Evil vs Evil (and the One Ring)

[VektorT]

So I'm playing a campaing as Rhûn and the evil factions are giving the good ones a beating (plus I'm allied with all of them). I already fully annexed Dale, together with Mordor annihilate Mirkwood elves and I'm almost done with the dwarves (they have only 3 crap cities). Rohan had it ass kicked by Dunland and Mordor. Gondor by the Harads and Mordor; both seriously damaged and pose no serious threat anymore. Free People, Silvan Elves and the other dwarve faction (playing FRoGS) have no hope against me, Harad, Mordor or Dunland since we are very powerful right now.

The problem is... all of suddenly Mordor (only allied with me and the Harads) declared war on Dunland! I wasn't expecting that! I was forced to honor my alliance with Mordor cause all my troops are on the north, fighting the ramains of the dwarves and preparing an assault on Vale of Anduin and a help for Orcs of Misty Mountain against the Silvans. If Mordor or the Harad do an assault on me right now they will steam roll lots of cities.

So I started to realize the threat Mordor is and start to plan a war against them. But I have two questions (that is what this topic is about):
- May other evil factions who are allied with me and not with Mordor (Isengard and Misty Mountain) join me? After going on war against Mordor, I plan to reform the alliance with Dunland, but I dont know about the others.
- I have the One Ring with me!!! It was on the move to Mordor but now I realize it may not be good to have Sauron back! So I started to think in keeping the ring for myself, but I know if I do it, Sauron may order other evil factions to attack me. But that's the point: what if those other factions are my allies and not Mordor? And evil factions like Dunland who are at war with Mordor!? Will they be my enemies too!? It's possible to me to do a full evil revolt against Sauron if I have the others evil factions fighting him before he call them to take the ring back from me?

I know it's possible to ally with good factions if I'm not at war with any of his allies and he is not at war with any of mines. So I even considering change sides and ally myself with the Silvans and Free People to face Mordor.

What you guys think?

[LuckyPistol]

Ahhhhh I remember my first evil faction campaign, Mordor is seriously a threat to the entire map.

Well since Mordor started the fight with Dunland, THEY will lose Sauron's favor, making it easier for the other evil factions to declare war on Mordor once you ask for an invasion on one of their cities (losing Sauron's protection makes you viable for invasion ) When they do, call an invasion on Barad Dur, so then by the time you get there, you should have some allies inside Mordor, thinning out the Orcish ranks. Prepare to play the waiting game for all of that though. You may have to fight Harad, but that's only if you declare war on Mordor before they lose protection. Keep the Silvans alive, their cities aren't really worth the effort to take them and they make a good buffer.

BUT!

Now we have the issue with the One Ring....
My best suggestion is to sit your general tight and hope Gollum takes it. I don't know if it works like that for evil factions though If you keep the Ring, you will lose Sauron's protection

[VektorT]

Ahhhhh I remember my first evil faction campaign, Mordor is seriously a threat to the entire map.

Well since Mordor started the fight with Dunland, THEY will lose Sauron's favor, making it easier for the other evil factions to declare war on Mordor once you ask for an invasion on one of their cities (losing Sauron's protection makes you viable for invasion ) When they do, call an invasion on Barad Dur, so then by the time you get there, you should have some allies inside Mordor, thinning out the Orcish ranks. Prepare to play the waiting game for all of that though. You may have to fight Harad, but that's only if you declare war on Mordor before they lose protection. Keep the Silvans alive, their cities aren't really worth the effort to take them and they make a good buffer.

BUT!

Now we have the issue with the One Ring....
My best suggestion is to sit your general tight and hope Gollum takes it. I don't know if it works like that for evil factions though If you keep the Ring, you will lose Sauron's protection

CAN I CALL A INVASION AGAINST MORDOR!?!? Wow, that will be a serious plot twist!!! I would like to you to have the option to keep the One Ring and become the new Dark Lord. It would be non-canonical but since you choose a faction and play like, 10 turns, everything is non-canonical. So it would add so much late gameplay! By the way, I was planning to have my general with the One Ring killed in one battle to lost it again. I think I can fight Mordor and Harad off, but only if my west flank is secured (with orcs, Isengard and the remains of Rohan and Gondor fighting Mordor off). If I can focus on Mordor, I will kick their ass of Mirkwood and capture their settlements in Rohan lands and giving it to an allie (I dont like to defend not continuous territory. Already gave two Rohan towns to Isengard).

I will wait to see if Mordor loses Sauron favor to see if I can make the others evil factions go against it. Plus I will try to lose the One Ring to whatever reason (shame I cant keep it...)

[StealthFox]

Rebel against Sauron! It will make the campaign more interesting, for sure!

[Lord Dakier]

Well in DaC Saruman can claim the ring for himself and benefit from it which is what I've done. The factions their linked to Sauron such as the Shadow of Mirkwood and such attacked, but the Orcs of Misty Mountain and several other didn't join. Problem is I wasn't allied with them anyway so I can't answer there.

[VektorT]

By the way I'm allied myself with Harad. I will try to improve our relation to see if they join me in the future war against Mordor. If they do, Mordor will have two very strong enemies in two different flanks!

[VektorT]

So it's done!

After Mordor declaring war on Dunland, Isengard declared war on Mordor. Mordor lost all of the Dark Lord favor and I call an invasion on Minas Tirith (owned by Mordor). Every evil faction attended, including Harad, and I reformed my alliance with Dunland. Mordor now have no allies and are surrounded by enemies, including me and the powerful Harad!

The problem is... I still have the One Ring, I'm allied with every evil faction minus Mordor and Mordor is at war with every evil faction. I think I may try to kill my general to avoid problems in the future. If I let he sit still in a settlement will he lose the One Ring to Gollun?

[Lord Dakier]

Well can't you just take it to the Black Gates and conquer it? Mordor don't need to own it do they as it would be pretty silly if they lost it and another evil faction claimed it.

[VektorT]

Ahn... having another problem here. I broke my alliance with Orcs of Misty Mountain so I dont have any ally that People of Anduin is at war. I planned to conquer a rebel settlement near them and then offer it to they in return for an alliance, so I would have an ally there if the dwarves plans to attack again (I made peace with them so I can focus against Mordor). The problem is... the option to offer Anduin an alliance dont show up! I'm not at a war with any of his allies neither he is at war with one of mines. So what happened!? Cant a Evil faction allies with a Good one?

[LuckyPistol]

They can ally, but not if you've had an alliance with an evil faction they were at war with previously I believe. I would honestly just not worry about anything past Mirkwood and finish the dwarves. But keep the pressure on Mordor, they will destroy Harad, I mean it.

[VektorT]

They can ally, but not if you've had an alliance with an evil faction they were at war with previously I believe. I would honestly just not worry about anything past Mirkwood and finish the dwarves. But keep the pressure on Mordor, they will destroy Harad, I mean it.

The problem is... if I conquer all of the dwarves cities, I will have borders with Free People, the other dwarve faction and Silvans... and none of them like me that much. As soon I have borders with them, they will eventualy go at war with me with full force since they aren't at war with anything else.

I searched about it and it seens the game have a bug that when you annihilates a faction, the status "at war" with that faction will never goes off again so you will never be able to have an alliance with another faction who was allied with the extinct one. I saw some cheat to change diplomatic relations that would be able to make you go neutral with the extinct faction allowing to form alliances with his former allies, but this cheat didnt work anymore since patch 1.1...

[LuckyPistol]

The problem is... if I conquer all of the dwarves cities, I will have borders with Free People, the other dwarve faction and Silvans... and none of them like me that much. As soon I have borders with them, they will eventualy go at war with me with full force since they aren't at war with anything else.

I searched about it and it seens the game have a bug that when you annihilates a faction, the status "at war" with that faction will never goes off again so you will never be able to have an alliance with another faction who was allied with the extinct one. I saw some cheat to change diplomatic relations that would be able to make you go neutral with the extinct faction allowing to form alliances with his former allies, but this cheat didnt work anymore since patch 1.1...

......erm, what? Maybe that's just in FROGS, because I've been allied with the Silvans after destroying their Dalian allies in my very first campaign in Vanilla (coincidentally as Rhun).

Anyways, back to the territory problem. Can you conquer anymore dwarven settlement without bordering those you've mentioned above? If you can get a screenshot of your campaign map, that would really help.

Of course, there is an easy way to get good relations all the way up to "perfect" with any faction (only if not at war):
1. Send diplomat to a desired faction's settlement
2. Offer a settlement without demanding anything else
3. Repeat step two until your relations stop improving, then either add or switch to a different settlement
4. Repeat step three until "perfect"

However, note that eventually your relations will go back down depending on your actions during the rest of the game (i.e. attacking a good faction will lower your relations with the other good factions)

[VektorT]

I found about the mentioned bug in a post here on the forums while searching in Google about "Medieval Total War 2 cant form alliance", so I not sure wich topic it was. If that's not the problem I dont know what is wrong...

Anyway, I already have everything planned. I already lost the ring to Gollun and I plan to conquer all of the dwarves. To avoid problems with the another dwarve faction who hates me in my new borders, I will give all the peripheral cities that I would conquer from the dwarves to High Elves or Free People and make an alliance with them, that way I would create a "tampon"! I would like to give those cities to Anduin or the other dwarve faction, but I cant make an alliance with them, the option never shows (also with Lorien). Nevermind, I'm already improving the relation with Anduin to avoid a surprise attack while I focus on Mordor, but if they attack anyway doesn't matter. They was my next target before I decided to quick Mordor ass.

By the way the war goes very well! Both me and the Harad are attacking Mordor on their backs where they are almost defenseless. Mordor is kicking Dunland, Isengard and Rohan ass and recently tried to take a Lorien settlement (failed). After capturing all of Mirkwood from Mordor, I will send some stacks to aid Dunland and Isengard, capture cities previously owned by Rohan and Gondor from Mordor and give it to Isengard (I like Isengard!). Almost 10 turns of war against Mordor and they didn't sent half stack to face me on their north and east flanks and have few elite units guarding the nearest settlements... looks like Harad, Dunland, Rohan, Isengard and Lorien is keeping almost all of his troops busy! Gondor still is around in bad shape (not so much bad like Rohan) but it made peace with Mordor... cowards!

This is being one of my best Total War playthrough ever!

[LuckyPistol]

Well I'm glad everything is turning out okay, and thank goodness Gollum stole the ring. Actually, could you tell me the exact conditions for your character when the Ring was stolen? I've yet had that happen to me....

However, prepare for Mordor to unleash hell. In the words of Gandalf, "Sauron's wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift..."

Also, since I've been in your exact shoes I think I should tell you that Easterlings taking Barad Dur is really one of the coolest sights of the game

[VektorT]

Well I'm glad everything is turning out okay, and thank goodness Gollum stole the ring. Actually, could you tell me the exact conditions for your character when the Ring was stolen? I've yet had that happen to me....

However, prepare for Mordor to unleash hell. In the words of Gandalf, "Sauron's wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift..."

Also, since I've been in your exact shoes I think I should tell you that Easterlings taking Barad Dur is really one of the coolest sights of the game

I just sat my general with the one ring in an castle with no garrison and waited. After some turns he lost it. Curiously the notification of it happened in mid turn, not in the beginning of it. I was moving some troops when the messages came out.

[Dude with the Food]

Curiously the notification of it happened in mid turn, not in the beginning of it. I was moving some troops when the messages came out.

Well I'm glad everything is turning out okay, and thank goodness Gollum stole the ring. Actually, could you tell me the exact conditions for your character when the Ring was stolen? I've yet had that happen to me....

IIRC, there is a small chance that Gollum will take the ring every time you select the general with it.

[VektorT]

IIRC, there is a small chance that Gollum will take the ring every time you select the general with it.

Aaaaah! So that's why! Thanks!

[eugenioso]

So I started to realize the threat Mordor is and start to plan a war against them. But I have two questions (that is what this topic is about):

should have thought about that before kicking elbows and hobbits with the Dark Lord, huh?

[VektorT]

should have thought about that before kicking elbows and hobbits with the Dark Lord, huh?

We had some good times together, yes... But unfortunately we have to follow different routes on our lifes now...
The problem is not Mordor, it's me. I know Mordor loved me and would never had leaved me, but now I'm in love with another one, the Harads, and my new romance is much more intense when I choose to rip Mordor feelings apart, kill his family members and conquer his home. I know it hurts Mordor, but it's just life. (and death!!! death to Mordor!!!)