How do you beat the game as HE against neverending mordor?

[johannlo]

In my HE campaign (RR+RC) I am making zero headway against mordor.

I've wiped out the OoTM and Isengard so my rear is completely secure, Rohan is alive. I even sent a half stack up to help the silvans beat back mordor.

However, gondor is being pummelled by mordor (lost minis tirith and pelagir and the city inland from minis tirith) so I sent all my armies there (two stacks lol its all I can afford). I have wiped out stack after stack but when I toggle_fow for a sneak preview I see endless mordor stacks still coming.

I have taken the northern castle (cair andros?) and my armies are beat up even if they are all vastly experienced and led by generals with max dread. I can't face the next round of olog hai the biggest issue is that I am running out of melee infantry which I have to commit to take on olog hai, at least with mountain trolls my archers can take them out (and in process ignore the 3000 other orcs lol so its fair).

Meanwhile gondor still has their hands full with harad.

QUestion is: what am I doing wrong?
- I've built as many economic and law buildings as possible, can't expand economy any faster. Ditto with trade routes.
- Due to culture requirements + RR/RC recruitment pools (every 9 turns!!) My reinforcements have to come from isengard/rohan (conquered territories ftw) which takes 3-4 turns to get to pellanor fields, and then only a trickle of them. Meanwhile mordor seems to be able to create two full stacks every turn. I have beaten stack after stack and due to my long supply chain I can't hold for much longer. Retaking osgoliath and minis tirith would be pointless as then I would be immediately besieged by 10x the number of orcs.
- This is with winning most battles as heroic victories, losing 50 or 100 elves for killing 2-3000 orcs and the like. LIke I said I have wiped out stack after stack of mordor and it doesn't seem to make a dent in them.
- Gondor seems to have its hands full with harad and mordor, it can't even take back pelagir.
- i'm getting 4-5k a turn if my armies are garrisoned but since I have to devote most of them to the field (and / or shuttling back and forth as reinforcements) I'm down to 2-3k a turn due to insane upkeep costs + corruption in cities. so I can't really field any more armies, with light archers costing 1200 that 2-3k is fully spent on retraining and the odd building upgrade!

Any tips appreciated. I can't make any more money, and I'm slaughtering orcs like its going out of fashion but its getting me nowhere and I am facing increasing odds. due to economy + low recruitment pool even a low attrition rate with stringing heroic victories together doesn't cut it and doesn't seem to be stemming the flow of mordor stacks.

I tried modding it (made elves cheaper, trolls nerfed etc.) but that seemed like cheating lol.

[jản]

///

oh yes - i have tipps for you. i have played a VH/VH rohan campaign
and had to face the same probelsm after turn 100. the problem with
mordor is, that they have a really high nicome at that time. i think
because of a huge teretory, sacking their conquered and rich settlement
from gondor, rohan and silvan elves.

"Meanwhile mordor seems to be able to create two full stacks every turn."
Yes, and even more. they have 3 to 5 recruiting slots and plenty of money.

so what can you do:

> easiest thing - try to beat them in many ways
> sure, fighting is the most imoprtant way
> but you have to use your spies and assassins too, to destroy troll
cages and recruiting barracks

> also it is more wise to don't face their stacks that wandering around
in middle-earth but to conquer or at least besiege their settlements
from which the units all come from
(minas morgul, dol duldur, barad-dur, black gate and durthang)

> than they can't recruit anymore but still getting a lot of money but
they spend it on normal infantry and archers, which are no problem to HE

> i found out that bribe doesn't really work in TATW - at least not on VH/VH
(sono way to make enemy armies to disband)

> you also have to ruin their trading-system
> destroy markets and all trading buildings
> also if you have settlements besieged this citeies won't be able to do tradeing

> sometime you can conquer some settlements which are not very well
guarded with a few units
> sure mordor will try to get it back shortly but whil you waiting for
this with three units in that settlement you can destroy all their
buildings (you even get money for that)
> so they have to spend alot of money and turns to start recruiting
good units again

> and you can even try to sell those settlements back to mordor or
another faction

---

> what really would help you if it would be changed in the game would be
more mercenary units and better and faster recruitment possibillities at least
for militia units in far away conquered settlements


///

[johannlo]

Thanks, but they're turtled into mordor and I have no way in (and can't fight through 4 full stacks w/ reinforcements on the way with 2 half beaten up armies w/ 6-7 turn supply line).

I don't have assassins (elves don't get them maybe? or you are not using RR+RC mod?) - believe me if I did I would swarm them with 4-5 at once a la vanilla M2TW. sigh

Also dunno about rohan but I assume you don't wait 9 turns to refresh unit pool for your lightest unit.... and you are much closer to the action, my closest territories are in isengard and they're not all fully developed unlike I assume rohan homeland. Not having a go but I'm saying that I just cannot muster the resources to take the fight to them, not when I have v few reinforcements, and they have to trek 6-7 turns to get to the action.

[jản]

Thanks, but they're turtled into mordor and I have no way in (and can't fight through 4 full stacks w/ reinforcements on the way with 2 half beaten up armies w/ 6-7 turn supply line).

ah okay, than go around mordor and enter it from the east or the south-east
via nurnen. it is a long way, but it should work, because they never protect the east "entrance".

I don't have assassins (elves don't get them maybe? or you are not using RR+RC mod?) - believe me if I did I would swarm them with 4-5 at once a la vanilla M2TW. sigh

oh, than elves are the ones who don't have assasins. well than this
is no option for you - but you should at least use some spies to infiltrate
them and to decrease public order and happiness which will at least force
them to lower their tax.

[Skeleton Of The West]

There is nothing you are doing wrong, Mordor is just so powerful. Use Jan's tips(which are excellent by the way ). You could maybe try to attack Mordor from the north(starting with Mirkwood and Dol Guldur), where Mordor is weaker, not from Gondor's area which Mordor is concentrating it's armies.

[bentlemp]

Jan's tips are actually really good (especially sabotaging the troll cage...can't believe I didnt think of that and actually I think it's the first time I've read it so +rep!).

Also, don't limit yourself to taking on Mordor DIRECTLY. One strategy I employed was to take the castle on the river as you did and turtle myself playing defense on Gondor's front. As long as you help Gondor maintain, you dont really need to move any further for the time being. Defending that for and the area isnt that hard provided they have E Osgiliath so if they dont, taking that and putting in a defense stack would help as well.

Once you have your defense set up (and you're just going to have to keep trucking reinforcements in) adopt a secondary objective. What I did...once the silvans and dale were shored up after I pushed Mordor back to...well...mordor...I attacked Rhun. I did this because Dale will help in that fight (though minorly) and because if you are successful in driving them back, it gives you a back door into Mordor. It also takes away one of their trader partners...

Try to think in terms of multi-tasking instead of focusing on one specific element.

Still lovin' that troll cage sabotage suggestion Jan!

[Black_ice_Spain]

for my own experience, i allied with everything in the north (except with isengard, altho i have good relations w em), pwned ootmm really easy, took two important rebel settlements, after that, erlond who conquered moria, went straight to get osgiliath, and another whole stack was coming from my homelands (ports) by ship..., erlond reached gondor like 10turns before, and conquered minas tirith from mordor (they alrdy had it @@), then west osgiliath and cair andros..., after that the other stack arrived, and while gondor is conquering harad, i have minas ithil, and approaching the black gate...

First of all, make the culture increase buildings THE FIRST after you conquer, thats what i did, and im getting around 1 units overall (not one of each type) per turn in gondor, which is supplying me well, and sometimes i get 1-2 units in east osgiliath.

So approaching black gate fast before erlond dies (76 years alrdy @@), if i get black gate, mordor will be trapped, idk if ill attack barad-dur, or attack rhun and then mordor from behind, while gondor does it with harad

Also made minas tirith my capital... needed generals after winning a 4000vs1000 fight where my only cav survivor (of 3 golden valued general bodyguards) was erlond xD. (and after all... it wasnt that bad, i had it on the starting zones [not rivendell], and the proximity bonus increased on ootmm places o_O.


take ideas from my experience if you need to =).

[DeliCiousTZM]

what i always do is get high ranked general and fill him with archers 2 groups of horses or more. to hunt down them. Then just swoop them up and destroy.

[Juli]

I would get the hell outta there if I were you

Destroy all building so you can get some nice moneys, then retreat all your dudes, and let Mordor take the place. If you destroy all the buildings, it will be a useless castle, so your enemy gets no actual advantage from it.

Unless you´re the Elves Forevar kind of player and just wants to get an epicly heroic ass-kick

Also remember that RR/RC isnot finished, so it may have some balance issues which could be fixed. If you think Mordor is unbalanced then post it at the RR/RC thread