Gondor strategies? help

[Aragorn]

Stuck with gondor. Its all on very hard and its just impossible to move. Ive got a full stack army held over osgiliath because of the continuous attacks from Mordor. Harad has come around to Dol Amroth and taken out half empire.. Nothing I can do to hold them b ack as I dont have the money.

Aside from this problem it strikes me that Gondor are in a really bad place to begin with.. partly due to the never ending problem of osgiliath. Harad seems to vast to even comprehend and there are no other potental growth options.

What have you guys been doing as Gondor?

Thanks,
Aragorn

[EddieTheTrooper]

I've been encountering the same problem. Im stuck in E. Osgiliath, dark lord declares invasions on it all the time. I managed to capture the settlement below pelargir from harad, but now that stack also is stuck there. And isengard just destroyed rohan and now they are flooding over erech, pretty impossible situation.

I think Im gonna start over again and be more aggressive from the beginning before mordor gains access to trolls.

[Aragorn]

ive just started again.. this time im going to focus on economic growth and just leave one ful stack on the bridge at osgiliath to hold the orcs indefinatly. Invade Harad and attack mordor from the south.

[wupwup]

take the island castle north of osgiliath.
take west osgiliath and place a stack of archers in it. (will hold off mordor till turn 50)
then attack harad. it looks big but its not. stat with a naval invasion on their cosal settlements. land a ull stack at umbar. take it. reill with troops and take another costal settleement. money wise its costly but trrop wise its great. youll need about 5 stacks. mostly archers. once you have their coast you have prety much wone. use a leap frog system. (one stack takes a city and holdsit. anohter stack takes the next city. then once it i secure move the first army (minus gariosno) out to take a third settlemnt and repeat. it allows you to retrain a few units in each stack while continueing to steam roll the enemy. and if you can do it from two places...). then take the lands around mordor (and the black gate and minis ilith/morgal) then ou can attack from behind. verry good tactic.

[2-D Ron]

take the island castle north of osgiliath.
take west osgiliath and place a stack of archers in it. (will hold off mordor till turn 50)
then attack harad. it looks big but its not. stat with a naval invasion on their cosal settlements. land a ull stack at umbar. take it. reill with troops and take another costal settleement. money wise its costly but trrop wise its great. youll need about 5 stacks. mostly archers. once you have their coast you have prety much wone. use a leap frog system. (one stack takes a city and holdsit. anohter stack takes the next city. then once it i secure move the first army (minus gariosno) out to take a third settlemnt and repeat. it allows you to retrain a few units in each stack while continueing to steam roll the enemy. and if you can do it from two places...). then take the lands around mordor (and the black gate and minis ilith/morgal) then ou can attack from behind. verry good tactic.

I never tried that, I will indeed.. I took the island Settlement next to Lunir (sp?) Next to Dol Amaroth.
My other Army on Mordors Borders I took Cair Andros and then West and East Osgiliath.. It left me exposed on Cair Andros so I built a small Garrison there, I had my main force garrisoned at East Osgiliath. I went on to take the fort south of East Osgiliath and the rest of Ithielian. Like Hell could I break down Dol Goldur , as it's a scripted City, spawning a full stack to defend it and most the time it has an army behind it in reserve.

So you're right, the best attack is a Similtanous assault on both West and East of Mordor, before around Turn 80 in which Mordor unlocks the Trolls.
I think they're way overpowered, even for Trolls.

[carth]

I never tried that, I will indeed.. I took the island Settlement next to Lunir (sp?) Next to Dol Amaroth.
My other Army on Mordors Borders I took Cair Andros and then West and East Osgiliath.. It left me exposed on Cair Andros so I built a small Garrison there, I had my main force garrisoned at East Osgiliath. I went on to take the fort south of East Osgiliath and the rest of Ithielian. Like Hell could I break down Dol Goldur , as it's a scripted City, spawning a full stack to defend it and most the time it has an army behind it in reserve.

So you're right, the best attack is a Similtanous assault on both West and East of Mordor, before around Turn 80 in which Mordor unlocks the Trolls.
I think they're way overpowered, even for Trolls.

i had to fight olog-hai in turn 50.. 3 units per stack, no i dont have any submods or unlocked anything in data and it isnt from a garizon.. they made them in barad-dur:S.. impossible for gondor then..

[GTFO. Jamie]

Mordor and Harad always seem happy to accept a ceasefire and even trade rights...

Declare a ceasefire so you can have time to build up.

Normally you can defend yourself with 3 stacks to start with, one holding cair andros, one in osgiliath and one defending the passageway to the south where harad comes from

[alreadyded]

Try maxing out all of your taxes from the beginning (your lands don't grow for in the beginning anyway). This should allow you to gobble up some bandit land, build economic improvements, and recruit a few full stacks along the way (it'll still take about 15-20 turns). Best way to take care of invasions and large forces are ambushes, not waiting in your city. There are plenty of forests, use them and everything else to your advantage. General's bodyguards and archers especially. Once you are solid, lower your taxes to increase growth for more money and better units. The AI keeps attacking you because you are too weak to have all that land, so they want it.

Don't steam roll the AI, that's cheap and no fun, unless you are a sadist.

[Mystific]

The key to playing Gondor is to make the most of your early turns, and never stop stretching every last gold piece you have. This means spending the first 10 turns prioritizing economic improvements. Be selective, and chose the ones that have the greatest potential for returns. Farms are the most important, but they start getting costly after Communal Farming so consider getting every settlement up to at least Communal. Then, you'll want roads in every settlement, and road upgrades for the bigger settlements. As well, consider doing land trade and sea trade improvements.

The trade improvements really show their strength as time goes on, so don't give up on them just because you don't see immediate results. When you reach turn 50 or 60 you'll be thankful that you made those investments when trade starts netting you some much needed cash. At turn 60 Pelargir netted me more than 3k a turn, more than half of that from trade.

Also, from the beginning start mobilizing your troops eastwards. Leave minimal garrisons for free upkeep, and max your taxes. Be aggressive in eastward expansion earlyon and take Cair Andros and both East and West Osgiliath. If you're strong enough, also take Ithilien and simply patrol the space between Osgiliath and Minas Morgul with a full stack of militias and general's bodyguards.

While keeping Mordor bottled up, you should raise another stack of troops and move into Harad from the land bridge. They'll attack you from there anyway, so prempt that by invading them first. Eventually you should be able to also raise another full stack and move it down Ithilien and into Harad, for a two-pronged campaign. That'll tear them apart in no time.

[Alkarin]

mystific basically said it. Also make sure to blitz osgiliath as soon as you can. I only managed to get west Osgiliath at first while mordor took the East bank but after a couple turns you should have a small army mustered to retake the East Bank and defend there that way you can build up the west banks economy.

[Downey]

Who do you make a priority? Harad or Mordor? I would say mordor because of the trolls, but it takes a long time to build up a defense force while mustering a halfway decent offensive one. Gondor was too hard for my liking.

[Goth]

Heres my strategy for Gondor. Taking East Osgiliath and Cair andros are priorities as they both have huge defenses and attract large mordor armies. Have a few spear units and as many archers in each as you can, when mordor beseiges them launch a sally battle. place most of your archers on the battlements but keep one archer unit near the gate. Send out your archer unit and fire arrows at a dense part of the mordor lines. The enemy wont be able to resist attacking you and when he does his units will come under the fire of the archers on the battlements. Withdraw your attacking archer unit back behind the gates before they get caught. You may have to repeat this tactic a few times before the end of the battle but the result is a weakening of the enemies assault force. Using this tactic you can have a half stack in E osgiliath and half in cair andros holding all of mordors armies at bay(economical use of force).
As for Harad you need to capture barad harn and the island to the west of barad harn ,if you hold these two towns and use the same tactics as against mordor you can hold the expansion of both factions whilst you expand to the west and north capturing derwath , lond angren etc and build up your economy for better armies. and get ready to go on the offensive.
Thats how i do it anyway, hope it helps

Goth

[wupwup]

Who do you make a priority? Harad or Mordor? I would say mordor because of the trolls, but it takes a long time to build up a defense force while mustering a halfway decent offensive one. Gondor was too hard for my liking.

HARAD. every time you get near to killing mordor harad attack and kill you. you cant deen your lands properly because of position. with mordor ou jus need to how osgiliath and cair andros and your safe. with harad out of the way mordor is so much weaker. and you cn make a 3 pronged attack.

[Mystific]

Who do you make a priority? Harad or Mordor? I would say mordor because of the trolls, but it takes a long time to build up a defense force while mustering a halfway decent offensive one. Gondor was too hard for my liking.

I agree with wupwup, make Harad your first priority. Mordor won't start getting trolls till much later, and by turn 70 you should have at least severely crippled Harad to the point of no return.

In fact, you should be able to severely cripple Harad as well as begin making significant gains in Mordor lands by turn 70, if not earlier. But definitely before Mordor is able to train any trolls in significant numbers, you should have eliminated Harad and crippled Mordor so much that it wouldn't matter anyway.

Another reason why you want to prioritize Harad is because of the coastal settlements. Those ports will net you much more money in the long run compared to Mordor's landlocked settlements because they also boost the income of your starting coastal regions, making cities like Pelargir and Dol Amroth richer. You want both Mordor and Harad, but taking Harad FIRST will yield you more needed steady, biannual income.

EDIT: And because while your stacks are bogged down in Mordor, Harad will find some way to nail you. It's much easier to contain Mordor, for the same reasons why it's much easier to defend it.

[Nazgûl Killer]

If you're gonna start over, might as well do it right.
1) Gather up all your forces and charge at W. Osgiliath and Cair Andros.
2) Once you've done that, take all the forces from your western settlements and attack the settlement which separates you from Harad.
3) Take the island backing it up, also take E. Osgiliath, if possible.
4) Set up armies in the treelines in Ithilien (Near Minas Morgul) for ambushing and small attacks to weaken main Mordor armies (Hit and run tactics with cavalry and archers work amazingly well)
5) Once you are ready, either launch an attack on Harad, to cripple them (Attack Umbar and other coastal regions) or on Mordor, to weaken them (Minas Morgul or Black Gates will work best).
6) After doing that... Conquer the world.

[grumpygoat]

One thing I did in my gondor campaign was sending a fairly small army in a ship to attack harads coastal cities. They usually have only 1-3 units defending it (except for Umbar, which is scripted, but it's well worth it). You sack the city and raze all buildings, you wont get much money but the trick is that harad will lose 3 times more . I removed all the troops from the city and sailed to the next one. When harad recaptures it they wont do much with the city anyway, and they'll have to rebuild it. That way you can weaken their economy and gain yourself some money. Harad wasn't much of a threat to me after those raids, i think their economy suffered quite a bit from it.

I didn't keep the cities because I was in enough trouble defending key cities, and I didnt want to defend cities I simply didn't have the strength to defend.

[jản]

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... or you just check the strategy guide for ecomomical
development first.

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[Kinniken]

I agree with the general advice on strategic issue, so here is a bit of advice on fighting the battles:

The core of your force, at least until turn 50, should be militia units. Forget about the professional ones until you have money to spare, they are better but not that much better and you can't afford the buildings to push them out anyway. Your core troops should be militias and especially archer militias, and little else. Pelagir Marines are nice though, for battles not too far from it.

When fighting orcs, your basic strategy should be to have about 2/3 to 3/4 militia archers lined up on a hill, with a thin line of militias a little below them (try and have them low enough that the archers can fire at the enemy in a straight line without your melee troops interfering). When Mordor heads for your line, just have your archers pepper them with regular arrows until they are twenty seconds away from meeting your melee troops, then switch to fire arrows for the moral effect. If you can keep a full stack with that composition intercepting everything coming out of Morgul Vale, you'll be able to destroy completely any half-stack Mordor throws at you with less than 5% of losses, and any full stack with something like 30% of losses (and that's militia dying, so cheap and easy to replace). If you can keep that up, you basically have Mordor bottled up racking up losses for the cost of a stack of militias with minimal retraining needed. Note that while those battles will be even easier if you are behind strong walls, I wouldn't recommend bottling yourself in Osgiliath or Cair Andros because that give Mordor the ability to strike more places - and that means that you need to keep more troops everywhere. Your army should instead stay close to Minas Morgul so that you have only one point to defend. Plus that means that if ever Mordor leaves an army right next to Minas Morgul, you'll be in position to take advantage of it and cease the citadel by luring the defenders outside.

For Harad, I mostly used a similar battle line up than against Mordor, but with somewhat more melee - Haradim troops have better moral and won't rout quite as easily as low-level orcs, so you need more melee troops to keep them from reaching your archers. Of course, that makes battles more costly. Also, since the front tends to be much larger against Harad, it's less easy to always have full stacks to fight battles. Still, with Mordor locked in, you should be able to have at least two full stacks on the Harad front quite early, and considering the AI divides his forces frequently, that's generally enough to start pushing back. And start exploring Harad with a spy or two early on to know where its cities are ; Harad is huge but doesn't have that many regions, so if you haven't done some preparation work your armies will stumble around for ages before finding the enemy cities. Also, against Harad it pays to get naval superiority early, which means getting a level 2 dock somewhere (I had mine in Pelagir, when it grew big enough for it) - 3 or 4 holks should do it, and being able to sink Haradim ships means not having to defend your naval settlements, which is a big expense. Plus it's often faster to move in reinforcements by sea.

[Coeur de Lion]

Great strategy tips, but, with regard to mordor, how do you account for the threat from Henneth Annun?

I appreciate your thoughts on holding up in Cair Andros and E.Osgilaith, but, I have found this to be somewhat effective if you can push through building lvl1 barracks in both cities. The minimal losses incurred from even a full stack assault can be easily replaced and, with an abundance of archers, I have managed to kill over 40% of the enemy before they even make a breach in the defenses.

[Kinniken]

Great strategy tips, but, with regard to mordor, how do you account for the threat from Henneth Annun?

This is the city in North Illitien, right? Just east of Cair Andros? I captured it early, and yes, while it could be expected to be an other point of attack by Mordor, in practice I never got attacked there. Maybe I was lucky. Anyway, it's actually a long march from that settlement to the Black Gate (I think the marsh slows movements on the strategy map), so as long as you have a spy or a tower covering the area to give advance warning, leaving only minimal troops there should be fine.

I appreciate your thoughts on holding up in Cair Andros and E.Osgilaith, but, I have found this to be somewhat effective if you can push through building lvl1 barracks in both cities. The minimal losses incurred from even a full stack assault can be easily replaced and, with an abundance of archers, I have managed to kill over 40% of the enemy before they even make a breach in the defenses.

That works too, and I did that before I had the strength to have a full stack guarding Minas Morgul. However even outside of the "bottleneck" advantage, I'm not sure I prefer siege battles to field ones if I have a full stack at my disposal anyway... With a hill position archers do nearly as much damages as they would from walls, and most importantly they can continue to fire effectively on enemy troops even when they are engaging yours ; in a siege battle once the enemy is on your walls you can't effectively shower it with fire arrows, so it won't root as easily by far. Plus in siege battles it is much more difficult to effectively pursue routing units, so often even if you win the enemy get away with 20-30% of its troops. In a field battle, I normally manage to kill 95%+ of the enemy army and to make it disperse.