Divide and Conquer - Version 0.52 Released

[Hummingbird]

Just as a heads up, thanks to a little tidy up backstage, there's now a fair few additional free unit slots. So if you have good reason to believe that a faction could use a little spicing up or plumping out in some area or another explain your reasoning and it may (no promises!) be considered.

Please note: "I really like faction x and want it to have a new unit!" is not a good enough reason in and of itself Keep in mind also that elimination of all of a faction's weaknesses is also not going to be a goal (e.g. Rohan and Khand are always going to be rather sub-par in the foot department)!

Also I'm going to be away from town and internet for a week tomorrow so I'll give this a read through when I'm back then.

[♔atthias♔]

[hr]

also why sauron getting the ring destroys my relationship with other factions ?

since they dont like that you let going the ring in sauron's hands

[Diogenetic]

Playing as Rhun, I noticed that I couldn't request an invasion against Erebor but I know that it's listed as a potential target in the files. Is it b/c the Dwarves are Orthodox? IIRC Orthodox factions need to have poor relations with the Pope to get targeted by Crusades, so maybe Erebor (the faction) doesn't have bad enough relations with Sauron to be valid?

[ThorHa]

Is it possible that the Battle AI sometimes downright freezes?

I just had a bizzare battle. 2 steps northeast of Hornburg, downhil, a full Elven army stack as an attacker (3 catapults, 2 ballistae, 1 Ent - yay!, 4 basic Teleri archers, 2 Teleri Cav, else mixed melee inc. general). Enemy was a 14 units stack from Mordor.

Now of course the autocalc routines said strength 1:1 (ROFL), but the Mordor stack behaved strange. I had done the usual - set up the Elven army for defense at the best point of the map, 2 Elven archers put forward to lure the enemy in. Mordor came halfways and stopped exactly in range of all archers, catapults and ballistae. Then it waited patiently (only moving left-right and back in a frenzy) until 55% of its units were murdered and all my siege engines plus archers were out of ammo.

Then the AI decided to put its archers forward without spear/halberd backup, an invitation my cav was glad to follow. After the AI lost another 15% of the stack, what remained suddenly fled and was happily slain by my pursuing toops on the fly. 23 own losses against 2.300 Uruks ...

I had the AI freeze occasionally, most often against sallying troops in siege battles. But I only had such a bizarre AI behaviour one time as Dorwinion against Rhun in an open field battle. What happens there?

Regards,
Thorsten

[anglach]

since they dont like that you let going the ring in sauron's hands

this should be changed for factions located at west of misty mountains. i cant get a army to east as mordor in a few turns...

any ideas about ring ?

[FrostyPhoenix]

In response to Hummingbird talking about about extra unit slots, I remember someone mentioning a script idea whereby Umbar would take Minas Tirith/Ithil/Osgiliath because they are "The True Dunedain", and then being rewarded with something (I can't exactly remember). Would be possible to give Umbar a Naru N'Aru mounted equivalent (or equivalent small elite cavalry) as a reward for this script?

In doing so this would provide incentive for people to actively pursue war with Gondor in an effort to become the "True Dunedain".

Of course feel free to accept, modify, rejects this proposal as I know the DaC team is very busy bugfixing and scripting and etc.

[Dydw i ddim yn Gymraeg]

Thank you, Swedish and Finnish. Although since I use English alot more than Finnish I guess it's actually stronger by this point . Just sometimes I really can't think of a proper translation of a word that sounded good in my head haha.

Ah, I was thinking that you were probably from northern Europe. From my experience, it's because American cultural dominance causes English to be so widely spoken.

Just as a heads up, thanks to a little tidy up backstage, there's now a fair few additional free unit slots. So if you have good reason to believe that a faction could use a little spicing up or plumping out in some area or another explain your reasoning and it may (no promises!) be considered.

Please note: "I really like faction x and want it to have a new unit!" is not a good enough reason in and of itself Keep in mind also that elimination of all of a faction's weaknesses is also not going to be a goal (e.g. Rohan and Khand are always going to be rather sub-par in the foot department)!

Also I'm going to be away from town and internet for a week tomorrow so I'll give this a read through when I'm back then.

Oh boy, here's an opportunity! But I'm not really sure what to suggest. It seems that most of the factions are pretty fleshed out and distinct from each other. I'll just repeat something that I told Arachir based upon some of the comments from his youtube videos.

February 1, 2016:
Also, I think you announced that you've been able to free up a few slots for new units. I forgot on which video, but a few people have been asking about an AOR unit for Orc factions if they manage to hold Gundabad. I guess since the mountain has shifted hands between the dwarves and the orcs so much, some of the orcs would have been able to scavenge armor from fallen dwarves and Gundabad's venerable foundries. Someone else also mentioned that throwing spears were a notable feature of the goblin army from The Battle of the Five Armies from The Hobbit Book (also, in the 1977 Rankin/Bass animation of the Hobbit, they also depict a lot of throwing spears/javelins in the battle...although a lot of it was just a bunch of dots throwing lines at each other). Of course, this is just an idea, but it might be a way to "kill two birds with one stone"- give all the movie watchers an orc unit that has armor that from the new movies, and then satisfy the lore followers' desire to see another orc javelin thrower. I think one of your viewers said that he imagined a hastatii-type orc unit. Food for thought.

Edit- I found some of the comments I was referring to:
1) Alex Mason, Faction Overview OotMM "The only thing I miss from the Orcs of the MM is a special unit from Gundabad :-/ It would be cool to have an elite unit from there..."
2)Chrstopher Amon, Faction Overview OoTMM "So ive been watching let's plays recently. I used to play mods like Fourth Age for Old RTW. You've done a great job here, I'm loving your umbar campaign. However I was wondering, where are the javs? The way I read Tolkien sort of implies that orcish armies are sort of jav heavy? Think of the Hobbit when the Orcs throw their spears at the fleeing Eagles, Bilbo thinking that the ring won't protect him from wild (thrown) spears. Both Orcs who are tracking Frodo and Sam after Cirith Ungol in Mordor are armed with spears..."

I would also call attention to Zarathos' Druedain unit on page 3 of this very thread...although maybe you'd like to change the markings on the shield and give them bows with poison ammo(perhaps some forest camoflauge patterns or mud on the shields? the druedain were noted for being good at hiding and remaining motionless for hours, and they seem to use poisoned arrows as noted in the books):
April 22, 2014, 05:45 PM

I tried to make them as similar as those you can find on Google Images taking a Chichimec priest as base.
The best way to integrate them in TATW would be creating a small garrison script to make them pop out when you (playing as a good faction) are attacked by an evil orc faction in a Druedain populated region.

Also, it might be nice to get a few units that distinguish Kazad Dum from Erebor&The Iron Hills...but then again, I'm not sure how this would fit in with the flavor of the factions. I mean, Balin would have used an army that would be very closely tied to the military used by King Dain, right? Only 50 years or so passed since Erebor's reclaming and Balin's mission to retake Moria. Maybe there could be more mercenary units around the map for specific factions...like, if Saruman is passing through Dunland en route to Imladris, he could nab a few mercenaries from Dunland's roster, or if Imrahil is reconquering a few Gondorian lands from Mordor, he'll be able to recruit a few mid-tier soldiers from Gondor's roster as mercenaries (especially some Osgiliath Veterans. Would it be possible to re-name them something like "Osgiliath Survivors" without taking up a unit slot?).

Anyway...I hope you don't mind my rambling, Mr. Hummingbird!

[Darius0101]

Would anyone be able to help? Whenever I try run this submod I get the following error message
'Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.'

No idea why. Followed the installation instructions, the maps.rwn isn't there and I deleted those .bin files as well. My vanilla TATW works perfectly fine. Any help would be appreciated.

[Grandmaster Tactics]

Just as a heads up, thanks to a little tidy up backstage, there's now a fair few additional free unit slots. So if you have good reason to believe that a faction could use a little spicing up or plumping out in some area or another explain your reasoning and it may (no promises!) be considered.

Please note: "I really like faction x and want it to have a new unit!" is not a good enough reason in and of itself Keep in mind also that elimination of all of a faction's weaknesses is also not going to be a goal (e.g. Rohan and Khand are always going to be rather sub-par in the foot department)!

Also I'm going to be away from town and internet for a week tomorrow so I'll give this a read through when I'm back then.

A long time ago, in a post many pages away...

Hi Divide and Conquer Team,

If you're looking for a new unit for Harad/Gondor, I've got a suggestion. Harondor was abandoned by Gondor and is now under the influence of the Haradrim. How about a Gondor-Harad hybrid unit? They could have intermediate stats between Gondor infantry and Southron units, and be a mainline unit available just after the barracks event. Many in "South Gondor" would have turned to evil and joined the hordes of the Haradrim. Additionally, many would try and resist the encroaching forces of evil. They could be available to both Gondor and Harad but have slightly different appearances and names (i.e. Gondor: The Keepers of Harondor, Harad: Harondor Forsaken). Gondor's unit could be AoR and Harad's available everywhere to reflect Gondor's loss of control and Harad's new dominion. This would spice up the region and give Gondor an advantage to push across the Poros; Harad would be able to recruit a unit that is a step above Southron units and a step below Serpent Guard.

With a wholehearted Thank You,
Grandmaster Tactics

Note 1: In regards to my recruitment suggestion in the post; I now think a unit like this would be best if both factions had AoR restrictions. This would make the fight more personal between Harad and Gondor for the people of Harondor. Besides, Harad has even more units as of version 1.0, they should have to fight for another.

Note 2: Having different names takes up two unit slots, which is totally inefficient. Instead, the name/description for the unit should be neutral so that it only takes up one space and makes sense for both factions; something like "Harondor Survivalists" or "Harondor men-at-arms" would be something along those lines.

Thank You,
Grandmaster Tactics

[TheEmperor]

Hi, i have a crash on entering the battle (siege of hornburg) as playing Rohan, i tried to delete the descr_geography_new.txt but i cant find it there.
Also there is a descr_geography_new DB file, should i delete this one? Or should i do any thing else?
I didnt have any crash on battles yesterday when i first time started the campaign; and my log doesnt show anything about the crash...

Thnx for your help

[Oneru]

Just as a heads up, thanks to a little tidy up backstage, there's now a fair few additional free unit slots. So if you have good reason to believe that a faction could use a little spicing up or plumping out in some area or another explain your reasoning and it may (no promises!) be considered. Please note: "I really like faction x and want it to have a new unit!" is not a good enough reason in and of itself Keep in mind also that elimination of all of a faction's weaknesses is also not going to be a goal (e.g. Rohan and Khand are always going to be rather sub-par in the foot department)!Also I'm going to be away from town and internet for a week tomorrow so I'll give this a read through when I'm back then.

Could it be an option to give Rohan an archer unit which can use stakes? It has always confused me that a cavalry-focused faction is not be able to use of this at all. I think in the faction overview for Isengard, Arachir states that 'because they know how to make armor, they also know the weaknesses of it and therefore know how to fight against it. Following this reasoning, it'd be silly that the Rohirrim don't see the use of stakes.If an archer unit was to be added, I'd make it pretty low quality (and perhaps AOR), even worse than the archer militia, This way, the player would have to chose between better quality troops, or the strategic value of stakes. This will still leave Rohan as a weak infantry faction, but it will fill this odd gap and make it a bit easier to defend cities against e.g. Harad or Rhun invasion forces.

[skylli]

Just as a heads up, thanks to a little tidy up backstage, there's now a fair few additional free unit slots. So if you have good reason to believe that a faction could use a little spicing up or plumping out in some area or another explain your reasoning and it may (no promises!) be considered. Please note: "I really like faction x and want it to have a new unit!" is not a good enough reason in and of itself Keep in mind also that elimination of all of a faction's weaknesses is also not going to be a goal (e.g. Rohan and Khand are always going to be rather sub-par in the foot department)! Also I'm going to be away from town and internet for a week tomorrow so I'll give this a read through when I'm back then.

i recomend rohan elite archers rohan has only 2 archer units, which arent the best plus one of them is AoR i think it is a must have

[Infidel144]

i recomend rohan elite archers rohan has only 2 archer units, which arent the best plus one of them is AoR i think it is a must have

There is probably a good reason for that. Archers in Rohan were rare:
"A few of the riders appeared to be bowmen..."
"The Rohirrim have good bowmen after their fashion, but there are too few here, too few."
"A great company of bowmen might have made them rue the light of their torches, but Grimbold had only a handful of archers."
"It is said that Eorl led forth some seven thousand fully-armed riders and some hundreds of horsed archers."
"Leaving three companies of Riders, together with horse-herds and spare mounts, on the east bank, he himself passed over with the main strength of his cavalry: eight companies and a company of archers, intending to overthrow Saruman's army before it was fully prepared."
Quotes from LotR and UT.

[♔atthias♔]

Hi, i have a crash on entering the battle (siege of hornburg) as playing Rohan, i tried to delete the descr_geography_new.txt but i cant find it there.
Also there is a descr_geography_new DB file, should i delete this one? Or should i do any thing else?
I didnt have any crash on battles yesterday when i first time started the campaign; and my log doesnt show anything about the crash...

Thnx for your help

delete the DB file

[Dydw i ddim yn Gymraeg]

There is probably a good reason for that. Archers in Rohan were rare:
"A few of the riders appeared to be bowmen..."
"The Rohirrim have good bowmen after their fashion, but there are too few here, too few."
"A great company of bowmen might have made them rue the light of their torches, but Grimbold had only a handful of archers."
"It is said that Eorl led forth some seven thousand fully-armed riders and some hundreds of horsed archers."
"Leaving three companies of Riders, together with horse-herds and spare mounts, on the east bank, he himself passed over with the main strength of his cavalry: eight companies and a company of archers, intending to overthrow Saruman's army before it was fully prepared."
Quotes from LotR and UT.

Well done! I was afraid I'd have to go picking through my own copies of the books to double check this stuff. Sorry @skylli, but remember what Mister Hummingbird said, "Keep in mind also that elimination of all of a faction's weaknesses is also not going to be a goal" and that "Rohan and Khand are always going to be rather sub-par in the foot department."
Also, @Oneru, I think that the reasoning for why Rohan doesn't get stakes is because their method of combat would rely on mobility, and stakes would zone out their own cavalry. This seems to have been the case with historically cavalry armies from history- if an army has cavalry superiority, then there isn't as much of a need to entrench the infantry to protect it from opposing horsemen. Similarly, I don't think Khand has any stake units either. But, again, that's just how I see things. Mr. Hummingbird might see it differently.

[redinc]

Hi i recently installed the third age and this mod and when i am useing the mod whenever i try to launch a custom battle or once i reach certan turns the game will crash, i am useing the steam version. is there any way to fix this i have already tried uninstalling and then reinstalling multiple times and it still did not work

[TheEmperor]

Is there a way to defeat Isengard playing Rohan campaign?

Their infantry is superior to my both infantry and cavalry and they have alot of full armies marching to my lands ( at turn 20 they've taken 3 of my settlemnts including Edoras & Hornburg) and i cant win battles against them and there isn't any time to build strong armies for counter attacking...

What should i do to defeat them in a new campaign? (I'm playing on hard-normal diff)

[Arachir Galudirithon]

Is there a way to defeat Isengard playing Rohan campaign?

Their infantry is superior to my both infantry and cavalry and they have alot of full armies marching to my lands ( at turn 20 they've taken 3 of my settlemnts including Edoras & Hornburg) and i cant win battles against them and there isn't any time to build strong armies for counter attacking...

What should i do to defeat them in a new campaign? (I'm playing on hard-normal diff)

Your cavalry is vastly superior in the early game and your generals bg is verging on op. Just run them down. The challenge will be the single unit of trolls they get at turn 1. Everything else you can throw infantry at to keep them busy then flank with cavalry. Don't forget that for quite some time, Isengard is your only enemy. Don't waste time defending your eastern and northern border.

[philipmikh]

Is there a way to defeat Isengard playing Rohan campaign?

Their infantry is superior to my both infantry and cavalry and they have alot of full armies marching to my lands ( at turn 20 they've taken 3 of my settlemnts including Edoras & Hornburg) and i cant win battles against them and there isn't any time to build strong armies for counter attacking...

What should i do to defeat them in a new campaign? (I'm playing on hard-normal diff)

On turn 1 move all units and generals towards foldburg, leave just enought garrison for the cities not to rebel
bankrupt yourself purchasing units, no problem going red in the beginning, you need to rush them, i think they have two stacks in the initial turns just use infantry as meatshields and cycle charge using the cavalry, the only real threat are uruk hai pikeman and the trolls of the white hand. don't ever charge the pikeman, not even their rear, they insta murder any cavalry, even if there are 400 infantry surrounding them they still kill any cav that touches, just surround them with infantry after the rest of the army is dead and wait for them to die or rout. the trolls are easier than pikeman, throw all infantry at them and cycle charge using generals bodyguard
after their armies are dead and the settlement south of isengard is taken, siege isengard. i managed to siege with 4 generals, kinda cheesy, but they were enough to kill saruman and 11 crap infantry using cycle charge, but they get a magically spawned op stack with more uruk hai after isengard is taken, it is scripted i guess, so it may be better to just siege isengard and kill everything they have while it is being sieged, keep sieging until you are ready to face the op stack
on VH/VH it was kinda easy to kill them , don't be afraid to lose generals, but use them for cycle charging only, use cavalry for charging only never for prolonged melee, never engage the infantry for too long
using this method they should be destroyed before turn 20, sauron will eventually call an invasion against edoras

[ThorHa]

Is there a way to defeat Isengard playing Rohan campaign?

Yes. Nothing easier than that. Position your cav on the far flanks, move forward on both flanks outside the space the enemy sets up, use your inf to simply get the enemy inf to engage, hit them hard in the rear, disengage after a few seconds, repeat. If you want to have a little extra fun, wait until 1 or 2 enemy spears try to engage your cav, move around them in a circle and engage - this way you can separate quite some elements of the Isengard armies from their main body.

It is micro intensive though, pause every now and then and plan your next move. Look up youtube Let´s Plays if you keep struggling. Does not have to be DAC videos, any Third Age Rohan will do.

Any encounter with armies who have no reliable counter to cavalry is easy in the end. The main reason why Mordor and Isengard armies perform abysmally against experienced players. And btw - even trolls are vulnerable against cav, you just have to hit them repeatedly with a full charge.

I struggled with cav a long time myself (I am an archer guy), but the main reason was lazyness - cav battles require constant attention througout the whole battlefield the whole time. No. 1 rule - never ever let the cavalry by tied up in a prolonged engagement, period.

Regards,
Thorsten