Are you having trouble beating the mighty Elves? Do you find that you cannot seem to overcome the incredible creeping power that they possess? If so, this guide will explain exactly how to make a mockery of the Lorien Archer's powerful creeping strategy.
Essentially, the purpose of this build order is to trick Elves if they use Farsight, and to utilize Men of the West's two best advantages early in the game - Gondor Knights and Gondor Archers. There are a couple of ways to use this. One method is a short term strategy for a larger advantage with higher risk, and the other is a more long term strategy that takes longer for you to benefit from, but is far less risky.
The Build Order
Farm + Hidden Stables -> Knight + Farm -> Archery Range -> Gondor Archers
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Send the first Builder immediately out of sight to the location of a normal forward Barracks for a creep start, and then build a Farm in the usual spot beside the Fort with the second Builder. Once the first Builder reaches its destination, build a hidden Stables. The point here is that if Elves use Farsight, they may think you are making a forward Barracks since you have no visible production buildings and only one Builder by your Fort. Once your Stables is up, purchase a Gondor Knight battalion and then a second Farm by the Fort when you have the money.
Key to the Build Order
You need to make sure to keep the Knights alive for this strategy to work correctly. No matter what variation of this build order is used, Knights are key. Gondor Archers will not be able to match Lorien Archers in the early game stage, or at any stage for that matter, unless you greatly outnumber his units. Be careful with your Knights; do not use them in range of the enemy Fort unless you are certain they will survive, or another Knight battalion is building, and it's worth the sacrifice.
Less Risky Strategy
Even if Elves do not use Farsight, it is not too risky to have a Stables away from your Fort, since they are not particularly aggressive early on anyways. After you have the second Farm, get an Archery Range next to your Fort. Somewhere around that time the Knights should be done. Make sure to send the Knights around the area that you think Farsight's vision is, so the enemy does not see them. The first place the Knight should check is the Warg Creep by the middle ford. If your ruse worked, the Elf player may be sending archers there to pick off your forward Barracks. Instead, they will be crushed by your Knights and the creep money stolen. Next, you can use them as the situation demands; checking more creeps, harassing, defending, and most importantly, supporting the Gondor Archers. It is vital to try to keep the first Knight alive, since they are fairly expensive and the archers need Knight support to work properly. Bear in mind, leveled Knights are far more resilient to archer fire and deal more damage as well.
So while your Knights are causing panic, you should have bought some Gondor Archers. Buy about three of them before building anything else. Use the archers to shoot down any enemy Mithlond Sentries. Let the Knights mop up the archers. This archer and cavalry combination is hard for the Elves to stop early on without large numbers of units.
More Risk, Higher Reward Strategy
Build the Archery Range near the middle ford of the Fords of Isen II map. This way there will be less traveling time for the Gondor Archers, and they can be used in battle much faster than if the Archer Range was aside the Fort. There is a good window of opportunity at the start of the game (the quicker the better) to send the Knights straight away to kill the Elven Barracks, using Elven Wood to provide defense for the Knights. You should try to do this right after you have killed the first battalion of Lorien Archers that were creeping the Warg lair. Send all available archers along with them to kill any defending pikes units, then any archers that the Knights did not get along the way. Taking out the Barracks will deal a large blow to the enemy, greatly slowing down their unit production and allowing you to gain time to amass a large number of archers. However, if the attack fails, you will have a hard time getting into midgame without support for the Gondor Archers.
Priorities after the Initial Start (in no particular order)
- More Archers
- Another Knight
- Expand economy
- Barracks
When faced by a few Lorien Archers, the Gondor Archers will not last long without Knight support, so you will definitely need more of them. Since Elves usually make a few larger groups instead of multiple smaller ones, your armies might be outnumbered and in need of more troops. If you do opt for some smaller split up groups, which you shouldn't, try to make sure they are fairly close by or at least close enough so help can arrive if needed. Try to flank the Elves from the sides or rear.
The first Gondor Knight battalion will not last forever, it needs to have a replacement out before it dies to keep pressure on the Elf player to make pikes. Also, as the game progresses, you will need more Knights just because the Elf will get more units/buildings to deal with, and when combined with Eomer and Theoden they make a next to impossible force to stop.
The initial economy is not too strong with only two Farms. The Elf player most likely will have gathered resources from at least one creep, so constant recourse expansion is suggested as soon as is possible.
Soldiers of Gondor will be needed to beef up harassment and to defend your archers from enemy infantry. Another option is to make a forward barracks and creep first, and if your starting units are doing a good enough job, get several creeps in, as the Elf is busy making pikes to fight off your combo.
Alternate Option
This option is more about using this build order to force the enemy to buy pikes early on and take advantage of that. All you do differently is delete the stables once the Knight is out. This will provide the resources to get a barracks much earlier on, say while the first or second Gondor Archer is building. When exactly you put the barracks up depends on the situation. If the second archer is really needed to defend, get it first. If you can do a successful creep steal with the Knights, build the barracks once you have the first archer building.
The Elf player will have shifted to building a pike and archer mix, as they were forced to by the Knights (make sure to keep them alive!). Counter them with a heavy spam of Gondor Archers mixed with Soldiers of Gondor Tower Guards and Knights. You may wish to get fast Ithilien Rangers, they will tear the Elven army apart due to it comprising purely of tier one units.
Example of the strategy in use: (It uses the BTDC 2.4 patch but you can still watch the start of it using the 2.5)
This guide was produced by
MasterOfPhate.
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