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I was thinking along the lines of rednaldron here. There should be numerous methods to deal with fires....Posts: 783
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thats a pretty good idea. 
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That is very very funny! I literally laughed out friggin' loud!!Posts: 1,236
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http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index...showtopic=36114
I realized that battleships with fire arrows might be an interesting platform from which to set fire to terrain. Not only could this be used to block travel routes but it could be used to trap your opponent's forces in difficult situations. For example, the high mobility of ships and the restricted movement of ground units on the water will mean that surprise fire setting ambushes could become a popular strategy along coastlines. Map features would be fully taken advantage of. Think of luring your enemy's army onto the tip of a peninsula and setting fire to the forest behind them. If you could pull it off, how cool would that be?
This gets me thinking on what the role of flammability will play in BFME 2.
FIRE ARROWS AND SIEGE VS BUILDINGS
Will fire arrow and siege missiles now cause continuing damage to buildings? Lets say you use fire arrows to attack a lumbermill, will a fire start at a certain point and slowly consume the lumber camp until it is a pile of ashes? Can you bring your trebuchet up to the castle wall and lob a fire stone into an archery range and set it on fire so that it will eventually be ruined? If the answer is yes to either of these, then any building that is susceptible to fire is basically a goner once set with a few volleys of flame.
This will mean that players will have to destroy a building as soon as it is on fire to get the biggest "refund" value, assuming the refunds will still happen in BFME 2. If you need the building to finish building a unit, then you might wait until the last possible moment.
Another factor that will come into play if buildings will burn to the ground once set is that fire missile units might be pyromaniacal firestarters setting fire to everything that will hurt your enemy if destroyed. If you could send out pyro teams with defensive escorts, you could do a lot of damage.
Just think of the Rohirrim Archers and what they could do, galloping out of no where, setting fire to everything possible and then riding away before they can be stopped or countered. Same with battleships as I mentioned before. Not a good idea to build anything flammable within firing range from the coastline.
Since fire could really unbalance the game, my guess is that, if buildings will ultimately burn, they will do so slowly. If they didn't then fire might become the weapon of choice on certain buildings and the flammability issue might benefit or hurt different factions disproportionally. Think of elves and how everything seems to be built out of wood and then think of dwarves and all their stone.
The choice of location for buildings will certainly have to consider flammability of terrain. A forest fire could destroy that farm you built right next to it. Lumbercamps could really have a problem on their hands if the enemy is constantly staring forest fires around them. Mordor and Isengard would have to place and defend their camps very carefully.
FOREST FIRES AND GRASS FIRES
When a forest gets lit up in smoke and flames, whats that going to do to the wood supply for the lumbercamps and to the hiding places for the elves and rangers? Not only can fires damage units that happen to get caught up in them but it can affect the strategy of the game when it hurts the resource collection for Isengard and Mordor and reduces the areas that elves and rangers can hide. I can imagine corsairs with FA cruising the coasts near the elves' base and lighting up any forest they can target and leave it to burn.
Will Rohirrim archers with FA be mobile fire ambushers, attempting to trap opposing units in difficult situations.
Same with dry grasslands. They might be the worst place to hang out or the worst place in which to build your farm.
Since fires could easily overwelm all the other game elements, my guess is that EA will have only very limited impact from fires. In the end, BFME 2 will be a game about units fighting units and not about pyromania.
My guess is that old dry forests and parched grasslands will be the raging fire dangers to avoid and will appear in maps only in limited areas and in campaign missions to spice up the action. The verdant Elven forests will be hard to light up, as will fertile plains doted with farms and pastures.
Since quick starting fires would likely be only in the rare dry grasslands and dead forests, players will tend to avoid them so as not to be caught in a surprise ambush. On the other hand, such tinder dry terrain might be a strategic point in which to build a fortress or resource building as long as there is a fire break to prevent fire from threatening your structure. Using map terrain like this would allow you to set the fire as a defensive barrier.
HOW CAN ELVES START FOREST FIRES?
Another interesting issue is whether elves with fire arrows can or ought to set fire to forests. It would not be very characteristic of a race that has such a close kinship with nature. The ents would give the elven race the cold shoulder for the rest of eternity.
Mordor and Isengard would do it in a heart beat if it suited them. Goblins would too since they could just hide out underground until things burned out.
Will it just be too immoral for FOL to be able to set fires to the earth? Maybe this just is irrelevant in multiplayer mode when you have Gondor fighting Rohan, Aragorn cutting down ents, and Gandy's givin' Lego the ol' Istari scud missile.
There is no question that FOD will be a better fit with the role of pyromaniac in the area of terrain.
HOW TO FIGHT FIRES?
It will be interesting to see if there will be a way to fight fire. FF TB750 speculated in the original thread about fire . . .
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index...showtopic=32323
It makes sense that EA would have to put in a counter to pyro's to prevent fires or put them out. If porters will be the worker bees to do it, then porters will be very important during sieges when fire stones are getting lobbed over your walls and into your buildings. It will be interesting if fire prevention can be accomplished as well. Wetting down your buildings or forests to keep them from getting lit up when your enemy attacks will give another chance to micro to success by preparing your defense until the attack is launched.
SPREADING FUEL TO SET UP YOUR OWN FIRES
Woozie in the above mentioned thread quoted an article found on the original BFME2.COM which has now merged with gamereplays . . .
LongbottomLeaf says . . .
Well have to wait and see what EA comes out with. If fire can be set and spread with fuel, it might give factions a way to set up the scenario that Isengard has had with its mine that needs fire to explode.
In the end, we are just going to have to wait and see but that can't stop me from making the following conclusions:
CONCLUSIONS
BUILDINGS SET ON FIRE WILL BURN SLOWLY It is only fair and balanced to allow a player a bit of time to put out a building that is on fire. It might well be that porters will be the way to do it, like BFME had peasants that could repair structures. I think quick burning would be unlikely since it would create a situation where very mobile fire units like Rohirrim archers with FA or battleships with FA could reek havoc on any flammable building they could hit and run with.
BUILDING SITES WILL BE CHOSEN WITH FIRE AVOIDANCE IN MIND If buildings are susceptible to fire, then it will be important to consider ways to avoid fire when choosing a building site. Some buildings might be more flammable than others. For factions with strong walls, less flammable buildings behind the walls would need to be built closer to the walls to allow room for the flammable buildings to be built out of range of fire siege. Buildings outside of the castle walls would do well to avoid flammable terrain so a forest fire set next door doesn't automatically spell destruction for your adjacent building. Flammable buildings along the coastline will be vulnerable to attack by battleships with FA.
TERRAIN THAT WILL IGNITE INTO A FIERY INFERNO WILL BE RARE If every forest or grassland would just go up in flames when set, then the game will just be about fire. My feeling is that there will be very occasional terrain features, like parched grasslands or dried up dead forests that will ignite into a fiery maelstrom. It will appear in very limited quantity in multiplayer maps and in campaign missions to spice things up.
FIGHTING FIRES WILL BE POSSIBLE I think EA has to have a way to counter fires that are set. The game will be no fun if the point of it becomes an endless flame broiling of each other. Porters make sense as they will be the utility unit. We'll just have to wait and see.
PUTTING FUEL ON THE FIRE If the speculations on the ability to spread fuel and light it are true, then this might become a very interesting element to game strategy. What units will be doing this kind of thing? If it is the porter then the porter will become one of the most interesting units for each faction to have.
FIRE AMBUSHES THAT TRAP UNITS WILL BE RARE Since I think quick starting fires on terrain will be limited to rare dry grasslands and dead forests, fire ambushes on armies will be just as rare. Players will learn to avoid being trapped in bad territory. However, players could use the fire prone terrain for strategic defensive value. As long as you could build a fortress or building near but behind a natural fire break, like a river or rocky mountain, then proximity to flammable land might make the structure more defensible if you could set the fire to fend off attack.
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