Let's Play of a noob to Middle Earth Lore.......

[Saul Tyre]

Part 27 of my Dale campaign LP https://youtu.be/x7rLfAf-wlk..I was becoming a wee bit vexed in this episode

[Saul Tyre]

Part 28 of my Let's Play as The Kingdom of Dale continues and I learn something new about this mod yet again https://youtu.be/HIqnLJkmKPQ

[Saul Tyre]

Part 29 of my Let's Play where I decide to change my strategy https://youtu.be/UIIqhN9f9dw

[Saul Tyre]

Part 30 of my Let's Play as we move in on Rhovanion https://youtu.be/KNM9pD1Ac74

[Saul Tyre]

Part 31 of my Let's Play as we grind it out against the bogdwellershttps://youtu.be/sVSqFebz1Xo

[Saul Tyre]

Part 32 of my Let's Play as Gardarr becomes more involved https://youtu.be/mIHISEA8mCc

Part 33: I have decided to CANCEL my FATW: Dominion of Men 3.2 as the Kingdom of Dale Let's Play due to unforeseen circumstances Reason explained https://youtu.be/hD_DjKwb9tM

[Wambat]

Nooooo!

Please tell us you will have a go at another faction. I need my LP fix; I am running out of things to live for!

[Saul Tyre]

Nooooo!

Please tell us you will have a go at another faction. I need my LP fix; I am running out of things to live for!

Firstly, thanks for following me, it's nice to know. Aye sure I will play again, BUT A QUESTION? I assumed it was playing on the higher campaign difficulty that caused the problem, do you think I am right? btw I'm looking at playing Tharbad next time, but I need to play at a slightly faster gameplay pace. Also, bearing in mind it's a Let's Play, I need to try and keep it interesting for the viewer within a time schedule....thoughts?
I'm off now to find Count's write up guide on them.

EDIT: I found it, and how appropriate; Old Men and Money-counters: A Guide to the City-kingdom of Tharbad.........I'm 65 years young and Scottish

[CountMRVHS]

lol - well a Tharbad LP would be very interesting! It's a very different experience from Dale. You're much less secure, and there are several large, aggressive neighbors nearby so you must rely on opportunism and low cunning to expand.

[Saul Tyre]

lol - well a Tharbad LP would be very interesting! It's a very different experience from Dale. You're much less secure, and there are several large, aggressive neighbors nearby so you must rely on opportunism and low cunning to expand.

Ok thanks for the comment Count, oh! and yes, great write up as usual....just a thought is there any one faction you think might suit my gameplay style of pacey & slightly aggressive or would Tharbad fit that mold once I got up and running?

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm... I'd say if you like aggressive battles, maybe Rohan?

Tharbad has a very interesting roster, but it might play out rather similar to Dale's (i.e., you'd be relying on infantry backed by archers, with a few striking cav units). A major difference of course is that Tharbad lacks the "heavies" like Dale's Hearth-troops and Black Shields.

Rohan's cav is expected to be the centerpiece of your army - and in fact you can have rather effective all-cav armies for many (but not all) situations. Also, the high-quality roads will allow your all-cav armies to zip all around your homelands, making it easy to assemble troops quickly. Plus the economy is rather good, which again enables you to ride out against your foes from the very beginning of the campaign. So you can be aggressive on the campaign map as well as the battle map - and pulling off a really crushing charge against Dunland is always a good time!

[Saul Tyre]

Sorry Count, I'll rephrase, I meant pacey & slightly aggressive on the campaign map conquering territory, I'd rather not toil with the expansion penalty eg. I also prefer military compositions of Infantry with Cavalry support, I can create epic aggressive battles against the tougher opposition, all Cavalry armies are not my thang, even as attractive as Rohan appear. How about Harad? though I wonder if they might be too powerful. Preferably I like my campaigns to strategically challenging and my battles where I have to be tactically aware, like in Roma Surrectum and Europa Barbarborum (I don't know if you have played them) where I play on the hardest difficulties acceptable for the mod.

[webba84]

Sad to see it finish, I was enjoying those videos a lot!

I'd like to provide some feedback that might help you enjoy future campaigns or LPs (and I definitely hope there'll be another LP!). You obviously have no issues with winning battles, so I think for the challenge keeping VH battle difficult shouldn't cause you any issues. Certainly, using the medium campaign difficulty will help to avoid getting bogged down in endless battles against multiple opponents (though it can still happen if you aren't careful).

The main thing I noticed, and you touch on it in your last video, is that your campaign strategy wasn't very good for dealing with the mod's 'anti-snowball' mechanics, and you couldn't expand as quickly or consistently as you wanted. There are ways to expand quickly in the mod, but it needs a bit of a different approach compared to perhaps the average RTW mod campaign. A few suggestions in no particular order:

1. Move your capital close to where you want to expand. Your homeland territories are generally very easy to keep happy (to the point you don't even need a lot of the happiness/law buildings) and corruption is not a huge issue in this mod so there is no downside to moving your capital right over to your fiefdom/outland areas, which will give you a much easier time keeping newly conquered provinces from rebelling before you can get pacification/dominion built.

2. There are three main phases to conquering territory from another faction, getting them right will let you expand at a rate of around 1 new province every 4-5 turns. Phase 1 is to weaken the enemy faction. Destroying their armies is good, but the real goal is to sack their settlements, especially Homeland settlements and Chief Cities (the ones with the little blue flag). I don't think you experienced the loss of a homeland province while playing as Dale so you probably aren't aware of how devastating it is, it can completely ruin your economy and military for many turns, and it has the same effect on AI factions. Targeting these cities means you have to send armies on expeditions deep into the enemy territory, not just fight them on your border; remember that the goal here is not yet to take territory but to make your opponent so weak that when you do occupy their border settlements you will have time to pacify and assimilate the new provinces without their armies counterattacking. For extra effectiveness, see if you can gift some of the enemy homelands to a neutral third faction. This will wreak havoc with your enemy's internal trade routes, permanently cripple their economy, mess with the AI threat assessment and troop logistics (especially if it makes their territories non-contiguous), and possible cause them to end up at war with another faction, all good results for you.

Phase 2 is to take and occupy your new settlements. Because each un-dominated settlement causes a faction-wide happiness penalty across your empire, you probably can't take more than 2-3 new territories at any one time. You will need sufficient troops to both garrision the settlements and prevent rebellion, and to keep them from getting sieged (which is why it's so important to weaken your enemy first). Moving your capital, and having family members with good governance skills can really help here.

Phase 3 is to consolidate these settlements into your empire and remove the faction wide public order penalty through constructing dominion buildings. While each dominion building does take a long time to build, you can stagger your conquest to greatly reduce the amount of time you have to wait before moving on to a new province. For example,

Turn 1 You take City 1 and begin pacification immediately, it will take 15 turns to complete pacification/dominion and remove the faction-wide public order penalty
Turn 3 City 1 pacification is complete, and some of the occupying troops can be moved out of the city, you begin dominion
Turn 5 You take City 2 and begin pacification
Turn 8 City 2 pacification is complete, you begin dominion
Turn 10 You take City 3 and being pacification, you cannot take any new settlements without causing public order problems in other parts of your empire
Turn 13 City 3 pacification is complete, you begin dominion
Turn 15 City 1 dominion is complete, and the public order penalty from it is removed, allowing you to move on to City 4

So, assuming you have enough troops to garrison the new cities, and prevent them from getting sieged (which is why weakening your enemy first is so important) then you can basically take a new province without any issues every 5 turns for as long you want. Eventually, distance, or other factors (like a second faction declaring war on you) will slow you down but even so, destroying 1-2 factions this way will get you very close to your victory conditions.

3. Touched on above, but deserves its own point, playing the diplomacy game can make your campaign much faster and more enjoyable. Wambat has a great guide to it, but if you want to know just one thing from it, I would suggest learn how to gift provinces to other factions. There are many occasions where you want to conquer a territory from an enemy, but can't afford (or just don't want) to hold it yourself, and by far the best thing to do in these circumstances is to gift it to someone else. Elves and Dwarves are the best candidates, because they are non-aggressive, and they will develop the settlement to a very high level over time if you want to buy it back off them later. AI will usually accept the gift of a settlement if they are neutral or favourable towards you, and you throw in a gift of 5000-10,000 mirian along with it. Razing everything in the city will provide more than enough for this, even if your treasury is empty when you capture it.

4. Pay attention to the culture of the lands you are conquering. In the Dale campaign you mainly expanded east into 'Men of Darkness' territory, which not only made public order harder for you to manage, but also made assimilation slower and more expensive. If you had expanded south, or south west, you would have found it much easier going (especially as the expensive cultural buildings would have already been built for you) as both Rhovanion and the Beornings share your Northman, Ways of the West, culture. At the same time, you don't need to rush to convert the culture/alignment (religion) of newly conquered regions, as it can be very expensive, and tricky to do one province at a time (it's best to do a block of regions together to minimise unrest). The most important thing to build in new regions first is always pacification -> dominion.

5. Things to destroy in newly conquered settlements (generally, but not always, they will show no building effects for you):
*Military Development buildings - always
*Pacification/Dominion (homeland/fiefdom/outland) buildings - always
*Cultural Conversion (alignment/religion) buildings - if they are different from your own
*Faction/Culture Specific buildings - City Development buildings, libraries, execution blocks etc etc

6. Don't waste your elite units garrisoning settlements, newly conquered or otherwise. Numbers are the only things that matter for keeping public order in a garrison (and low tier units tend to come in larger numbers), so make sure you follow your conquering field armies with large, cheap, 'Limitanei' half-stacks that can garrison your new settlements and free up your proper soldiers to do what they do best.


All in all, I think you did a really good job adapting to all the many unique 'features' (some of them are more 'quirks') of the mod and I'm sure you'll only get better on subsequent campaigns. Tharbad, like most minor factions, is not a bad choice at all if you want a shorter campaign (because their required provinces are generally fewer) but also, like most minor factions, the campaign can be a lot less forgiving, and it's perfectly possible to make a mistake in the first 10 turns, and then only realise it 100 turns later when it has become impossible for you to win.

Otherwise, Tharbad is a great choice, less 'cluttered' building and troop options than Dale and the roster is varied and flexible, but not powerful, so winning battles can be both rewarding and challenging. If you do decide on Tharbad I'll offer one specific piece of advice for the campaign - Take and hold Threeways ASAP and then focus on the rebel territories north of the Greyflood River.

Rohan is also a very good choice, somewhere between Dale and Tharbad in terms of complexity, and capable of fielding very fast, very powerful, full cavalry armies. My one piece of advice for that campaign is very simple - Don't let Gondor fall!


edit - If you are wanting to minimise the expansion penalty effects then Harad might be a very good choice. They get full lines of both Library and Execuition Square buildings, which provide strong law bonuses to keep your conquests pacified. Tier 2 of the library building provides a factionwide law bonus that is increasingly useful the larger your empire gets.

[Saul Tyre]

@Webba84; Firstly, thank you for following my videos, the fact that you enjoyed them only adds to my appreciation. I made a lot of notes as I played the campaign and many of them touched on your extensive explanation of events, and I thank you for the time and effort for that too. Crikey I certainly made a few blunders but I think the biggest one was not understanding just how different my approach had to be to playing this mod, I should have realized much sooner, the fact that I didn't was a bit of a disappointment to me Recognizing too late that I should have taken Rhovanian out of the equation at the beginning also had me thinking to myself "what a numpty" I just did not catch on to the "political mechanics" of the mod and was made to pay for it. In short I forgot my Modus Operandi, being good at battles does not necessarily translate to being good at wars.
There will be another Let's Play I promise you that, this is way to good a mod not to. Once again thank you for your support and help and also to you and the rest of the team for a superb mod

[Wambat]

To my mind, the advantage of Tharbad, considering your play-style, is the abundance of compatible territories you can move into north of your starting position. Even where alignment may be different, culture will be the same, so far fewer penalties to public order. I think there are only three provinces in that quadrant (aside from Elven, Dwarven, and Shire) that are highly incompatible, and they are all very poor provinces you can do just as well without. Plus, as you claim more northwestern provinces playing Tharbad you are increasing your security in the north, rather than increasing your exposure as you expand, as in your Dale campaign.


Meanwhile, if you attack Dunland early and knock-out their major production centers at Dunfada, Dunhold (you would not necessarily need to hold the provinces). You can ensure a secure southern border for quite a while, while giving Adunabar some time to capture RK's northern provinces, so you can, in turn, gobble them up.


As far as capturing Threeways first thing: Personally, I prefer to leave Adunabar unmolested until they have taken all but Annuminas from RK. Once RK is down to just one settlement in the area, I would then buy the settlement off them if possible. If you kill off Adunabar before they can do much harm to RK, or cause them to focus on you rather than RK, you will end up with RK declaring war on you for lack of any other targets, which means Rohan declaring war on you, and you can hardly avoid Dunland declaring war on you.


I think one of the problems with your last campaign was insisting on trying to hold onto all conquered provinces as part of your war policy. In my Dwarven campaign, once Rhun made war upon me, I simply swept through their territories, letting any that were not easy to hold revolt. Once the threat from Rhun was under control (besieged in their last settlement), I could then go back and claim the territories I wanted at leisure; I also got a great boost to my bank account from all the projects destroyed in settlements I did not intend to add to my empire.


In general, key to a successful FATW campaign is not trying to claim every settlement you come across; I did that in my Elven campaign, and it just dragged me down, in my opinion. Some settlements are better held by allies (or, better yet, protectorates) or neutrals, or even kept in the hands of rebels to give yourself a buffer with factions you are not ready for open war with.


When a settlement rebels in this mod, the quality of the rebel forces are based on the projects the settlement holds. Since checking the auto-govern box will destroy most all the projects that provide any bonuses to troops, you can expect provinces that rebel to have extremely week garrisons that will be a pushover; if you wish to recapture; or will refuse to sally, even when besieged by a very small force. As such, keeping a rebel settlement besieged indefinitely can be a surprisingly inexpensive project.


I cannot but notice more activity on the forum today than I have seen in months, and I think a large part of it is spurred by a sense of urgency to keep you in the game. I hope you will appreciate that content generators like yourself are quite important to this mod, and those who work hard for it, on so many fronts: You give the mod much needed exposure; you give the mod team an excellent view into the game mechanics as experienced by the player; perhaps most importantly, you confirm the enjoyment this mod brings to others, which is exactly the fuel needed to keep this mod on the road to further development and improvement.

[Saul Tyre]

@Wambat; Thank you for your feedback, it's interesting to read your differing strategy to Webba's for Tharbad. On me holding on to my conquests, that's what I've always done, I suppose other RTW mods I played are more forgiving in that instance, they don't have an anti snowballing effect that can't be overcome (with the exception of EB which needs a bit more savvy in similar fashion to FATW:dom) Yes, in hindsight I should have used the protectorate strategy but I at the time I thought that was an anti-hording strategy and made sure I killed the FM's before capturing the last settlement to avoid that I will know better next time. Outside of the Let's Play I also tested the diplomatic strategy of offering a captured settlement + cash to the Dwarven but they declined, accusing me of more or less not having respect for my ownership. That left me unsure about how to be successful in negotiating. I also understand about destroying projects held by defeated enemies, I have encountered that system in other mods so that was not new to me.

Thanks also for the kind words at the end of your comments, it's nice to know my videos are being watched and enjoyed, it gives me confidence in my playing, and to publish my "exploits" if you like. As I explained at the beginning of the campaign, added to the fact I have never played this mod before, I am very new to Let's Plays. I will return SOON!

[webba84]

As far as capturing Threeways first thing: Personally, I prefer to leave Adunabar unmolested until they have taken all but Annuminas from RK. Once RK is down to just one settlement in the area, I would then buy the settlement off them if possible. If you kill off Adunabar before they can do much harm to RK, or cause them to focus on you rather than RK, you will end up with RK declaring war on you for lack of any other targets, which means Rohan declaring war on you, and you can hardly avoid Dunland declaring war on you.

There's definitely more than one way to do it, and I always enjoy seeing how differently people approach the same situation, but since you've thrown down the gauntlet () I'll go ahead and explain exactly why taking Threeways on turn 2 is by far the best way to start a Tharbad campaign .

1. It blocks Adunabar from taking any of the rebel provinces between your starting position and the Shire, allowing you to capture all of those quite profitable (especially Sarnford) provinces at your own pace. You can defend your entire faction against any attack from the north by holding just one province, securing your main recruiting centre (Tharbad) and freeing up troops to defend the south, or conquer other regions.
2. You can reinforce it in one turn from Tharbad, making it even easier to hold.
3. It's lightly defended at game start, but will get reinforced after Adunabar takes Bree.
4. It doubles your income - due to the way trade works in RTW Threeways is a more profitable trading province than Tharbad (especially after you get trade rights with the Shire and RK). By itself it will pay for it's own garrison, plus extra troops for Lond Daer and Greyholm to keep Dunland looking the other way.
5. It's far enough away from Threeways that Adunabar will still focus almost completely on the RK, while at the same time being close enough to Bree that if you want to help the RK defend you can get there within one turn. Through careful use of an army based in Threeways it's possible to keep Adunabar and the RK locked in a stalemate, all the while making good trade income across the Bree - Threeways border (and the Shire - Threeways border, and the Tharbad - Threeways border etc etc).
6. If you don't intervene, Adunabar will destroy the RK in the north, and will then definitely attack you. Even their relatively weak Arnor holdings are still more powerful, both economically and militarily, than your entire faction, and waiting until they defeat the RK will only make them moreso. However, a large portion of their wealth in the north comes from Threeways, and by taking it for yourself you deal them a heavy blow and put yourself in a much stronger position.
7. All your victory condition provinces are to the west and south, you don't need anything north of Threeways so it really does make a perfect northern fence for your kingdoms.
8. Why buy a province when you can conquer it so easily?

I cannot but notice more activity on the forum today than I have seen in months, and I think a large part of it is spurred by a sense of urgency to keep you in the game. I hope you will appreciate that content generators like yourself are quite important to this mod, and those who work hard for it, on so many fronts: You give the mod much needed exposure; you give the mod team an excellent view into the game mechanics as experienced by the player; perhaps most importantly, you confirm the enjoyment this mod brings to others, which is exactly the fuel needed to keep this mod on the road to further development and improvement.

You're not 100% wrong about that, though a very nice chat I had with Count over the weekend also played a large role, for my part.

[Wambat]

I am prejudiced by my own play style.


1. I rather feel I could take Sarnford as easily as Threeways, and without starting a war with Adûnabâr. And you cannot count on the Elves/Dwarves not taking Sanford themselves if you leave it too long.


3. I am not worried about a "heavily defended" Threeways. The AI is crap at city defense, and once I can produce ballista or scouts I can take the city without having to worry about a larger force sallying.


5/6/7. My objective would be to secure all of Eriador for myself, rather than watch RK and Adûnabâr in endless combat (I suppose we all know I don't care about VCs). Adûnabâr has an annoying habit of never quite finishing off RK at Annúminas; rather turning their attentions south immediately once they have secured the surrounding areas. I am definitely not suggesting that the player never take Threeways, only that if you wait until Adûnabâr has claimed the territories around Annúminas, which usually does not take too long, you will then be in a position where you can take Annúminas peaceably, and then proceed with war upon Adûnabâr.


8. I assume you are referring to the purchase of Annúminas. Why buy it? Because, if Harad does not steam-roll through to Rohan, Rohan is going to be a very powerful force with nothing better to do than send endless stacks of heavy cavalry at you; which I personally find one of my least favorite scenarios. If I go to war with RK, then I am going to war with Rohan. If I am at war with Rohan, I cannot use IP settlements as a buffer between our kingdoms. Being at war with RK and Rohan would also likely spoil any alliance network I would have been working on, and therefore my king's Authority. Arguably, war with Rohan is inevitable, but I should still like to chose my own time and place to start it.


In my current campaign I think I was able to buy Annúminas for 16k, and am pretty sure I got most, if not all, of that back from destroyed projects. This also prompts RK to send whatever forces were at Annúminas on a journey east and south through Adûnabâr's territory. If you have your own units ready to take advantage of this, you can get RK to do some damage for you against the forces of Annúminas on it's way south.


I will agree that much of my argument hinges on city battles not being a problem for me. I regularly take out superior garrisons with few, or even zero, losses by gaming the AI and using the tower defenses.

[webba84]

I am prejudiced by my own play style.

As are we all. That's why I enjoy these sort of conversations so much .

1. I rather feel I could take Sarnford as easily as Threeways, and without starting a war with Adûnabâr. And you cannot count on the Elves/Dwarves not taking Sanford themselves if you leave it too long.

But why not just take both? After Threeways, Sarnford is the next obvious target and if you already have Threeways then it needs only a minimal garrison to prevent revolt, since it is completely protected from attack. I'm still somewhat confused as to why you want to avoid a war with Adunabar, since delaying the conflict benefits them far more than you.

3. I am not worried about a "heavily defended" Threeways. The AI is crap at city defense, and once I can produce ballista or scouts I can take the city without having to worry about a larger force sallying.

That's fair enough, but at the same time why not take it when it is most vulnerable? I still can't see any downsides to it.

5/6/7. My objective would be to secure all of Eriador for myself, rather than watch RK and Adûnabâr in endless combat (I suppose we all know I don't care about VCs). Adûnabâr has an annoying habit of never quite finishing off RK at Annúminas; rather turning their attentions south immediately once they have secured the surrounding areas. I am definitely not suggesting that the player never take Threeways, only that if you wait until Adûnabâr has claimed the territories around Annúminas, which usually does not take too long, you will then be in a position where you can take Annúminas peaceably, and then proceed with war upon Adûnabâr.

Fair point, but at the same time if you want all of Eriador then you will take Threeways sooner or later, and I don't see how not taking it from them will prevent them from turning their attention south - to the contrary, being in possession of that province gives them access to not only your capital, but all the lightly defended rebel provinces in Cardolan - all reasons why the ai would send troops that way.

In my personal experience, taking Threeways right at the start actually helps to focus their attention on the RK territories and Annuminas, since as long as you keep a strong garrison there (it being a single province border), it is very easy to deter them from sending any armies either your way or towards any southern rebel territories (I learnt this from your diplomacy research BTW).

I would suggest that you see Adunabar turning south before they finish the RK off at Annuminas precisely because you leave them in possession of Threeways for too long, and that affords them too many tempting targets in your direction.

8. I assume you are referring to the purchase of Annúminas. Why buy it? Because, if Harad does not steam-roll through to Rohan, Rohan is going to be a very powerful force with nothing better to do than send endless stacks of heavy cavalry at you; which I personally find one of my least favorite scenarios. If I go to war with RK, then I am going to war with Rohan. If I am at war with Rohan, I cannot use IP settlements as a buffer between our kingdoms. Being at war with RK and Rohan would also likely spoil any alliance network I would have been working on, and therefore my king's Authority. Arguably, war with Rohan is inevitable, but I should still like to chose my own time and place to start it.

Actually, I thought you were referring to the purchase of Threeways, but it makes no matter - I agree that if you're planning to conquer all of Eriador then purchasing Annuminas is a good choice. However, I think you greatly overestimate the risk of war with the RK, and their strength in the north. Last time I played as Tharbad I decided to try and keep them alive and I had to exert considerable effort to do so (especially after Dunland and Adunabar took all of Gondor and Rohan between them). The Tharbad campaign is set up so that the RK, in particular, is very weak. You may see Rohan do well for a period, but it's almost a certainty that the RK will be destroyed in both the North and the South even if you take Threeways but do nothing else.

In my current campaign I think I was able to buy Annúminas for 16k, and am pretty sure I got most, if not all, of that back from destroyed projects. This also prompts RK to send whatever forces were at Annúminas on a journey east and south through Adûnabâr's territory. If you have your own units ready to take advantage of this, you can get RK to do some damage for you against the forces of Annúminas on it's way south.

I achieve the same result by expeditioning north from Threeways and relieving Adunabar sieges of Bree (just under 1 turn travel). Surely, if you are wanting to use the RK as a proxy in your fight against Adunabar, then leaving them some settlements to do it from (at least until Adunabar is spent) is more effective?

I will agree that much of my argument hinges on city battles not being a problem for me. I regularly take out superior garrisons with few, or even zero, losses by gaming the AI and using the tower defenses.

Well, for me, the main arguments to taking Threeways immediately are economic and strategic, not tactical. I still don't understand why you would want to give up such a huge gain in income and strategic position just to avoid immediate war with Adunabar, when that war will inevitably happen no matter what you do.

[Tulkasthevaliant]

Aww, Wambat is but a fanboy at heart. <3 A lot of good tips here, most of them I've seen before but it's always good to have a refresher on the obscurer parts of the game. I'll make sure to reread this before my next recording session. Perhaps if I could give Ost-in-Argalad to the Dwarves... and I didn't know that numbers were the only thing that matters for public order. Neat.