Regarding the MOS submod.

**Cyricist** · November 14, 2012, 02:46 AM

Hey guys, I am sorry if this is not the correct place to post this. I know on forums like this, you guys see a lot of the same questions over and over. Sorry in advance for that.

Anyway. My question is this: in the MOS submod, there are options to turn on additional forces for Saruman, Rhuduar forces, and more forces for Mordor. These options give the factions (Isengard, Mordor and I think Gundabad or Misty Mts, I forget which) the possibility of having a decent sized stack of units spawn in every so often. Presumably, this is to give the game more challenge.

I am not used to the Third Age mod. I've never played a full campaign of it, so I can't speak to the balance of the game without this MOD. My question is, should I play with those options turned on? Like, if I am playing as High Elves, and I turn on the additional unit possibility for Mordor, is Gondor going to get totally steamrolled? Can the AI handle that much additional challenge?

EDIT: As a secondary question, should I have garrison scripts turned on? I wasn't sure at first, but I noticed in most of the major cities, it lists units that will be summoned as reinforcements if garrison script is on... made me wonder.

Like, I read the readme file for the MOS submod, so I know what the things I can turn on do. I just don't know the effect they'll have on game balance, really.

TL;DR: Should I leave garrison script turned on, or turn it off? And should I turn on additional unit spawns for Isengard, Mordor, and the Orcs, or turn them off?

**kraxmause** · November 14, 2012, 03:47 AM

This isn't the place for submod questions, ask them in the MOS thread instead. But as you have already asked them here, I'll give you an answer:
I haven't tried MOS 1.4 yet (downloading it now), but I played 1.3 for a while.
Always leave the garrison script on! Turning it off will completely destroy the balance for the AI as they always tend to leave tiny garrisons even in important cities like Minas Tirith.
The additional spawning armies should only be turned on when you face one of those factions and want a bigger challenge. Evil factions always dominate the good ones in MOS and activating e.g. the Eastern Shadow script for Mordor will give Gondor an even harder time.
Many players have complained about the additional Mordor stacks with Mumakil and Olog Hai being too strong, so you can assume that the Gondor AI will be completely overwhelmed by them.
So activating the Eastern Shadow script and deactivating the garrison script when you're not playing Gondor yourself will probably mean that Gondor won't survive 30 turns.

**Cyricist** · November 14, 2012, 04:31 AM

Wow. I don't even know what to say.

Of course I should have posted in the MOS thread... I don't know why I didn't think of that. Just downloaded from it, then had some questions, and I guess my brain died. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the answers, though. That makes a lot of sense. I didn't even know the garrison script applied to the AI, in terms of AI vs AI combat. I thought it was just for when I personally attacked things. Cool. That's pretty much all the information I need, so this thread can be locked or closed whenever. Thanks for the help, Kraxmause.