From the Third Age rulebook under the Fortifications section:
“Armies that are defending their own Population Centres will also receive a bonus to their combat defence based upon the level of fortifications.”
Of course, it doesn’t say exactly what that bonus is, but thats just another thing to be determined “during the course of play.”
I don’t think its much – mainly because of the way the game is set up – where armies fight first and then the army tries and takes the pop – so makes it sound as if they army went out and fought the other army and defeated it and then has to attack the pop – so probably only gets a boost to morale or something like that !!
I’ve always thought that armies of a certain size could “hide” inside their own fortifications and not be forced to fight a superior enemy army, much like navies aren’t forced to fight land armies in the same hex…
When I do a nationsell or nationtransport then I wish to have the option to could exclude some PCs from the order
The lack of use of several troops bother me most.
Reducing to 3 troops only would be a nice solution as it make the game less intimidating for the newbies, but I would rather prefer to improve the use of less desirable troops. Here is some simple ideas.
LC being recruted with only mounts (no leather!). Building a fast army with only one NatTran (or CstCjSp) will make LC more desirable.
The bonus and penalities from Terrain/troop and Nation/Terrain should matter a lot. A sinda elf archer army in a forest (stacking 2 bonus) should defeat a HI WK army in the same terrain (stacking 2 penalities). And make this modifiers affect also the army constitution.
Make a general revision in basic troop combat values. A 6/2 Str/Con troop is terrible, but an 12/4 archer would be interesting. How about a new pickman troop with 4/12? The light troops dont need to have exatally half str/con/maintenance of their heavy conterparts. How about keep the half maintence but make the str/con diference between troops smaller?
Why fixed weapon/armor ranks to Archer and Men-at-war? One more exception to an already complicated rule. Str/Con already represent this. Allow those fragile archers to put some armor (just to keep simple, not really fixing anything, in fact this will make this troops even worst if not combined with other sugestions)
Men-at-arms could be recruted in any friendly populational center.
Regards,
Lúcio
Automatic relation changes:
If a nation attacks you then following that attack your relations towards that nation are automatically downgraded by one step.
Jon
Team status page:
A page accessible from the ME website that shows which of your teammates have submitted orders for the coming turn so you know who to chase 
Jon
Oh, that’s good Jon…yes, and if we have a team web site with mapping and order creation features, ala 24hr turnaround, but for regular game, we’d have that now, wouldn’t we…? Some kind of fantasy Java based app that has a map, does orders, and tracks stats and such, log in via account number and secure password, then links to your games…hmmm, gee I wish for that too…
Brad the Snarky
I sort of assumed that’s the reason that JOverseer was written in Java…
Jon
Troop Types
What stats would you like for them assuming no other changes were made. For reference they are:
HC 16/16
LC 8/8
HI 10/10
LI 5/5
Ar 6/2
Ma 2/2
Thanks
Clint
Clint,
I’m very leary of making a singular change such as you suggest. Look at what bunches of folks have commented on this thread: it’s a system. if it’s going to be changed, let’s change the whole such that it’s a better system (with a bunch of what-if testing). just changing str or con of a troop type isn’t going to get you there. IMO.
Dave
One thing I’d like to see Kidnap changed so that there is a reasonable chance that Hostages get free each turn even if they have no agent skill. Holding half a nations Chars. = no fun for that player who is paying money NOT TO PLAY. If it’s an issue of game balance (which i dont think it would be) then I like the suggestion to make kidnap easier to do on none army commanders and easier to get away…at least give some turn around. I have seen 50 point agents sit held 20 turns and we all know if you don’t have agent skill you have no hope of getting away. Its silly to assume that a mage could not use magic to escape, a strong commander can’t over power his guards or that an emy could not talk his way out. The system is broke, FIX it.
JL
I completely disaggree that anything is broke… Those characters being held hostage can be rescue… Scry character works… Often the agents holding them never transfer them…
As for preventing or making agents orders harder… Look to increase the moral of your armies and pc’s… If you love to hire new armies instead of spliting and getting the 30 moral at the start your asking to be victimized. If you let your High moral armies Die instead of sending fresh troops to increase the effectiveness of new green troops… The larger the number of troops with higher levels of Moral protect the characters within the army…
Don’t blame the system to adapt for guard orders not working. Troops not protecting your characters and pc not preventing agents orders… Low loyalty and army morals means your Guards are showing your Leaders to the enemy becuase your not taking care of them!
Whose army are you accusing of having low morals?
yours of course raping the horses you capture istnead of the lady’s! :eek:
Disagree if you like, but as a rule good game systems should not remove players from play in that kind of way. This is another area where ME shows it age. Since your Charaters are your orders for your whole nation removing them is removing you from play, I’ve played in games where by turn 20 my North Gondor has all his chars. held hostage other then 3, my nation was doing well, lots of PC held and DS ones burned in Mordor and we went on to win the game but to play for 6 orders is silly and it was painful and it was not fun. As I stated before I’m playing money each turn to not play, my nation is having to pay upkeep for chars i cant use and is this becasue of poor play on my part, no its case i played well and the CL targeted me over and over. Now I’ve played the Cloud Lord many times and done this to the other team to win however I felt bad about it. Games about having fun, making somone sit on the bench is not fun its not even playing thats what this fuction dose. Now with all that in mind I’m not even knocking the kidnap order, i’m knocking the fact that you CANT escape vs. a player that knows that he is doing. Thats the part I feel is broken.
Talk all you like about rescued chars, that might work against a green team, but it is not really a workable answer as any agent holding them, they can move 12 hex’s a turn and normaly do so, guessing where your hostages are is not an easy task even if you had the agents to try and do this.
I dont think the escape fuction of the game is working the way it should or the way it was ment to work. Just like ONB was not working and it was a broken part of the game and later outlawed by Clint. The fact that Chars NEVER escape on their own, once they are held by higher point agents is next to fact. I dont think a 0% chance of escape was how it was “ment” to be. So as my “wish” i’d like to see this number rasied. I’d like to hope when I open my NG turn that maybe just maybe one of my Regents or Generals could have the CHANCE to get away…
JL
Well first off… A good game in you view is where if 10 other players play well as a team and targets your nation this should not be allowed? Your example of NG is very poor becuase this is always the case with NG!
Next you question my opposition… Well I sure anyone who has played in One week 1650 games over last 2 years would say the skill level is so high there now even Clint recommends expiernced players only…
Now Game 51 of that game… Would you believe the FP took and Held a City in the Interior of Mordor! While doing so thwarted the agents and emmy’s attempts to retake it… It also proved in that Game that gaurd orders can capture and Kill enemy agents even when the assasins had stealth and agent artifact support!
This game went 30+ turns! The players who regularly play in one week games would very much be offended calling thier efforts as by green players!
Also neither would the Core of Aussie team in the grudge game I was in who agents was injured by my 40 com leading the army where DS agent was injured call themselves green either… These was all very good players!
Now does these counter tactics with guard orders work 100% no! But that is how it should be! But High Morale armys (Brad I spelled it right this time) and High PC loyalties help and I have seen the PDF’s and My opponents have seen thier agents injured killed or doubled to the point where they expect at least my nation to not send scrub agents and expect thier orders to work easily!
It’s up to you… You can complain how the game is unfair or try to do something different than in the past that didn’t work… Becuase agent gaurd orders work as written, But no 30 agent is gonna injure or kill a 60+ adjusted agent on ANY guard order they are likely to just be killed themselves!
I still dont see any points your making here…This bord was for what people would “like to see changed” about the game. The stuff you are talking about this team or that team seems to not even deal with the points I brought up. I’m not talking about guards, I’m not talking about 1 week games, I’m not talking about high morale armies…please reread my post if you like to talk about it…
I’ve played MANY games here, I know how things work, I know how it is. My point is it could be better. I could go on and on about yes there are ways to stop kidnaps, its a team game ect. that dose not change the fact that it could be done better and make the game more fun. This game is to be fun for the players that play it. Its elements like this that remove the fun factor of this game its an over abuse of the system just like ONB was. I think that just giving every kidnapped char. a flat 10% chance to escape each turn would give a nation that has many a reason to want to open his turn…think about it.
JL
John,
Terry has a point. If you play NG as all comm, expect to lose chars to K/A. If you augment comms with guards and work it in such a way that you protect your comms (Terry mentions army morale, fortification level and pop center loyalty; i’ll mention agent rank of guarding agent (duh!)), then you can mitigate the problem. There are risks. Let’s take the example of moving onto a DS pop center in Mordor where you know you can beat the DS if they don’t have a dragon, and that they’ll beat you if they do. in the case where they don’t, if properly prepared, you have a great chance to not fall victim to kidnap. OTOH, if the dragon is there, then you don’t take the pop center, you don’t get advantage of the fortifications protecting you and your army is gone losing your protection from army’s morale… the agent likely succeeds. That’s a roll of the dice and is replayed over and over again from game to game.
If you’re in a team game, perhaps it’s not NG agents doing the guarding? If you’re in a GB game, perhaps it’s Dun? etc…
There are lots of choices of how to play. “standard play” for NG does indeed result in lots of characters lost to K/A… but it’s your choice how you play NG. Personally, NG is one of my most favorite positions. big time. Do I play “standard” NG? no. But I have fun, and I hurt the enemy bad most of the time.
Finally, all of the above having been said, I do think it’d be ok for the “escape” chance to be increased to give a shot for high level of any skill (as previously argued.) And I do think this is John’s point. It’s a reasonable point.
As to ability to rescue the hostages, it is actually far easier than you state John. In a team game, there are going to be multiple instances where that enemy agent ends up in curse range or in a hex where you have a capable agent (and rescue injures the agent who has the captive…hint hint). In a GB game, it could be much more frustrating if the nation who took the hostages goes off in a completely different direction. OTOH, if you have emmies and have the luck to get someone in the company doubled… I had a GB last year where I got ALL of my kidnapped characters back by end of the game because I had the company commander doubled and was able to take out the entire company in a two-turn character war taht I was lucky enough to spring on my enemy by surprise. That was definitely FUN (and it was my characters who were kidnapped)
Dave
Aye i know all the points above NG was just an example of where it gets used the most. My point was theres no chance to escape unless your agent skill is around that of your keeper…I think this should be changed. A flat chance to escape (even if low) would do well for the game.
Man GB games can get hard when the CL targets just a dule nation combo with all those agents to kidnap you…that dose not normaly happen in any other game, it makes kidnap ever more powerful in those games. As many times you dont have the team to help you get your guys back…I wonder how many people Drop games thus ruining everyones fun by this happening to them?