Mod: Kingdom of Angmar - Version 0.52 available

[Squirrelloid]

For more information about the Kingdom of Angmar, its probably somewhere in the 12 books of notes Christopher Tolkien organized and published, somewhere I haven't read yet. (its a lot of books, and they aren't small).

Some specific notes:

Uruk-hai are created by Saruman, and as such didn't exist in the time of the Kingdom of Angmar.

I have no idea if Orog-hai existed yet or not. There's a little reason to believe they were trolls resistant to sunlight.

Saruman should not be 'old'. He took the form of an old man, but he was a Maiar, and as such ageless and older than the world.

[HoneyBadger]

Kianduatha: This isn't starting with a Prince of Death, this is starting with a free Prince of Death. Sure he doesn't fly, but you get free points in magic, and etherialness besides. Even if you don't spend a single design point helping him out, he's still going to be able to take most indies by himself.

You could easily make an SC Pretender (a cheap Dom 10 Wyrm, for instance, to give you ocean access and spread your Dominion quickly), right along with this guy, enabling you to reliably capture 2 Indie provinces every round from round 1. That's a heck of a jumpstart. Are you going to be able to counter both of them by Turn 6? Because, if we're not ignoring the Nationals, that's not an unreasonable amount of time for a 3rd expansion army.

[LumenPlacidum]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

...people will realize that your Witch King can only be in one place at once--which means you're dead meat the second you commit yourself against one enemy. You cannot afford to ignore your nationals.

This is precisely the point of him. I didn't want him to be a SC that was phased out quickly against enemies, because aside from lucking into another nazgul (if I have them as heroes, and the others will be less powerful), he's the best you've got by a very wide margin, and the ONLY access to astral (excepting the design of the pretender god). Going for a bless for him would work, but would be completely useless for the rest of the nation since only the national mages are priests and thus are sacred (though I have the nazgul sacred to offer the player that difficult choice), and the cheapest bless to help the mages (earth), is pretty much useless for him, since he's 0 enc. Besides, there's no way to resist Dust to Dust, and it's available super-early.

I want the witch king to be an element of the army that people have to think about dealing with. I don't think he's any more powerful than an awake SC pretender god. Of course, the fact that you could have two of them is a little scary, but that just means that you're going to eat one of your neighbors (though in a 1-on-1, your opponent could specifically counter the concept in their build), which is just like some other powerful early nations. Angmar will have a very strong early game (automatic SC), a pretty weak middle game (poor armies), and a moderate late game (due to having someone with high death and astral).

That said, some of what you're seeing is actually more extreme than you're assuming. His fear is +5 plus death, so +9 to begin with. That darkpower is a very hefty one at +5. He already spreads dominion like a prophet, but I'll be disabling temple spread (Sauron didn't have any temples, really). So, prophetizing him wouldn't actually help that, I think, unless it would increase it to 2 candles per turn. Countering that, though, is that I gave him enough abilities that he doesn't gain heroic abilities (or is that just that he's unique?).

It seems to me that for the effect of having a very strong unique starting commander to be pronounced, that commander should be very very good.

Oh, and the black breath is actually a ranged attack (causing fear and a little paralysis at short range), so he's only got 2 attacks in melee.

If he *needs* to be toned down, then I'll do it, but his strength is very much the difference between this nation and another, and I'll be more willing to drop the efficacy of everything else to keep him very good.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, it'll certainly be a fun Nation to try out, whenever I get the chance. Hopefully, it can get some MP testing, and we can get a better idea of balance. I'm anxious to see the rest of the National units.

[LumenPlacidum]

Classes are done for the time being; back to working on this. How does one modify the little icon for magic sites?

[LumenPlacidum]

Anyone had any success putting magic beings into province defense? My trolls aren't showing up at all.

#newmonster 2886
#name "Hill Troll"
#spr1 ".\Angmar\Hill Troll\1399_o-bakemono_1.tga"
#spr2 ".\Angmar\Hill Troll\1399_o-bakemono_2.tga"
#descr "Nightblades that are assigned to defend a given area frequently go out and claim leadership over a pack of the hill trolls that live in and around the Misty Mountains.  Capable of protecting the trolls temporarily from the light of the sun, which petrifies unprotected trolls. the Nightblade simply puts the pack of trolls in the path of any incoming enemies.  The result is usually messy and great fun for the trolls.  Sometimes the results are less than spectacular for the Nightblade, since the trolls have a nasty habit of running away over the top of their leader."
#hp 38
#size 3
#prot 8
#mor 10
#mr 12
#enc 2
#maxage 200
#str 20
#att 10
#def 10
#prec 8
#ap 14
#mapmove 1
#magicbeing
#regeneration 10
#mountainsurvival
#coldres 50
#darkvision 50
#supplybonus -8
#berserk 8
#weapon "Great Club"
#gcost 60
#rcost 12
#end

#defcom1 "Rhudaur Chieftain"
#defcom2 "Nightblade"
#defunit1 "Rhudaur Savage"
#defunit1b "Rhudaur Stalker"
#defunit2 "Angmar Bowman"
#defunit2b "Hill Troll"
#defmult1 30
#defmult1b 15
#defmult2 20
#defmult2 8

[Sombre]

That's because your last line of code there says "#defmult2 8" when it should say "#defmult2b 8"

[LumenPlacidum]

It's AMAZING how many times I looked for exactly that mistake and didn't find it.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by LumenPlacidum

Classes are done for the time being; back to working on this. How does one modify the little icon for magic sites?

Change the path and level of the site. There are a few different icons for each path; I believe there was a thread about this recently, where Foodstamp (I think) posted a graphic with all the site icons...

[LumenPlacidum]

It's been a while, but I got some of the sprites going. Modifying them really speeds up once you've done a few. Please let me know what you think so far with the stats/sprites. Here they are:

Captain of Carn Dum (pretty basic leader commander):


Gundabad Elite Warrior (cap-only heavy infantry):


Angmar Swordsman (heavy infantry):


Angmar Bowman (heavy archer/light infantry):


Edit...
Oh, also the Gundabad Shaman (best recruitable mage and cap-only, the random magic paths are 110% FWDB)


The berserk and reinvig on both the orc units are +4 and 3 respectively.