Third Age Total War

[Rincewind]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTcNL7dU_vA

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=654

Basically, a total conversion for Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms. The entire campaign is replaced, all factions are playable, Evil vs Good Alliances work etc. The units are massive, the trolls are scary and the Elves are shooty. After I ambushed a Gondorian column with my Nazgul and a horde of orcs running out of the forest, with my Nazgul cutting down the Steward of Gondor in single combat, I was convinced that I probably won't play any other Medieval mod any more.

Currently playing a Mordor campaign, installed a little submod called "Immortal Nazgul" - basically every time the Nazgul die, they respawn next turn at Barad Dur but losing any experience they gained. The Black Land is churning out about ten thousand orcs per turn and throwing them at the elite Gondorian troops, and I'm losing about 5 to 1, but by the Gods I have more Orcs than they have Men.

Edit: Damn you Coey!

[Coey]

the Stewart of Gondor

made me chuckle

It was fun for awhile, but mordor started pumping out nasty trolls and it was no longer fun.

[TheDividedGod]

Gonna have to check this out.

[Innonexess]

It's like it's meant to be, i only just bought Medieval 2 off of steam a few weeks ago!
I'll be back with a bit more insight later...

[Supernaut]

It is fsking awesome is all I can say, got ambushed by an army of marauding Orcs though when I was played Elves, they cut me down to a man

[Nurizeko]

Looks nice, haven't had Medieval II on my machine for a long while though.

Edit: While were at it here's one of the trailers for a Warhammer fantasy mod for Medieval 2: TW.


Love a Warcraft one (since Warcraft itself is a dead franchise as far as war games go) but Blizzard would probably shoot it down pretty quick wise.

[Rincewind]

Tried attacking Minas Tirith with 5 full stacks against Gondor's one stack... my computer crashed! That would have been about 25,000 Orcs on the field at the same time!

Ended up making one stack of random Orcs as an army for the AI to control and one stack of nothing but Catapults, Olog-Hai and Mountain Trolls, led by the Witch King of Angmar. Took me within 50 seconds of the time limit but in the end I managed to capture the city, with the loss of only 3,000 Orcs. Luckily there's much much more where they came from.

[Paladin]

I always wanted a WHFB mod for Total War... Siege engines replaced with wizards and crap

[Brenil]

I appreciate the work that went into this mod and it is of very high quality, however I am one of the apparent few people who does not like Lord of the Rings. At all. So this mod is kind of a waste on me as while I definately recognize the work and talent that has gone into this mod, I just cannot bring myself to play it for any amount of time due to the source material.

I agree with Paladin though, I'd like to see a mod based on Warhammer or some other brutal high fantasy done with this amount of love and care. For the rest of us, there is still Stainless Steel, which was also headed by the same guy who made this mod. If anyone likes Lord of the Rings, I highly recommend Third Age; for everyone else, check out Stainless Steel. Both are amazingly high quality mods for Medieval II: Kingdoms.

[TESB]

I suggest to you using the RealCombat/Realrecrutment mod it improves the gameplay greatly.

[Flonky]

I played this mod a while back, then eventually the fun wore off once trolls made an appearance from mordor etc and my little tin can soldiers started dying in droves. Have a go at the elves - their archers are insane! The units all look fantastic, but I did find the gameplay a bit slow, as in you fight a hell of a lot as gondor but basically make so little gain in terms of cities for all that effort, then the trolls start being a part of mordor armies...trolls would be ok on their own but in squads of 6 they are lethal.

On a side note, the SPQR mod for Rome: Total War that I downloaded a couple of days ago is the best mod I have ever played, if damn difficult - Hannibal is one tough son of a bitch to defeat with a pre marius legion...but I'd definitely try this mod if you can, too.

[Pocktio]

So has anyone tried the Harad? In the R:TW version they were swarm-tastic. Constantly had....Ogli something city besieged by a full stack of them. Weak combat troops but so many. I had so many elite Gondor units by the end of my 3 hour sesh but there was no autosave every turn so I lost it and rage uninstalled.

[Fightingfirst]

Such a good mod, I always play it with real combat/ real recruitment on makes so much of a difference imo. Definitely worth the download.

[Border Patrol]

the mods great until you kill your opposing faction, then its kind of just a boring steamroll.

[Afoxi]

What's the song in the trailer, anyone know?

[Psymon]

Does this work with the Steam version of Medieval 2?

[Pocktio]

Should do Psymon. Your directory will be in your steamapps/common folder.

Oh I'm sure you have but it's for Kingdoms so vanilla med 2 won't work, I think. Not checking.

Now to paint the white, creamy and suspicious hand of Pockaruman over Middle-Earth.

[joethepro36]

I've played it quite a bit and it's a great mod in terms of detail and the like.However, I dislike the vanilla style gameplay of; build stack of heavy/elite units, attack city, repeat.

I heard real recruitment mentioned, anyone want to give me a list of realism/improvement mods for it? I run stainless steel with real recruitment and byr's supply system and the like. That's the kind I'm looking for.

[Pocktio]

Real recruitment and real combat mod for 1.2 TATW

Yeah I hate the vanilla style as well, can't play without RCRR.

I suggest the OP updates his post with yonder linkage.

[joethepro36]

Cheers for that. Ever since I got RCRR for vanilla, I've never gone back.

Installing now, I'll see how it goes ingame.

[Pocktio]

Massive fun is being had. Although a steath stack of Harad has attacked me in the arse, I have no clue how they got there. Also every 2 turns I fight a full Mordor stack at Osgiliath, epic battles every two turns I love it.

[Rincewind]

Installed RR/RC and edited the descr_strat files to give full barracks in year three. Playing as Harad, my stacks roaming around and raping Gondorian armies with Cavalry and Mumakil and leaving the cities to Mordor. A single Mumakil unit plowing through a Gondorian army will totally fuck up their formation, letting the tide of Mordorian Orcs bring their full numbers to bear and hand the goody two-shoes Men of the West their own arses on a platter.

[TESB]

Although a steath stack of Harad has attacked me in the arse, I have no clue how they got there.

there is a land conection from harad to gondor over the anduin (in the delta of the river with the little isles)

[Pocktio]

Bah really? Time to install a mega-fort.

Also I'm beginning to suspect Mordor has the ring. I fight off a full Mordor stack and as soon as the stack dissapears another one appears and sieges the town. There is literally no pause in the stacks attacking. I beat em all easy peasy lemon squeezy but there's no real way for me to advance, yet, as fighting across a bridge against 5 thousand orks is bloody impossible.

[battledaemon]

Well this looks great...Too bad I can't find our mouse and my game is twenty miles away

Just wondering, can you play as Harad?

[Supernaut]

There's about 2 posts above you explicitly stating they are playing as Harad.

[Nurizeko]

If you lads ever get bored of this and have Rome:TW get the Total Realism mod, it made the game for me.

[Niftyeye]

The mod is great, playing as Gondor is just constant epic battles.

I gave myself loads of money for an alternative save as gondor and its literally a clash of superpowers between me and mordor every turn

[Raptor_Shadow]

I agree Nuri. I know Elukka will pimp the shit out of Europa Barbaorum; but I found it simply too damned hardcore for me. RTR improves vastly on vanilla Rome; instead of steamrolling Northern Europe as the Julii faction I really had to balance who I pissed off.

"Carthage to the left of me, Greece to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with Gaul."

[Rincewind]

Not to mention Pyrrhus right off the bat with his insane army against your pansy-ass Pre-Marian wankers. Yeah, R:TR is fun, but unfortunately the engine is a bit too dated. I'd love to see some nice mods on the Empire engine though...

[Border Patrol]

too bad their "superior modding engine" took weeks to unlock the goddamned minor factions.
i honestly dont think were going to be seeing any good mods this time around sadly.

[Pocktio]

I'm honestly contemplating spending 500 quid on a super-system so I can play this mod with anything other than all low settings.

[fuggles]

I'm honestly contemplating buying MTW2 just for this. Don't really like TW games, but I do like LOTR.... is it worth buying MTW2 just for this?

[Pocktio]

I'd venture a tentative yes. It's really got replay value.

Reasons:

Lore edition (evil v good and the one ring)
Every faction is playable
Every faction is so different you'll want to go back and try them all out
Bloody awesome battles with your favourite LOTR units
Ton of various submods to try


Everything about it is just so well put together!

[Nurizeko]

but unfortunately the engine is a bit too dated.

I've still got Shogun: Total War. TWO copies even.

I loved it like a dude loves his first car. Makes me feel all fuzzy just remembering the campaign map music and marching my lil samurai sprites under those digital grey skies.

[Rincewind]

Alvarez:

Short version - kill everyone.

Long version - build up your provinces and grab all the rebel provinces east of the river, then once you get the better barracks with Uruks and Trolls, kill everyone. Remember that if you're playing with garrisson scripts enabled, every time you attack an enemy town, even with a couple of units, it will spawn an army. So, attack only when prepeared.

Install the RC/RR mod and use your Nazgul as generals, you won't need any others.

[TESB]

Well i don´t think that is good advice:
first the ai gets a huge money bonus and they get free armies (spawned via script) and of course there is the garrison script (when you siege a settelment the ai will get bonus troops, when you loose the battle they will keep them). there is a way around this script:
when the enemy has a stack next to one of it´s cities attack this stack and the garrison will fight you as reinforcements kill them all (you must not let any survivors) and after the battle the city is yours to take with out any garrison or garrison script.

So i played like rincewind the first games, but i noticed that it is better to:
-stack all your generals in one stack (they are very good combat units, and they heal losses for free on campaign map so no retraining is required) and get this stack to full stregnth
-build a secondary stack, only some units not much, doesn´t depend which type so cheaper is better (this stack is only for occuping conquered cities)
-immiediatly attack the ai (move your forces in first turn) and ignore rebel settelments
-capture as many enemy cities as possible before you run out of troops/money
-then consolidate (build up your economy...)

last time i played mordor i killed gondor in first 30 turns with that tactic (you must be quite good at battle of course)

tips for the battle:
-the ai is using a stake script so you will never ever want to attack ranged units up front with your cavalry
-take your generals and always kill the enemy general first (he is mostly behind his troops so have to advance around the flanks
-get a huge blob of orcs and attack the enemy
-make sure that in that very moment your army clash into theirs your generals come from the flank or from behind
-this mostly causes instand rout and you ony have to collect the fleeing troops

[Pocktio]

TESB what difficulty was your Mordor campaign on? Gondor units are elite and heavily armoured, flanking them with Uruk guard won't instantly rout them.

So I started a new Gondor game, Harad is a continual pain. I have not the resources nor armies to expand into Mordor or south, there are just far too many enemy stacks. Every turn or two I'm desperately killing 4000 Orcs while trying to minimalise my own casualties so they can kill the next 4000, it's a war of attrition and it's wearing me down.

However I'm raking in fairly decent profits so I'm building one high-profit building at a time, I've got a mining network being constructed in Dol Amroth and next I'll build a merchant wharf in E.Osgiliath for example. I can't build and amass huge armies but I have a constant stream of reinforcements to keep my garrisons succumbing to constant Orc aggression.

[TESB]

@Pocktio
by general units i mean of course the mighty nazgul, your are right the orc generals are weak.

With Gondor there are two ways to play imho:
1) only capture west osgiliath and palce an army full of archers, catapults and 3 or 4 melee units on the bridge; this and cair andros will secure your front with mordor (you should never have any (or at least only very very few) casualties.

now get some ships and conquer the shores of harad (this should be pretty easy, but remember the garrison script) starting from the most south settelment. this will weaken harad and will get you some nice economy cities (sea trade!) also since there is only one way for harad to get them back you only have to defend one city.

2) put all your generals in 2 stacks +some units and rush for minas ithil (=minas morgul) and the black gate, ignor rebel settelments, this should make it pretty easy against mordor in the future, but your south flank to harad will be a little bit open for some time

edit: you can also mod a fort at your southern front to harad:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...hlight=borders
compatible with all mods of course (but not savegame compatible)

I play on VH (campain) / Medium (Battle).
On VH battle morale plays a much bigger factor which makes the game rather more easy then difficult (if you know how to exploit it)

edit2: i hope you have checked out the new winter mod for the campaign (save game and mod combatible):
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=292109

[Rincewind]

TESB - If you don't want to play with the garrisson script, don't play with the garrisson script. You can remove it entirely instead of wanking around to bypass it. Also, the AI doesn't get a "huge" money bonus, they get about 5000-10000 florins per turn and you can easily match this if you build up your settlements and tax the fuck out of them.

While I agree that massing the Nine into a single army is a great tactic, it feels like cheating with the Immortal Nazgul submod installed. I prefer Orcish Hordes led by great generals.

[TESB]

Well i don´t mind the garrison script, but sometimes you have to take your chances.

The problem is not the money, but the armies that the ai gets for free, they are huge.
I just eliminated the silvan elves on turn 10 with my orcs and boy was this though, the problem was that i usualy starve the enemy out, but on turn 11 the ai would have gotten an huge army (general + full stack) and with the orcs this is not beatable!
Even with trolls it´s pretty hard since the mountain trolls suck with RR/RC.
I played the a silvan elves campaign just before and you can shoot advancing trolls down with just 1 or 2 of your basic archers.

The ai reinforcements are balanced for vanilla, but not RR/RC where elves have by far the best troops.

In general i just want to say the game gets really easier (well it´s still hard) when you rush your enemy (although this is quite a task to be done) and then consolidate.

Edit: also keep in mind that the ai gets an city grothrate bonus and when you tax your cities (i keep taxes at low for that very reason) they will not advance as fast. That means the will be able to get much more advanced troops earlier then you (and more of them).
I do not think you can compete with the ai on an economic basis in the long run.

[Pocktio]

mountain trolls suck with RR/RC.

That statement is a lie. Mountain trolls are absurdly powerful, they can walk through Gondorian spear walls and lasting out to kill hundreds of them.

[TESB]

The trolls from the OotMM?
Also spearmen are the worst of all troopchoises to fight against them, no wonder they can kill as much. (trolls are heavy infantry so the best counter is good archers and melee units with swords or best with axes -> armor piercing)
Olog-hai are really strong but not the mountain trolls. (I think cave trolls are also a bit stronger then those)

Edit: sorry i mixed the cave with the mountain trolls

[ChaosReigns]

This really is a fantastic mod. I actually bought Medieval 2 and Kingdoms just to play it and I haven't been disappointed. As it turns out though, Medieval 2 is pretty awesome in its own right.

Just wondering, can you play as Harad?

Yes, you can, and you can play as Rhûn too!

[Rincewind]

Got bored of raging Mumakil, little challenge there. Currently playing as Woodish Elves, ambushing Orc armies as they venture into my forest. It's fun that you actually have to use the strategic map features to be able to win, with ambushes being a required feature of your strategy! I just ambshed a stack of Uruk-Hai repeatedly with 4 archers as they headed towards my town, then retreated when cornered. Now they are down to a few dudes.

[Pocktio]

Mountain trolls of Mordor, I know they're heavy infantry but frankly I think spears are the ultimate anti-troll weapon but I guess balance-wise it's not. Arg I need 4000 gold to build a barracks so I can get Gondor infantry otherwise these trolls will beat me!

[Rincewind]

"Haldir the Merciless" just took Isengard. I don't do assaults as Wood Elves - their pansy-ass units with their 10 turn replenishement rate are just too precious and fragile for them, but sitting in front of an enemy town for 6+ turns and then shooting everyone as they rush out of the gate seems to work pretty well. Haldir's own unit had over 500 kills after that last battle...

[Pocktio]

Haha I might try an Elf campaign, getting annoyed at Gondor. It's like the Stainless Steel campaign I did as the Ottomans, I need a big army to keep the stacks at bay yet I'm not raking in enough profits to maintain them, let alone get better units. While the AI gets the money to upkeep bigger armies AND build better structures. I'm stuck in a rut I don't think I'm going to be able to win at all ¬_¬.

[Rincewind]

Arrgh, fail! I just eliminated Isengard and the Orcs of the Misty Mountains have a couple of settlements left... and I get a "Defeat imminent!" warning! That's because Aragorn and his blasted Eriador faction have the same victory conditions that I do, except for the "Kill Mordor" part... looks like I'm gonna have to gank Aragorn. Sorry kid, but Legolas needs to go to Mordor.

Edit: ZOMG THE ONE RING FOUND! I still have a chance at beating this! I just assembled a mighty host, with 4 generals, the ents and all 10 of my "Eldar" units. Led by Haldir the Merciless and Legolas the Cruel, they will drag young prince Rohdadendron or whatever the fuck his name is to Mount Doom and chuck him, er, the Ring in. To keep the Orcs of the Misty Mountains alive, I just gave them back some territorries and money and agreed to a ceasefire. This ought to be interesting - the army that goes to Mordor is pretty nuts, all elite units, but they will not get a single reinforcement... it's a one way trip. Shit just got interesting! I love the Lore edition!

[Pocktio]

You managed to make peace with evil as a good faction? Is that possible?