Tips For Osgiliath Bridge, Trolls and General Difficulty

[derf]

I discovered these 3 tips today and they are invaluable to me. I'll share them so perhaps they could be of some use / interest to someone.

Dealing With Trolls

For my tastes, Trolls are rather unrealistically invulnerable for reasons that are both obvious and widely expressed. I have changed their number of hitpoints from 4-6 to 1. Now I know what you're thinking, "One?!", but I have tried this and it is very realistic. I tried this out on a bridge battle (Osgiliath) a couple of Fountain Guard units, a couple of Spear Militia and a bunch of Archers vs the usual Mordor stack + 2 Olog Hai units. The Olog Hai took perhaps 50% casualties before reaching my front line in close combat and given that I had about 10 units of archers, that seemed very reasonable. The remaining Olog Hai still got through and cause havok to my Fountain Guard and cause alot of pain, but the Olog Hai we're eventually brought down. To change their HP to 1:

- Find export_descr_unit.txt which is in: Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age\data
- Use Ctrl-F to find "Troll" entries.
- For each entry, change the "stat_health" to 1, e.g from:

stat_health      6, 2

to

stat_health      1, 2

General Difficulty

I am definitely not one for doing things that hard way for no good reason. If I were taxed from an intelligent perspective (good AI) then, I would play on such hard setting, but M2TW hardly has an AI, let alone a smart one. I generally have a principle with difficulty settings whereby ideally it should be experienced on the "normal" setting. Unfortunately, this is just too tough. Simply set it back to Easy for the Campaign (not Battles) and you'll be having a much better time.



Defence of the Osgiliath Bridge (as Gondor)
As far as I know, best achieved with the following setup:

1 x General - I happen to like using Faramir, since he's a ranged unit).
6 x Dol Amroth Pikemen - Hauled all the way from the South coast and retrained in Minas Tirith. Position them at the bottleneck of the cliffs, NOT the bridge.
2 x Gondor Bowmen - Used for "Stake" ability.
~ 11 x Militia Bowmen - These are good enough. You wont need the armour that Gondor Bowmen have nor will you need the extra range. Position them behind the pikemen (obviously). Another option could be to use catapults here and there, but i haven't tried that yet.

The idea is that you plant the stakes during deployment as far forward as possible. Then position your pikemen between the cliffs, putting them on guard mode and on Spear Wall mode. 6 pikemen units are just about enough to have nice fat squares of men so that you're able to deal with cavalry / trolls. Then position your archers behind your pikemen (use the elevated ground). Keep the general nearby.

My previous attempts at this involved Fountain Guard. Unfortnately I did not find them effective (even on Spear Wall) because their spears were too short and often the enemy was able smother them and cause them great casualties. Besides, Fountain Guard are bloody expensive! My other attempt was to stack a couple of Fountain Guard units on top of eachother right at the mouth of the bridge so that they would block the exit. This was ineffective since the enemy would eventually pile in so much, the Fountain Guard would be unable to physically keep them back and they would take HUGE casualties.

The beauty of this new idea works because the pikes are better able to keep the oncoming mass of bodies at bay, and secondly, since there is now more room for the enemy to move into, they're less densely packed, and much less likely to force themselves through using sheer numbers.

See Screenshot.

[Baron Samedi]

General Difficulty

I am definitely not one for doing things that hard way for no good reason. If I were taxed from an intelligent perspective (good AI) then, I would play on such hard setting, but M2TW hardly has an AI, let alone a smart one. I generally have a principle with difficulty settings whereby ideally it should be experienced on the "normal" setting. Unfortunately, this is just too tough. Simply set it back to Easy for the Campaign (not Battles) and you'll be having a much better time.

Since you want to give the TATW community some advice about certain aspects of the mod could you please elaborate more on what exactly the consequences are of setting the game difficulty just to easy. What exactly do you define as '''having a better time''? What exactly you find tough on for instance the normal setting, as you were talking about in your post.

[derf]

could you please elaborate more on what exactly the consequences are of setting the game difficulty just to easy. What exactly do you define as '''having a better time''? What exactly you find tough on for instance the normal setting, as you were talking about in your post.

I played 3 campaigns on normal before trying easy. I noticed that on normal, by approx turn 80 or so (perhaps more) Gondor and Rohan were practically removed from the map. My issue with this is the relevance it has to the story of the War of the Ring. Let's be honest, "The Third Age" and what people associate with "The Lord of The Rings" is the War of the Ring itself. By having Gondor and Rohan destroyed so, the game unconditionally rewrites the story to one where the Ring was captured by evil. Unconditional because you have no say in whether Gondor or Rohan get destroyed. Changing the difficulty to low has significantly reduced the risk of Gondor and Rohan getting overrun and therefore removed the assumption from the game that the War of the Ring has been lost. It seems that now, whether Gondor or Rohan get overrun depends on whether I get involved and do something about it.

The other factor is my particular style of play. When it comes to strategy games, I draw a line between what I consider playing the underlying mechanics vs playing a logical intuitive game. An example for intuitive play is the old "cavalry - spear - sword - bow" remedy. It just makes sense because it's natural. Playing mechanically on the other hand, involves identifying how the underlying game works (behavior, stats, AI, etc) and exploiting the relevant logical defect. I cannot consciously play this way because I see games as pieces of art, not mechanisms. On normal difficulty, and especially on higher difficulties, these mechanics get very busy and much more in-your-face. So much so that I can't bear it. It's one thing when the ability of the computer enemy increases, but entirely another when it gets a stat boost.

[Æsir]

This must go into submods section because:
1) Changing stats isn't tip - it's modding.
2) There isn't unit Dol Amroth Pikemen in TA:TW, so tips on defending bridge must go into the respective thread of submod you used.

[MasterBigAb]

This must go into submods section because:
1) Changing stats isn't tip - it's modding.
2) There isn't unit Dol Amroth Pikemen in TA:TW, so tips on defending bridge must go into the respective thread of submod you used.

And even if, it would belong to guides and recources, so it is only completly wrong here, sorry

[Hermes Trismegistos]

And if you are using submods (RR/RC?) you should at least point it out before making general claims about difficulty, because it can differ from vanilla TATW...

[Lordinquisitor]

I just thought you adviced us to reduce the troll hp to one.

The second tip isn`t even a tip, but common sense.

I must be drunk.







Still, thanks for your efforts. Though i strongly disagree with your first tip. Telling people to mod every challenge out is wrong.

[Xelathur]

I have played a few custom games against trolls, and I do think they are "too good". However, that's just me being inexperienced in dealing with them. I'm sure they are balanced OK, most of the factions have "godly" units.

[confused german]

Instead of lowering the hitpoints of the troll units (which i personally would claim as "gay" if i wasn't on a internet forum and bound to politeness ), i prefer creating more godly units for the other fractions and i have to say i do this BECAUSE THIS IS FANTASY and Med2 was not (but tried to be historically correct) [and if you read the books it's all about heros and "godly" persons and btw nearly nothing about trolls at least in battles - the films put them in the foreground]. At least i like the movie-Legolas shooting the cave troll below his chin into the brain (if there is) and killing him so. And i think other godly persons should be able to confront trolls as well, since they were not the ultimate battle weapon in the lore like they are in the mod.
So i change edu and descr_projectiles and have a nice sindar archer unit consisting of 12 elves(+gen) on large that is in its battle effect quite close to the old 45 elves-unit, but with lower ammo and higher impact --> hero unit to kill other hero units (or, since small, walk around melee-engaged units and, hell yeah, point them out on short distance), but really good for killing trolls.
I made many other changes of course to keep balance as good as it's possible and i would recommend to make trolls much cheaper if you lower their hp to 1, just to keep balance!?!
I'm doing other general units to and btw changed all elven units to keep my lore-feeling upwright (isengard uruk-hai "berserkes" another invention of the movie-makers, having three hitpoints and my famous, re-born, 6000years+ old glorfindel must fear them in battle?? Noonono, only when badly surrounded but not one on one, he slew balrogs already ...for anyone interessted>> check out http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Glorfindel, here you can read everything about the lore without having to read the books again ).
O.k., think i gone a little ot again , but tell me what you think of the "more fantasy-units" approach to TATW. Of course game balance is most important (and most tricky) and i'm not finished with it, but still working on it steadily...

[eregost]

lol is the poster for real? How are these tips? Place strong melee unit at the bottleneck by bridges and get archers to fire at incoming units? Wow I would have never known, you must be some sort of TW guru! Please tell me more master!

Probably the funniest part was 'I discovered these 3 tips today'

[confused german]

lol is the poster for real? How are these tips? Place strong melee unit at the bottleneck by bridges and get archers to fire at incoming units? Wow I would have never known, you must be some sort of TW guru! Please tell me more master!

Probably the funniest part was 'I discovered these 3 tips today'

Okay, i think, he will never post again - at least tips... and in the end come up with the ultimate "how to beat mordor in 10rounds" (discovered TODAY)

hihi - don't take it too hard, derf ... this is total WARRR

[tallstark]

Why do people feel the need to jump on someone who does a post that doesn't meet your standards? Its a public forum, the guy likes the same game we all do, and wanted to share. If you don't like it, don't read it. Granted, there was nothing new to MOST of us in the post, but try to remember the first time you owned the AI in a bridge battle and were proud of yourself....bunch of mother hens LOL!

[Enomine]

I personally like to position my catapults within my defensive infantry formations and then fire explosive shots point blank into the densly packed horde trying to cross the bridge. When they are positioned like that, they cannot inflinct friendly fire (they shoot right over the heads of your men). In SS, I use mangonels instead. Killing 500 men in 1 shot is a pretty sure fire way to defend a bridge.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

You want to know my strategy for trolls?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Give them pancakes! Straight from Mount Doom! They're dastardly delicious!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Btw, thanks for the tips derf

[damnmap]

If only Gondor had invincible phalangists like RTW vanilla...

could you lengthen the pikes so they act more like a macedonian phalanx

[Hymne der Nacht]

where can I get those 'Dol Amroth pikemen' ? What submod do I have to use. I couldn't find them. Thanks fpr your answerr...

[Michael X]

Well, I don't think Trolls have to be weakened. They're fearsome, devastating and extremely strong! They're normally unbeatable by usual soldies in hand-to-hand combat, so they have to be strong in the game as well.

I mean... have you played LOTR:ROTK? Trolls there are extremely difficult to defeat (although they die with one spear throw). Their "reputation" was damaged when EA weakened them in LOTR:BFME...

[Seleukos_I.]

where can I get those 'Dol Amroth pikemen' ? What submod do I have to use. I couldn't find them. Thanks fpr your answerr...

RR/RC. But you'll have to wait a bit, because there is no 1.4 compatible version yet.

[alhoon]

1. What's RR/RC
2. I like my game at very hard campaign difficulty. Gondor and Rohan are still around.
3. I would suggest instead of turning the difficulty to easy, make Gondor and Rohan stronger by giving them more money via King's purse for example. Increase their King's purse by 3000 for example at very hard and I sincerely doupt they will be destroyed. Also give their general bodyguards 2 hit points.

[RyuAzai]

I do agree that Trolls are pretty nasty in this game

Mostly when they get spawned with the garrison script.

For the armored trolls I wouldn't mind their health stats fairly high, but maybe reduce the units to three instead of five.

But the normal cave trolls I'd agree with leveling down their stats just a little bit.