Gondor Strategy Guide 3.0
Getting started
First off, grab yourself a cuppa!
The first 50 turns are crucial to the outcome of the campaign, and the harder you work within these turns, the bigger the return and easier the campaign gets. The tips, tricks, tactics and style of play I use may slightly differ from your own, but I hope it should provide insight into deeper play and planning.
I would recommend making fixed saves of the game at least every five turns, especially at stable points of the game when income is good and borders are guarded, so you can revise tactics if things start turning sour, saving the whole campaign from being trashed. Sometimes if you look around, and have a think, even the worst situations are manageable. You have to take losses at some stage, and you may get pushed back, or lose a leader for the greater good of the campaign, but being prepared for setbacks will save your campaign with some of the tips im suggesting. Some of the tactics may be considered gamey, but it gets results, and you aren't having to cheat.
The First Turns Are Crucial
Economy
You need to pour money into mines, farms, markets and roads, my personal advice would be to start with the most expensive structures such as mines and farms, has markets can be built when income is low keeping the production queues going. I would recommend players to keep tax levels on normal as this will keep squalors down, which reduces income in the long run, and causing corruption to get out of control. High taxes may seem a good idea in the short term, but will hurt you in the long run, at the worst only resulting to using high tax to achieve the funding for a necessary structure, if slightly short, and raising the tax for a length of 1 turn.
For your first turn everything should go into your economy, but also placing unit on build ready for when the funding is ready. This will allow the unit force pool to begin replenishing.
An important tip is to actually build the high tier barracks on the first turn while you have the funding, in Pelagir, this means you will have the necessary spearmen to hold Harad in check, and is within range of both the Mordor and Harad front. Having shipping in this area will allow you to move troops quicker to the front often making the difference of arriving for a battle on time.
Also having this barracks built, will allow you to gain better quality troops for free by completing missions. So its vital its built in Pelagir first, while your building a mine in Minas Tirith.
For the rest of the game, your focus should be to to build when you can, when your lines are holding steady, while having as many troops garrisoned, only to mobilise last minute to meet a threat, this means a combination of good intelligence using watch towers and spy’s which obviously pays for itself letting you know when to act. Otherwise the player state mind will be to keep troops continuously fielded in the event a dred stack sliping past the front. You gradually improve your intelligence on the the two front over time, but a small investment in spy early on will keep you 1 step ahead of the AI despite being outnumbered. This is a actual contribution to the economy itself.
Military
Terms I use
Dred Stacks – A stack of harden high tier veterans that appear a few turns later after taking an important settlement.
Mobilising – pulling garrisoned troops from settlements to form an army to counter threats or reinforce a front from being over run, or counter attacking to retake a area.
Quick siege – allowing an army the attempt to rescue there buddies, as to bypass the fortifications and reduce losses.
Settlement Bottling – Keep a settlement in constant state of siege in a bottleneck, blocking troop passage for the AI.
Bottlenecking - holding crucial passes with an army in the hope to inflict maximum losses at small expense.
Tips
- Don't adopt any more Generals unless they have really good stats, but I would recommend only adopting after turn 50, and even then just the odd 1 that stands out. I personally got by on what I had which gave me 3k income a turn
- Always ransom, you never get negative traits from using ransom, and at worst the enemy pay for there prisoner which helps your income and reduce theres a bit. If you execute make sure its the ones that count like a general that will cause you hurt should you meet him again.
- Put your diplomat to work asap, trade agreements mean more income, alliances reduce the pressure and present the ai with a different situation to account for, and map information is nice too
An offer the ai always accepts
Your Offer
-Alliance – Trade Agreements - Map Information
Your Demand
-Map Information
- If you get a mission asking you to make contact with an enemy nation, just gift them 1 gold, and claim your 500 gold reward or free units.
- If an invasion is launched at you, and its not your capital, don't bother defending it, let the first army take it, which will mostly likey be harad trying to reclaim a settlement for mordor, if you follow my advice. Which you can let them take then counter attack and siege them out.
- If you don't gain ships from the missions which you should, as I have done on starting a campaign 3 times, you need to build them, its vital Gondor rules the seas, your navy doesn't have to be big, 6 ships split between two stacks will do the job, although ill suggest keeping them as one until they gain chevrons and a general. Try to build your 2nd tier ships. You can also use this as a quick escape for troops too, if they can't out run two big huge stack, and need to fall back close to reinforcement for a counter attack, just hop them on the boat, the ai can't attack your troops on the boat.
- Dont build buildings that boost culture in hostile region, or settlement you believe you may have to abandon and retake, you will lose a building worth 1200 gold
- Don't wait for missions to present themselves in order to capture a region, you need move fast within the first 16 turns, try to complete mission as much possibile in the quickest time, but nothing above and beyond or wasting troops in the rear to garrison a frontier unless you can.
The First 16 turns
You should be able to start mobilising from the on set of the campaign with the forces you have, you will have two main obvious operating theatres, which you will have to divide manpower into. The Mordor front is the obvious immediate front, Harad won't become a major threat until it takes Barad Harn. So you have to strike Mordor quickly and seize the whole of Ithilien quickly before Mordor starts flooding through trying to merge stacks there. Its vital Ithilien is taken quickly and held until town guards can be built in them. This will allow free garrisoned units that can be used to reinforce a fielded stack. The close grouping of settlements will allow you to group troops together at last minute to face any dread stacks, all the rest of the time when a state of emergency isn't declared, rotating with front line troops. The rebel settlements are fairly easy to take as you are fighting peasant, stick minimal forces of about 3 units, (e.g 1general, 2 sword milita, or 2 archers 1 genral) its very winnable even if your up against 6 -7 rebel units. The rest of the troops sending to both the Mordor & Harad front, I would stress the worthlessness of having a general in a settlement at the beginning of the game unless its any of the major settlements, even then I believe a general can best serve the faction by fighting on the frontline, since they suffer from no free upkeep, and a gondor milita unit does. Also the obvious benefits of free replenishment will keep your army standing for much longer, this also provide your army with good cavalry that are a vital and necessary component for a players army to achieve quick wins with low casualties. Unless defending and holding incredible high ground and being archer strong in a choke point you needn’t worry about cavalry. But when defending/fighting in bad terrain, cavalry is vital. Gondor Calvary militia have the same upkeep as a bodyguard unit, use any Gondor Calvary for secondary roles such as chasing fleeing units, or replacing a lost general to keep the cavalry numbers up of the army.
So for the first turn you will want to pull as many troops including generals to the front lines from the rear while keep a unit that benefits from free upkeep to managed the settlement. At the beginning I would recommend sending Faramir, Boromir and Imarhil to the Mordor front. The combined bonuses put into one small fighting stack will keep the stack combat effective for a longer period at the same time seizing ithilien on the offence, then moving in to bottle mordor settlement in the passes. This should be your target to complete within the first 16 turns on the mordor front.
Mordor Front
Faramir – offer long range missile and stamnia, use this to draw then enemy in toward your main battle lines of archers also in skirmish mode constantly falling back and shooting. In the first 20 turns of the game, enemy stacks aren't well balance, if they can't catch your archers, they will march right past them towards your fixed melee troops, creating a gaulet of death. Losses should be minimal on this front unless one of the ring wraths get an army together and marches on you, having good intelligence may allow you to catch him before he can merge with a stack. You will take losses fighting him, they are acceptable, especially if you kill him, or ransom him, but even beating him will put him out of the fight for you to recover.
Boromir – Will eventually have to move the Harad front, to boost spearmen numbers and hold that front together, as it will begin to heat up around turn 30. But for the first 16 turns your need to get mordor under control, and steadly go from strength to strength, getting comfortable it that front. The ai will continue to hit you at the chokepoints ive listed, but they do eventually give up, especially if you keep making alliances. But use boromir as your front line fighting unit supported by another unit on the left flank to protect boromir himself. Then use your archer to support them firing from the flanks, as I said, if you deploy your melee force at the back of the map, and archer up front, all you have to do is walk the enemy towards yur melee troops, they probably won't even make it to the fight. Battles will only become more pitched about turn 30 when enemy stacks balance out, and by then you should be holding all the required choke point that won't allow them to make as use of the variety of units they now have.
Imarhil – This is your anti – troll guy when the archers fails, also good for dealing with enemy bodyguard and causing fighting bonuses to surrounding troops. By sending Imarhil to ithilien, you can now go on the offence and take the necessary choke point knowing you can deal with trolls with ease. Your aim should be to quick siege your way into Minas Morgul immediatley placing Cirith Ungol in a state of settlement bottling.blocking. You can now place that settelment under permanet seige, only lifting the sige before they sally out then placing it back under siege. A few turn later you will see a Dred Stack appear behind the settlement, which they couldn't possbiliy have built, but don't worry, you won't have to deal with them soon, as long as you get archers and some melee troops at the crossing north of ithilien, which will now be the ai new route of attack, expect a spider attack through here too and expect to take losses and lose a settlement, just contain the bug problem by counter attacking and besiging the spider in the settlement while getting troops back on the chokepoint, the more damage you can inflict to the army containing the spider, the less troops you have to use to counter attack with.
That half your mordor problem solved, and can now defend that with ease, just watching for the odd stack taking the path of the druidain village, which if you place a spy in the dead marshes and the approach to the rohan, your have plently of warning allowing you to keep troops garrisoned for longer. You can now have start working more with the Harad front. This is advice for a strong start off, place all these general in one army and use them as one stack. Send denathor also to fight, don't waste him in a settlement, send him to capture rebel settlement from the start, and hold north ithilien choke point while your main fighting stack locks down the choke point in the passes. Use Forlong to look after minas tirith instead.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
the front advances, obviously this is turn 86, but ii had it established by turn 30
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Harad Front
During the first turns you should be pulling force from the rear towards this front, you should have 3 - 5 cavalry generals in your stack and some fighting troops by turn 16, which makes for a very effective stack and can bully Harad for little while.
Before you get to this stage you need to think about capturing the rebel settlements, you start with a boat near the rebel island, and an army in linhir, which means you can take the settlement on the first turn. Then transport the troops to barad harn, while other troops are rushing up from the rear to merge up with your now frontline force. Your aim should be to keep Barad Harn out of enemy hands, but not be to shy to fall back and abandon it to save your army, always scorch earthing there settlements, this keep them from changing the culture until your ready to take it permanently. Also its your first stages of raiding, you shouldn’t look to raid settlements like Umbar until turn 50 + just get the ones on your border. You can't aford to overstretch your forces unless you have a good spy system on enemy whereabouts. Also always deal with any immediate emergency, if you have an invasion plan, but get rolled by 3 stacks, deal with the problem at hand and then get back to the plan, it may feel like every time you go to do something you get attacked, but you will see you will eventually get a little give and the gain, and reaping is well worth it, while the campaign keep getting easier. Such as working toward raiding the rear of harad, but finding the spare forces to send, there will be an eventual lapse when you know when the timing good, and when you get that settlement in the rear under seige, watch the AI stacks go crazy with confusion, just make sure to be in and out before they do arrive.
Its also vital the rebel settlement opposite the river at Pelagir is not taken, by you and the enemy, as this will act as your buffer, and keep the approach to pelagir locked down. You shouldn’t see any Harad troops there unless its from a corsair raid, which happened rarely, and if you control the seas isn't a problem, unless you have harad units trying to breakthrough to a besige army. Other then that, aslong as you keep an ongoing war going over barad harn, they won't approach through south ithilien, and will continue to push over the land sea passage of Linhir/Barad Harn. I will mark on a map a good place to defend which when even attack by mutiple stacks, not all can engage in the actual battle for some strange reason due to the map layout, this mean although your meant to fight two army, your be fighting one which is pretty nice. About 2/3 of the time it will be 1 stack your be fighting.
I won't list Generals to send to this front, as its pretty much everyone who left and idol, make you get your blackroot vale archer General down there too. i would recommend just to keep one general in the western settlements in the rear, the newly taken rebel settlement would be ideal.
It should now be turn 16 – 17, and should be in a stable position, you will need to keep pumping troops out to keep the garrisons full and ready to mobilise should front line forces fall or need reinforcing. Also you should be looking to continuing to improve barracks on the front line, if you can house better troops closer to the front line, your make life a lot easier. Use every part of your military from shipping for moving troops or rescuing troops from a sure defeat, use well deployed watch towers and spy to give early warning when you need to mobilise. Make sure to keep a good mix of troops, Gondor militia should be used to adsorb any shock and wear down the enemy before using any elite melee troops, Keep Gondor spear men spread thin, but mixed in with the Gondor militia to add a small anti cav bonus to a whole front line if your low on spearmen in guard mode.
Things on the Harad front will start growing tense, but you must keep up the harassment for as long as possibile, killing there stacks while there small. Being hammered by enemy cav, archers and ballistics will be your main problem, and require a constant flow of troops to be changing over with the front-line stack, just have to find the right balance and make sure your always have troops nearby ready to reinforce. If they can't make it to the full army in time, you make the full army fall back, The more troops you can keep alive the less you have to put into recruitment or retraining. But eventually your adapt to this front, and should be able cope quite easily in time, There will be a time they may hit you with 4 full stacks at once, but you may be able to fight of two, fall back from range, and jump in the ship to avoid being wiped out or meeting with reinforcements. It took me from turn 20 to 50 to gain a stable front there, with battles first being fought all over barad harn, and eventually push back over the sea bridge which I had to hold for a number of turns, with reinforcements being a major problem. But having ships ferrying troops from dor armoth and pelga is definitely the way to go if you can, but send them in dribs and drabs if you must, you have to make an effort to keep the frontline army up to strength.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
If you need help for the later turns, just ask ill extend the guide