most amazing gondor begining

**ash874** · February 20, 2012, 06:51 PM

so you can see what happened from the pic
couldnt make another one cause it would overwrite the first one (i use printscreen)
during the battle the enemy just lined up near a hill
i used all my arrows and killed about 40%
then i charged one of his units with my general
and harrassed until he attaked
the nazgul had like +15 hitpoints so he was my biggest concern
apart from him they had one scout unit and 4 generals plus a bunch of infantry
the whole nazgul bodyguard pretty much charged me
but their extreme left part got scraped on my stakes from the itilien arhcers
so the nazgul died even before battle (some would say exploit)
i had about 3 infantry 2 cavalary and 3 archers with no arrows at that point
the infantry got engaged at
i used the cavalary to flank
the enemy broke almost immedietly
chased them and killed every single one
got minas morgul on turn 4 without facing the garrison script
attacking an army adjacent to a garrison scripted castle is an exploit i used often to avoid garrison script in moria
first time i got to use it against mordor
have no idea if i can hold this new frontier so early though
i obviously proceeded to attack the second castle (cirith ungul i think)
have moved all my generals to either the frontiers or to villages where i cant have free upkeep for militia
dont really know what generals are good for in this version of tatw
tried to take baradharn but a very annoying thing happened:
the settlement had almost no garrison
i attacked it with two generals
other units were close behind
opted for 1 ram with the generals as it was important to attack the next turn before reinforcements arrive
it said that the ram will be done in 1 turn
after the turn was over the ram still wasnt finished
and then harad sent an army
luckily (important tip) i had a ship nearby
so my units could run away to a grid where the enemy couldnt follow

**dannyalex** · February 20, 2012, 07:24 PM

nice ! nail them!

**ash874** · February 20, 2012, 07:47 PM

took cirith ungol and henneth annun
want to take the castle under e.osgiliath but it has a large rebel army
hope harad will waste a good force on it and weaken the defenders for me
had to use a cheat

an army spawned near me
had no upkeep to it so i understood its a script for taking all these settlements
i used autowin on it and destroyed it mostly
dont like this script cause i dont know which cities cause it
and because im having a too good begining

**Spits32** · February 20, 2012, 09:42 PM

Give Cirith Ungol to a neutral faction. Mordor will be pinned in Mordor.

**ash874** · February 21, 2012, 04:21 AM

Originally Posted by Spits32

Give Cirith Ungol to a neutral faction. Mordor will be pinned in Mordor.

great idea

isengard?

had to fight 3 heroic battles in the bridge between cair andros
each one seemed like there is no chance at all
but the epic begining made me try as hard as i could
denethor has now more bodies on him than a chinese cemetery (or snoop dog)
i made one screenshot to illustrate
its from the last battle (the only one at which i wasnt completely outgunned)

**Bloodly** · February 20, 2012, 10:49 PM

after the turn was over the ram still wasnt finished

Check the traits. If they got the Bad Siege Engineer line of traits(Earned by having less than 3 siege engines with you during a siege), it could push the build points below what you needed to finish in one turn, given as Generals have low build points by default.

**francis86** · February 21, 2012, 07:19 AM

better give it to one of your friend

**Maegfaer** · February 21, 2012, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by francis86

better give it to one of your friend

Evil faction is more useful, imagine what happens if Mordor attacks the faction to get that settlement back? Right, you have Evil factions fighting amongst themselves.

**Syanur** · February 21, 2012, 08:56 AM

Foxy idea but also kinda cheat...

May I ask Why don't you want to fight against mordor if you play with Gondor...?

**Bloodly** · February 21, 2012, 09:21 AM

So you can beat down Harad in peace. Two-front wars aren't fun. Especially since Harad can strike from land in multiple ways AND strike from the sea.

THEN you can go after Mordor properly.

**Spits32** · February 21, 2012, 09:49 AM

Give Cirith Ungol to Isengard or Rhun. Just make sure you remain neutral with them and have enough of a garrison in minas morgal so they won't attack. 4 units and a general should be fine. but isengard attacked me after 100 turns or so.

And then put a half stack of archers, spearmen, and catapults at the river crossing above henneth annun. you will play some epic battles there against mordor.

**ash874** · February 21, 2012, 11:32 AM

i have indeed played some epic battles there
which i mentioned earlier
in one of the battles i had about 4 units of infanry 2 archers and denethor
they had about 3/4 of a stack
it came down to one archer unit and denethor against about a third of a stack
i dont know how but he somehow made it
this has been a while back
ive played many turns since and mordor have not really made any serious effort against me
giving that town to rhun has just really saved the day for me
mordor had a full stack poised to strike which i had no chance of repelling
but as i said the trick worked marvelously and i havent really been concerned about mordor for maybe 20-30 turns now

harad on the other hand made one very serious attempt at linhir
which doesnt even have a stone wall
i had almost a full stack
they had two full stacks
many cavalary units
and infantry which seems to have better stats than my own

i had one general of blackroot vale archers
one unit of itilien archer (a must)
one unit of archers
2 generals with cavalary
and the rest infantry
oh and one unit of pelagir marines

obviously put stacks infront of the gate
not as efficient as you might think though
walking cavalary seem to be almost not effected by the stacks
so it killed maybe a third of his combined cavalary
but still great
put all my infantry in the town square
4 units in each line
by the time the second army reached i swapped the exhausted units with the fresh ones
put my archers on the walls on the other side
once the gate was breached the second army started walking towards the gate
encircling the whole settlement
my archer had a field day with them
each killed about 100 men (small unit scale)
add to that the stackes
and add to it the fact that the arhcers enabled the towers to shoot and kill dozens more
all in all the archers have been the victors of the battle
the second battle that is
had to replay that battle after enemy infantry ran sideways and got to my archers
opened the gates to the sides
and totally owned me
in the second time ive put 2 units of infantry covering the other gates (2 on each)

lost about 700 but killed about 1500
not a great ratio but harad units are just so much stronger that i was happy with that

but the most important thing i want to comment on is the overall success of my allies
used to be that you would spend hours playing very well only to find out some of your allies are dead
silvan elves had a habit of losing very fast and rohan too would be weak
this was a total buzz kill for me

in this current game you can see from the pic (sorry for the quality) how well they manage
so basically i am very very happy with this kind of balance

havent understood yet what do i need generals for
already declined like 20 generals and 10 brides
thing is that you cant even tell what kind of general it will be (bodyguardwise) so its not even appealing to take one

**Nemesis_GR** · February 21, 2012, 03:37 PM

Giving cirith ungol to another faction feels like cheating...

**ash874** · February 21, 2012, 03:38 PM

it does
using auto_win on a spawned army is even more so

**Nemesis_GR** · February 21, 2012, 03:48 PM

You can delete the scripts that spawn armies.But then it gets too easy...

**ash874** · February 21, 2012, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by Nemesis_GR

You can delete the scripts that spawn armies.But then it gets too easy...

too easy? all i ever hear about is how people win with high elves harad and rhun
how many people actually won with gondor? this game is quite hard

**Nemesis_GR** · February 21, 2012, 04:23 PM

I disabled those scripts and won with gondor in about 65 turns.With the scripts it should take around 90-100 turns at best.

**ash874** · February 21, 2012, 04:25 PM

vhvh? i dont believe. its by and large impossible in my opinion
can anyone confirm that this game can be won with gondor in 65 turns (or a hundred)?

**Nemesis_GR** · February 21, 2012, 04:36 PM

Yep vh/vh or maybe it was vh/m dont remember.(the battle difficulty just gives ai morale bonus so it is not that important.)

But i deleted help weak factions and last stand scripts.

Btw i play with RC and some other small modifications.(for example i reduced the starting generals since i dont like more thant one general per stack-imo it is urnealistic and enabled some ancillaries that reduce squalor).Here is my savegame.

ps.It took me 69 turns but it can be done faster