Feedback: Dwarves

[Galgus]

Sorry for yet another thought that I would edit into one post, but I notice that after capturing an Elven city I have the opportunity to convert it into a mannish one.

Is there any benefit what-so-ever in keeping it elvish, or would that simply cripple population growth and keep me from recruiting troops there?

[webba84]

Check the ancs of your nobles in settlements and then look for the attuned governor trait to see why nobles are better governors than not having anyone there. Essentially they give all sorts of bonuses, especially in this mod.

Yes, the 12 solider units are an intended feature that iirc avoids a CTD bug and makes sure rebelling regions don't get suddenly filled with super powerful units like they do in RTW.

edit - Unless you are the elves, there really isn't any benefit to keeping it elvish, no. Bring in your hireling settlers and further the Dominion of Men!

[CountMRVHS]

There was one intended advantage to having AI governors run your cities: the loyalty/opinion of liege would be higher if governors were allowed to do their own thing, rather than being micromanaged by the king. I'm not sure if that is implemented in the current version, however - and in any case it wouldn't matter since the revolt system isn't in yet.

[Revelo]

I am wondering, is the intended nature of the Dwarf Campaign to make you have to decide what provinces to grow and which ones to remain static or displace with men? As I am noting with the economy enhancements I can keep all my taxes low and rake in a good 25,000 gold a turn (and I think I could improve that!), meaning I'm happily able to have every native settlement growing, at least slowly, which seems a little out of character perhaps? Not that I should moan about all the money xD

I thought I'd ask as I realise in the Elf Campaign one of the big questions a new player will have is which settlements they want to stay Elven and which ones they want to allow men to settle in, and the Dwarves would be a minor variant of this, you might only want one or two settlements to change hands so you can buff out your forces with Hirelings, I'm certainly considering this for Orodengrin so I can access Dale Hirelings in the Iron Hills, as when you take it you get the 400 able bodied population meaning you will be there a while trying to get it to grow, and it's not a settlement I'd use for military application anyway.

[CountMRVHS]

I'd say yes, it would be good if the player felt he had to make difficult decisions with meaningful consequences. If it's possible to just crank out Dwarves and simultaneously rake in the cash, there's little to no need to use Hirelings, which somewhat goes against the idea of this being the age of Men. Maybe the economy for Dwarves is a bit too good currently?

[webba84]

Dwarves have a lot of really high value trade goods, which means the increases to trade benefit them a lot more than most, I think.

[Revelo]

I'd say yes, it would be good if the player felt he had to make difficult decisions with meaningful consequences. If it's possible to just crank out Dwarves and simultaneously rake in the cash, there's little to no need to use Hirelings, which somewhat goes against the idea of this being the age of Men. Maybe the economy for Dwarves is a bit too good currently?

It's funny you mention that, as despite all the money I'm making I don't feel like I can go crazy with recruitment, the option is there but I consider it too big a risk depopulating your settlements unless you need to raise an army in a hurry, most of my money goes on settlement development. I'm agonising every time I need to recruit my Dwarves into armed units because I feel I have to make it count, like every life matters when you have limited growth. So I still feel the desire to get Hirelings up to fill the areas the Dwarves lack in, such as Archers and Calvary. This is especially true for your settlements in the Iron Hills and in the Ered Rhun where you have far more threats to deal with and you don't have native archers or the Wain Bows untill very late on.

Moria is a lot better now I can recruit archers in it, it means I don't have to rely on hoping Eriador Archer Mercs pop up, so they can stand on their own and I let it grow in peace without letting men in, and the Blue Mountains don't see much action so I'm happy to let the native population grow and I allow them to improve trade or construction.

With settlement development I feel happy to pump money into it, and considering one complaint I had in BT2 was how long it takes to get anywhere building wise with the Dwarves, and this is made better with the excellent economy this time around. I feel spoilt for choice there xD but i can at least develop settlements, especially the mannish ones at a better pace this time around.

It's certainly not easy so far, I don't have many men so I feel vulnerable, especially as I have to be mindful of where I recruit and being careful not to expand too much in case ti draws attention, so my settlements are few but are developing at a good pace, one thing I still do is temporarily recruit Dwarves if I need something quickly, and disband then I am done so I'm not hurting growth, and it feels quite a Dwarven thing to do as well I'd sum up the campaign so far as exciting, tentative and like you are on a knife edge even with the economy.

[Thangaror]

I thought I'd ask as I realise in the Elf Campaign one of the big questions a new player will have is which settlements they want to stay Elven and which ones they want to allow men to settle in, and the Dwarves would be a minor variant of this,

Maybe the option to change the populace shouldn't be available in all settlements? Places like Mithlond, Thranduil's Halls, Erebor and Moria should be excluded maybe.

[Revelo]

Maybe the option to change the populace shouldn't be available in all settlements? Places like Mithlond, Thranduil's Halls, Erebor and Moria should be excluded maybe.

That's a possibility although I worry it might feel restrictive. But then again it would stop people doing that unintentionally as well

[CountMRVHS]

That's great to hear, Rev. I'm ok with the Dwarves being really rich, as long as it doesn't take away from that feeling of challenge.

[Revelo]

That's great to hear, Rev. I'm ok with the Dwarves being really rich, as long as it doesn't take away from that feeling of challenge.

Feels that way so far, not sure how it'll feel later on when I've got the population and the money. I wouldn't mind trying something insane like trying to take a territory in a distant land, far from any support.

[Galgus]

There was one intended advantage to having AI governors run your cities: the loyalty/opinion of liege would be higher if governors were allowed to do their own thing, rather than being micromanaged by the king. I'm not sure if that is implemented in the current version, however - and in any case it wouldn't matter since the revolt system isn't in yet.

Does Public Order ranking play into that?

I ask because I find that low tax rate Dwarf cities seem to have extremely high order to the point that its a non-issue.

I am wondering, is the intended nature of the Dwarf Campaign to make you have to decide what provinces to grow and which ones to remain static or displace with men? As I am noting with the economy enhancements I can keep all my taxes low and rake in a good 25,000 gold a turn (and I think I could improve that!), meaning I'm happily able to have every native settlement growing, at least slowly, which seems a little out of character perhaps? Not that I should moan about all the money xD

I thought I'd ask as I realise in the Elf Campaign one of the big questions a new player will have is which settlements they want to stay Elven and which ones they want to allow men to settle in, and the Dwarves would be a minor variant of this, you might only want one or two settlements to change hands so you can buff out your forces with Hirelings, I'm certainly considering this for Orodengrin so I can access Dale Hirelings in the Iron Hills, as when you take it you get the 400 able bodied population meaning you will be there a while trying to get it to grow, and it's not a settlement I'd use for military application anyway.

Personally I'm trying to keep all the Dwarven settlements Dwarven and trying to raise a hireling force in expansions.

With the aforementioned gold, it seems obvious to recruit mercenaries to flesh out the troops whenever possible.

I'd say yes, it would be good if the player felt he had to make difficult decisions with meaningful consequences. If it's possible to just crank out Dwarves and simultaneously rake in the cash, there's little to no need to use Hirelings, which somewhat goes against the idea of this being the age of Men. Maybe the economy for Dwarves is a bit too good currently?

In my limited and novice experience, they seem to have trouble raising and replacing Dwarven armies, though the economy is very strong.

In the western cities I've hit population limits on unit production very quickly with very limited production: to the point that I prize any mercenaries I can get.

[CountMRVHS]

Does Public Order ranking play into that?

The public order of the settlement? I don't believe so - I don't think traits get triggered by the public order of settlements.

I was speaking about a civil war mechanic that is planned for the final release. You'll note that every character gets a trait (near the bottom of the list) that indicates how they feel about their faction leader. This trait is known as the 'Opinion of Liege' trait (call it OoL). And every character also has a Loyalty attribute. OoL gets affected by different things, such as whether the character is a lord, whether he's the heir, some randomness, and other things. One of those other factors would be whether or not you allow governor to run their own settlements (by checking that option for the AI to control development). If you let the AI do its own thing, your characters would like you better.

Eventually, if you had enough characters with a low OoL (or enough *important* characters with a low OoL), they would decide to rebel: they and their armies would turn into rebels. Other characters might join in as well, and you'd find yourself fighting a civil war.

That's the idea, anyway. I don't think it's implemented currently.

Regardless, Dwarves will never suffer revolts in their cities, no matter how bad unrest gets.

[Revelo]

Personally I'm trying to keep all the Dwarven settlements Dwarven and trying to raise a hireling force in expansions.

With the aforementioned gold, it seems obvious to recruit mercenaries to flesh out the troops whenever possible.

In my limited and novice experience, they seem to have trouble raising and replacing Dwarven armies, though the economy is very strong.

In the western cities I've hit population limits on unit production very quickly with very limited production: to the point that I prize any mercenaries I can get.

That's fine, I found myself doing the same thing and keeping my settlements native because every Dwarf counts , The reason I am considering Orodengrin as a candidate for population replacement is because you need to reclaim it and you need to wait a long time to build the population up. You don't have any long range units in the Iron Hills as well, and the Orcs are a match for your limited numbers. Mercenaries are useful but a stopgap at best, since you can't replace them unless you can hire more. Recruiting tons of dwarven units, while powerful will depopulate you very quickly and leave you unable to retrain units who suffer losses, so you have to think carefully.

Hirelings should not be treated as replacements for Dwarves, but as a means to fill out an existing Dwarf army, overcome the limitations they have and provide additional man power. But development will take time, which is why you need to use the economy to your advantage here, you'll not be expanding much, or recruiting much either, so more money to use on settlement development, you shouldn't have to wait to build anything when you have plenty of money. It is a vastly different experience to what you will be used to in a TW game, and it does take some getting used too I have had to fight the temptation to expand like hell and then realizing I've overextended myself.

Tl;dr - Our economy is awesome but balanced by the fact we can't recruit units as we please and settlement development takes time.

Eventually, if you had enough characters with a low OoL (or enough *important* characters with a low OoL), they would decide to rebel: they and their armies would turn into rebels. Other characters might join in as well, and you'd find yourself fighting a civil war.

That's the idea, anyway. I don't think it's implemented currently.

Regardless, Dwarves will never suffer revolts in their cities, no matter how bad unrest gets.

I do like the idea of this mechanic, I don't think it's implemented in-game at present but reminds of of my time spent on BI as the Romans.

My only concern with letting the AI run things is that can you trust them to run it properly? What's to stop them taking Narag-zigil, where I might have gotten a population of 1000 and depopulating it? Or letting men settle in it? I find managing everything allows me to stop the AI from building something I don't want.

[webba84]

Revelo, how have you been using your extra cash in this build? Would using it to bribe away threatening armies make things too easy? (Not that we want to remove the potential for doing this (especially for dwarves!) but being able to get rid of every threat this way would be making things a tad too easy)

oh yeah, nested brackets

[Revelo]

Revelo, how have you been using your extra cash in this build? Would using it to bribe away threatening armies make things too easy? (Not that we want to remove the potential for doing this (especially for dwarves!) but being able to get rid of every threat this way would be making things a tad too easy)

oh yeah, nested brackets

I haven't had the chance to do this yet actually. But worth a check when the opportunity presents itself, the majority of my funds I use to improve my settlements, especially isolated ones or mannish settlements, I'm trying to raise an army to reclaim Orodengrin but does take a while

As I recall, bribes require a lot of money to pull off, especially if a character is leading the army. I have experimented with using console commands in other games and noted I needed a lot of gold, like 60,000 minimum in order to bribe someone, and it usually meant the enemy would be able to recruit a load more men to go after me so it ultimately proved worse in the long run.

[Galgus]

That's fine, I found myself doing the same thing and keeping my settlements native because every Dwarf counts , The reason I am considering Orodengrin as a candidate for population replacement is because you need to reclaim it and you need to wait a long time to build the population up. You don't have any long range units in the Iron Hills as well, and the Orcs are a match for your limited numbers. Mercenaries are useful but a stopgap at best, since you can't replace them unless you can hire more. Recruiting tons of dwarven units, while powerful will depopulate you very quickly and leave you unable to retrain units who suffer losses, so you have to think carefully.

Hirelings should not be treated as replacements for Dwarves, but as a means to fill out an existing Dwarf army, overcome the limitations they have and provide additional man power. But development will take time, which is why you need to use the economy to your advantage here, you'll not be expanding much, or recruiting much either, so more money to use on settlement development, you shouldn't have to wait to build anything when you have plenty of money. It is a vastly different experience to what you will be used to in a TW game, and it does take some getting used too I have had to fight the temptation to expand like hell and then realizing I've overextended myself.

Tl;dr - Our economy is awesome but balanced by the fact we can't recruit units as we please and settlement development takes time.

Where is Orodengrin exactly? Sadly my Middle Earth geography isn't up to snuff.

I haven't had anything but two failed invasions from the north by North Rhun in the Iron Hills...and I like to use Ballista and Catapaults instead of archers - though I'm skeptical on their effectiveness.

Sadly I've never had enough Hirelings to form a proper army on their own, though expansions in the northeast gave occasional access to much-needed ranged mercenaries.

I'm trying to expand through warfare where I have enough troops to guard my new acquisitions, though I'm terrified of going to war with the Elves anywhere where they have significant forces.

It is also taking forever for settlements to get to the point where they can contribute anything meaningful to the war effort.
_____________________________________________

On that note, I feel that artillery units, given their general lack of reliability, cost far too many Dwarves to build.

(As a side note, they don't seem to lose much practical effectiveness when at 15 or so soldiers since they keep siege engines around: so I don't retrain them.)

Every Dwarf that goes into a highly dubious siege engine is a Dwarf that didn't become an absurdly powerful infantrydwarf.

I wouldn't even notice if they cost 10X their current gold cost, but it is extremely hard to justify building them given the alternatives for Dwarves.

I'd recommend lowering the troop size of Ballista and Catapults drastically without lowering the number of actual siege engines in them, if possible.

[webba84]

Some handy feedback on the Dwarven siege engines there Galgus, thanks!

Sounds like it might be time to do some custom battle testing on them.

[Revelo]

Where is Orodengrin exactly? Sadly my Middle Earth geography isn't up to snuff.

I haven't had anything but two failed invasions from the north by North Rhun in the Iron Hills...and I like to use Ballista and Catapaults instead of archers - though I'm skeptical on their effectiveness.

Sadly I've never had enough Hirelings to form a proper army on their own, though expansions in the northeast gave occasional access to much-needed ranged mercenaries.

I'm trying to expand through warfare where I have enough troops to guard my new acquisitions, though I'm terrified of going to war with the Elves anywhere where they have significant forces.

It is also taking forever for settlements to get to the point where they can contribute anything meaningful to the war effort.
_____________________________________________

On that note, I feel that artillery units, given their general lack of reliability, cost far too many Dwarves to build.

(As a side note, they don't seem to lose much practical effectiveness when at 15 or so soldiers since they keep siege engines around: so I don't retrain them.)

Every Dwarf that goes into a highly dubious siege engine is a Dwarf that didn't become an absurdly powerful infantrydwarf.

I wouldn't even notice if they cost 10X their current gold cost, but it is extremely hard to justify building them given the alternatives for Dwarves.

I'd recommend lowering the troop size of Ballista and Catapults drastically without lowering the number of actual siege engines in them, if possible.

It's Northwest of Erebor, it's occupied by Orcs at the start but I usually make getting it an early objective. There were comments made in the previous build about population growth in mannish settlements not being very good, whether or not it's going to be fixed I do not know but it does hinder getting Hirelings, but as I said, I always use them alongside Dwarf units, I took Belegant from Dorwinion and was able to recruit Hireling Rhovanion Horsemen and Bowman to support my Dwarf infantry and it makes fighting a lot easier to do, they work as support units, not replacements.

I always try hard to avoid Elf warfare, those arrows hurt xD If you're concerned about settlement development, check your governors traits, also take note of places with construction charters, places with Stonemasons or Metalsmiths will help reduce build costs and times throughout the faction.

I also agree with the artillery units, I find them of limited use at best, I keep a couple of catapults handy as they make sieges a breeze, but otherwise they stay in a settlement, and ballista don't get any use for me as I tried using them against the Orcs too and found they really didn't kill that many. Perhaps the number of men in both units should be reduced but I don't know if they can be buffed, Ballista especially become irrelevant when you can get the Wain Bow up and running, as that can tear through enemy units without much hassle.

[Doomsday]

Few points:
-I conquered Gundabad, built the seven tribes building (ICR the name), the description said it improves the king if he's in the settlement, yet I couldn't get it to do anything, so don't know what that's about.
-Any chance of having another dwarf archer unit/allowing them in all dwarf provinces? they have no skirmisher/bow units except for the axethrowers, who have very little ammo (obvs not including hirelings)
-dwarf economy is too good, maxed out my dwarf settlements, plus took all the old dwarf territory, garrissoned all with 5 of the best units available and still made ~10000 a turn