So, I decided I'll be doing the fourth age option that comes with the Dagor Ennor submod of Third Age Total War.
For one, Fourth Age includes more factions and you can play as the Ents in the Fourth Age option. There are actually two additional factions (not sure what the other additional one is), but Isengard doesn't exist and belongs to the Ents. Poor Isengard
They are actually pretty fun to play diplomatically. Oh well lol.
But, second. I actually like the Fourth Age option far more. Its the dawn of the fourth age, so Mordor and Gondor (though Gondor is actually reformed and named something else) still exist. However, there is a lot more wars and options for diplomacy to open up as everyone is pretty much doing their own thing. Everyone knows about the Third Age lore more anyway, and the Fourth Age most people know little about as it is. I find it will be far more fun, and leave a lot more randomness and open endedness to the gameplay. Well besides Gondor (reformed kingdom of Arnor I think they are called, not entirely sure, I'd have to check again. I'll just call them Gondor for now lol) and Mordor are still butting heads. Gondor pretty sure has the advantage, since their units are improved now after reforming. But Mordor at this point has a lot more territory than they do in the Third Age start. But on the plus side, Gondor gets an epic Gandalf general
Next for some reason the regular Third Age era start, there is no additional spider "city/fort" in one of the passes leading into Mordor itself. Pretty sure I recall it being hard to pass because of spiders living there, or whatever was there. But instead its just completely open. But maybe I'm remembering wrong and thats just how it was. In fourth age, the spiders get their own place right in middle of two of Mordor's forts lol. I did try briefly playing as spiders, and even opening up a line to where I could reinforce that lonely spider fort, I couldn't make any progress against Mordor lol. But in any case, spiders get three "bases" instead of just two. Like wise Ents as I said get the addition of Isengard, which is pretty epic.
However, I find Ents and Spiders would get boring to play as pretty quick. They'd make an okay game early on, but not later and most people would get bored. You don't get many buildings or units. Everything you get is right at the start of the game. Ents get a lot more than spiders though, as you can get bears and eagles lol. I put them up in the poll cause they sounded great, but thinking about it, it wouldn't make for a good long term game. You also don't get any diplomats at all as them, just spies. My friend wanted me to be spiders though, and they are a popular choice. But, they get the least amount of units of any "creature" faction.
Honestly, I thought he'd put in a lot more variety to spiders by now, but ah well.
Dragons would probably stay fun, even if they don't get too many units. They do get regular foot soldiers. But, it be pretty OP as I played them last time and if the entire world didn't hate me and I didn't expand so fast, I'd have just conquered everything. I'd play them as a solo game. Still takes a lot of time to produce dragons, though conquered places can start producing dragons so it speeds up eventually. And spiders would probably still be okay later on, since its mostly just swarming with huge zergs of spiders and its funny imagining middle earth as just one big spider haven. It just be nice if they had more types of spiders lol.
Which leaves Harad (which actually wasn't on the poll, kinda forgot they were included), Corsairs and Mordor/Gondor. Gondor of course gets all the new units from reforming, and Mordor I'm pretty sure gets more units like trolls and stuff. However, for an actual community let's play of a sort. I'm gonna ignore the poll results(which I put for a good reason to see the general census of what people were more inclined to prefer being a part of or read/see pictures of a let's play of), and choose either Harad or Corsairs.
Harad is pretty unknown in Middle Earth lore as it is (some stuff, not really that much), and there isn't much about piracy either. I guess Corsairs and Harad are pretty close in relations though, and team up against Gondor. However, I'm pretty sure if Corsairs take over certain territory from Harad, they actually can get mumakils. I know Harad gets those, but I'm pretty positive Corsairs can too. If so, I'd probably focus on taking over Harad even if in actual "lore" they are friends. If no Mumakils, and I choose Corsairs, I'd probably focus on allying them.
Also as far as why Corsairs. They actually have as many units (which are actually really unique, mostly front line skirmishers though, so a lot of hit and run kinda things since their units aren't really made for hardcore tanking front line like Gondor units would be), buildings and actual upgrades of the "major" factions. Even though Corsairs aren't really a main middle earth faction, they have a TON of stuff and a ton of upgrades they can do. The guy did a lot of work on them. So like Harad, it would make for an interesting short term AND long term game. And I'm pretty positive I saw Corsairs got diplomats, and I'm pretty positive I recall actually conquering Harad in a game ages ago, and actually ALLYING Gondor (or being sort of friends anyway). I'd have to double check, but pretty sure they do. If no diplomats for them, not really a big deal.
So even though poll results were higher for other factions, thinking about it, it wouldn't make for a very fun long term game.
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3 (10.7%)
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Topic: (poll) Which Third Age Total War faction should I be? (Medieval 2 LOTR submod) (Read 6884 times)