the Misty Mountains and Gundabad are stuck with are only marginally better than their other infantry (which is mostly sub-par to begin with-they rely mainly on numbers). Mordor's Black Numenorians are exceptional as well, but only available to your Nazgul generals; their orcish generals get decent-but-not-great Uruk bodyguards. Others have quality infantry (Dwarves and Isengard for example), while Dale and the Silvan Elves have archers. Very good archers too.

And sometimes, I appreciate a good epic battle myself. I recall a few highlights:
-Arnor: laying siege to Carn Dum, Orcs of Gundabad sent twice my numbers to relieve it. Despite the loss of a third of my army, the Knights of Annuminas held the line and killed off their leader and heir, winning the battle for me and eliminating the faction. This one was pretty nerve-wracking at times, especially when their catapults locked onto Aragorn.

-Isengard: Somehow, Rohan managed to get four thousand troops to relieve the siege of Edoras. My troops varied between tier 2 (archers) and tier 3 and 4 for the rest. There were just too many, and surrounded me. I lost, but except for one unit of cowardly archers my two thousand troops stood fast and died to the last orc. Inspiring.

-Silvan elves: Smaller engagement, between us and Isengard. Celeborn's archer bodyguard and two or three other units laid waste to half of Isengard's garrison before they even got into melee range. Damn near killed Saruman himself; eventually he decided to withdraw. This is the battle that gave me an appreciation for Third Age's archer corps.
"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

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Zanaikin
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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby Zanaikin » Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:23 pm

Oh Third Age archers are extremely good, especially higher-end archers for both elven factions who have 10+ attack and very-long-range missiles, which easily rivals the gunpowder units of old M2TW. No armor-piercing or shield-ignoring, but their armor and melee skill makes up for that...

My VH/VH Haradrim campaign is suddenly not really worth mentioning, since I killed Boromir in a rather minor skirmish and suddenly destroyed Gondor, and with every other evil faction winning in their theater, rest of game is cakewalk...
There's a belief amongst the TATW gamers that Boromir is cursed even in this game and will always die in some hopeless battle against overwhelming odds...

I'm trying to figure out what campaign to play next now, this time with a screencapped journal of events~

EDIT: I also started reading up on the submods available to Third Age Total War. Most of them are just minor units/mercs/graphics modifications. But the one that caught my eye is Supermoler's Faction Conversion mod... which allows good/evil factions to *change sides*
List of mods: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=263135
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"Hurrah, Warsaw's ours!" / "Hurrah, Field Marshal!" - Battle report & promotion notice between Alexander Suvorov & Catherine the Great

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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby Zanaikin » Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:09 pm

There's also the ridiculous RC/RR submod. List of changes is too numerous to mention, I only glanced at it, but here are some points of interest:

Gandalf the Grey turns to Gandalf the White (much stronger stats) when dying once...
All factions have a specialization that increases trade (stables for Rohan, smiths for Dwarves, cultural buildings for Sylvan, etc etc)
better alliances between Gondor/Rohan and Dale/Dwarves (if one side loses a settlement, the other gains a mission to help reclaim it)
Dwarven infantry weakened vs. cavalry
All archer/crossbows nerfed by decreasing their ammunition --- cause there's a lot of complaints that massed archers is too broken
More recruitment slots + larger unit pools for evil factions = even more orc spam.
etc etc etc.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=259833

also something amusing:
Immortal Nazgul mod: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=260218
(they revive back in Mordor lands whenever they get killed... xD)
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"Hurrah, Warsaw's ours!" / "Hurrah, Field Marshal!" - Battle report & promotion notice between Alexander Suvorov & Catherine the Great

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Re: Third Age/Fourth Age (Tolkinverse) Total War

Postby Zanaikin » Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:31 pm

Version 3.0:

O.m.g they went all out on the modelling. The new custom-cities look amazing.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... st10725844

Minas Tirith, Mina Morgul, and Edoras just looks painful to siege now...

Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... FMlV8icF-g

and something for Edoras, the Hornburg, and the Black Gate in previews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TwcYDK9 ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKuGlKu8 ... re=related
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"Hurrah, Warsaw's ours!" / "Hurrah, Field Marshal!" - Battle report & promotion notice between Alexander Suvorov & Catherine the Great


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