Tips and Tricks - from Experienced players

[Vifarc]

I assume this is for roleplaying reasons? That is fine but not really what the thread is for.

Yes, a minimum of roleplay for my taste. If I want to play total war, I prefer the Warhammer universe, which do is perfecty fitting for.
So I think it's your tip of killing and destroying all which is not good in this thread, at least for me; I prefer playing other game than doing this.

with the ridiculous pop growth the AI gets, I had situations where I was forced to kill everyone simply because any other options would have resulted in rebellions every 5 turns or so due to overpopulation.

It never happens to me: I put here the good general and necessary troops, long time if needed.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

Chivalrous generals are best used as governors and/or as beseigers thanks to their governing and morale modifiers. The mentioned overpopulation can easily be quelled by a single max chivalrous general, they are that good, and in the town hall slog you'll have units routing only if they hit single digits in their model count, should you ever end up in that situation.

Dreadful generals are best used on the field since the faster you rout the enemy, the less time you have to take casualties. Their fear modifier for governing isn't nearly as useful as the chivalrous generals' as iirc it doesn't boost trade income and population growth, it just oppresses the population.

[Orkmann]

In battle, when you hover your cursor over the balance of forces, it gives you the losses of opposite armies in %. This can be very handy due to a thing I call the 3% rule. It means when the AI is on the defensive, and his losses reach 3%, it will switch to aggressive mode. So for instance when your enemy takes strong defensive positions, like a top of a hill, and you dont want to fight an uphill battle,you can send a skirmisher unit or ideally a horse archer to harass their flanks (to avoid their archers). At first the AI will just take it, but after some time (around 3%) he wont take it anymore. This way you can very often lure them out of defensive positions and even force them tó charge you, making you effectively the defender in the battle.

[Samael.]

1. If you want your army to retreat from a battle and still have movementpoints left then dont click the retreat option on the battle map because your army will only move 2 points back and is out of movement at this point. Fight the battle instead and tell your units to retreat and your army will run back to your closest settlement/fort.
2. If you get horse archers early on prioritize them (i usually use 3 of them per army) and use them as much as possible early game (if the enemy has foot archers get them to fire on some1 first before you get your HA involved) - they are microintensive but extremly powerful.
3. Cavalry is overpowered. Dac is probably one of the mods with the weakest cav but they still are overpowered. Now you just have to use them with some thought instead of charging everything and destroying them. Even light cav has its use (early usually to get enemy archers occupied - late to run routing units down).
4. If you are under siege and you are good on the battle map more often than not its best to sally out and bring the fight to the AI. If you sally out the Ai is more passive in this battle (DaC fixed that to some degree but they still are more passive than in regular battles). Also just using up your archers ammo and retreating will save you some soldies for the actual siege battle later on.
5. If you kill 85% of the enemy army and you win the battle, than the army is destroyed completely on the campaign map.
6. The Ai leaves one unit directly outside of a settlement on the battlemap. If you attack that unit it draws the garrison of the settlement in the fight. Kill 85% of both armies individually and you get around a pesky siege and scripted garrison armies because the settlement is empty after the battle and you can just take it.
7. You can besiege a settlement with just one unit (usually cav because of more movementpoints) and attack a smaller army in the region of that settlement (it has to be the same region as the settlement). Dont wipe this smaller army out because you want it to retreat towards the settlement. Because the settlement is under siege it wont actually retreat in the settlement but stay directly outside of it. Now you can use advice 6 and get around a siege battle and/or scripted garrison units.
8. If you fight siege battles build as many ladders as possible (2 rams are more than enough usually) and position them around the settlement. Now hit the side that is undefended/least defended, open the gate and get your cav inside to hold of your opponents. Now get your archers in position on top of the walls and shoot your enemies/break them if possible and run them down before they arrive at the town square (Dac made that much harder than original Med 2 where units would just get obliterated in terms of morale).
9. If you get any custom bodyguards or fight as the Anduin then use your bodyguards as much as possible. Especially early game they will be your most powerful units because they outclass the early game trash units by a lot.
10. Stacking generals in an army is a viable tactic because if you use them correctly and dont get them killed to often you essentially have 5,6,7,8 ... units that replenish on their own and dont actually take losses in their units.
11. Mediocre Ai abuse/cheese w/e you want to call it coming up now. If you dont want to fight a siege battle but theres also no opportunity to draw them out by using a second army of them that is outside the settlement you can also attack the settlement with just one unit (perferably your fastest unit light cav or HA work the best here) and put the rest of your army not directly next to your attacking army but one field "away". (There are usually 9 possible points on the campaign map where you can attack a settlement from - if you look at it from the top/north you have 3 attacking points. Your first army takes the point in the "west" your reinforcing army takes the attacking point in the "east"). Dont attack the settlement with your reinforcing army only with your one unit. Now the Ai wont detect your reinforcing army and sally out and you basically get around another siege battle and actually get a chance to turn it around and get a defensive position (preferably even on highground).
12. You can activate battle time limit on the campaign map or deactivate it. Usually if you are leading the battle you want it off so you can minimize casualties because you have as much time as you want. Especially if you attack Minas Tirith turn that battle timer off you cant win with it turned on merely because you wont make it to the top of the settlement in time and kill your enemies off.
13. DaC made essentially 3 types of nations. Extreme quality (elves, dwarves) but low recruitement times - Mediocre quality (Human nations, not wildemen though) but reasonable recruitement times - Trash quality (orc nations, wildemen nations) but very fast recruitement and replenishment times. If you win a battle lets say as the elves but you lose half your army (talking early game) you can safely say that you lost that battle. Remember if you play one of the extreme quality factions you are always expected to win, your job is to minimize casualties because losing one unit of quality will take you 20+ turns to replenish (before barracks event) while factions like Mordor will just throw the lost stack back at you in 10 turns tops.
14. Rushing your enemy early on is the most effective way to win your campaign/make it easier for you. The Ai gets a lot of bonuses and if you dont act (goes for both DaC and Med 2) then they will throw hundreds of stacks at you and you are up for a grind festival (hundreds is not an understatement, not to long ago there was a thread in this forum about mordor from a guy that was at war with them and i think only in the screen that he provided you were able to see at least 50 stacks - most of them beeing full). Yes if you want to restrict yourself than go ahead nothing against that, its just more effective if you dont obviously.
15. Med 2 only tip - dont use merchants they arent that useful and at the point were they are you dont need them anymore because you are already rich beyond believe. Assassins also kinda suck - best to only use them against priests and heretics.
16. If they only have a captain in their army then try to snipe him with your heavy cav (light cav works aswell if the captain unit isnt to heavily armoured). Now hold them with your infantry and cycle charge them with your cav until they break (if you dont have cav getting your archers behind them and shooting them as a similar effect).

[Tyranno85]

Kill the enemy before they kill you

[Hirundo]

Kill the enemy before they kill you

The best tip so far.

[Danger Close]

If you hold Shift while clicking one of the game speed buttons you can increase/decrease speed by 0.1 per click.

[hugorune]

If you hold Shift while clicking one of the game speed buttons you can increase/decrease speed by 0.1 per click.

Wow nice. Many hundreds of hours playing M2TW/Kingdoms/TATW/DaC and I never ever knew that was possible.

The tip about putting your units in battle before withdrawing is good to know as well. I've lost units I didn't want to lose due to not knowing that one.

[Valar]

A couple of things that might be useful.

1. When merging units you can try and merge the same 2 units repeatedly back and forth several times until you get the wanted experience rank. Different compositions of the merging gives different experience ranks depending on the 2 units.

2. When sieging an enemy I usually try to place 1-3 units with ladders far away on opposite sides of your main force. This usually draws the attention of some of the defending force away from your main breaching point which reduces your loses and when the enemy later realises they can't hold the main attack they (usually) try to reposition their forces from the other side of the settlement which means that you can climb the walls with the spare units without resistance to backstab them. If you outnumber the enemy you can effectively create a situation where at least one part of your force can breach the settlement without resistance which later snowballs out of control or distracts the enemy.

3. Always look at the settlement details window when selecting buildings to construct as the projected changes will show up in grey before the building is built. This way you can see which building will give the most income, population or trade increase without having to build it first.

4. Attacks do more damage from behind and massing trash units and backstabbing will kill even noldor elites with snagas. This also counts for missiles which are best from behind and when they are fired in a straight arc. This is why it's better to avoid using all your archers in a defensive siege on the walls when the enemy is coming from outside and instead position them at nice angles on other walls etc. to later shoot down into the back of enemies that made it into the settlement.

5. Fatigue and stamina means a lot as it effects attack speed, movement speed and other stats. If you are fighting in prolonged fights or sieges use trashy troops to tire the enemy and then move in with your elites instead of vice versa. And if you are on equal footing with your enemy or have units with good stamina you should switch them out for rested troops as good stamina units will recover quick and be able to launch a fresh attack after resting a while. ALSO DON'T ALWAYS RUN WITH YOUR TROOPS AS I'VE SEEN A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. Take it slow and don't let your soldiers arrive at the enemy gasping for their breath. Let the enemy tire themselves if possible or use the max speed if it gets tedious when walking across a map with your army, don't run if not necessary...

6. For DAC especially, look at the settlement details at which environment the region has, like grassland, forest or mountain. And then keep in mind which environment your faction has best unit replenishment in, which the barracks description says I think. Build your military production centres accordingly. For some factions this has a huge impact and for others a much smaller one. The difference for elf replenishment for 1 unit from different regions can be like 25 turns or something which is huge while orcs thrive in most places.

7. Don't know if this is to relevant to DAC but your diplomatic reputation which effects the chance of the AI accepting your diplomatic suggestions takes negative hits by exterminating settlements, fighting prolonged wars and attacking factions you have agreements with etc.

[NoldorinElves]

Any tips for economy though? i mean what building should i focus first, trade right, sell map info, etc... been playing as Woodland Realm and all was well at first until Guldur orc started steamrolling me with 2 full stack and i don't have the cash for building up my army to counter it

[Goat rider]

Any tips for economy though? i mean what building should i focus first, trade right, sell map info, etc... been playing as Woodland Realm and all was well at first until Guldur orc started steamrolling me with 2 full stack and i don't have the cash for building up my army to counter it

The problem with Woodland(as far as i'm aware) is that their starting regions are very poor early game. My recommendation is to try to take some of the major dwarven settlements north(Dain's Halls, Gundabad, Withibord, etc.) and build mines there. They should give you a heft amounts of gold enough to finance your armies against Dol Guldur.
Focus on building archers. Woodland has the best archers in the game period. Aways try to make armies with 7-10 archers and shoot your enemies to death.

[Samael.]

Any tips for economy though? i mean what building should i focus first, trade right, sell map info, etc... been playing as Woodland Realm and all was well at first until Guldur orc started steamrolling me with 2 full stack and i don't have the cash for building up my army to counter it

I played a few Woodlandrealm campaigns in the past and actually am playing one right now. For buildings it varys a lot often i have to get at least the first culture building going because public order is a "big" problem in DaC compared to earlier versions. But if i can hold the city under control i usually start building the first of the carpenter buildings. Then i usually get the first fixed income buildings while i prioritize farming early on a lot because it also gets your settlements ready for late game. Some locations (like Dol Guldur, Taur Philin ...) ill go for a mixed approach because they often are my main recruitements centeres and i want the units to start growing there asap.

If you want to be succesful with the Woodland Realm you should put Legolas and Thranduil together in one army and only recruit Horse Archers and Woodland Scouts early on. Your gameplay in battles will be to shoot your opponents and if they get close you run Thranduil in the frontline, supported by generic generals that you get a long the way. Now you start flanking around with Legolas and a few other archers to get their infantry to break. Your Horse Archers are either going to be used at the very beginning of the battle, annoying and weakening your enemies before they get in range of your main army or hide if they have foot archers and engage them when they start prioritzing your main army. Even though they are only HAs they dont lose men in melee against the early game archers of most factions.

Now that you have a general grasp of how to play the Woodland Realm in battle you need to figure out how you want to play the campaign map. There are a few options. First (can be tricky sometimes but if you make it work fast you won the campaign in 5 turns or so) you backstab dale and the dwarves and take Erebor, Dale and Esgaroth. In my campaigns the dwarves leave units outside of Erebor giving you an option to get a draw out battle. Since dwarves are extremly slow you murder them on the battlemap with your archers (just use legolas and Thranduil to take out their heavy units like dain or gimli). If they dont give you that option you still can siege Erebor with a small army (might even only be Legolas and THranduil) and let them sally out you should be able to win that still if you play it properly. Dale and Esgaroth fall pretty much the same way only easier because Dale has literally no answer for your 2 unique generals. After that you go west and go for Dains Halls Wrakyaburg and Gundabad. Now your eco should be good to go for the rest of the game because these settlements are huge moneymakers.

If you dont want to backstab your allies due to roleplay reasons or just because you dont want to have an easy go after 5 turns. Go and rush Dol Guldur (you will most likely need to seperate your army at one point because Dol Guldur likes to send a ton of armies with only 3 units in it and they will take settlements of you if you dont deal with them). I usually make sure my 2 small armies meet up at Dol Guldur again and siege it together. Dol Guldur is very tricky if you want to assault it and i honestly have no real answer for that that doenst include you losing around half your force if you feel the need to assault it, the settlement + garrison is just to big to go with your usual 20 casulaties per battle. You can again try to create a draw out battle though or make them sally out but other than that its going to be a tough one to win without losing a lot. After Dol Guldur is dealt with you won because you make enough money to field your elite armies and noone can deal with them not even other elven factions because of the Hin e Daur.

[NoldorinElves]

I played a few Woodlandrealm campaigns in the past and actually am playing one right now. For buildings it varys a lot often i have to get at least the first culture building going because public order is a "big" problem in DaC compared to earlier versions. But if i can hold the city under control i usually start building the first of the carpenter buildings. Then i usually get the first fixed income buildings while i prioritize farming early on a lot because it also gets your settlements ready for late game. Some locations (like Dol Guldur, Taur Philin ...) ill go for a mixed approach because they often are my main recruitements centeres and i want the units to start growing there asap.

If you want to be succesful with the Woodland Realm you should put Legolas and Thranduil together in one army and only recruit Horse Archers and Woodland Scouts early on. Your gameplay in battles will be to shoot your opponents and if they get close you run Thranduil in the frontline, supported by generic generals that you get a long the way. Now you start flanking around with Legolas and a few other archers to get their infantry to break. Your Horse Archers are either going to be used at the very beginning of the battle, annoying and weakening your enemies before they get in range of your main army or hide if they have foot archers and engage them when they start prioritzing your main army. Even though they are only HAs they dont lose men in melee against the early game archers of most factions.

Now that you have a general grasp of how to play the Woodland Realm in battle you need to figure out how you want to play the campaign map. There are a few options. First (can be tricky sometimes but if you make it work fast you won the campaign in 5 turns or so) you backstab dale and the dwarves and take Erebor, Dale and Esgaroth. In my campaigns the dwarves leave units outside of Erebor giving you an option to get a draw out battle. Since dwarves are extremly slow you murder them on the battlemap with your archers (just use legolas and Thranduil to take out their heavy units like dain or gimli). If they dont give you that option you still can siege Erebor with a small army (might even only be Legolas and THranduil) and let them sally out you should be able to win that still if you play it properly. Dale and Esgaroth fall pretty much the same way only easier because Dale has literally no answer for your 2 unique generals. After that you go west and go for Dains Halls Wrakyaburg and Gundabad. Now your eco should be good to go for the rest of the game because these settlements are huge moneymakers.

If you dont want to backstab your allies due to roleplay reasons or just because you dont want to have an easy go after 5 turns. Go and rush Dol Guldur (you will most likely need to seperate your army at one point because Dol Guldur likes to send a ton of armies with only 3 units in it and they will take settlements of you if you dont deal with them). I usually make sure my 2 small armies meet up at Dol Guldur again and siege it together. Dol Guldur is very tricky if you want to assault it and i honestly have no real answer for that that doenst include you losing around half your force if you feel the need to assault it, the settlement + garrison is just to big to go with your usual 20 casulaties per battle. You can again try to create a draw out battle though or make them sally out but other than that its going to be a tough one to win without losing a lot. After Dol Guldur is dealt with you won because you make enough money to field your elite armies and noone can deal with them not even other elven factions because of the Hin e Daur.

Yup hin e daur are freaking op just played again this time with thrandy and legi backed with 4 other elf scout and 1 unit of elf wardens i managed to conquer every rebel settlement just south of the mirkwood without assaulting dol guldur because that would make the campaign easy and unchallenging for me and yeah i can't bring myself to go to war with the Dwarves and Dale just for roleplaying reason lol maybe i'll try to expand east to rhun tho thanks for the tip.

[Vifarc]

6. look at the settlement details at which environment the region has, keep in mind which environment your faction has best unit replenishment in. Build your military production centres accordingly.
The difference for elf replenishment for 1 unit from different regions can be like 25 turns

But as elf upkeep are expensives, it's always good for economy to build military production everywhere in the end, even they will build few units (mainly the best guard for their setlment). So the tip is about where to build those buildings firstly.

[Lord Auerode]

Any tips for economy though? i mean what building should i focus first, trade right, sell map info, etc... been playing as Woodland Realm and all was well at first until Guldur orc started steamrolling me with 2 full stack and i don't have the cash for building up my army to counter it

Not sure about this, like to hear your opinions. It could be that it doesn't fit to everyone's playstyle, so I wouldn't call it a general tip. But for me it worked quite well every time so far (never played WR, though):

I simply put all my cities to low taxes for growth. This makes the financial situation in the short time somewhat tighter, but in the long term it allows keeping up with the AI regarding town growth. More population means more taxes, which negates the fact that the taxes are acutally lower, at least in my experience. It comes with the added benefits of getting access to advanced buildings sooner and having less trouble with unrest.

Regarding buildings: I go first for the carpenter's building chain (mainly for the reduced building times), then food production (growth again), after that eco (roads, ports, markets) and after that what's left.
Of course if you need to up your culture, go for cultural buildings first. Military buildings only after (or at the exact time if you manage to do it) the necessary culture is there.
Mines are good for everyone at the early tiers. The later tiers get less cost effective however, which can mean that e.g. for orcs it could be better to build trade buildings before you upgrade them.

[Multicolored]

I'd like to hear more tips on diplomacy and reputation. I always end up in all my games with VERY bad untrustworthy reputation and half the time don't know why. Also why is it impossible to even offer a alliance (option is not there) sometimes to different factions? War is not the issue, not at war with any of their current allies. Can you no longer offer alliances if your rep is garbage? Is it based on your standing with that faction, or what?

[Danger Close]

I'd like to hear more tips on diplomacy and reputation. I always end up in all my games with VERY bad untrustworthy reputation and half the time don't know why. Also why is it impossible to even offer a alliance (option is not there) sometimes to different factions? War is not the issue, not at war with any of their current allies. Can you no longer offer alliances if your rep is garbage? Is it based on your standing with that faction, or what?

You cannot offer an alliance when the faction you're trying to ally with was previously allied to a faction that was your enemy at the time of their death.

[Vifarc]

I'd like to hear more tips on diplomacy and reputation. I always end up in all my games with VERY bad untrustworthy reputation and half the time don't know why.

I always end up in all my games with very good trustworthy reputation and half the time I know why:
I never kill civilians, never plunder towns, almost never kill prisonners, almost never continue battles, etc

[Hirundo]

I always end up in all my games with very good trustworthy reputation and half the time I know why:
I never kill civilians, never plunder towns, almost never kill prisonners, almost never continue battles, etc

Continuing battles damage your reputation?

Otherwise, I also end up with high reputation always, but I continue battles when there are hundreds of enemies to capture. Man, I cannot leave half the army escape to fight on another day. I don't execute them, but I demand ransom, and the AI rarely pays it.

[Frotzy]

Continuing battles damage your reputation?

Otherwise, I also end up with high reputation always, but I continue battles when there are hundreds of enemies to capture. Man, I cannot leave half the army escape to fight on another day. I don't execute them, but I demand ransom, and the AI rarely pays it.

I think by continuing he meant that after a enemy army flees on the campaign map, you then chase them down. I'm pretty sure that lowers reputation at least. Not 100%.
Something that does however lower reputation significantly is breaking a treaty after 10 turns, especially alliances. And if you sell a settlement to an enemy then instantly recapture it, that really hits your reputation. In my experience that takes you down one step in the different reputation stages.