High Elves Campaign

[eugenioso]

Hello, I have been playing a campaign as the High Elves recently. I think I am at turn 50 or so right now. I have heard many say it was the easiest, and funnest faction, however, I am having a very tough time.

First off, I have only about 1 soldier in each western town (I think I have 7 western towns) and about 5 or 6 units per town in the east, yet I am broke. Last I left off I had about 1k gold, and was losing money. So I am struggling very hard financially. Another thing, from the 3 or 4 towns I have managed to take in the east, I have not been able to train units at any of them and they make very little money, so I have to send them all the way back to the capital to retrain.

Also, the orcs are relentless. I will win a battle with very few troops against like a full stack of orcs, then seemingly they will just have another one close behind.

I am finding it rather tough so far. What do you think of the High Elves campaign?

I have a bizarre strategy for this:

_ Keep the capital in imladris; that way you get the reward units from missions. Early on they are gonna really compliment you.

_ Use all your starting units to the west to conquer as much rebel land as you possibly can; start pushing south and southeast so you will eventually get onto grips with Isengard and Dunland (there was a dunland faction in vanilla right? i play MOS and i cant remember)

_ As someone else said, prioritize all money making buildings before any troop building ones. Do this until you have enough of a surplus to actually build troop making buildings; focus on building those in Imladris.

_ I personally lower all taxes to low at the start with all settlements and captured ones, insures i get population growth that i can then tax more; if you desperately need money, consider going 'full war economy' and upping the taxes in your settlements. Do this only if you really really need the money, as it is detrimental in the long run for your income; also, eventually, your smaller settlements will grow onto towns and cities and will let you build units in them. With good management in 40 turns or less you can turn a backwater locale into prime troop making ground.

_ As soon as you start, build a few units in Imladris and march west to Goblin Town; attack it as soon as you have a ram. While a more cautious player might advocate for sieging, this simply takes too long, and the more losses you suffer at the start means less upkeep to pay, and more units to build. Once you take a city, leave a small garrison and move south first; the north can wait for now.

_ With the western cities push to the rebel cities north, east and south; if by some reason the dwarves want to give you trouble or do something stupid like attack you, then simply trade a city for peace and an alliance with them. Giving them a city is 99% guaranteed to make them peace and ally you, as well as trade rights. Put priority in pushing southwards as fast as possible so you can prevent Isengard from bumrushing Rohan. Your generals are going to be your main attack weapon vs them: weaken them with your archers, pin them with your swordsmen and annihilate their general (remember to charge generals from the left, as that is where the general model is at; one charge is usually enough to decimate them and kill the general outright).

_ With Imladris and Elrond keep going south clearing out the goblin cities as you go. Remember, siege and assault constantly! If the Lorien Elves havent taken Moria yet, do so, but dont assault it: the Balrog will spawn. Though i dont use siege weapons as i consider them to be too OP and false (oh sure, go kill Sauron with a ballista, end the age-lasting war with a damn crossbow bolt), you COULD get a ballista or catapult and simply destroy the balrog as soon as they sally forth from Moria. Ill leave it to you whether you do that or not. Once Moria falls, push west and south to start vicing Isengard.

_ By now you should have enough money and be building enough units to make another army, this time to push northwards towards the Orcs of Gundabad. They are basically souped up OOTMM; they have trolls and orcs that are much better than the worthless snagas from the OOTMM, yet they fall relatively the same to your forces. If you are fast with the north, you can potentially box the dwarves from expanding onto Gundabad and such; this is tremendously good as the north have some awesome mines and income (that you would not exploit fully if you moved the capital to the west at the start).

_ If you get the chance, combine your western generals with Elrond and begin an aggressive campaign against Isengard and Co. If you siege and take over Isengard itself, then their faction will begin to crumble; just be careful for their spawning army that they get by event. In 30 turns you can turn Isengard into a very good unit building center and keep in it a large free upkeep garrison.

_ From then on, ally with Rohan if you havent already and begin to go east and southeast to aid Gondor in their war against Mordor; depending on your purposes for the future (occupation or friendship), gift back a few provinces to Gondor to make them help you better. If you can box in Mordor by taking Minas Morgul and the Morannon (black gate), then Mordor's forces outside mordor proper will be flabbergasted and will do crazy things.