Which is a strong beginner faction?

[Sloty]

Currently i have to decide who to play...

It goes down to Dwarves, Elves or Rhun.

Which one is the strongest or most enjoiable of those?

Is there a submod which gives a little more money or stronger economy?

[DrDragun]

Rhun has the easiest economy. Dwarves are a fun campaign since you can often end at Moria and fight the Balrog for your last battle. They have a really unbalanced roster, with overpowered low-tier infantry (high tier too, but Dwarven Warriors will be your work-horse) but no cavalry which makes fighting archers on open terrain frustrating. High Elves have a lot of logistics and travelling for their long campaign (getting to Mordor). Silvans are fun too, they have no heavy cavalry and even their generals are archers.

I would say Rhun is the most direct.

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Dwarves are a fun campaign since you can often end at Moria and fight the Balrog for your last battle. They have a really unbalanced roster, with overpowered low-tier infantry (high tier too, but Dwarven Warriors will be your work-horse) but no cavalry which makes fighting archers on open terrain frustrating.

For the last time: Dwarves have no business in field battles. The closest thing to a field battle that Dwarves should be fighting is a bridge battle. Pretty much every other battle should be a siege, if you can manage it.

[DrDragun]

For the last time: Dwarves have no business in field battles. The closest thing to a field battle that Dwarves should be fighting is a bridge battle. Pretty much every other battle should be a siege, if you can manage it.

I agree with you 100%, but sometimes you have to sally

[Himster]

Rhun definitely.

[SecondBreakfast]

Dwarves have a really solid economy if you concentrate on upgrading all the mines and can defend themselves fairly easily. All their enemies are somewhat distant and are splitting their attention amongst multiple enemies. Their troops are rock-solid but also slow and limited. They're a good faction to learn the ropes with but, I think, become frustrating later on when you want to march out and conquer places because it takes them so long to get anywhere.

Elves have stong troops but either have to deal with a separated, vulnerable capital with the High Elves or fighting Mordor right from the start with the woodland elves, so they both have risks.

Rhun start with some rich territories, have a contiguous empire, have space to expand and face one of the weaker Good-aligned enemies in Dale. They also have a really solid troop line-up with excellent heavy infantry and cavalry. AND if stuff gets really hairy they have big brother Mordor to back them up. I'd go with Rhun.

You can mod the economy yourself in data/descr_settlement_mechanics, bump up the values for SIF_taxes for income or SPF_FARMS_BUILT for population growth but I'd recommend getting the hang of the economy as it is. It's not really as difficult as it first appears and any increases affect the AI as well. Speaking from personal experience, I doubled the values for taxes and population growth and suddenly started facing multiple doomstacks from a supercharged Rhun.

[Sloty]

Thanks!

How would you compose an army of rhun in the beginning?

I heard about the mod-compilation MOS, would you reccomend me to install it?

How hard is the Mod in comparison to vanilla Medieval 2?

[Lortano]

Eh, play a Vanilla Third Age before installing submods, you might like the mod as it is!

Compared to vanilla Medieval 2 this is tricky. The economy is much slower, the buildings are more expensive and take a while to build

So, I'm currently doing a Lets Play for Rhun for MoS, and the idea of army comp will be pretty similar to vanilla.

Infantry wise, early on you should get some Balchoth Tribesmen, they have Javelins and can stand up to Dale's frontline infantry very well (Not the dwarves, turn skirmish mode on for that)
I recommend about 2 to 3 archer units on the front line to wittle down the enemy.
Now, build a stables somewhere (Mistrand probably) and recruit some of your horse archers. They are always OP in Med 2 and you can run rings around Dale, shooting down their Archers, rearcharging the General unit, and even potshooting the enemy cav to make your life easier.
Your General is a Horse Bodyguard unit, and they are OP as . YOu can probably destroy most units with a rear charge with those bastards, although their main weakness is a lack of numbers.

Hope that helped, and good luck to you.

[Sloty]

Thanks!

But what does MOS do, does it make the game more enjoiable?
Or does it make it only harder?

[Lortano]

Err. Adds a few scripts, adds two new factions (Elves of Lorien and Dunland) adds a few new units for these factions and uses the Divide and Conquer map (Huge ing map I migt add). It also makes it easier to get AoR units for Gondor and adds a few new ones to existing factions.

I like it, although end turn times may be a bit long if your PC is a bit below par.

[Flinn]

I suggest you to ask about submods here

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-and-Questions

I play MOS but it is plenty of great Submods there, so asking in that thread will easily help you in finding which one is the best for your taste

[LuckyPistol]

Rhun has a very complete roster for a new player to temper with and get the feel for how they like to play. They have Crossbows, Horse-archers, Javelins, light armored troops, heavy armored troops, and they face two opponents that give them a challenge:

Dale's archers will decimate your light troops, Dwarves...well, everyone above me described them perfectly already *nods to Ulfgard*

Rhun was my first TATW campaign ever. I also think everyone should play at least one vanilla campaign if or before they install any submods. It allows you to see KK's vision for the game and its surprisingly well balanced for the criticism I've seen from the MOS and RR/RC supporters.

Go for Rhun, you won't have to fight trolls for your first campaign (unless you fight Mordor) and you get to fight a wide spectrum of enemies: Dale, Dwarves, Silvan Elves, Rohan, and hopefully Gondor. Don't ever help Mordor if you want to fight Gondor. Even if your an evil faction you want Mordor to do poorly, you'll probably have to fight them eventually when they lose Sauron's protection

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Go for Rhun, you won't have to fight trolls for your first campaign (unless you fight Mordor) and you get to fight a wide spectrum of enemies: Dale, Dwarves, Silvan Elves, Rohan, and hopefully Gondor. Don't ever help Mordor if you want to fight Gondor. Even if your an evil faction you want Mordor to do poorly, you'll probably have to fight them eventually when they lose Sauron's protection

On the plus side, Rhun is in the perfect position to backdoor Mordor rather than having to fight their way through the Black Gate or Minas Morgul like most other factions.

[manekemaan]

Aren't the silvans the easyest? First many rebel settlements to conquer, pretty distant neigbour enemies, rather weak morder to face in south mirkwood?

[SecondBreakfast]

Aren't the silvans the easyest? First many rebel settlements to conquer, pretty distant neigbour enemies, rather weak morder to face in south mirkwood?

The downside is their settlements are rather poor and small and moving troops through Mirkwood/Greenwood takes forever, so transitioning from early game expansion to taking the fight to Mordor can be a pain. Their ridiculously good troops do make things easier though.

[Stodul]

Harad is quite easy too. You have just one enemy - one frontline, many coastal provincies - economy, and Mumakils...Gondor is strong, but if you will coordinate attacks with Mordor, they'll fell soon. Harad was my first campaign, Gondor was defeated in +- 100 turns, then Rohan and others was piece of cake...

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Harad has, in my opinion, the best starting position of any faction in the game. Mind you, that's based solely on the fact that I prefer to operate 1-front wars with no more than 3 stacks in motion at any given time. I don't have the brain capacity to keep track of any more than that.

Biggest complaint with Harad is their reliance on light troops. I deal mostly in heavy infantry forces, so roster-wise, they're not ideal in that regard.

[Wizad]

Harad and the Silvan Elves are the easiest factions.

[Nexor]

Several people said Silvan Elves are the easiest. On my first campaign I played them and really struggle and got defeated eventually. In the West I had to fight Rhun to help out the dwarves, Dale got defeated quickly. In the South I had to fight Isengard to help out Rohan which lost territory very quickly. In the South East I had to fight Mordor obviously. In the West there were the Orcs of the Misty Mountains, which were defeated quickly but then I had to fight OoG. I had 4 fronts going on which was way too much. Maybe this was because I played on very hard, as I thought the difficulty was similar to vanilla. Huge mistake.. So stick with Rhun, they are a lot easier than the silvans from my experience. And do not play on very hard, it is not like in vanilla where anything below that is just boring.

[Ngugi]

I always suggest High-Elves; good economy (when you move the capital to the Havens at end of the first turns), great soldiers and an easy expansion route eastward along the coast while Imladris can simply be held until Isengard is beaten up a little.