Third Age Campaign difficulty?

[eruan99]

Hi all,


Just started a campaign as Mordor and quickly noticed that the low income severely impedes progress. Gondor next door is pretty much hitting the Black Gate as often as possible. Any tips to increase revenue and progress quicker?

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

You may have missed your oppurtunity, as the only way I suceed as Mordor is rushing Gondor with the initial armies you possess.

Try moving some armies through the Northern entrance and attacking Ithilien, that will draw their attention away from the Black Gate and allow you to attack the Osgiliaths and eventually Minas Tirith. Due to the near suicidal nature that Gondor has of using all of the family members in battles, there's a good chance that when you take Minas Tirith the entire Gondor faction will be elminated due to the family being wiped out. Good luck!

Edit: Don't be worried about going into the red for a few turns, claiming Minas Tirith will boost your income immensely.

[Lord Solar]

Its the one thing that stops me from playing this mod, worst economy penny pinching even if you have farms everywhere and what not, and as mordor I just don't want to rush gondor only being the viable tactic, and only doing it for cash sucks. Would be nice to let gondor develop and just fend them off at osgilith then have final epic battle at Mt. Even with a large amount of territory building one of the bigger buildings drains all ur cash, and maintaining multiple armies is almost impossible while the ai just chucks stacks at you, recruitment costs and esp upkeep costs is too much in my opinion. If there is a sub mod that fixe this that would be great.

[DrDragun]

Well, if you want to turtle then you can disband every garrison except Black Gate and Minas Morgul to save a lot of money, then you can expand from Dol Guldur against the Silvans to increase your cash while you turtle vs Gondor but it's overall a worse strategy.. Always pay attention to Free Upkeep, a unit with a blue background has no upkeep and different settlement sizes give a different number of free upkeep slots. You will save a LOT of money per turn by emptying out the middle of Mordor, like 160g per turn per spear band.

[OttoVonGosu]

Well, if you want to turtle then you can disband every garrison except Black Gate and Minas Morgul to save a lot of money, then you can expand from Dol Guldur against the Silvans to increase your cash while you turtle vs Gondor but it's overall a worse strategy.. Always pay attention to Free Upkeep, a unit with a blue background has no upkeep and different settlement sizes give a different number of free upkeep slots. You will save a LOT of money per turn by emptying out the middle of Mordor, like 160g per turn per spear band.

Good point, and probably pretty close to Sauron's original strategy before being chased out of Dol Guldur ( unless I have my chronology wrong) basically corrupt mirkwood, crush the elves , pinch dale and the dwarves between your forces and Rhun, advace on Lothlorien with the OoMM at their back, then swoop down to either crush gondor at minas tirith or ravage their lands.

What happens with TATW is that it is a very difficult game, but very rewarding on the long run as well, with city growth being what it is. Its like Shogun II with much more expensive armies.

And don't worry there isn't any shame in starting a campaign over to perfect your original expansion strategies.

[Lord Solar]

Well like I said upkeep is just too much

[Greymane]

Well like I said upkeep is just too much

You can mod that if you want. Just mess around with the descr_settlement_mechanics in you TATW_data folder.
I don't exactly know if you should change all those values up or down. My guess is down, for the upkeep at least. For taxes or trade you might want to go up. There might even be a tutorial somewhere on this forum (or try google ).
Point of note: the lines you are looking for all have SIF in front of them. Like this:
<factor name="SIF_UPKEEP"> ;Unit upkeep
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
The value="1" will be the number you want to change.
USE NOTEPAD++ You might not be able to start a campaign if you don't.
All this said, I would not recommend changing these files too much (I only slightly increased trade income and made population growth dependant on that). It will seriously unbalance the game and, in the oppinion of most of us here, ruin the fun. Change SIF_UPKEEP to like 0.9 or something, or SLIGHTLY increase trade income.

You will find that in the endgame (and probably long before that), even without modding anything, you'll have more money than you know what to do with. So be careful what you wish for

[jaydog]

im in the prosses of changeing the upkeep value but need to make sure im doing it the right way. I copied the whole "descr_settlement_mechanics" into note pad and have changed the <pip_modifier value="1.0"/> to <pip_modifier value="0.9"/>. Should i just repace all the data in the descr_settlement_mechanics folder to the new copy that i made in note pad with the new change? I just want to make sure im doing this the right way.

[Greymane]

im in the prosses of changeing the upkeep value but need to make sure im doing it the right way. I copied the whole "descr_settlement_mechanics" into note pad and have changed the <pip_modifier value="1.0"/> to <pip_modifier value="0.9"/>. Should i just repace all the data in the descr_settlement_mechanics folder to the new copy that i made in note pad with the new change? I just want to make sure im doing this the right way.

No. You should right-click on the descr_settlement_mechanics file, click 'open with Notepad++' and edit directly. That is what I do anyway.

[jaydog]

OK, it has been done. Thanks for makeing me smarter today. You are GREAT!

[jaydog]

You can mod that if you want. Just mess around with the descr_settlement_mechanics in you TATW_data folder.
I don't exactly know if you should change all those values up or down. My guess is down, for the upkeep at least. For taxes or trade you might want to go up. There might even be a tutorial somewhere on this forum (or try google ).
Point of note: the lines you are looking for all have SIF in front of them. Like this:
<factor name="SIF_UPKEEP"> ;Unit upkeep
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
The value="1" will be the number you want to change.
USE NOTEPAD++ You might not be able to start a campaign if you don't.
All this said, I would not recommend changing these files too much (I only slightly increased trade income and made population growth dependant on that). It will seriously unbalance the game and, in the oppinion of most of us here, ruin the fun. Change SIF_UPKEEP to like 0.9 or something, or SLIGHTLY increase trade income.

You will find that in the endgame (and probably long before that), even without modding anything, you'll have more money than you know what to do with. So be careful what you wish for

im in the prosses of changeing the upkeep value but need to make sure im doing it the right way. I copied the whole "descr_settlement_mechanics" into note pad and have changed the <pip_modifier value="1.0"/> to <pip_modifier value="0.9"/>. Should i just repace all the data in the descr_settlement_mechanics folder to the new copy that i made in note pad with the new change? I just want to make sure im doing this the right way.

[Lord Solar]

In all tw games u always end up with enough cash, nowt u can do about that, just surprised no one has submodded it

[eruan99]

Thanks regarding Mordor but there seems to be a kind of unfair switch every time you attack a Gondor city, it automatically gets like 6 units for free???

If you play for smaller factions, i.e. Silvan Elves with only three cities to start with, what should I do with them?

[DrDragun]

Thanks regarding Mordor but there seems to be a kind of unfair switch every time you attack a Gondor city, it automatically gets like 6 units for free???

If you play for smaller factions, i.e. Silvan Elves with only three cities to start with, what should I do with them?

Settlements which have special lore significance will get a 'Garrison Script' to provide a defensive garrison if they are attacked. This is to prevent the player from easily conquering important cities. Mordor has an especially tough time with it, since the cities near the Gondor front line have many garrison scripts. Some of the norther factions have very few garrison scripts except the capital cities.

For your second question, conquering nearby rebel settlements nonstop is the best way to start the game for most factions.

[Macrath]

In my opinion i have found this mod, although very well done is far too restricting, it's not so much that it's hard but you are very limited as to what you are able to do because of many reasons i suppose, mostly the financial constraints, unit restriction/recruitment, and LORE, let's be honest if you are going to be heavy on the Lore friendly aspect of a LOTR mod then i suppose that would have to mean forcing certain factions to be played in specific ways. Personally i loved this mod a version or two back (probably a couple years since i played a full campaign) and still quite enjoy a campaign of the current version, with a good sub mod of course, But Thera is where i get my "fantasy" Total War Fix these days. If you are a fan of lord of the rings, and similar Fantasy type settings then i would highly recommend you give Thera a try. Seriously if you haven't played it yet you are missing out on one hella fun experience...I Guess my TATW post kinda turned into a Thera Promo..lol it wasn't intentional i swear

[Coxy]

In my opinion i have found this mod, although very well done is far too restricting, it's not so much that it's hard but you are very limited as to what you are able to do because of many reasons i suppose, mostly the financial constraints, unit restriction/recruitment, and LORE, let's be honest if you are going to be heavy on the Lore friendly aspect of a LOTR mod then i suppose that would have to mean forcing certain factions to be played in specific ways. Personally i loved this mod a version or two back (probably a couple years since i played a full campaign) and still quite enjoy a campaign of the current version, with a good sub mod of course, But Thera is where i get my "fantasy" Total War Fix these days. If you are a fan of lord of the rings, and similar Fantasy type settings then i would highly recommend you give Thera a try. Seriously if you haven't played it yet you are missing out on one hella fun experience...I Guess my TATW post kinda turned into a Thera Promo..lol it wasn't intentional i swear

Have to agree - I preferred the old versions, whereas now they seem much harder (longer build times, higher upkeep etc) and as a consequence for me, less fun.

[eruan99]

I see, thanks for explaining those.

So it sounds like an army rush strategy, I will try it.

[Gongsunzan]

My gripes is that it is not hard just tedious i mean as mordor i must have killed ten times my numbers with all the stacks gondor sends. That is not very lore friendly. It makes sense when u play a good faction and have to face hordes of enemies but as an orc faction you really should be the one sending stacks in to chip away at the enemy. As it stands now i am afraid to lose a single battle as mordor cause i generally have 2 fronts and just enough money to keep one good stack. If it wasnt for nazgul mordpr wouldnt stand a chance

[DrDragun]

My gripes is that it is not hard just tedious i mean as mordor i must have killed ten times my numbers with all the stacks gondor sends. That is not very lore friendly. It makes sense when u play a good faction and have to face hordes of enemies but as an orc faction you really should be the one sending stacks in to chip away at the enemy. As it stands now i am afraid to lose a single battle as mordor cause i generally have 2 fronts and just enough money to keep one good stack. If it wasnt for nazgul mordpr wouldnt stand a chance

Mordor definitely requires strong action in the early game or it will become impossible. It helps a lot to take a bunch of rebels south of Osigiliath (a race against Harad for grabbing territory) before turn 20, which can buff your income a great deal, an extra 500-1200 per turn which can support an extra half stack of upkeep. The alternative is to attack Gondor and get hammered by Garrison Scripts. So for the expansion strat vs rebels, keep your Nazgul in a field army behind Osgiliath or around Henneth Annun an cut down Gondor armies like weeds - don't let them grow into stacks - while an orcish general conquers the rebels south. Nazgul are wasted sieging rebels but the can keep the Gondor filth from accumulating. Wait for Gondor to capture Henneth Annun then take it from them (let them take the losses from fighting rebels then pounce on their bloodied defenses. After these things are done, then you have a couple of big battles at Osgiliath, Cair Andros, and Minas Tirith before the game starts to become easier and your economy gets better.

[Phil125]

If you are used to M2TW then there will be some serious adjustment to the TATW Battle AI. Took me 15 or so Battles before I figured it out. Now I usually take 20% casualties when I fight Gondor or Rohan Stacks 1:1.

Never fight without at least one Nazgul. Stretch your Infantry line very thin and let them engage. Even in defensive battles they will attack you. No Archers they area a waste. Trolls are great, but they cost too much to be a viable option. Use the Orc Generals as shock troops behind your main line. Group 2 Nazgul on a flank and use them to charge Archers and rear end Infantry attacking your 5 mile long line. Charge down and kill every one you can. And always excute the prisoners. 2 Nazgul, 4 or 5 Orc Generals, and the rest Infantry works great for me.

Don't waste money on buildings. Shrines are the only thing I build in captured cities to help get you to 25% faster and upgrade your barracks.