Gondor Campaign vh/vh

[Duinhir]

First of, thankyou KK and team for making my boyhood dreams of fighting the battle for Middle Earth come true!!

That aside, I need help from you guys, tips really. I am playing Gondor on VH/VH and ut certainly is VH!!! Though I keep seeing threads from people saying they find Gondor easy?

Now I am on my second attempt, the first fifty or so turns I was constantly spammed by Mordor and Harad via Osgiliath. It took all my strength and resources to fend them off, especially when Sauron called a crusade against W-Osgiliath!!! Twice!!! Second time I lost it.

Fully expecting a full scale invasion I then started rebuilding my army at Minas Tirith but strangely it never came?? Now I had a big and expensive army with no fight coming to them.

I started building up my economy then, but before long the Dunlendings started pouring in from the West (Rohan had fallen).

I beat them off, only for Harad to send four full stack armies across the river at me and now I am giving up. My economy is in the red, I have few soldiers and a massive battle on my hands.

How can I avoid this in future? You are constantly attacked from turn 1, you never have a chance to build an economy, meanwhile Harad sits pretty with no-one attacking it. It seems the best hope is that Rohan does not fall and helps out a little because once they fall, you are basically surrounded by enemies.

I had loads of alliances but when I asked for help fighting the Dunlendings or Mordor, they told me I was mad!

Cant see how Gondor can do it alone plus there are two units who are nigh on invincible that are really bothering me, Dunlending Noble Pikemen and Harad Trollmen. Both of them annihalate my best troops with few casualties?? One on one against fountain guard with Gold armour bonus, the troll men win easily. I attacked one unit noble pike, with four full units of Gondor militia on all sides, they still destroyed everyone having lost only 40 men??

Any help here folks?

[son of romans]

Look in previous treads and learm how to use Fountain Guard,play more offensive,save game more often...

[Duinhir]

Look in previous treads and learm how to use Fountain Guard,play more offensive,save game more often...

Playing offensively hasnt really appeared to be an option, I am outnumbered from the start! Then Mordor quickly techs up to Trolls and then I am seriously in trouble. I beat them off but only after spending a lot of money maintaining a war of attrition.

Any chance of a pointer to a thread on how to use fountain guard please?

Thanks

[Miroslav Klose]

Give Gondor a try on an easier level, let's say M/M or M/H

[Duinhir]

Give Gondor a try on an easier level, let's say M/M or M/H

Ha ha, I want to do that very badly, but as you even install it, KK puts a message on it saying you should play VH/VH to ge the full experience. I feel like lowering the difficulty would be almost cheating, especially as others here have found Gondor 'easy'.

Dont know where I am going wrong but I never really pick up my economy because I am always being attacked and my money goes there.

[Ariaci]

Ha ha, I want to do that very badly, but as you even install it, KK puts a message on it saying you should play VH/VH to ge the full experience. I feel like lowering the difficulty would be almost cheating, especially as others here have found Gondor 'easy'.

Hello Duinhir,

At the moment KK is not watching us...(at least I hope)..... I play most of the time H/VH (campaign difficulty H). Even now I have played the mod for more then....I dont now....300 hours? Anyway, I like it better this way. This is 100% an opinion, but I would say try it at least.

Especially the beginning can be overwelming. It is totally different then the vanilla game.

And I personally do not think that Gondor is "easy". It might be easier then some other factions, but not easy in itself.

Ariaci

[Miroslav Klose]

The full game experience is probably a myth, as long as you enjoy your campaign and like it, then it is the full experience.

If you're not that experienced, just try another difficulty level.

And make Tarnost your capital. Gives +1000 each turn.

[Duinhir]

The full game experience is probably a myth, as long as you enjoy your campaign and like it, then it is the full experience.

If you're not that experienced, just try another difficulty level.

And make Tarnost your capital. Gives +1000 each turn.

I am quite experienced unfortunately lol! Hence defeat is stinging my pride more than a little ha ha!!

Thankyou for the Tarnost tip, I will definately try it

[son of romans]

Fountaun Guard can beat two units of trolls,first tell them to break formation,form a large block,a square,paste ''D'' to remove hold position and ''F'' to remuve phalanx,send tham with fuul speed to charge trolls.
You see my problem is that I like blitskrieg,with HE I have fastest campaign on forum at V/H ,the saim is my strategy with Gondor ,I masivly use General Bodygard and arcers,capture 4-5 settlements per turn...look here there are some advices.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=359548&page=2

[Erunion Telcontar]

Hmmm... Gondor really has two options. The first option is to blitz, just blitz blitz blitz. The second option is to turtle, but you must be smart! While getting your economy going, defend the bridge of Osgiliath. Just camp out with lots of archers, catapults and whatever infantry you can put there. Cair Andros is a decent castle to defend, but do not get hung up on the walls! If you can, defend the town square - your troops can't break, removing the bulk of mordor's dread advantage. Set archers on guard mode so that they can keep shooting even while engaged in melee. Try to keep Rohan alive. I can't remember the best tactics for fighting off Harad, but you should be able to figure it out. If they have Mumaks, counter with ballista's.

[Belkar]

I'm in turn 95 in my Gondor campaign (VH/VH of course) and i think it's hard but not impossible. Some tips for you:

In the beggining of your campaign DO NOT take Cair Andros or E. Osgiliath from the rebels. For some reason AI seems to ignore them while they are rebels. In my campaign Mordor took E. Osgiliath from the rebels at turn 20 and they NEVER attacked Cair Andros. I think 20 turns is more then enough to build a strong economy. Also you should blitz the rebel territory west from your starting regions to boost your income (and if you feel like you can take Goben Tolfalas too) but nothing else.

After a while you can take E. Osgiliath and even Cair Andros but prepare for endless attacks from Mordor. If you defeted some of their forces and have a strong army you can take North Ithilien and/or Minas Morgul (I don't suggest you to takeIthilien because then you have to fight Haradtoo). But while you are fighting with Mordor don't forget about your allies especially Rohan. If Rohan dies you will die too. Always keep a spy near their borders and if they lose too much territory help them. You should do the same with your other allies too but Rohan is the most important.

[Ariaci]

I'm in turn 95 in my Gondor campaign (VH/VH of course) and i think it's hard but not impossible.

Hmmmm, why do I feel adressed by this......

[el Cid]

First try to expand slowly, and try to get to Minas Morgul, so you can block off Mordor there, you might aswell (if you can manage) try to capture the Black Gate, so you have two citadels as choke points. You should be able to do this by turn 70. For Harad, once you have enough resources you should send a fleet with a stack to Umbar. Once you capture that their main focus will be taking it back (in my experience at least). For Isengard, try to keep a spy in Rohan's lands to keep an eye on things, and perhaps help out if they start to be in trouble.

Furthermore: Try to fight as many sieges as possible! With the Fountain guards you might acquire from missions you can hold pretty much anything at the gate, and Harad's light cavalry might not be giving you such a hard time.

Back in 1.4 or so, this strategy worked for me. And I conquered all of Mordor and Harad, and was beginning to challenge Rhûn!

[loony]

I found Mordor easy pickings (archers on walls and cavalry distracting enemy outside the city); total massacre in field battles;
harad was more annoying.
what I did:
a) for 10 turns defend east osgiliath at the walls, build economy. it is easy to defend with a bunch of archers, 4 units of cavalry, 1 unit of fountain guard and 4 units of sword militia. you block mordor from entering and build economy.
b) train an army, crush harad advance, cross the river, capture 2 northermost harad settlements.
c) SAME ARMY go to mordor and capture Minas Morgul and the next city. SACK, destroy buildings and train a force to deal with Harad again.
d) send your osgiliath army on an expedition to capture, sack and let rebel at least 2 Harad cities (send them by boat!!)
e) train third army, help Rohan. Isengards just need a little kick in the butt to turn the tide; rohan will deal with them OKish afterwards.
f) with your norther border safe you may do whatever you want - Kill harad off (before they spam mumakil) or kill mordor off (to avoid olog hai). anyways it is easy after


other:
g) DO KEEP YOUR TAXES LOW AT ALL TIMES
h) i did not change my capital, instead i moved east to make minas tirith the centre of the empire.
i) my mistake was to piss the sylvans off, they attacked and were a pain.

[Rora Lion]

To stop Mordor, it is enough to hold Cair Andros and one Osgiliath. Till they get Trolls or Hologs their armies are largely rabble.When they do get that, counter with artillery (trebuchets behind walls). To the south Harad is a big trouble for me too ... for having no pikes they exterminate my men with endless armies of cavalry, while the backbone of my resources are focused east. Not to speak of Isengard ... I'd really love to see some gondorian pike units (perhaps lightly armored, perhaps exclusive from dol amroth) for no army facing cavalry has ever been withouth pikes in the middle ages (the scots, the landsktechs etc)

[betto]

thats a point ,if dol amroth need to face a horse based army, if they are smart they will deploy pikes(like Isengard did in the movies...in the books i dont know) or atleast more spears or halbediers...i really miss a spear militia on early with gondor .

[Lord Butters I]

Okay, first off I play without the barracks events so this advice may be a bit skewed, but Gondor is my favorite faction by far and I am definitely in the camp who says it's easy.

First off, take Denethor and as much infantry as you can manage (NOT the fountain guard, save them for actually fighting Mordor), and take Osgiliath as soon as possible. Between them and Minas Tirith, the vast majority of your army will be produced here. Take Cair Andros too, but not before Osgiliath. Start building archery buildings in Osgiliath and Cair Andros because they are the only place (apart from a couple more a bit east) that can train your best archers. Build infantry buildings in Minas Tirith, and in Osgiliath once you can make Rangers. Also, make exactly one infantry improvement in whatever that settlement is just west of Minas Tirith, that will let you build Axemen, your armor piercing unit. Very, very, VERY useful against trolls.

Your infantry are gods. It's just that simple; they're second only to the Dwarves and Elves. Dwarves have no (good) archers/cavalry and elves can't manage a decent production rate, especially not right at the beginning. Gondor's support units are pretty good in and of themselves, so Gondor has arguably the strongest army in the entire game. Using that phenomenal military, you're going to want to take Minas Morgul as soon as you can. Keep a garrison there and you'll hold back most of Mordor's incursions into Ithillian. A single unit of Citadel Guard can hold the gates of a settlement against a full stack, especially if you've got a unit of Fountain guard too, and their line infantry are pretty good at holding walls, so defending it should not be a problem. If they've got trolls with them then things become difficult, but dealing with trolls has been discussed elsewhere ad infinitum.

Now against Harad there's no special way to fight; they're quite a bit like you, just worse in pretty much every way. Mordor is where you can start getting fancy, because they're orcs. Orc infantry are as bad as yours are good: Rangers tear them to ribbons, they can't kill your infantry unless they surround you, and a cavalry charge liquefies them. No joke, one charge from a single unit of cavalry can wipe out an entire unit of Orc Raiders. The spear orcs are more charge-resistant but they fall to arrows just as easily. The last time I played Gondor, Denethor and four units of Rangers wiped out everything they sent after me in the field, and they even took out an entire stack complete with Nazgul leader with some reinforcements. By something like turn 40 Denethor was maxed on his stats and had the title "Steward Denethor, Lord of Terror".

While you're doing all that in the east, you should turn your attention southward. Bring Boromir plus any units you can get your hands on to Dol Amroth. There, pick up Imrahil. You are going to fall madly in love with this man, because he is one of the best generals in the entire game. He has good managerial traits but more importantly his bodyguard is a full unit of Swan Knights, your super-unit that you shouldn't normally get until something like turn 100, and because they're a bodyguard they respawn. He's a respawning unit of godlike cavalry that can make loads of money as a governor. His ultimate destiny should probably be holding Minas Ithil, where he can use both of his strengths, but for now load him, Boromir, and as many units as you can get your hands on onto a boat and send them south. They're going to take Umbar, and with it will put a serious dent into Harad's ability to wage war on you. Umbar is a very wealthy settlement, and it's one of the only places Harad can produce top-tier units at the beginning of the game. Once it's taken and enough of a garrison is there to defend it (though I've never seen Harad put any real effort into retaking it. Five or six units at most, and not even very good ones) you can do whatever you want with the duo, but like I said I highly recommend Imrahil for governorship of Minas Ithil.

If you can hold Ithillian and Umbar you're probably set for the rest of the game. Minas Tirith, Osgilliath, and once it's converted Minas Ithil can between the four of them churn out a full stack of some of the strongest units in the game in something like 10 turns, and if you can take the Black Gate too Mordor will be entirely contained. Mordor always falls long before Harad for me, mostly because Gondor's army so ludicrously outclasses them. Once Mordor is gone and you can focus all your attention on Harad they won't last long either.

[muller227]

Don't forget to use the free upkeep of the forts of the Rammas Echor either, You can get a total of 14 Gold units retired for free between, Minas Tirith, the forts, and W Osgiliath. This is very useful if you screw up and a Bunch of Trolls gets by you somehow. I tend to let nasty surprises happen to me about every 50 turns, so it helps me out.

If it says best units currently available move your Capitol back to Minas Tirith right before you complete your mission. I love Fountain Guard.

[odyseusz79]

Don't underestimate the island of Tolfalas and your western provinces (take them from the rebels ASAP). Once you build ports in these areas, you will start making real money. Advancing along the coast of Harad is a viable method of invasion - reinforcements can arrive much faster by sea than they would by land, and the ports you capture will immediately start making you more money through sea trade.

[Duinhir]

Wow! Some excellent advice there guys, its given me the courage to re-start my campaign and try Gondor again!

I can see where I went wrong, I turtled for too long, Rohan fell then I was beset on all sides by four enemies!! No-one can win out against those odds lol

Thankyou