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Articles on Middle Earth 1650

The following are articles of interest taken from the pages of the fanzine 'Mouth of Sauron'.  The articles provides background information which may (or may not) be of use.  There are a lot more interesting articles available within the pages which I've not recorded here.  If you want to find out for yourself you can download all 48 issues here: [Mouth of Sauron]

Personal Challenge Combat Results by David Foreman
Middle Earth Challenge Statistics by David Foreman
Teamwork by Leslie Foreman
Overrunning Armies by Tom Walton
Response to Overrunning Armies by David Foreman
Emissaries in Middle Earth by Tom Walton
Pop Centre Limit by Keith Patterson
Drops, Bankruptcies and other defeats by William 'Rock' Chasko
Army/Navy Questions by Tom Walton
The Art of Naval Warfare by Ron Cudworth
Comments on 'Art of Naval Warfare' by Tom Walton
What do the battle results mean? by Michael Peters

Personal Challenge Combat Results

by David Foreman

Calculating the Challenge Rank

This is for your knowledge. You can take the challenge rank off of the sheet and ignore this section if you wish. The results you get from this description vary a bit from the turn sheet values due to rounding (I'm not sure how THEY round).

1) From the turn sheet, write down the skill ranks of the character (as modified by artifacts).

2) Multiply the agent rank by 0.75, and the emissary rank by 0.50, to generate the revised ranks for challenge. Command and mage ranks are not modified.

3) Of the four modified and unmodified ranks, the highest is the major rank for calculating the challenge rank.

4) Add the other three ranks together and multiply the result by 0.25. Add this result to the major rank. This is your base challenge rank.

5) If your character is using a combat artifact, divide the combat strength of the artifact by 50. Add this to the base challenge rank above to generate the final challenge rank.

Notes:

1) Some characters have a bonus to their challenge rank. This bonus can add 1 to 20 pts of challenge rank to a character.

2) Some players report that offensive combat spells affect challenges. I have no data on this, and in fact doubt that this assumption is true, since the CAST COMBAT SPELL order (225) comes after the personal challenge order (210), and GSI would have had to specifically program this adjustment into the program.

Middle Earth Play by Mail: Personal Combat Statistics

Combats Run: 100,000

(Moral - Even if your challenge rank is 180 less than your opponent you can still win!)

Teamwork

by Leslie Foreman

I have been involved with ME-PBM since December, 1991. When Dave  described this "game" to me, it certainly sounded like something that HE would find fun and interesting. Now truth be known, I have enjoyed many aspects of the games in which Dave is involved. I have learned a lot about the game, about people in general and about Dave. Watching him plan his strategy is an exercise in thoroughness. I would like to attribute that quality to Mike (Noldo) Hostetter.

Dave and I have spent a lot of time discussing the group dynamics of the players of ME-PBM. We have also discussed the dynamics within a group of characters as well as the expected response from the enemy.

There is one more relationship which is important in the playing of ME-PBM, and that is between the player and the non-player(s) in the home. There are certain rules of etiquette, for lack of a better term, which need to be considered at all times by all members of the relationship.

Etiquette for the Non-Player:

- It is important to remember that it takes time to write up orders. Be sensitive to that fact and allow the player to have some quiet time to think and to plan.

- It is important to "play dumb" on the phone when talking to one of the other players. Be friendly. Be cheerful. Be careful - I accidentally mentioned something I wasn't supposed to when another player called. It wasn't anything major, but I learned my lesson.

- If you have a answering machine and you happen to be at home during the day, I recommend that you only answer the phone 20% of the time. It is likely to be someone who "just wants to leave a message."

- If you have a fax machine and you happen to be at home during the day, I recommend that you never answer the phone. It is probably someone who "just wants to send a fax."

- DO NOT LAUGH at any misfortune which befalls your player's characters, army or team. Even though you find it funny that he in concerned about a make-believe dragon killing his make- believe commander and therefore his make-believe army will be disbanded, it is not funny to him.

Etiquette for the Player:

- It is important to remember that it takes time to be an active member of the family. Be sensitive to that fact and set aside some quiet time to think and to plan about the future.

- It is important to "play dumb" when talking to a non-player who is not knowledgeable about the game. Be friendly. Be cheerful. Be careful - don't accidentally mention the game dynamics to someone who isn't interested or who already has questions about your 'gaming interests.'

- If you have an answering machine, I recommend that you turn it off during the evening hours when you are getting all of your phone calls. If you time it right, it will only ring once and all of the other calls will come through as "beeps" so all you have to do is 'click over.' It is polite to keep the phone from ringing again and again.

- If you have a fax machine, never leave it on automatic. there is no need to deafen the telemarketer with that TONE, or your mother for that matter.

- DO NOT GET ANGRY when a non-player laughs at your misfortune. Please try to see the other side of the situation. The non player truly sees it as a game and has not lost a grip on reality.

In conclusion, I want to stress the importance of co-operation, consideration and compromise. They are important between gamers as you all know. They are also important between players and non- players. Before you know it, the game will be a part of your life and it can be a unique and creative way to spend time together.

Overrunning Armies

From Tom Walton

I've successfully overrun a number of armies. In two instances, scouts reported the army to be around 900 troops; I ran into them with a better than 5:1 advantage in numbers. In the other cases, I never found out how strong the armies nor, alas, what characters were killed.

I will say this, though. For purposes of overrun, each opposing army is compared to your own SEPARATELY. It could be that there are four armies with 500 troops in the hex, 2000 total; but if you have 5,000 troops, you'll overrun each army individually when moving through. I've done this before as well.

Also, it isn't necessary to actually move THROUGH the hex, just INTO it. And as a last note, you can't overrun an enemy force that's sitting on one of it's own (not an ally's) fortified pop centres.

You can, however, sabotage the fortifications that turn and THEN march into the hex, overrunning the stunned enemy (did that too).

Response to "Overrunning Armies"

From David Foreman

In the recent MOUTH, Tom stated that 'you can't overrun an enemy force that's sitting on one of its own (not an ally's) fortified pop centres.' THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!

As I stated (not well apparently, sorry gang!) in my SHAFTED article last issue, you absolutely can! Bill Nealon had 100 HI on an MT/tower he owned. Gothmog overran them with about 900HC while moving EVASIVELY! All three of Bill's chars with the army were killed during the overrun. Needless to say, he was mad.

Bill Field says that the check on armies occurs individually (as you said) and that no factors modify the chance of survival for the little army. Thought you'd like to know.

(Editor's note: alas, I misspoke. David is right here. My apologies if I screwed anyone up. Though there does seem to be some evidence that you can't overrun an army sitting on one of it's own fortified pop centres if you're NOT successful in moving evasively into the hex. This happened to me just this last turn - failed to overrun two small armies because non friendly/tolerant fortifications stopped movement, and the fortifications belonged to the player with the small armies).

Emissaries in Middle-Earth

By Tom Walton

When I started playing Middle-Earth, I took nations which were noted for having a definite disadvantage in the agent arena, especially before the changes to the rules were made. After discovering that my new agents couldn't stand up to the gods that issued forth from Mordor or Noldo-land, I turned to experimenting with emissary teams as a viable alternative. After all, my set-ups said that pretty much everyone sucked when it came to emissary power, and there were only two relatively weak emissary artifacts, so I was on even ground with others here.

Now that agents have become less effective in Middle-Earth, emissaries in relation to other characters are far more important than they used to be. Yet in my later games, I'm still seeing both old and new players alike concentrating much of their activity on agents. Emissaries, if used at all, seem to be an afterthought. I find this perplexing, as the thoughtful use of an emissary team is at least as critical, if not more so, than an agent team.

Let me outline a few of these uses for you, and give you some examples. Veterans will no doubt already know all this, and might want to skip the article entirely.

Camp creation: after reviewing my emissary orders, I found that even a 30-point emissary has a 67% chance of creating a camp in the early game (before the population starts to run low). This means that said emissary can place 2 camps every three turns, and his odds will get better each time as his skill rank increases. Even better, the loyalty of the camps will also improve (since loyalty is one- half of emissary skill).

So what, you say? Take two examples:

In one of my neutral games, I created 3 emissaries out of the first four character slots, plus three more on turn 6. By turn 15 I had 17 (!) camps down; of these camps, three had been improved to towns and the rest to villages. Total increase to tax base was 50,000 gold, which translated out to 30,000 additional gold per turn at a 60% tax rate. Add the 15,000 gold these new pop centres produced naturally, and you have a final real increase of 45,000 gold to the tax base. The investment for this was 2,000 per camp + 4,000 per upgrade to village, +6,000 for three upgrades to towns. Total investment: 120,000 gold over 15 turns, or 8,000 gold a turn.

Now you say, 'but I don't have 8,000 extra gold a turn'. Ahhh, but you do! Most nations start out with a hefty treasury, meaning that your initial investment in camp creation comes from starting funds, not future production or sells. Once you place a half-dozen or so camps, you immediately upgrade to villages, increasing your tax base by 15,000 gold (or 9,000 gold at a 60% tax rate). At this point, camp creation and upgrades are done entirely off the newly-created base, no longer requiring sells or money taken from your starting pop centres. And this doesn't include any gold production you may get from the camp itself. Total initial investment here is 36,000 gold, after which the camp creation effort pays for itself and has funds left over (not to mention all the excess production you can sell or use for other projects).

Any nation can do this, either with the total effort given here or with a smaller effort involving, say, two new emissaries at gamestart and one more on turn 6. It'll take longer to build up the base, but once you pass the turn-around point each camp created and upgraded is already paid for from other new villages and will add it's funds and resources for your direct use. With an early drive in the camp creation department (getting the jump on others), you can easily take care of that nasty deficit you start with and make your nation into an economic powerhouse.

Second example: while playing the Dwarves in one game, I had the misfortune of having some very good allies in Mirkwood and some very poor ones elsewhere. Those poor allies decided not to send some critically needed gold they promised and my nation's economy, supporting some 7,500 heavy infantry, collapsed. If you've played the Dwarves, you'll realise that their production is terrible, so selling to support troops really isn't an option. I faced only one option: disband most of my troops or go bankrupt.

This I did, and then turned to creating emissaries and making my own tax base (I didn't do this earlier because as a group we were just a few turns short of barrelling right through Mordor and ending the game).

It took a long time to do. My economy was thoroughly wrecked and even though I only had a couple of thousand troops for defence (and a very long war with the Dragon Lord in the Iron Hills)I was running a huge deficit. Yet, 15 turns later, I now have 14 new camps, almost all of which are villages and many of those have been upgraded to towns (for recruitment purposes). Total real tax base, along with natural gold production, has more than doubled my economic power; combined with captures, the economic base is more than three times what I started with.My Dwarves, who essentially were a lost cause on turn 10, are now the third strongest nation in Middle-Earth among both Free Peoples and Dark Servants. The nation can support 10,000 HI under it's current configuration, a goal which I'm just about to reach. Best of all, the emissaries are now on a roll which actually allows them to increase the tax base faster than I can recruit!

The keys here are simple: start early and devote a few of those character slots on turns 1 and 6 to pure emissaries. Don't go for double-class characters, they have to be trained up to be useful; by that time, your treasury will be empty and it'll be difficult to put down any camps at all. Most importantly, don't stall or stop; get those first half-dozen camps down and upgrade them as fast as possible. After that, more camps won't cost you a dime. Finally, don't put down a dozen camps before upgrading; if you do this, you may find yourself short on gold by the time you finally get around to improving them.

(I almost didn't write the next couple of sections. I use these tactics regularly and to such good effect that I shudder at the thought of someone doing unto me as I do unto others.)

Offensive operations: emissaries are, in my opinion, some of the best weapons around. A good emissary team is capable of inflicting more harm upon the enemy than the best agent company or army.

Remember those emissaries you've been using to increase your tax base by leaps and bounds? By turn 15 or so, many will have skills in their 60's and 70's, good enough to go on the offensive with 'Influence Other'. I have seen, and used, emissary companies capable of stealing towns in a single turn, moving from one town to the next each and every turn.

The mechanics: 'Influence Other' results in a loss of 5-15 points of loyalty. The exact loss is directly related to the skill of the emissary. With a 60-pointer, the loss seems to be around 11 or 12 points. Put four of these guys in a group, and they can regularly lower loyalty 45 points in a single turn!

Now consider: towns start with a 55 loyalty. Most people raise taxes right away, especially the DS. Average loyalty drop is one- half the tax increase, so if we assume that the player has raised taxes to 60% (the breakpoint after which loyalty continually degrades each turn), then average loss is around 10 points. Those towns suddenly have a loyalty of 45, and they won't be getting any better. This means that your four-person emissary group can steal one town each turn, adding 5,000 tax base to your economy and taking it from the enemy. Best of all, it costs nothing and requires no armies or troops.

Another use: hit enemy camps with just one emissary apiece. I've found that most camps are created early by unskilled emissaries and have terrible loyalties. It seems many people just don't bother to improve the loyalty of these camps. This means that you can send a single good emissary into the camp and take it in one turn. With four emissaries, you can steal four camps per turn, thoroughly messing up the enemy's production.

Examples: in that neutral game I spoke of, I ended up with six emissaries with skill ranks in the 50-75 range. Because enemy loyalties were so low, I found that I could divide them into two groups of three and steal two towns per turn. Not bad.

In the Dwarven game, I only have 6 pure emissaries, but another 8 characters who either started with emissary rank or ended up with it as a bonus during creation. All of these characters have emissary ranks of 50 or better, with several in the mid-80's. Considering DS loyalty, I could put together four effective teams and take three or four towns per turn. This is much better than I could do with my armies, large as they are.

Double Agents: one of the difficulties I've faced is playing nations that have lousy agents. Out of 12 games, only two has had decent agent power (Long Rider and Cloud Lord). As hard as you might try, it's nearly impossible to match the agent-heavy nations in this area, especially if you play a neutral and don't get any stealth bonuses.

So what's a guy or gal to do? Those same emissaries which you used to create your new tax base and steal the enemy's can also be employed to eliminate the agent threat. If you make an effort to track down the most effective agents, you can double them with your emissaries and render them useless. A doubled character will in all likelihood 'fail' agent actions taken against your nation on a regular basis, frustrating the enemy considerably. Better yet, doubling is invisible (no nation message) and lasts until counter- intelligence is done.

How do you find these agents? Well, dropping in on local hot spots is a good way to do it. Since doubling comes before assassinate/kidnap, you can turn the agent before he has a chance to kill your emissary. Another tactic I once used was to sit in an enemy pop centre with high-level emissaries (showing up on the pop centre report every turn) and wait for the agents to come to me. I had two agents doing 'scouts' and tracking every character as they came in. Once I spotted them, I doubled them before they could kill my emissaries. No doubt the enemy was quite perplexed over his failure to kill a few lousy characters.

A last use for emissaries: in most cases, a single skilled emissary can steal a camp in one turn. If you don't expect to hold on to that camp, then on the next turn issue 'Abandon Camp' and run. The enemy will still have to waste an emissary to replace it as he would if he wanted to steal it back, and he'll have to fork over 2,000 gold to boot. This can be a real killer for a number of nations who always seem to be in a world of economic hurt, among which are the entire Dark Servant team except the Cloud Lord. Speaking from personal experience, it may also result in the diversion of a number of enemy agents to hunting down your emissaries (great for the team, but you might want to think twice about it). Keys on offensive operations: it's best to operate in a company.

Try to get a commander/agent, so he can move the company and scout for characters on the place you move in to. Attaching a 50 point agent to the company is also a good idea; two scout attempts in one turn will generally pick up all but the stealthiest of enemy characters.

When stealing enemy pop centres, never go some place where there's likely to be an army. An army negates 'Influence Other' orders, and usually has agents floating around as well. Also, try not to remain in one spot for more than a single turn. This simply baits the enemy, and unless you're prepared to double his characters you'll lose your emissaries. Even if you don't manage to steal the pop centre, you might lower the loyalty to the point where it'll begin to degrade. And you can always come back later for another shot.

That about covers it. I'd be most interested to hear of any tactics which might counter the ones discussed here (for purely selfish reasons).

POP Centre Limit

From Keith Peterson

I (and several fellow players) have found that when the pop centre limit is reached, camps may still be created at ruins. The hypothesis behind this is that ruins are counted in the pop centre tally, and consequently are not impacted when the limit is reached.

Drops, bankruptcies, and other defeats

by William "Rock" Chasko

Diplomacy, economics, military and character action are all essential aspects of effective, winning play in ME- PBM. But, the biggest one-turn boosts I have *EVER* seen in ME-PBM came as a result of drops, bankruptcies, and other position-eliminating events that happened to players on MY OWN SIDE.

In a recent grudge game, at the urging of one of our strongest players, we accepted a young rookie on our team. Since he lived within easy driving distance of me, I became his mentor. I spent a lot of time coaching him and helping him with his turns. But, despite my repeated urgings, he continued to wait until the last minute to mail. He was getting "special serviced" 2 turns out of 3.

Finally he called me one night and said he wanted to drop. He had enough $$ in his account to play two more turns, and said he wanted to help the team.

Well, now, I can recognise an opportunity when I see one. I invested considerable telephone time on the phone planning his last two turns and making *CERTAIN* he mailed these turns promptly. As a result, I and my allies benefited from a large infusion of gold and other resources. All his (non-capital) pop centres and artifacts were smoothly handed off to other team members. His characters were moved to pop centres of other team members to facilitate bribing or to enable high skill rank characters of our positions to score easy challenge wins.

In the same game (which we still seem to be winning, somehow...) one of our "veterans" got ahead of himself economically. I remember the miserable phone call when he told me that his calculations clearly showed that no matter what he did, he was going bankrupt THIS TURN!

The rest of the team went into salvage mode and various team members shared up most of his assets.

To put things in perspective, the loss of these two positions was very bad for the team. While we made the most of the situation - and several positions in our team were significantly strengthened as a result - there is no getting around the fact that we have lost 30-some orders per turn, per position. Had we not had significant early success both recruiting the neutrals and winning military victories combined with spasmodic and uneven play on the part of the opposition, this loss could have been fatal. It is far better to keep all of a team's positions alive if you possibly can; however, it is a rare ME-PBM player who will not experience the loss of positions on his own side. When these losses are imminent, regardless of the cause, the beleaguered player usually has at least one turn which can be dedicated to helping the other positions on his side. The other players in the game should do everything they can to convince the fading player, who will often be demoralised, to co-operate for the benefit of the allegiance.  Snatch everything you can from the jaws of defeat - maybe even victory.

Army / Navy Questions.

What size makes an army "small","large" or "huge" ?

[From Tom: the size varies upon the average troop strength of all armies in the game at the time. If everyone has smaller forces, then a lesser number of troops will make up a 'large' army.

However, if most nations are running around with 5,000 troops packed into a single army, then achieving 'large' status will take quite a bit more in the way of soldiers. In the first case, you might be a 'large' army if you only have 2,000 troops; in the second case, it might take up to 3000 or more troops to get the same designation (in which case the 2,000 troops would be just 'an army' and not a 'large army').

From my experience, there also seems to be an absolute limit in numbers both ways. For example, regardless of how small the average army is, 900 or less troops always seems to be a 'small' army. No matter how large the average army is, it appears that 3500+ troops is always 'large'. Below I give you a very rough table that I used to estimate combat strength (varying for what I believe to be the average number of troops in all armies at the time):

100 - 900: small

901+ - 2,000: medium (listed as 'an army')

2,000+ - 4,000: large

4,000+: huge

Again, this is just a guesstimate and I don't give much credence to it. Anyone out there have a better idea on the ranges?]

Does the size of a navy depend on the number of ships it has with it, or on the troops it is carrying?

[From Tom: navy size is determined by the number of ships present, not the troops the navy is carrying.]

Can a navy THREATEN a town that doesn't have a port or harbour ?  [From Tom: nope. A navy can't affect a town that it can't land at.

Note that it COULD threaten a town without a port/harbour, IF that town was in a shore/plains hex.]

Is there a bonus to having more than the minimum no. of troops needed to threaten? That is, if I have a 5000 troop army to threaten a major town, are my chances any better than when I have a 2500 troop? This seems intuitively likely: the formula you give did not reflect this. Also do people ever successfully threaten towns/major towns/ cities - or is this just useful for camps and villages?

[From Tom: I'm still confused on the numbers thing. Excessive numbers don't seem to help much, at least when I'm doing the threatening. Anyone out there want to give this a shot?  As for threatening towns/major towns/cities, this can and has been done by yours truly. It's generally much harder, though, because the loyalties for these pop centres tend to be considerably higher than those for camps and villages.

It's been my experience that if you have the minimum numbers required for a threat, the rank of the character and the loyalty of the target are the primary determinants of success or failure.]

If I am sitting outside another enemy nation's capital - say a city/citadel - which I can't hope to capture, BUT I can confidently beat any armies that are likely to arrive, is there anything stopping me splitting off 100 troops per turn (or 200 - whatever) and issuing 255 with these, knowing that they will die but will effectively siege the population centre ? Is my commander likely to be captured / killed as my enemy garrison sallies forth to take advantage of my seeming folly ?

[From Tom: this tactic has been suggested by several people, and I believe it was printed in the Mouth just a few issues ago. It works quite well when you can't otherwise capture/threaten/destroy the target. The only danger here is that commanders who lead failed pop centre assaults stand a much better chance of getting injured or killed than they do in normal army combat. In other words, don't have your Nazgul lead the assault.]

It was mentioned in one of the issues that Destroying a population centre is easier than Capturing it. I have not found anything in the rulebook to confirm or deny this - any clues as to how the mechanics of this work? The rulebook only states how a capture would work!

[From Tom: this is in the rulebook, I just can't remember where at the moment. My experience tells me that destroying a pop centre reduces the defensive strength by about 10% prior to combat. That is, if the pop centre has a defence of 10,000 if you try to capture it, it'll act as if it only had a defence of 9,000 should you attempt to destroy it. This is simply for the purposes of determining if the assault is successful or not; the casualties inflicted upon your troops seem to be the same (10,000 points in the above example) regardless of the order chosen.]

What governs the chance of me taking hostages in combat ? It seems that I need an agent in the army, and that I have to win convincingly, but I know no more than that. On the one occasion I have so far taken a hostage, the Commander of the army, who did NOT have agent skill, was listed as being in possession of the hostage.

[From Tom: I can't answer the first part of the question, other than to paraphrase GSI. In response to my asking this question, they said that whether or not a character is captured depends on a comparison of the total challenge ranks of all characters on both sides. They wouldn't be any more specific than this. I can tell you that you don't need an agent in the army to capture enemy commanders. I can also tell you that in my experience, the victorious army commander always ends up with the hostages.]

The Art of Naval Warfare

By Ron Cudworth

Navies are one of the most wasted and misunderstood tools in Middle Earth. As such, they often sit idle, anchored in some harbour or port, forgotten except for their maintenance cost.

What most players don't realise is that those idle ships can play a major role in achieving a decisive victory over an enemy or preventing a route of your forces.

At the start of the game only the following nations have any type of naval strength. For the sake of this article, I grouped the ships for each nation by location.

ADVANTAGES

As you can see from the list, there are three different theatres in which naval combat can occur; Great Sea, Sea of Rhun, and Mordor. Of these three areas, most naval actions will occur in the Great Sea area.

Navies in MEPBM are for the most part a quick and efficient way to move troops, particularly infantry. With a navy you can move troops from the Arnor region south to Mordor in 4 turns. Infantry attempting this same feat would require 7 turns to reach the gates.

Of course this is not the only useful feature of navies.  Navies provide a means to cross large rivers whose bridges have been destroyed. They are also handy at preventing a population centre from being threatened away without having to face an enemy armies.

Probably the feature I like the most about navies is their ability to strike coastal population centres and disappear before enemy nations can respond. This ability plays havoc on many of the good nations in Arnor. Imagine the surprise of Cardolan if a Corsair navy shows up at 1219 and destroys the town. Even if Cardolan arrives the following turn with an army, the Corsairs will have already sacked and burned the town and returned to the safety of their ships.

One final advantage of navies is that they can be used to keep valuable characters out of the line of fire. If your characters are travelling with a navy at sea, then you don't have to fear any attacks by enemy characters. Just make sure that you aren't adjacent to any shore hexes or you might find them getting cursed to death.

DISADVANTAGES

The most noticeable disadvantage of navies is their   maintenance cost. At 50 gold per warship or transport, these costs run anywhere from 600 gold per turn for the Long Rider to 3650 gold per turn for the Corsairs. While that may not seem like too much, in a game with a poor market, these cost can quickly put a nation with a sizeable navy into heavy debt or even out of the game.

Navies also run into problems if they want to capture or destroy enemy population centres. When a navy issues an attack/capture/destroy order, the troops anchor the ships and depart. After the combat the troops do not board the ships.

A separate order must be given to pickup the ships. At this time you might be saying, "But what about the Move Navy order". Well while that order is nice and all, it does not pick up any of the warships in the hex. This would leave you with a bunch of transport defenceless and at the mercy of anyone with a few warships.

Another disadvantage of navies during combat is character losses.  Unlike normal army combat, naval combat can be very disastrous to the loser. If you lose a naval battle at sea, your characters are dead and their artifacts are basically lost. This can be very bad if you happen to have several characters travelling with the navy when it goes down.

Finally, although you can obtain great fun and use from navies, their role in Middle Earth is very limited because of map geography and game rules. I would love it if navies could play a larger role in the game, but for now I will have to settle for their current uses.

TACTICS

Navies can carry 250 infantry or 150 cavalry troops per transport ship. Now the number of troops that you will want aboard your navy will depend entire on what you will use the navy for. For example if you are going after an enemy navy then you will only want a few hundred troops and one or two characters travelling with the navy.

For the more aggressive player seeking conquest, you will want to carry as many troops as possible. First though, you have to decide between either capturing/destroying pop centres or trying to threaten them away. This choice will affect the type of troops you will want aboard. If you plan on threatening population centres, and this works quite well with navies, then you will want to carry only men-at-arms because of their cheap cost. To conquer or destroy pop centres, you will want heavy shock troops.

The choice of shock troops will depend on whether you plan on anchoring your ships at some point. With or without armour, heavy infantry are better than heavy cavalry if you will be carrying max troops. For example, ten troop transports filled to capacity can carry 2500 HI with a defence of 25000/40000 depending on whether they have steel armour or not or 1500 HC worth 24000/37500. As you can see the heavy infantry can take and deal more damage. Therefore you will always want to carry heavy infantry unless you plan on anchoring you navy and making a strike inland. Then the speed of the cavalry will become important. Light cavalry and Light Infantry can also   be carried, but only if you are concerned about the cost of the troops.

Defending against Navies

The best defence against naval attacks is to either remove any harbours or ports, if you are in a non-shore hex, or just have an army present. This works well and is almost essential to nations like the Quiet Avenger and the Long Rider. Both of them need to destroy the ports at their capitals or run the risk of large navies showing up to capture them.

Another tactic that works to defend small navies is to place them in a hex with a large army. Even though the larger navy could destroy the smaller one, they would then have to fight the army troops present after the naval battle. If they lost then they would also lose their ships.

Finally even though enemy troops may be safely aboard their ships when the good (No I don't mean Free People) guys arrive, that doesn't protect the commanders from character attacks if the navy hasn't retreated to sea.

Final Comments

Finally navies can also be used as good bargaining tools to cement relationships. While the Quiet Avenger may have the second weakest Navy in the Great Sea area second only to Cardolan), Haradwaith or the Corsairs would probably be very  happy to obtain the Quiet Avenger ships if they were planning to turn evil. The same goes for Southern Gondor. As long as the Corsairs remain neutral, Southern Gondor has to fear the threat of a naval invasion by a superior Corsair navy. If the Sinda Elves or another good nation gave their ships to Southern Gondor then it would help to remove some of the that threat.

An Additional Note

From Tom Walton

One point I would add: if your side has achieved permanent naval superiority (e.g., you're the only one with a fleet on the Great Sea), don't disband your warships. While you no longer have to worry about enemy players, sea monsters and pirates will still be just as active as ever. The more warships you have with the fleet, the less likely it is that you'll be attacked; and if you are attacked, your casualty rate will be lower if you pack a hefty punch.

Also, in one Q&A with Bill Feild at GSI about a year ago, he said that transports and warships which were lost (navy disbands, nation drops, etc.) were added to the pirate fleet in the game, making it more dangerous. In a later Q&A he refused to confirm or deny this (let something slip, did you Bill?), but if true that means that you'll have more need than ever for those warships in games where large fleets are lost in this manner.

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