Lord of the Rings builder

[Christers]

Well, a while ago I started on making this map, a while i simply stopped working on it, but the last week I've dedicated alot of time on it. This is most likely the final(or possibly second-final) beta version, hopefully most bugs and balances has been fixed but im not completely sure yet.
I need some feedback on the map in general, if anyone could give me that.
The map itself is like most builders, but with a somewhat different army system(all races got 1 common infantry, 1 common ranged and 1 common cavalry, and then infantry beat cavalry and so on. Also each race got 1 special thats based of one of the common with a special ability, and 1 elite thats very good, but got a high gold and food cost), and all races is themed from the works of Tolkien(so far 7 races, Gondor, Rohan, Elves, Dwarfs, Mordor, Goblins and Isengard).
The map is not protected in any way, but please do not make other versions of this map.

Also can anyone give me suggestions for more mercenery types of units(got 5 so far, Hobbit Stonethrower, Corsair of Umbar, Ent, Dunedain and Black Numenorian and some special merceneries that can be found across map)

Christers

 

[UchihaSasuke.gr]

Nice Idea

I think that the map will become great.Ok i download it and when i finish testing it i send a PM to u!

 

[Christers]

Updated map, most mayor changes is:

-Fixed the bug that Goblins didnt lose when their leader died.
-Fixed the bug that Goblins could have more than 1 hero(all races got limit of 1 hero)
-Diverted the upgrades Increase Attack, Increase Defence and Increase Hit points into 2, Mordor and Goblins got a nerfed version of this(since their supposed to be much worser than other races, this upgrade cost less and takes only half as much time to research than rest) and the remaining got a better version than before, but both can now only be upgraded twice.
-Fixed that normal walls wasnt affected by the Improve Fortifications upgrade.
-Lowered Range of Ballista and Catapult to 750.
-Changed Hobbit Stonethrower model.
-Nerfed Ents slightly.
-Changed terrain somewhat.
-Did so the items Mithril Sword and Mithril Armour can only be equipped once per hero.
-Added Lesser Ring Of Power item(+5 to all stats), and made so you can only have 1 of it to.
-Added 2 more terrain bases.
-Added 2 more mercenery/item buying spots.
-Added more clear descriptions when you select a race.
-Did so you can only build 2 Siege Factories.


Chris

 

[UchihaSasuke.gr]

The map need a better terrain coz the active one is not good.It need much more details.And place some more doodads or cover areas with water.

 

[daw_guy]

Nice map

Yhea the map is decently good right now. I would recremend to add some water and also make sure units can only go where they are supossed to, the top left base has a couple

Cracks

in it.

 

[Christers]

Yhea the map is decently good right now. I would recremend to add some water and also make sure units can only go where they are supossed to, the top left base has a couple in it.

The top-left base dont have any cracks where units may pass through, though it do look that way. I'l make rocky terrain there to hide the fact.

As for increased terrain, im working on it right now. Plan to make whole bottim-right part of map a desert, and bottom-left a sea with islands. Not sure what to do with the top parts yet. I'm also working on adding more details in overall, and adding more merceneries(planning to make Black Numenorians, Dunedain, and more).


Christers

 

[Christers]

Well, I updated map again. I cant really remember all the changes I did on this but a short summarize:

-Added 2 more shop spots, here you can buy very different things than from the regular ones.
-Changed terrain alot.
-Increased cost of some upgrades.
-Increased build time of most unit spawners, and lowered build time of income builders and towers.
-Added that Player 1(Red) can select a varies of things through dialogs at start of map: Max Income(100, 200, 300), Max food limit(100, 200, 300) and build limit(Low, Normal and High, meaning that on low its 2 on the normal troops construction and 1 on special and siege engines, and doubled when higher. Ie Normal is 4/2 and High 6/3)
-Fixed some minor and mayor bugs that I found.
-Changed Model of some units.
-Various balance changes.
-Added that Mordor and Goblins have slightly nerfed upgrades for Attack, Hit Points and Defence, but they also have less Gold cost and upgrade time.
-Added more Merceneries(Dunedain and Black Numenorian, and some special merceneries that can be found in different parts of map).

Probably some more that I've forgotten to.

Christers

 

[Ken Christopher]

Sounds great. I am the fan of LoTR, addicted to it. Every maps,movies and games that have it names on them I will download / buy and play. I will let you know the feedbacks soon.

StyxaneZ

 

[Christers]

Updated map again, its only some minor changes:

-Added Merchant, which generate 1 lumber each time income time drops to zero. Lumber, however, have been changed to Trading Goods that can be sold for 50 gold at Travelling Merchants. You can have 3 of these as max. Fortresses are now free, but you can only have 1 at a time.
-Changed some items cost, looks and how they work. Mithril armour and weapon have been nerfed, but now cost less.
-Changed some unit abilities.
-Modified terrain on some places slightly.



Christers

 

[Christers]

Updated:

-Fixed a mayor bug that evil races used the common buildings max integer, rather than the real one, so they had 2/4/6 income buildings instead of 10/20/30.
-Nerfed merchants & slave traders.
-Did so you dont start with lumber at start.
-Improved Improve Agents upgrade, doubling bonus move speed.
-Fixed bug that if your ally died, you did to see whole map.


Christers

 

[PlRATE]

Hey thanks for clicking on my Thread, I am working on a new map of mine it's a RPG game.
Now here is some screenshots so please tell me what do you think ^_^ thanks!

Hers some mercenary units for you:
Haradrim:
Cavalry
Archers
Pike Man
Momakill
Undead:
The Undead Guys the green guys you know
That's all I can remember from the battle for middle earth 1, 2 and the rise of the witch king.
You're Welcome

 

[Christers]

Updated:

-Fixed bug that evil races couldnt research Improve Siege Engines.
-Fixed bug that Isengard Fortress costed Lumber.
-Nerfed ents(-100 Hit Points, -3 Armour).
-Removed Potion of Power from special shop(could make your hero completely owerpowered if used to many times)
-Edited Durburz slightly.
-Fixed bug that The Leaderless(creeps that comes when player leaves/loses, which replaces the players units) counted other players as Neutral when they lost a leader.


Christers

 

[Christers]

Updated(sorry for the short space between the 2 updates but i found a few bugs that couldnt be left there):

-Fixed bug that Mordor didnt benefot from upgrades.
-Fixed that now ranged units go to back in formations.
-Made hero experience gain only a third of what it was(heroes got to level 10 in no time)
-All buildings have more hit points.
-Added Improve Range Upgrade(makes ranged attackers attack longer).
-Fixed Athelas hotkey from A to H.
-Made Trackers ability boost move speed by 25% from 15%, and also increased duration.


Christers

 

[Christers]

Updated:

-Mate that items also cost Trading Goods(lumber) in addition to th gold, this is about 1 lumber for every 100 gold(rounding down)
-Added -ally/-unally all command, and made that when allying gray both -ally grey and -ally gray works(since this was a mayor problem)
-Fixed the gate bug that you couldnt select them when opened(tried to make them invisible by making model file just .mdl, but didnt know you couldnt select them then)
-Actually added the Improve Ranged upgrade to blacksmith.
-Added Lesser Ring of Power item to Traveling Merchant


Christers

 

[Christers]

Updated:

-Added Men of the East race
-Lowered the damage bonus when you ight what you beat(infantry for example now only deals 125% bonus damage against cavalry, and recieves 75% damage from cavalry. BEfore this was 150%/50%)
-Increased cost of Buildings(apart from towers, walls, gates and income buildings)
-Changed Haradrim Spearthrower and Easterling to something else for Mordor(sinc ethey are now in the Men of the East race)
-Boosted Goblin Drummer.
-Edited some abilities.
-Merceneries and Upgrades now cost Lumber.
-Some other minor changes.


Christers

 

[Tichonrius]

Seems your really up to it Always good to have such dedication , i'll check it out later maybe alltho I'm not such a big Lotr fan

 

[Christers]

Updated:

-Fixed various bugs and balances with the The Men of the East race.
-Fixed bug that if you wrote -unally dark green you unalllied everyone, and that -unally all dont work(had forgot to change it to all instead of dark green when making the trigger)
-Lowered Haradrims Sack amount gained.
-Made maximum gold and lumber amount.
-Added a small Evasion to Infantry units(apart from infantry units with an evasion already, like the Oathbreaker, and Elite units that dont use Infantry armour or damage)
-Added/changed some upgrades
-Added Starters Quide quest and Random Info quest.
-Increased range of Ballista and Catapult to 900 from 750.



The Men of the East race is really unplayable without this version.


Christers

 

[Christers]

Update:

-Fixed crash when selecting Mumakil.
-Fixed that Infantry training upgrade actually works.
-Added Block to mercenery infantry too.


Christers

 

[LordJhredmo]

Bug Alert for Chris

Hey Chris, LOVE THE MAP!

Anyway, you have a bugish problem with Spies... you need a counter for them, first of all (give all heroes auto invis sight?), also you need to make it so you can't teleport to them (like Suladan, if I'm no mistaken). Because it sux to have a full army in your base thanks to a spy and teleportation. Remove Assasins please, they are WAY too lame. Have nothing to do with LotR. Also, some Race specific siege machines would be nice such as, Trebuchets of Gondor, Ents for Elves, Catapults with alternate Corpse Shooting attack to decrease enemy unit dmg/armor with some small dmg and Ladders for Mordor, Ladders/Ballistas for Isengard... More to come!
More to come. Thanks for the wonderful map,
-Lord Evix Jhredmo

 

[Christers]

Hey Chris, LOVE THE MAP!

Anyway, you have a bugish problem with Spies... you need a counter for them, first of all (give all heroes auto invis sight?), also you need to make it so you can't teleport to them (like Suladan, if I'm no mistaken). Because it sux to have a full army in your base thanks to a spy and teleportation. Remove Assasins please, they are WAY too lame. Have nothing to do with LotR. Also, some Race specific siege machines would be nice such as, Trebuchets of Gondor, Ents for Elves, Catapults with alternate Corpse Shooting attack to decrease enemy unit dmg/armor with some small dmg and Ladders for Mordor, Ladders/Ballistas for Isengard... More to come!
More to come. Thanks for the wonderful map,
-Lord Evix Jhredmo

Well, theres only 2 ways to counter spies and that is other spies or a item that can be bought by a secret merchant. Well, Assassins have played parts in LotR, for example the Haradrim/Umbar had the Hasharin, which mainly was assassins to keep the harad populace under bay I think. I will try to fix Suladans telport spell to not work on Assassins or Spies in the next version, which I will try to also fix the remainder bugs as soon as I find them, and the balance issues.
And to be honest, its easy to counter assassins with a single Spy following your valuable units, and the assassins is physically weak so he will probably die after one or two kills.

As for the different siege machines for different races, I have given it some taught, but some of the races it wouldnt fit(and the Ent is already a mercenary unit, can be bought in one of the four villages that is spread around map), I will do it when I'm making 1 more unit for all the races, but that'll happen when I know what to make for all of them( they will be variants of the 'special' units, like the Dwarf Mason is the dwarfs special unit, and the tracker the elves, and the drummer for the goblins and so on).


Christers

 

[Christers]

Updated:

-Lowered the range of all ranged units(except Mercenaries) by 100(most common units have 400 range now).
-Removed Improve Range upgrade.
-Fixed that one could destroy the rock at top left of map.
-Did so Suladans Quick Redeployment ability cannot be targeted at Civilian(non direct-combat) units.



Christers

 

[brad.dude03]

Hello Christers I am the LotR super-fan here (between me and Rui anyway, haven't really gone there so I can't pass judgement on who is more hardcore xD) so i'm definetly doing to check this out Thanks for thhe hardwork and many updates :d

 

[LordJhredmo]

Hi

Hi again, Christers.

Thank you for your detailed reply. It cleared up the spy thoughts.

A couple other things I'd like to add:
All basic Orc/Goblin units should only be worth 1 food.
Terrain needs a redo probably 85% of it... Everyone I've hosted for has complained of the lack of LotR theme and spice.
I believe there should be a choice of 4 heroes per race. I'll help you with ideas if that's cool?
Rock/Paper/Scissors concept is simplistic and could use... beefing up? I think more kinda of damage could be good like: Arrow/Pike/Sword/(Cavalry weapon) and whatever would be really awesome...
Also, 'tis impractical and not worth it really to have Spies costing food. If you keep the Assasins make Spies cost 0 food but make a max of using at one like like, 10... Please?
Another thing; Heroes cost WAAY too much fewd. Make it 5-10 food please. It makes sense.
"Young Trolls" isn't a very good name really. Rename it: Mountain Troll or something more interesting because Sauron did not send young trolls to battle...
The walls... Everyone complains wen I host. Would it be possible to change the wall skins to actual walls? It would look nicer and you could find an even prettier one for Dwarves to make sure the 'lil fat guys don't get jipped.
Hmm... I see the Witch-King has less damage than a Goblin King. Could you clarify why for me?
(sorry I'm concentrating on Mordor somewhat but that's the race I'm playing) I suggest all Elite Cavalry like Cave Trolls/Olog-hai should only cost 2-4 food to make for bigger armies. And for Elite Infantry units like Easterlings/Black Orcs. It would help to make bigger armies and more fun in game...

I'm gonna play 1.22 right now. I'm gonna add more later.

Thanks again,
-L.J.

 

[UchihaSasuke.gr]

Christers you deserved this:
Congratulations for your hard work on your map!!!

It seems you try a lot,and you are up to it!!!!Keep up the good work dude!!!

 

[Christers]

Hi again, Christers.

Thank you for your detailed reply. It cleared up the spy thoughts.

A couple other things I'd like to add:
All basic Orc/Goblin units should only be worth 1 food.
Terrain needs a redo probably 85% of it... Everyone I've hosted for has complained of the lack of LotR theme and spice.
I believe there should be a choice of 4 heroes per race. I'll help you with ideas if that's cool?
Rock/Paper/Scissors concept is simplistic and could use... beefing up? I think more kinda of damage could be good like: Arrow/Pike/Sword/(Cavalry weapon) and whatever would be really awesome...
Also, 'tis impractical and not worth it really to have Spies costing food. If you keep the Assasins make Spies cost 0 food but make a max of using at one like like, 10... Please?
Another thing; Heroes cost WAAY too much fewd. Make it 5-10 food please. It makes sense.
"Young Trolls" isn't a very good name really. Rename it: Mountain Troll or something more interesting because Sauron did not send young trolls to battle...
The walls... Everyone complains wen I host. Would it be possible to change the wall skins to actual walls? It would look nicer and you could find an even prettier one for Dwarves to make sure the 'lil fat guys don't get jipped.
Hmm... I see the Witch-King has less damage than a Goblin King. Could you clarify why for me?
(sorry I'm concentrating on Mordor somewhat but that's the race I'm playing) I suggest all Elite Cavalry like Cave Trolls/Olog-hai should only cost 2-4 food to make for bigger armies. And for Elite Infantry units like Easterlings/Black Orcs. It would help to make bigger armies and more fun in game...

I'm gonna play 1.22 right now. I'm gonna add more later.

Thanks again,
-L.J.

Goblins already have 1 food cost, the reason Orcs have 2 is because they are better than the Goblins(but worse than probably any other unit, apart from certain mercenaries).
Well, there are some heroes that dont have enough characters to make 4 named heroes(like Goblins and Men of the East).
The terrain is mostly because I got none to little skill in terraining, and if I made purely Lotr terrain then where can one fight battles apart from in sieges? If I create to narrow spots they would mostly work in small games(when red decides 100 max income, 100 max food and low building limits). Howver, I will try to make it better, but it will take some time for the next update to come. Unless I find a mayor bug that crashes/ruins balance. As for the simplistic system, I think I'll follow a proverb "If it isnt broken, dont fix it", mainly because the current system works, perhaps because I lowered the effectiveness of using stronger ones in this version(125% extra damage, 75% reduced damage against the ones you are strong against).
Why wouldnt the spies cost food? I think I'll lower their cost to 50 gold and 1 food though, since they are mostly effective of finding enemy, and spotting incomeing enemies to base if you have upgraded them.
Hmm, I'll lower heroes gold cost, but not food, since they are worth it compared to the number of troops you'll get(perhaps not in early levels, but in late levels some of them are army killers).
As for the "Young Trolls" name I'll be honest , I ran out of cavalry ideas for Mordor. The only thing that could fit was trolls, but in Tolkien's works trolls are described as huge monsters, able to kill of scores of men/dwarfs/elves/random-goblins-that-get-in-the-way, and that wouldnt fit to well with the Mordor theme of "weak but plentifull", so I named them "Young Trolls" to explain their low statuses(and for the record "Olog-Hai" was Saurons special breed of Trolls, which was especially resistant to sunshine and generally stronger).
And I think I gotta fix the walls, to many complains, I just need to find something suitable for Dwarfs. Or I can make normal walls darker, and the Dwarven walls shinier.
Also, I'm gonna check Witch King and Goblin King, but it might be that the Goblin King was in higher level+equipment?


Christers

 

[LordJhredmo]

He had no gear and neither did I it was at like lvl 1 and up he had better stats than me without gear (both).

Anyway, I beg to differ. The food it costs for heroes could get an army that could deal out much more damage that them all in all.

I implore you to please lower their food level by at least 5-10...

 

[LordJhredmo]

Wow... something happened today while playing...
Oathbreakers walk over walls. No use in playing when they're massed and then kill your base from behind... Firstly they're overpowered and walking on walls is lame. I'm prolly not gonna play it until this is fixed. : /

 

[Blackveiled]

Hmm, seems pretty fun. I'll try it out later on tonight. I like building maps hehe.

 

[FrostyisdaKing]

I played that game on bnet a couple days ago and here is what i didn't like about it
1) terrain is bleh
2) I was elves and i built in the forest
-Elves get no benefits for building in them
-Elves are technically made up of 3 types Forest(Lorien) Mirkwood and Haven elves you have only a mix of Mirkwood and Lorien btw Lorien elves are much stronger than Mirkwood.
-If you build in the forest expect crappy defenses
3)unit building is not very efficient, most of the time people would rather buy units than make them themselves. I don't know why this is but in your game people just dont' like having to make units.
4) consider changing the model of the walls thats a barrel or a baricade not a wall
5)Undead Ghosts are rigged. Yes they are in the movie but i had 2 allies who were both noob targeted by ghosts as in the ghosts went through an open gate and killed my allies leader thus killing them. They didn't have spies so they didn't see em come in and and thus with like 10 skellies their hero died in 5 secs.
6)You should have bonuses, builders of certain races get bonuses for building in terrain friendly places. Such as elves in forests etc.
7) you need to make some of those small cities enclosures more siege protected. Its far too easy to get a whole bunch of catapults to attack randomly all over the base from behind. Or if they have a spy in the base they can have 20 catapults launch a single attack that probably will kill their leader and stuff. For bases in the middle of nowhere i would suggest adding more size to them and making two entrances so they can't be unfairly flanked.
8) you still need to do some balancing and the addition of more units is always nice.
9)too few items
10) change the income addition of each farm from 10 to 20. People have to build like 30 farms for a decent income. This may also be why people don't liek really buying units. In the game i played the host set it to only 10 farms max and 100 gold every income time is a horrible amount to try and build units with. We want units now and we're more likely to buy cheap units at the merc camps because of that.
11) Elronds Ultimate is very iffy. He gets a 200% mana regen sure but it doesnt' really feel like an ultimate, (if you were going to attribute any of the elves with wisdom it would be Cirdan by a long shot)
12)Catapults need 50 more HP. They're not supposed to be able to handle alot of damage but 75HP is really crappy.
13)More heroes for each faction would be nice.

 

[brad.dude03]

The reason that Loiren elves are more powerful is because that's the way it is canonically. The Wood Elves (Mirkwood) are just far less powerful. It's a fact.

 

[FrostyisdaKing]

The reason that Loiren elves are more powerful is because that's the way it is canonically. The Wood Elves (Mirkwood) are just far less powerful. It's a fact.

I know that, looking back i didn't make it very clear but in this game there are two types of archers you can buy and hes' made the mirkwood archer a much better archer than the Lorien Archer.

 

[brad.dude03]

Well that isn't right, because it should be the other way around.

Perhaps Mirkwood Archers should be cheap and weak, where the Lorien Archers are expensive and skilled?

 

[WindexGlow]

Why not make one cheaper than the other?

 

[brad.dude03]

That's what I JUST SAID you tard.

 

[Christers]

Well, the Oathbreakers that went past the wall isnt a bug, its their ability. They are exactly like the gondor soldier except that they got higher evasion and can get past buildings, and that they cost more food and gold. I think I'l remove this in next version, and instead improve the evasion some more.


Well the mirkwood/lorien difference is because that the mirkwood was supposed to be an elite unit(very strong and very high cost), but I'll change name to Elite Archer or something like that(not sure yet).

I will also change the barrel model of normal walls to same as what the dwarves have. I'll also try to fix the catapult problem, somehow.

I'll try get to update the map in the next week or after that, recently things hvae caught up on me, and I havent had time for map making in a while.

Christers

 

[WindexGlow]

That's what I JUST SAID you tard.

Well sorry for me posting a quick reply when I read his post about balance and not reading the rest of the topic.
Wow.

 

[Christers]

Updated:


-Removed that Oathbreakers could walk past buildings, and instead boosted their Evasion.
-Fixed that sometimes units refused to walk over opened gates.
-Changed model of Walls to same as dwarf.
-Added more upgrades(Improve Cavalry Training, Improve Ranged Training, Improve Hero, Conscripts(gives Constructors damage))
-Changed name of Lòrien Archer to Elven Archer, and Mirkwood Archer to Veteran Elven Ranger.
-Edited/balanced out Elites.
-Lowered food cost of Heroes, and halved revive gold cost(but not recruit).
-Made so Suladans teleport spells cannot target Spies or Assassins.
-Fixed the Starters Guide quest, previusly it didnt show whole.
-Lowered food cost of Merchants to 4.
-Made top right base have some better defences.
-Some other very minor changes.


New terrain and items will probably come in next ver, this mostly balanced and tidied up the units.


Christers

 

[UchihaSasuke.gr]

Well,Christers i told you,that you try hard and what you do with LOTR Builder is really amazing.But instead of improving Skills and adding items,try to make a better terrain to be worth looking.Terrain is one of the most important parts of a map.

 

[Dark_Spyro_003]

First of all, the terrain doesn't look good.
Second: When dwarven king hero summons warriors with oath of honour, it takes about half of the cooldown before the units appear. And those units exist permanent. And why is the mysterious man on the top of the map super imba?

 

[Christers]

Yeah, I know. I'll get to do some terraining eventually, but I'm honestly not sure what to do with it.
Oh, and the old man on top of map is a vulnerable shop, but fi you attack himn, he'll attack you.
Hmm, I'll fix the Oath and Honour ability in next version.


Christers

 

[UchihaSasuke.gr]

i can help you with terrain Christers.

 

[FrostyisdaKing]

as can I. We really can't stress the importance terrain has in your map. Placement and positioning are key to any army builder map. Terrain obviously deals with this. Besides the fixes you are currently doing terrain should be your #1 priority. Thats my 2 cents.

 

[Christers]

Hmm, Maiev has also offered to help out with the terrain, well since he asked first, I'll let him do it.

Christers