Fellow Fourth Age gamers,
allow me a couple of introducing words. I have been playing FA scenarios in Germany for quite a while but the player community at home is shrinking more and more and challenging oposing teams are now hard to find. So I started talking to my FA grudge team mates about a new scenario and the idea to play it on the international stage. As nobody of us is actually speaking Chinese or Swedish but we are all capable of basic English we would like to play against you guys from the Anglo Saxon world.
So to all you Fourth Age middleearth gamers out there I would be most grateful for any comments, ideas for improvement or just players telling me that they are interested in playing this game. This is the scenario description:
3 ALLIANCE SCENARIO by Nabongote
Three alliances will strive to achieve victory either by fulfilling all of the specific or the universal victory conditions (see below). No Nation may change its allegiance. Contact between the opposing alliances is undesired because of the game balance. The new standard Fourth Age rules will be used with the following modifications. Turn frequency should be three (3) weeks .
The Neutral alliance -seven Nations plus the neutral Northern Kingdom- will be located in the lands west of the Misty Mountains and all the way from the northern edge of the map over the White Mountains down to the shores of Anfalas.
The Free People -seven Nations plus the free Southern Kingdom- will be located in parts of Mordor all the way down to the eastern and southern edge of the map over to the Anduin valley and further west including parts of Gondor up to the entrance into the Rohan Gap.
The Dark Servants, -9 Nations one more as the other alliances in order to compensate for the lack of a dark Kingdom- will be located in the territory beginning at the Misty Mountains and the entrance to the Rohan Gap then reaching east including Mirkwood over to the eastern map edge and down to the valley of Gargoroth in Mordor.
You can see further geographical details on the attached map (3 alliances map2.jpg).
All alliances will face extensive fog of war. No map of the turn result sheets will display any territory of another alliance at game start. You may still move your map throughout the turns of the game in reference with the Fourth Age rules.
SPECIFIC VICTORY CONDITIONS
Victory can be achieved by fulfilling all the victory conditions described in the sections population centres, artefacts and non player characters.
- Population centres (PC)
1.1 One alliance needs to control -for two turns in a row- the PCs in 2220, 2518 and 2621 which have to be at least of town size and have to be fortified with a tower. Which Nation has originally built the PCs is of no importance.
1.2 During these two turns no enemy army must be present in one of the PC’s or in the respective six (6) surrounding hexes of each of these PC’s. To negate this victory condition a present enemy army has to be at least so strong that it can seize the town and should have a minimum of ten (10) war machines in its baggage train. - Artefacts
2.1 Each alliance has to recover two artefacts which are hidden in one PC of each opposing alliance. The PC where the artefacts are hidden have to be at least of village size.
2.2 The two artefacts will be randomly selected during the automated game setup process.
2.3 These specific artefacts may not be retrieved by one of the opposing alliances. - Non Player Characters
3.1 Each alliance has to kill (210 o 615) one specific Non Player Character (NPC) with a challenge rank of at least a 100 points. - Universal victory condition
If both opposing alliances are eliminated the remaining alliance wins.
GENERAL SETTINGS - Population centre setup
No PC may be build directly on the border between the different alliances.Each capital must end up at least four (4) hexes from any other nation’s capital.
All population centres belonging to a nation must be no more than three hexes away from the capital.
All population centres have to be at least six (6) hexes away from the North and South Kingdom’s capitals (#1108 and #2924).
The standard regional restrictions for PC setup do not apply but all PCs have to be setup within the own alliances territory.
No PCs may be build at game start in the following hexes because they are either Kingdom owned or otherwise restricted: 1108 1407 1409 1609 2119 2121 2212 2227 2438 2527 2715 2924 2927 3024 3124 3221 3222 3423.
After the automated setup the Neutral players will be allowed to request the relocation of a limited number (tbd with middleearth games) of PCs to mountain hexes. - Kingdoms
The player of the SK (Dark Servants) might feel uncomfortable having the standard SK capital position so close to the alliance borders and especially so close to one of the major combat zones of the game (the three population centres mentioned in the victory conditions).
Therefore the SK player may request a manual relocation of his capital by the game master after the automatic setup free of cost and free of any loyalty penalties.
The new location of the SK capital - a Major town, fortified with a keep will
be made public to all players.
The SK PCs in 2715 3221 and 3423 have to be relocated as well after the automatic setup because they are located either on the border, within enemy alliance’s territory or in a restricted hex. - Relations between Alliances and Nations
As the Neutrals may not downgrade their relations toward the opposing alliances below disliked this limitation will also apply for the Free People and the Dark Servants. It will of course be possible to upgrade relations with the Nations of the same Alliance up to friendly. - Allegiance limitations
All neutral nations must be men but may use the character skill bonuses of any race they choose during setup. - Artefacts
The allegiance of all artefacts will be manually set to Neutral. As a consequence each alliance is able to use each artefact thus avoiding a disadvantage for the Neutral alliance. - SNA 31 (kidnap/assassinate +20)
This SNA may not be selected by any Nation.