The Altera Centauri collection has been brought up to date by Darsnan. It comprises every decent scenario he's been able to find anywhere on the web, going back over 20 years.
25 themes/skins/styles are now available to members. Check the select drop-down at the bottom-left of each page.
Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
[SIZE=1]My main problems were probably the Nazgûl and the Mûmakil. How do you defend against those?
There's a bit of luck involved with the Nazgûl assault in the Shire, no doubt about it. My strategy in the early game is researching Tom Bombadil with my free advance, then powering the research rate up (sell those marketplaces in the Shire - corruption renders them useless!) so I can the get Shire militia within 4 turns. Keep the Shire cities making hobbits. What I usually do is let the Nazgûl get into red/low yellow after beating up a few hobbits; I then counterattack with some Rangers of the North dispatched up from Sarn Ford as the Ringwraiths try and retreat. Also, Aragorn sometimes kills one or two on the road, especially if he fortifies at Weathertop. Just watch out for the Witch-King as he's more difficult than the others. With this strategy I sometimes lose Bree (depending on whether there is a wolf lying in wait) and rarely one of the hobbit towns, but never more than that.
The Mûmakil are a bit easier. I try to make sure that by the time the first one of these appears I've 4-5 knights in Pelargir for attack and defence. Send out on the road a knight each turn to scout for any advancing units from Harad; occasionally you can find a Mûmakil on the road before it gets into an attacking position and kill it with 2 vet knights. If it does reach Pelargir, I don't usually attack it on the river tile, I wait until it injures itself sufficiently after killing 2-3 units in the city and withdraws. I then take it out with my knights on a normal plains/grassland square.
STDs are like pokemon... you gotta catch them ALL!!!
Thanks for the positive comments. Balancing is the main issue now. Renovating Moria will be a bit of a pain (requires hex-editing), but I'll get around to it - eventually.
I have a pretty good success rate against the Nazgul in the early phase of the game, rarely losing a city. If I see 2+ Nazgul homing in on Hobbiton, Buckland or Bree, I evacuate and form an anti-Wolf perimeter. Fortify units on favourable terrain. If you've secured the area against Wolves, you can leave the Nazgul until you have the numbers (Rangers, Aragorn, Glorfindel, Shire Militia, etc). Don't wait too long, because you'll get more wolves and orcs than you can handle. Once Nazgul have targeted a city, you can actually move defenders (Wolf-blockers) right up next to them without them being attacked.
Some helpful info:
Nazgul are domain 3 units; they cannot capture cities, they are unaffected by city walls and they can be attacked by ground units.
Wolves are the only type of unit in the area available to Mordor that can capture cities in the first 8-11 turns.
Barrow-wights can also capture cities, but they belong to Nature, not Mordor. No surprise, their cities produce more Barrow-wights. These cities can be recaptured without tripping Mordor's mobilisation flag. Tom Bombadil can only eliminate Barrow-wights from the Barrow-downs area (on the main map and in the barrow), not those produced in captured cities.
Typically the first thing that Mordor builds in a captured city is an Orc Garrison. You have a short window to retake the city before one is produced. Killing an Orc Garrison trips Mordor's mobilisation flag.
Hobbits, along with Swordsmen are the cheapest unit you can produce. They are superior to Spearmen in attack and their equal in defence, but you can only produce non-veterans. The Shire Militia creates 7 veteran Hobbits around the Shire.
Originally posted by Mercator
The Nazgul might not be able to capture cities, but they're usually followed by a few wolves and orcs later on and my production isn't high enough to keep up my defenses in the North. Should I build city walls? I probably should, but then I'd lose the hobbit production.
I keep producing Hobbits until I've filled all the free support slots in the Shire towns; then I start building city walls. Sometimes that means I'll only produce one more in Hobbiton and Buckland before I start on their walls. Michel Delving and Tuckborough can supply those towns with more Hobbits (rehome them).
Originally posted by Mercator
And how do I defend myself against the Mumakil? I suppose they're more of a problem to me than they need to be since I tend to stay defensive and keep to my cities, while Ithilien is mostly terrain with higher defense factors, and the squares across the Anduin from Osgiliath and Pelargir have rivers on them.
Harad begins the game with 2 Mumaks, one in Umbar and another in Harad (about as far south as the City of the Corsairs), so it'll take them a good few turns to reach Pelargir. I originally had a 3rd in Harondor, but after tweaking the AI and the terrain, so that it did more with less, I removed it. Harad cannot build them, so you needn't worry about any more until Harad becomes mobilised. In the early part of the game I move Faramir to Pelargir to help deal with that threat. However, don't use him on full-strength Mumaks on river tiles; you'll probably lose him. FYI, in one game I had a Mumak roaming around the Shire, after a Black Ship sailed up the coast and left a deposit. 'Ooh look, an Oliphant!'
Originally posted by our_man
(sell those marketplaces in the Shire - corruption renders them useless!)
See, the hobbits really are a dirty lot. Must be those Sackville-Bagginses.
[Edit: So just what are the improvements you're happy to sell off on the first turn? Because if it becomes a no-brainer to research Bombadil followed by Shire Militia, then I'm going to make that decision a little tougher. You can actually make a little over 100 gold by setting your research rate to zero on the first turn; you get two free advances and your 'beaker' total is reset.]
[Edit 2: Right, I've removed Marketplaces from the Shire towns and lowered their cost to 50 shields. They're overpriced for the scenario, with low road density and relatively small city populations. Counting Houses and Treasuries have similarly been lowered to 80 100 and 100 120 shields, respectively. Removed the Storehouse from Rivendell. I've had to leave many Shrines and Temples in place, as their removal causes massive disorder at the highest difficulty level. I've lowered Minas Tirith's food storage.]
Originally posted by Mercator
But what about Osgiliath? Or am I just having problems there because my fellowship keeps dying, causing an early attack?
Well, that doesn't help. If Mordor mobilises in the first 20 turns, you're going to struggle, no matter what you do.
Last night I finished the play-test I started in post #48. What a strange game that turned out to be. I didn't win; on turn 100 I finished with 48 objectives. I've pasted together the casualty list for the game. Both the Eye Orcs and the Wolves for Mordor hit the 255 maximum recordable; I reckon the orcs would've nudged the 500 mark by the end. Gondor lost comparatively few Spearmen and Archers in the game; the result of the high number of heroes I had defending Gondor's front-line cities (see below).
Carrying on from post #48: By turn 52 I had Gandalf the White in Minas Tirith, Legolas, Gimli and Boromir in Cair Andros, and Aragorn and half the Dead Men of Dunharrow (the Mumak-killers) in Pelargir. The other half of the Dead (the Grond-killers) headed to Minas Tirith. With all of these powerful defenders in Minas Tirith and Cair Andros, Mordor's units got a little shy. Many Winged Nazgul headed north to Lorien; both Gandalf and Legolas have defensive bonuses against air units. Rather than wearing down the heroes, most of Mordor's lesser units refrained from attacking. This meant that I was able to build up large numbers of defenders. Even the trolls, catapults and ologs were stand-offish. I've since lowered the cost of all of these units in the hope that the AI will use them more aggressively. The AI can't actually build any of the larger units, so it doesn't affect their numbers. I may need to reduce the number of orcs and uruks and increase the amount of siege equipment.
In the mean time, it was taking Sam, Frodo and Gollum forever to get through the Dead Marshes. Eventually they reached Cirith Ungol on turn 66. Well, wasn't I in for a surprise. When playing around with the Moria scripting I'd given Eye Orcs native transport between maps 0 and 3 once the Fellowship reached Lorien (now removed). That proved to be a mistake as Cirith Ungol was infested with Orcs! After fighting past them and then resting, it was on to Shelob. Veteran Sam took out the bloated bag of bile, but lost half his hit points in the process. By this stage it was turn 75. Frodo left Sam behind and reached Mt Doom on turn 80 (about my slowest ever). Should I wait for Sam or risk sending non-veteran Frodo into the Sammath Naur alone? What the hell, time's running out, send him in. Bad idea. Frodo is strangled by Gollum, who is promptly captured by the Dark Lord.
Back to the siege of Gondor: the assault by Mordor, Harad and the Easterlings began to wane (they don't have inexhaustible troop numbers), but this changed once Sauron got the Ring. A fresh assault by Mordor began, with many ologs and uruks joining the fray. I started losing defenders. Legolas was taken out by 2 Winged Nazgul. With time ticking away, I was actually counting on Sauron to get his arse out to the front line ASAP so I could take him down. The big nancy took his sweet time, hiding behind the skirts of trolls and ologs. He attacked Minas Tirith on turn 91. It took 1 Catapult, 7 Riders of Rohan, 1 Knight and an Elf-lord (who survived) to take down Sauron in the following turn. The attacks faded away. I now had the Ring, but not enough time to destroy it.
Anyway after the completion of the scenario, I wanted to check that my event flags were in order, so I cheated my way to Barad-dur and captured it. Nothing happened. WTF? I checked the events file. That looked OK. I opened the saved game with a hex editor and checked the @INITFLAG event. All the right flags were on. I advanced to the next turn. Mordor got trashed, as it was supposed to. So the video wasn't playing for some reason. There's a sound file associated with this event, but I didn't hear it because I had the sound effects disabled under Game Options (I was listening to my own music). Obviously at MicroProse, video = audio, because whaddaya know, the videos start playing when I enable the sound. Sound is muted by disabling WAVs and AVIs. I've now made mention of this in the Readme file and in the Game Options menu (game.txt). Up goes another version.
Attached is a screenshot you won't see very often. This is what happens when you don't destroy the Balrog and Sauron gets the Ring. The Balrog took out one of the fortified Elven Warders in Rivendell, but didn't see the next turn; it was cast down by a less-than-full-strength Elrond.
All I can say is, not since Nemo's Red Front, have I seen such vicious, all out brutal attacks, as I witnessed in this scenario.
The AI handed my backside to me - taking Minas Tirith and almost half of Gondor (yes, by turn 19).
I loved it
There is obviously nothing wrong with the aggressiveness of the AI
I have also been watching the LoTR Trilogy EE over the past few days, so playing this scenario at the same time has been a treat.
I love everything about this scenario: the audio sounds (the Nazgul screeching, Sam's voice; Gandalf's One Ring speech, the bloodcurdling cries of the Orcs as they attack, etc); the look of the units; the map, the cities, etc....
The enemy is very powerful, and clearly Gondor needs the more powerful heroes to stop them, as any regular units they have are pure cannon fodder.
I have been playing at the default difficulty level, and since others have made it to turn 42 and beyond, clearly I am doing something wrong, and have a lot to learn about winning (or doing better) at this scenario.
That is why I want to play a few more times, before I suggest any changes in the scenario.
For now, the AI 's units are extremely powerful. I have to find a way to stop them. Being over-run by turn 19 is not good....
I can get all the Hobbits plus Aragorn and two Rangers to Bree, but then the Nazgul go nuts and 3-4 can take out everyone in the city.
Still, it's a lot of fun to try to figure out how to win this scenario.
Also, for some reason, although I can hear the audio sounds, none of the special avi files seem to work. I recently downloaded new Codec files (Indeo Video Version 5.11 and Indeo Audio 2.5), but when an avi is about to play, the game tells me there is something wrong with Windows setup, and suggests I run a .bat file on the ToT disc (which is not there).
Can anyone suggest a fix for this?
I'm going to start over, and I'll let you know how I make out.
Originally posted by BillyBud
I can get all the Hobbits plus Aragorn and two Rangers to Buckland, but then the Nazgul go nuts and 3-4 can take out everyone in the city.
What are you doing getting Aragorn to the Shire? Shouldn't they all be heading for Rivendell? what techumseh said!
Also, for some reason, although I can hear the audio sounds, none of the special avi files seem to work. I recently downloaded new Codec files (Indeo Video Version 5.11 and Indeo Audio 2.5), but when an avi is about to play, the game tells me there is something wrong with Windows setup, and suggests I run a .bat file on the ToT disc (which is not there).
That .bat file reference is still a left-over from the original Civ2. I got that too earlier when I was trying some different codecs to test making videos.
Not exactly sure what the problem could be... It's not Indeo Audio, in any case, since there is no audio in the videos (the audio and video are separate files).
Do you have the file ir50_32.dll (in your Windows system or system32 folder)?
@Catfish: Thanks for all the info. I'll be trying it out next weekend again probably.
FYI, in one game I had a Mumak roaming around the Shire, after a Black Ship sailed up the coast and left a deposit. 'Ooh look, an Oliphant!'
Sam would've been disappointed to know that they'd seen a Mumak before he had.
Well, that doesn't help. If Mordor mobilises in the first 20 turns, you're going to struggle, no matter what you do.
Originally posted by Catfish
I've had to leave many Shrines and Temples in place, as their removal causes massive disorder at the highest difficulty level.
Actually, I could always replace them with entertainers.
Originally posted by BillyBud
I also just finished reading the readme file. This is a thing of beauty.
Catfish, you should be congratulated for doing such a great job on it.
Thanks. I hate writing documentation, but this scenario needed it.
Originally posted by BillyBud
All I can say is, not since Nemo's Red Front, have I seen such vicious, all out brutal attacks, as I witnessed in this scenario.
The attacks become brutal once Mordor becomes mobilised, or worse, captures the Ring. You want to delay the former and avoid the latter. There are a few tips on playing the opening to the scenario from our_man and me in the previous posts.
Originally posted by BillyBud
The AI handed my backside to me - taking Minas Tirith and almost half of Gondor (yes, by turn 19).
I loved it
Reading this leads me to believe that some people might be crazy enough to fight through a very early Mordor+Ring assault. As a result, I'll introduce a cap for the bonus Ologs and Uruks Mordor receives when it captures the Ring. Don't want the dreaded 'Too Many Units!' message popping up in WotR; it hasn't yet in any of my games. I have taps to turn these things on and off. Will post a new version tonight (23/10).
Originally posted by BillyBud
I can get all the Hobbits plus Aragorn and two Rangers to Buckland, but then the Nazgul go nuts and 3-4 can take out everyone in the city.
You don't want the Hobbits holing up in cities vulnerable to Nazgul attack. That way you're asking for trouble. Cities are the AI's prime targets.
Originally posted by Mercator What are you doing getting Aragorn to the Shire? Shouldn't they all be heading for Rivendell? what techumseh said!
*Cough* Look at the screenshot on the WotR download page.
What are you doing getting Aragorn to the Shire? Shouldn't they all be heading for Rivendell? what techumseh said!
heheh - I meant to write Bree....
That .bat file reference is still a left-over from the original Civ2. I got that too earlier when I was trying some different codecs to test making videos.
Not exactly sure what the problem could be... It's not Indeo Audio, in any case, since there is no audio in the videos (the audio and video are separate files).
Do you have the file ir50_32.dll (in your Windows system or system32 folder)?
I did a little investigating.
It's not actually "VFWFIX.BAT" which the game asks me to double-click on, but rather it's called "VFWFIX.REG".
I couldn't find it anywhere on the TOT disc or game files. So I looked into my Civ2 game files and sure enough, there it was.
I double clicked on it and it said that the file will be added to the Windows registry and the problem should be fixed.
I'll play more of the scenario and report back if the problem has been fixed. If it is fixed, I can post that small .REG file for people to have in case they experience any problems.
Actually, I could always replace them with entertainers.
Thanks. I hate writing documentation, but this scenario needed it.
The attacks become brutal once Mordor becomes mobilised, or worse, captures the Ring. You want to delay the former and avoid the latter. There are a few tips on playing the opening to the scenario from our_man and me in the previous posts.
Reading this leads me to believe that some people might be crazy enough to fight through a very early Mordor+Ring assault. As a result, I'll introduce a cap for the bonus Ologs and Uruks Mordor receives when it captures the Ring. Don't want the dreaded 'Too Many Units!' message popping up in WotR; it hasn't yet in any of my games. I have taps to turn these things on and off. Will post a new version tonight (23/10).
You don't want the Hobbits holing up in cities vulnerable to Nazgul attack. That way you're asking for trouble. Cities are the AI's prime targets.
*Cough* Look at the screenshot on the WotR download page.
When I first played the scenario, I lost Frodo on turn 3. Nothing happened, so I thought I'd play on.
On the next turn the Rohan Ambassador asked me if I would ally with him against Isengard. I thought sure, why not? What could possibly go wrong...
A couple turns later that's when I heard the blood-curdling cries of thousands of Orcs, Trolls, Nazguls, Mumliks, Oliphants and other namelss creatures converge on half a dozen of my cities...
Right....
Aragorn and the rest of the Hobbits went belly-up soon after this....
Then I watched in horror as city after city fell to the screaming dark forces....
Ahem....
That's when I quit the game, and decided to carefully re-read this entire thread and the readme again.
Yup, keep the Hobbits out of the cities and the Nazgul won't attack....
It's now turn 4 in my new game, and I have lots of little Hobbits creeping towards Bree, with Nazguls waiting outside of empty Shire cities...
Originally posted by BillyBud
I'll play more of the scenario and report back if the problem has been fixed. If it is fixed, I can post that small .REG file for people to have in case they experience any problems.
I have one machine that uses the Ligos Indeo 5.11 codec and another that uses the Intel Indeo 5.10 codec from the K-Lite Mega Codec pack (v4.2.5). Civ2 videos work on both. With the K-Lite pack I can just about play anything on my machine. But what about Mercator's question:
Originally posted by Mercator
Do you have the file ir50_32.dll (in your Windows system or system32 folder)?
Originally posted by BillyBud
When I first played the scenario, I lost Frodo on turn 3. Nothing happened, so I thought I'd play on.
You should've seen a text box (no AVI) containing a message about Frodo the Ring-bearer being captured by agents of Mordor. The game doesn't end right there and then.
Originally posted by BillyBud
On the next turn the Rohan Ambassador asked me if I would ally with him against Isengard. I thought sure, why not? What could possibly go wrong...
Turn 4 is unusually early for that. That was followed by this message, right?
Messengers report columns of large orcs from Isengard and many wild hillmen from Dunland crossing the river Isen into Westfold. Isengard makes war on the borders of Rohan!
This message appears when Isengard breaks a peace treaty and attacks Rohan. Generally, it means the two are skirmishing around the Fords of Isen; it doesn't mean that Isengard is fully mobilised and unloading with everything on Helm's Deep.
Originally posted by BillyBud
A couple turns later that's when I heard the blood-curdling cries of thousands of Orcs, Trolls, Nazguls, Mumliks, Oliphants and other namelss creatures converge on half a dozen of my cities...
That would've been the turn following Frodo's capture. When Mordor gets the Ring, ie, when Frodo is captured, it becomes instantly mobilised, and Sauron comes forth (eventually), together with many Ologs and Uruks. This is the cause of the carnage. The Rohan alliance matter is coincidental. Always agree to help Rohan.
Originally posted by BillyBud
It's now turn 4 in my new game, and I have lots of little Hobbits creeping towards Bree, with Nazguls waiting outside of empty Shire cities...
Just make sure you shield them from any roaming Wolves.
I just ran another short test with Mordor capturing the Ring and this time it was the Elves' turn to suffer the Balrog :
So the video wasn't playing for some reason. There's a sound file associated with this event, but I didn't hear it because I had the sound effects disabled under Game Options (I was listening to my own music). Obviously at MicroProse, video = audio, because whaddaya know, the videos start playing when I enable the sound. 
Sound is muted by disabling WAVs and AVIs. I've now made mention of this in the Readme file and in the Game Options menu (game.txt). Up goes another version.
Tweet
Comment