Gondor deserves better

[Cirion]

Hi.

This is long post.Don't bother if you lack the patience.

I'm new to this forums and this is my first post here.
First let me say how great this mod is.After Rome i found Medieval 2 very lacking in atmosphere.Maybe i didn't like the historical setting or something.
This mod brought me back to the game and i love it.

I got it a few months back and spent literally days on it.My first playthrough was with Gondor and after them i tried High Elves on vh/vh.(version 3.2)
I believe i have some understanding of the game balance right now and some things made impression to me.

Now to the point.

I absolutely Love Gondor!I tried several other factions but none felt so dynamic,fun and interesting,but i found their units are average at best.

As a faction i believe Gondor is supposed to field excellent heavy infantry,but to be lacking in cavalry and to have a few good archer units.

First thing that is very annoying is the fact that Gondor infantry has lots of units unique to certain areas which makes them very,very useless.

Ithilien Rangers,Lossarnach Axemen,Swan Knights...Nice,but useless.

I know there are other factions with the same problems,but evil factions can field almost anything without such restrictions.Some units like ents can indeed be recruited only in Fangorn,but they are extremely powerfull,so its somehow justified.
God damn it Gondor has probably the largest amount of uniques that are only slightly better than normal troops and totally unused for obvious reasons.

And Rhun...Rhun for example is completely overpowered.
They have better cavalry,better archers,armor piercing Balchoth Tribesmen which my Gondor tin cans desperately lack and after building up can field heavy infantry that rivals my own.
Virtually no weaknesses.

Gondor in my opinion should field very strong,expensive,but also effective units especially in late game.Even more so given the fact that they are stuck with more enemies than anyone else in the map.Invasions hit them first and so on...Those who play Gondor know what i'm talking about.
Instead 2/3 of my campaign i was stuck with militia units.

Ok,no problem.I will wait,build up and overcome numbers with quality.
Instead i found both Rhun and Harad bolster large armies made mostly of cheap units,armor piercing light infantry,mumakils(which i can only efficiently counter with Pelargir Marines).Ok ballistas too,but seriously who makes artillery in this game?

I know its hard things to balance a game with so many factions.I know there are some factions(like dwarves with no cavalry) lacking even more than Gondor on the balancing side.

Thing is-cheaper,easily recruitable,more effective units can be produced by the enemies of Gondor,a faction which for all its lore and feeling lacks good(non unique)troops.

I'm troubled that the difference between supposedly professional heavy infantry and some lightly trained and armored units is minimal.If that enemy unit has armor piercing as well you're screwed.

My suggestions are:

Give Gondor non AOR(is that the right name?)armor piercing units.
Maybe make infantry similar to Axemen of Lossarnach that can counter somehow Trolls?

Another option is to give Citadel Guard armor piercing since Olog-hai totally rapes my expensive,high quality infantry with the exception of Fountain Guard.
Since Fountain Guards are basically Elite Citadel guard it makes sence lore wise.
These troops are expensive and not that easy to recruit,but Mordor may become kind of underpowered since they rely on Trolls so much.

If someone even bothered to read all that he may have noticed i say expensive a lot.Expeeensivee.
Yep,Costly and inefficient.That's Gondor.

As it is now Citadel Guard is Gondor Spearmen with Shield Wall instead of Schilthron.
And with full Smith upgrades the stats of the above mentioned units are almost the same.

Skirmishers are unjustifed for Gondor to have,but maybe call Pelargir Marines -Gondor Marines and make them available on coastline regions like Corsairs of Umbar?

Another annoying thing ,a problem for many other factions too is that you have to built buildings that do absolutely nothing just to get to the next more expensive building to allow you to built certain units.

Example

Archery Range(rank 1)-Archer Militia
Archery Range(rank 2)-Pretty Looking Picture costing you 3200 gold
Archery Range(rank 3)-Gondor Archers

Either remove useless ranks and make them cost more or give some other benefit like increased troop experience.Its silly.

If someone reads it all...thanks.

[Zimmy]

Oh man, you wouldn't like the MOS submod would you? It plans to have multiple units for every fiefdom in Gondor.

On topic, I think it's nice. It makes the faction very unique. Pelargir Marines in PELARGIR. Guards of Osgiliath in OSGILIATH. It makes little sense to recruit Pelargir Marines in Caras Galadhon(yes, that is coastal, the Anduin River counts as a coastal region.)

[kraxmause]

Oh man, you wouldn't like the MOS submod would you? It plans to have multiple units for every fiefdom in Gondor.

I think it sounds like he would love MOS. Yes, there are even more fiefdom units, but the fiefdom barracks make them retrainable in Minas Tirith and they are much stronger.
As Darth Lord Revan said, RR/RC makes elites much stronger and militias crappier. The Gondor Scouts are the anti Mumakil unit, much more effective than Pelargir marines (and they aren't AOR). Very good for killing Harad/Rhûn generals, too.
An example for the stats: Orc Raiders have an attack of 4 and a defense of 13, Gondor Infantry has an attack of 7 and a defense of 22. And that's the basic infantry. Gondor does field the best human infantry (along with Arnor).
Military buildings almost always unlock a better unit, e.g. the Practice Range now unlocks Gondor Archers.
Rhûn has become even more overpowered, though. In vanilla 3.2 I've seen them lose to Dale a few times, in MOS they always beat the out of them.

[Cirion]

Thanks for all the replies.I'll definately try MOS

[TartanArmyStu]

It sounds like you're just bad at playing Gondor..

[FC Groningen]

You certainly have a point, but at the moment I'd say the best solution would be to tone Harad and Rhun down instead of upgrading Gondor and Mordor.

[Son of Mars]

You certainly have a point, but at the moment I'd say the best solution would be to tone Harad and Rhun down instead of upgrading Gondor and Mordor.

Definitely Harad, they are supposed to be Mordor's lapdogs, but instead they end up being the real enemy for the first half of a Gondor campaign. Rhun only a little bit because they do have to face the best heavy infantry and archers(men, I know elves have better).

[Darth Lord Revan]

You could try using Real Combat stats for the vanilla 3.2 version. It does not change the fact that you have lots of unique units for certain settlements, but it does change the fact (very important one) that it diferentiates a lot the basic militia from the higher tier units. So your profesional and elite armies DO make a diference and they are also more expensive because of that. Just give it a try, you only have to change a couple of files and, if you don't like it, you can revert to vanilla.

Check my signature for the link to the thread where you can download the RC submod.

By the way, welcome to the forums!!!!

[Lionheart_19]

Definitely Harad, they are supposed to be Mordor's lapdogs, but instead they end up being the real enemy for the first half of a Gondor campaign. Rhun only a little bit because they do have to face the best heavy infantry and archers(men, I know elves have better).

True. It's a bit unrealistic that playing as Gondor you end up having more trouble with Harad than with Mordor

[kostas84]

I think its normal for Gondor to be like that, they are collapsing.

[Bowmaster]

Gondor has awesome cavalry, and it's weakness is costly units (though it should also mention bad archers). And skirmishers are usually AOR, so Pelargir Marines are fine, try to use more ballistas instead to kill Trolls and Mumakil.

[ppetrus]

Ithilien Rangers,Lossarnach Axemen,Swan Knights...Nice,but useless.

Archery Range(rank 2)-Pretty Looking Picture costing you 3200 gold

I believe you are wrong, sir. Tier 2 is reserved for Ithilien Rangers, they are available in more than one settlement (and what is more, at the front line) and they are one of the best archers in the game.

But I think I share most of your opinions. It was after my Gondor campaign I decided to mod EDB a little. It does not solve everything you said, well it does not solve even half of it but I believe it makes some of these things more playable than before. I have done it for myself but have uploaded it so maybe someone will benefit from it as well.

Edit: Oh, and I forget: a guy named Taro is working on new Gondor units in submod section. Mostly AOR but not only. In my opinion they are nightmarishly unbalanced but nonetheless great looking, well thought and definetely worth checking.

[Dwarven Berserker]

Taro hasn't released his units as some sort of "additional unit pack". He state himself that he's terrible at balancing, and thus the stats displayed on his screenshots are just numbers he randomly made up. Instead, he allows other modders to use his units and balance them accordingly. His units (except for his newest ones) are included in at least MOS, as far as I know, and they are pretty balanced

[ppetrus]

I remember him claiming some time ago (it was when 2.1 was the latest version) that the numbers were not random. His system was not that bad (plate armour means X armour, an axe means Y damage, etc) but it just did not work that well. However, the fact is he is one of the most talented modellers and as such he deserves the highest praises.

[Incomitatus]

Hi...

I absolutely Love Gondor!I tried several other factions but none felt so dynamic,fun and interesting,but i found their units are average at best.

Average? Gondor's units are some of the strongest in the game for their cost, if not the strongest.

As a faction i believe Gondor is supposed to field excellent heavy infantry,but to be lacking in cavalry and to have a few good archer units.

Yes, although the Cavalry Militia are very good for what they are. The Gondor Militia, the sword infantry unit, is also very good for it's cost and availability. Likewise, the Archer Militia is better than your average militia archer unit. The thing with Gondor isn't that they have the absolute best units, but that their average units are much better than everyone else's and almost as good as other faction's elites. Gondor Infantry and Gondor Spearmen are amazing.

First thing that is very annoying is the fact that Gondor infantry has lots of units unique to certain areas which makes them very,very useless.

Ithilien Rangers,Lossarnach Axemen,Swan Knights...Nice,but useless.

Ithilien Rangers can be recruited in Cair Andross and all of the Ithilien provinces (you have to take them, first, of course). Most of your fighting will be in that area, so they are available where you need them, and they are one of, if not the, best human archer units in the game. Further, even if they weren't available on the front lines... they are archers. You shouldn't ever be losing many. If you are, then you need to practice your tactics. If you do have to suffer losses to archers, that's why you should always take some Archer Militia along, for the dangerous jobs.

Lossarnach Axemen I can sort of agree with you. That said, they should only really be used to fight trolls, so you shouldn't be losing many, if any, in most engagements. I'm 70 turns into my game and I still have 3/4 of my starting two units. So yeah, they're good, but they're specialists... so they aren't useless, but they aren't that essential most of the time, either.

Swan Knights are far, far from useless. First, they are simply godly amazing. Second, they are cavalry, so they can move to the front pretty quickly. Third, Dol Amroth is on the sea, so transporting them by ship to anywhere you can is very fast. If you're losing more that 5-10 knights per major battle, you aren't using them right.

Sorry to keep implying that you aren't using the units right... I'm not trying to put you down. It's just that Gondor relies more on well-executed battle plans and combined arms tactics than other factions. Gondor can't afford losses, not only because of the lack of cash, but also because of what you've pointed out: localized recruitment for a lot of the best units. Add in slow recruit pool replenishment, and you've got a situation where, if you're losing more than 10-15% of your army in an engagement, you need to change how you're fighting. I'll make some suggestions later on.

And Rhun...Rhun for example is completely overpowered.
They have better cavalry,better archers,armor piercing Balchoth Tribesmen which my Gondor tin cans desperately lack and after building up can field heavy infantry that rivals my own.
Virtually no weaknesses.

Well, yes. There's a reason the various Easterlings kept handing Gondor's rear end back to them until the Rohirrim pulled their bacon from the fire. But that said... they really don't have better archers. See the bit about the Ithilien Rangers. Don't forget about the Blackroot Vale Archers, either.

The Balchoth are annoying, but there's two ways of dealing with them:

1. They tend to run up ahead of the army, so a cavalry counter-charge can destroy them.
2. They have practically no defense against arrows, so your archers can have fun target practice.

Their cavalry is better, and their Variag Raiders are... well, they make me swear at my computer often... but a combination of foot archers, stakes (from Ithilien Rangers) and Gondor Spearmen can cope with them well enough.

Their Loke infantry types are very good, but they aren't better per se. They do have some armed with axes that will cut your infantry up, but those men should be priority targets for your archers before they reach you lines. And that's the key point... always fight defensively against Rhun. Even if you are attacking in the field, set up a strong defensive position and then goad the AI into attacking. Never advance against a Rhunic army, they will tear you to shreds before you reach their lines. But it's easy enough to return the favour if they come to you.

Basically, if you think Rhun is overpowered vs Gondor, may I suggest you not play Dale? Or maybe you should play Dale and get some perspective...

Gondor in my opinion should field very strong,expensive,but also effective units especially in late game.Even more so given the fact that they are stuck with more enemies than anyone else in the map.Invasions hit them first and so on...Those who play Gondor know what i'm talking about.
Instead 2/3 of my campaign i was stuck with militia units.

That was a mistake on your part. No worries, I've made it more than once myself, but you can get professional troops quickly from Minas Tirith, the Osgiliaths, Pelargir, and Dol Amroth. You have to plan ahead, though, to be able to afford the necessary buildings, and you won't be able to afford building up troop production in all those places at once, pick two - I tend to go with Minas Tirith and W. Osgiliath - and then focus on econ in the the others. The next I build up is Pelargir. In my current game, it's turn 70 and I still don't have professional troops coming from Dol Amroth, but I'm not feeling their lack.

Ok,no problem.I will wait,build up and overcome numbers with quality.
Instead i found both Rhun and Harad bolster large armies made mostly of cheap units,armor piercing light infantry,mumakils(which i can only efficiently counter with Pelargir Marines).Ok ballistas too,but seriously who makes artillery in this game?

Pelargir Marines are pure gold. Never let their recruit pool sit idle at 'full'. Try to keep them alive, too, so you can mass them in the mid-game. They make perfect ship-borne raiders... 8 Marines, 2 Militia Archers, and a ballista or two and a moderate navy can destroy Harad's ability to be a threat.

In other words, yes, build ballistas. Artillery is essential to raiding, and raiding is essential to managing Harad.

Thing is-cheaper,easily recruitable,more effective units can be produced by the enemies of Gondor,a faction which for all its lore and feeling lacks good(non unique)troops.

I'm troubled that the difference between supposedly professional heavy infantry and some lightly trained and armored units is minimal.If that enemy unit has armor piercing as well you're screwed.

[...]
If someone even bothered to read all that he may have noticed i say expensive a lot.Expeeensivee.
Yep,Costly and inefficient.That's Gondor.

Yes, Gondor's army is expensive. But it is professional. Also bear in mind that Gondor's professional infantry get 3! armor upgrades (although I've heard the last upgrade is broken, can anyone confirm?). Each upgrade adds more than 1 actual armor - there's a coding bug that can't be fixed by modders that means each upgrade actually has the effect of a 2-2.5 point increase. Fully upgraded Gondor Infantry gets 6-7.5 more armour. AP units are troublesome, but they only reduce effective armour by 1/2, so if you fully upgrade Gondor's units... well, AP just brings them back down to their already well-protected starting point.

Gondor has the ability to be rich, but it requires aggressive investment in trade, mining, farming, and growth early on. You also need to get great governors in Minas Tirth (Denethor is fine) and Pelagir and Dol Amroth (Imrahil is great, but his bodyguard is sooooo good that you might want to consider training up someone else). It's also useful to train up a good governor for Anfalas, just to combat the corruption. By turn 50 you should be doing okay, money will still be tight, but you should have enough to do what you need with some planning. Once you start raiding Harad, your money problems are over... take undefended settlements behind the lines, sack them, sell the buildings, raise taxes to high and move on, let them be reconquered or rebel.

For battlefield tactics you need to have a soldier's mindset rather than a warrior's. Scout, plan your battles, and never fight without a clear tactical AND strategic goal. Don't be afraid to do some damage and then retreat if you need to in order to preserve your force. Don't be afraid to give up territory to draw your enemy into a better place to destroy him, and then take the land back.

For example, [anecdote warning]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

in my current game, Sauron got the Ring back and spawned on the map, then an Invasion was called against Minas Tirith. Sauron was coming for Cair Andros with his Olog Hai and veteran army, and the Rhun, Harad, and the Orc factions were all sending full stacks. I sallied and broke a normal full stack siege on Cair Andros and abandoned it, pulled the men back to Minas Tirith. I abandoned Calenhad, too, and since I didn't have enough men to fully garrison both East and West Osgiliath (the West now being open to attack since Cair Andros was abandoned) I gave up East Osgiliath, too.

Sounds bleak, huh? Well, not really. I was able to concentrate massive forces around Minas Tirith. Sauron and his army died at the northern gate of the Pelennor. Sauron in personal combat with Boromir (with assists from a lot of archers and Pelargir), it was kind of awesome! The Olog Hai fell to Ithilien Rangers and Pelagir Marines. Harad's army got crushed by Imrahil in the south, the Rhunic Army and the Orcs were utterly destroyed by Denethor while trying to assault Minas Tirith (Boromir and the remnants of his army were there, too). Now, five turns on, East Osgiliath is back in my hands and Cair Andros is, too. Calenhad will be in a turn or two. Total losses for me: about 25% of total forces in action. Heaviest losses against Sauron and his army, of course - Boromir's army in that battle took 36% losses, special circumstances when the Dark Lord himself is present.

On the battlefield itself there are several different approaches to take to fighting with Gondor's army. If you are fielding militia forces, then you might as well just use a straightforward line of battle and basic medieval tactics, ie. charge. It's still best to goad the enemy into attacking you so you can get the most out of your archers, and then counter-charge as they get close.

But the professional army... that's a different kettle of fish. I suggest different approaches and army compositions based on who you are fighting.

Against Mordor,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I find treating Gondor's army like a Marian Legion works well. Use the quinqunx formation. It actually works better in M2:TW/TATW than real life (in real life, the front line would close prior to engagement). The enemy will only engage your front line and won't locally flank through gaps in the line, so they attack the forward most units, allowing your second line to get a charge bonus into the gaps. Use Gondor Infantry and as many archer units as you care to. Bring along a couple Gondor Spearmen, but they are only there in case you run into a Nazgul and need to screen against him.

You don't need a lot of cavalry against Mordor. They are powerful, but the Infantry are the real killers. Just have enough cavalry to flank effectively and chase routers. Having a unit or two of Lossarnach Axemen, to deal with any trolls that come along is also good, but no more. Trolls, even Olog Hai, can be severely weakened by archers before they reach your lines, so make sure to focus fire while they approach to make it easier for the Infantry/Axemen.

Against Harad,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Your best strategy is raiding, but when you must face them on the field (and you will, of course, it's unavoidable), you must be aware of two things: Southron Lancers are death incarnate and Muhad Tribesmen are close behind. If you try to fight Harad without Gondor Spearmen, you will suffer - the Lancers will just ride you down.

If you are able to charge Southron Lancers with Gondor Militia Cavalry, without the Lancers charging you, you will win in the ensuing melee. If they charge you, you will either lose, or win with such devastating losses you might as well have lost. A General's Bodyguard can inflict massive casualties against Lancers, but not enough to win the subsequent fight if they can't run away. Imrahil's Bodyguard, on the other hand, will flatten a unit of Southron Lancers like a pancake. Use appropriately.

It's usually not safe to use cavalry against the Muhad Tribesmen until late in the battle, due to the presence of Southron Lancers or Serpent Guards. Archers are your only real option.

So how to deploy? Well, for fighting Harad, if I don't have archers with stakes (Ithilien Rangers, in FRoGS I use Dol Amroth archers, MOS probably has options, too) I use a Byzantine deployment. A thin line of Gondor Spearmen in the center, immediately behind which are swordsmen (militia or, better, Pelargir Marines - the Gondor Infantry should be fighting Mordor) and behind them, as many archers of the best type I can find and afford - a minimum of four units. Cavalry on the wings - at least two units per wing, three is better, militia is fine - screened by more Gondor Spearmen. If you have stakes, you can dispense with the central spearmen, and deploy your archers just before your swordsmen.

As annoying as Harad's archers and Muhad Tribesmen are, your first priority must be to destroy their cavalry. Only when they are gone, focus on the enemy archers/Muhad Tribesmen.

Do not engage infantry with your Spearmen, they are only there to fight cavalry. If infantry is moving against your center, counter-charge with your swordsmen. The enemy can't deliver a charge through their own men, so you're safe. If infantry is moving against the spearmen screening your cavalry, engage them, but only while you run a unit of cavalry out to flank charge them... break them before they inflict many casualties and then withdraw the cavalry back behind your spears if the enemy still has Lancers in service.

Once your archers have reduced the enemy cavalry down to half strength or so, it's time to move your cavalry out and finish them off. Focus your archers on unengaged enemy cavalry or on enemy archers/Muhad's.

The presence of Mumakil obviously change things. Focus your archers on them with fire arrows and move your Marines to kill them ASAP, then try to return to formation if you can.

You will take losses against Harad, sometimes heavy ones, but you shouldn't ever lose more than you can afford to replace quickly, since you should probably be relying mostly on Militia Cavalry and Infantry for the majority of combat.

Rhun,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Not that much different than fighting Harad, actually. You'll want to replace the Militia Swordsmen with Gondor Infantry, make sure you have stakes for your archers, make sure you've invested in the armour upgrades, and pick the best terrain to fight on - river crossings are great.

I would also recommend trying not to fight them until you've taken control of Ithilien and Harondor, at the very least, so that you have a great economy and Mordor is bottled up and Harad weakened. You'll also have a lot of access to Ithilien Rangers - who are awesome, just to reiterate.

You'll suffer higher casualties to your Infantry than are pleasant, but by the time you fight Rhun (Invasions aside, which you should actually be fighting either on the Pelennor or at Minas Tirith itself, thus benefiting from terrain/fortifications) you should be able to afford the losses. Just keep reinforcements moving to the front at a steady pace.

These are all pretty basic field tactics and strategies. They hold true for vanilla TATW and for FRoGS, I'm pretty certain they hold true for MOS, too. (They actually hold true for RTR, M2TW, MTW, etc etc... no surprise since they're Roman/Byzantine, from the real world... ).

I hope this is helpful, and not too long!

[Ultra123]

well said incomitatus. + rep.

[scostens]

I agree about the swan knights. They can plow trough almost anything. Also doesn't Imrahil have a Swan Knight bodyguard? (don't know for sure if this is on vanilla, I ussually play FROME) That means you don't even have to worry about retraining.

If you're fighting mumakil as gondor, you're doing something wrong. Ideally, Harad should be dead long before they can field Mumakil.

[Ultra123]

yes imrahil has swans knights in vanilla, and ive allowed harad to build up before. its good fun!

[eugenioso]

gondor is fine just as it is. the above post put it well enough, but please do allow me to comment on certain points:

_ specialist units are specialists for a reason. they are good at something very specific, usually they excel at it, but when they fight the wrong unit they dont do as good as you wish they did. to put it in layman's terms, lossarnach axemen are meant to destroy heavily armored units, like uruk bodyguards or trolls, and they can also destroy hordes of normal lowly orcs, but thats not what they are designed to do. same goes for Rangers: they are the second best ranged human units in the game (close to dale's bowmen), and they are also capable of self defense. they are meant for ambush and harassing operations against melee units, but not to counterfire against other ranged units.

Rhun is not OP, the problem is that they are a whole faction and you have to divide your efforts into fighting a potential of three. of course they are going to outnumber you most of the time until you can secure your other fronts and focus wholeheartedly on them.

gondor DOES field strong smaller armies, however the problem is actually building them. gondor does not start with a professional army ready to be built, so you have to rely on militias most of the game to bolster your armies. building a full gondorian infantry/archer/cavalry army stack can be done, but it would be incredibly costly and time consuming. use militias to complement your elite forces, not simply to replace them.

if you want to tackle Mumakils and to a lesser extent trolls, go with the siege weapons. ballistas are accurate enough, and in a good case scenario they might make the mumakil run amok. without ballistas, you are stuck with pelargir marines, effective but costly. oh, and i build artillery.

finally, every faction in the game suffers from a poor starting economy, from the dwarves to mordor. the issue is that most players who complain about the poor income dont take the time to increase their economy properly. i cant count the times people have posted "im losing too much money!". so let me explain.

total money = money spent on upkeep/building vs money earned per turn. when the first one is more than the second one, youre in trouble. capische?

[Cirion]

After a lot of thinking i decided i didn't explain myself as well as i should have.
Please,excuse my english it's not native to me.
I'll try to write all things down as good as i can,though i'll probably miss something.

First Incomitatus thanks for your post-it's obvious you spend a lot of time writing this.

Let me say though,i have no problems beating the game.I won my campaign with all scripts and without cheating...almost.I used cheats to remove bad traits on generals.(if i knew Aragorn was such a nuisance i would have refused him)
I appreciate the effort,truly,but i'm not complaining about difficulty,but about balance and hopefully i need no tutorials.
I believe i know how to best develop my economy as not to grow weak and unable to support my armies.I also believe i know how to place my units,how to use their strong sides and avoid exposing their weaknesses to the enemy.Enough about that.

I was wrong about some stuff and i apologise.

As some guys pointed maybe its not Gondor that needs buffing ,but the bad guys(Rhun,Harad)that needs a bit tweaking.

The problem with Gondor is not really that its units are weak.

I never claimed Gondor should have best units just because its stuck with many and powerfull enemies or simply because"It's Gondor maaan".

If anyone should have best infantry it's the dwarves.If anyone should have best archers it's elves.If anyone should have best cavalry it's Rhun/Rohan.

Gondor is one of those factions-(unfortunately mostly the good guys suffer from it )that require specific units to do specific job.Bad guys can recruit almost anything everywhere.And Gondor has probably the largest amount of "a bit better than regular" troops.I have no problems with AOR units.

I have problems ,though, that i can't find anyone to do their job.

I need Axemen to kill Trolls?Very well i use them one battle and have to return the guys for retraining unless i'm going a bit sado and want to lose them.Meanwhile the next Orc/Olog-hai wave rapes the rest of my guys.
Oh well...i can replace them,RIGHT?

NO, wait... i can't!Its the only unit with armor piercing ability Gondor has!(ok Fountain Guard too-another AOR)
Same with Marines.I can't retrain them in Far Harad and there is no other unit capable of doing what they can do-Kill Mumakils.

Gondor doesn't really need buffing.It needs regularly available units capable of doing certain job and countering certain enemies.That's it.Depending on unique type of batallions,because you simply lack other options is bad.

And yeah,Swan Knights are awesome...
And you will lose units.You will lose knights as well no matter how good (or bad)you are.
Now go retrain them across half the map,no matter how fast they travel while Harad and Rhun can (not my fault they don't-they can)spam slightly weaker (very slightly) bodyguard quality troops.

That's the reason i almost never recruited any type of cavalry and used Gondor Bodygurads.
Gondor Cavalry is inferior to Rhun's and Haradrim's and that's how it should be.Period.

Ok so Gondor depends on "limited use" units...that doesn't mean they suck,right?

Yes it does,because both Rhun and Harad have troops made like specifically to counter Gondor.If you play long long enough you have to fight Rhun even if there is no Invasion called.

Rhun

Balcoth Tribesman-armor piercing and available on first tier barracks.
Go fight them with Gondor Militia if you have undeveloped town.And if u have upper tier army go chase them until u exhaust your infantry completely.Only thing you can do is bring superior cavalry force.Kill their cavalry since your Bodyguards are slightly better and charge Balchoths themselves.

Maybe use archers you say?
Sure,but that's only if thay have more skirmishers.If they have more cavalry i'm done for.
As Gondor you have one general unit composition relying mostly on heavy infantry,a few archer units and cavalry.
As Rhun you can build (for example) only missile cavalry army,or only skirmisher/missile cavalry.Or heavy infantry/cavalry.Or some mix between those.You have a lot of freedom.

If you have proper counter against some compositions if you're not careful the next army will see your army destroyed.

And before someone says something-yes Gondor Bodyguards are better than Rhun's,but Gondor Cavalry is hardly match for Loke-Innas which are also in much higher numbers then Bodyguards.

Now on top of Rhun having better regular cavalry,missile cavalry and light infantry that you completely lack they also have Loke-Flag Rim.

I never claimed Rhun has better infantry than Gondor.Ever.

I said it "rivales it" and so it does.

Citadel Guard will kill 1v1 Loke-Flag Rim...barely.
Counting all the other advantages Rhun has -is that justified?

I admit i never played Dale.I won't pretend i know how to use them.
I was talking about Gondor.As I said i know other factions have problems,but my point was for Gondor alone.

Now i said AOR are useless.They are.For me atleast.I included Ithilien Rangers which was a mistake.They are indeed front line troops and see some use.

Many armies bring archers or some kind of ranged unit.You say its hard to lose archers?I disagree.In fact Ithilien Rangers are also "Vulnerable to Missiles" which makes them even harder to keep alive.

So you say they are the best human archers?

Ithilien Rangers Southron Archers = Blackroot Vale Loke-Nar Rim

Melee 8 Melee 6 Melee 6 Melee 6
Missile 9 Missile 9 Missile 9 Missile 8
Defence 6 Defence 8 Defence 8 Defence 12

stakes stakes !no stakes stakes