Harad is too strong!!!

[Sir Arun]

Hi guys,

I am playing on VH/VH as Free Peoples of Eriador (Arnor now). Current situation:








Also, see this: http://i.imgur.com/LgAEk.jpg


Before I begin, let me briefly summarize the course of my campaign for all you experienced TATW players out there:

Over the past month, I have played a total of about 270 turns. In the beginning, I expanded rapidly, conquering all rebel regions around Bree. OOTG captured Fornost, but I soon drove them all the way back to Angmar. I then did another push with fresh reinforcements and drove them back to Gundabad, and then conquered that city too and defeated the faction.

My other enemy was OOTM. While I was regrouping to lash out against them and returned to conquer the Northern Misty Mountains, I noticed that the High Elves and Wood Elves defeated them (High Elves took Goblin Town/Central Misty Mountains, Wood Elves took Moria/Deep/Southern Misty Mountains)

Right.

Now I had gone for the long campaign (goal: capture 40 regions), so I was still many regions short. I had made an alliance with the High Elves and Dwarves, so I had to move either into far Rhovanion and liberate Wilderland and Southern Mirkwood for more territories, or push into South Tharbad and wage war on Isengard.

I chose the latter.

The War with Saruman was fast and fun. I blitzed him, cutting a bloody swath deep into Dunland, but lost the province as Saruman unleashed his Dunlendings and Uruks against me.

But a second wave from my Breeland militia, Lumbermen and Woodland Hunters made me capture Dunland's provinces for good. The High Elves in the meantime, had already taken South Cardolan and Lond Daer. I took Lond Angren and then made for the final push toward Isengard.

There, I encountered a sizeable Rohan army, and we were both attacked by a full stack of Isengard, led by the Mad Wizard himself. He was slain in mid-battle, and so the rest of his army soon fled. I captured Isengard and defeated Saruman that way.

Now what?

Rohan lay ahead of me, but was my ally. As was Gondor. I has about 30 regions by now and still needed 10, so the option was to - since Harad was busy fighting Gondor and trying to get across the Great River - either build ports in Lond Angren and send stacks to far away Umbar and ram them in Harad's unprepared ass, or send troops over the Misty Mountains and into the Anduin Valley and help the Wood Elves liberate Mirkwood from Mordor's grip there.

I chose the latter, since the thought of upkeep for a fleet large enough to get past Umbar's Corsairs, and the great travel distance, also seemed daunting.

So, I spend the next 30 or so turns hauling troops over to Rhosgobel and Dol Guldur, but the mistake I made, was that I didnt send more than 1 or 2 stacks at a time. I should have send 3 or 4 stacks (maximum amount of stacks possible for me at the time before I entered bankruptcy) at once and blitzed the entire area.

Anyway, I DID manage to capture Rosgobel and Dol Guldur, but being the stupid decision of the TATW team to make recruiting new units almost impossible there due to the whole culture thing AND different terrain thing, my army's remnants were stranded there.

I even got so far as to capturing Thoronburg....*sniff*....

Sauron called for an invasion to Dol Guldur and I soon got raped by 2 stacks of Rhun and Mordor each. The Wood Elves WERE OF NO HELP; THEY JUST FRICKING ABANDONED FIGHTING BY MY SIDE IN THE LAST MINUTE BEFORE ENEMY STACKS GOT TO MY ARMIES.


In the meantime, Sauron had called another invasion: Minas Tirith.

Needless to say, the white city soon took it up the anus when FIVE FULL STACKS of Harad showed up at its door.

With Minas Tirith fallen, I had a new cause: recapture it and come to Gondor's aid. So, I recruited 4-5 stacks from all corners of my kingdom and sent these through the long journey across Eriador, Rohan and finally into Anorien.

This is where the began:


Meter by bloody meter, I fought my way towards Minas Tirith. Everytime I defeated a Harad stack, BOOM! there came a new one from the fog of war to take its place....I mean....wtf?

1....2....3....4....after defeating the fifth Harad stack, my relief force ran out of steam, just a short way from the White City itself. I came so far as to conquer the Druedain forest, but that was about it.

I sent a spy to the Pelennor fields and lo and behold, in front of the White City were ANOTHER SIX HARAD STACKS!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/Slw0A.jpg

That's when I almost lost it. I retreated and had to rebuild my force and more importantly, rethink my strategy.


This delay was enough for Gondor to get absolutely DESTROYED by Harad. The Southrons mercilessly slaughtered their way through Pelargir, Arnach, Linhir, Tarnost, Dol Amroth, Calembel, Erech and Lond Galen.

By the time I had assembled four new stacks (and converted to Arnor), only Annulond and Pinnath Gelin were left of the once mighty Kingdom of Gondor.

I knew that the full might of Harad was here, in Gondor, and I would use this to strike them in their own heartland.

So I sent 1 stack via ship all the way to that Island near Umbar (Erelond, I think), conquered the unprepared city and sacked it for 30,000 Gold. But next turn already, I found my ship surrounded by the corsair fleet.

http://i.imgur.com/2Urui.jpg

I couldn't take my stack from there to Umbar.....



Meanwhile, the last two provinces of Gondor had fallen. And Derwath (originally Rohan's, but due to a rebellion, eluded their grasp and I had managed to conquer it) lay now exposed to Harad's wrath.

I had to divert my other 3 stacks to protect my own Kingdom now, which bordered with Harad. Gondor was gone.


Thanks for reading so far, this is where my question comes. I checked the military stats and saw that Harad has over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SOLDIERS. I can barely raise my forces to 20,000 soldiers before I start going bankrupt.



This is how many forces Harad currently has:


West Gondor: http://i.imgur.com/mFV33.jpg

South/Central Gondor: http://i.imgur.com/fUL8Q.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/usytg.jpg

East Gondor: http://i.imgur.com/OEtsk.jpg

Rohan/Anorien border: http://i.imgur.com/oSP0B.jpg

More reinforcements coming from Harad: http://i.imgur.com/pHsoN.jpg

Corsair fleet patrolling Umbar, making an invasion almost impossible: http://i.imgur.com/fxZAd.jpg


22 stacks in total, while I can never have more than 5 or so at a time.

...should I give up the campaign at this point or how can I win? Dale is getting pounded by Rhun, and the Wood Elves are defending their own lands, at best, while Rohan is weak. Oh, and herp derp, Sauron has found the Ring.

Is it only a downward spiral from here? I can only think of two options:

A) Fight my way through using the "auto_win" cheat, that let me win each battle regardless of odds, and thus, thin them down.

B) Do not cheat. Whenever I capture a settlement in Gondor or Harad, I will raze each and every building to the ground. That way, when the enemy recaptures it, it will be useless to them since they will have to rebuild everything.

Please help.



Statistics:

http://i.imgur.com/4fSd4.jpg

No other factions comes even remotely close to the military power Harad is wielding: http://i.imgur.com/UmPnG.jpg (the 2nd strongest being Rhun, and the two of them are allies)

http://i.imgur.com/Xu8PF.jpg

[Arlin]

When the AI hax, hax them back. I'd find it tempting to just auto-win cheat myself. Send a single general and kill all 100k troops.

On the other hand, if you want to win the right way, I would guess you have a few options. The first that I can think of us bottleneck and push when able. Raze everything when you take a city and make the slow grind through their armies for those last 10 provinces. Another thought, is you could backstab the High Elves or Rohan in a massive blitz, steal the last 10 provinces, get victory, and call it a day.

If it was me, I'd call BS on VH difficulty Harad and cheat...or backstab allies and avoid the psycho horde. >.<

[Emperor Hantscher]

They not so good when you play as Harad War is not always easy, some one has to give you a hard time or the game would have no challenge and that = no fun.

The game plays different every campaign and everything is influenced by what you do, or so it seems. By the looks of it, Harad destroyed Gondor. Had you supported Gondor in their war with Harad you wouldn't have this problem. It makes sense that Harad has such a military might, look at the land they control. They now have the power of two factions and are most likely fighting a war on a single front, against you.

Good luck my friend, but since I am currently playing a campaign with Harad I feel I am obligated to hope for your utter annihilation by the mighty armies of Harad!


Here's a strategy I often use when the enemy has way to many stacks at the frontline. Send small raiding parties deep into enemy territory. Harad's original territories probably have one or two units garrisoned in each city, land ships on their coast carrying one or two, 5 to 7 unit armies and raze as many cities as you can. That will do one of two win-win outcomes.

1. Harad will pull a few stacks from the frontline back into the region you are ravashing. Giving you some relief at the front line.

2. Harad will do nothing and you can freely conquer their southern lands with limited resistance.

One thing I often do when the enemy does pull a few full stacks from the line, since I know my 5 unit armies don't stand a chance against a full stack is that I destroy every building I can in the city, pull back let it rebel of let the enemy take it back. It will kill their income, reduce their ability to replenish troops, and they will spend money to have to rebuild the city. Do that to enough cities and you will actually notice a difference in the AI replenishment of it's armies.

[Maiar93]

1) Do not cheat.
2) Create an elite force. (Which consists of pikemen, archers and some pretty bad-ass battlefield turtle- units)
3) Create a plan, which should relieve Gondor of its oppressors.
4) Record your every move and write a "Harad Apocalypse" AAR out of it.

[Sir Arun]

Thanks for the replies guys, I finally understood one thing:

On VH difficulty, the AI is cheating all the time, getting free upkeep, extra money, free units, no bankruptcy and whatnot.

It is only fair if I cheat back....and again, I only used this as a last resort (that it took so long for me to get to the point ....270 turns....is kinda proof that I am not a cheater and actually a good TW player)

1) Do not cheat.
2) Create an elite force. (Which consists of pikemen, archers and some pretty bad-ass battlefield turtle- units)
3) Create a plan, which should relieve Gondor of its oppressors.
4) Record your every move and write a "Harad Apocalypse" AAR out of it.

As much as I would love to, I am in university, I have a life, and do not (cannot) spend the next six months in front of my PC fighting 47625 multi-stack battles. If I were trapped in a stasis-time bubble, I would have definitely given in and continued to fight honorably (heck, I am an OCD kid myself and want things to be done so prim and proper that I actually often don't even speed up the movement of units in the game)


Once again, thanks for the feedback guys. In short: I won the campaign and promptly deleted all save games of the campaign to never again waste my life on a VH/VH neverending stack-war. I'm glad it is finally off my chest.

(never faced anything like this in any total war game so far. The closest was the Maratha horde in Empire total war on VH/VH, but even they were manageable if you put some effort into it)


Cheers,
-Sir Arun

[Galain_Ironhide]

Never believe in the odds!

Looking at the map tactically I would have two forces (with whatever troops and as many as you deem fit) move out from your southern most province, one by boat to the Western most former-Gondorian province on the coast and then one into the Pinath Gelin (I think that is what is called) province.
From there it will be a war of attrition - and as you would know you will have to keep supplying fresh troops, however just keep pushing them back east out of Gondor. Minas Tirith would be amongst the last of the Gondorian territories I would be aiming for.

Get Gondor free, then you can start pushing Harad back South.

Oh use pikes (if arnor have them), important against all that cavalry.

Although you did say you only had 10 more settlements to win right. Well maybe liberation of Gondor will do then. Just imagine if Minas Tirith was the last place you had to capture to win the campaign. I think you would be pretty happy with your self.

[Withwnar]

Had you supported Gondor in their war with Harad you wouldn't have this problem.

This. In my Rohan campaign I had an army stationed around Tarnost/Linhir to help Gondor keep Harad at bay. Mordor was the main problem around Minas Tirith; I helped out there too but Harad was not sending stacks that way. But I did help Gondor win back and hold Pelargir. An expensive business though.

Despite my assistance I got tired of the endless Harad stacks heading towards Linhir. So I created (yet another!) army to raid and cripple their west coast settlements. The pillage money was excellent, hurt their economy and slowed down their army and fleet production.

After all that - which I could only afford to do later in the game - Harad is still difficult to overcome for Gondor but they are now inching forward into Harad's homelands (with my assistance here and there).

EDIT: This is easier for Rohan, being closer. But the advantage of E/A is the shared religion/culture. Take a settlement and hold it, building up your culture there. It can then be used as a frontline base and recruitment point. Then, when ready to move on, give/sell to Gondor: they may instantly recruit from there due to the shared religion.

[Sir Arun]

That sounds like a good idea and I had definitely thought about putting 2 of my 4 Arnor stacks on boat and sailing them almost simultaneously into the two south-easternmost provinces of Gondor (which were lightly defended as most of Harad's stacks were moving about further inland, away from the coast) and loot the provinces to gain all the gold and destroy all the buildings to gain even more gold (thereby not only making sure that I could keep a steady line of reinforcements without going bankrupt, but also if Harad recaptured the settlements, that they would have nothing to build further soldiers from, while the other two stacks would blockade the passes in the White Mountains to prevent Harad spilling forth into the North.

Piece by piece, I would recapture Gondorian cities and either loot or exterminate them and raze all buildings so that I need not worry if my armies couldn't hold them.

Geographically, reinforcements coming from the heartlands of Eridador to Gondor take about just as long to get there as reinforcements from Harad do.

Now this approach would have worked except for one thing: the fact that the AI cheats and gains soldiers where it shouldn't be able to. Let's not forget that the multi-stack battles are a catastrophe for the player: the AI can control reinforcing armies with relative ease, while you (the player) can only crudely choose between an offensive, defensive and shootout stance, and the casualty rate for the reinforcements is usually high that way. Also, the fact that the AI gains free soldiers during a settlement defense would soon rob my armies out of steam. Plus, this epic war of attrition (probably the most epic struggle in any total war game I have played so far) would have cost me another 80-100 turns with no guarantee of victory, due to the AI's cheating.

And I hadn't encountered a single Mumak yet, so I would guess it was only a matter of time till they start bringing them too.

Thats why I sent for the solution above. I preferred cheating and slaying Harad's armies by the droves than betraying my High Elven and Dwarven allies to quickly grab 10 territories and end the game....that would have been very wrong.

Oh, I was also offered to become a vassal of Harad. Theoretically, I could then stop worrying about them and focus on the much lighter armies of Mordor, but I think that since Mordor was allied with Harad, that Harad would have soon turned on me again...besides, as a vasall you have to also pay half your income as tribute, right? And it was also a moral humiliation for Arnor to become a vasall of Harad ^^

[Withwnar]

Vassal? Over my dead body! And you're right about Mordor, though it might create a war between Mordor and Harad instead. But as soon as an Invasion is called against you I would think that all bets are off and even Harad would attack you (not sure).

Piece by piece, I would recapture Gondorian cities and either loot or exterminate them and raze all buildings so that I need not worry if my armies couldn't hold them.

If Gondor was still alive then it might be better to give it back to them instead. For their long term benefit if they can hold it in the short term.

[Sir Arun]

I saved Gondor by granting them refuge in Fangorn

If Gondor was still alive then it might be better to give it back to them instead. For their long term benefit if they can hold it in the short term.

I think it would have been too much of a risk, given that Gondor would have to rebuild its army, and by gaining provinces only one by one, they would lack the monetary means to be of any assistance to me, even if their cities were unraided.

And that would have been too much of a risk considering that more Harad stacks would appear from the fog of war without warning.

I also thought about recruiting an army of spies and making all of Gondor's lands visible, almost like the toggle_fow cheat, so that I could better prepare my moves, but right at that moment I was out of money to recruit new spies (my stacks were eating up all income) and it would also take about 10 turns to get them all into position, by which time a lot could have happened (5-6 hours of gameplay), so I thought ahh well, it.

[Mikail Mengsk]

Grinding throug Gondor is no-use. You will be worn down way before reaching Pelargir/Minas Tirith. Also pointless to land at Pelargir: you'll be too close to their mass of stacks.

Stick to the original idea: create a fleet, board an uber-elite army on it. Go to Umbar. Ravage Harad, sacking every city and destroying every building. Keep only Umbar for yourself. You'll get a hell of a treasure, that you can use to train other dreadstacks to keep Haradrim at bay around Gondor.

DO NOT PUSH INTO GONDOR YET, unless you see Haradrim pulling back to their homeland. If they do, follow them at distance, taking back any Gondor settlements they left poorly defended.

As soon as you can, send other dreadstacks down south.


This way you'll have enough money to build enough stacks to face the Haradrim hordes, and you will deny them any recruitment in their lands. Remember that they probably won' recruit much in Gondo because of different culture, so if you destroy their Harad settlements, they can't train elites (only by scripts).

Of course the reinforcements scripts that spawn out of thin air when you capture certain settlements will hit you hard, but that's inevitable unless you cancel the script before starting the campaign. As I always do.

[Sir Arun]

Of course the reinforcements scripts that spawn out of thin air when you capture certain settlements will hit you hard, but that's inevitable unless you cancel the script before starting the campaign. As I always do.

how do u do that?

[k/t]

Delete it from campaign_script.txt

D:\SEGA\Medieval 2 Total War\mods\Third_Age\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign

[Arlin]

Delete it from campaign_script.txt

D:\SEGA\Medieval 2 Total War\mods\Third_Age\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign

Is it the "Spawn Slave Defenders" section for each faction that you have to delete?

edit: Nevermind, I found out. Read the stickied FAQ and it explained everything between Garrison Script and Money Script should be deleted.

[Sir Arun]

Is it the "Spawn Slave Defenders" section for each faction that you have to delete?

edit: Nevermind, I found out. Read the stickied FAQ and it explained everything between Garrison Script and Money Script should be deleted.

...could you give me a link please? I don't want to mess up my .cfg file, and at the same time, would like to play a new campaign where "all is fair" and the AI doesn't cheat.


Then again, I never understood how difficulty levels work in total war games.

In my naivety, I used to think that in Very Hard, the AI plays to its full potential, and the lower difficulty settings is where it plays with a handicap.


But somewhere else I read that the higher difficulty settings simply mean that the AI gets a population growth bonus, tax bonus, no bankruptcy, that it can recruit faster, and that in battle, its armies get a significant morale boost.

So exactly how do the difficulty settings work?

What difficulty setting is the one where the AI gets no cheat bonus whatsoever?

[Arlin]

Link to the F.A.Q. is:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=509455

Just scroll down to where it says "To remove the Garrison Script follow these steps:" and hit the spoiler. I actually took a look at it is Garrison Script 3.0 now, not 1.3.

I was thinking of just editing certain bits of it instead of mass deletion. I don't mind certain major cities getting the huge garrison script because that would make sense to me. Cities like Dol Guldor, Black Gate, Barad Dur, Minas Tirith, Moria, etc. Those SHOULD be hard to take but the minor cities... it just irritates me after smashing my armies against stacks and trying to siege a city with a bloodied army just to find that everything I killed is no handed right back to my enemy. But that's my opinion & playstyle. ^.^

I think you have it pretty much spot on as far as difficulty differences go. I know there is a specific answer but too lazy to find it. From memory, you COULD say the AI gets cheats with higher difficulty. They get more money, cheaper everything, better morale for troops, etc. It is all meant to challenge the player who has already mastered lower difficulties and wants to progress further. Personally, I am sucky still at M2TW. I still have some problems on Medium. ((Which sucks, cause I can do VH/VH on Rome Total War easily... I think that game is just easier?)) The whole slow recruitment kills me...

[Mikail Mengsk]

But you have to do before starting the campaign, so for this one you can do nothing.

[Galain_Ironhide]

Finally managed to get home so I could look at those pic's you tagged of Harad's forces. Fighting all that, well that looks..... tedious.

Interested to see what those stacks are composed of however, for if they were made up mainly of haradrim spears, and archers, even Southron spears and some Southron Lancers, they would still make pretty easy kills imo (however you are a lot later into the game so if they are filled with elites, I apologise). Send all your Generals/Governers to the front line to act as OP bulldozers.

Plus I noticed in one of the shots you had a stack just south of Rohirrim lands in the mountains which looks completely futile. Let Rohan deal with the armies they have on their borders and you worry about yours. Even if Rohan don't last at least you are still gaining a foothold into Gondor of your own.

I dont think an invasion to Umbar will go very successfully looking at all of those Corsair ships. Thus why I think pushing into Gondor from your southern most border is still most feasible.

Saying "you should have done this at the start" or "edit this file" is looking in the past and not constructive as to how to win this campaign right now moving forward, so this is why I answer in this light (No offence intended to any of the posters). The game's not over yet, I am forever an optimist.

Also did I see your treasury at minus $57,000 ?

PS I think you need to take many screenshots and report in on your progress too. Looks interesting. And if you can do it without cheats you will definitely be applauded.

[DrDragun]

Actually you can make a good bunch of free armies by gifting Gondor back their garrison script cities. You lose the city for yourself however a half stack or 3/4 stack will appear in the city when you gift it to Gondor empty. I did this on my Silvans campaign but the red disease had not spread so far yet.

Or else pay Rhun 100,000 to attack Harad lol.

[ppetrus]

Or... Go further: sell a settlement to Gondor, buy it back, sell it again, (repeat many, many times), buy it back and you will see tens (or hundreds) of soldiers near the settlement, half of which will be yours, half Gondor's. Though, if you are not feeling lucky, you may get tens of ballistae units.