How I defend as Gondor.

[Jordan1318]

How I defend as Gondor.

Hey, this is my first post on this forum so i decided to try to do something big. Not as big as a campaign guide, but nothing small either.
Okay so, i started playing this mod about 2 weeks ago, and i played 1.1 for a bit, then played 1.2, then 1.3 and now im playing 1.4 I have a campaign going for every single faction and would consider myself to be an average level player.
All my campaigns are m/m and most are around the 20/30 turns mark with 2 or 3 of them around 50/60 turns.

Well anyway gondor is a pretty hard campaign compared so some others, because like.. well lets face it. Mordor spams you every single second with 10000000000 orcs or something, and i havnt even got to the trolls yet .

So anyway, i just spent the last 2 hours, taking pictures, and making notes of one battle, so i can share with you a good way i have found to defend, and also some info on my campaign as it stands, now i know there are some guides that are like.. leave east Osgiliath and defend the bridge. Or do this that and the other, but I dont feel the need to abandon the east just yet, so for now I will defend the city as I will show now.

The battle takes place in East Osgiliath with the enemy being led by a Captain "Gorthak" who leads 1513 orcs. I am defending the city with my General "Faramir" and 833 men. I didnt get a good look at the orc army's make up, but its the usual stuff around the 20/25 turn mark. I know im not heavily outnumbered either, but hopefully this post could help for that too, 2 turns previous i beat off an army equally as big, with a fifth of the heavy infantry used for this battle.

For this battle i have
1x Ithilien Rangers (Faramir i believe)
1x Generals Bodyguard (didnt get his name)
5x Archer Millitia
5x Gondor Millitia ( well, 4 and a half)
1x Pelargir Marines
1x Axemen of Lossarnach (9 men)

Enemy has numerous orcs.. no archers of any sort, and no general ( i know they would have lasted a little longer with a general amongst them, and i would have lost a few more men if they had had archers too. *there is no trolls as yet in this stage of the campaign*)

So.. anyway, a lot of people like to defend on the walls, I used to do this, but found my men could easily get overwhelmed and routed, then rallying at the centre was almost pointless as many were dead already.

There probably isn't many better ways to defend your city than this, for this particular battle and if you can come up with one, which beats my battle result, I'll erm...Nevermind. Just, well done if you can, with proof


Okay, enough rambeling, onto the main event. There is like.. 50 something pictures.. And i hope they have worked properly, using the spoiler thing.. anyway, enjoy. And i hope i can help a few of you defending from the orc hoards.



To start off the defence, I set up on the Central Plaza like this.

2 Units of Gondor Millitia guarding the main path up to the plaza, with Pelagir Marines behind to throw spears into the masses, with back up from 3 more units of Gondor Millitia in loose formation, so that the 5 units of Archer millitia, and Ithilien Rangers Cause less casualties when shooting low over their heads. (They seem to like killing their own people a lot ) Then I have my Heavy Cavelry General at the left side of the plaza entrance, to be used later on as you will see
Archers set to use flaming ammunition, to lower the orcs morale, and for cool effect
Gondor millita NOT set to guard mode.

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Here is a picture of the Enemy army, right after they smashed through my gate.

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As my archers open fire. (Litteraly )

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View over the heads of my men as spears are thrown.

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My men charge forward (4% enemies killed already)

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First enemies already routing (picture messed up abit my bad using paint.)

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Victory seems certain!

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More routing

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Running my men back to the plaza so they dont get swarmed by oncoming enemies, ready to charge again.

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Charging out

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Cool overhead. (25% enemies killed)

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More routing

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Orcs getting cooked in background. Also routing enemies

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Charging at new coming enemies

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37% enemies killed

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More routing ( also my own men are set on fire, thats the only disadvantage of firing on enemies so close to your troops)

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RUN AWAY!!!

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Manouvering cavelry to get out of the city to chase down routing enemy

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From here to here..

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Men back on plaza ready to charge again. ( more routing)

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And to here

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Chase them!

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From the orcs point of view ( they are wavering, with my men about to charge).

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Run orcs'!

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The masacre as viewed from space. LOL >.<

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Capturing the enemy

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And again

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Smile for the camera

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69% enemies killed

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TAKE THAT YOU EVIL HALF MONKEY (Enemy general being killed by the guy about to bring down his sword.)

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Flash own, and enemy.

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Enemy wavering

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They sent off some orc raiders to break off the attack to try to stop my cavelry capturing all the routing enemies.

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75% enemies killed

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Orcs burning.

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Orcs trying to chase my cavelry

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Archers out of ammo

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Out manouvered the enemy and got the cavelry back into the castle.

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Tight formation for the fun of it.

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Charging out to kill the remaining enemies

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Using the rangers to lead the charge because of their experience giving them 10 attack with 2 charge bonus. (more than the millitia, better for routing wavering enemies)

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Exactly the same picture. OOPS. But seeing as i took it, i may aswell include it

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Routing enemies that i didnt even charge at. Wow, they are so cowardly.

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Routing enemies i did charge at without even making contact.

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More enemies down here decide to join in the fun

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These guys are still thinking about it.

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Also the cavelry get some more fun

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They decide to join the rout.

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The orcs that were chasing my cavelry around outside decide to come back to the main battle. Only too late for them.

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Without noticing my cavelry get suprise attacked, from idk where. But make them rout too.

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Charge and fight the new intruders!

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Cavelry prepare to charge into the rear of the new fight.

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Victory

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Chase the people closest to escaping first.

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Result

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Statistics

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There is the end of the battle. I hope you may have learned from this anything at all. If not, but you have enjoyed reading, or not enjoyed it, please comment to say what you liked or not so i know if it was worth my time. Or what i could have made better. I may post future battle results using the same technique.

Ty for reading its now 5.30 AM and i am going to bed ! =]


Edit : Campaign notes i forgot. I am at turn 23 with 9171 gold.

Notes
gb=Generals bodyguard
am= Archer Militia
gm=Gondor Militia
pm=Pelagir Marines
fg=Fountain Guard
gs=Gondor Spearmen
cm=Cavelry militia

City............................. | Income | Troops
E Osgiliath....................... 470.......... 2gb 5am 5gm 1pm
W Osgiliath....................... 498........ 1gb 6gm
East fort of Minas Tirith..................... 1fg 1gs 2gm
North "" "" "" "" ................................. 2gm
West "" "" "" "" ................................. 2gm
Minas Tirith...................... 2793........ 1gb 3gm 2am 1gs 2cm
Pelagir............................ 1473........... 1gb 2pm
Arnach........................... 1162............ 1gb
Linhir.............................. 951............ 1gb 1gm
Tarnost........................... 783............. 1gb 1gm
Calembel........................ 1080.............. 1gb 1gm
Erech............................. 936............... 1gb
Dol Amroth...................... 1914.............. 1gb 1am 4gm
Pinnath Gelin................... 594................ 1gb 1gm
Lond Galen..................... 858................. 1gb 1gm
Annulond....................... 352.................. 1gm

Also an army of 3cm 4gm 2am 1 Axemen of lossarnach by Erech City, going to the rebel town which is south of Linhir, across the little islands. And will also then be used to take the small island off the coast to the west, if enough troops remain.




Once again. Ty for reading, any comment or critisizm is welcome. =]

[HappyGoodVibes]

Nice job! I enjoy pictures lol.

[Quintus Augustus]

damn the battle didnt look too hard but with so many pictures and as ur first post... +rep

[SamwiseTheGay]

yeah i hold them at e. osgiliath too, but i keep them outside the city.
with archers on the walls, you can kill like 15-30% before they even break through/climb ladders
and their infantry are weak enough that they wont take the walls from a full unit of infantry
holding them at the gate is easy, as they will pack so densely together that javelins and arrows do massive damage, and if you let them in a bit you can expose their flanks, and hit them from 180 degrees.
and also swapping out infantry at the gates as they get tired with fresh units waiting behind makes a big difference.
then cavalry can swarm the mob when the army routs and clean up

ive held out armies of 5000+ (reinforced, and with no/bad general) with 3/4 stack half infantry half archers with not too many casualties (on vh/vh)
of course then trolls come into play and then your back at minas tirith fighting for your life

[Wolfsblut]

Spending so much time for a post and add so many screenshots is always worth the time.

+rep

[axnsan]

4% before the fighting begins is worse than lame.

It's much better to have archers on the walls, and infantry blocking the gate. That way you get 15-30% before they break the gate, you get a big defense bonus against the troops that take the ladders/towers, and you get boiling oil and supporting fire from your archers even after the fight begins (it's a really great shooting angle from the wall down to the gate unless your archers are kissing the gate towers)

Also, about flame ammo: don't.
Seriously, don't. Unless they are at shaken-wavering morale with their general dead, it's really not worth it. They won't rout.
Normal ammo has better accuracy and higher firing rate, and is much better for inflicting casualties.

Still +rep for the effort of writing this all down.

[mattgoby]

you used your archers wrong, 4%killed before batll starts ent gud, u shud hope for at least 10%. also when you said numerous orks you ment about 700 this tactic would not have worked with 3000. to defend the plaza pu you infantry in 2 groups both away from the street the enemy is walking down then when the enemy march into the plaza charge your infantry into them so they are forced to giht on opposite sides the repeatedly carge any cavalry you have nto the gap between you two infantry clumps. always works for me except when i didnt notice the enemy had olog hai coming round the backstreets and all my cavalry got wiped.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Cool Story i liked it a lot ^^

[Valaraukar]

First of all : Welcome ! Plus you really are a perfectionnist, I never saw someone writing so much and explaining so clearly in his first post
Your tactic isn't bad but I agree with axnsan, fire arrows are useless, normal arrows do more damage... the fact is that I play with the huge unit scale so it's a bit different when you have to defend a city/castle... but yeah at the beginnig with Gondor, when you only have militia, don't let them on the walls, they are too few to resist against two or three orc units with siege-towers...but later, when you'll have citadel guards and gondor infantry, no one will resist you on the walls so your central place-tactic won't be usefull anymore...
But great job (for all the pics also) and again : welcome

[Kamakai]

God how long did it take you to do that post

[Wrain]

I use this strategy when i am badly outnumbered and it work very well. I don't use flaming arrows, it's fun too see an archery militia unit killing more then 300-400 orcs at the end of the battle. Usually i set Boromir (Foutain Guards ftw) guarding the path with 2-3 Gondor Militia just behind him. Work like a charm.

[Shocked]

It's usually better to hold the gate and walls , but good job anyway.

[Serbon1911]

It's usually better to hold the gate and walls , but good job anyway.

It is easy to defend walls, but what do you do when the gate is breached?
Mordor has trolls with are unmatched when on walls and deadly when storming the front gate...
My experience when defending the walls is the same as his, units rout or die, and he is playing Third age for 2 weeks now (if I understood right). I have been playing for almost a year and survived battles I could never win if I had defend on the walls. I usually use the streets to make enemies mass at a single place, and when archers open fire, not a single arrow misses!
When their general is killed, I use my cavalry to hit them from behind, and they start to rout. Few minutes later, over 2000 captured enemies!

[Lord Uxbridge]

Woah, loads of rep on first post +rep

[Raymond Agustin]

Although I hate Archers ( because I'm playing as the Dwarves ) I gotta agree with the rest, that's nicely done and great effort man.

[Serbon1911]

Why do you play with such small forces? Set unit numbers to huge and you'll see a great battle!
Are you using any mods, or is it just regular 1.4.1?
Also, DON'T use flaming ammo!!! It always hits your own people, it's less accurate than regular...

Anyway, GOOD JOB!
You will see later in the game, when TROLLS and OLOG-HAI come! Use axemen in the front lines, you will have less casualties and axemen have armor piercing skill, witch is good against them.

[damnmap]

In defense always place archers on the walls they do hilarious damage from up there.

[Jordan1318]

Nice job! I enjoy pictures lol.

Thank you =]

damn the battle didnt look too hard but with so many pictures and as ur first post... +rep

Ill try to make a custom battle later, with more enemy units. I wont make as many pictures, and ill use the same strategy as here.

yeah i hold them at e. osgiliath too, but i keep them outside the city.
with archers on the walls, you can kill like 15-30% before they even break through/climb ladders
and their infantry are weak enough that they wont take the walls from a full unit of infantry

I will try this later with the archers on the walls. Placing them where the enemy wont scale the ladders, but also so they can still shoot the enemies.
+
I find with my millitia infantry they will hold for a short ammount of time, but when the gate is breached they will just rush up the towers and swarm my men from every side anyway.

holding them at the gate is easy, as they will pack so densely together that javelins and arrows do massive damage, and if you let them in a bit you can expose their flanks, and hit them from 180 degrees.
and also swapping out infantry at the gates as they get tired with fresh units waiting behind makes a big difference.
then cavalry can swarm the mob when the army routs and clean up

I will try this later aswell, holding them at the gate, but i have found that, when they rush every unit through, you lose quite a few more men than holding the centre, as they seem to come 2/3 units at a time, and not 15/16 rushing through over the men.

ive held out armies of 5000+ (reinforced, and with no/bad general) with 3/4 stack half infantry half archers with not too many casualties (on vh/vh)
of course then trolls come into play and then your back at minas tirith fighting for your life

I will play this battle too, and post results aswell, Did you fight against trolls in this 5000+ army? Im not going to set it up with trolls, but i will after if thats what you faced.
Also I will use my own tactic and see which saves for fewer losses.

Spending so much time for a post and add so many screenshots is always worth the time.

+rep

Thanks

4% before the fighting begins is worse than lame.

It's much better to have archers on the walls, and infantry blocking the gate. That way you get 15-30% before they break the gate, you get a big defense bonus against the troops that take the ladders/towers, and you get boiling oil and supporting fire from your archers even after the fight begins (it's a really great shooting angle from the wall down to the gate unless your archers are kissing the gate towers)

Also, about flame ammo: don't.
Seriously, don't. Unless they are at shaken-wavering morale with their general dead, it's really not worth it. They won't rout.
Normal ammo has better accuracy and higher firing rate, and is much better for inflicting casualties.

Still +rep for the effort of writing this all down.

Ok i will put archers on the walls (normal ammo), not right next to the gate, but still so they can fight the enemies that come up with ladders? is that what you mean?
And i will put all my infantry blocking the gate. See what happens. And post results and a few pictures. If i have not done it how you say, comment back or show some pictures so i can set it up propely, comparing our strategies.

Cool Story i liked it a lot ^^

Thanks

First of all : Welcome ! Plus you really are a perfectionnist, I never saw someone writing so much and explaining so clearly in his first post
Your tactic isn't bad but I agree with axnsan, fire arrows are useless, normal arrows do more damage... the fact is that I play with the huge unit scale so it's a bit different when you have to defend a city/castle... but yeah at the beginnig with Gondor, when you only have militia, don't let them on the walls, they are too few to resist against two or three orc units with siege-towers...but later, when you'll have citadel guards and gondor infantry, no one will resist you on the walls so your central place-tactic won't be usefull anymore...
But great job (for all the pics also) and again : welcome

Thanks, I will play a similar battle again, using normal arrows instead. Still only with millitia infantry. I dont have citadel guards yet, so learning how to defend against big mordor armies with my militia will probably also help a lot of people at the start of the campaign.
I will post results too using the same strategy.

you used your archers wrong, 4%killed before batll starts ent gud, u shud hope for at least 10%. also when you said numerous orks you ment about 700 this tactic would not have worked with 3000. to defend the plaza pu you infantry in 2 groups both away from the street the enemy is walking down then when the enemy march into the plaza charge your infantry into them so they are forced to giht on opposite sides the repeatedly carge any cavalry you have nto the gap between you two infantry clumps. always works for me except when i didnt notice the enemy had olog hai coming round the backstreets and all my cavalry got wiped.

Actually it was 1513 orcs. But anyway yes, im going to use normal arrows, set the battle up almost the same, but with more enemies, in this battle, my losses compared to theirs was something like 1/23.3 which (just going by the numbers) means i could have beat an army 23 times the size, around about 30000 orcs. (if my troops didnt get tired and run out of ammo and such)

Also i will try your tactic, and post pictures and results.

God how long did it take you to do that post

About 2 and a half hours.

I use this strategy when i am badly outnumbered and it work very well. I don't use flaming arrows, it's fun too see an archery militia unit killing more then 300-400 orcs at the end of the battle. Usually i set Boromir (Foutain Guards ftw) guarding the path with 2-3 Gondor Militia just behind him. Work like a charm.

I am going to post results of a similiar battle with the same strategy, using normal arrows. And i will use 1 unit of fountain guards, with 3 millita behind them defending the path. And archers behind them, similar to the ammount used in my battle.

It's usually better to hold the gate and walls , but good job anyway.

I will try it, but i doubt this tactic, as coming from playing rome, both expansions, Medieval 2, kingdoms, and now this. always defending at the walls and gate i lose a lot more infantry than i normally would with this tactic i have shown. but like i said, pictures and results are coming soon.

Although I hate Archers ( because I'm playing as the Dwarves ) I gotta agree with the rest, that's nicely done and great effort man.

I also have a campaign going as the dwarfs and i find those damn orc skirmishers the most annoying. They are too fast to catch. =\ Thanks for the reply

Why do you play with such small forces? Set unit numbers to huge and you'll see a great battle!
Are you using any mods, or is it just regular 1.4.1?
Also, DON'T use flaming ammo!!! It always hits your own people, it's less accurate than regular...

I play with such small forces, as my computer isnt that good, 2.4ghz dual core processor. 2gig of ram, an integrated nvidia gforce 7050 graphics card. And im using vista the ram hog.
Using smaller forces lets me play with less lag, and set to higher quality, i may lower the quality and raise the unit numbers and make another battle

Anyway, GOOD JOB!
You will see later in the game, when TROLLS and OLOG-HAI come! Use axemen in the front lines, you will have less casualties and axemen have armor piercing skill, witch is good against them.

tehehe. When they come!

In defense always place archers on the walls they do hilarious damage from up there.

From my experience they seem to do the exact opposite as you say, although i will be trying this once again later.

Good work! And nice pics! But rather than wait for a siege to push through your gates, sally out if you have archers and get the chance. Once the quivers are empty and cavalry have smashed any diminished units, you can then escape into your walls and end the battle as a successful sally! A good sally could knock 40%+ off a full stack of orc scum, and then you can use the man-the-wall tactics outlined above to nail that coffin lid down! I tend to use your plaza tactics when horribly outnumbered and trying to make them pay dearly - I flee from the walls as they break in and take up positions almost identical to yours!

Look forward to seeing your future campaign commentaries!

Next time i get attacked, i will sally out first to try to wear them down, then fight the battle when they come.
Thanks for the reply.

It is easy to defend walls, but what do you do when the gate is breached?
Mordor has trolls with are unmatched when on walls and deadly when storming the front gate...
My experience when defending the walls is the same as his, units rout or die, and he is playing Third age for 2 weeks now (if I understood right). I have been playing for almost a year and survived battles I could never win if I had defend on the walls. I usually use the streets to make enemies mass at a single place, and when archers open fire, not a single arrow misses!
When their general is killed, I use my cavalry to hit them from behind, and they start to rout. Few minutes later, over 2000 captured enemies!

They dont have trolls but exactly my point, using infntry to defend the gate as its breached, usually results in more losses for me. Posting pictures later.

Woah, loads of rep on first post +rep

[Anfauglir]

Good work! And nice pics! But rather than wait for a siege to push through your gates, sally out if you have archers and get the chance. Once the quivers are empty and cavalry have smashed any diminished units, you can then escape into your walls and end the battle as a successful sally! A good sally could knock 40%+ off a full stack of orc scum, and then you can use the man-the-wall tactics outlined above to nail that coffin lid down! I tend to use your plaza tactics when horribly outnumbered and trying to make them pay dearly - I flee from the walls as they break in and take up positions almost identical to yours!

Look forward to seeing your future campaign commentaries!

[Jordan1318]

Forget most of that ^

Custom battles with cities? howwwwww?

Will be using my campaign battles till i know.
thanks