Alain - following on from 96 thread I think here is better. Isn’t the strongest combo with the Rhudaur CL? It gives you economic support, a back-up and the best agent support in the game. Or do you think the mounts option, less ecnomic support and same back-up option to be stronger?
This would make the combos:
11/20
13/15
17/18
19/24
With:
14/16 (two agent nations)
12/21 - overall strengthening of the DS IMO.
or 12/14 - agent with double scout which players cried foul on on many occasions.
16/21 - possibly a slight improvement of the DS.
(Normally: 14/24 and 12/21, 16/19 for reference).
For FP we normally have:
1/4
2/8
3/7
5/9
6/23
10/22
Now there are easy ways to strengthen this but I’m not sure that’s right to do just to make the duos tougher. (Ditto the DS). (See below for example).
1/4
2/9
3/10
5/8
6/23
7/22
I think the present duos have strengths for both sides and also weaknesses.
While CL/Rhudaur is not a bad combination I found the LR a superior combination from the point of view of the Rhudaur.
The biggest problem for Rhudaur is that you get out-recruited by the nations around you however good you play. Both CL and LR armies are too far away to give any assistance and unless you give Rhudaur a 3rd MT at 2208 ( which I argue for too BTW) and transfer that MT, you cannot expect any military help.
So you can’t increase the number of recruitment points but I found I could balance that with recruiting HC (often in steel armor), something none of the other attacking FP nations can do (at least not all the time).
Without help from your allies you still may not be able to hold on to Rhudaur, especially if the FP gang up on you, but you can hold out much longer with the mounts and leather the LR can send. And if the FP all gang up on you, well then they don’t attack someone else while they are doing that so it helps the team.
In the case of game 96 the mounts support helped me to stay in their long enough to build up an unknown MT (non starting) back-up somewhere else.
OK the CL can give more agent support but the LR with the agent artifacts can be a very powerful agent nation too. And the problem with the CL is that if you play solely on defending the Rhudaur with your agents, your allies in Mordor get done in, so you in the end you do not really have more agents to assist Rhudaur with then the LR.
So in my humble opinion the starting pairing combination we had in game 96 for the DS is the right one:
WK/DkL, Rhu/LR, FK/CL, Cor/DrgL, IK/QA, DogL/BS
But I would argue that even with that combination, Rhudaur needs to get a MT/Fort at 2208 on top of the normal Fort at 1910 to make the game more fair to Rhudaur.
I do also have another idea that I would like other people’s opinion on: how about giving the Voice of the Dark Tower to Rhudaur as a starting artifact, allowing him to improve PC’s early on in the game or to build up a new back-up more quick? Surely WK/DkL do not need both emis artifacts.
In my opinion the “standard” FP combinations do not need changing and I think definitely a combination of SG/Harad is too powerfull. The Corsairs seem to be done in pretty quickly in most of the GB games I have played and against a combined and coordinate SG/Harad.
Corsairs and QA should be able to handle Harad with SG sending only his first force to South Harad? I have played Corsairs a number of times and I do in Harad everytime. You need to work the fleets properly in addition it is nice if CL and other agent nations steal from Harad helps and for that matter Corsairs should get an ok CL killer (no artys) agent by turn 7/8 in the area. I guess this is the wild card but I still feel that Corsairs should win this battle even without CL agent help, I have, more than once.
Hint - give a new Corsairs 30 comm the DrgL main combat arty and see what a (30 + 15 bonus + 45 arty) 90 challange Corsairs army commander can do to a Lord of SG not expecting it, been there done that
On your main point of about LR and Rhudaur. I will say that I think CL needs to be tied to a Mordor Nation as it is key for the protection of Mordor. As far as Rhu/LR goes, Rhu is not suppose to live long so if you make it till turn 15 in the area than good chance Evils will win ME. Get the LR agent artys to the CL ASAP.
The problem as I see it with the cloud Lord and Rhudaur is a smart free people strategy would be to send everything in the North after Rhuduar. Duns and Dwarves included and send all of Northern Gondor after the Cloud Lord. Dave Holt sent Northern Gondor after the Cloud Lord around turn five and the agents were not good enough to stop them. He could take the capital and the backup and it is pretty darn hard to stop. If the Arthedain, Duns, Dwarves, Cardolan and Noldo send their first wave and 2nd and 3rd from the Duns and Cardolan after Rhuduar. You score a pretty high chance of knocking out all four major towns of the Cloud Lord and Rhuduar prior to turn ten, and thus eliminating one if not both nations as it will be difficult for them to build up a backup major town in the first ten turns.
Yes, this weekens the overall attack on all the other Dark servants, but at the risk of knocking out the Cloud lord, it is a strategy worth considering.
Can it be countered? Anything can be countered. But it is pretty hard for the Cloud Lord to stop Northern Gondor without some luck and timely bridge blowing.
I agree this is my opinion, but sometime I would like to play NG/Duns and see how the Cloud Lord/Rhuduar counter the attack strategy.
I agree that your proposed stragegy has some teeth, but it would only work in a limited diplo game. I’m well into my 2nd GB (no diplo) and I have to tell you the nation coordination is a difficult thing to predict. Maybe it is just my newness to the game that I don’t know the individual players and their strategies, but, to tell the truth, I kinda like it that way.
For those of you that are “Fog of War” advocates, I would definately recommend it. I am enjoying it emmencely. (I just can’t spell…grin)
