RTS

Description

The storyline follows the lesser known story of the War of the North, which took place at the same time as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The game makes use of the book license in addition to the existing license of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, which also results in some characters which were not seen in the films being present in this game. Also included are some original characters, like Gorkil and Drogoth. The campaigns are once again split to the Good and Evil, but instead of taking place on a meta-map, they are entirely linear in nature.

The game features six playable factions: Men of the West (combination of Gondor and Rohan from the first game), Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, Isengard, and Mordor. The base system has been completely overhauled, allowing for free-form construction around the map. Resources are still primarily gathered by farm-type structures, but they have to be built far from each other and on suitable terrain for optimal income. Some neutral buildings like beacons, taverns and shipyards can be captured by infantrymen, much like tech structures in the later Command & Conquer games. In addition to this, production structures (unlike farm-type ones) have to be manually upgraded to be able to train higher-tier units. More units are available per faction, new support powers can be selected in the Palantir, and custom heroes can be designed and trained in skirmish and multiplayer. Taking the One Ring (from a killed Gollum unit which can occasionally appear on a map) to a fortress will allow the player to train a Ring Hero – Galadriel for the Good factions or Sauron for the Evil factions, both heroes being more powerful than any other unit in the game. …

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Description

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth is a real-time strategy game set in the Lord of the Rings universe and makes use licensed elements from Peter Jackson’s film trilogy.

The game features four factions: Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, and Mordor. Bases are comprised of a fortress structure, a limited number of nodes upon which other buildings can be constructed, and surrounding walls with gates. Farm-type structures bring a constant income and raise the population cap. Further nodes can be found on the map to create more structures, either new fortresses or just farms. Unit production structures can level up with usage in order to gain access to more powerful or specialized unit types and upgrades.

Regular units (with the exception of artillery) are trained in squads, and much like in WarCraft III, heroes can be trained. Heroes can gain up to 10 levels through experience in combat, and as they level up, they get new abilities and spells to cast. The player can also gain experience points in combat, much like in this game’s immediate technological predecessor, Command & Conquer: Generals, which can be spent to unlock support powers from the Palantir, which in turn form a special tech tree as they act as prerequisites for each other. …

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