LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth?

[m4tt]

I bought this game a few weeks ago, so I was wondering if anyone else had played it. It's one of them RTS games, and it is super fun. Some of the story is kinda wonky, like Gandalf becomes "Gandalf the White" right after Moria, he never really leaves the party and Boromir never dies when you play on the good side. And there are a lack of Hero type characters for the evil forces, but oh well. Other than those few things I think the game is awesome. It's not really as great as Warcraft, but for LOTR fans it's good. The battle at Helms Deep was freaking awesome.

Anyway, comments? Thoughts?

[XxSephirothxX]

I'd like to play it, but my video card sucks. I'm a big fan of LOTR, and have always liked Real Time Strategy games like Command and Conquer, Warcraft, and Age of Empires.

[Rainecloud]

I've been playing it for months, and I love it.

The storyline inconsistencies are a little weird, but they don't ruin the game.

[Psychotic]

I own it too and I love it. I didn't know other EoFFers had it, besides Sephiroth1999AD who I've played online with. Oh plus there's ISRViper and someone else who I've forgotten now (sorry :p) but I haven't played online with them.

Anyone wanna play online with me? Please? :)

EDIT: Oh, and in response to m4tt's storyline stuff: If you let Boromir die at Amon Hen like he does in the story, then he won't be with you anymore. I think it's the same for Gandalf and the Balrog. Although my Boromir died at the Black Gate, when a mumakil trod on him...

[Rainecloud]

If you let Boromir die at Amon Hen like he does in the story, then he won't be with you anymore. I think it's the same for Gandalf and the Balrog. Although my Boromir died at the Black Gate, when a mumakil trod on him...

My Gandalf was killed by the Balrog in Moria, and it was "Game Over". :/

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were all killed during the Helm's Deep battle, and yet they remained alive for the next level. I just don't understand this game sometimes.

[Psychotic]

I think they only die if it's a story-based death then. I didn't lose any heroes except Boromir at the Black Gate, and Theoden at Helm's Deep (I tried to recreate the "FORTH EORLINGAS!" final charge and got mowed down in seconds...) but Theoden popped back up, but I wonder if he would have died permanently at the Pelennor Fields. Hmm.

...I don't even know why this stuff is spoilers xD

[Yrkoon]

ive got it to not played it recently tho.

[m4tt]

I've never tried playing it online, but maybe I could give it a shot. I was absolutely horrible at Warcraft 3 online.

Everyone but Legolas and Gimli died for me at Helms Deep. I didn't manage my units well enough and lost track of them. Next thing I knew Aragorn's health went splaaaaat, then went Eowyn, and Theoden. Gandalf and Eomer show up and Legolas was running for his life while Gimli was chilling in a corner somewhere. Then when I tried evil's version of Helms Deep I had everyone destroyed 10 minutes before the Ent's showed up, so I just stood there and waited for them, then waited for the next group, then destroyed the one building I left.

[Psychotic]

If you ask me, playing online is where the most fun of it comes from. Skirmish is OK, but it gets boring after a while because once you figure out how to beat the hard AI, it's just easy.

As for my Helm's Deep: I put the elves and Fellowship on the Deeping Wall, and the Rohan Yeomen and Peasants in the main keep itself, just like the movie. Things were going well, but then they broke down the main gate and I was forced to retreat back to there, and then further back to the Hornburg. My heroes and remaining peasants and elves were holding the line well enough, but were taking heavy damage and I knew they wouldn't last, so I pulled them back and did the Theoden ride, but I already explained the outcome of that... Anyway, I left the peasants and elves inside the Hornburg whilst Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir and Eowyn ran away out of the main gate like cowards while the Uruks were distracted. Funny stuff. Along come Gandalf and Eomer, and bye bye Isen!

There's a nice screenie I took of my elves + Fellowship on the wall. Plus I also took a screenie of what happened when Sephiroth1999AD's elves met a Balrog, I'm sure he'll love me for posting this :laugh:

Oh, and please note that I play the game on Very Low quality, so don't say the graphics suck. Go on the official site and look at how good they can be if your PC is good enough :p

[m4tt]

It's kinda funny that I had problems with Helms Deep, but no problems at all with Minas Tirith. They never even broke the gate down. The Grond got it down to about 25%, but that was as low as it got. When Aragorn showed up with his huge army there was only a mumakil and a few haradrim left to kill. :p

[Psychotic]

Yeah, Minas Tirith was annoyingly easy, the mission after it, Dagorlad, was much harder. Grond had 1% health left when it destroyed the gate, and a second later a trebuchet rock landed on it, killing it. The rest was just a mop up job.

And as I'm such a screenshot whore, here's one of our friend attacking. (So don't click if you don't want spoilers, but you should know about it anyway if you've watched the movie :p)

[Sefie1999AD]

Here's my BFME review in my LJ since I can't be bothered to write it all again: Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sephiroth1999ad/8392.html?nc=7)

Even though the storyline isn't really good, you'll stop thinking about that by the time you've beat both single-player campaigns and start to play Skirmish and online maps. I realised during the Evil campaign that it doesn't matter if the game conflicts with the movie's story because the bad guys can kill heroes that aren't supposed to die there, though they'll get revived. I killed Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli at both Amon Hen and Helm's Deep. However, I killed Boromir during Amon Hen and Theoden during Helm's Deep, and they didn't come back after that. It also gives you more of a feeling that you can reshape the world yourself by having different characters die when they didn't die in the movie, or by having them survive when they did die in the movie.

Oh, and Elves are wonderful. Especially with Fire Arrows and Heavy Armor. ^^ About the AI summoning Balrog and killing 200 Command Points worth of Elves that way on a Skirmish map... Psychotic: :twak:

As for some special maps:

Helm's Deep was easy on Easy difficulty. I was totally clueless there on my first time, and I still won. Isengard destroyed the Deeping Wall, and that created me a choke point for ambushing Isen forces, making the map a lot easier for me, as a matter of fact. I never had problems there. On my 2nd time, I just put Elves on the walls and played that map a lot better. On that game, I didn't repeat the same horrible mistake I did during my first game: built Postern Gates. Your forces with low AI really mess themselves up that way. When you tell them to attack the ladders, they charge out through the Postern Gates and try to attack the root of the ladder rather than slashing them down from the top of the wall, and that way they get massacred by the time they get out of the fortress. On the 2nd time, I managed to save both the Deeping Wall and the Front Gate. I was like "Kill it, Legolas! Kill it!" when Isen came with mines. :D Helm's Deep was a fun mission, though it wasn't as fun for me as many had told me. Probably because of how the mission went during my first time through it. It was a really fun mission with Isengard on Evil Campaign, though.

Minas Tirith was my favorite level in LotR: The Third Age, and it was very nice in BFME too. My forces were at their max command limit, and I had very few archers with fire arrows, so I couldn't build more Archers to get my Archery Range upgraded so that I could get fire arrows. That was bad, especially when Grond came. It attacked my Front Gate until it was on red, then I made a pure desperation move. I opened the gate and went out with my Gondor Knights. They got pretty much slaughtered, but at least I saved the gate and bought some time to destroy Grond, and I also finally got to build more Archers and get fire arrows that way. Unlike in the movie, my Rohan army was able to halt the entire Mordor invasion, including Orcs, Easterlings/Southrons, Trolls and Mumakils. When Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and AotD arrived, they only had about 10 Orcs left to kill. And 9 of them were crushed by Rohan's forces. I think Aragorn managed to slash the final Orc and end the mission.

A cool thing with Minas Tirith map is how in the Evil Campaign, the good guys use Cloud Break at the moment the Rohan reinforcements arrive. I would have wanted to use that effect. Well, I eventually got to use it, though not in that map. It was in the Black Gate, during the final struggle. Mordor has covered the entire region with Darkness, and when there's about 15 seconds left to survive until Frodo destroys the Ring, I used Cloud Break to bring Eternal Sunshine on the darkened lands of Mordor, totally paralyzing Mordor's forces.

Okay, now that I think I've caught up with this thread, anyone wanting to play online? Psy? :p

[Boy_suicide]

Heeeellllppp, I keep on getting raped at the dagorlad immediate rush of mordor while in rohan because I don't have the heart to send out my rank 8 cavalry or my rank 6 archers fully upgraded. It's too like, wasting.... So, I see if my sentry Ts are keeping them away, but they aren't and my summons keep them busy, but they always come with the same strong orce over and over so I send only my heroes, besides Merry, all rank 10, and they get raped, and the people keep on coming, and all my rohirrim do is trample which wastes health, and my rank 8 guys get defeated by Rhun soldiers and trolls, heeeeellllllpppppp T.T

[rubah]

You might find it more effective to create a new thread; this one was from April :)