Tips and Tricks - from Experienced players

[xXKageAsashinXx]

being disbarred from alliances with former allies of your enemies that bit the dust does seem like a bug. If this is "intentional" then their needs to be a easier way to force someone to become a vassal. Right now I can own half the world and a one province beat up minor still refuses to become my vassal and force me to exterminate them. Which then disbars me from entering alliances with their allies for the rest of the game

??? makes no sense

Someone killed your best friend, then comes up to you asking to be friends. Would you just ignore the blood on his hands and happily say yes?

[Orkmann]

@Multicolored, if you arra looking for a less determined AI, I suggest the Total war submods, which removes all preset alliances. Lately I play only this version, as I feel refreshing how differently the AI behaves.

[Frotzy]

@Multicolored, if you arra looking for a less determined AI, I suggest the Total war submods, which removes all preset alliances. Lately I play only this version, as I feel refreshing how differently the AI behaves.

That doesn't change the AI. That is just editing the starting alliances and starting relations. The bug that Multicolored is talking about is present in base Med2, and thus all mods too. It is a deeply rooted issue and can't be fixed, to my knowledge.

[Orkmann]

@frotxy I am aware, but I was offering a workaround only. The problem, what the fellow player is facing, is that he cannot ally some of the human factions, after the elves/dwarves have been wiped out. The bug/feature you described is indeed the root cause of this situation. But if you cannot fix stg, the next best thing to do is a workaround. For instance, if Dale have never been allied to Erebor, you don’t need to worry about destroying them! With Total War of course you can’t foresee what alliances the AI will do, but at least you will have the chance to bend things according to your taste. If you give money or land to the AI, it is very willing to take alliances. Also, if you are for a more nuanced solution, you can go and set the starting relations for each factions manually. It is relatively straightforward, even I have done it once (although in SS, not in DAC) and I have no clue about modding. As I recall only a single file (descr_strat?) of the campaign needs to be changed.

[Frotzy]

I do believe alliances can still be made between factions even with the submod. It is a radical change of gameplay for such a small issue. It's overkill, at best. Just one of those Med2 quirks you have to accept, I suppose.

[Vifarc]

pro-tip for Isengard: Exterminate every settlement.

Why? and isn't it a tip usefull (mendatory?) for all factions (even elves)?

[ksardas]

Reading the replies I would like to point out:

- Using the infantry generals as a first line is a viable option but I found out that using 2-3 of them with no additional support might be risky since the generals themselves usually stay in front which makes them vulnerable to being killed. This isn't that much of the case with horse generals since most of the time you will attack-and-run with them so most of the time he will be safe, but infantry lacks such mobility and usually you want to stay locked to the enemy and not run around and get hit while moving and even worse, in the back.

- Chivalry (or rather Respect here) is nerfed in comparison to vanilla so it will add a bonus +2% population increase ratio from 4 points (or 2.5 from 5 don't quote me on that). So a general with 10 points won't be that useful as a governor like in vanilla where you can get a settlement to huge city in a few dozens of turns, where every point counts towards a +0.5% bonus.

- Artillery has increased accuracy in comparison to vanilla. Use it whenever movement speed on the campaign map isn't a priority, especially with dwarves.

- Even though beast units are op don't overestimate their health. Keep them always with a melee/cav army which will be locked into the enemy while they will act as a shock option. And keep them WELL away from javelin and troops with bonuses against them, you WILL lose them in seconds. With just a unit of Mumakil you can destroy any army, as long as they can move easily and keep them moving, unless there is a counter unit, where support is needed, to keep it distracted, and preferably annihilate them, since even 1-2 attacks will do utter damage.

- a bit cheesy move but if you are able to recruit any of these units, keep an eye for "best unit reward" missions. Move your capital to the front line, complete the mission get the OP unit. It will cost you 5000 gold to do this, 10000 if you want to move the capital back for corruption reasons.
But is well worth it, especially for a unit of Mumakil, it's even better than recruiting because you won't have to bring it all the way from the desert to use it.

[sklvboris]

Can someone give me tips for the Northern Dunedains? I've started 1-2 campaigns, for now i figured i should go east west and take settlements till i take Tharbad in the early game. Going for Fornost in the early game is a no no because the garrison is strong(having trolls) And taking Fornost and Annuminas is not so worth considering they generate only 200-300 gold per turn. Also I'm wondering if i should install heirs of Elendil and start a new campaign, does it changes a lot of things?

[Sloul]

N.Dunedain start is pretty rough now imo. Previously they started at war only with Angmar, but now they also start at war with Misty Mountains.
In my current playthrough with them, I did something that felt pretty epic, but I had to reboot my campaign at least 5 times (always under 10 turns, often less) to make it work:

In resume:
- I dumped their 2 starting cities (no ).
- I went straight for ?Anumeras? the Huge city north. Aragorn cannot make it in time, only your two generals + one unit of bandit that you MUST hire on turn 1. The troops inside the city will actually attack you. The combat is not that easy, but not that hard. Let your troops stay in the city until Aragorn arrive.
- Then with all troops + Aragorn capture the city closest west, then north, then north, then east, and then, if you feel like it again east, but every time leave 1 unit in the city. Which means you should soon be depleted. But that will leave you with 4-5 locations (not accounting for starting cities).

Your expanses are greater than your revenues + if you loose your capital you loose 5000 gold - which can put you so down in the red that the come back is hard -.
But the privilege to lose 5000 gold, only comes if you have another city than your capital. And since I leave no garrison in my cities, they are ripe for the taking:
I hire an ambassador on first turn and as soon as Misty Mountains show up to take Ost-Ul, I gift the city to Bree. Since Bree is not at war with Misty Mountains they ignore it.

But my strategy is very risky, because they can take the capital at any moment, and in my last game I was lucky that they took it only by turn 10ish, because in one of my attempts they took it by turn 4.

In detail:

turn 1:
- Put your cities on the highest taxe acceptable to them
- Hire an ambassador
- Hire a spy (in my game it wasn't very helpful though), the spy helps counter hidden independant and help you locate cities
- Hire a bandit from western general
- Be on the more to ANU with all your units
- Put all your units in Ost Ul into the Fort
turn 2:
- Get out of Ost-Ul with your Ambassador and go into the general direction of Bree, I think you start by seeing on their fort, that will do.
- When Aragorn is out of move, rally to him all troops that were in Ost-Ul fort
**There are many hidden independant waiting for ambush, don't fight them, flee when you can. I managed to avoid them all, but I had to reboot and pay attention to where they were. I was pretty mad (at the mod??) because the spies are not really effective against them. I just printed their location in my memory and took other paths leading to ANU.
turn3:
- Misty Mountains might be showing up to Ost-Ul, if so, gift it to Bree, if not, it will happen next turn, be ready for it.
- I don't remember if my generals are already attacking ANU, I think it's next turn but how well, there will be no siege, the troops inside will attack, and thus BOOM. Big city. Revenue was around 200ish for me, but it grows very quickly when you capture other cities around and start developing trade, in no time it's 1000. And much more with a bit of time.
turn 4:
- As soon as you gifted Od Sul go north west of Anu with Ambassador and start kicking trade right and mayhaps alliances with Lindon and Dwarves, work with Lindon, takes more time with Dwarves.
And Asap go make cease fire with Angmar

And ever after those steps, just keep capturing everything next to anu, starting west and ending north or north east.

Some more stuff:
- When sieging use bandits for siege weapons
- You'll not be able to recruit anything unit turn 15-20ish (lol)
When you can start to get free garrison units, make them, to look stronger and buy more time before Angmar starts war.
- By turn 10-12 you should have at least 4 cities. Income is low but on the positive by now, if you make garrison building, your expanses will drop because those cities are mostly dunedain and their income will grow fast.
- Making alliance with Lindon and Dwarves make them less likely to war each other, thus shielding Lindon from the back, which will late be pretty potent against the black ship invasion.
- Gifting Ost-Ul to Bree seems to make them very potent too.
- You've got no more than 20-25 turns before Angmar start scheming at your door (literally waiting at your door step with stacks). By that time Misty Mountains will show up to capture Dead's man Dike.
- Let Misty Mountains kill each other with Independants, and then use your available troops to take it from them. Soon after like 1 or 2 turns, Angmar will declare war on you and will aim at your northern cities (you've got 2 unwalled cities in total).
- You can easily make a cease fire with Misty Mountains after taking the big castle from them. Or at least, by waiting a bit. And that's also very solid.
Obviously the + side is that you'll only ever face a foe on one front, and it's easy to deal with.
- After Angmar I suggest going straight for Gunabad, because if you do that, you'll free Anduin, Wood Elves and Dwarves from trouble.
I managed to capture Gunabad + the city on east + Dain Hall. And I gifter Dain Hall to Dwarves for alliance + military access + map etc.
And let Dwarves are really strong against Eastern.
Anduin is also pretty powerful in my campaign making major progress on Dol Guldur.
- Only after Gunabad do I suggest to finish off Misty Mountains. By the time you get there, Rohan is probably dead. But you'll have such a power full economy and such a secure state, enveloped by allies, that at that point, you stomp everything.

*I didn't mention loosing your capital, but it happens by turn 4-5 to 12.
Honestly, I think I was lucky somehow in my playthrough, but I had to redo it 5 times, to make it perfect.
Please ask any question, I am still in my campaign currently, but it all went from uber super epic to something pretty meh (too easy at this point).
Oh btw, I buy my original capital from Bree after (and only after) I beat Misty Mountains, it cost around 40.000 gold (you need it to achieve victory).



Tips and tricks
Gift around 500 gold for some time until reaching perfect relationship with any state, then keep doing it for at least 10 times.
That means you'll most likely spend around 12k gold doing this, and then, you can pretty much buy any of their cities for 30 or 40k.
I am unsure what is the best algorithm and how to optimize this, but this is the way I do it (when necessary) and it does look ''fair'' to me.

I do have a special use for character_refresh: take a general stack, empty all your archers next to him, then empty all your cav on another spot next to him, same for infantry, same for pike, same for artillery.
If your general is infantry put back your infantry first, if your general is archer, put your archers first etc. etc.
Your stack is now well ordered (you don't need to group degroup during fight), but you lost some move, use character_refresh, here you go. You simply ordered your stack around.

Hiding a stack in the woods: I am not sure if it works or if it's just the skin, because I got attacked like that but only once (but still).
It seems that when your stack is too big, you can't hide in woods.
What I do is, I take the general alone, I make him hide and then only I rally his troops. And thus the whole stack is hidden.
Again, not sure if it's just the strategy map animation that is active or if it's really effective.

If you're annoyed because your ambassadors keep being blocked on their way to somewhere. I use another cheat for that, to give them more vision. Enough so that it troubles you a lot more less.
give_trait this GoodSpy 5
And it gives them about the same vision as a military unit. Thus they avoid a lot more walls.
It's useful because when they stumble on something, it's not just that they stop, but they actually loose their target and you've got to repeat it (which at some point gets boring).

When you see a bridge on the map, and if you've good foot soldiers and archers, it's generally better to defend there than anywhere else, so use that to your advantage. I did have very good results against Isengard that way.

Don't forget on DeadMan's Dike (i think it's called), you can put archers on walls, and the AI is pretty dumb about it, so it's easy peasy to defend.

The stronger your allies the safer you are, so gifting them one or two cities that can make a major difference to them is a general good idea.
By capturing all indepedent cities in the north + angmar + couple gunabad + couple misty mountains you've got far enough to achieve city counts (on short campaign though) by blowing Isengard and Mordor out of the way.


edit: My campaign difficulty was on Hard (because otherwise AI is messing with its alliances imo - i mean in Med2, not sure if TA-DAC did something to prevent that -).
And V.hard on battle difficulty.
Short campaign.

[koroshiya]

A tactical advice is to attack settlements with a single fast unit. Those battles are about controlling the flag. Run into a corner. When the opponent army comes close, dodge them and run to the centre square. A single unit of cavalry can take any city, if the defenders do not have cavalry. It is possible that it doesn't work with some fortresses or citadels, and on some special maps.

No border, no war. The AI does not want war, if there is no border. In the original MTW2 this is the easiest way to defend Byzantium. Just send a number of cheap units to Sofia and Durazzo and besiege them every turn. In that game you will find scripted attacks, but that the attackers really want peace. You can therefore make huge amounts of money by making peace with nations that really do not want to fight you. In the original game, you can milk this to get an incredible amount of money. Just ship a diplomat and a unit to a nation that does not border you. Attack, make peace, profit.

12-block. The retreat rules are such that a unit or agent can move to areas next to it, or to the attackers square and then from there. If you block them in like below and let 1 attack or move, they cannot escape. They can't move over impassable terrain, so sometimes you do not need to create a full block.

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Crusade - the most powerful factor in the game. The reason is that units next to a general do not desert. As a result, it is possible to have an eternal crusade. Theoretically, a general can control 8 stacks of units and move anywhere on the map. In the Third Age Mod - if I remember correctly - the creators were quite aware of this, and you lose your crusade if you attack another "evil" nation. In the original MTW2, the easiest way to win is to have a crusade or jihad to a worthless settlement; just make sure that no other nation can take it. For the catholics this is often Vilnius, and for the muslims it can be Tunis or perhaps Jerusalem, depending upon what kind of game you want.

For the third age game, this means that an "evil" nation can "control" the target, making sure that no other nation takes it, and that nation will forever have free troops, as long as they are on Sauron's crusade.

Exploiting these rules of the game makes it very simple, and in the end, perhaps not so fun. The best win I ever had was one of the first.

[Arminius92]

Ctrl+A , press M. Will merge your units.

Be careful that you don't wipe uot a unit: Two too depleted units will form a new one. Like Selerz said, drag the units cards. This way you can also increase the experience of your units. The depleted ones will go back for retraining.

When fighting elephants,

use javelins. LOTS of javelins. (eg for MOS Gondor: Pelargir javelinsman(or marines?) re gold against Mumakil and trolls.

[Eugeniosoalt]

No idea why my main acc got banned but:

Its a bad idea to exterminate every settlement you see, especially when the growth times in the mod have been tremendously nerfed. There are exceptions to this, but mostly only on bigger settlements that already have a decent amount of growth (Carn Dum, Moria). It also depends on what faction you're playing as; as the elves, you need to waste as few upkeep units as possible due to how expensive they are, so extermination is sometimes necessary (i prefer sacking for the money), but if you're playing as a human faction its easier to turn a village into a new free upkeep location much faster.