Battle for Middle Earth - Evil Campaign - Southern Ithilien




Battle for Middle Earth - Evil Campaign Map - Southern Ithilien (+2 Power)
This is a hint/walkthrough post for Battle for Middle Earth. You can find an index of all our Battle for Middle Earth posts here.

It is possible that you are starting with an enormous army of leftovers from Harad camps that allied with you on the Near Harad map. Just spend them like water and turtle to get the units you really want to keep.

Ignore the initial suggestion to have your Mumakils flatten the forests, because that will really just get your Mumakils killed. Just inch forward and the hidden units will reveal themselves when they attack.

At the start, split your force into two: One to hold ground against incursions from the west, the other to head north to raid the Gondor camp. If you have lots of Mumakil from Near Harad, send them ahead to disrupt enemy lines and if possible to take out the towers at the Gondor camp entrance. Follow up with any Haradrim Lancers you don't want to keep, and any Orc Archers or other units you do want to keep. The Gondor forces between the river and the Gondor base are thick and there are a lot of archers. Two Mumakil can make it but won't last long at the base entrance by the time they are there.
Destroy the entrance towers and the two Archery Ranges, then box in Gondor.

Next, fight your way west of your camp to secure the three towers. Park a unit of Orc Archers near the westernmost tower to take down any Gondor Rangers sneaking down from the north, from the Forbidden Pool behind the Gondor base.
The Forbidden Pool is behind the Gondor camp and guarded by Faramir. After you clear the initial defenders, it will continue to put out a steady stream of Rangers.

You can now secure the allied camp to the west. You could probably have secured it earlier, but even on Hard Difficulty, they can hold out indefinitely as they send a lot of raids and they and Gondor are at a stalemate. They also in that way keep Gondor from fully focusing all their attacks on you.
If you take over that camp early, you get more Building Sites and can therefore get more Resource production, but you will also then be fighting on two fronts, and you may not like that level of micromangement. Also, you will be limited to your Command Limit, so suddenly there are less units on the map against Gondor (since, as an ally, they do not add to your Command Limit).
However, this is actually not to your advantage, since Resources are good only for replacing units after a while. And if you are constantly replacing whole units, you are not advancing any toward Veteran status. When you are ready to attack Gondor, that camp will press their own attack, assisting you. After the Gondor camp is destroyed, take over the ally camp to achieve the Bonus Objective before finishing the map.

If you want to keep any Mumakil, I recommend you spend any that came over from Near Harad in taking out the Gondor base towers at the entrance and the Archery Ranges. Keep recruiting Mumakil and wasting them until you get a Level 3 Mumakil Pen, which gives you Mumakil that begin at level 2.

If you want to keep any Trolls, wait until you box in Gondor and take away their Archery Ranges. Then they will only send infantry out (which are not as dangerous to your trolls as archers), you can wipe out their squads with a gang of maybe 5 trolls until they all level up. Do not pick up trees until you get a Veteran Troll because until they are Veterans, they need to eat Orcs to heal, and they cannot do so if they have a tree in hand.

After Southern Ithilien, there are six territories you can conquer, but only two battles before the next scripted mission, Osgiliath. Isengard forces can capture Eastern Rohan (+10% Resources), Enedwaith (+10% Resources), the Fords of Isen (+20% Resources, +50 Command), and West Emnet (+10% Resources, +50 Command); Mordor can capture Central Ithilien (+20% Resources) and Emyn Arnen (+2 Power).

The Fords of Isen and West Emnet raise your Command Limit by +50 each, but there is a hard Command Limit of 600 in the Campaign, and you have already reached it, so choose territories for a different reason. The Fords of Isen and Central Ithilien both off +20% Resources; Emyn Aren offers +2 Power. We chose the Fords of Isen with Lurtz and Emyn Aren with Mordor.

Before the final conflict at Minas Tirith, you will be given the opportunity to conquer many territories, and Isengard's armies can move east and do conquests there. Therefore, at this point, choose whether you want to concentrate on using Isengard or Mordor, and focus on one army only for subsequent conquests, so that you can concentrate on getting units to high veterancy.
I recommend Isengard armies because their pikemen and armor (which renders them immune from the fire damage of fire arrows) makes them less of a headache to keep alive.
In hindsight I should have chosen Lurtz to capture the Fords of Isen and West Emnet.

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