Ritos: Death, blood, and Pikes.
A interesting setting for a TW game.
I picked Ritos, becasue I like the Scotland faction, they are on the north of the human kingdoms. I like the idea of being the front line, and first line of defense.
How ever, nigh-impossible odds make the campaign a bitter sweet experience. The enemies sheer numbers makes them a force to be reckoned with. Then there a myriad of foes who have stacking passive abilities, such as: Frightens enemies, Powerful charge, etc... along with these ground speed that matches and sometime faster than my General's bodyguard the only form of cavalry worth a damn at this point in the game. High hit point values and attack damage. Make these foes Unmanageable.
A complete lack of standard missile troops in the beginning stage of the game I feel takes a lot away from strategy. The only troops available to use ranged attacks are build 1 off structures that only produce those units. With their lengthy recruit cool down, I can recruit maybe 2 mage units.
Turn 9, enter two stacks of Twice damned, one continues south one sieges my middle settlement of 3, my only castle. At this time, between my 3 settlements I barely have a stack of troops to defend with. Having fended off troll attacks for past two turns. I have been recruiting the max amount of troops available every turn, and building in every settlement each turn. Build my economy and little by little an army.
Two bands of Iron fist appeared, did nothing, no idea where they went or what they did, they were there, and then gone.
Turn 11. I have large band of orcs a bout a turn and half away from my large city. As well as another army of twice damned coming to take my village. Met them with my only large army. It was a close victory. Also called a crusade to, and joined with my king to grant the army bonus move points.
So far the only thing has kept my army from suffering huge loses in every engagement is, honestly I'm going to sound like a braggart but oh well. my strategies and tactics, and battlefield maneuvers. Using pike units as the tip of the spear (pun intended, dreadfully so).
As it stand my standing army has 1 tiger-man archer squad in it, two units of circle magi, 3 units of Pike men, my king, and various town and spear militia. Its an adequate army becasue my king now has max command rating, so It barely nullifies the frightening feature of even the basic enemy infantry.
This is something else I have a small problem with, the basic infantry "frightens nearby enemy infantry" along with their superior troops. On top of morale damaging magic attacks, and "Giant" units that also have extremely heavy armor, large hit point pools, (Greater than a kings royal body guard), Double the attack and armor value.
I lost a settlement, (1r : 1.2td odds) just becasue the enemy had two units of Ogre warriors, fighting in the town square for about 25 minutes, The ogres charged into a crowd of 1000+ spear men. just jumping around and running so my infantry couldn't hit them. They just killed people by walking around. They trampled their entire army to rush the square, but they enemy soldiers just got back up like Ogre didn't just run them over like a steam roller. So as the enemies trickled into the square the compounding effect of every unit causing fear my troops just started failing even though my choke point was strong, General was nearby and had some veteran units. The ogres just keep running and jumping around like lunatics, despite being proded by 20+ spears ever time they stopped, their 24at and 30 def and 4 hp, powerful charge, effective against armor, cause fear, and they also have excellent morale
. So for no reason other than their grievously over-powered ogres they took a garrison at nearly 1 to 1 odds.
My heir died in this battle. So now I just have my king. If he dies in battle, or old age its the end of the game. So there were about 7 turns left until my campaign ended. With no inspiring troops of my own, or heavy armor or access to regular missile troops the campaign just became a down slide into defeat, as captain armies has no chance of standing to any force of the Twice Damned becasue they have to many positive qualities with their troops, and the vanilla armies just don't measure up.
Yes, I used Circle magi, Yes I used Iron Fist legionaries (which should be inspiring to allies). Also used some Alkan Archers. Making the linchpin of the human armies magic I don't agree with, I realize this could go against the grain of your novel a lot, but in order to provide a challenging experience for all factions, the human armies have to able to stand on their own against the Twice damned, otherwise we are spending money on nothing but meat shields.
I like this mod, Ritos instantly became my favorite faction becasue of the Scotland unit roster. I just feel the Vanilla armies are too weak against the insurmountable foe you created. I love fighting the uphill battle, thats why I chose to play a northern kingdom.
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There's just so many factors that can influence your campaign in this mod that its gonna be different everytime
Same for Orcs, although I wish I could put the trolls I captured to work, like a Retinue trait, that decreases building costs.
