This article is intended to help newer free people players understand how to crush the feared Dark Servants. The approach in this article is to put an early economic/military squeeze on the Dark Servants before they can bring their worst weapons to bear (dragons, agents, and other nasties).

As always, I welcome opinions different from my own.

First, let me state the obvious which may not be so obvious to the new players. Two things:

1. The Dark Servants have it much tougher economically, at least in the early game. This is at its worst during fall and winter. As a whole, the Dark Servants have fewer (and smaller) pop centers with less tax revenue. The Dark Servants are also less able to raise their tax rates- because their smaller (but still vital) encampments may then disappear as loyalties drop.

2. The Dark Servants economies rely heavily on metals. This is because a higher proportion of the Dark Servants settlements are in the mountains (such as Mordor) where most of the metals are produced. The Dark Servants rely on sales of metals to keep their economies afloat.

OK, having said those two things, here are some implications for each one.

A) Anything you (the Free People team) can do to keep the price of metals very low will be of benefit. Sell metals wherever possible, and place new camps in metal-producing areas so you can sell more (and to have metals for your own use). Sell metals even when the price is low enough to make you cringe at selling it. It is too late to bother if you wait for the price of metals to rise before selling it- because then all the Dark Servants are selling at that higher price as well!

If and when you need metals to armor your troops, I would recommend that you ABSOLUTELY NEVER buy metals FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER. When you buy metals, you are increasing the demand for metals and therefore increasing the price of metals, which aids the Dark Servants.

If you need metals, either get the metals from your camps or from your allies, or do without. Having your troops a little better equipped with metal weapons or armor in one or two armies IS NOT WORTH supporting the economies of all the Dark Servant nations in the game. Think about it- because you have inflated the price of metals for a improvement in your army's strength or constitution, your armies will then actually be LESS effective. WHY? Because the Dark Servants will now be able to afford to recruit twice as many troops as before, because you so generously aided their economies by buying metals. So, your one or two nice, well equipped armies will now be facing many additional Dark Servant armies just because you HAD to have that steel equipment.

Also, it takes quite a bit of gold and orders to buy and equip with all that steel. Then, when your army gets wiped out by the feared Dark Servant agents or dragons, you've not only lost the army and maybe your commander(s), but you've also lost the big investment you made in orders and steel. It is much preferable in my opinion to send lots and lots of low-cost, poorly equipped armies at the Dark Servants- that way when you lose armies, it is not such a big deal. Who cares if you have good morale or training, if you're carrying food (unless you need it badly for movement), or if you only have wait until you can build a beautiful army before attacking, the fate of Middle-Earth has already passed you by. Just overwhelm the Dark Servants with massive numbers of expendable troops, armies, and army icons.

Another benefit of this approach is that the Dark Servants can't possibly keep track of all the ten zillion army icons you're throwing on their maps. There's no way their agents and dragons can wipe out all of your armies in all of your invasion routes. The Dark Servants cannot come close to matching the massive amounts of troops you can recruit from all your population centers (and pay for with your superior wealth). Attack boldly and without regret for losses, and you will quickly overwhelm most Dark Servant teams. Don't get too attached to your characters or armies-plan on losing some of them for little gain. You may want to send more "expendable" characters into the hottest areas.

Here's the second implication:

B) Anything you (the free people team) can do to suppress the overall economy hurts the dark servants badly. When times are tough on us (the free people) economically, we should celebrate gladly! Because that means it is at least twice as hard on the dark servants. We should strive to create an economy that stinks.

HOW TO CREATE AN ECONOMY THAT STINKS

1. Create as many camps as possible to reach the camp limit early. For the new players - there is a limit to how many population centers can exist in the world, because there are only so many people, orcs, trolls and etc. If you make lots of camps, the dark servants will then have fewer camps to support their economies. Then, with all the camps you have, and all the product the camps bring in, you can then SELL SELL SELL all the product (especially metals) to deflate prices. Also known as flooding the market, what you are doing is adding too much supply of these goods into the market for the current demand. This tends to drive prices down.

2. The second, and most important (in my opinion) way to create an economy that stinks is also the most difficult to do. Why? Because it doesn't work too well without a lot of cooperation by all ten free people nations (and hopefully the neutrals as well). Here's how you do it:

KEEP YOUR GOLD RESERVES LOW LOW LOW! As close to zero as possible. This takes cooperation because some players get greedy and think they have to start striving for victory points from turn 1 by maximizing their gold reserves. This is a good strategy for the dark servants to take, but not for the free people. Here's why:

Classic inflation. If lots of people have lots of money, money ain't worth very much. Therefore, prices will skyrocket. If everyone has 100,000 gold in their gold reserves, we are headed for very high prices in the future - which will make the dark servants shout "three cheers" every time! High prices means the dark servants can sell stuff and survive economically, and they can afford to raise armies, name characters and create camps. This hurts the free people badly.

Instead, the free people need to keep their gold reserves very low to create a world of poverty. The result is very low prices because no one can afford to buy anything. This means the dark servants can't support their economy through the sale of goods because the prices are so low. It also makes it a lot tougher for the dark servants to support themselves by stealing gold from you.

In the first few turns, I think it is okay for the free people to maximize their gold reserves to support the initial costs of naming characters, hiring armies and so on. Also to support any allies that may really be taking it on the chin (such as the Eothraim, Northmen, or Woodmen). But after that, the free people should all be keeping their gold reserves very very low.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR GOLD RESERVES LOW

1. RECRUIT RECRUIT RECRUIT. Pay for lots of troops which will be used to conquer the dark servants. If you do this right, the dark servants won't be able to keep up. Don't bother equipping all these armies - just recruit your freakin' butts off and overwhelm the DS by sheer numbers. Some nations are obviously more attuned to this strategy than others.

2. Lower your taxes as low as you can get away with (given your massive recruiting and market sells) after the first few turns. This obviously has other benefits as well.

3. Not my first recommendation, but you can also remove your gold reserves by buying strategically. Be careful with this, though, because you don't want to support prices too much. DON'T BUY METALS. Buy timber or mounts because the DS won't have as many of these products and this won't support their economies quite as much. AND, by supporting these prices, it may prevent them from being able to afford BUYING mounts and timber themselves, which means they'll have a tough time recruiting cavalry, make war machines and build fortifications, ships, etc.

One last note - you can also preserve your hard-earned economy that stinks by strategically selling into the market whenever it looks like the dark servants might try to manipulate or "corner" the market. This is a common tactic used by dark servants to simulate a depressed economy. The dark servants do it by buying all of the available units of a single product (often a metal) to drive prices higher - but that's another story to be covered another time.

REMEMBER:

• Create camps and sell stuff
• Don't buy metals
• Keep gold reserves low after the first few turns
• Recruit recruit recruit!
• Don't let the dark servants get away with cornering the market

Good luck to the free!