Any interest in a Third Age Total War hotseat?

[Zim]

I've been thinking about starting a hotseat using the Third Age: Total War mod. It's a total conversion mod set in Middle Earth and one of those most polished, entertaining MTW2 mods I've played and I think it would be interesting to have a game in a non-historical setting. You can find it here. Previous versions played very well as hotseats and according to the FAQ the current version stil works in hotseat mode (something I'll be testing shortly).

Would anyone be interested in a hotseat for that mod? We'd need to work a few things out. The mod team helpfully provides simple directions to remove the garrison script (I could do it myself then upload the file for everyone). I'm thinking it would work best as a team game with maybe the "good" guys having an extra player (Mordor is very powerful).

Anyone else think this would be fun?

Players so far:
Myth
Thanatos Eclipse
Nightbringer
Slysnake
Zim

[Myth]

Don't remove the garrison script - it triggers only for the AI anyway. Plus it's too bothersome to mod and re-mod all my games whenever i want to play SP alongside a hotseat.

[Zim]

So play factions won't get garrison scripts? I remember way back with the first BC hotseat here the scripts seemed to treat player factions as being AI controlled between turns, so scripted armies meant to help the AI would appear. I didn't know if there was a similar problem for scripted garrisons.

[Thanatos Eclipse]

I'd be up for it :)

[Nightbringer]

I'd give it a try!

[Zim]

Glad to have you guys in.

So far I was thinking that once we have enough players we'd split into teams (Mordor and its allies versus the free peoples), attacking player fights the battles, and maybe unique victory conditions. Plus the usual hotseat rules, of course.

I'll be putting in a lot of hours the next couple nights trying the current version out. For those that have played it, how do you find the faction balance? From the version I played I recall the biggest issues are that some factions are very small, and that Mordor has a huge power advantages over any other single faction (both in production and troop types). The former seems pretty likely to fix itself (I assume the major players will be the first to be picked) but the latter could cause some problems. What do you guys think of Team Mordor having a handicap in the form of being a player shorter versus the other side?

Edit: Also, does anyone have a preferred unit size? Been playing a bit and noticed that although my current computer is better in just about every way than the last one I owned the frame rate still dips pretty badly on huge (or even large with some of the units in TATW with very big units of troops, like the Orc factions). If we're going large or huge I might ask to take one of the Elf factions to make things a bit easier for my computer.