MOS 1.41 Silvan Elves campaign. What should be my next step?

[Finkeren]

I installed MOS a few days ago, and I must say, that it has greatly enhanced an already great experience with TATW. However, I need some advice on my current campaign to avoid potential pitfalls, as I don't play regularly enoughto want to backtrack dozens of hours of playtime.

I've started a campaign as the Silvan Elves on M/M (I play for fun, I'm not a masochist) and so far, I fell like I've been doing ok. I'm now on turn 30, and I have expanded throughout Mirkwood, have driven Mordor from its foothold in the middle of the map, have taken the northernmost territory (Dalins Halls?) from OotMM and is currently in the process of conquering Wilderlands. I have a relatively stable economy with most settlements close to fully developed with good growth rates and a healthy surplus of 3 - 5000 gold per turn.

My first question is, what should be my next move? Playing an elf faction means, that my armies are rather small with about half a stack in the north and half a stack in the south with very limited garrisons elsewhere. I'll have to prioritize my forces, and can currently see 4 main options:

1. OotMM are in full retreat being hammered by myself and Lothlorien (who unfortunately have already taken Moria despite the Balrog). I could easily conquer them and expand to the northwest to take the mine-rich Misty Mountains and from there smash OoG. This will no doubt boost my economy but also mean that I risk angering some of the "good" factions by pressing into their spheres of influence. It will also mean, that I concentrate my forces against the two "evil" factions that are currently the weakest.

2. When I take the Wilderlands it puts me in reach of Rhun, which is quite mighty and is putting a good deal of pressure on Dale. Rhun seems like the most immediate threat with their strong economy and not-safe-for-elves cavalry. My main concern about going after Rhun is, that I will haver to attack them from the southwest, since I don't have military access in Dale, which puts me at risk of being caught between Modor and Rhun with no easy route to reinforce my armies. Thus Rhun seems like a tempting but dangerous target.

3. I could also continue to expand south and conquer Mordor, which, though nominally very strong, have taken quite a beating from me already. Mordor seems like a good target, as it lies along one of my current axis of expansion. They also seem to threaten Gondor quite a bit and have already conquered Minas Tirith, so it might be good to keep them in check. My main concern here is whether by going after Mordor I take the focus off something more important and can get a nasty surprise.

4. I could also simply stay put, disband most of my armies and focus on building my economy to a point, where I can field a couple of full stacks. This doesn't seem like such a good idea to me. Most of my settlements are pretty far from reaching the next development level, and Rhun, Mordor and Harad seem to grow a lot faster in strength than I do. But I wonder what you think.

Any suggestions?

My second question is about diplomacy: For some reason, I have been totally unable to forge an alliance with any of the "good" factions. No amount of gifts or promises to attack enemy factions seem to sway them. Can anyone give me a clue as to what variables could be working for and against me?

My third question is technical: When I started the campaign, I enabled the diploamcy script, that automatically put any "good" faction at war with any "evil" faction that attacks one of their "good" allies. Even though It's not been a great problem for me (since I have no allies!), I really don't like this script, as I feel it divides the factions into a "good" and "evil" camp too early (I'd like to wait for the invasions for that). Is it possible to disable this script in my current campaign without ruining my savegames?

Any help with these will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Finkeren]

No one?

Well I decided to go after OotMM first anyway because opportunity arose, and they crumbled almost immediately and were wiped out in all of 8 turns with me gaining all of their 4 remaining territories. I'm now moving against Rhun, because they opened up a broader front for me by capturing North Rhovanion (or whatever it's called) from Dale, while Mordor apparently is taking a breather. Does anyone have any good advice for how to deal most effectively with their cavaly? After the barracks event a few turns back I've started building up a force of Mirkwood Archers that can deploy stakes, I guess they'll come in handy.

I still need advice on the diplomacy issues, no amount of gifts or promises seem to sway any of the "good" factions to join an alliance. What's worse: My factions reputation has slowly dropped to "dubious", even though I've played perfectly nice, only attacking factions I was already at war with, never sacking/exterminating captured towns or executing prisoners, kept taxes low and been careful not to tread on neutral soil. Not really sure what I'm doing wrong here.

Another question popped up: I've had my first message giving a location of The One Ring. Unfortunalely it's in Umbar. In earlier campaigns in TATW vanilla, I never bothered going after the ring, but it usually showed up in or near a "good" factions lands. Is it necessary to build an army to rush in and take Umbar, or can I sit this one out with relatively little risk that I have to fight Sauron in person leading a very rich and powerful Mordor a few turns from now?

[Hermod]

Personally I would ignore the ring for a while, I have only ever retrieved it once or twice and that was several hundred turns in. For future reference I would avoid taking Dains Halls because it blocks the dwarves from expanding West. In MOS you really don't have to worry about the OOTMM but you've already eliminated them so that's that. As far as Rhun is concerned I think Mirkwood archers with stakes is definitely the way to go. Just line up your archers behind them and fire away. You will probably also have to micro your archers as Rhun usually has large amounts of javelin infantry which can cause heavy casualties if you aren't careful.