Congratulations on finishing your first campaign. I've never played on the easy setting, so I don't know if they really made it a walkthrough or if it's just a little easier, but the normal setting provides a reasonable, but likely winnable challenge (unless you get really unlucky with events).

Let us know how you get on with the German campaign.

That's because your moat is two units wide. Gatehouse can only bridge a single unit moat, so removing a unit of moat in front of the gatehouse should fix the problem for you. 3 isn't the optimal number. Overcrowding become an issue for cow after 3, and for sheep 5.

The maximum growth rate for cows are around 1 per field, but it doesn't to have a formula. Here're the numbers I found ingames for the minimum cows/worker/fields needed for additional cows per season. Use these figures as a guide, but it might vary slightly for your game due to season and other factors.

Growth | Fields | Workers | Cows Needed
12 | 13 | 778 | 189
11 | 12 | 703 | 174
10 | 11 | 552 | 138
9 | 10 | 502 | 123
8 | 9 | 452 | 108
7 | 8 | 376 | 93
6 | 7 | 301 | 75
5 | 6 | 251 | 61
4 | 5 | 200 | 47
3 | 4 | 150 | 33
2 | 2 | 75 | 19
1 | 1 | 25 | 1 There's a trick to this one. If you have all 16 workable fields and work all of them, then low fertility would no longer cause fields to go bad. You can run full cow/sheep economy with all 16 fields once you have them all fixed up. In my experience, max cows are actually the ideal end game economy.

Absolutely. Max cows= all dairy is the best economy you should strive for as the game progresses. I also keep a few hundred grain, so that in unforseen events when dairy won't suffice (cow disease or population boom), they can eat grain instead of cows.

There is another reason to keep some grain around. Passing (or standing/garrisoning) armies and raiders do not eat cheese, only grain/sheep/cow.

How do you setup a direct LAN connection multiplayer game on LOTR1 or is this not possible?

The Royal Edition has a launch multiplayer shortcut but I can't figure out how to setup the COM ports and work the modem game start menu etc. A step by step guide would be much appreciated if anyone else knows how this works.

Thanks,

banoare

I have an enemy army stuck/hiding behind one of my castles. I cannot demolish the castle or even remove the garrison. What are my options?

Nevermind. I ended up starving them out (and lost the county, which also removed the castle). However, thinking about it more, this was probably a self-correcting problem. As I encroach upon the enemy's territories, the harder it would have been for them to pay army upkeep. Eventually, the army would have defected.