The "Middle Earth Believable Combat Model" for TLD 3.x
A custom "Realistic Combat Model" conversion

Notes for Beta test release 1

Please do read this carefully.  Critical information for developers and testers here.



In general: there may be bugs.  Typos, omissions, you name it.  Special-code items may not be covered in these changes, or may be total guesswork (i.e. problems with trolls, wargs, and such).  Welcome to life ... don't just stand there, report them, so somebody can fix them.

Also in general, items commented out or not in use have not been reworked.  Should it be necessary to add those items back in, they will need new stats.


Literary issues:  In this RCM customization, armors are assumed to be a little bit lighter than their historical counterparts (from about the time period that Tolkien based his tech levels upon).  This is a literary judgement, based on the fact that Tolkien's Middle Earth was mostly armed with spears and swords, not so much hammers and maces.  Practicality says that this must indicate generally lighter armor.  This is a subtle change, and one that would likely be totally unnoticed if no attention were drawn to it ... but fans of other RCM mods may find it a bit more difficult to armor their player character or companions as heavily as they might like.  You are not imagining things - the armor is just a bit lighter than its real Crusades-period equivalents.  Also, in similar literary interpretation, bows are a little weaker than in some RCM mods.  This is extrapolated from the point that Tolkien was creating a European-based mythology, and Europe was notable for NOT developing many of the improvements in archery equipment seen in the Near East and Asia (eventually going almost exclusively to crossbows and then later to guns rather than building more elaborate long bows).  Battles in Tolkien's work are dominated by melee infantry, with little mention of archers in any settings except holding the walls of fortifications (or the elves, using the woods as a fortification) ... not at all the Middle-eastern style of combat dominated by horse archers ... so the assumption of relatively primitive bow design seems to fit the model.  Both the armor and bows are within the realms of believable realism ... just a question of exactly which items were selected for the examples.



Module.ini: changes to armor section, to get the desired scale.  Note that, as a result of these universal changes, numbers for all stats will not directly correlate to old stats.  I ask that a million people not ask why I raised or lowered the damage number on something, unless they consider final numbers in-game.

Repeat for anyone who did not catch that:  Due to changes in module.ini file, old numbers do not correlate to current ones in most respects.

Also on that note, "damage_interrupt_attack_treshold = 0.0" represents the point that hits, even if they do not penetrate the armor, still hurt.  Even if you can't really damage a target, you can still knock him around and keep him off-balance.  This is a significant tactical point, as it prevents a heavily armored character from simply walking through enemy lines cutting down everything in sight ... realistically, if someone tried that, they would all pound on his armor until he couldn't stand up, even if they couldn't really hurt him much.  This happens a lot im modern riots, where the crowd will drag one of the riot police to the ground, and even if unable to really hurt him much through all the armor, will beat him constantly and prevent him from resisting or escaping.  If players don't like it ... well, don't let them dogpile you... but remember that you can do the same to them, and it has certain strategic implications for a more numerous but individually inferior force dealing with a few strong melee units.  You just can't fight too well while somebody is beating on your helmet with a stick.

Horses:  speed and maneuver set to more realistic values.  (A running man averages 3 miles an hour over rough terrain - a horse, even a poor excuse for a farm pony, can do more than 40 with a rider, and maintain that for longer than you might expect.)  Charge value had to be lowered slightly to balance out the increased speed (it's a horse, not a bulldozer).  Warg data is still experimental, as I tried to take wolves into account, but I have no numbers on what a pit-bull the size of a pony would really be like.  Hit point curve flattened out some - few horses are that much tougher than others, when it comes to absorbing weapon damage.  Armor values tweaked to reflect material and coverage, and weight of armor was taken into account on speed and maneuver numbers... although some of this was guesswork, as the graphics are not always 100% descriptive.  Elven horses were considered to be top-of-class thoroughbreads, everyone else got animal quality declining from that.  Because of more realistic speeds, players should note that you don't always have to run your horse as hard as it will move ... that's a good way to go flying off of a cliff (in real life, too).

Note on Cut, Pierce, and Blunt damage:  Anything that does equal damage against armor and living tissue is "cut" damage, the way the game is set up.  Blunt and Pierce do the same thing, that is, penetrate armor much better than they damage living tissue.  The only difference between them is that "blunt" is non-lethal.  Therefore, a knife or sword is cut damage, even in a stab ... an ice pick or screwdriver would be pierce damage, and at a much lower damage number than the knife, as they penetrate armor much the same as the knife but make a less damaging hole in the body.  Axes, like war hammers, are pierce - they make a smaller hole than a sword of similar weight, but the weight is concentrated at the head for maximum penetration.  A mace or war hammer is pierce damage, not blunt - nobody is going to call a flanged mace non-lethal.  Arrows are cut damage - arrowheads make a terrible wound, but they lack the cross-sectional density to pierce all that much armor (compared to their damage potential).  Rifle bullets would be pierce damage - they will go through a lot relative to the size of wound they make.  I am aware that this does not make a lot of sense, if you take the common use of the word "pierce" and equate it with "puncture wound" (medically, a puncture is a wound substantially deeper than its surface footprint) ... but that is not the way the game handles these numbers.  In-game, they only effect the way armor is computed.  Cut 50 has the same effect on armor as pierce 25, but does twice as much damage to the character (regardless of how much that actually comes out, after the random damage roll and the armor reduction).  Generally, when these numbers are applied to real weapons, anti-armor weapons ("pierce") seem to be a little slower to use, are often a little shorter, and produce about two-thirds the tissue damage of more general-purpose ("cut") weapons of similar weight, bulk, and/or volume - which gives them a slight advantage against armor but a slight penalty to damage and usability against unarmored targets, relative to their general-purpose weapon counterparts.

Trolls:  All troll numbers are experimental, as I have no idea exactly how trolls were set up for strength, hit points, power strike, and whatever.  I moved the numbers more in the direction I expect they will go, but it is a shot in the dark.  (I'm pretty sure the ones that were there were absurdly low for the damage caused by getting a tree dropped on you, but that doesn't tell me what they should be.)  The damage on troll weapons was also set to pierce instead of blunt - I would not expect many survivors after being driven into the ground like a tent peg, unless your side's trauma medicine was extremely good.  This is, however, pure trial and error.

Arrows:  Much of bow damage moved to the arrows, for technical reasons.  (Bow accuracy is impacted by bow damage numbers.)  Text on "Orc Hook Arrows" changed to read "Orc Barbed Arrows" ... a "hook arrow" sounds something like a "boomerang arrow".  Quiver size unchanged for now, although note that larger quivers may prove more playable (considering how much ammo the AI tends to waste).  Archery damage is modeled rather conservatively for now (as this is realistically up for interpretation, depending on the quality range of bows, arrowheads, etc. in the world in question), so we can add at least 5 points of damage to any or all bow/arrow combinations and still be within statistical limitations of "realistic" damage.

Bows: Power draw requirements raised considerably.  Note that M&B only uses power draw bonus up to required for the bow plus 4.  That is, power draw 10 only does anything for you if the bow has a PD requirement of 6.  For PD zero bows, any power draw value over 4 is wasted - which is clearly not an advantage for purposes of game design, if there are literally no bows in-game with high enough requirements to use the full range of values.  Also on that note, higher PD requirement bows are somewhat reverse-scaled ... they still do more damage after the power draw numbers are added, and more importantly they produce higher arrow speeds (i.e. flatter trajectory and easier to hit moving targets).  *****Important:  troops will need to have PD numbers modified to match.***** (I didn't get the troops files.)

Serious balance/reality question:  Was there some reason why so many bows were marked "can't be used from horseback"?????  Was it just for game balance, or what?  I ask, because Japan was known for using bows 7 feet long with draw weights up to 200 pounds from horse.  (They still hold these competitions - you can watch this done still today.)  I would think that having to put points into the "mounted archery" feat, and the associated drop in effectiveness, is sufficient penalty for firing from horse ... you don't really need to mark every dang bow in the game as "not usable from horse".  I did not change those ... yet ... but I do feel a need to ask what anybody was thinking.

For the record:  Damage on the elven bows is extreme.  Beyond anything justifiable in historical technology.  I tried to get the whole spirit of magic and the craftsmanship of guys who had been making bows all of their 7000 year life.  Might have overdone it.  Not being a total expert on the Tolkien lore, I might have got a few others too high or low for their group as well.  The average range of values for most of them is about right, even if the specifics may be a little off.

Shields:  Shield numbers are reversed of Native, now showing high armor and low hit-point values.  Shields do not break from being worn out - they are either broken by extreme force (in which case they break suddenly and without warning), or disabled by having some heavy weapon (like a javelin) stuck into them.  Test it if you want ... you cannot break a quarter-sheet of plywood by sticking throwing knives into it all day, but you can fold it in one blow with a real hard hit from a heavy axe.  Now the shields in-game reflect this point pretty accurately.

Thrown weapons:  Velocity dropped greatly - you can't take a 50-yard shot with a throwing axe, no matter how hard you try.  I mean, it's a javelin, not a shoulder-fired rocket.  Those kind of weapons are only effective for a few feet.  That said, they can be pretty deadly at that distance ... but you guys also did not account for the huge power-throw bonus, so the numbers you had were WAY too high.  You could have killed tanks with THOSE javelins... nothing in the game could have survived a hit, even if it was thrown by a child and only grazed a well-armored target.  I think I got them back into the range of looking reasonable, but the numbers are still a little rough, and have not been fine-tuned at all.

Armors (and helmets, etc.):  I tried to look at the models and make the numbers as reasonable as possible, within the parameters of reasonable uncertainty (like, exactly how thick was that maille?).  Noticed that a LOT of the helmets were fairly open-faced, which reduces effective coverage by a lot (i.e. even if the helmet catches a blow, the chances of still getting cut to some degree are still rather high), and many have a lot of flexible parts (maille over not just the neck, but the sides of the head and face as well, that not reinforced by much - which somewhat lowers trauma resistance, especially against heavier weapons).  Some of the body armor, on the opposite extreme, is, well, rather extreme - a shirt of maille covered in a tabbard of studded leather, or some such.  So the numbers, as much as possible, are slanted to reflect the appearance of the armor first, and game balance second.  Some of this is necessary to maintain the player's immersion level (i.e. you lose suspension of disbelief when what appears to be a baseball cap absorbs more damage than a helmet that looks like the turret off of a panzer.)  I hope that won't create balance issues.

Faction-specific concerns:
Elves:  Tried to get the elf equipment a little better than human equivalents, but not so much better as to be overly obvious about it.  The specific graphics made this easy - that scale armor on many elf costumes looks pretty much impenetrable.
Orcs:  The heaviest of orc gear is at least equivalent to moderately heavy human gear ... just a little lower on specs than the best stuff, to suggest that it was crude and mass-produced instead of really built with concern for detail, but not enough to suggest that it was primitive or ineffective.  Still, it's more than adequate for the conducting of a war - orc weapons are deadly, have no doubt about it.  Lower-teir orcs tend to have little equipment at all... that's a balance issue completely outside of this conversion project.
Dwarf gear:  same as elves, above.
Harad and Khand:  These guys both have some VERY efficient-looking body armor.  Most of their weapons are superb designs as well.  I hope somebody planned them to be pretty tough... if their skills and tactics are as good as their gear, they are both forces to be feared.
Dunland:  These guys are VERY primitive.  Within the confines of believeable stats, there's no way to make them a match for anything.  Any sense of balance from their faction will have to be done with sheer numbers of mostly-naked savages, because one-on-one against any other faction, they're little more than target practice.
Rhun:  Good helmets and weapons, but most have little body armor.  A good plot twist to add variety, but may be tough for players.


Couple of typos on the Rohan armor, where what was obviously a leather vest was named "maille shirt" or some such.  Corrected to match the graphics.

Most weapon lenghts have been checked/confirmed/fixed.  Might have missed a few.

Tried to use some of the numbers that were already in place, when possible.  So, why are two very similar helmets rated two points different?  Because that's how they were rated already, and the economics and troop files reflect this already, and you can't really tell how well they're made just by looking at them anyway (there could reasonably be that much variation).  So while they're re-scaled overall, the order of better to worse was preserved whenever it did not create logical problems.  Creating extra work serves little purpose.  If there was a logical reason to change the order - I did some of that too.

Prices are, for the most part, not changed (unless there was just a bug, or I noticed a problem in price progression).  That can be something for somebody else to do - balancing economics is beyond the scope of this project.

Item weights have, for the most part, not been changed (unless there was an obvious bug) - somebody can deal with that later, if anyone cares.  The way M&B handles weight and mobility, trying to get weights realistically scaled to character movement would be a whole new project.

A lot of little bugs have been cleaned up since the Alpha version.  Too many to list, but most of them were not so significant as to seriously impact the feel of the game.