The Last Days (of the Third Age of Middle Earth): Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

 

The playable factions are :

The mod can be found [http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-days here].

 

* [[Action Girl]]: Elves and most Human player characters can choose to be one, although this isn't adviced because of graphical issues (see [[Obvious Beta]] below). There are also a few female commanders and hired blade among the Elven and Human NPC:

** Hirable companions feature Faniul from Dale, Luevanna from Mirkwood, and Galmyne from Rohan

* [[Affably Evil]]: Some parts of dialogs (especially all which is related to quests common to all sides) are the same for every factions. It makes some conversations sounding a bit [[Out of Character]], when the leader of an evil faction asks the player politely to do a random quest and nearly apologizes when the player answers that he won't be able to do it.

* [[Alien Blood]]: Averted. Although Orc blood is described as black in the books, all the blood in the game is red.

* [[Animal Theme Naming]]: Harad, Rhun, and Dunlendings use this trope.

* [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]]: Averted, like in the original game the maximal size of an army based on charisma, fame<ref>Each faction have a hierarchy, doing quests for one or winning a battle near one of its party or settlement grants rank points, gaining enough of them makes the player climb in the hierarchy. It is possible to climb in the ranks of several armies. Each time the player climbs in the hierarchy in any faction, it increases his total [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]]</ref>, and one the leadership skill ; to allow the formation of larger hordes for the evil factions, each Orc unit hired makes the cap a bit hight (something like "two more units for three Orcs").

* [[Arcadia]]: Most of the setting (apart from [[Mordor|the south-eastern parts of the map]] and a few Orc settlements build in a deforested spot).

* [[Army Scout]]:

** There are a lot of scouting parties wandering everywhere on the map, some random quests even require to dispatch some or personnally recon a specific area

** There are also some units which name implies this role ("Orc tracker of Mordor", "Ranger of Ithilien", etc)

* [[Artistic License Geography]]: [[Word of God|As explained in the FAQ]], the developpers choose to put the citadel of Minas Tirith on the top of a black carved rock instead of the white one, because they fell it would look cooler.

* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]

* [[Beauty Equals Goodness]]: Mostly played straight. Elves are beautiful, Dwarves and Men of the Good side are average. Orcs looks like mutant demons, and Men of the Evil sides looks mostly diseased (Black Numenoreans, the Mouth of Sauron), chaotic savage (Dunlendings), or cruel (Khand). YMMV for the women of these factions and for the whole Umbar corsairs and Harad factions, who look rather average.

* [[The Berserker]]: Isengard has a few units of this kind. There is also some berserker footmen in the Beornings faction.

** Or at least it should. Infortunatly, some different factions have very similar color. The worst are all those which have a shade of white / very light grey as official color. They are: Gondor, Erebor, Dale, all the wandering always-hostile parties, the player party (whatever side he is)

* [[Dangerous Deserter]]: After the beginning of the War of the Ring, there is a lot of deserters from the armies of evil factions, which are hostile against all the sides.

* [[Elaborate Underground Base]]:

** Mines of Moria, the capitale city of the Moria's Orc faction

** The caves under Orthanc

** Erebor capitale city

** Henneth Annun, the hidden settlement which serves as headquarter for the Ithilien rangers of Gondor

* [[Elves Versus Dwarves]]: Dialogs of the Dwarf companion Kili Goldfinger shows he does not like Elves. He especially does not like the Elve companion Luevanna (and vice-versa).

* [[Escort Mission]]: There are two kinds. One of them consists in bringing a messenger to camp / town X, the messenger becoming part of the party during the travel. The other consists in opening the way to a caravan of supply travelling to a specific place, protecting it if attacked.

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: Each settlement/town has at least one of this NPC (usually more, sometimes even all of them): a smith, a supply master, a manager for the barracks, and a kind of super supply master. Most of them (except the smiths, who have a real name, and a couple of the super supply master<ref>the one of Isengard is Grima Wormtongue himself, the one of the Beornings town "Woodman village" is named Pierre Woodman</ref> who are refered by a job name depending on the town).

* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: {{spoiler|If all the Good factions are defeated, Sauron and Saruman will fight against each other until one crushs the other.}}

** The mod is set in the Middle Earth and allows to take part in the big war which was the end of the Third Age

** The Troll cave settlement is a small Orc camp built next to a cave where a troll is standing

** Mordor and Dol Guldur are red

** Considering the field itself instead of the map, Orcs have a dark grey skin and wears black armors (as Black Numenoreans)

* [[High Fantasy]]

* [[Hint System]]: Usually, a loadingScreen displays a randomly chosen hint.

* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: Dialog of Orcs make several reference to eating human flesh and prepared half-eaten bodies can be found in some castles of evil factions. There is also a food item for the evil factions named "human flesh", it is the food which gives them the highest morale bonus. A (non-working) option for the factions even allows the player to butcher himself prisoners.

* [[Irrelevant Sidequest]]: Mostly averted. The sidequests (capturing enemy lords, bringing letters to allied lords, training X soldiers to a specific level, escorting supply caravan, etc) make perfect sense in the context of a huge war, although some of them (bring X number of metal scraps or food supply to Y, find and execute a fugitive) aren't very pertinent for a warlord.

* [[Lazy Backup]]: Averted, contrary to the original game. If the player is knocked out, the party keep on fighting until they win, they lose or the player hits Tab (which makes them retreat).

* [[Loading Screen]]: They features a random artwork, usually coming with tips about the game.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: There are eighteen factions, each of them has a leader, several army commanders, and sometimes at least one potential companion which can be hired.

* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: Fortunatly, it only shows when launching the game. This problem is even lampshaded in the progress bar, which says near the end of the loading "Texture loading (Be patient)".

** "Train X soldiers until they reach level Y": The levelling speed with the trainer skill is rather random. Training by battle is less, but it has its own risks (losing the units for the quest and having to recruit some other low-level ones, making the quest longer to achieve)

** "Bring me X [[Vendor Trash|metal scraps]] of Y quality": They are found on the battlefield after a victory, but their number, their quality, and their mere presence is random (although influenced by the "looting" skill)

** "Make X prisoners": The player need to meet an enemy party before expiration of the timer and remember to knock out some of them

** "Free X prisoners from the enemy": The player must find enemy parties which are carrying prisoners and defeat them

* [[Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest]]: Like defeating X parties of Y units.

* [[The Medic]]: Faniul was an healer at the court of the king of Dale when hired, and start with a few points in medical skills (and absolutly none in fighting skills). Depending on how the player makes her evolve when gaining levels, she can end as a [[Combat Medic]].

** Each time Saruman orders the player to capture a Troll, he gives him a wheeled-cage, not verifying if the player already has one. Note also that completing the quest does not make the item diseappear

** With the evil factions, when reviewing prisoners, there is a dialog option which allows to kill, butcher, and convert to food any prisoner. It does nothing, except displaying a (false) text saying that the prisoner has been butchered

* [[One Size Fits All]]: Averted.

** The Good factions have two sizes of clothing: Dwarf and Human-Elvish. All can wear the same helmets, but not the same boots and armors. Dwarves also can't ride horses.

* [[Quicksand Box]]: Maybe more than the unmodded game (although there is an actual long-term goal).

** There is eighteen factions, up to half of them could be joined in the same game, depending on the side chosen at the creation of the character

* [[Rage Helm]]: Non-vilainous example, they are the kind of helms worn by Dwarves.

* [[Rat Stomp]]: One of the first received quests is to destroy a (rather huge for a lone level 1 character) party of goblins.

* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: The FAQ explains that the lack of Mumakil in the armies of Harad (although a couple of them can be seen in the background of their base) and the height of Elves (the same of the Men ingame, although Tolkien's Elves are supposed to be bigger) are consequences of technical issues, both elements would require a lot more time and work to be installed and work perfectly.

* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]]: Zigzagged. Among the factions, some faction leaders lead themselves a part of their army to war, some other don't.

** The faction leaders who lead themselves armies on the battlefield are Lord Elrond (Imladris), King Thranduil (Mirkwood), King Brand (Dale), King Dain II Ironfoot (Erebor), King Theoden (Rohan), Chief Grimbeorn the Old (Beornings), Master Burza Krual (Mt Gundabad), Master Bolg the Lesser (Moria), Jarl Elcaroth (Rhun), Shibh Krukmahur (Khand), Admiral Tumlir (Umbar), Chief Ul-Ulcari (Harad), and Master Fuinur (Dol Guldur).

** The faction leaders who stay in there capitale city are Steward Denethor (Gondor), Lady Galadriel (Lothlorien), Saruman (Isengard), and the Mouth of Sauron (Mordor)

* [[Shown Their Work]]: The mod features ''a lot'' of factions, places, and NPC from the Middle-Earth, including very minor ones.

* [[The Siege]]: Taking towns and castles by force is necessary to win. Contrary to the original game, the player cannot do it himself, he can only join sieges which have been begun by his allies.

* [[Storming the Castle]]

* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]]: From time to time, a commander tries to break a siege (of several hundred units) by charging the enemy when leading a few dozen units.

'''A''': Because punch yourself. }}

* [[Timed Mission]]: All the quests, except "follow the leader of your faction army".

* [[Troll]]: The Troll cave settlement contains a cave where a troll is standing. Its dialog lines contains real references to Internet trolling.

* [[Unusable Enemy Equipment]]: Opposite to the original game, Good faction characters can't use gear from the evil ones and vice-versa (Sauron and Saruman factions can share their gear). Weapons of the enemy can be picked up on the battlefied but not kept after the fight. In fact, after a battle, most of the loot consists in metallic pieces only useful for selling, food, and mounts. There are exceptions: in battles between an evil party and a deserter / wandering Orcs party, both are non-aligned Orcs or Men from evil factions, with the same weapons and armors.

* [[Vendor Trash]]: The most common loot is made of several kinds of "metal scraps", which are items totally useless apart for being sold.

* [[Victory Pose]]

* [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]]: An option allows the player to stop outside a city to review the troops and the prisoners of the party. Then, it is possible to slay prisoners, but any experience gained this way will be cancelled when exiting this mod.

* [[We Have Reserves]]: Implied from dialogs when recruiting soldiers in the Mordor barracks.

* [[Warrior Prince]]: Theoden and Eomer for Rohan, Thranduil for Mirkwood, Elrond, Elladand and Elrohir for Imladris, Celeborn for Lothlorien, Faramir for Gondor. All of them are commanders who really lead armies to war. Theoden, Thranduil and Elrond are even faction leaders.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Game Mod Index]]

[[Category:Strategy RPG]]

[[Category:Wide Open Sandbox]]

[[Category:Action RPG]]