My first 2950 gunboat game and it was quite enjoyable though fille with many frustrations. I played NG and the Rangers to start and then picked up Riders at turn 8.
My first goal was to put the Witch King out of the game as quickly as possible. In that one area I succeeded. Though I must say, the cursing from turn 1 on was more than a little annoying. It felt like I had agent companies and cursers crawling all over me form the get go. Not to mention losing a few coin flip challenges early.
NG - drove hard offensively into the Ithil pass for as long as I could. I just kept trying to pour armies in. Thanks to SG for several timely gap fill-ins. If we had come together we would have busted through. After the bridges were blown it was survival mode. I think I was down to 4 or 5 characters at one point and worried whether I could get another name commander off.
Rangers - goal 1: drive WK out of north and out of game - check. Goal 2: be the sugar daddy for NG and RR - check. Goal 3: develop killer emissary corp - check until they landed on a CL Mtown midgame only to find it occupied by an entire agent company and Saruman, scratch one whole company of 70+ emissaries…major setback. Got the Ring of Impersonation for Elrohir on turn 7. Thought I was sitting pretty until I tried ot make a play at Barad Perras and he was cursed to death.
Riders - took over a somewhat strong Rider nation. Previous owner had built up a fairly decent agent grouping. Very military anemic though which proved near fatal as Dog Lord kept pouring troops at me. Devestation was wreaked by visits from agents and cursers. Though I managed to strike back and dealt a blow killing off Carrog and getting the Ring of Impersonation and Gothmog and his artifacts. That was the last I saw of that agent company bothering me, thankfully. Dog Lord managed to destroy Edoras but I transferred Pelargrir to keep in the game.
Overall a fun game. Well done to my fellow free players, well played ot the DS.
I played DogLords and LR from turn 1-11 and WW from turn 5-11
At this point I had to drop the game…arghhh bugger.
But I was in personal financial trouble and could not keep pouring money into my nations.
I blitzed the Rhun easterlings turn right from the start and had him out of the game by turn 4-5
From there the target was the Riders of Rohan. Primarily this was decided because I picked up the WW. The WW was in deep trouble at the time and I basically had to wreck the LR and DogL positions economically to keep the WW afloat. The WW also retired 3 characters to avoid bancruptcy.
But the WW had nice emmisaries and began slowly to recuperate by building camps, but I lacked a curse artifact big time.
I did have a very strong agent company with several agents above 100 agent rank (incl. artifacts) I moved most of the LR artifacts to DogL agents with stealth and also picked up the ROC.
I judged that the Riders would be very hard to eliminate and was actually shifting my focus away from the riders around turn 11. The idea was that the WW now had a secure base in mordor and did not need to fight the riders as furiously as they had done up til then.
I never saw any action against Morannon, but the Northmen made some moves on the LR camps and had to pay for the deed with 3 characters assassinated.
If anyone wants to see the pdf’s I have a complete archive. Mail me personally at jesper@jesperlyster.dk
I started at the BS/FK… Bankrupted the FK because I’m dumb and screwed up a transfer order… Picked up the LR and later on the DkLts…
Things went well untill all my allies decided to drop…
And my nations were in fairly good shape… Albeit it stretched for gold. I managed to pick up a number of artifacts, repel invaders from the eastern side of Mordor, and tried to mount an offensive. In the end I was the last DS standing…
Way to hold the fort. Were you working more of the east side of Mordor?
I finally got enough timber and money to NG and rebuilt the bridge. I think we had 4 free armies coming in the front gate of Mordor at the end. That might have been what pushed the IK and DogL over the edge to concede.
The NM and Dwarves pushed really hard. I never got anywhere with my armies after turn 10 or so. There was too much pressure on Morannon and the Morgul pass that I ended up diverting BS troops there a few times. Mordor’s defense really fell apart after I lost the FK, otherwise I’m sure I could’ve held the Morgul pass for a while.
