Struggling as Dale - first time player

[Boogie Knight]

After managing to download the mod without any major hitches (only problem was that I didn't realise you weren't meant to do anything else on the internet at the same time - lost a few hours worth of download to this) thanks to the help you guys gave in my other thread, I decided to go with Dale first time round. I could use some help.

I'm having a lot of problems. My economy is slower than a geriatric Bose-Einstein mix sitting over a candle, and those darned Easterlings seem to have enough money to sink a ship, buy another one and sink that too. Their armies are endless. One stack after another is laying siege to my outer settlements (that castle - Undo-something, and like, North Rhovanion region settlement? Can't remember the names) and it's all I can do to fight them off each time. But it takes me longer to retrain those units (all of which are either Hearth Watchmen, Dalesmen or Wood/Rivermen) than it does for Rhun to send a new stack at them. On top of this they have numerous small groups of units sitting in the forests between these and my more northern settlements, ambushing any reinforcements I try to send up. The one major victory I've had is in taking the city of Rhomen, north-east of the sea of Rhun. I can see from this just how well the Easterlings are doing, because this city has had so many buildings built in it compared to my own, in which I can very rarely actually afford to build anything. But that is constantly under siege as well, and the dwarves hold the region in between this and my next nearest, so reinforcing it is basically out of the question.

Does anyone have any advice? I appreciate I'm not really doing things how I've heard a new player should. I'm only playing on medium difficulty for now (I'm really not that experienced with vanilla M2TW - hardest campaign I've won so far is H/H) but I hear it's "meant" to be played VH/VH. Would I be better off playing this way? I also read when first checking out this mod that new players might have an easier time playing Rhun or Harad first. If I really have no choice then I'll go with them, but I'm more interested in the good factions for now, unless it's perhaps the Orcs of the Misty Mountains or Isengard.

To sum up, looking for any help or tips anyone can give.

[pestkop]

I'm also playing on M/M and I'm also not a very good player, but with Dale I've always found their rivermen to be extremely useful in defending towns. They've won battles for me that I didn't think were possible to win.

To get some breathing space bring your dwarven allies into the fight, give them a bordertown next to Rhun and try to buy their support. I'm not really a genius on the economic aspects of the game, but with Dale I'd focus on trade with the Silvan elves and the dwarves and on increasing your population by building stuff that gives growth bonusses (chicken farm) and health bonus (town hall)

Are you playing with submods by the way?

[Veteraan]

Play at the difficulty you are comfortable with. If that happens to be M/M don't change it just because it says at beginning that the mod is to be played at VH/VH. If you are getting better in playing this game and find the challenge has gone, you will move up the difficulty level to make it interestingly again.

I found THIS guide for Dale. If you find it useful, you might want to surprise the guy who made it with some rep.
Also I would advice you to browse the forum that the guide is in for some more tips and tricks.

[Boogie Knight]

Hey, thanks for the reply. No submods yet, I want to win a few vanilla TATW campaigns before exploring submods. I like the idea about bringing allies to the fight, but virtually every other good faction is at war with Rhun and so far only the dwarves have done anything. The dwarven effort consisted of conquering a Rhun region early on (the one between Rhomen and my other regions) but doing nothing since. The Easterlings haven't even attacked that town; they walk straight past it, seemingly not caring that it's barely held, and go straight towards the fortress that controls the river crossing near Dorwinion.

Interesting that you recommend population growth. I'll look into that, thanks for the tip.

[C.Maximus]

It is almost essential to get the Dwarves in on the fight. The Rhun in the books took Dale and there was a last battle of men of Dale and Dwarves in the Lonely mountain (sort of like the battle of Minas tirith) Anyways... The last Dale game I played I did a lot of sacking and burning of cities... meaning I would take a stack and just sort of rampage through Rhun's territory with no intention on keeping it but instead destroying every building (which gives you good money) and rending them useless when they get that land back. Doing this, allowed me to get a suicide armor on the north of the sea, giving all those useless lands to the Dwarves in exchange for war effort... then... swinging down and just sacking everything you can keeping your economy alive while King Bard posts up on the South of the sea and fights off main forces...

[Funeh]

As Dale I always make aliances /with trade rights and military access both ways/ with all good factions around -dwarves, elfs, Dorwinion... Then I rush super fast to Rhun taking rebel settlements along the road until I reach Lake of Rhun... Then you should let enemy attack you in settlements and start upgrading your income - farms, roads, markets... I dont really bother with better soldiers early on, I just use militias and so on...

[Gildion]

Definitely start with M/M until you know the game better if you are struggling.

As as already mentioned some of the sub-mods can also help you. MOS has scripts to avoid some of the stack spam (or increase it if you want) force diplomatic outcomes, DAC has more factions in the east etc.

[Boogie Knight]

Wow, fantastic load of advice there. Thanks very much! I'll give that guide a proper look later, it looks wonderfully comprehensive. I love the idea of a sort of chevauchee like that, storming one city of theirs after another and just demolishing all the buildings inside for the money. I'd completely forgotten that technique, it worked wonders for me when playing as Wales in the Brittania campaign. You guys rock.

[gqlhonourbv]

They've won battles for me that I didn't think were possible to win.

[Withwnar]

I like the idea about bringing allies to the fight, but virtually every other good faction is at war with Rhun and so far only the dwarves have done anything. The dwarven effort consisted of conquering a Rhun region early on (the one between Rhomen and my other regions) but doing nothing since.

A faction will not come and attack another faction's region unless they are neighbours (or on crusade/jihad) or explicitly scripted to do so. That capture by the Dwarves was probably a scripted attack: during first turn end AI factions are scripted to capture a number of rebel settlements.

As somebody said: don't cut off the Dwarves from Rhun. Let them be neighbours to at least create the chance that these two factions will fight each other.

[DrDragun]

So, some general economy tips: maintenance costs are REALLY high for most units in this game... usually 3 turns of maintenance equals the cost of buying the unit. So don't over-build armies unless you are going to use them immediately. Be aware the units colored 'blue' when garrisoned in a city are free upkeep. Different size settlements get a different amount of free units. If you right click the city's wall you will see how many free units you get. Don't keep more units than the free garrison in any village that's not on the border with an enemy. You DO need to make some buildings to have an economy... farms, markets, mines, and roads whenever possible. Don't over-use governors. Most settlements don't need them and they cost your economy 500 per turn in maintenance (say no to adoption). When you get more experience you can train valuable governors by manipulating which traits they get but for starters keep it minimal.

Dale is not too difficult if you are aggressive and expansionist with your early units. Do not stop your conquest at bad defense points... keep going until you have captured Uldonovan in the south then briefly regroup and press again. After a certain point it becomes a very favorable layout as a ring around the sea taking 1 settlement at a time and requiring only 1 garrison per front. Rhun is heavy on skirmishers and to kill them your light cavalry will get most of the killing done for you... so train up plenty of cavs including disposable Yeomen (while cheap they will still take out 3-4 units of Balcloth). Try to fight them on open fields where you have room to flank. Use a disposable front line of Hearth watchmen to take the first volley of arrows, then when their melee moves toward the front, bring your cavalry in from the flanks and start killing their ranged forces. Just when you aren't looking, those golden General bodyguards will get into your archers (and your generals are archers of course...) so keep your nicer reserve infantry to counter them.

[sventoby]

I played MOS so I don't know how useful this is:
I just won a long VH/VH campaign with Dale. My early strategy was to take out Rhun as soon as possible so I wouldn't have to face their advanced units. I blitzed them and just kept attacking until they were dead. Be relentless, sitting back only lets your two main enemies grow stronger. You'll probably have to win a few heroic victories to pull it off but that's how it goes in TA. Their early units are pretty crappy and Dale can match up with them, especially considering that they're being controlled by the AI. Once I beat Rhun the rest of the game was pretty easy. Your economy will be strong and you'll only have to worry about Mordor to your south as long as you keep good relations with the Dwarves and elves (strongly recommended). Mordor won't be able to handle all of its enemies at once and you should be able to steadily take their lands.

I used balanced armies- build lots of dalesmen, rivermen, longbowmen, and cav.
Rivermen can punch well above their weight, they can devastate early units with their javelins (and are useful meatshields once their ammo runs out) and I used them through the late game as flanking units. They're crucial in taking out Rhun's cav early in the game- their generals can smash your units to pieces but if you sacrifice one unit (use hearth watchmen) to hold them in place while your rivermen hit them in the back with javelins you can take them down. Same goes for when you fight trolls/Nazgul.

[Boogie Knight]

I think my problem was that I turtled early on, treating TATW like the vanilla game; I rather enjoy turtling, but in this mod it seems to be the worst thing you can do. I tried building a raiding force at Uldonovan to drive deep into the east, but the only place I managed to plunder was Bur Emanakhris (sp?) before getting stopped at the next settlement. They completely overwhelmed my already-weakened stack with two of their own, and every other force I send their way meets the same fate. They have another stack heading my way from the south-west as well (they hold land as far as Mirkwood; all of Wilderland and Rhovanion are theirs) that I can't do anything about.

I like playing difficult, often unwinnable situations, but this is... boring. It's a stalement. We push each other this way and that, and end up at square one. It feels like I've been playing the same few battles and manoeuvres over and over again, with no change in result. TBH I'm thinking of scrapping this Dale campaign and starting again, as it sounds like the key to a fun Dale campaign lies in the choices made in the opening stages. I made the wrong ones.

For now I'm going to focus on my new Silvan Elves campaign, which so far is going much better than this one. I'll give a Dale campaign another go in the future, but I think I'll start a new one rather than trying to salvage this one. Thanks everyone for all the help and advice you've given; I'm just not that great at implementing it right now. Onwards and upwards.

[DrDragun]

It sounds like you are very close to the tipping point in your campaign. Around the East and South sides of the Sea of Rhun your campaign starts becoming easier because you have a higher proportion of economic settlements and you only have to keep enough army to defend 3 points (your 2 borders with Rhun plus keep an eye on Mordor from Thoronoburg / Tirith Thoron). It's definitely still winnable. Try to take and hold Bur Emanakris (the one that's on a river with a fort next to it) which is a great defense point (the fort can house 2 extra units for free). Then, while the culture there is rising to Northmen and your army is being reinforced, switch to the northern front and work around to Rhomen. After that point, Rhun actually has pretty few settlements and you can prepare for a final push. Beware when Rhun is down to it's last few settlements, a free army will appear for them in the east part of the map, lead by their Khan.

The Silvans are fun too though, more so because you get huge kill ratios (archer faction vs orcs with few cavalry)