Gah! What am I doing wrong?

[p1tch]

Never played any mods before.. just vanilla MWII.

First off, this is an awesome mod! Been going to bed like 2 hours late every night since I installed it a week ago! Really engaging and entertaining.

I have played 2 different campaigns, both on Dwarves (dunno why I like them so much!). The first campaign got to around turn 200 before I had to stop. I didn't build up enough and had no economy so just decided to start over.

Second campaign I saved and built for 120 turns, then started to attack. Cleaned out the orcs. Made war with Isengard and was attacked by Mordor, Rhun and Harad. No matter how hard I try though, it seems they ALWAYS have more stacks. In fact, I'm 2nd in units in my game with Mordor having the most - the problem is that mordor has 40% more units then me!

Did I read somewhere that once you take out a settlement, then that faction gets some auto-units? That might explain Mordor as I just took like 6 of their settlements in 10 turns, but none of them were major ones.

Also, my "Allies" are worse then useless. Isengard took out most of Rohan before I attacked them, but now Rohan refuses to attack. They have full stacks in their settlements but just sit there. Edoras (Isengard) has 2 units in there, and Rohan has a full stack just sitting 2 turns away but hasn't done anything in 30 turns!! Dale has been taking out Rhun pretty standardly which is good, and Gondor has been taking the brunt of it like normal, but everyone else just sits there.

Now I'm losing money hand over fist and can't field any more armies then I have out there - and Mordor and Isengard just seem to spawn a stack a turn! What can I do? GAH!

[ppetrus]

Second campaign I saved and built for 120 turns, then started to attack. Cleaned out the orcs.

You should choose 1-2 enemy/ies and attack him/them from the very beginning. The thing is, do not hire many troops, try to do the biggest damage with your starting troops.

No matter how hard I try though, it seems they ALWAYS have more stacks.

What fun would you have if you had a bigger army? I prefer elves and if the troops ration is less than 1:3 (to my enemy's favour), I find the battle unsatisfactory.

Did I read somewhere that once you take out a settlement, then that faction gets some auto-units?

It is called "garrison script" and it gives a besieged city several brand new, fancy aromatic squads of troops. It works only in major, starting settlements (usually 2-3 per faction). If you did not notice bigger garrison right after giving an order to siege, they should not have any additional siege-triggered reinforcements. Though I am not 100% sure.

Also, my "Allies" are worse then useless ... just sits there.

Allies does not come very handy. The behaviour you have described is perfectly normal . Try not to rely on them much.

Now I'm losing money hand over fist and can't field any more armies then I have out there - and Mordor and Isengard just seem to spawn a stack a turn! What can I do? GAH!

You may have too many stacks. Try to reduce their number and rely on your skills, not size of the army. However, I have find out, that corruption can destroy one's economy. I am not sure if the corruption level is higher than in vanilla, though in vanilla M2TW I have had no such high corruption rate. Check the corruption in your economy screen and if the corruption is too high, you may want to decrease it in a file.

[jinjo]

You may have too many stacks. Try to reduce their number and rely on your skills, not size of the army. However, I have find out, that corruption can destroy one's economy. I am not sure if the corruption level is higher than in vanilla, though in vanilla M2TW I have had no such high corruption rate. Check the corruption in your economy screen and if the corruption is too high, you may want to decrease it in a file.

move your capital in the middle of your faction and high corruption will decrease immediately

[ppetrus]

Right, that helps a lot, though not enough (in my case). Having capital in the middle of my realm, corruption was taking 1/4 of my income (10k of total 40k) though I have possibly found the reason: as elves' player I was building barracks very rarely. Together with not building administration buildings, I had extremely low law-rate.

[Alex-ander]

Try to keep your allies alive by sending armies to help them if they are dying if they die life can become very difficult. You did not mention what happened to Gondor that is one faction you need to keep alive if you can if they get taken over by Mordor/Harad the factions who take over will be able to produce huge numbers of armies.

One tip for the Dwarves seriously consider selling or trading the fort and castle you have in the west. They are hard to maintain, have high corruption and are difficult to upgrade. You could sell them to the HE or maybe trade both to Dale for a town near your eastern empire.

[jinjo]

One tip for the Dwarves seriously consider selling or trading the fort and castle you have in the west. They are hard to maintain, have high corruption and are difficult to upgrade. You could sell them to the HE or maybe trade both to Dale for a town near your eastern empire.

i dont agree with u
dwarves needs those cities, and it isn't hard to maintain them
u should try to unite your regions and it isn't hard because dwarves can easily destroy OOTMM and OOG

[Alex-ander]

i dont agree with u
dwarves needs those cities, and it isn't hard to maintain them
u should try to unite your regions and it isn't hard because dwarves can easily destroy OOTMM and OOG

We can agree to disagree. Uniting your empire will take a long time at best sure you canl kill off the Orcs of G and OOTMM but that is long term. You will probably never manage to upgrade your castle in the west so you will be stuck with a low level castle for a long time.

Personally i would rather trade them for a city or castle in the east that would be easier to maintain and have low corruption.

[jinjo]

We can agree to disagree. Uniting your empire will take a long time at best sure you canl kill off the Orcs of G and OOTMM but that is long term. You will probably never manage to upgrade your castle in the west so you will be stuck with a low level castle for a long time.

Personally i would rather trade them for a city or castle in the east that would be easier to maintain and have low corruption.

ya for low corruption maybe it's good but u won't complete mission if u sell your west-side cities

[the cooliest]

I agree with Alex-ander's strategy but I don't agree with attacking Dale. I just think getting afer Rhun early with Dale solidifies your eastern border and then you can move on the west and crush the OOTMM and OOG. ANd then you can buy back those settlements after this by giving Dale some of your previously Rhunnic settlements. Though I haven't played Vanilla Dwarves for a while because I'm playing FROME now. Though I'm thinking about reinstallling vanilla too so I can play Barons mod too...it looks cool .

[ppetrus]

But if you have western regions, you can easily conquer Nenuial, Lunelaith, Pitkaranta and then to help eastern military expedition to destroy OOG. Fighting Rhun is not a priority, especially that you have Dale-shield.

[Alex-ander]

But if you have western regions, you can easily conquer Nenuial, Lunelaith, Pitkaranta and then to help eastern military expedition to destroy OOG. Fighting Rhun is not a priority, especially that you have Dale-shield.

Problem is that the HE or Eriador will probably capture 2 of the 3 rebel settlements before you. In my campaigns the AI always seems to get there first. Maybe they are just closer or maybe the AI gets a movement bonus or something. Then you have a choice of trying to buy them(if you have the money) or attacking one of the factions and winning them back.

[ppetrus]

Problem is that the HE or Eriador will probably capture 2 of the 3 rebel settlements before you. In my campaigns the AI always seems to get there first. Maybe they are just closer or maybe the AI gets a movement bonus or something. Then you have a choice of trying to buy them(if you have the money) or attacking one of the factions and winning them back.

No way! You have to rush to Lunelaith from the very beginning with everything you have, except one unit of miners, which are going to block Nenuial, so Eriador will not capture it before you. The rebels will, of course, lift up the siege, but you have to redo the siege several times, till you get reinforced by the troops from Lunelaith. It works every time for me.