Feedback: Dwarves

[MasterOfNone]

Please post feedback on this faction in this thread. Report things you like as well as things you feel could be improved. Don't be shy. We want to know about everything: visuals, audio, text, lore, models, game play, features, mechanics, unit balance, campaign balance, look and feel, atmosphere, stability, quality, etc.

We are chiefly attending to battlemap settlement models in the run up to the full release, but we can tweak other elements in that period according to feedback we receive in the open-beta stage.

Bugs/CTDs should be reported in the bugs thread, not here.

[Kuruharan]

I’ve gotten some way into my dwarf campaign and these are my thoughts so far:

1. As somebody mentioned in the general feedback thread, I think the mechanics for converting the population from dwarvish (or elvish) to mannish could be more clearly explained in the text. I think that info should be front and center at the top rather than down a few paragraphs. The way it is now lends itself to confusion.

2. I would like to suggest that there be information somewhere about what units can be built where. Playing as dwarves you have to plan ahead and it can be a bit frustrating when trying to plot out army compositions for the different regions to discover after spending a bunch of money, “Oops, can’t build that unit type here.” The information may be somewhere and I may have missed it, but even if so I think it needs to be made more prominent and accessible.

2a. While it may be a settled design decision that isn’t going to change, I am not a fan of restricting where certain types of units can be built for the dwarves. In my opinion it doesn’t add anything except artificial difficulty to the campaign when the main hurdle is (and should be) the low population that keeps the dwarves from making armies filled with dwarven troops and the great expense of maintaining the dwarf troops that makes the mannish troops a necessity, not that the dwarves (for some weird reason) haven’t shared the schematics for how to build bows and big shields across all of their strongholds. Obviously, the Dwarves of the Iron Hills are an exception to this as they are a specifically region based unit.

3. This may be an intended feature, but I don’t seem to be getting notifications when other factions are destroyed.

4. Last, and most definitely least, while the dwarves seem to have the subcultures of the Longbeards, the Broadbeams, and the Firebeards in the game, the subcultures are not listed on their campaign selection screen.

[Thangaror]

I'm not a friend of the tortoise formation, and I'm surprised to see it in FATW, because it's quite useless actually.
Anyhow, it should be renamed to something more 'dwarvish'.

[webba84]

We didnt rename it?

[CountMRVHS]

Originally it would have been 'testudo', of course. I'm guessing we just Englished the Latin term to 'tortoise'?

I'm fine with changing it, if we can come up with something fitting. Maybe even a Dwarvish term, though it might be tricky to come up with something that's actually canon.

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

By the way, Dale has backstabbed me several times.

[CountMRVHS]

Did they attack you in Erebor when you had a very small garrison there? Or was it some other situation?

What was the diplomatic situation at the time? I'm assuming you were allied with Dale when they backstabbed you, but were they at war with anyone else? Had they defeated all neighboring rebels?

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

Did they attack you in Erebor when you had a very small garrison there? Or was it some other situation?

What was the diplomatic situation at the time? I'm assuming you were allied with Dale when they backstabbed you, but were they at war with anyone else? Had they defeated all neighboring rebels?

They sent an army to attack the Iron Hills. They were allied with Dorwinion at the time as was I, and had defeated Rhovanion together.

[CountMRVHS]

Wow, never seen that before... Talk about going out of their way.

Hmm, so was Erebor pretty well-defended?

It seems like they had run out of foes in the region and needed a new target. Were the Beornings still around? Usually I see Dale go to work on them at some point.

AI Elves often get left alone by AI Dale, probably until the later stages of the campaign. (I understand the AI has a difficult time finding its way to the Elvenking's Halls, which delays such a war.) But the Beornings, Rhovanion, and Dorwinion are all right there for Dale to fight. Of course, so are the Dwarves.

This is a tough one. You'll notice that the other 'permanent' alliance, RK-Rohan, tends to last a good long time even when the player is one of those factions. That's probably due to several factors:

a) Plenty of enemies all around (Harad, Adun., Dunland, Tharbad, etc.)
b) RK is split up into 2 parts, thus unable to concentrate all of its strength in any one place, which delays a defeat of its enemies
c) RK and Rohan don't share borders until the campaign has progressed a bit (and there are still enemies left, usually, when this happens)

This is a rather different situation with the Dwarves and Dale. a) Not too many fierce enemies in the region (Dale is, I think, the strongest/most expansive faction in the immediate area). b) The Dwarves' territories are widely scattered, but Dale's forces are all close to one another. And c) By lore, Dale and Erebor are right next to each other, and the Iron Hills isn't far off. So they share a longish border.

Perhaps the campaign script will be able to change a) a little bit, by weakening Dale and strengthening factions like North Rhun and Rhun when the player is the Dwarves. A betrayal could still happen in that scenario, but it would be delayed - and maybe averted, if Dale gets drawn into a big war with a powerful foe.

[Stark1]

Hm, I thought Dale-dwarves alliance was unbreakable by AI? What's the difference compared to normal alliances if AI can break them? Much lesser chance of that happening?

[webba84]

It is set up to be unbreakable, its also bugged. I've never seen the RK/Rohan alliance break, so if we can work out why the one does and the other doesnt then we can address it.

[CountMRVHS]

I've seen the RK/Rohan alliance break, but it's only happened at the later stages of a campaign, when both factions wiped out everyone else in the area including the Elves and Shire. I wonder if a war with the Elves/Shire triggers the breaking of the permanent alliance? Anyway, must be something different causing the Dale/Dwarf one to break down.

[Revelo]

This was a discussion back in BT2, seems if you have a light garrison in Erebor they start trying to bribe you and if that fails they go to war.

It seems to not happen if you are in a war with another faction, as Dorwinion declared war on me and Dale helped out with pushing them back. The Dwarf economy is excellent in Bt3, so you should have no problem funding an army to go to war with someone, while keeping taxes low so you can breed bearded baby Dwarfs

[CountMRVHS]

Interesting - yes, if you go to war with someone else that will draw Dale into the fight after you. Good thinking, Revelo! Still, I hope there is some way to address the issue more permanently.

[Galgus]

Provincial governors will occasionally try to convert the Dwarven settlements into man-integrated ones when a noble isn't there for whatever reason, and it is extremely annoying.

Seeing an important, irreversible, and unwanted decision made by the city AI is enough to get me to reload.

If at all possible, I'd prefer it if they didn't do that - I tried to set their policy to "Save" instead of "Spend", but they still seem to want to build that.

Is there any way to disable the governors from doing anything in the game as-is?

[webba84]

Not as far as I know. TBH I don't think we anticipated anyone actually using the ai governors at all. Perhaps use them only in your mannish settlements, for now.

[Galgus]

I thought the governors took over anytime a noble/ family member left or died in the town, until another came.

Is there a way to keep them from managing in such circumstances?

Ideally I'd have a governor in each city, but sometimes they are spread thin managing regions, and sometimes old ones die.

[webba84]

just choose manage all settlements on the campaign selection screen or the options menu.

[Galgus]

I didn't know that was possible - it almost sounds like cheating after so much effort spent moving nobles around to play governor.

What is the advantage to having a noble govern rather than an ai?

[Galgus]

Apologies, I forgot to mention something else.

I bought formerly independent settlements from Rohan and Tharbad, and was pleasantly surprised.

They were stocked with a decent army of hirelings, though they were all at 12 soldier strength.

Is this an intended feature? I doubt the AI sells provinces often, but it seemed somewhat random for them to appear. Did it somehow convert what soldiers were stationed there?