Which Faction?

**Cauis Cosades** · February 16, 2012, 11:36 PM

My new computer is getting here in a few days. So after not playing any Total War for three months, and after not playing for an extended period for about a year, I was wondering which faction would help me ease back into TATW and Total War in general, but still be enjoyable.

Also, posting a good difficulty would be helpful. I'm a fairly experienced Total War player, but keep in mind I haven't really played Total War for about a year.
Sorry if this should have been posted elsewhere.

**Mhaedros** · February 17, 2012, 12:09 AM

If you want an easy game, choose one of the elven factions. They have OP archers so no losses for you. If you want it easy, but still want to do something during the battle (not just leave skirmish mode on, and watch the enemy die) choose dwarves. If you want a challenge choose Eriador, Dale or Gondor. Eriador has crappy units, as Dale you need to focus on archers for the first 80 turns, and as Gondor your in a twofront war right from the start. I dont play evil or Rohan so I dont know about them

**Spits32** · February 17, 2012, 12:09 AM

Don't do Gondor first. Try Rohan, Eriador, or Silvan elves w/ Total recruitment enabled on the Baron Samedi submod. If you haven't installed the mod I would highly recommend it. But you can also give vanilla a whirl if you haven't played it at all yet. A lot of the features might just confuse you. As far as difficulty I think the battles are kind of easy so I usually play M/VH. Any higher difficulty for the campaign and the AI just gets free stack after stack to throw at you.

**Mhaedros** · February 17, 2012, 12:15 AM

I wouldn't play Baron Samedi's submod before you know the game. Anyway it's really buggy, and you probably wont play more than 100 turns, due to crashes

**Lothar135** · February 17, 2012, 01:14 AM

From my experience I can only say that in TA 3.1 elves, eriador, rhun or gundabad are quite easy. Hard campaigns are Gondor, Dale or Orcs of the Misty mountains. As for difficulty - the modders recommend VH/VH. But this difficulty often ends in endless stack fighting, which I think is boring, so I recommend you not to play VH/VH at least for the first time.

**Amph** · February 17, 2012, 02:34 AM

I wouldn't recommend Baron Samedi's mod at all, given its current bugged state.

**brapollo** · February 17, 2012, 03:38 AM

Good easy: Both elves and Eriador
Bad easy: Rhun and Harad
Good medium: Dwarves and Rohan
Bad medium: Mordor
Good hard: Gondor
Bad hard: Isengard
Nearly impossible: Both orcs and Dale

On vh/vh and 3.1. 3.1 plays totally different from previous versions.

**~~removeduser_3847562873423~~** · February 17, 2012, 03:50 AM

I would say try Rhun first. They are by far the easiest now in 3.1. Silvan elves are now harder because of those spider units.

**Mhaedros** · February 17, 2012, 03:51 AM

I really dont see why people think Dale is impossible. They have great archers, and a damn river! USE it

**Shocked** · February 20, 2012, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by Mhaedros

I really dont see why people think Dale is impossible. They have great archers, and a damn river! USE it

Yup, it's all about using what you've got and playing smart, that's how i've won many campaigns. From memory Dale have very good archers too..

**Syanur** · February 17, 2012, 04:28 AM

I go with "M" on battle. Bec all units already got moral boost in this mod. Most of them have "excellent morale", rest of them "good morale" at least... This is for prevent enemy routing early and easily, like in Vanilla Med2 and R-TW(And I like it). So why mooore! stamina&moral boost for enemy with VH battle level? Especially when you are out-numbered. If you play VH camp. you most probably be out-numbered in every battle due to economy.

Fighting against over-moraled, enless-coming+free-cost full stack of enemy at campaing,,, seems boring to me. So thats why I prefer VH/M and I suggest VH/M or M/VH. I don't like VH/VH. You will mostly be busy about surviving for a long time... I can make it but it makes me feel like miserable+poor+weak but getting victory somehow... blah !!!

**Headhunter128** · February 17, 2012, 05:04 AM

I would say Gondor, even though you can win almost every battle and still loose the war, I find it to be one of the most entertaining campaigns.

**Mhaedros** · February 17, 2012, 06:21 AM

Just like Robb Stark

**mattttb** · February 17, 2012, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by Mhaedros

Just like Robb Stark

Except as Gondor you can't marry your faction leader to an insignificant house pissing off your already borderline traitorous allies

I would recommend High Elves for an easy campaign, they have arguably some of the best units in the game and only Imladris is in any danger at any time during the campaign (out of your starting regions). You have Eriador and the Dwarves to act as a buffer against the Orcs of Gundabad, Isengard, and the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. The only problem you might have is that Imladris can get overwhelmed by hoards of orcs if you don't act quickly. There are multiple bridges around Imladris however, so defending the region is relatively easy.

**brapollo** · February 17, 2012, 02:27 PM

Imladris cannot be taken. Keep maybe 6 archer units there and sally forth every turn you are under siege. The enemy will bunch up in a big ball and your archers can kill most of them. The high elves are really easy even on vh/vh. They are only really fun to play if you are a beginner, you haven't played in awhile, or you want a simple, easy building campaign.

**Vice** · February 17, 2012, 02:55 PM

Like many have said if you want an easy campaign for good go HE / or Harad (Mordor I imagine is quite easy as well) if you want to be evil

If you want a medium diff campaign go Dale - Rohan - and then for evil go Isengard or Rhun...

And if you want a hard campaign try Eridaor /Gondor for good or one of the Orc factions...

Dwarfs are in between easy - medium as are Silvan Elves...

**Spits32** · February 20, 2012, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by Mhaedros

Just like Robb Stark

Uggh I literally just read the wedding chapter at the Twins last night. That's all I'll say.

**Wowwars** · February 17, 2012, 03:05 PM

Isengard is pretty much the easiest faction if u use the Total recruitment from baron's mod, but barons has some problems like it slows down the game a bit more during turn movements and all. never had a crash and it doesnt seem so buggy just some things u just need to press no.

**mattttb** · February 17, 2012, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Wowwars

Isengard is pretty much the easiest faction if u use the Total recruitment from baron's mod, but barons has some problems like it slows down the game a bit more during turn movements and all. never had a crash and it doesnt seem so buggy just some things u just need to press no.

Surely if all you're using Baron's submod for is total recruitment then you could just go into the descr_events.txt located in data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign and edit these two numbers

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

if you changed them to "1 2" then voila, all units unlocked at the very start of the campaign. I'm sure there are lots of other things that total recruitment does, but if you just want higher tier units unlocked at the start of a campaign it seems a bit far to download a very large and sort of buggy submod to achieve this ONE thing.

Sorry if I took what you said out of context, I'm sure Baron's submod is really good and enhances the game in many other ways.

**Vice** · February 17, 2012, 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by mattttb

Surely if all you're using Baron's submod for is total recruitment then you could just go into the descr_events.txt located in data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign and edit these two numbers

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

if you changed them to "1 2" then voila, all units unlocked at the very start of the campaign. I'm sure there are lots of other things that total recruitment does, but if you just want higher tier units unlocked at the start of a campaign it seems a bit far to download a very large and sort of buggy submod to achieve this ONE thing.

Sorry if I took what you said out of context, I'm sure Baron's submod is really good and enhances the game in many other ways.

I enjoy his sub mod and have not had any crashes of any sort yet...However the longer turns do bug me and I find myself forced to use my smart phone and view youtube videos to pass the 1-3 mins it takes for each turn