Middle-Earth Shadow of War Siege Guide – Attacking And Defending Fortresses

Fortresses. Ah. These are giant outposts that you storm and take on in the game. But these are really hard to actually capture- your army needs to scale the walls, claim each victory point while fighting off the orcs that try to intercept you, make your way to the Overlord’s room, and defeat them while they have a swarm of backup orcs trying to intercept you, before you can take one for yourself.

You could realistically just try doing this all by yourself- which would be freakishly difficult and unrewarding. Don’t do that. It’s almost impossible. Instead, let’s talk about the smart way to do things.

• Fortresses are gigantic castles and outposts. Each Fortress has a defense level- if this level is higher than your assault level, don’t bother taking it on yet and come back when you are better prepared. If it is equal to or lower than (recommended) your assault level, read on.
• Take out the Warchiefs. These Warhiefs are key Orc military members who stand on the ramparts, and they are extremely strong. Taking them out will make your job infinitely easier. To do this, you need to recruit Captains to your army and have them infiltrate a Warchief’s squad. In the heat of battle, they will betray the Warchief and kill him. There, your job is so much easier now.
• Don’t be afraid of losing Captains. Because you will- in the fighting or via betrayal, you will lose members of your army, that is just how things are. Accept it and move on.
• Don’t fight more than you have to. Once you have claimed a victory point, don’t stay there to fight off orcs- run to the next one. Remember, your aim is to capture all of them- you’ll be doing a lot of fighting anyway, so don’t waste time adding to it.
• Beat the Warlord. Now this will be difficult. The Warlord is a hard boss battle, and no matter what you do, this battle will test you. Be patient, don’t get too greedy, and fight this carefully- because once you defeat the Warlord, this fortress is yours.

Okay, now you have a Fortress. So what do you do next?

• Now you have to defend the fortress. When you claim a fortress, you assign captains as Warchiefs and Warlords, and they will defend it for you. This is great, right? Not right. See, the problem is, these guys don’t level up with you- so chances are that at some point in the future, you are attacked, and you’re straddled with underpowered orcs, unable to take the threat on. This is where keeping your defenses shored up comes in.
• Get siege upgrades for your fortresses. These require you to spend Miriam, but doing so will let you have more Warchiefs on the ramparts- always helpful.
• Replace your army regularly. You can either spend Miriam to buy new followers, spend real money to buy new followers, or recruit new followers and rotate them into the fortress.
• Utilize the Pit Fight Missions. This is important, because it helps level your Orcs up. It also gets you gear and Miriam. Remember, that the Orcs have a level cap equal to yours- and also that this process can and will take a lot of time.
• Keep swapping your Warchiefs and Warlords out. Either with new ones, or by demoting them so that they can be trained via pit missions to get more powerful (before you promote them back again).