DaC V5 - Evil Ered Luin 5: The Rebel Alliance

[@peterhe6699]

Hobbiton, but with stronger alcohol.

[@sizzlebang3810]

Wanted to chime in on BlueyGate24....it's true that there aren't kids shows that slap the way the shows of my generation did (I grew up on DuckTales, GI Joe, Voltron) imo....but Bluey is amazing, it just hits on a different vein of kid TV....in my time it was Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood that aimed to provide a morally redeeming aspect of children's entertainment. In that genre, I think Bluey is light years more entertaining than those shows. 2000s era sesame is a lot more appealing than I give it credit tho.

[@epmtotalwar]

BlueyGate 🤣🤣

[@bigthoughts2644]

The hype is real, no pussy dad who gets clapped by some dude, no nagging mom, happy neighbors no stupid feuds, just quality time and lots of adult messaging which is heartfelt and not sexual like other kids shows today.

[@Tome36]

id say that thorin's halls will get to between 11.5k and 13.5k

[@epmtotalwar]

Giving yourself a pretty big margin there.

[@Tome36]

1:23:18 curse you bayle

[@Tome36]

the second i saw this video, instant click

[@Tome36]

also what do you think is better dragon slayers or hammers of gundabad edit spelling of Gundabad it was initially spelled as Gundadbad

[@Burkiej321]

hammers are just flavor

[@epmtotalwar]

They are a different type of unit but from memory I think the hammers are a tier above pretty much everything.

[@spockamania]

Gosh. You've played RA2, too. Excellent!! Also, jeez. That grapeshot is filthy. What it did to those sellswords? I can see what the duck was on about because I'll be asking for grapes just about everywhere now that I've seen that.

[@epmtotalwar]

Mate, I was raised on Red Alert. Red Alert 1 and Age of Empires were my first games played at age 4. I can guarantee you, I am a gamer.

[@Burkiej321]

12000 for sure, if you can max out the roads and trade in surrounding settlements maybe 15?

[@epmtotalwar]

Another wide guess, everyone loves to sit on the fence. 😜

[@tscchope]

The ND who were quite happy to leave you alone and could have taken both Bree and that fort east of Hobbiton decided to attack you once you took that fort. You're now in the driving seat at Caras Nurneled. Hope that the Dunlendings won't DoW you, once you take the settlement. Enedwaith is the far easier foe to fight, for them Bear in mind that if you lose the fight in Burza Dum against the Balrog, you'll lose everything in there. Don't risk a general. The true powers in the West, Angmar and Isengard lurk behind the easier enemies you're fighting. Angmar's already on your border, but it does it is fighting the Snow Orcs. Let's see. The ND are effectively trading Annuminas for Hobbiton. You could do with someone else developing Hobbiton. My guess is that the ND would liberate Breeland from Hobbiton. Your playlist currently has this episode playing first. A re-ordering of the order the episodes play in seems necessary, unless you want the first episode in this run to be the last played in a play all.

[@epmtotalwar]

Hobbiton cannot be built past a village, same with Longbottom. Thanks for the playlist reminder, sometimes the playlist just flicks back to another order.

[@kaishimada]

never played ered luin but i always thought firebeards were good because they have a cool name

[@epmtotalwar]

They are good, just not anything special. I can only imagine how terrified their enemies would be if they actually lit their beards on fire.

[@patttrick]

who would win between a Balrog and Smaug, I'm going Balrog. Smaug has no gap in his armour

[@epmtotalwar]

I think they'd sit down, eat cucumber sandwiches and discuss the races.

[@peterhe6699]

I say that when you're nearly done with the Dunedian I say you should offer to the elves to attack Angmar on top of whatever your going to give them and say the same to the other dwarf factions so you have 15 turns to prepare and attack Angmar also when your forces are assembled I say you demand money with the accept of we attack diplomacy to make as much money as possible.

[@epmtotalwar]

You misunderstand, this is the age of the Dwarves. The Elves will not be spared, nor the Dwarves, nor Angmar, nor goblin or orc. Diplomatic deals with the other dwarves will only lead to their demise. The Elves had their chance at negotiation, that time has past.

[@peterhe6699]

@@epmtotalwar yeah, but we can use those inferior elves to go and die against ISenguard and Duneland, they will serve as well as the fodder trash they are also it'll allow for the green lines to flow.

[@spockamania]

Interestingly, I honestly detest the limited recruitment in Med 2. It's why I never got into the game growing up and just stuck with Rome and skipped right to Shogun (went back for Empire which I love, hate Napoleon because of their dumb pea shooters, but never could go back for Medieval despite my attempts). I love the idea of the limited recruitment and love watching you deal with the circumstances, but I found that in my personal experience, it let me experience next to none of my roster. Better units are better, sure, but if I can't replenish them, I don't want to risk using them and losing them. Instead, they watch the battle of the weaker units which are far easier to replace and follow in the campaign rather than participate. It's just not fun for me to deal with. If I lose a war, I want to be beaten in a battle. I don't want to slowly be attritioned down by foe with infinite troops and never really lose a battle. Instead, I just have to turn around and give up due to slow losses over time I just can't keep up with because I can't hire troops fast enough and I just have to deal with the same low tier chaff anyway because those are the only ones that are quick to recruit/replenish anyway. I know it's more tactical and such, but that's just not why I personally play Total War. That said, if there was limited recruitment and easier replenishment, I do think that'd be really good. Not certain how I'd most like to see that implemented; limited number of units, allow slow replenishment over time but it's really really slow, allowing replenishment of forces anywhere, but there's a malice to doing so be it lowering armor/weapons/experience/defense skill/whatever. There's a lot of interesting ways to do it that still gives the feeling that every unit is important without the feeling that every good unit is irreplaceable. Thinking about it, it's people's biggest gripe with new Legend of Zelda. "Do you ever get collector's anxiety?" I'd rather be able to get one copy of every weapon and only use a few of them then know they might break and I just refuse to use any of the good ones literally ever. Why would I play Legend of Zelda if the Master Sword can break?! I would never use the sword, so that'd just be Legend of Zelda but no Master Sword in the game!

[@spockamania]

Also, going to put my last comment here as I already feel bad leaving two. Don't want to spam. As I wrap up this part and you mention watching older videos. I get into spurts where I'll decide I just want to grab one of your older campaigns and for a few weeks fall asleep to them. I consider you to have three "seasons" (maybe four, which I explain because I'm one to overexplain everything if you haven't noticed XD). The 4.6 season which is just too old for me. As you mentioned, there's only a few of those and you're really going through a lot of them again so not too much missed there. They're basically the pilot episodes as you get your water wings. Then there's season 2, which is the, "Really good in local competitions, but gets crushed in worlds". Where you are better than I am, but only have your personal experiences. There's a lot you are learning very quickly from people online giving tips. Season 3 is where it gets good, which I consider the, "Professional". You learned a lot, there's only so many things you can really be surprised by. I consider the Erebor campaign to be the dividing line between those two as that is when you learned about Spies spreading culture. It's sometimes hard going back to season 2 after this as that spy knowledge is SUCH a gamechanger. I think you're in a season 4 now, but it's kinda blurry of where it would be or what truly distinguishes it. Doesn't help that I missed so much of the last few series. But especially that Gondor campaign showed you are _way_ better than your past self. Instead of fighting for East Osgiliath, the constant sieges kept Mordor busy and you just didn't really have to fight them at all because of that. I think season 4 would be the "Evil Arc" or something similar due to your recent evil campaigns where you really hadn't had experience in them before. Gave you quite a lot of experience and I honestly think an appreciation of the factions you previously thought were useless. Snow Orcs I think you were the most pleasantly surprised by and you even managed to have a pittance of respect for the Goblins. They are awful, but at least they were palatable. I'm pretty sure season 2 EPM would rather stop streaming than play as the Goblins. I honestly am not sure if the quality of shows has actually decreased. I think the bottom of the barrel fell further, but there was absolute trash when we were kids, too. That usually took the form of the live TV that nick/cartoon network put on for whatever reason, but we had it too. Now it's just flash animation instead of live TV, which I honestly am unsure which has it worse. We forgot most of the trash and are left with the best, which are 50/50 really really good and really rose tinted glasses. But you're also comparing preschooler shows to elementary/middle school shows. Dora was hot garbage. And it got worse with Diego. Comparing Bluey to Family Guy isn't really relevant, why would Bluey to Yu-Gi-Oh where people literally died? If we want to compare to our incredible shows, we'd have to consider things like the new Duck Tales, Gravity Falls, The Owl House, Loud House, Adventure Time, Adventures of Gumball, etc. I'm not big into them, hell I haven't seen almost any of them, but that's just because I'm too old for them now, not because they're bad or anything. I would bet 20 years from now the kids that grew up watching those will say the same things as us about shows then. And playing devil's advocate, having not watched Yu-Gi-Oh growing up, I personally don't have any interest watching it. Without that nostalgia, it just doesn't feel too good. Like, I think it's trash. We were a hard Pokémon household (with some dabbling in Digimon because my parents didn't know the difference so they got us both) so I don't have the nostalgia of watching that show with friends or anything of the sort. So when I hear my friends now talk about it, all I can think of it, "Really? That trash? Why are you watching it now again? What about it could be good? Because I know when I watched it not that long ago, I couldn't stand more than a few episodes before I threw it out due to bad animation, bad voice acting, and worse story."

[@patttrick]

12000 my bet