Woodmen here.
A friend of mine, Kevan Mull, was playing Arthedain. We’d get together once each week and plan out the orders for the next turn. Lord, what a game!
I spent the first 20 turns of the game reacting, rather than going through with my own plans… the worst blow being the unexpected collapse of the Eothraim on turn 10. Sigh.
Initially I sent a portion of the starting woodmen force down to 2715 to weaken the Dragon Lord sufficiently that he couldn’t take my mtown/tower at 2711 or the Sinda city at 2514, while the remainder of my forces marched to 2405 to protect it and begin the buildup against 2305 to overwhelm the WK mtown/tower.
Witch King blocked me at 2406 (kudos to you) while his 300 HC / 300 LC took my town at 2405. I beat the WK blocking army, but decided to bring the remainder back to 2508 since there was no point in sitting at a ruins at 2405. Unfortunately, Rhudaur parked his entire starting force on Arthedain’s capital, and I didn’t see anyone moving against Goblin Gate for the first four turns.
I finally decided that I had to deal with Goblin Gate before 2305, or I’d get hit from the west by Rhudaur or the Dragon Lord. (I did, in fact, end up fighting the dragon lord more than a few times, so I’m glad I rid myself of 2409). But the turn I marched on 2409, so did the dwarves (and the Sinda a turn later). I went ahead and smashed the Dragon Lord forces (freeing up the dwarves to take 2409) and then ran into Rhudaur with 3300 HI or so to get rid of them for Arthedain, since he was still around at that point. I’m guessing that the Sinda, Dwarf, and Woodmen forces coming in from the east are what broke Rhudaur, since I think his forces were tied down in Arthedain and fighting Cardolan/ Dunland.
Rhudaur crumbled, but I then had to deal with the Dragon Lord raising at 2809 (I kept waiting for the Sinda to reveal it… never happened) and protect the Sinda town/towers at 2709 and 2608. I chased him down and wiped him out at 2708, only to have to turn my attention to the WK force marching down from 2305 and then the armada of evil icons pouring across Mirkwood from the East when the Eothraim collapsed on turn 10. Eight, nine, ten evil icons on my map was not uncommon. I never did get much help from the Sinda militarily, so I was eventually overwhelmed by the Long Rider, Dog Lord, Blind Sorcerer, Witch King, and Dragon Lord armies, plus various Long Rider and Dark Lt. agents, plus two curse squads. (It wasn’t fun having two characters cursed to death on the same turn, which happened more than once).
Arthedain and I arranged for Arthedain cavalry to save the day at one point at my capital (LR kept clearing the fortifications), we then cleared eastern Mirkwood of enemy armies and population centers while the darks crushed west mirkwood. My counterattack fizzled out because I couldn’t get enough troops in the field to drive the darks out of Mirkwood entirely without military support from the Sinda.
As for agents, since I went military at first, I didn’t start a major build up of agents until around turn 10, when I’d gotten rid of Rhudaur and saw the horde of armies coming in early. I was flat-out beaten in the agent war early, though I had a few nasty surprises for the Long Rider more than once… Arthedain and I wiped out a whole series of LR 80 emissaries at 3105 on one turn, and then wiped out most of his agents at 2908 just two turns ago (Only Gaurhir and Din Ohtar escaped with their lives).
My secondary base in Fangorn was overhwelmed militarily by the darks; I then switched to a pure character strategy and began to hit them wherever they weren’t, planning to sweep back into Mirkwood when their backs were turned. Kevan and I pooled our agents in one company and emissaries in another, though we split the emissaries later since it was over-kill.
My capital fell more than once…
2508 (taken by LR) to 2417 (taken by Dog Lord) to 2908 (taken by LR) to 3621.
It was amusing to have my capital in Mordor, though I doubt many of the mordor folks knew that they were hosting the woodmen nation. Laugh. I couldn’t be eliminated very easily; I had a full compliment of characters, four or five major towns scattered around the world, a pretty strong emissary company and lots and lots of good targets. (My pops also had a higher-than expected loyalty, since I kept my tax rate low as my capitals began to fall). My agents were doing fairly well too; another whole wave of 60-80+ agents were about to enter the fray and we’d already gotten the better of the Long Rider. Our real problem was that we could only hit one target at a time with agents. (The Long Rider consistently killed the company commander at our multi-turn agent battle at 2908. Although we got the better of him because we took him by surprise initially, it prevented us from getting the agents back into position in the west to go mow down several Witch King characters that were getting a little careless. So the LR did a good job in blocking our agent moves.)
I was actually gearing up to drive the lot of you back out of Mirkwood, though it would have lasted only as long as it would have taken you to march yet another horde of armies into Mirkwood.
My compliments to the darks! Lord, what a game…
I spent the entire game struggling under an avalanche of armies and characters. I mean good heavens, I fought the blind sorcerer starting army at my capital (2508) around turn 15?
I’m happy to forward my pdf to anyone who’s curious, I had about 200,000 gold in reserve as of last turn, though I suppose some of you might try to steal gold at this point (laugh).
My email is br_fisher@yahoo.com