On Saturday, April 12, 1997 at 5:00:00 PM UTC+10, DST12345 wrote:

I would be interested in hearing from other LOTR players about the
various successful strategies they use in defeating the computer AI. How
do you prefer to attack the various castle types (eg Mott and Bailey,
Norman Keep, Royal Castle), particularly, how do you defeat the other side while you are the decided "underdog", either in manpower or weapons? How many seige weapons for each?
Post to newsgroup or e-mail.

Dennis

I've played this game for ages and came online to see if there were any strategies I was missing. I actually found the few guides I've clicked through have been amateur.

Crops - I always grow wheat. I find it much easier to maintain than cattle.

Weapons - Make knights and sell them for extra cash. If I'm building an army I'll get a good mix of weapons; however, if I'm not ready to make an army and my county has iron my extra peasants are making knights. You can sell them off for A LOT of extra
cash.

Armies - I like a good mix with more archers in comparison. Pikeman and archers work well as the Pikeman act as a wall for the archers. Speed units like knights or maceman can be great to quickly cut around the back of the enemy army and take out their
crossbowman and/or archers. I'll even occasionally use 150-250 mercenary maceman to soften up the enemies army (ie. take out their bowman).

Sieging - if it's the first wooden castle, catapult the back and run a knight to the flag. Easy. 2nd wooden castle, 1-2 battering rams will do the trick. Run a knight or maceman in after you bust the first door down to tip their 2 oil barrels out and
protect the bulk of your army from them later. 1st stone castle is same strategy to 2nd wooden. The best 2 stone castles - catapults. Pull your army to L or R bottom corner and they'll bring their archers and oil to the corresponding corner of the
castle. With your catapults shoot out the stairs on either side of their tower. Their archers and oil are now stuck up here. Go around the oppositie side of the castle and bust a hole. Fill in the water and enter the castle.

I've always wondered if it's worth buying ale and whether happiness (at all or at what level) increases population/immigrants?

Can't think of any other tips off the top of my head aside from: if an enemy is spread out, attacking their middle 1-2 counties can leave their land split and if it's not connected they'll lose counties purely based on that.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

I make sure I have about 600+ men at least when attacking say a Royal Castle. I use swordsmen the most, archers of course, and knights. Every other troop type doesn't really matter. I usually never take peasants unless I have no weapons and am forced
to. I take 4-5 swordsmen to the moat and make the AI dump all 5 of their oils on my swordsmen. I may have to replace the first 5 with another 5. I take 1-2 battering rams (all other siege weapons are a waste really). Bash in the gate door and have my
knights and swordsmen attack the keep door now that all the oil is gone. I never really take archers into a siege unless I just so happen to have them. Swordsmen and Knights are the best. The AI is pretty weak so you can play it however you want, but
I have mastered this style and so anything else takes more resources or is a slower process.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)