Comments - vadereclipse

Haven't been a regular poster around these parts since probably 2010, but let me guess- He has a mod overpacked with redundant units to the extent that the HUD can be unusable, and rigs his units diagonally, and refuses to actually contribute to the community asides his own unrefined mod?

Can't speak for Wineskin, but it definitely works on Steam via Crossover.

New custom settlements is the big one. Also an overhaul of High elves units and a few new units here and there with new textures.
A one ring script has been added, by which you have to either destroy the ring or give it to sauron to resurrect him.
There are a lot of other additions as well.

The AI have difficulty sieging them, seemingly choosing not to, and just sitting outside. As a result, MT never seems to be taken over. This way, Minas Tirith will be invaded.

nazgul attack is still there. I went next to amon sul, so I got the help of a free peoples army against the nazgul. Still lost Sam in the process, but defeated the nazgul

No. It installs into a new directory in the mod folder, Third Age_3. nothing needed

There already is a Moria, and after over a thousand years of occupation by orcs and other creatures, it would not be that bright or well-kept.

What settlement is this? It looks dwarven, though not sure which?

version 5 is noted for its instability. If you want something more stable but with a lot of the same content (and some more), I'd go for MOS. a new patch should be released very soon.

Simply Amazing! /inb4legolose jks

If you're talking about the fellowship campaign, this is not playable in this version. It will be fixed in a later patch, perhaps 3.2.

To add to that, I think chances are, there'll be more relevant material in the second film, though some OOTMM stuff is likely in this one, and perhaps beornings, depending on when the film ends.

Potentially some new units for OOTMM, Dale, Dwarves and Silvan Elves, though that's optimism. It'd be nice, but that's changing 4 factions, potentially overhauling some. Custom settlements are likely, assuming Third age's still going strong then.
You've got Goblin town, Beorn's halls, Thranduil's halls, erebor, Dale, and Esgaroth, and maybe some more that haven't really been seen (esgaroth already has a map though)

It's the resolute...

A sort of buzz droid deploying machine would be incredible!

With Gondor, rapid expansion is necessary. This is what I did:
-Hold off Mordor. Don't attack Ithilien, or you'll be forced to spread out a lot of forces against Mordor. Utilise the chokepoints of West Osgiliath and Cair Andros.
During this time, take over the Harad coastline with the ultimate goal of Umbar. Umbar is an excellent city with an excellent economy and sea trade racks up some serious money for Gondor, making this an excellent manoeuvre. Try and take all major cities of Harad, leaving them with smaller cities. This will leave Harad too weak to attack you. Make a ceasefire and get some trade going now if you wish.
Then, focus on Mordor, striking northwards from Harad and eastwards from Gondor. Take over Ithilien, Minas Morgul, and the Black Gate. After this, you need to take over Barad Dur. After Barad Dur and Cirith Ungol fall, Mordor is left far weaker. It'll still be a problem, but at this stage, you should just be able to kill the family members.
It's doable with the economy, especially after the acquisition of south Gondor and Umbar.
The best way of making money as Gondor is expansion and ports. the more trade fleets, the more money.

Have you taken the north arthedain settlement? I forget the name.

Don't take my word for it. I'm not on the team or in close contact with any of them.

Potentially, these may be added:
Twcenter.net
This is third-party work, though I believe that a few maps by him made it into 3.1

hornburg is presumably mountain terrain, which for northmen, means that recruitment takes far longer. personally, I believe this to be a mistake, as Hornburg was pretty much the only place in Rohan with a proper standing military (not militia), and recruitment of military should be made possible there for canon reasons.

Anonymous are a not something to be admired. they're everything wrong about the age we're living in.

No, it installs into a "mods" directory of its own.
Don't know about steam, but for ordinary install, it's c/programfiles/sega/m2tw/mods/third_age, or something like that. It overwrites nothing.

Strategy's important. don't go capturing every tiny town. they're a waste of your limited resources and a large gondor stack can attack you there and destroy you. Target their big cities that are recruitment centres- That'll be Pelargir, Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth. Without these, they'll be a lot weaker and less able to throw large armies at you. Only then should you attempt taking provincial Gondor.

Put everything you can into it, should be able to get dale swordsmen from there which are the closest thing dale has to a half-decent infantry unit earlier on in the game.

That's how it would be... Where's Harad going to find more Mumakil or tribesmen when it's fighting in Gondor?
Adding defence won't do anything if you're still looking for balance, as they will all be increased as well. If you won't change any others, that's just making Harad overpowered.
Are you saying you don't want to ever lose or have a pyrrhic victory or have to make tactical retreats so that you may develop more forces with which to conquer the enemy? It gets boring quickly when you have half of middle Earth under your control by turn 100.

Also try taking Uldonavan to the south. on the south-west edge of the sea of Rhun. It is a castle, and so can produce powerful units not normally recruitable this early for a long time, such as Rhovanion Gadhrauts, which are spearmen with some actual durability, unlike Hearth Watchmen- Hold onto Uldonavan and you don't need to worry about less defensible settlements down the west coast of the sea of Rhun (except perhaps Rhovanost, but you should be able to recruit a lot from uldonavan)

The key with dale early on is to focus on using archers and cavalry. Like all northmen, Dale has excellent cavalry, especially good at taking down the lightly armoured Balchoth Tribesmen, who will simply pick off and run away from Dale's poor, inflexible starting units. Dale's archers are the best archers men can muster in Third Age: Total war, and their range is amazing. With enough archers, you can render an army of light infantry crippled by the time they reach your forces, easily with the range of units like the Bardian marksmen. Do not underestimate their archers, as they are excellent. By all means, field infantry for purpose of defence and attacking in siege battles, but don't expect them to be very good, as their purpose is the same as that for all low-tier infantry- to act as meat to go into the grinder.
Later in the game, Dale will begin to unlock very good infantry such as the Barding Hird (very good spear wall-type unit, think of them as similar to Fountain guard, though not quite as good, but far more available) and the Dale Swordmasters (one of the most powerful infantry units in the game), which will see some good use in siege battles, as shock infantry).
Dale has a great unit roster which is versatile, but early game infantry is their weakness. To win battles, the key is to not overfocus on their infantry or you'll never pick up any momentum. Use them as disposable units to protect your archers, but the key to winning with Dale is (in the early game) their archers and cavalry. Use these, and you'll have no problems reaching the black gate!

Some units need 28 because the terrain you're recruiting them in is unsuitable for that faction. elsewhere, it'll be considerably quicker. the most you'll have to wait for is 25, and that's for exceptionally good units which you wouldn't ever see a full stack of.

second armour upgrade isn't really present in this mod much, with the exception of certain army-level troops in gondor (gondor infantry, gondor spearmen, gondor archers- gives them movie-style plate armour)

yeah, reinstall to the c drive.