Unit Hiring

We've all experienced the frustration of returning home after a march across middle-earth with our hired units only to find out that many are now missing. You saw no death message, so what could've happened? You retrack your steps and then out of nowhere they teleport to you. You realise the issue is that they got unloaded along with the chunks they were left in while you zoomed on ahead. To make sure this doesn't happen again, every now and then, you count your units to make sure all are accounted for. A very tedious and annoying task.

I propose a very simple fix to this problem.

When a user uses a horn of command, the mod goes over all the loaded entities, performing a variety of checks:

• Is this entity a LOTREntityNPC?

• Is this NPC a hireling?

• Does this hired unit belong to the player that is summoning?

• And so on.

If it passes all the checks the entity is summoned/halted/readied.

So the mod is already iterating over a list. Why not just add a variable that increments each time a valid hired unit is found? And then at the end of the function display a message of how many units were effected to chat or some other form of display.

I believe this an easy feature to implement and would save everyone time, coin and potential headaches from having to count the number of troops they have.

I have been thinking about an idea that could be a great improvement to gameplay. In the game battles are unorganised, unrealistic and most are just swarms fighting swarms. So why not add a way to organise armies into formations? This would make life easier, and battle in roleplaying servers more realistic.

First there would be a formation horn(lol bad name sorry), which you would right click, and it would show up a menu of formations that all of your hired units would form after the command.

Proposed list of formations;

• Line Formation

Your hired units for a line, several rows deep, while your archers and cavalry move to the sides. Each row depends on the amount of soldiers you have.

• Column Formation

Your hired units move into a column, which is useful during marches. Your cavalry moves to the front and back, while archers and soldiers march in the middle.

• Infantry Squares

Your hired units form a square, with soldiers using long-reach weapons (e.g.pikes & spears ) moving to the sides. The cavalry moves into the middle. This is especially useful when attacked by cavalry.

• Wedge

Your hired units form a narrow trapezium, with cavalry and archers at the base. This is useful in charging enemy lines and withstanding cavalry charges.

• Phalanx

Your hired units form a packed line of shields, with soldiers using long-reach weapons forming the front line. This is useful for charging, defending your line, or resisting other attacks

• Skirmishers

Randomly chosen soldiers (10 or 12, mostly swordsmen, archers and one or two cavalry) will charge at enemies, mostly causing a distraction.

One more factor I propose is to add multipliers when troops are in a formation. A phalanx could increase the general health of the troops by 1 or 2, while Skirmishers could have increased speed. This would make certain formations more useful on certain occasions, but this might be too complicated.

Another good function I am going to propose is the principle of ‘scouting’. Using the horn of command, you could send one lightly armoured troop to scout in a certain area (32x32, 64x64 etc.). It would return and create a map of that area, and possible locations of other NPCs, or players. The locations of other entities should not be precise, otherwise it would be OP. Sometimes, the scout would be wrong, and report incorrect data. This is to reduce the OP uses of this function, and it would be more realistic.

These are the ideas I have thought of, and if you have any suggestions, you can add them.

Do kills by a hired unit count towards a bane modifier on the weapon carried by this unit?

I don't know how to introduce it so I'm gonna explain directly.

By "ramping cost", I mean the price to hire units goes more expensive each time you recruit more troops. For exemple, imagine we give +1 silver coin in ramping cost to a NPC which initially costs 20 coins. The first recruit costs 20 coins, the second will cost 21, the third 22, the fourth 23, cetera, cetera...

So bigger is your army, more expansive it'll be to enlarge it over again.

However, this is not one ramping cost for any troops you hire. It's one ramping cost for each type of NPC. For exemple, By hiring gondor soldiers, you increase the cost of gondor soldiers, but the cost of gondor archers, levymen and knights stay at same price because you only hired gondor soldiers, not these one.

Then, for each troop you lose in combat, the cost of the class the NPC belongs dies decreases progressively until to fall at his initial cost. For exemple, the initial cost of Gondor Soldier is 51 coins and their ramping cost is +4. You decide to recruit 5 soldiers from the captain. Instead to pay 255 coins (because 5x51=255), you'll pay 295 coins (because 51+55+59+63+67=295). Then you go patrolling at night to slay some orcs and at dawn, you come back from battlefield with two losses. So the cost of gondor soldiers fell of 67 coins to 59 coins.

Do you begin to see the tip of all the mechanism of this ramping cost?

And the price of ramping cost depends on the type of troop you want to hire. For exemple, weaker NPCs like gundabad orcs, hobbits bounders or Dale levymen would have +1, NPCs with an average fighting skill like Rohirrim warrior or Gondor Soldier +4, stronger units like Dwarves warriors, elves warriors or black uruk-hai +8, and so on, and so on. And the very big threats of the battlefield able to knock out anything in a few seconds like Olog-hai would have a ramping cost of +100! To resume, rarer and stronger the troop is, higher is their ramping cost.

And of course, like the price by default, ramping cost would be halved by pledging (minimum 1 however. It'd be rounded to maximum).

So. Why to implement such a mechanic?

For two good reasons, I would say. The first one is I remember another suggest telling to add a moral or trust system where if you lose too much soldiers, captains would be more reticent to let you hiring more troops if it's just to let them go to slaughterhouse. To the end of his suggest, he said he suggest this because he's fed up of insanely huge war on servers where swarms of hired units just get slaughtered for finally not much more result than if it were less troops on the two sides. Furthermore, the game became more laggy, caused by the surcharge of number of NPCs. Not everyone was satisfied by his suggest. Maybe because it's just annoying, it has no really sense, too complexe or other some reasons; I don't remember everything.

And the second reason is I'm for a more balanced gameplay, where Ramping cost would foster the players to diversify their armies (and not just spamming olog-hai, I give an exemple). Making ever harder to build huge armies with elite soldiers would encourage players to not focus on one type of NPC just because it's strong, you see? Black uruk-hai are elite soldiers, a handle among the black legions of Sauron, and it's more obvious whith olog-hai. Swan-knight are a handle among dol amroth men-at-arms. And so on... You're not supposed to have complete armies of these soldiers if it's not thanks a colossal economy. These are champions, not soldiers!

Ramping cost looks like annoying in appearance but I'm sure the suggest will satisfy alot of persons. The idea to balance the all and dissuade players to just hire swarm of troops to naturally dodge problem of performance is a big plus.

Hi im recently having issues with commanding units in my minecraft forge server.

The thing is that when i hit right click on a hired unit nothing happens, and i saw a post published like 4 or 5 years ago about this same issue, and I read about a posibble solution by instaling an older forge version, but i dont know wich it is. sorry for my bad english.

Imagine I conquer Mordor on a multiplayer server. I spend hours killing thoseO orcs until not one evil NPC is within sight. I decide to go inactive for a while, pleased by my victory...

When I come back, I am immediately swarmed by Orcs and Wargs and Black Uruks and Ologs. My army, weakened by my conquest of Mordor, is quickly destroyed.

And unless I frequently kill things to maintain my progress, this is inevitable...

And one may not want simply use config to change this, because it remains farfetched that the Orcs don't try repopulating.

But no more! I suggest a revamp of the conquest drainage system!

The Suggestion

Hired troops should have "Strength Points", depending on which unit they are. Stronger units will have more Strength Points. These will not be visible in-game.

If your troops are left in guard mode, they should reduce the conquest drain for nearby map-squares. The more the sum of the Strength Points of troops of a player, the lower the speed of conquest drain.

The idea is that the troops fend off invading enemies. Or perhaps they just discourage the enemy from attacking in the first place (If I told you there was a valley full of gold coins but there was an army guarding it would you try taking the coins?).

Of course, it should be expensive to be able to permanently conquer land, so a large army should be required to negate the drain. Also, each incremental Strength Point should have less of an effect, so it would be relatively easy to slow down conquest drain, but a huge investment would be needed to negate it or make it negligible.

Technical Considerations

The total Strength Points would be stored in chunk-data. Each grid square would then calculate the Strength Points based on the member chunks every time a member chunk is loaded.

When conquest drain is being applied, the neighbouring squares would first be checked for Strength Points, and then the drain would be applied accordingly.

According to me, though I am no technical expert, this should not cause much lag.

Feel free to comment! Technical comments are welcome!

This suggestion entails a new way of hiring Trolls, for the future when Trolls and Hiring are added into Renewed of course, if this suggestion is Endorsed.

Trolls, I believe, are way to easy to hire. All you have to do is simply gain alignment and coin, (a lot, yes, but its still pretty simple) find an Angmar Orc Commander, and just like that, you have a beast that can cause untold destruction!

This, in my opinion, does not do the beasts justice. Therefore, I have come up with a suggestion to improve the hiring of Trolls....

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The first step in this new way of hiring, is crafting a "troll chain". This will be a large chain that works like a lead for trolls. It can be crafted on any Orcish crafting table in a similar manner to the chains in the newest Minecraft versions, but with iron blocks replacing the iron ingots, and iron ingots replacing the nuggets.

After you have crafted the troll chain, you must find a troll. Only normal trolls and hill trolls can be tamed with the troll chain. Olog-Hai and Mirk-Trolls should be tamed in a different way (how, I know not).

After you have found the troll, you will have to construct a five block high column, preferably made of stone, as anything else will break. Once this is done, you will right-click the troll with the chain.

(Note: only with sufficient alignment can you capture trolls in such a manner. Any player with alignment below the necessary amount will learn, very painfully, how foolish it is to try and capture a troll with a chain).

Assuming you have the right amount of alignment, the troll will be attached to the chain. However, you're not out of the woods yet! The troll will struggle profusely, regardless of alignment. Make sure to bring good armour, as captured trolls are stronger than regular ones!

Assuming you survived the struggles, you must now attach the chain to the stone column. Afterwards, the taming process will begin. Simply feed the troll meat (different amounts, depending on the type of meat. For example, tiny chicken meat will require 50 - 90, whereas large cow meat will require only 25 - 50. Feel free to change the numbers of course, I'm terrible at giving numbers :D). Just be careful, as the troll might just attempt to scoff you up instead of the offered meat!

Assuming you've given enough meat, and survived, the troll will now be tamed.

Why do I suggest this? As the beginning of this suggestion said, I believe trolls are too easy to get. If this seems like its to difficult an endeavour, perhaps buffing trolls a bit might help? Regardless, I've created this suggestion, it is my hope that it may one day in the fire be added.

Thank you for reading (and, if you gave kudos, double thanks!). Further suggestions, comments, criticism, and just about anything are welcome!

Can't wait to see the forum's thoughts on this! :)