AI Sauron

**Macilrille** · June 02, 2012, 03:39 AM

In my FPoE -> Arnor campaign the Dark Lord has regained his precious (I wonder what happened to Gollum) around turn 200.

As I had wiped all opposition around me with the SE killing off OotMM. I was building up for a big fight- which seemed in vain as the Dwarves overran all of Rhûn and though Harad had taken Linhir long ago they stalled and had no Mûmakil- so I was happy and anticipated a hard fight for Aragorn and my favorite general against Sauron; trying to save Gondor.

But Sauron does nothing; he runs around Ithilien chasing miniature stacks that Gondor spams him with. He has not taken any of the Osgiliaths, nor Henneth Annún.

HE-DOES-NOTHING!

I had hoped for a heroic rescue of Minas Tirith from The Dark Lord and his dark armies, but he just p*sses about in Ithilien, up and down- up and down. Meanwhile the Dwarves, SE and Rohan are finishing Rhûn's last provinces and Mordor's northern ones and I am chipping away at Harad.

So, should I wait more (I am getting bored), seek him out, or is there anything else I can do?

BTW, Turn 20-ish to Turn 150-ish I gave Mordor 500 k gc using the give_money cheat cause the evil factions were not doing well. It made no difference, AI Mordor seems F-ed, no matter what.

I play M/M if it makes a difference.

**Holy Harry** · June 02, 2012, 05:17 AM

Its probably the medium campaign difficulty, when I played that on M2TW I found nobody expanded much, and I never got attacked, which is why I changed. I don't know how different it is on TATW because everything is stepped up, and I haven't played medium on TATW.

**Ngugi** · June 02, 2012, 06:38 AM

Playing Hard he joined the assults on Gondor, got killed at Pelargir which he just helped capture.

**Aldor** · June 02, 2012, 08:19 AM

I had the same problem, VH-VH.

Sauron was just taking a walk in Ithilien. Chasing small stacks.

I send huge ammounts of money to Gondor and Rohan as the High Elves, and Rohan has taken The Black Gate. Don't know if Sauron is still alive.

**Ben.EEeee** · June 02, 2012, 09:08 AM

Give Sauron a break! He's just materialised in a new body only to realise his allies are nothing but incompetent buffoons who got themselves killed.

All he wants to do is relax a little and enjoy his new body for a few decades.

You don't think Gordor is actually trying to attack Sauron with their puny stacks do you? No - That's merely Gondor's way of offering human sacrifice to appease their new god! And as long as Gondor keeps the human buffet coming, Sauron will be too fat and bloated to launch an invasion into prime rib lands.

**Macilrille** · June 02, 2012, 09:32 AM

No, he called an invasion on Osgiliath, then made peace with Gondor...

I am up to 38 provinces. I will go and take the last two, then send two favorite generals and Aragorn with each a fullstack to deal with Sauron just for good measure. But his stack is being whittled away, the two Ologs are gone :-( I think I might just use the create_unit cheat to give myself something to have fun with.

Edit, does anyone know what happend when I kill Sauron?

**Avelon** · June 02, 2012, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Macilrille

Edit, does anyone know what happend when I kill Sauron?

Most likely you have the pleasure to claim that you did

Apart from that probably nothing

**Macilrille** · June 02, 2012, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Avelon

Most likely you have the pleasure to claim that you did

Apart from that probably nothing

Should Mordor not collapse though? And the general get the ring to destroy it? Like in the Second Age?

Perhaps I should try harder difficulty. I did find Eriador a tad easy. But I like M/M from my experience from EB where the AI is berserk-attacker even on M/M and even worse on higher settings, and where enemy units get insane bonuses on the battlefield. I like to turtle, and it is no good playing on a high difficulty if all that does is to force you to Blitz in a very unlorelike way.

**Ngugi** · June 02, 2012, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by Macilrille

Perhaps I should try harder difficulty. I did find Eriador a tad easy.

Eriador is a challenge to play further into the campaign. Due to some issues I in my current campaign never turned into Arnor, and to keep Gondor and Dale alive with armies of inferior units against stack after stack of elite units with ranks and upgrades such as trolls, Uruks, golden Rhunlednings and the haradrims lances and trollmen is a royal pain

**StealthFox** · June 02, 2012, 10:35 AM

Macilrille?

Don't you know that Sauron doesn't fight on the front lines? He is scared to die.

Seriously though, it's probably just chance combined with the medium campaign difficulty. AI is a lot more aggressive on harder difficulty levels. The 3-4 times Sauron has gained the ring in my campaigns he has always went directly towards the heart of Gondor attacking Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, and Arnach depending on what Gondor was still holding and what Mordor already had.

**muller227** · June 02, 2012, 10:34 PM

In my HE campaign VH/VH I had a hell of time with him. I was trying to save Gondor, he blew through East and West Osgiliath, took Minas Tirith and headed for Pelargir. I took back MT and gave it back to Gondor, he turned around and took it again, we did that 3 or 4 more times before he finally disappeared. I am not sure when he died or if he died. I just lost track of him. The save game went the way of a reinstall.

**joshko** · June 03, 2012, 12:57 AM

You got lucky OP. In my campaign, Sauron took West Osgiliath, then the following turn was besieged with only one other unit by a full Gondor stack , dying the next turn.
I believe he lasted a grand total of 5 turns in the campaign.

**Macilrille** · June 03, 2012, 02:30 AM

I do not feel lucky. He joined his Invasion and lost his entire stack and is now walking around alone.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

In fact, when I had the 40 provinces required for a win, I quit and started a new campaign; this time on H/H.

**Aldor** · June 03, 2012, 02:34 AM

Somewhat off-topic, Dwarves did a nice job in your campaign,were they aided by you?

**Macilrille** · June 03, 2012, 02:53 AM

Not at all. They suddenly exploded around Turn 100, declared war on the HE and overran most of Rhûn in 20 turns. Then made peace with Rhûn's last four spread-out provinces until around Turn 200 where they nipped off the last four in 8-10 turns.

I wish allies would not declare war on each other. I had tried and failed to use the Allies Ally script, they had denied; so I had Dorf vs HE and SE vs Rohan going on and it makes me F*ing frustrated.

**Aldor** · June 03, 2012, 05:09 PM

Just know that reloading the turn may stop the attack. If you keep doing this for about 5 attacks they might even ally instead as happened in my game.