Third Age Campaign difficulty?

**DrDragun** · January 09, 2014, 07:24 AM

Originally Posted by eruan99

What do you mean by the siege warfare before the barracks line?

The 'Barracks Event' is when elite units are unlocked at Turn 40. Before this turn, orc factions can have difficulty in sieges because they cannot surround and enemy and must fight the enemy in the streets, 1 unit vs 1 unit, and low level goblins are bad at that vs Dwarves, Elves, and Men.

**Gongsunzan** · January 09, 2014, 08:01 AM

Nazgul are actually very effective at seiges. They can wipe out 2 militia units alone without even charging. If gondor doesnt have spearmen yet ill push the nazgul through the gate and massacre the militia defenders following up with orc infantry. Once you start gettin more nazgul throw them all into one army with some trolls and se uruks and you have an unstoppable stack

**Phil125** · January 09, 2014, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by Gongsunzan

Nazgul are actually very effective at seiges. They can wipe out 2 militia units alone without even charging. If gondor doesnt have spearmen yet ill push the nazgul through the gate and massacre the militia defenders following up with orc infantry. Once you start gettin more nazgul throw them all into one army with some trolls and se uruks and you have an unstoppable stack

Nazgul are the key for Mordor. Timing that Terror right when you have 4 or 5 of the enemy units wavering and you can rout an army easily.

**LuckyPistol** · January 09, 2014, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by Gongsunzan

Nazgul are actually very effective at seiges. They can wipe out 2 militia units alone without even charging. If gondor doesnt have spearmen yet ill push the nazgul through the gate and massacre the militia defenders following up with orc infantry. Once you start gettin more nazgul throw them all into one army with some trolls and se uruks and you have an unstoppable stack

Thats hard to do at Minas Tirith with that Fountain Guard unit hanging in front

I do use that strategy on elves though as most settlements in mirkwood don't have walls and you need orcs in there ASAP. Mordor really does become a whole new campaign after you take care of Gondor, it gets boring as hell cleaning up Rohan, but then it gets nuts fighting Elves, Dwarves, and Dale

**eruan99** · January 16, 2014, 03:22 AM

It seems they removed a lot of fun elements from the game to make its default difficulty almost "Very Hard". They took out the merchants which is a shame. People in Middle Earth never traded? But I agree that the slow development and forcing the user to rush at the start is a disappointing aspect of the game.

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 02:18 PM

Its real cool reading your guys posts. Like you are watching me play. Right now im on round 120 with the Silvan elves and $75000 in dept, but its cool because i keep getting lots of family members, free cav archers and ents. I keep takeing towns but im always looseing money. What can you do? If you get ents just send them to their death and kill 1500 enemy troops. Also i use arrows in open feild battles like no tomarrow. Only way to keep my guys alive. i send out all archers as much as possabile and mow everyone down. My real question is is it possable to take one country and conquer the whole map or will the money problem just slow you down to much?

**Greymane** · January 27, 2014, 02:28 PM

Originally Posted by jaydog

Its real cool reading your guys posts. Like you are watching me play. Right now im on round 120 with the Silvan elves and $75000 in dept, but its cool because i keep getting lots of family members, free cav archers and ents. I keep takeing towns but im always looseing money. What can you do? If you get ents just send them to their death and kill 1500 enemy troops. Also i use arrows in open feild battles like no tomarrow. Only way to keep my guys alive. i send out all archers as much as possabile and mow everyone down. My real question is is it possable to take one country and conquer the whole map or will the money problem just slow you down to much?

Interesting... I've never heard of a money problem past the first few (and certainly not past the first 100) turns. Sounds like you've been recruiting way too much

It should get better in the endgame I heard (but I'm way too impatient, so I never get to the endgame

)
Maybe post a screenshot of your finances so we can see where the problem is?

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 03:00 PM

im in the prosses of changeing the upkeep value but need to make sure im doing it the right way. I copied the whole "descr_settlement_mechanics" into note pad and have changed the <pip_modifier value="1.0"/> to <pip_modifier value="0.9"/>. Should i just repace all the data in the descr_settlement_mechanics folder to the new copy that i made in note pad with the new change? I just want to make sure im doing this the right way.

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by Greymane

You can mod that if you want. Just mess around with the descr_settlement_mechanics in you TATW_data folder.
I don't exactly know if you should change all those values up or down. My guess is down, for the upkeep at least. For taxes or trade you might want to go up. There might even be a tutorial somewhere on this forum (or try google

).
Point of note: the lines you are looking for all have SIF in front of them. Like this:
<factor name="SIF_UPKEEP"> ;Unit upkeep
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
The value="1" will be the number you want to change.
USE NOTEPAD++ You might not be able to start a campaign if you don't.
All this said, I would not recommend changing these files too much (I only slightly increased trade income and made population growth dependant on that). It will seriously unbalance the game and, in the oppinion of most of us here, ruin the fun. Change SIF_UPKEEP to like 0.9 or something, or SLIGHTLY increase trade income.

You will find that in the endgame (and probably long before that), even without modding anything, you'll have more money than you know what to do with. So be careful what you wish for

im in the prosses of changeing the upkeep value but need to make sure im doing it the right way. I copied the whole "descr_settlement_mechanics" into note pad and have changed the <pip_modifier value="1.0"/> to <pip_modifier value="0.9"/>. Should i just repace all the data in the descr_settlement_mechanics folder to the new copy that i made in note pad with the new change? I just want to make sure im doing this the right way.

**Greymane** · January 27, 2014, 03:04 PM

Originally Posted by jaydog

im in the prosses of changeing the upkeep value but need to make sure im doing it the right way. I copied the whole "descr_settlement_mechanics" into note pad and have changed the <pip_modifier value="1.0"/> to <pip_modifier value="0.9"/>. Should i just repace all the data in the descr_settlement_mechanics folder to the new copy that i made in note pad with the new change? I just want to make sure im doing this the right way.

No. You should right-click on the descr_settlement_mechanics file, click 'open with Notepad++' and edit directly. That is what I do anyway.

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 03:08 PM

OK, it has been done. Thanks for makeing me smarter today. You are GREAT!

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 03:17 PM

OK, so i just checked my campain and it didnt change any upkeep as i saw it. Maybe I have to start a new campain. I dont know be it is saved in the settlement folder as 0.9.

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by jaydog

OK, so i just checked my campain and it didnt change any upkeep as i saw it. Maybe I have to start a new campain. I dont know BUT it is saved in the settlement folder as 0.9.

**Greymane** · January 27, 2014, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by jaydog

OK, so i just checked my campain and it didnt change any upkeep as i saw it. Maybe I have to start a new campain. I dont know be it is saved in the settlement folder as 0.9.

Are you sure? And have you pressed 'End Turn' yet? Maybe that will sort things out.

**jaydog** · January 27, 2014, 03:28 PM

Now i played with the taxes and things are better.

**Phil125** · January 28, 2014, 10:47 AM

Mordor is not a good first faction to play. The first 75 or so rounds are tough. Once you get over the hump and get to Minas Tirith it gets much easier.

I beat the game with Mordor. Now I'm playing Eriador VH/VH. Much easier than Morder. Destroying the Orcs.

**OttoVonGosu** · January 29, 2014, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by DrDragun

Well, if you want to turtle then you can disband every garrison except Black Gate and Minas Morgul to save a lot of money, then you can expand from Dol Guldur against the Silvans to increase your cash while you turtle vs Gondor but it's overall a worse strategy.. Always pay attention to Free Upkeep, a unit with a blue background has no upkeep and different settlement sizes give a different number of free upkeep slots. You will save a LOT of money per turn by emptying out the middle of Mordor, like 160g per turn per spear band.

Good point, and probably pretty close to Sauron's original strategy before being chased out of Dol Guldur ( unless I have my chronology wrong) basically corrupt mirkwood, crush the elves , pinch dale and the dwarves between your forces and Rhun, advace on Lothlorien with the OoMM at their back, then swoop down to either crush gondor at minas tirith or ravage their lands.

What happens with TATW is that it is a very difficult game, but very rewarding on the long run as well, with city growth being what it is. Its like Shogun II with much more expensive armies.

And don't worry there isn't any shame in starting a campaign over to perfect your original expansion strategies.