Hi all,
This mod is truely awesome, it will be hard to return to the vanilla game after experiencing it. But the more I play PvP on this mod it seems largely unbalanced, seemingly favouring the evil factions. But as this is my first go at the edain mod as it is with the people I play with, we are possibly still learning and missing something important from the factions. But it would be good to see others thoughts on the matter, and gain some insight if there is something that we are missing.
In terms on the order of the most powerful factions, from my experience it seems to be (excluding arnor for now, not too much play time with them and I think all their elven units are unbalanced) the following;
1. Isengard
2. Mordor
3. Gondor
4. Rohan
Isengard seem to be a very strong faction at all three stages of a game, early, mid and late. Early game you dont need to build anything in your base, just rush 4 lumber mills. You will then have 60% off all building costs (to top it off the lumber mills cost 150 at highest), then you can get an uruk pit for cheap, but best of all you can build mines for 140 each. This is a big advantage over the other factions, as for every resource building (in base) they can make isengard can make 2.5. So by the time you make 5 they will have make two. By this point you with 5 mines you can build uruk swords for 140 each, pikemen for a low amount. With 5 mines and 4 lumber mills you are getting insane income for early game, with lowered inf prices you can build a huge army quick, with pikemen a great counter vs cav, wargs will be affordable with the income to counter archers and non pike inf, with sharku and their howl they are insanely good. Mid game you will be able to get start getting upgrades which make uruks very hard to kill and late game you will have a 1800 fully upgraded army which is almost impossible to defeat or defend from if isen use a good mix of siege weapons.
Mordor early orc spam can be beaten by isen, but by other factions it seems not. Cav can counter early orc warrior spam, but is quite expensive and mordor will be able to build orc pikes pretty quickly to counter cav. If you stack archers well with pikes you can control most of the map early and box you enemy in. Once you get Sauron, upgraded trolls, Dol Guldur, Khamul with insignia upgrade it is around mid game and good factions are only just starting to get upgraded units, but with starved resources it is slow to get a big enough army to defend your base, all the while Mordor are getting around 2x the income and once they get troll catapults your fortress is worthless.
Gondor, it seems best for early game is 2x Signal fires for upgraded reinforments and around 7 blacksmiths in the main base to get the income to match Isens. Once you get 4 command points and get the pelagir reinforcements the signal fires start to pay off a bit more and you can build an army from barracks and archery and try to start expanding. But against a good Isen or Mordor I think it isnt realistic to hold 2 signal fires for long enough in early game.
Rohan, well rohan seem the worst faction in the game. Even using the the bug of stacking peasents and using gamlings call to arms ability doesnt let you last too long. This faction is confusing, a good pike army from the enemy eliminates cav, even when cav is upgraded.
Other things such as Rohan getting 3 sets of royal guards as their hero battalion whereas Mordor get 3x Castellans and 3x Morgul riders, Gondor get the hero battelion from the barracks and knights of Dol Amroth. Why do Rohan get only 1 hero battelion as opposed to Mordors and Gondors 2. I can maybe understand Isen as all of their units seem to be insanely strong, especially when upgraded, but all Rohan units seem to be relatively weak.
And if we look at heroes, Mordors seem to be alot more useful than any other factions, followed by Gondor, then Isen and Rohan maybe equal.
To me, it just seems there is not an eqaul chance of winning as the different factions.
But maybe I and my friends are playing wrong. Other people thoughts would be good to see on this topic, and maybe we will learn something we are missing.
Once all factions are released and are balanced, there wont be a need for BFME 3