The OotMM

[Quirl]

So after playing the game, what is everyone's thoughts on the Orcs of the Misty Mountains?

NEGATIVE- I personally love the lore behind this faction, but starting out with 3 enemies and a fourth faction whose objective is to kill you (Eriador) makes the OotMM extremely difficult-- especially because the Misty Mountains really aren't as defensible as one might initially think, with random castles sticking out and vulnerable to attack. In a hotseat, I'm not sure if they would last very long.

POSITIVE- At the same time, I tend to play rather conservatively and cautiously in hotseats; but I know some people really like that fast pace, blitzing game that a faction like the OotMM could possibly allow for.

POSITIVE- I think the addition of Wargs in submods and the upcoming 1.2 patch really helps this faction, as they then become the only faction able to build trolls AND wargs (a sick combination).

NEGATIVE- Even still, OotMM trolls are quite underpowered when compared to Mordor trolls (even when you don't count the Olog-Hai) AND their other units aren't as diverse as Mordor, either.

What do you guys think?

[tesb]

what bothered me most with them is their slow movement speed on the map it takes for ever to move your armies (playing RC/RR). You can easily make peace with the elves and concentrate on the dwarves and eriador which are quickly overrun in the beginning. also you do not have money problems since the mines in goblin town and moria generate a lot of wealth.

[Rakovansky]

what bothered me most with them is their slow movement speed on the map it takes for ever to move your armies (playing RC/RR). You can easily make peace with the elves and concentrate on the dwarves and eriador which are quickly overrun in the beginning. also you do not have money problems since the mines in goblin town and moria generate a lot of wealth.

I wonder if there is any way to give OOTMM units a movement bonus while in mountainous areas? It is reasonable to expect they have knowledge of how to move across the terrain, shortcuts, passes etc that other factions would not. Perhaps it could be offset by a movement penalty in other terrain types, such as woodland areas?

[Warmaster Tibs]

NEGATIVE- Even still, OotMM trolls are quite underpowered when compared to Mordor trolls (even when you don't count the Olog-Hai) AND their other units aren't as diverse as Mordor, either.

What do you guys think?

OotMM trolls> Mordor trolls on vanilla at least.

[Quirl]

what bothered me most with them is their slow movement speed on the map it takes for ever to move your armies (playing RC/RR). You can easily make peace with the elves and concentrate on the dwarves and eriador which are quickly overrun in the beginning. also you do not have money problems since the mines in goblin town and moria generate a lot of wealth.

Well, I don't mean to question the devs' decisions on it or anything, but I can't stand the movement speeds on the campaign map in vanilla TATW. I think it would be especially hard to deal with in a hotseat. For instance, if I wanted to make peace with the elves as you suggested (which isn't quite so easy when playing with humans by the way) I would have to first build a townhall (since the OotMM doesn't start off with a diplomat or the means to produce one first turn) then build one, then march him over to one of the elves. All that might take 9-10 turns (about 9-10 weeks with full players just to make a ceasefire friggin' official!).

To be honest, I edited the characters and gave them all the same movement speeds as those in Broken Crescent. Those two maps cover about the same size in terms of landmass, so I think that is a logical template. I've personally been having a much more satisfying experience with the mod since I did that.

OotMM trolls> Mordor trolls on vanilla at least.

You are right, I just checked. I've been playing with a modified RR+RC lately...

Even still, they lack Mordor's unit diversity.

[Kawee]

In a Hotseat, I think OotMM will be one of the first to go. They can so easily become under attacked from HE, Eriador, and Dwarves, while a decent human SE player can ensure that OotMM can't expand eastwards.

However, in terms of single player campaign, I do have to agree that the movement point is quite low. Takes forever to go anywhere.

[eugenioso]

i like the ootmm. theyre a great faction on single player but on mp hotseat ooh they could suffer.

first, they have numbers on their side. second, their units are so simple that you dont need to worry about other things (armies of only armored goblin infantry and armored goblin archers, with some trolls for favor really standarize gaming for them. make about 3 armies full of these goblins and the world will kiss your ugly dirt filled paw).

third, theyre really cheap units. make horde upon horde of these bastards and send them down the enemy's face. i assure you they will perish after enough casualties.

in fact, i remember playing as them not long ago, and my strategy fell back to hordes: id send 5 armies vs a full elven stack or a fully garrisoned elven city (rivendell), and i didnt break a huge sweat.

simply swamped them. 5 armies attacking from 5 sides meant that the enemy got so raped that even though i lost like 3000 gobbos that battle the enemy lost their full army (like 2000 - 1700) strong and their capital. the math is simple: 15000 goblins total. 3000 casualties > 1900 elves. 1900 casualties + capital lost. result: swamped.

[Downey]

I would like to see more units with OOTMM, the seam to have the smallest roster But overall they are one faction that I look forward to playing with 1.2 (most important is eriador!)

[Warmaster Tibs]

I would like to see more units with OOTMM, the seam to have the smallest roster But overall they are one faction that I look forward to playing with 1.2 (most important is eriador!)

Hate to tell but Eriador is not getting anything for them in 1.2 . It got postponed.

[Quirl]

i like the ootmm. theyre a great faction on single player but on mp hotseat ooh they could suffer.

Those are my thoughts exactly. I really enjoy playing them in single player for the same reasons you mentioned. In a hotseat though, I think they are destined to fail (or at least suffer).

The biggest problem I see playing with them is their location. The Misty Mountains really aren't that defensible, because its towns are thrown about randomly and are really exposed. I can't tell you how many times the stinkin' dwarves invaded Dain's Halls in the East and Carn Dum and Gram to the west. It's bad enough they are in the center of the map and have so many enemies, but to have such spread apart and vulnerable settelments is the particularly challenging part.

I'm not suggesting an overhaul of the map itself, but maybe just simply moving these settlements or getting rid of some of them and making the core towns in the MM better.

Hate to tell but Eriador is not getting anything for them in 1.2 . It got postponed.

Yeah, that's why if I ever do play a hotseat for this game, I'm going to wait until 1.3. I can't wait to see what KK has in store for us then. It will be worth the wait I'm sure.

[Warmaster Tibs]

Yeah, that's why if I ever do play a hotseat for this game, I'm going to wait until 1.3. I can't wait to see what KK has in store for us then. It will be worth the wait I'm sure.

I think it will come after 1.3 but I hope I am dead wrong about that.

[Bela]

I think it will come after 1.3 but I hope I am dead wrong about that.

As long as I know, there will be no 1.3. There will be 1.5. (but please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I remember KK wrote it in an another thread).

Back to topic: I can only hardly wait for 1.2 for the Warg Riders. Now we'll have a lot more chance to kick some elves out of the forest before their arrows kill all the units (and makes the game unplayable )

[Dazo]

Hate to tell but Eriador is not getting anything for them in 1.2 . It got postponed.

- Wooo, Aragorn and Frodo = nothing... that's hard of you
Ok, ok they're just "custom" heroes/generals but still...
- Back to the OoMM, it depends how you consider settlements, I always use western and eastern ones to gain time for my core settlements till I can get trolls, don't really mind to lose them, they just need to keep going for some turns (and you can also call invasion on eastern dwarves to get some help and keep them busy).

+

[Bela]

(and you can also call invasion on eastern dwarves to get some help and keep them busy).

+

Yes, it IS a clever idea, but personally I don't like the sound of it at all.
Anyway, IMO it is also good to call an invasion on Eriador (eg. Bree) also as the evil factions must get through Rohan, (sometimes HE) and Eriador (or sometimes even Silvan Elves) to get there and during the turns they get in war with your enemies (as OotMM), you can easily build your economy and armies up.

[Quirl]

Back to the OoMM, it depends how you consider settlements, I always use western and eastern ones to gain time for my core settlements till I can get trolls, don't really mind to lose them, they just need to keep going for some turns (and you can also call invasion on eastern dwarves to get some help and keep them busy).

Certainly. There are always ways to make due with what you have. Nonetheless, compared to every other faction, I still think the OotMM is just too vulnerable.

And, personally, when I play the OotMM, I always call an invasion on Azanulimbar-Dum (to keep the Dwarves busy like you suggested) and then I use my "invasion force" to actually invade the Silven Elves in Cerin Amroth and Caras Galadhon. That really quickly kills off the Silven Elves (and if you are in a hotseat and have a good Mordor ally, you can pincer their last settlement(s) in Mirkwood).

The Wargs wont help you at all.........
Still the Ootmm will be archerfodder for elves, nice for increasing your armies stats! :-)

HA HA! In your humbly biased opinion?

Actually, Wargs work quite well against Elves. Against Dwarves... eh... not so much. I pretty much Spam Snaga skirmishers and archers against Dwarves. Hit and run, hit and run, until I eventually have to fight the little buggers.

I wonder if there is any way to give OOTMM units a movement bonus while in mountainous areas? It is reasonable to expect they have knowledge of how to move across the terrain, shortcuts, passes etc that other factions would not. Perhaps it could be offset by a movement penalty in other terrain types, such as woodland areas?

That would be really sweet! To my knowledge, though, there isn't a way to do this for just certain factions.

What I really wish was that Medieval had the "teleporting" scripts Empire has (where if you move a ship to a certain spot it "teleports" to it to a different part in another ocean). If Medieval had that, you could actually script invasions of the underground mines and fight underground between the Dwarves and the Goblins. How epic would that be?!

For the underground battlemaps, you could make the sky simply black and create modeled cave walls which simply block your units' pathing.

[Skeleton Of The West]

What I really wish was that Medieval had the "teleporting" scripts Empire has (where if you move a ship to a certain spot it "teleports" to it to a different part in another ocean). If Medieval had that, you could actually script invasions of the underground mines and fight underground between the Dwarves and the Goblins. How epic would that be?!

You can make an army appear from no where by script, if thats what you mean.

[Gothic Revenge]

The Wargs wont help you at all.........
Still the Ootmm will be archerfodder for elves, nice for increasing your armies stats! :-)

[Bela]

The Wargs wont help you at all.........
Still the Ootmm will be archerfodder for elves, nice for increasing your armies stats! :-)

Maybe. But I will give them a try, and we'll see.

But I'm quite sure that the riders will not help against the might of the Dwarves!