Third Age Vanilla or Divide And Conquer?

[SlartyBartfast]

What should the discerning LOTR Total War fan be playing right now?

[Dutch-Balrog]

Why not both? You can have multiple installations.

[SlartyBartfast]

They're both that good eh?

[Veteraan]

Less talk, more playing, I would say.

They are different and have their own strength and weaknesses as everything does really. But you are only really going to find out what suits you best by trying both mods yourself.

[Hagdar]

DaC is the better one imo. More factions, more versatile units and events, heroes and scripts. Consistent with updates and improvements by the DaC Team.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I think this is actually a good question to be answered: what are there relative strenghts and weaknesses (or maybe differences) between the (sub)mods.
If somebody hasn't played TATW yet, it's not so straightforward to decide what he should start with. Perhaps players who played MOS, DAC, alternative patch and other versions of the TATW could tell us about their experiences?
JoC

[Dutch-Balrog]

Overall DaC just expands TATW into every direction. More factions, new campaign map, new scripts and events, and custom settlements. Different ways the campaign plays out, different AI, different economic and building systems. Almost every faction's roster has been completely overhauled etc..... It's basically what if TATW developed for another 6 years in my experience.

As for MOS, AP and other versions, players who've played that a lot should explain their sides.

[z3n]

In my opinion, DaC is basically an official patch but perhaps I'm a little biased since I worked on that team at one point.

[leo.civil.uefs]

It seems like no one plays my submod anymore (did anyone ever play?), with a few exceptions of a bunch of guys who has the same thought as me about how TATW should be developed.

Its more or less clear that my submod always have been more a source of content than a submod to be played itself.
But this is over now since Im not producing custom settlements anymore and I've also already completed all the units based on the movies, soon after other mods take what they want from my stuff, my own work will have not much importance anymore. Well that day had to come after all.

Now when people say DAC is like an "unoffical" patch, meaning that it is what TATW vanilla should have developt to, I feel like the name of my submod is a mistake. I always thought about DAC as an expansion of vanilla TATW, with out of movie-lore units, factions that are composed by peoples not large enough to be a nation, an extended map that had to be filled with lots of creativity since the lore wont provide information about it, out of lore custom settlements and so on...

I am NOT criticizing DAC nor making any comparison with my own stuff, that would be nosense since both mods share stuff from each other, and each one has a different proposal.

I would say try my submod if you want like TATW vanilla with bug fixes and TONS of new stuff, aligned with what a 4.0 version of vanilla would be (I still keep this position).

Try DAC if you want an expansion, more lands to conquer, more units, more scripts, more EVERYTHING than what my submod offers, and dont worry about missing anything from my submod since DAC uses my stuff too, as well as I use some of them.

You could also try TATW REFORGED, wich is a MASSIVE addition of units with not much respect to the lore but there is so many people playing it currently that one cant even argue about if the mod is good or not, people seem to love it. Though this submod is only multiplayer for now, they're still to release the campaign version.

Sorry if I forgot to mention other submods but as far as I know none of them are still being updated.

Onde thing is right, dont stick with 3.2 vanilla. Its outdated, has bugs we already fixed and lacks a lot of "mandatory" new stuff we have been adding during the last years.

[z3n]

True enough, I wouldn't recommend DaC if it didn't have the settlements from your mod. IMO, those settlements make the game because the vast majority of my battles are siege battles and seeing something neat during the siege is what really makes it worth fighting the battle instead of autoresolving.

I remember playing it back in around 2013/2014 but I figured out that PCP had imported the settlements and started playing that. Although PCP isn't as accessible maybe to the common player or as popular...

[Lusitanio]

Well, I have played both DAC and the Alternative Patch for Third Age Total War mostly because I wanted to see how a vanilla TATW game was, so I can speak about both.

Taking everything into account, that is, units, gameplay, custom settlements, etc, I prefer DAC (desculpa Leo). This submod has an enormous amount of new things, scripts and factions that bring a lot of life to the game, in which every gameplay is totally different from the other and very challenging. Besides that, there are things that just feel better, like faction colours, symbols, the ring script, the custom settlements, placement settlements in the map, the number of factions that require a lot more strategy do deal with... Still, this submod is a lot slower than Leo due to the amount of scripts, which can be a major factor if you have a slower pc.

If you like a more "original" LOTR, that is, with focus on movie lore and without some fantasy units and factions that weren't sufficient strong to appear, you will like Leo submod. It is also easier to play, in my opinion, and it has some very nice looking units and some custom settlements that are different from DAC, some of them are better than DAC, others not, it really depends, but they are both great works of dedicated modders and if you have time, you should try both.

[alreadyded]

What should the discerning LOTR Total War fan be playing right now?

I don't see how someone that is discerning would ask such a vague question.

If you are a movie fan than vanilla or leo's mod, which I consider to be closest to what KK would have made if he had continued since he would have surely kept making new settlements more than anything else.

As for the book lore, my own mod is the only one that seems to care about that. But it is only set in the lore, all of these mods stop being lore accurate after the game has been going on for a bit. Gameplay and replay-ability are more important in a game than keeping to a linear story line. Vanilla does have a Fellowship campaign that follows the lore, I would imagine most mods removed it to free up space for new stuff.

For casual gamers that just want a fun game more than anything else DaC is probably the best bet, it has been made by so many people you should find some things you like at least. I don't know if they ever got a CAI to work well with that map though. Pretty sure they stopped using mine long ago, which probably didn't work well on that map either. I never played it I just knew a lot of people that worked on it.

Any way you go you are still playing Med 2 TW, none of them change the core gameplay. I usually recommend people try them all, and save the one you think you will like most for last. I also don't recommend my own mod, I didn't make it for anyone else, just me. I only upload it for testing.

[LuckyPistol]

Play both, honestly. DaC takes a decent amount of liberties to the lore, so if you're a book/movie purist stick with Vanilla, MOS, or leo's.

Gameplay wise, DaC adds new units, rebalances stats, creates varied recruitment buildings amongst its many factions, and even throws in some new scripts like the Blue Wizards. There's a lot more variety in DaC. That said, Vanilla (including MOS and leo's) has the Fellowship campaign, which is a load of fun, and keeps certain features like spiders and cinematics that DaC drops for performance issues.

[Veteraan]

That said, Vanilla (including MOS and leo's) has the Fellowship campaign, which is a load of fun, and keeps certain features like spiders and cinematics that DaC drops for performance issues.

Being somewhat knowledgeable about MOS, I have to correct you on the availability of the Fellowship campaign in MOS. You can select it, but I'm afraid you can't actually play it. This is the case for 1.70, can't remember if you can play it in 1.62.

[SlartyBartfast]

Thank you all for your helpful replies; this is the sort of info I was looking for. I am going to start with leo's Alternative Patch and then try MOS after that and then finally DAC. Thanks again.

[aetiusaetius]

How is DACs AI and general difficulty? I remember choosing MOS time ago because DAC was said to be very easy, and because of some out of lore content. Has this changed?

[LuckyPistol]

Even without the added DOOM scripts, I find MOS to be more challenging overall, but the AI in DaC has a similar AI to Stainless Steel and it's submods, where the AI might not engage you at all if it's too disadvantageous. I've literally had battles where I set up my defenses (AI initiated battle) and then ran out the clock as the AI stood there waiting for me to attack them. Battles in MOS have tended to last longer for me than in DaC, though DaC has definitely done everything it can to remove bugs and glitches, to the point of removing features entirely.

DaC's advantage is that you have more factions to consider and juggle diplomacy with. Some factions are forced to make choices when allies go to war. Certain factions in MOS that are easy are given difficulty curves in DaC (Rhun, Harad), some factions that are difficult in MOS are made easier in DaC (Dale for example). MOS does have the Beacons of Gondor/Drums of the Deep script, which in my opinion is worth a Gondor/Rohan and Misty Mountains/Gundabad playthrough on its own. It can completely change the early game.

In general I would say DaC is more welcoming to those new to Total War, while MOS is for veterans who want the option to keep challenging themselves.

[aetiusaetius]

very detailed explanation, thankyou for the insight. Its a shame MOS halted development. Luckily, I think Veteran maintains the thread.

[Veteraan]

very detailed explanation, thankyou for the insight. Its a shame MOS halted development. Luckily, I think Veteran maintains the thread.

I try to keep an eye on it and help out where I can. However, it's been a long time since I played it myself and I notice that I have lost a bit of the knowledge I used to have about MOS. It's not surprising, as I have been heavily involved in the DCI:LA team for at least five years now.

It's true that MOS development basically stopped after patch 5 for V1.70. However, MIKE GOLF is still working steadily on a very substantial update of his "Reunited Kingdom 2.0" submod for MOS 1.70. Of course you know this very well, but others might not. I think MIKE has still some work to be done though before we will see the actual release.

[aetiusaetius]

Its appreciated that you take care of the thread.

Reunited Kingdom 2.0 and DCI:LA both seem extraordinary mods, I am really looking forward to their release! Talking about

DCI:LA, we are longing for the next preview…!