The Nine have left Minus Morgul and have 9:30 reservations at Bob's Big Boy{Shoney's} for the midnight buffet. There serving Hobbit fritters, and Elf under glass.

Nazgul: Part 1 - The Fell Riders ............. They are the Nazgûl...

Game winning unit{s}: The Black Númenóreans. {Nazugul}. To prove my point, when you start your next Mordor campaign your 1st assignment is to take Thorongburg by turn four with the Black Númenórean from Gul Gador. {Yes just him, no back up.} He'll siege and the 4/5 unit garrison will sally at the end turn. When they sally, "kill them all, leave none alive."

Core unit{s}: Orc Raiders, Moranian Guard.

Why this is the easiest Faction: Bara Dur, Minus Mogul, Gul Gador, The Black Gate & Werst Osciliath are all Fortresses. Throw in East Osciliath, city, Cair Adros, and *****. That's 8 unit factories under your immediate control. As soon as you can build the structures, an endless stream of High tier units is at your beacon call.

Game over folks it's that simple. Play defensively til your economy is up and running, and hand that fat lady the mike cuz she be signing.....:innocent2:violin1::romeo:

OPENING MOVES: Ready, set, Rush to Turtle....:run:

1. The Black Númenórean{Khamul the Easterling} in Dol Guldur takes Thoronburg by himself. Put a scout there as garrison cuz your nazgul is needed back in Dol Guldur when that elfen scum makes their power move.

2. The Mining Complex in Barad Dur.....build it.......NOW!!!!!!!!

3. Move on West Osgiliath and send Faramir to his ancesters.

4. Take Emyn Arnen & Tir Ethraid to secure your southern border before that filth from Harad starts getting delucians of grandeur. Beware of the two groups of rangers in sourthern Osgiliath. There'yre death on a platter if they ambush you.

5. Buckle down and crank up your economic initiatives, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. Gondor will make it's "big boy on the block" Power move by turn 45-55. Two to three stacks for you and three for Harad.

Battle Tips:

* One or two archers per stack. put them in spread formation and use them as your range "meat shield". enemy archers will target them, and if they don't they'll see that orcish arrows tips are just as deadly as a knife to the guts.

* Your trolls are a fear inducing distraction, not chuck Norris on roids, so run them through enemy units then have supports units rush in the gap. Don't get your trolls bogged down in heavy meelee if you want to keep them around.

* Have your nazgul & trolls attack from the enemies side. A full blown cuzinart...."Mordor style"...:cool:

As TATW is a mod strongly based on original lore (as far as game mechanics and balances allow) I decided to create this guide to help people in playing and selecting the best faction for turtling. This guide itself is far to be complete, to be honest it is more a list of good advices than a true step by step guide, still I hope it will help someone; It might turn out a lot to read, but many of the matters treated are useful also in standard games.

Notice: this guide is valid for all difficulty levels and for both TATW and MOS as a general rule, and is intended to give suggestions for a game without cheats or bad exploits of game mechanics. At the same time it only takes partially into consideration the features offered by Diplomacy Script (MOS), as being able to ally with your natural enemies will simply makes the things too easy. If you are not confident with turtling strategies I suggest to try at the very beginning a campaign with M/M or M/H difficulty, in order to “stress” the limits of this strategy.

How to read the guide: as this is my very first guide please be kind and do not complain too much if it is not so clear J. I’ll make an introduction of the treated matter at the beginning of each part, followed by some general suggestions and then I’ll detail my personal idea along with the most popular ones coming from other players regarding which factions are better for the purpose. As for specific guides on the suggested factions or other general guides that will be completed by this one, please have a research on the Guide forum, there’s plenty of very good ones, or have a look here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=559492 (this is a great guide from Incomitatus, do not forget to rep him for his support).
Finally, when defining the various possibilities I always tried to give alternatives, if possible.

For turtling it is intended a specific game strategy based on defending original borders of the faction during the first part of the campaign, while focusing in building up economy and creating infrastructures for the future recruiting of an army composed mainly of professional (2^nd and 3^rd tier units) compared with the levy / militia units you can recruit since the very beginning of the campaign. There might be various reasons for which a player would like to follow this strategy, the two most common are lore playing and the personal tastes of the player, who wants to build up his/her kingdom step by step while discovering the unique features of the games, thus avoiding a rush over the campaign map that will probably ruin the atmosphere and will force the player to use largely the basic 1^st tier units.

Depending on the campaign development and events the things might turn out differently from what one is expecting, anyway usually the idea is to defend as long as possible your own kingdom and possibly make time by time some “aggressive” actions (both with armies or agents, and in some extent with diplomacy too) to strengthen an ally or to weaken an enemy; gifting some settlements to an ally, taking (sacking or exterminating) a main settlement from an enemy, gifting money, signing truces are all good examples of what I intend.

First things first. Turtling means a passive strategy, which will lead to the conquest of few (or none at all) rebel settlements and this is a major issue we have to deal with: remember, when you capture a rebel settlements (or an enemy one :tongue:) it will increase your income by tax, farming and sensibly in trade, as it will exchange goods both with allied and your own cities; so, as you will not probably take more than 1 or 2 of them in the very beginning of the game, this fact could become a major hit to your economy later on. Said the above, if possible go for a faction that has a good basic income coming from mines (mountains) or profitable farming (grassland) as you will have to rely a lot on your own economy output . As a general rule, taxes tend to be the main income source, so investing in growing up your cities (more pop, more taxes!) should be the very first concern (pop increase buildings, farms, low taxes), followed by investments on trade buildings and roads. Keep recruiting buildings as last investments, as you’ll normally have enough to recruit basic units to defend your lands, at least for the first turns and in any case before the Barrack event occurs. Having ports sensibly increases the trade income, which means that if you have any costal settlement you should give priority in building ports / docks as soon as possible.

Furthermore, as an extra income you can offer map information to get small revenue in exchange (nothing really big, but worth of if repeated over turns).

Try to keep a minimum treasure of 5-10k (if you can afford more, it is better :)), not only to be able to quickly recruit troops, but also to have a backup that you can use when the time of building the most expensive structures will come.

In order to increase your income you should pay special attention in selecting governors and generals; it is well know how important is to decide which “career” your generals might follow, whether they will become governors or commanders of army is up to you to decide, but always remember to “train” them (have a look on character building guides or you can also google M2TW or TATW trait list and you’ll easily get a list of traits with the scripts that activate them). Anyway, as a general rule, keep in mind that each general is a huge cost, so do not adopt any if they are not really good at something (both military or economic) and with good stats for chivalry/dread and loyalty, and do not adopt any general if you don’t need them for some purpose. Also, remember that starting faction leaders and heirs (and possible one or two more generals, depending on your faction) are always really good at doing something: if you want to turtle you definitely MUST use any resource the game gives you from the beginning, so widely use them in growing up population, reducing building or recruiting costs, increasing income and leading your armies; each turn they stand doing nothing is a loss for you.

As for a standard TATW game you should always use the free garrison of your cities and castles, in order to save money and to have some troops always ready to enter the field. My personal advice is to always have garrisoned the BEST troops you can recruit there, so as soon as a new barrack/archery range or stable is built train the relative new troops and let them be garrisoned for free; as for the other troops already garrisoned disband them, or send them to reinforce a front far from your main settlements, but always consider how much they will impact your revenue.

One thing people tends to underestimate is the presence of Rebels; whether they are spawned since the beginning or appear later on the map they will cost you money, more and more each turn they will remain unbeaten, due to the fact that they spread devastation over your land. Depending on the difficulty level you might have different Rebels stacks spawning from the beginning, and they will be hidden in woods too, so that it will be difficult to see them; if you already know where they are head for them quickly (as you’ll not go for rebels settlement or only partially use the troops you have to get rid of them), if not, you can check any settlements’ details and you should see devastation costs under the income line, which means an army (rebel or enemy) is camping in your lands. To spot them, you can look carefully at the campaign map, even if they are hidden you should see a grey devastated area around them; as it is not so easy to see it (the map actually need to be visible) send a Spy to roam around, soon or later he will spot them, or on the worst case he will simply stumble over them. If a Spy is not available use Diplomat or Assassin. Furthermore, when an army of rebels spawns during the campaign they usually do it on roads. As a general rule, get rid of any rebel ASAP, as they cost you money and can be easily defeated (you don’t need to pursue the routing troops on battlefield as they always fight last stand battles if they do not retreat of course).

Related to this theme is the use of watch towers: although they do not have an upkeep cost you need to pay good coins to build them, coins that you’ll never have back, so I usually build them only in the borders to my enemy (if any) and mainly to keep a clear vision of all my roads, so to avoid some rebel army spawning there and not being seen; if managed well you can cover your road network with very few of them.

Important notice: corruption can be a real killer for your economy so always keep an eye on it on economy screen. As a general rule the bigger is your kingdom the higher is corruption; a good way to lower it is to keep your capital at the center of the kingdom, but keep in mind that moving the capital will cost you money (5000 gp) so do it only if it is really far from the ideal position; similarly, if your kingdom is split in two (like for Dwarves or High Elves) put the capital where you have more settlements. Furthermore, Obedience of your generals will also reduce corruption costs, so if possible send a governor with average to high obedience to rule the most important cities which are far from your capital, this can really cut down corruption by hundreds (or thousands if the kingdom is big) gp every turn!

Finally, a note on agents: both Spies and Assassins are a cost for you, and they cannot be killed (unless they fail a mission, which is always bad :tongue:, or you sent them to sink with a ship) so carefully train them. See below for my idea about them and their actual usefulness.

First of all it is important to understand that the stronger your original levy / militia units are, the easier will be to survive the first turns, because soon or later you’ll be attacked and will have to defend yourself. Generally speaking the more expensive are the basic units, the better they are, with good archers being the best at all (as you can pinch down enemies with few or no loss before they get to you).
Furthermore, the starting position is extremely important, as not being forced to fight any enemy since the very beginning , or being able to concentrate on one single front only, will make the difference in the long term.

As a general rule it would be perfect if you are accustomed at using small armies (usually less than half stack) so that you’re able to take the maximum from them: shot the last arrow, charge over and over on the flanks with cavalry, let the heavy infantry enemies tire down while pursuing your lighter troops, etc. A good technique is what I call “wing routing”: when forced to fight against an enemy that is largely outnumbering you try to concentrate on one wing only of the enemy, use a short line of infantry to hold this wing, spare one unit to cover your own side exposed to the rest of the enemy army, and use your cavalry (or shock infantry) to flank and decimate the outermost unit/s on the wing you are attacking. If you are not unlucky you should be able to make one or two units on the wing to route, if so hold your infantry line and send them to attack the closest enemies that are not routing, release your cavalry from pursuing the routing enemies and use them again to charge on the flank/rear the “new” units your infantry is holding, repeat over. Depending on the troops on battlefield, your quickness to react and luck you can manage to win (or at least to deliver a pyrrhic victory to the enemy :thumbsup2), provided that your infantry is equal or better than that of the enemy.

To pick your battles is a must, more than the standard for a regular TATW game; bridges, fords, higher position and sieges (if your troops fit well like for Dwarves) are all good deploying positions, provided that you’ll be fighting almost on defense.

Useful tip: you can actually attract enemy stacks out of your territory by roaming with one army of yours in their territory; if moved carefully you can avoid being caught by the enemy’s armies for some turns (thus granting you some more time to build up your kingdom) or you can sit on a river crossing/bridge and fight over until you need to retrain your troops (if going for this strategy, prepare an appropriate army, composed of spearmen / heavy infantry and a lot of archers, one or two siege engines may be useful too, cavalry is not really needed unless there is a real chance that the AI will surround you, i.e. sending an army for each side of the crossing/bridge).

Generals are usually good to be used widely on the battlefield: as soon as the general himself will not die the bodyguard will replenish each turn, thus granting you fresh troops. Furthermore, as a general rule the bodyguards are very good troops, especially if they are cavalry (of which there is a general lack) or elven archers (both amazing at shooting down the enemies and in close combat), so use them as your hammer and use expendable units as the anvil. For the use of garrisoned troops please refer to the Economy chapter above..

One notice: even if turtling means to be generally passive I strongly suggest to take at least a couple of rebel settlements in the beginning of the campaign; this will be important from the economic point of view, but also from the military one: first, you can recruit there some more 1^st tier units when needed (and so in your main settlements you can invest money mostly on economic buildings), second it will grant you a buffer area between enemy borders and your most important cities/castles, which means you will have some more time to prepare yourself in case of a strong aggression by them.
Similarly, a good strategy to delay / hold the enemy is to conquer a bordering settlement between and gift it to an ally (better a close one that can actually occupy it) so that the enemy will not border you directly until they will conquer it. Again, this will grant you more time, which is essential. Of course it is not always possible, but it is a good tip to keep in mind; it also leads to another important point: as soon as you can avoid sharing borders with your enemies, they will not attack you (unless an Invasion is called), which means, less need for troops and more money to spend on economy or improving recruiting buildings. Clearly, the best way to comfortably turtle is to avoid bordering the enemies, that’s it :).

Another suggestion: as said above always try to have at least 10k as a minimum treasure. This is important when the time of recruiting armies will come; just imagine you have built your kingdom and when that damned stack from your enemy enters your territory you cannot react because you do not have money to recruit troops … Depending on your economy and faction it might take you some turns to build up the amount, but after you did it everything will go smoothly (just consider it as backup).

Finally, when the time of aggression will come, be aggressive, corner and do not be cornered, push deeply in the enemy territory and do as much damage as possible, try to conquer some rich settlements and/or sack and lay waste to their main recruiting/economic centers which are far from your borders. Garrison script is your main enemy when you want to be quick, so try to avoid places with it, as far as possible; if playing with MOS you can remove this script, thus granting yourself the possibility of making REAL damage to the enemy with relatively low effort.

Unfortunately diplomacy has always been one of the cons of TW games, so let’s see what we can do. Depending on faction and personal tastes it might take a lot of turns before your economy will be strong enough to support a professional army, so it is mandatory to pick carefully your allies and share trade rights with them as soon as possible. Furthermore, try to avoid to piss off your natural enemies (i.e. by going with your armies through their lands) and, if you are not very concerned with lore, you can also try to achieve peace with them, thus granting you some more time before they’ll actually turns to you. It is also needed to be careful when signing alliances with other factions, since to be allied with an enemy of your enemy normally tunes down the relations you have with them on the long term. Please notice that in MOS there is the a special script (you can select if to use it or not) which will force war between factions: if one of your allies attack someone with whom you’re not at war actually, this script will activate and “force” war between you and them; the same happens when you attack someone who’s not at war with your allies.

Always keep at least one diplomat available, if you want to turtle you have to be ready to act quickly and a lot with your diplomats, especially concerning the relations with your enemies. If you find yourself in big trouble and your economy allows it, as a last resource you can try to sign peace with your main enemy by granting them money over some turns or in the worst case by gifting them a settlement in exchange of a truce. Also, if your economy is strong, you can help an ally in trouble by gifting them a settlement taken specifically for this purpose or by giving them some money. Finally, as said above diplomats can trade for map information which will bring you some more money.

Notice on Diplomacy Script: if using MOS you’ll have the chance to use the features form this script, which practically allow you to do quite everything (with the exception of few things) with diplomacy: sign alliances with someone having very bad relations with you, easily obtaining military access, even buying a main settlement (Capitals excluded) for 1 coin and so on. Even though I personally don’t like to take advantage of this script, it exists and has been included to give players more flexibility with the bad diplomacy from TW; whether to use it to sign an alliance with a “friendly faction” or to stop a war with the enemy that is steamrolling you, it’s up to you :shifty:.

As a general rule I do not use Assassins with good factions (as they bring dread to faction leader) and very little with evil factions too, because normally they are not so good with success percentages and they easily fails or get killed, so I prefer to invest my money somewhere else. Anyway, while playing passively, they can become an interesting alternative if you wish to invest some time in sending them around of the map to pick their victims carefully. Kill captains, diplomats and sabotage the enemy settlements to grow up the agent skill (works better if you use the Assassin in combination with a Spy to easily spot your targets), and then go for the main victims (generals), but be prepared to fail. Keep in mind, assassination/sabotage is an aggressive action, so be careful on who you aim at. If you have various towns without governors inside you can build many Inns to recruit a group of 4-5 Assassins and send them to storm the enemy lands, if not for a true result, at least to disturb them in some way and for the amusement of seeing how lucky you are :laughter:.

Spies, on the other hand, might be very useful in spotting dangers both when you defend or you attack, but do not overuse or overestimate them: they cost money and if an army is hidden in woods it might take you more than one turn to find it; furthermore, their line of sight is limited and if you are not aware of where the enemy army is moving you might lost track of it and spend more and more time to look at it :P.
I suggest not to train (or have) more than one spy in the first turns; in the very beginning use it to spot all the rebels hidden around, than send him to the borders of your enemy. Train more only if your war front is very big or is split in two.
In TATW spies are still decent for opening gates at sieges, but be aware of the fact that they will NOT avoid the garrison script, as it is activated when you press maintain siege or assail.
Finally, do not rely on them to bring any enemy settlement to riot, you will need MANY highly trained ones, and the result is not granted at all; better spend the moneys with good troops:yes:

It’s all about winning, isn’t it? IMO, the answer is no :). When I play TATW I deeply feel inside the lore and really don’t care about victory conditions (especially number of settlements), if not just for an “indication” to lead my campaign actions. So the point is, if you turtle you usually play according to lore or at least to stand in “one side” (goor or evil) and develop your game according to this strategy, in this case I consider winning to destroy the Ring and Mordor while playing as a good faction or getting rid of Gondor and Rohan (or HE and FPoE as OoG / Dwarves and SE as OtMM) as evil; surely you might have to adapt the path depending on your faction, so you can be on the front of the storm or you can back up from behind.. :P. If the lore of a factions allows it, I usually plan to slowly take/retake some settlements to rebuild the old glory of the kingdom itself (ie. Dwarves in Moria, SE in Dol Guldur, etc).

On the other hand if you are mad about victory you can trade settlements from the allies to reach the required number, or if you feel badass you can betray your allies and actually conquer the settlements from them :yes: (not so hard to do, especially with Elves or Dwarves after their economy went strong).

My final words: play according to your tastes and do not be mad about victory, and in some extent let be carried by the events so that each campaign will be a new experience, even with the same faction!

As said this is a general guide to supply some suggestions to help you on the hard way of having a fruitful campaign when turtling, which basically means to “exaggerate” any standard behavior one usually have with regular game, provided that you’ll keep in mind that the purpose of the game is to entertain, so feel free to act as it most pleases you!

So here we are, which is the best faction to turtle with? As for the suggestion and considerations gave above the best choice is one of the two (three with MOS) elven factions, with High Elves being the best at all. IMO with few necessary steps at the beginning you can make them into a diamond shell turtle that will survive anything. Some tips for HE: switch the capital to Mithlond, invest there hugely in growing and economic building, in Imladris just keep a garrison to hold the OotMM (don’t forget you have two bridges to defend there!) and do not waste money on trade as you will not be able to exploit them, mostly because you’ll be surrounded by enemies or rebels for a very long period. Use the troops you have in Lindon regions to conquer two or three coastal settlements south (as soon as you will remain north of the Tharbad river you should not be in direct contact with any potential enemy) and a settlement north to gift to Dwarves in exchange for alliance (and military access if possible).

Be aware, you must sign an alliance with the Dwarves or soon or later they will backstab you, and you cannot afford this unless you were prepared (or caused it ;) ). In 15 / 20 turns you should be able to build up a small kingdom composed of 8/10 regions, sign alliance with your good neighbors and so be on the right way. Your coastal settlements will be a money maker machine, your trade with the inland allies will become more and more profitable over turns, pop growth will be slow at the beginning, but after you’ll managed to grow Lindon settlements to Large Towns things will improve quickly and the economy will boom. After this first steps you can disband your western troops if too many (you’ll probably get more from missions) or send them via Eriador to Imladris to further save money from recruiting. Just keep an eye on southern bordering potential enemies (Isengard and Dunland with MOS) but do not maintain a lot of troops there, yours are better than theirs and by the time they will become aggressive you should be able to recruit and send there a good backup of units in 2/5 turns. Depending on luck and your ability as a general, around turn 80-100 you should be able to field a first full stack of elite troops (that will steamroll quite everything excepts Mumakil and of course Balgor) to be sent south to either get rid of Isengard, or to cross over and reach Anduin in front of Minas Tirith; similarly you can send it by ships along the coast to back up the Gondorians fighting (and loosing) against Harad. I suggest this option, as with one stack you will not have the power to break Mordor, while if you help Gondor south (and possibly take the island settlement in front of Anduin’s mouth to have a place where to rest/retrain) by looting Harad territory and gifting their settlements to Gondor you will have good results. When you’ll be able to field more stacks send them to complete the task :).

A not so hidden risk: someone besieges Moria and the Balrog spawns, which means he can come down to you in Imladris. In case a massive attack from OotMM comes for you, just try to hold it by the bridges/fords, but do not cry if in the end it will be taken, in your kingdom is just but a city.

Apart from Elves I’d suggest to give a try to the Dwarves; even though they have two enemies since the beginning, it is highly improbable they will be attacked by the Orcs (OoG will focus mainly on Eriador, OotMM on Silvan Elves), so if you take a couple of rebel settlements in west and Wormcove in east you can increase your trade. Furthermore do not forget you’ll have a lot of money coming from your mines, so you should be able to field a good quantity of troops to easily defend your kingdom (in the west you can also manage not to be in contact with the OoG). When the time will come (you’ll need a couple of stacks) press form both sides of the Misty Mountains and reconquer what is yours by right, then with more troops head south towards Moria. Finally, have an eye on Rhun and Dale development, if you see the things going bad for the Bardings think on changing your plans and sending a stack to take some settlements west of Sea of Rhun and gift them to Dale or go east, conquer, sack and burn down the money making cities they have there!

According to the general trend the TATW players tends to agree about Elves being the best choice, followed by any “rich”faction, is to say Harad and Rhun. Of course having a good economy since the beginning is a great plus to turtle with relative ease, but be aware that Rhun’s enemies will surely be aggressive and that the best of Harad is obtained when actually exploiting their pluses, more settlements and money in the very beginning to take over south Gondor, but you can also turtle easily by supporting Mordor if they are in trouble and you can easily hold Gondor over Anduin shores, while maybe focusing on building a fleet that will allow you to land everywhere you like on the coasts of the Great Sea :P.

In any case, IMO evil factions are not intended to be defending, but to be on the front of the storm. Some people gave a chance to Gondor and Mordor too, to which I can agree as long as you are lore playing.
I gave a try to all the factions in turtle mode (although I only “finished” HE and Dwarves campaigns) so if in doubt or in need just ask, and it will be my pleasure to present my point of view.