Opinion and suggest for Elves and Harad

[sdf_logan]

Hi, I have been playing a lot of time this mod, and i love it, but there are some things that i would like to discuss:

Elves units. Right now,I am playing with High Elves and they are my favorite faction but i think that they have a poor variety of troops, I mean :

-Two types of swordsman:
Sword quendi and noldor

-Two types of spears man:
Lindon and noldor again

-Three types of archers:
Bow quendi, noheretino (i know that it is wrong typed) and noldor.

-Two special units:
Nobles and forgers of eregion.

With all of this, I only want to explain that i think they have a poor variety of troops and (in my opinion) i would like to have more new troopers to choose.
I don't know if anyone thinks the same and i would like to discuss that.

Harad. It isn't a powerful faction? Should be nerfed or just I failed ?

I have read some posts where Harad is conquering nearly all the Middle Earth. I know that this is due to Gondor is a hard faction and he is playing against three enemies, but this is impossible if AI using Gondor. In my campaign, Gondor have lost his capital and Harad have conquest about three regions (of Gondor), and Edoras (mordor called an invasion). Now, I am on time, and I have sent a lot of troops to help them, but Harad is strong and as I have read in other post, I think that I will suffer the same fact and Harad will destroy my campaign D: (I still playing with Elves, turn ~150)

That's all for the moment, and i will repeat one thing: I love the mod and i hope that a lot of new updates will come !

[jthewonder]

Well im no expert, but when i play as the High Elves i usually send fleets with armies and raze all harad cities close to the sea, that + gifting gondor ALOT of money can keep them safe until isengard have been dealt with and you can focus entirely on mordor/harad. Works pretty well for me

[Inzann]

In my campaign where I play as silvan elves, the high elves got absolutely stomped. They have like 2 regions left to the west.

[Finkeren]

To your first point: With few exceptions all factions in TATW have a smaller unit roster, than you're used to from M2TW (even more so, if you've been playing Stainless Steel). I personally like this, since you have a good chance of actually getting to field most of your troop options at some point in the campaign. In Stainless Steel I don't think I've ever gotten around to train every available kind of unit in any campaign. THe only thing I'm kinda missing, is a bit more variety in siege engines/artillery, where I feel more work could've been done. It's a matter of personal preference I guess.

To your second point: Yes, Harad is strong as hell. This stems from a combination of factors:

A great starting position with relative safety, lots of territories and lots of potential for development.

A large and varied unit roster, that lets them fight most enemies effectively and gives them an edge in the AIs autoresolve battles.

Pretty good starting economy, that only gets better over time, combined with the extra cash the AI recieves.

The same issue exists with Rhun, which has the potential of completely overrunning Dale and grinding down the Dwarves.

The best idea I can offer, is to abandon your campaign and install MOS. That way, you can handle the Dark Lords invasions with counter-invasions, and if you play with the expanded alliance system (where you automatically ends up at war with all the allies of any enemy you attack) you'll can at least be sure, that any "evil" faction that expands too far will end up at war with all the "good" factions.

[Loki_999]

High Elves are fine to play as, i don't think they need any help... and if the AI is controlling them, well, the pointy eared wusses can go to hell :-P

Harad is probably too strong, perhaps if one or two of the south-eastern desert regions started as rebel then it would slow them down. You can probably mod this yourself though easily enough.

[RedGuard]

or just make umbar a rebel (Corsair) at the beggining which would make since and have them try and conquer it which is what i did. they still get strong as hell around turn 80 or so though but it holds back the tide temporarily

[Finkeren]

or just make umbar a rebel (Corsair) at the beggining which would make since and have them try and conquer it which is what i did. they still get strong as hell around turn 80 or so though but it holds back the tide temporarily

That's a great idea. Give Umbar a sizeable garrisson, and make them fight for it. Would also make it a great deal more interesting to play as Harad.

[ThaDoews]

Well... THat should be easy enough with a few changing in the descr_strat.txt-file
Just move the cityes to the rebels - and give them some units. JUst remember to remove Harads units from the city

That should do it!

[eloris]

Interesting about Harad, I've been playing the High Elves, VH/VH and after about 100 turns Gondor is still mostly holding off Mordor and Harad. I don't think it's anything I did. I haven't gone south at all, I've just wiped out the OotMM and Isengard.

Theoretically I guess that should free up Rohan, but I can't tell if they actually did anything, other than slowing me down by sending useless armies to siege Isengard, trigger the garrison script, and get wafflestomped giving Isengard another free stack.

Anyway I guess my next objective will be to send a navy down there and start sacking Harad cities to soften them up.

[mondpeiler]

if Gondor still holds his ground by this time, then you should really build a fleet by now and sack/conquer Umbar!
on few occasions Gondor does well in this game, but if one town on the western shore of the Anduin falls, it is (not yet to see) over for them.
after that, they haven't got the rpower to withstand.

[Mikail Mengsk]

Why should Harad fight to get Umbar if they were so tightly bonded? It would be like making Gondor fight for Dol Amroth as a "counter" for an overpowered gondor.

[RedGuard]

Why should Harad fight to get Umbar if they were so tightly bonded? It would be like making Gondor fight for Dol Amroth as a "counter" for an overpowered gondor.

because technically harad and umbar are two different nations. Its Harad Gondor has the grievence with, Umbar just takes advantage of the situation by pirating and pillaging the coasts and shipping lanes. It would be more like Gondor and Arnor fighting each other.

[canadian]

I like a more powerful Harad, when I play as the high elves or the dwarves it makes me concerned about the well-being of gondor. I don't like to let any good faction die so I have to take a more global view of the map and keep other factions in mind for my every decision. It's always satisfying to have a stack of yours save Minas Tirith from total destruction

[Mhaedros]

Uhm. Harad wasn't a nation, its a geographical area in which many tribes, chieftains and small nations live. Umbar was a Numenorean colony, which was infested by Sauron's corruptness, just like most of Numenor and Gondor has a better reason to fight them than most of Harad.

[RedGuard]

Uhm. Harad wasn't a nation, its a geographical area in which many tribes, chieftains and small nations live. Umbar was a Numenorean colony, which was infested by Sauron's corruptness, just like most of Numenor and Gondor has a better reason to fight them than most of Harad.

i meant a nation in the Total war sense of the word. Having Harad as a single faction makes since even though it doesn't in the true tolkien universe but there would be no way to have a trollmen faction, a umbar faction, a Southern faction etc... to all go and attack gondor at the same time hence why they are banded together. Kinda the same reasoning by having a Illyrian facton in the vanilla total war mods.

[Chieftain Khuzaymah]

@threadstarter, if you fail with Harad it is probably your fault ;p Harad with AI is overpowered indeed, but if you start playing Harad VH/VH as player, the start is not that easy and we should be gratefull to have Umbar in start fellow third agers, Umbar is a very wealthy settlement and Harad has a very very poor economy in the start of the game. But once you expand the economy and the coastal regions are getting ports the trade is increasing enormously and the wealth of Harad will beyond count. I am actually playing Harad as of right now, I am at about turn 400, I've already completed the long campaign, got the lands of gondor, some of rohan, eriador and high elven lands. I am number 1 in any aspect but Rhun is close to me on military basis. Problem now is that i found the ring in Thorins Halls and couldnt deliver the ring in time to sauron so now I am at war with all evil factions :/// pretty much sucks, exterminating all good factions and now you need them against the evil ones. I allied up with the dwarves, gave them 200k florins and returned them some of the settlements i originally conquered. So with all these regions , many trade, I earn alot and unlike with other factions i do not have to think about my money. If i am without any armies I probably profit like 70k-80k per turn. Right now I am number 1 military, near 20 full stacks i think and still gaining 10k-15k per turn Isengard is going down like a noob