Osgliath Bridge Defence Tips?

[derf]

I am starting my 3rd campaign, this time as Gondor. I have decided that the Osgiliath bridge should be my main anti-Mordor fighting ground since bridge battles seem easy to win. I was wondering if anyone could spare tips regarding the best way of defending this battle:

- How and where to position archers
- Formations (blocks / rows / columns)
- Use of ballistas / siege weapons

I think i've had 4 battle on this bridge, all of which were 1500-2000 (me) vs ~4000 (Mordor). I believe on 3 occasions I lost 400 men, but on one only ~200. But I don't know how.

Please have a look at my screenshots for clarification.

Edit: Spelled Osgiliath wrong!

[HarneY]

I like to make sure I have paved roads in minas tirith and osgiliath that way I can walk there in 1 turn. Then I block the end of the bridge with the free unit of fountain guards you get at the start in spearwall and then just back them up with mitilia and cavalry charges. Faramir is a good general to have here as his bodyguard can shoot all the way across the bridge.

[derf]

I like to make sure I have paved roads in minas tirith and osgiliath that way I can walk there in 1 turn. Then I block the end of the bridge with the free unit of fountain guards you get at the start in spearwall and then just back them up with mitilia and cavalry charges. Faramir is a good general to have here as his bodyguard can shoot all the way across the bridge.

That's strange I have paved roads between Osgiliath and Minas Tirith, but it takes 2 turns to get soldiers from A to B.

[Simon_SnowLock]

seems like you have the perfect army for it, but u might loose less infantry if you placed your fountain guard on the bridge itself and make them do schiton formation. this closes the orcs up even tighter ( not one of your archers arrows will hit ground, every one of them will take done a orc) and takes away the advantage they have in numbers- your fountain guards have enough moral and defense to hold any number of orcs in a bridge battle situation. thats about all i can thin of- good luck

[Reconquistador]

seems like you have the perfect army for it, but u might loose less infantry if you placed your fountain guard on the bridge itself and make them do schiton formation. this closes the orcs up even tighter ( not one of your archers arrows will hit ground, every one of them will take done a orc) and takes away the advantage they have in numbers- your fountain guards have enough moral and defense to hold any number of orcs in a bridge battle situation. thats about all i can thin of- good luck

I was under the impression that fountain guard had spear wall, not schiltrom.

[Vifarc]

'Search' is your friend.

[derf]

Well, Gondor Spearmen can only do Schiltrom, which doesn't seem to improve anything vs their normal stance.

The only reservation I have against using Fountain Guard is that the upkeep costs will kick in once I un-garrison them. :*(

[DuDe|Total:war]

Which is way less than having 5 militia to hold it. then you can spend more on archers and we all know thats what does the real killing

[Kawee]

A lot of people like to do the whole choke point thing, which I thoroughly enjoy using from time to time as well, but there's actually more than one way of playing the bridge battle. For variety sake, I'll offer an alternative. I find that the choke point thingy doesn't do too well later on since those massed upgraded orcs, especially if led by Nazgul or Trolls eventually break through and the fact that my archers are firing at the back of my own troops were probably the biggest cause of my casualties.

So here's how I sometimes did it.....

Key:
Red: Enemy
Blue: Infantry
Light Green : Archers
Dark Green: line of fire
Yellow : Artillery
Pink: Cavalry




As you can see, I set up a crossfire, and this resulted in a few things.

1. Less casualties since the arrows aren't hitting the backs of my men, but the front, where they have shields.
2. The casualties is further lessen by the fact that the enemies are in the way between the archers and the infantry
3. The arrows will be hitting the back of the enemies = more damage
4. The artillery gets clear straight shots right into the massed enemies

Key Points:
1. The one infantry unit on deployed horizontally is just to block any enemies from reaching the archers or the artillery
2. If seriously out numbered, the first line to break will be the one nearest to the bridge, and the AI will then move onto the next closest unit, which is another infantry line. This means, they will kill all your infantry first before going after your archers, so your archers will have the time to spend ALL their arrows.
3. The Cavalry are just there to chase routers since I find that for whatever reasons, many routers choose to run sideways rather than across the bridge.

Weakness: MICROMANAGE!
1. You will have to micromanage your archers and artillery. Put your archers into two groups, Left and Right. Make sure they're always cross-firing so that the arrows always hit the back.
2. Artillery not very accurate once the enemies start dieing and are scattered.
3. Sometimes the enemy don't split up so evenly, and that's when you may have to move an archer or two from one flank to another.

End Note:
It's not awfully more effective than the choke-point tactic, but you know what, variety is important when you know you'll be doing a dozen of these battles at the same darn bridge. I only came up with this tactic so that I won't get too bored out of my mind from using the same old tactic. Hope you'll like it

[Yarrum]

Derf, it takes you two turns to move troops to Osgiliaath becaue you're playing 1.3. Because of the Rammas Echor, KK was able to make a direct route to Osgiliath that wouldn't screw over the Gondor A.I.

[Muffer Nl]

In 1.3 some people also got the direct road (Like me)

[damnmap]

I place archers on the high ground in lines of 5 (10 groups of archers) one behind the other. I place Gondor militia to the left of the bridge walkway to the right and in front so the orcs are boxed in. That's all you need to butcher them. don't box the walkway in too tight make sure there is a large killzone in the middle for the archers... usually the orcs head to the right first, they have their backs to your archers a pretty inviting target. When trolls show up they usually assault the righthand group of militia... they have their backs to you so get all your archers to hit them simultaneously they go down pretty fast

It's highly important that you don't let them take Cair Andros... lay siege to it from your side and they won't be able to. Doesn't matter how big the unit is... if they take Cair they head out into the MT plains and you lose your bridge killzone

[Ivan Bajlo]

I am starting my 3rd campaign, this time as Gondor. I have decided that the Osgiliath bridge should be my main anti-Mordor fighting ground since bridge battles seem easy to win. I was wondering if anyone could spare tips regarding the best way of defending this battle:

My advice would be DON'T! Take the fight to the enemy, bridge should be your last resort, create stack with Denethor, Boromir, Faramir plus few more generals so you have expendable cavalry, add Fountain Guards sitting in Minas Tirith plus any other unit you can spare and as many milita archers as possible and go Orc hunting.

If you wait for Mordor to come to you AI will slowly win war of attrition since it can afford to lose thousands while you struggle with replacements after each battle. Fighting in Illithen you can wipe out individual stacks with very few causalities - once your general's heavy cavalry kills enemy general and they quickly rout - and with little luck and lots of micromanagement you can have Minas Morgul secured by turn 30.

As for holding the bridge don't bother placing your troops right next to it, AI always stops once it crosses to reorganize and for straggles to catch up with formation before it moves forward, so place your infantry to protect your archers on the higher ground and create killing zone in the center. Of course placing stakes at the bridge if your fighting nazguls can't hurt.