Okay, let’s get the ball rolling.
I will begin by saying that your work on the wood-elves and the new dwarf units was very remarkable, I am very grateful for you guys, I would have never wished for a better mod.
There were so many things that I enjoyed in this game, and I am very happy that many other factions aren’t released yet, so I know there is many more surprises to wait for.
I definitely liked the designs of all elven units, and the buildings are just worthy of the wood-elves culture, I am so proud to call myself a fan of edain mod.
Here is my full review about what I liked/disliked in this particular patch ( note that I will not be mentioning any bugs here, since I will mention them in the bug report thread in MU ):
1) First, I liked the heroes, their abilities are very useful and well fitting to their roles, although I found out that Galadriel was particularly very weak against trolls & any siege weapon, I mean even on dark side 2-3 trolls can easily kill her, she like take +15 hits to kill an unarmed troll ( and that's in dark lady form, I won’t even speak about normal form ) , but I do confess that her tornado summon kills trolls in 6-10 seconds, but without her tornado she is very sensitive to them.
2) Some players wanted the health reduce thing to be removed, but I think it shouldn’t be removed, although I think the overall damage of all units must be reduced as well. I will explain further, for example the elves are already known as agile but also fragile (ironic haha) , so for example 2 units of fully upgraded level 2 galadhrim can’t even kill gothmog, the problem he kills a soldier in one hit, so i think, if it would serve the perspective of balance maybe all damage should be reduced just as the health was reduced. Also, if you want to have less lags in the game, I found out something, when I zoom out, and there is a big army, it appears that the units are moving slowly, but when I zoom in, they move normally, so I guess if you want better gameplay you should consider removing the enhanced zooming, I think some players wouldn’t want that, but actually I got 4Gb Ram, I5 processor, 1,5Gb graphic card, and I can’t even play on highest quality without lags ( I stiked with medium quality and still I feel the discomfort when zooming out ), but as I said, when I approach the units, the slow movement disappears instantly, I think to make the gameplay smoother we should sacrifice the zoom out option.
3) I am very pleased with the galadhrim’s speed and melee fighting, but their range is very low, I mean even with longbows upgrade, I remembered they were on top of shooting range place ( the one in their fortress ), and they had the longbow upgrade, but a bunch of orc archers came and started shooting the galadhrim, and they couldn’t shoot them back, they were out of their range, I felt so sad about it, I know you don’t want to make them overpowered, but for now they aren’t very good archers as they used to be. On the other side, the lorien warriors precisely lacked in speed, I mean they couldn’t catch gollum, and he just fled away. I know they have the speed ability( patrol the borthers), but I think it would be more fitting, if you made them as fast as the galadhrim, and instead give them a defense ability, I think we all know the elves have weak armor, so defense ability will help them more than temporarily speed ability, so it would be a new ability called protect the border.
4) I am very satisfied with the beornings + ents , I hope you change nothing of them, they are great now and not op, they are just useful.
5) About mirkwood units, I don’t know why, but I think they should get autoheal, the elves don’t have heavy armor, so at least they need to compensate it with healing, also the elves don’t get a healing power until they reach the level 7 power summon radagast ( he can heal ) or the level 10 power star of Earendil, or thranduil’s level 10 ability , or galadriel’s level 10 ability ( I don’t know if it is considered as heal, but it gives invulnerability) it is almost all late game, so the only option for mirkwood elves to heal is to go to fortress upgraded with costy heal, or remain all the time near their mirkwood outpost and heal near wine cellars. I simply think mirkwood elves need auto heal so bad, their damage and armor is absolutely very fine, but without heal they are litteraly screwed, I hope later this will be considered, but as i said every other aspect of them is perfect, they lack only heal.
6) For the upgrades, I think I already mentioned that longbow isn’t very effective with galadhrim, also the silverthorn upgrade is just costy, I don’t mean the price to research it , but I mean the price you pay to equip archers with it, I mean 700 that’s just hard, and we know we have few space to build two forges, so we don’t really get the -20% price on upgrades, other factions can go and destroy an enemy’s settlement without upgrades, mordor, gondor, isengard, the dwarves, even rohan can simply destroy the enemy without even upgrading their troops, but for the elves it is very hard, they have weak armor, so their damage must be higher, and for that we need some cheap silverthorn, I would say 400-450 as maximum, if not the elves will easily be overthrown by other factions in late game.
7) I have a suggestion for Galadriel, when she is dark lady, she is just perfect. But if she rejects the ring, she becomes blessed, I am very satisfied with her healing abilities and damage towards units. But I think she should become much more stronger against buildings, it would be much more lore perfect, I mean Galadriel threw down the walls and pits of dol’guldur at the end of the third age, and that was after she rejected the one ring. So I guess you should make her very very strong against buildings, and that really makes sense, so her both forms will be useful, like saruman, his both fire and lighting forms are useful, but for Galadriel, people almost always go for dark form, because she is very powerful against everything ( expect trolls and siege weapons, I already mentioned that haha), so I think Galadriel now can take out a normal outpost resource building in 3-5 hits, and the citadel at 7-10. Some will say that is bad, but we know that when ring is retrieved and used by a powerful ringhero, it is almost gameover for the enemy.
8) About the dwarves, please don’t change them, please don’t change them, and please don’t change them. They are just perfect!!!! I liked the Ram riders so much, your work with the dwarves has been very fruitful and I dare to say that you presented us with the perfect dwarf factions, Bravo!!!!!! I know there are still some bugs, but overall the gameplay is just splendid, I am very pleased with it. And a minority of players want to add the ballistas, but I don’t even think why they should be added, even if it was possible to make them arrows repellent, they won’t be very useful against factions with melee focus, and to add them means to remove an already present siege weapon, but that would be a shame since all the siege weapons present now are very useful in their unique way. Again your work with the dwarves have been more than satisfactory, very great indeed .
And finally thank you for reading this, I don’t know if you like it, but this is what I think, I know you never choose a side and you are always open to explore new ideas, so I bet you will surprise me in later releases, your mod is just perfect, and I have grown very fond of it, for me it is, it is… for me it is… just the best mod ever! Good work lads, continue.