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T4A 0.8 is released

Posted October 16, 2022. By Lauri

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Version 0.8 of The 4th Age is released, over a decade since the previous release. You can find the download link here.

 

Please enjoy, and if possible, please give feedback and suggestions, as it really helps out! Easiest to do on our Discord server, but you can also use these forums.

 

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The Great Gate of Minas Anor lay broken

Posted November 9, 2012. By Lauri

Hey all

I don't have a particular big update today, but here goes.

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Veterans of Minas Anor
When the Great Gate of Minas Anor lay broken before the Host of Khôragan and the lower levels of the city burned, King Eldaravir realized the futility of further defending his City, and ordered the Captains to gather the remaining citizens and defenders of Minas Anor so that they could collectively escape across the passes of Mount Mindolluin towards the vales of Lossarnach and into Lebennin. Now, these Veterans of Minas Anor make their stand on the west bank of the Celos river, refusing to allow the land of Lebennin to fall like Minas Anor did.
They are the basic spearmen unit of Gondor. You can find other pretty nice descriptions of units by Matias here.

"The shite's blue!" you say? Well yes. I've overhauled Gondor so that pretty much all units now apply for Housecolour. And the great thing about it is that all of them look great in many variations! Even pink!
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And for all, behold the beauty of Matias' awesome Rhûn buildings; In-game!

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Hope you enjoyed some in-game screenshots for a change!
That's it, take care!

| 11 Comments |

The Normandy Reborn

Posted May 24, 2011. By Lauri

So, what'd we got?
Work has been slow lately, and for that I apologise. I had a thought, and planned out a doable "remake" of Gondor's units. Why? Here is my reason;

The mod's story. Gondor has been invaded by forces of Rhûn, and Minas Tirith lies in ruins. King Eldaravir flees before all hope is lost. They make a new capital in Dol Amroth. Now, it only makes sense that the
biggest part of the army will come from the fiefdoms of Gondor, so that is exactly what I have done with the units list of Gondor:
I've redone it. Most changes are purely cosmetic, but you can watch the new list here.

Here are some renders of the new units of Gondor.
First, the Swordsmen of Lamedon; second, the Bowmen of Blackroot Vale; and third, the Riders of Pinnath Gelin
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Secondly, I've made some progress on Harad as well.
The Haradrim Siege Ladder. Now, I'll explain something about it. I wanted a rope ladder from the start, to have a unique one (I did get the idea from RA though). Now, this man carrying the ladder, is carrying a HUGE ladder compared to himself and everyone else. It looks ridiculous, it truly does. It looks very unbelievable. But in the end, it's all I bother to do. And I think it acctually looks good in-game, even if the ladders a little oversized. Okay, it's BIG compared to him, especially on the render! I don't give a frak, because I can't get hung up on petty details on every godsdamn thing.
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Lastly, I have in-game screenies. I thought I had 8, but it turns out 4 of them was from the last batch, that I didn't know I had out, so you'll only get 4.
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You can enter the site from my signature. That'll be all, dismissed.
Reference for cookie!

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The Update after Christmas

Posted December 26, 2010. By Lauri

Hey all, and a late Meriadoc Brandybuck to you all! :p

I hope you all enjoyed the last few days and spent them with loved ones, and not on a 11-hour flight like one of my brothers :p Today I've got a small update for you.
As some of you might already know, I've recently been involved in a new project, The Peloponnesian Wars. That mod is for BFME2, and I enjoy working on that.
That does not mean however, that I have left T4A for the kath hounds, by no means!

Today I've been working, or rather, re-working on Morgon, the Captain of the Citadel Guards. The reason for this is simple: I am getting rid of the Captain unit for the various factions. They have no purpose in the mod in reality, even though they are Captains. I just don't think they fit as a single unit in the fighting. They are not that strong or unique, and I believe that heroes will be enough to keep the armies going. Because I liked the concept of the Gondor Captains however, I decided to add more of them into Morgon, who himself is a Captain.

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As you'll notice, he has a Sword-n-Shield\Bow toggle, something that I've wanted since I saw the animations cahik made for Einar, the fictional captain of Esgaroth (or Dale?) in RA back in the days.

That was all I had planned for today, when I remembered about a certain Archery Range I had made not too long ago. I was certain I had showed it before, but seeing through the forums and ModDB I didn't find it. So here it is;
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I was actually quite pleased with that, and hope you'll be too. The reason I like it so much is probably because it reminds me of the Mediterrean\Arab culture's Archery Range in AoE2, one of my favorite games of all time! I'll leave it to you to figure out yourselves what models are tied to which rank :)

That's all for this time, you'll have to wait 'till next your for another update!
Cheers

| 6 Comments |

Techtree updated

Posted August 8, 2010. By Lauri

Hey all, pardon the wall of text. It's about the changes in the techtree, so if you don't care, the sweets are at the bottom. If you care, but don't want reasons, just go to the site to see it. Thanks :)

So I come to you know with the updated techtree. The reason for this is because I've never thought about balance before, and just wanted cool stuff. Cool stuff is, without a doubt, cool, but cooler yet when they've got a purpose ;)
So now I've gotten around updating the techtree, by mostly removing units acctually. Rhûn is the only faction that made it though without a scratch, so to speak. The rest had units removed, and altered purposes. I will give each and everyone a reason to why I removed them, hopefully some of you will be sorry to see some of these units go:

So, let's take Rohan first. The only unit they got removed was the Knights of the Eastfold. The reason for this was because they're practically a duplicate of the regular Rohirrim. I really wanted to give Rohan some diversity when it comes to cavalry, but don't see many options. They're basically a horse based faction, with spam of Rohirrim Cavalry and Rohirrim Horse Archers ;) The Royal Guards are currently an Elite Infantry horde. Why there's both a mounted and unmounted one in the render for them is because the King Eothain is able to summon two battalions of Mounted Royal Guards. I am considering switching this a bit, so that Mounted Royal Guards are the Elite Cavalry unit of Rohan, and the Infantry could only be summoned by Eothain. This would give Rohan a more horse based faction apperance, and lessen infantry while gaining cavalry. At the moment, they've got 2 cavalry and 5 infantry! I'm also considering removing the Spearmen of the Westfold, since Royal Guards are better at their job, and Eastfold lost it's unit. I don't like to play favorites, so we'll see..

Harad lost the Desert Spearmen, Serpent Guard, Half-Trolls and their leader. The spearmen went because they're a fodder duplicate of Rhûn's spearmen, and I don't really like spam fodder units. Serpent Guard went because of Harad's excessive Elite units. Either the Serpent Raiders went, or the Serpent Guard. I think they should have an elite Cavalry given their vast land area ;) They had 4 elites, they've now got 1. Last are the Half-Trolls. I didn't really know anything about them, 'cept for their White eyes and red tounges. And I don't really have any neat ideas for them, so, they aren't in anymore. They'll manage fine without, and I'm already pushing my luck with the Evil Dwarves for Rhûn ;) Don't want to do something drastic here aswell. They're leader is also thus gone ;)

Gondor... heh, where to start? There's been a giant change here. First of, the Swordsmen have been replaced by the Men of Anfalas, which have basically replaced them. The Men of Lossarnach and Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth have been completely removed, due to their "I'm a duplicate with an axe, and here's my duplicate friend with a two-handed sword" attitude, and last there's been a change with the two Guard units. They Fountain Guard have been removed completely, reason which I'll present to you in a quote:

would have remained at their posts even if Minas Tirith burned all around them

True to the story of the mod, Minas Tirith burned all around them. So they are completely removed, and the only possibility for them in-game are through King Eldaravir's summon power, which in I haven't decided yet, and if it ever get's to it (likelyhood = 1%) a campaign. The Citadel Guards have also changed from the Bow\Sword toggle unit, to basically replace the Fountain Guard role.
This lowers the Elite units of Gondor from 4 to 2. I no longer see the Ranger as en Elite unit, but rather very good archers with stealth abilities. If you can use them good, set up ambushes and the likes, they'll feel like an Elite, but I mostly use Attack Move so I can't ;)
As a last note, I'm considering if I want to replace the Archers of Minas Anor with Archers of the Blackroot\Morthond Vale or whatever. That would only be a visual change however ;) That would give Gondor the meaning of really being Gondor, and not Minas Anor with friends :p
Also, the Men of Lossarnach and Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth may appear if I decide to swap Refugees of Rhovanion with Summon the Fiefdom or something.. Since Rohan's already got the Rhovanion one ;)

Okay, so to sum it up. I hope some are dissapointed to see some units go, 'cause if not they wouldn't really have been wanted in the first place :p
And here are some new screens of an updated and\or changed Man of Anfalas and Citadel Guard. Yes, that is a Heavy Armor skin I've made for the men of Anfalas ;)
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Last but not least, I've got some in-game screenshots with working Housecolor. These screens are examples of one of the units in the game that works, because far from all do ;) Please go here to vote on the issues of having them or not :)
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And also a "close up" of a improved Royal Guards. What can I say, Kwen inspired me to fix the helmet at least :p
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Again, please VOTE on my poll about having Housecolour on or not. It's alot of work, and I don't want to do it if nobody wants it. Thanks, and that's all for this time!

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