Divide & Conquer (V4.5): Faction Overview - Northern Dúnedain 

Addendum:- - The N. Dúnedain also get access to the Sons of Númenor from Annúminas. This unit is only temporary and is awaiting the Reunited Kingdom so I didn't include it but it is there if you want to train it. - Also, your units actually have very low upkeep and I forgot to mention that. All of your Dúnedain units may cost a lot but they are relatively cheap in upkeep once purchased. UPDATE: - After some further testing, I am very sorry to have to report that the mercenary version of the Beacon of Hope is currently bugged. Once you have trianed the troops once, you will NEVER get them again except for Enedwaith, Dunland, Khand, Gondor, Dol Amroth and Rhudaur. All of the other nations are broken. This is annoyingly an easy fix but we are not yet decided on how we will release fixes.

One thing I wanted to say, this mod is like Fallout New Vegas to me. Even if I take a break, even if I don't play it for months or years on time I will always return because you bring out the magic of the setting better than anyone I have seen. It is a rare thing for me to be outnerded on Tolkien, and it is a beautiful sight to behold.

I honestly like Aragorn having a melee bodyguard, his most iconic fights are with his sword after all. I know hes a ranger but he's not any ranger he's fuckin Aragorn, he deserves a bunch of absolute savages by his side

The Army of the Dead works best as a deterrent. They're so strong in the autoresolve that no AI will attack the army or town they're in. Best used for simply walking into Mordor.

The problem with the mercenary beacon of hope is that there are too few of them I think. After recruiting those 2 bree-land troops I have been waiting for about 100 turns and the pool has not refilled. Considering they are trash units I feel like they should be more available, like 5 turns replenishment. Please consider either upping the replenishment rate of the pool or just increasing the pool size. I don't know the mechanic behind mercenary replenishment but it seems like it's either too slow or just broken in some places. I got to the Anduin Vale fighting Gundabad and all the four Valesmen units were sitting at 0 available in the pool. I am playing v4 in this campaign btw

Angmar: tends to focus towards the West Gee, I guess I must be special since they only ever see Ost Sul.

I love how you guys make your own characters to fill in when needed. Like how Hirvingel (or whatever his name is). He has sort of a backstory if you read his perks. One is loremaster. Makes me picture him teaching the younger Dunedain around a campfire, retelling tales of old.

Arachir forgot about "Sons of Numenor" unit you can recruit in rebuild Annuminas. God level unit.

I remember my first campaign with the ND, way back in version 0.52 i believe. Gandalf the grey had gotten the One Ring from mount Gram in an assault, and after accepting to destroy it gandalf himself destroyed the ring, and then came back later as gandalf the white which threw me for a loop because i wasn't aware of that script. Other than that the ND was my longest Med 2 campaign to date, over 360 turns in and I essentially made a giant L shaped nation in middle earth (going from carn dum all the way to the most eastern gondorian settlement and then stopping at Minas Morgul). I have such fond memories of this faction and im excited to give them a try again, seeing as i've mostly played as the elven and dwarven factions.

It's not actually too fictitious to have Halbarad as Aragorns cousin as he refers to him as ''kinsman''.

"Then Aragorn and as many troops as you want, cause he has to go a long way..." didn't Galu get Aragorn killed during his old lets play by sending him south without an escort?

In one of my all time favorite campaigns, I conquered Eriador with the Dúnedain and after that I sailed like three or four full stacks from Tharbad to Umbar (which took bloody ages btw but that's the crusades for ya), conquered the Ar Adunaim and made mixed numenórean armies to assault Mordor. Glorious fun.

Perhaps a combination of the two for the beacon of hope? I liked being able to train trash auxiliaries from dunland, rhudaur, and enedwaith, and mercenaries don’t really provide the same amount

Timestamp for the Beacon of Hope recruitment is 26:24 for anyone like me checking back to see how the new hotfix fixes the system

i'm doing a v4.5 campaign on northern dunedain streaming it live... But i've HEAVILY modded the faction to be more "Arnorian" in style, for fan fantasy and personal pleasure. Great work on the faction though Galu (you and the DaC crew!)

A tactic that worked for me was taking Moria's settlements and selling them to the Elves and Dwarves of Moria to shut the goblins down. Then carrying on with my own expansion

Remember in the Gondor video, how Galu said that they tried to stop people rushing their enemies? Now look at the comments, with the only viable strategy as ND being to rush your enemies. Players don't usually rush simply because they can. They rush because not rushing allows the AI to snowball armies, since they don't have to care about recruitment cost, time or upkeep.

The unit overview 44:31

honestly love the overviews

Hello Galu, I think for the future whenever the Reunited Kingdom comes, it would be better to just have Annuminas begin as a rebuilt settlement at game start rather than have the ruined and rebuilt battlemaps so at least you would be able to rebuild both Osgiliaths and Fornost, its a lore break yes, but I think it would be better than having half of Osgiliath still a ruin despite becoming the most powerful kingdom in Middle Earth once again, those are just my 2 cents though.

Thank you for this faction overview!

really dig the new recruit system, as always excellent work to the whole team

Cheers to whomever made the new traits, really immersive and i love the fact you get special traits at diffrent locations.

amazing work again! thanx a lot for your work!

An idea for a video might be to show of all the settlement battlemaps. Going through every level for every faction and custom battle maps, although the customs ones can be a separate video if necessary. It would be handy so that if you want to play as a faction you know what battlemaps are easiest to defend. Of course if certain factions have the same battlemaps you can mention thqt and you don't have to show them twice

Personally, I think the system for the Dunedain outside of Arnor should be how it works everywhere. Make the core Dunedain units always extremely rare, but have them supplemented by local forces across the entire world. This would make army composition much easier to maintain on long distance campaigns, and would be accurate to the lore with the Dunedain being far in the minority across the entire world.

nothing like getting a full stack of moria at fennas druinin at turn 5 when i have maybe 4 units total and losing the campaign almost instantly

*Just put breakfast in the oven, planning a cup of coffee, opens youtube and sees a new DaC faction-overview* Niiiice B^)

I play this mod at least once a year. Pure joy!

Great video, just started a play-through with these boys, going well so far. I live such a thrilling life. Gosh I can't wait for next year, Jesus Christ

Thanks for the nice video! All hail the King! Hail he has returned!

Bodyguards do indeed have two-handed axes 👌🏼

I dont think that the Sworn infantry should look like old Arnors archers, they should get a different skin; and the Arnorian archers should be recruitable in Dúnedain home land.

FINALLY!

ND are in the conversation to be my favourite faction. Looking at the change log in the description, though, I didn’t realise that gaining access to the improved blacksmith requires Eregion as the Woodland Realm. Quite the trek. I’ll probably just have to smash through KD to get there!

Ah, the faction which I had the pleasure of being at war with 4 factions surrounding me (angmar, ered luin, dunland, moria) while having no money at all ;) Edit: Ered Luin can attack you, instead of turtling. Also, I had a campaign where Dunland destroyed both Enedwaith and Breeland, simultaneously.

Very helpful! I hope you cover Rhun soon!

The Argonaut has a great lets play of this faction if you guys want to watch it

25:45 I can't wait to watch the Oathbreakers in action. I hope someone plays up to that soon.

This is hands down the most fun civ to play.

One thing to note about ND units Galu, their recruitment costs are quite high but their upkeeps are comparatively VERY low. For example, rangers cost almost 1000 but have an upkeep under 200

In the previous versions, you can get orthanc units from isengard and steelbowman in certains capital. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I took them so I am wondering did you leave those still I've just started a new dunedain campaign and want to know if its worth attacking isengard or going north. Thanks.

13:46 One argument for Tharbad is that it is your major and only proper port city, unless you would conquer and rebuild Lond Daer as well. Through the port you can have an influx of skilled people from Gondor; traders and craftsmen can come there bringing knowledge with them that has been lost for your people since the fall of Arthedain. So it kinda makes some sense that it would be a source of knowledge. EDIT: I Forgot to complain about the Grey Company lacking bows. Boo Arachir, I want bows. I liked the old unit better. etc. (The new one is cool though but lack bows). EDIT again: I actually didn't watch the entire video the first time I commented. Will the Breeland militia have the upgraded Arnorian look when you recruit them as the ND? (If you upgrade them)

Would definitely like to see you do a campaign as the Dunedain

@arachir galudirithon While not perfect, why not allow viewers to vote (youtube voting system) on how difficult they find the factions to be as well?

Could you do both the mercenary system and the recruitment system for the beach of Hope script? That way you can recruit small numbers of other faction’s forces, but if it falls, you can then take back the land, build their barracks and start fielding their armies again.

Everyone's favourite faction.

Ah yes, thank you, my prayers have been answered.

I found it much better to follow Galu's modding tutorials and change the replenishment rate of the Dunedain units. I left the culture requirement, but I dropped the replenishment rate of ND units, specifically the rangers, to around 15 - 16 turns instead of 33 turns. I also did the same with the post-barracks event units, speeding them up to be just short of 20-ish turns replenishment. It makes the campaign so much more enjoyable, and really allows you to feel like you're reviving Arnor as you play, rather than just waiting for ages to get a second unit of rangers.

I don't understand why people would think the old BoH system was better. This one is great. Here's a thought: I like the idea of the ND being able to train low level eleven units, but only once, and only if that elven faction has been destroyed. That may be hard to do, but it would be like the ND found elven refugees who want to give the forces of evil one last kick in the nuts.

Grey Company are better as a melee unit, they are awesome and look badass with Gold tier armour. And all the other ND generals have ranged so it's a nice mix up.

1:00:57 Aragorn is in the battalion... he's just right in the middle. ;)

would it be possible to have a general persuading system. what i mean by this is game mechanic where you can convince a general to join you. only asking because it would be amazing to have lets say the fellowship (most) in one faction

So as you have said that many wanted Aragorn to be with bows and some without, so make in between make him with javelins :))) will be the only unit of javelins for dunedain ( and i man the only because you cannot train extra grey company), that would be fun for v5.

Like the governer devastation combination it simulates taking tax of people who have just been raided really well

Could you make a list of all Dunedain, Carolan, and Rhudar settlements? I have a bit of OCD when it comes to playing the Dunedain and want to ensure I have all the settlements for The Northern Kingdom (or at least everything that's not Bree). Knowing all the settlements would be nice if you have the time.

Is there any way to set an exception for Gondor, Dol Amroth, etc. backstabbing you? In my v3 campaign, they both attacked me.

With the high elves they do seem to expand at time when I was dunland and moria decided to attack me I defended and defeated a couple of armies and by the time I started to expand north moria lost 4 settlements to the high elves and they were seging khazdum

DAC is the greatest TW mod to date!! Also I've watched all of your "lorecast" videos they're brilliant! I downloaded 4.5 recently and I'm playing the ND campaign, is there any way to change Eldarion's character portrait? having him in full ranger garb whilst heir to my reunited kingdom in the making feels a little odd. I remember in TATW Eomer always bugged me with no real portrait, I know you added him in from the start of the Rohan campaign cant remember in what version. I'm guessing to fix the portrait issue..?

I though that ND have quite high recruitment cost, but low upkeep (given they usually live in wilderness), is that no longer a thing?

Was plannig to play ND when RK is finished... After seeing this video I can't wait any longer :D

Hey! Is there any informatio where i can check where Aragorn should go for Army of the dead? Which stage i completed for ex. Imladris and next is Weather Hills and Kings Lands?

Could you do a mercenary guide, for all factions?

Capture the towns near imladris and between you main settlements and sell them to elves. Kills two birds one stone early: gives buffer against moria and gives you money. Also def get Deadman and that other one as early as you can. Currently trying to figure out best way to crush angmar. It is an interesting conundrum mostly because I can't make units due to replenishment. VH/H.

I have to disagree on Moria being a problem because I completely ignore them and they leave me alone besides occasional few troops at Fennas Drúnin or Tirdhuin. Angmar on the other hand is performing spam likes of which I can only compare to Mordor. Ered Luin of course accepted the rings and left me to deal with them. Defending Fornost or Ost Sul every second turn after I destroy previous army stops being fun after a while and Angmar still has enough troops to constantly siege Imladris.

Hey Galu, great video. I was just wondering if you could add some elves or dwarves to the beacon of hope system, especially in Eregion which I think due to the incredibly high relationship between the elves and the Northern Dunedain could actually decide to fight for Aragorn and his heirs

Love the mod thanks for all the hard work! I think I found a bug with my campaign though as it wouldn't trigger the army of the dead or let me recruit angmar troops when I defeated them

Hey Galu, just a suggestion, would it be possible to have Dunedain swordmasters have the same uprgaded look as Steelbowmen? That skin is too good to only be on a single unit.

here is a good stratagy to defeat mordor quickly as N. Dunadain. Get ahold of the one ring, then get the army of the dead and pair the army of the dead with the ring barrer. Then enter morder by using the army of the dead to breakdown the black gate. Then just keep the army of the dead near your ring barring general as you stand next to mount doom. I don't know if the orcs will still try to attack you if the army of the dead is nearby, because I peaced out with mordor while using this stratagy. But I don't think they will. Either way mordor can be easily killed this way.

Should the Steelbowmen not be available in Lond Daer maybe?

You can also get Amanyar Swordmasters

is it possible to create submod for Dunedain - Bree confederation in lategame? I hate to backstab them when creating Kingdom.

Finallyyyy! :) Thank you!

Looks really interesting this mod for MTW2! Do i need third age installed to play it or only MTW2 and kingdom installed?

Great content! A very pleasing campaign. But how do i rebuild Annuminas / Fornost. And is it possible to reunite the kingdom?

ah yes, northern dunedain, where its your job to build up the smallest army in order to conquer a village or two and then stagnate until the barracks event hits and your enemies are finally strong enough to completely overrun you with ten thousand men/orcs even when i cheat i find myself against the odds but then i have at least a chance if i cheese it

Hello! I’m playing as norther dun. I’m on turn 100+, have upgraded the ranger camps, but i don’t see steelbowmen as an option to train, do they come from an additional building ?

How do you recruit units in Annuminas? I'm currently in turn 46 and I cant recruit any units there. I build some barracks, changed the culture ofc and the symbols for units are there but if I want to recruit them they get a greyish background and nothing happens ( normaly u get a green if u can or red if you can't build them).

Is it feasible to have just Arnor available to be remade in future, instead of the entire reunited kingdom? I've got a lot of love for the northern kingdom, and I think it'd be a more achievable endgame goal for the smaller scope campaigns I tend to prefer.

I'm playing 4.5 and the BOH mercenary system hardly works at all. Some regions I've never been able to recruit units at all. For example in Rohan I got one rohirrim unit and nothing else, and in Dunland I got nothing at all

Hi Galu, Thanks so much for all the work on V4.5! Just thought I'd give some feedback on the new beacon of hope system. I found it slightly difficult to manage culture with the new system as I tend to go for angmar, then orcs of the misty mountains and then just go for mordor and fight whatever is in the way. When you get to Rohan and are trying to get into mordor held Gondor, the game slows down considerably in the newer version for the ND. This is because you have a much higher culture requirement to reliably recruit strong troops from captured regions so practically you can't recruit from Rohan, and the prevalence of great beasts in mordor stacks make javelins an absolute necessity. So I find myself waiting for reinforcements from the north (Especially Rhudaur axe throwers) and having to hold for turns at a time in a choke point while I reroute armies from miles away. In V3 however I think the campaign was a touch more dynamic as the high culture requirement of Dunedain troops was offset by being able to recruit the local factions units reliably and quickly. Campaigns felt like you really were liberating rohan from isengard and being able to field full stacks of rohirrim for the future was super cool, but for me the mercenary system hasn't provided that volume of troops. Not asking for changes as I'm sure you get lots of feedback, just my two cents on the newer system. Cheers!

In my N. Dunedain campaign in v3, I took Annuminas first and let Angmar take a few swings at Deadman's Dike before I jumped in to finally take it. I think all the trolls were dead, and a fair amount of the infantry was gone as well, though it was more experienced.

26:30 Beacon of hope.

would it be possible to make silver level armor have a more visual upgrade for armsmen? it's kind of annoying that if I want to visually upgrade my late game units I need to get Kazad dum or carn dum . like I understand the advanced blacksmith it's just that if you do super well and get master armour essentially having the "best" equipment that a re-established Arnor can provide and your units who have arguably the best visual upgrade is very limited sorry if I sound like I'm whining

I have the newest version, however my beacon of hope does not seem to work. No other human troops, but the Rhudaur units. Any reason why? You mentioned Aragorn a lot. Mine died early on. Is that a possible reason?

Arthedain armsmen suddenly became my favorite unit in the game

Interesting video and I think the 1st ND one since v 2.1 as I've looked often but never seen a later one? That is actually the only game I've ever played as before completing that RL intervened and then I actually started playing the base ME II game but hopefully will shortly upgrade my DAC and start playing again. Given that is it possible to ask? a) Is it actually worthwhile sending Aragon on all the missions to get the AotD since the ND are so hard pressed in the early game, especially now Angmar is so much more powerful? b) As I understand it the BoH system is dependent on Aragon so if he dies does that then stop working? If so would this include any already constricted barracks build facilities as well as the mercenary recruiting? c) Did I understand rightly you can now build dunedain units in any provinces, albeit it takes a hell of a long time to get the cultural value high enough. That would counter some of the restrictions on how you can recruit troops in formally enemy nations. [For instance in the campaign I mentioned back in v2.1 I could recruit Harad and Corsairs units despite both nations still being in play. The Corsairs still had their fleets in the north and other spamming occasionally in the far south along with having defeated their last army they has horde produced another one which had taken another PC and I had occupied most of western Harad.] d) I am somewhat worried by the talk about building a decent economy being a lot harder, in part because the ND start off with such a poor resource base and also I'm more of a strategy player who likes that sort of game detail but if you have to use a lot of commanders to garrison the major settlements - as you obvious can't do it for all once they start growing -its going to hamstring a lot of nations. e) If I understand rightly the videos, which I've watched a few of, you can use use merchants, but only have one and seem now to be restricted to only one diplomat and spy? Anyway looks very good although very hard now. Probably when I finish my current ME II game I will try upgrading then playing through ND, as my favourite nation, on a relatively easy level then possibly go for the VH setting. Sorry about such a long list of questions.

Can the ND rebuild any part of Osgiliath? Got E. Os during a play through and West was already built by Gondor. Can I rebuild the Eastern half?

@Arachir Galudirithon what does Chief of the Dunedain and Flame or Arnor with Aragorn and Gandalf do, respectively? Also, I need an important answer. Do I need to destroy all the northmen buildings when I take Angmar settlements?? Or since we count as Northmen, we can keep them? I've been destroying them and rebuiling... so Idk if I fucked up or not lol *Edit: Its Wildmen you talked about, not Northmen. Still though, should I demolish the buildings even though I can upgrade them, or will they maintain their Eye of Melkor culture and fuck everything up

Hey Galu, you said the Beacon of Hope bug fix is easily doable. Which lines do I have to edit to make it work for all the bugged nations?

I wasn't the biggest fan of the beacon of hope changes, but the tweaks to barracks make it a lot more bearable. It's definitely a change, but so far in my games it hasn't felt that bad. Personally, I think a bit of a hybrid system where you could recruit a few of the local troops from the second tier from the barracks, or maybe a third tier to supplement the mercenary system might help provide some of the unique flavor that they had in the past. That being said, having to wait 30+ turns to get two more Bree militia is absolutely ridiculous. Those militia units help you great to start, and it's simple, but when you have to wait nearly a decade in game to get more the system is nonsensical.

I think you have increased the difficulty of the campaigns up to the point that they are not really fun to play anymore. Fighting the AI just becomes a massive grind for several reasons. The AI has always spammed stacks but back in the day it was manageable. Now, the increases in the rebel garrisons have really slowed the player down, since as the player you have to actually fight to get the early settlements that the AI just gets for free along with free units. This wouldn't be a massive issue since in the past generals were broken and as the player you could abuse them better than the AI. You can't rush other factions anymore to level the playing field since the generals are nerfed, and because it feels like as the player you never start with any units. So in conclusion, it takes way longer than in the past to get going as the player and you can't rush the AI anymore. This leads to the AI building up massive stacks which you will be fighting for a very long time without making any real progress, since the player is so handicapped compared to the AI. I don't play DaQ to play Tower Defense.

I think ypou should have shown of the upgraded look because it is so absolutely awesome

Is there a way to get a more modern battle camera? i just loath the weird angles on it in mtw2 :(

If this isn't a 5, what is a 5?

Question when the 400 turns pass can I continue the campaign or does the game end and I have to start another one?

i'm now on turn 50-ish and i can say for a fact that being able to peace out with the gobbo's at the very start was really good for me. apart from fighting them in that village they take that is right next to your starting settlements, i was able to peace out with them and even coax some money out of them! something i have noticed about the high elves this version is that they are much more active in their campaign. they repeatedly took bruinost from the goblins only to lose it due to the gobbo's numbers. i've also got a diplomat going around selling my map information for 2000+ coins. massive boost to your eco. don't know how i would've built all my warcamps without it. i merged the Hirvigil and Halbarad armies and recruited the only bree units you get all game in order to help(Beacon of hope is bugged and you only get those 2,they don't replenish). with that army i first captured barketta and Ost gelon, in order to keep the dwarves from capturing them. after that i focused on annuminas and then i focused on fornost. i left bandits as garrison everywhere i could and sieged the enemy out so they attacked me. with all this i was able to get a nice starting domain, which after a bit of upgrading became a good power base for further expansion into angmar.

how do you expand south? generally bree takes your southward avenue of expansion

Ost Sul is a mighty fortress how many Thralls have died trying to take it from me. The Arthedain Footmen are great start game General killers even the barrow wights will fall to them. The Cardolan raiders are a really good mop up unit they will mop up half the army.

Feel like there should be unique units from Annuminas and Fornost. Maybe Knights of Annuminas from Annuminas for an uber elite unit above even the Arthedain Royal Guard, but make them extremely limited. Also I know there are the Tharbad Royal Guard, but I do miss there not being Arthedain Pikemen. Maybe those could be implemented as a tier below the Tharbad Pikemen? Just some suggestions to give the roster a more Arnorian feel and not keep a majority of the roster looking like rangers.