Campaign Reports

[MasterOfNone]

Campaign: Kingdom of Dale (recommended settings)
Alignment: Ways of the West
Attitude: Cautious

My campaign continues as I develop my outland settlements and seize Rhovanost. In so doing I slay the last remaining family member of North Rhun and the faction is no more. Rhun itself have been very reluctant to attack me. I'm sure that will change. Or perhaps Adunabar will strike out from the northernmost pass in the Misty Mountains that they now hold?

I've built my first Levy Outpost too.

My general battle tactic has been to line up all my archers/slingers in a big line at the front, turn off skimrish mode, and cut to shreds anything that approaches, bringing Black Spears and other melee units forward in the next stage of the battle, and sending horsemen out after vulnerable missile units in the back of the enemy's ranks.

I'm of the view that some ancs are gained too often (especially the herbmaster and pioneering farmer), and possibly the economy could be slightly poorer for more of a challenge - though my playstyle does favour amassing wealth

Dale is in competition with Harad for being the most advanced kingdom

[CountMRVHS]

Nice!

I love seeing those maps. Poor RK! But at least Rohan is still alive... I'm curious how the Dwarves ended up with Fornhud(?) - bribery? I wonder what would happen if you gifted them some settlements...

Capturing all along the Celduin, Dale to Belegant, is where I start to see serious wealth in my campaigns, and that's easiest to accomplish as Dale. Looks like you have some big fights in store, though, seeing as you're surrounded by some powerful looking factions and have a ways to go before victory. I say you should turn yourself into the protector of Rohan and take on Harad

[MasterOfNone]

I'm not sure how the Dwarves got it - I just saw them with it not too many turns into the game... I was secretly hoping that Rhun would grab it so I could then take it...but the Dwarves keep repelling them

[Thangaror]

Campaign: Kingdom of Tharbad
Difficulty: Decidedly Tookish / Bullroaring


So, this is the second campaign I started. Tharbad is quite comfortable playing, everyone else is busy with their other neighbour and there are lots of rebel settlements around.
I captured Rîdhmallen and Ethir Berain first and focused on increasing income. Swanfleet, Vorn Hollen and Sarnford I left alone for a while. After some time, Adûnabâr dared to attack me at Tharbad, but the Cult's units are quite weak and they basically only field Swords of the Shadow, very few Grim Spears, Dark Bows and the rest are Underlings. I immediately sallied for the counterstrike and seized Threeways, which improved my income massively! Seriously, I think this town needs some balancing.

RK and Rohan got their arses kicked by Adûnabâr and Dunland. Especially the RK just got stomped, no sign of resistance. In my first campaign I had a go at the Elves, and despite great support in Arnor, RK was annihilated quickly. I tried to take some pressure of the RK, and donate quite a sum, but it's all in vain. I crushed a few of Adûn's full stacks and handed Bree and Fornost back to the RK (couldn't provide enough garrison anyway), as I planned to fall Dunland in the back.

Amazingly, both Adûn and Dunland create armies out of nowhere! I dealt some quick strokes against Limfalas and Dunhold without meeting any kind of resistance. My secret service "toggle_fow" told me, that only some rather small enemy armies were campaigning in Rohan, Rhudaur respectively. However, about five turns later, my army was cornered by two and half Dunlending armies, and Adûn was fiercily pushing against the RK again. I suffered heavy defeats, surprisingly my infantry stands no chance against the fierce Dunlendigs, despite heavy missile support. Tharbad Axemen are really crappy, and the Mariners don't fare that much better. Axes of the Wolf are a real danger, as are (I'm quite shocked!) those bloody Dunland Riders! Also I was too careless in the beginning, focussing to much on Tharbad instead of distributing recruitment to a greater extend, and now I'm restricted by low population.


Out there in Middle-earth, I'm surprised (again) that Rhovanion is still doing quite fine. For a moment I thought, Dorwinion's gonna make it, they took, uhm, Eastland Reaches?, but where crushed by North Rhûn. Dale and the Beornings are at war, however absolutely nothing has happened there in years.
Khand was crushed in a combined effort by Rhûn and Harad. Neither of those bothers with Adûnabâr.


Some thoughts: Adûn got a massive boost since the beta, maybe a bit too much. None of her neighbours seem to bother, atm they're at war only with RK, Rohan and Rhovanion.
Dunland got extremely wealthy. They're by far ahead of every mannish nation (as usual, those greedy Hobbits amass Dragon Hoards!). Also, Dunland's recruitment potential seems limitless. Dunhold had more than 7000! men available. Even considering Dunlands massive losses and large number of men, this seems over the top.


Would be nice to know, how Adûn does in your experience, I have the feeling she's too powerful.


The screenshot is hilarious. Are the Haradrim on vacation?

[CountMRVHS]

Spawning armies out of nowhere seems odd... DoM doesn't use scripts to do such things AFAIK. Is it possible toggle_fow doesn't show ambushing armies? Maybe those stacks were hiding...

Each faction, when chosen by the player, gets a different set of circumstances. So it doesn't surprise me that Dunland and Adunabar are doing great when you play as Tharbad; those are the very factions we'd want to buff in order to give you a challenge. At what point in the game was Dunland recruiting 7K soldiers? If they have taken Rohan and Gondor, that would probably explain it.

As for how Adunabar does usually, that's a difficult question. In my experience lately, AI-controlled Adunabar consistently wins in the North, and usually does quite well in the South. Late-game, Harad tends to give it trouble.

[athanaric]

Tharbad Axemen are really crappy, and the Mariners don't fare that much better. Axes of the Wolf are a real danger, as are (I'm quite shocked!) those bloody Dunland Riders!

That'll be due to the battle difficulty setting... Apart from that, AotW are supposed to be good (top tier unit), you'll have to make them a priority target for your archers (just like Hillmen and Wolfhunters). Just be glad that you're facing actual units and not experiencing dog spam like in the beta versions.
Mariners generally aren't particularly great against anything, though. They're mostly good for fording rivers and flanking.

[SnuggleBunnies]

Adun in my Dale game got crushed between RK and Rhun, so I think results vary considerably.

[webba84]

Mariners are fast, with good stamina, and AP weapons. Use pikemen, axemen or spearmen to hold the line and charge the mariners in on the flank of armoured units and you will devastate them.

FATW has no scripts of any kind that create armies out of nowhere (except at the campaign start, obviously). There are, however, many wooded areas of the map, particularly in Dunland, where armies can hide and toggle_fow does not show you those.

[Thangaror]

Spawning armies out of nowhere seems odd... DoM doesn't use scripts to do such things AFAIK. Is it possible toggle_fow doesn't show ambushing armies? Maybe those stacks were hiding...

Each faction, when chosen by the player, gets a different set of circumstances. So it doesn't surprise me that Dunland and Adunabar are doing great when you play as Tharbad; those are the very factions we'd want to buff in order to give you a challenge. At what point in the game was Dunland recruiting 7K soldiers? If they have taken Rohan and Gondor, that would probably explain it.

I know there are no scripts. But the rate they spill out armies feels as if the game engine suddenly was ported to M2TW, and it werepossible to recruit more than one unit per turn per town. It might be the armies had been hidden, though that'd be a strange coincidence. I guess the AI simply is massively recruiting in every settlement it has, and has much greater resources of men and money than I do. However, it just feels weird, it's much weirder than the "Footmen of Harad full stack spam" back in TNS.

Dunland wasn't recruiting 7K soldiers, Dunhold had a population of 7000 able-bodied men. Which is incredibly high, compared to Pelargir or Minas Arnor having some 1500 IIRC, and ultimately means that the AI could recruit without ever depleting the population.

Mariners are fast, with good stamina, and AP weapons. Use pikemen, axemen or spearmen to hold the line and charge the mariners in on the flank of armoured units and you will devastate them.

That's basically what I do.

Setup: A(xemen), M(ariners), S(pearmen), B(owmen), L(ongbowmen), C(avalry

     B B
  A A A A A
   M  M  M
C   L L L    C
    S S S
      G

Maybe I'll try the Pikemen as first line, they have quite decent armour. But IIRC this didn't work well when I last tried this with Dunland in TNS.

[athanaric]

Mariners are fast, with good stamina, and AP weapons. Use pikemen, axemen or spearmen to hold the line and charge the mariners in on the flank of armoured units and you will devastate them.

They don't have the "hardy" trait though. Are you referring to the heat resistance and "stat_ground" (whatever those are) stats? As for performance, in my experience they're the least effective AP units out there. Not saying they need to be buffed or anything, they aren't elite units after all.

[webba84]

Heat resistance means units will tire slower in hot climates, stat_ground provides combat bonuses in the associated terrain (once it exceeds a certain threshold you will see the "combat bonus in xxxx" line on the unit card).

They certainly aren't especially powerful AP units, but as you correctly say, they aren't elites either. They have a rather specific function in the roster which is to pair up with at least one other unit to counter heavily armoured elites (they work surprisingly well on cavalry even). I'd never take more than 2 of them in a stack, and none at all against Dunland where your pike, axe, spear and even that rubbish cavalry are all far more cost effective.

Thangaror, the only significant change I would make to your battle line would be to add in a lot more mariner bowmen (they are great value for money). I'd want at least 6 units of them, with no more than 2 of the more expensive City Longbowmen. Use stand your ground on the LBs and have them take out high threat targets, while your regular bowmen aim to inflict as many casualties on lightly armoured enemies as possible with the goal of making them easier to rout.

As you've discovered your infantry is adequate at best (though I think you will find Tharbad's pikemen much improved from TNS Dunland ones) so you want to get away with using as few of them as possible. Don't underestimate your axemen either - just need to stack the odds in their favour.

Also, a note about ai recruitment - its very simple and stupid. Essentially if it has enough money and population to do so the ai will recruit from every settlement it owns, every turn. It would be wonderful if we could set population/population growth thresholds below/above which they didn't, but we can't. To stop the ai draining every settlement completely (which would make the campaign ridiculously easy) we have to give them the population growth in at least some settlements (eg Dunhold) to keep up constant recruitment. The good news there is that by specifying open and military settlements as the high pop ones for AI we can somewhat ensure they recruit more high tier units. Dunland gets higher base population growth than Tharbad, and it's boosted in a Tharbad campaign because we've set them up to be one of your most dangerous foes.

Just keep in mind that fighting on the battlefield isn't the only way to get rid of them - the cost of bribery is based on a units recruitment/upkeep and Dunland units are cheap...

Also, on the DoM map there are a lot of trees, particularly in Enedwaith. It's very, very likely that you will encounter hidden armies and ambushes there.

[Arsaces II]

I tried the Elven Realm campaign (restarted) several times.
I must say that if you're planning a stable long campaign, then the intervention of Glorfindel and some outland expeditions is necessary. At the very beginning of campaign I crush Adunabar completely in Arnor and give their settlements to RK and Shire, meanwhile taking Rivendell, High Pass(very important to provide communication). Another MUST is to declare war to Tharbad (If not they will do the same thing later) and take Tharbad, Northguard, Southguard, then Swanfleet and O-i-E.also usually I'm fight with Noldor swordsmen all alone and this way I got several new family members (one of them is Noldo and Youthful, a real rarity in this days. In Rhovanion I capture early on Mid - deeping and lathron and give them to Rhovanion. And lastly in Rohan(after making an alliance) I send a General with several archer and intervene as necessary to keep the balance.

[Wambat]

I am 12 turns into my second RK campaign. I went 6 turns with my first campaign before realizing the importance of the loyalty in my governors. I now have far fewer governors, which helps with my front line, as well as my pocket.

RK is the embodiment of everything noble, good, and honorable in man. I, on the other hand, am an incorrigible weasel. As such I have been trying to undermine Rohan in order that I might later claim their former lands from Dunland. Naturally, the AI learned of my plans and is doing everything in its power to foil my ambitions. Rohan has claimed both Dunhold and Dol Baran with no fight from the Dunlendings. The Dunlendings have, however, been enthusiastically laying siege to Thoronburg. What can you do?

In my first campaign I abandoned Bree, thinking it could not be defended, but thanks to watching Tulkas' LP I realized that a unit of Trolls could be neutralized by my Kondom Millitia. Indeed, I saw points in Tulkas' battle for Bree where he might have pulled off a win had he pressed his advantage. Around turn 8 I felt I had broken the Adunabar offensive in Arnor and started claiming the lands of Eriador, starting with Tirn-fervain and working my way clockwise to eliminate Adunabar’s presence systematically, and well as to postpone the time when I will have to share a border with Tharbad. Tharbad has been pretty quiet, and much of lower Eriador has actually been claimed by Adunabar.
Adunabar’s reluctance to take any initiative in the south was quite disastrous for them. They lost all their provinces west of Mordor, as well as the three forts just inside Mordor, and good luck to them trying to get them back. Their large stack west of the Minas Ithil wasted itself on a river crossing battle trying to break my siege of Cair Andros rather than claiming an empty Minas Ithil; a trap, of course, but the river crossing did just as well and saved me having to assault the fort’s walls.

Rhovanion was slapped down by Dorwinion straight off and has not shown any signs of recovery. Every once in a while Rhovanion will send a ragtag army to Belegant to have their arses handed to them. Aside from Rhovanost trading hands, nothing much has happened in the northeast; alliances are changing up there every turn, but no progress. Rhun is expanding and will be in a good position to take all the Northmen factions piecemeal if none of them get their together.

Harondor is an obstinate little prick. Refusing alliance with me and not accepting my natural claim to Harlorn. It was not long before I had added them to my list of “at war” factions. They lost some half stacks losing Harlorn and my coastal raiding. Once I had finished with Adunabar’s forces outside of Mordor, Harondor could not offer much defense against my concentrated forces moving south. They are now down to Râd Harnen, and maybe a half stack of units all told. I would like to keep them there as a buffer against Harad, but I doubt very much they will be reasonable. I just don’t feel right about using the forced diplomacy. We’ll see.

I started my costal raiding against Harad, but was quickly in over my head. I was only very lucky that my best Scout (rank 3) was in the area and opened the gates at both Caras Nann and Umbar. Harad is not nearly so irresponsible about keeping stacks near to its coast now; my half stack would not have survived out in the open long enough to do a proper siege. I am cutting that raid short until I can come back with a full stack.

Low Scout rankings are a real problem. I have at least a dozen Scouts on the map now and only my two initial Scouts are above rank 0. There is almost nothing a rank 0 Scout can practice on without a better than 50% chance of snuffing it. Building up a decent intelligence network looks like it will cost more than maintaining a fleet. Up to now I have been using them to scout the map; it would be nice if they had a better chance of increasing ranks upon mission completion, or even some chance of advancing each round even if they are not used, or maybe if they are in enemy territory.

Khand and Far Harad have recently declared war on one another. Harad is having a quite easy time of it apart from the misfortune of being at war with me. Adunabar has, at least, claimed the eastern half of Mordor and has stayed out of wars with other factions. Tharbad has only taken Greyholm and Ost-in-Edhil. With my luck they will head straight to Rivendell as soon as I capture it.

My King has been <5 on authority the entire time. I have been doing a lot of expansion, and have more enemies than friends, though I do have a very healthy bank account. Just touching 70,000 in the bank this turn, and I am three turns into the Tower of the Moon.

[Stark1]

Where the hell do you get that amount of money in 12 turns? With your treasury and tower of the Moon buildinging (and I assume you've also been building other stuff, recruiting and retraining) you're at least 90,000 miriams on positive (when you deduct 30,000 you start with). And you mention a bunch of scouts, I assume at least some new troops built for raiding Harad and taking Harlorn, taking offensive in the north, etc.

How? Does removing faithless governers really make that much difference? Hints please

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm, less than 5 Authority? That seems lower than I'd like, given your wealth and success. I would guess diplomacy matters more for RK than those other factors, but still. Other things that can help Authority include keeping taxes low everywhere, building up an infrastructure "sensibly" (i.e. with both military and financial/happiness developments), and not having the bulk of your expenses on a huge standing army.

Agree that agents' skill needs a tweak. I wouldn't mind them generally initializing with some very minor skill (I'm talking just 1 subterfuge), but the bigger concern is gaining skill through successful missions, which seems not to happen much, if at all. One thing you can do is just leave your Scout in town until he develops the "network" trait, which gives him 2 skill, and then send him on a mission he can attempt in one turn (so as not to lose the trait). This is something that may have to wait for Aradan to look at.

[Wambat]

Where the hell do you get that amount of money in 12 turns? With your treasury and tower of the Moon buildinging (and I assume you've also been building other stuff, recruiting and retraining) you're at least 90,000 miriams on positive (when you deduct 30,000 you start with). And you mention a bunch of scouts, I assume at least some new troops built for raiding Harad and taking Harlorn, taking offensive in the north, etc.

How? Does removing faithless governers really make that much difference? Hints please

I am a niggardly bastard. I do not commission expensive units; except where necessary, like the catapults; otherwise all T1 archers, and I do not fight fair with the AI. I game the hell out of the AI on the battlefield and would rather lose a battle than take any substantial losses, so I am not spending a lot of money on retraining. I do get substantial income from diplomacy early in the game: you can ask for financial support in exchange for fighting the factions you are already fighting. That sours pretty quick as most factions decide they cannot trust you after the third or fourth round, but it keeps you in the black for those early rounds that are the most likely to send you into the red. Later you can still bring in good money selling your map. At turn 12 I probably have one or two more turns of map selling before all settlements are revealed. I have not been investing broadly in infrastructure; may be why my king's authority is so low; instead I have been concentrating on building up construction industry in those settlements that can build them, one at a time to get the progressive benefit. And I just raided two major settlements on Harad's coast; sold everything. And finally, yes, supportive governors do make a big difference in how much money you are shelling out and taking in each round.

[Tulkasthevaliant]

Man, I wish I was as good as you. Maybe it involves being more aggressive early on, I dunno. It just feels like every time I stir beyond by borders I get decimated. And yeah, you're probably right about the Bree battle, once all the units started routing I should have pushed more. Oh well.

[Wambat]

Man, I wish I was as good as you. Maybe it involves being more aggressive early on, I dunno. It just feels like every time I stir beyond by borders I get decimated. And yeah, you're probably right about the Bree battle, once all the units started routing I should have pushed more. Oh well.

I play super conservatively. I save all the time due to my experiences with CTD in the past. I quite often reload and replay previous turns if I realize I forgot to initiate a project, or move a spy. I do not play in any kind of way that would be good for LP. I stated my current campaign January 28th and usually spend two or more hours on the campaign each day. I play games like watching pant dry. I am very glad you are not "as good" as me.

[webba84]

Each to their own, the beauty of single player games is that everyone can play them in whatever way they enjoy the most!

[Tulkasthevaliant]

Maybe so. But when you're twenty episodes into a series and you have fewer settlements than you started with you sorta start to worry about entertaining the viewers. But FATW is designed to be slower-paced than vanilla, after all. It's the sort of game that I enjoy loads as a player, but makes for poorer LP content. I'd probably do better if I wasn't recording, I keep advancing prematurely because I don't want to make the viewers sit through ten episodes of MA sieges while I build financial buildings. But hey, still getting a lot of views so I'm happy. I don't like to save-scum though, except in Civ V when I got annhiliated. Those pesky Zulus.... or Zulu. Is Zulu the plural? You know, it would take less time to look it up than to complain about not knowing, but hey. Ignorance is bliss, and I sure do love my bliss.