Are there Any (ta)TW Campaign guides?

[dizzyjai]

because i haven't ever played a Total war campaign and i seem to be going into negative money by the 30th turn every campaign ( and i've played the campaign about 12 times on diff factions ) ! are there any tutorials/guides i can look at?

[Death's Deputy]

Hey Dizzy, try looking in the "guides & fan art" section of TATW forum; it should be accessible via a link near the top of the main page of this forum.

If you haven't ever played a TW campaign before then don't worry, it's understandable that you're having a few issues. I'm a seasoned Total War player having played every game since Shogun, and even I had a few issues with TATW campaign to begin with (now been playing for about 3 weeks). First of all I played with the Dwarfs - I had no problems building a strong economy but I turtled too much and by mid game i was screwed. I then played as Mordor, but their economy is really weak and I found myself struggling to hold off Gondor, let alone cover middle earth in darkness! I'm currently playing as the High Elves, I'm 150 turns in, have vanquished Gundabad and nearly beaten OotMM, currently fighting a vicious war with Isengard, but due to my archers they lose 30% of their troops before even reaching my lines! And my economy is doing well.

So my tips to a beginner are:

- Pick a faction that isn't too hard to play; you might want to ask around and people have different preferences/opinions but I'd go with High Elves.

- Keep a tight check on the purse strings at all times - don't let yourself be loosing money (maybe acceptable for 1/2 turns if you know a cash injection is on way).

- Keep taxes as low as possible at start of game to boost economic growth - you should still have enough cash to build economic buildings and some units for grabbing rebel settlements.

- Familiarise yourself with the map so you know what rebel settlements to try and grab early on - otherwise you'll miss out on these. Save regularly if you don't mind reloading and use spies to find nearby rebel settlements.

- At start build roads everywhere that doesn't have them, then farms/grain exchanges. Town Halls can also help fight corruption.

- Use the "move capital" option to your advantage - you want your capital to be as close to the geographical centre of your empire as possible. This decreases corruption significantly and leads to more income. Corruption can be a real killer in this game.

- Don't adopt/marry into family any more generals (unless maybe you lose one in a battle). I'm in midgame now (130 turns) and I've only just adopted my first general, to defend a settlement being attacked regular by Isengard whilst my strongest general goes to take Moria.

There are lots of other tips too, and also some faction specific one's. So check the guides, read what I have said (and I'm sure others will post stuff too) and then give it another go. If you want more help, come back and tell us what faction you want to play as

[dizzyjai]

Hey Dizzy, try looking in the "guides & fan art" section of TATW forum; it should be accessible via a link near the top of the main page of this forum.

If you haven't ever played a TW campaign before then don't worry, it's understandable that you're having a few issues. I'm a seasoned Total War player having played every game since Shogun, and even I had a few issues with TATW campaign to begin with (now been playing for about 3 weeks). First of all I played with the Dwarfs - I had no problems building a strong economy but I turtled too much and by mid game i was screwed. I then played as Mordor, but their economy is really weak and I found myself struggling to hold off Gondor, let alone cover middle earth in darkness! I'm currently playing as the High Elves, I'm 150 turns in, have vanquished Gundabad and nearly beaten OotMM, currently fighting a vicious war with Isengard, but due to my archers they lose 30% of their troops before even reaching my lines! And my economy is doing well.

So my tips to a beginner are:

- Pick a faction that isn't too hard to play; you might want to ask around and people have different preferences/opinions but I'd go with High Elves.

- Keep a tight check on the purse strings at all times - don't let yourself be loosing money (maybe acceptable for 1/2 turns if you know a cash injection is on way).

- Keep taxes as low as possible at start of game to boost economic growth - you should still have enough cash to build economic buildings and some units for grabbing rebel settlements.

- Familiarise yourself with the map so you know what rebel settlements to try and grab early on - otherwise you'll miss out on these. Save regularly if you don't mind reloading and use spies to find nearby rebel settlements.

- At start build roads everywhere that doesn't have them, then farms/grain exchanges. Town Halls can also help fight corruption.

- Use the "move capital" option to your advantage - you want your capital to be as close to the geographical centre of your empire as possible. This decreases corruption significantly and leads to more income. Corruption can be a real killer in this game.

- Don't adopt/marry into family any more generals (unless maybe you lose one in a battle). I'm in midgame now (130 turns) and I've only just adopted my first general, to defend a settlement being attacked regular by Isengard whilst my strongest general goes to take Moria.

There are lots of other tips too, and also some faction specific one's. So check the guides, read what I have said (and I'm sure others will post stuff too) and then give it another go. If you want more help, come back and tell us what faction you want to play as

Thanks. I have a question. What effects where i can build certain buildings and certain troops and what effects how often troops are available? Also, you said about don't let your self loose money at all times. How do i do that while keeping up with the army upkeep and wages? =\

[Death's Deputy]

Thanks. I have a question. What effects where i can build certain buildings and certain troops and what effects how often troops are available? Also, you said about don't let your self loose money at all times. How do i do that while keeping up with the army upkeep and wages? =\

1. TATW uses a "culture" system, you won't be familiar with it if you've not played TATW before so I'll explain quickly.

If you look in the settlement details screen you'll see a "culture" bar. This shows what "culture" the people in this settlement are in a breakdown of percentages. There can be many different cultures in a settlement at once, however you want your culture to dominate. This increases happiness in the settlement and lets you build units (the better the unit, the higher percentage of your culture you need to build it).

This often heavily restricts the units you can train when you first capture a settlement - I believe this has been put in for balancing reasons and works against AI and Human alike. It prevents "rushing" tactics from being too successful, as it takes a long time to reinforce armies near the front if you don't develop the settlements you capture. Your army becomes overstreatched and weakened and you/the AI are forced to either retreat or capitulate. Blitzkrieg style invasions thus take lots of planning since you can't just pump out fresh elite units from recently captured enemy settlements. Personally I'd like to see some basic "auxillary" units available in non-converted settlements as sometimes the balancing is too restraining, plus it would add some extra unit diversity to the game. But that's just my preference.

Basically the best way to get around this effectively is to build your factions "culture building" ASAP once you capture a settlement (providing the settlement is big enough). This will usually take 2 turns to build, and will add 1-2% of your culture per turn. Thus a settlement completely alien to your culture will take perhaps 20 turns (maybe a little less) before you can start building even basic units there. Although some generals might have culture boosting traits, not sure about this tho. You can view the percentage you need for each unit on their unit card, about 15 - 30% for basic units, up to 80% for more elite units.

Each factions culture is as follows (some share cultures):

Dwarves - Dwarven Culture

High Elves, Sylvian Elves - Elven Culture

Rohan, Dale - Northmen Culture

Gondor - Numernorian Culture (I think)

Eriador/Arnor - I think they are Numernorian culture too though they might be Northmen

Rhun, Harad, Orcs of MM, Orcs of Gundabad, Isengard, Mordor - (followers of) Melkor Culture. All "evil" factions share the same culture I believe.

I know that seems a bit complex but tbh its fairly simple once you get familiar with it.

2. Controlling army costs; well some factions seems to have more issues with this than others. The biggest problem with this tends to be in early game; later on it gets easier. Consider how big you need your armies need to be. Use spies to help with this and consider the following factors:

- Are you likely to be attacked; if so, where? How big is the attack likely to be? How many units will you need to safely repel it? Concentrate your garrison forces in those settlements most likely to face attack. The rest can be left with just one/two units. Generally speaking you need less men when defending settlements than when attacking settlements, as when defending them you have the advantage of walls.

- If you are doing the attacking then consider who you are gonna be fighting and how many units you will need to win and still control the settlement afterwards? There's no point in taking a full stack to capture a rebel settlement guarded by 1 unit!!!

- Be aware that Elves (and most "good" factions) can often defeat armies of goblins and orcs many times their size, as orcs often have many weak units and are usually poorly armed, trained and equipped compared with the "good" guys. I often use "half stacks" with the elves early on, comprising 1 cavalry general, 3-4 infantry units and 5-6 archers - used properly these can destroy the early snaga-based armies of the OoTMM and Gundabad factions.

- When playing as an "evil" faction you can use the "invasion" tool to your advantage. Simply ask Sauron to call an "invasion" of a settlement you're thinking of attacking; if he accepts then any generals you have who join the invasion will have their armies upkeep abolished until the invasion is completed - leaving you a hell of a lot richer in the process! You can "exploit" this a little bit if you like - once your army has reached the settlement and laid siege to it, you can wait around and starve them out rather than attacking, giving you free upkeep for longer and more cash as a result, though if you wait around too long the AI might bring up reinforcements and screw your plans! You also get a cash reward for completing an invasion. However be aware that Sauron may not have the settlement you have in mind on his list of acceptable targets, that other evil factions may call an invasion somewhere else before you get in, and that even if you call the invasion other evil factions may join and get to the settlement before you, reaping the rewards!

- Finally, be aware of the garrison script. This is a nasty (but possibly necessary) feature which only the AI gets - basically certain "significant" settlements automatically get a large army generated to help defend them when you lay siege...they appear out of the blue and can catch an inexperienced player completely off guard, screwing up their plans completely. I'm not sure of the full list of garrison scripted settlements, but I'm assuming it includes all starting capital cities, nd from my own disasterous experience it also includes Osgiliath So be aware of the garrison script and use a larger force to attack the settlements protected by it.

Hope that helps some, sorry for all the wall of text but take time to read it and I'm sure it'll help

[dannyalex]

Eriador/Arnor - I think they are Numernorian culture too though they might be Northmen

Eriador starts as Northmen culture, and when go as Arnor u take same culture like Gondor,and isnt numenorean but dunedain culture

[Hartassen]

I would suggest starting with the high elves. They're easy to play and their units are incredibly powerful.
Economy can be tricky at the start but at turn 1 you need to move your capital from imladris to mithlond (you may chaneg your capital back to imladris let's say 1 turn before you receive a quest reward where you get units, when you have the units turn back the capital to mithlond)
Prioritize roads, land clearance, communal farming, grain exchange markets etc before art galleries, leather tanners, vineyards and other such buildings. Your unit producing structures should be in imladris until your cities in the western part of your kingdom are capable of producing eldar units.
Set taxes at normal to begin with this ensures good growth while also allowing you to make a little bit of extra cash to help you out. I prefer to never adopt a general, your generals with wives will give you enough offspring to keep your general supply fresh. You will also be able to marry arwen away to a general (make sure he has 0 negative traits).

I prefer to keel elrohir in mithlond and elladan in forlond to ensure those cities get bigger faster and to boost income. Make sure that whenever you build a new structure you set the taxes to high (as in 1 turn before the building finishes) this ensures your general won't get the "poor taxman" trait which lowers tax income.

Try to only have free upkeep units in your cities to the west and move all archers with glorfindel to imladris where he can then gather more troops and launch an assault at ost-in-edhil (this is my preferred playstyle) instead of sending your generals away early in the west to capture lunelaith and eryn vorn/allimir I prefer to go for hoarwell, ost-in-edhil and coldfells.

Try to keep your units in cities as infantry with only some archers to back you up until you can make elven archers or better.
Then keep your main armies that siege and fight in open ground as archer heavy with only 2-3 infantry units. This is the best setup for elven armies.

If you need more advice just ask but thats off the top of my head.

P.S. I almost forgot, disband the Númenarrar boat you start with after you ferry elladan to forlond from harlond.

[dizzyjai]

It did help alot, thanks. One more thing thoe. You said about how culture effects the units i can build? does this mean that they show on the recruitment list instead of being grayed out as 0? does this also effect what buildings i can build?
And, what factor effects how often i can build troops from settlements? etc. how often they regenerate to build them?
Thank you for all your help Death's Deputy and Hartassen!

Also, how do i upgrade settlements?

[Lemoniser]

1. TATW uses a "culture" system, you won't be familiar with it if you've not played TATW before so I'll explain quickly.

haha that was quickly?!?!?!?!?!