Solo Hotseat campaign

[Maegfaer]

I just had the idea to start a hotseat campaign on my own, in which I play two allied factions at the same time. I wonder if people have already tried that, and whether it works out as one might hope?

The main reasons for doing this are diversity in gameplay and lore. For example, whenever I play Dwarves it just feels wrong to expand outside their classic mountain ranges, and just helping the AI allies isn't much fun. The same applies to Elven factions somewhat, since their time in Middle Earth is supposed to be over. Actually, other than Gondor, none of the Good factions are proper imperialists.

In terms of gameplay, AI allies rarely come to help you. If the player controls multiple allied factions, they can often aid each other in ways that make sense. Now, human hotseat allies that reinforce the other human faction are still controlled by the AI, so do they still may do stupid things like causing friendly fire. But this can be prevented by reinforcing only with the right types of units. Infantry is usually a safe bet. If the enemy has few spearmen, heavy cavalry also becomes an option.

What do you think are good faction combinations? I'm considering to pick Dwarves as a "minor" faction, because it makes sense for them to live in mountains only, and because their strong infantry are especially fit as reinforcements. I guess I should then probably pick an archer or cavalry focused Good faction as my "major" faction. Perhaps Freeps/Arnor, Dale, or Lothlorien. Lothlorien makes little sense lore wise, but they could help Dwarves reconquer Moria, which could then provide strong reinforcements near Lorien's homelands.

Of course, the game becomes considerably more easy this way, so I'm going to make configure the game to be exceptionally difficult before I start. What do you guys think?

[Davek]

I would pick to faction close to each other, so they support each other. The dwarfs and gondor are far apart and it might take many turns to help each other.

Dale seems the perfect candidate, they are close to the Dwarfs and have been allies since the battle of the five armies.