Factions guide

[Alex-ander]

I am putting together a factions guide its based on comments from the forum, personal experience and a couple of nice guides. It started out as a personal guide for myself. But if i will publish it in the guides section if it gets completed .

It is very much a work in progress. At the moment i have quite a lot on the good factions apart from Eriador but very little on the evil factions apart from Isengard. So for now i need tips and hints on any of the following factions Rhun, Harad.

Any help will be appreciated and i will try to acknowledge any significance contributions.

[Shocked]

When playing as Rhun it is important to take the two castle regions near the sea, (Uldonaven and Dorwinon) as soon as possible, you can then launch attacks on Dale from those two castles, or defend them against Dale while you work on your economy (building roads, farms, markets etc.)

[FOR GONDOR]

while playing sivian elves its a good idea to 1. clear mirkwood of all mordor armies 2. take control of the regoins inbetween the misty mts and mirkwood 3. ally with dwarves and dale 4. get 5 full stacks of advanced units and send them from where dol goldur is to go into mordor 6. take out malgalad and use it sa your army building after a while 7 kick mordors ass 8. go into rhun or hard to fight while back in lorian kill the ootmm

[Hazza88]

Well,

Eriador - concentrate on simply mopping up surrounding bandit areas first. Then, once Rohan and Isengard are at war, you should have no fear fighting Isengard. The best tactic there is to rely on large numbers of cavalry: Isengard's wargs are pretty useless, and a cavalry charge, especially en masse, will break almost any Isengard army. Use infantry to hold them in place and hobbit archers are effective. Of course, all this advice will be redundant by 2.0 when there will be a new enemy in the north and a lack of dunedain cavalry early on.

Silvan Elves - drive Mordor out of Mirkwood straight away which is relatively easy. Then war with the OOTMM, which should be similarly easy to chew to pieces. Beware the Balrog though: best to take everywhere else the OOTMM has and then they will hopefully collapse. Battle tactics are the same for both those: lots of archers, let them attack, and shoot them to pieces. Early elven infantry is also surprisingly good, and well capable of taking on most foes. Elven infantry is also very quick, which is good for collecting captives at the end.

Dwarves - didnt finish the campaign as I find the Dwarves quite frustrating to play, but generally, Iron Crossbowmen and lots of them are vital to combat the annoying snaga skirmishers. In hand to hand combat the Dwarves are pretty much unbeatable, and certainly destroy OOTMM infantry. Wherever possible, get cavalry in order to hunt down captives.

Rhun (current) - Involved in a war to the death with Dale from the start. Eastern Dwarves rarely troublesome. Dale's armies rely on archery, which is both numerous and quite high quality. To combat this, you should try and recruit archers, and in particular the Variags, which as mounted archers are good at dealing with archery. Ordinary cavalry can also be key. Ordinary Rhun infantry is capable of holding its own against Dale infantry and Balcloth javelinmen can be devastating. It is important to remember though that Dale infantry really are TERRIBLE, and they break very easily. Every battle should start with an attempt to kill their artillery first and foremost. In the campaign, Dorwinion is the ideal base from which to destroy Dale.

Harad - You tell me. Gondor's armies are too numerous and high quality to make much headway with your early units (haradrim archers are desperately poor, and the infantry not much better). I suspect the Mumakil might be the key, but I lost patience before I could get them. Either way, dont rely on Mordor to make your life easy dealing with Gondor: occasionally, as in my game, Mordor can do , even losing Minas Morgul. If that happens, it can be worthwhile to pursue peace with Gondor, and tech up til you have mumakil (I expect). My campaign goal would be to secure Harondor whilst Mordor takes Ithilien, but if Mordor lets you down, this is very tough campaign.

[Rilsaur]

Well,
Harad - You tell me. Gondor's armies are too numerous and high quality to make much headway with your early units (haradrim archers are desperately poor, and the infantry not much better). I suspect the Mumakil might be the key, but I lost patience before I could get them. Either way, dont rely on Mordor to make your life easy dealing with Gondor: occasionally, as in my game, Mordor can do , even losing Minas Morgul. If that happens, it can be worthwhile to pursue peace with Gondor, and tech up til you have mumakil (I expect). My campaign goal would be to secure Harondor whilst Mordor takes Ithilien, but if Mordor lets you down, this is very tough campaign.

The trick to Harad early on is their cavalry. It's better than Gondor's militia that they have early on and can give you the edge in battles. Harad is a very challenging campaign, horrible infantry and most everything else, as dirt poor lands. But you can do well. In my current one, Mordor is actually doing very well too, having taken much lands in the north and holding most of the Eastern bank of the Anduin, last I checked. Mumakil are indeed, the key. a single unit of Mumakil can take out at least 600 men by it's own.

[Shocked]

I played as Harad and it is easy, you need heaps of archers (even though they are crap) they helped me win battles, also gather all of the generals from the territories and put them together at the head of your armies and use them as powerful cavalry, the generals bodyguards and archers are two good weapons to use against the gondorian infantry and cavalry. Also use Corsairs, they have high defense skill and a high attack