Creating the High Kingdom of the North as Dale
How are you supposed to do this? I don't have an issue with it being difficult, it should be difficult, but it seems mechanically impossible?
It's the getting an alliance with both the Elves of Mirkwood and Dwarves of Erebor. As Bain you do start with enough house relationship with Erebor to make an alliance, but it decays almost immediately and for some reason sending a gift to Durin before it decays doesn't re-set the decay counter so you have to get 100 house relations after it's decayed. You can send a gift to Durin then and get +20 relations, but for some reason making friends with members of the house doesn't increase your house relations, so you just have to send a gift to the Dwarves every King for 5 generations of Bardings?
You can get an alliance with Mirkwood through an event at the start of the TA3000 bookmark, but if you don't manage to get the rest of the criteria for the decision before the already elderly Bain dies you're then stuck with trying to get house relationship up again (starting from Neutral this time), or try and get a hook on him and use the Diplomacy lifestyle perk, as the event alliance dies with Bain.
Just feels like there should be more avenues for getting the two alliances. Maybe a decision if you're friends with the kings of Erebor and Mirkwood where you can call a summit or something, and have a Diplomacy challenge to get alliances between the three of you. Or at least have the house relationship between the Bardings and the Durins set up in such a way that it at least lasts through Bain's life. Getting 40 development in both Dale and Esgaroth before he dies still seems difficult, but achievable.
Or am I just missing something?
EDIT: OK I tried again, my first try with the new patch, and this time gifting Durin as soon as the game starts did work for maintaining the alliance with Erebor. So it seems a little more achievable in the current patch.
Edit2: I no longer think it is achievable to get 40 development in Dale and Esgaroth during Bain's liftetime. It will probably take several generations (which seems fair tbh).
Edit3: Definitely not impossible, I just did it. Not easy though.