Beta 0.2 News - Bigger Battles and Balance changes

Beta 0.2 News

Beta 0.2 is being worked on at the moment and some big changes are in store.

Bigger Battles

I recently started a poll on the forums for the players to vote on whether or not I should increase the horde sizes for Return of Shadow.
The results were pretty close with the Bigger Hordes getting voted in and after quite a few hours work coding I'm pleased to announce.
Starting from Beta 0.2 hordes will be be bigger than ever with most hordes gaining an extra 5 units each.
The Dunland Wildmen, Hillmen and Warhounds being an exception they now have 20 units a horde.
Battles have gotten bigger than ever.
To balance out these changes some units like the Trolls and Berserkers have had their armour improved as well as Creep Lairs.
You can check out the results in the images below.

Balance Changes

As part of recent balance changes I've changed around the damage types a bit to better facilitate the new unit types Return of Shadow add.

Cavalry like the Rohirrim or Gondor Knights will no longer do CRUSH damage from their regular attacks instead they do SLASH damage.
CRUSH damage is now used for the actual crushing attacks as before but also for Hammer type attacks like the Erebor Old Guard.
Orcs and Uruks no longer do URUK type damage instead they also do SLASH damage.
URUK damage is now for miscellaneous attacks like Bites from Beasts like Wolves and Spiders.
Elite units get the largely unused FORCE damage type so they can be individually balanced, they still fit into the role they did before, they do strong damage to most unit types and decent damage to Heroes and Structures.
CHOP is now officially the Axemen damage type instead of just for labourers.
Damage types have been adjusted and fixed for many units.

A little Dunland for the road.

Dunland's second new unit for Dunland 2.0 is the Dunlending Warband.
A strong axemen type horde built from a Level 3 Wildman Hut they are strong against structures and shielded enemies.
Where the Adorn Champions are good against units these guys are a great late game against structures.
War Hounds are getting a bit more of a boost via their Hunting Dog Training faction upgrade.
Once the Faction Upgrade has been purchased they'll gain access to a "charge" skill sort of like Howl which will grant them more damage and speed.

These screenshots were from a 4 player Free for all me against 3 AI players (Me as Mordor vs Gondor vs Mordor vs Rohan) as you can see the AI is no slouch any more the Gondor AI especially were tough in this battle driving me back and almost defeating me a number of times.
Just like the Dunland AI loving the War Hounds the Gondor AI loves the Trebuchet spam making them a tough foe to deal with that backed up by their new found love for the Fountain Guards means the days of the easy Comp Stomp are numbered.