High Elves - Campaign Guide for H/H & VH/VH

[Landwalker]

Ah, yes, that would do it.

While I'm throwing around random High Elf musings, what exactly do the Sculptor's Workshops do? That's a lot of cash for a building that doesn't even have an explicit effect.

[The Norseman]

I think it has an effect on traits. It probably gives an "artistic" trait to generals or another character. I can check it out in the files!

[Incomitatus]

I think it has an effect on traits. It probably gives an "artistic" trait to generals or another character. I can check it out in the files!

Nope. It gives Guild Points to gain a guild that improves population growth. A lot of Guild Points.

[The Norseman]

Yeah I just checked it. I looked in the wrong files. Not strange that I did not find it then.

[uddhava]

Akin to the SE Gwyn ert Gwaiths then. I have yet to get a guild offering from those. How many points does one need to get for the first guildoffering?

[Incomitatus]

Akin to the SE Gwyn ert Gwaiths then. I have yet to get a guild offering from those. How many points does one need to get for the first guildoffering?

You need to have a city. The system doesn't work as the devs wanted it to... they made the Guilds buildable in towns in the EDB, but the offering system won't actually offer you one until you have a City.

[Hrynn the Wraith]

Im playing HE as my first campaign. All difficulties are on Very Hard and even though the orcs of the misty mountains are the richest faction, I was able to own them in the open field with 6-7 units of archers at the beginning so they have left me alone since. I also was able to take the 2 rebel settlements near there. The problem so far has been corruption. I was losing about 3.5k per turn due to corruption which was demolishing me. I took as many rebel settlements as i could, I think i control about 12-13 areas now and im JUST NOW able to make a pittance per turn. About 500 which is 2% of the orcs of misty mountains. Be very economical is the only advice I can offer.

[brasswire]

Im playing HE as my first campaign. All difficulties are on Very Hard and even though the orcs of the misty mountains are the richest faction, I was able to own them in the open field with 6-7 units of archers at the beginning so they have left me alone since. I also was able to take the 2 rebel settlements near there. The problem so far has been corruption. I was losing about 3.5k per turn due to corruption which was demolishing me. I took as many rebel settlements as i could, I think i control about 12-13 areas now and im JUST NOW able to make a pittance per turn. About 500 which is 2% of the orcs of misty mountains. Be very economical is the only advice I can offer.

The best way to combat corruption is to move your capital. The farther a settlement is from your capital, the more corruption it will have (there's more to it, but that's the basics). Unfortunately the High Elves capital starts off at Rivendell, which makes lore sense, but can cripple them with corruption since all of their other settlements are on the western edge of the map.

If you move your capital from Rivendell to the Mithlond area, your corruption will decrease by an enormous amount. It will cost you 5000 to move your capital, but it will easily save you more than that in a few turns from lowering your corruption costs. Other ways to decrease corruption include having buildings that give +Law (ie various levels of Barracks), and installing governors with +Law abilities.

[AlexeyA]

I see lots of problems of HE are from defending Imladris and upkeeping huge army in it.
Did anybody try to exchange Imladris for 1-3 other settlements? For example Imladris + Hoarwell for Torin's halls + Kibil Dum? Or some Eriador settlements?
Does anybody have such experience?

[Flinn]

hi AlexeyA, welcome to TWC

you should not keep a huge army in Imladris, as a general rule, because you have two bridges to defend there, plus Imladris itself is quite easy to defend with high tier units, being full of chokepoints (although the settlement can be considered to be bugged and at any rate hard to maneuvre in, when there are huge armies deployed).

I never switched Imladris in my HE campaigns, but I never spent too much in defending it, nor I cried the few times I lost it. As a general rule, from my experience, it is never worth to switch it (and I doubt you'll be able to get 3 settlement for 1, whatever it is), because it will be your sole recruitment center for high tier units for a very long part of the campaign and strategically speaking is the only point from which you can launch your assault to center ME.

if you want more settlements in the west conquer (from dwarves) or buy them (you should be able to do it mid campaign).

my two cents

[The Norseman]

I havent personally tried exchanging Imladris for other regions, even though it might be a good idea as it can connect your kingdom and temporarily lower the corruption cost because the settlements which you might have received most likely would be closer, but there can also be downsides such as cultural differences in the newly acquired settlements. This will make recruiting units unavailable and even after a long time when the culture has reached 32% Elvish, you will most likely only be able to recruit a certain few troops, probably even one. Within that time OOTMM will have taken Imladris from your allied faction and pushed further into Eriador. It would also take longer for you to expand as you would have to do most of your recruiting from your western settlements. Personally I would prefer just recruiting spies to see where the enemies are coming from and then move my half stack, which usually consists of 3 archer units and 3 infantry units to the side of Imladris the OOTMM is advancing to. There are as said two bridges which you can defend and pretty easily as well which is why you just need 3 archer units and 3 infantry units to fend off an entire army. Move your army to the bridge, create a chokepoint by the bridge in the battle and have your archers fire at the enemy troops from the sides if possible. Aim for their general-unit if possible. He will probably charge in through the bridge as well and when aiming at him you will kill other enemy troops in the process so its a double win. Imladris also allows you to recruit 2-3 types of units in the beginning of the campaign which will help a lot with your expansion.

[Iguanaonastick]

In my game, I noticed that the Imladris map seems to be bugged when sallying. The AI will just crowd their army against a mountainwall and do nothing until you get in mêlée. I was able to destroy an entire stack including several troll units by emptying my archer's quivers and then repeatedly charging my cavalry at them.

Some notes on field battles:

I find that the best way is to field a lot of archers and cavalry. I've hardly ever really needed infantry, though I bring some for form's sake and to mop up nearly beaten foes. And for sieges. If you have MOS, the Eldar pikemen are also pretty amazing.

First, line up the archers on a hill (in several lines if you have a lot of units, arranged by shooting range so they can all shoot at the same time and so that your most expensive units are out of harm's way) and shoot with the cavalry standing on the flanks. So far so obvious.
Then, when the enemy gets in mid-range, start charging your cavalry at their missile units while having your archers shoot their tough mêlée units. (Best to turn fire-at-will off.)
As the enemy gets closer, have your cavalry units charge leading infantry units. The trick is to both do extra damage, and disrupt and slow the enemy advance so your archers have more time to fire. Your cavalry should never stay in combat long, and when withdrawing should do it in such a way as to remain between the enemy and your archers at all times. Even though your archers can handle themselves in close combat, they shouldn't have to.
When the enemy gets really close, charge in your cavalry again and have your archers run away to a new defensive position. Rinse and repeat if needed, but mostly the enemy will be dead at this point.

Warg Riders can be a bit annoying when doing this, though your cavalry can typically beat them. Still, shooting them first is a good idea.
Keep your cavalry away from pikes and units that can use stakes, obviously. Micromanaging them is a must. Also micromanage your archers and make sure not to shoot your cavalry in the back. As the saying goes; friendly fire, isn't.
If the enemy has catapults, use light units like Norëtirno Lancers to go around the enemy and take them out from behind. Units standing on hills make far too easy catapult targets for comfort.
Bodyguard cavalry and heavy lancers can take on trolls, but preferably not from the front. It also helps if the archers chipped some hitpoints off them first. Still, trolls are and remain bad news.

This way of doing battle is very effective, if not terribly interesting or sporting. Much to my surprise I once managed to defeat a half-stack of Gundabad Orcs including bodyguards and halberdiers using just a single archer and one bodyguard cavalry unit this way.

[HighElves]

Well,I think Unit is really needed if you are defending,or even attacking,as you said,in sieges,I already won a battle in my first campaign when I was a noob(I was playing at easy)and I just defeated under 1300 Orcs just with 2 Sword Quendi and 1 Bow Quendi...(The Sword Quendi were with 60-70 men each)

I just did like the 300 Spartans and the 7000 Athenians on Thermópilas but with Archers,so I placed my Swordsmen on a narrow path and hold it,while archers shoot at the back units(So it avoids friendly Fire)...

[eikenflei]

hey there, nice guide especially changing capital is a super tip for total war noobies like me. i had big money problems on vh/vh before reading this. yes i know i shouldn't play on vh/vh as noobie but it hurts so much to play a game not on hardest difficulty especially how most game designers interpret very hard today :-p.

atm im testing out he campaign with mos, which seems to make he early much easier.

i have one question for vanilla he players regarding battles. how do you kill balrogs early which means without ap units like lindon longspears. i know you have the eldarin spears from elrond but they alone with some sword quendi and noretinos still seem not enough especially if the orc player has some units to support the op-rogs. do you transfer lindon longspears from forlindon all across the map? or do i just suck? no don't say it :-).

maybe i should try to use my new strategy i started doing after installing mos. skipping early infantry mostly and getting as many cav generals and archers as possible into my army. spam charge for the win :-). i even do some variations now like switching between arrow spam and charge spam, moving archers back while charge phase and controlling each cavallary unit separately to be even more efficient with my "lamer multitask the stupid ai to death" strat :-p. i havent tried that at the balrogs yet because i haven't realized that general's cav is so *** good at first. someone wrote in a thread i read that cav is underpowered in tatw. wtf... cav is the most overpowered thing in this game beside balrogs. i guess this guy hasn't found out how to charge yet.

btw maybe i shouldn't call the ai stupid, yesterday the ai killed rassbadrion (ohhhh noooo not rassbadrion ^^) when using stakes in battle when i wanted to start chargefesting the oponent. so it seems to adapt somehow and it is quite clever... if it doesn't up completely. just like me :-).

[DrDragun]

A couple of options for Balrog slaying:

If you can cross the Misty Mountains and get an army on the East side, there are a couple of good strats:
-Use Beornings mercenaries, recruitable from 1-2 territories marching distance from Moria (they are AP axemen)
-Capture Fanghorn and use the Ents to help with Moria since it is very close to Fanghorn

If you don't want to cross the Misty Mountains first
-Try to kill them with a Ballista. It is hard to maneuver inside Moria and they cannot cross the Bridge of Khazad Dum on the East Side of the map, but if you attack from the West it can be done.
-Or you can just fight it out like a MANLY MAN and take your losses. Sword Quendi have great stats after all. And I know you said you don't want to bring Lindon Longspears but... just bring them anyway lol.

If you want some lame solutions:
-During the battle, the Balrogs alone cannot control the City Square so you can kill everything else and time the battle out by holding the square
-Alternately, siege them out with a big army

[eikenflei]

thx the mercenaries sound good. i didn't know there are mercenaries in vanilla 3.2 i saw mercs only with mos like the eldar volunteers which are not in vanilla and therefore thought mercs were introduced by a mos submod.

yes don't like the idea to transfer lindon longspears that much i need some ap for my southern front. what if isengard comes with warg only stack, too many for my cav to handle then i take heavy losses. glorfindel is cav in vanilla. i like to have something in backhand on every front and it takes so long i can produce a second unit longspears in lindon. and it takes ages to transfer them to the north/east/south front. when they finally arrive the silvan elves have taken moria and 4th age has started without me.

sword quendi against balrog didnt work for me. i had to fight in the open against the balrogs cause they got reinforcements. i had a full stack with at least 6 sword quendi and elronds spearmen, orc stack was quite big too. i had tactical advantage cause there was an ideal position to camp on a hill. whole orc stack was dead before they could do much. then finally the balrogs killed everything. i managed to keep most units including elrond alive but when i had just a few soldiers left still 2 balrogs where standing. then the time limit exceeded which saved me the day. i had forgotten to switch it off :-). but i dont think i would have won without this limit.

yes sword quendi not so bad in general,, they are still elfen units :-). i always have 2 units of them in my early army. but i just use them in emergency cases cause they are not so good in long fights and have higher upkeep then bow quendi i think. when i build too many of them i have the problem that i have much greater losses in situations like 1:4 which leads to the problem i cant progress as fast cause i have to retrain. i like to use blitzkrieg strategy with he cause you really need more cities in early for better economy. with cav and archers mostly i often lose not single soldier in similiar situations and i can go after retreating oponents and skirmishers. yes i lose some general cav which regenerates and my cav is always exhausted at the end of battle. the only real downside is the risk my general dies but it doesnt happen that often. except yesterday.... it happened twice. it was a bad day for the lindon empire. both rassbadrion and elladan died in battle to defend the southern border of dunland against the hordes of saruman. rassbadrion was my fault. elladan died with most of his bodyguards alive when fighting two big armies at once. this event lead to the second war of wrath between the lindon empire and isengard/mordor. even the combined forces of both evil nations were not enough to stop the last march of the elrohir elite stack onto isengard. the second war of wrath ended with the battle of isengard where elrohir avenged the death of his beloved brother and defiled the body of traitor saruman. and it finally turned out it wasn't even the last march cause elrohir could hold the fortress near isengard with half his army left against 2 full morder armies of reinforcements.

[DrDragun]

No problem, you might find this map handy for mercs... shows Beornings can be recruited in the territory of Rhosgobel, Framsburg, Wrackyaburg and Beorn's Halls
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...of-mercenaries

AP is way better vs Balrogs than trolls... trolls only have average armor in the 7-9 range but Balrogs have like 30 so by using axemen you will drop their defense by 15 points.

Glad you're enjoying the HE with all of their nobles

[Iguanaonastick]

In my Elf campaign, I killed the Balrog in an opportunistic assault with 1/3rd of a stack from the west. Opportunistic because I spotted an allied Lothlorien army sitting outside the other side. My forces managed to take the western hall with a ram, killing some trolls and a bunch of goblin units. The Balrogs initially came that way, but I withdrew and they returned to the city square. Then, my second unit of bodyguard cavalry managed to use the side passages to go around most of the Goblin army (although they had to go through some of it) and opened up the eastern gate and let in 1000 allied elves. Who then got the honour of leading the charge against the Balrogs and the rest of the Goblin army. It still took all my arrows, repeated cavalry charges and the entire Lorien army to whittle the Balrogs down to two. I then finished them off with my starter unit of Eldar pikemen in hand to hand combat. Using fellow Elves as cannon fodder may be of dubious morality, but it's definitely effective. The opportunity will only present itself if the AI cooperates, but given Lorien's proximity to Moria it's not that unlikely for them to go on the offensive if you're beating the Goblins elsewhere.