The Road to Edain 4.0: The Last Homely House
Over the holidays, we showed you the Dwarven fortress and explained our reasons for Edain's return to the fixed building system from the first Battle for Middle-Earth game. Since then, we've been hard at work and are happy to present you our second new castle today:
The Rivendell castle is based on the circular shape of the Gondor fortress, but has a number of unique features to give it a unique atmosphere.
The gatehouse is not only an impressive eye-catcher, but also very hard to conquer: You can build Bruinen wells on both sides to flood enemies who want to gain entry. The remaining walls can be upgraded with towers or side doors.
The rear walls have two covered walkways which the enemy can not climb with ladders or siege towers. This makes them a particularly safe places for archers to rain down a hail of arrows.
To compensate for these additional defenses the Rivendell castle also has its weaknesses: Because access to the walls is granted by ramps instead of stairwell towers, it only has place for seven build plots. This means that Rivendell can erect as many structures as Rohan or the Dwarves, but two less than Gondor, who need that extra space for special buildings such as the marketplace or the quarry. Furthermore, Rivendell has no equivalent to Gondor's wall trebuchets. We've long thought that the lightbringer fortress expansions seemed out of place and took this opportunity to remove them.
The central building of the Rivendell Fortress is the Council Hall. Here you can not only summon the heroes of Imladris, but you can also upgrade it with chambers for its scholars to research the secrets of blacksmithing, military strategy and mystical arts. Over time, this will grant you new options such as better upgrades, new formations and unlocked lightbringer abilities. In addition, you can send Elrond's chief counsellor, Erestor, into different buildings to oversee production and imrpove efficiency. For example, while Erestor is supervising the forge, unit upgrades will be cheaper to equip.
A new economy building for Rivendell is the scriptorium, where scholars are charged with accounting, logistics and organization to generate resources. As a special bonus you can recruit cheaper lightbringers the more scriptoriums you have. Of course you can still opt to grow food as your primary resource to get cheaper cavalry instead, the scriptorium is a new option in addition to the existing economy.
The lightbringers will no longer be summoned at the altar, but in the new Circle of Wise. This building is based on the meeting point of the White Council from the Hobbit movie. We felt it was appropriate to recruit Rivendell casters where the greatest wizards and Elven leaders of Middle-earth gathered.
Beyond the Walls
On the neutral outposts, Rivendell players can put up Dunedain camps. These provide access to cheaper swordsmen and elite archers with long range to compensate for some shortcomings of the core faction.
The Hobbits from the Inn always felt a bit out of place to us: The people of the Shire are a peaceful folk, and Rivendell could hardly call forth an army of them. After all, Hobbits love nothing more than things that grow. And therein lay the solution to incorporate them in a way that is relevant for the gameplay and true to the lore.
In addition to Rivendell's own economy structures, you'll be able to build Hobbit farms on the neutral settlement sites outside the fortress. Those do not give you any discount on Rivendell units, but instead make Dunedain available for less resources. After all, protecting the innocent halflings was one of the Dunedain's motivations for their battles as expressed by Halbarad:
If the farm comes under attack, you can briefly call a couple of shirrifs to arms to repel the invaders.
And while we're on the subject of Hobbits: The new Hobbit movie finally gave us a look at the Rivendell soldiers of the Third Age, after we previously had to use the forces of the Last Alliance. And indeed, the two designs proved to look very similar except for the color scheme. In the next version you'll command the Rivendell troops from the Hobbit, clad in silver armor and red robes.
Only when they are given heavy armor will they revert to their gold armor as we did not want to lose that iconic style element from the faction entirely.
We hope you enjoyed this preview of the Rivendell faction we're building for version 4.0. Please share your feedback in the comments and let us know which faction you'd like to know about next!
This is going to be great! I really like the new take on this mod with good old BFME base building and all. Keep it up!
I'd like to know about Angmar next, they seem the ideal evil faction to have walls, since they were known to have the heavily fortified citadel of Carn Dum. Just dropping my two cents. And I think the same of Lothlorien, they don't seem right with walls, so they should have the evil faction type of base.
I would prefer them to have rope bridges between big trees instead of walls. Ideal archer positions, but no actual obstacles for enemy hordes :3
Yes, our current plan is for Angmar to have a walled fortress :) On the flipside, Lorien will be the only good faction without solid walls. However, they will get some unique defenses of their own to compensate, since even without walls the Woodland Realm was hard to conquer. We're still working out the details though.
...Well, it's understandable your view, opinion and strategy based on some scenes of the first trilogy of sir "Peter Jackson" - that give that type of approach -, but actually "Caras Galadhon" was heavily fortified with great green walls and moats around its towers and walls... So even if you want to keep in that way, it's not based on the lore... Nevertheless your mod is superb...
...And, just to complement, it was "Celeborn" that fortified it, and being the case you pay attention to the books of "The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring", when you reach the part of which the fellowship reaches "Lothlorien", you can notice that the walls and defenses are described... You may, of course, maintain your views and approaches, but, again, it's not lore accurate...
...What is your answer?
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Angmar is interesting to see
Will the next version include English language?
And of course great update!
Read the other news, it's been announced there ;-)
I'd like to see what you've done with the Nebelberge. :D
Once again, great work, guys! This concept enhances the beauty of your previous achievements. A few questions: Is it true that you will increase the number of elves per battalion and what's going to happen to the Lindon units?
Hello, I'm Spanish. I think the voices of warriors and heroes that there should be the default. Thus, each player will listen to the heroes in the language in which you installed the game. If you create a new hero can use the default custom heroes´s voices. This is just a idea.Good work! Although I would like the free mode of construction was also allowed.
Another thing: Is there any way to create a publisher for each game translates the letters of the language you want? Vostros you build it in German and / or English, and everyone in your home that you want to translate. If there is a possibility that the program built a patch editor would be great and selfless work of a person could be used by many people by sharing that patch.
Greetings. Good job. Congrats. And sorry for my bad English.
If I'm allowed, I'll awnser him in Spanish:
Dijeron ya hace bastante que las voces no las van a cambiar, ya que fue un trabajo dificil ponerlas tal y como estan en Aleman y revertir el cambio seria complicado ahora mismo. Lo ha preguntado mucha gente antes y les han dicho igualmente que no. Espero que esto responda a tu pregunta.
will it be fully AI compatible?
can't wait !
It will be fully AI compatible.
@ nmiguelchaino:
Those sounds would be boring and then 90% of the heros would have the same voices. Therefore we gave every hero a unique voice, if possible the voice which is used in the lotr/hobbit movies.
Hopefully english voices too?
No
In the english translated version, the voices must be english, as in the movies! Dont tell me there are german voices? This mod is to good to be just in german :(, no offense tho!
The voices will be in german, it would be too much work to translate them also.
Oh no! This makes me cry. Such a great mod and its in german voices only. Why didnt you all make it in english from the start? Was the movies dubbed to german in Germany like most other stuff is there? Most people dont understand it, sucha shame since everyone (almost) knows english. Hell, I couldnt even graduate high school if I didnt pass on english. Sadly this is a gamebreaker for me so i will have to pass on the mod :(
Anyways, i just wanted to express my feelings. Thanks for all your awesome work and i hope every fan have a great time with this! :)
We made it in german, as we are all german and all movies are translated into german. :P
And as at the beginning 100% of our community was german we just stayed german for a long time.
Of course we all can speak english without problems, but as we are a german mod we all speak german and made our work in our native tongue.
But hey... I have played spanish mods and wasn't able to understand a word, but I still played the mods and they were quite cool.:D
Okey mate! Im from Sweden and i would never stand to play BFME in swedish, cant even imagine if it were swedish voices, omg that would s*ck so hard. Haha! But each to his own i guess. :)
Anyways, thanks for your polite answers and great work with the mod. Take care and good luck!
Yeah, I've heard something like that from sweden - but german translations are really good in 90% of the cases. I play most of my games in english, but german translations are normally one of the best translations in the world. :)
you guys are awesome. I've stopped playing bfme2 because i started hating this damn free-build system. You'll finally allow me to play bfme2 again.. bfme1 gets old over time ;)
I really like those new fortresses, can't wait to play 4.0! Keep up the good work!
ErmagawdermagawdERMAFUKENGAWD!!!! I love you all Edain mod makers ~<3 let me give you many man children as tribute to your godlynessess...ess? But seriously kick *** job! I do have questions. 1) I saw that you had at one point incorporated Gamesworkshops ideas for seperate nazgul (the dark Marshall, khamul) "armor" are their plans to expand on this? And will they have seperate abilities? Also I'm the guy who has hundreds of goblins out of range so beasts summoned by powers date my need for violence...will there be more added? No need for specifics if you wish ;)
I just want to check in and also say that i love this work. It will be so amazing to play! A noob question perhaps but; If me and a friend have the same game version and Edain 4.0 installed, will we be able to use LAN and play against one another? And also, the campaign will work in single player right? I hope someone might be able to answer :)
Thanks alot guys! This is really the best mod i've ever seen for LOTR games!
Yes and yes.^^
The more I read news and comments, the more I convince myself Edain 4.0 is how BFME2 should have been. Anyway, I'd like to make a suggestion and a question.
The suggestion is: as already requested, why don't you make some building sites (like the fortress's ones) around the support and resource plots? Maybe not six (they would be too many), but 1 or 2 should be fine ;) (maybe allowing towers only as a defensive structure)
On the contrary, the question is: it's been a while since I played War of the Ring for the last time, but then I remembered it was unplayable due to some bugs and issues. The question is: will it be improved? Or should we wait for another version to see an improvement?
Anyway, keep it up your work! :D
Hi, I am really glad that you created such a wonderful mod like Edain. It is my favourite mod for BFME series of all time. I was and i am still excited, when i saw, that camps from BFME are back. It is something, what I have missed during my playing time of BFME 2. This mod has so much potential and i hope, it never dies until the final realese, like another mod RJROTWK, which never fullfilled this potential. I have few suggestions and questions and i will be glad if you answer me.
1. After all factions are finished, will you add more campaings like a dwarven one? I really liked the idea of RJ´s mod, he tried to add BFME 1+2 campaign missions together and I think something like this could help this great mod.
2. Will create a hero ever be playable? it is not neccesarity, but it was fun to create own hero.
3. Idea of giving the One ring to heroes is nice, but in skirmish, enemy units just staying and fighting, they cannot give Ring to their heroes, is possible to do it more playable, or create another idea of using ringheroes?
thx a lot, very well done, u have my full support. Tom
1.
We will, if we have time, add new missions, but I can't promise anything.
2.
No, we had to deactivate this, because the engine of Bfme sucks. :P the game had huge performance problems and crashed all the time with the CaH and all our new content. The new content was just too much. So we deleted the CaH - and everything worked fine again.
3.
What do you mean?
You can give the ring to your heros all the time, even while fighting.
There are no changes planned, as everything works perfect for us?
@ dr. house:
We won't do this, because (as I've said) it would cause bugs. You can build in your fortress, captured fortresses or in camps.
But not in the middle of the land scape.
The wotr works fine 90% of the time in the current version. There are a few bugs. (sauron with ring causes crashes), but mostly it works without problems.
I think that AI dont use ringheroes, enemy unit just grab the ring and playing with it (attacking me, running, but not using ringhero)
Not fixable.
Thanks for the answer!
What about instead the buildings? I mean, I read that walls, gates and defensive structures won't be able to be attacked by units, but is this valid also for the other structures? (for example the barracks, the siege works and even the fortress)
Maybe you could make that just some buildings (for example, the wooden ones) can be attacked by some units (for example swordsmen and axemen), while the others must be attacked only with siege equipment, fire or supernatural creatures/powers. I think this would add a lot of realism (since essentially it's stupid to see a horde of Goblins taking down the fortress of Mordor, which is in IRON xD)
The gameplay would suffer very uch with this change, therefore we won't change this. Of course it would be realistic... bu the gameplay would be horrible, believe me. It just doesn't fit to the game.
"The wotr works fine 90% of the time in the current version. There are a few bugs. (sauron with ring causes crashes), but mostly it works without problems. "
-Will this be fixed in the upcoming version? I am a huge WOTR fan, and me and my friends play it all the time. Cant imagine not playing it with the most amazing mod ever (Edain) :)
Any ideas when the v4 will come ?
I've been thinking, what if resource buildings are free to build by builders? People will then stop whining and it makes a lot of sense
this looks great, i appreciate th work you are doing, but have a few things to say.
the elves of the third age have silver armor, yes, but dark blue cloaks, and ive seen the movie a lot of times already. I would also like a special mode in which all of your troops are already at full armor, because i want to recreate the battle of minas tirith but the gondor soldiers start without shoulder pads! at least make them so the model remains the same or something, so that we dun have to keep upgrading every unit. I would LOVE to see special recreation battles maps in which all the troops are already built, and the upgrades established already, so that you dun need to build stuff and try to lure the enemy to recreate a famous battle eg: last alliance, you start with the troops that you would otherwise summon, and mordor starts with sauron, battle of moria, battle of amon hen where you start with the fellowship, battle of the hobbit dwarves vs orcs.....etc
Just throwing ideas out there, seeing as your goal is to make us feel like in the movies.
When will the next update be?
can't wait
Nobody knows.;)
As both a LotR fan and a videogamer, Edain Mod is one of the greatest things ever. You guys are awesome for taking the time to do this, my sincerest thanks!
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Our mod takes place during the war of the ring. Thror and Thrain lived hundreds of years before that. Therefore we won't add them, but they are playable in our campaign. (which, by the way, will be fixed for 4.0^^)
The great orc is already ingame. He's called 'Großork'.
hello, i have just one question, how will heroes like Aragorn who were only recrutable in tavern gonna work?
(sorry i don't know if my phrase is correct)
This will be changed individually. Every hero will get a new place.
This is really exciting news! I look forward to the release. Just out of curiosity, are you planning on giving the Evil factions the population advantage they had in the first game? One of the primary methods of defending an unwalled base was through sheer numbers, and I was wondering if that will still be the case now. I know at least unit wise from my experience the 2nd game was a bit more balanced, but walls were still such a staggering advantage in the first title.
Bfme I was MUCH better balanced than Bfme II.^^
In Bfme I every faction had the same chances to win and there were even tournaments where you was able to pick a faction. In Bfme II this would be unthinkable, as the balance is much worse. :P (I played both games quite often online)