Just some lore thoughts on Dwarves and Elves^^

[TW-fanboy]

So, I've been thinking about whether or not and if yes how the fact that elves and dwarves are united factions and if the rulers title is lore accurate.
Shouldn't the elves be split into Greenwood Elves, Lorien Elves and Lindon Elves as different realms? Should there be any elven realm at all west of the misty mountains? Is a title like King of the Elves lore accurate, given that in Tolkiens work such a title didn't exist (only High King of the Noldor, King of the Sindar, King of the Silvan Elves, etc.)?
Shouldn't the Dwarves be split into different houses? Is King under the mountain the right title for the overlord of all dwarves? Wasn't it just the title of the lord of Erebor?
I am not criticizing your decisions on how you created the two factions in question, I think you did a brilliant job, unified elves and dwarves are fun to play because of regional differences in the roster and to be honest I don't have better ideas on the ruler titles.
It's just the Tolkien Nerd in me that wants to discuss those topics^^

[CountMRVHS]

The combining of the Elven and Dwarven groups into single factions was a concession to gameplay. The problem with having, e.g., Lorien Elves and Greenwood Elves as separate factions is that they would end up at war with one another soon enough. It seems to me that that would be a *less* lore-friendly outcome.

As for the titles, the idea of an "Elven Realm" is, AFAIK, not attested in the lore, but it is intended as a new creation in the 4th age - an Elven response to Mannish predominance and the fact that the Elves are way on the decline. (In fact, an arguably even *more* lore-friendly approach would be to not have Elves, and maybe Dwarves, in the mod at all - but I don't think anyone really wants that!)

King Under the Mountain is probably used for the Dwarves because it was the most recent title for a king. Granted, the Erebor king wasn't (I think) viewed as the king of all Dwarves, but he was the descendant of Durin, and no other king figure is known.

[TW-fanboy]

You could give the ruler the title "King of the Longbeards" or "King of Durins Folk" and give titles to provincial lords of the Firebeards and Broadbeams to be their respective king.
So if a Firebeard is lord of Southern Ered Luin he gets a trait and/or anc "King of the Firebeards" or "Lord of the Firebeards". But then again their ruler would probably just call himself lord of xxx...
It would be somewhat loreaccurate to say that the dwarves sought close ties to their kinsmen in order to survive and that the King of the largest dwarven people (Longbeards) would be the hegemon of the alliance. Then again, King under the mountain was the title chosen by the last Kings of Durin's line in Tolkiens work, so the title you picked would be correct, assuming that the title would stick to Durin's line even when they ruled from Khazad Dum rather than from Erebor (as happened with real world titles aswell).
As already said, I do not want to criticize you nor do I want you to change the elven and dwarven factions. Just want to talk about lore

[CountMRVHS]

Oh, no worries - it is an interesting question, what the Elves and Dwarves would have done in terms of government after the beginning of the Fourth Age. Our narrative is that political allegiance would have focused on the last remaining leadership (Thranduil and Erebor). You could easily imagine other scenarios, including additional (small) factions of both races, or maybe nonplayable rebel 'factions'. But I think that we went with the broadest plausible extension of Elven/Dwarven presence for gameplay purposes, to allow the player to try & 'unite' those sundered realms.

[webba84]

We could, now that we have the elves and dwarves with their own campaigns, actually have different campaigns that focused on different elven/dwarven factions - the problem is that because our campaign map has a lot of custom tiles, each provincial campaign clocks in at over 200mb in size, which means having 2-3 elven campaigns and 2-3 dwarven campaigns would add over 1gb to the mod size.

It would be very easy to make your own 'Greenwood Elves' or 'Erebor Dwarves' campaign though, you just make a (re-named) copy of the existing provincial campaign and then adjust the starting cities and armies in descr_strat. You can also modify the victory conditions, mercenaries available, faction images etc etc. Basically anything in that campaign folder can be customised.

[alimack]

I'm playing through my first Elf (and first proper Fourth Age) campaign now and I've been thinking a bit about this discussion. For me one of this mod's greatest strengths is the way lore is conveyed through gameplay and design features (and not just through the written text, excellent though it is), and the Elven campaign is a good example of this.

Greenwood feels like the most natural Elven kingdom at the start, with easily defensible borders and a strong home-field advantage, but the presence of the Beornings and other Mannish factions makes it difficult to link everything up, giving you a sense of human encroachment on Elf land. Caras Galadhon, in particular, is isolated and potentially vulnerable; combined with its superior starting forces this lends the Galadhrim the air of a waning power, soon to be absorbed into the greater Silvan milieu.

Meanwhile in the west, Lindon remains a peaceful and well-guarded realm - the stark difference in troop types underlines their cultural distance from the Wood Elves, but their low population makes it difficult to see them becoming a resurgent force in Middle Earth. Glorfindel is the exception; he stands poised to make a last push against the Shadow before departing for Valinor, and occupied Rivendell is a natural target. The fall of Imladris does a lot to convey the decline of the Elves since the Third Age, and even if he retakes it Glorfindel can't rule there for long; if you want to hold it you have to reach out from the east or the west (or both!). Doing this means rebuilding Rivendell almost from scratch (and probably setting up an Elvellyn stronghold in Lastbridge), but if you're successful you'll have established a new Elven city with troops and rulers from elsewhere, making it a symbol of a new political status quo amongst the Eldar.

Of course your campaign may play out in any number of ways, but I think the starting conditions of the Elven campaign convey quite a nuanced - and perfectly lore-friendly - political story. I saw the creation of a unified Elven Realm as one goal of the campaign, rather than something it assumes, and that's something I love about this mod; it does plausible alternate Middle-Earth history better than most Total War games do it for the real world.

I haven't played much with the dwarves, but would be interested to hear people's impressions of their situation in the Fourth Age!

[CountMRVHS]

This is excellent to hear. Victory conditions for the non-Mannish factions have to walk a fine line between being too easy on the one hand and too "unrealistic" on the other hand. It's great to know that players find the emergent campaign plausible from a lore perspective. (A failure to have "reasonable" VCs is one thing that can absolutely tank my interest in playing factions in vanilla or other mods.)

I haven't played the Dwarves (or Elves) terribly much, but I would say the Dwarven roster seems a bit more unified than the Elven one while still keeping the idea of regional differences. For one thing, the lack of cavalry and almost total absence of archery gives slightly less scope for unit variation. So while you will find different Dwarven units available in different regions, it's mostly a different flavor of tanky melee infantry who specialize in different things (killing trolls/cav, holding a line, etc.).

But while the units are more uniform among the Dwarves, their territories are more distant than those of the Elves. That, and the lack of a starting unit like Glorfindel, means that it seems harder to connect Dwarven territories. Glorfindel can conquer down to Ost-in-Edhil within his lifetime, but Dwarven expansion will be slower.

That's my impression, anyway. I know others have played the Dwarves more than I have.

[alimack]

Though a bit about your response CountMRVHS and was inspired to play around a little bit with the Dwarves; would agree that the smaller degree of variation in the unit roster makes them feel more culturally unified. I feel that their campaign is defined more by trade and diplomacy than conquest (particularly as you don't start out with Glorfindel rampaging across Arnor), so the different dwarf enclaves are distinguished more by the different political situations in Arnor and Rhovanion than by any innate qualities. The difficulty in linking up your territories compounds this; the Dwarf campaign felt less to me like playing a fading empire and more like playing a trade confederacy, with each stronghold being a more-or-less self-reliant city state.

So the King Under The Mountain feels like a first-among-equals kind of king, rather than a boss chieftain or divine ruler. The dwarves will always trust each other more than they do men or elves, so they're unified in that sense, but otherwise each region is getting on with its own business (making money, for the most part). I suppose you could think of the Authority mechanic as representing the King's ability to manage trade throughout the strongholds rather than a subject - ruler relationship (and the effects are mostly economic, I believe?).

[CountMRVHS]

That's an excellent summary of the Dwarves' situation - 'trade confederacy' nails it, I think.

Authority affects the 'OpinionOfLiege' trait ('OoL' for short), which appears on subjects as, e.g., 'Supportive', 'Dubious', 'Staunch', etc. The higher the king's Authority, the higher his subjects' OoL (generally; there are other factors). OoL impacts a lot, but the most consistent impact is probably, as you say, economic.

[alimack]

I'm not intimately familiar with the mechanic (YET), but I think I've read that Authority is reduced by things like high taxation and possibly breaking alliances? The high taxation in particular fits the narrative interpretation quite well I think - representing trade tariffs or similar that Erebor (as the centre of Dwarven trade) can impose on other strongholds, but only at the risk of aggravating the other Dwarf lords (who will respond by becoming Dubious and skimming money off the top). Although I suppose this system is the same with all factions... the difference with the dwarves might be that high taxation hits the population hard as well, which is particularly serious for smaller strongholds. So if the King tries to throw his weight around too much the dwarves in the farflung provinces just get annoyed and wander off (probably to scrounge off the hobbits for a bit).

[CountMRVHS]

The mechanic is the same for all factions in terms of its effects - but there are differences between factions in how a high Authority is achieved. For some factions (such as, I believe, the Elves), diplomatic relations will have a greater role than conquest in increasing the king's Authority. For other factions, a full treasury will play a greater role. Factions like Rhun will see Authority increase along with conquest.

But yes, that's a good way of thinking about how the effects play out.