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

Hey all

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


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!



And for all, behold the beauty of Matias' awesome Rhûn buildings; In-game!



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

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Knights of a golden ship and a silver swan

Hey everyone!

Now it's over a year since the last update, and it's been over 5 years since I started on this mod(!).
What have I got today? Remakes... Yes, damn the self criticism.. I wanted to improve those who bears the token of a golden ship and a silver swan..



Eranoth, the Prince of Dol Amroth, has been redone. He wears a cape, a sword and no helmet to distinguish himself from his knights.



And of course his Knights of Dol Amroth has been redone to fit. No, they don't come dismounted. They have been assigned to the be only cavalry unit that Gondor has, as I have been doing some pre-balance work, trying to settle the factions with a decent amount of unit types that resemble their overall theme. This means that Gondor will have infantry as their main focus again, while Rohan will be more cavalry oriented and less about infantry than they are now. Same applies for Harad and Rhun and their themes. If you visit the site, you'll see an outdated category of how it used to be.

That is all, if there's anything you wonder let me know!

Keep your eye on the horizon, I've heard reports of Haradrim gathering an army in the South...

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Techtree updated

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

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Small haradrim update

Okay, so I've got a small update for you.

The Cavalry Raiders are "done" in the regard that they're bound to a skeleton and work in-game.
I've yet to add diversity to any of the Haradrim units, and for now they will all be the same.
Reason for this is that I'd rather have a Harad faction mostly up and running, than to waste my
motivation on trying to make good looking haradrim skins, which I simply can't!

Second units is the Hasharii.. They've been in the mod's asset for a long time, as Matias created them
a long time ago. I even remember that he wanted to redo them 'cause he meant they were so
outdated and ugly. Using the same reason as above, they'll do fine.



I've also checked and see abit on the tech tree for the different faction and came to the conclusion:
Balace isn't there. Simple as that. Gondor and Harad has 4 elite or semi-elite units, while Rohan
and Rhûn has the more appropriate amount of 1. There's also other weird stuff, like having
5 different melee infantry for Gondor.. I mean, how many do they really need? Not 5..
I'm only satisfied with Rohan's at the moment, so the other factions will change, Rhûn being
the only possible exception to that rule.

Also I'm having troubles with the spells that allows the forces of Kingdom of Rohan and Gondor
to be buildt. Basically, you don't need to purchase the spell to be able to build them, making the
spell useless. I might look more into the spells and redo them, but since most are basic units,
they come to late in the game.. So anyone who want's to suggest new spells for Rohan and Gondor,
go ahead! I'd love to hear 'em!

So stay tuned for the next update, when I'll hopefully have some more renders and screenshots
for you, but also an updated tech tree..

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