Bay 12 Games Forum

I actually formed the HRE in 799 and died in 814 in my Charlemagne game. So I think it's working.

Yeah, I don't see a big problem with a slight ranger presence. I think it's safe to say that what we saw wasn't even a military presence, it's more like being on the lookout (and failing at that). Then again, you'd think that Mordor would allocate some resources to controlling the black gate.

Could I see the evidence that states that Gondor had no presence at the Black Gate for a millenium exactly? It could just be unreliable info from a character because I don't remember that (though I assumed it was the case anyway). Personally I would really like this series to be canon because it's good, and Tolkien conceived of his writings as an alternate mythology for Britain (Middle Earth) anyway. Would be a shit mythology if people didn't add their own stuff to it.

Norse religion is renamed to Germanic now.

I love the settle tribe councillor action. I really tend to play the game with dynastic and cultural goals, so I'm pretty pumped that I could, for instance, cut a swathe through Russia turning things Norse generation after generation, leaving the old stuff behind.

My main gripe right now is that conquering civilized peoples as a tribal is a bit broken since you get wrong holding penalties and such, with no way to possibly tribalize the people there.

I have to wonder, if Sauron was successful in conquering Middle-Earth, that would mean that the Uruks wouldn't be in an extreme situation.  So, if they were behaving that way due to their extreme situation, would they continue to behave the same, or differently?

Orcs are naturally evil in Arda. They're twisted forms of actual beings to suit Morgoth's desire for power. Conquering all of Middle Earth would not change their nature and their very existence is an affront to the Valar.

In regards to the Orcs/Uruk debate: These are not Uruk-hai like Saruman's at all. The game uses Uruk to refer to literally every orc, and it's ridiculous to believe that every orc in Mordor at this time was an Uruk-Hai. There's even that one character you first raise to warchief who is a scrawny little goblin. There's nothing wrong with using Orc instead of Uruk, the game developers mostly did it for style/uniqueness, every other game involves killing orcs but Uruks are uniquely tolkien.

Quote from: Rakonas on October 07, 2014, 09:44:35 am

Quote from: Stuebi on October 07, 2014, 02:22:08 am

The story also falls VERY flat towards the end.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The game basically pulls the same shit as Space Marine, and turns the final fight into 3 quicktime events followed by a cliffhanger. The penultimate Boss is also just "sneak up to the dude 3 times -> win. It feels half assed for an ending, and is a bit too obvious with the whole "There will be DLC!"-thing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I thought the ending was nearly perfect, the events of Shadow of Mordor explain why Sauron had no material form in LotR despite having been materializing since pre-Hobbit times. Talion and Celebrimbor destroy Sauron's physical form (The Hand) and then you see the Eye for the first time and Orodruin erupts and all that shit. I thought it was fucking fulfilling. The problem with the ending is just that Talion suddenly decides he wants to do more, which is understandable from a business perspective, while the ending would have been 10/10 if they parted ways and the game was a one-off story.

Spoiler: not really a spoiler (click to show/hide)

Except that we already knew when and why sauron lost his physical form: at the end of the second age, when Isildur chopped his finger off. He's immaterial for the whole third age onwards.