How to: Gondor VH/VH (no cheese)

[Dacadey]

'Aragorn' said Gandalf, looking to the far-away fires amidst the ruins of the once glorious Osgiliath. 'Do you know who your real enemy is?'
'The Dark Lord, of whom I know little. Yet his evil deeds speak for themselves' replied Aragorn.
'No' said Gandalf. 'A great and terrible power he is, of that is no doubt, yet something else looms over Gondor and its people, an enemy that cannot be seen. And should he be not dealt with, then we are all doomed'.
'And what is this enemy, of which you speak?' wondered Aragorn.

'He an adversary most powerful and cunning, for no physical power has he. Yet he will make your mind weary and yourself complacent, and cautious beyond measure. You shall wait, and plan, and think, and wait for the stars to align and for the gods to give you a blessing, and believe yourself to be safe in your false knowledge. Yet with each day the enemies will grow stronger and stronger, and more darkness will creep in the hearts of men, until one day, when the stars will still be ages apart and the gods looking elsewhere, a tide will rise that will swallow all, and no one, not even the bravest heroes of legends, will be able to stop it.'
'Do you really wish to know?' asked Gandalf. 'For once you see him, there is no turning back'.
Aragorn nodded.
'Then let me show you him in his true form' said Gandalf, and and with a swing of his staff conjured an image so terrifying that even the bravest guards fell to the ground and crawled away in horror.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"YOU. SHALL. NOT. TURTLE!!!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi!

This is my guide to winning with Gondor on VH/VH, without any cheese such as:
-peace treaties with Mordor (Don't forget to sign the Hobbit extradition pact as well, Frodo will be grateful!)
-ship blocking (the first word is usually different in this expression, but we shall leave it this way)
-map information money hoarding (hey, do you want to know where Gondor is? Yeah, that'll be 2000 coins. What, you've already forgotten? No worries, just another 2000 coins will do it. Yeah, it's over there, see where I'm pointing with my finger?)

So, lets get going!

TURN 1:
There are two things we to do on Turn one.
First, we send the whole Minas Tirith army, lead by Lord Faramir to camputre East Osgiliash.
Second, we build a FULL STACK army near Linhir by sending all the troops from nearby cities there and hiring a couple at Linhir and Pelagir (also send all the Dol Amroth troops there, as the prince of Dol Amroth is a mighty force of 76 swan knights)
DO NOT SPEND ANY MONEY ON BUILDINGS! At this point you are much better off reinforcing your E.Osgiliath and Southern armies.
The results by turn 3:





TURN 3:
From this point onwards, let Lord Faramir hold off the enemy at East Osgiliath, it is extremely effective, reinforcing him with troops from Minas Tirith.
As for the Southern army, send it straight to Umbar, and capture it, along with the most-southern Harad city.
Result by turn 13 (notice, I still haven't spent any money on buildings):


Turn 13:
Next, I've assembled all the generals from my cities and sent them (along with some militia) to join the Haradrim Liberation Army, which by this point has captured two more cities along the shore and won a heroic victory.



Turn 34:

A reinforcement army from Pelagir has marched along the coast and captured two more Harad cities, while the main army has secured the middle-southern town


These two armies combined were sufficient to destroy what remained of the once mighty Haradrim, and at turn 65 (because I've forgotten about the goddamn island that had their last city) the empire had fallen



Meanwhile, I've been constantly reinforcing the army at E.Osgiliah, so by TURN 65 it looked like this:



At this point, it gets pretty simple, just send 3 full stack armies into Mordor, and show then no mercy!

By Turn 104 Barad Dur has fallen:


By Turn 138, the last Mordor City has been besieged and fell:


And after 52 more turns of destroying Rhun and chasing off the crazy homeless Mordor AI armies across the whole map, the game was finally won

[Flinn]

Lol I'm definitely a turtler, but I concur that if you go rush with Gondor you'll get much more chanches to win (especially vs Harad, when you can field 3rd and 4th thier units Mordor isn't going to be a big issue, on the battlefield at least). Heavy cavalry generals are a big plus in the beginning (just like with Rohan). Nicely done

[Påsan]

Nice guide, i agree that the key for victory as Gondor is to take out Harad before they can spam out doomstacks. I generally go for both Ithilen and Cair Andros by turn 24 or so though. And I start building economy on turn 1.

[Ngugi]

Aye, to take out Umbar ASAP is the proper strategy, as Aragorn advocated himself, ere the tale of LotR took place:

Thorongil [Aragorn] often counselled Ecthelion [steward of Gondor] that the strength of the rebels in Umbar was a great peril to Gondor, and a threat to the fiefs of the south that would prove deadly, if Sauron moved to open war.
At last he got leave of the Steward and gathered a small fleet, and he came to Umbar unlooked-for by night, and there burned a great part of the ships of the Corsairs. He himself overthrew the Captain of the Haven in battle upon the quays...
- Appendix A

This is a guide, so I will move it over to that subforum in a few days, but leave it here till then so more may see it for now.