Simple Gondor tips...
I've been accruing experience by playing lots of Gondor and Mordor games. The true irony in this was on the first day I played Mordor primarily to get a grip on how to fight them as Gondor and it took off from there. These tips apply to TATW set on VH/VH with no sub mods installed.
Mordor will be Gondor's primary nemesis their destruction should be your all consuming priority but don't forget about your meat shield *clears throat* I mean your ally to the north. Rohan is basically a over grown rear car bumper it is what is separating you from a combined Isengard-Mordor invasion and a subsequent guaranteed defeat. Therefore you have in reality two objectives... 1.) Stabilize and secure Rohan's northern border with Isengard before the Warg droppings hits the fan for Rohan. 2.) Secure and fortify Annulond, West and East Osgiliath, and Cair Andros. Osgiliath is your primary concern in regards to securing your early game frontier. Like in the movies if Osgiliath falls you will leave open not just Minas Tirith to future attacks but also your entire east coast of the river Anduin. This means Minas Tirth and Pelagir are in danger of falling this is the bread basket of your military recruitment efforts you cannot allow this.
As for Rohan you don't have to conquer and gift territory for them, I find the Rohan AI does well in this regard snatching a good 2-5 territories in the first 30 turns. What they will need help with is dealing with the numerically superior... But slow to get started Isengard. For, what I can only assume to be balance reasons, whatever reason the Rohan AI will ignore Isengard until they get too powerful to stop on their own. The Rohan AI is sluggish in producing troops and propping it's economy after it's headlong expansion so you'll have to step in and play Johnny Rico and take matters into your own hands. I was able to push back the Isengard offensive with about one to two less then full stacks of militia armies and Rohan support. In the end you won't have the time nor money nor troops to eradicate Isengard so take a play from the Warhammer 40K book and begin a campaign of isolation. The goal is not to kill Isengard but to block any avenues for reinforcements, trade, and military expansion. If you get the chance go in sack a settlement or two and get out. Then when you've solidified your borders with Mordor and Harad come back and give Saruman's minions a prison, I mean, Gondor style beatdown. But this will be a little latter in the game maybe much later so you'll most likely have access to your professional soldiers by then.
As far as dealing with Mordor it's much the same as Isengard except, they have trolls later on in the game, they are much more aggressive and dead set on killing you and not your ally, and they have many times the troops as Isengard. Isolation won't work here you'll have to find somewhere safe to grind Mordor down at. I like to take Minas Morgul and the Black Gate and then pull a Thermopylae on them. But this will be much later in the game and you'll need a lot more troops then with Isengard for obvious reasons (just concentrate on getting this far and it'll become clear why :XDD). Except for the occasional flanking attempt that has to go ALL the way AROUND Mordor and it's protective mountains you should have little to worry about except the all too common frontal counter attack. And if you hamstring Harad, Rhun and maybe put a few caps, I mean arrows, in the traitor Saruman's head you should have a easy time taking Mordor's virtue.
So now your asking how do I go about this? It's not easy but this is what worked for me. I took Gondor and after securing my western and eastern expanse I did two things. I came to the realization that with the exception of East Osgiliath I have no chance of holding anything on the eastern side of the River Anduin. Two, I drawn a series of imaginary lines all across Gondor itself and prioritize each city and gave each sector a overall theme. I wanted the Eastern most cities to be my primary food production center and so I geared them toward food and trade I also did this because they have the easiest access to Rohan itself which will be your primary trade partner until later in the game when you expand and discover and contact new people. I made Dol Amroth a secondary military center and Pelagir my Naval headquarters. Minas Tirith for obvious reasons I made my administrative and primary army headquarters. The center cities I made into transportation hub focusing most of my infrastructure work such as roads there. The island off Gondor's southern coast the one half to Harad's Umbar I made the headquarters of my later to be made southern fleet with a strong fleet here I almost eliminated the land raids from Umbar and saved Pelagir and whatever that city before Dol Amroth. I also came to grips that until late in the game my armies would be primarily militia folk so I made a point of focusing on structures with passive armor, weapon, and experience bonuses so the troops there would be that much tougher and thank god I did it to. Osgiliath had a special function it became my Stalingrad, or my Armageddon or Cadia (more like a Cadia because of the type of enemy to be fought) for all you Warhammer 40K people. It was where I drew my line and swore they would never take a step past this point. Almost 90 turns in and I still kept that promise though by my own admission it took divine intervention at certain points. One funny case saw me outnumbered 2 to 1 by two Mordor armies numbering around 8400 I had less then 3900 (I had multiple armies) And for reason still unknown the Mordor armies charged and without engaging melee turned around and made a tactical retreat. I have no idea why. I guess because the AI realized that win or lose my 3rd army group would arrive soon (like one or two turns) and would only kill them anyway since most of the troops were hardcore veterans from my Isengard campaign retrained and ready for redeployment.
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but it may be just another proof how entertaining this game is- in my game Harad proved to be much more dangerous than Isengard, that's why I went south
Originally Posted by Hallow
(and you wonder why gondor didnt come, Theoden!) 
happend.
