TATW DaC

[A Generic Goblin]

So I just now got Divide and Conquer, after playing TATW for around a year. I know it isn't much different from vanilla TA, and I've watched a playthrough.

But I want to know: What faction offers the most fun? Which one is the most difficult? Which is the easiest? And which is the most boring?

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

I know it isn't much different from vanilla TA

Wrong. Absolutely wrong. DaC plays - not looks, not has rosters - completely differently to TATW. In TATW you needed to take power centres like Moria, Erebor, Rhomen, Carn Dum - and the rest of the villages could be ignored. In DaC everything's up for the taking - and taking stuff like Gundabad is now thoroughly useful.

Furthermore, many Orc early-tier units are now atrocious. Snaga Archers have 1 missile, 1 melee, 1 charge, and 0 def. Orc Band have similar stats - 1,1,1, and not even an attack bonus vs cavalry anymore.

Dwarven factions are freaking OP because of the deadly pikes + catapult combination. Turn 60 and I've nearly destroyed the OoMM, starting an invasion on Thranduil, and starting to annhilate Rhun. Catapults everywhere else are useless - Dwarven DaC catapults are seriously OP. Switch to grapeshot / mortar and you'll see what I mean.

Elves have slow recruitment but fast and thoroughly deadly units. Lorien "scouts" had about 15 def and 10 attack last time I checked.

... There's a lot of variety in DaC, really.

[A Generic Goblin]

Thanks, but that didn't really answer my questions.

So does Mordor still control Dol Guldur? I saw some fac called the Shadow of Mirkwood or something.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Start up DaC and look at the map

There's about thirty factions or so, each with their own little tidbits of usefulness, and even I can't explain them all as I've never played as half of the factions.

[A Generic Goblin]

Well, if you attack Khazad-Dum, is there still a bunch of balrogs and orcs that appear?

[soontir fel]

the dwarf khazad dum faction has a whole bunch of scripts that do stuff but I've never done it so I can't tell you much. You choose the path from erebor to khazad dum you fight and then I think you have some more scripts

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Morgathos:

But I want to know: What faction offers the most fun? Which one is the most difficult? Which is the easiest? And which is the most boring?

Depends on how difficult you want it to be.

Currently I'm playing with Umbar, having destroyed Dol Amroth, Gondor, went for Isengard (cuz Orthanc be of Numenor build and I'm playing the Numenor descendants of Ar-Pharazon that reject the Isildur bloodline RP FTW) and then I got into a war with Mordor. Cuz F-you Sauron!

Got an invasion called on me; Harad, Khand, Dol Goldur, Rhun, Mordor all joined against me (Angmar/Misty Mountains/Isengard already dead). Invasion lasted some 10-20 battles at Umbar. Killed Harad in the mean time (don't have coastal cities against a navy faction ^^) and after the Invasion signed peace with Mordor before finishing off Khand.

Got a short war with Northern Dunedain before getting peace with them, Lindon then decided to be annoying and blockade my ports, prompting me to build the biggest navy Middle Earth had ever seen.

Allied with Khazad-Dum (largest Dwarven Faction there is atm) and later on with the Dunedain. Bree-Land, Erebor, Enedwaith, Rohan and Khand all disappeared in a span of 20 turns.

Mordor has re-declared war on me and the Dunedain are at war with Lindon and Ered Luin.

I also get like 100k per turn on income but Rhun is still #1 in military with me on 82% of their strenght and Mordor has like 5-10 stacks in the Ithilien area against my 4-5 stacks.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by Morgathos:

Well, if you attack Khazad-Dum, is there still a bunch of balrogs and orcs that appear?

NO SPOILAHS PLS

Best way to find out is play it yourself ;) I will say that Khazad-Dum has the single most difficult earlygame in the entire map, and abusing the autoresolve is essential. Once you've gotten past the earlygame things aren't a problem, as you have very easy expansion + the single most profitable city in the game.

Originally posted by soontir fel:

the dwarf khazad dum faction has a whole bunch of scripts that do stuff but I've never done it so I can't tell you much. You choose the path from erebor to khazad dum you fight and then I think you have some more scripts

That advice is simply sooooo useful.... the specifics, "scripts that do stuff..." I learnt so much from this - and the scripts afterwards, you've gone into intricate detail on them, simply amazing...

+5 SARCASM

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I'd like to give you a breakdown of the factions. But there's two problems with that:

1) DaC has soooo many factions I don't know it all - it's taken me about 100 hours as the Dwarves of Erebor to understand how to play them for complete OP-ness (unit kill/death ratio of 100 - 1700 orcs dead, 17 dwarves dead in one siege battle). On top of that, I've only played the Dwarves, having beaten up the others - although I did try Gondor, rush Mordor, and accidentally trigger the "last-settlement-stand" script => full stack of Olog-Hai and I have Gondor Militia :P I can make an educated guess about how the others play, but so should you...
2) I can't be bothered writing up a gigantic wall of text on it. :P

If nothing else, just play ten turns with a faction to see what they're like (although ten turns in TATW is about two turns in M2 :P)

[Fighting Irish]

I don't usually play as the evil factions tbh but the one I found actually presented the greatest challenge was the Gondor one inevitably enough. Really tough trying to press into Mordor when you're getting invasions called on places like Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul if you've taken it. Add to that the triple threat of Harad, Khand and Corsair invasions, and it can take a little while to truly press in on Mordor although the task is made that much easier with the help of Dol Amroth.

The one I found most interesting was the Northern Dunedain campaign as it has a cool little script involving the army of the dead which makes it quite interesting and very unique. You also come in contact with a hell of a lot of different factions being stuck in the middle of Eriador.

As for which campaigns are the easiest I would say that all the elvish factions are pretty easy to play although it can be quite thrilling at times when you're being rushed at by hordes of orcs and you get to mow them down with reams and reams of arrows. They give you an air of invincibility that none of the other factions do.

I also recently played as the Dwarves of Erebor which was much easier than I thought it would be as Rhun left me alone in the early game allowing me to focus on the Orcs of the misty mountains and Angmar who both proved easy to destroy and I was then able to face off against Rhun with the benefit of a massive economy behind me.

But again all this can change depending on the way you choose to play the game. Thats whats so great about this game, there's no one way you can play it.

[Inardesco]

Elves can be quite the challenge if you don't set up your economy (unless you play as Lindon cuz ports). With my first Imladris campaign I ran into bankruptcy supporting more forces then I could. When I tried out Mirkwood I overexpanded in the early stages of the game, having way to few troops to defend against Dol Goldur and OoMM at the same time.

So whilst the Elves are somewhat on the easier side mid-late game, they're certainly not easy in the start of the campaigns due to slow recruitment and can easily be crushed when overexpanding.