Have you won?

[eugenioso]

i have. usually i dont have the patience to win a game ive alrealy feel like i have won, but sometimes i do.

my lastest win was as the silvans using the RR/RC mod. to say it was hard at the beginning would be soft. my lowest point in that campaign was sieging Moria and a goblin army sweeping from the north into Caras Galadhon, which nearly fell were it not for some brave silvan spearmen sacrificing themselves in the open field to distract said army and buying me time to fortify it. as well as the balrog. damn thing made me lose my first siege of Moria and almost lose my main generals. after about 100 turns that turned me into middle earth's most powerful faction, with OOTMM and OOG, Isengard dead, i gathered 4 entire armies that completely shattered my economy which i barely somehow kept healthy, and marched into the black gate. my generals, all the original ones, were all gold chevron units and some of my sentinels and archers were the very first units i had built in the game, surviving hundreds of battles, all veterans of unflinching courage. after fighting my way into Mordor and an 11 turn siege of the Black Gate, the real battles begun. i even had the one ring on some unknown general from earlier in the campaign, but refused the white council's trip to rivendell as it was to me a major waste of time.

after ten battles and nearly a third of my entire force dead, Mordor was broken and i won the campaign.

maybe ill give that a shot with Isengard now, as i feel evil today.

[dannyalex]

Plenty times with Eriador with long campaign and some with Gondor,Dale,High Elves...yea only with those,now if u are asking if i have play to the last turn ,the answer is no,i become bored due lack of interests and targets.

With Silvans its tricky in the start,(never eliminate Mordor in the LP),Balrgog..lol,some days before decide to siege Moria but until it has inside 20 units...this way no Balrog..lol

the campaign u play must be a real bloody one,u use artillery or not? personally find it waste of time and money to build the structures...i just won with melee weapons

[beermugcarl]

I won the game with Isengard because mass producing Uruk-hai is so bloody fun, even went as far as trying to take the whole map (but got bored at about 3/4 of the regions), all the while on VH/VH

In this case, the hardest people to beat were the high-elves, by the time i got to them (turn 150 or something) they had done nothing but spam stacks around mithlond so yay down descended about 6 stacks of professional high elves... not fun... especially when you live by self built rule of 'if it is bigger than half a stack you must fight it'

Easiest were Gondor, because sadly by the time i took out rohan and turned my might south, they were already on the retreat

But Isengard are indeed my favourite

though that was in 2.0 I haven't had a chance to play much in 3.0 I currently have rohan and it's turn 55? 60? can't recall

[eugenioso]

Plenty times with Eriador with long campaign and some with Gondor,Dale,High Elves...yea only with those,now if u are asking if i have play to the last turn ,the answer is no,i become bored due lack of interests and targets.

With Silvans its tricky in the start,(never eliminate Mordor in the LP),Balrgog..lol,some days before decide to siege Moria but until it has inside 20 units...this way no Balrog..lol

the campaign u play must be a real bloody one,u use artillery or not? personally find it waste of time and money to build the structures...i just won with melee weapons

i never build artillery save if i cant build anything else due to recruitment times. melee elves are great, but after a few battles they simply run too low on numbers to make a difference. with RR/RC you get some almost godly units, but unfortunately every battle they lose a few men and by the fifth battle their numbers are too low to make a difference, especially against the thousands of orcs. ranged units are the way to go with silvans. in vanilla of course you can afford tons of melee units, but that to me is certainly unelflike, and certainly not the silvan way of warfare.

[Gimli]

Dwarves.

I had destroyed Rhun, Harad, Mordor OoG, OOTMM and Isengard.

[Bowmaster]

Usually I either get bored in any campaign that's not Eriador, or I have some really big loss (like losing a single village, lol), so I haven't won any campaign. There's only one campaign that I have almost won, and that was an Arnor-campaign. I had defeated OttMM & OoG, and Isengard was on it's knees (only Fangorn and Gineard, but both of them having full stacks, firetruck!). I had spent the last 200 turns building two fleets of four ships, and one with five ships, and all them having full stacks of all kinds of units, including the Knights of Annúminas. I sailed down to Umbar and captured it, and began to march on to other Haradrim settlements, of whose whereabouts I had no sense. But then I started a new campaign, and accidentally named it the same as my old Arnor-campaign, overwriting. Over 500 turns of clearing the North, restoring Arnor, building mighty armies and sailing down to Umbar, all down the drain.

[Ethien]

It took me over a year to fully complete my High Elf campaign. I conquered Eriador, the Misty Mountains, Gundabad, Lorien, Mirkwood, Dale and everything west of Isengard. I then conquered all of Mordor in a massive and very difficult assault with over six armies or maybe exactly six, I can't remember. Unfortunately I didn't know about the reproductive virility of my war mongering Elves so I ended up with over fifty generals. I lost only one to sickness and one to an ambush.

Of course, I was recording my series for it so that's why it took so long. I generally try to finish off Mordor as a good faction and when I play as evil, I'll probably end up conquering a lot more.

[Wolfeson]

My most intense campaign was my H/H Gondor campaign, where I made the mistake of playing too defensively in the early going and ended up having to spend 70+ turns fighting off Mordor and Harad stack spams at Linhir, Osgiliath, and Cair Andros. The most frustrating part was that every time I FINALLY built up enough strength to go on the offensive, they'd call an invasion on Minas Tirith, and I'd either lose a bunch of troops trying to defend it, or I'd have to turn my offensive force around to retake it after letting it fall. Plus then I'd have to rebuild all the infrastructure that I'd usually JUST finished building back up after the LAST invasion (I literally never could get a fountain guard unit until the very end because the invading armies kept killing off my population in MT and knocking my barracks back 2-3 levels). Denethor and Boromir got killed off defending MT in a battle against 2 full stacks at once, but fortunately Aragorn was able to hold the south against Harad, and Faramir (who never became steward even though I really wanted him to ) was finally able to push into Mordor and wipe them out in a series of rather epic battles. Then I turned everything south, invaded Harad with about 4 full stacks and finished them off. Took me a looooooong time, but it was a ton of fun.

Lol Surreal, I remember you complaining every other episode about how your generals kept breeding like rabbits and screwing up your finances. Epic campaign though.

[dannyalex]

Lol Surreal, I remember you complaining every other episode about how your generals kept breeding like rabbits and screwing up your finances. Epic campaign though.

[LuckyPistol]

Isengard (my favorite campaign)
vh/vh
Usual begining, but by turn 200 or something the dwarves took over Mirkwood, the conquered remains of Dale (rhun DEVASTATED them xD), MM, Gundabad, and Eriador. It was Dwarfageddon, Mordor couldn't stop them and Harad was stuck underneath Gondor because...well because I conquered it all I was already decimating the high elves with my uruk stacks when the dwarves declared war on them. Soon, all that remained were Me, dwarves, mordor, Harad, and one Rhun region. But since Mordor and Harad started fighting, it was literally a complete war between the dwarves and me, and it was AWESOME! NEver before had I appreciated Wargs until then (though Gundabad and MM wargs are better dwarf slayers due to AP) xD I honestly thought I was going to lose, but I got my required settlements in time
I eventually won the war by killing their generals and turning the entire northeastern region into bandit territory hahaha

[DrDragun]

Yes, I try to finish every game. It can become a chore sometimes, although others can be fun. The most fun was Mordor, because when you are rich, you have a full army of 20 Olog-Hai.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

In the two years I have been playing TATW I have only won 3 campaigns with High Elves, Rohan and Elves of Lorien (MOS Mod).

[Maltacus]

I have fulfilled victory conditions with the Goblins (Orcs of the Misty Mountains) once but otherwise always stopped playing when the opposition has been beaten.

[paradamed]

Ive won campaigns several times. The thing I liked the most in 3.2 was that I would still have a good incentive to keep playing even after I had the victory message so I could conquer all of the unique settlements.

[Steward Denethor II]

I won as Arnor and Gondor. Both H/H. I have yet to win on very hard though.

[cahaya]

I try to play out every campaign I start until the finish when the Victory! banner comes up.

Recently, from September last year until January this year, I played every faction with the objective of winning as quickly as possible. The following list is the number of turns it took to win a H/H campaign, no sub-mods.

Gondor: 116 turns
Edoras: 116 turns
Dale: 85 turns (not because it was easy, but they have fewer objectives, blitzing Rhun and easy access to the backsides of both Mordor and Harad)
Dwarves: 120 turns
Eriador: 108 turns
High Elves: 125 turns
Silvan Elves: 108 turns
Mordor: 140 turns (with so many factions to take out)
Isengard: 124 turns
Misty Mountain Orcs: 116 turns
Gundabad Orcs: 116 turns
Harad: 109 turns
Rhun: 114 turns

Some comments and observations: The length of the campaign depended largely on the number of factions to be destroyed and number of objectives that had to be taken, along with the geographical distance to those factions and objectives. The basic strategy for all factions was to:
1) capture nearby rebel settlements early with minimal initial recruiting
2) concentrate on one, at most two, factions at a time in war, using diplomacy
3) build all economic structures prior to building troop structures ("build strategy") in order to be able to afford fielding large stacks as early as possible. For captured settlements, build the first-level culture building to enable a militia garrison as soon as possible.
4) retrain first and second tier units back to full-strength with additional armor and chevrons, some of these units come close to basic third-tier unit values after retraining and are cheaper to upkeep -- there often wasn't enough time to even get around to building many 3rd tier units anyway. Keep basic militia infantry to serve as garrisons that are initially cheap and then become free garrison after the culture requirement (usually 15%) is met. Keep the more advanced units up front in battle zones
5) Storm sieges on lightly held settlements, taking them out in the following turn, but starve out spam-stacked settlements
6) Always wipe out enemy forces after they break, using cavalry. Usually execute prisoners unless there is substantial monetary gain to be had by ransoming an enemy king or heir (who will get killed or recaptured soon again, anyway)
7) Organize forces into "army groups", with each group being a full stack plus a partial stack in support, with a steady stream of reinforcements en route, with clear objectives for each army group. Initially, early in the game, a stack will only be a half stack in size while capturing rebel settlements and by turn 30 or 40, usually two stacks are in play. By end of the game, usually four or five stacks are in play. In some cases for some factions, an all-cav partial stack can be built to mop up those pesky quarter-stacks that the AI has a habit of sending out, while the main force takes on full stacks and settlements.
8) Be persistent! It may be hard to win a campaign, but it's even harder to lose one since the AI is very slow to take out a player who has suffered some setbacks, if at all.

[Wolfeson]

Love that list of tips, cahaya. That's very similar to the way I play, and it's worked very well in my experience.

+rep

[cahaya]

Love that list of tips, cahaya. That's very similar to the way I play, and it's worked very well in my experience.

Thanks, Wolfson. I've played a lot of campaigns to the finish and it takes a while to work out optimum strategy and tactics.

I'll add a few more tips (and some of these are found in detail in other threads in this forum):

9. Balance leadership with at least a starred leader or two with each stack or half-stack along with respected governors in major population/economic/recruiting locations. The best locations can be determined by using the Settlements list, and sorting by population and income, putting governors in the top locations in the list. Multiple star battle-proven leaders are up front, with logistics (increased mobility), siege pluses, and troop morale pluses. Refrain from taking on adopted leaders unless you need the leader for a stack or settlement and they have the right leadership/governorship traits.

10. Run taxes on "low" as much as possible to boost the population and taxation base. Occasionally (and sometimes at the very start of the game), taxes might be set to "medium" in the highest several income settlements for a few turns to prevent or clear stalled build and recruitment queues. In any case, don't allow increase in taxes to halt population growth to zero. Small settlements should always be set on "low".

11. Keep an eye on capitol location, even at the outset. As a general rule, the capitol will be at the center of your territories, skewed towards the major economic settlements, while the optimal capitol location will move towards the direction of additional settlements acquired through conquest. Corruption is very high in spread-out empires with differences of hundreds and thousands of income, so the cost of relocation a capitol can be quickly recovered with the additional increase in income from a centralized capitol.

I love playing this game because of the multifaceted strategic, tactical and economical flexibility that it provides.

Currently, I'm trying out an experimental campaign with the Silvan elves, with the constraint that they can only recruit archers, including horse archers (meaning, no infantry, militia garrisons or siege units). At turn 117, the core of the Silvan army are 2nd tier Sentinels, many of them with silver chevrons, with light archers serving as garrisons and seasoned units to go with the Sentinels. The first of the 3rd tier heavy Silvan archers are just coming into play, with several en route. Rounding out the foot archers are the horse archers, some of them with gold chevrons. The free garrison with this constraint takes longer because of the large town or castle requirement for Bowyer, but part of that is recouped by the liquidation of spear/sword troop structures upon capture of the settlement. An all-archer Silvan elf army is quite viable and fun to play, often toggling the skirmish mode and free-fires, and directing fire during battles. A full stack of Silvan archers is scary good! This campaign will probably go about 140 turns, not rushing it much.

[eugenioso]

all archer silvan armies are deathtraps if the enemy can get a nazgul or troll into your ranks, not to mention you have to garrison captured settlements. though i fumbled with the idea many many times, i seriously need some kind of pincushion unit to take the worst the enemy can send my way, and that unit is silvan spearmen. great (not awesome) defense skill, excellent morale (ive seldon seen them run even after 2 years of TATW) and armed with spears make them great against those pesky warg riders. theyre not there to win, theyre there to hold the enemy off for as long as possible while my archers get to work. though bodyguards tend to do excellent against light and medium infantry, their generals are extremely vulnerable thanks to the animation switch from bow to sword and viceversa.

the bane of archer armies are cavalry, trolls and pesky siege weapons. even with concentrated arrowfire you may find it difficult to wipe out a full unit of wargs or of trolls, and siege weapons are usually just out of range of your archers. by adding the admittedly fast recruiting time spearmen, you now have a unit that can hold against everything mordor and company can send against you. a steady line of reinforcements from your cities to your armies assures you always have expendable spearmen coming, and also allows you, given some time and enough culture, to recruit new spearmen at different locations, despite the lower recruitment speed. also, archer forces are a mayor annoyance for the elves, as counter archer fire will usually attrition your troops badly. cavalry might seem like a good addition to the elves, but elven cavalry has the typical elvish syndrome: fancy looking but softer than a bag of pillows. silvan horse archers are great as small support units, but insanely long recruitment time and large upkeep arent good. archer fire allows you to heavily damage a lot of retreating units well enough, but cavalry suffer too badly.

also, in the hypothetical scenario of you fighting off your former allies (this is by far the greatest thing ever, do try it, nothing beats fighting rohan as the silvans, cavalry left and right and huge spearmen armies battling on the plains of rohan as the horselords fight against the full power of the elves), even though most people dont do it, your poor archers would be slaughtered. rohan, with cavalry stacks all over the place, can decimate your army quite easily, and can replace them faster. Isengard is a bit trickier, as their heavy armor and shields mean you lose a bit of punch on the ranged department. the high elves are hilariously easy to fight, as they go with their cute mixed armies of sword militias and light archers with a few high tier units, while your archer armies slaughter them with glee. amazingly, the dwarves will give you some serious headaches. their heavy superarmor makes them almost impervious to all but the most punishing volleys, and even their shield-less pals will be hard to kill. and if they get into melee range, just kill yourself. and dont get me started on the dwarven armies' affinity for goddamn siege weapons. those are disgusting. gondor is also a tough cookie, but more like toned down dwarven force. lots of their armies are mixed units but never numerous, always a bit underarmed and never excelling in anything.

crap, i went a bit off topic there huh

[ElvenKind]

Only campaign I won was Fellowship campaign, last battle was really hard, but managed to win.