Silvan Elves

[Alex-ander]

I am playing a campaign as the Silvan Elves on H/H and finding it hard going. They seem boxed in and have no ports so money is not easy and its hard to expand.

Any good tips for playing them.

[Raymond Agustin]

Ah! a fellow Silvan Elves Player!

Well, although I'm kinda new I already won quite alot of impossible Victories including a 1 thousand versus 6 thousand battle ( Lead by Legolas himself )

All I can give you is, don't build Roads and always try to ambush your Enemies as much as possible. If you build Roads you'll loose your most important asset that is the Forest and the Trees that surrounds your Towns/Settlements.

Also if your going to make an Army make it 70% Range and 30% Infantry. It works miracles for me by the time the Enemy gets close they'll be Wavering or Broken so it's almost like fighting Peasants ( That's what happens to me when I won the Battle againts the Orcs of the Misty Mountains ).

Also here's one thing, the Drawves and Dale doesn't seem to like you when you play as Silvan Elves. They turned down my Alliance request 5 times already for some reason I don't know why though, but your all alone. Atleast that's what happens for me.

Though I encountered some Bugs and Glitches while playing it's still worth it.

[Hupsel]

Get trade rights straight away, try to protect your borders with as few units as possible, you can easily kill 2000 orcs with only 600 elves. Silvan Mounted Archers are god send.

Conquer some of the OoTMM villages to the west, let Dale and Dwarves be.

[Gimli]

IM still kinda new at this but im not sure how to make alliances still. I still won the Silven/Gondor/Rohan/Mordor without alliances. But i would now like to know how to make one.....

[Seleukos_I.]

IM still kinda new at this but im not sure how to make alliances still. I still won the Silven/Gondor/Rohan/Mordor without alliances. But i would now like to know how to make one.....

Send a diplomat to another faction --> Click on of of their settlements/armies/diplomats --> Offer them an alliance.

[matilda]

Read my post about Silvan Elf campaigning: Silvan Schmilvan lads have given plenty of good avice there

[Marshy]

Ah! a fellow Silvan Elves Player!

Well, although I'm kinda new I already won quite alot of impossible Victories including a 1 thousand versus 6 thousand battle ( Lead by Legolas himself )

All I can give you is, don't build Roads and always try to ambush your Enemies as much as possible. If you build Roads you'll loose your most important asset that is the Forest and the Trees that surrounds your Towns/Settlements.

Also if your going to make an Army make it 70% Range and 30% Infantry. It works miracles for me by the time the Enemy gets close they'll be Wavering or Broken so it's almost like fighting Peasants ( That's what happens to me when I won the Battle againts the Orcs of the Misty Mountains ).

Also here's one thing, the Drawves and Dale doesn't seem to like you when you play as Silvan Elves. They turned down my Alliance request 5 times already for some reason I don't know why though, but your all alone. Atleast that's what happens for me.

Though I encountered some Bugs and Glitches while playing it's still worth it.

i would kinda have to disagree about the roads part. :hmmm: Ecspecially in wooded areas the AI will only move into forest via road so without roads the movement of the enemy is unpredictible... But if you have roads you know where the enemy will move so you can station armies of archers on either side of the road so when the enemy comes you can be ready. This is the same case in long stretched regions like in Rohan because it is faster travel so the AI will most likely take these routes.

[Alex-ander]

Good advise Eugenioso and some nice tips from other people thanks.

Small update on where i am in my campaign I am at turn 50 on H/H and have just captured the last rebel settlement in Mirkwood and i am preparing for the push to take Dol Goldur. Maybe i should have taken out Dol Goldur earlier but now is better than later. I am avoiding war with the OTMM at the moment i will delay that if i can untill i capture Dol Goldur.

I am allied with the HE and Dale, Dale accepted an alliance the first time i asked. But when i asked the Dwarves they refused me so i have to keep an eye on them.

[Withwnar]

Dale accepted an alliance the first time i asked. But when i asked the Dwarves they refused me so i have to keep an eye on them.

Dwarves are hard negotiators in my experience. Offering them a region helps. Perhaps one of the northern rebel ones (if any left) or, failing that, one of the OotMM ones.

[ArmyCharger]

hide your melee units in the trees. manoeuvre your archers so the enemy is under continued fire from one batt while the other is retreating to avoid melee. Don't engage in a melee fight until all your arrows are depleted. you'll be able to win battles where you're heavily outnumbered with nearly 0 losses.

[Hartassen]

Make a massive sentinel of the woodland realms army and capture the whole of mirkwood then proceed to capture valley between mirkwood and the misty mountains (the anduin vale and the other settlements) once you have those take fangorn and then the wilderlands. You'll be sitting on a pretty nice 14 region empire there with the wilderlands protecting you from any mordor attack and the OOTMM should already be weakened enough from your expansions. After that it's pretty much gg. Oh and use watchtowers so you can spot enemy armies fast and respond with a mobile defense army (like horse archers).

Just defend your settlements while the SOTWR army with legolas cleans house.

Pretty easy even on vh/vh.

Deploy stakes in battles beforehand and just line your archers on 1-2 rows with formations and watch them rain death upon the orcs.

[eugenioso]

first things first. begin to develop your economy. gather your forces into armies and dont disband anything.

gather 2 armies: one in Mirkwood to retake all of it, and another in Caras Galadhon. the army in mirkwood should be lead by thranduil and legolas (fletolas wecolas) and all the forces in mirkwood. leave a garrison force of 2 elven archers and 2 spearmen in Thranduil's halls to stop any Goblin incursion into your lands. begin to push south by taking all 3 rebel settlements. be fast however, if your not then Dale might steal a rebel settlement near its border.

keep pushing south relentlessly and siege and take over Dol Guldur. if you arent at war with Rhun yet then you can consider this a safe flank. take the remainder of your army either west to join your second army or go north to mirkwood for reinforcements and to push the goblins back in the northern theatre.

while all of this is going on, gather your very small force in caras galadhon and push immediately towards Moria. if its full of goblins or not it doesnt matter. IMO, it is better to attack Moria now and lose half your army than to wait 20 turns while you defend against stack after stack of Goblins. the balrog event will pop up. dont worry though. if youre lucky the balrog will go north. if not he will attack your elves in the flank as soon as the moria garrison sallies forth. if this happens, first of all destroy the goblins that sally forth from moria, capture the gate with a unit while the enemy retreats and rush half your forces into the town center. your forces outside need only to hold the balrog back for 3 minutes before victory is yours and the balrog perishes.

from then on begin to push north through the mountains. try and lose as few elves as possible, since reinforcements are few at this point. also dont let go of your economy. set taxes to low for population growth, make markets, forest paths, Art galleries (they give a bonus to trade), and mines. ALWAYS focus on building mines first for large amounts of money. dont use your precious small income for more troops, use it to develop your economy.

if everything goes well the dwarves will also be pushing north, and your elves will have captured almost all of the goblin settlements. if you still dont get the faction destroyed message i recommend you send a spy or an army to check the far north. usually the Goblins have a small village as capital near Gram. capture it and Gram as well to destroy the Goblins.

now keep focusing on your economy and if you have some spare income build some reinforcements. merge both your armies into one (or 2 if you have enough troops) and its time to attack Isengard (if they havent attacked you already). gather one full stack of elves. keep preference over the Sentinels instead of the elven archers. about 4 spearmen is a good bet, while the rest should be archers and at least 2 bodyguards. your objective is to go and capture isengard. you have 2 choices here: either go straight for isengard ignoring all armies or take your time and destroy them. i recommend that you ignore them so you can lure them to Isengard after you siege it so you can destroy them all at the same time.

get to isengard and siege it. if you had spare troops in a second army, send them over the pass to the west of Moria to attack isengard's soft underbelly. they have 2 or 3 settlements there but they are usually just large towns or cities full of dunlendings, with some small parties of uruks to back them up. they are not terribly hard to capture. just siege, capture, rinse and repeat.

after isengard falls, or around this time, the Dark Lord will usually call an invasion of Edoras. ignore this for now and hunt out all the Isengard settlements that you can find. siege and destroy them. get a diplomat then return the settlements to Rohan. trust me, it would take like 30 turns before you can get any benefit from any rohan settlement. just give them back to rohan. if you are a cheap ass, you can ask them for gold, but usually theyre too poor to give you more than some 1000 gold pieces.

regardless of how Mordor is doing against Gondor, they usually capture some Rohan settlements in the east, so go retake them. if Edoras comes under siege by a lot of enemy forces, i recommend you go over there and save them. this is a truly excellent chance to kill loads of faction leaders and generals, who randomly walk about alone with no armies. by this time Isengard might lose their last settlement and disappear, giving you mastery of Isengard. on contrary to what i said earlier, you might want to take over one of the far eastern settlements of Rohan and turn it into a staging ground. use it to stop any Mordor incursions into Rohan.

from now what you do is up to you. you can choose to go help Dale and the Dwarves in their war against Rhun, or you can go south to help gondor. you could also go tackle Mordor directly. whatever you do is up to you.

i hope i was of some assistance.

[Vifarc]

Good advices from Eugenioso, even I dislike rushing DolGuldur, Moria and IsengardTower: the game becomes too easy (I play VH/VH as it must be).

[Vaz]

First thing you should ever do is build a Stables, but don't build any HA's. You'll recieve your "best unit" as a reward for mssions, meaning 4 Free Horse Archers, which can defeat almost entire stats. Another thing to try is use your Horse Archers to shoot all arrows, and then just retreat.

Ambushes with Silvan Horse Archers are insane.

Dol Guldor should be wiped out ASAP. It's one less enemy. Move to take out Fangorn Forest, and get the Ents to use as soon as possible. Dwarves have poor standings with you following the results of the Lonely Mountain - this means that you'll need to try a little bit harder - ranging from granting a lot of money to a settlement. It might not be worth it.

Some settlements, such as the village to the north will come under regular attack from the Goblins. Due to your quality for archery, you'll want to keep your Archers outside for field battles, and your Forest Wardens, and Spearmen inside (although Spearmen less so).