holding osgiliath and cair andros?

[wupwup]

as gondor it is nessasery that i hold tjese two settlements. but mordo keep throwing stack after stack leaving me no time to retrain / reenforce them. any ideas?

also sory for my spelling. im mid game so using my ipod to type and my fingers are too big

[Ratbag]

Train units in cities not at the attacked borders and send them there.

[wupwup]

i do. but they cant enter it when its under seige. and mordor attacks and reseiges in the same turn mostly

[Tintin2]

create a assault stack (field battle army) if you have the finances, existing mostly out of archers and cavalry, maybe some fountain guard to hold the line and to protect the archers.
Trash mordor field armys with it and in the meanwhile let Cair Andros and Osgiliath retrain their units.

[Ratbag]

What TinTin said, A good Offense is the best Defense!

[Skeleton Of The West]

If you cant afford building a new stack like Tintin said, send your trained units near Osgiliath and Cair andros and place them where they are able to come to help your cities in the siege battle.

[axnsan]

Also, as a tactic for defending sieges with minimal losses:

- place your spearmen in front of gates ( Gondor Militia will do if you don't have spearmen )
- place a Gondor Militia/Gondor Infantry on the wall for every ladder or siege tower they have.
- place a unit of archers on the street in front of the gate, far enough for them to be able to shoot above the spearmen and through the gate
- place some archers on the wall
When the gates are breached -
- get the archers on the walls down and begin firing in the mob that has formed at the gates
- tell the archers on the street to fire through the gate ( but make sure they dont't fire into your spearmen's back. If they do, target them at something farther away )

Opitional - if you have a cavalry unit, take it out the right or left gate in the beggining of the battle. When all the enemy army is bulked up at the gate charge them in the back.

This is especially effective when faced against a big army ( 4000+ soldiers), you'll find that you defeated their army with less than 400 ( that's 10 of their soldiers down for every dead soldier of yours! ) losses

[bentlemp]

Also, as a tactic for defending sieges with minimal losses:

- place your spearmen in front of gates ( Gondor Militia will do if you don't have spearmen )
- place a Gondor Militia/Gondor Infantry on the wall for every ladder or siege tower they have.
- place a unit of archers on the street in front of the gate, far enough for them to be able to shoot above the spearmen and through the gate
- place some archers on the wall
When the gates are breached -
- get the archers on the walls down and begin firing in the mob that has formed at the gates
- tell the archers on the street to fire through the gate ( but make sure they dont't fire into your spearmen's back. If they do, target them at something farther away )

Opitional - if you have a cavalry unit, take it out the right or left gate in the beggining of the battle. When all the enemy army is bulked up at the gate charge them in the back.

This is especially effective when faced against a big army ( 4000+ soldiers), you'll find that you defeated their army with less than 400 ( that's 10 of their soldiers down for every dead soldier of yours! ) losses

Good advice!
A couple other items of note:
- when they are piling into the gate...let them come in a little bit. If the city is large enough (and I think the ones you are talking about are, the city will pour hot oil on top of soldiers grouped under the gate. Be careful when you charge your cavalry not to get stuck under there if possible.. This almost cuts their forces in half repeatedly. It certainly disrupts their push and makes it earier for your meat wall to deal with the in-coming onslaught.
- also, flanking the entering enemy units with archers works well. Especially after they have extended in a ways. As axnsan said, pull the archers from the walls and if you're careful they will be in position already.
- Marines work well defending the walls I've found. But obviously you have to transport them in before hand which isnt really applicable for your current situation.
- Something I did during my Gondor campaign that helped was after capturing the rebel settlement in the lower western area of Gondor, I pulled nearly all troops from the field and rushed them to the front. You can either do this by boat or cross-country. I stuck a semi-decent general that I wanted to develop on them and used them purely for harassing and wearing down Mordor. If you blockade Harad, it really does impact their development quickly.

So in summary,
- blockade Harad, move your troops to the front, defend the walls with marines, flank the enemy from behind with cavalry, watch the hot oil, drop your archers to the ground once they've entered and attack working the angles.

Did I forget anything?

[Æsir]

The key point is - don't just defend, throw all your money in troops, rise field army or two, break the sieges and strike back to Minas Morgul. Have luck and fun!

[Seleukos_I.]

And you should use ballistas. When the enemy is through your gates and is fighting with your infantry just let the ballistas fire in the crowd. They kill a lot of enemies and when I use fire they quickly rout

[Graviak]

I am playing with RC and i always have a whole bunch of completly " out-of-order " invasion-armies, that siege one city after another!

I could not win a campaign with Rohan til´ now, because of that. I have to mass troops at Edoras, and then loose everything around my borders to Isengard, loose the two cities west of the Anduin to Mordor, and if I am unlucky Harad takes the city before Edoras on the Hill!

By turn 30, i have 3 generals with Gold XP, all other cav is silver. I can not retake any settlement, because i can not build Infantry units beiing bankrupt. Arrrgh,... i suck at Rohan, and i am getting nightmares concerning Invasions!

[wupwup]

The key point is - don't just defend, throw all your money in troops, rise field army or two, break the sieges and strike back to Minas Morgul. Have luck and fun!

im deffending while i take out harad. every other campaign i have expanded rapidly, taken out minas morgal and a few other places. then collapsed from the inside as harad attack. not good.

[Æsir]

im deffending while i take out harad. every other campaign i have expanded rapidly, taken out minas morgal and a few other places. then collapsed from the inside as harad attack. not good.

Hmm, I could sugest to stop expanding to south for a few turns and throw you money into eastern border!

EDIT: Usualy I find myself fighting in 3 fronts (against Mordor, Harad and Isengard) and it's possible to win.

[Rakovansky]

Also, as a tactic for defending sieges with minimal losses:

- tell the archers on the street to fire through the gate ( but make sure they dont't fire into your spearmen's back. If they do, target them at something farther away )

Hello all, new forum member here - thought I'd chime in on this particular strat suggested by Axnsan because I've found that it's critical to the success of defending my larger cities with a minimal garrison.

To minimize the potential for your archers to shoot your spearmen in the back, I'd suggest you use two units of spearmen (or infantry), positioned in a "V" shape inside the gate, with a gap in the bottom of the V through which the archers can shoot the enemy. The enemy coming through the gates will usually attack the nearest infantry unit once with come through, rather than exploit the gap. I'll attempt to show this graphically:

=====GATE=====
..........\... / <--------- your two spear/infantry units, positioned at an angle to the gate as shown

............^ <---------your archer unit(s) - use flaming arrows for the demoralizing effect.

[wupwup]

for defending i usuraly have my fountain guard in the gateway and eveeyone else on the walls. all they need to do is hold and the oil dose all the work

[DrakeRH]

I have come to embrace invasions as the gift they truly are. You know an invasion is coming sooner or later, and you can even guess the target, so be ready. Enemy generals are offered up for execution (assasination fest?). Big enemy armies will walk right past weaker, more valuable targets. On VH/VH I seldom lose a city to an invasion.

Prepare the very best full stack army you can and occupy the target city.
Place reinforcements as close as possible.

AI will place you under siege with only one army. Do not wait for them to attack. You attack them on the very first turn. Your 'very best full stack' army will usually be enough to destroy the one sieging army. When your attack is done, and they have routed, you will not be under siege.

Evaluate your surviving forces. Retrain what you can. Move wrecked units out and replace them from your nearby reserves. Run the wrecked units to your nearest major recruiting site to retrain and send full strength units from the recruiting site to rebuild your reserve.

Your reserve can even be used to launch a second attack which would bring your city garrison out for another battle, if the enemy armies are standing where you want them. I have even had second or third enemy armies join the first battle. Your first priority is balista towers. Place units at the towers and when the second or third enemy army marches around your walls to reach the main fight, the towers will slaughter them. After the sieging army routs, I have had significantly weakened enemy armies (balista tower fodder) standing there waiting for my reserve army to finish them off.

Invasions are great, and the Invasion Failed message is my favorite message in the whole game.

[axnsan]

The problem here my friend, is fitting the ballista in the tiny streets.

[Seleukos_I.]

well if you defend Cair Andros which is a castle at the beginning and if you place it at the center of the town it works

[DrakeRH]

Uh, yeah, Rohan is different. I was refering to Gondor and Eriador, above. If Gondor is on their game, and they hold the river line, it should be hard for Mordor and Harad to even reach Rohan. Unfortunately, if you play Rohan the AI plays Gondor and it tends to get creamed. If you play Gondor the AI plays Rohan and it tends to get creamed. I sure wish I could play Gondor and Rohan at the same time and support myself.

[Seleukos_I.]

you can if you play hotseat