Campaign difficulty implementation is tentative at the moment. Also, it needs to be re-set after the latest update, and will take some time to take effect.

That said, Mordor ist one of the easier factions to play with (campaign wise), and campaigns have a certain amount of randomness, too.

Is there a script variable I can tweak to give all light factions a multiplier to faction strength?

I had to stop playing as it became stupidly easy and just plain boring. A shame as I was enjoying the lore and roleplaying aspects of playing Orc.

There's no cheat available for directly adjusting faction strength. You could try defeating a few of your allied factions. Check the camp dev menu / MV test menu

Years ago I wanted to have a "The end is near feel" in my campaign and I adjusted the enemy lords to be stronger by changing the stats that define their army sizes with a TroopEditor which in the new version of the mod throws more exceptions than in older versions but you can still do it with a text editor.
I changed Charisma and the Level most of the times since Leadership was a bit weird for the Lords (B, F values). I think it seemed to me that higher level meant more troops but not sure any more.

That way I had a crazy campaign where it really felt like the good faction might not make it.
This was the most epic campaign I ever played in Warband which had a feel like being part of a movie. Great job to the modders for this awesome mod!

To find out what Level of power for the dark side was right I let the game run a few times on high speed to see how the war would play out without my help. And it seemed that the dark side was not strong enough for my taste when I would also enter the game so I adapted it so long until they would definitely lose without my help.
Then I started the campaign and it was a good one ;)

It would be very awesome if you could implement a setting at the start of a new game where you can choose if you want an almost impossible to win game, a hard game, a balanced game where you still have to work a bit to win or an easy game (even if you don't do much your side will probably win).


I would love such an option. Also do you have different faction strength depending on if you play for the good side or the evil side? I guess so since otherwise it would be faceroll easy at least for one side since the player is a huge force multiplier.

@Spaceweezle Here an example how you can change values:
I made a copy of the full mod from my steam folder
"C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\48700\299974223"
and saved it as
"C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\MountBlade Warband\Modules\TLD_3.6_r3507"
so that I don't have to ever worry that my safefile will be corrupted with an update
- Inside there make a backup of troops.txt
- open troops.txt with a text editor like notepad++
- do the changes like explained below and safe the changes

Now if you want to make the good factions stronger search the file for the good lords and increase their Charisma + Level.
To find lords just just Ctrl + F and search for "_lord" (without the "") and if you want to find their knights look for "trp_knight_"

For Example you want to increase Denethors troops - it will look like that:

trp_gondor_lord Steward_Denethor Steward 57672720 0 0 3 0 0 <-- the 3 is the faction
53 0 901 184549376 212 0 102 0 221 ......
20 18 20 20 40
<-- this 3rd line of every troop block is important. That is 20 str 18 agi 20 int 20 charisma and level 40

Now just change 20 charisma to 30 and level 40 to whatever you want like 45 or 50 to make him really strong. You can also only slightly increase the numbers. So this line could then look like:
20 18 20 30 45

Knowing the faction (Ctr + F for "0 0 3 0 0" to find all gondor troops) and knowing to search for "_lord" and "trp_knight" will help you find all entries that you want to change.

Just make sure that you made a backup of troops.txt in case that you mess it up.

Thanks for the input, Arpheus.

Yeah, I didn't find it agreeable that you get railroaded into a stupidly easy campaign purely by virtue of wanting to play evil instead of good. I get what they were trying to achieve, but that much adherence to lore is apparently not without its consequences. In this case, pretty dire consequences for anyone seeking a semblance of balance.

I found such aspects appreciable at first, that was until I witnessed the overbearing nature of lore-bound restrictions. Situations as ridiculous as not being able to wear your own faction reward armor. That stuff wore thin pretty quickly and resulted in frustration and dismay more than anything.


The combat in this mod is yet another casualty of lore. Fighting in forests so small and dense that you cannot move three inches without getting stuck or bumping into invisible walls. Those battles are so awkward and arduous that they are hardly worth their own novelty value.

I grew bored of combat in general, likely due to units in this mod having extremely low proficiencies. It kind of feels like you are playing in slow motion after playing other mods.


Appreciate the mini-guide you have presented. Though I don't currently have the motivation to manually rebalance the entire roster for good/light factions, especially in consideration that it won't fully rectify my issues with the mod.

I have strong doubts that any of this will ever change. As far as I can tell, the devs don't aspire to achieve anything beyond a very rigid lore simulation, and I can respect their decision. Other mods exist for people wanting more emphasis on gameplay balance.


I will certainly use this if I ever get the inclination to play it again. Many thanks for posting that.

I can understand your frustration - I have never tried to play on the evil side so far in this mod.
Just started a new campaign today trying not to cheat/change stuff but it seems a lot has changed. Last time I played it was easy to get companions since there was no rank requirement on quite a few of them and having companions is a great thing.

Now its really hard to get more than one if you don't adapt the rank/influence gain which I didn't so far.
Do you need at least Rank 3 now with other factions to get the other factions Companions? That makes it pretty much impossible to get them before the war breaks out - you have to do hundreds of quests just to unlock that Rank 3 for 1-2 additional factions next to your main faction.
And when you do that you will easily reach lvl 8 and the war starts already - a war without a scout and without a healer companion at least if you start as dwarf and want to gain ranks in your own faction to be able to get some income for army.

That is not a good base for a war. Maybe they wanted to give you the feel that when the war starts the chaos starts - you weren't really able to prepare for it and are thrown into the war with not many allies and have to build it up during the war time.

I still think it would be enough if it required Rank 1 (known to faction) or at max Rank 2 (familiar to the faction) to unlock them - Rank 2 is already quite a bit of grinding quests and you won't be able to unlock more than 1 or max 2 anyways if they are not in your faction.

For this playthrough with Rank 3 requirements from 01.04.2021 update (Overhaul Companion stats loosely based on regular player stat progression, rebalance rank and influence requirements) I chance the settings of the campaign to start War when I reach level 12.
That way it will probably be possible for me to get around 3 low tier companions before the war starts.

The last playthrough years ago I wanted to have an epic feel so I started with a dwarven Commander (got him good gear from the start), got some companions early and geared them in a way how I felt it was realistic to take them out of town - with some mid tier gear.
To compensate and have a hard campaign I made all enemy groups stronger and this change made it epic.

I can't really comment on the Good/light factions, but for Mordor, the pacing is indeed quite sluggish as it relates to things like companionship and army size. I didn't mind that too much as I've never experienced that level of RPG integration before. So I just went with the flow on that. I think I actually found myself quite invested in the grind for attaining new ranks. It was something to look forward to anyway.

In retrospect, it's probably a good thing that companions are gated so hard, as that seems to be the only thing stopping you from stomping out the enemy immediately. I guess it functions more like a grace period for the enemy, but I feel there may be more elegant solutions to that problem.

Though I would argue that this system is self-defeating, in the sense that most of the quests involved with ranking up actually bolster your faction's strength, subsequently fueling any faction in your alignment to autopilot their way to victory without you.

Iirc, most companions on the side of evil were gated behind rank3 or so. Though I was surprised that one of the more crucial companions was heavily gated, requiring rank 5 in a sub-faction. For me, this ultimately meant going without a healer for the majority of the campaign.

Maybe that is a problem only new players have to contend with.

At any rate, I wish you luck in your new campaign. If you ever play as Mordor, know that Orc troops are complete garbage compared to their evil humanoid counterparts. I strongly recommend grinding some Khand, Rand and the elephant guys (forget name) resource points to field strong armies.

You could be right with the grace period for the AI with these rank requirements. Before I even started the new campaign I made all enemy parties larger. I think this will backfire hard^^
At least I will probably be able to enjoy a crazy defeat which also has its charm

Originally posted by Arpheus:

I can understand your frustration - I have never tried to play on the evil side so far in this mod.
Just started a new campaign today trying not to cheat/change stuff but it seems a lot has changed. Last time I played it was easy to get companions since there was no rank requirement on quite a few of them and having companions is a great thing.

Now its really hard to get more than one if you don't adapt the rank/influence gain which I didn't so far.
Do you need at least Rank 3 now with other factions to get the other factions Companions? That makes it pretty much impossible to get them before the war breaks out - you have to do hundreds of quests just to unlock that Rank 3 for 1-2 additional factions next to your main faction.
And when you do that you will easily reach lvl 8 and the war starts already - a war without a scout and without a healer companion at least if you start as dwarf and want to gain ranks in your own faction to be able to get some income for army.

That is not a good base for a war. Maybe they wanted to give you the feel that when the war starts the chaos starts - you weren't really able to prepare for it and are thrown into the war with not many allies and have to build it up during the war time.

I still think it would be enough if it required Rank 1 (known to faction) or at max Rank 2 (familiar to the faction) to unlock them - Rank 2 is already quite a bit of grinding quests and you won't be able to unlock more than 1 or max 2 anyways if they are not in your faction.

For this playthrough with Rank 3 requirements from 01.04.2021 update (Overhaul Companion stats loosely based on regular player stat progression, rebalance rank and influence requirements) I chance the settings of the campaign to start War when I reach level 12.
That way it will probably be possible for me to get around 3 low tier companions before the war starts.

The last playthrough years ago I wanted to have an epic feel so I started with a dwarven Commander (got him good gear from the start), got some companions early and geared them in a way how I felt it was realistic to take them out of town - with some mid tier gear.
To compensate and have a hard campaign I made all enemy groups stronger and this change made it epic.

I had to postpone the beginning of the war to level 10 so that I could gather my usual companions. I don't quite understand why they made it harder to recruit them, because these companions are all weak and more a liability than an asset for the first half of the game. They cannot even hold their own against a lousy goblin at first, except maybe the dwarf. I only want to have them with me for roleplaying.

I think having those companions gated behind higher ranks makes each playthrough more unique. It used to be that the start of every playthrough was the same: go up north and grind some rank to get all the support companions before the war starts, etc. And I think some people are frustrated because they are still trying to play that way, and finding that you would have to do like a hundred deliver message quests to get those ranks before the war starts. But that's not the way to play the mod, now, I think. Now I just reconcile myself to the fact that, if I start with, say, Erebor, I am probably only going to get Kili within any reasonable amount of time, and I'm just gonna have to make-do with him only and adapt to not having a healer or pathfinder, etc. until I get enough rank through battles and other things in the course of the war to get other companions from areas away from my home faction. It forces you to play the strategic map differently each game this way, since you have access to different support skills at different points in each playthrough.

Although keep in mind, I think Dimborn still only needs rank 1, so even if you are starting out as Imladris or Lothlorien and it is going to be a long time before you can get Glorfindel, you can still grab Dimborn pretty early. Cirdil down in Minas Tirith too (used to need rank 0 and 1 influence. Now it's like rank 1 and 4 influence or something...). Ulfas at Helm's Deep is still only rank 2 as well and is comparatively easy to get (although he is one of the more lackluster companions. But better than not having anyone!)

Yes it seems that way and there are a few companions that are easier to get - found out after a while.
As you say Cirdil is Rank 1 which is rather easy to get and Dimborn I thought needed Rank 2 (Familiar with Vale).
Luevenna and Faniul both need Rank 3 and are the nice support ones which is fine when you see what they bring to your party.
After first meeting these 2 I thought they made them all require rank 3 but it seems ok the way it is with some easier to get ones and you won't just be able to collect them all early which seems good story wise.