High Elf complete strategy: start to finish. For airborne guy
I got pm'd by airborne guy asking for some HE help and I wrote a complete guide for him, being the nice guy I am. I thought I'd share it with everyone to get some feedback and help him out a bit more if anyone can find holes in it or bits that need elaborating. So here goes.
This is a complete strategy guide for High Elves which I used on 1.3 vanilla H/H normal unit size:
Move your capital to Mithlond, or one of the cities in that block of 4 (whichever makes you most money). Get all the trade agreements you can, you know how that works.
EDIT: Credit to Withwnar for this: moving the capital later to wherever is most profitable. At the start it's best in the Mithlond area but not once you start advancing your empire. I like the idea of keeping Mithlond or Imladris as the capital (lore) but financially it's better further south - depending on many things. Possession of Moria for one.
Treat your coastal cities and Imladris like they're two separate factions almost, as they will be acting independently for most of the early-mid game.
Build up an army to move down the coast to Eryn Vorn and Lond whatever, you know the coastal ones. Don't worry about that town to the north of Mithlond 1) it has low elf culture so you need an army there for a while to keep public order 2) it's a bone of contention with dwarves/eriador that you can do without.
So move that army down the coast and take those settlements, no one will challenge you as they're doing the same thing elsewhere.
If you are good at battles then you can spread out with small armies a bit inland into Isengard/Rohan spheres of influence.
Oh, at this stage an army for me was about 2 generals (you have lots so use that cavalry), 1-2 units of elven infantry (just in case the enemy make it to your lines), and 4-6 light archers (really as many as you can afford, they will do the bulk of your killing).
In battle find a high area with good lines of sight and set up your archers along it. Infantry spread out behind to assist if you must. Generals on the flanks (pretty standard). If you are outnumbered and you think the enemy will get to your lines then keep the archers on skirmish mode as you are fast with excellent stamina, basically you can outrun anything. If the enemy come at you in great numbers (mostly OotMM) just fire for as long as you can from a good position, then run. Outrun them, turn and fire, then run again. THis really whitles down their numbers. More importantly though it SPREADS THE ENEMY OUT into little pockets. Abuse the power of an elven lance charge to annihilate the enemy and move on to the next group. I never lost a battle as the elves and 10% casualties was about the most I ever lost. Against OotMM most of your battles will be about 300 vs 1500 but you'll win if you follow the strat (this is on normal unit size).
When taking towns/cities you should never fight your enemies in close combat, never. Get as many ladders as you can, every unit should have one. Surround the city and only move up to undefended sections of walls. Once you're in there use your archers to clear the enemy off the walls and fight a running battle through the streets. If you do this well you can take all the coastal cities (rebels) with ZERO CASUALTIES. Seriously it's not that hard. When the enemy group in the town square just rain arrows on them. You need a level of micro management for this so you don't run out of arrows. Move up so you fire directly at their backs, it decimates enemy units. Looks cool too.
Once you have the coast and as many inland bits as you can get (don't go too far as you don't want to provoke Isengard) then leave small armies in the woods guarding the paths. If a big army comes along then ambush, fire all your arrows, do the run fire run trick until you are out of arrows. Then flee the battle. Do this turn after turn and hide in the woods on their turn and you will whittle them down to nothing long before they get to the coast.
Build up you economy along the coast. Think of the mithlond area as greece from RTW, just build up your economy and you will be unstoppable.
At about turn 20 the focus shifts back to Imladris. Use the economy of the sea to support imladris against OotMM.
Those first 20 turns Imladris should build a small army, something like the one I suggested above, just to hold OotMM at bay (same tactics as above). Just fight the guerrilla war. The orcs will come out of the mountains just to the north east of Imladris so keep a small ambush force there with a watchtower. The other route is around the mountains to the south which block you off from Eregion,there is a choke point between the mountains and the river with heaps of trees so fight them here. If you lose they still have 2-3 more turns until they are at the last homely house. Use this distance to your advantage.
If you are confident then you can push up to take Coldfells, but it will take another army to defend it from Angmar area until you can take the castle to the north (I think it's called Gram).
Now after about turn 20 or 30 (depending on how slowly you go or how many setbacks you encounter) you should have the resources to start fielding larger forces in the east. I think the first barracks event takes place in the 40s, at which point you get elven archers, these guys are your bread and butter, better and more heavily armoured than your light archers (by a long way) and they hold their own in close quarters, probably my favourite HE troops. So what you do between turn 20 and 40 is to lay the ground work for the conquest which will follow once you get Elven Archers on the field.
So you have a couple of options. These all depend on how the dwarves are going against OotMM. In this regard you should work with the dwarves to steamroller OotMM (just try to make sure you get as many cities as you can out of the spoils, especially the ones in the Misty Mountains). Basically if the dwarves are fighting up north around angmar, then take Gram and move up to Tharbad etc. If they are moving down High Pass then attack Goblin Town, or sneak around the bottom and take Eregion and Moria while OotMM are distracted. If you can take Eregion, then place armies at the river ford/bridge just to the south and you will be nigh impossible to dislodge.
Side note: Elves and bridge battles - Abuse bridges cause if you can defend them then your archers will rain death on the enemy as they are packed in close. Your units like Elven spearmen and infantry can easily hold your end and keep the enemy on the bridge to be massacred by your archers. Use this to good effect.
Back on track. Once you take Moria just try and hold back the counter-attack which will probably come, if it doesn't then you know the dwarves are doing well in the north. Really regardless of what dwarves are doing you should probably aim for Eregion and Moria, but take Coldfells as a buffer to the north. Ideally you should have a two front offensive with the aim to conquer Gram and Moria. This gives OotMM a 3 front war (and we all know what happened to the Germans in WW2, You are the British/Americans and Dwarves are the Russians). This really shortens the time the orcs can hold out for. If you can, try and pinch High Pass from the Dwarves, this isn't too vital now but it will become important later.
High Pass: Important for two reasons 1) It is the Gateway to Rivendell, if your enemy holds it then they are always a threat to Imladris and you will need 3 armies in the east (moria, gram, and imladris) which makes it very expensive 2a) It is a highway to the world, allowing you to move troops north to south and reinforce yourself without the long trek around the Eregion range 2b) Not only can you reinforce yourself but it also allows you to move through the mountains to aid your Sindar cousins depending on how Mordor is playing.
So basically by turn 50 you want to have Coldfells and Ost-in-Edhil (Eregion), while continuing to build your economy along the coast and pumping out Elven Archers to augment/replace your original forces. This is all in preparation for a long slug through the mountains against hordes of Snaga and the occaisional troll. If you can come out of this by turn 70 with Gram, High Pass, and Moria then you have done well.
After this we get into the midgame IMHO. This is the stage where you are secure enough at home to start helping prop up your allies elsewhere. The midgame ends when you and your allies are strong enough to make concerted attacks against the powerbases of your toughest foes and think about marching on Barad-dur.
Midgame you have three options really, which you should chose from based on who needs you the most.
1) Silvan Elves - Move an army or two (whatever can be spared) agaisnt Rhosgobel and surrounds to take out OotMM for good, then you push on to Dol Guldur. To do this you need to have finished the early game with High Pass and Moria and be in a position to take the whole of the Misty Mountains range. If the dwarves are in your way, BUY THEM OFF. You can never, I say again NEVER, afford to be at war with the Dwarves 1) They are in a position to threaten your coastal gravy train from Naugrim etc which would devastate your ability to wage war 2) they are so heavily armoured that even your arrows would do diddly-squat to them and they would reach your lines every time with enough troops to squish you, you can run turn shoot run all you like and you will just run out of arrows. NEVER GO TO WAR WITH THE DWARVES. They are greedy so buy their settlements in the mountains or trade other settlements for them at your discretion. Once you are secure in the mountains then push across the Vale of Anduin to help you wooded brethren. If they don't have that much time left then bypass Anduin and send an army straight against Dol Guldur, don't worry they shouldn't have Olog-Hai yet.
2) Rohan - If Isengard is going really hard on Rohan, or if the invasions tht Sauron calls are a bit too successful then move south from Eregion and take Dunland and Hills. Do this at the same time as you move in from the coast and take as many settlements west of the Gap as you can, fast. I did this as HE. I had been planning it for about 10 turns, moving armies through the woods, always hidden at the end of every turn. In one turn I besieged 6 Isengard settlement, everything they had west of the Gap, and took them all within the next 3 turns. You would be amazed just how much this devastates Isengard's war effort. After that Rohan could just pick off settlements willy-nilly (though they then got uppitty and attacked me, bad idea on their part... messy that was... enough said).
3) Gondor - This is by far the most enjoyable but takes the most planning and the largest economy (I did it haha). Set up an armada, two halfstacks of ships should do it. Fill each of these with a full stack of your best troops with about 6 generals (trust me, with the conquering you're about to do you'll need them). I waited until the last barracks event was well past to do this so I had an Eldar fleet, it looked sick. Then set sail for Umbar and the Mouths of Anduin. It takes about 10 turns minimum to get there from Mithlond, probably more like 15. By the time I got there Gondor had just lost Osgiliath and Cair Andros and Harad were really pushing them in the south. I sent one fleet up the Anduin and the other down to Umbar. I don't think Middle-earth had seen a landing like that since Elendil arrived from the fall of Numenor, as is written in the Akallabeth. Anyway it was epic! I took Umbar, south Umbar, that distracted the Haradrim. Use Umbar as a base from which to strike up the coast, it's isolated location makes it easy to defend until your culture level is high enough to start training your good units for a full offensive into Harad proper. The other fleet I sent up Anduin, I unloaded 2/3 of my troops on the west bank and the other 1/3 on the east, I beseiged Osgiliath and took it the next turn (similar trick to the one described near the start). Then I sent the majority of the W. Osgiliath force North to Cair Andros which fell in the same fashion. I used this to shelter Gondor from Mordor and held this position until culture level was high enough to do more recruiting.
Now you're into the late game. If you don't know what to do from here then I don't think any guide is going to help you. At this point it is a case of deciding where to strike first and then getting your Eldar armies there. Depending on which of the midgame strategies you followed the choice will probably be made for you already. Whoever still needs help, give it to them. The final aim is the same whichever road you take, on to Mordor!
Good luck, let's hunt some Orc!
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Originally Posted by Old Hickory
Re: High Elf complete strategy: start to finish. For airborne guy
