i was nearly dead , only had 2 units came back to beat the hightly defensive gondor , this was one my replays from a few months ago but still worth the watch .
Really, no offence, but this was a very poorly played and boring game. The only reason I finished watching it was to see what you meant by surviving with two units to win the game.
Firstly, congratulations for playing a map other than Fords; though this is one of the unfair maps in that the top base has one more free farm than the bottom base (bonus negated by the fact that Gondor didn't get it till rather late)
Great creeping by Gondor (with hobbit).
The worst part of this replay was how both sides sat at outposts with their army and didn't at all harras outside farms. Especially Rohan, gondor sort of tried to very late in the game.
Gondor left a build plot open for a very very long time, until after he got gandalf. ??? Why not build a blacksmith?!?! Resources are important!
You said Gondor was very defensive. The fact that you never attacked till the end does not count as him being defensive. You didn't even go close enough to his caste to find that he didn't have any towers!
Also, when you have ents and he has gandalf, split them up so they don't all die the horrible fate of flame! And ents do more melee damage to walls than throwing rocks from melee range.
Anyway, there are a lot of bad points in this, no harrasment, standing still for very long times, bad hero (especially gandalf) use, running knights over elves, having trebuchets outside his base (him not having an army) and not attacking the walls, etc.
Let me tell you how a game between a rohan and gondor usually turns out for me.
Both go for cavalry. Rohirrim run away fom knights until Theo comes out quickly, at which point it's the knight's turn to flee. Eomer comes out teo help leadership the cavalry (also grants the ability to split rohirrim army in half, since rohirrim without leadership is rather weak).
The aim of the game is to harrass as much as possible, mobility being key. Knights will most likely win that war, as they are better on their own compared to rohirrim that need leadership.
Gandalf comes out, but is rather useless as grey (if Rohan did all the creeping). Also, Theoden doesn't die to Istari if he's creeped enough to get to level 3 or four. ALSo, eomer is there to still help, but it's a tight one between knights+gandalf's LD, and rohirrim with only Eomer's LD. It basically goes in favour of who has more, and who has more upgrades.
Gondor shouldn't use wizard blast until Theo is gone, because if he's still around the rohirrim just get back up.
If Rohan has gotten a level 4 theoden then it's over for Gondor. Theo won't die to istari, and Glorious Charge will beat the knights to a pulp. Rohan quickly gains full map control and saves for ents.
The end is then predictable.
That's how my games turn out.
Another option:
You could also get 2 or three rohirrim before going for elves. You need the rohirrim's mobility to harrass. HARRAS HARRAS HARASS!!! It really is the key.
A tip with elves: Put one on swords and leave them near trees to cloak. Especially near farms. It's beautiful when the unsuspecting knights run past and become slaughterhouse meat.
tbh, I'm not sure what else I could add. Phoenix's review was pretty spot on, both players made a lot of mistakes. My suggestion for both players is to visit the strat forums, there's room for a lot of improvement.
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