Making it impossible for Mordor to capture Cair Andros

[damnmap]

One of my favourite TATW experiences is role-playing Gondor i.e. only taking a few rebel settlements and destroying all the endless Mordor stacks on the osgilliath bridge. Eventually Mordor will take Cair Andros despite me exploiting the ai (laying siege to it from my side to stop them) and this means all those huge armies run amok in anorien. I was wondering if I could force the the AI to leave it alone?

[Comandertony]

best strategy i found was push mordor back to minas morgul and take the settlement. that way you can either take cirith ungol and set up defenses there or hold onto the town and defend it there....more fun.

this forces fordor to move through the black gate (unless you take that as well) or through cirith ungol...its a tough push at the beggining but once you take Minas morgul you can build up your forces and hold the bridge to the north. that way you have mordor blocked off and you can focus on harad from the south.

[eugenioso]

there is one dirty trick i use:

block the river passages with a single unit. there are 2 passes.

[el Cid]

Just capture Cair Andros and keep an army there, it is pretty easy to defend as most armies will go to Osgiliath. Further into the game as Tony already pointed out capture Minas Morgul and the rest of Ithilien, then blitz the Black Gate. From there it is pretty easy to keep Mordor at bay at those two fortress choking points. When you're this far Harad will have started being naughty. Just put a stack onto a fleet and blitz their coastal settlements, and then push through to their two fortresses further inland. Once you're here the game gets pretty easy.

[Isildor]

If you have an army in Minas Thirid but don't conquer Osgiliath or Cair Andros Mordor willnot conquer this cities either. This is the easiest way to prevent that Mordor cross the Anduin.

[damnmap]

It appears that many of you did not fully understand the nature of my request...

Eugenio that is a very simple and clever solution, I laid siege when all I really needed to do is place some infantry against the fort on my side thus making it impossible for Mordor to move armies into anorien.

Still I will need to watch out for that haradrim diplomat and his bribes

[Ozzmosis]

Another great roleplaying thing: don't build roads around EOsgiliath or Henneth Annun and use faramir and rangers to ambush mordor stacks. With an ambush, it's really easy to take out loads of enemies (my standard ambush stack is 4 or 5 rangers, and 2 swan knights). Unless they have trolls, you can really easily take out any army.