My first TATW campaign ever....

[revo]

...ended in a horrible horrible defeat. I played as Rohan because I have a fascination with cavalry. so the first 20 turns go great as I take the rebel settlements around me, but then Isengard escalates the war by taking the wall-less settlement below the city of isengard. 40 turns later the war is going excellent for me except for incursions by mordor into my eastern provinces. About this time, I take Isengard but am reduced to about a third of the combat strength in my only real stack as a result. 20 turns later i've lost Isengard, both the provinces directly south of it both of my western and eastern provinces and have two more villages under seige and all my troops have been destroyed trying to take back Isengard. THIS MOD IS HARD! i was playing on vh/vh

[Loki_999]

Hehe, well, playing first game on VH/VH was possibly a mistake, although many will maintain that VH/VH is still too easy.

When playing as Rohan you can do yourself a big favour by wiping Isengard off the map as your first objective. Isengard are weak at the start, and if you take Isengard (settlement) in the first half a dozen turns, then its pretty simple after that, you can wipe out Isengard (faction) within the first 20 turns, and then turn your attention to the rebel settlements around you.

[CatoTheYounger]

Awesome Revo. The goal of the game is to win but the point of the game is to challenge yourself against difficult odds and see if you can overcome.. You did the right thing. It's better tp play against a challenging oponent then just making it easy or gaming the game.Whe i play good fcations i give all advantages to evil factions. Especialy Mordor and Isengard. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to fight the Easterlings if they had all their Dragon regiments early on. I wouldn't steam roll Isengard early. Let them build a little then try to defeat them anyway. Much more fun your style. I do same against Mordor when i playu Gondor. Hold off Mordor while i hammer away at Harad. By the time you are ready to go full boar on Mordor they are a nightmare. But its fun that way

[Ngugi]

I always recomend folks to start out on M, or possibly H, on the camapign map since TATW's system differs from other TW games, and normally it takes time to get a grip of it.

[rrgg]

I made the same mistake playing as Rohan. When you take an AI"s capital they get a free full stack to try and take it back, so going straight for Isenguard itself probably isn't the best idea.

[revo]

cato, Im a gamer that loves challenge (dark souls, xcom) so I completely agree. I also just bought Med2 ( long LONG time rome player) so I was kind of at a disadvantage there also, but hey it was fun watching my butt get whooped. Now, im on a gondor campaign and im hoping their superior infantry will better suit my playstyle.

[Bowmaster]

You lost to Isengard as Rohan and decide to try Gondor next?! You seem to REALLY like challenges...

[Loki_999]

For his next campaign he will play OotMM

[Bowmaster]

Or Isengard!

Or maybe he'll get MOS and play Rohan or Gondor with Saruman's Forces/Eastern Shadows-script on.

[Flinn]

if you are new on the mod, consider to have a look on the faction guides, there are many useful ones. You don't need to read them all, just take some advices on what is mandatory to do, and you will never found yourself again in such bad situation

[CatoTheYounger]

Gondor is Sandwiched between A very populated and agressive Mordor and Harad a power with only one area of concentration...Gondor. You better defend the river crossing with your life and get those barracks up quick.

[The SilvanElve NL]

Aaah I remember my first campaign on TATW with thr High Elves

[Makus]

I think he'll do better as Gondor! Cavalry work much different (harder to control, a little less powerful) than they did in RTW, whereas infantry work more or less the same. Someone used to RTW will enjoy using heavily armored troops against weakly armored hordes with the occasional ridiculous unit I think.

[chriskourou]

I think he'll do better as Gondor! Cavalry work much different (harder to control, a little less powerful) than they did in RTW, whereas infantry work more or less the same. Someone used to RTW will enjoy using heavily armored troops against weakly armored hordes with the occasional ridiculous unit I think.

No way, Gondor is far harder than Rohan especially if it's played by a non experienced user. I would also suggest that you should take a look to faction guides, but in any case, very hard is ... very hard.

[riuk881]

I played gondor on h/h and found it wery fun. After getting my tail handed to me and nearly losing Minas Tirith I read a few guides and they made it a very fun campaign.

[defendurname]

If you are playing Gondor I would highly recommend you take Minis Morgul early on and then keep Cirith Ungol permanently sieged (aka get an army to siege it, lift siege a few turns later and then resiege) in order to force Mordor to send stacks the long way around up North. When I use this tactic it makes Gondor even at VH/VH a breeze; when I don't use this tactic, I get my butt handed to me fighting Mordor on 2 fronts and Harad too.....

Oh, and for a beginner don't try enabling the Eastern Shadow script on MOS.....I suspect thats responsible for spawning the stack of 4000 orc with olog-hai and mummakils in it that rapes my poor militia army.....

[Lortano]

If you are playing Gondor I would highly recommend you take Minis Morgul early on and then keep Cirith Ungol permanently sieged (aka get an army to siege it, lift siege a few turns later and then resiege) in order to force Mordor to send stacks the long way around up North.

This.

[Macilrille]

If you are playing Gondor I would highly recommend you take Minis Morgul early on and then keep Cirith Ungol permanently sieged (aka get an army to siege it, lift siege a few turns later and then resiege) in order to force Mordor to send stacks the long way around up North. When I use this tactic it makes Gondor even at VH/VH a breeze; when I don't use this tactic, I get my butt handed to me fighting Mordor on 2 fronts and Harad too.....

Oh, and for a beginner don't try enabling the Eastern Shadow script on MOS.....I suspect thats responsible for spawning the stack of 4000 orc with olog-hai and mummakils in it that rapes my poor militia army.....

Cheesy tactics and exploiting the stupid AI FTL. Nah, let the fellow try to play "clean" and start instead on M/M. As for the Eastern Shadows dreadstacks, once you learn how to deal with it, it is not that hard to do. They have no General, so if you create a general with high Dread and use the correct tactics, they are easy to rout.

Do not worry revo, kost of us got our behinds handed to us the first times, keep at it. But try and read the guides and start out at M/M.

[Macilrille]

If you are playing Gondor I would highly recommend you take Minis Morgul early on and then keep Cirith Ungol permanently sieged (aka get an army to siege it, lift siege a few turns later and then resiege) in order to force Mordor to send stacks the long way around up North. When I use this tactic it makes Gondor even at VH/VH a breeze; when I don't use this tactic, I get my butt handed to me fighting Mordor on 2 fronts and Harad too.....

Oh, and for a beginner don't try enabling the Eastern Shadow script on MOS.....I suspect thats responsible for spawning the stack of 4000 orc with olog-hai and mummakils in it that rapes my poor militia army.....

Eastern Shadows dreadstacks are easy to beat. They have no General, so with the right tactics- and especially if you take care from the start to create yourself a high-dread General to lead against them- they are easy to rout. The only difficult ones are the Olog Hai- Lossarnach Axemen deal with them, and the Mûmakil- Pelargir Marines and later Ballistae deal with them.

Cheesy siege tactics exploiting the AI's stupidity are- I am sorry to say (and I mean no slight, to each his own)- FTL. revo likes challenges, so why take the challenge away?

revo, do not worry, we all had our behinds handed to us the first time we played (at least most of us- even experienced players). Try playing at M/M and read the guides, and perhaps choose an easier campaign to start with such as the FPoE, HE or SE. Then as you improve your play you can heighten the difficulties, choose harder factions, try the submods (MOS Gondor against Eastern Shadows is much fun) and even start playing with house rules limiting yourself as many experienced players do (I turtle for example).

Welcome to TATW, the TW game that will actually challenge you.

[FC Groningen]

If you take Cirith Ungol and sell it to another evil faction like Gundabad, you can save yourself the troops there and actually get a nice sum of money for it in return.