The Road to Edain 4.0: Dale
Greetings, companions of Edain!
The work on the demo for version 4.0 is going forward, still we dedicate time to features of factions that will not yet be in the demo. Currently we are actively working on the balance and correction of prevailing inconsistencies but that's mainly coding-work. Meanwhile our graphics-department is by no means inactive and is already working on content for yet to come factions, that we don't want you to deprive of, although they won't be in the demo yet.
Today we want you to present an update that is centered around Dale and its implementation in version 4.0. In the course of this update we will refer to our previous announcements of Sea-Town time and time again, so if you want further information on the game play you should check out the previous announcement.
The film adaption of the Hobbit gave us an interesting design template that we wanted to use for Edain too. The dwarfs hereby present us with the opportunity to use different time flows: The dwarven realms of the Ered Luin and the Iron Hills for example are set in the time frame of the Hobbit while Erebor is set at the war of the ring. In our update to Sea-Town we already showed you how the mini-faction Sea-town is implemented with the dwarfs:
Quote:
The player has the possibility, when playing dwarfs, to build besides the normal Dwarven Outpost the Town Hall of Lake-town. This Town Hall is a central building, which can be build up to a town, depending on the additional build houses. Overall, the player can build 4 different Lake-town buildings, consisting of one or more houses.
In that update we elaborated how we probably won't implement Dale, but we now want to revoke this statement. As you may have assumed from the title, Dale will be used in Edain like it was seen in the prologue of An Unexpected Journey. The previous problem laied in the fundamental question of how a rebuilt Dale could actually look like. This eventually lead us to the main theme of version 4.0: back to the roots. These lines of thought obviously are purely fictive but still there is a possibility that a rebuilt city of Dale would show the same features, like in a memory of those glorious now gone days.
Our intention is always to incorporate many elements from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, but only if they conform to our own notions and interpretations.
Therefore Dale will be exclusively available to the dwarven realm of Erebor, while Ered Luin and the Iron Hills will have access to Sea-town instead.
Yet the same basic mechanics like Sea-town will be used, i.e. as an option to the normal Dwarven Outpost you may build a central start building, namely the Dale-marketplace.
This building may then be upgraded with various other extension buildings, which will unlock more functions for the whole complex.
Overall the following extensions are available:
Dale-marketplace
Militia house: Build a militia house that provides troops and the hero Brand
Housing area: Build a housing area that yields taxes in all three town houses
Watch tower: Build a defensive tower that fires arrows at nearby enemies
Fountain: Build a fountain that heals nearby units and offers a leadership to them
The Dale-marketplace generates money like a usual citadel. For each additional building (except for the fountain) tax is collected, which corresponds to a raised production for the player. At the same time even a city with every upgrade will be counted as one big complex, so if this complex is attacked or destroyed, the whole city falls. Each upgrade for the city costs money and may only be researched once. When this has happened, the city and with it the complex has grown.
In the following video you can see how this new system works in detail. Additionally you will not only see the new mini-faction Dale but also the new hero Brand and the troops of Dale, which we present hereafter:
Brand
The mini-faction Dale will be represented through the hero Brand, the grandson of Bard and son of Bain. He can be recruited once you've built a militia house.
In difference to Bard, Brand will not be armed with two bows but still has a comparable characteristic. Brand will be able to switch between a bow and a sword and shield, we developed independent new animations, based on the animation set of Faramir's.
Brand's design is oriented at that of Girion in the Hobbit movies. By this we not only could use an interesting design but also had a direct template which could be put to use fast and easily:
Brand primary will be a support-hero, whose abilities are oriented in an analytical way to those of Bard. This is important because we don't want the game play system to differentiate too much between the three dwarven kingdoms. So far we've agreed on the following abilities and already want to encourage you at this point to develop further abilities here at moddb or at our forums:
Level 1: King of Dale – Brand leads the troops of Dale into the battle.
While the Bow is equipped nearby Dale Bowmen gain +25% attack, while sword and shield are equipped, Dale Melee-Units gain +25% attack.
Level 3: Switch weapon – Switch between bow and sword/shield
Level 5: Brand's falcon – Brand lets his falcon rise into the air to scout the enemy territory.
Dale-Soldiers
Finally we want to present to you the infantry of Dale. At which we also stood true to the movie design. There will be the Dale-Swordsmen, the Dale-Bowmen and the Dale-Spearmen as possibilities for recruitment.
The soldier on the outer right shows the standard bearer version of the soldiers, although Dale won't have regular standard bearers but a captain.
We are very content with the implementation and integration of Dale and are looking forward to your feedback!
Your Edain-Team
Great update; the designs are gorgeous.
second ? ;D
you're job is really great and i'm looking forward to see what does it look like ;P
I agree that the designs of everything are really gorgeous :)
But, concerning the buildings, when the map weather is snowy will they have a texture with snow, or will they be non-snowy? Same for Laketown, will the Laketown buildings get a texture with snow, too?
Yes, all buildings will have snow textures in all factions.
Great :)
Impressive city. ;o)
Awesome update Brand is looking nice and good it will be interestin to play with him,the Infatry of Dale is gorgeous in every aspcet I liked them in the Movie and I am happy to play with them in Edain too!The City is really nicely done I am excited to play it!!But I agree with Tienety that 1 Gimli looking like Gimly is enough! XD :D
Wow! Thank You, I can't wait.
does edain 4.0 has english language for the voices of units and heroes?
Some fans from Edain community provided english voices, so we hope that full English voices will too. ;o)
To me it does not matter! xDD
For more abilities:
1)"Field Archers": Brand puts 5 Dale Bowmen to guard targeted structure. The Bowmen remain permamently at the structure until it is destroyed.
They are not garrisoned. Consider it an upgrade to the structure. So it can be applied to all structures. The Dwarves of Erebor lack of good archer units and the structure defenses are not that strong. I imagine this as a level 7 ability. Plus you can put extra defenders on the Dale Marketplace.
2) "Unbent Will": Brand activates this ability. He and all nearby allies will continue to fight for a while even after their Health is depleted. It lasts 30 seconds. Until their Health is depleted they also have a 50% Damage Bonus. After their health is depleted they can't be healed.
I imagine this as a level 10 ability. Consider it a variant of Boromir's passive, but it requires a bit more effort to be played right. It is a unique ability and it hails from the books representing the final stand of Brand and his men on the gates of Erebor during the Easterling invasion. The "Field Archers" ability reminds me a quote from the second movie during the memories of Thorin the day Smaug attacked Dale.
The Falcon ability could be changed as well because Bard has it as well, but I believe that as Tolkien stated, it's a feature of the Dale folk to communicate with these animals. So let's keep this as it is. It's not unique but it is true to the books.
I hope you like these and I really hope they could be used.
Thanks for your time!
Personally, I really like these suggestions.
I'm glad to hear it. I hope and the rest of the team will take them on notice.
Not a bad idea. But just considerering it a bit more, the "Unbent Will" would be too strong as it looks. I would recommend nerfing the cooldown by at least 10s or nerfing the effect to be only for Dale units (though this would probably be a too big nerf).
NOTE: Nerfing the area of effect wouldn't do much, because you can clump units pretty easily in this game.
If you ask why, then the reason is simple... at first consider the prize of Brand (if it won't change, it's 1.300 res.) and you would give him a spell that's good even for a 4.000 res. hero. Then, if you still don't understand consider that in this game the units attack those in the front of the formation, meaning about a half of the formation affected wouldn't even be harmed at all in most situations and archers would have just a 50% attack boost and pretty solid counterattack "tactic" againts riders. On the other way, you sure could try running away - you know, dwarves - but not always you can run (like when a fight is about to break near your base/rushed camp).
NOTE2: I don't recommend putting this spell into the game, althought it looks great, it just isn't a spell for an early game hero. Also, as I heard, Edain is making heroes less usefull. This would be the opposite. The first one thought may be quite an interesting and unique one.
Thanks for reading, looking forward for more opinions.
Beautiful work.
Hold dale's arsenal:
Give heavy armor and forged blades to a troop.
The watch tower being one of the buildings of Dale I ask please please make it possible for the player to put archers inside it. Great work, anyway.
One thing I just noticed watching the video: the metalic dwarven interface with runes looks AMAZING.
Also I love how massive this sub-faction outpost is.
I have an idea for an additional building for dale (or perhaps it could be an exclusive upgrade for the watch tower): The Alarm Tower.
You guys remember the Dale watchmen sounding trumpets in a tower to alert the dwarves of Erebor from the dragon's attack in An Unexpected Journey (sorry, couldn't find a screenshot of the scene)?
Well a Dale Watch Tower upgraded to Alarm Tower, besides gaining the graphics of watchmen and trumpet horns atop it as in the film, would now be able to house an archer batallion and would gain the following power:
Alarm: Dale sounds the alarm for help. All units near the castle gain a temporary +X% speed bonus to come to the outpost's aid.
What do you guys think of this? :D
I think it's as good as useless and unnecessary. Why?
Dale got the towers to shoot arrows.
Got to boost the attack and defense of nearby units.
Got to heal them.
It's already a barracks and a citadel.
What more does it lack? it's not meant to be an impenetrable fortress :/
Hey, I just like using towers, a lot
And I like smashing them with catapults!
Man, TATW is definitely taking its tole on me :P
I hate goddamned cataputs...
I'm sorry, TATW?
Third Age Total War. It's a Tolkien universe mod for Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms. It's actually the best mod for Medieval II (kinda like Edain for RotWK) ;)
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Hello, dear developers Edain mod 4.0. Please make a version of the operating system mac os
We can't change the game engine itself, therefore we can't make a mac version.
then please advise how I can play at the Edain on macbook pro
Buy windows and play it with windows.
A macbook is not suitable for most games.
As said we can't change it, as those parts are hardcoded in the engine, which is a part of the game we have no access to. You can try to find a solution to play battle for middleearth on a mac. But probably the only possibilities are to either start windows in an emulator and play bfme (and edain) this way or you just install windows as a second system on your computer.
A friend of mine plays Windows games on Mac by setting up something like a very light Windows system (probably an emulator as you said) and it works like magic!
Seriously though, just google "how to play Windows games on Mac" and you will surely get tons on answers!
Will Gandalf still be avavailable for the dwarves? And if so where will you be able to get him?
Yes, but only through spellbook for some time (so he won't be permanent hero anymore).
I like that idea! Gives Gandalf a chance to fight with his "merry gathering," but they can't rely on him the whole game. It's like in the book where he disappears and then reappears to confuse the trolls, and when he goes to Dol Guldur!
Aah allright cool! As long as he is still available
I need to ploay this. Now.
The longer we wait, the better quality we get. ;o)
I can't wait to see 4.0
It will be during the first quarter of 2015 as you can see here:
Moddb.com
does king tranduil riding on his large deer in 4.0?
Sure! :o)
Moddb.com
Does have that structure any pasive defense system, like archer towers or something? Or it is completely vulnerable?
Of course, there is possibility: "Watch tower: Build a defensive tower that fires arrows at nearby enemies" ... so this city definitely is not vulnerable ... ;o)
oh ok i didn't read that part in the description hahaha Thanks
Hey Edain!
Great update! It really looks like the movie!
I hope the demo won't be released March 31st, that would be a bummer :-P.
One question though:
When I play Rohan in Helmsdeep, I can't find Radagast, and I have the Ring so I wanna make him my Ring hero. Is he not playable on Helmsdeep?
Thanks!
Yes, Radagast is not playable there, also in Edoras is not playable. There is Gandalf according to lore, because very often traveled to Edoras and fought in Helm's Deep). ;o)
What sort of men live in "Sea-Town"? =p
Nice buildup animations for the Minas Tirith buildings too. =D
Lake town has different units and heroes according to lore:
Moddb.com ;o)
Yeah... my joke about their Engrish went straight over the Oracle's head.
... xD
I need to play this so badly, oh man.