VorV DD 4: Regional Content in the Greater Enedwaith Focus Tree

We’ll start with a recap of last week: Greater Enedwaith consists of 24 tribes divided into 6 regions, all of which share the same basic focus tree. Each region has a completely unique development branch and access to parts of its neighbors’ development branches. Each region also has several unique political focuses.

Many of these focuses are shared between multiple neighboring regions, so I’ll cover them by branch rather than by which region they belong to.

Greater Enedwaith’s main contribution to Lord of the Rings were the Dunlendings who fought for Saruman, so  Dunland naturally has 3 unique focuses for befriending Saruman. *The Forges of Isengard and <Insert Capital City Here>* is another tech bonus trade with Saruman and *Rally Against our Ancient Enemy* exchanges 1 trust with all other evil Dunlending tribes. *Coordinate Attacks on Rohan* will start a border war for Nan Adorn when Isengard launches the Battle of the Fords of Isen.

 Druwaith Iaur, being a relatively peaceful agricultural land, simply wants to trade their grain for Isengard’s industry, though their more ambitious leaders may value Saruman’s backing in convincing other tribes to trust them.  Enedwaithy rulers dream of reuniting the fallen tribal kingdom of Saralain, so just their luck that Saruman’s archives can prove it once stretched far further than popularly believed!

In the days before the Rohirric invasion of Calenardhon, the ancestors of the  Dunlendings and Druwaithy were one people, since viciously split by Rohan’s occupation of Nan Adorn; thus, they both have an interest in reclaiming it. This branch starts by granting a core on Nan Adorn, then presents the option of fighting a limited war for it. *Bring a Long Winter*, a callback to the Long Winter of Third Age 2758 when Dunlendings led by Wulf briefly overran Rohan, grants an attack bonus vs the horselords.  *Starve the Hornburg* applies severe attrition to Helm’s deep, and *Raid the Riddermark* steals factories from every Rohirric state you conquer.  Dunlendings may want to be nice to the Rohirrim, though, since they can follow in Wulf’s footsteps by placing a relative in charge of a collaboration government in Edoras! This country will have a unique focus tree allowing it to gain Rohan’s cores, ideas, mechanics, and focuses, but this is not yet implemented.

 Eregion and  Enedwaith have three focuses helping them cross the mighty Greyflood. If they hold South Tharbad they can claim the Northern half of the city, and once acquired they can both core and significantly buff it. One way they can do this is by *Seizing the Northern Bank*, which starts border wars across any of the three crossings of the Greyflood they have access to.

 The White Mountains’ heritage focuses are the most in-depth. *Foster National Sentiment in the White Mountains* removes Gondor’s core from the White Mountains of Morthond, which is now a traversable state, and adds one for the White Mountain uprising. It also unlocks this decision category:

The other four White Mountain tribes can send the uprising resources to both increase resistance growth in the state and, of course, help them in their inevitable revolution! The left side of the GUI shows the uprising’s current stock of each resource, the right how much support each tribe has sent. The tribe that sends the most support is the sponsor– more on that in a moment.

Once resistance reaches 90% in the White Mountains of Morthond, its people will take the autonomy that is rightfully theirs, but to avoid a war they are not yet ready for they will remain a puppet of Gondor.

The uprising has a small unique tree. The left branch provides fairly substantial– for a mountainous wasteland– development buffs to the state, while the right more directly helps in breaking free from Gondor. Gondor will likely declare war when they *Establish Independence* and renounce their puppet status, but the uprising only has to hold out for long enough to *Break their Morale* and convince them to white peace. Now a fully independent tribe, the AI uprising will always *Join their Kin* and swear a Blood Oath to their sponsor, though they may choose to *Forge their Own Path*– either focus unlocks all Blood Oath tribal mechanics.

Gondor will certainly hesitate to clamp down on the  White Mountain rebels if they ally with trolls and dead men!

 Enedwaith has seen a recent upsurge in cults of Melkor, largely thanks to Madogh Morchad, the Mad Dog of Angrast. They can harness this fervor to terrorize their neighbors from both land and sea. Enedwaith leaders pursuing either Melkorism or Conquest can also choose to reform the Kingdom of Saralain if they control its northern half in Minhiriath.

 Eregion, with a little prodding from the Dark Tower, can decide its just had enough of its northern neighbors and take their land for itself!

Orrrrr they can befriend them! This branch not only boosts freedom, it boosts your economy! You can of course bumble your way through making use of the ruins left by the fall of the Elven kingdom of Eregion, but you’ll get much better mileage by cooperating with the survivors in Rivendell.

The Greyflood is awfully wide, which makes crossing with large armies rather difficult. Say, wouldn’t it be nice if  Enedwaith and  Eregion tribes would just engage in positive economic and diplomatic relations with their northern neighbors instead?

If the  White Mountains ask nicely enough, Gondor might return their ancestral territory for free, none of this rebellion nonsense.

Oh my– even  Dunland and  Druwaith Iaur want in on the friendship action! Convincing Rohan to return Nan Adorn is a tough sell, but five civilian factories or a portion of your entire economy might be enough.

Well, perhaps it’s not so surprising from  Druwaith Iaur, since they are quite diplomatically focused, being in the center of all the action as it were. The Keystone grants you the same culture bonus to Blood Oath submission with ALL other tribes– yes, even Eregion, the one region you don’t border. A Central Perspective allows you to recruit any advisors that your Blood Oaths had recruited when you annexed them, even if they normally would not transfer over.

That’s a wrap, folks. I realized as I was writing this DD that  Andrast doesn’t have a single unique focus in the whole tree– if you have any ideas, please let me know!