Mod «Ride for Ruin: A Lord of the Rings mod» for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.14.1 - 1.14.4)

Ride for Ruin transports you to the apocalyptic final years of Lord of the Rings’ Third Age. Control one of Middle Earth’s iconic countries and try to save the world– or plunge it into eternal darkness.

Features

• Engage in the world-spanning clash of the War of the Ring: defeat the Dark Lord once and for all, or lead his armies to enslave the world for all eternity!
• A lore-accurate, detailed, and beautiful custom map of Middle Earth
• Custom focus trees, decisions, characters, and ideas for Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, and Mordor, with over seven years of content for each nation
• Alternate history paths to crown Grima king of Rohan or lead a rebellion against his unjust rule
• News events for many of the iconic scenes from the Lord of the Rings trilogy
• A skill based system to capture or destroy the One Ring

Design Principles & Plans

• Every country in the game will receive unique content, including focus trees
• Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, and Mordor will receive extensive alt-history paths & other content revisions
• Countries should interact with each other via focuses, decision, and events
• The books and movies serve as a guide and inspiration, but accuracy has not been held sacred above interesting gameplay
• The ring system will eventually be reworked into a custom focus tree for the fellowship that interacts with many countries
• The map will be continuously refined

Credits

• Project owner: Isaac Hessel-Robinson
• Contributor: xxxSleepyheadxxx

Balance:

• AI is less trigger happy about seizing covered wagons
• Can convert between some cavalry saddle types
• Rhovanion city-states start with a destroyer design for MTG users
• Rhovanion city-states start with a light cavalry design for NSB users, and an upgraded light cavalry variant for non-NSB users
• Rhovanion city-states share ship namelists
• “Early Dorwin Nobles” cavalry variant starts with Standard Models barding & Basic Small Weapons

Bugfixes:

• Mobilization laws display in a vertical list without the floating “+25% Manpower” visual
• Swapped the stats of the “Standardized Models” and “Custom Fit” cavalry barding modules
• Focuses that modify “Servants of Sauron” show the correct modifier amount in their tooltips

Graphics:

• Updated the flags of Khazad-Dum, Khand, Lindon, Lorien, Rivendell, Woodland Realm, Vales of Anduin, Arthedain, Cardolan, Harondor, the Shire, Harad, and Rhudaur with less pixelated versions
• Updated the flag of the Misty Mountains & gave it unique ideological variations
• All Easterling, Dwarven, Northron, Numenorean, and Orcish countries start with the unique cavalry designer backgrounds previously only available to Rhun, Erebor, Dale, Gondor, and Mordor, respectively

Version 11.04.24 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.14.1 - 1.14.3)

• Dorwinion has a sizeable focus tree along with unique characters, ideas, events, and balances of power. 2 additional branches will come in the 1.2.XX patch series
• Dorwinion, Dale, Dol-Guldur, and Rhun can invest resources to influence Rhovanion city-states, eventually puppetting or even annexing them
• As long as Sauron rules Mordor, all other Melkorite countries have the “Shadow Worship” Balance of Power. The left side increases autonomy and opportunism support, while the right side decreases autonomy and boosts Melkorism.
• The Celduin & Rhúnaer rae navigable ocean. Countries along them can purchase wine from Dorwinion, boosting the prosperity of market towns along the route
• Countries can invest resources to colonize several wilderness areas in Rhovanion and Eriador
• Added the new ‘Heavy Infantry’ & ‘Heavy Pikes’ units, along with motorized versions. They require the new ‘Infantry Armor’ equipment in addition to their weapons
• Support companies now use unique & upgradeable equipments rather than generic support equipment
• Reskinned, rewritten, and rebalanced the cavalry designer; this includes chasses, modules, and roles
• Extended the map all the way to the eastern coast

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Version 28.11.23 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.13.1 - 1.13.5)

• Generic economy laws now use the new “Expected Consumer Goods” modifier introduced in AAT; countries will no longer permanently be at 10% consumer goods.

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Version 29.07.23 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1 - 1.12.14)

• Strategic regions use correct names rather than vanilla names

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Version 09.06.23 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1 - 1.12.14)

• Accepting the event ‘Sauron Demands Submission’ now correctly puppets you rather than Dagorlad when you don’t have TfV, WTT, or DoD enabled
• Mordor now receives events informing them whether each country submitted or not

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Version 18.04.23 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1 - 1.12.11)

• Halved the stability penalty for refusing a blood oath offer with an acceptance chance above 50%

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Version 01.02.23 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1 - 1.12.9)

Features:

• New focus tree shared by all Gwaithur tribes. Each of the six regions has many unique and substantial focuses.
• The ‘Blood Oath’ autonomy system. If a Gwaithur tribe subjugates another diplomatically or militarily and then integrates that tribal puppet, they gain all of the puppet’s cores and many of their characters.
• Lots more scripted content for Gwaithurium
• Completely revamped Isengard’s interactions with Dunland & Enedwaith. Added new focuses and decisions for Gondor and Mordor to interact with Gwaithurium
• Isengard now uses a scripted GUI interface rather than a clunky list of decisions to exploit puppets

Map:

• Replaced Dunland and Enedwaith with 24 smaller countries divided into six cultures
• Re-did the province, terrain, river, victory point, and supply maps in the Gwaithurium region
• Added the Greyflood river as traversable ocean with 2 new strategic regions
• Added 2 new strategic regions and 17 new states to the Gwaithurium region
• Added Ithilien as a vassal of Gondor
• Added Anfalas and Pinnath Gelin as releasables in Gondor
• Added crossing between Tol Fuin and Himring
• Fixed a weirdly splintered province in Deep Belegaer
• Fixed Cair Andros and Iron Heath being in the wrong regions
• Fixed many panhandles and oddly shaped provinces
• Made certain provinces conform better to terrain
• Reshaped states within Dorwinion and Khand to look nicer

Balance:

• Significantly improved Gondor and Mordor’s AIs.
• New game rule with the option to calculate garrison requirements based on the population of the state.
• Opportunists need 25% world tension to generate wargoals
• Added generic decisions to boost ideologies. These decisions are not available to countries with unique content around ideologies (the majors + Fangorn). Also added decisions to boost your ideology in your subjects
• Renamed ‘Númenórean Heritage’ to ‘Dúnedain Heritage’; it now grants -25% recruitable population. Umbar uses the unique Corsair Heritage, which grants significant naval buffs
• Added a new “Army of the Dead” unit type. Aragorn’s Army of the Dead event now spawns these
• Army chiefs for generic countries now have the “Army Chief: Reform 1” instead of “Infantry/Cavalry Specialist”, allowing them to passively gain army XP
• Orcish Heritage now decreases infantry combat width by 0.4
• Mordath, Pelennor, Morgul Vale, Lonely Mountain, Orthanc, Helm’s Deep, Hidden Valley, Folde, Udun, Reaches of the Wood, Weather Hills, Gundabad, and Anagzayan now start with watchetowers
• Generic countries Army Chief uses the Reformer trait to actually provide XP gain
• Reduced minimum divisions to send volunteers from 30 to 20
• The Silent Workhorse trait boost political power gain by 25% instead of 15%
• Saruman can no longer gain special bonuses from elvish subjects– they are simply too resistant to his manipulation– or from hobbits– their specializations and ambitions do not lend themselves well to world conquest. In compensation, he has 4 new subject regions in Greater Enedwaith, as well as ones for Khand, Rhun, and Harad
• Shuffled around many of Isengard’s bonuses for having specific subjects
• Increased the overall potency of Isengard’s bonuses for having specific subjects
• Isengardian subject control and research bonus are now calculated daily rather than monthly
• Incorporated many balance changes introduced in vanilla patches
• AI Rohan gains free factories & equipment from the main line “Struggle for the Rohan’s Soul” focuses
• Majors start with experience on their units

Bugfixes

• Puppeting in a peace conference now generates the correct type of vassal for your situation, rather than always the basic “Puppet” type
• The quest for the ring tooltip now correctly indicates 20vp cities instead of 25
• Gondor’s “Refurbish the Royal Road” now correctly unlocks decisions
• Ported in La Resistance’s “Local Agent Recruitment” feature
• Fixed error spam with arresting/releasing characters in Rohan’s power struggle

Localisation:

• Polished most name lists– you should notice more accent marks and fewer odd double letters/spaces
• Added descriptions to most Heritage traits
• Added proper accent marks to several strategic regions
• Renamed most of the White Mountain states
• Added a custom cost tooltip to Rohan’s ‘Recruit Fyrd’ decisions
• Changed the names of all ‘Attack/Defense against <TAG>’ to reference the tag by definition rather than plain name (eg, “Attack the Kingdom of Rohan” instead of “Attack Kingdom of Rohan)
• Capitalized “Mountains” in the “Grey mountains” strategic region
• Renamed many states with more lore-accurate/less generic names

Graphics:

• Updated all focus, idea, and decision icons that use the flags of Arnor, Dunland, Enedwaith, Isengard, Gondor, Mordor, the Reunited Kingdom, Rohan, and Umbar to use updated flags + better textures
• Rohan uses a unique flag when ruled by Wormtongue
• All of the ‘Struggle for Rohan’s Soul’ automatic decisions use the flags of their respective side as their icon
• Updated all of Rohan’s designers with smoother textures
• Updated the icons for Gondor’s Pinnath Gelin & Anfalas designers
• Updated the icons for many focuses
• Changed all instances of the fuel barrels icon to sacks of flour
• Changed the building icons for forts, coastal forts, granaries, and watchtowers
• Fixed the formatting on many tech icons
• Replaced the vanilla icon for research & deployment
• Completely replaced the Wildling portrait pool
• Added operative portraits for Wildlings & Isengard

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Version 10.12.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1 - 1.12.7)

• Update

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Version 30.09.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1 - 1.12.2)

Localization:

• Localized all chassis equipment to be consistent with non-NSB equipment
• Localized all NSB tank techs

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Version 28.09.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.12.1)

Bugfixes:

• Ride for Ruin now works on patch 1.12 (Avalanche) and uses all associated mechanics
• Ride for Ruin is now compatible with the By Blood Alone dlc

Balance:

• Updated war-support decisions to use the 1.12 system
• Elevated Engineering Corps spirit now provides 20% railway gun bombardment up from 5% (In line with 1.12)
• Flat branch experience gain from advisors has been moved to come exclusively from branch chiefs (In line with 1.12)
• Added a fuel tank module for tanks (In line with 1.12)
• Reduced suppression of most of the softer occupation laws (In line with 1.12)
• Compressed variance in troop requirements between occupation laws (In line with 1.12)

GFX:

• Vanilla’s country specific army icons are no longer available
• Added some variety to high command trait icons

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Version 24.09.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.11.1 - 1.11.13)

• Improved the icon quality of Gondor's "Increase Stewardial Authority" focus

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Version 21.09.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.11.1 - 1.11.13)

• -Éomer's rebellion now receives additional states & units based on Liberator popularity; the bug preventing this was introduced in patch 1.00.02

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Version 01.09.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.11.1 - 1.11.13)

Balance:

• Gondor can no longer complete the focus “Light the Beacons” if Rohan is a subject

Bugfixes:

• The event "The King of the West Requests Allegiance" now properly uses a picture
• Completing the focus “Proclaim Lordship of All the West” no longer fires the event "The King of the West Requests Allegiance" for yourself
• Éomer now uses the correct civil war branch

Localisation:

• Fixed “Condor” to “Gondor” in the “Central Gondor” strategic region
• Fixed “Mountians” to “Mountains” in the Eastern White Mountains state

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Version 29.08.22 for Hearts of Iron 4 (v1.11.1 - 1.11.13)

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