Has it been made easier for the players side in 3.5?
Playing as an elf I started out helping in the North, where the dwarves lost a host on the first day of the war. Despite this Rhun was done pretty quickly. I moved on to Rohan, which by day 60 was in trouble. It took suprisingly little effort to turn the tide there. Gondor had lost two hosts by my first visit there around day 80, but was still holding its own. Then I helped Rohan taking out Isengard and Dunland, lending a hand with sieges in the north when I was up there for international money transfer missions and buying good stuff from the northern armouries, but the north pretty much won against their close enemies on its own after Rhun was down.
With the north setting up camp in Gondor, the game was up very quickly for the remains of the dark side. A clearly confused Mithrandir showed up proclaiming the end of the war, after the demise of the second to last faction, before Mordor was done in, which happened by day 188.
There was little time to enjoy the well deserved weapons of mass destruction (Mearh Stallion, and named swords). I went only to level [7] with Gondor, while ending at level [20] playing 3.3.
Now playing Harad, there seems to be little need for my presence in the overall picture. At day sixty-something it looks like the war is winning itself at a pace that makes sure that I won't get any of the 4 highest level companions, even while saving all influence for that purpose only. It's not because it's easier to play the Dark side, that's still harder, in my opinion, than playing the good. I'm beginning to consider putting arrows in friendly hosts nd then leave battles to make it last longer, but maybe I'm judging it too early, Harad doesn't seem too fond of the factions they are allied with...
Is there a way to influence the overall faction strength loss/gain, to make the game longer (influence is always in very short supply)?