I think this is one of the hardest positions on the DS team. You have an appalling economy, you lose most of your army inside 2 turns (usually) and you can lose two of your starting towns by turn 3 leaving you on your knees. And your starting abilities aren't great either! So why is this another sought after position?
It's because you have probably the best starting DS characters in the game. They are truly awesome!!! When playing the Dark Lts, you are needed to be the nation that is required to step in, in a critical situation and tip the scales for the DS team. I recommend a very diplomatic player takes on this position. Try and weather the first few turns, give the Cloak of the Dark Abyss to the Cloud Lord, make some sacrifices for the good of the team. If you can avoid going bankrupt and can locate some artefacts your characters become superstars later in the game. Look after them and you can become very powerful later on.
Strategy Guide by Brian Mason
Strategy Guide by Tom Walton
Strategy Guide by 'The Unkown Soldier'
Dark Lieutenants Starting Information
Strategy & Tactics: the Dark Lieutenants
From Brian Mason
Basic Data
How does the nation of the Dark Lts compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton, "The Mouth," #3):
among all
among Dark Servants
Total Tax Base
19th
4th
Resource Base
21st
8th
Combat Strength
15th
6th
Character points
5th
3rd
Artefacts
4th
3rd
The Dark Lieutenants have pretty poor production. Expected production (Population Centre Development, Brian Mason, "The Mouth," #2) which has not been adjusted for climate for the nation of the Dark Lieutenants would be as follows:
le
br
st
mi
fo
ti
mo
go
production
512
581
269
26
683
0
138
3384
The Character Situation
This is the catch-all of the Dark Servants. Of all the positions in the game, only the Dark Lieutenants have a character with 40 or better in all character types. Even beyond this, they have the best unmodified commander in the game in Gothmog. The have an impressive array of artefacts capable of boosting many of their characters into the stratosphere ability-wise.
The problem is deciding the best way to go about it and deciding what to do with your characters. Carrog is your second best agent, but your only character with stealth. Do you dare waste that by making him primarily an emissary or a mage? Urzahil has (along with Elrond and Murazor) the highest starting mage rank in the game. But he is your best emissary. How do you use him? Given how you start, what other types of characters do you need? These are the character problems you initially face as the Dark Lieutenants player. As character problems go, this is a pretty enviable problem to have.
The Dark Lieutenants have two characters which can serve dual purpose roles are army commanders and mages. You only need one of them, so which one it is actually depends on the location of at start characters.
Tormog would be a fine backup commander, but with the addition of a few stealth artefacts can rather be a first rate agent. This is a good plan as the Dark Lieutenants will need to wait about 10 turns to get Carrog above 50 in agent class having him guard every turn. At this point, however, Carrog should also improve his emissary rank. He should then be a lethal character.
Urzahil, while a good starting emissary (and with The Voice of the Dark Tower is very good), is only slightly better than a new emissary would be. Therefore, he should name one and pass off the Voice of the Dark Tower. He is an excellent mage and can get in the artefact hunting business right away.
The Dark Lieutenants can do well with three emissaries and one commander/agent to serve as backup commander.
The Economic Situation
The Dark Lieutenants can not stand a big increase to their taxes, so 59% is about as high as you can afford to go. Even this will leave you with a substantial shortfall which can only be improved by acquiring revenue generating population centres through capture or creation. While the three emissaries named can start creating population centres, an army under Gothmog can threaten away unguarded population centres. Attractive targets include the four town/towers of Northern Gondor in southern Rhovanion.
There are two dangers here, one, that you may have to compete with the Dog Lord for them, and second, that you may have to compete with the Eothraim for them. This leads us to...
The Military Situation
While the army of the Dark Lieutenants is fair, it must not be overestimated, for if the massed Dark Lieutenants armies were to meet the massed Eothraim armies the outcome would not be in doubt: the Dark Lieutenants would get trounced. The object here, then is to husband the strength of the Dark Lieutenants and build up for a later attack upon the Eothraim or Northern Gondor, or, with the co-operation of the Dog Lord, make an earlier strike at objectives.
Small recruiting armies (100 each) should be left behind at Barad-Dur and Minas Durlith. While the Dark Lieutenants cannot start recruiting en masse (like the more wealthy Gondorians, "Curse the filthy Tarks!") they can be in a position to start recruiting in the event of a massive push by the Free Peoples or in the event of a projected military loss.
Strategy & Tactics: the Dark Lieutenants
From Tom Walton
The Dark Lieutenants is one of those nations in which it's virtually impossible to script an opening set of moves. Much relies upon the extremely volatile situation in/near the Ithil pass and the Rhovanion, which in turn is dependent upon the actions (and expertise) of both allies and enemies. Each game can, literally, be quite different from the next for this nation.
I like Brian's opening moves (especially not using Urzahil as an emissary; a waste, in my opinion) and will expand upon them with a few ideas of my own.
Characters:
With a slew of excellent multi-class characters, I wouldn't create any more for this position (with the possible exception of a commander/agent). Instead, I'd concentrate on building a formidable emissary team, as well as developing another mage or two.
For the multi-class characters, I'd do my best to make sure that they'd have the opportunity to train two primary skills every turn. You can turn some of these characters into gods given the time and opportunity, and Urzahil can further boost their power by locating nifty artefacts.
Economy:
fortunately, the nation has the Voice of the Dark Tower, meaning that you can send out new emissaries right away and create camps that aren't in danger of disappearing due to low loyalty. This also boosts skill ranks faster, in turn speeding up the creation of that killer emissary team I favour. I'd start putting down camps in Mordor immediately, as well as send one emissary up to the Grey Mountains and another to the Misty Mountains (for possible future bases and for dragon recruitment).
as for your agent (or two), I'd restrict them to stealing gold in the early game to help the economy limp along until the camps start producing in sufficient quantity. For some reason, the Dark Lieutenants always seem to be on the verge of bankruptcy; a little extra cash wouldn't hurt.
Military:
(1) the economy sucks, and the army just makes it worse;
(2) there're some nice towns right outside of Mordor that can be threatened away by Gothmog; and
(3) in just about every game I've seen, it takes the combined might of the Fire King, Ice King, Dog Lord, and Dark Lieutenants just to hold off the Gondors and the Eothraim. If you stay out of the war, you just might see enemy armies breaking through the pass or the Gates.
Other:
in about half of my games, Barad-dur has been burned by some lucky stiff who managed to make it into Mordor. As soon as you can, fortify the city! Spring for at least a fort, and later a castle. This'll put an end to the Free dream of razing Sauron's home to the ground.
forego learning battle spells. Instead, learn to locate artefacts and scry. Your mages are well-suited to this sort of activity, and you can amass quite a pile of goodies if you get on the ball quickly. You can also provide key information to your allies, allowing them to fight the war for you more efficiently.
Mordor is pretty crowded. Don't try to put down all your camps in this limited area. Create a couple of different base areas, most especially in the mountains frequented by dragons. Not only will this do your economy a world of good, it gives you more places to raise an army to do harm to your enemies. And, if the Rhovanion is secured, you can transfer your base of operations to a fresh area where Dark Servants aren't competing among themselves for pop centres.
superstition among my part, but does it seem to you as well that Gothmog and Urzahil are always getting themselves killed in challenge combat? Watch for enemy characters and avoid challenge; you can't replace these guys if they die. It might be prudent to have them guarded as well.
Strategy & Tactics: the Dark Lieutenants
From 'The Unknown Soldier'
Not that I am a rocket scientist at running the DkLts, but here it goes..
Starting armies.. You will soon have company at 3120. It is probably toast, but DogL needs time to get ready. You might consider sending out some troops (perhaps 1000) to go burn down some NG T's along the road. You won't hold them, so you should burn them. Recruit like mad and get a commander over to your backup capital at 3622 and get an army going. Feed troops up to the front through your capital. Depending on what else is going on, you may consider getting an army going at 3621 as well.
Upgrade your capital to a city. More troops and a bit tougher to take. If you are playing a good team game, consider trying to get some wood from people to at least put in a fort on your capital. Put in a camp and start upgrading it at 3523 to form a recruitment chain across from 3622. You can get by with minimal amounts of food and send 1200 troops to the front every turn.
Name commanders and emmy types. Raise taxes right off the bat and start planting camps as quick as you can. Limit is hit pretty quick.
Use Carrog as a agent. The 30 stealth is too good to ignore.
Learn Conjure hordes and use it. More troops the better.
Make a deal with the CL. Give him the stealth arty.. He can use it far better than you can.
Have Urzy give the emmy arty to another emmy. Have this emmy do your upgrades quick. (Will get your tax base better and also improve skills quicker). Pass it around so you have several good emmy types.
Have Urzy give the command arty to one of your other command types. (Perhaps Herudor). This person can be the person to do your early downgrades and also raise taxes. This will free up Gothmog to go lead the troops.
Be prepared to help the WK/DrL with whatever they might need.. Metals come to mind to help their troops.
Be prepared to help both the FK and the DogL; you have the best command types, great mages and also great weapons.