Rohan Late Game Improvement Ideas

[Adrigabbro]

Just a random thought, what if Rohirrims had a toggle between spears and bow? They would be more dynamic to play and there would be real choice between them and Eastfold riders. Of course Rohirrim archers would have to be removed.

By the way, I agree with buffing Eomer (I wanted to talk about it. ) Right now all Rohan heroes cost 1600 or less (supposing you get Uncorrupted Theoden with Glorious King). This is why a lot of players go for peasants+heroes spam ; you can get so many heroes very quickly who will hide into your peasants army and wreck havoc. A more expensive but stronger Eomer would be a slight nerf to that strategy while improving Rohan late game. Of course I'm talking about a 300 g. raise,  it's not much but still a start.

EDIT: Also, Eomer's passive could be for riders only.

[Elite KryPtik]

I completely disagree with Slawek, Rohirrim need a straight buff that can be unlocked late game.

I also disagree with buffing Eomer, I think he's in a good spot right now ever since the team buffed his abilities. However, I would still call for replacing Memorial with a more suiting ability for a mass slayer.

I don't think there is any need to have a bow/spear toggle, as this ability is already on the Rohirrim from the Military Camp.

Morwereth, Welcome to the forums! I'm glad you agree, if more guests would join in on the conversation and reveal their thoughts we might get a better idea of how many people want a better Rohan late game. Thanks for the post!

You are right that nobody ever goes for Military Camp first, people go for ents to try and coincide the ents with a ram rush to finish off the enemy quickly, because they have no chance late game. If the Royal Breeding was buffed and unlocked via spellbook, and switched costs to make it a 6 point power while elf summon was a 3 point, it could certainly be moved to the right and the 3 hunters move to the left. This would actually make a lot of sense, because then people could go left for the aggressive summon support and Ents, or go right for the longer game of getting Royal Breeding and Military Camp. This would add a lot of diversity to games that have Rohan in them.

[Melkor Bauglir]

I think untill now there wasn't a single one that said, Rohan should not be buffed in the LG and both in the German and the English forum there was some to much interest for this topic.
Also, I don't think that Memorial should be replaced: It is actually really strong in the LG because Rohan has no other debuffs (and the effect of damage debuffs diminishes if they are stacked, because damage scales multiplicatively).
BTW: Currently I am not writing something in this topic, because I am convinced of your thoughts about how Rohan is to be changed, but because I see no point in explaining my point if the response is getting told precisely why my opinion (better: my arguments) is (are) wrong. This is not meant as an offense, but I seriously do not enjoy this way of discussing.

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

[Elite KryPtik]

Well, that's how debates and discussions work my friend

If somebody would present a point to me I could not disprove, I wouldn't do it. However, all it has been up till now is people saying it should be one way or another based on what they want, or on their opinions, not based on fact. My idea is entirely based on the fact that right now Rohans late game is awful, and their cavalry cannot stand up to late game upgraded armies. I have played, as I said, hundreds of games with Rohan, and have played even more AGAINST Rohan, I know their strengths and weaknesses like the back of my hand.

Cavalry do good damage, however; they are too weak to survive anything beyond a single trample. Therefore, I ask for a health and armor buff. Additionally, peasants literally lose to late game pike spam of enemy armies. So this means that regardless of how you play, the enemy needs to only do a single thing, that is survive, spam pikes and upgrade them, and you have automatically lost. I have seen what I just described happen, conservatively, at least 200 times. If something happens THAT OFTEN, then its concrete proof of fact. I'm not just basing my idea on what I want, I'm basing it off of fact.

[Melkor Bauglir]

I'd argue that it doesn't always have to be exactly this way. I have no problem in getting myself proven wrong, but like a number of people, I pointed out certain weaknesses in your concepts (or others, that is of course not centered around you), and I myself do not think I ever got a sufficient answer for this.
Other than that I would prefer to not have this discussion in public, because I don't want this topic to get mixed with different discussions. Just let me tell this: I don't think your arguments are as crystal clear as they may seem to you and I'm pretty sure others think so as well (because the pointed out similar problems). From my point of view a ton of questions / problems remain still unanswered. However I don't really feel the need of expressing these concerns if criticism for these ideas is mainly answered by you, "proving" them wrong, while supporting the ones aggreeing. I am certain you don't mean it this way, but this kind of sticks out for me.
And please notice, that I am not saying your or others' arguments are wrong. I am mainly trying to point out that it doesn't really encourage a discussion if you constantly jump on every comment. Sometimes it's better to watch for other opinions and you won't get those this way, otherwise it turns into a one-person-discussion. (And please don't write, others have replied, too, so this isn't a one-person-discussion. This isn't the essence of what I said.)

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

[Elite KryPtik]

Well, I haven't been intending to reply to every comment, although I suppose some of that did happen the other day because I was very passionate about the thread. Additionally, you'll noticed towards the beginning I encouraged others to come up with their own ideas to fix Rohan late game as well. I suppose, that when people just post entirely disagreeing with ideas presented and have no idea of their own is when I may get frustrated. In any case, as I said its not my intention to "shut down" or intimidate people in this thread, quite the opposite, I'm overjoyed its received so many replies.

Now, that said, I hold the right to respectfully disagree or try to prove wrong ideas that I disagree with, just as everybody else does. If my responses and others don't prove to you the logic behind my idea, then nothing will unless you go in game and play for yourself. As long as it doesn't become an abusive argument between 2 people, I see no issue with trying to disprove others arguments with experience and fact if you can. Finally, please tell me what the holes you see in my idea are, because if they are in fact holes then I can improve the idea or fix the problems. Additionally, if you have any ideas of your own to improve Rohans late game, please share them. I just want Rohan to suck less late game, that's my only goal here.

I think that later today I will gather up all the ideas that have been presented thus far and make a "superpost" at the start of the thread to allow people to easily see what ideas have been presented to help Rohans late game thus far. If any mods are reading this, can you change the name of the thread to "Rohan Late Game Improvement Ideas"?

[Odysseus]

That might be a good idea yeah. Although it generally comes down to the following three:

1. Buff their LG economy (a bit).

2. Either buff Rohan cavalry (via PP spells or somewhere else).

3. Or buff Rohan's counters to pikes.

These 3, cut clear, are Rohan's main issues at the moment, I think. The miscellaneous ideas presented in this post all presented different ways to possibly improve Rohan's standing in the LG and are mostly related to the three points presented.

Perhaps a poll with different options could be considered?

Looking forward to that big post of yours.

Cheers!

[Elite KryPtik]

I guess a poll may be appropriate at this point, although the team has stated they don't want polls to be there just to get votes, and that discussion needs to take place first. I think I could throw one up now though.

[Morwereth]

Morwereth, Welcome to the forums! I'm glad you agree, if more guests would join in on the conversation and reveal their thoughts we might get a better idea of how many people want a better Rohan late game. Thanks for the post!

My pleasure 

but because I see no point in explaining my point if the response is getting told precisely why my opinion (better: my arguments) is (are) wrong. This is not meant as an offense, but I seriously do not enjoy this way of discussing.

Whatever we suggest in this thread, Edain Team will say last word eventually. So I think nobody actually wants to "hurt" someone else or "suppress" someone's opinion here. Discussing about who is right or wrong is pointless in my opinion. Everybody have their own right and wrong things about game. Discussion should be more than "this is right, this is wrong".

About my previous idea,

Theoden's Glorious Charge is the core of Rohan's late game at the moment (I consider you keep him alive until he is level 10  ). Developing late game strategy with using 1 hero is a bit lame. Thats why I thought players should have another option to develop strategy.

Buffing another hero wouldn't solve all problems of course. People often focus on Theoden to cut his leadership, same can happen to Eomer as well. Also Rohan needs mass slayer rather than one more unit supporter.

If Team doesn't want this buff accesible via spellbook, we should focus on upgrades. Perhaps player would access it in stables just like Horseman Shield. Like Isengard's blood wargs in warg pit. Player should research arsenal to get it.

About idea of upgrade discount from multible amories, I think building more than one armory would be risky. Because Rohan doesn't have anything like Gondor's blacksmith, Isengard's furnace and Lorien's forge. Armories don't produce any resources.

My second idea is this new upgrade should be accesible via outpost. I don't say much about outpost because it is kind of off topic but Hamman's great harvest can be accesible via outpost as well if we get big-village concept.

[Walküre]

I think that right and just considerations have been made basically by anyone, here.

As some people already wrote, there is not, theoretically, a definitive end in a reasonable and ordered debate, or even a final 'showdown' between different sides to determine who is right or wrong, since the Edain Team takes into consideration almost anything suggested and eventually decides about what can be used or not, whether one side is prominent to the other or not in a discussion.

Nevertheless, it's also true that threads can't become endless replies by two or more specific people, especially if the matters involved deal with very personal impressions, experiences or, why not, advices that one user might want to share with another one.
Therefore, in this last case it's definitely recommended the usage of PMs to sort discussions out, also to have a more personal and private space rather than the public threads of the Edain Community.

Having said that, I think that more opinions from other people are definitely welcome, but I also personally appreciate the intention of Elite of synthesising the main aspects of his proposal in the initial post 

Regarding the poll, I think that this thread has clearly reached the 'requested premises' of completeness, interest and details to start a poll.
Just, if I may give an advice, I would choose wise and limited options in order to be the least dispersive possible, as it often happens with many and not always necessary choices in polls.

Ok, I will change the topic of the thread as you wish.

[Elite KryPtik]

Thanks a bunch DieWalkure

I'll be organizing the superpost later on tonight, after supper.

EDIT: Cancel that, I'll be doing it in the morning. Blame Third Age Total War invasion script, I've fought off about 11 different enemy armies with only 1 stack myself. Its tedious work.

[Draco100000]

So at the final, the problem is that right now a caval based armie is not enough tanky or powerfull to deal with LG armies, even fully upgraded.

I wold say another thing about rohan: while other factions get an enormous reward for maintain a good map controll ( isengard good uruks, upgrades) Dwarves ( production of veterans, upgrades) Gondor( accesible heroes, upgrades) Rohan actually have nothing. You cannot get acces to a better roster. I think the problem of rohan is the low number of different units it has. So my suggestion would be add new units to rohan, LG units.
This units can be caval or infantry, no matter actually. The main point is give rohan a reward to its offensive gameplay. because while other factions can get enormous powerfull armies, rohan can only choose between Peasants, 3 units of westfold and light caval. And thats so bad thought. Also the acces to the upgrades, because they are so expensive, it is only possible in lategame. If you wanna make a EG-MG rohan based, you should also give cheaper upgrades to peasants and/or caval. Anyway, rohan needs a change, because for now, playing as rohan is like a handicap, and it isnt at all fun in some cases.

[Elite KryPtik]

EDIT: Added poll, changed first post for new readers.

My Ideas: Firstly, to increase the cost of Royal Breeding and decrease the cost of Summon Galadhrim, to 6 and 3 respectively, and flip their spots in the spellbook, while also decreasing the cost of The 3 Hunters to 6 points to make sure the spellbook is balanced. Also, if the team thinks it would be better, perhaps the Royal Breeding power should be put on the right side of the spellbook and The 3 Hunters on left, so that people don't always go left for Ents. Now, the Royal Breeding power in this situation would be made much stronger, granting 50% health, armor, and 50% less trample revenge damage from pikes, and finally it would give 200% less trample deceleration. The idea here is that with this, Rohans cavalry could do some epic charges and trample for much longer periods of time, while taking less damage, to help them survive long enough to actually do some damage against the late game pike spam of Isengard, Dwarves and Gondor. Now obviously, none of these stats are final, and the team has the last word.

My second idea is that since the heroes of Rohan are likely riding Mearas Horses, they should have better natural speed, trample damage and less trample deceleration than any other mounted hero in the game, besides Gandalf. Therefore I would propose to increase their trample damage by at least 50%, and their trample deceleration should be much slower, and speed much higher. Mearas are the most incredible horses in Middle Earth, and I feel this is not accurately represented at the moment.

Finally, I had a minor idea to add on to Hamans idea of an economy upgrade, to give Rohan a new building for economy upgrades and let them unlock a couple of different upgrades, 1 for Flour Mills 1 for Stud Farms.

Hamans Ideas: His first idea was to buff Rohans economy by adding economy upgrades to the fortress after Théoden is cured, and allowing Rohan to get upgrade discounts if they buy more armories. His next idea was to increase the strength of Spear Throwers against heavy units such as Veterans and Tower Guards. Thirdly, he proposed that my idea for Royal Breeding should be made a standard upgrade at the stables or armory, unlocked after Théoden is cured, and to replace the 3 point Royal Breeding power with something else. Finally, he proposed that Rohan should get some defensive upgrades late game, such as Fire Arrows for their towers.

Django suggested that the strength of Rohirrim Archers against pikes should be increased, but that their weakness to archers should also be increased.

Elendils Cousin and Mandos both suggested to make the Galadhrim Summon permanent, except for Haldir.

Morwereth suggested to increase Eomers Strength late game, and redo his abilities to either be more Unit Supporter of Mass Slayer oriented, instead of a mix of the 2.

Draco100000 suggested adding some new late game units, either heavy infantry or cavalry, to help Rohans late game from gaining map control. He also suggested that some kind of upgraded discount should be added, but wasn't specific about it.

[LordDainIronfoot]

I as well feel that Rohan lacks something in the Late Game which can't be compensated with Cavalry even though Rohan is basically a Cavalry oriented Faction and the reason about that is that Rohan is not known for having Heavy Armored Knight Type of a Cavalry but rather Swift and deadly Light Armored one ! :-)

And because of all that in my eyes I believe that the key to giving better options for Rohan in Late Game will be good Infantry Units with some limited slightly more Armored Cavalry may be! :-) And I think the Westfold Units will do the job about that.

What I mean is that each of the Three Rohan Captains should be able to summon up to 3 Max of each Westfold Unit .For instance Erkebrand could he able to Summon up to 3 Westfold Swordsman because we knoe that in thr Book he brought Infantry Reinforcements and he can also become a full fledged Hero while the other 2 can stay Captain Role with 1-2 more Abilities and each of them to Summon Max 3 of the other Units!? Of course they will summon only 1 Battalion at a time with some Cool down to the Ability.:-)

What you guys think about that!?I just think it will be a good way to fill the need of Rohan and use its own Lore Based Units with somewhat better stats too.:-)

Greetings and best regards from the Lord of the Iron Hills! :-)

[Elite KryPtik]

I'm going to argue that Rohan didn't have any heavy armored horse, just because they didn't have any at the Pelennor Fields doesn't mean they had none at all. Théoden mustered a large force very quickly, with more time he could have equipped his men a lot better. Additionally, the riders had some heavy scalemail and used horse shields, which both significantly reduce the danger of pikes and arrows.

The team has already rejected the idea of making Erkenbrand a full fledged hero, so that's not likely going to happen.