TLD (The Last Days, LOTR mod) for M&B 1.011 Info

[Bolkonskij]

I seem to be at a point in my game where I am stuck. I'm playing as Imladris elf. Primary enemies (Moria + Dol Guldur) are both destroyed. Isengard remains only with the Capital. Gundabad is fair in strength, but hasn't lost any outpots. Elrond and men however don't seem to push forward to attack the weakened enemies, even though their strength is at almost 8000. They're just patrolling around Imladris Advance Camp and that's it. When I try to talk to Elrond about the war (war counsel option in conversation) he says something like "nevermind" and I can't choose anything. Even though I meet the requirements (great hope + 50 influence). Is this broken?

Another thing I noticed is how the good men aren't really recovering in faction strength. Gondor is stuck at around 1300 for ages now - even though I keep doing the battles for them which should give them some time. Harad, Corsairs etc. however seem to recover normally (?). Again - broken?

Running Warband + tld 3.3 + compat patch + nightly here ...

 

[Swyter]

I seem to be at a point in my game where I am stuck. I'm playing as Imladris elf. Primary enemies (Moria + Dol Guldur) are both destroyed. Isengard remains only with the Capital. Gundabad is fair in strength, but hasn't lost any outpots. Elrond and men however don't seem to push forward to attack the weakened enemies, even though their strength is at almost 8000. They're just patrolling around Imladris Advance Camp and that's it. When I try to talk to Elrond about the war (war counsel option in conversation) he says something like "nevermind" and I can't choose anything. Even though I meet the requirements (great hope + 50 influence). Is this broken?

Another thing I noticed is how the good men aren't really recovering in faction strength. Gondor is stuck at around 1300 for ages now - even though I keep doing the battles for them which should give them some time. Harad, Corsairs etc. however seem to recover normally (?). Again - broken?

Running Warband + tld 3.3 + compat patch + nightly here ...

Can you take a look and see if tweaking the gameplay options helps somehow to force a bit of movement in the forces of good?
I elaborated with quite a bit of detail the meaning and consequences of the different options. They may give you the push you need:

...because I need some help.

What does changing the strategy tweaks do?

If I change:

1. Siege strength req: Defenders only (what does it change?)
2: Strength regen rate (battles only)

Oh, MadVader, MadVader. This is what I get from reading the source code:

1) Siege strength requirements:  [+] Normal -- Faction strength of the sieger has to be over certain value, and sieged faction has to be under certain value. [+] Defender only -- Sieged faction has to be under certain value, sieging faction strength doesn't matter (unimplemented?) [+] None -- Any faction can siege enemy centers at any time, no matter how weak they are.
2) Strength regen rate: Grows faction strength with time from center income and won battles. Options are: [+] Normal -- Standard regeneration rates depending on center income and military victories.
  [+] Halved -- Half regeneration rates depending on center income and military victories.
  [+] Battles only -- Faction strength regenerates just with battles.
  [+] None -- Faction strength doesn't regenerate.
You can see the current strength of factions from the Reports menu.
Hope that that clears it up.

 

[Bolkonskij]

Thanks for taking the time to answer, Swyter, and of course thank you for your efforts regarding TLD. Really appreciated! 

That said, I tinkered with the settings as suggested. Defaults were both normal. I went ahead and put the siege req. to none which really got things going - dwarfs and dale almost immediately launched sieges on Rhun, Mirkwood against Gundaband, Harad against Gondor. The factions seem to go for an "all in" strategy with this setting. Not bad. However, I noticed that Imladris is still not really doing anything helpful except patrolling around their camps, with the occasional scouting team going to Mordor. Are they supposed to take their 500 men army and fight for Cair Andros and Osgiliath or is it mod-specific for them to stay in place?

I also halved the regen rates which I feel makes every single man more valuable (and a victory over a 250 men army more decisive).

Another odd thing: Prince Imrahil tends to leave Dol Amroth with about 15 soldiers and ventures to the conquered West Osgiliath, where he keeps standing directly in front of the city, waiting for some 100 orcs army to bulldoze him. He keeps doing that again and again. No idea why. bug?

Question about reinforcements for allies:
During conversation, I'm sometimes able to ask "Do you need reinforcements?" and hand over some of my man. However, the option isn't there every time I talk to a friendly general. What triggers the availability?

 

[Swyter]

Thanks for taking the time to answer, Swyter, and of course thank you for your efforts regarding TLD. Really appreciated! 

That said, I tinkered with the settings as suggested. Defaults were both normal. I went ahead and put the siege req. to none which really got things going - dwarfs and dale almost immediately launched sieges on Rhun, Mirkwood against Gundaband, Harad against Gondor. The factions seem to go for an "all in" strategy with this setting. Not bad. However, I noticed that Imladris is still not really doing anything helpful except patrolling around their camps, with the occasional scouting team going to Mordor. Are they supposed to take their 500 men army and fight for Cair Andros and Osgiliath or is it mod-specific for them to stay in place?

I also halved the regen rates which I feel makes every single man more valuable (and a victory over a 250 men army more decisive).

Another odd thing: Prince Imrahil tends to leave Dol Amroth with about 15 soldiers and ventures to the conquered West Osgiliath, where he keeps standing directly in front of the city, waiting for some 100 orcs army to bulldoze him. He keeps doing that again and again. No idea why. bug?

Question about reinforcements for allies:
During conversation, I'm sometimes able to ask "Do you need reinforcements?" and hand over some of my man. However, the option isn't there every time I talk to a friendly general. What triggers the availability?

The custom campaign system is a complex beast. I have tried to avoid it so far, it probably has bugs and shortcomings but I'm not the kind of contributor that fixes gameplay. Mostly because for every problem one fixes two inconveniences snowball into real problems. It's a delicate thing with lots of work hours behind.

'Greetings, do you need reinforcements?' (or 'You don't look too strong, do you need troops?' in the case of evil), appears on friendly party encounters and only if you have troops of their same faction/kind.

If you talk with elves having only beautiful dwarves in your company you will not be given the option.

 

[Maitreya]

There was a question a while back about the Bladorthin quest not working/not being implemented yet. Has anything been done on the quest since then, or are you basically just supposed to turn the quest down if it comes up? In which case, why not remove it altogether to avoid confusion (and frustration)?

 

[Swyter]

There was a question a while back about the Bladorthin quest not working/not being implemented yet. Has anything been done on the quest since then, or are you basically just supposed to turn the quest down if it comes up? In which case, why not remove it altogether to avoid confusion (and frustration)?

It's disabled in release builds, together with other the cheat options included in the dev builds.

Good call. Right now the dev mode is enabled to help testers. But you are right, now that the nightlies are basically the obligatory mainstream mod I was thinking on disabling it. I've received more feedback about breaking immersion and cluttering menus.

--

About the quest itself, I don't plan to work on it for the time being. But we may open source the Warband port if I get the approval from the TLD team elders.

I'm talking about a *real* open source release, with changesets, history, comments and a real license for the code and assets. Not a tar'ed binary blob and a pat in the back.

About licensing, I'd prefer something liberal and enforceable, like the CC-SA-BY license, which is pretty much what the current informal OSP terms say about the previous open sourced Christmas release.

 

[Honved]

Not that it's likely to happen, but I've always been frustrated by the difficulty in playing evil humans in this mod.  They're fine until war breaks out, but then several new Orc camps spawn.  After that, it's nearly impossible to fight a battle that's closer to your own camp than to one of the Orc camps, so raising Reputation with your faction (especially Harrad or Khand) is 100% dependent on doing tasks.  My last 2 evil characters ended up with impressively high reputation with Mordor (or Isengard), increasing by leaps and bounds with every battle, but they were virtually unknown within their own factions.  I had to field armies with 10-20% of my own troops, and the rest Orcs/Uruks or Black Numenorians, because I didn't have enough reputation to get occasional replacements (as in 1 man every 2-3 battles).

I'm not certain how that can be fixed without deleting the Orc camps, which would cause all sorts of other issues, or by a major change in the way reputation is handled for winning/losing battles.

 

[Maitreya]

There was a question a while back about the Bladorthin quest not working/not being implemented yet. Has anything been done on the quest since then, or are you basically just supposed to turn the quest down if it comes up? In which case, why not remove it altogether to avoid confusion (and frustration)?

It's disabled in release builds, together with other the cheat options included in the dev builds.

Good call. Right now the dev mode is enabled to help testers. But you are right, now that the nightlies are basically the obligatory mainstream mod I was thinking on disabling it. I've received more feedback about breaking immersion and cluttering menus.

--

About the quest itself, I don't plan to work on it for the time being. But we may open source the Warband port if I get the approval from the TLD team elders.

I'm talking about a *real* open source release, with changesets, history, comments and a real license for the code and assets. Not a tar'ed binary blob and a pat in the back.

About licensing, I'd prefer something liberal and enforceable, like the CC-SA-BY license, which is pretty much what the current informal OSP terms say about the previous open sourced Christmas release.

Open sourcing sounds like a great idea. In the meantime, I'd definitely just disable the quest.

Another thing: I think this has been touched on before, but Gondor and Rohan hardly ever seem to rally. They've been pummeled since the very beginning of the war, but I can only remember seeing them rally once, whereas their enemies (who are already so strong they don't actually need to rally) are rallying all the time. I'm at day 100 or thereabouts. Is this working as intended or a bug of some sort? Another problem, which I guess may be related, is that Rohan lords keep going out with puny 10-man armies and actively seeking out combat with stronger opponents, leading to them being defeated constantly. Obviously, this weakens Rohan further and since they never rally, they seem to be in an unavoidable death spiral. Gondor, for its part, is essentially broken already. I understand that Mordor is supposed to be strong and I understand that the southern kingdoms of men are supposed to be in a precarious situation, but it seems like the mod is set up in such a way that they can't even offer significant resistance, which detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

 

[Oyclo]

I've only discovered that the mod was enabled for WB a few days ago and I got all giddy since I loved TLD but the M&B engine just couldn't handle it very well it seemed.  My only disappointment is the hitbox issue is still there with orcs and bows.  I just watched 20 elven arches miss one single orc scout until they were out of arrows since every arrow was RIGHT over its head, which would have been a dead center shot on a human sized mesh.  When orcs are massed this doesn't show up as much as near misses tend to hit others, but when there are only a few orc archers left it really gets painful to watch.  I'm assuming there is no real fix since this as been around since the first release.

 

[Baguette Eater]

It's an issue in every mods with shorter hitboxes,  I am afraid

 

[Oyclo]

I forgot how painful it was to start out orc side.  Inferior troops even with the increased numbers.  I can have fun if I cheat leadership up to 10, but thats not really a satisfying solution.  Its just extremely grindy and 90% of the gear/weapons are trash.  Elf is a breeze, even with the hitbox issue.

I personally tweeked orcs a bit by giving all the warg riders shields, and the great warg riders helms.  They also get a haradim sabre which looks right for them and gives them some reach.  It makes no sense for orcs on a huge warg to be using weapons with a 50ish reach.  They literally can't hit anything.  Spears might make more sense too now that I'm thinking about it. 

It's an issue in every mods with shorter hitboxes,  I am afraid

Yea so I figured out, apparently there is a way to do it but its time consuming if what I found is true.  I'm wondering if slightly lowering bow accuracy might actually help by increasing the randomness.

Edit: After several tests setting bows accuracy to about 65 seems to be the sweet spot for effectiveness. 

 

[Oyclo]

I do have one question I can't find a good answer to, with the WB nightly patches.  Some say you need to install them all, one after the other.  I assumed that they were all additive and just used the last one, which has been fine so far.

DL histories of them have numbers all over the place.  So are they all needed or just the last one?  I've only had one script bug just using the last one in like 200 play days.

 

[Knezevic]

Use last one.

 

[Tingyun]

You guys are amazing--this is my bar none favorite mod!

I just discovered it a few days ago, but I've run into the below bugs/problems you might want to look at for patches:

1) Many battlefields, including some around mordor and gondor, seem to lack an inventory box, cutting the player off from weapon changes.

2) Lembas only has 30 uses, hardly worth it for 10 influence. Indeed any limitied use food is hard to justify for influence, I'd suggest increasing the uses to something huge (500, 1000 or so), dropping morale bonus to something small (5 is a totally reasonable additional help from a food item), and making the weight small. Thus it wouldn't be unbalancing but would also be really helpful.

3) In the hidden ranger camp of gondor, the prison guard and castle guard appear to be reversed in position.

4) Bows and sticks all sort of pierce through the cloak animations for some armors, including the dale one and the dunedain one, looking like they cut through the middle from the back.

5)I think some Mordor units get stuck while invisible near the black gate. I engaged a supply train there, and got a message 2 other supply trains were joining the battle (neither had been visible on the map). Also, in the ensuing battle I routed a large number of orcs that should have spawned a fleeing unit, but none on map. Not sure what is going on.

 

[Oyclo]

There are a lot of little things like that, but all of them are playable. 

Its really an all encompassing mod thats quite awesome. 

My only complaint is that once the War starts, evil is boring.  There is almost nothing to kill around Gondor and Rohan.  The AI lords there tend to sally forth with like 11 guys.  There are dozens and dozens of evil parties in the area.  No caravans no patrols to kill.  My orc army is starving because feeding them gets too pricey with nothing to kill (and can't slaughter men for it either, since they are not there).  What I end up doing is just waiting for the lazy commanders to siege something, and hope to join in. 

It was quite challenging prior being the evil companions are mostly trash, the evil equipment is mostly trash, and the evil troops are mostly trash.  I was having fun with it even if I was getting a bit grindy on rep missions to get all the companions,  but now its just dull. 

My elf on the other hand has more money than it knows what to do with, in just about all factions, has tons of targets to hunt, and has destroyed moria and now Isenguard.  The huge enemy lord armies (which stick together better than the good side for some reason) keeps the big fights interesting, and the large number of warparties keeps any new troops trained and entertained. 

I saw someone addressed a lot of this in a sub mod but from what I gather it won't work with the warband version.  I'm wondering if I could hand copy the text files from the party info and get that to work. 

 

[Tingyun]

Another bug:

Rivendell Elven Cavalry and Elven Knights units both have riding skill=1, athletics skills=5. Makes them pretty poor mounted units and seems likely to be a typo.

 

[Oyclo]

Another bug:

Rivendell Elven Cavalry and Elven Knights units both have riding skill=1, athletics skills=5. Makes them pretty poor mounted units and seems likely to be a typo.

While I don't think anyone is currently working on the mod, those are easy enough to fix with the troop editor.  I have tinkered with troops quite a bit to make the game feel more right to me without resorting to RCM which can throw some things out of wack in my opinion.

For example warg riders are orcs, and given orc weapons, which is fine but they lack the reach to hit anything using them,  I've watched them swinging repeatedly trying to hit a stationary target right next to them, and they simply can't.  As such I've switched them to Harad sabers which still look they they belong (its a curved white sabre, with a crook in it, looks like bone) while giving them some ability to function as light cav once their darts are gone.

 

[Tingyun]

Oh certainly I can fix it for myself, but I do think the mod is still being worked on (last patch was only a few months ago). Even if development is a little slow, I assume when they get back to it in a few months/a year or whatever, they will probably check the back messages here for bug reports, and that way it can be fixed for everyone. I always feel like if I play an amazing mod like this, the least I can do is contribute bug reports to help the developers.

 

[Oyclo]

Oh certainly I can fix it for myself, but I do think the mod is still being worked on (last patch was only a few months ago). Even if development is a little slow, I assume when they get back to it in a few months/a year or whatever, they will probably check the back messages here for bug reports, and that way it can be fixed for everyone. I always feel like if I play an amazing mod like this, the least I can do is contribute bug reports to help the developers.

I hear you, I only found out this was ported to warband a couple of weeks ago and it made me so happy.

 

[Tingyun]

Oyclo,

I just discovered it a week or so ago (hadn't even known about it for mount and blade), but now myself and my friends are playing it constantly. It is insanely, unbelievably good.

Btw, when you've got your personal edits more or less finalized, I'd really love to get a copy+description and try it out for my next game. I think an active submod that keeps up with the patches would be really cool to add variety, and I'd gladly play tester for you (once I wrap up my current campaign in a few weeks of course).