Pestum

I never played against soldier or peasant IA. I can imagine is the same than captain/deathmarch minus something. 

A valid and winning strategy against IA is mirror the harras tactic. At first you feel it´s useless but when you destroy 3 resources buildings you will notice less enemy troops. Once you had the advantage is impossible for the IA to recover unless you let it.

Another way to win is Rush. The old and simple rush will let you win in about 15 minutes. 3 melee 2 ranged to start the attack and keep sending units until you win. Keep an archer (sometimes a pike too) to defend your resources because no matter what the IA still is IA and is programmed to attack your resources even under heavy attack (is a good defense anyway).

One think to keep ALWAYS in mind. You need to command your units all the time. This is not starcraft. If you let them alone they will die chasing a buterfly. And thanks Aluvatar the aotr team remove some building patrolls. Still anoying as hell but a little less. I hope they remove patrolls definitely on the final version.

Search on youtube AOTR Theguyoftheeast. He have tons of gameplay and his style is fitting to destroy any IA.

The best advice i can give you is to use the handicap tool until you feel the ia play your game.

Sometimes i play against IA to try to win a match but most of the time i play against ia to build a city, maybe use some unit i don´t use often and imagine another adventure on middle earth. 

About the waystone. Have you ever played starcraft 2? Protoss have the nexus to recall troops from anywhere in the map, the waystone could be used with defensive purpouses too. You misses those 2 destroyers going for your fortress? Waystone and recall some troops to defend. The same with Haldir ability. You wouldn´t use waystone as much as the feast but that doesn´t mean is worst or better.

I choose feast over decree most of the time but one beeing better than the other doesn´t mean the other is bad. I often choose decree next to feast. The boost of resources from a 400cp fight is considerable. Is the difference on having Legolas or Thranduil (btw Legolas die faster than he shoot) and we know WR economy is the worst from all factions. Decree is the only boost you have on economy. No upgrades no buildings no hero skills, just that spell from the book to give you some money.

As i see getting a flying unit from a troll cave lvl 2 and 750 resources who can only be attacked by archers is a good deal. I don´t bring one bat to battle like they were dragons i fly with a band of bats (3 or 4 usually). They don´t get stuck with other troops. You send the bats and they attack. With 3 bats you kill easily 2 squads of archers without losing a single one and the rest of the enemy troops are at your disposal.

Trolls and cavalry die easily against pikes and you need to micro them a lot. I don´t understand why bats are underrated.

Greetings everyone.

I would like to remove the units around buildings, at least interactive units, they can stay for only visual. They look good, goblins the most.

Those units help on defense (a little bit) but in a frustrating way.

For example, i´m besieging and need to take care from an attack on my base. I defend with other units not the ones besieging but when i return to the siege i have all my army dispersed trying to hit some archer who are shooting from the other side of the buildings. Some squads die trying to reach those units (who really doesn´t hit that much). For worse units have priority on those insignificant guards. They don´t attack the tower no, they attack the most distant of archers (i´m exagerating but in frustration i feel that way xD).

Gameplay first.

Thanks for reading and excuse my english!

Also, the Misty Mountains faction was one of my favorites, but unfortunately in Age of the Ring mod version 6.1 the Misty Mountain units appear too weak to keep up with the new AI. Even though I create more units than the AI (even upgraded) I would quickly get obliterated. I'm able to beat the AI with other factions. So I think the Misty Mountain units may need to be adjusted to be a bit beefier to handle the constant flow of attacking AI. Their hero list is pretty small too which doesn't help much. All I'm saying is there are some balancing issues with the tougher AI, but I still really enjoy the mod! 

I felt the same but after a few games i find myself using other units and tactics.

The basic infantry from goblins are weaker than before but gundabad warriors are stronger than ever. Use wargs, they are your basic cavalry also use bats, you need to micro but are excellent. Tactics like A+Move to their fortress don´t work anymore xD 

Strategies aside, Azog dies way to fast for an ultimate hero, needs more micro than Haldir.

I just downloaded and tried out the Age Of The Ring mod version 6.1 and you guys still do great work! Nice job. I also enjoyed playing version 5.1

 

I must say though, I think the balance between difficultly levels may need to be tweaked. "Peasant" level was easy...which is expected and appropriate. But the next level up "Soldier" level was insanely difficult. It was too much for me to handle and I'm not a novice player either. Problem was the AI rushed with tons of units in a constant flow and nearly zero time in between. I'm all for the AI making larger armies, but it would be nice to have more time in between invasions so that I can build up a sufficient army and sometimes meet them outside my base rather than having all my buildings destroyed in 10-15 minutes.

 

Any way to make the AI not rush so much overall would be much much appreciated! They're too good

I had the same problem jumping from hard to brutal on previous version. I can only recommend you to use the handicap tool and choose your customized difficulty. You can gradually put less handicap to improve your gameplay (at least against AI).

— When starting a real-time match in Esgaroth, more often than not, half the units will remain in map boundaries and not move into playable terrain. This is a vanilla bug, but perhaps it can be attenuated somehow.

Never happened to me in AOTR, but in vanilla you can select all units (Q) and order them to move in the map, the units are there and respond at your command. Do it fast and repeteadly.