“Breeland is possibly in the near future.” Classic. A few things Bandobras archers are worth having imo, you also have a ton of really good ancillaries that you can micromanaged a little better to increase hit-points and acumen/renown, lastly there are a ton of forts in and around bree you can garrison with troops to help fight the barrowights/ keep incase angmar breaks through. If you put calvary in the far ones they can still make it to reinforce andy when he fights the barrowwights.
This would be the very definition of near future. The Barrow-Wights are being handled, they aren't a problem, just a hinderance more than anything else. I think I am using two of those forts, the third is far to the north near Fornost and not really necessary at the moment. If Angmar breaks through this early then I'm in trouble.
Minstrels & Merchants..... EPM has started us off on another Great Adventure. Thanks again so much for all the hard work you put in, and the Flair that you embrace as an Entertainer. Over the long stretch no one tells a better tale than you....
The choice between Dunedain & Mercenaries (when that happens) has the most dramatic change to Breeland's campaign, second to Khand's choice of course. With Breeland you get to choose between either militarizing Breeland so the can fight on their own and actually become a decent/high-mid tier fighting force OR going full on bureaucracy and become the dominant economy in Northern/Western Middle-Earth while simultaneously BUY SOMEONE ELSE to get your problems go away. With my now 3 Breeland Campaigns on the belt I can say for certain that the choice has tremendous effect on Bree.
@@Gapeagle True that, never have I thought how fun/weird is to have 5 units of DCs in a non-dwarven faction and then watch how the meager/mundane folk of Bree decide to go full scale genocide on some Moria Goblins... Possibly in the mix was some Dunlendings and Enedwaithians too
Yes, it's 1 of the most dramatic faction choices out there, I'd actually put Dorwinion up there with Bree as the more dramatic choice. Khand is influential too of course but mostly because of the attacks on you rather than the roster changes, I mean the chariot and the Oricarni Dwarves are nice and all, as are the Temple Guards, but neither choice, roster wise, is too dramatic. Anyway, back to Bree, I don't see it as a choice of economy vs military at all, Dorwinion style(and even that one is a bit of a stretch). Both choices give you access to good units to supplement your otherwise rather mediocre forces. The Dunedain choice unlocks another blacksmith level, sure, but that's where the difference ends when it comes to being the more 'militaristic' choice. Similarly the mercenary choice doesn't really add any new economic benefits either. So the choice boils down to the direction you want to take your roster. Do you want the Dunedain troops with those 2 Sindar units from Michel Delvig or do you prefer to ditch the Dunedain troops(even those you had on your roster) in favor of Dwarven units, including the all important Dwarven Catapults, along with a variety of recruitable(and thus retrainable) mercenaries. Even if it wasn't for the tier 2 Dwarven infantry units(including the pikes mind you) the Dwarven Catapults alone make the mercenary route vastly superior Imho, as the Dunedain route doesn't give you anything nearly as dramatic, and of course the Dwarven infantry themselves are great, and some of the mercenaries are also pretty useful now that you can retrain them. The Dunedain choice basically feels like a ghetto Arnor from the Northern Dunedain, which is rarely picked itself as it's vastly inferior to the Reunited Kingdom alternative. So a worse version of the worst choice from another faction.
Even if a city is at max size it's still beneficial to grow its population as the more people you have the more taxes you earn. So early on it's best to keep taxes low, switching to high 1 turn before a building gets completed for traits like tax collector, in order to grow the population. At some point, depending on campaign length, it becomes more beneficial to switch to max taxes but that's really hard to calculate since campaigns don't have a definitive end date.
Changing tax rates a turn before buildings pop is a little trihard even for me. I've been experimenting with different tax strats recently and it really doesn't make that much of a difference if you go high taxes early, making sure you get good traits and don't get the poor ones. It also means that you get extra money early that helps propel more structures which by itself can raise pop growth. I've done plenty where you go low taxes across the board and it works out too. I would often find when I went for growth on low taxes I could upgrade cities but didn't have the money to build it or hadn't even finished the buildings at the lower tier that I also wanted before it grew. Tax income based on pop is great in theory but often the fastest way to get a high population settlements and hence high tax income is take the enemies settlements since the AI always seems to be able to grow them at a rate of knots. I think the exception is village tier settlements, they are pretty useless and the growth hasn't really started multiplying in large enough chunks yet.
My favorite faction (mainly because I think they have the best looking units. Love the green and yellow gambesons. You have to make at least one pure hobbit stack
They do look really nice and the part of the map is super appealing. A whole hobbit stack though, that would be pretty rubbish. I'm sure they'll be an armies with plenty of hobbits but probably not a full stack.
IIRC choosing the Dunedain path gets you a custom High Elf general and the ability to recruit some Sindar mid tier units in Michel Delving only. Neat little perk. Also not sure if you mentioned it but if you choose the merchant path all your Dunedain units including generals will be deleted and you can no longer recruit them. Edit. Didnt realize how far you've already gotten over on twitch.
Yeah, forgot to mention all the Dunedain units get deleted if going that path. Trying to get some in advance, number 2 kid is coming any day now so I'll probably not be able to record for a bit.
The best part about bree for me was the rangers sending a foce to fight the barrows, I would send a meger force to support and every time I would get a man of the hour. Always had governors for cities lol
That is clever, though I haven't had any real issue with having enough governors even without doing that. I guess the game just hands them out when you don't have enough.
@epmdota I dont think I was having issues either, I just used them to keep my ranger general advancing. Really cheesy but it was my first time playing as bree.
@@BeregondFirstCaptain sounds like a good strat all the same. I was a little concerned that my troops might just run away from the wights without a general.
The most honest answer I can give you is in the future. It will happen. I really enjoy the ND and it is a hard slog early. Since it is going to be a big campaign, I'm waiting as long as I can to get as many bugs fixed as possible.
I don't know what else you would want me to take here, I took 5 rebel settlements. Dol Vorn was impossible with the stack that was there. Ost Gelon would be the only other but that would have required the full army and it was to the north and holds no strategic value. Maybe you just haven't watched yet 😀
Regarding the Dunedain vs Mercenary routes, in the Mercenary route you forgot the variety of tier 2 Dwarven infantry units you get, and most importantly the Dwarven Catapults which are just insanely powerful but also lose access to all your Dunedain units(they get deleted and you can't train more) and your Dunedain general, but get a new mercenary general instead. In the Dunedain route you forgot the rather minor part of getting 2 Sindar(High Elven) units from Michel Delving only as well as a new Dunedain general. Ultimately the Dunedain route is indeed solid, but is just a weaker version of the Arnor route for the Northern Dunedain, which is itself the inferior choice compared to the Reunited Kingdom. The Bree Mercenary route on the other hand is the only non Dwarven faction that gets recruitable Dwarven Catapults, which is a major boon in and of itself. Access to all mercenaries and perhaps more importantly the ability to retrain them in your cities, means mercenaries you recruit anywhere in the world don't quickly become dead weight once they suffer too many casualties. Also having access to the Dwarven infantry units(just tier 2 not tier 3 but still) in an already very diverse roster rather than the very narrow Dwarven rosters themselves, is another massive boon as it easily lets you both maximize their potential and minimize their weaknesses.
This campaign we went with the Dunedain but I am keen to do a mercenary campaign as it does seem equally powerful in other ways. The great roads being available for the dunedain choice was very attractive. I didn't get access to as many elves as I thought I would, was just the one settlement and the recruitment times were very long.
@@epmtotalwar A little tip if you do plan to do the mercenary route eventually, or any other playthrough in this region other than Ered Luin, is that once you take Buzra Dum instead of spending all that time and money developing it you should sell it to Ered Luin instead. Firstly you'll get a decent chunk of change which will let you invest in your other provinces. Secondly as you already know the AI develops cities much faster than the player so under Ered Luin's control Buzra Dum will grow pretty quickly, and they will spend the money building up the city rather than you. If you're lucky they'll even build the level 3 mines which only Dwarves can build. Eventually Ered Luin will build their unique building: the expedition line, which almost guarantees they will lose the settlement to the Balrog eventually, at which point you can retake Buzra Dum, from the Balrog this time, and enjoy a much more developed city, ideally with the level 3 mines, and of course the unique building Ered Luin built in there.
@@epmtotalwar Have yet to try this myself but I know other scripts do work for the AI, like with the High Elves and Ost in Edhil or the Khand script, which did work in this very campaign of yours, when you got the message that Khand lost their capital and faction leader, I can almost guarantee it was due to Ancantor attacking it. So I think it should also work for Ered Luin, assuming the AI actually builds the expedition buildings. Not certain about this though, but will definitely try it in my next campaign in the region.
@@Owlr4ider Right, not all scripts have impacts on AI. EL ring script and Khand choice are the obvious ones that do. An example of one that doesn't is Bree, AI Bree gets both mercs and dunedain. My suspicion is spawn armies only affect the player, in the Khand script the player get hit in 5 settlements by spawn armies, AI Khand only gets hit in their capital. KD doesn't have to deal with the Balrog script. Not saying that the EL idea won't work but there is evidence to go either way. Let me know what happens when you try it.
All of my non-current campaigns are in order starting from '1' on their playlists as anyone watching them is watching after the event. Since 90% of views on new videos (current campaign) occur before the next video drops it is for the comfort of people who are keeping up with the current campaign as they will see the latest video. It may not affect too much right now but most of the time I have a couple of games uploading and so it is easier to track if not using the videos tab.
Breeland: generally weak unit
Also Breeland: gets the earliest and cheapest pike unit in the game
Farmhand Pikes are forever my MVP.
The weapon that they're using is called a bill hook
The names just get better and better. Clearly must be named after our illustrious diplomat Bill...
“Breeland is possibly in the near future.” Classic. A few things Bandobras archers are worth having imo, you also have a ton of really good ancillaries that you can micromanaged a little better to increase hit-points and acumen/renown, lastly there are a ton of forts in and around bree you can garrison with troops to help fight the barrowights/ keep incase angmar breaks through. If you put calvary in the far ones they can still make it to reinforce andy when he fights the barrowwights.
And it come true
This would be the very definition of near future. The Barrow-Wights are being handled, they aren't a problem, just a hinderance more than anything else. I think I am using two of those forts, the third is far to the north near Fornost and not really necessary at the moment. If Angmar breaks through this early then I'm in trouble.
Minstrels & Merchants..... EPM has started us off on another Great Adventure. Thanks again so much for all the hard work you put in, and the Flair that you embrace as an Entertainer. Over the long stretch no one tells a better tale than you....
Appreciate it mate. I hope the story (farmhand pikes) of this campaign (farmhand pikes) is to your liking (farmhand pikes). 🤪
Love this campaign already and the way you are playing it. Please don't keep us waiting on part 2.
Good to hear, every 2 days mate is the release schedule.
I take it all back. After this I think I’ve had a Master Class in how to play Bree.
😂
The reaction to the accidental disband 😂😂
I felt like I'd just deleted my TC in a game of AOE.
The choice between Dunedain & Mercenaries (when that happens) has the most dramatic change to Breeland's campaign, second to Khand's choice of course. With Breeland you get to choose between either militarizing Breeland so the can fight on their own and actually become a decent/high-mid tier fighting force OR going full on bureaucracy and become the dominant economy in Northern/Western Middle-Earth while simultaneously BUY SOMEONE ELSE to get your problems go away. With my now 3 Breeland Campaigns on the belt I can say for certain that the choice has tremendous effect on Bree.
The Bree mercenary choice is so much more fun now that they get Dwarven catapults.
@@Gapeagle True that, never have I thought how fun/weird is to have 5 units of DCs in a non-dwarven faction and then watch how the meager/mundane folk of Bree decide to go full scale genocide on some Moria Goblins... Possibly in the mix was some Dunlendings and Enedwaithians too
Yes, it's 1 of the most dramatic faction choices out there, I'd actually put Dorwinion up there with Bree as the more dramatic choice. Khand is influential too of course but mostly because of the attacks on you rather than the roster changes, I mean the chariot and the Oricarni Dwarves are nice and all, as are the Temple Guards, but neither choice, roster wise, is too dramatic. Anyway, back to Bree, I don't see it as a choice of economy vs military at all, Dorwinion style(and even that one is a bit of a stretch). Both choices give you access to good units to supplement your otherwise rather mediocre forces. The Dunedain choice unlocks another blacksmith level, sure, but that's where the difference ends when it comes to being the more 'militaristic' choice. Similarly the mercenary choice doesn't really add any new economic benefits either.
So the choice boils down to the direction you want to take your roster. Do you want the Dunedain troops with those 2 Sindar units from Michel Delvig or do you prefer to ditch the Dunedain troops(even those you had on your roster) in favor of Dwarven units, including the all important Dwarven Catapults, along with a variety of recruitable(and thus retrainable) mercenaries. Even if it wasn't for the tier 2 Dwarven infantry units(including the pikes mind you) the Dwarven Catapults alone make the mercenary route vastly superior Imho, as the Dunedain route doesn't give you anything nearly as dramatic, and of course the Dwarven infantry themselves are great, and some of the mercenaries are also pretty useful now that you can retrain them. The Dunedain choice basically feels like a ghetto Arnor from the Northern Dunedain, which is rarely picked itself as it's vastly inferior to the Reunited Kingdom alternative. So a worse version of the worst choice from another faction.
Really enjoyable watch
those were some obvious stages of grief...
E 'Heart on my Sleeve' PM
Even if a city is at max size it's still beneficial to grow its population as the more people you have the more taxes you earn. So early on it's best to keep taxes low, switching to high 1 turn before a building gets completed for traits like tax collector, in order to grow the population. At some point, depending on campaign length, it becomes more beneficial to switch to max taxes but that's really hard to calculate since campaigns don't have a definitive end date.
Changing tax rates a turn before buildings pop is a little trihard even for me. I've been experimenting with different tax strats recently and it really doesn't make that much of a difference if you go high taxes early, making sure you get good traits and don't get the poor ones. It also means that you get extra money early that helps propel more structures which by itself can raise pop growth. I've done plenty where you go low taxes across the board and it works out too. I would often find when I went for growth on low taxes I could upgrade cities but didn't have the money to build it or hadn't even finished the buildings at the lower tier that I also wanted before it grew. Tax income based on pop is great in theory but often the fastest way to get a high population settlements and hence high tax income is take the enemies settlements since the AI always seems to be able to grow them at a rate of knots.
I think the exception is village tier settlements, they are pretty useless and the growth hasn't really started multiplying in large enough chunks yet.
great fun
Looking forward to more of this series also could be worth giving the mithril coat someone else as is 5 hitpoints
Gameplay wise, but it is Bilbo's coat after all.
My favorite faction (mainly because I think they have the best looking units. Love the green and yellow gambesons.
You have to make at least one pure hobbit stack
They do look really nice and the part of the map is super appealing. A whole hobbit stack though, that would be pretty rubbish. I'm sure they'll be an armies with plenty of hobbits but probably not a full stack.
Haha dude where were you when I started this campaign a few weeks ago I could have learned so much! 😅
A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.
@@epmtotalwar haha so true!
IIRC choosing the Dunedain path gets you a custom High Elf general and the ability to recruit some Sindar mid tier units in Michel Delving only. Neat little perk. Also not sure if you mentioned it but if you choose the merchant path all your Dunedain units including generals will be deleted and you can no longer recruit them.
Edit. Didnt realize how far you've already gotten over on twitch.
Yeah, forgot to mention all the Dunedain units get deleted if going that path. Trying to get some in advance, number 2 kid is coming any day now so I'll probably not be able to record for a bit.
bree is always a nice campaign!!
Lots of fun to come! Rise up Men of Bree, rise up Hobbits!
The best part about bree for me was the rangers sending a foce to fight the barrows, I would send a meger force to support and every time I would get a man of the hour. Always had governors for cities lol
That is clever, though I haven't had any real issue with having enough governors even without doing that. I guess the game just hands them out when you don't have enough.
@epmdota I dont think I was having issues either, I just used them to keep my ranger general advancing. Really cheesy but it was my first time playing as bree.
@@BeregondFirstCaptain sounds like a good strat all the same. I was a little concerned that my troops might just run away from the wights without a general.
When are you gonna play the reunited kingdom?
The most honest answer I can give you is in the future. It will happen. I really enjoy the ND and it is a hard slog early. Since it is going to be a big campaign, I'm waiting as long as I can to get as many bugs fixed as possible.
also you should conquer as many rebel settlement as early as you can.
I don't know what else you would want me to take here, I took 5 rebel settlements. Dol Vorn was impossible with the stack that was there. Ost Gelon would be the only other but that would have required the full army and it was to the north and holds no strategic value. Maybe you just haven't watched yet 😀
Regarding the Dunedain vs Mercenary routes, in the Mercenary route you forgot the variety of tier 2 Dwarven infantry units you get, and most importantly the Dwarven Catapults which are just insanely powerful but also lose access to all your Dunedain units(they get deleted and you can't train more) and your Dunedain general, but get a new mercenary general instead. In the Dunedain route you forgot the rather minor part of getting 2 Sindar(High Elven) units from Michel Delving only as well as a new Dunedain general. Ultimately the Dunedain route is indeed solid, but is just a weaker version of the Arnor route for the Northern Dunedain, which is itself the inferior choice compared to the Reunited Kingdom. The Bree Mercenary route on the other hand is the only non Dwarven faction that gets recruitable Dwarven Catapults, which is a major boon in and of itself. Access to all mercenaries and perhaps more importantly the ability to retrain them in your cities, means mercenaries you recruit anywhere in the world don't quickly become dead weight once they suffer too many casualties. Also having access to the Dwarven infantry units(just tier 2 not tier 3 but still) in an already very diverse roster rather than the very narrow Dwarven rosters themselves, is another massive boon as it easily lets you both maximize their potential and minimize their weaknesses.
This campaign we went with the Dunedain but I am keen to do a mercenary campaign as it does seem equally powerful in other ways. The great roads being available for the dunedain choice was very attractive. I didn't get access to as many elves as I thought I would, was just the one settlement and the recruitment times were very long.
@@epmtotalwar A little tip if you do plan to do the mercenary route eventually, or any other playthrough in this region other than Ered Luin, is that once you take Buzra Dum instead of spending all that time and money developing it you should sell it to Ered Luin instead. Firstly you'll get a decent chunk of change which will let you invest in your other provinces. Secondly as you already know the AI develops cities much faster than the player so under Ered Luin's control Buzra Dum will grow pretty quickly, and they will spend the money building up the city rather than you. If you're lucky they'll even build the level 3 mines which only Dwarves can build. Eventually Ered Luin will build their unique building: the expedition line, which almost guarantees they will lose the settlement to the Balrog eventually, at which point you can retake Buzra Dum, from the Balrog this time, and enjoy a much more developed city, ideally with the level 3 mines, and of course the unique building Ered Luin built in there.
@@Owlr4ider Have you done this in vanilla DaC? I wasn't sure if the Balrog armies spawn for AI EL. If this works then that is very cool.
@@epmtotalwar Have yet to try this myself but I know other scripts do work for the AI, like with the High Elves and Ost in Edhil or the Khand script, which did work in this very campaign of yours, when you got the message that Khand lost their capital and faction leader, I can almost guarantee it was due to Ancantor attacking it. So I think it should also work for Ered Luin, assuming the AI actually builds the expedition buildings. Not certain about this though, but will definitely try it in my next campaign in the region.
@@Owlr4ider Right, not all scripts have impacts on AI. EL ring script and Khand choice are the obvious ones that do. An example of one that doesn't is Bree, AI Bree gets both mercs and dunedain. My suspicion is spawn armies only affect the player, in the Khand script the player get hit in 5 settlements by spawn armies, AI Khand only gets hit in their capital. KD doesn't have to deal with the Balrog script. Not saying that the EL idea won't work but there is evidence to go either way. Let me know what happens when you try it.
Ah yes faction leader favoritism and discrimination
Of course.
hey why is this back to front no. 1 is Breeland 9: Gandalf lends his staff and no. 9 is Breeland 1: Barrow-Wights on Misty Nights???
All of my non-current campaigns are in order starting from '1' on their playlists as anyone watching them is watching after the event. Since 90% of views on new videos (current campaign) occur before the next video drops it is for the comfort of people who are keeping up with the current campaign as they will see the latest video. It may not affect too much right now but most of the time I have a couple of games uploading and so it is easier to track if not using the videos tab.
Not one of favorites. Die hobbit die. Barliman looks like a poster on the school yard fence for kids to avoid.
Something about judging a book by its cover. Barliman is a cool character, at least in the books. Bit of a spoon in the movies.