Orcs of Gundabad

[Ulidian]

Can someone give me some help with how to play OoG?

On N/N for my 1st time and things were going well...all of a sudden simultaneous attacks on several of my small towns by different Good factions.

yeehaw.

[Wizad]

As the Orcs of Gundabad, you don't really have much choice on what to do.

Upgrade the barracks and Warg cage in Carn Dum, you will need quality troops to supplement your terrible starting units. Do this as quickly as possible. The next barracks upgrade in Carn Dum takes 5 turns and the Warg cage costs 3 turns if I remember correctly. That means that you need 5+6+3+4 = 18 turns to fully upgrade Carn Dum to what you need, assuming that you give a high priority to this.

Pray that Dain's Halls does not fall to the Dwarves, if it does, try to retake it.

Amon Sul is a high level castle with mountains as its region type. It is an awesome place to use as a recruitment center if you manage to take it.

The Dwarves coming from the west are low quality units. Use half a stack to guard your western borders vs the Dwarves. Try to include at least 1 unit of Wargs in every army that you field. They are very useful to capture prisoners when the enemy army routes. Imagine making an enemy Dwarven army flee in a battle. If you only have melee units, you will probably get 0-20 prisoners. If you have 1 unit of Wargs, you can mop up all of the routing forces, giving you 200 prisoners out of an army of 1200 (depending on the battle of course).

If you somehow are able to field a full stack on top of what you need to secure your borders, try to take Rivendel. Capturing it will be extremely difficult. But with a full stack you can besiege it till the Elves are forced to sally out of the settlement.

Remember that your general unit is both strong and weak. Strong in being able to dish out more damage than your starting troops. But weak in being extremely vulnerable. Your general is an infantry unit, which means that he has low mobility and he can't run from enemy cavalry charges. Let him fight in battles, but don't keep him in the thick of battle for too long. On the other hand, your general bodyguard unit automatically regenerates every turn, so he gets to fight for free as long as the general himself doesn't die.


After turn 40, things will get a bit easier. You are now able to field trolls, so chasing enemy archers around is no longer necessary. If you made it to this point with a reasonable economy, it is time to steamroll your enemies.

[dannyalex]

read this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Orcs are People Too

As this is a guide based on my play through of an evil faction (Orcs of Gundabad, H/VH) it will be conducted with an internal monologue similar to Gollum. (eg in italics and bold so you can’t miss it).

It all looked so good!

So do you know all those Orc factions who field huge amounts of Orc’s and Goblins and Wargs and Trolls you have to endlessly battle. Yes. Especially when you play as the Dwarves and have to fight against Orcs that will not run until you have crushed the skulls of every one of them with the butt of an Axe. Yes. With those generals that refuse to die until the last. Yes. Well can you tell me what happened to those factions because I am certainly not playing with one of them, these guys are sh-uger lumps. Not quite.

The good points of OoG...

Well I suppose they DO have some good points;

1. They have a well balanced and interesting troop roster. You mean they have trolls. Obviously.
2. You can play a range of different battle strategies from archer focused to infantry based. You just want to see trolls running into Bree Militia don’t you. Pretty much.
3. You have cheaper units with cheapish upkeep.
4. They have a strong economy that means you can support your huge armies. Woah there that is just a lie isn’t it, no one is going to take this seriously if you are just going to lie. It’s only stretching the truth a bit, more like putting on a positive spin .
5. You will be fighting the dwarves, who, unless you have lots of Wargs and Trolls will cut through you ranks and shrug of your arrows in a way that makes you wonder if your army is actually committed to being evil or has taken it up as more of a hobby that they are quickly getting bored with. I thought you where highlighting the good points. I ran out.
6. Those tough morale junky Orcs and Goblins that you have to face when you are a good faction and can take a devilish toll on your hard working infantry before they die. I remember them well. They haven’t turned up for this campaign and the ones that have had a habit of dying quickly and then running away. I think you have forgotten the point of this bit.
7. Your generals will never die. What about that battle in which you had 6 casualties and one of them was your General and he was one of only two people to die from his unit killed by woodsmen of all things. Must have slipped my mind.
8. It is a fairly relaxing campaign that has little real pressure as long as you can keep the Dwarves in check and keep the OotMM in Dain’s Halls acting as a buffer. That seems a bit boring. You get to see trolls running into Bree Militia though . Hmmm, it better be really good then to make up for the rest of the rubbish.

Well I think this guide is going well so far. Aside from the fact OoG aren’t any good. Well obviously we haven’t got to the units yet have we, this will redeem all.



Unit Guide

Archers
As they are imbued with the power of Sauron himself they are All basically awful with low damage and range and seem to run out of ammo really fast. Well yes. And your toughest enemy the Dwarves will take virtually no losses from archer fire. Well yes, still they are beautifully rendered.

Infantry
They all have a wide range of individual uses that allows for some careful micro-management to ensureThat you barely noticed a difference between them aside from the fact that some die faster than others. You could put it that way.

Cavalry
Only have warg riders that aren’t strictly bad but they can quickly die. I expected something more elaborate. Nope that’s it.

Trolls
Watching them charge into units never gets boring . It gets a bit boring. Nope I fail to see how watching men go flying as huge towering grey monsters charge their ranks can ever get boring. When it is the only tactic you are going to use. Touché.

So basically they are a bit samey and as soon as you get trolls, charging them into various different factions is what you are going to do.I am failing to see the problem here . Of course you are. Moving on. What sage advice do you have to impart to the faithful readers who have made it this far? I was just getting to that thankyou very much.

Starting Moves 0-50

Well there are a range of rebel villages surrounding your position that you should be able to snap up in the first few turns. To the East you have:

1. Framburg – good idea to get Wargs here ASAP
2. Wrakyaburg – has a bridge that is a good place to position the troops you are going to use to keep Dain’s Halls in the hands of the OotMM

To the South and West you have:

1. Coldfells - because you can and it is better the Elves attack here first rather than your Capital
2. Athulin – keep a holding force here to occupy Eriador when they finally come for a piece

My main goal at this stage was to keep a half stack with a mix of archers, goblin band and wargs in or around Wrakyaburg to fend off any Dwarves that come to Dain’s Halls which is an important buffer against attacks on Gundabad itself. Also, do not attack or provoke the Elves at this stage as they will most probably crush you. Such as the time you attacked Imaldris . I think that was you. We are the same person you pleb. I am not sure I like your tone. Deal with it. Fine .




Anyway it is best to take these villages with the troops you get to begin with and spend your money on mines, roads and hunting posts probably in that order, also build a few military buildings at Framburg first then Carn Dum second. Keep slowly building your economic and military strength and wait for the barracks event that unlocks Troll Breeders. Finally can’t believe they make you wait 40 turns for that, outrage. Just breath it is fine there is another 360 turns to go. Of course there is .

Next moves 50-80

So, when you have an adequate force holding off the Dwarves then start building your army that is going to conquer the north of the map and push the Dwarves out of the Blue Mountains:

1. Pitkaranta – pick this up as soon as you can after Athilun if nothing else but for the money
2. Nemuial – rebel held but does have quite a large garrison
3. Lunelaith – should be straight forward
4. Kibil Dum – Dwarven Castle with garrison script. I hate Dwarves. You loved the Dwarves last time we played them. I am in character. Riiight.
5. Thorin’s Halls – Dwarven Town with garrions script. Because once wasn’t enough.

It is best to siege and wait till they sally forth. You will also need to keep a small force around Carn Dum to fend off any incursions from Eriador which will probably be small but should be kept in check.



Eriador and Dwarves in the East

Well all good things have to come to an end and sim city-ing in the north is not a fun way to play the game. Hang on a minute I thought I was doing this guide. Well you are taking forever so I thought I would move it on a bit. This was my idea and I am doing it. Fine. So the next moves are to take out the rest of the Dwarves and Eriador. As Eriador is the closest and more satisfying of the two to attack. Trolls + Bree Militia = Good. Then it is simply a case of building an army focused on Anti-cavalry and anti-archer units. Lots of Trolls then. Yeah that was my plan, you. Trolls sound good.

With the large eventual income you are going to get from conquering Eriador you can field some serious armies. Not the comedic kind. Exactly and with them you can fulfil your dark and evil dreams of crushing the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and Iron Hills. Finally an end to those smug midgets. Took the words out of my... mind.

If at this stage you still have the energy to play OoG then pick someone and invade, personally I saved the game and then only so I can prove that I actually took the time to damn well play them. At no stage did I feel under any pressure I couldn’t handle and as long Arnor doesn’t reform then Eriador don’t stand a chance. The Dwarves can be a challenge at times but you should be able to get a grip on them with the use of Trolls and early on Wargs. It was worth it for the Trolls though. Only the once.

Thanks for reading.

which is here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=536473 and try the search engine with words Gundabad or OoG

the results from search engine is those

with word Gundabad http://www.twcenter.net/forums/search.php?searchid=9409521

with word OOG http://www.twcenter.net/forums/search.php?searchid=9409523

[Ulidian]

Thanks to you both.

I'm on turn 70-something and was oblivious to Dain's Halls and all that, when I actually found it Dwarves were in it! Now I'm constantly fending off their attacks. Is Erebor their only other place? Besides the west dwarves two settlements, which fell to me (now constantly fending off Elf attacks aswell...*sigh*)

Important question I have to ask is: how does very hard or even hard change the game? I find my archer units DO kill dwarves well enough, is this because it's normal mode? Also, does Hard difficulty affect your income and population happiness?

[Wizad]

I'm not 100% sure but on hard:
the AI gives more priority to invasions, as a 'good' player you would have a more difficult time defending
the AI gives higher priority to attacking, so if you are at war with the AI, and you border them, they will try harder to take your settlements
the AI troops have a higher morale bonus, so routing is more difficult
corruption has a greater effect, which means that your income is lower and population happiness is lower
I believe some scripts have greater effects, such as the Umbar invasion script. I'm quite sure that the garrison script is the same.
the AI is more selfish in diplomacy

[Bowmaster]

I've never played with the OoG, since I hate orc units, but Eriador is my favorite, and as them OoG will be your first target. What I have learned is:

1.All OoG's units are really bad, even the Orc Marauders (their best infantry unit after the General's Bodyguard) sucks.

2.You will need to rely on trolls and wargs a lot, since your infantry is good-for-nothing.

3.Archers can be useful, but will lose to enemy archers, especially against Elves. Also they have only two types of archers.

4.Your best hope is smashing with trolls and swarming with orcs.

[Ulidian]

Orc infantry has done a decent job for me. Swarming, yes, I call it a 'sandwich' which is just one unit fixes an enemy unit, another comes in from behind and grinds them down.

I have some more questions since I've got through quite a few turns by now.

>What is the council of the dark lord or whatever it's called, Sauron is the only one but it says 12 empty seats are there. Can you get a member of your faction on it and how would that help you?

>Can you have armies join an invasion just for temporary free upkeep and not actually send them to the target or would this have negative effects?

>What are my fellow Orc faction players tactics for territorial expansion? I find it is difficult to keep a large garrison in Carn Dum (Dwarves attack there almost every turn) and also send armies into the field to take settlements without coming close to debt (and therefore being unable to re-constitute my Carn Dum garrison after it's been mauled by Dwarves) . ?

[Ulidian]

Also, how do you get Balrogs? I just awakened them. Is it possible as OoG?

[The Norseman]

>What is the council of the dark lord or whatever it's called, Sauron is the only one but it says 12 empty seats are there. Can you get a member of your faction on it and how would that help you?

You must find the ring(an event tells you where it is) and bring it to Mordor. Once you have done that Sauron will return and you will receive a representative which you can use to call invasions on cities.

[Bowmaster]

You can't get Balrogs as OoG as far as I know. And if you want help for defending, all you need is this:

Offense is the best form of defense (or something like that)

[Ulidian]

Haha...thanks.

I was agressive at the start, taking Amon Sul as advised, but...The Free Wankstains of Eriador have so many half-stack and above armies all over the place that as soon as I take a place - bam! , besieged, same with the Blue Mountain Dwarves now. Maybe I should have expanded more in the beginning (near 200 turns) but as I said it bankrupts me now.

*Endnote: Emilla Clarke is hawt, whoever she is.

[Ulidian]

OK lads. I've been playing with MOS now and am seeking some advice regarding how to destroy pretty-faced elves! As OoG or OotMM the Elven dreadstacks are maaad powerful. Do you think turtling is an acceptable strategy here? That is, untill you have at least two stacks to destroy for example, the Lorien Elves faction. At the same time the Silvans are very annoying and I've been participating in a kind of slow advance and border war type thing in the Dain's Halls/Framsburg area (playing as OotMM)...can the pretty faces be defeated??

[Flinn]

.can the pretty faces be defeated??

ohh they can, and you know what, they taste good

some suggestions when fighting against elves (good for all orc factions), they are 3 times better than your troops, morale, statistics, range, speed, everything except numbers is superior for them, this means you can't (and you are not supposed to, anyway) to play fairly or 1:1 with them, so the first rule ever is:

- never let them group up a full stack, always kill any unit they have roaming around the map, even a single one; groups of 3-5 elven units can be easily dealt with few losses for you with 6-10 orcs unit. Actually it is MUCH better for an orc faction to have two/three small stacks (1/3rd or 1/2) preventing them to gather together; than two full stacks figthing against 1 full elven stack (if they are all elite, you are not even going to win the battle probably, despite fielding 3 or 4 times the numbers of your enemy). Clearly, here and there you'll be forced to fight against a full stack, but this can be managed if:

- never fight battles in which they have the complete edge on the field, like them defending a river crossing or a stone city/castle; they are already too strong for your troops, if they can shot you down effectively before you engage them they'll kick your ass and they do not rout if not surrounded, so a 1st tier unit can hold hundreds and hundreds of orc at the walls. At the same time, avoid to fire the garrison script, no need to spam 3rd or 4th tier units for them, and:

- surround them, with everything you have. Infantry works quite good, but for the best results use wargs and trolls, as they are your sole weapons to really kick them in the mouth; OOG infantry is crap, you can spam billions of snaga stalkers but after the barracks event they will become pretty useless, so treat every OOG infantry unit as anvil for your wargs and trolls; OMM infantry becomes much better after barracks event, still it does not match the elven ones, specially because the best one (halberdiers) are increadibly slow and very subject to arrow fire, so for me they are pretty much harder to be used against elves, because of the general lack of wargs compared to OOG; strategy remains the same, only use some lighter infantry troops to integrate your wargs. A note on trolls: though they are fast and have awesome charge, they are not cavalry, not easy to retreat them from the melee, so charge them on the enemy back line only when your infatry is full engaged; for me the best use anyway is to charge them into enemy archers when they reatreat from the first line after the infantry melee started, honesly wargs are much better (for the numbers, almost 10 times those of the trolls) to be used to charge enemy in the back. Mordor and Isengard have definitely better infantry, but Mordor really lacks cavalry and Isengard, like OMM, can't spam much wargs, so the idea for the first is to group up as much trolls as possible and for the latter to mix lighter infantry (uruk reavers are awesome for this) with wargs to surround the elves.

- kill their generals; charge them with wargs or trolls from the left side (where the general unit is deployed) to maximize chance of killing him; if the general is present or still alive the elves will rout only when they are below 5% of they original number; for the same reason, the first thing you have to avoid absolutely is to get your general killed, especially infantry units are pretty crappy at this.

there could be more to add depending on particular situations, but I think the idea is clear

hope it helps

[Ulidian]

ohh they can, and you know what, they taste good

Awesome! Thank you. Personally I have never placed much faith in Wargs due to the fact that they're so squishy (they take mad casualties in a charge) also elves tend to shoot 'em down when they're retreating from a charge...so much good info you gave newayz which I will try out over the weekend

[Flinn]

I suppose your problem with wargs is if you charge them frontally into enemy formations, well never do so, this way they are good only against light archers or skirmishers; they are not even comparable with the standard cavalry in terms of surviving a frontal charge or a melee, as they lack armor and they have bulky size.

keep using them exsclusively as hammers from the back, also with heavy archers in skirmish mode, the best way to use them is to prevent them to flee, but no dot charge them directly, use wargs to slow or re-ridect them towards your infantry, than charge them from the back only when they are already engaged with your infantry

[Ulidian]

the best way to use them is to prevent them to flee, but no dot charge them directly, use wargs to slow or re-ridect them towards your infantry, than charge them from the back only when they are already engaged with your infantry

Thank you Flinn, and a Merry Christmas to you

[Flinn]

same to you mate, sorry for my late reply but I've been out, I hope you enjoyed your Xmas period.

though tactics are really subjective, sometimes is not that bad to ask for suggestions, so always feel free to ask

let me add one thing: I kept playing my OOG campaign, and I managed to beat down both HE and SE (but not eliminated yet), as far as I can see the warg / troll tactic worked well, it only has one big cons.. it's really boring to repeat it over and over..

[DrDragun]

Don't forget that Gundabad has access to cavalry mercs and axemen as well. Their mercs are extremly helpful in the early game.