| “ | Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! |
” |
–Théoden in The Return of the King, The Ride of the Rohirrim | ||
An invasion is an in-game event during which waves of foes will appear and attack the player continuously until the invasion is defeated.
Defeating an invasion for the first time will award the achievement "Hail the Victorious"
Description[]
A Gundabad invasion in the Lone Lands.
Unlike bandits, invasions don't come without warning; the first sign that you're going to be in for a fight is a low-pitched horn blow, and a message in the chat stating "[Faction] have launched an invasion nearby!". These invasions can occur in almost any biome, from Rohan to Gondor to the Lone-lands, but are most dangerous in "wilderness" biomes -- that is, Wilderland, Lone-lands, and similar biomes. Some biomes can be invaded by more than one faction, and the chance for an invasion to happen varies depending on which biome is being invaded by which faction. It is possible for multiple factions to invade the same place at the same time.
When the invasion begins, a large weapon of the invading faction will appear floating over the ground, surrounded by flames that don't give off any light. When this happens, you have two options: Run and hide, or kill all the enemy units that it spawns. If you choose the latter, beware that a naturally-spawned invasion can result in 30 to 70 enemy units appearing within a very short period of time, but also note that slaying all the enemy units could result in you getting a lot of alignment to the enemies of the faction you're fighting against, as well as loot. If you are in creative mode, you can break the invasion spawner by left-clicking on it.
Mobs spawned in an invasion have a much longer sight range than normal mobs (40 blocks instead of 16) and mounted units have an even longer range of sight during an invasion; they can see enemies from up to 60 blocks away.
Every time the horn blows, between one and six enemy units will spawn, up to six blocks away from the invasion spawner.
The units spawned in an invasion can include any units the enemy has at its disposal. For example, a Rohirric invasion of the Uruk Highlands will contain mostly mounted Rohirrim and bowmen, whereas an Angmar invasion of the Lone-lands will contain all possible units allied with the Angmar faction.
The spawning of enemy units will only end when enough units from the invasion have been killed by a player or by hired troops (indicated by the progress bar at the top of the screen); once this is accomplished the spawner will then explode (without damaging you) and disappear, thus ending the invasion. There is an option in the config to allow incomplete naturally spawned invasions to slowly lose the progress made toward defeating them, but it is disabled by default. Invasions will self-destruct after 16 successive failed mob spawn attempts.
Invasions can happen at any time of night or day, in most biomes (see the list below) although the chance of an invasion is greatly increased on nights when there is a lunar eclipse.
Unlike most NPC's, any NPC spawned by an invasion spawner will not naturally despawn, and must be slain.
Advantages of defeating invasions[]
When an invasion spawns, the game will look for all "non-isolationist" (every faction except Fangorn and Hobbits) enemy factions who have influence within a 50-map-pixel range of the invasion. If there are, slaughtering the invading mobs will let you gain alignment with all those factions even if you are outside their Area of Influence. If there aren't, then the game will try again with a 150-pixel range, but this time only looking for one enemy faction, whichever is the closest. If one has been found, killing the invading mobs will grant you alignment with this faction. However, if there are none, you won't gain alignment at all.
Defeating an invasion will also award a conquest bonus of +50 (if pledged) and an achievement (the first time).
Post-implementation changes[]
Public Beta 22[]
Invasions as of Public Beta 22.
As of Public Beta 22, invasions spawn with the sword of the appropriate faction (with the exception of Hobbits (pipe), Fangorn (stick), Gundabad (cleaver) and some sub-factions because they do not have faction-specific weapons or armour.)
Also, a warhorn (at that time named "Horn of Conquest") was introduced to give players the opportunity to summon invasions from allied factions.
Public Beta 24[]
Public Beta 24 saw many new sub-factions gain the capability to invade, including Dol Amroth, Nan Ungol, Hillmen, Rangers of Ithilien, and Black Uruks. Fangorn also gained the ability to invade in this update.
Public Beta 25[]
Public Beta 25 made it possible to spawn warg invasions for every evil faction that has wargs.
Update 36[]
Update 36 added a progress bar for invasions, ending the invasion when enough units are killed by players/hired troops. It also increased the distance from the player that invasions can spawn mobs and added the /invasion command and some bonuses for defeating invasions (50 conquest points and the "Hail the Victorious" achievement).
Tactics[]
There are several ways to cope with an invasion:
Avoid dangerous biomes[]
Make sure to travel the more peaceful regions of Middle-earth (see list below) if you've got the choice. For example, in Eriador and its surroundings there are the Rangers of the North to back you up (if you are a good-aligned player). When you are followed by some foes, it's a good idea to flee to a spot where some of your friends are waiting to take care of your pursuers.
Run[]
The best thing to do when you hear the sound of the horn is just run the way you are facing. The invasion always takes place near the spot you are standing. As long as you stay near the floating sword, more waves of foes will show up. Fleeing is not cowardice, just pure survival instinct. After some moments running, you can turn around and cope with what is still following you. When you don't feel capable or equipped to deal with a large number of foes or when you would be fighting in difficult terrain just leave the place. Or is this just the challenge you're seeking?
Use the terrain[]
It's easier to attack downhill than uphill. Make sure that no trees, buildings or boulders obstruct your view. Think about holes in the ground or steep cliffs, where you could fall down when you have to flee again. You can also hide behind some obstacles and wait for your foes to seek you out. Or fight with your back against a wall so there's no risk of getting stabbed from behind but also no opportunity to flee. Perhaps circle around the floating sword at a distance to move yourself to a better position. Also, when you jump down while attacking a foe, you can deal more damage (critical strike). Another good tactic is to make a pillar of blocks and shoot down at your foes.
Claim land[]
Make sure to put banners atop gold, silver, or bronze blocks, and put these around your base. This won't just protect your base from terrain damage dealt by other players (on a server), but will also prevent invasions from spawning too close to your house.
Divide and Conquer[]
Or as the Romans put it "divide et impera". Each time you go near the floating sword, the horn sounds and a new wave of foes will occur. So carefully re-approach the sword until the horn sounds and then immediately back up a bit. Deal with the wave that showed up until most of the foes are gone. Repeat this until the invasion ends. You can either take out the foes from afar with a bow or crossbow, try to lure them away in small groups (remember that wargs have a longer tracking range) or wait until someone else takes care of them. Also remember, Orcs sometimes take each other out in a skirmish.
This tactic should be used only if you have decent armour and weapons, or if a faction is invading land near your base (banners can help solve the latter problem). Despite the danger of death, the XP and alignment you'll get can make it worthwhile.
If this tactic may be effective, it is much harder to put in practice because Update 36: now the sight range of the invasion spawner towards the player to spawn more waves has been extended.
Take a break[]
When you are hurt, it's a good idea to leave the battle, take cover, eat something, perhaps drink a potion and wait until you have recovered some of your health. Then re-enter the fight. Your foes can wait that moment.
If you have magical drinks such as athelas brew, Orc draught, or miruvor, now is the time to use them. The former brew will regenerate your health for a time, and all of the three drinks will boost your strength. Or if you have positive Fangorn alignment and the faction's magical Ent-draughts are available to you, drink some with various helpful effects.
Bring some friends[]
Hire some troops from a captain or travel with some players in a multiplayer world. That way, you can help each other out when someone is in trouble.
Collect the loot[]
When you hear an explosion sound, the sword disappears. You have to deal with the last wave of the invasion. After finishing off these last foes, you can peacefully walk the battlefield and collect all the loot your foes have dropped. Don't do this during the fight, because gathering loot will probably distract you from the foe that deals you the deadly blow. In multiplayer don't start to quarrel about how to divide the loot!
Invasion List[]
Note: If you are on a mobile device and the following tables are not displaying properly, please click here to be redirected to the desktop experience.
Sorted by biome[]
This list shows which factions can invade which biome and what the chance is of it happening. Biomes not listed here cannot be invaded. The list of factions in this table is which factions can invade the biome:
Sorted by faction[]
Units used by various factions[]
Mechanics[]
As with the spawning of most NPCs and other mobs, the game code that runs invasions works the following way:
In-game "Tick"[]
About 20 times every second, the large program loop running Minecraft finishes running a full cycle. On each tick, various aspects of the game advance a little bit: moving objects change position, mobs check their surroundings and update their behaviour, health and hunger are affected by the player's circumstances, and much more. One thing that does not happen as part of a tick is drawing graphics. Rendering happens after updating. This is why there can be a variance in fps (if vsync is not enabled) but the tps (ticks per second) will stay constant. This prevents video performance from affecting game mechanics and vice-versa. An in-game day in vanilla Minecraft lasts exactly 24,000 ticks (20 minutes), while a day in Middle-earth lasts 48,000 ticks (40 minutes).
Ticks and Invasions[]
On every in-game tick, there is a chance that an invasion spawner will appear. For example, assume that the chance of a Mordor invasion spawner spawning in Ithilien is 1/100,000 on any in-game tick. This means that there is about a 50% chance of a Mordor invasion occurring on any given day!
Spawner Spawning[]
When the game decides to spawn an invasion spawner, it picks a random location within 16 blocks of the player and a random number between 30 and 70 (inclusive), which is the number of mobs that the spawner will spawn. Then, every 10 to 15 seconds, between one and six mobs will spawn. This will continue until the MobsRemaining value (see below) of the spawner reaches zero.
An invasion spawner will only work when the player is within 32 blocks of the spawner; if you're too far away, then the spawner will simply stop spawning for a while. However, it won't despawn until it has finished spawning all the mobs it can, even if the chunk is unloaded.
Summoning Invasions[]
Since Public Beta 22, you can use a warhorn to summon an invasion. However, these cost two thousand coins and you must have one thousand five hundred alignment to the faction to use it. Update 36 added an invasion specifically to summon invasions (previously this had to be done by spawning the invasion spawner entity).
Invasions or warhorns of any faction can be summoned anywhere at varying sizes using the following commands:
/give @p lotr:item.conquestHorn 1 0 {HornFaction:<FACTION>_<subfaction>}
/invasion <FACTION>_<subfaction> [x] [y] [z] [size]
The <FACTION> is the desired faction in capital letters, and the <subfaction> is the subfaction for the faction that was first chosen (if applicable). An example command would be /invasion HIGH_ELF_rivendell or /invasion DURINS_FOLK. The size specifies how many mobs must be killed before the invasion is defeated (defaults to the normal amount of a random value around 30-70).
The invasion spawner can be broken in creative mode by left-clicking it.
Note: if you are trying to summon an invasion but they immediately disappear, make sure you are not on peaceful difficulty.
Trivia[]
- It is possible to summon an Utumno invasion spawner, but it will despawn a tick later, and no NPC's will spawn. The same happens when you attempt to spawn a Dark Huorn invasion spawner.
- It is also possible to use famous last words once per player in each game. It's not sure if this works any more as Gandalf was added in Update 35. Some stories say a certain mod develloper led the invasion, holding a white staff, which he used to magically make the storyteller lose the ability to say those words (brain damage). When the person being interviewed was asked to repeat the words, Mevans himself showed up, light filled the room, and the victim went abruptly missing.
Gameplay mechanics of the Lord of the Rings Mod
Basic Mechanics:
Alignment •
Books •
Crafting •
Equipment Modifiers •
Factions •
Farming The World:
Biomes (Variants) •
Clock •
Compass •
Fast Travel System •
Roads Achievements and Quests:
Achievements • Mini-Quest • Shields • Titles • The Red Book • Tutorial In-Game Events:
Bandits • Bloodmoon • Invasions • Player Respawning • Skirmishes • Thieves Combat:
Banners •
Boss Mechanics •
Combat System •
Conquest •
Fort Besieging Tips •
Fort Defense Tips Brewing:
Portals:
Other / Technical:
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