Comments - An-Angry-Pacifist

Hey guys. Love the mod, but would like to make a suggestion I know will get shot down - please consider greatly increasing the recruitment times.

I find the game great in the beginning, but it gets hard to bare after the first 100 or so turns, because it just becomes a massive war of attrition. It feels like a World War One mod, conscripting every 14 yr old boy in my Dunlandic village to kill every 14 yr old Hobbit conscripted by Bree.

The most Rohan could field in the book was 6000 cav, which would be 2-3 full stacks. Bree, Anduin, Dunland, and most definitely the Elves had nowhere near the numbers to match that, and yet you send your spy out and you'll see three full stack armies all barreling towards you and your single battered stack.

Feels like a massive grind, and suspends your disbelief - if my 2000 blokes killed 8000 blokes in a year, every year, I'm fairly sure I'd have committed self-defence genocide on half the factions within a five year war with them.

But seriously, this is my only criticism (besides Rhun), and you've probably got good reason for it, like balance or some such. Thanks for the hard work guys :)

A bald Ron Swanson.

I feel I've been misinterpreted a little - I'm not suggesting that Sauron not be capable of walking the field. I appreciate the what-ifs as much as the next bloke, and options are always good for players.
I am suggesting a more characteristic play-style for Sauron - rather than have him sit in his base, next to his fortress, or worse, skirmishing like a Gothmog or Faramir, have him enter his fortress, with the same mechanic used for Saruman. From there, he would provide buffs for his minions, and debuffs for invaders, and there is no reason as to why these abilities shouldn't be available to a mobile Sauron either. It could also be very visually rewarding -you could have him portrayed as the Great Eye, forever searching for the ring, or as a great shadow over the fortress.

I suggest this for two reasons:
1) The idea of Sauron sitting around OUTSIDE of his fortress is rather odd, and dangerous for him. It has already been suggested he is quite vulnerable, and the idea of a mobile hero (like Drogoth or the heroes of Rohan) swooping in to a poorly defended base just to knockout Sauron is a silly one. He built Baradur for his own protection, and it is supposedly the greatest fortress ever built in Middle-Earth. Seems odd he would sit NEXT to it.

2) Sauron is a turtle. Of all the factions, Mordor is the most defencive - it is completely surrounded by walls, littered with fortresses, with the greatest of all as its capital. Anyone who has played Third Age Total War will know what I mean - the Mordor game is the turtle game. Even Boromir knows as much - 'it is defended by more than just orcs', 'not with ten thousand men could you do this'. I agree that Mordor should be an attacking faction, but as it stands it is relying completely on orcs for defence, which is misrepresentative.

I do not mean to criticise the Edain team. I love the mod, and eagerly await every update. I just feel the great work they've done on Mordor may have slightly missed the mark.

No, he isn't. There are three recorded occasions where Sauron personally fights someone, all of which are defencive and in his own fortress - a battle against Finrod Felagund, which he won using sorcery; a fight against Luthien and the hound Huan, in which he lost and had to plead for mercy; and defending Baradur in the battle of the Last Alliance, where he lost to Isildur, who later cut the ring from his body and took with it most of his power. If you count the movies as canon, he also fought Gandalf in Dol Goldur, also defencive, also using sorcery and trickery.

His great powers were illusion and shape-shifting, crafting magical items like the rings and Baradur, and dominating orcs and other evil creatures. That is how he dominated the Nazgul, that is how he destroyed the Dwarf kingdoms, that is how he destroyed Numenor. Even when Sauron was at his strongest, he was incredibly powerful, definitely, but certainly no warrior.

You said "he sure as heck WOULD invade Gondor" - why was he never at the head of ANY invading army then, even when attacking the Elven kingdoms in the Second Age, when he was at his most powerful? When the Numenoreans came to Baradur he capitulated without a fight, because he knew he couldn't win, and feared the Numenoreans. Gandalf says in the Return of the King that Sauron is above all things a coward, and not one to take risks. Why would he then risk being slain when not at full strength?

I'm not trying to belittle Sauron. He is still the most powerful being in Middle-Earth during the Third Age, even in his super weakened state. Nor am I suggesting that Sauron not walk the field at all - I would love to beat some elves senseless with a giant mace. All I'm suggesting is that Sauron sit in his fortress doing Sauron-like things until Mordor's end-game, when he gets the ring and his full powers back, and dominates his enemies, rather than have a shadowy low-level Sauron who can be used the same way as any captain or lieutenant of Mordor.

I made the same suggestion when the team asked us for suggestions on Smaug's ring abilities on the Goblin update - the Balrog is much more 'ultimate' than Smaug, and much more Misty Mountains, and the goblins of Moria worshipped it, hence the jagged flame armour.
It also makes perfect sense as a ring hero - it's a Maiar, like Sauron, Saruman and Gandalf, and as a servant of Morgoth possesses evil, cunning and ambition aplenty. He's also, as shown in Khazad-dum, a hero killer - "this foe is beyond any of you", Gandalf said. Also also, as a Balrog, it is likely it commanded orc and dragon troops in the wars of the First Age.

Smaug should be a resource stealer and destroyer of buildings, the lore and his dragon nature support this. Smaug wants gold, Smaug wants to destroy things - he doesn't care much for killing people, his hundred year apathy towards Lake-town showed as much, so why put him in charge of the hordes of Moria? Smaug as the ultimate hero of the Misty Mountains is like Shelob being the ultimate hero of Mordor. Cool as he is, Smaug should be a spell, like Shelob, for the same reasons the Edain team gave for Shelob.

Thanks mate, that explains it. Thanks for the quick response.

Hey guys, I've been playing this mod quite a lot recently (hats off to the mod team), yet today something quite odd happened - my Steam completely uninstalled and reinstalled my ME II and Kingdoms data, without me having done anything to prompt this.

Has this happened to anyone else? I live in a share house, so 10+ GBs of data is a very sizeable chunk of shared internet, and I was wondering if anyone might have answers as why to this has happened...
Clearly this is a Steam issue, not a mod issue, but any help would be appreciated.

Or a spell that summons the giant mountain golems of the first Hobbit movie.

Also, I second the idea that Durin's Bane (the Balrog of Moria) makes more logical sense as a ring hero for the Misty Mountains. He is Maiar like Sauron and Saruman, so it would put the Goblins on the same level as the other evil factions, and he is more closely associated with the Mountains than Smaug. He is also more likely to be a commander than Smaug, as he is a veteran of the armies of Morgoth. If he was to be a ring hero, it could be said that the ring has given him enough power and pride to openly declare himself to the world, take Moria as his kingdom and challenge Sauron for supremacy.

To replace the summon Balrog spell, you could make one in which you can summon several hordes of Mordor and Isengard orcs to aid you, as in the books Sauron often sent troops to bully and coerce them, and the Isengard Uruk scouts led by Lurtz and Ugluk were accompanied by Moria and Mordor orcs

Why not use Smaug's nature as a dragon, and give him an ability which allows him to do significant damage to buildings, specifically resource and recruitment buildings? He completely destroyed three cities (Erebor, Dale and Lake-town), and perhaps in previous centuries did the same in the mountains from which he came, like other dragons. I also considered the idea of resource theft from resource buildings, since he has an intense lust for wealth and tendency to hoard.
With his ability to fly, this would make him a powerful siege weapon, although still at risk from arrows, and give the Misty Mountains a greater emphasis on hit-and-run and spreading across the map in an aggressive fashion.

If you gave Smaug (if you can) a damage and resource theft effect when attacking resource buildings, he would also attack like an actual dragon would - not against ranks of soldiers, like a witless creature controlled by Sauron, but against settlements in search of gold and destruction. You could justify this ability by saying that now that Smaug has the One Ring, his pride, power and lust for gold and calamity are magnified thousand fold.
Smaug should really be quite effect against structures, as he is in the books and movies.

This would also mean that people playing against goblins would need to be more strategic than simply defending until their forces are big/upgraded enough, because a fully developed Smaug could wipe out their economy whilst the hordes keep their archers busy. It would force an attacking strategy where before there was no need for one.