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I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS GAME TO COME OUT!!
it could quite possibly be the best RTS on the planet

ye IGN and Gamespot have really built this one up. hopefully it'll live up 2 expectations. only doubt is the plot points in building rather than creating buildings the old RTS way.

and do unno the system requirements?

It will be warcraft with LOTR skins. The only RTS that has broken away and done somthing better than Warcraft is Rome total war. Rome is one awsome god damn game.

yeah.. war3 is tops.. rome takes too long to battle.. and I prefer age of empires because I like to build my structures and manage everything. not just battling

Dawn of War owns all

thats not true. in TBFME you can have WAY more units, hundreds more.

Its not it has the Command and Conquer General Engine... which all i can say is..... droolio the physics and animation detail possible with it is amazing. It has no unit building limit

just downloaded a video preview and man, this game is looks very nice. like Raven said it's loaded with detail and character emotion (if a group of gondor soldiers is appraoched by a troll, balrog or nazgul they get sh!t scared and some even run

yeah, i have seen some footage. The game battles look like they will live up to the movie ones.

And the amount of units u can have/the detail on them is very good

anyone played this game yet, cuz its out... but i do not have it.

christmas

I totally own everyone in this game i beat four peeps in a row on my first try online Isengard is my fav they made Mordor suck and why doesn't the evil side have walls? They make better ones then the good side the wall of Baradur is huge and the Orthanic had a wall to

I just beat the Helms Deep level in the game and i must say that it is one kickass RTS that IS definitely worth your time.
As for why the bad guys do not have walls.... i do not know.

Sounds like a good game, I may need to invest in this.

ive got it and its good

The only thing what sucks is the Bases and Castles in there. Thre way to small and you cant really expand, you have to build where it says.

I saw a screenshot of the Army of the Dead units and buildings, and I'm like, "WOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOW..."
I really wanted to play Helm's Deep.
Bu my computer is pathetic,...

I'd still rather hear the opinion of a jaded RTS gamer for this game... someone who's been playing RTS's since age of empires 2 preferably.

I dont mean to sound like your opinions are worthless, but saying things like "best ever" and "best RTS on the whole planet" really dont qualify as reinforcement. To me it looks like an RTS with all of the economy aspects ripped clean out and you just play with units.. which takes out a huge chunk of the playstyle.

Well Sats, I've been playing RTS games for quite a while, so perhaps I can give you that opinion you want.

The game itself is pretty good, awesome graphics and some pretty unique aspects to building a base. However, its pace is rather slow. All in all it's a good game, but anyone calling it the best rts game ever hasn't played many. It's nowhere near as good as SC,WC, Dawn of War or Command and Conquer.

i have played RTS's since before i had a comp way back in the SEGA days I had Dune all the C&C's all the Age of EMpires and probably every decent RTS since and i'm saying BFME is good, not the greatest but really good I wish i could build more troops though and i wish the Good side did not rely on archers so much

droolio definetly not Dawn of War

sounds decent... the lack of economic strategy lessens the replay value IMO, and its probably not multiplayer I take it :O

Actually it has a Very Strong Multiplay value and the multiplayer part is extrodinarily strong. you get ranks and when you are allies it feels more like the movie because out of nowhere allies can ambush the enemy and rain arrows or ride wargs into the enemy at the exact moment you need them..... its amazing I love at the pitch of a battle how your troops cheeras allies arrive and slaughter the enemy and how they yell "what is that!!!!! and cower as a troll or a ent walks up... or an elehpant

Thats pretty good for someone you says "Dawn of War" is better than everything

hysterical have you playe it yet?

I've played Dawn of War and Battle for Middle Earth, I have to say that the games are somewhat similar. DoW capture strategic locations for requisition and gas to spend and BME expand to make farms and stuff. The hero system is like Warcraft 3, although I find some of the heros to be so strong it's almost unfair, like Gandalf. The game is still pretty good.

I don't mind Gandalf as that is the only strong hero Gondor can get but Rohan have so many its unfair. What really ticks me off is that the evil guys don't have walls around their bases they should have the black gate or something. Plus the Mordor hero's you get are rubbish. The Nazguls aren't powerful enough and can easily be taken out.

That is true, I dont believe getting a massive amount of orcs for free is too fair either. However Mordor makes up for their lack of walls with some extremely powerful units like the mummakill and trolls whereas the other races don't have basic units of that strength.

I remember facing a guy he was Rohan and I was Mordor. All he had to do was use Legolas againts me which was totally unfair as my 3 nazguls went in to attack he re-treated back to his base and attacked back and if Legolas was low on health he would use that instant heal. Even a good portion of the army was orcs they were no match againts the horseriders. Before I could get my 3 large Elephants to attack Legolas they were dead because of the range Legolas has. He then raided my base which was easy as I had no walls! Before that I controled nearly all of the map because he just stayed in his base.

Get spearmen to take out the riders, otherwise your orcs will get trampled to death. That's a strategy I use as Rohan against Isenguarde, trample with Theoden leading them, his passive ability lets the army take only 10% of the damage that would normally be inflicted on them!

Does screech or eye of sauron affect Legolas at all?

I don't know if it work or if he was retreating but the Nazguls should have more power. For e.g the witch king has magical powers and is powerful than Gandalf in the movies yet Gandalf has that beam of light which kills instantly and all the witch king has is a screach. I has spearmen but they were easily taken out by legolas then the horses rode in

::The eye does not affect hero units

You should also take into account that when you get heros like Legolas they range between levels 1 and 5. The Mordor units you buy are automatically at level 10.

You forget that the 3 nazguls you get for mordor have the same powers all the way from lv 1-10. I should face you and you can be Mordor!

Or you can be Mordor and I can be Rohan

Better than Starcraft?


Well, I personally started RTS's with AOE and Starcraft. They don't make games like they used to.


I'd put Dawn of War about equal with Starcraft... DoW missed out the imperial Guard

Starcraft was a classic, Age of the Empires was a great RTS as well, I still play both games once in the while. I find Battle For Middle Earth is most similar to Dawn of War.

Dawn of War isn't equal to Starcraft aside from the space marines. The hero system is a major change that makes it much better.

AoE was my first bought Computer game ever played that game silly

Never played Dawn of War (tho hearing from you guys I am gonna )

I can't wait to play BFME tho, I don't expect too much from it just decent graphics and all. However being able to play with the units from LOTR will prolly make it one of my fav games

question for those who have played it

does it have an annoying population limit (only draw back to AoE and SC)

I dont really like it... They should have much more races thought...
And yeah they have that Poppulation Limit thing...

at how much tidus?

blah this game was a complete let down to me..

Unlike the 75-200 limits in Age of the Empires, 200-800 depending on the game in Starcraft, and 90 in Warcraft 3, I think LOTR has 400.

My Beef with the game is once one side beats the other with a major army that side basically has an invincible army.... and OMG the hero crap is really anoying.... Gandalf blasts half my army of uruki away in the opening charge..... the evil side has no counter to a cavalry charge unless they got pikes, elephants or trolls.... which are the slowest in the whole game... and all except pikemen are vulnerable to archers.... although crossbows at full strength are near unstoppable.

I love crushin archers on the walls with a volley of crossbow bolts seiges are my favorite part in the whole game they are beautiful Mordor is the king of siege.

Good has 100-200 & Evil has 400-600 (above 400 only in campaign mode... which actually if you conquer the whole map you can have 800 ) The only cool thing about evil is that you can replace veteran forces easily... Good once you lose em there is nothing you can do.

okie they also work with the idea that powerful units such as trolls take up more than 1 in the pop limit? (like WC and SC)

I sort of like it that way, I'd be afraid of 400 trolls running at me!

True, and yeah, Elephants cost about 2-3 units... Cuz there are about 3 units riding the Elephant and stuff... The more powerfull the unit is the more units it costs.

I seriously dislike it but I hate pop limits all together (best thing about C&C series)

It does throw some sort of order into the game. You have to admit that it would suck and be extremely laggy if all the races made as many powerful or weak units as they can and send them all out to fight, in spite of the awesome battle scenes.

True (but it only works for a few games which high specs mostly in the graphical area)

I had massive battle scenario's in AoE and AoE2 just have the map filled with troops to do battle.

same for C&C never had problems there with a few 100 tanks or helicopters on the map

Population limits add more of a strategic depth to the game. So you have to decide how many of each type of unit you want to have. It prevents people from just hording up in their base and creating as many units as possible. It makes each unit matter, rather then just allowing someone to rely on basic outnumbering techniques.

True about the techniques BF but sometimes it just kinda destroys the fun I mean having battles of 50 vs 50 units is less appealing then 500 vs 500

Well usually the limit is far beyond 50...

Most games have a limit in the hundreds.

Then Mordor would have nine heroes the only counter to nazgul is isuri's light and a lot of arrows

I know BF but how often does the computer reach his population limit (and then I'm not even counting the tons of NON-combat units WC and AoE have) and even if they reach their pop-limit how often do they attack with their entire army?

Well I just played a level called Crossrads(Campain) damn it was hard, I mean i started with full army (hats 290 comand point for this map) but they had like 10 trolls half of them were armored, and they kicked my ass in the first battle, I lost more the half of my troops then I retreated to castle and set rangers ith firearrows to guard the walls, now these ranger can see quite far, so i could see that they where surronding my castle it looked soooo cool, they where like getting a bigger and bigger army, I'm asuming that they had like 400 in command point around my castle, but I helt them of, and after playing that map for like 1 hour I called upon the rohirum and bought my self some Tower guards just for them to shoot at (these guys can take alot of damage with their shields looked, now here is what I did and send the tower guardsmen in the frontline and archeres behind with the firearroews, oh it was good it reminded me of the battle in the begining of Gladiator, and after I hit their lines I had the rohirim come upon them from the rear, it was good

well that's because ti is a basic medieval and even roman tactic. fairly easy to counter if you have sufficient Cavalry (light or heavy)

Soooo....Link got paid today.

World of Warcraft is in my sights....should I not pass this game up as well?

Get it, it's worthwhile for a subscription game.

I think you need to be a decent fan of LOTR to really like this game (if you aren't wild of LOTR link I would spend my money elsewhere)

Yeah..especially when Half life 2 is out there

This game kicks ass!

I've been playing all weekend.

lol @ HL2 cheese... so hows LOTR coming along for you guys?.. I'll still be the defiant one and not play

SO Link you enjoy it?

I played it today. Excellent game! it improved lots of bits that all RTS games miss out on, like How many units you can carry at once. And the campaign mode is wonderful.

Screw LoTR!... age of empires III !
http://pc.ign.com/objects/721/721644.html

Age of empires 3?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??! jawdrop i scratch my last comment from the record

Okie that's heavy (atleast it will beat Age of Mythology (CRAPPIEST GAME EVER))

Only thing that I dont like about AoE III is that its set in the 19 century, I loved that whole Stone age to Iron age concept

well I believe in AoE 2 they had one race who used rifles... so its not much different. I just love the scale of the AoE games

Thr Turks and The spanish

ya it looks all good but the thing is, that it takes place in that period with machines and all, I like it better when there is just swords, spears and bows, and that stuff

hehe let's get back to BFME

Ya, so i've beaten the 'good campain' Gonna start with evil pretty soon now, damn Minas Tirith was a good map, I love it,

AOE III looks sweet though. Making technological advancements too far into the modern age will take some of the fun aspects away that BFME and AOE II will keep.

I'm starting to get annoyed at EA for giving Rohan such impossible to kill hero's!!!! It just seems unfair! Plus the good guys get all the cool exp. points to use.

I want a update

thats true, evils vbest thiung(balrog) sucks comparte to the army of the dead

To fix it they should remove Legoals and they should restrict how many ents they can get.
Nazguls should have more powers like a heavy flapping of the wings which blows enemies away
Witch King should be able to call on the remaining ring wraiths and be able to dismount the nazgul and use the mace while the nazgul circles over head picking on radom enemies. (if the nazgul dies the witch king lives on) Plus the witch king should have some sort of a magical power

Well lets wait and see wether or not EA brings out an add on or extention pack

RThe nazgull are to slow i say... speed them up and make them more resistent to fire arrows and Gandalfs lame light it should just scare them away anyway the only thing i like about the nazgul is that they cost nothing to reserect... and they should come back faster

Nice game, I like Rohan their offensive power, Gondor's pretty good on the defence

so far the game (on easy) is well very easy (certainly after you have all the calling for allies abilities) I almost broke down that big ram Mordor uses in the siege of Minas Tirith That was one of the better levels.

I'm wondering about the evil campaign

Evil is shorter i beat it on that first I love Saurumans army and the mordor Haradrim are actually the most powerful infantry in the game.

and with my cavalry ion minis tirith i destroyed all the workers before they could build anything

yea those Haradrim pikemen are a ***** for Rohirrim Cavalry

I don't go anywhere in that game without fully upgrading my units.

I only play on medium, so what i'll usually do is send lower level characters off to their doom in small squandrons...then I'll team up stronger units.

Like Rangers with Tower Guards.....fully max them out and they ruin anything.

I hate tower gaurd they die VERY quickly because of thier speed and if you play against a hard mordor computer they spam catapults which murder EVERYTHING if you aren't babysitting

those towerguards suck ass (too expensive for what they are worth)

Towerguards fighting skills depends what they go againts. You know the Rohirrim Persona upgrade? well I sent them againts 5 towerguards with full upgrades and they got destroyed.

I know but the towerguards are only good against a few units (usualy the mounted ones) which are few if you aren't fighting Rohan

I always group my batallions together which makes them slower, but Tower guards have good defense against archers and are great against cavalry. Load Rangers with fire arrows and they make a really good grouped formation.

You're right about the tower guards being expensive, but on I've really only been playing on medium and I never really lose them once I create them. When I get an outpost I make 2 defensive structures and a fountain because the fountain makes it a good spot to leave batallions to heal...and fountains also decrease the cost of infantry.


Fully upgraded tower guards are really deadly because they have high defense and a lot of hit points for a ground infantry.

I had a question.

How does everyone set up their first castle? I'm sure everyone does something different for each of the groups, so if you care to go that far in depth then by all means do. Otherwise if you could just share your most commonly used army...that's cool.

Usually I play as Gondor. I'll start with 2 farms, then add a 3rd farm. During that I send scouts out to secure nearby farms ouside the castle. Then I build a 4th farm.

After that I build an achery range, then a barracks. Next I build a black smith followed by a market. After the market I buy the grand harvest upgrade, then I built a stone worker.

That's pretty much my starting base. The seige shop and stable either go in the next castle, camp, or out post. Usually I leave two defense towers up at each camp or outpost just to mow down anyone that walks by...

Of course, I only play on medium, so I'm quite sure that my methods have large flaws. I'm asking because I'm interested in learning the game better.

(I'm still doing the campaign Link -However I like Rohan better than Gondor)

what are Rohan's siege weaponry?

How do they get into a castle once the doors are closed?

(yes i'm drawing a complete blank)

Ents... thats it lol its hard to fight gondor with rohan if they just bunker up.... Gondor's murdered by mordor and isengaurd in the field though at least when i'm fighting.... the ONLY thing they have is stupid Gandalf which is totally overpowered!

With gondor i likethe swordsmen and knights Rohan, cavalry and with isengard..... everything but i always forget the wargs.... which own cavalry.

yea ents are about it, as said before gondor owns on the defence

mordor's infantry suck aside from their wicked awesome cave trolls.

They look sweet when they reach level 2. And when they reach level 2 and grab a tree...it turns into a spiked club!

Unfortuneately the tree hits for less damage, but apparently it knocks down more creatures per swing.

and I completely forgot about the ents because they aren't base built structures....they come from those farms.

Trolls are nice but easily countered by archers (certainly mounted archers)

yah, that's why i always make like 15 of them and send them off in a hurd.

I hate how the computer can sometimes find spots where the archers are able to hit your archers without wanting to attack back because they are some how out of range.

yea that stuff is a big flaw

I recently got back into this game... I almost beat the Good Campaign a while ago, but our computer got really messed up and the game was uninstalled... So now I am playing on the Evil side and I realize why I liked the game so much in the first place...

Gandalf is cheating. If your playing online all Gondor will do is save up for Gandalf and keep sending him out and kill a few then bring him back and they save for the Army of the Dead which only needs 10 when the Balrog needs 20. That's not fair.