Dale help

[sharpie12]

Hey guys, new to this forum, loving this game and trying to get a good game going with Dale on Hard/Hard. having some difficulty dealign with Rhun. Was only able to expand a few villages south before they started to throw full stack after full stack after me, I was able to hold them on a river line but my treasury has been bled and my armies are slowly being killed off, Help please lol

[Lordinquisitor]

Main advice: Leave bard in the city he starts in, lower the taxes and build farms etc. You`ll need advanced troops as soon as possible.

Don`t try to fight against rhun in the open too much, their early cavalry and their bodyguards are superior. Try to lure them on a bridge or river or try to hold cities against them. Use as many watchmen as possible to bind them and decimate their lightly armoured infantry with arrows.

[sharpie12]

alright, will do. looks like i'm gona have to start from scratch again though.

[Lordinquisitor]

Don`t forget to take Dorwinion as soon as possible. (Near the sea.) It`s a valuable castle.

You can also try to conquer a town near rhun and then give it to the silvan elves. If rhun takes it, they will be attacked by the elves. If not, you hinder their advancement. It`s a win-win situation. (You can also give it to the dwarves, but they usually attack rhun, anyway.)

[Hero of the West]

while fighting take out the general ASAP.. the standard simple rhun units will route quite fast.. don't expand to the south to fast.. hard to hold.. just take the first settlement to the south and the castle to the east

edit: lordinquisitor beat me to it with the castle

[The Big Red 1]

Dale is by far the hardest faction to play so far. Rhun's clan tribesmen, and Balcloth are severely good pre-development militia grade soldiers. Meanwhile Dale's Hearth Watchmen, and Rivermen are essentially useless. I never really liked their archer units, and they are really an underpowered faction even in the Meta game.

However, the advantage to Dale is it can become an economic powerhouse. Just do as LordInquisitor said, and focus on farms, then roads, then markets, and if you have ports, place them above markets. Put all cities on low taxes and hunker down to expand your cities. If you play your cards right, you'll eventually get some higher tier units, while Rhun will still be throwing militia at you. (Not to mention Rhun's Medium soldiers are perhaps the worst in the entire game so they are not problem)

If you are attacked, make sure it's in a city or another defensible position. Rely on your longbowmen to take down first any mounted archers (Variags) because they are annoying. Then you may want to hit any generals, or just any unit for that matter (lightly armored unless you have really good archers.) Place your hearth watchmen at choke points, AND ALWAYS TURN ON SCHILTROM. If you have already taken out enemy archer units. If you have the vastly inept Rivermen, use them on armored troops ONLY, and don't get any armored troops you may have near balcloth, they will tear them to shreds. Eventually once you get Dale Cavalry, and some Stronger Infantry, Rhun should be a walk in the park.

After you defeat Rhun. Just hunker down, and improve your economy even more. Eventually an Invasion will be called against Dale. Be ready to field as many elite units as possible, and make sure your economy can maintain it. After that, I recommend destroying Mordor. Good Luck!

[IrishBlood]

Dale is by far the hardest faction to play so far. Rhun's clan tribesmen, and Balcloth are severely good pre-development militia grade soldiers. Meanwhile Dale's Hearth Watchmen, and Rivermen are essentially useless. I never really liked their archer units, and they are really an underpowered faction even in the Meta game.

However, the advantage to Dale is it can become an economic powerhouse. Just do as LordInquisitor said, and focus on farms, then roads, then markets, and if you have ports, place them above markets. Put all cities on low taxes and hunker down to expand your cities. If you play your cards right, you'll eventually get some higher tier units, while Rhun will still be throwing militia at you. (Not to mention Rhun's Medium soldiers are perhaps the worst in the entire game so they are not problem)

If you are attacked, make sure it's in a city or another defensible position. Rely on your longbowmen to take down first any mounted archers (Variags) because they are annoying. Then you may want to hit any generals, or just any unit for that matter (lightly armored unless you have really good archers.) Place your hearth watchmen at choke points, AND ALWAYS TURN ON SCHILTROM. If you have already taken out enemy archer units. If you have the vastly inept Rivermen, use them on armored troops ONLY, and don't get any armored troops you may have near balcloth, they will tear them to shreds. Eventually once you get Dale Cavalry, and some Stronger Infantry, Rhun should be a walk in the park.

After you defeat Rhun. Just hunker down, and improve your economy even more. Eventually an Invasion will be called against Dale. Be ready to field as many elite units as possible, and make sure your economy can maintain it. After that, I recommend destroying Mordor. Good Luck!

i played a Dale campahin on VH/VH and i didnt find it that difficult, ittook a very long time, but it wasnt that hard. I just threw together a full stack of units as early as possible and relentlessly attacked rhun early on, with a constant supply of reinforccements streaming into that full stack to replenish my losses.
It worked pretty well because since i kept pressing them so hard, the AI kept sending half stack armys against me, well they wouldnt attack me, but they'd get in position to do so, but i'd hit them first.

This elite(ish) army gained alot of experience and i had it capture cities along the way to rhuns territory, heading south. i stoped the advance at the castle on the west coast of the sea of rhun (not dorwinian, the other one) although i countinued to destroy any armys that came within range.

Then i turtled for a bit, built up my strength, assembled another full stack which i sent north to go around the northern coast of the sea of rhun taking the settlements there, then to head south on the other side, while my inital army continued east, i also had another half stack army taking rebel settlements to the south and east of mirkwood.

from then on it was a slow and grinding war, but at no point was i in any serious danger of losing any settlements, my biggest concern was juggling my finances

[The Big Red 1]

i played a Dale campahin on VH/VH and i didnt find it that difficult, ittook a very long time, but it wasnt that hard.

Probably a difference in playing styles. I tend to turtle more. You seemed very aggressive. I played on the same difficulty yet I was constantly getting half stacks hitting my cities. Oh well.

How did you find the units though? I thought they were exceedingly weak...

[IrishBlood]

Probably a difference in playing styles. I tend to turtle more. You seemed very aggressive. I played on the same difficulty yet I was constantly getting half stacks hitting my cities. Oh well.

How did you find the units though? I thought they were exceedingly weak...

yeah i usually play defensivly too, but i could see i'd be over whelmed if i didnt take the fight to the enemy, those half stacks rarely made it to my cities because they would be intercepted and 'delt with' by my main army

well not really, i thought some of their units were rather over powered to be honest, especially the harth watchmen, i often used them to take out rhun's generals bodyguard units, although they are spear units, i dont think they should be able to hold the line agaisnt a generals bodyguard.

the riversmen were borderline useless though, and the Dale cavalry were pretty meh quality, the scouts were terrible, but wasnt expecting them to be much good. I was happy enough with the archer units, especially the athala rangers and the bardian marksmen. over all i found dale to be pretty balenced unit rooster wise, but once you beat rhun your an unstopable economic powerhouse, when i got bored of my campagin, i had destroyed rhun, had almost wiped out mordor, and was making more then 10K a turn, while sustaining 6 fullstacks, with possibly 2 more counting all the units i had garisoning cities and such.

[Shocked]

Probably a difference in playing styles. I tend to turtle more. You seemed very aggressive. I played on the same difficulty yet I was constantly getting half stacks hitting my cities. Oh well.

How did you find the units though? I thought they were exceedingly weak...

Dale has some of the best archers in the game.. especially for a faction of men

[Hero of the West]

Dale is by far the hardest faction to play so far. Rhun's clan tribesmen, and Balcloth are severely good pre-development militia grade soldiers. Meanwhile Dale's Hearth Watchmen, and Rivermen are essentially useless. I never really liked their archer units, and they are really an underpowered faction even in the Meta game.

However, the advantage to Dale is it can become an economic powerhouse. Just do as LordInquisitor said, and focus on farms, then roads, then markets, and if you have ports, place them above markets. Put all cities on low taxes and hunker down to expand your cities. If you play your cards right, you'll eventually get some higher tier units, while Rhun will still be throwing militia at you. (Not to mention Rhun's Medium soldiers are perhaps the worst in the entire game so they are not problem)

If you are attacked, make sure it's in a city or another defensible position. Rely on your longbowmen to take down first any mounted archers (Variags) because they are annoying. Then you may want to hit any generals, or just any unit for that matter (lightly armored unless you have really good archers.) Place your hearth watchmen at choke points, AND ALWAYS TURN ON SCHILTROM. If you have already taken out enemy archer units. If you have the vastly inept Rivermen, use them on armored troops ONLY, and don't get any armored troops you may have near balcloth, they will tear them to shreds. Eventually once you get Dale Cavalry, and some Stronger Infantry, Rhun should be a walk in the park.

After you defeat Rhun. Just hunker down, and improve your economy even more. Eventually an Invasion will be called against Dale. Be ready to field as many elite units as possible, and make sure your economy can maintain it. After that, I recommend destroying Mordor. Good Luck!

I find dale to be one of the easiest due to the good all around mix of units and the relativaly easy enemy.. rhun

[Mhydrian]

I find dale to be one of the easiest due to the good all around mix of units and the relativaly easy enemy.. rhun

This is what the description says but is a pack of lies. Dale's units all suck to the same degree making them balanced in that regard. Rhun outclasses Dale in every unit type. Rhun even has access to better archers with better range on their bows.

Rhun's BGs serve as one of THE very best heavy calvary units in the game. Outclassed by maybe only mordor. Winnign with Dale is possible and even not too bad, because as a rule all factions are easy to win with in this game due to bad computer AI. Dale ranks up there as one of the harder factions due to some really mediocre units.

The Dale BGs are really bad, they are just some archers with decent armor and melee ability. IMO Dale needs some help, they need a strong point, the "all around mix of units" tripe is just an excuse to make every unit they have subpar, while factions like Rhun somehow get superior units overall in every area. The big kicker is Rhun's heavy BG calvary. They are there from the get go and can be very very annoying. Especially with stack spam.

[A_Dane]

tbh, the worst part is not the bodyguards, it's those bloody variags they keep spamming, they just won't die, i've had 3 groups of archers shoot it out with a variag, and it wasn't until i threw spears at them it really worked..
and again, using cav vs variags dosn't work because of their AP axes -.-

[Lordinquisitor]

IIRC Dale`s archers are the best non elvish ones. Definitely nothing to sneeze at. Maybe that`s only so in RC/RR, but dales archers are deffinitely not weak.

[The Big Red 1]

IIRC Dale`s archers are the best non elvish ones. Definitely nothing to sneeze at. Maybe that`s only so in RC/RR, but dales archers are deffinitely not weak.

I don't use sub-mods yet. I'm waiting for 2.0 to come out.

And actually, your probably right...Its just idk. I never had luck with their archers. I think its just the lower accuracy of archers in this mod. I use very heavily archer oriented armies, and so far the only faction that fits my taste is the Silvan elves. My favorite faction is HE but my elite Eldars die to simple goblins, and it breaks my heart. So it was hard to play as them.

[Russian Gondor]

With Rhun it is important to capture the two southern forts. ( forget their names ). Once you hold those you keep on spamming units and moving them to the front. Then since you have a foothold on the surrounding lands with castles for cavalry you'll do fine.

[Lordinquisitor]

Lower accuracy? If i recall archers are more deadly in this mod than in most others.

And you might really try RC/RR once 2.0 is out and RC/RR updated- It makes, for example, the eldar "realistically" strong.

[Russian Gondor]

I agree with Irish. You need to deal with those half stacks before they stack up on you.

[IrishBlood]

I agree with Irish. You need to deal with those half stacks before they stack up on you.

yeah otherwise you'll be SWIMING in those damn balcoth tribesmen

[The Big Red 1]

Well, I guess I still hold the minority opinion. I loved Dale, its unit design was great, but its early, and intermediate units were just underpowered. Ill just have to check the Unit Statistics and compare them with Rhun .

@Lordinquisitor: I believe in Vanilla TATW accuracy is reduced while damage is increased. I believe this is how the team did it. But I may be wrong, its been a year since I've been here.