How I turned Dale from a backwater to an Economic Superpower in 100 turns

[julianj99]

I started playing TATW 3.2 and decidedto play Dale. I can only play the “good” side as I am too heavilyinvested in them since reading the Hobbit at age 11. I realise youcan get a lot of fun from channelling Sauron but it's not for me. TATW is marvellous adaptation and a full game in the Total War canonin its own right. I doff my rustic hobbity cap to you, gamedevelopers!


I chose Dale as it seemed a bit remotefrom the main action. I previously played V.2 once and gave up whenI got Legolas and most of the elves killed.


This is how I grew Dale from Financialand Production position No. 13 to number 1 in both in about 100turns.




Grand Strategy


I am firmly in the “Money is the "sinews of war” camp. So most of my Total War games are like this:


1. Build a massive economy

2. Brutal imperialism, with a side helping of brutal imperialism.


It'sa game of two halves. The first part I stay meek as a mouse and try not to offend anyone till I have the financial muscle to build powerful armies, then I rampage around. I'm not going to recapitulate the many excellent strategy guides available, just highlight a fewmethods and tactics I used. Currently I am at Turn 185, I own Rhun,and am bashing Mordor, Gundabad, and have a truce with the OoMM. I have about 7 full-stack armies plus other forces.

I guess this is a form of aggressive turtling, turtles with go-faster stripes if you like.


Economy

I concentrated on building up my developed towns, especially Esgaroth and Dale. I turned up the taxes to Very High. You can do this. Although it slows growth, I think the financial trade off is worthit. When your governor is in a city that completes an economic building you get higher “taxman” traits. When you get the topone (25%) if the city has a basic income of 2000 gp/turn, that would be an extra 50K in income over 100 turns. Although you may beteetering on the edge of riots at public order of 70% and a red face,you can keep them from tipping over. If you reduce the taxes to Highfor a few turns then you can put them up again or build public order enhancing buildings like town halls.

I built roads, economicbuildings, farms, town halls, etc, then later ports, rather than military ones (except where necessary).


Expansion


As the Dwarves (allies) are protecting the northern flank. I opted to expand south. Olduvan castle is an obvious major strongpoint and jumping-off point for attacking Rhun. I don't think you have any option but to fight the most powerful economy at the start of the game. I never managed to negotiate a truce with them, so I gave up and decided to smash them.


Around Turn 75 I moved my capital t Dorwinion, after the area was secured. This was an excellent move,as it doubled my net income from 5.5K to 11,000 gp a turn.


Strategy

It was aterrible grind until I could support two decent armies and attack Rhun in both North and South pincers. I had built a port in Dorwinion, under the impression that I would then be able to launch an amphibious assault across the Sea of Rhun but this was not so, you can't build ships there. Though ports are worth it for the trade.


At one point I saw I had fought 97battles, with 5 losses. As I had around half a dozen clashes with bandits, that means that I had beaten Rhun 85 times, with only at most two 15 unit armies. As I soon got sick of defeating an army,then getting it ransomed and having to fight it again, I started mypolicy of executing all prisoners. It's hard but fair.

The Dwarves had captured Kugavod. I looked at the terrain. Just East o f the city is a brilliant choke point: a bridge in a wood. Any human player could defend it till Mt Doom freezes over with a handful of doughty dwarves. I thought that flank was secure. In any case I didn't have enough troops to send a force to hold the bridge.


Of course the computer couldn't hold it for toffee. During the mid game, I had basically one army fighting around Olduvan, while Rhun forces kept capturing Dorwinion and breaking through towards Grasgard. The dwarven army which waswandering around there with its military access did nothing to assist. I asked them for help against Rhun. Nowt. While I do like to encourage Dwarven tourism, I don't think they were earning their pay.


As my economy strengthened I could send a northern army to secure the North East and recapture Kugavod (I didn't give it back to the dwarves because they'd just lose it again and it is a gold mine – turns over 3.5K a turn). The southernpincer captured Burgh Emmerwhatsit, then I had a river line to defend. Although I didn't realise there was another Rhun town –Rhunen south near Mordor, I could then build forces and send them into Rhun's heartland from North and South and I destroyed them around T110 ish. The slow but painful task of turning them into “my”cities is continuing, but as they have gold mines, the income islarge, espcially if you continue the policy of maximising economically productive buildings. I destroy most inns, etc immediately as they encourage drunken traits in your governor.


Diplomacy


Normally in TW games I cleave to the Genghis Khan/Donald Rumsfeld view of diplomacy. You don't need it when you are going to get your retaliation in first. In TATW Dale was so weak I tried to get alliances with all the good parties(Silvan Elves, High Elves, later on Eriador, good terms with Rohanand Gondor). I started paying tribute to Gundabad, Mordor, 100 gp aturn for 5 turns then I renewed it. I reckoned this was not enough to aid their war effort, but would keep our relations going up from Very Poor to Poor so they would not invade me but remain neutral. This worked.


As I got richer, I started paying 200gp a turn to the dwarves and Silvan elves as they were always broke –then when I was approaching 50 K in the bank I started giving it away in 5000 gp tranches to my allies. I must have given the good side at least 40K. I'd send a diplomat back in two turns and they'd be bankrupt again. I'm not sure if they spent it on fast cars and loose women, or perhaps went for a spin at Honest Shagrat's Casino. Not sure if this was a good idea.


Dale Troops


Archers: brilliant – Dale's best soldiers


Close combat infantry: Hearth Watchmen (schiltrom capable), Dalesmen, Dale swordsmen – perfectly OK.


Cavalry: Yeomen, Dale cavalry – weak but all you have to work with.


Rivermen: I had a theory that these light infantry could form a second rank behind my fighters and hurl their javelins overhead to maximise the damage in the first rounds of combat. It didn't seem to work that well and I now think I should have invested the money in archers instead. Rivermen are fast though, and can catch slower routers and slaughter them.

HearthWatchmen can be used in schiltrom on your flanks to stop enemy cavalry, particularly General's units from breaking in. They will be stopped by the spears then you can counterattack with reserve units and hopefully kill the general.


The heavier elite infantry you get later on such as Dismounted Earls and Dale Swordmasters I have found to be over-rated. Barding Hird with their spearwall seem to be more effective and take fewer casualties.


Mercenaries


Rhovanian hunters, Riders, spearmen. Excellent units. With Dale's shortage of troops they are certainly worth having.


Bandits: cheap to recruit, relatively expensive upkeep. However I have had some perform well on the battlefield in ambushes, manoeuvring round to attack the rear,chasing routers, and even defeating general's units so I have a soft spot for them.

Battlefield tactics


With Dale you are best off with a “counterpunch” approach in attack or defence. Basically you want to seize a good, preferably high position and waste as many of the enemy as you can with your superior archers, outranging them, then when your enemy is weakened,attack with your competent, but not brilliant, close combat infantry. Dale cavalry shouldn't be used in frontal attacks but go round theflanks. Expect heavy attrition on them as they can't really go toe-to-toe with very much, especially enemy cavalry. I thinklongbowmen are definitely superior to woodsmen as archers and it is worth recruiting them if you can. Although woodsmen are still a pretty effective weapon.


Because it slows you down so much I stopped using artillery. I might now put them in my forces because I am starting to attack Mordor but I have not needed them up till now.As they are not essential for sieges and the distances in Middle Earth are so great the movement penalty makes them not worth having.

Trolls


My armies have around 5 veteran archer units each, including the General's Bardian Marksmen. These can be used on “fire at will” orders to generally support adjacent units with fire, or concentrated on important enemy units. Either way the“arrow storm” is devastating - you can wipe out whole charging orc units of 250 before they reach your ranks.


However I must take issue with the writer of a guide to killing trolls who states that you can kill them with archery volleys, and suggest that only two would be enough if they are fighting a unit hand to hand. I haven't found that to be the case. I have subjected troll units to withering fire and it takes ages to kill them. I don't do experiments but on the battlefield they seem very hard to kill. Recently I sieged a Gundabad small town with a palisade and as the orcs had no archers I could pour fire on the Trolls (12), with collateral damage to the Snaga, from outside. It seemed to take 10 minutes, till I ran out of ammo to kill 11 trolls, even though they were taking fire in the rear as well as the front. Over 400 archers, say 20 arrows each, that's 8000 rounds into the beaten zone! When I assaulted the town I took only 40 casualties with over 800 enemies dead, so it was well worth doing.

[orclover5]

Catapults and ballista for trolls...

[julianj99]

Thanks orclover. I find it is hard to hit them with arty as they move fast, and obviously you can't do that when they are meleeing with my own troops.

[alreadyded]

Use a cheap tier 1 unit in loose formation to keep the trolls busy while you shoot at them . It works for Ents, Balrog, Dragons, ect. Really any unit that is hard to kill, even just heavily armored tier 3 units, but it is especially effective against units that have an area attack as you will not lose as many of your units with each attack. And of course repeated cavalry charges in between shots can speed up the process and will kill anything in a short time without even damaging your troops.

[julianj99]

Thanks alreadyded. I will give that a try.

[Roma_Victrix]

Thanks for sharing! Personally I don't have a desire for playing a Dale campaign (only Gondor, High Elves, and Eriador/Arnor), but I might just give them a try seeing your success and reasonable strategy outline here.

[Chromium]

Soak up the troll charge with some cheap unit in loose formation and send javelinmen at them. This always works for me. I wish King Bard would've maintained Romanesque legions for his city.

[julianj99]

@Chromium - another interesting idea. I have tried catapults, but they are too inaccurate, you miss most of the time. I have had some success with ballistas, but this was when the trolls were stationary behind a palisade...foolishly they didn't come out and charge my troops, but trolls are thick, don't you know.....

I shall try the javelinmen tactic. BTW I am now at about turn 240 and conquered 3/4 of Mordor, (with a few very bloody setbacks). However the Haradrim have now come to Mordor's aid and I am finding them the worst of the foes I have faced so far - they have plenty of archers and good cav and inf, so I don't have the previous missile power advantage that I used so effectively against previous adversaries. Any advice?

I do find my allies a bit of a pain. They are so half-arsed. Just a little help from Gondor would take the pressure off me in Mordor, but their armies wander around like sightseers. Two reinforcement units got caught up in a Gondor v Harad battle, I could have retreated but I joined in, to aid my allies in an honourable way....it just meant that my two units got stomped after Gondor put up a pitiful performance. Paying them money and asking for help against (INSERT ADVERSARY HERE) doesn'tdo much good because they never seem to attack that Enemy. Sorry, just venting a bit of frustration here

[Patronus]

@Chromium - another interesting idea. I have tried catapults, but they are too inaccurate, you miss most of the time. I have had some success with ballistas, but this was when the trolls were stationary behind a palisade...foolishly they didn't come out and charge my troops, but trolls are thick, don't you know.....

I shall try the javelinmen tactic. BTW I am now at about turn 240 and conquered 3/4 of Mordor, (with a few very bloody setbacks). However the Haradrim have now come to Mordor's aid and I am finding them the worst of the foes I have faced so far - they have plenty of archers and good cav and inf, so I don't have the previous missile power advantage that I used so effectively against previous adversaries. Any advice?

I do find my allies a bit of a pain. They are so half-arsed. Just a little help from Gondor would take the pressure off me in Mordor, but their armies wander around like sightseers. Two reinforcement units got caught up in a Gondor v Harad battle, I could have retreated but I joined in, to aid my allies in an honourable way....it just meant that my two units got stomped after Gondor put up a pitiful performance. Paying them money and asking for help against (INSERT ADVERSARY HERE) doesn'tdo much good because they never seem to attack that Enemy. Sorry, just venting a bit of frustration here

Very interesting writeup on Dale.. I haven't played them yet, so I might have to give them a try.

As for your questions on troll-killing and dealing with Harad (hate those Oliphants) as Dale...I can't provide direct experience, but I can tell you what worked in my SE campaign:

Ballistas and catapults. The Oliphant has extremely long firing range and was able to hit any of my archer units from afar. Your best bet is to try and distract the Oliphants with a fast unit (i used SE horse archers, but a cheap cav unit from Dale would work for you). Take out the bulk of the enemy army (easier said than done)...with SE, my range advantage was somewhat nerfed, since Harad has very good archers as well. Honestly, as Dale, expect the battles to be bloodier and more costly since Harad's archers will affect you just as much as your archers affect them. Put the solid/heavy infantry up front, archers in the rear, and have cav and fastmoving infantry ready to curve around the flanks (cav and maybe the hearthmen).

Once main enemy army is mostly gone, you can refocus on the Oliphants. Send a meatshield unit to engage them and get them somewhat still and pepper them with javelins (rivermen) and artillery (ballista and catapults). Honestly, a lot of the time, the Oliphants charged ahead of Harad's main armies towards mine and I was usually somewhat successful in sniping them with artillery and routing them (they will usually run amok after only losing a few of their unit members).

In the infrequent occasion where the Oliphants made it to my lines, I would always use a cheap/disposable unit (woodland spearmen for SE) to take the charge, and then I would counter charge with an AP unit (Beornings), meanwhile peppering the now stationary beats with archers and artillery fire....AP infantry units (like axemen, javelins) and artillery, or a combination of both, will usually bring the Oliphants down (or route them) very quickly even on harder difficulty levels. The key is having a cheap unit to soak up the charge, otherwise your top tier units will get wasted very quickly.

Oddly enough, I normally used the similar tactics with trolls:
A) Distraction with a fast unit, to draw them off while my army destroyed the main enemy army (this is hard to do even with cav, since the trolls run very fast).
or
B) Allow the trolls to charge a cheap/meat shield unit, counter charge with an AP unit, hit with arrows. This approach can get somewhat more chaotic, since you'll be fighting the trolls and enemy army all at once, but as long as you have AP units fighting the trolls, the battle should be won easily enough (assuming you can manage the rest of your army properly to hold off/defeat the remainder of the enemy army).

My SE experiences may not directly translate to your own approach. Looking at Dale's roster, I see a lot of mediocre to half-decent infantry with some very good archers (as you noted earlier). Unlike the SE armies, where I could kite enemy armies somewhat, and wear them down through arrow fire before their army came into melee with mine, Dale's troops seem much more focused on staying put and fighting. A lot of your success will come from strategically choosing when/where to fight your battles (I always looked for chokepoint battles, and avoided battles that risked bringing in adjacent enemy armies) and within the battle itself, picking the best ground to fight on (almost always sought out the high ground). Those kinds of broad principles hold true for almost every faction, regardless of the unit roster.

Edit: as for your AI allies not really helping you on the campaign map, yeah get used to that. I've only been playing Vanilla TATW so far, so I'm not familiar with how some of the sub-mods handle this issue, but the campaign's AI (both good and evil) has always seemed lacking (no fault of this mod, but rather the game it is based off of). Lore-wise all the good factions should be coming to each other's aid, but in the game, the player faction is normally the only one that actually gets stuff done (the only exception to that is the Dwarven faction when they get pissed off at Rhun or whoever and just start blitzing with their stacks). So no real solution for getting your AI allies more involved, except for maybe trying a sub-mod.

Thought, I'd make a separate post on this, since my last one ran a little longer than expected.

You brought up an interesting issue regarding trolls: Does it really make sense to focus all of your missile troops on trolls, when there seems to be little effects/reward for the effort?

I say the answer to this problem depends on the situation.

- What difficulty level are you playing? On the harder levels, I'm fairly certain the AI gets a stat bonus...so trying to shoot down the already tough trolls from afar becomes a lot tougher.

-What type of trolls are you trying to fight? With the plain (non-armored) trolls, I found as the SE (again with archer-bias) I was moderately successful in taking out a few of their number from afar, and greatly weakening the rest, by focusing my fire on them. The armored trolls are a different story. When I had to battle those brutes, I was normally resigned to taking some extra casualties....I usually had cheap/meatsheild units ready to receive their charge and counter-charged them with good AP units....meanwhile pelting them with arrows throughout the fight (thats quite effective, but you will take some friendly fire).

-What does the battle field look like? As the SE, I tried to avoid flat open ground like the plague, or if I did fight there, I would kite the enemy (shoot them from afar and pull back, rinse repeat). Sometimes I would even fight multiple battles where I engaged the enemy, kited them, withdrew from the battle, simply to wear down the enemy's numbers (this tactic would normally leave most of the enemy units severely weakened, and allow me to more easily focus on the troll units). In forest battles, I would try for ambushes. I almost always looked for hill/mountain battles where I could post my units on the high ground and reign death on the enemy as they approached...the troll units would often make it to my lines, but since they normally outpaced the rest of their army, I would be able to counter melee (meatshield and AP units) while my archers sat back and comfortably whittled down the bulk of the enemy army.

-Proximity of reinforcements? If I had a recruitment source nearby, or reinforcements close at hand, I would be very inclined to do battle with the enemy stacks, even those with heavy troll units. However, on some of my 'raiding' expeditions, where reinforcements were essentially non-existent, I would make a point of avoiding stacks with trolls (or Oliphants, or Sauron, ect.) because I knew I couldn't risk heavy casualties in that environment.

-Composition of your own army? In the early game, with SE, I did not have any AP units (didn't have any regions to recruit Beornings from and no Ents yet), so the few times I encountered trolls, I really had no choice but to try and snipe them from afar (which usually worked since I was fighting the unarmored type). If a troll unit every made it to my early game armies, it would usually be very bloody. Mid to late game however, the armored trolls became the norm as I fought Mordor. But luckily I had plenty of AP units, and top tier infantry that could hold the line in a bad situation. So the meatshield and counter-charge tactic became much more viable (though, for obvious reason, I still preferred to snipe from afar whenever possible). In Dale's case, I think there are at least 2 AP infantry units, as well as the Rivermen with their very high AP javelins...those types of units, especially the Rivermen, should excel at taking out the trolls with counter-charges (or barrages with the Rivermen). For the same reason, Rivermen are an excellent counter to Oliphants.

So the way to deal with trolls (shoot or not to shoot) depends...in some cases I think it makes sense and you can get good results...in others, I agree that your archers would be better off focusing on the rest of the enemy army.

[julianj99]

Hi Patronus,

Thanks for making some good points. I have been really enjoying the game (on H/H), because it is the first TW that has challenged me for a long time. My playing style [in this case] is different to yours, I think, because the SE are high quality, but not easily replaceable troops whereas mine are well....cheap and replaceable. They don't like you calling them mediocre! There's been muttering in the ranks and nearly a mutiny :-) I have a developed more Russian attitude to battles and expect a certain expendability.

You may well be right that focussing on Trolls takes my eye off the other enemies. It's a difficult decision to take as to who to prioritise with fire as they are rushing towards my troops.

Incidentally I prefer to fight out in the open. Woodland battles can get very confusing and I lose track of things. High ground is good but flat is OK. However that may be revised against Harad and their good cavalry.

I haven't faced any Oliphants. I think it must be the Mumakil Training Ground bug, which I wasn't aware of when I started the campaign, and I am not going to install it now in case of crashes. In other TW games I have found that Fire Arrows soon have Elephants running amok, usually amongst their own troops, which is a high chortle factor.

I've asked the Free Peoples of Eriador for aid against Isengard, which has just declared war on me. I only have one quite basic army in the sector. It is a pity I can't ask them to attack a specific region or stack, then I would be happy to join in. Isengard has 2 1/2 stacks around, and it would be foolish to steam in on them on my own. If my allies attacked, I'd join in.

Incidentally, I have developed a peculiar battlefield tactic for fighting with my allies' AI-commanded armies in TW games. I will share it: I steam forward with the army under my command, then stop, and see what utter stupidity the Allied army is going to do. Then I respond to that. For example, if AI Allies attack the enemy on the left flank, I might wait till they are engaged heavily, then plough into the right flank, bursting through and hopefully mashing the enemy in the rear while they are engaged to their front.

Or if the AI Allies steam forward with precious cavalry and their irreplaceable general into enemy spears, I will rush swordsmen forward to support the suicidal idiots, preferably flanking. Usually you can gain some local superiority, and then the Allied cav can have a field day with routers while you mop up the rest of the opposing army.

However this does stress me out. Sometimes I would prefer not to have any allies and fight more enemy on my own because I can make a plan and implement it. ;-)

At the present time I am sieging Barad Dur and Dorthang. I doubt I will assault them, it isn't worth the waste of men. They aren't going to be relieved so I will wait it out while I bring up more forces to start dishing out grief to Harad.

Best game I have played in a long time. I might take up an Elvish faction next time. Or possibly the Dwarves. Surely they can hire human cav mercs? All they need is to have a general hang around in Rovanost and grab every Rovanian Rider going? They have military access to Dale so it shouldn't be a problem.

[Patronus]

Julian, glad to hear that you are enjoying your campaign...sounds like things are getting a little hectic, but then again, that's what makes this game/mod so much fun!

It also sounds like you have figured out the nuances and best techniques for winning with your Dale armies...far be it from me to tell you how to fight with them...obviously you know more than me on that issue seeing as I haven't played with them yet. I kind of figured that their armies would be somewhat more "expendable"...I didn't want to use such a blunt term, but I agree with your assessment simply by looking at their unit roster

The fights against trolls/mumakills/balrogs/whatever high HP units you might be tackling should still resemble my own encounters with those bloody beasts....though you might be willing to take a few more casualties with your Dale troops than I ever was with my golden chevron elves (I felt bad even when I used low tier spearmen to act as meatshields, poor elves). The key ingredients, regardless of faction always seem to be AP units + meatshields + ballista/catapults = dead monsters.

I'll have look into your advice and rethink my tactics against mumakill, aka Oliphants in the books I believe, (currently in the early game of a HE campaign, so still a long ways off from fighting Harad). I remember experimenting with fire arrows against Mumakill with my SE campaign (H/M), but I was never impressed with the results...the ballistas (catapults were usually too inaccurate) worked like clockwork...in some cases there would be at least 1 Mumakill going down with every shot...shortly followed by the beasts running amok into their own army...I smiled a lot during some of those battles

I agree that there are ways to help out the AI on the strategic and tactical battlefield...but sometimes it feels to me as if I am helping (or saving their butts) from disaster on one turn only to see them get utterly wrecked in the following turns...the AI, on the campaign map and battle maps is just not that good (again not the mod's fault)...I've honestly found that the most effective way to help a struggling AI ally is to recapture some of their territory and gift it back to them (gets the economy back on track and makes them more friendly with you).

But there are different approaches to this game....obviously you have the WWII Russian attitude of 'keep pushing ahead, don't worry about the casualties' (I laughed at your references to the troops getting disgruntled)....with my Elven campaigns, I have been somewhat more selective and strategic with my battles (you were dead on about the lower troop #'s and slower recruitment times). Honestly, once I finish my current HE campaign, I am looking at something like Gondor or Dwarves, and I'm sure my playing style will change somewhat with the new faction.

I would highly recommend getting into an Elven campaign when you get the chance. Everyone talks about their archers, which are the best in the game hands down, but what a lot of people fail to mention is that their line infantry (even the early game units) are on par with, or outright better, with many of the elite and heavy infantry units of the other factions. I can't even tell you how many times my elite Silvan archers finished up their volleys into enemy ranks and charged in (like the scene from the movies) and absolutely tore the enemy up...they and the HE equivalent are the best archers in the game, and yet they have attack/defense stats comparable to most heavy infantry from the other factions...Lore-wise that's accurate, but game balance wise it might be a bit OP...I won't complain though

The only faction with outright better infantry are the dwarves...they're like steamrollers on the battle map...they'll crush anything they come into contact with but they move so damn slow. An entirely different style of gameplay from the elves though, so it all works out. And yes I believe the dwarves have access to mercenary cav (I believe from the Dale region?) which you will definitely need to make up for their lack of mobility and limited archer/skirmisher units.

[julianj99]

Copy that, an Elven Campaign is certainly something could get into. I must say again how much I appreciate the enormous work that King Kong and the team of developers did to create this masterpiece of a mod. I can see my Dale soldiers...they are like the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, with added archery. When the horn sounds they get their Father's sword or armour down from where it hangs in their cottage....they are not professional soldiers. I can hear them grumbling that Mordor is a hellish place and they want to go home and bring in the Harvest. I have to keep telling them, if we don't destroy Sauron and his orcs, Dale will look like this....it does feel like I am enacting part of the Tolkien Canon. Although I don't quite understand why the voice acting gets the pronunciations wrong, when all other details are so right (Yeoman is pronounced "Yoman", Hearth Watchmen ="Harth".)

I had two great battles last turn. 2500 orcs sallied out from Barad Dur, and I killed every one of them for a loss of 492 men. The ring's in my possession now.....oh dear.

Some reinforcements on the way to Mordor were attacked by Harad, about 10 units, 1000 men, facing the same number of Haradrim, though more non-fullsize units, which gave them a bit of tactical flexibility. They had a catapult but I don't think that was a significant factor, given that they hit both sides with it. I deployed uphill and got beaten, so I think it shows that the basic Dale troops can't quite beat Harad. My one gripe is Armourers etc don't seem to make any difference, nobody appears to get any armour upgrades.

Only Durthang and one other fortress left. I agree with you about allies. Mordor still have Edoras, I think I will have to go up there and take it and give it back to the Rohirrim. What are they using? Peashooters? Harsh language? They've had 20+ turns to whack it with no orc reinforcements.

I think I'll pass on the Dwarves for now. I might find their pace too slow for me. Thanks for that insight.

[Patronus]

^ Lol You know you should consider doing a let's play or AAR for this forum...you're creative style would be interesting in that kind of format.

The armor upgrades is a weird issue. Are you sure you have the right blacksmith building built? I'm fairly certain that almost all of the factions have troops which are capable of upgrades. An easy way to test that is to go into a custom battle setup and see how far you can upgrade the weapons and armor of some of these Dale troops...if you can upgrade them there, you should be able to do the same in the campaign.

[julianj99]

Withwnar (top man!) has put me straight about this - you can only get 1 armour upgrade for all playable factions except Gondor so the only armour icon you get is bronze. Except Gondor which would be silver. (So I have got most of the upgrades available, there isn't a succession of them like other TW games so I was labouring under a misplaced hope that spiffy armour would be available for all my boys).

[julianj99]

I've officially won the game on Turn 258.

However, I'm going to keep on playing.

Isengard has become a vassal of Eriador so I have stopped attacking them, but the Dark Lord has called another Invasion of the Black Gate (which I hold) so an Isengard Army is headed there. I haven't attacked it but it will be interesting to see what happens when it does fight me. I hope that doesn't mean I'll be at war with Eriador.

WMDs have been alleged to be under Harad pillowcases to I am heading there to bring them peace and democracy, respect for women's rights, etc, by burning down their cities and killing everyone I can lay my sword on. The creature known as Tony Blair (formerly The Mouth of Sauron) has put himself forward as Peace Envoy. So everything's going to be alright....I am sure.

[julianj99]

Final report - the game has ended on a bit of an anticlimax on T265.

I sent an army to take back Edoras from Mordor, but as it approached I sent in a diplomat and on a whim clicked Become A Vassal, offering no money. They accepted. Harad has stopped fighting me. It's not worth going after them, too long and boring.

One of my generals in Mordor has the Ring. I did try to send him to Mt Doom but he obviously doesn't have the stones for it, as I can't get him to move there.

Control 39 territories directly (+Mordor), No 1 in everything but Military, Gross income 70K, expenditure 55K, net 15K. Quite a result for the very bottom faction at the start of the game. As I said earlier, a bit of a challenge and very hard going until you have crushed Rhun. A lot of fun though.

[Patronus]

Final report - the game has ended on a bit of an anticlimax on T265.

I sent an army to take back Edoras from Mordor, but as it approached I sent in a diplomat and on a whim clicked Become A Vassal, offering no money. They accepted. Harad has stopped fighting me. It's not worth going after them, too long and boring.

One of my generals in Mordor has the Ring. I did try to send him to Mt Doom but he obviously doesn't have the stones for it, as I can't get him to move there.

Control 39 territories directly (+Mordor), No 1 in everything but Military, Gross income 70K, expenditure 55K, net 15K. Quite a result for the very bottom faction at the start of the game. As I said earlier, a bit of a challenge and very hard going until you have crushed Rhun. A lot of fun though.

How did you end up dealing with Rhun's archers and Harad's Mumakill?

[regnak999]

How did you end up dealing with Rhun's archers and Harad's Mumakill?

I cannot say about the Mumakil but Rhun's archers??? Dale's one advantage over Rhun is having the best human archers. Those are not a problem, the uber men generals are.

[Joseignacio]

Yes, it was exhausting and very difficult, but could be done.

[Ngugi]