v2.0-v3.0 Released! news

It has been more than 3 years since 2.08c, but now finally 3.0 has been released. WIth 16 custom settlements, half a dozen historical battles, many new units and tons of gameplay changes we release the final version of Lord of the Rings - Total War.

LATEST CHANGES
- New custom cities: including generic settlements, walls specific for each culture, models of buildings for each different city level, and unique models for 16 of the best known cities.

- New battlemap enviroments: including terrain generator, ground textures, trees, grass, light conditions.
Based on RS2 impressive work, but adjusted to LOTRTW with new unique climates and terrains.

- New units: including Ents, retextured uruks and haradrims, enhanced projectile models, and more than 10 additional units.

- Improved campaign map: terrain textures, regional borders, new climatic map, relocation of cities and obstacles to enhance AI behavior, and added some new regions.

- Rebalanced campaign: readjusted the effect of most buildings, the population growth and trade system, the recruitment trees, and the areas to recruit special units.

- Rebalanced unit stats for Multiplayer games, after all these years testing them in online battles.
Readjusted also the results of autoresolve battles in campaign.

- Fixed several bugs from previous versions.

1) You need LOTR-TW Open Beta v2.0 already installed (Mod for Alexander TW, expansion of Rome TW).

2) Install "LOTRTW_v2.0b_OB" in the main RTW folder where RomeTW-ALX.exe is placed.
You do not need to follow the other instructions included in this 2.0 version (shortcut, video intro, etc), the patch 3.0 will do it automatically.

3) Install this patch "LOTRTW_PATCH_v2.0_to_v3.0.exe" in the same folder where RomeTW-ALX.exe is placed.
It will copy one file into main Data folder, but it will not overwrite any original file.

4) A shortcut with the name "Lord of The Rings - Total War" will be created in your Desktop, to launch the mod.
You may also use the file "lotr-tw launcher.bat" placed in the main RTW folder. Or to create your own shortcut.

1) LAUNCHING THE SCRIPTS

The campaign of lotr-tw 3.0 uses a script file that is automatically executed when the campaign starts and it runs all the time in the background. To play the campaign properly, the script should be relaunched every time you load a savegame, just by clicking the advisor portrait when it pop ups.

To launch the script:
- If you started the campaign (not from a saved game), then it's automatically loaded up.
- If you just loaded a savegame:
CLICK ANY BUTTON or select anyone of your settlement or officer, and then CLICK ON THE ADVISOR WHEN IT POPS UP.

If you want to start a new campaign, better exit the game first, because the scripts of the old campaign could prevent the scripts of the new one from being launched. Also, try to choose the lower ADVICE LEVEL (NO ADVICES) when you start a new campaign because the game's advices could mask some script messages.

To verify that scripts are working properly, you can check there is no winter season. If you see snowy terrain every 2 turns, then the scripts are not active. Try reloading the savegame again and this time click the advisor when it appears.
If you have played some turns with scripts inactive, there should not be mayor problems, but you would have alter the gameplay balance, and some scripts could not work properly when you reactivate them.

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2) SPECIAL VnVs

Some traits introduce in the game new rules that you should know to play properly:

-WOUNDS: When your general is wounded, you should send him to a settlement and keep him there until the wounds are healed. If the injured character moves or stays out of a city there is a chance that the wounds get worse (so he lose command and hit points). If the wounds reach the 3th level (seriously injured), he has a chance to gain the permanent trait "scarred" that reduces his influence progressively until the wounds are healed.
Wounds are better healed in big cities (core building>= imperial palace), and better if the city has healing houses.
The reason of this rule is mainly that you don't use always the same character for all battles.

There is an special wound produced when you fight against a Nazgul. Dark wounds are harder to heal, and they can completely remove all the movement points of the character if he doesn't reach a settlement soon.

-CORRUPTION: The other important rule introduced by traits is the burden points:
When your character carry items which sum more than 25 burden points, he has a chance to gain a demoralized trait. The chance is higher if the burden points are more than 50 or 100.
To counter this trait, the character must rest in a happy settlement or to reduce his burden points under 0.
This rule tries to avoid that players give all the ancillaries to the same character.

The One Ring also causes a special corruption trait that has no going back. If the corruption of the Ring bearer reaches level 3 (Entranced by the Ring), all the other factions start declaring war on you (except if the Ring bearer is a hobbit).

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3) UNIT BALANCE

In lotr-tw, each unit type has his own characteristics, and sometimes they are hidden, I'll try to list the hidden parameters here so people can evaluate them properly:

Spearmen:
- They use to have more mass or closer formations to stand better against charges.
- 2 handed spearmen get the "spear" attribute: a big bonus to defense against cavalry and similar penalty against other infantry.
- Spearmen with shield get only bonus to attack against cavalry. They are vulnerable to cavalry charges, but they do not get penalties against other infantry.
Kill ratio ~ 0.6

2 Handed
- They do not have "armour piercing", but 2 handed animations are fastest than anyone else, so they kill quicker than other units, even if his attack is lower.
- They use to have higher charge and mass values than standard swordsmen, and at the same time looser formations.
Kill ratio ~ 0.8

Infantry
- They use to have the better balance between attack, defence/shield and killing speed
- Swordsmen: Kill ratio ~ 0.7
- Daggermen: Kill ratio ~ 0.6

Cavalry
- Heavier cavalry has more mass and charge, but lower speed.
Heavy or medium cavalry can not catch scouts or mounted archers. You need light cavalry (like Wargs) to eliminate them.
- The mass is not enough to break close formations, so do not try to charge frontally. They are better used to surround the enemy, and to attack missile units, taking advantage of his speed.
- Rohan cavalry is the only one with wedge formation, that can be used to attack the 2nd line of a formation, causing huge damage to the 1st line when they charge through them.

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4) DIFFICULTY LEVELS

We have tried to balance the mod so it is well balanced for any difficulty level, though I would like to explain the main differences:

CAMPAIGN: I like to play VH/VH, but most of the testing for the mod was made at M/M.
It seems the main effect of higher levels is to make AI more aggresive against the human player at VH, but I think the probability of allies attacking you is similar in all levels.

BATTLE: It seems the effect of battle difficulty is just a bonus to attack: +4 at hard and +8 at very hard.
In battle, I suggest MEDIUM if this is your first campaign, because the mod already gives some bonuses to all AI units (+2 to experience).

An useful tip to choose difficulty level is to start a custom battle, 12.000 gold, flat land, choosing the same faction you are going to play in campaign, with a balanced army.
Then choose a 12.000 gold balanced army of unexperienced units for the Computer, and then rise the experience level of all AI units to +2 (2 chevron, no matter the final cost of the army).
Play some battles in Medium, High and Very high (or Easy) until you see the forces are even.

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5) BLIND ALLIANCES

The Blind Alliances SCRIPT forces every good faction to become allied, in case the AI broke those alliances, at the end of every turn. For example if the Dale AI attacks the Dwarven Clans, they may win a few field battles, and even siege one of the Dwarven cities, BUT they can only do that on the turn they declared the war, because when the turn passes PEACE will be restored between the two factions. The script is good for immersion and realism since no one wants to see such wars.

To Activate the Script:
-Open file "/alexander/lotrtw/data/scripts/show_me/background_script.txt.
-Modify line "set_counter blindalliances 0" to "set_counter blindalliances 1"

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6) PREFERENCES.TXT

Not exactly "gameplay" per say, but usefull nonetheless.

For Immersion i personally prefer to play without banners, arrow markers and with minimal UI. And since 3.0 the Background Menu video was deactivated, you can activate it in the Preferences.txt as well. To activate them:

-Open file "/alexander/lotrtw/preferences/Preferences.txt
Change lines:
"SHOW_BANNERS:TRUE" to "SHOW_BANNERS:FALSE"
"MINIMAL_UI:FALSE" to "MINIMAL_UI:TRUE"
"DISABLE_BACKGROUND_FMV:TRUE" to "DISABLE_BACKGROUND_FMV:FALSE"

(Arrow markers are disable as default as of 3.0, so no need to change)
-Save your changes and play the game.

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7) HOTSEAT MOD

The Hotseat mod allows several factions being played at the same campaign, beware that this is NOT multiplayer per say, all players are going to have to be on the same computer OR trade the save files through EMAILS to play the game. There is also a bug, at every turn your cities will start as AI-managed, so you gotta bring it back every time.

-Open file "alexander/lotrtw/data/scripts/show_me/background_script.txt"
Change "set_counter hotseatmod 0" to

"set_counter hotseatmod 1" for Isengard-Dunland
"set_counter hotseatmod 2" for Mordor-Easterlings-Haradrim
"set_counter hotseatmod 3" for Gondor-Rohan
"set_counter hotseatmod 4" for Dwarves-Dale
"set_counter hotseatmod 5" for Noldor-Galadhrim-Silvan

1) Please use this thread to make any reports on crashes you had and bugs you found!

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Current list of known Crash To Desktop (CTD) causes, and suggested solution:

1) CTD at the start of a new campaign, just when the campaign map appears. Caused by a corrupted "advice" file.
It is fixed by removing these two files:
...\alexander\lotrtw\data\world\maps\campaign\Alexander\map.rwm
...\alexander\lotrtw\preferences\advice
(don't worry, the game will generate a new one)

2) Trolls may cause a CTD at the start of a night battle.
If there are units of those trolls in the battle preview, do not try a night attack.

3) CTDs during battles use to be related to sound settings.
Set sounds in options to Miles 2D Audio, and problem should be fixed.

4) CTDs just after a battle (while loading the campaign map again) use to be caused by wrong video resolution settings.
If you delete the preferences file, the game will create a new one based on your computer specs:
...\alexander\lotrtw\preferences\preferences.txt

THANKS TO

- Wlesmana for this awesome Mod and most of the hard work, and Cyen for the forum support.
- Seth Krnell for the custom cities, the buildings, and all the research to make them possible.
- Bardo for putting it all together, and for keep releasing patches.
- Tranky for the help with testing and balancing, and the management of the spanish translation and the forums.
- Falcons1988 for the new sounds and music.
- mac89, messenger, crayon, hellenes, rumil, Lupus, Baza, Raphael, and Rhythalion, for being part of the team.

- Roma Surrectum 2 team for the new battlemap environments:
Tone: trees, vegetation, grass, ground textures, terrain generator, and campaign map textures.
dvk901: water improvements, rivers, and a few textures here and there.
- TheLordz and NTW2 team for the skies, and some ground textures.
- METW team for the campaign map, and Metal Storm for his professional improvements.
- Aradan, Dol Guldur, Eorl and rest of FATW team for all their researches and tutorials, and for sharing with us the spreadsheet to calculate his unit costs, the base of our unit balancing system.
- Darth_Vader and Sinuhet for the AI formations.
- Echolyn for the great intro video, and the setup of the Last Alliance historical battle.

- Mods like Europa Barbarorum, DarthMod, SPQR, Roma Surrectum, Rome Total Realism, Iberia TW, ChivTW, Napoleonic Total War 2, ... for inspiration
- Modders of all time like Vercingetorix, Myrddraal, Epistolary Richard, Lord Adherbal's, SigniferOne, Simetrical, The_Mark, Makanyane, Red Spot's, khelvan, Thor the Bassist, Monkwarrior, Athenogoras...

- People at multiplayer for many enjoyable games, in special to Curro, Adrix, Mataputas, and TheWitchKing.
- Collaborators: Wulfburk, Hopit, Nelduin.
- Betatesters: paradamed, Metallistic, zedestroyer, Vicious the Conqueror, Freelancer Tex, godofruin, Prdo, Maverick, Codename_V, SHaDoWxCrUsAd3r, Blacktemplar221, niko21, Miszel, CapnDan, Primo, Smasher 282, Clagius, masterslay, drdans41, Johnny12, cc7734, anchoret, Falconwatch, Xerdun, Arrow2daknee, Predator1994...

And specially helpfull for every release:
- HouseOfHam - EDB validator, and his important discoveries on scripting
- RedFox - Zeus the Omnipotent EDB, DMB, DS Validator
- Squid - ATVTW - Trait/Ancillary Validator, descr_geography.db Editor
- MrHide - Trivium independant Map Editor (TiME)

All the people at twcenter.net, totalwar.org forums. And of course, people who still keep coming to www.lotr-tw.net

WHAT'S NEXT?

So now what is next? I'll just quote Bardo's post on Total War Center today:

"I'm glad to see it finally released. After all these years i'm starting to feel a bit tired, and i'm afraid the latest months i have not enjoyed much the modding work. I'll be around and i'll try to keep supporting the mod, but i do not think i will handle a new release again. Next one will be fore someone else... I'm glad to see players still interested in a mod for such old game, and i hope this v3.0 can be the final version this mod deserved."

Nevertheless, i (Wulfburk) will continue monitoring the ModDB page and providing assistance to anyone who needs, and dont forget to check out the main forum, which is quite active. I as a fan of this mod since it started cannot say how happy i am that it is done! So thank you Wlesmana, Bardo and Seth Krn3ll for making this wonderfull mod!