The Road to Edain 4.0: Queer Lodgings news

The Road to Edain 4.0: Queer Lodgings

Greetings, companions of Edain!

The work on the Demo is going forward and we are getting closer to our goal. At the moment, we are in a phase of testing and adjusting different elements in detail, concering our faction balance. We are actively working on the new version, even if we aren't presenting that much updates and anouncements. Moreover, we are examining and correcting bugs, as well as implementing smaller concepts, which improve the gameplay. As before, we won't show you every change and concept, because there shall be things left to find out and get surprised yourself ingame, when playing the new version for the first time.

Nonetheless, we want to present you another update today, which might not have as much content as earlier updates, but still shows some innovations.

"Hobbit" wrote: "Soon they reached a courtyard, three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings. In the middle there was lying a great oak-trunk with many lopped branches beside it. Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard and hair, and great bare arms and legs with knotted muscles."

After intense feedback of our Beta-testers, we decided to add a third settlement building, besides the Ent-Thing and the Mallorn-Tree, for Lorien: The Beorninger-Hut.

This building shall add alternatives to Lorien's gameplay and offers the possibility of a better expansion. Throughout there has always been the same style and tactic for playing Lorien, the hut grants acess to new units, expanding Lorien's gameplay. When creating the hut, we paid attention that it is worth building this building for the player, due to the fact he has to decide against additional resources or siege weapons. Therefore, we developed a concept that we will explain further in the following text.
First of all, here you can get an impression of the design of the Beorninger-Hut, which was inspired by the design seen in the Hobbit movies. We really liked it and it fits perfectly to the environment:

Beorninger-Hut Level 1:

Beorninger-Hut Level 2:

Beorninger-Hut Level 3:

The Beorninger at the entrance is animated and is based on the scene in the EE of the Desolation of Smaug. At level 2, the second building complex will be shown and at level 3 the hedge, which we could see in the movie as well as some trees.

The Beorninger-Hut will have both the function of a resource building as well as the function of a troop building, but never at the same time. The building has two different functions, the first is for training units. So, the player can train Beorn (the current Grimbeorn with another name) and the Beorninger.

The second function is the production of resources through Harvest honey: For 2 Minutes the honey from the beehives is harvested, through which the Beorninger hut generates resources. For this timespan no Beorningers may be trained. Honey can't be harvested while Beorningers are in the training-phase.
This will be visible through a horde of bees flying around the hut. As lang as the hut produces resources, it is impossible to train Beorninger. When the time is finished, units are trainable again. But the other way round, it is the same: If there are units in the training-phase, then it is impossible to harvest honey. We are aware that this system needs much micro-management of the player, to use this building in the best way, but this is exactly our intention. Therefore it is neither a real resource building nor a real unit building.

Beorn will be available permanently in the Beorninger hut, improving Lorien with a strong melee hero. Neither his ability or his design got any changes, because we think that the abilities are quite fitting and we don't like the design of the Hobbit movies.
Due to the removement of the Beorninger in the spellbook to the settlement, there is space for a new ability. This spell will be just a quite simple spell, but still having really much feeling:
Guards of Mirkwood: Summon and temporarily command 2 troops of Border Guards of Mirkwood
This spell summons those units from Tauriel's guards, which we have already shown in an previous Update. These units are of course not the elkriders, but the archers.
The Guars of Mirkwood have a passibe ability, allowing them to become stealthed near trees.

We really like this implementation of the Beorninger and Mirkwood Guards, and we are looking forward to your feedback! Of course, Lorien won't be in the Demo 4.0, which does not mean that completly forget this faction.

Your Edain-Team