Lol I'm actually playing a Mordor campaign currently. This is pretty much how I dealt with the pointy eared scum. Lothlorien is extinct, the green pointys are next. 😁
I think there should be a custom ring script for Lothlorien. If you get the ring as Lothlorien, you should be able to get Galadriel as a unit (kinda like BFME2). It would make the campaign a little more unique.
Remember that when Galadriel gave a Galadrim bow to Legolas, she says "worthy of only our kind in the north". This to me sounds like the woodland realm are the best with a bow, when Galadriel her self said it.
@J. Doe lol it's not a balance thing; it's a lore-accuracy thing. While there has been some stretching and invention where there are holes in the lore, the dwarven battle style is firmly documented by Tolkien and it really does not include goat riders. Jackson invented that all himself.
@J. Doe ... so I really feel like your list proved my point, not yours... Everything in there (bar Agandaur and the Ered Luin ring script, which I'll grant you) was vague in the lore and has been artistically expanded in DAC. Even the Ar-Adunaim is not crazy far-fetched; there was obviously enough of a warrior society in Umbar to man 50 massive man-of-wars and "smaller vessels beyond number..." Similarly, I find your lack of faith in the Elven siege capabilities disturbing; they successfully sieged the Black Gate and Barad Dur and are able to live for millenia... you think they forgot all that? On the flip side, we know exactly how the dwarves fight, and it never included cavalry. Gimli's distrust of horses in Rohan only reinforces it.
J. Doe if you really want them, you could try port them yourself actually. Galu has made an in depth video of how to port units from other submods into DaC, and I have done so myself with a couple. Not with the goats tho
@Mister Jane Doe @Mister Jane Doe honestly imo I think it makes balance worse in reforged a lot of people think the dwarves are op atm and I agree the goat cav they get gives them too much flexibility especially the bodyguard one.
Honestly, i have been loving this channel and mod. I used to not be very fond of this mod, but now its all i play. Keep it up, hello from Washington!!!!
Difficulty 3. Winning is often straightforward but takes a long time. Remember you have to kill Mordor, and I've found I'm up against great beasts by the time I break into Mordor. And thus I also need enough economy to build and maintain 2 or more full stack field armies that can defeat the many Mordor stacks that have beasts, olog hai, and top tier units. A constant steam of reinforcements is required, but take a long time to get there. And the slow elven build rate means half of my units are lower tier. Oh, and if Morder rolls Gondor before you get there, the job becomes even harder. So the 3 is really a bet that Lorien gets its economy and armies pumping before Mordor smashes Gondor. Could also easily become a 2 or 4 depending on the Mordor / Gondor outcome (and Rhun strength to lesser extent)
They are elves, they cant be higher than a 2, and the fact they have only one bordering enemy at the start makes things even easier leaning towards 1.5 out of 5. You can legit take Amon Lanc before turn 10 with em and basically win the campaign THAT early. The new Caras Galadhon btw is AMZING props to the team, i congratulated them in discord but i think their work is beyond professional and deserves praise everywhere they can get it.
I agree. I haven't played Lorien in ages so I gave it a go. Forty turns in and I've beaten Dol Guldur and am about to take the ring to Mordor (and I didn't even rush the Dol Guldur fortress). Whereas I recently played the three good Numenorian campaigns and lost each one before the barracks event. Lorien is a cakewalk; I don't know how anyone wins the Northern Dunedain campaign...
@@a-a-ron3542 aren't Lorien get crusade from mordor at some point early in game? i remember i defeated the dol guldur army but 2 stacks from goblins and 2 from mordor was the end of my campaign. The economy is garbage too, like i can lose half of army by getting a village\city that can barely upkeeps 1-2 units. I never experienced such a poorly balanced campaing
@@bertranwalker It's easy to deal with if you're okay using cheese to beat it: the first crusading army that shows up is almost always pathetic; just walk out of the city, let them take it, and then besiege it and take it back again. In my campaign that I mentioned in the comment though, I fought every army that came and beat them. It was the only challenge in the entire campaign. I took out Mordor before I even got my elites out. Edit: I am not a good Total War player. I can't even win the easy campaigns in the later games (partly due to lack of patience). When I say something is easy, I'm well below even Galu's standards. Legend of Total War could probably beat my Elven campaigns with Goblin spam.
I think an opening in the misty mountains with a fort in the middle belonging to the Vale is fitting. Especially defended with the unit created from the lore of defending the pass.
Something small about the Ents: I was able to train them from Isengard itself after capturing it, never seen any in Rochberg's region. I'd need to check but I'm pretty sure they were attached to the Orthanc building. Not a bad way to do it, honestly. Kind of feels like you're liberating Fangorn from Isengard and the Ents are grateful.
I’d put it at a 2, you start off with a small army and not very good finances, but after the first 15ish turns it’s a breeze. But maybe I’m just bad at total war lol
I agree with you, dol guldor can be a challenge early but once the anduin, dale, and the woodland realms get moving and border dol guldor you can expect the rest of the campaign to be easy as your main enemy is targeting 3+ factions
As the first faction I played I thought the start was quite easy but then it got difficult in the late game because Rohan and Gondor were completely destroyed by isenguard and Mordor respectively so ended up with a 2vs1 against strong Isenguard and Mordors that seemed to replenish a whole full stack every other turn or so each, and elven replenishment too slow to keep up even when trading very favourably in each battle. Oh also Khazad dum and Dorwinion and Dol Amroth also were all defeated by evil in that game. Advice: don't neglect Rohan; it'll be a much nicer time if you help them beat Isenguard earlier. Also playing relaxed and turtling and building economy doesn't work!
Thanks for nice review again. The perfect definition of "assassin" just filled the gap in my mind about that unit, which were looked weird to me always(bows with javelin range). I can recruit Ents not from the Rochburg but from Isengard directly with Woodland Realm, probably this will be same. And the special unit for both Elven faction which comes by rejecting alliance is sooooooooooo rare to recruit, I will never chose that way personally.
You are starting to sell me on trying DAC. I've resisted, but I love your enthusiasm. I'm a Reforged fan. I do really see all the work you're putting into this mod. I'm going to try it out soon.
I really like the balanced thought behind the stats of the Berio I Ngelaith; you're giving up some great Woodland units for something truly unique, but you economy does require judicial use.
its not crossing though the settlements, theres just an road around the settlement, so allied people can go around, where as the circle of command or whatever would stop enemies from doing so
Ahh.. it's (probably) my favourite faction! Excellent. I will just say I do prefer the way the Galadhrim with their shields look a bit more than the halberds, but it's nothing too big. I do hope to get a glimpse of the new battlemap at some point. As it is now, they're probably a 2 in terms of difficulty. With a decent amount of rebel settlements to take, with the Misty Mountains probably not bothering you too much it's really a case of making sure the player balances economy, defence and offence (kind of like the High Elves in that respect). Just make sure not to overextend and take out Dol Guldur at some point. A tad harder than the Woodland realm, for Thranduil starts with a larger and safer territory but it shouldn't matter all that much. The one thing I can't really bring myself to do is to accept the Elven Alliance and I'm not sure what could make me change my mind, although I'll grant that is most certainly not the point of the mod. :oP I'll go for the Berio n gelaidh as I always have. Which is fine, it just makes the script less of a choice for me personally.
To play devil's advocate, I don't think Galadriel giving Legolas a bow necessarily means Lothlorien fields better archers; just they can make better gear. The Mirkwood elves are noted to be poorer than their cousins in The Hobbit, so that wouldn't surprise me. Another point in Mirkwoods favor is that, to my knowledge, they've had more recent experience in warfare than Lothlorien. Apart from the events of The Hobbit, they also have Dol Guldur sitting in their forest and spreading its evil influence northward. They've likely been fighting and skirmishing with spiders and orcs constantly over the decades whereas the Galadrim have largely sat peacefully in their forest, only occasionally coming out or being attacked. So you could easily say that for all that Lothlorien troops are better equipped, the Woodland Realm's experience makes them the better archers.
It's a solid 2.5 at the beginning, if you're rushing for Dol Guldur in the first 20 turns (Talking maximum difficulty). Later on though, most often Isengard destroys Rohan, Mordor kills Gondor and Rhun captures Dorwinion, so all of the sudden you're in a war on 3 fronts with late tier Isengard and Rhun being especially hard to deal with (In my campaign Anduin Vale attacked me too), so from the mid-late campaign definitely becomes 3.5 or even 4. Isengard sending 3 uber stacks at turn 120 is not uncommon.
In my game Dorwinion trampled Rhun, it's about the only good news, because the rest of the map is a clusterfuck for the good guys. Even Ered Luin went rogue and Lindon has fallen to the corsairs. Isengard is completely nuts and ate Rohan probably around turn 60, Gondor is about to get dumpstered and it's only turn ~100. The only safe corner of the map is northeast.
@@GolovanJot I thought this is how it's supposed to be lore-wise. But major factions getting wiped at turn 60-80 (Rohan and Dol Amroth in that game) is too early. Khand sided with the good guys and got wiped too. So did Enedwaith, by Isengard and Dunland. Bree has their capital besieged and won't last long. The only significant remaining good powers west to the Misty Mountains are Gondor, Northern Dunedain and Lindon/Imladris, and West is supposed to be the safer part of the world. I think Isengard's roster is just a bit too strong vs Rohan. Cavalry doesn't do much in autoresolve siege battles, and Isengard specializes in sieges. Rohan's early roster except the Helmingas (recruitable in Hornburg only) is too crappy, and their cheap cavalry can't change much, especially with how many anti-Rohan units Isengard has.
In regards to flanking, from what I've seen the ai generally tries to overload the left flank, the flank your general is on. This is especially true if you put the general on the front line, like the ai seems to target the general.
2. Lothlorien starts under pressure from Dol Guldur but their trash stacks can't really threaten you beyond being an annoyance so once your economy can support a proper army you can walk all over them.
Loved it, thanks a lot Galu! Just finished my Enedwaith campaign so I'm looking for another faction to play, though I'm gonna miss my sweet javelins :/
"...as long as it's not too egregious, like a dwarf riding a goat." Um, add please? Say nothing about it, make it a super obscure way to get it. Best Easter egg ever.
Buy mercenary boat -> place it at the river crossing -> done, you are excellent and protected from DG stacks trying to cross Anduin. It's still better to rush DG though. Difficulty 1.5 because of big bad isengard later, i think.
Imho it seems they always split their forces to take Erui (Lower Gladden) and that leaves Eastern Moria vulnerable to The Goblins. I wish Galu gave that region to The Vale or Lorien during the turn 1 auto expansion to stop this.
I know this would be ridiculous and probably not possible but it would be sweet if there was a crossing for the misty mountains which wasn't available in the winter or spring, but I think it does need a crossing at some location like a pass or something
This is the first campaign I played ever in TA DaC 4.5 (hard/very hard), and I give it 2/5 in terms of difficulty. Even though I was learning everything while playing (I've only played vanilla M2TW once before and watched a few Legend's streams on DaC), I turtled too much in the beginning, I still managed to take Dol Guldur on turn 90 and now they have just a couple settlements east of Murkwood. I retried 4 or 5 times after realizing Dol Guldur should be attacked from the western side so you can shoot the crap out of the central square. The battle was pretty intense but I only lost 400 men out of 2000, and inside was Khamul himself with a beefy half stack and a garrison script, ~2500 men in total. All my normal units were pre-barracks, I didn't built any ballistas (as if elves needed any). Elves in general seem to be OP in the meta of DaC (easy to conserve units, strongest bodyguards with bows, archer spam). They get the same free garrison slots as everyone else. Their units aren't that much more expensive to maintain adjusted to their quality (starter bowmen with elite human archer stats that beat mid-tier orcs in melee cost 330 upkeep and are recruitable anywhere, wtf?). Their manpower problem is non-existent (you don't need to rush early military because Celeborn and Haldir are one-unit armies early game, and archers are easy to preserve). I had Caras Galadhon at 12k pop when I captured Dol Guldur. Your culture halls can magically convince tens of thousands of orc scum in Dol Guldur to reform and become proper elves, in like 30 turns whole Dol Guldur is speaking Sindarin. Free bodyguard replenishment and generous growth buffs that elves have invalidate the biggest elven weakness in the lore, that is, precious scarcity of elves. I don't even care about mercs because I can't lose units on the rate my barracks grow them, and I don't even touch their basic swordsmen, they're useless compared to gurdhinen. Pre-barracks Dol Guldur can only threaten me with bows, which get shot back and cleaned by cav scouts.
I wouldn't give them 2 out of 5 stars in difficulty. Capturing Dol Goldur itself and not even killing your initial enemy on turn 90 is bad look (there are factions you can win whole campaign by that turn number). Took me 7 tries to get the perfect run with them because there are number of challenges: - while conserving units is easy your recruitment cooldowns are 4 times what Orcs with Brawler guild are and you want to have numbers as quickly as possible to snowball quicker, - elven economy is rather bad initially as you lack strong tax/trade income modifiers from ancillaries and your farmer ancillary equivalent is worse than human one, - unless you conquer KD East the whole starting region and neighbourhood is poor, - you are located in the middle of the map. I have no idea why it is always skipped for Lothlorien while in each other TW central factions are usually hard because of that, - beating DG is given, beating them in fashion which makes you totally prepared for fighting both Mordor and Isengard (and perhaps Rhun) immedietely after is quite a challenge (once Uruks start coming in droves you will need T2 Archers or better to reverse the tide) - If you are succesful in first 50 turns, expect invasions in Caras Galadhon asap which together with elven union script means you need close to full stack parked in Caras Galadhon for majority of 100 turns, - You also want to save enough money to instantly start building advanced recruitment infrastructure once barrack events hits and if you aim for getting elven union asap it usually means around 8-10 thousand gold in bribe for alliance with Thranduil, - Sometimes KD East Dwarves die and you get goblin enemy, That said if you manage to perfectly play till barrack event you really start to go ahead of power curve. Elves do have good modifiers for managing huge populations and reducing corruption and given Lothlorien starting location are in place to tip the balance for the forces of good (killing DG, then Isengard, then Dunledings, then Mordor)
One question. I have forgotten to alliance with the WoodRealm and so missed the script. Can I initiate the script later ? If not, can I get anyways the Celebor units ?
It migh be cool to edit the elven alliance script so that Woodland realm can accept either to unite with Lothlorien or to "unite" with Avari and get Avari settlerment and units
through the pass at the source of the gladden river its lore accurate highly defensible and does not need a town if someone could put this on discord it would be appreciated
that the mirkwood bow legolas used a smaller recurve bow would make sense since it was a bow more suited for archery inside the more dense woods of mirkwood than the war longbow he was gifted by Galadriel. and that bow had a bowstring made with elfhair. hair has a huge advantage when it comes the amount of weight it can endure. so it is not that fair to compare archery skill based on the bows themselves. both lothlorien and mirkwood elves were expert archers only that the prefered bows were more based on enviroment.
Id honestly say lothlorian was the toughest start i had to get used to, they have good units but they have low armor, and DG tend to pump out javelin and archer units so when they get shots off they can obliterate your early troops. But overall id still give them a 2
Difficulty is 3 to me because of expensive recruitement and upkeep of armies, so by the time you get a good economy others factions get thei elite units. And every time I play them dark lord calls invasion on Caras Galadhon and I'm attacked by Gundabad, Mordor and Dol guldur at least and when Rohan collapses by Isengard too. Even when I managed to survive a new invasion is called, I don't know if thats a script but it makes the dificulty over 2 for sure.
Question, don’t they use the portage to get around the Falls of Rauros in Fellowship of the Ring? I doubt it would have been useable for large warships but a portage does exist. The North Stair it was called I think. I agree with the gameplay decision wholeheartedly.
About the different levels of spears traits, is there any way of making this known to the player in the unit screen? Like changing the wording of "Skilled against mounts" to something like "Decent against mounts", or "excellent against mounts, but worse against infantry" for different spears. Imo generally you want as much information as possible available to the players so that they can make informed decisions. Just a thought :).
Hey, first i wanna say i love your videos and the mod. You guys did a fantastic work. But can you consider bringing back the golden Elf sword and shield units? They were my favorite units when i last played this mod (around 8 years ago). Anyway thank you for your hard and continues work.
I suggest that you like if legolas and thranduil are alive they join you with or inside the cities with like 4 or 5 units of militia but they dont start with aredhirith or legolases bodyguard they get a unit of galadrim archers as legolas and either berio i ngelaidh or possibly another galadrim archers or maybe they both have the standard bodyguard
I know this is very very much late....But what ‘If’ “Woodland Realm” got destroy and the entire Faction is gone, Well you keep that Woodland Elves Gathering building and still train “Woodland Realm” Units or not...Are you still cannot get those “Protector Of The Forest” Unites or.......?
How would you implement the Kalmar Union, where by one Elven faction incorporates the other, without making the game ridiculously easy?
4 роки тому+7
The game for the Elves is already easy. The only mehtods of making their game harder would be to incorprate very "gamey" things that many people hate. The Union will be optional anyway and will come at a point that you will likely have already won the game.
Hey Arachir, or anyone that may know, does the hot seat campaign work at all? i want to play with my little brother. Its something we have done and bonded with each other with for years just wondering if it works.
Does anyone know if one would need to demolish another's culture's building and rebuild your own to use the effects? currently playing as Lothlorien, took Dol Goldur, do i need to demolish and rebuild all the buildings?
As the defensive wild elf nation, I still wish the Galadhrim Guard had spear and shield. The ‘defensive’ nation only has one spear and shield unit. (Berio I Ngelaidh is not included due to rarity and dual archer status
I think the thing with AG's ratings is that he assumes everybody is a very experienced play who knows the game inside out. [For instance his comment in his Isengard campaign "after all we're all captured Minas Tirth". People should remember that if your not an experienced player of DAC then the ratings should be considered higher or possibly if very new drop the difficulty level. Its a case of horses for courses so to speak.
Why not instead of just taking the others stuff you actually get invaded by the other trying to subdue you? Or you have the option to subdue the other? Like you unite the elves. Some elves vs elves would be really cool
Just a question, is it hard-coded that women cannot be used as generals/agents? Its kind of annoying that Galadriel kind of does nothing in a campaign, wonder if an exception could be made perhaps for Lorien (and maybe Rohan) when it comes to female generals.
There are simply no provisions in the medieval 2 total war engine for female generals (for obvious reasons). They'd be treated exactly the same as a male general, right down to marriage offers, adoption and voices.
Idk if I should go for Dol Guldur first or rochburg first Ik that Rohan doesn’t get it right away but I’m not sure if I can take Dol Guldur in time before the Rohirrim take it. Can someone share some advice?
@Arachîr Galudirithon if you give all of the other nations generals to the player faction in the script, that could be broken in terms of balance seeing that thranduil, legolas, haldir and celeborn have pretty op generals and having four of them would possibly mess up the game and make it infinitely for easy-er, my idea to fix this is not give you legolas, thranduil, haldir and celebor at first and make a script to remake the generals and make there bodyguards different.
So, the Ent thing is wrong :). Its Isengard where you can get them, not Fangorn. Otherwise, smashing preview! (Also, I would put the difficulty at 0.5 since you can even block crossings with merc ships).
@@jakemenlo3725 no its not LOTR related this game ive been wracking my brain for hours hahaha, it was an rpg with rts elements and you could build like the elven market as it looks in the icon :(
Difficitly: 2 Greatest challenge is army numbers (hard to retrain) and upkeep. Things can get more difficult if Mordor get’s involved early (happened to me the 1/2 times after I lost a battle with dol guldur...Mordor attacked the settlement south of Dol Guldur)
If you haven't allied with the WR by turn 40 do you lose your opportunity to activate the elven alliance script? For some reason they weren't keen on an alliance in my current Lorien playthrough.
I’ve gotten an alliance with the woodland realm after turn 50, but it took A LOT of convincing. I guess it’s easier to team up early game because everyone sucks early game😂
@ Yeah, sorry it didn't sound how I meant to. Waywatchers is how basically the equivalent of this unit is called in the warhammer fantasy setting, and we all know GW loves to copyright everything. It was a pun aimed at that. I really like and appreciate how much you and the dac team know of Tolkien's universe and how you make the mod feel so true to the setting :)
If the Gûrveleg scattershot is so inaccurate that you need to give them exceptional accuracy, then why not just make them fire a single body-piercing arrow with slightly less accuracy? That seems like style over substance.
23:45 Galu calling people linguistically ignorant for not speaking elvish 🤣 I dont know what kind of people he hangs out with, but I have never been able to convince people of my enormous intellectual abilities by starting to talk to them in made up fantasy languages, but I guess he has, so I'll keep trying.
"Quick shoot! Ah! It is Sauron himself! Ah and now the Trolls are here and the beasts too."
That went downhill FAST for those archers, my god.
Lol I'm actually playing a Mordor campaign currently. This is pretty much how I dealt with the pointy eared scum. Lothlorien is extinct, the green pointys are next. 😁
Murphy's Law - when things can go wrong, they will and strongly so!
I think there should be a custom ring script for Lothlorien. If you get the ring as Lothlorien, you should be able to get Galadriel as a unit (kinda like BFME2). It would make the campaign a little more unique.
In place of a Dark Lord you would have A Queen!
Copy paste the ring script from the Isengard campaign, replace names, faction etc for lothlorien and spawn galadriel upon completion - its doable.
Ah the sunday faction overview. I love sundays now
Same. These overview's inspire me to try a new faction nearly every week!
@@aidanthomas250 how?
@@ruairiodonohoe2533 by playing a faction of course
@@lordoblivion8038 how does he do it so quickly
how are the legions of trash from moria doing ?
Remember that when Galadriel gave a Galadrim bow to Legolas, she says "worthy of only our kind in the north".
This to me sounds like the woodland realm are the best with a bow, when Galadriel her self said it.
Good thing you mentioned the change to the Elven Union script because I was totally going to ask about it lol
22:06 you know Galu's had enough of people asking for the dwarven goat riders from the Hobbit
@J. Doe lol it's not a balance thing; it's a lore-accuracy thing. While there has been some stretching and invention where there are holes in the lore, the dwarven battle style is firmly documented by Tolkien and it really does not include goat riders. Jackson invented that all himself.
J. Doe Dwarven Goats aren’t happening, cool as they are I don’t see any reasoning that’s gonna make the dev team change their minds.
@J. Doe ... so I really feel like your list proved my point, not yours... Everything in there (bar Agandaur and the Ered Luin ring script, which I'll grant you) was vague in the lore and has been artistically expanded in DAC. Even the Ar-Adunaim is not crazy far-fetched; there was obviously enough of a warrior society in Umbar to man 50 massive man-of-wars and "smaller vessels beyond number..." Similarly, I find your lack of faith in the Elven siege capabilities disturbing; they successfully sieged the Black Gate and Barad Dur and are able to live for millenia... you think they forgot all that? On the flip side, we know exactly how the dwarves fight, and it never included cavalry. Gimli's distrust of horses in Rohan only reinforces it.
J. Doe if you really want them, you could try port them yourself actually. Galu has made an in depth video of how to port units from other submods into DaC, and I have done so myself with a couple. Not with the goats tho
@Mister Jane Doe @Mister Jane Doe honestly imo I think it makes balance worse in reforged a lot of people think the dwarves are op atm and I agree the goat cav they get gives them too much flexibility especially the bodyguard one.
Honestly, i have been loving this channel and mod. I used to not be very fond of this mod, but now its all i play.
Keep it up, hello from Washington!!!!
Difficulty 3. Winning is often straightforward but takes a long time. Remember you have to kill Mordor, and I've found I'm up against great beasts by the time I break into Mordor. And thus I also need enough economy to build and maintain 2 or more full stack field armies that can defeat the many Mordor stacks that have beasts, olog hai, and top tier units. A constant steam of reinforcements is required, but take a long time to get there. And the slow elven build rate means half of my units are lower tier.
Oh, and if Morder rolls Gondor before you get there, the job becomes even harder. So the 3 is really a bet that Lorien gets its economy and armies pumping before Mordor smashes Gondor. Could also easily become a 2 or 4 depending on the Mordor / Gondor outcome (and Rhun strength to lesser extent)
They are elves, they cant be higher than a 2, and the fact they have only one bordering enemy at the start makes things even easier leaning towards 1.5 out of 5. You can legit take Amon Lanc before turn 10 with em and basically win the campaign THAT early. The new Caras Galadhon btw is AMZING props to the team, i congratulated them in discord but i think their work is beyond professional and deserves praise everywhere they can get it.
is there any way to see the custom maps without playing the campaign?
@@robertlarsen8953 join their discord, they preview visual changes there and other goodies. check the description in this video for further info.
I agree. I haven't played Lorien in ages so I gave it a go. Forty turns in and I've beaten Dol Guldur and am about to take the ring to Mordor (and I didn't even rush the Dol Guldur fortress). Whereas I recently played the three good Numenorian campaigns and lost each one before the barracks event. Lorien is a cakewalk; I don't know how anyone wins the Northern Dunedain campaign...
@@a-a-ron3542 aren't Lorien get crusade from mordor at some point early in game? i remember i defeated the dol guldur army but 2 stacks from goblins and 2 from mordor was the end of my campaign. The economy is garbage too, like i can lose half of army by getting a village\city that can barely upkeeps 1-2 units. I never experienced such a poorly balanced campaing
@@bertranwalker It's easy to deal with if you're okay using cheese to beat it: the first crusading army that shows up is almost always pathetic; just walk out of the city, let them take it, and then besiege it and take it back again. In my campaign that I mentioned in the comment though, I fought every army that came and beat them. It was the only challenge in the entire campaign. I took out Mordor before I even got my elites out.
Edit: I am not a good Total War player. I can't even win the easy campaigns in the later games (partly due to lack of patience). When I say something is easy, I'm well below even Galu's standards. Legend of Total War could probably beat my Elven campaigns with Goblin spam.
I think an opening in the misty mountains with a fort in the middle belonging to the Vale is fitting. Especially defended with the unit created from the lore of defending the pass.
Or a village that they defend the pass with and get a global trade bonus from...
A.I. moria would probably take it immediately, and that kinda removes the point of an open passage through the mountains
Fort would be good I think
Something small about the Ents: I was able to train them from Isengard itself after capturing it, never seen any in Rochberg's region. I'd need to check but I'm pretty sure they were attached to the Orthanc building. Not a bad way to do it, honestly. Kind of feels like you're liberating Fangorn from Isengard and the Ents are grateful.
Haha very grateful 😂
I’d put it at a 2, you start off with a small army and not very good finances, but after the first 15ish turns it’s a breeze. But maybe I’m just bad at total war lol
I agree with you, dol guldor can be a challenge early but once the anduin, dale, and the woodland realms get moving and border dol guldor you can expect the rest of the campaign to be easy as your main enemy is targeting 3+ factions
bob saget Exactly, I got to the point where I had Dol Guldor and was helping Rohan beat back Isengard
As the first faction I played I thought the start was quite easy but then it got difficult in the late game because Rohan and Gondor were completely destroyed by isenguard and Mordor respectively so ended up with a 2vs1 against strong Isenguard and Mordors that seemed to replenish a whole full stack every other turn or so each, and elven replenishment too slow to keep up even when trading very favourably in each battle. Oh also Khazad dum and Dorwinion and Dol Amroth also were all defeated by evil in that game.
Advice: don't neglect Rohan; it'll be a much nicer time if you help them beat Isenguard earlier. Also playing relaxed and turtling and building economy doesn't work!
Thanks for nice review again. The perfect definition of "assassin" just filled the gap in my mind about that unit, which were looked weird to me always(bows with javelin range). I can recruit Ents not from the Rochburg but from Isengard directly with Woodland Realm, probably this will be same. And the special unit for both Elven faction which comes by rejecting alliance is sooooooooooo rare to recruit, I will never chose that way personally.
You are starting to sell me on trying DAC. I've resisted, but I love your enthusiasm. I'm a Reforged fan. I do really see all the work you're putting into this mod. I'm going to try it out soon.
I really like the balanced thought behind the stats of the Berio I Ngelaith; you're giving up some great Woodland units for something truly unique, but you economy does require judicial use.
I think DCI Last Alliance has a feature where you can cross through allied settlements like Cairo Andros or Goblin Town
That should be available tbh
its not crossing though the settlements, theres just an road around the settlement, so allied people can go around, where as the circle of command or whatever would stop enemies from doing so
Ahh.. it's (probably) my favourite faction! Excellent. I will just say I do prefer the way the Galadhrim with their shields look a bit more than the halberds, but it's nothing too big. I do hope to get a glimpse of the new battlemap at some point.
As it is now, they're probably a 2 in terms of difficulty. With a decent amount of rebel settlements to take, with the Misty Mountains probably not bothering you too much it's really a case of making sure the player balances economy, defence and offence (kind of like the High Elves in that respect). Just make sure not to overextend and take out Dol Guldur at some point. A tad harder than the Woodland realm, for Thranduil starts with a larger and safer territory but it shouldn't matter all that much.
The one thing I can't really bring myself to do is to accept the Elven Alliance and I'm not sure what could make me change my mind, although I'll grant that is most certainly not the point of the mod. :oP I'll go for the Berio n gelaidh as I always have. Which is fine, it just makes the script less of a choice for me personally.
Thanks for making a stand alone install for this , installing third age as well as this brilliant mod was a pain in the shirehole :).
To play devil's advocate, I don't think Galadriel giving Legolas a bow necessarily means Lothlorien fields better archers; just they can make better gear. The Mirkwood elves are noted to be poorer than their cousins in The Hobbit, so that wouldn't surprise me.
Another point in Mirkwoods favor is that, to my knowledge, they've had more recent experience in warfare than Lothlorien. Apart from the events of The Hobbit, they also have Dol Guldur sitting in their forest and spreading its evil influence northward. They've likely been fighting and skirmishing with spiders and orcs constantly over the decades whereas the Galadrim have largely sat peacefully in their forest, only occasionally coming out or being attacked.
So you could easily say that for all that Lothlorien troops are better equipped, the Woodland Realm's experience makes them the better archers.
It is good that you are elven, as you will need a few lifetimes to recruit the army needed for conquest
It's a solid 2.5 at the beginning, if you're rushing for Dol Guldur in the first 20 turns (Talking maximum difficulty). Later on though, most often Isengard destroys Rohan, Mordor kills Gondor and Rhun captures Dorwinion, so all of the sudden you're in a war on 3 fronts with late tier Isengard and Rhun being especially hard to deal with (In my campaign Anduin Vale attacked me too), so from the mid-late campaign definitely becomes 3.5 or even 4. Isengard sending 3 uber stacks at turn 120 is not uncommon.
In my game Dorwinion trampled Rhun, it's about the only good news, because the rest of the map is a clusterfuck for the good guys. Even Ered Luin went rogue and Lindon has fallen to the corsairs. Isengard is completely nuts and ate Rohan probably around turn 60, Gondor is about to get dumpstered and it's only turn ~100. The only safe corner of the map is northeast.
@@ggleplussuxx4787 yeah, I think as for now good guys have some balancing issues. I mean literally every good fraction in my save got stomped on
@@GolovanJot I thought this is how it's supposed to be lore-wise. But major factions getting wiped at turn 60-80 (Rohan and Dol Amroth in that game) is too early. Khand sided with the good guys and got wiped too. So did Enedwaith, by Isengard and Dunland. Bree has their capital besieged and won't last long. The only significant remaining good powers west to the Misty Mountains are Gondor, Northern Dunedain and Lindon/Imladris, and West is supposed to be the safer part of the world. I think Isengard's roster is just a bit too strong vs Rohan. Cavalry doesn't do much in autoresolve siege battles, and Isengard specializes in sieges. Rohan's early roster except the Helmingas (recruitable in Hornburg only) is too crappy, and their cheap cavalry can't change much, especially with how many anti-Rohan units Isengard has.
22:07 "Like a dwarf riding a goat"
hah :D
2
And use strawpoll, please, Galu.
In regards to flanking, from what I've seen the ai generally tries to overload the left flank, the flank your general is on. This is especially true if you put the general on the front line, like the ai seems to target the general.
2. Lothlorien starts under pressure from Dol Guldur but their trash stacks can't really threaten you beyond being an annoyance so once your economy can support a proper army you can walk all over them.
That is an awesome faction to watch! Very nice!
Galadhrim guards are absolutely amazing imho
Loved it, thanks a lot Galu! Just finished my Enedwaith campaign so I'm looking for another faction to play, though I'm gonna miss my sweet javelins :/
"...as long as it's not too egregious, like a dwarf riding a goat."
Um, add please? Say nothing about it, make it a super obscure way to get it. Best Easter egg ever.
Buy mercenary boat -> place it at the river crossing -> done, you are excellent and protected from DG stacks trying to cross Anduin. It's still better to rush DG though.
Difficulty 1.5 because of big bad isengard later, i think.
Khazad-dûm have lost Moria in my last 2 campaigns in V. 4.5, they never really seem to do anything.
Imho it seems they always split their forces to take Erui (Lower Gladden) and that leaves Eastern Moria vulnerable to The Goblins. I wish Galu gave that region to The Vale or Lorien during the turn 1 auto expansion to stop this.
Difficulty is a 2 for me. At most. Great video Galu!
I know this would be ridiculous and probably not possible but it would be sweet if there was a crossing for the misty mountains which wasn't available in the winter or spring, but I think it does need a crossing at some location like a pass or something
This is the first campaign I played ever in TA DaC 4.5 (hard/very hard), and I give it 2/5 in terms of difficulty. Even though I was learning everything while playing (I've only played vanilla M2TW once before and watched a few Legend's streams on DaC), I turtled too much in the beginning, I still managed to take Dol Guldur on turn 90 and now they have just a couple settlements east of Murkwood. I retried 4 or 5 times after realizing Dol Guldur should be attacked from the western side so you can shoot the crap out of the central square. The battle was pretty intense but I only lost 400 men out of 2000, and inside was Khamul himself with a beefy half stack and a garrison script, ~2500 men in total. All my normal units were pre-barracks, I didn't built any ballistas (as if elves needed any).
Elves in general seem to be OP in the meta of DaC (easy to conserve units, strongest bodyguards with bows, archer spam). They get the same free garrison slots as everyone else. Their units aren't that much more expensive to maintain adjusted to their quality (starter bowmen with elite human archer stats that beat mid-tier orcs in melee cost 330 upkeep and are recruitable anywhere, wtf?). Their manpower problem is non-existent (you don't need to rush early military because Celeborn and Haldir are one-unit armies early game, and archers are easy to preserve). I had Caras Galadhon at 12k pop when I captured Dol Guldur. Your culture halls can magically convince tens of thousands of orc scum in Dol Guldur to reform and become proper elves, in like 30 turns whole Dol Guldur is speaking Sindarin. Free bodyguard replenishment and generous growth buffs that elves have invalidate the biggest elven weakness in the lore, that is, precious scarcity of elves. I don't even care about mercs because I can't lose units on the rate my barracks grow them, and I don't even touch their basic swordsmen, they're useless compared to gurdhinen. Pre-barracks Dol Guldur can only threaten me with bows, which get shot back and cleaned by cav scouts.
I wouldn't give them 2 out of 5 stars in difficulty. Capturing Dol Goldur itself and not even killing your initial enemy on turn 90 is bad look (there are factions you can win whole campaign by that turn number). Took me 7 tries to get the perfect run with them because there are number of challenges:
- while conserving units is easy your recruitment cooldowns are 4 times what Orcs with Brawler guild are and you want to have numbers as quickly as possible to snowball quicker,
- elven economy is rather bad initially as you lack strong tax/trade income modifiers from ancillaries and your farmer ancillary equivalent is worse than human one,
- unless you conquer KD East the whole starting region and neighbourhood is poor,
- you are located in the middle of the map. I have no idea why it is always skipped for Lothlorien while in each other TW central factions are usually hard because of that,
- beating DG is given, beating them in fashion which makes you totally prepared for fighting both Mordor and Isengard (and perhaps Rhun) immedietely after is quite a challenge (once Uruks start coming in droves you will need T2 Archers or better to reverse the tide)
- If you are succesful in first 50 turns, expect invasions in Caras Galadhon asap which together with elven union script means you need close to full stack parked in Caras Galadhon for majority of 100 turns,
- You also want to save enough money to instantly start building advanced recruitment infrastructure once barrack events hits and if you aim for getting elven union asap it usually means around 8-10 thousand gold in bribe for alliance with Thranduil,
- Sometimes KD East Dwarves die and you get goblin enemy,
That said if you manage to perfectly play till barrack event you really start to go ahead of power curve. Elves do have good modifiers for managing huge populations and reducing corruption and given Lothlorien starting location are in place to tip the balance for the forces of good (killing DG, then Isengard, then Dunledings, then Mordor)
Maybe you could open up a pass through the mountains but block it with an immovable rebel army.
One question. I have forgotten to alliance with the WoodRealm and so missed the script.
Can I initiate the script later ?
If not, can I get anyways the Celebor units ?
It migh be cool to edit the elven alliance script so that Woodland realm can accept either to unite with Lothlorien or to "unite" with Avari and get Avari settlerment and units
through the pass at the source of the gladden river its lore accurate highly defensible and does not need a town if someone could put this on discord it would be appreciated
A new one at last
i was wondering if perhaps a dwarven faction in the red mountains like an ironfoot/ stiffbeard faction in the east would be awesome
that the mirkwood bow legolas used a smaller recurve bow would make sense since it was a bow more suited for archery inside the more dense woods of mirkwood than the war longbow he was gifted by Galadriel. and that bow had a bowstring made with elfhair. hair has a huge advantage when it comes the amount of weight it can endure. so it is not that fair to compare archery skill based on the bows themselves. both lothlorien and mirkwood elves were expert archers only that the prefered bows were more based on enviroment.
Do I detect a tone when mentioning the goats? 😂
22:05 sick burn
Id honestly say lothlorian was the toughest start i had to get used to, they have good units but they have low armor, and DG tend to pump out javelin and archer units so when they get shots off they can obliterate your early troops. But overall id still give them a 2
Man I miss the wood elves spear and sword units 😢
Difficulty is 3 to me because of expensive recruitement and upkeep of armies, so by the time you get a good economy others factions get thei elite units. And every time I play them dark lord calls invasion on Caras Galadhon and I'm attacked by Gundabad, Mordor and Dol guldur at least and when Rohan collapses by Isengard too. Even when I managed to survive a new invasion is called, I don't know if thats a script but it makes the dificulty over 2 for sure.
So... Gûrveleg are basically wielding great caliber shotguns.
I bet the orcs riding the great beasts can do lateral splits
Question, don’t they use the portage to get around the Falls of Rauros in Fellowship of the Ring? I doubt it would have been useable for large warships but a portage does exist. The North Stair it was called I think. I agree with the gameplay decision wholeheartedly.
Please KEEP the spice of life, ar i lembe Edhellen! BTW, you're right with the 'DH.' Think of the TH of "these clothes."
About the different levels of spears traits, is there any way of making this known to the player in the unit screen? Like changing the wording of "Skilled against mounts" to something like "Decent against mounts", or "excellent against mounts, but worse against infantry" for different spears. Imo generally you want as much information as possible available to the players so that they can make informed decisions.
Just a thought :).
ah lorien one of my fav :) and its 2 for me
Btw, even when you defeat Mordor, Dol Guldur and hold 20+ provinces (as well as Dol Guldur, Baradur and starting capital) the game still does not end
Hey, first i wanna say i love your videos and the mod. You guys did a fantastic work. But can you consider bringing back the golden Elf sword and shield units? They were my favorite units when i last played this mod (around 8 years ago). Anyway thank you for your hard and continues work.
Is it just me or are halberds od Galadrim Guard little over the top?
Noooooooo! Mordor had to be the end of all (the overviews)!
I wish the Galadhrim guard still had spear and shield.
I suggest that you like if legolas and thranduil are alive they join you with or inside the cities with like 4 or 5 units of militia but they dont start with aredhirith or legolases bodyguard they get a unit of galadrim archers as legolas and either berio i ngelaidh or possibly another galadrim archers or maybe they both have the standard bodyguard
I know this is very very much late....But what ‘If’ “Woodland Realm” got destroy and the entire Faction is gone, Well you keep that Woodland Elves Gathering building and still train “Woodland Realm” Units or not...Are you still cannot get those “Protector Of The Forest” Unites or.......?
Does anyone know how to train ents? I can't seem to do it, not as mecenaries nor with a building.
the only place I have managed to recruit ents is Isengard so far.
how do i get ents can sb pls tell? im 150 turns into the campaign, rochburg is fully built up, but ents are nowhere to be seen
How do you get Ents? Do you just get a general over fangorn forest and buy them as Mercenaries? Is it anywhere in the region?
I think you have to conquer Isengard
How would you implement the Kalmar Union, where by one Elven faction incorporates the other, without making the game ridiculously easy?
The game for the Elves is already easy. The only mehtods of making their game harder would be to incorprate very "gamey" things that many people hate.
The Union will be optional anyway and will come at a point that you will likely have already won the game.
Maybe it is a bug but Ents can only be trained in Nan Curunir, they are not available in Fangorn region(as Lothlorien).
Hey Arachir, or anyone that may know, does the hot seat campaign work at all? i want to play with my little brother. Its something we have done and bonded with each other with for years just wondering if it works.
Does anyone know if one would need to demolish another's culture's building and rebuild your own to use the effects? currently playing as Lothlorien, took Dol Goldur, do i need to demolish and rebuild all the buildings?
As the defensive wild elf nation, I still wish the Galadhrim Guard had spear and shield.
The ‘defensive’ nation only has one spear and shield unit. (Berio I Ngelaidh is not included due to rarity and dual archer status
my Lothlorien campaign crashes everytime i want to destroy the ring. Does anyone have a idea?
Roster made for Goblins, spending majority of the game killing Isengard and Mordor. *Fun.*
I think the thing with AG's ratings is that he assumes everybody is a very experienced play who knows the game inside out. [For instance his comment in his Isengard campaign "after all we're all captured Minas Tirth". People should remember that if your not an experienced player of DAC then the ratings should be considered higher or possibly if very new drop the difficulty level. Its a case of horses for courses so to speak.
Why not instead of just taking the others stuff you actually get invaded by the other trying to subdue you? Or you have the option to subdue the other? Like you unite the elves. Some elves vs elves would be really cool
Just a question, is it hard-coded that women cannot be used as generals/agents? Its kind of annoying that Galadriel kind of does nothing in a campaign, wonder if an exception could be made perhaps for Lorien (and maybe Rohan) when it comes to female generals.
There are simply no provisions in the medieval 2 total war engine for female generals (for obvious reasons). They'd be treated exactly the same as a male general, right down to marriage offers, adoption and voices.
13:37 ah, bummer.. I liked the separation of these factions.
Hey i'm almost turn 80 and the silvane alliance event hasn't popped up yet, is that normal?
Lol, it takes that much for me to be able to afford my army to leave the capital
Idk if I should go for Dol Guldur first or rochburg first Ik that Rohan doesn’t get it right away but I’m not sure if I can take Dol Guldur in time before the Rohirrim take it. Can someone share some advice?
@Arachîr Galudirithon
if you give all of the other nations generals to the player faction in the script, that could be broken in terms of balance seeing that thranduil, legolas, haldir and celeborn have pretty op generals and having four of them would possibly mess up the game and make it infinitely for easy-er, my idea to fix this is not give you legolas, thranduil, haldir and celebor at first and make a script to remake the generals and make there bodyguards different.
Today moria actually went from goblin town to erui just at the 10 turns i didnt had a general (so defenders) there
Ents are avaliable in Isengard
So, the Ent thing is wrong :). Its Isengard where you can get them, not Fangorn. Otherwise, smashing preview! (Also, I would put the difficulty at 0.5 since you can even block crossings with merc ships).
Exactly and sadly they do come from Isengard's walls instead out of Fangorn forest (Rochburg). :(
Sucks Galadriel is only shown as ancillary because she's a total badass in the books.
Well, I guess I won't sleep tonight
gurveleg dont drop sauron i tried it
Lovely indeed.
Can someone please tell me where they got the building icons/images from? I recognise them from an old pc game but I can't for the life of me remember
Do you mean Battle for Middleearth? Quite a few sounds overall and ie goblin buildings seem to come from there, which I personally enjoyed a lot :)
@@jakemenlo3725 no its not LOTR related this game ive been wracking my brain for hours hahaha, it was an rpg with rts elements and you could build like the elven market as it looks in the icon :(
@@markstewart2681 ah well, then I'm sorry I can't help you
Jake Menlo no worries man thanks anyway! Someday il find it 😩
@@markstewart2681 It's SpellForce, I'm actually playing through it right now lol.
Idea about unite the Elfs is great what you think about Uniting the Dwarfs late in the game all become ONE !
Forgive me, but I never understand what you say at the beginning of each episode.
It's Elvish and means "well met, friends"
Hi Galu, what unit did you say is tied with eregion smiths for best unit in the game? I was able to catch that
Difficitly: 2
Greatest challenge is army numbers (hard to retrain) and upkeep.
Things can get more difficult if Mordor get’s involved early (happened to me the 1/2 times after I lost a battle with dol guldur...Mordor attacked the settlement south of Dol Guldur)
A Dwarf riding a goat? That never happened. Nope. Never once; especially not in a major motion picture. No.
If you haven't allied with the WR by turn 40 do you lose your opportunity to activate the elven alliance script? For some reason they weren't keen on an alliance in my current Lorien playthrough.
I’ve gotten an alliance with the woodland realm after turn 50, but it took A LOT of convincing. I guess it’s easier to team up early game because everyone sucks early game😂
Marchwardens, because waywatchers was copyrighted xD
I dont have the context behind your comment but Tolkien calls them Marchwardens and he penned that long before any fantasy terms were copyrighted.
@ Yeah, sorry it didn't sound how I meant to. Waywatchers is how basically the equivalent of this unit is called in the warhammer fantasy setting, and we all know GW loves to copyright everything. It was a pun aimed at that.
I really like and appreciate how much you and the dac team know of Tolkien's universe and how you make the mod feel so true to the setting :)
Why can i only recruit units in the starting elf settlements?
You need to build up your culture in new settlements. This is done by increasing population growth and building Artist Studios
berio i ngs are not buildable in dol guldur 12:40
What is that background song?
If the Gûrveleg scattershot is so inaccurate that you need to give them exceptional accuracy, then why not just make them fire a single body-piercing arrow with slightly less accuracy? That seems like style over substance.
They're not inaccurate in practice. As you use them at very close range anyway they are not going to miss.
why is Galadriel not a general?
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
@ sorry i forgot that medieval 2 doesn't allow female general :)
So the Gurveleg are basically ninja shotgunners?
More or less.
Is Version 5 of this game has been released and can be installed by everyone? Cant find it
version 5 most likely wont come till next year i would guess.
Not released yet
Galu wouldn’t be doing v4.5 faction overhauls if v5 was out.. use common sense man
They are working on v5 and some people do have access to a beta test version
Hystria I’m just ready to play Gondor / Arnor being reunited
23:45 Galu calling people linguistically ignorant for not speaking elvish 🤣 I dont know what kind of people he hangs out with, but I have never been able to convince people of my enormous intellectual abilities by starting to talk to them in made up fantasy languages, but I guess he has, so I'll keep trying.