Eriador Victory / Strategy

[tuvokage]

I really enjoyed my first campaign. I used Eriador and found their starting situation to be quite good. I also like how their troops are mostly militias, and I didn't have to keep building more and more buildings for more and more advanced troops.

Here's the essence of the strategy I used. Besides all the obvious stuff:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) I let Edoras and later Hornburg get taken. Rohan got pushed back to 2 settlements to the West. This allowed me to secure my territory and build 3 strong armies before marching South.

2) I took Moria from the orcs and established my foothold here.

3) I pushed Isengard South, taking Isengard.

4) I took back Hornburg and Edoras. Isengard was dead.

5) Gondor gave up Minis Tirth to an evil faction. I took that.

6) I began pushing the Orcs of Misty Mountain North.

7) I began pushing further East to the river until getting to E. and W. Osgilath and Cair Andros. Where I stopped and refocused troops to finish off the Orcs of M.M.

Note: I found that any settlement could be defended by a General, 4 Ballistas, 4 Cavalry, 4 Infantry, and 2 Archers. It's taking advantage of poor AI, but you just exit out of a side gate and flank them with the ballistas until their general is dead and all their troops are down to 30 or less. Then rush attack with inf and cav from their rear.

8) When Orcs were dead, then I focused on pushing Harad and Rhun East.

9) When I had about 7 armies to work with, I pushed Mordor back to their mountain walls and took Minas Morgul and the Black Gate. I used 3 armies against Mordor, 2 against Rhun, and 2 against Harad.

10) Then I defended Black Gate and Minas Morgul until Rhun and Harad were dead.

11) Then bringing all my armies back to Minas Morgul and Black Gate, I headed into Mordor with about 8 armies.

Note: All the good guys survived except for Dale.

Oh BTW, H/H.

Thanks for the developers for this fun experience.

J

[Maverock]

Nice one!

[tuvokage]

Thanks.

[jo_dus]

I really enjoyed my first campaign. I used Eriador and found their starting situation to be quite good. I also like how their troops are mostly militias, and I didn't have to keep building more and more buildings for more and more advanced troops.

Here's the essence of the strategy I used. Besides all the obvious stuff:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) I let Edoras and later Hornburg get taken. Rohan got pushed back to 2 settlements to the West. This allowed me to secure my territory and build 3 strong armies before marching South.

2) I took Moria from the orcs and established my foothold here.

3) I pushed Isengard South, taking Isengard.

4) I took back Hornburg and Edoras. Isengard was dead.

5) Gondor gave up Minis Tirth to an evil faction. I took that.

6) I began pushing the Orcs of Misty Mountain North.

7) I began pushing further East to the river until getting to E. and W. Osgilath and Cair Andros. Where I stopped and refocused troops to finish off the Orcs of M.M.

Note: I found that any settlement could be defended by a General, 4 Ballistas, 4 Cavalry, 4 Infantry, and 2 Archers. It's taking advantage of poor AI, but you just exit out of a side gate and flank them with the ballistas until their general is dead and all their troops are down to 30 or less. Then rush attack with inf and cav from their rear.

8) When Orcs were dead, then I focused on pushing Harad and Rhun East.

9) When I had about 7 armies to work with, I pushed Mordor back to their mountain walls and took Minas Morgul and the Black Gate. I used 3 armies against Mordor, 2 against Rhun, and 2 against Harad.

10) Then I defended Black Gate and Minas Morgul until Rhun and Harad were dead.

11) Then bringing all my armies back to Minas Morgul and Black Gate, I headed into Mordor with about 8 armies.

Note: All the good guys survived except for Dale.

Oh BTW, H/H.

Thanks for the developers for this fun experience.

J

Nice strategy, but why even play one anything other then E/E if your just going to exploit the AI with cheap tactics.

[Pleiades]

Nice strategy, but why even play one anything other then E/E if your just going to exploit the AI with cheap tactics.

And what is cheap strategy here? I did not see one cheap thing here, except your irony and flaming of other forum member who genuinely shared his experience with us.

Tuvokage-excellent job mate!

[jo_dus]

And what is cheap strategy here? I did not see one cheap thing here, except your irony and flaming of other forum member who genuinely shared his experience with us.

Tuvokage-excellent job mate!

How am I flaming and what irony are you refering to. His battle tactic was to exploit the passive AI when sallying out from a siege. Why play on H/H if your just going to basically exploit that. And I did say I liked the strategy, just not the tactics used during the battles. I think it is cool that he was able to conquer the map with a weak faction and in doing so keep most of his allies alive. I just don't like how he abused the AI to do it. Why don't u take some of your own advice and get off my case.

[Pleiades]

How am I flaming and what irony are you refering to. His battle tactic was to exploit the passive AI when sallying out from a siege. Why play on H/H if your just going to basically exploit that. And I did say I liked the strategy, just not the tactics used during the battles. I think it is cool that he was able to conquer the map with a weak faction and in doing so keep most of his allies alive. I just don't like how he abused the AI to do it. Why don't u take some of your own advice and get off my case.

My apology if I overreacted.

Now, about sallying out from siege, that not just is cheating but desired and logical strategy because that is behavior in real life. If town is starving, then you are forced to rush out of town and fight for life and death. The other thing is that AI does not use sallying when AI is besieged.

We can't limit ourselves and artificially restrain from desired and logical actions in battle or campaign map, just because AI is not scripted to do those things or because AI is not scripted to defend properly from logical attack tactics.

It's not about army composition, I accidentally win 90 percents of all battles when I sally out and I will always do that. Why should I allow my town to die cause AI is not competent? Or why should i start to play this game at all if I will artificially avoid to do anything that is logical so I can help the opponent AI?

[Evan MF]

My apology if I overreacted.

Now, about sallying out from siege, that not just is cheating but desired and logical strategy because that is behavior in real life. If town is starving, then you are forced to rush out of town and fight for life and death. The other thing is that AI does not use sallying when AI is besieged.

We can't limit ourselves and artificially restrain from desired and logical actions in battle or campaign map, just because AI is not scripted to do those things or because AI is not scripted to defend properly from logical attack tactics.

It's not about army composition, I accidentally win 90 percents of all battles when I sally out and I will always do that. Why should I allow my town to die cause AI is not competent? Or why should i start to play this game at all if I will artificially avoid to do anything that is logical so I can help the opponent AI?

Firstly, sometimes the AI does sally-out before it has to.

Secondly, why is it cheating to sally-out when you are so sure to win a battle? You are making a judgement that all generals have to make.

You cannot accuse anyone of cheating in this way; you can only accuse the developers for not creating an intelligent enough AI.

Besides, I do not like to knowingly undermine the AI, I give back recaptured cities to my allies and use varyig tactics,not the same one, making battles more challenging and interesting every time. I make an effort to 'not cheat' in your eyes.

[Maverock]

Yep, and try VH/VH Gondor! that's a challenge

[OfficerJohn]

I don't like the TATW presentation of Eriador, I think LotR:TW did a better job with their Free Peoples. Eriador is so overpowered.

[Blackorc]

I don't like the TATW presentation of Eriador, I think LotR:TW did a better job with their Free Peoples. Eriador is so overpowered.

LOL nice joke

[OfficerJohn]

LOL nice joke

I'm not joking. Seriously, Eriador is able to put up a fight in any way! The Free Peoples weren't really able to conquer anything...

[Æsir]

IMHO exploiting AI disadvantages is not agreeably but if someone have fun playing that way - why not? It's OK. For example I have friend who plays TW allways on autoresolve and he's having fun.

Back on topic - nice Eriador campaign + rep

[tuvokage]

Thanks for all the comments.

It's true that if a sieging army has no archers, they just sit there and take the ballista abuse -- once their art is destroyed.

If they have archers, then things get messy because they start firing at ballistas. Mordor armies sometimes run back and forth from their positions which make the ballistas misfire.

It is true that I get bored almost every time my settlement gets sieged because I am using this tactic.

By the way, I despise playing on VH/VH when I am first learning a new campaign because things get very ridiculous. I like a little bit of realism.

J

[tuvokage]

By the way, I am playing as Gondor now and Isengard army sallied out from their citadel.

[Evan MF]

By the way, I am playing as Gondor now and Isengard army sallied out from their citadel.

See! SEE! I was right, they do sally out!

[Muffer Nl]

See! SEE! I was right, they do sally out!

They only do that when the auto-resolve balance is more then 1:1.5 in their favour.

[Oldtimer]

Hi all,

I started Eriador campaign because I thought it would be a challenge but I find Eriador perhaps the easiest faction to play.
Well, have not met any trolls yet.

I play at VH/N and no time limit which is supposed to be the hardest setting, as the enemy battle AI is prudent and makes good use of terrain, not abandoning favourable positions. I must always come to them...

Anyway, Eriador is really fun to play, but lore-wise should not be a playable faction IMHO. In this age of ME it`s just a geographical term.
Dunedain, Bree-land and Shire are could be factions, Eriador not.

Regards, Oldtimer

[Muffer Nl]

These area´s alone would be much to weak to survive and would propably also start fighting amongst themselves. They would also have too little diversity. For game-play reasons they have all been blended and the new units look great!