Divide & Conquer (V4): Faction Overview - Ar-Adûnâim 

The new Greco-Rome-Persian feel is a refreshing look to the Alcohol Anonymous

Nothing better than your faction overviews. Always entertaining, fun, interesting and helpful to master a faction! You speaking and explaining without a proper script creates the impression of a narration or sort of a conversation between friends. And after all, it helps a lot to improve my English skills.

As a general rule if a settlement has a Unique building (e.g. Tower of Ecthellion, Bridge of Tharbad, The Hornburg, Golden Hall of Meduseld) you can get the Royal Guard/Knights out of it. Hilariously this includes The Prancing Pony in Bree.

42:46 I, for one, absolutely *love* the new Royal Guard look. Aside from the excellent detail of the armor model, I think it works well for the natural theme of the AA elites: reflecting the old Numenorean armies. The gold-and-black color scheme, plus the mask, just gives that perfect combination of imposing, awe-inspiring, and yet dark. A perfect reflection of the glory of Numenorean arms at the height of their power, yet still clearly showing the shadow that was falling over the island.

Maybe instead of "requires various", just put "require dunedain heritage locations" or something similar, it would mean we have to figure it out ourselves but with a solid hint, adds a bit of immersion

I hope v4 comes out in the next few Weeks, because corona keeps me home

I am always so impressed and pleased with how you truly try to pronounce things properly. It is a shame that the vast majority of lets players (and of other video categories) on the internet can spend up to a hundred hours in a game, and still keep making excuses for why they dont know how something is pronounced. It literally takes a minute at most, and then you've learnt how to pronounce something, for the rest of your entire corporeal life. If that isnt a cheap price to pay for knowledge, i dont know what is. 1 minute to learn something, or 100 hours of _"uh or however u wanna say it heh i dont know sorry im terrible"._ And i'm just scratching my head every time, _"No, its not 'however you want to say it', that isnt how language works. Why not just learn it, alt tab right now and look it up?"_ Thank you, for making an effort.

The double line for buildings can be avaided by carefully coding. The keyword to use is "not". It would be something like culture increase if not barren and a separate line culture increase if barren. Or the different way, as you do know what hidden ressource is present in every region for the design of the mod, you could just have a separte line for each level of "liked" terrain.

The redesign you've given them, cannot stress this enough, is fantastic. The Romanesque theme fits so well with how the Numénoreans were in the lore, and also it just looks damn cool. Also the Azrazair Marines must be the coolest looking unit in the game.

New AA are really great, huge improvement over old Umbar

I'd love if there was some way the Ardûnaim could rebuild the ruins of the pillar at Umbar. It would probably put them into immediate war with Sauron, basically stating their intention to subjugate him or kill him once again as true sons of Numenor, but maybe it could give them access to an elite unit or two. I also don't know if Med 2 has any religious conversion mechanics, but it would be awesome to be able to flip to Numenorean culture as the Ardûnaim if you choose to destroy the ring. We have Ered Luin now turning evil, and Khan's turning good, so I don't think it would be too far out there, especially given how much the AA have to sit on culture anyway.

The new style of the Ar-Adûnâim looks to me like the new "Evil Roman Expedition Corps". XD

The first time I played the Ar-Adunaim, when they were first released, I sailed all the way to what used to be Lindon. The old Lindon faction had only three regions with relatively small garrisons. So, I split my army into three, attacked each town, and starved them out so that each town would rise up on the same turn. This tactic, albeit cheesy, avoided the last-stand script and killed off an entire faction in one turn around turn 15. With the changes to Lindon (Now the High Elves), this tactic is not viable anymore, but may be more fun and less exploity. This is probably my favorite faction because of the versatility and variability of their start, and they look awesome! Great work DaC team!

Looking forward to playing v4 during a total quarantine , I hope you and the team stay healthy!

I always look forward to the videos, especially faction overviews, you always do great stuff man, keep it up

I love your extremely thought-out and unique reasonings for the factions' stats and the history/background you research and/or create in this mod.

Really impressive. Love the lore aspects of what you’ve done with AA. Well done everyone

So happy to see people still working and putting in so much effort into the game of my childhood, god bless y’all !

Well met indeed, I was waiting for next faction overview

I really enjoy your faction overview vids even when i don't play the game but the amount of lore behind this is just amazing, even if this one is more fanfic still interesting.

Naru n'Aru Royal Guard: REQUIRES NÚMENOREAN HERITAGE.

Wow! Those models looks great. Super job guys

Yes I have been looking forward for this.

Thanks to the team, absolutely loving this mod! It is amazing in all possible ways. Whole concept of Ar-Adunaim is just great. It's almost funny how lore-friendly it is while being completely out of official lore. And this vibe of "true numenoreans claiming their own" is sooo good. Playing 4.5 now, I chose default reclaim-Gondor-path and would humbly disagree with "0 difficulty level". I tried at first capture Umbar shore, ally with Harad\Mordor and start with attacking Dol Amroth and all went disastrous. When I attacked Dol Amroth, Gondor attacked me instantly. Fighting them both is really tough when you have just 4-5 regions. So I was capturing and loosing regions up to 80 turn when Mordor started to push hard and captured Osgiliath and Minas Tirith, so I gave up. Next time I ignored Umbar and sailed straight to besiege Minas Tirith, which surprisingly went much better. If you are lucky you can just wait 10 turns of siege (assault will cost a lot of men) because you have full stack and Gondor simply may not attack you. After that you need to deal with a few armies, 4 full stacks in my case. I won 2 battles, 1v1 and 1v2, then I hid in Minas Tirith and the 4th army left to fight Mordor (Gondor having 2nd enemy helps a lot). After initial cleaning it becomes much easier, you can build up Minas Tirith a bit, get nearest regions (Cair-Andros, Osgiliath, Lossarnach) and gradually advance to the west of Gondor, with enemies coming from only one side (assuming you are allies with dark factions on the east). In general, strategy of conquering Gondor from Minas Tirith is quite viable, though you'll need some luck at the beginning. Tip - I would definitely recommend to build camps immediately (because converting religion is slow and you will need new soldiers SOON), but after camps immediately to build tier 2 shrines, because you will soon need your own units also. PS: Renamed Minas Tirith to Ar-Pharazon to remind Sauron of his old friend :) PPS: Beruthiel's Watch is awesome. Almost over powered, though without it I think I would loose half of the battles and therefore whole campaign, so i think it quite appropriate.

WOW! The Royal line is ABSOLUTELY Amazing!! Great Design! I just LOVE it. 😍

When I played as AA I first took Umbar and then sailed with half of my Army to Tharbad and so I had two starting locations, which was pretty nice

Custom Adunaim themed armour for southern Dunedain units...good old hummingbird. Not all heroes wear capes

Love this faction! So much fun to roleplay 'what-if' scenarios and do as you will without the regional restrictions of Ered Luin or alliances of Khaza-dum. First time I played a bit traditional and after conquering the south I worked up the right side eliminating factions until Dale. Starting up a second envisioning a split empire. Great job on the faction.

3:08, oh look, they come from Constantinople 😁. Mirkwood Elves faction overview, when??? I want to know what've you done with my smug boi, King Thranduil 😊

*Sneaks into the game files...* How do you say "Sparky-sparky Boom Men" in Adunaic?

This is awesome I’m super excited for the high elves overview because Imladris was my favorite faction and I can’t wait to see their new roster

I am beyond happy to see you getting after it and still kicking Galu. Miss ya big Guy

Watching from South Korea. Super excited for version 4! Love your videos!

AA seems like a candidate for favourite faction.. Life was so much simpler when I just knew that I was gonna start as the High Elves when this came out

For flavor reasons, I like to attack either Gondor or the ND when playing as the AA, its just too tempting not to, being the King's Men finally putting down the Faithful

All the best to you and your team, working all hard for our enjoyment! I have to say though, i kinda liked the look of the Ar-Adûnâim in version 2.2 better. I guess that's how art works, it's really subjective. Don't get me wrong, i still think they look badass. Can't wait to have a go with them.

This looks awesome!

I can't wait for V4 to be released. I already have a list of factions to play and with this overview I am surely adding Ar-Ardunaim right on top of this list.

The "flagship" of the mod!

Yes! He’s updating the overviews!!

Wooo! The Vale of Anduin! Currently playing as a Valesman in Last Days of the Third Age in Mount & Blade!

I was umming and erring over making this my first campaign when v4 comes out but when I saw the AA-style Gondorian troops I almost made a mess in my trousers. AA let's get it baby

i have been waiting for this my fave faction

Holy crap, the subjugated units look absolutely stunning. Just wonderful!

The naru n'Aru units oozes old Numenor! Love the look

Having my first long play with the AA and something that really stands out for me if you want to play the long game with them. As you expand you get different units from different parts of the map. This means as you expand, you're getting different types of armies to play with. This keeps things fresh over the long game. The downside is, all those experienced units you get earlier aren't great for moving to the front, because you can't retrain them in your new territories, which means a long trip back to retrain (or accept losses and merge, but that runs out eventually). I'm a big fan of keeping my experienced units on the front line, so this affects that. But, the ability to have entirely new armies as you move forward does outweigh that to keep things fresh.

Loving the Faction Overviews and the hype for v4 is real ☝🏼 Could you maybe do a unit overview for all mercenary units? Since some factions might have to rely on them (Bree for example). :)

Galu with an avatar the last airbender reference... I knew I loved this man

Starting in Mithlond was quite fun aswell and a hardcore challenge due to their last stand script :D

"they really are a backstabber faction" ah so they're milan then

So need idea if you taken suggestions through RU-vid Arachir but one thing I thought of was a way to spice up The Elves of Loren. You can give them a script like Isengard to take the one ring to declare war on everyone and get a bunch of bonuses, like new units, maybe an enslavement mechanic or something too.Basically Galadriel becomes that terrible and beautiful queen that she said she would become. No idea that’s your thing or would interest people but worth a shot lol

Oh yes i can't wait now! :-)

As a joke, The AA banner looks like the logo to Pirate Bay the torrent site. Seriously this all looks great! I can't wait to play them.

I miss these 😢

I would have suggested putting that double culture effect in the intro scroll, but apparently a lot of people don't bother reading that despite the useful information it contains for new players. Also I saw brown so I immediately guessed Dunland. I'll get it right eventually.

Loving the overviews! Just want to notify that you didn't discuss the boats, nor the setup of the AA's upkeep at the start of the game (units free, upkeep changing when you take your 1st, 2nd, 3rd settlement, etc) which imo is an AA-specfiic gameplay feature. It might be good to make a "top comment" to explain at least how the upkeep is handled, because that might not be something people will figure out by themselves when they play as the AA.

Loving the professional feel of the roster. My inner Classical Antiquity fanboy is very happy. And my inner Swiss fanboy.

It is very interesting how the units' style has developed over the years. At first, when the faction was called Umbar, the units looked very maritime, with scale armour, sea green shields, tridents and decorative fins on their helmets. Some also wore burgundy colours and there was some southern influence in the roster (camel riders). The elite units wore masks when upgraded. When the Ar-Adûnâim were introduced, the green colours were removed in favour of more black and burgundy. Some roman elements were added (plumes on some helmets), and the Ar-Adûnâim style for troops from Gondor and Dol Amroth was introduced. In this iteration of the game (see video above), the greco-roman style was fully embraced (shields, helmets, colours). Almost the entire roster was freshly painted. Now some elite units received a distinctive golden touch, which made them stand out on the battlefield. Finally, with version 5 of the game, nearly the entire roster was changed again in appearance. The new units look very ornate and have taken some inspiration from the European renaissance / late medieval period, while retaining some greco-roman elements. The only two units which remain unchanged throughout this journey are the low tier archers and raiders. Other pirate style units have been assimilated into a more uniform roster. Why this long excursion into style, you may ask. Were I to chose my favourite roster, I would mix and match from all periods. There is no such thing as linear progress in art. Sometimes you like the style, sometimes you lament the changing of iconic units. But the artists can be proud of having created something so memorable that will be cherished by many fans of this game. Their creations, led by the players as generals, are conquering middle earth, in a way.

Wonderful. The DAC team are aces!

I like to settle in Lond Daer. Also I love the new Royal Guard :)

I absolutely love the new look of the Ar Adunaim, will be a fun campaign, killing the usurpers of Gondor and Arnor. I'm going to miss Royal Tharbad though, it looked awesome with the bridge and regular Tharbad. Can't wait for the new version, also can't wait for the Angmar overview, to see if there is anything different.

Mm, beautiful. Looking forward the version 4, but you should do it before or some time after the M&B Bannerlord is released! :D

I still have one question what happens with the rind do we get a choice or a new script or is it still locked to deliver it to sauron?

My favorite memory of AA is from the previous version before lindon was merged into the high elves, I split my army into three with spearmen, archers, a general, and halberdiers, sailed them up to all three cities in lindon besieged and sniped all the generals in lindon then quit the battles, and regicided them all in same turn, then walked into them next turn. Then I took buzra-dum and turned on the dwarves, that was a power house playthrough by turn 20ish

Why can I never forget the incomprehensible gibberish at the start of all your videos?

It would be neat if the Númenorean factions could rebuild the Pillar in Umbar. It also be cool if the Ar-Adunaim could recruit Black Númenoreans from the temple in Durthang. Also props for designing not just a great faction but a great game overall. Here's to greater things to come 🍻

With my first AA campaign I sailed over to Mithlond, took out all 3 Elven cities on the same turn :) Proceeded from there on, was a fun campaign though lots of end turning at start XD

When the King's men took Mithlond, I already had a Breelander army composed of watchmen, one merchant unit and hobbits on the ready in Undertowers. I then joined on the siege of my elven allies and stormed the town from 3 sides with my full stack taking 2. I stacked the main side, closest to the town center with the armoured and buffed watchmen, meanwhile the ones without armour upgrades and the hobbits took on another side. Jesus christ they were slaughtered, I welcome the change on aesthethics on the Armsmen because, had they looked like that, I would have been more careful with my troops on that side where armsmen were present.

Yay the sunday entertainment is here

So beruthiel rangers are basically dark elfs shades, nice

Their theme is so cool, reminiscent of the Crusaders. It would be cool to see some more of that, like heavy cavalry with a Lance and a giant symbol on a shield...

This faction looks great

Black, red and purple color scheme for Dorwinion auxiliaries could look sick.

A most highly informative overview Arachir! I don't wish to be impertinent by asking, but will you be uploading any Age of Empires II games again in the near future?

Just downloaded the mod and the first place I went to was right behind Mordor to the East. This is going to be an interesting campaign for me.

I think Royal Guard and Household guard, Knights are beautiful, I always loved golden armored units .

Can't wait to start in the Misty Mountains and see what happens

Anduin have basically few group of people in their roster: -Beornings: basically most violent and strongest group of people forming Anduin army. Good morale and decent armor and skill. -Eotheod: most militaristic part of army- more uniform and organized than anything else. They have best armor and training from not AoR units, also good morale. They also supply your best cavarly unit, be it a archer one or melee. -Woodsmen: they're are something inbetween Beornings and Eothed in term of armor, morale and skill, with additional flavor of them being a good in hiding. They got most of skirmishers of Anduin army, be it archers or javelinmen. -Special ones: units which kinda not fit into any other above , mostly AoR , like Carrock Guard, Stoor units, Silvan Marchwardens , Vale Defenders or others.

Nice!

Just had a cracking idea, one of the Nazgul could be related to the Ar-Adunaim in some way, that would be cool

I shall definitely try them. And most certainly I shall try and expand on different locations, each time I play them. A quite intriguing and unique idea, I may say. I look on your moddb page, but unfortunately there is no description of this faction. What was the source of inspiration for this faction?

Will you be adding portraits to AA? They only have few.

I absolutely love playing the faction itself, I just wish there was a way I could edit the helmets of the early tier (dont dig the pointy helm) and changing the general roster colour to a more dark gray to match the naru n'aru, rather than red and black

This is probably going to be a fantastic faction to play as once the new version is out. Amazing job, Arachir! I also have a question. Why don't the orcs of Moria have a late game spear unit? They could really use a heavy goblin spear unit.

I suggest a new series of gameplay videos with following rule: 1.Ally with Saruman and middlemen if possible, creating a third alliance against both good and evil 2.Each general will be assigned to a faction by you, for example, if you assign a general to harad, then that general can only lead harad units out to battle (although they can defend settlement with AA or other units of course). 3.Generals of assigned faction should be taking the major role of defending their corresponding area, that is however not a must do as situations may change from time to time, if the region is no longer in danger, the general can lead their army forward to other regions, however they can still only get reinforcement from their region since that's the only place produce his units

Hi Galu, did you mention that upkeep is low until you claim a settlement? Also, after your description of how armour works, it would be fantastic if you could do a vid on mechanics like how does attack/def/AP etc work. Live your stuff 👍👍👍

Where is the intro your gave Bree and Dale? I really like that start. Have a nice day, can't wait to see Anduin!

Challenge campaign: never take a region, kill off enemies using regicide and mercenaries

can you put the shields of the Abrazanim archers on the back? I kind of like it more Also you should use the Adunaic form of prince Phazan

I siege out all the towns in the Grey Havens at the same time. That is a pretty fun start.

Just a quick question. Are you planning to make Adunaim look to the othet auxiliary units in the future?

Could you do a full independent video on subjugation/beacon of hope units? It’s hard to know where to go for what.

Is Gimilzor’s portrait just the Hammer of Sauron from Shadow of Mordor? I replayed that game and I just noticed that rewatching the overviews, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a picture of Ratbag leading orcs too

I miss old Umbar. I think they were more lore friendly. But i see why people like the AA

Is it possible to create a building that upgrades shield stat? I think this would be especially useful for lightly armoured nations like enedwaith.

Love the look of the AA, especially the Armsman. However, since they placed so well is the sword and board ranking they are really in need of a new name suited to their prowess in battle. Ouutclassing such classic units with awesome names i.e. wardens if the white tower, Talon knights etc. They are really deserving of a similarly resounding unit name. Armsman has connotation of mid tier units.

Hello good sir, I would really like to see you play V4 A-A as a campaign by going to maybe Tharbad or somewhere like Annuminas. Maybe even Isengard who knows. Even if just a few episodes. The Royal Guard in Gold looks sick.

Tharbad has 10% kingsmen culture tho apparently @5:17, that'd make it a lot more viable location

Is tharbad going to be a ruin on the battle map or a build city ? also is the strategy model going to be a gondorian city or ruin ?

For a moment I thought the public order explanation would be like the old civilization bug where the developers gave the different AI's representing national leaders different aggressiveness stats and gave ghengis khan the highest at between 10 and 20. And Ghandi got 0 because ghandi, but also an attribute that lowered his aggressiveness even further, but the games engine didn't do negatives so rather than go negative or stay at zero it went to the highest possible number in the tens of thousands. And hence Ghandi became the most psychotic, hyperaggressive lunatic of an AI in the game. I love those stories of bugs messing things up in unique ways ^^