Mod: Kingdom of Angmar - Version 0.52 available

[kianduatha]

Questionable loyalty might come from a copystats of a War Lobster. Give them 10 hp or something in their firstform, and their second form just goes berserk on everyone. It'd be fun. And terrifying.

I'm kinda weirded out by Angmar not having any recruit-anywhere orcs. Maybe at least have a snaga recruitable? And I hope there are orc summons.

It'd be nifty to give orcs/trolls/the witchking darkpower of some level(at the very least darkvision 100). It would also be cool to have some sort of commander(summoned/hero/???) autocast darkness at the beginning of combat. It just seems...wrong... that casting Utterdark as Angmar isn't really a good idea right now, between the nice bowmen and even their elite troops not having full darkvision.

[Burnsaber]

If you make Trolls able to go "War Lobster", I'd suggest to make them summons instead of PD units. Otherwise your PD 20+ would be extremely vulnerable to anything with "Fire Largest" command (or spells like "Mind Burn"), which would make the trolls "pop" while they have only friendly troops nearby.

[LumenPlacidum]

Angmar seems like it was mostly a kingdom of men, though there were orcs also in the misty mountains. I'm using the idea that the real stronghold of the orcs in Angmar was Mount Gundabad (the ancestral home of the dwarves and the reason why dwarves so hate the orcs). However, since smaller goblins lived in the mountain chain that housed Angmar following the War of Wrath against Morgoth, they're definitely in the area. I could make these snaga orcs small, cheap and numerous, I suppose, with real crap for morale, but full darkvision.

Anyone know if it's possible to have specific bad events for a nation? Would be funny to have Angmar being plagued by the dragons out of the north.

How does the lobster thing work? Is it just that they automatically smash anyone around? Or, do they have to take damage first, or fail a morale check? I'd be sort of ok with the idea of the trolls having this serious flaw of just eating anyone nearby when the going gets tough. Promoting the use of different strategies for attacking the nation is something that I think should be encouraged, unless the weakness is such that it makes them useless.

[kianduatha]

I'm not sure you could Fire Large Monsters down the "War Lobster" trolls. They'd only have like 10 hp in their first shape, and so probably wouldn't be targeted. If anything, the Mind Burners would just take out the berserk ones for you. It's still a good idea to pull, but if people are targeting your trolls, they are targeting the berserk ones over the controlled ones.

The idea is that they would have only 10 hp or so. Then, when they die, they get replaced by a much tougher unit that just tramples everything nearby, friend or foe. It would be glorious.

I am a bit worried about having a composite bow recruitable. They're quite nearly as good as longbowmen, and I fear that this will become another archer nation.

[LumenPlacidum]

The archer nation concern is one I have also, but still I feel they should have some archers. Maybe I should do something like what shinuyama has, and make the archers into good melee combatants, so that the idea is to let them soften the enemy before crushing them up close.

Alternatively, I could just give them shortbows. Or even remove the Angmar Bowman unit entirely, and leave the nation to rely on the Rhudaur Hunters for ranged support.

Tests on my original design for the Gundabad Orcs made them nigh unstoppable against indies. Two turns worth of recruits could take out any sequence of indie provinces forever, knights notwithstanding.

The current Gundabad Elite Warrior looks like this:

#newmonster 2899
#name "Gundabad Elite Warrior"
#descr "These are the elite of orc society beneath dark Mt. Gundabad.  These orcs are equipped with thick, black iron armor and strike quickly and strongly with their flails, making them ideal shock troops.  Elite warriors possess the hardiness of all orcs of Mt. Gundabad, with the appetites to match, but have a greater inner fury which they release in battle."
#hp 17
#size 2
#prot 3
#mor 13
#mr 10
#enc 2
#str 14
#att 12
#def 12
#prec 10
#ap 10
#mapmove 2
#mountainsurvival
#coldres 50
#darkvision 50
#supplybonus -2
#reinvigoration 3
#berserk 4
#weapon "Flail"
#armor "Plate Hauberk"
#armor "Half Helmet"
#armor "Shield"
#gcost 40
#rcost 8
#end

The combination of heavy armor, berserk with 2 attacks, and reinvigoration makes them really really effective. Which I suppose is predictable. But, they cost 40 gold and 36 resources a pop. I originally had them at 23 hitpoints and with full plate mail, but that was just crazy. Now the lesser shield makes them trigger berserk more from slingstones, and the lesser hitpoints makes them somewhat more killable in melee. If it's really unreasonable, I'll drop the reinvig to 2.

[kianduatha]

The reinvig is just fine. They have what, 4 net fatigue, 6 when berserking? The real thing is that you mentioned a desire to make Angmar troops less effective pound per pound than other nations; these guys are pretty badass, mostly from the flail+shield(which is kinda weird, since flails are 2handed weapons). The real thing is just that a square of these can destroy an entire square of enemies every round, so they don't get hit too much. Combine that with a high attack and repel against prettymuch everything but spears, and they do well.

If you find them too powerful...just change the flail into a morningstar. Or take away the shield entirely. I'd actually like to see the 23 hp version with full plate and no shield, just to see how they run. You might like the style a bit more. I think overall they'll have lower survivability than this current version.

[Squirrelloid]

Make the trolls a summon. Conj 2-3 req E1? Oh wait, we have that already...

Alternately, make some of the orcs more widely available so another cap-only doesn't seem like that big of a deal =)

(I mean, orcs breed rather rapidly, there's no reason why the lesser versions shouldn't be available everywhere).

[kianduatha]

Given his view on the nation, it makes sense to have all but snagas cap-only. Then you can summon some more(and other nasty things) using gems from your larger empire, thanks to your SC Witch King.

[LumenPlacidum]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

The real thing is that you mentioned a desire to make Angmar troops less effective pound per pound than other nations

Good reminder. These orcs are a problem with that concept because they're both the heavy hitters and the front-liners, which is inherently effective. I want Angmar to have to spend more for the same effectiveness. Maybe it does make more sense to have them play the attrition game instead of just making things very expensive. The extra cost can come from upkeeping the large armies required to perform well against others, I guess.

How else can I achieve that design goal?

[LumenPlacidum]

I'm finishing up a first draft of the actual mechanics for all the units and such. I'll sketch up some basic graphics and post it up in a day or two.

For this first draft, I'll really be testing to see if the highly-expensive and non-massable but effective cap-only troops make the whole nation's military as powerful as others. If I give Angmar a very strong early game, leading into only a mediocre mid-game due to the unmassable elite troops and the massable troops that die by the hundreds, then that part will essentially be successful. I suspect that as it is, the nation is *very* front-heavy. The extra SC/thug at the beginning plus the ability to recruit a few crazy orcs from the capitol early on makes their start a real juggernaut. Their best access on mages is pretty weak (D1F1 +110% BDFW and D1W1 +100% DEFW), except for the Witch King himself, who is D4S3, fully capable of getting the high death stuff.

After I get the crappy sprites in there and post it for a first review, I'll start to consider things like national spells.

That reminds me, how many hero slots are there for a nation? At least 8?