I ran the North Kingdom in the Last Alliance game; it was an
interesting scenario and I think that it could definitely be
an enjoyable variant once people get used to the difference
from normal ME PBM. Here is a thumbnail sketch from the
free side. We had a good team that worked well together; thanks to
a lot of folks for making a strong effort. Mark Jaede (Silvans) and
Richard (Woodmen) put together a strong free agent effort and the
Dorwin/SK players kept on slogging even after they got slammed in the
initial going. The Mirkwood free did a nice job of pouring troops
into Mordor at a merciless clip, with a significant assist from the
Duns and North Kingdom; the east side players developed and fielded
huge armies and used them well.
The free start with 12 nations including both the South Kingdom
(roughly a combination northern/southern gondor) and the North Kingdom
(think arthedain + cardolan); there is a sea of rhun nation
(dorwinian, effectively equivalent to the 1650/2950 northmen) and the
northmen/dale are centered in the iron hills and northern mirkwood.
The Duns are also free. The dark side nations are all in mordor
(including the dragon lord and witchking), with the exception of the
three southern neutrals (roughly harad/corsairs/easterlings) and the QA.
The free chose to apply maximum pressure on all fronts. Strategic pop
center swaps were used to get all of the major towns close to mordor
as recruiting bases; all nations but the noldo were able to recruit at
least 800 troops/turn. The north kingdom was recruiting 800 HC/turn
from two bases and 800 HI/turn from two others that were used to
funnel a series of large navies. The relative security of the
northern nations allows them to hire lots of agents and emissaries.
The emmys pushed the camp limit hard, while the agents fanned out and
picked a deadly strategy of massive gold thefts from the dark to keep
them poor.
The dark had some initial success in sacking most of gondorland and
hitting the sea of rhun, but ran out of steam on both fronts as the
free had a massive assault on Morannon that took and sacked it. For
instance, the blind sorceror apparently disbanded his initial army
rather than bringing it to the sea of rhun, and the easterlings hired
infantry rather than cavalry armies that got to rhun too late.
The dark agents were tossed at morannon in a (mostly) vain attempt to
stop the free armies early with agents; this didn't work because of
the lack of agent artifacts on the dark side. By the midgame the free
had developed some deadly agents and were taking out dark armies,
while the south kingdom had recovered and reopened the ithil pass
front. On the east side free armies had sacked all of eastern mordor
and were pressing into the central region. On the final turn the
market had also collapsed.
Is the scenario balanced? I think it could be with some tinkering.
The dark side has its usual strengths - characters and SNAs - but it
lacks dragons, curses, and agent artifacts which makes it very
challenging. The dark side needs to be able to play for time while
they develop their agent assets, and they probably need more economic
muscle than originally designed to survive to the stage where they can
reverse the free juggernaut.
First, as designed it is really a survival test for the dark rather
than a contest where one side or the other will run rampant. The free
should not be permitted to InfOthr Barad-Dur, and they should either
capture it or lose by turn 26.
Second, there are some flukes associated with using a 4th age engine.
In a normal game starting pop centers get a production bonus and
there is a pretty large camp limit. In this one the extra pop centers
had normal production and were subtracted from the new camp limit.
Since the free got *lots* of new pop centers and the dark pop centers
were small, this had the effect of giving the dark few opportunities
for new camps and low starting production.
In addition the starting loyalties were low - in 4th age your
loyalties are equal to the highest emissary rank, which was 30 for
most nations; this made it tough for the dark to get by with tax
increases. I'd put in a fanatical-devotion-to-Morgoth provision that
gave the dark high across the board loyalties, or increase the base
production of their camps, or make their starting camps into villages.
If it is possible to change the camp limit I think that increasing it
would be useful as well.
Finally it could help to derandomize at least a few starting agent
artifacts, make their numbers known by both sides, and allow the dark
to have at least some chance of early agent action. In LA44, for
instance, the free got the ID of the ring of wind through sheer dumb
luck (it appeared as a victory condition - the nation of the dwarfs
needs to own the ring of wind #xxx!)
With these changes the game could be a lot of fun; the dark servants
have some tremendous strengths and I'd run a game as a dark servant
without hesitation. For a more balanced game I'd suggest that some of
the above ideas be synthesized into a revised setup.
cheers,
Marc